My romance with football began in January 1987, on a day when I pulled for the team whose colors matched my hometown sporting loves. John Elway drove his Broncos 98 yards into history and on to SB 21, and I was hooked.
Many irrational actions would follow. There was the face painting well into adulthood. The pilgrimage to Mile High with a pair of colleagues I didn't even know that well. The trip to SB 33 with a bunch of complete strangers. Considering whether I could install a DirecTV dish inside my New York apartment in order to watch Broncos games each week (many buildings there won’t allow residents to erect contraptions outside their apartments, understandably).
Everything that has a beginning has an end. Beginnings are usually laced with excitement and anticipation. Endings are often sad. This one isn’t, but it’s bittersweet.
I’ve had the privilege of writing about the Broncos since the lost days of On the Bus at the Denver Post. I learned a great deal about the game from some of the writers at MHR. That was an earlier incarnation of that site and I wrote there for some time. Eventually, TJ, Doug, and I felt a kinship for a different kind of option.
And IAOFM.com was born.
It’s All Over, Fat Man! had a good run. I’m sad to hit the gigantic pause button, but proud of the work that was put up by Doug, TJ, Ted, and Doc.
My job was to wear the tech overalls. There was a KISS (keep it simple, stupid) approach here, and I like to think we accomplished that. Don’t let anything cast a shadow over the thoughts of our writers. I’d chime in from time to time with something I found interesting or amusing — amusing, most likely — but mostly stuck to making my updates behind the scenes, once in a while with a public warning.
We're well into the 2015 offseason now, with the draft quickly approaching. But I’d like to take a moment to congratulate Chris Harris Jr. on his special 2014 campaign. Among other things, Chris won a place on the AP’s All-Pro second team and PFF’s All-Pro first team. That adds to his Pro Bowl status. Rarely has a player deserved an honor more.
The undrafted fourth-year defensive back out of Kansas played 1,004 snaps in the 2014 regular season. He allowed 46 receptions on 89 targets for 356 yards and did not give up a single touchdown. He stole three interceptions, permitting a 47.8 opposing quarterback rating, per Pro Football Focus' metrics. He had 54 tackles, 50 of them solo.
The problems with overmedication and athletes has been well-known for over half a century. The iconic book - and later movie - North Dallas Forty brought the issue to the public’s eye. Pills and numbing injections were and are used to keep the player from knowing how much damage he was inflicting upon his body.
That’s what pain is - it’s a way of your body telling you that something’s wrong. Block it and you may injure yourself permanently. Oral painkillers were a daily part of life for many, perhaps most of the football players back then. For many players and ex-players of today, they still are.
Continue reading "Football medicine: What comes after opioids?"
Broncos guard Jon Halapio is a Floridian from St. Petersburg. Signed to the practice squad in December, he remains Denver's property, at least for now. So, I spent some time on him and his film.
Mike Mayock once made a comment. He said to put on some tape of a guy. Don’t look to see which guy it is. If by the middle you’re still not sure which guy you should be watching, he’s not worth watching for. That was pretty much my experience with Halapio.
He chose to attend the University of Florida in 2009. He did so over offers from the University of Colorado and from Notre Dame. He suffered an eye injury that required stitches just three games into his freshman year, and was granted a medical redshirt for the year from that incident. That gave him time away to think.
Back in 1986, I bought a house up in the Rocky Mountains and, with the help of some friends, spent a weekend moving my things in. Like a lot of folks, the first thing I hooked up was the stereo. Moving’s always easier with some music to move you. I got up the next morning and rubbed some liniment on the aches. I had breakfast and went to my clinic. Just a normal day.
I got an odd phone call in the afternoon and decided to drive home. I did - and there was no house there. The stereo was off, but had developed a short. It turned itself on and overheated. That started a smoldering fire.
They’d saved the roof and outside walls. Everything else was gone, except for the few things in my car. It was very much as I'd imagine being hit in the stomach by Derek Wolfe would feel. You stand there like an idiot, unable to think or act. You suddenly notice that tears are running down your face. The shock is overwhelming.
It's been suggested several times over the past couple of months that Philip Rivers might be headed to Tennessee in return for the #2 pick in the upcoming draft, which San Diego would then use to select Marcus Mariota out of Oregon (provided that Tampa Bay goes with Jameis Winston at #1).
Each time, it would have been perfectly reasonable to dismiss the notion as offseason BS or excessive rosterbation. But the rumors haven't died yet, and now the draft is but two weeks away. Here's what's being written about Rivers' future in San Diego:
A jury has found Aaron Hernandez guilty of first-degree murder in the 2013 shooting death of Odin Lloyd. Hernandez faces a mandatory life sentence without parole.
Co-defendants Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace are due to go on trial for Lloyd's murder at a later point. Hernandez also faces charges in the 2012 drive-by double homicide of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.
Check out these exclusive photos from the Browns' uniform reveal #BrownsUnis [Photos] http://t.co/DZeBGNLTfQ pic.twitter.com/Ou6pEtQJM7
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) April 15, 2015