Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …
*“His measurable are off the charts, best at his position since fillintheblank.”
“His game film didn’t jump out at you in college, but you’d be crazy to pass up an athlete like this.”
“Dude, can you believe his vertical?!”
Those inane comments are this weekend being brought to you by the annual gathering of old men with stopwatches watching young men in underwear. In other words, it’s time for one of the biggest facades in all of sports: The NFL Scouting Combine.
It’s the world’s weirdest job fair.
Think about it: Employers interviewing and evaluating prospective employees out of their workplace habitat. Judging NFL players without helmets and pads is like an E-Sports team manager evaluating gamers not on how fast or accurate they play video games, but merely by how flexible their wrists are.
It’s players displaying talents needed to play the game of football, without actually playing the game of football. Like pilots flying in a simulator, or a fashion designer merely sketching in pencil.
If you haven’t noticed, the NFL is hardly an exact science. Tom Brady slipped to the sixth round. Tony Romo went undrafted. And then there’s the time-tested fable of Tony Mandarich.
The Michigan State behemoth put on the greatest workout show in the event’s history in 1989. At 6-foot-6 and 325 pounds, he ran a 40-yard dash (4.65) faster than Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith. He bench-pressed 185 pounds a whopping 39 times, broad-jumped over 10 feet and his vertical leap topped 30 inches. He was a Terminator, a perfect physical specimen seemingly genetically engineered to dominate his position for a decade. After watching his Combine workout, Sports Illustrated proclaimed him the “Greatest Offensive Lineman Prospect Ever” and draft guru Mel Kiper suggested the Dallas Cowboys would “rue the day” if they passed on Mandarich with the No. 1 overall pick.
As you know, the Cowboys went with a guy named Troy Aikman and won three Super Bowls. With the second pick the Packers selected Mandarich, who was cut within three years and started only 47 games in a wholly underwhelming six-year NFL career.
Moral to the story: There is no direct correlation between excelling at the NFL Scouting Combine and playing NFL football.
The Combine isn’t the most overrated event in sports, but it’s on the short list with the Tour de France, Army-Navy, Indianapolis 500, Kentucky Derby, any heavyweight boxing title fight, college basketball post-season conference tournaments, Winter Olympics, baseball’s Opening Day and the Heisman Trophy.
*I’ll give the Rangers credit for not hyping what is certain to be a rebuilding season. There will be magical nights. There will be individual growth. There will also be 90-plus losses. Them not being disingenuous about expectations makes me more interested in their season. Because “ya never know” is folly. Sometimes – like the Rangers in 2019 – you do indeed know.
*When I witnessed Dirk Nowitzki’s first game in Seattle in 1999, I couldn’t envision the skinny, shy, overwhelmed rookie scoring 1,000 points, much less 31,000. But among his plethora of historic achievements, Nowitzki will next week pass John Stockton for the third-most games played in the history of the NBA. When he retires, only Robert Parish and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will have played in more.
*Newspapers aren’t dead, they’re just being reincarnated online. Hence, the announced resurrection, in name, of the Fort Worth Press. The publication which once spawned legendary writers such as Dan Jenkins and Blackie Sherrod is being revived online as a rival to the gasping Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Former S-T execs Rich Connor and Paul Harral have the experience and vision – and, they hope, the funding from investors – to nab thirsty Fort Worth readers. The name won’t hurt, either.
*I think Jerry Jones is jealous of Robert Kraft’s happy endings. In Super Bowls, of course. Get your mind outta the gutter, you filthy animals.
*I cringe at the thought of giving credit to chronic flopper and constant traveler, James Harden. But Monday night he earned it. With his 32-game streak of 30-plus points on the line, Harden declined to hoist a meaningless shot in pursuit of a selfish stat. Instead, he calmly dribbled out the clock in Houston’s 119-111 win over the Hawks. I’m reminded of Brett Favre purposefully falling down to give Michael Strahan a record 22nd sack, Rickey Henderson stealing meaningless bases in blowout games to break Lou Brock’s record and Kobe Bryant jacking up 21 3s and 50 shots overall to get his 60 points in his final game in 2016, and I find Harden’s respect for the game refreshing. I reserve the right, of course, to resume hating him at the next sight of him wildly bucking his head to draw a phantom foul or taking a step-step-step-step-step-back 3-pointer.
*Amazing number from Gil’s terrific revisit of the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding dustup from 1994: The ladies figure skating finals in Norway drew the largest Friday night audience in the history of American television. More than 105 million viewers tuned in, topping this year’s Patriots-Rams Super Bowl (98 million).
*So Dak Prescott’s Pit Bull got loose in Frisco this week and wound up biting his neighbor, sending her to the hospital. The Cowboys quarterback could be fined $500 and charged with a misdemeanor count of – I’m not making this up – “dog at large.” Sounds like a name from a Monty Python sketch, not the legalese of a city ordinance.
*Several dumbfounding elements to Kraft’s trip to the Florida massage parlor. He was only there 11 minutes. He squeezed in the detour before flying 2.5 hours from Florida to Kansas City for the AFC Championship Game. But, most of all, that he rolled up to the Orchids of Asia’s front door in a blue Bentley. I know when I go incognito, I always hop in my blue Bentley. Sometimes I’ll even turn on the flashing lights and lay on my horn that plays “La Cucaracha”.
*One time I engaged a social media follower in a debate about Trump’s proposed wall. Then the person referred to it as our southern “boarder.” Debate over.
*I was excited about Tony Romo’s exemption to play in the Byron Nelson in May. Then I remembered the tournament moved to Trinity Forest. Nothing about that patch of flat excites me.
*Been trying Yoga class recently and I’ve witnessed a magic act. My instructor can make the impossible look simple: Sit on the floor with knees bent in front of you, heels as close to your butt as possible and feet flat on floor. Then, crazy as it sounds, stand up. Without using hands or knees or any body part to help you. I can’t as much lift my booty a centimeter off the ground, much less stand up. But she makes the task look as effortless as handing me the salt shaker. Has a lot to do with flexibility and strength, but also belief. And there’s no way I believe I could ever pull that off.
*This weekend? I’ll be on a golf course in the morning and at a spring training game in the afternoon – in Arizona. As always, don’t be a stranger.
