Kevin Jackman

Williams reinstated, headed to Tennessee

The NFL is a much more dangerous place now that former Saints defensive coordinator and head hit man, Gregg Williams, has been reinstated by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Subsequently, the Tennessee Titans went ahead and signed Williams to be the “senior assistant coach of defense”, or whatever that malarkey title is.

It’s funny though because coincidentally, just this past season the Titans had their defensive coordinator, Jerry Gray, draw interest from the NFL due to his comments about Gator trucks. However, with a little internet surfing, this move should come as little surprise. Gray and Williams have a history dating back to the late 90’s when Williams became the head coach of the Bills.

 The Ankiel Experiment

This is not a major headline, or any real news at all, but I found an interesting bit of baseball news as I scrolled through my Twitter feed this  morning. Ben Lindbergh of Baseball Prospectus published a free article on the journey of Micah Owings, detailing his evolution from pitching prospect to potentially being the next Rick Ankiel.

For those of you unfamiliar with Owings, he came up with the D-backs in 2007 as a 25 year old pitching prospect and put up a commendable ERA of 4.30. However after three straight years of a +5.00 ERA, followed by shoulder and elbow issues, Owings retired from the mound. However, through all the bad years on the bump, the one thing going for him was a strong bat. In 205 career at-bats, Owings owns a career .283 batting average and nine homers.

So like Rick Ankiel, Owings has accepted a spring training invitation with the Washington Nationals as…. a position player, and more specifically, a first baseman. The only difference between Owings and Ankiel at this point is that Ankiel made the transition 5 years younger.

Check out the link above though, Lindbergh gives some great in-depth analysis of whether Owings can make it.

Anyone else tired of the Lakers’ drama?

Honestly, we’ve known Kobe is a prima-dona and we knew Dwight is too. We also know Metta World Peace is a head case and Gasol believes he’s the best center in the league, so is anyone really surprised this isn’t working out in L.A.?

The story lines just keep adding on and on and on.

First Gasol gets benched… Pau gets mad. Then Howard gets hurt… Dwight doesn’t seem to care. Then Gasol tears his planter fascia… Pau is out two months. Now Kobe is telling Howard to get his butt back on the court, and Dwight… still doesn’t care. Therefore, if he doesn’t care, neither will I. 

I said at the beginning of the year that the Lakers will not top 50 wins this year and people called me crazy…

Schilling steroid conversation in Boston

I’m not sure if I can take Curt Schilling’s latest comments at face value. Schilling said yesterday on ESPN Radio that members of the Red Sox organization in 2008 approached him with the idea of taking PED’s to overcome an injury.

This has some serious ramifications if it’s true, especially for Cubs fans because in 2008, Epstein and Hoyer were both in Boston. But like I said, the validity of the statement is questionable at best. Not only does he leave the person(s) he is accusing name-less but the entire comment is a little too vague to take serious.

Maybe he will elaborate at some point but until that time comes, this is a non-issue.

Quicky Notes

• Adrian Peterson recently had surgery to repair a sports hernia he suffered in late November, early December. So basically… wow.
• The Ravens say they are “optimistic” that they will sign Joe Flacco… have fun signing an above average game manager to a 20 mil/year contract.
• The Mariners made their first smart decision since 2001 by signing King Felix Hernandez to a 7 year, 175 million dollar contract… too bad they still suck.