So Cleveland...or is it?

About a year ago, I reached the halfway point of a blog post about Cleveland’s tempestuous ride in sports.  Every major team has either blown a championship (Browns, Indians) or had a rash of bad luck (Cavs).  If you were to glance at the Cleveland newspapers on Thursday morning, those same tellings of doom arrange themselves prominently.  The Browns traded running back Trent Richardson, the #3 pick from two drafts ago, to the Colts for a first round pick.  What follows for me is an interesting query into an NFL franchise desperate for any positive news.

From the Browns perspective, this reeks of old ways.  Very few, including myself, can remember when Bill Belichick dropped popular quarterback Bernie Kosar from the team.  That move has been heralded as being similar to the Richardson trade in its effect on the team: wholly negative.  That may or may not be the case, however.  I remain somewhat unconvinced that this is a bad move for the Browns.  There is no doubt, however, that the ruling powers in Cleveland do not think Richardson was worth a top five pick.  The organization is throwing in the towel on him, and that’s an unavoidable conclusion.  And, from a numbers perspective, there’s a case to be made.  He’s averages a little over three yards a carry, hardly numbers worthy of the “elite” label he received directly out of college.  But, for all that, we should remember he ran behind a shoddy offensive line (excepting Joe Thomas) and had no passing game against which to balance a running game.  He scored 11 touchdowns last year which looks good on a stat line but, as fantasy players know, are supremely impossible to predict and (for what my vote is worth) do very little to distinguish the great players from the ordinary.

That said, Richardson was the best offensive asset in Cleveland.  Joe Thomas might be a close second (six-time Pro Bowler who gets no credit).  That the team wants to trade him away strikes me as a misguided effort by the current regime to get some credit if they can turn this ship around.  Heaven forbid they do so with Mike Holmgren’s players!  Regrettably for Cleveland fans, this season will be lost.  On the accounting side, the Browns gave up the 3^rd overall pick (and the three late round picks the Browns traded just to draft him) for a first round pick that will likely be somewhere in the 20s.  That’s an unbalanced trade, based on the numbers.

But, I’m not jumping into bed with the Colts on this either.  Sure, losing Vick Ballard hurts and not having a potent running game hurt them last year, but workhorse backs are no longer a feature of the NFL.  At best, they are complimentary parts in the machine.  Prior to Ray Rice last year, the best running back to last win a Super Bowl was Jerome Bettis…who’s been retired for quite a while now.  Seriously, good running backs do not carry teams to championships anymore.  The guy who was slated to start in Indy, Ahmad Bradshaw, has won two of them.  It certainly helps to have Andrew Luck as a dynamic passing threat that could, at any point, bust the game wide open and provide cover for the ground game.  Still, I remain unconvinced that Richardson, with his somewhat underwhelming numbers (compared to his draft pick) and potential injury concerns, is worth a first round pick.  I am also sure, however, that many said the same thing when Dallas traded Herschel Walker in the late 80s, only to eat their words after three Super Bowls.

So, on paper, there are some good and bad things about the trade.  Cleveland grabbed a first round pick for a rapidly dying type of player, but also acknowledged they’re rebuilding by doing so and gave up in Week 3.  For the Colts, they lost a draft pick in what could be a very deep draft for a guy that, for all his natural gifts, might not have the full stuff.  It’s a great gamble trade, one more befitting of the NBA, where midseason rebuildings are indicated every year via trades.  In football, you gotta wait until the draft to see this type of thing normally.

Above all else, Cleveland now knows it needs a quarterback in this year’s draft.  Any presumption to the contrary would be a huge mistake.  Teddy Bridgewater and Tajh Boyd look like the top of the pile right now, but I’m waiting until the Browns-Jags game later this year when the stakes are the future for both teams.

As a final note, Cleveland has thus far given me no confidence in its abilities.  The Browns have been stockpiling draft picks for what seems like three years now, and they have absolutely nothing to show for it.  When it all comes down to it, despite the Colts giving up their first round pick, I am projecting the Browns to lose this trade.  If their draft this year turns out to be wonderful, it might be a different story.  But, to give up their best asset in Week 3 was a mistake.

Bit #1: Mayweather-Canelo Fight a Dud

I ordered a boxing match on pay-per-view for the first time last Saturday night.  What had been touted as the best challenge to Floyd Mayweather in years turned out to be anything but.  It certainly wasn’t worth the $20 I spent, primarily because Mayweather is too good.

Floyd’s unique style was on full display.  He danced around Canelo and unleashed jabs consistently.  The mere thought that he might not have won this fight was never in doubt, mainly because Floyd landed tons of punches.  Many were on the lighter end, but by the end he connected on over half of punches thrown.  A frustrating thing about this fight for me was the lack of in-close encounters.  Middleweights are quicker and less likely to sit there and take punishment.  Back in the days when heavyweights ruled the sport, we saw more hair-raising blows and, truthfully, better fights.  It’s not that Canelo and Floyd aren’t great athletes, but the flitting around the ring did nothing to induce me to enjoy the fight.  I watch to see guys punch each other, not gingerly move around one another.

Bit #2: NCAA Targeting Rule and Review a Farce

Typically, the NCAA has not received as much attention for concussions as the NFL.  There aren’t former players lining up to sue colleges for head injuries.  If there is such a queue somewhere, they don’t make nearly the same noise as the pro players.  As such, I’ve never noticed the “targeting the head” penalty in a college game before last Saturday.

In that game, Alabama’s Ha Ha Clinton-Dix (great name if you’re a Fox News anchor) made a move towards a pass from Johnny Manziel to receiver Darel Walker.  Clinton-Dix clearly went for the ball, stretching out his hands but connecting with Walker’s upper body.

The refs called a targeting penalty, despite the simultaneous arrivals of both Clinton-Dix and the football.  In the NCAA, that means an automatic ejection.  At the early stage of the game, that might have been disastrous and I guarantee we are discussing it Monday if Bama loses.  The saving grace, however, is that targeting penalties can be reviewed.  Clinton-Dix stayed in the game after review, but the process still reeked.  While the flag for “targeting” was rescinded, Alabama still lost 15 yards due to some kind of penalty.  In essence, though the booth said it wasn’t a penalty, the play was treated like one.

I understand these things happen too quickly for refs to always be right.  I also understand that the review process could become too universal and no one wants to review penalties all game.  But, if you’re going to review a play for targeting, the common sense rule would be to also see if the play resulted in a penalty at all.  How long before the yardage affects the outcome of a game somewhere along the line?

Bit #3: NHL Rule Change Also Ridiculous

Big point: the NHL begins in 11 days.  The smaller point is a recent rule change certainly will have some interesting effects this season.  The NHL announced over the offseason that refs would enforce uniform rules more stringently.  If you’re very familiar with the NFL’s absurd practice of requiring white socks, then you know this move will bring some truly outrageous headlines.  Earlier this week, a player got penalized for tucking his jersey into his pads.  I’m absolutely clueless as to what this rule hopes to achieve, but the NHL pleads it has something to do with upper body safety.

Forgive me if I don’t care.  One concern, however, is that adding penalties to the game brings some hazards into play.  While the NHL won’t stoop to fining players, like the NFL, I’m worried that a uniform penalty will draw the attention of refs away from the fast-paced, somewhat dangerous sport of hockey.  Seems a stupid concern on the face of it, but the mere possibility that a ref might penalize a player’s cravat as opposed to his body-checking is a little worrisome.