Back on the wagon

We're back on The Blog Show again after a short hiatus. And apparently The Blog Show is now being sponsored or something by Burly Sports. I had no idea. Life comes at you fast, man. Anyway, a tip o' the cap to Blog Show founders Jamie Mottram at Mr. Irrelevant and Dan "Agent Steinz" Steinberg at DC Sports Bog.

-WCK

Phil Jackson likes Brokeback Mountain

Phil Jackson is still the Zen Master. After Tuesday's brutal loss against the Spurs, Jackson told reporters that "We call this a 'Brokeback Mountain' game, because there's so much penetration and kickouts. It was one of those games."

Yikes. I understand the penetration analogy, but the kickouts I'm not so......oh. Good God that's gross.

Naturally the NBA has taken definitive action, and by "taken definitive action" I mean "basically did nothing at all."

"The remarks are in poor taste, and the Lakers have assured us such remarks will not occur in the future," league spokesman Brian McIntyre said.

And people wonder why John Amaechi didn't come out when he was actually playing in the NBA.

It's a total mystery.

-WCK

A look at Nike's ads in China for the Olympic Games

Don't even ask me how I got my hands on this, but it's a series of Nike ads that they're running in China to promote the Games. The ads feature everday people suddenly breaking out into an Olympic event. The best one comes around the 1:40 mark, when a dude gets wrecked Judo style by his date. Happens to me all the time.

-WCK

Wednesday links

We're a bit YouTube heavy today because I damn near did a linear regression analysis in an attempt to prove that there is little difference in drafting a first round QB versus say a 4th, 5th, or 6th round QB in the NFL Draft. That tome of a post is below this one. And if those last two sentences made no sense to you, then you'd better just stick to the YouTube clips.

On to the links.

Who will replace Lloyd Carr? [Rumors and Rants]

Getting to know the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. [5 on Five]

The Red Sox will mercifully be starting next season on a different continent. [SPORTSbyBROOKS]

Thoughts on Starbury. [NOIS]

There's a Fire Joe Gibbs site now. That's not too bad, Norv Turner already has 47 named after him. [Mr. Irrelevant]

The Southwest be rollin' deep in the NBA this year. [The Pig Pen]

This video might just get you interested in soccer. [Mac Gs World]

-WCK

Drafting NFL quarterbacks is a total crapshoot

As a longtime 49ers fan, I'm well aware of how the NFL Draft can make or break your franchise. Back in 1979 the team drafted Joe Montana in the third round of the NFL Draft, and he went on to become arguably the greatest QB ever. We also drafted Alex Smith with the #1 pick in the 2005 Draft. Needless to say that hasn't worked out so well. But it brings up an interesting question. Does anyone in the NFL have any clue what they're doing when they're drafting QBs? The answer is not really.

Just from a more recent perspective this seems to be true. Philip Rivers has clearly regressed as a starting QB, defenses are catching up to Vince Young who was never a good QB anyway, Matt Leinart is basically immobile, and Alex Smith is a nightmare. And just think, those four guys signed contracts that in total hover around $200 million.

Meanwhile, we have players such as Derek Anderson, a sixth round draft choice, playing out of his mind. And Tony Romo, the QB with the third best passer rating so far this year, wasn't even drafted. I'd take both those guys over Smith any day of the week.

But rather than continue to just speculate, let's look at real data. Here are the primary QBs for this year's NFL teams with winning records and where they were drafted.

Giants - Eli Manning (First Round)
Redskins - Jason Campbell (First Round)
Bills - JP Losman (First Round)
Steelers - Ben Roethlisberger (First Round)
Colts - Peyton Manning (First Round)
Titans - Vince Young (First Round)
San Diego - Philip Rivers (First Round)
Packers - Brett Favre (Second Round)
Jacksonville - David Garrard (Fourth Round)/Quinn Gray (undrafted)
Seahawks - Matt Hasselbeck (Sixth Round)
Patriots - Tom Brady (Sixth Round)
Browns - Derek Anderson (Sixth Round)
Cowboys - Tony Romo (undrafted)
Lions - Jon Kitna (undrafted)
Bucs - Jeff Garcia (undrafted)

So if you add in Quinn Gray, then we have as many Sixth Round and Undrafted QBs leading winning teams as we do First Round QBs.

