The SoapBoxers

To the KFC on Highway 1 in Iowa City

I love your food.  My favorite is probably the mashed potato bowl.  Mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, and little nuggets of chicken, all combined into one bowl.  What’s not to like?  I’m also a fan of the original chicken.  My wife also likes your food.

Unfortunately, I will never darken your door (or drive thru) again.  Why?  Because your service is absolutely dreadful.  Let me count the ways.

First, on multiple visits (months apart) I have come across a situation where the drive thru speaker is broken.  This isn’t apparent until you actually wait in line for a while.  It is frustrating to arrive at the ordering station and realize that you’re not going to be able to order your food until you get to the final window.  This creates an additional delay.  Getting this permanently fixed would be a high priority if I owned the KFC.

Second, the service is too slow.  It is common for me to wait 15-20 minutes in the drive thru when there are only a handful (3-4) cars ahead of me.  This is not the exception, this is the rule.  I’m not exaggerating, either.  Since this starting become an issue, I keep track of what time it is when I pull into the line.  I can actually put my car in “park” a couple of times while I am waiting.  One time, while waiting in line,  I was approached by an older gentleman (apparently from out of town) who wanted directions.  I was able to give him detailed directions and send him on his way – and the line had not moved forward even an inch during this time.  From what I can see of the inside of the restaurant, the service doesn’t seem much quicker there, either.  This is supposed to be fast food, but it’s really not fast.  I can get a pizza from my favorite restaurant as quickly as I can get a potato bowl from KFC.

Finally, your employees simply make too many mistakes.  There are frequently problems with the order.  A recent order had the wrong variety of chicken (extra crispy instead of original recipe) and didn’t have any gravy on the mashed potatoes.  The order was taken correctly, as the correct items are on the receipt – the order was simply fulfilled incorrectly.  We complained about that incident and received a postcard for a free meal.  I redeemed that a couple of night ago.  After a very long wait, I finally pulled up to the window and ordered (since the speaker was broken).  As the lady was putting things into the bag, I asked for honey and butter.  She tossed something in the bag, and I assumed she gave us both, instead of checking.  Nope, she didn’t include any butter.

Quite honestly, you’re no longer worth the hassle.  There are a lot of other restaurants in town, and most of them provide a much better experience for the customer.

Note that I do not believe that this is indicative of all KFC restaurants.  Over the years, I have eaten at many KFCs and have had a lot of positive experiences.

Traffic

Another month is in the books.  We surpassed 100 all-time posts, and there were 35 articles during the month of April.  We’re not getting a ton of traffic, but we do have a handful of regular visitors and a few others who drop by after seeing my comments in other folks’ blogs (notably LazyManAndMoney, ManVsDebt, FinancialNut, MasterYourCard, Purple Row, and SheInChina).  If you’re  a regular reader, leave a comment to introduce yourself.  I know who some of you are (howdy, Mandy and Mary), but I have no idea as to the indentity of others.  I’m intrigued by some of the regulars from other countries.  If you’re multi-lingual, it would be cool to see you introduce yourself in your first language and then provide a translation in English.

If you’re someone who dropped by from another blog, try us out for a week.  We don’t scratch a niche like most blogs, but have a mixture of topics during the week.  Be sure to check out Fiction Friday – I will post an original short story (written by me for this sole purpose) on Fridays.

Finances

It’s a good thing that I write for the pleasure of writing, instead of money.  Ad revenue for the month was $11.50 – or about 30 cents for each article we posted.  I won’t bother to calculate the hourly rate on that – needless to say, it’s rather low.  Hopefully traffic will pick up a bit in the coming months and cause upward movement on the financial side as well.  It would be nice to be able to buy a Pepsi or two with the ad revenue 🙂

Guest writers

I’ve had the pleasure of having a few guest writers during the month.  One of the guests became a staff writer for us (more about that later) and another is likely to have other articles appear on the site in the future.  I have actively pursued a few other people to write articles for the “a day in the life” series, which I personally enjoy reading.  I have received positive responses from several people, although I do not yet have any new segments in my hand.  I believe we’ll see a few of them in May, though.  I’m looking forward to a guest article that a fellow blogger is going to write.

