Follow-up to the HONG KONG SEVENS rugby tournament

Lots of international sports news this week, especially from across the Pacific - between the Cricket World Cup (won by Australia over New Zealand, with India and South Africa as the other semi-finalists), and the start of the Australian Football League season tomorrow (meaning, 3 a.m. or so for us!), it's been busy! 

We covered the round-robin rounds of the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament, the crown jewel of the world-tour of international rugby squads, and how the Americans had managed to play above their heads and land a one-seed going into the knock-out round Sunday morning! Alas... Rocky Balboa did not arrive.

The tournament was won by Fiji, defeating New Zealand 33-19 in the Cup Finals Sunday evening. Third place went to South Africa, who came up big against Samoa 26 to 5. The Americans ended in sixth place, falling in the "Plate Finals" to Australia in a close, 21-17 affair. The other two "finals" were from the consolation bracket, where Scotland defeated France 26-5 for the "Bowl", and in the "Shield" bracket, won by Kenya over Japan, 26-7.

As I'm reading the final results, here are the rankings of the teams on this particular weekend...
1. Fiji
2. New Zealand
3. South Africa
4. Samoa
5. Australia
6. United States
7/8. Argentina and England
9. Scotland
10. France
11/12. Canada and Wales
13. Kenya
14. Japan
15/16. Portugal and Belgium.

Beyond that were the twelve "qualifier" nations, all vying for the chance to move up to the grown-ups' table with a good showing. Russia defeated Zimbabwe 22-19 for the qualifiers title (it doesn't get a fancy name like all the top placements, I guess!), with Papau New Guinea and Spain in what amounted to 19th/20th place. Uruguay, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Brazil lost in the quarterfinals, placing them in the theoretical places 21-24, and the four teams who failed to make the knock-out stage were Mexico (routed easily in all three matches), Tunisia (who scored two touchdowns in its three matches combined), Tonga and Guyana, both demolished by Zimbabwe and Spain, but at least Tonga was able to win one game, beating the Guyanese 36-24 for some moral victory points. 

Essendon Footy players CLEARED of all doping charges

The 34 players involved in the AFL doping scandal at the Essendon Bombers footy club in 2012 have all been cleared of wrongdoing by the Australian Sports Anti-Drug Agency (ASADA), and are free of any sanctions, suspensions, or other penalties that would have been handed down had the tribunal found otherwise. 

That group includes a massive number from Essendon itself, so many that the Dons have been preparing retired players and minor leaguers in case their roster was decimated by a guilty verdict today. It also includes stars Angus Monfries from Port Adelaide and Stewart Crameri of the Western Bulldogs, both of whom had moved on from the club since 2012.

Here are a slough of articles from AFL.com.au that hit the topic from all angles:

Thirty-four present and former Essendon players cleared of all wrong-doing.
Here's a blow-by-blow of the day's events coming out of the courtroom, plus the reactions around the sport...
The actual statement from the ASADA tribunal...
A very important detail, in my opinion: the repenting of Essendon head coach James Hird, who in any reckoning of this sorrowful tale is guilty of no less than atrocious judgment, if not far worse.
The reaction of the players involved, like superstar and Brownlow medal winner Jobe Watson, whose comments include, "I'd forgotten what it was like to play and not have this dark cloud over my head."
Where the Essendon club goes from here...specifically, into round one on Sunday against the powerhouse Sydney Swans.
The statement of Essendon chairman Paul Little, hoping for an end to the nightmare.
And the final word on the subject (from our perspective), from AFL president/CEO Gillan McLaughlin, hoping that there won't be any appeals and that the league and its personnel can get on with the business of playing footy again.

From my perspective, here's what it means: The tribunals got this right. This was not (from all reports) a player-driven cheating scandal, like the Americans Lance Armstrong or Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez. The players involved were given supplements, not unlike the league-approved vitamins and medicines they are often given for strength and pain-relief and the like. This was a club-driven program, with the people who ran the show in the wrong: trainer, coach, and so forth. The penalty for the head medico is still coming sometime in April, but the coach served a one-year ban (I'm not sure it shouldn't have been longer), the club was banished from the playoffs (one week before they started - an unprecedented hammer!) and paid a $2M fine, and the penalties for the others involved from the administrative end seem, from this distance, to have been punitive enough. The players were victims, and the tribunal saw that.

