if your goal is to win the championship then your seeding doesnt matter.

nice analysis. i hope too many people dont hurt themselves tripping over your understanding of what truly determines the winners and losers in nfl contract negotiations!

i want to check out your link but it says "page not found". if you can find an accurate link please re-post.

im not sure how revis gets his reputation as a great cb. i believe that in the 2011 season he had the second WORST completion against rating. the only cb who ranked worse was chris gamble formerly of the panthers.

revis just had on phenomenal season a few years ago. it was one great season and he has never come close to duplicating that season since. hes an above average cb (maybe), but certainly not worth all the hassle any salary cap space he is demanding.

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i disagree with your overall assessment. rondo is definitely a franchise player.

does he have some weaknesses? absolutely. and i will agree that its totally ridiculous that rondo cant shoot a solid 70% from the line. and i have to agree that it is odd that your franchise player is quite possibily a liability in the final 2 minutes.

that being said, rondo carries the team, period. that fact that they are in playoff contention is basically all on rondo (and garnett and pierce of course).

rondo has won old players a championship and lifted average players into championship games and raised their level of play beyond what they realistically should have been (leon powe, glenn davis, brandon bass among others).

rondos job is not to score points but to get players involved and disrupt on defense. he is stellar at those jobs. he is an assist machine, a rebounding machine, a steal machine and a disrupter. the fact is that he has never really played with a young core that could run with him and he has never really played with any athletic players.

and allen did leave, but he really isnt doing anything spectacular with the heat and we dont really know EVERYTHING about his departure. rumour has it even though he and rondo didnt get along personally, the entire team was really tired of setting dozens of physical picks for him to get his open shots. that type of offense takes its toll on the entire team, especially the older garnett and pierce. its just life and doesnt have anything to do with rondo being a franchise player.

and saying he isnt a leader because of his run-ins with the refs is totally wrong. the fact is that other players are allowed to maul him without being called for any fouls. and NOBODY on his team has his back and protects him, even though he will physically take up for his teammates if he thinks they are being mauled. bird, mchale, maxwell, parrish, ainge, johnson and buckner all protected each other however necessary. rondo is the only one making a stand. nobody backs him.

and rondo doesnt make players adjust to him. he finds your sweet spot and delivers the ball. the problem is that the front office abuses his skill set. if you go back and look the celtics have completely changed their bence EVERY season. every player that rondo finds a chemistry with is cut or traded the next year. the celts front office EXPECT him to work magic with every single middle-of-the-road player that they sign. and up until this season he has been able to make it work at championship caliber level.

the fact is the man is 6'0", 185, throws his body into every play of every game, gets mauled by opposing players, refs allow this to happen, no one on his team takes up for him or watches his back on the court and he has an aging core and new and different bench made up of old or average non-athletic players every year.

like him personally or not, you should appreciate his physical gifts and his tenacity in his play and desire to put it all on the line to win. he should have been the point guard on the bird/parrish/mchale teams. hes that type of player.

i know. its so strange how chemistry works (or doesnt work)! rondo is definitely their best player but it was like everyone except garnett and pierce were just standing around waiting for rondo to do something. and sullinger going out didnt seem like it would help either. but now its all up for grabs and everyone is participating in the team. somehow they have found the magic in all of this. go celts!

ummm........... the princeton offense was kobe bryants idea. cant blame brown for that one, unless you want to blame him for not nixing kobes stupid idea.

boston, like the spurs, only need to hang in the mix until after the all-star break. staying healthy till the end and finding the chemistry in the latter third of the season is going to be the success formula. just like last season. they just have more new players to work into the mix this year and darko and bradley arent even on the floor yet.

chemistry takes time to develop. expect a .500 ball club until after the all-star break.

so the guy basically hasnt played for over a year and "after 3 games" (playing for minnesota i might add) he is being judged a bust?

the tebow problem is simple. for his entire life he was not groomed to be an nfl style qb. add to that the fact that he just doesnt have a "natural" qb build or style and you get what you got, a college level qb taught to run an offense that simply wont get it done in the nfl.

he just did what the coaches asked from him at the lower levels, but it simply wont translate to the nfl game in reference to the qb position.

used properly tebow should be an h-back/fullback/tight end.

but dont feel sorry for the guy. he is getting paid big bucks to play 5 or 6 plays a game. what a great gig.

what? if newton pouts, that means he stays by himself in a corner, which means he is not yapping.

if griffin keeps his yap shut, they how do you know he is sharp and articulate?

seems like you are hypocritical with both statements.

but the fact is right now their situations are mirroring each other.