The future

So, what does the future hold?  Well, it is likely that we will have at least one article on every single day from this point forward!  When I was the sole writer, it was sometimes difficult to write 7+ articles while balancing the blog with work and family life.  However, I am getting some help in this regard.  Johnny Goodman will be joining us as the weekly sports writer and Bob Inferapels will be writing a weekly entertainment column.  Note – although these are pen names, they do correspond to actual real people – they are not simply other factions of my mind.  The article’s byline will identify the author.

RSS and Twitter

Some of you have no doubt seen the  “subscribe via RSS” at the top left of the screen and wondered what on earth it is.  I won’t go into the technical details of RSS.  From a user perspective, RSS gives you a “one stop shop” to get updates for sites that are updated periodically (blogs, news sites, etc).  Think of this as a bulletin board – you tell people you want to know that they are doing (by subscribing to their RSS feed).  The next time you go to the bulletin board (RSS reader) you see all of the new articles.  Click on the subscribe via RSS link to get more information.  I’m not an RSS expert, but Google’s reader seem to do a good job.  If you follow several blogs, RSS is a great way to keep on top of them.

You can also get blog notifications on Twitter.  The Twitter updates will simply contain the title of the new article and a link to the article.  That is all.  No tweets about what I ate for breakfast or mini-rants about the moron who cut me off in traffic 🙁  Honestly, RSS is probably a better option for most people, but I decide to set up Twitter in case anyone wanted it.

Random factoid for the month

Baseball writer/analyst/god Bill James, who was largely responsible for a dramatic shift in the way that baseball players are analyzed, has a second passion – true crime.  This probably seems like an odd combination, but the weird thing is that I also have a deep interest in true crime.  If I am ever able to slip past Mr. James’ security staff (probably filled with ex Navy Seals and former CIA agents) and get a private chat with him, it will be nice to know that we can have a nice chat about serial killers if we run out of baseball topics.

Thanks, Luv, and Follow

I would like to thank everyone for their assistance with the blog.  This includes guest writers, staff writers, folks who write comments, the readers, folks who provide web hosting and technical assistance (Lazy Man), and people who have critiqued the blog for me (notably, Phil Ossifer).  We look forward to improving the reader experience in the future.  You can always email me at Kosmo@ObservingCasually.com with any questions or comments you might have.

In an effort to reward our commenters, we have implement the CommentLuv and Do-Follow plug-ins.  CommentLuv allows you to select a recent post from your own blog to be linked at the bottom of your comment.  This is why readers see link to the blogs of commenters such as Baker of ManVsDebt.

Do-Follow removes the “no-follow” tag that is typically affixed to links within the comment section of blogs.  The gist is that implementing “do-follow” will boost your your site’s Google ranking.  You don’t need to do anything to take advantage of this; it’s all under the hood, so to speak.

Neither of these plug-ins do anything for me (at least directly); I implemented them to reward the commenters who help make the blog more fun to read.

The intent of this post is to encourage people to share their thoughts on the swine flu.  I’ll start with my own.

Should we be afraid?

Sure, we should be somewhat afraid of a virus for which there is not currently a a vaccine.  There is, however, a fine line between preparedness and paranoia.  Just because a person has visited a location where there are verified cases does not mean that person will contract the swie flu. In fact, the odds are strongly against it.  Let’s take New York City, for example.  If there was one person with the swine flu in NYC and you traveled to NYC, what are the odds of you coming into contact with the person?  Not very good.

Mortality rate

People are dying from the swine flu; this is definitely true.  However, I really don’t think we are looking at the second coming of the black plague.  In fact, I seriously doubt that the death count will even be as high as the number of annual deaths from normal flu viruses (about 35,000 per year in the US.)

Pork products

The swine flu is an airborne virus.  You simply cannot get it from eating pork products.  There is no reason to avoid eating pork products (and, indeed, there are many good reasons to continue eating pork – the sensational taste of bacon being one great reason.)