And now, it's time to move on - for Essendon, and for footy.

Great news for Footy Fans!

Google Australia announced it had partnered with the Australian rules football league to develop the gBall:

The gBall contains inbuilt GPS and motion sensor systems to monitor the location, force and torque of each kick. The data is interpreted by a new curvilenear parabolic approximation algorithm developed in Google's Sydney office, known as DENNIS ("Dimensional, Elastic, Non-Linear, Network-Neutral, Inertial Sequencing"), which plots the ball's trajectory, accuracy and distance.
Using artificial intelligence technology, Google can provide users - from amateurs to professional players - with detailed online kicking tips, style suggestions and tutorials based on their gBall kicking data.
Kicking data is also sent to national talent scouts and player agents. The gBall will vibrate if talent scouts or player agents want to make contact with the user. Users can log in to their gBall account to make contact.

Rugby fans - it's the Hong Kong Sevens!

Our rugby fan base pointed out that the "World Cup" of the sevens-form of rugby's going on in Hong Kong this weekend - the 40th edition of the big event on the World tour of the international sevens tour. 

The site doesn't tally up the round-robin round, but the American team actually won its group for a change, earning a top seeded position alongside powerhouses New Zealand, South Africa, and Fiji "tonight" (Sunday, HK time). 

Group D - US first, England second; Wales (3rd) and Kenya (4th) moved into the "bowl and shield" consolation side.
Group C - South Africa handled this group easily, and moves on with Argentina; France and Japan fall into the consolation round.
Group B - The Kiwis and Aussies were placed together, and it's New Zealand's BLACKCAPS who won their group stage game 14-5, placing them first and the Aussies second; Portugal and Scotland never had a chance to advance, realistically.
Group A - Fiji dominated Samoa in their meeting to place first in group A; Canada fared well but placed third, and falls into the consolation round with Belgium.

There were also groups E, F, and G, for the twelve Qualifier countries trying to work their way up into the "major leagues". (There is a relegation system in place. Don't ask me how it works - I don't know for sure.) 

In group E, Hong Kong, Brazil, and South Korea all went 2-1 and qualified for the qualifier quarterfinals, but all lost in that knockout round. (Mexico was their punching bag.)
Group F included Papua New Guinea, Russia, and South Korea moving on to the knockout round (Tunisia went 0-3).
And in group G, only Spain (3-0) and Zimbabwe (2-1) moved on. (Tonga and Guyana both finished with negative differentials, and went 1-5 between them.)

The quarters were held later on Saturday (which in Hong Kong time has already happened!) - as mentioned, all three Group E qualifiers were defeated, leaving Papua New Guinea to play Russia and Spain to play Zimbabwe early Sunday.

The consolation bracket quarterfinals will pit Canada/Kenya, France/Portugal, Wales/Belgium, and Scotland/Japan - the eventual winner receives the "bowl", and the consolation winner receives the "shield". (So, everyone's guaranteed two more games.)

The actual championship bracket is down to eight of the 28 teams: Fiji/England, then South Africa/Australia (tough game!), USA/Samoa (tough, too!), and New Zealand/Argentina. The winner receives the "cup"...not sure where the "plate" goes in this.

AFL predictions from the AFL media

The annual survey of the afl.com.au staff on a wide variety of predictions for the 2015 season - no HUGE surprises, but it'll give you a great feel for the landscape of the upcoming AFL season.

So, for fairness' sake, here are my commesurate forecasts...
TOP EIGHT: Hawthorn - Sydney - North Melbourne - Port Adelaide - Fremantle - Adelaide - Geelong - either Richmond or Gold Coast.
PREMIER: Hawthorn Hawks
RUNNER-UP: Sydney Swans
WOODEN SPOON (last place): St. Kilda
MOVING UP: N. Melbourne, GWS
SET TO FALL: Carlton
Brownlow Medal ("mvp"): Nat Fyfe (Fremantle)
Coleman Medal (most goals): Jarryd Roughhead (Hawthorn)
NAB AFL Rising Star: Honestly? I don't know.
Coach of the Year: Alistair Clarkston (Hawthorn)
Recruit of the Year: Mitch Clark (Geelong)
Surprise All-Australian: Marcus Bontempelli (Western Bulldogs)
Headline you'll see: Third time's the charm! Hawthorn v Sydney for the title!
Headline you WON'T see: All the stars make it through the season injury-free!
Everyone will be talking about: The race for the Brownlow - Ablett, Fyfe, Coleman, Franklin, Dangerfield...
How many goals will Lance Franklin kick? 60 - he'll be in the Coleman race!
Which new coach will win the most game? Adelaide's new coach, Phil Walsh
Will Patrick Dangerfield stay at Adelaide? They all say no, but I hope he does!

