Lakers make NBA Playoffs; Cavaliers will be able to swap draft picks
April 18, 2013Red Sox 6. Indians 3: Sox Plan Baffles Masterson
April 18, 2013While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.
Tribute to Summerall– “That’s the thing about the voice of Pat Summerall, who died in Dallas on Tuesday at 82. It became more than an unobtrusive guide to a football game. It became the voice you wanted to hear underlying the utmost sporting drama. Good, true, modest, soothing, maybe even dulcet in the non-ironic sense, it spoke over various sports but foremost as the soundtrack of the American Sunday. Without trying so hard, it came to convey the day of the week, the time of the day, the feeling in the air, the season of the year, the bigness of the game. For Sunday after Sunday, doubleheader game after doubleheader game, dusk after dusk, autumn after autumn, year after year it pleased the ear and built a lasting home in the mind.” [Culpepper/Sports on Earth]
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“Defensive Line Domination: Diesel Washington and Noah Spence completely dominated whichever Scarlet offensive lineman lined up in front of them. In a pass-heavy day, the pair combined for seven sacks while prolonging the battle for right tackle (which I’ll get to in a second).
Even more impressive than those numbers was the fact that the two didn’t seem to take any plays off. Braxton, Kenny G, and Cardale Jones felt the pressure on almost every play, even apart from the gaudy statistics.” [Peltier/Eleven Warriors]
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The NFL is having team alumni announce draft picks again this year. Good choice for the Browns- “Dick Schafrath, offensive tackle. The six-time Pro Bowl left tackle played for the Browns from 1959 to 1971. Nicknamed “The Mule,” Schafrath reportedly wrestled a bear, ran 62 miles from Cleveland Browns stadium to a high school stadium, and canoed across Lake Erie without stopping.” [Hensley/AFC North Blog]
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“In 1911 Standard Oil was broken up. Of course the effect of this was to enrich Rockefeller even more through his ownership of the baby Standards. Point is: let’s not discount the rebate angle of this as insignificant. If you’re offering price A to your consumers, but big customers are getting price-A-less-rebate, then how is a small firm supposed to compete? Are there kickbacks paid from the large trucking firms which incent PFJ to screw the small trucking companies? No… monopolistic rebate practices which screw small companies… this rebate deal is probably not as insignificant as Jimmy would have you believe.” [Kanick]
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“The Browns are hoping Kruger can provide the pass rush from the outside as the team switches from 4-3 to the 3-4. He is expected to be lined up as the left outside linebacker. Meanwhile, the team’s leading pass rusher the past two seasons is learning a new position. Jabaal Sheard is being switched from defensive end to outside linebacker. He lined up opposite Kruger as the starter on the right side.
“I embrace (the switch to linebacker),” Sheard said. “I think I’m athletic enough and I wanted to be back there.” Sheard said when he was preparing to be drafted he visited with the Patriots, Steelers and a number of 3-4 teams that were looking at him as an outside linebacker. He said he’s not worried about the transition. Neither is Rob Chudzinski.” [Greetham/The OBR]
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Finally, you’re welcome. [ebay]
15 Comments
PFR only has the stats from 1960 on but:
pat summerall, 6 of 20 in FGs longer than 40 yards.
makes 49 yarder in snow and wind to keep browns out of championship game.
we have identified an early and forgotten ‘only in cleveland’ moment.
True. Placekicking skills have improved more than any other position I can think of that didn’t benefit from major rule changes. The new soccer-style kickers in the 70s were immediately kicking so much further that within about a decade it was hard to find anyone with a straight-ahead approach. And the artificial turf being installed around the league helped as well.
Gifford was no stranger to kicking in lousy winter weather on crappy fields. But a 49-yarder was quite dramatic in that era. Only in Cleveland.
I think you mean Summerall.
And the Browns had the last straight-ahead kicker – Mark Moseley, who filled in for an injured Matt Bahr at the end of the 1986 season.
we also the best and most affable straight-on PK/OT.
Jimkanicki — can someone please hire this guy as an investigative reporter? That piece is a fantastic dismantling of the Potemkin Village the Haslam PR machine erected in the wake of the FBI/IRS raid. At this stage, identifying the right questions is almost more important than finding the right answers.
I find myself wrestling with the implications of this investigation. If Haslam is indicted for major malfeasance it would likely send shock waves through the Browns organization and set the team back further than it already is. And yet, it would hardly be a deviation from the “factory of sadness” culture we have all habituated to. I would therefore be happy to trade justice for a reprobate like Haslam (if he is in fact guilty) for continued organizational chaos and mediocrity on the football field.
I love the straight ahead approach, it’s just unfortunate you have to have half a foot to be any good at it! I was a backup kicker in HS and people joked that I was “Joe the Toe”. It didn’t always go straight, but when it did they went a long ways.
Maybe some day Nike will get all kinds of creative and produce a shoe with a flat nose on it for all the high school offensive lineman that also swing their big meat leg for PATs and another kicking revelation will begin. Until then, girthy leg offensive lineman like myself will be relegated to the back-up toe bashing brotherhood.
i just want to win football games.
The Cynical Mr Bode 😉
🙂
it’s actually pure frustration. after everything with Randy, it finally felt like we might get some stability and we hired a coaching staff with some real credentials. the FO has question marks, but oh well.
now, there’s a very good chance we are about to spend half our time talking about off the field stuff, again. i’m tired of it. if it’s a big FBI/IRS investigation, then how did the NFL background committee miss out on it? that’s just so disheartening.
from the JK site:
“I remain stunned by the incredibly surreal picture of dozens of armed
federal agents descending onto the corporate headquarters of a $29B
business and shutting it down for a day.
IT. JUST. DOESNT. HAPPEN.”
I completely agree. And, they don’t do it unless they have something real to go after. I have a bad feeling it’s going to get ugly.
I, however, don’t think Haslam has a cash-flow problem (well, that can change now with the IRS involved). The NFL should know pretty well on his actual finances. That is one area they should have a good feel about. The sport owners with financial issues usually have strange scenarios that get them approved (like FOX pushing the McCourts on MLB). All that goes out the window with this investigation though.
yes i did mean Summerall – thx.
Pretty amazing – I think maybe Jan Stenerud was the first soccer-style, in the 60s, and by mid-80s the straight-ons were completely extinct. Almost as sudden and complete a technique transformation as when Fosbury introduced the flop.
What a pic – Lou be smiling before he crushes me.
yes, his cash flow can change. Not just through fines/penalties but from a forced change in business practice that strengthens his competition. The other thing is that his purchase of the Browns was presumably heavily financed based on PFJ projections before this happened.
This is just my conjecture about portential downside here. We shouldn’t just assume this cannot affect the Browns and their manner of spending, regardless of what Haslam is saying now.
we all lived through Art Modell. we know that long-term this can affect the Browns (was just speaking to a recent FA period in that initial statement)
yeah, it’s hard to know about cash flow issues. i was just cautioning that high net worth doesn’t equal flush with cash. particularly when most of your worth is in holding the stock of a privately-owned chain of truck stops.