Motoring through Motor City

Pardon the late commentary on yesterday's win over the Lions. My best guess is that I picked up something at the sports bar that's left me coughing, sniffling, and nigh exhausted since about halftime of the late games yesterday, and not in any real mood for doing much of anything, including blogging. It'll probably be another early bedtime for me tonight, too.

(Cheap shot alert: Yesterday did prove, though, that I'm a better wide receiver than Troy Williamson, who, as we all know, can't even catch a cold. And he won't be catching anything else for the rest of this year, either. His first two years in Jacksonville: eight catches, 64 yards and four kick returns for 84 yards. And we thought his time in Minnesota was bad.)

But the Vikings did play yesterday, and played generally well, though it would be nice if they'd show up for the first half of games. They've actually been outscored 23-17 in the first half of both their games this year. But they've made up for it with a 44-10 scoring margin in the second halves of their two games this year. And while Detroit and Cleveland aren't exactly powerhouses, going 2-0 on the road to start your season is very nice indeed.

I still like E.J. Henderson, but Chad Greenway might be the team's best linebacker. If he would have fielded that onside kick near the end of the game cleanly, he might have gone for 6, to go with his two interceptions.

Still, it's not all perfect. Maybe I'm being greedy after all these years of seeing running games absolutely shut down, but I'm a little worried about the team's sudden "vulnerability" to the run. Kevin Smith averaged 3.5 yards on 24 carries this week, to go with Jamal Lewis's 5.2 last week on 11 carries. That's exactly 4.0 yards per carry (35-140) to the two teams' primary running backs. Are we sure the Williams Wall hasn't been suspended?

(Here's a crazy thought...when the Vikings went up by a couple touchdowns, I was actually glad that the Lions would have to pass instead of run. With the Vikings giving up a total of 315 yards passing through two games, they might be better against the pass than they are against the run now. Weird.)

Then there's Brett Favre.

His long pass for the game went for 13 yards (to Sidney Rice), and, though his first two games, he's thrown for 265 yards on 48 pass attempts (37 completions). That's an average of just 5.52 yards per pass attempt, not too far off the league average of 6.2, but that doesn't take his (excellent) completion percentage into account. His 7.16 yards per completion is well below the league average of 10.64 (and his personal Y/C of 11.36). Essentially, the Vikings have absolutely no deep passing game, which I thought was why Brett Favre was brought in. You know, to open up the running game, which has been horrible these two ga -- oh, wait. It hasn't.

But, while he's been limited, you have to give credit to Favre for what he has accomplished. He's throwing almost exclusively short, which inflates his completion percentage (a league-leading 77.1%) and hasn't contributed a single turnover. The team being 2-0 doesn't hurt his cause, either. I can't even get worked up too much over the sacks, which are for minimal yardage (4.1 each), seem to be as much the offensive line's fault as anything, and may be helping to contribute to the lack of interceptions. He's been solid, but let's face it: Did you really think Brett Lorenzo Favre would be this good of a "game manager"? Highly unlikely.

The upcoming schedule is still mostly soft. Of the next four games, three are at home, with the only road game being against the Rams, who look worse than the Lions these days. 4-1 or even 5-0 seems likely once Baltimore comes to town in week 6, and maybe the "extended preseason" will help Favre adjust to his new surroundings and become a quarterback worthy of a $12 million paycheck. The thing is, I'm not sure at this point I want him to.

I can't make this stuff up

Good lord, would I pay money to see Troy Williamson and Brad Childress go at it.

It would probably boil down to Troy punching Brad in the head a lot, since his hands are made of stone, and Childress doesn't use his brain anyway.

Williams almost back? And more notes

It's a bye week for the Vikings, which means things are pretty quiet, though things are looking up for one of the Vikings' big off-season free-agent acquisitions.

* S Madeiu Williams finally looks ready to make his regular-season Vikings debut after suffering a neck injury in preseason that has kept him sidelined for nine weeks. Rookie Tyrell Johnson has started in his place and hasn't done much of anything to slow down other team's passing attacks, so Williams should be a welcome addition to a typically soft secondary.

* In other transaction news, the Vikings cut LB Erin Henderson, promoting LB Rufus Alexander from the practice squad, and then re-signed Henderson two days later, cutting Alexander. Bizarre.

