This guy really is a piece of work. A fat piece of retarded work. So it's the 9th inning, Braves are up two runs and seemingly in control from the momentum of a bad call in the 8th inning. Acosta puts the leadoff man on and then gives up a homerun to Rabelo. Who the F is he??? Some f'n catcher that Florida got in the Cabrera trade. I mean this was a shot to pretty much centerfield (i think). But of course with Royce Ring and Buddy Carlyle up in the bullpen, Cox just has to trust Acosta who's throwing everything up in the zone. So it's 4-4 now, top of the 9th inning. Being the loyal dumbass that he is, Cox let's Acosta stay in and Cantu promptly doubles. So Hanley Ramirez is up now with 1 out still and first base open. So instead of intentionally walking the most dangerous hitter on the entire Marlins team and the only guy on the Marlins that makes more money than a Burger King employee, Cox decides to let Manny throw beach balls to him. Hanley sliced one of Acosta's earlier offering towards right field and it went off the wall but luckily foul, it was drilled though. Then instead of having a reprieve and INTENTIONALLY WALKING HIM (mind you he already hit a homer today), Cox leaves in Acosta who gave up a two run bomb. Who didn't see that coming???

WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED.

Cox takes out Acosta after the homerun because it was apparent that he didn't have his best stuff/location. When a sinker ball pitcher can't get his pitches down, it's TROUBLE. So Cox should have pulled Acosta right after the Rabelo homerun and at the VERY least, after the Cantu double. Send out McDowell to eat up time and throw 4 balls to Hanley. Then put in Royce Ring to face Hermida in a lefty lefty matchup and then either keep in Ring or put in Carlyle to face the righty in Helms. I would have just left in Ring assuming he showed good velocity vs Hermida. So the game should be 4-4 heading into the bottom of the 9th.....too bad it wasn't.

I agree 100% with the blogger from the article I've selected. He makes solid points about why Cox is a shitty manager and it annoys the living f*ck out of me that he's given a free pass by the Atlanta media (pushovers). Cox is just an absolute moron and it seems like he can do no wrong because he got those division titles. If division titles actually meant something he'd be close to God.

The Hawks coach Mike Woodson leaves a player in for 2 minutes too long in a regular season game and the fans (that are left) are calling for his head. Cox makes boneheaded move after boneheaded move and it's never his fault. He has a free pass from the media and I'm fed up.

What the hell was he doing leaving Tom Glavine in vs the Diamondbacks???? When Tommy loses it, it just goes. He doesn't have overwhelming velocity to begin with so his pitches appear to be lame ducks. He should have been pulled at least one batter before he gave up the grand slam to Eric Byrnes. He was over 100 pitches, he should have been done for the day. But wait, it's Bobby Cox, HE'S LOYAL TO HIS PLAYERS! So instead of doing what's good for the team he lets Glavine try to finish the 5th inning so he can get win #783394. How about being a manager and not a friend, you stupid fat piece of dog shit. I think he's afraid Tommy won't blow him after the game if he pulled him.

Let's skip ahead a game or two. Tim Hudson! He gave up 1 run over 7 innings and kept a 1 run lead going into the 8th, having given up his only run in the 7th. He had a high pitch count at the time at least nearing 100 going into the 8th inning. It was pretty obvious to me that Hudson SHOULDN'T have gone back out to pitch. But silly me, I'm not a professional manager. So Hudson loads the bases and is at 117 pitches when JJ Hardy singles up the middle. Games tied 2-2, Hudson's outing is wasted and Braves lose it in the 9th. Good job Mr. Cox. How about trusting Stockman??? Use Acosta??? Boyer???? somebody??????

NOW yesterday...McCann argues balls and strikes with Wegner in the top of the 8th and there was no way the Braves were going to get his wide strike zone again in the bottom of the inning. So what does Bobby do???? He runs out a young pitcher (Reyes) who has given him 7 beautiful innings who is obviously GOING TO GET SQUEEZED in the 8th. So why not bring out a guy with his best stuff to start the inning instead?????????

HMMMM BOBBY. So Reyes walked the leadoff man and Boyer gives up a triple and retires the other 3 men. 1-0 Brewers, final score. Good job Bobby. Your mismanagement astonishes me.

I mean seriously, managing a baseball team is the easiest of all the professional sports. All you have to do is make a line-up (which Cox can't even do right). Blanco should be leading off with Escobar batting 2nd. Cox has no switch in his head that says when a pitcher is done, the guy is an absolute f**king moron.

The Hawks pulled off a solid win 116-104 over the Knicks with a huge performance by Joe Johnson. They led the entire game but made it too close for comfort in the 4th quarter after blowing huge leads down to five points. A lead is never safe with the Hawks, no matter how big. This is why Coach Woodson can't afford to bench Joe Johnson for more than 3 minutes per game at most. Hopefully his body can hold up throughout the season and hopefully playoffs.

