I admit I’m a total mark for Twitter. I’m not one of those people who has to tweet every little thing that happens throughout the day (unless there is some semblance of comedic value, and then I become to Twitter what Travis Henry becomes to the vagina). I have a little over 2,000 Twitter followers. I follow around 150 people. I’m not on Tweetdeck yet, but probably need to be.
I hate people that tweet things like “about to eat potatoes, yuck,” not because I am a huge potato fan but because there is no intrinsic value to that tweet — inform me, entertain me, make me chuckle, give me a link to a podcast, DO SOMETHING.
At the risk of sounding like a complete loser, I still get a kick out of it anytime someone with some modicum of celebrity re-tweets me or responds to a question. (Admit it, so do you.) It doesn’t happen often. John Ondrasik (“Five for Fighting” singer/songwriter/musician/sports fan/all-around good guy) has re-tweeted me a couple times; we’ve had him on our show before and the guy is nails. Darnell Dockett (Arizona Cardinals Pro Bowl defensive lineman) has re-tweeted and responded to a few of my tweets; Dockett is a beauty, not afraid at all to call out his employer piblicly for front-office lunacy. That would be boring if he worked for, say, Google, but fortunately for us he works for the Arizona Cardinals. Gold, Jerry, gold.
But for as much as everyone talks about Twitter being “one more way for
media types/TV and movie stars/athletes to interact with their fans,”
(a) most of them are ridiculously boring and (b) most of them don’t
interact at all. They just…well, act. There is no “inter.”
That’s
why I appreciate what renowned football writer Peter King (@SI_PeterKing)
does on Twitter (and to be fair, there are others in the football media
world who are highly interactive, Jay Glazer (@Jay_Glazer) and
Daniel Jeremiah (@MoveTheSticks) come to mind, but this story
involves King).
Those who listen to my radio show know I don’t
always agree with everything King writes in his “Monday Morning
Quarterback” column on SI.com, but I have said many times that when it’s
a story about what goes on behind the scenes, there’s no one better at
telling the ins and outs of a sequence of events, complete with quotes
from everyone involved, than King. The guy has access like few have, and
to his credit, he does a really good job of sharing the benefits of
that access with his readers/followers.
On Sunday morning, King
tweeted a couple things with which I disagreed. One of them was his
response to another follower of his saying “Anyone could tell you draft
grades in 3 years. It’s your job as a paid professional to give us your
grades now,” which was a notion King flatly replied to as “Stupid.” I
replied in kind with the following:
@SI_PeterKing Why r draft
rep cards stupid? Isn’t it just 1 way of predicting likelihood of
success for that group of players?
To King’s credit, not only
did he reply, but he took the time in a handful of direct messages to
me (which for the un-Twitterfied is the Twitter equivalent of heading
over to someone’s house to tell them your thoughts in person) to clarify
what he meant by the report cards being “stupid,” which was basically
this (and I’m piecing together his direct message tweets) —
It’s
a foolish exercise. Watch the report cards. Almost all are based on
where teams draft, unless there’s a gaffe like Alualu at 10 … Of
course we’ll be wrong on most of them in 3 yrs — the same way teams
are. And it’s folly to think any in media except the Mayocks and John
Harrises (Pendergast note: I added Harris, King didn’t mention him
directly.) watch tape of 5th-round types — so how would we know
if Kevin Thomas or Brandon Ghee is a better CB today? We are not
authorities on these players.
So basically, PK is saying
draft report cards are almost always wrong and it’s an exercise in
futility, and the only ones even qualified to do them are guys who have
seen all these guys play. Got it, agree with most of it. We exchanged a
couple more tweets, and I went on my way, and PK went on his way. Kind
of cool exchanging brief thoughts with someone I read weekly on the
evaluation of a process that’s consumed our sports lives the past three
days (and actually, on our show, much longer). Wow, this Twitter thing
may catch on after all!
Anyway, my brush with fame story now out
of the way, here are my thoughts on what King had to say about report
cards. I agree with the general spirit of what he’s saying — the vast
array of report cards that we have seen/are seeing/will see over the
next few days are from people who have seen just a fraction of the guys
drafted play more than a few times. The true “experts” who are qualified
to grade how teams did are the ones who (a) have a firm understanding
of every team’s needs and (b) have seen the vast majority of these
players in action multiple times, watching and focusing specifically on
these players (which actually means watching individual games more than
once or twice, to be honest).
So as you view report cards this
week, ask yourself if the person generating the report card has a firm
grasp on both bullet points above. You’ll be surprised (or maybe you
won’t) about how few of these report cards have any credibility, under
that criteria.
This brings me to the second point about draft
report cards which King espoused — the general foolishness of the
process to begin with (i.e. their basis and subsequent results). This is
actually something I disagree with him on to some extent. As long as
the people putting out the report cards are people who fall into the
College Football Player Evaluation Jedi Level category I alluded to
above, I like the report cards.
The easy response to this from
draft gurus is “Well, it’s really stupid to give a grade to a draft
class until we see how they develop and how it all plays out.” What the
experts who fear attaching grades to draft classes fail to understand is
that we, as fans, value their opinion and we just want an answer to
“How do you think these classes will develop over time, and how well did
my team fill its needs?” The letter grade is merely a common language
we can all understand that gives something quantitative and measurable
to a highly, highly subjective evaluation. Adjectives can get twisted
and lack clarity, but we all know what an “A-” means, especially
juxtaposed to a “B” or a “D+”. That’s all.
