Here's a roundup from the Indianapolis Star website today that I enjoyed reading:

http://blogs.indystar.com/philb/2008/10/oline_mudd_desperate.html

A couple of random thoughts:

1) Nice to get pretty much the whole damn O Line back. I hope Peyton's knee is up to the stretch play now. I expect to see a lot of progress coming off the bye week. 

2) Howard Mudd has a golf cart. F***ing run!

OK, so one of the cool things about working in a steak house in Manhattan is that you see a number of celebrities, especially sports guys. Friday night I waited on a private party for the CBS football crew. It was Dan Marino, Shannon Sharpe, Bill Cowher, James Brown, and a bunch of producer types. A few observations:

-- I have never seen Bill Cowher smile and laugh so much. I didn't know he had teeth.

-- Marino is a nice guy and seems to be a surfer-dude type. He was wearing a beach t-shirt and called me "man."

-- Shannon Sharpe is a funny dude. And he's definitely the comedian of the group. People were constantly asking him what he thought about various things and then laughing hysterically at and repeating his answers. He's also knowledgeable about a surprisingly broad range of topics.

-- James Brown may be the nicest man I've ever waited on. Not just the nicest celebrity, maybe the nicest guy in general. Gracious, humble, thankful... a joy to be around.

Anyway, I never watch the Sunday pregame shows, so I have no idea if these guys know what they're talking about at all, but they are good people in real life. And I think I'll watch this week just to see how some of the stuff they were talking about works out. 

The Patriots have cut Marcus Pollard.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/trainingcamp08/news/story?id=3543097

I hope he catches on somewhere, but this could very well be the end of the road for our old friend. I'll always have a soft spot for Pollard; he was a good player for us as we were just beginning to be consistently good, and he was part of the first really good TE tandem in the Indianapolis years (with Ken Dilger). We take two good TEs for granted now, but it wasn't always so.

And who can forget that 2001 season? Only 47 catches, but 8 TDs and a 15.7 ypc! From a TE! Raise a glass to Marcus; I wish he could have won a ring with us.  

It's true. Just a few months after winning the Super Bowl, the Giants have turned to Crap:

http://www.giants.com/news/headlines/story.asp?story_id=27172

It's hard to see where he'll fit in with their glut of receivers, but it's certainly good to see the dream alive. And for the record, yes I think we should continue to update the career progress of our mercurial friend. We may never hear of another Craphonso; we need to take advantage of the one we have.

The Lions have released Kevin Jones.

http://www.profootballtalk.com/2008/03/13/lions-announce-release-of-edwards-jones/

He's had two big injuries in the last two years (Lisfranc and ACL) and may not be ready for the start of the season. But when healthy he is a force, and he should come cheap at this point (if he doesn't, then obviously he's not an option). Keith/draft pick aside, anybody think he might be worth looking at? He's got good hands, and if he can have success behind the Lions line, then he should excel behind the Colts line.

I really don't know a lot about him, and I'm certainly not sold on him. But if he has a reasonable chance of regaining his health, he could be a valuable backup for a couple of years. And of course the flip side to the negative of the injuries is that he has a little less mileage on him.      

The next class of Hall of famers includes Fred Dean, Darrell Green, Art Monk, Emmitt Thomas, Andre Tippett, and Gary Zimmerman.

Some very worthy candidates, but to me this year's class will be remembered as the year that Art Monk got in. I mean seriously, he's not a first ballot guy? They should induct him about three different times to make up for that bit of idiocy.

According to the Star:

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071110/SPORTS03/711100513/1100

T.J. Rushing is waived and Craphonso will return kicks. Perhaps they finally decided it was time to Crap or get off the pot.

Seriously though, I was intrigued by Rushing early, but he hasn't been particularly spectacular. I thought Craphonso looked good a few weeks ago when Rushing was hurt. Heaven knows we could use any upgrade we can get on special teams (kickers excluded).

Go to Profootballtalk.com, click on the "Bang it here for the Daily Rumor Mill" link, and then scroll down to to the 8:16 pm, September 26 entry about Vince Wilfork's hit on JP Losman. Watch the YouTube video. That's a no-doubt, intentional elbow-to-the-knee shot.

Seriously, can this team do anything but be a collection of giant jackasses? I'm sure that not every single person in the organization is a total dick, but they seem to have more than the usual share of despicable pieces of crap in New England.

Sorry for not linking, my limited skills can't get the link to work, and you need to see the video anyway....

Update [2007-9-14 18:15:20 by BigBlueShoe]: cynyc is much better at articulating why it is important to talk about Belicheat than I am. Read below, and thanks ctnyc.

Let me apologize in advance if this post seems a little strident; I've been on a 3-day debate with 6th Round and Tommasse over at Pats Pulpit. You can probably imagine how many excuses and baseless accusations I've endured.

Anyway, I want to respond to something that I'm a little bothered by. I've seen several times now (from reputable posters and not-so-reputable posters -- I'm talking to you Archie) that we focus too much on news about other teams or the NFL in general. I disagree, but I want to know others' opinions.

My argument is basically this: yes, this is a Colts website, but the Colts do not exist in a vacuum. Are we really so compartmentalized that we can only talk specifically about the Colts? What happens on other teams and in the league in general affects the Colts. Therefore it is appropriate to discuss. For example, the Patriots are our biggest rivals. An enormous national story about their cheating is absolutely fair game on this site. Or take the case of Tennessee: they're probably our biggest division rival (a Titans-fan friend of mine recently told me that the Colts are certainly perceived in Tennessee as the Titans' biggest rival). Therefore, posts about the crazy antics of Vince Young -- the face of their franchise -- are certainly valid discussion material.

As with anything else, all of this can go too far for some. But those people certainly have the option of stopping reading when they've had enough. There always has been, and I'm sure always will be, plenty of Colts-only material on this site.

So my question is: what are all of your thoughts on this? Why are we here? Should this site be for Colts and only Colts information? Or should we pay attention to the context in which the Colts exist? I obviously have strong opinions about the subject, but am interested to hear what others want/expect from the site.

And if you don't care either way, that's fine too. Thanks for indulging me.  

According to the Tennesseean, Vince Young was benched for last night's game due to violating the team's curfew (apparently he stayed at home rather than with the team in the hotel).

 http://www.rctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070812/SPORTS01/708120402/1002/MTCN0302

I almost didn't post this -- it's just a preseason game and it's not like staying at home is criminal behavior -- but I decided to given our recent debates about VY's leadership qualities. For all those who believed that VY showed great leadership by getting into a scrape with a teammate, what do you say to this?

A big part of being a leader is leading by example. The example VY set in this case is that he doesn't think the rules apply to him, or at the very least that it's not a huge deal to ignore the rules. I realize that the infraction is not terrible (it's not like he was out all night at a strip club or something), but it's the principle that's important. A leader helps guide others to the proper behavior at all times, not just when it's convenient. You don't want your starting QB benched for disciplinary reasons, even in a preseason game. It just doesn't look good, and it doesn't project leadership.

VY obviously has a long ways to go before he can be taken seriously as a leader.