So, following the 'NAB Preseason', here are our 2015 AFL predictions!

As the last nine games of the pre-season conclude this weekend with some of the traditional crosstown rivalries, we've done a simulation of the upcoming season from what we've seen so far. Here are the results, with checkpoints throughout the projected 2015 season:

After April (4 games in) -

4-0) ADELAIDE
3-1) HAWTHORN, NORTH, PORT, RICHMOND, GWS, BRISBANE
2-2) SYDNEY, GEELONG, GOLD COAST, ESSENDON, FREMANTLE
1-3) WEST COAST, COLLINGWOOD, CARLTON, WESTERN
0-4) MELBOURNE, ST KILDA

Odd to see the Crows alone on top, but they've got an easy April to start the season.

Halfway through (after round 10, right before the byes) -

9-1) HAWTHORN, PORT ADELAIDE
7-2-1) ADELAIDE
7-3) SYDNEY,  NORTH MELBOURNE
6-4) GOLD COAST, FREMANTLE, RICHMOND
5-4-1) GWS
5-5) ESSENDON, GEELONG
4-6) WESTERN, BRISBANE
3-7) WEST COAST
2-8) COLLINGWOOD, CARLTON, MELBOURNE
0-10) ST KILDA

Now the cream will start to rise...Port and the Hawks occupy the top two spots, and six of last year's top eight are there again, joined by the Crows and Suns. Note Geelong 5-5, West Coast at 3-7, the Magpies with just 2 wins, and the Saints on a ten game losing streak.

After sixteen rounds, with just seven games to go...

14-1) HAWTHORN
12-3) PORT, NORTH
11-4) SYDNEY
10-4-1) ADELAIDE
9-6) FREMANTLE, RICHMOND, GOLD COAST
So, the top eight are unchanged from the last list...and a gap to...
7-7-1) GWS
7-8) GEELONG, ESSENDON, WESTERN
5-10) WEST COAST
4-11) BRISBANE, COLLINGWOOD
3-12) CARLTON, MELBOURNE
2-13) ST KILDA

And finally, our forecast for the final records for the 2015 season:
1. Hawthorn Hawks (19-3)
2. Sydney Swans (18-4)
3. North Melbourne Kangaroos (18-4)
4. Port Adelaide Power (15-7)
5. Fremantle Dockers (15-7)
6. Adelaide Crows (14-7-1)
7. Geelong Cats (13-9)
8/9. Richmond/Gold Coast (12-10)!!!
10. Essendon Bombers (11-11)
11. GWS Giants (10-11-1)
12. Western Bulldogs (9-12-1)
13. West Coast Eagles (8-14)
14. Collingwood Magpies (7-15)
15. Brisbane Lions (6-15-1)
16. Melbourne Demons (5-17)
17. Carlton Blues (3-19)
18. St. Kilda Saints (2-20)

Reviewing these, a few points...the top two are unchanged from last year, and we expect a repeat of last year's Grand Final participants...Port will fade, Freo will charge, but the percentage will keep the Power in the top four for the double chance during finals...Geelong and Sydney will both end the season well, our prediction suggesting that the Cats will end on a 7 of 8 run, and the Swans will win their last ten... We see Richmond and Gold Coast as a flat footed tie, which means ,argins of victory (and defeat!) will be critical all year for them!... Hard to fault the Dons if they don't make finals after the distractions...GWS should make another four win jump, and don't be shocked if it's more... Continuing to fall, West Coast and Collingwood and Carlton and St. Kilda, while Melbourne and Brisbane and Western will improve. Again, we see another Hawthorn/Sydney GF, and just as we won't stick our neck out for 8th, we also won't for first! Right now, we'd take the defenders...

The latest down under on all fronts!