How to avoid it

In general, people are being strongly encouraged to wash their hands frequently.  People who are sick – even if they do not have the swine flu – are being asked to stay home.  Doctors are being asked to test their patients if they have any reason to believe that the person might have the swine flu.  All of these are great suggestions, albeit simply a repitition of common sense. What is my point?  You should definitely be vigilant, but don’t go into panic mode.  This is not a disease that is going to wipe humanity from the face of the earth.

What are your thoughts?  I’d love to hear them – please leave a comment.

Andrew Olsen settled in for another night in his multi-million square foot home. He set a few motion detectors around the perimeter and secured his laptop. He settled in on the couch that daytime occupants used for informal meetings.  The motion detectors were connected to his cell phone via Bluetooth and would cause his phone to ring if anyone approached.  It was not unusual to see programmers crash at the office on occasion.  Aaron’s situation was slightly different.  Although he did put in some late night hours, it was mostly for show.  Aaron had decided to eschew the more private housing options preferred by his friends and spent each night in the comfort of the massive office building.

He was not completely free of lodging-related costs, of course.   Andrew rented a small storage facility where he could store his possessions.  As a recent college graduate, Andrew had not yet accumulated the large volume of personal possession that most people find themselves saddled with, so he was mainly storing clothes and books.  He visited the facility periodically to grab a different batch of clothes and a few new books to read.

Andrew also belonged to a local gym.  By most standards, it was a sub-par facility.  The weightlifting machines were obsolete, the basketball court was warped, and pieces of the running track had begun to come loose.  The gym, did, however, feature a first rate locker room.  The water was hot, the towels were fluffy, and the showers were clean.  Also, the gym was dirt cheap, even before considering the corporate discount.  Andrew began each day with a very light workout at the gym.  Andrew had no interest in exercise, of course.  This was just a ruse so that he could use the showers every day without attracting suspicion.

Andrew’s official residence, of course, was not the office,  the gym, or the storage facility.  It was PO Box 78655.  Andrew paid a visit to his mailbox once a week to pick up his rather small assortment of mail.  He had no mortgage, no electric bill, no landline phone bill, no cable television bill, not even a water bill.  Most often, Andrew found his box full of junk mail, with the occasional credit card bill.

After waking up, showering at the gym, and putting in a full day of work, Andrew typically escaped from the office for a few hours.  Occasionally, he would visit friends, although he never never asked them to visit him, of couse.  Sometimes he would eat out at a restaurant, although most nights he was happy to grab one of his frozen dinners from the break room freezer and toss it in the microwave.  Andrew did, however, enjoy the simple pleasures of life in the city.  He was a frequent visitor to the zoo, museums, and the library.

As late afternoon eventually gave way to evening, Andrew would return to the office.  The company had begun embracing a mobile concept, so it was very easy for him to move around without attracting attention.  Andrew spent much of his time surfing the internet, although he would often read while he pretended to wait for code to compile.  When the building finally dropped to a skeleton crew of zombied programmers – dead tired from incredibly long days – Andrew would find a couch in a deserted corner of the building and settle down to sleep for the night.  He moved around a lot, and while he was occasionally spotted by people, they just chalked it up to a programmer crashing after a hard day.  The next night, he would be in the opposite side of the complex, so nobody ever spotted a trend.

Andrew always had very pleasant dreams, as he counted the money that was was saving each month and counted down the days until he would be able to leverage this sacrifice into a down payment on his dream home.

A couple of news stories grabbed my attention today.

GM was unable to negotiate concessions with some of its bondholders and will have to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy.  This is reorganization bankruptcy, not liquidation bankruptcy.  The prevailing thought is that GM will emerge from bankruptcy in the hands of Fiat and the UAW.  Chryler will halt vehicle production for (at least) 60 days.  Their leasing arm will be folded into GMAC finance.  They will receive and additional $8 billion in bailout funds, which hopefully the taxpapayers will see returned to them at some point.  I have not seen any word on how this may affect the money that Chryslers spends on manufacturer support of Dodge teams in NASCAR (Dodge is a Chrysler brand).

On the bright side for buyers, this might be a good time to buy a Chrysler vehicle.  Demand will likely sag on the news, but the warranties will now be guaranteed by the government.  With the recent news of GM “temporarily” closing 16 of its 21 plants and planning to buy ou 40% of its dealers, Ford looks to be in prime position to pick up some market share from the segment of the population that will only buy American vehicles.