But wins alone aren't the best example of whether a QB is competent or not - I'm looking at you Vince Young. A passer rating gets us closer to that. So let's find the average passer rating by draft round for the primary QBs in this year's NFL. We're using career passer ratings (not just this year's) provided by NFL.com and have added Byron Leftwich, Jake Delhomme, David Carr and Vinny Testaverde to the list. Special note: Trent Green was drafted in the 8th round of the 1993 Draft. This means in total we're looking at 34 QBs.

First Round QBs: 17
Avg. passer rating: 80.05

Second Round QBs: 2
Avg. passer rating: 86.35

Third Round QBs: 2
Avg. passer rating: 81.05

Fourth Round QBs: 1
Avg. passer rating: 84.1

Fifth Round QBs: none

Sixth Round QBs: 4
Avg. passer rating: 87.48

Seventh Round QBs: none

Eighth Round QBs: 1
Avg. passer rating: 86.9

Undrafted QBs: 7
Avg. passer rating: 85.07

You don't need a linear regression analysis program to tell you that there is no correlation between career passer rating and draft round. But there are some important things to consider. One is that first round draft choices get more playing time to determine if they'll pan out while late round draft choices have to produce immediately. We all know about the Ryan Leafs and Akili Smiths. Meanwhile a bad Sixth Round pick may play one game and that's basically his career. Or he may never play at all. These scenarios will naturally deflate the first round QB avg. passer rating to a degree while boosting the late rounds. But, looking at it from another perspective, you can also make the argument with the data available that there are a fair number of pretty good QBs that go late in the draft or that don't get drafted at all. By this analysis, there are 12 current QBs who were drafted in the Sixth Round or later (or not at all) who easily surpass the 17 First Round players in average career passer rating. When you stop and think about that, it's stunning. And it also says that maybe some of those First Round picks really shouldn't be playing anymore and teams should be trying out new guys - like say my 49ers. One can only wonder how many Tom Bradys and Tony Romos weren't discovered because a higher draft pick, but inferior player, was ahead of them on the depth chart.

The most recent example is Derek Anderson. Romeo Crennel named Charlie Frye (a third round choice) as his starter at the beginning of the year, then traded him after Week 1. It's only because of that trade that Anderson saw significant playing time. Imagine if Crennel had stuck with Frye until week 8 or 9. He might have just inserted Brady Quinn by then, effectively shutting the door on Anderson's career. Instead, the trade was made, Anderson began starting, and another late round gem was found.

Year after year scouts and coaches drool over players with great arm strength (see: Boller, Kyle), or family genes (see: Manning, Eli) or God only knows what (see: Smith, Alex). And after they fail - although Eli appears to maybe finally be headed in the right direction - you hear excuse after excuse. He's an idiot; he didn't play in a pro-style college offense; he's slow; he doesn't get rid of the ball quickly enough. Well, if all that's so noticeable now, why didn't you notice it before? And why didn't you notice Tom Brady, Tony Romo, Derek Anderson, and Kurt Warner? Obviously something isn't working in terms of scouting.

Certainly more analysis needs to be done - as in looking back year after year - but there does seem to be a bit of a trend. And that is that there are a ton of first round QB busts along with a surprisingly high number of good QBs available late in the draft or who were never drafted at all. Which pretty much means one thing. The draft is frequently a total crapshoot when it comes to drafting QBs.

-WCK

Tetris and Zelda for all

Even though this video has begun to make the rounds, we're contractually obligated to post it because Dwyermaker went to Cal. It's the Cal band from a week and a half ago doing pretty much every Nintendo game you can imagine. My personal favorite is Tetris. Go nerds.

-WCK

Afternoon linkage

Since I get so many links sent to me when I'm asleep in the morning, I've decided the only wise thing to do is occassionally do an afternoon link list. So here you go.