In other words, the
draft report card is just another form of prediction, no different than
the ten mock drafts that you draftologists all did leading up to the
draft on Thursday. We know it won’t be perfect, but if there are a
select few of you out there with unique knowledge (i.e. Mayock, Kiper,
McShay, Harris, Zierlein, etc) that can help us determine if our team
did well or did poorly overall this weekend, we all understand grades.
When
you predict outcomes of games, it’s easy to quantify degrees of success
or failure because there is a score. Numbers. “I think so and so will
win by 14.” So when they actually win by only three, you were eleven
off. “Quality of NFL drafts” is not an item that has a number attached
to it. It’s subjective.
Grades help us compare teams and
comprehend degrees of what you experts think better than do mere words
like “good,” “very good,” “really, really good,” “great,” “dynamic,”
“explosive,” “slow” or “stupid”. So my plea to people who are Jedi level
on their knowledge of things like defensive backs from Division I-AA
schools (because I am not of that knowledge level), keep the report
cards coming. Or if you don’t do them, try! Fear not being wrong,
we’ll keep reading you, we promise.
TEXANS DRAFT
As for
the Texans draft, I like most everyone were highly amused when they
drafted another tight end (after drafting two last year to play behind
Owen Daniels and Joel Dreessen), let alone another Wisconsin tight end. I
even cracked a few jokes on Twitter about Gary Kubiak and Rick Smith
after the Garrett Graham selection snorting lines of tight end in the
back of a rave bar somewhere, like a couple tight end addicts.
Admittedly, it got weird when they actually drafted ANOTHER tight end
(Dorin Dickerson of Pitt) a few rounds later, like this time around I
actually pondered calling up the Texans’ media folks and seeing about
staging a “tight end intervention.”
Of course, like a couple of
junkies who rationalize their drug abuse to friends and family as “no
big deal” and “I can stop any time I want,” Kubiak and Smith quickly
pointed out that they drafted Dickerson as a receiver, not as a tight
end. Whatever. Junkies.
Also, my 10-year-old Sammy loves small,
fast players. Mostly because he himself is a small, fast player; he’s
always been the smallest kid on every team he’s played on. It doesn’t
matter what sport you ask him about, his favorite guy is someone
diminutive. Baseball? Michael Bourn. Basketball? Aaron Brooks. Football?
David Anderson (@whiteout89 on Twitter, by the way). Pro
wrestling? Rey Mysterio. Basically, tiny people are to Sammy what tight
ends are to Kubiak and Rick Smith.
So imagine Sammy’s elation
when he found out the Texans had drafted Trindon Holliday, the miniature
kick/punt returner from LSU. I had a hard time making Sammy understand
just how little and fast Holliday is. “No Sammy, you don’t
understand, this is the LITTLEST and FASTEST guy in all of college
football, and now the NFL! There is NO ONE LITTLER NOR FASTER!”
This
is like telling Tiger Woods *”No, you don’t understand, Tiger…she is a
Perkins waitress who dabbles in porn in her spare time and she has NO
internet access! Do you understand what I’m telling you?!?”
And
how about the Texans getting their requisite Colorado State Ram with
their other sixth round pick, Shelley Smith? And how about the fact that
the funniest thing about this pick wasn’t the Colorado State connection
(For those keeping track, the Texans have roughly 35 players from CSU
on their roster.), but that the pick’s name is…well, Shelley Smith??
Not “Aaron
Andrews,” not “Todd
Harris,” but Shelley Smith, the one sideline reporter’s name that
would send Twitter nation into inappropriate hysterics with tweets about
“low center of gravity” and “tough at the point of attack.”
In
the end, if we’re talking about sideline reporters, I give to you Fox
Sports sideline sweetheart Sam Steele (@yosamsteele on Twitter;
how I have more followers than her, I have no idea.). This video is
great…
…if
I can Kiper McShay this thing, my scouting report:
— Good quick
release
— Solid arm strength
— Can make all the throws, throw
to far hash no problem
— Incredible toughness
— Really, really
good looking
Honestly, I’m all in on Sam Steele for Texans scout
team. We need to start this movement. Today. (As the warden in The
Shawshank Redemption says “Not tomorrow, not after
breakfast…NOW.”)
So, all in all, my report card on the Texans
draft from a comedic standpoint:
— Drafted an Alabama corner in
the first round and an Auburn running back in the second round;
outstanding fodder for SEC GUY (@secguy on Twitter), whose
assessment of the Kareem Jackson selection on our show can be
found here.
— Drafted another tight end from Wisconsin to go
along with the fifteen other tight ends on the roster; chased this with
another tight end pick disguised as a receiver pick in the seventh
round.
— Drafted another CSU player who happens to share the
same name as a heavyset ESPN sideline reporter.
PENDERGAST
DRAFT GRADE: TEXANS: A+
As for how I think the Texans
actually did in the draft from an on-the-field standpoint, how the hell
should I know? Ask John Harris. He’s the smart one on our show. I’m too
busy tweeting with my new Twitter buddy, Peter King!
Listen to
Sean Pendergast on 1560 The Game from 3-7p.m. weekdays on the Sean
&
John Show, and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SeanCablinasian.
This article appears in Apr 22-28, 2010.