* Speaking for guys who were cut and re-signed by the same team (and former Bengals, like Williams), it's a good thing Cincinnati re-acquired WR Chris Henry in the off-season, with owner Mike Brown essentially forcing him on head coach Marvin Lewis. No other multiply arrested, dumb-as-a-rock third receiver on an 0-7 team could have managed four catches in three games (Henry was suspended for the first four games of the season). Maybe when Lewis is inevitably fired after this season, he might be worth a look by the Vikings; I'd be interested to see what he can do when he doesn't have to babysit felons.

* Speaking of wide receivers who shouldn't be in the NFL, Troy Williamson -- who, as usual looked great in training camp and had many Jags fans thinking he was a "steal" -- still officially has just two catches for 11 yards with the Jaguars. The next time someone tells you that Usain Bolt would make a great wide receiver (and boy, did ESPN hammer that into our skulls for about two weeks), remind them that being fast doesn't automatically make you a good receiver.

* Pacifist Viking posts a great assessment of the 2008 Vikings and his (and, to a large extent) my feelings on their chance for success. Meanwhile, Brad Childress is up two points and is finally second in overall votes cast -- to a guy who was fired.

* Finally, after insisting that he didn't want to "wait for one of my fellow quarterbacks to suffer a serious injury," and retiring in September, Daunte Culpepper has taken the Brett Favre approach to retirement and is apparently looking for work again. Because, you know, teams need depth at the QB position because...wait for it...guys are getting hurt. Or in the case of Kansas City, who was apparently inquiring about Daunte's availability before signing Quinn Gray, all their quarterbacks are just awful.

The Vikings' first round picks in 1999 were Culpepper and Demetrious Underwood, who suffered from depression and tried to commit suicide. I'm starting to wonder which of the two was the bigger head case.

Training Camp!

It's finally here! Which means...

Well, not much actually. It means another few weeks of reports like "Adrian Peterson is running hard" and "Tarvaris Jackson is making all the throws" that are essentially meaningless. Real news only comes out of training camp when there's a position battle or if someone gets hurt. Pretty much all the Vikings' starters have already been determined, and we hope nobody gets hurt, so there shouldn't be much to report the next few weeks. With the first preseason game (Aug. 8 vs. Seattle) a tantalizingly close two weeks away and the team's sole nationally televised preseason game (Aug. 23 against Pittsburgh) less than a month away, the only drama is really whether everyone will stay healthy and whether they Vikings will wear those awful purple pants:

or, even worse, the purple-on-purple combo:


in any of their preseason games.

(OK, so maybe that's not the only drama, but I refuse to talk any more about you-know-who until something actually happens, good or bad.)

Even so, the Star Tribune posted a list of five things to watch for in Training Camp, most of which, again, are impossible to gauge until the games are for real. I suppose the question of Bryant McKinnie's availability, pending a possible league suspension, is news, but again, that's been lingering for months now with no obvious end in sight. And hey, look at #4, where they wonder if Visanthe Shiancoe has improved because he's catching passes in workouts.

Here's my take: If you're an NFL receiver, you should catch 99.9% of balls thrown at you during drills and camp. That's because the quarterback isn't under any pressure and you can run your route at your leisure. But actual catching ability is a small part of a receiver's skill set. When the QB has to aim an off-balance throw your way and the DB/LB is jamming you at the line and you have to make a precise cut with no room for error, that's when it's time to see if you're actually a good receiver.

That said, Troy Williamson is "looking good" in Jaguars camp. No, I didn't read that anywhere, but I know every writer covering the Jags has written it at least once this off-season.

Well, I've managed to stretch a post about, essentially, nothing into nearly 400 words, which means I could have been a writer for Seinfeld. I'll try to come up with something more interesting next week. Have a great weekend, and keep your fingers crossed about the purple pants!

How good is your team's top receiver?

When I wrote my post last week about Bernard Berrian's expectations, I found that the Vikings haven't had a single receiver top the 700-yard mark (much less the 1,000-yard mark) for three straight seasons. Clearly, lack of production from the team's #1 wideout contributed to the Berrian signing, but it got me to thinking: Were the Vikings the team most in need of a true #1 receiver this offseason? Or was there another team that needed that deep threat more?

My method of figuring this out was simple. I took each team's top receiver and divided his yardage total by his team's total passing yards, discounting sacks to determine the percentage of his team's yards each "top" receiver accumulated. The smaller that percentage, the "worse" that team's #1 receiver. Thus, a receiver who caught 1,200 yards worth team that threw for 3,600 yards would have accounted for 33.3% of his team's passing yards. That would have made him a "better" #1 receiver than a player who caught 1,400 yards for a team that threw for 4,500 (31.1%) but "worse" than a 1,000-yard receiver on a team that threw for 2,500 (40%). After all, it should be harder to have a 1,000-yard season on a crappy team than it is to get 1,500 yards on a good passing team, right?

