Wilbits: Jets, Tebow, Arenas

Usually, extreme trash talking before a game annoys me, especially when the guys doing all the talking have no hardware and the opponent they're playing is a proven champion. Having said that, the Jets mouthing off going into Sunday's Patriots-Jets game somehow doesn't bother me. Safety Kerry Rhodes tells my friend Gary Myers of the New York Daily News that the Jets are way past trying to just beat the Patriots; they want to "embarrass them." He's already picked the number of times the Jets are going to knock down the Golden Boy, Tom Brady: six.

Of course, the Jets, Rhodes in particular, will look pretty stupid if they get whacked by the Patriots. Thing is, with some teams it would come off as phony, but not guys who play for Rex Ryan, who could care less if Rhodes' boasts become bulletin board fodder for the Patriots. Buddy Ryan's players, whether we're talking about the Bears defense in 1984 and 1985 or the Eagles teams of the late 1980s, always popped off. There wasn't a microphone under every players' nose then, nor were the Web-sites or blogs and players with Twitter accounts. If Rex Ryan's teams play as well as Buddy's the Patriots are at the very least in for a nasty encounter in East Rutherford ...

-- Do the Jaguars really think drafting Tim Tebow is going to lead to thousands of season ticket sales, as if he can have the impact on the team and the league of, say, LeBron James? While most every scout agreed that James was a transcendent talent, Tebow, remember, is ranked in the low- to mid-20s on most draft boards. We don't know for sure, unlike LeBron, whether Tebow can even be a player of impact in the NFL, much less right away to the degree that the promise of his performance can generate ticket sales.

Okay, Jacksonville isn't a pro sports town exactly, but it isn't really a full-blown college town either. The club has lost 17,000 season tickets but I doubt simply drafting a rookie, even one as beloved in Florida as Tebow, is going to make people in these economic times reach for their wallets. Thinking Tebow is going to rescue the franchise would put a ton of pressure on the kid. The last time a kid QB was going to be a franchise saver was Brady Quinn when he left Notre Dame for Cleveland. Quinn barely even won the starting job this summer...

-- I'm confused about Gilbert Arenas's comments to the Washington Times this week that, essentially, the Wizards should have stopped him from trying to come back too quickly after his first knee injury. "Sometimes," he told the Times, "you have to protect players from themselves. ...They should have held me back." What I've been told by numerous Wizards employees over the last two years is that the team did try to hold Arenas back, that doctors and trainers told him he was going too fast and doing too much, and that Arenas rejected their projections for his rehabilitation. ... Arenas has mostly held his tongue on this issue ... until recently.

Yes, teams have to assert themselves, but the problem I have with Gilbert's take here is that he has always set his own practice and fitness agenda. Before the first knee injury, it all worked. But I'm told that when Arenas was asked to slow it down, he flatly said no. It all makes me wonder if this marriage between Arenas and the Wizards is ever going to work. Flip Saunders, according to players who played for him and liked him tremendously in Minnesota and Detroit, simply avoids confrontation. That's not going to work with Arenas, especially since Ernie Grunfeld could play the Bad Cop but is the one who handed Gil $111 million. ...The best news to come out of this is Arenas saying his explosion is back. ... It needs to be. If Arenas isn't great again the Wizards won't come close to contending and the club wouldn't be able to deal a max player who couldn't play up to his contract.

-- Floyd Mayweather isn't a sporting icon because his fights are material to snore to. He and Bernard Hopkins are great fighters, technically, but of zero entertainment value. Race has nothing to do with Mayweather's lack of profile. ... Perhaps somebody should point out to him that Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, George Foreman, Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns among others are African American fighters who had HUGE profiles. ...The other thing they had in common: they were thrilling to watch, which Mayweather isn't.

Posted by: snowborder7654 | September 22, 2009 11:29 AM
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Posted by: popopo | September 20, 2009 11:27 AM
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