Recently the NFL combine kicked off and values began being placed on the heads of many future NFL athletes.   In addition to competing in all sorts of athletic situations that have nothing to do with their ability to play football on gameday, athletes are also put through some crazy mental challenges.

Unfortunately, the results of these tests will determine the “value” of these players, rather than looking at their on-the-field accomplishments over the previous 3-5 years at their respective colleges.   If you look over the players that have drastically increased their draft value at the combine based on the results of their drills, you’ll often find players that don’t live up to the higher draft slot.

What do you think?   How much stock would you place in the NFL combine if you were a GM/Coach?

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This season, the New England Patriots were on a mission to make history.  In Week 1, they tried to get away with cheating by filming the opposing team’s sidelines, but they were caught, forcing them to play by the rules for the remainder of the season.

In Week 8, they tried to pretend they were not running up the score, but common sense said otherwise as the Patriots opted to go for a first down on a 4th down in a game they led 45-0 late in the final quarter. 

Then in Super Bowl 42, New England attempted to reach perfection, but they were defeated by the New York Giants. The Patriots did not reach 19-0, but they did make history as the first franchise ever to go undefeated throughout a regular season only to lose in the Super Bowl. 

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The NFL is by far the most popular sport in American culture.  The game of football is aesthetically pleasing, and the action of the sport alone, reels in the ratings.  With the majority of televisions already tuned into the NFL and its coverage, shouldn’t the focus be on the actual game and not the nonsense outside the game?

For instance, instead of the attention going to an exciting divisional rival playoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants, the coverage was shifted to where Tony Romo opted to take a weekend vacation.  The story was that Romo was opting to spend time with Jessica Simpson, rather than concentrating on football.  For some reason nobody accused Jason Witten of not concentrating on football for going on that same vacation, nor did they say that Tom Brady was being selfish for spending his bye week parlaying in New York with a supermodel.

However, Brady has now become the story as he was spotted in New York again, this time wearing a walking boot.  It is without question that a possible injury to the MVP of the league right before the Super Bowl is a valid story.  That being said, now that Brady has stated that he would not miss the game, I think the story does not warrant further coverage. 

The media does an excellent job informing fans about the game and other events surrounding the NFL (hopefully myself included).  However, I think we are losing focus of what the coverage should be surrounded around…..the actual game!  

The Super Bowl is coming up, and there is a lot of time to kill with the extra week leading up to the game, but there is no need to try and create ”reality TV” as the eyes of most of the globe will already by watching the biggest sporting event in the world. 

*Please note, if you did not like this article, or if you think it lacked focus, I just got back from a two-day vacation and there is no way I can be expected to perform like I normally would.

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Should the NFL make a rule that would allow penalties to be reviewed by instant replay?

 The conventional thought is that penalties cannot be reviewed, because the replays would cause too many interruptions to the games.  It has also been said that it is not possible to review a judgement call.

However, who’s judgement would you trust more, a person that makes a call in a split second in real speed while under intense pressure, or perhaps that same official having a chance to look at the play again in slow motion with far less distractions?

It doesn’t seem necessary to have every penalty reviewed, but it also doesn’t seem fair to have a team get flagged for a phantom 50 yard pass interference play in a key moment in the game. 

Perhaps, the NFL could adopt a system similar to the one they use now in the final two minutes of each half.  The replay booth can call down to the officials on penalties that appear to be bad calls in key situations.  Then the officials could take a look at the replay to determine if the penalty should still be enforced.

There is a lot to debate on this topic, but one point that cannot be argued is that the human error will occur far more often at real speed than in slow motion. Bottom line, penalties play a huge role in football games, and what is wrong with coming up with a system that will help get more of the calls right?

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January

• David Beckham announced he would be leaving Real Madrid to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy.
• Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. elected to baseball hall of fame
• Florida Gators defeated the Ohio state Buckeyes to win the BCS National Championship in college football.

February

• Indianapolis Colts defeated the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI.

March

• Morgan Pressell, at 18 years 313 days old, became the youngest woman to ever win a major in golf when she won the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

April

• Randy Moss was traded from Oakland Raiders to New England Patriots.
• The University of Florida became the first school in NCAA history to win a college football and basketball title in the same academic year, by defeating the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Final Four Basketball Championship game in Atlanta.
• Zach Johnson won his first major by winning at the Masters.

May

• Floyd Mayweather Jr. defeated Oscar De La Hoya by a split decision and took the WBC Junior Middleweight title.
• Diego Corrales (boxer) died in a three-vehicle car accident near his Las Vegas home.

June

•  The San Antonio Spurs won their fourth NBA championship when they swept the Cleveland Cavaliers.
• The Anaheim Ducks defeated the Ottawa Senators to win the Stanley Cup. 
• The Hamburg Sea Devils defeated the Frankfurt Galaxy to win the World Bowl XV in NFL Europa.

July

• The American League defeated the National League 5-4 in Major League Baseball.
• Bill Walsh (former NFL coach) died of Leukemia.

August

• Barry Bonds became the all-time home run king when he hit his 756th homer.
• Tiger Woods won his 13th major by winning the PGA Championship.
• Lorena Ochoa won her first major by winning the Women’s British Open.

September

• The 5th ranked Michigan Wolverines became the first ever division 1 team to lose to a FSC (formerly division 1-AA) team, when they lost at home to the Appalachian State Mountaineers 34-32.
• Major League Baseball rookie Clay Bucholz of the Boston Red Sox threw a no-hitter in just his second career start.
• Roger Federer won the US Open.

October

• The Boston Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies to win their second World Series in four years.

November

• Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings set the single game NFL record when he rushed for 296 yards.
• Jimmy Johnson won the Nextel Cup.
• Roger Federer lost back-to-back tennis matches for the first time in nearly five years.
• Sean Taylor (NFL player) died after being shot in a robbery attempt of his girlfriend’s place of residence.

December

• The Mitchell report was released naming players such as Roger Clemens as being associated with purchasing and/or using performance enhancing drugs.
• Quarterback Tim Tebow of the Florida Gators became the first sophomore to ever win the Heisman Trophy.

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Bobby Petrino quit on his team and left the Atlanta Falcons without a head coach before the 2007 season had even finished.  Petrino opted to return to the college ranks after a short stint as a coach in the NFL. 

There appears to be a developing trend occurring where college coaches are jumping into the pro game to improve their resume in an effort to return to the NCAA to land a more lucrative coaching job.  Last season, Nick Saban left the Miami Dolphins for a premium head coaching job in the college game. Now Petrino has followed in Saban’s footsteps and benefited from the brief stay in the NFL.

I think the league needs to put a rule in place where if college coaches are wanting to climb up into the NFL for a head coaching job, they will need to sign a minimum three-year mandatory contract where the only opt out option is if the club decides to terminate the contract.  I understand the view point that if the team can just fire the coach to break the contract, then the coach should have the option to break the contract too.

However, something has to be done, because coaches jumping into the NFL only to bail on their team to go back to the college game is watering down the NFL.  The coaches that are bouncing back to college from the pro game are leaving behind a mess that they made.  These are messes that could take NFL clubs upwards of a decade to fix. 

It is just not right that these rent-a-coaches are leaving pro teams in disarray just so they can use the fact that they coached in the NFL as a recruiting tool at their new jobs.  It is time that the NFL fights back and declare that they are not a developmental league for college coaches, and going forward, they will do anything in their power to keep these type of NCAA coaches where they belong…in the NCAA!

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