Yeah, my Bengals board is all over that. We then proceeded to scrutinize in minutae the next day Marvin Lewis press photos, and we saw no evidence there was a shiner. So Chad either hits like a girl, Marvin didn’t get hit in the eye or it didn’t happen. Something happened, though, and the team hasn’t been the same since.
I think he could hit like a girl. It amazes me how girly these professional athletes throw punches sometimes.
Now Brian Kelly is a Lion. The Tampa-to-Detroit parade keeps on going!
Scouts Inc’s ratings are total garbage. They don’t make any sense. Chad Johnson’s the best player in the NFL. Steve Smith – the one on the Giants – is the 4th highest rated receiver in the league and the best player on his team. Houshmandzadeh’s like the 30th best receiver. Randy Moss is like a 71 rating. Alge Crumpler’s as good as Terrell Owens. Etc. It’s the craziest shit I’ve ever seen.
Jimmy raises a valid criticism. Without giving the grades – to avoid copyright issues – could you post the top 10 rated players, from best to worst, for the QB, WR and CB positions? That would help us assess whether they are as insane as Jimmy says.
QBs
Peyton Manning95
Tom Brady 92
Carson Palmer 82
Drew Brees 82
Donovan McNabb 79
Matt Hasselbeck 79
Ben Roethlisberger 78
Brett Favre 75
Marc Bulger 75
Philip Rivers 75
WRs
Chad Johnson 95
Marvin Harrison 91
Steve Smith 91
Torry Holt 85
Steve Smith 85 (NYG)
Andre Johnson85
Terrell Owens 83
Hines Ward 83
Larry Fitzgerald 82
Rod Smith 81
RBs
LaDainian Tomlinson 94
Larry Johnson 85
Reggie Bush 80
Frank Gore 80
Shaun Alexander 80
Deuce McAllister 79
Edgerrin James 79
Clinton Portis 79
Fred Taylor 79
Brian Westbrook 78
Sorry, did RBs instead of CBs
1 Champ Bailey 93
2 Rashean Mathis 83
3 Nate Clements 82
4 Antoine Winfield 81
5 Chris McAlister 81
6 DeAngelo Hall 80
7 Terence Newman 79
8 Asante Samuel 79
9 Dre Bly 78
10 Nnamdi Asomugha 78
Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit on those rankings. The Giants’ Steve Smith is better than Larry Fitzgerald? Reggie Bush is better than Brian Westbrook?
But even if those ratings define the franchise players, let’s look at the top 10 CBs:
Champ Bailey - traded
Rashean Mathis - career Jaguar
Nate Clements - free agent
Antoine Winfield - free agent
Chris McAlister - career Raven
DeAngelo Hall - free agent
Terence Newman - career Cowboy
Asante Samuel - free agent
Dre Bly - free agent (and subsequently traded; he’s on his third team)
Nnamdi Asomugha - career Raider
Of the ten top CBs, only four are still with their original team, five hit the waiver wire*, and one was traded away. It’s pretty clear that while you have a point about left tackles, you’re way off base with cornerbacks.
*Technically they hit free agency, not the waiver wire, but I love that phrasing.
I think Scouts Inc. is very harsh on grading, but that’s fine if everyone’s graded equally harshly, correct?
The scouting numbers ARE still from last year, though. I’d expect Randy Moss’s numbers to be a smidgen higher this (past) year.
As a Bengals fan, and I take my fandom pretty seriously, if Chad Johnson is listed as the best WR on Scout’s list, that’s all I need to know about them being absolute garbage.
Randy Moss isn’t even IN the top ten? Didn’t he, like, set the new record for TD’s in a season last year?
LOL.
Edit: I just saw this is from last year, apparently. Chad Johnson is still not the best wideout in the NFL by last year’s standards either. The guy doesn’t score TD’s! He had FIVE last year and THREE of them were in ONE game!
Well, actually, if those numbers don’t include 2007, they make much more sense if you look at them from a consistency standpoint.
Johnson is #1 or #2 in receiving in the AFC year in and year out. Bailey is ballyhooed by the announcers year in and year out without ever actually seeming to play very well.
Obviously, some of the names on there are plain ol’ nuts - Steve Smith II, Rod Smith (hasn’t done anything in years), etc.
Also, I wasn’t aware that Deangelo Hall actually hit free agency. I know he’s being dangled as trade bait.
To further nitpick, Dre Bly wasn’t the superstud that he ended up being when he was picked up in free agency by the Lions.
Guys, Steve Smith (NYG) was a rookie in 2007. If that list is from last year, they included a USC Trojan.
No True Scotsman.
You’re right that DeAngelo Hall isn’t a free agent; the Falcons are shopping him around. Explain to me again how there is a meaningful distinction between trading a player away and losing him to free agency?
It’s a meaningful distinction because it’s the distinction I drew when I first started talking about it.
I’m asking why you made it in the first place.
For what it’s worth, some Insider rankings are updated for this season (free agents). Asante Samuel is an 85 and Randy Moss is a 93.
Because I’m aware that Champ Bailey was traded for Clinton Portis because Reverend I-Don’t-give-a-Care didn’t like his contract. I also knew that Dre Bly was traded for Tatum Bell and George Foster. Those two are franchise cornerbacks. Therefore, they’re out of the discussion. They never hit the open market. (Bly excepted, but that was before he became a turnover machine).
Not only that but the discussion was originally about franchise tackles hitting free agency (Willie Roaf went from the Saints to the Chiefs…I forgot about him) and I then extended/likened it to super-studly cornerbacks hitting free agency.
I don’t understand what the big deal about this “franchise players don’t typically move in free agency” argument is about. Is it such a surprise that really important players stay put? There’s your definition of “franchise player” by the way, a player that’s so valuable and important the franchise won’t let him go. So, yeah, franchise players don’t typically move. 
There’s a reason that Guards, Outside linebackers, cornerbacks, and the like are moved in free agency; those positions aren’t among the most important on the football field and are easily replaced.
Really, really good left tackles, quarterbacks, running backs, and middle linebackers don’t typically move, because they’re too important to the team. Once you get one, you keep him.
Another important thing to note is that really good players of all positions don’t move often, as you would expect. Scouts Inc’s own free agent rankings (flawed as they are) only list a single 90+ and only 9 80+ players total for this season, of all the free agents in the NFL. And just because a player is a free agent doesn’t mean anything; of those 10 players ranked 80 or above, 8 have re-signed with their former team. As in, they aren’t moving either.
Good players stay put, really good players at an important position almost never move. And in those rare instances they do, it probably doesn’t have anything to do with what happens on the field (more like, money issues because of the cap, personality issues or conflicts, or age). I don’t think any of this is anything but obvious.
That was my original throw-away point.
Super-studly cornerbacks change teams all the time, unlike franchise left tackles, so you were wrong to extend your point to cornerbacks. To arbitrarily say that trades don’t count as leaving a team really honestly strikes me as bizarre. That’s why I’m having trouble letting this go. Also, this…
…is a textbook example of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
SIX TIMEOUTS BEFORE THIS SHITTY FUCKING BOARD WAS ABLE TO ACCEPT THIS POST
I’m not saying that trades don’t equal leaving a team. I’m saying that trades don’t equal leaving a team via free agency. I chose to limit the discussion to cornerbacks that left in free agency.
That’s fine. Call it whatever you want. Believe it, don’t believe it, that’s great. Can we get back to talking about football now?