Here are the results for 2007:

Team	PassYds	#1Rec	#1RecYds	Percent
Indianapolis	4172	Wayne	1510	36.2%
Denver	3759	Marshall	1325	35.2%
Cincinnati	4131	Johnson	1440	34.9%
Carolina	2941	Smith	1002	34.1%
NY Jets	3330	Cotchery	1130	33.9%
Atlanta	3573	White	1202	33.6%
St. Louis	3561	Holt	1189	33.4%
Cleveland	3866	Edwards	1289	33.3%
Arizona	4228	Fitzgerald	1409	33.3%
Kansas City	3525	Gonzalez	1172	33.2%
Baltimore	3308	Mason	1087	32.9%
Dallas	4290	Owens	1355	31.6%
San Diego	3175	Gates	984	31.0%
New England	4859	Moss	1493	30.7%
NY Giants	3376	Burress	1025	30.4%
Buffalo	2842	Evans	849	29.9%
Tampa Bay	3579	Galloway	1014	28.3%
Philadelphia	4005	Curtis	1110	27.7%
Pittsburgh	3418	Holmes	942	27.6%
Seattle	4181	Engram	1147	27.4%
New Orleans	4423	Colston	1202	27.2%
Chicago	3701	Berrian	951	25.7%
Oakland	2893	Curry	717	24.8%
Tennessee	3077	Gage	750	24.4%
Green Bay	4461	Driver	1048	23.5%
Detroit	4216	McDonald	943	22.4%
San Francisco	2685	Battle	600	22.3%
Washington	3622	Moss	808	22.3%
Minnesota	2938	Wade	647	22.0%
Houston	3925	Johnson	851	21.7%
Jacksonville	3495	Williams	629	18.0%
Miami	3319	Booker	556	16.8%

Looks like Minnesota wasn't the worst at getting top production from its top receiver. Houston, Jacksonville, and Miami did worse, though two of those teams have excuses. Houston can at least point to the injury to Andre Johnson that kept him out for nearly half the season. His 94.6 average yards per game actually led the league last year, though he only suited up for nine games. Miami, meanwhile, traded Chris Chambers after six games; he had accumulated 415 yards up until that game and added 555 in San Diego, finishing with 970. If he'd gained all that yardage with Miami, he would have accounted for 29.2% of the team's production in the passing game, and even with lesser success, it's likely he would have kept the team out of the bottom spot. Meanwhile, espite David Garrard's breakthrough year, Jacksonville is probably the only team in the league consistently referred to as having worse wide receivers than Minnesota. Hey, good luck with Troy Williamson and 30-year-old Jerry Porter, guys!

It's both a little surprising and unsurprising to see Indianapolis at the top of this list. On the one hand, as much as the team is known for passing, you'd think there'd be enough yards to go around. Then again, Peyton Manning has been known to throw a lot (to the tune of 143 catches for Marvin Harrison in 2002) to his favorite receiver Reggie Wayne led the team this year, but from 1999 to 2006, Manning threw for 33,847 yards while Harrison caught 11,219, the vast majority of them coming from the arm of Manning. That would make for a 33.1% rate for virtually their entire career together, which would put them at #11 on this list. Wow.

In reality, this chart is just a fun way of looking at how much each team got out of its "top" receiver. For Berrian to manage 1,160 yards, as WhatIfSports thinks, though, Vikings passers would have to manage just over 3,200 yards in the air to get to Indy's 36.1% rate from last year -- possible, but unlikely. With the running game as good as it is and the potential emergence of Sidney Rice, Berrian probably won't put up those kind of numbers, but he should be good enough to get us out of the bottom five.

Various Viking Verbage

Brooks Bollinger looks to be the odd man out in Vikings mini-camp, as he competes for reps with four other quarterbacks. As much as I've harangued Tarvaris Jackson, there's no doubt that, if I had to start a game right now with the quarterbacks the Vikings have in camp (Jackson, Bollinger, Gus Frerotte, John David Booty, and Kyle Wright), he'd be my choice. Looking at the competition, that's not saying much, though.

It's a near-foregone conclusion that the three QBs on the Vikings' roster come September will be Jackson (the incumbent), Frerotte (the semi-wily veteran), and Booty (the new kid), so Bollinger and Wright should keep a moving van on speed-dial.