The top all-footy news show in Australia, Footy Feed, looks like it's the best and quickest way to catch you up to speed on all the wild and varied goings-on in the AFL on and off the field...strike that: off the field. The lingering Essendon supplements scandal, the revelation early in the week about the banned painkiller in Fremantle star Ryan Crowley's system last September, the strangely insubstantial seeming betting scandal involving Western Bulldogs Lachie Hunter, and the weird situation involving the Melbourne Demons' Heretier Lumumba questioning the AFL about the doping rules as they might be applied to (of all things) passive marijuana exposure due to his connection with Rastafarianism during his time in the Caribbean.

It's been a wild few weeks in Australia! (And it's only the pre-season...excuse me: the "NAB pre-season"!)

ON the field, there were three games Thursday and Friday VERY much worth watching: 

1) Essendon's second stringers came up big against Melbourne Friday, stealing an errant pass to score an uncontested goal that won the game, 77-75. (And you don't think it meant something to those 'kids'? Watch their celebration at the end of the video!) Both teams look like they're heading the right direction.

2) Speaking of which, my two favorite Queensland teams, Gold Coast and the Brisbane Lions, played to a 63-all tie (a rare but not ridiculous occurrence - it happens once or twice a year), with both teams looking up and down, mostly good but also missing a few key bodies. (Gold Coast has played all pre-season without two-time MVP - that is, Brownlow Medal winner - Gary Ablett Jr, as they played the last eight games of 2014 when they fell out of finals. With him, the Suns figure to be favorites to make at least the top 8, maybe even the top 4.)

3) And on Thursday night, Hawthorn and Saint Kilda played a highly uncompetitive game, but it was just as entertaining because it was an absolute clinic by the two-time defending champions in a 145-39 spanking of last year's "wooden spoon" winners. Hard not to tab Hawthorn as the pre-season favorites after their pre-season performance.

Where is football heading? Bad news, NFL.

And this, from ESPN's Kevin Seifert, on the most obvious ramification of the growing concussion fear among actual players at the NFL (and to a lesser extent college) level - who is it who will continue to play football even when your long term viability as a human being comes into question when you play it?

The same people who still go into boxing. The young men with nothing to lose.

Malcolm Barnwell calls it the coming "ghettoization of football". If you're from middle or upper class stock, and you have other ways of making a good living available to you? HELL, no, you don't go into boxing, and HELL NO, you won't go into football pretty soon. But if you're from the ghetto? And you know the only way to money is either drug dealing or football? Where do I sign up?

And, football as an industry needs to take a hard look at what's happened to boxing in the last thirty years or so (and it took much less to get to this point). When I was a kid, forty years ago, Muhammed Ali was the baddest dude on the planet. Name the current heavyweight champ. You can't, can you? Only a select few give a crap, and only a very few fights bring anything even slightly resembling the attention that major fights used to. (Will Mayweather/Paciao? I don't know. But I can't name the last one.)

That's what football has to look forward to. Not death, but something worse. 

Insignificance.

More on Chris Borland - and the surprising lack of shock in his early retirement

The most poignant thing in this article, a follow-up to the piece we linked this morning noting the retirement of 49ers linebacker Chris Borland at the tender age of twenty-four, after just one season, is the last section, from former Jets star Wesley Walker. Truthfully, his words bring tears:

Wesley Walker, 59, who played 13 years with the Jets, said he's had surgeries on his neck, back, shoulders, knees and Achilles that he attributed to his football career. He said that he suffers from spinal stenosis and nerve damage, that he feels pain in his arms and fingers, and that he's had 14 screws and a plate inserted into his neck and 10 screws and two rods inserted into his back.

"I admire [Borland] for what he did. I admire him for being man enough and smart enough to know what's more important in life," Walker told ESPN.com's Ian O'Connor. "If I had to do it over again, and I knew I'd end up in the amount of pain I'm always in, there's no way in hell I'd play football again. With all of my injuries, including my neck, I took a chance of breaking my neck and ending up in a wheelchair. I look back and ask, 'What was I thinking?' "

"Every individual has to make his own decision, and there's so much money to be made these days. But is money more important, or is your life more important? I could never see myself hurting myself, but there have been times when I've thought, 'God, I wish you'd just end this right now.' I don't sleep, I'm in constant pain, I haven't felt my feet in 20 years. I feel like there are times when my whole body shuts down. Sometimes I feel like I'm 90 years old.