last year newton wasnt scoutable because he was a rookie with no nfl game film to review. he played a little over his head and had no pressure because he was a rookie on a 1 - 15 team.

this year teams have game film to scout, there is a lot of pressure because of the over-estimation of how far the panthers had come and he is still learning the nfl game.

this year griffen may be playing a little over his head, there is no film to scout yet and there is no pressure because griffin i playing for a team that was horrible last season.

exact same scenarios, just a year apart.

the fact is that the panthers are following the tried-and-true method to building a championship team. their last 4 losses have come by a total of 12 points. they have been in every game this season except the giants game. not bad for a team still devoid of complete talent, the worst tackling team in the league, a team with a 2nd year qb and a team with no secondary quality receiver.

these losses will serve as a great learning/growing experience for the entire team, players and coaches, along with allowing them to snatch another top draft pick.

i believe that dallas was 1-15 with aikman as a rookie qb. he learned a lot but the team finished so badly that they were eventually able to add smith and ervin and win 3 super bowls.

the panthers are just fine. they just need one more season to fill in some talent gaps and to grow together as a team.

and andy dalton is going thru the exact same experience in cincinatti.

and although i believe rgiii is going to be a great qb, he very well could follow this same path in year two.

although mkg seems like a great kid, charlotte has a lingering problem (besides mj). charlotte, even way back to the hornets days, always drafts small.

we gave up thomas robinson 6'9" with a 7'1" wingspan and an nba ready power forward body to draft gilchrist, another short small forward who cant shoot.

you can have a player who is short for their position on your team. but you will never be successful in the nba (or in any professional sport) with an entire team of undersized players. (see: philadelphia eagles)

thats just not a true statement. the reason many teams have no quality second string unit is that there are only so many good players and they are spread out over to many teams.

its not like there are quality back-ups sitting around watching tv waiting for someone with money to call. all the good ones have teams. you can open your wallet all you want but if there is no one available then you still have no quality back-ups.

there are approximately 4 to many teams in the nfl. if there were 4 less teams and those players liquidated to the remaining teams the balance would be about right.

but something to remember: no matter how many good, bad, great or horrible players there are, half the teams must lose every week. so even if you cut the league down to 16 teams and every team had great players and great back-ups, and every one of those 16 teams could beat any of the 32 teams today, in the 16 team scenario still half the team must lose every week. the overall quality of play may be better (or maybe not), but someone still has to be at the top and someone has to be on the bottom. thats sports.

how could you not be excited to be playing basketball ANYWHERE for 60 mil?

a lot.

the grudens? billick? kelly? one gruden hasnt won anything, the other only won with dungys team and after those players started to leave the bucks fell apart and billick only won because of the ngata/lewis/reed effect in which he had no bearing on bringing any of those guys onto the team.

the best any of those guys would do is bring cleveland up to a 7-9 team slowly. thats all they are in position to do now without the high payroll of these suggested coaches.

and i think that kelly would be in way over his head but everyone has to start somewhere. if they could bring him in at a decent price (probably not) and give him a chance.

and i wouldnt feel to sorry for holmgren, heckert or shumur. its not really "getting fired" when you lose your job simply because of a management change and you take 2 - 3 years severance pay will you. i long for the day i get "fired" and get handed a check for 2 years future pay. even at my pay scale thats would be a sweet deal.

ahh... the fallacy of winning the super bowl.

to stay near the top of the nfl takes great drafting and great free-agent/personnel moves.

but to win the super bowl you have to be lucky in those great decisions. no team makes choices that they dont think will work out and even the best fail in those decisions much more than they succeed.

the reason the patriots won those super bowls was their linebackers. in some combination they had vrabel, johnson, bruschi and mcginest. they had basically 4 pass-rushing defensive ends playing linebacker. their team pass-rush was basically unstoppable.

the patriots always draft well and make quality free-agent signings. but they have been unable to get lucky again enough to have that many elite pass-rushers on their team at the same time since.

they are very good but just short of being the best.

but part of your point about av is valid. they didnt win because of him exclusively. but if he had not been clutch, the pats would have just been the bills.

this, kind of.

the era was over before he got paid.

athletes sometimes get into a zone. special athletes sometime get into a special zone. but when they exit that zone they usually cant get "it" back.

cj lost his zone while holding out. i dont blame him for going for the gold. he had performed and was underpaid. but then he got paid and he under-performed.

but the magic was lost during the hold-out. thats when his chemistry with the team dissipated.

with the chemistry gone and the check in the bank......................

and?

hey man. nice post! i just posted my reply to that comment and then saw yours. i dont think you kid!