The other story came out of Los Angeles.  A 72 year old sex offender gave his DNA sample, as required by state law.  The DNA got a match with a rape kit from murder victim Ethel Sokoloff, a 68 year old woman who was killed in 1972.  As a result,  John Thomas Jr. has been charged in two murders (Sokoloff’s and another crime in 1976).  Police believe that Thomas may be the “Southland Strangler” who may have killed more than 30 women (and raped many more) since 1955.

This has to be the mother of all cold cases.  Even if you were able to crack the case of a serial killer who began his reign of terror 54 years ago, the odds of the perpetrator still being alive are not very good.  I have an interest in crime, and I intend to write a bigger article on the story next week, after getting a chance to sesearch it a bit more.

Guest writer Phil Ossifer was formerly employed as a chef.  Today, he gives us a view of a day in the life of a chef.

Phil is also the author of the Stop the Auto Bailout article and a participant in the  Casual Observer Stock Market Contest (coincidentally, today is the deadline for submitting a prediction in the contest).

My Reoccurring Nightmare

aka – A Day in the Life of a Professional Chef

It happens about every two weeks. Eleven years after leaving the industry, I still have the panicky dreams. Everything exploding around me…confusion, smoke, sweat. Wait a minute, I never served in the military, did I?

No, of course not. This is one of the hotel’s kitchens into which I’ve been thrust. Employees struggle to serve two busy restaurants, room service, lounge food, and I’m apparently in charge. Looking down, I find to my great discomfort that I only have a white t-shirt on — no chef’s coat and no pants. Worse, I suddenly realize that I do not know any of the menus, nor any of the employees that I must have personally hired and trained. Why do I still work here; didn’t I quit years ago? Don’t I have another high-paying job — or, or did I get fired? Even though this dream invariably wakes me up, I’m always grateful for the end.

The real nightmare isn’t quite as bad. I know the menus, people, and have a pressed uniform. I know the job, and I know that the salary is pretty good, even if the 70-ish weekly hours makes for a sufficiently pathetic hourly wage. I also know that I will work nearly every day, excepting about three Mondays a month, and will work every night, weekend, and holiday. I do miss having Thanksgiving with my family for the last nine years, but that is part of the price.

The “normal” weekday runs from 9 am to 8 pm, unless a breakfast cook calls in sick, in which case I rush to make the 5:30 am opening. Thankfully, this occurs only about once monthly.

The day starts by greeting those on duty, then as quickly as possible retreating to the office to get a handle on events of the day. Seven hooks each hold a clipboard of the days BEO’s (Banquet Event Orders) and associated prep lists. Today is a normal weekday…4 lunch events and 2 dinners. The lunches are for various sizes of groups (25, 30, 180, 90), and are of routine composition. For example, the party of 25 Kiwani’s women will have a tossed salad, Chicken Piccata, fresh steamed veggies, Linguini, garlic bread, and a slice of pecan pie. Two of the other three parties also have tossed salads, so one cook will plate all of the salads at once, rolling the finished cart into the walk-in coolers for holding. The 180 is having a pork loin buffet, which is a great relief since plating 180 additional meals is rather taxing. Of course, all four events serve precisely noon, which coincides with the restaurant rush, so I may have to pull in a few draftees from outside the kitchen to get us through plate-up.

At 9:15, I take the elevator to the banquet kitchen, and meet the lead banquet cook for our daily catch-up, where he informs me of the status of “prep” for all of today’s banquets. By this point, he and his crew are done with prep for lunches, and are working on dinner prep. By 2 pm, they will be well into prep for the following day. I write all of the prep lists on Sunday for the week- one sheet for each day’s banquets that details all food items, quantities, procedures, and assignments for the day. The banquet lead works from this sheet. Prep includes any thawing needed, so that on Tuesday, the banquet lead is ensuring that Friday’s 400 chicken breasts are placed into a thaw area of the cooler. At about this time, a dishwasher delivers an electric warming cart containing a few hundred clean plates and lids. Hot plates = no cold food.