"[Commissioner] Roger Goodell is a good friend of mine. But I want the NFL to tell truth about what's happening with players, and I think they sugarcoat everything."

The thought of retirement came many months ago for Borland, who played through concussion during training camp and realized that was facing him the rest of his career if he wanted to be good at his choice of vocation. 

Borland told "Outside The Lines" that he had been thinking about leaving football as the 2014 season went along, and wrote a letter to his parents late in the year. After the season, he consulted with prominent concussion researchers and former players to affirm his decision.

"I've thought about what I could accomplish in football, but for me, personally, when you read about Mike Webster and Dave Duerson and Ray Easterling, you read all these stories, and to be the type of player I want to be in football, I think I'd have to take on some risks that, as a person, I don't want to take on."

Borland was referring to former NFL greats who were diagnosed with the devastating brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, after their deaths. Duerson and Easterling committed suicide.

Borland said he began to have misgivings during training camp. He said he suffered what he believed to be a concussion stuffing a running play but played through it, in part because he was trying to make the team.

"I just thought to myself, 'What am I doing? Is this how I'm going to live my adult life, banging my head, especially with what I've learned and know about the dangers?'"

The saddest reaction, for me, came from Green Bay Packers director of player personnel Eliot Wolf, who tweeted the following (as if it contradicted Borland's actions):

"Anyone worried about the future of football should see the amount of calls & emails we get from kids literally begging to get into pro days."

It's not the future of football I'm worried about, Mr. Wolf, but the future of those kids begging to get into pro days.

49ers' Chris Borland retires...at 24...in good health...because...

Read this article. 

The outstanding rookie linebacker Chris Borland, formerly of the Wisconsin Badgers and stand-out fill-in for the injured Patrick Willis last season, is retiring after his rookie season, and he says there's just one reason for it.

"I just honestly want to do what's best for my health," Borland told "Outside the Lines." "From what I've researched and what I've experienced, I don't think it's worth the risk."
"I feel largely the same, as sharp as I've ever been. For me, it's wanting to be proactive," Borland said. "I'm concerned that if you wait 'til you have symptoms, it's too late. ... There are a lot of unknowns. I can't claim that X will happen. I just want to live a long, healthy life, and I don't want to have any neurological diseases or die younger than I would otherwise." 

This is the highest-profile player to decide that his quality of life was more important than the job he had spent his life building up to. Concussions are becoming a very serious thing, folks, and football as an entity needs to figure that out FAST!

Now...about the NFL trade period...wow!

We don't even know where to start. 

St. Louis and the Philadelphia Kellys trading starting quarterbacks?

New Orleans having a fire sale?

San Francisco losing all these great players (and coaches!) and then picking up a ton of new ones as well?

The entire AFC East getting TONS better? Especially Buffalo - that's my new co-favorite (because until New England falls, I'm not betting against them...).

Seattle getting Jimmy Graham? Dallas losing DeMarco Murray? Miami signing Ndamukong Suh? (I spelled that without looking it up! Proud of me!)

And what will the Eagles look like when Chip gets done?

I think the best advice I've heard, and many wise pundits have repeated it many times, is this: It's only March 16, people. There's plenty of time - there are many more dominoes to fall - the draft is still coming. 

When the dust settles and summer arrives...then we can make our evaluations.

(But it's going to be fun to see what those teams we've named in particular look like then!)

Here is the latest update from Rotoworld and NBC Sports as to where each of the free agents in the NFL has signed ...

Starting with some Aussie Footy first...

There was another weekend of warm-up games down under, and the big news was the suspension and possible ending of the career of Fremantle star Ryan Crowley, who copped to using a banned substance in a pain-killer last September. The article has some interesting things to say about how and why narcotic and codeine based pain killers work the way they do, and the reasons for banning them when (unlike PEDs) they don't strictly speaking improve performance. Definitely worth a read, whether you follow the Australian brand of football or not.

