Kind of a boring week this week. I spent most of it studying the City’s potential generation and transmission configurations for all kinds of crazy contingencies on the bulk power system this summer. Exciting, right? Heh. Still, that put me way ahead of Sally. She’s been sick as a dog all week. I actually had to skip Tri practice this week so I could stay home and make dinner for the kids and then get them into bed. But what are you gonna do? In sicknes, and in health, right?
Beyond that, the weather’s getting nice, to the point where it’s actually been a pleasure this week—well, most of this week, anyway—to ride to and from work on my folding bike. Granted, I almost got t-boned by a soda truck on Wednesday, but I've managed to be philosophical about it. It's not like he hit me, after all. He just got close. And in any event, I got out for a five-mile run at lunch yesterday in just shorts and tee shirt, and that made everything all right. Highlight of my week, so far. Easily. Beautiful sun, leaves budding on the trees of Central Park, and plenty of girls out strolling around…
I’m a simple man who enjoys simple pleasures. Running in the Park yesterday was exactly what the doctor ordered.
So. Here are some of the things that caught my eye this week. With the Draft coming up, most of them are about my favorite NFL teams.
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| I ran around Central Park Reservoir on Thursday. It was easily the highlight of my week. |
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As the U.S. Army starts to think about how it’s going to draw down from its commitments in Afghanistan, I find it wholly unsurprising that businesses operating in the country are planning to more or less leave when the soldiers do. It’s sad, but what do you expect? The government seems to have made its decision, and any thinking that business-folk are somehow going to risk either their lives or their assets in an effort to change the world for the better can only be based on a misunderstanding of the nature of business and businesspeople—particularly when the effort in question has already been abandoned by the U.S. military.
Now I grant you that the U.S. Army hasn’t left yet. And maybe they won’t. But I don’t think that’s the way I would bet. For instance, there aren’t any of the presidential candidates for whom Afghanistan is a signature issue. And if there were, it’s a sure bet that promising to stay there longer wouldn’t win them any votes.
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The Tennessee Titans are still looking for a Free Agent Center. The latest candidate is former Patriots Center Dan Koppen, but he is only the latest of a pretty long string. Fact is, the Titans’ interior offensive line was so bad at run-blocking last year that frankly it’s hard to tell whether Chris Johnson lost a step or just didn’t have anywhere to run. Personally, a healthy part of my money’s on “lost a step”, but in any event, I’d like to see the team at least attempting to open some decent holes in the center. Else we’re likely to have an offense based on Jake Locker’s arm, and yeah, that might work too, but again… that’s probably not the way I bet. At least not next year.
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In more football news—at least the kind I care about—the Giants signed a Safety, 2nd year journeyman Stevie Brown. I’ve never heard of Brown and doubt this is anything more than a move made to improve depth, but then again, if there’s one area in which the Giants have excelled the last few years, it’s in team depth. Both times they’ve won the Super Bowl recently, it has been with teams that were starting a large number of no-name players following key injuries to starters. This is part of why folks (sometimes) consider GM Jerry Reese a genius, though to be fair, it’s hard to know how much of the success is actually on Reese finding good quality back-ups and how much is on Coach Tom Coughlin finding a way to make decent use of replacement-value players.
With all of that said, the Giants also look like they need a running back now that my man Brandon Jacobs is gone. I don’t know why, but my fandom never really bonded with Ahmad Bradshaw, and in any event, he’s apparently got a bunch of recurring foot injuries that are an ongoing concern. Anyway, speculation is that the Giants will take a RB in the draft, but I personally doubt it’ll be a first rounder. My money’s on a first round Tight End and a second or third round running back.
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Since folks seemed to like the Tim Tebow talk last week, let me also mention that former Giant Amani Toomer told The New York Post recently that he predicts Tebow will be the Jets’ starter some time next season.
No word on how much Toomer’s publicist got paid for getting that piece of utter insignificance into the Post in the first place.
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Still on the Jets… is it any surprise that HBO’s looking at a Jets’ sequel for Hard Knocks? I mean, really. How could they not be?
Which, of course, brings up a serious question. If Tebow’s gonna be on HBO, how long before Daenerys Targaryen initiates him into real manhood? And can we get that on Pay-per-View?
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Finally, I used to like former Saints Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams, but now I think he should be banned from the League for life. Urging his players to inflict concussions on opponents and/or tear ACL is, quite honestly, totally beyond the pale. I mean, I get that this is his livelihood and all, but that’s also true of the other guys. Just ‘cause it’s football doesn’t make it all right to literally try and kill somebody.
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That’s all I got.
Have a good weekend!
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