The Colts announcer disagreed with that Vinatieri miss. [SPORTSbyBROOKS]

Bonds has his first job offer. [Larry Brown Sports]

Lloyd Carr finds a way to get people talking about something other than him losing to Ohio State again. [Suck at Sports]

Ranking the top NFL coach mustaches. [Construda]

An interview with a sports cartooninst. [Sports Media Journal]

Keg stands go extreme in DC. [Mr. Irrelevant]

-WCK

When the Olympic Spirit goes way too far

As many of you who read this site know, I'm a big fan of the Olympics. And I'm an even bigger fan of China hosting the Olympics because they'll literally do anything to make sure the Games go well. And they also have awesome fans who are willing to desecrate their hair to show their support. But they have even more hardcore fans as well. Scary hardcore.

How about tattooing the Olympic rings onto your forehead? Definitely the mark of a true fan. Or a slightly mentally imbalanced fan. One or the other.


You'll also notice the Great Wall featured prominently on the side of his head. I mean what the hell, you've already got "Beijing 2008" tattooed on your forehead, in English no less. Might as well go all the way.


And just because you can, how about having all the fruity Olympic mascots tattooed around your neck. There are five mascots by the way, which means five times the Olympic fun! Or something lame like that.


But maybe all this mascot crap isn't hardcore enough for you. Maybe you want to get a tattoo of every single pictograph image of all 35 Olympic sports.

There you go. All 35 on the back and arms. I believe this kid is going to act as a human sign for visitors. Point to the sport you want to go see, he tells you how to get there.


Naturally it wouldn't be complete without the rings and the official seal.


And while this guy doesn't have his face tattooed, he at least goes the extra mile to get his hair cut in an "I Heart Olympics" style. Well played psycho fan, well played indeed.

While I appreciate the enthusiasm of these guys, I'd hate to think what life is going to be like for them the day after the Olympics end. But then again, out of date tattoos will probably the least of their worries by then.

[HT: China Daily and Beijing Olympics Fan]

-WCK

Tuesday links

Masterful performance on MNF by my 49ers. I think it's now fair to throw the term "Huge Draft Bust" into any sentence involving Alex Smith.

On to the links.

Join us in our goal to vote Kevin Pittsnogle into the 2007 French Basketball All-Star Game before he leaves for the NBDL. [Tim's Take]

NOIS previews Notre Dame v. Duke - a battle of evil v. evil. [NOIS] Speaking of evil, a Notre Dame alum just used that term to describe Weis.

The Cowboys may be linked to a steroid investigation. A football team might use steroids? My world is shattered. [Deuce of Davenport]

Instructional fan videos for infants that are gauranteed to warp their minds, starring Lee Corso. [The Grand National Championships]

Those bizarrely awesome uniforms Cal wore on Saturday required legal signatures from all the players. [SPORTSbyBROOKS]

A sitcom, involving suspended football Henrys. [Food Court Lunch]

Our main man Liston reviews one of my favorite films of all time: Predator. Get to da choppa, NOW! [Introducing Liston]

-WCK

Your right arm is gay

Today is tattoo day here at the Rate, in case you couldn't already tell that. This story is great because it involves beer, bad decisions, tattoo parlors, and Thailand. Combine those four things and hilarity always ensues. And probably Hepatitis.

Anyway, a diehard Australian Rules Football football fan was in Thailand last week and decided he wanted to get a tattoo of his favorite team, the Geelong Cats. He decided the proper way to go about getting said tattoo was to drink 15 beers to "ease his nerves before the tattoo was applied." Of course.

To be sure the tattooist got it right, he wrote down exactly what he wanted on his right and left arms, under the headlines ''right arm'' and ''left arm." On his right arm he wanted the Geelong symbol and the words "Day Premiers 2007" and on the left "Night Premiers 2006."

Simple enough. However, the tattooist started in on his work and tattooed in "Right Arm" first. Naturally you'd probably stop right there. But our drunk hero decided to keep on going. I mean, you can't expect a Thai tattooist to get everything right.

"My son-in-law came in . . . and said, 'You know they've written 'Right Arm?'"

"I said, 'You're joking!"