* "Even with an 8-4 record as the starter last year, Jackson knows the doubters are out there." Really? Where? To his credit, Jackson takes it in stride and doesn't seem to buy in to his own hype:

"People are going to say what they want to say. It's their job to analyze things and to give their opinion of our team. My job is to go out there and prove them wrong. That's how I look at it. It's just extra motivation. That's all it is. Things like that kind of help me out, get me over the top."

Personally, I think "If I don't play well in 2008, I could be unemployed" should be enough of a motivation, but hey, go with what you can.

* The Vikings apparently have a contingency plan if Bryant McKinnie is suspended for the first part (or more) of the 2008 season, and his name is Chase Johnson. An undrafted, second-year player wouldn't normally gain much notice, except that, at 6'8" and 330 pounds, it's hard to miss Johnson. That makes him a near-clone of McKinnie, who's listed at 6'8" and 335 pounds, and nobody else is taller, with Artis Hicks being the only other Viking listed over 330 (335). Remember, kids, Pat Williams only weighs 317 *snort*

* In June, every team had a great offseason, every running back will run for 2,000 yards, every quarterback will throw for 30 touchdowns, and every team will go to the Super Bowl. Jared Allen made the claim for the Vikings recently and, while I think they've got about as good a chance as any team in the NFC, save Dallas, such talk from someone who's been with the team for less than two months makes me nervous.

(On the other hand, if I were a professional athlete, I'd tell every reporter before every game that I guarantee a win. Because that's what we're going out there to do. If we didn't think we'd win every game, why play?)

* Troy Williamson got the usual glowing "former first-round pick looking for a fresh start" article that all such players get when they wash out with their first team and join a new one (Koren Robinson got the same treatment in Minnesota).

"I'd say it was very important because it was getting very intense up there as far as me and the head coach and some of the other coaches," Williamson said. "I feel like I just need to play football, be me and be comfortable in the situation."

Yes, how dare the coaches up in Minnesota make things so intense by asking you to catch the ball. It's not like that was your job or anything.

* Finally, I've started reading The Daily Norseman, a good-looking Vikings site with lots of good material. In fact, it's better than this site, so I'll have to resort to some solid journalistic techniques and hard-hitting content to draw more readers.

Or I can just post a picture of a scantily clad Sarah Michelle Gellar:


Admit it, you like that better than more Tarvaris Jackson talk, right?

Does Bernard Berrian have "hands of Williamson"?

To look at the comments regarding the Bernard Berrian signing, they seem to exhibit one of two opinions:

a) This is a great move for the Vikings that will vitalize a moribund passing game; or
b) Bernard Berrian couldn't catch a cold in International Falls in January.

And, somewhat predictably, most of the "a" responses seem to come from Vikings fans while most of the "b" responses come from Bears fans. The comments on SN.com's story about the signing fall pretty handily along these lines. Having not watched a tremendous amount of Berrian's play, it seems that a lot of Bears' fans' rancor comes from Berrian dropping a few crucial balls, with the most damning testimony saying that he's no step up from stonehands Troy Williamson, in terms of the ability to catch the ball. The only good thing most people can agree on is that Berrian is an upgrade over the receivers the Vikings currently have, which is faint praise indeed.

Of course, fans always remember anecdotal evidence more than they do overall performance -- catch 10 passes in a game, great, but drop that go-ahead TD in the fourth quarter and you're a bum. It could be that Berrian's had a game or two like that, souring many Bears fans on him and, despite their lack of depth at the position (Devin Hester and...uh...), not raising too many concerns about the signing.

It's tough to use anything but anecdotal evidence to rate a player's "hands"; the closest we can get is probably target stats, an imprecise measurement that simply divides the number of catches made by a receiver by the number of times a pass was thrown to him. Sounds good, until you look at some of the flaws.

Notably, deep threats are likely to have a worse target percentage than short receivers. It's harder to reel in a 50-yard bomb than it is to catch a 5-yard out. A top-of-the-line receiver might also get doubled more if he doesn't have a good complementary receiver to take some of the pressure off.

There are other issues, too. Say Receiver A has 60 catches on 120 targets (50%) and Receiver B has 60 on 100 (60%). This doesn't automatically mean that B is better than A. Receiver A might also have gotten open more often, making him a more frequent target of his quarterback. Receiver B's quarterback might also have been better than A's, aiming more accurate passes his way. Finally, target stats are also completely unofficial, and compilation numbers can vary depending on the source.