As for the games themselves, both Essendon and Port Adelaide put out teams that were barely shells of their actual rosters - Essendon because of the 2012 supplement scandal we've addressed many times, and Port for less excusable reasons (in my humble opinion), resulting in games won very easily by GWS and Richmond, respectively. Carlton had a good win against Collingwood, and the game between Melbourne Demons and the Western Bulldogs was interesting, as the Dees went out to a huge lead (60-8!) just after halftime and hardly scored again, as the Doggies came back to close the gap to just seven by the final horn. Sydney and Fremantle played what was designated as the Pride Game, ostensibly recognizing sexual orientation choice but somehow never coming out and saying as much... nevertheless, it was disappointing for the stars it didn't include in the pre-season outing. (Sorry - "outing" is a bad choice of words for a gay pride game.) The best game of the weekend was probably Thursday night between Geelong and Adelaide, as both teams put their best players out on the field for a good game won by the Cats of Geelong, a town north of Melbourne with a long footy history. Both teams are favorites to make the final 8 this year.

More NFL trade talk...

And the hits keep coming... Ryan Fitzpatrick to the Jets...Is there a positive outcome for either team in the Nick Foles to the Rams/Sam Bradford to Philly trade?...Jimmy Graham to Seattle from the Saints makes sense from both sides (New Orleans is WAY over the cap), but it apparently isn't making Graham a happy man!...Finally, Peter King has his usual great insight into the amazing changes throughout the NFL landscape over the last week in his Monday Wednesday Morning Quarterback column, including some interesting notes about the probable number one pick in the draft, Jamies Winston.

Free Agent Tracker Extraordinaire!

NBC has an extremely comprehensive list of ALL the free agents in the NFL this off-season, and if and where they've signed as of now... Here are a couple of the highlights, but check out the entire list (IT'S YUUGE!, as the Donald would say!) on this link.

Quarterbacks
1. Mark Sanchez (Re-signed 2-year, $9M deal with PHI)
2. Jake Locker (Retired)

3. Josh McCown (Signed 3-year, $14M deal with CLE)

4. Brian Hoyer (Agreed to multi-year deal with HOU)
5. Matt Moore
6. Ryan Mallett (Re-signed 2-year, $7M deal with HOU)
7. Christian Ponder
8. Tarvaris Jackson

9. Shaun Hill (Signed 2-year, $6.5M deal with MIN)
10. Michael Vick
11. Matt Hasselbeck (Re-signed 1-year, $3M deal with IND)
12. Colt McCoy
13. Jimmy Clausen (Re-signed 1-year, $1.25M deal with CHI)
14. Jason Campbell
15. Dan Orlovsky (Re-signed 1-year, $1.05M deal with DET)
16. Blaine Gabbert (Re-signed 2-year, $2M deal with SF)
17. Kellen Moore (Re-signed 2-year, $1.825M deal with DET)
18. T.J. Yates (Re-signed 1-year, $1.5M deal with ATL)
19. Tyrod Taylor
20. Matt Flynn

Running Backs
1. DeMarco Murray
2. C.J. Spiller
3. Ryan Mathews (Agreed to undisclosed deal with PHI)
4. Mark Ingram (Re-signed 4-year, $16M deal with NO)
5. Justin Forsett
6. Frank Gore (Agreed to 3-year, $12M deal with IND)
7. Shane Vereen (Agreed to 3-year, $12.35M deal with NYG)
8. Stevan Ridley
9. Roy Helu (Agreed to 2-year, $4M deal with OAK)

10. Reggie Bush

Wide Receivers
1. Dez Bryant (Franchise Tagged)
2. Demaryius Thomas (Franchise Tagged)
3. Randall Cobb (Re-signed 4-year, $40M deal with GB)
4. Jeremy Maclin (Agreed to multi-year deal with KC)
5. Torrey Smith (Signed 5-year, $40M deal with SF)

6. Andre Johnson

7. Percy Harvin
8. Michael Crabtree

9. Stevie Johnson

10. Kenny Britt
11. Cecil Shorts

12. Brian Hartline (Signed 2-year, $6M deal with CLE)

Tight Ends
1. Julius Thomas (Signed 5-year, $46M deal with JAX)
2. Jordan Cameron
3. Charles Clay (Transition Tagged)
4. Jermaine Gresham
5. Niles Paul (Re-signed 3-year, $6M deal with WAS)
6. Virgil Green (Re-signed 3-year, $8.4M deal with DEN)

7. Rob Housler
8. Owen Daniels (Signed 3-year, $12M deal with DEN)
9. Lance Kendricks (Re-signed 4-year, $18.5M deal with STL)