By 10:00, I am back in my office, working on the purchasing orders for the week. I spend several hours over two days, preparing to place orders with all five of our major vendors, and a few of about 10 specialty vendors (the fresh herbs guy, the coffee company, the specialty cheese/chocolate company). I meet with most of the vendors at the hotel to place orders and field sales pitches for new products. Each Wednesday and Friday, cooks take time to receive the deliveries into the walk-in coolers and freezers.

11:30, and the lunch rush comes…I jet up to a banquet dining room to inspect the buffet food which has been delivered to the chafing dishes and tables. There are mirror displays with fruit, cheese, vegetables, dips, and small fruit and vegetable sculptures. There are hot pans of sliced, roast pork with port wine chanterelle mushroom sauce, twice-baked potatoes, and more. The dessert table looks good, but there are only three varieties of desserts (instead of the requested five), so I jump back to the banquet kitchen to yell at the lead. Of course, extras are always on hand, so it’s only a 10-minute affair to correct this error.

I stay to work the assembly-line plate-up lunches, then head back to the restaurants to check in. Runners would have notified me if there were problems while I was gone. I grab a rueben and fries, and choke this down in five minutes.

This afternoon, I interview several applicants for a lunch-cook position. Having several applicants at one time is quite lucky, and I already know that at least one of them will have a job at the end of the day. In between appointments, I spend some time training a newer line cook for the tablecloth (aka fancy) restaurant, and help two new hires complete their paperwork. Why doesn’t HR do this? Uh…I dunno. Never took the time to find out.

By 4 pm, I am writing the nightly specials for the tablecloth restaurant, and may even prepare a sauce for it. This might be the only cooking I do today, depending on how the restaurant does tonight. The evening sparks up another round of banquet plate-ups (one is a filet mignon dinner for 220 – big bucks!), and checking over the 90-or-so meals that will be produced in the tablecloth restaurant tonight. I stand at the exit window for nearly two hours to ensure each order is correct – hot, cooked right, well-presented, timed with appetizers, etc. The family café restaurant is also in full swing, and will serve upwards of 150 – 200 meals tonight. The café is running pretty well at present, so I may only stop in for one minute tonight to greet the cooks, and while en route, will probably snag an extra filet mignon dinner from the banquet kitchen. We always prepare for 5% over estimated head count.

By 7:30, the main rush is over, and I begin to wrap up for the day – checking personnel schedules for the next day (making needed changes), checking the BEO’s for red flags, cleaning up the office a bit, then heading out by 8 pm if all’s well. If it was Saturday, I would be here until about 10 pm, then back in at 6:00 am Sunday for preparation of the Sunday brunch. Sunday night, I usually get off early (6 pm), as this is the slowest night of the week for the tablecloth restaurant.

I am keeping an eye on this weekend, as we have two concurrent wedding reception dinners, which tend to be a lot of work. Most Saturdays include one wedding reception, but two are not uncommon. This Saturday, I also have to do an ice sculpture for one of the weddings. Thursday, I will pull the ice out to temper it for several hours, then carve the sculpture Thursday night in the parking lot. This will take about 1 ½ hours, after which time I’ll cart the finished, fragile sculpture into the walk-in freezer, ready for the banquet in two days. Once in a while, the sculptures crack or shatter, thus I leave two days for margin of safety.

I get home, peel off the greasy, smelly clothes, take a shower, gulp a beer, and soon am asleep.

It was a day.

No direction

I have lived my entire life with no real sense of direction.  I don’t mean this is the figurative sense – I am happy with the way I set goals and achieve them.  Rather, I am being quite literal.  My ability to determine North, east, south, and west has always been horrible.  Most of the time, I’d be better off just guessing.  I always assumed that there were a lot of people like me, literally lost in the world.  When I was in my mid 20s, someone shared a revelation with me.  My problem with directions likely stemmed from an inability to mentally rotate images.  This was a stunning revelation.  Indeed, I had always struggled with IQ test questions that involved mentally rotating images.

