Good morning faithful readers!
This week’s ramblings are brought to you by the letter “P” for Public Library. With the internet down at my house temporarily, I’ve been exiled to the New Ulm Public Library with its air conditioning and its wireless internet. I’m currently by Fiction V-Z if you want to visit.
My person of the week is going to go to Matt Millen, who will surely earn a few more of these distinctions before he finally gives up. Credit Mlive.com for breaking the story of text messages between Millen and Brett Favre in which Favre asked several ex players if he “could still play”. Millen responded with “of course” and then the two exchanged recipes for groundhog stew (I’m not making this stuff up). All of this is well and good except for the fact that one of the former players in question is a GM of a NFC North Rival. So if it later comes out that Millen said ANYTHING out of line, the Lions could be in serious trouble. For more on Favre check out my take on the situation in an earlier blog entry.
In other news around the NFL, Payton Manning’s health is under speculation after undergoing surgery on his left knee. He has missed training camp up to this point after having an infected bursa sac removed. Any knee surgery for a quarterback is bad but this surgery has ramifications of affecting his throw because the left leg is the delivery leg for a right handed quarterback. If the knee heals nicely he could be back for week one. If not, the race is on between incumbent Jim Sorgi and new arrivals Quinn Grey and Jared Lorenzen. If I was a betting man, I would pencil Quinn Grey in for the spot if Manning isn’t ready to go.
In New York, there is another Quarterback battle raging as Chad Pennington and Kellen Clemens are seeing who can make the least amount of mistakes. As camp as started, and its looking more and more like Brett Favre wants nothing to do with the Jets, Pennington has looked better. This should be of no surprise to anyone, Pennington is an efficient quarterback who doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. However, there are certainly throws his “noodle arm” can’t make. If its the end of a game and you need a deep-out route, Pennington is the last starting NFL QB you want throwing it.
One of the least publicized moves of the off season was the signing of Rosevelt Colvin by the Houston Texans. He is getting up there in age, but may have some extra gas in the tank now that he has been moved to Defensive End and only playing in passing downs. Seriously, Payton Manning…you might want to sit that game out this year. Houston is looking like they might have a top-5 defense this year.
In other news, Jessica Simpson is going to Cowboys’ Training Camp…if you care, come out back, I have some “words” for you. Seriously this ’saga’ is the worst thing to happen to football. Its like ESPN is buying Perez Hilton’s website.
Asante Samuel suffered a mild hamstring injury during Eagles’ training camp. And it’s official, the Eagles are dealing with some sort of curse. I expect the next personnel moves to be signing an African Shaman, a priest, and a rabbi. Even if it doesn’t work, it should be a great joke.
That’s all for this week. Expect my report on team’s running backs depth in the next few days. This week on the Average Joe Sports Show we will be live from Lamplighter Bar and Grille in New Ulm, MN. Guest is up in the air for right now, we may have a member of the Minnesota Vikings with us (pending), otherwise I did a lovely interview with Minnesota Gopher’s coach Tim Brewster which is a good backup plan. Sunday’s at 6:05 eastern time on KNUJ.net.
Michael Schottey~Lions Correspondent