10. Zach Miller

Edge Defenders
1. Justin Houston (Franchise Tagged)
2. Jerry Hughes (Re-signed 5-year, $45M deal with BUF)
3. Jason Pierre-Paul (Franchise Tagged)
4. Greg Hardy
5. Brian Orakpo
6. Pernell McPhee (Agreed to 5-year, $40M deal with CHI)
7. Jabaal Sheard
8. Jason Worilds (Retired)
9. Brandon Graham (Re-signed 4-year, $26M deal with PHI)

Interior Defensive Linemen

1. Ndamukong Suh (Agreed to 6-year, $114M deal with MIA)
2. Nick Fairley
3. Terrance Knighton
4. Dan Williams (Agreed to undisclosed deal with OAK)
5. Jared Odrick (Signed 5-year, $42.5M deal with JAX)
6. Stephen Paea (Agreed to four-year, $21M deal with WAS)
7. C.J. Mosley
8. Henry Melton

9. Vince Wilfork

10. Darnell Dockett (Signed 2-year, $7.5M deal with SF)

Cornerbacks

1. Darrelle Revis (Agreed to 5-year, $70M deal with NYJ)
2. Byron Maxwell (Agreed to 6-year, $63M deal with PHI)
3. Brandon Flowers (Re-signed 4-year, $36M deal with SD)
4. Tramon Williams
5. Antonio Cromartie
6. Buster Skrine (Signed 4-year, $25M contract with NYJ)
7. Kareem Jackson (Re-signed 4-year, $34M deal with HOU)

8. Davon House (Agreed to 4-year, $25M deal with JAX)

Kickers
1. Stephen Gostkowski (Re-signed 1-year, $4.59M deal with NE)
2. Matt Bryant (Re-signed 3-year, $8.5M deal with ATL)
3. Matt Prater (Re-signed 3-year, $9M deal with DET)
4. Mike Nugent (Re-signed 2-year, $3.5M deal with CIN)
5. Shayne Graham (Re-signed 1-year, $980K deal with NO)
6. Ryan Succop
7. Jay Feely
8. Billy Cundiff

Good review of where the colleges are...

As is often the case, ESPN is on top of the college spring practice scene, and more importantly, where teams are leaning as we look ahead to the fall. This piece by their Pac-12 man (and college go-to-guy!) Ted Miller does a great job surveying the landscape and looking at the BIG PICTURE in FBS football, as of March 2015!

Also, Heather Dinich writes a really great piece about where the current thinking is regarding out-of-conference scheduling - why the Big 12 schools are taking a risk (SMU, Lamar, and Rice? Really, Baylor?), while the Big Ten has the right idea (in my mind) with their 1910 plan - 1 major non-conference game, 9 conference games, 1 championship game, 0 FCS patsies scheduled. 

Perfect. 

No one's demanding you play a top ten school every week, big boys. Remember, there is no preseason in college football. Your first warm-up game counts! When Boise played "at" Ole Miss in August last year and lost, that game counted against them - it took a semi-perfect run of the table in October and November to get them back into New Year's Six contention. You lose that first game, you're in trouble - so if your first game is against the Little Sisters Of The Poor, Ohio State, I'll grant you that. 

Just not the other two non-cons, okay? Play real teams.

Finally, there's a nice piece (also by Heather Dinich) which discusses the College Football Playoff system's successes and failures last year with the movers and shakers, decides that the former far outweighs the latter (and that they were burned by the constant 'tinkering' of the BCS formats), and that there won't be any changes in the near future to the CFP process. Four teams. Committee, some advance polls (maybe slight adjustments as to the when and how often), and no changes. The key word in the article is patience.

Aussie round up - Preseason week 2

So, here's a quick wrap up of the weekend's pre-season games down under...

Fremantle defeated Melbourne, 61-43, in a rather unspectacular game where each team had their "moments" to build on. (Fremantle should end up being a much stronger team than the Demons as the season wears on.)

The Brisbane Lions look fantastic, smashing the Grand Finalist Sydney Swans by a score of 75-39 on Friday. Admittedly, it was the Swans' first game and the second for the Lions, but there were still some amazing flashes of growth and improvement from the 7-win Lions from last year!

Greater Western Sydney also looked great, defeating the Gold Coast Suns by 36 points. GC rested most of their stars but still, the Giants were really on top of things Saturday!