Some of these concerns can be reduced a bit, at least in terms of comparing Williamson to Berrian. Both are fast receivers and are considered "deep threats" and neither had particularly good quarterbacking. Also, neither man was his team's primary receiver so they probably weren't doubled a tremendous amount of the time.

With all that in mind, and with all the dubiousness of targetting stats laid before us, take a look at this page. You'll have to select "Week: YTD" and "Year: 2007" to see the target stats for 2007. Once you've done that, you can do a basic comparison of Berrian and Williamson (or any other receiver). Here are the numbers:

Bernard Berrian
Targets: 112
Receptions: 69
Percentage: 62%

Troy Williamson
Targets: 40
Receptions: 19
Percentage: 47%

As mentioned above, compilation of target stats is iffy, which is clear to see here -- Berrian had 71 receptions in 2007, while Williamson had 18. Even taking that inaccuracy into account, and assuming that the target numbers are off a little, it's clear that Berrian caught a significantly higher percentage of passes that were sent his way in 2007.

As for the other Viking receivers, Bobby Wade managed a 69% conversion rate in 2007, Sidney Rice 63%, and Robert Ferguson 54%. Berrian's Bears teammate, Muhsin Muhammed, managed only a 53% conversion rate. Other notable receivers who had a target percentage equal to or worse than Berrian in 2007 include Randy Moss, Chad Johnson, Steve Smith, Terrell Owens, Braylon Edwards, and Plaxico Burress. Several of those men suffer from the "no real #2" issue mentioned above, and all were at least their teams' primary deep threat, but was it really that different for Berrian?

I've also managed to find some 2006 target numbers that paint Berrian in a less positive light, with only a 50.5% conversion rate (compared to Williamson's 48.7%), and if you select "2005" on the FootballDiehards page, you'll see Berrian with a 52% rate (on only 13 catches) and Williamson at 46% (on 24 catches). Adding it all up gives you a 55.9% (133-238) for Berrian and 47.7% (80-168) for Williamson. On the bright side, Berrian showed improvement in 2007, while Williamson never showed even a remote uptick in percentage over his three years with the Vikings, and Berrian posted higher percentages than Williamson every year. In short, I don't think that Bernard Berrian will make anyone forget Cris Carter's amazing, highlight-reel catches, but he won't be as bad as Williamson, either.

Vikings have a new safety, look for help elsewhere

When the Vikings traded Randy Moss to the Oakland Raiders before the 2005 draft, they acquired linebacker Napoleon Harris and the Raiders' first-round draft pick, number seven overall. Harris did nothing of consequence with the team and that #7 pick was used to draft Troy Williamson, who wowed scouts at the combine with a 4.32-second 40-yard dash but was otherwise virtually unknown. (When it became obvious that the Vikings would take a wide receiver with their pick, I favored USC wide receiver Mike Williams as a safer pick but, as bad as Williamson has been, Williams has been worse, notching just 44 catches in three seasons.)

Now, all the Vikings have to show for dealing Moss is a rumored sixth-round draft pick from the Jacksonville Jaguars, which would figure to be around the 200th pick in next month's draft. Last year's sixth-round picks -- all of them -- had 22 receptions in 2007 and that includes a guy who's listed as a linebacker. Not exactly fair compensation, but we're past the point of wondering whether Randy Moss or Mike Tice should have been shipped out after the 2004 season, when Moss said that he "wasn't sure" Tice was the head coach for him. Hint: It probably wasn't Moss.

But the free-agency period has begun, and there's a lot of talk of who the Vikings might get to fill the void at wide receiver and other positions, some of which might come true very soon.

I don't give the rumormongering from Yahoo much thought most of the time, but saying that Zygi Wilf has flown to California to court Bernard Berrian does seem like a bit more than your run-of-the-mill "Team A is interested in Player B" garbage they spew out regularly. The last paragraph, in particular, throws a ton of names out there, from Sage Rosenfels to Thomas Tapeh to Justin Smith, but it's the Berrian deal that seems most likely to develop into something more, and as soon as tonight, if true. SI.com confirms the Vikings apparent interest in Berrian and their desire to sign him quickly.

The stated terms of the deal worry me, though. $6-8 million per season for a wide receiver who hasn't even generated a 1,000-yard campaign yet? Granted, catching balls from Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton will depress anyone's numbers, but is Tarvaris Jackson that much better?

