Friday, March 30, 2007

Phils Preview Coming Soon...

Sorry guys, I have been a bit preoccupied the last day or so. As many are aware, I found out my first child will not be of the masculine variety. Plus, I have spent the last day or so trying to clear my mind to finalize my Phils' prediction. I've been letting too much of the recent media negativity cloud my judgment. In any event, look out for my Phils preview this weekend.

Also, I'm kind of pysched about this weekend's Final Four. If anyone remembers, I did pick two of the four teams. However, I'm mainly interested because of all the talent that will be on the floor. Seriously, have you seen the Florida and UCLA cheerleaders?!?! (Is this thing on?) Actually, the decision of Florida's terrific junior class coupled by David Stern's age limitation rule has led to more a bunch of NBA stars being on the floor this weekend. Should be fun. I still believe we are going to see a Florida/G'Town final.

By the way, my buddy the Capt forwarded these very enlightening comments from Big Red in today's Daily News article by Domo:

-- On linebacker Matt McCoy: "For the first four or five games there, Matt played really tremendous football, and then he got banged up, he got hurt, and it really went downhill for him. Matt's a good football player, it's just a matter of him staying healthy."
-- On addition of receiver Kevin Curtis: "I've liked him since he came out of Utah State, I've kind of had my eye on him, and I think he'll be a nice addition. He gives you the speed and the route-running ability that we really haven't had, as far as the precision on the routes."

-- On running back Brian Westbrook's emergence as team leader after Donovan McNabb went down: "I thought that was a neat thing to see. He is a quiet guy, but he stepped up big. I mean big. When he spoke, people listened. I think that was a big step for him. He was able to show his support for Jeff [Garcia] at the same time. He allowed Jeff to feel comfortable coming in and taking over. That's a hard thing to do for a quarterback who's only been around for a year."

-- On right tackle Jon Runyan's comments that it's important for the offensive line to convince you early in games they can run the ball:"That's the challenge I presented to them. Especially the big guys. If you want to do this thing [run the ball], then take care of business. Take care of business up front. Jon's kind of the ringleader of that bunch. They take a lot of pride in being able to run the ball, like most linemen do. [But] you gotta do it. And they did that. The last half of the season, they got after it."

-- On first-round pick Brodrick Bunkley's disappointing rookie season: "It's hard to miss training camp like he did. At that position, if you go back and pull out the stats, I mean, it's nuts. You miss training camp, you lose too much in the technique part of it. Unless you come from [playing in college for] a defensive line coach who's coached in the National Football League, there's lost time in technique there. And he was just getting it coming out of minicamp. I talked to him about it. I talked to his agent about it. I said, you miss training camp, it's going to put you behind. And it did. It was that simple. It's important now that he has a good offseason and has a good training camp and comes in and plays."

-- On tight end L.J. Smith: "I think he did a nice job of blocking that defensive end that last part of the season. He started off a little slow, but that last part of the season, I thought he stepped up his game. Even though he didn't catch as many balls, I just thought he became a more well-rounded player."

-- On defensive end Darren Howard's disappointing season: "I thought he started off great. Pro Bowl-caliber football. Then he got banged up a little bit. His leg went out on him as the season went on, and he never quite got that back. He learned how we practice and how we do training camp and all those things. I think he'll be better for it next year."
Christ, how did Domo get Big Red to open up? Did he pull a Jack Bauer and fill him full of sodium pentathol?

Ok, it's back to work for me. See you this weekend with my Phils' preview.

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