I was also stunned to realize that most people have some abilities that appeared to me to be quite supernatural.  Most people can go to the second floor of a house, walk around, and automatically know what room is beneath them! In order for me to do this, I would need to look out a window and try to remember which of the downstairs windows had the same view.  Normal people also have the ability to automatically retrace a route that they have just driven, even if for the first time.  This is definitely not the case for me – I’ll have the refer back to the directions on the way back.

Coping

How do I cope with this affliction?  First of all, I don’t let it bother me psychologically.  I lived for 25 years as a pretty highly functioning human being before I realized that I had this problem, so there was really no reason to panic once I knew the cause of the problem.

I am a big fan of Mapquest.  Unless I am traveling a route that I have committed to memory, I have written directions.  I also make sure to have an atlas with me – a nice, big version.  I also rely on technology.  It is quite possible for me to get completely turned around and not know if I am going north or south (although this is very infrequent).  Our car has a compass on the rearview mirror.  This allows me to have certaintly about the direction and not second guess myself.  Also, we recently purchased a GPS navigator for the car, which means that I will always be able to find my way back to civilization.

What if you’re completely lost and have no idea where you are going?  Watch the traffic.  It will likely be heavier in one direction than the other.  Follow the heavier traffic and you should eventually find your way back to a town.

More about images

I also have a second problem that is very likely related to the first.  I have extreme difficulty remembering facial features.  If you ask me if various friends have blonde hair or blue eyes, it is unlikely that I will be able to give you consistently accurate answers.  I have no problem recognizing photos of people, but I am simply unable to pull back individual features based on names.

I always hear people talk about the huge differences in image quality between various different formats (DVD / Blu-Ray, standard vs. HD), etc.  Really, I don’t notice the differences.  It’s not that I have any difficulty seeing the images; it’s just that I don’t notice hugh differences in quality.  My guess is that I don’t see the gradations of color very well.

This wasn’t meant to be a downer of an article.  These issues have very little effect on my life.  I just happen to find them interesting.

Staff sports columnist Johnny Goodman shares his opinion of high school basketball phenom Jeremy Tyler in today’s edition of The Soap Boxers.

This one does not star Chevy Chase … No, it is a different type of European Vacation for high school Junior Jeremy Tyler.

He has recently announced that he will not only forgo his Senior year of high school, but will forgo college as well.  Not in order to enter the NBA draft as so many before him have done.  Instead, Tyler will take his hardwood game to the courts of Europe, to play professional basketball. The goal: Hone his skills and in the process earn some money while improving his stock to make it someday in the NBA.

The 6’11” Junior from San Diego has caught a lot of heat for his decision to head overseas.  So why, when a basketball player chooses to play for money before the NBA says he should, does everyone have an opinion? (including yours truly) Because we are sports hungry fans of college football and basketball. We find it easy to pick on those who would prefer not to follow the “rules” and instead cash in on their success earlier and not later. After all he could be the player to get my club over the hump. Thirty- Five years of season tickets and not even an NCAA tourney win to show for it. What if he played for MY school?

I’ll bet you a grande latte that David Stern is worried about the precedent this might be setting.

Some sports, such as football, have clear rules that define the amount of “time” a player must be out of high school in order to compete in their leagues.  NFL football, however, is more of a monopoly.  It is a captive market whose success has not caught on world-wide.  You want to play Americanized football, you do it here in the USA, or play on the slightly weird field with slightly different rules north of the border in Canada.

Basketball is a totally different sport.  The success of the Olympic Games has brought a lot of attention to this sport around the globe in the last two decades.  The NBA is now full of stars from a variety of countries – it truly has become a “global sport”

So what if this young man was a golfer?  Or tennis player?  Bowler, skier, motocross rider, gymnast?  Would there be such an outcry?  Would anyone even really care? Would the media cover it at all?

Nope…..

It all comes down to one simple thing for all of us who are raising a stink about this Tyler’s decision.  Money.  Money for the media, money for a college somewhere in terms of ticket sales and concessions. Money for an agent down the road when he want to actually come to the NBA.

It is quite likely he will develop his skills more than he would with a year in high school where he is dominating his competition. He might even get quite a bit better playing against older, professional players in Europe.  Of course there is always the chance that he could be a bust along the likes of Darko Milicic and Michael Olowakandi

Who knows, the final result may eventually end up the same, even if he happened to go to college first…. but at least this way Tyler will get something while enjoying the culture of Europe.