"I said, 'Well now he's done that he might as well do the left arm as well."

That turned out to be a bad decision, not only because he now has "Right Arm" and "Left Arm" tattooed onto his arms, but "Day Premiers 2007" turned into "Gay Premiers 2007."

The man said there was some light at the end of the tunnel, with the tattoo being of such poor quality that it appeared to already be peeling and was almost indecipherable anyway. Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night buddy. Your right arm is still gay.

-WCK

More ridiculous old school athlete ads

Yesterday's post on horrible old athlete commercials was well received, so we thought we'd bring you some more, since we obviously missed some. Here you go, more epically awful old school athlete commercials.

This commercial is so bad, that it's awesome. It's Iron Head Heyward's legendary Zest ad, passed along by reader Chuck. "But Iron Head, what's with this thingie?"


I owe the Fanhouse a lot for finding this hideous Chardon jeans ad featuring Larry Bird. This ad is so dated I think I aged 10 years just watching it. Not to mention it uses Bird's butt as a marketing tool. Yikes.


Jim Palmer did a lot of Fruit of the Loom underwear ads back in the day, and luckily we're not showing you them. Instead here's his hilarious Brylcream ad. I have no doubt that Brylcream helped him wind up on our list of athletes with illegitimate kids.


Apparently Ted Williams did bread ads back in the day. Be sure to keep your Ted Williams endorsed bread at -100 degrees Fahrenheit.


Phil Rizzuto is well known for having helped rip-off thousands of New Yorkers by shilling for The Money Store. Phil, giving someone a second mortgage at an almost 15% interest rate isn't a good deal, it's practically criminal. Also watch Phil do his Money Store pitch with Santa.


Tommy Lasorda, if you remember, did those awful Ultra SlimFast commercials. You don't want to see those ads again. But he also hawked Genesis video games.


And here's Magic Johnson playing a game of HORSE for 7-Up against some female basketball player named Ann Meyers who sort of resembles Larry Bird.


Unfortunately, the most awesome sports commercial ever, Tom Emanski's baseball instruction video (back-to-back-to-back AAU National Champions!) isn't on video. So here's a pic of The Crime Dog doing his thing from the ad.
"This is the instructional video that gets results!"

-WCK

Old school athlete ads are horribly awesome

On Veterans Day we should probably have a post about athletes who were in the military, but that would be too easy. So instead we're going to take a look back at the brave sports figures who appeared in ridiculous commercials for cash money.

Ok, I probably shouldn't have said brave sports figures, since this commercial has OJ in it. But honestly, I'd never be able to look at myself in the mirror again if I ever appeared in an ad like this.


This Wheaties commercial involves athletes rapping, which is always a winner. Darryl Dawkins steals the show with his memorable line of "Before I slam my gorilla dunkies, I get the eaties for my Wheaties." He clearly missed the boat by not becoming a rapper.


Whether you want more athletes rapping or not, you're gonna get them. Don't pay any attention to the first ad, but play close attention to the second. It features Warren Moon, Ronnie Lott and Boomer Esiason rapping about Diet Coke. Shameless might be too kind of a word to describe this ad.


This is unquestionably the most homoerotic Gatorade ad you will ever see. Thank God they eventually got Michael Jordan as a pitch man before they cornered the gay market.


Speaking of bizarrely homoerotic ads, here's Roger Clemens in an old Zest ad. (Shudder)


Mickey Mantle (seemingly sober) actually hawked a somewhat intriguing product from Intellivision that involved getting games through cable TV. It was sort of an early version of GameTap. Only problem is this was for Intellivision games, and they sucked.


Mantle also did a horrible athletes foot ad for some product that sounds like a fighter jet.


How about Roger Staubach and Tommie Lasorda in a Rolaids ad? At least Lasorda didn't take his pants off.


Tom Landry goes Cowboy on us. And lamely runs into some "Redskins."


And lastly, here's Pete Rose doing what all masculine men do: They sing stupid songs about their aftershave. Totally manly.


I realize that in 20 years I'll find some of today's current ads a bit dated, but they'll still be better than all of these. Especially that OJ ad.

-WCK