The match everyone had been waiting to see went exactly as everyone had feared... St. Kilda rolled over the imposters wearing the Essendon Bombers uniforms, in some cases with the highest numbers in footy history (you never see numbers in the 70s on the field!), as they were playing their "top-up" players while virtually the entire team - every man who was on the Dons in 2012, when the supplement scandal was taking place - was on probable suspension through the pre-season. With the 101-51 score, we learned virtually nothing about St. Kilda, and literally nothing about Essendon.

Port Adelaide beat the West Coast Eagles by the substantial score of 89-49, but the real story was yet another injury to a key Eagle player, meaning West Coast is looking at a depleted roster even before the start of the real season.

Finally, the game that I got to hear Saturday night (their Sunday afternoon) was the best game of the pre-season so far, with a strong Hawthorn team falling to an even stronger team from North Melbourne, looking all the while like a Grand Final contender after being a surprise semi-finalist last year! 38-year old Brent Harvey, the oldest in the league, continues to look like a superstar, and both teams are in midseason form already!

It's also becoming clear that the new enforcement of the tackling rule - no more question as to whether a man with the ball has been tackled or got rid of the ball in time: it's now a tackle every time! - will benefit those teams who are already good tacklers, and avoid being tackled themselves! Who might that be? Only the three teams who have already shown they were loaded for bear this season and were ready to move up the ranks: Brisbane, GWS, and Gold Coast. Look out for those three as possible up'n'comers for finals this year!

NFL ROUND-UP!

In the league that never sleeps, there's been lots of shuffling since we last looked in at the National Football League. Let's take a peek:

*Will the last one out of San Francisco's locker room please turn out the lights? Holy catfish, has that team become a mess all of a sudden!

*Philadelphia is definitely charting its own course - getting rid of DeSean and LeSean, two very talented players who DON'T fit the "Chip Kelly way", apparently. And while Stephen A Smith is known for saying ridiculous and outrageous things, and is being taken to task for his latest...I'm not so sure he's wrong. Those guys don't fit the way you do things, Mr. Kelly...but Riley Cooper does? Weird.

*Jeff Legwold has a great roundup of the major transactions and signings on ESPN today, including the departure of the Stupendous Stomper himself, Ndamukong Suh, to the Miami Dolphins for a contract said to be worth $114 million - only the fifth non-QB ever given a nine-figure contract. Notably (in my opinion), one of those other four was also a defensive lineman with an anger management problem, Albert Haynesworth, who was definitively not worth the contract. (The others include notables like JJ Watt, who so far is worth every penny.)

*Here's a notable non-trade: Jay Cutler is your 2015 Chicago Bears quarterback! Now...to make it work...

*While this is actually connected to the subscription part of ESPN ("Insider"), the visible-to-everyone section is a good tracker in itself to help you keep track of where every NFL free agent ends up.

The Philadelphia Kellys are rounding into shape...

Good piece today by Don Banks of SI.com on the Eagles/Bills trade that sent LeSean McCoy packing to Buffalo... more than ever, Chip Kelly plans on making the Eagles over in his own image, and anyone that doesn't fit with the scheme will be replaced, no matter how special a talent they might be (and make NO mistake: McCoy is a GREAT player). 

You'll love this. Really.

Georgia Tech's athletic department received this handwritten note from a child (we're guessing second grade or so) expressing her love for GT football (even if it does get boring at times), and thus her hatred of all things of a Georgia Bulldog nature. 

It's adorable. If you don't like the teams involved, substitute your favorites and your rival instead (Boise St/Idaho Vandals; Colorado/CSU; whomever). It'll still work.

IF you have an interest in murder trials...

...here's a link to the Aaron Hernandez trial in Massachusetts. (Hernandez is the former New England Patriot charged with murder.)

Some great mid-major (and above) thoughts from "Fan-Sided"

Here are a couple of posts from the college football section of SI's FanSided, including one listing five schools who are not only ready to move up but additionally NEED to move up to a Power Five conference ASAP...a short clip about the contract extension for Boise State's head coach, but the real news is that little ol' Boise is giving its DC and OC three-year, million dollar contracts, something unheard of just a few years ago...and an interesting analysis of five schools who turn the two and three star recruits into five star players because of their coaching, style, consistency, and methods.