Money… and a European Vacation.

Staff sports columnist Johnny Goodman talks about questionable picks in the NFL draft in today’s edition of The Soap Boxers.  We are pleased to announce that Johnny will be a weekly contributor to TCO in the future.

Now that the annual marathon that we call the NFL Draft is over, lets look at some of the biggest question marks in this draft.

Matthew Stafford  – over forty million guaranteed money.  Wow…Hope he turns out to be John Elway and not Ryan Leaf.  But I am not convinced.  Still the Lions had to try and sign this guy as they have nothing in the tank.   Duante Culpepper can keep the quarterback seat warm for a year or two if needed, but the Lions need this one to work out well.  Staffords proud parents appeared to be the happiest people on stage when the pick was announced.  Of course if I knew my son was going to be rolling in 40 Mil plus, I would be smiling too.

Is there a bigger question mark in this draft than the Raiders taking Receiver Darrius Heyward- Bey as the 7th overall pick?  I guess, not…after all, this is a pick made by the Raiders we are talking about.  I mean Michael Crabtree is still available at this point in time, I guess Al Davis figures if he can succeed under the Mad Bomber Mike Leach, who is possibly the strangest of all major D-1 College coaches, then he absolutely has no chance to succeed in the normal environment of the Silver and Black.  Basically Heyward-Bay has what Al Davis always seems to love, straight line, world class speed.  I see no reason to take the guy that high  and neither does anyone else.

The Jets traded up to get the glamour boy of the 2009 draft, Quarterback Mark Sanchez.  I actually like what the Browns did here by trading the pick away.  They did not get maximum value to move the #5 overall to the Jets, but they got the best deal they could find.  The Browns win here as they save the multi million dollar gamble on a quarterback.  The guaranteed money for the #5 overall pick would have been hefty for the browns, who have already seemed to position themselves for the future with the QB position.  The Jets gamble here in my opinion, putting all of their eggs in one basket.  I think this is a gamble, but remember I also think this is overall a weak draft.

Tampa Bay has a new coach and apparently a new quarterback.  The Bucs traded up to get Josh Freeman.  He is still very raw, but he is freakishly athletic.  Raheem Morris apparently fell in love with Freeman while a defense coach at Kansas State.  Byron Leftwich can provide a stop gap measure.  Not sure if I like this pick or not.  Freeman is the guy who beat much more talented Texas Longhorn teams on a regular basis, but also is the same guy that made Nebraksa’s defense look like the Blackshirts of the mid 90’s while they struggled against everyone else.  As a side note, I am a Husker Grad and …..did you know that Both Sanchez and Freeman had originally committed to come to Nebraska…but I digress.

The Dolphins chose Pat White in the 2nd round with pick #44 overall.  What???!?! Pat White? Do the fish plan on running the wildcat formation full time this year?  This was a HORRIBLE pick this high.  They could have easily nabbed White 2 rounds later in my opinion and picked up a number or players here with this pick that could have proven to be a lot more useful to the organization.

The Eagles are another interesting bunch.  I think they hit a home run with Macho Harris in the later rounds, but I still question the toughness of WR Jeremy Maclin.  Can he run?  Yes!  Is he explosive?  Yes!  Is he a great returner?  Yes!  Do I think he is another Reggie Brown for the Eagles?? Yes.  I have seen too much of this guy’s play in TV and in person and I am not convinced he has the toughness to play a lot of downs in the NFL.  Sort of a la Reggie Bush.  Great Athlete, explosive as heck, but soft in my opinion.

Last but not least we look at Percy Harvin going to the Vikings.  First Randy Moss, then the Love Boat, now Harvin.  Do they like problem in Minnesota.  I guess he forgot to leave the weed back home before the combine, and the Vikings overlooked that in the draft, although there were 70+  OTHER players they pulled off their draft board due to what their front office deemed as “character issues”  I guess potential talent outweighs character issues here.  Another player in the mold of Maclin.  Flashes of greatness but still a lot of questions.

