Posts tagged Andre Johnson

Arkansas WR Greg Childs: Career Resurrection?

0 Comments read Players, Wide Receiver
Ryan Williams is working his way back from a Career Near-Death Experience. See what WR Greg Childs was like before his.

The Career Near-Death Experience. This is one of my favorite Bloomisms of football writing. A Bloomism is what I call the slang that Footballguys and Bleacher Report Draft Analyst Sigmund Bloom (who is also a medalist in some Writer-Olympiad) creates to encompass various football experiences, states of mind, or rights of passage in the sport.

The Career Near-Death Experience is an event where a player faces his career mortality. All players face it at some point. Those that don’t cross to the other side discover a new and better way to approach the game. Former wide receiver Cris Carter had a career near-death experience as drug addict when playing with the Philadelphia Eagles and Coach Buddy Ryan helped save the receiver with a southern fried reprise of the ghost of Christmas Future.

The career near-death experience can also manifest Continue reading →

Q&A w/Chron.com’s Texans Chick Steph Stradley

0 Comments read Matt Waldman
Will the Texans draft a complement for Andre Johnson or his eventual replacement? Steph Stradley and talk Texans draft on her Houston Chronicle blog.

Steph Stradley, who is known as the Texans Chick, has an excellent blog on The Houston Chronicle’s web site. We took some time to do a Q&A about the Texans draft. Here’s an except below and a link to the rest:

. . . In any event, just as I love talking Texans football, Matt loves talking draft. My kind of people.

Our Discussion Below:

Steph: Everybody is talking Texans and wide receiver. Things I think that the Texans may value for their wide receivers over some other teams in no particular are:

1. Special teams ability and speed for same (very key for WR and corners. If they can’t get on field right away as starter, they want as special teams return option because Kubiak hates specialists).

2. Captain, leadership, love of football, good lockerroom guy, bright, hardworking, can pick up details of playbook quickly (applies to all positions on the field).

3. Route running

4. Hands

5. Blocking (this may translate into size–they like being able to run out of formations that usually signal pass but they can block with a WR players typically blocked by TEs).

6. From Texas/southern. Guys who may want to stay in this part of the world after their first contract. Can deal with heat.

I think they may take a big WR and a slot special teams sort of guy. I also think that their draft board tends to look very different than consensus Kiper boards. So I’m looking for some unconventional choices too. Think they are perpetually chasing the modern Rod Smith–a value who can take advantage of the offensive scheme.

Question 1: With these items in mind, which wide receivers might the Texans target at or near the bottom of the first round?

Matt: “A lot of the better NFL receivers of the past 10-15 years have remained productive well into their mid-thirties so I’m not concerned about Andre Johnson’s immediate future. So when I listen you’re run-down of what you believe the Texans want from their receivers I think you’re on the money. It means the team is likely seeking a flanker (Z receiver) to complement Johnson, but has the vertical prowess to take over Johnson’s role as the X.

The receivers projected to go in the 1st-2nd round after Kendall Wright and Justin Blackmon include Notre Dame’s Michael Floyd, LSU’s Reuben Randle, Rutgers’ Mohamed Sanu, and Georgia Tech’s Stephen Hill.

Neither Blackmon nor Sanu are vertical threats – they will never become X receivers. But they are physical, glue-fingered flankers that can get yardage after the catch and return kicks. Blackmon is the better route runner, but (read the rest of the Q&A here) . . .

Walk On The Wildside: Unwritten Rules Of Football (and Life)

0 Comments read Walk on the Wild Side
Derek Anderson, as my old friend Russ Bell would say, “It’s just f’n whiffle ball.” Photo by Matt McGee

This is an opinion piece of mine from last year that I delivered for my weekly segment “A Walk on the Wildside,” at The Audible on Thursday nights at 10pm EST. The opinions expressed here are not those of The Audible, Cecil Lammey, Sigmund Bloom, or Footballguys.com

As many of you know, I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, home of Coca-Cola.

If you’ve never been to Georgia then you might not realize how much Coke is a part of life around here. Unless of course, you’re a (North) Cackalacky like my wife who still wonders why people look at her funny when she asks for a Pepsi. There are some things you just don’t do – or at least have the sense to know what you’re getting into when you do it.

Coke is so ingrained around here that my buddy Russ Bell, who runs a local grocery chain in Athens, made the drink a semi-official sponsor for his obsession with wiffle ball.  Yes. Wiffle Ball.

Years ago, Bell became the owner-proprietor-groundskeeper of a wiffle ball diamond. Not so coincidentally it was part of a package deal in the mortgage that included his first home (as backyards generally are). Just off the bank of a small river that runs beyond the boundary of his backyard, Bell christened his ballpark Frank Field.

Frank Field was inspired by Bell’s love of two people: Continue reading →