The NFL Draft should be an exciting time for a professional football fan. The NFL Draft this Saturday is easily one of the least anticipated in New Orleans Saints history. As of right now, their first round pick is their only pick on the first day. They gave up their 2nd round pick for tight end Jeremy Shockey and their 3rd rounder for middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma. Too early to rate Shockey a bust but he hasn't lived up to his side of the trade. Vilma turned in a great season and was rewarded with a new contract. This situation is not likely to improve. They have almost nothing to offer this year and offering up picks from next year's draft for anyone available this year would hardly be an improvement. Unless a decent offer comes up for them to trade down, I think I want to see the Saints take cornerback/safety Malcolm Jenkins from Ohio State in the first round.
The Saints and the State of Louisiana are also supposedly hard at work hammering out a long-term agreement to keep the Saints here. Both sides are pretty mum about it but the concerns are well-known. New Orleans is a small market, the Saints need revenue, they think a new taxpayer-funded stadium will cure their ills, the state doesn't want to guarantee revenue to the Saints any more, etc. I doubt anything will be agreed upon until their current agreement is set to expire and there will surely be a public dispute. I'm thinking most professional sports franchise owners wish they had taken sweetheart deals they could have gotten last year or the year before when they had pretty good leverage.
140 days until football season ...
Quote of the Day
What you have is a chaotic situation where the quarterback is going to lose confidence and the fans and the coaching staff are going to get down on him.
Mike Singletary, San Francisco 49ers
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "One of the things the Arch does well is loom. On a dark day like this, it looms over the Mississippi, threatening to channel the force of lightening across the river into Illinois or some such thing. It's a little threatening, a symbol of something ominous. Caveat visitor."
My family was living in St. Louis when the arch was completed, I even have a memory of it being constructed, with the gap at the top. Maybe it's because I accepted the "Gateway to the West" thing at an early age, but I've never looked at it as ominous or "looming". I've always thought it was pretty cool and futuristic instead. Especially if you catch it as the sun is getting low in the day. Perspective I guess.
I've been past it on the interstate a few times, Dave. It always dominated the view. To me, it is both cool and imposing. "Looming" or "ominous" sound a little too negative to me.