As always it will take some time to see who turns out to be great players and who is a complete bust.  Overall this is one of the weaker drafts in recent years, and there was seemingly less “sure things” then I can remember in a long time.

As a caveat – I follow football, but I am not a rabid fan.  If you’re looking for an analysis of how player X fits into a team’s 4-3 defensive scheme, you’re looking in the wrong place.  I’m looking to high a few interesting stories from the draft.

Stafford vs. Sanchez

Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford was the top overall pick in the NFL draft.  Stafford is a fine player.  However, his contract – 6 years with $41.7 million guanteed and  $78 million maximum value (if some rather lofty performance goals are met – quite unlikely) is staggering to many.  Try as they might, the NFL teams have not found a foolproof way to determine which players will excel and which will falter at the NFL level.  If Stafford goes the route of many before him (Akili Smith, Tim Couch, Ryan Leaf, et al) the Lions will end up eating forty million dollars and getting very little for their money.  Some players simply see the guaranteed money, decide that they are set for life, and just go through the motions until a team cuts them loose.  I’m not suggestion that this is the case with Stafford – just that the risk is there.  I’m opposed to a rookie salary cap, on the principle that I tend to oppose things that inhibit the free market economy.  I’m not really sure that there is a perfect solution.

The Jets traded to get pick #5 so that they could draft USC quarterback Matt Sanchez.  Some observers had Sanchez ranked ahead of Stafford.  Sanchez will likely see a contract that is much smaller than that of Stafford’s.  From a pure financial perspective, the Jet have a smaller risk and a player with possibly more upside than Stafford.

Another Sanchez note: The St. Louis Rams, with the #2 overall pick, bought a plane ticket for Sanchez.  This created considerable buzz that the Rams were considering Sanchez.  Most likely, it was a cheap way (in terms of dollars) to try to fake out another team so that the other team would try to trade for the #2 pick.  There’s very little downside to this move, even though it didn’t work out.  Well played, Rams.

On the subject of analysts: I heard someone mentioned that it is important to place a quarterback in a system that suits them.  Yes!  You always hear about guys who are “system quarterbacks”.  If this is a QB who can succeed in a particular system, why wouldn’t you attempt to build the system around them?

Michael Oher

Michael Oher  never knew his father, had a mother who was a crack addict, and repeated first and second grade.  He lived in various foster homes.  When he was 16, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy agreed to have Michael live with them.  The presence of the African-American Oher in the house of the Caucasian Touhys caused concern from some friends, especially considering Michael’s troubled past.  The Touhys shrugged this off and became the only real family Michael has ever known.  Michael eventually sorted out a dismal academic record while he also excelled on the football field.

On Saturday, left tackled Michael Oher become the #23 overall pick in the NFL draft, a first round selection by the Baltimore Ravens.  He is a true testament to perseverance and overcoming adversity.

Rhett Bomar

Rhett Bomar was the starting quarterback at Oklahoma in 2005.  He was kicked off the team in 2006 when reports surfaced that Bomar had been overpaid by an employer – being paid for hours that were not acutally worked.  Clearly, this was a mistake by Bomar.  However, he picked up the pieces and transferred to 1-AA Sam Houston State – a school with about 1% of the publicity of Oklahoma (and that is a generous estimate).  In two years, Bomar shattered records at Sam Houston State and was a finalist for the Walter Payton Award that is given annually to the best player in division 1-AA.

On Saturday, Bomar was picked in the 5th round by the New York Giants.  Clearly, with Eli Manning entrenched at quarterback, Bomar will not be the starter next year.  However, Bomar does have an opportunity to prove himself.  If he goes into the situation with the right attitude, he might eventually be a starting quarterback in the NFL.

Raiders

Not surprisingly, the Oakland Raiders made the “what were they thinking” pick of the draft, picking wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey at #7.  Most people agree that Heyward-Bey was a legit first rounder, but not at #7.  To compound the situation, Texas Tech stud WR Michael Crabtree was still on the board (he was taken at #10 by the 49ers).  It’s true that Crabtree benefitted by playing in Mike Leach’s wide open system at Tech, but the kid clearly has great skills.