* According to the SI story, Smith and Madieu Williams could also be wearing purple very soon, filling voids at defensive end and safety, respectively. The Vikings have $35 million of cap room, the fifth-highest total in the league, so they can afford to overspend a bit and still have plenty left for signing draft picks and second-tier free agents.

(And...just as I write this, the story comes up on ESPN.com about Williams signing a six-year, $33 million contract with the Vikings, making him one of the highest-paid safeties in the league.)

* Even if all these deals get made, that will still leave a semi-gaping hole at one position for the team: quarterback. The team cut Kelly Holcomb earlier this week, and Derek Anderson, the closest there was to a top free-agent QB, has already re-signed with the Browns, leaving the Vikings to pick from a lackluster group of free agents that includes Trent Green, Quinn Gray, Cleo Lemon, and Byron Leftwich, or to work a trade for Rosenfels or J.P. Losman if they want to find a complement to or replacement for T-Jack. And, unlike last year, I won't be stumping for the team to pick up David Carr, who was recently released by the Panthers.

* Another interesting free agent is defensive end Jevon Kearse, recently released by the Eagles. Though he struggled with injuries in his Philadelphia career, and only managed 3.5 sacks in 14 games in 2007, he might be an interesting third-down option if he's willing to sign a low-cost, incentive-laden contract. Even with last year's disappointing season, Kearse averaged about half a sack per game in his Philadelphia career and if the 31-year-old is only counted on for 20-25 snaps a game, it might be that he could still be effective.

If you want to keep track of all the free-agent activity, I suggest either SportingNews.com's free-agent tracker or the one located on ESPN.com. It should be an interesting weekend!

A new direction for my blog

So, I'm leaving SportingNews.com -- and then again, I'm not.

I really like it here, I do. I like the community, especially the great Minnesota Vikings fans I've had the chance to meet (in the virtual sense). I like the games. I like my four (hopefully soon to be five) stars. I won't be leaving any of that behind. I'll still post here, and you'll still see my name on your friends list (I hope) with new content on a regular basis, and I'll keep looking for new friends and keep making comments on other people's blogs on a regular basis.

Rather, it's the core of the SportingNews.com blogs that I have issue with -- the blogs themselves. Not any user's particular blog, but the blogging process here on SN.com and the simple, inadequate tools SN provides to us. For people just beginning in blogging and web writing, they're enough, to be sure, but I need more. I first touched html in 1994 and have maintained several web sites and blogs and find the blogging process here sometimes infuriating. I dislike that I can't make a proper table for displaying statistical info. I dislike that I can't have a list of favorite links outside of SN.com blogs. I dislike that every time I bold or italicize something, I'm kicked to the top of my window. And I dislike the itty-bitty window in the first place.

Then there's the damn smiley-face bug. Try entering an 8 followed by a parentheses (like if I refer to the Vikings of 1998), and you'll see how annoying that is.

So, what's a man to do? Well, this.

Hi! And welcome to the "new" Displaced. It's essentially the same as the old one, except that I'll be able to do much more here from both a presentation and functionality standpoint. I have complete control over the html and can easily add modules for links, surveys, news feeds (I particularly like the customizable Vikings feed at the bottom of the page) at will, all in lovely html, which allows me to craft things such as this:

Team	Run Comp	Pass Comp	Total
San Diego Chargers	38.60	38.28	76.88
Washington Redskins	46.49	29.15	75.64
Jacksonville Jaguars	36.84	38.60	75.44
New York Giants	41.23	33.89	75.12
Philadelphia Eagles	38.60	34.56	73.16

Neat, huh? Looks a hell of a lot better than the list on this page, doesn't it?

As I said, I'm not actually leaving SN.com. Every one of my posts here will be simulposted, for a paragraph or two, on SN.com, just like this post was. You'll still see the titles in your friend's lists, you'll still be able to read the start of my posts, and then you'll be able to come here to see them in all their glory. On the surface, nothing's change. Leave your comments here or leave them on SN.com -- I'll read both. I hope you'll keep giving me thumbs ups (or, if you must, thumbs downs) on my SN.com blog. And, if you're finding this page for the first time on Blogger, I do recommend you sign up for a SportingNews.com account, if only to join the community and play the games.

I hope you'll enjoy my "new" old blog and take the time to check out everything else this humble page has to offer to the right. Of course, if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to let me know. As long as this experiment turns out better than Troy Williamson has in purple, I'll consider it a success. (Yes, I know that's aiming mighty low.)