Hawks Head Coach Mike Woodson is a f'n idiot. There's no getting around this. If he were a cartoon character he would be Cleveland from Family Guy. Yesterday on a radio interview he said the Hawks have to win two games to make the playoffs. WRONG! They have to win three or win two and have Indiana lose one. Woodson is a disgrace to the game and not even his players respect him. His substitution patterns are semi retarded and makes me wonder if the Hawks are dedicated to handing out jobs to the mentally challenged.

Arizona Reid standing at only 6'5 plays much bigger than his size. His game would translate to the small forward position at the NBA level. With an excellent work ethic, an already solid post game and a jump shot that just needs to find more consistency night in and night out but getting better each year, I believe he can carve out a role in the NBA given the opportunity. His numbers each year are on an upward trend and 11 rebounds per game at 6'5 is amazing regardless of the conference at division I. Also keep in mind he is the main focus of the other team's game plans on defense and almost exclusively faces double teams.

Bryant Dunston, I don't know much about him since I've never seen him play live but he seems like he could be a good project pick from the clips I've seen. I believe he would project to the power forward spot. According to his Nbadraft.net he has more pros than cons and I would take a flier on him for a summer league squad.

http://www.nbadraft.net/profiles/bryantdunston.asp

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/players/38406 Reid

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/players/37928 Dunston

Let me just note that these guys are long shots and two players who will probably go undrafted but they are guys that I feel have a chance to make the big stage.

Reds general manager Weezy F. Krivsky likes to smoke crack and get drunk, but then again who doesn't? Last year he extended Ryan Freel's contract two years at 3.5 million dollars per year or as Freel says, one million 12 packs of Budweiser Select.

According to many news outlets, Krivsky and Freel were spotted at a party getting drunk and smoking Rice Krispies out of purple bongs. They began to play spin the bottle with Josh Fogg. Krivsky refused to kiss Fogg and agreed to sign him to a contract as reparation. Looking back on this move, it's become apparent that a kiss would not have been so bad after all.

Okay, I've had enough of this talk about Darren McFadden being the next Christ. The only way I will call him by that title is if Reggie Bush somehow equates to Jesus. I see more Bush in him than I do of AP.

Mike Mayock claims D-MAC is the second best running back in the draft according to his rankings. I would put him even lower than that. I won't argue that McFadden was a beastly college back and mesmorized everybody with his 4.2 speed. He's fast, we get it. But there's more to being a successful player in the NFL than in the NCAA. Ask Curtis Enis, Ki-Jana Carter and the list goes on. Maybe having your name rhyme with genitalia is something Mel Kiper should note as a red flag on his draft board? Speaking of which, what does Mel Kiper do in the off-season? I swear that man is Dracula. He sleeps half of the year away and has Frankenstein erghhh Chris Berman wake him up for the draft as he spends countless hours toiling with his rankings in his casket. Rumor is...he has hyperbaric chambers for his brain resting beneath his hair helmet

But back on topic....let's break down some D-Mac footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FCfZoPGEFA

Now my run by run analysis

0:10- He busts through a hole that's bigger than Britney Spears' canal during child birth. I saw very little elusiveness but great straight line speed.

0:28- Runs to the outside and delivers a stiff arm that gained him about 1 yard, color me unimpressed

0:44- Shows good vision to cut it back inside and takes it to the house with an unearthly display of speed. Very impressive for college but this WILL NOT FLY in the NFL. He's not going to be able to outrun most if not any secondaries like that.

1:10- What's special here? He uses his speed to turn a corner, an average high school back could have made this run.

1:23- Showed good balance skating down the sideline, but didn't show me much else besides what we already know.

Okay I've had enough McFadden talk.

Let's look at Reggie Bush. We've all seen him play one time or another. The man that averaged 8.9 yards per attempt his senior year at USC. But wait look at Lendale White, he averaged 6.6 YPC the same season. So basically Bush is a product of the USC offense....edging Lendale in YPC due to big play ability and less goal line touches. We've all seen how Bush isn't an every down back and is pretty much Kevin Faulk on steroids.

Now let's re-examine McFadden and compare him to Felix Jones by the number of carries and YPC

2005- 176/6.3 99/6.3 McFadden has more carries but the numbers are the same.

2006- 284/5.8 154/7.6 Small sample size but wow, Jones has better #s

2007- 325/5.6 133/8.7 Felix clearly outdoes Darren again

Now I'm not saying Felix is the better back, I'm sure the numbers would near even up if given the same carries but I do see a downward trend each year for D-Mac and an upwards trend for Felix. However I personally think if Stephen Hawking can turn a corner then he can average about 4.8 per year in the Arkansas offense.

Let me show you a proven winner, Adrian Peterson. Injury concerns aside let's take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL2LuhEKy5Q

0:00- He takes it inside, uses a strong burst of speed and cuts it outside again by using his shiftyness and puts his head down and finishes the run strong.

0:46- Shows off his moves, a little LT in him. Excellent agility.

1:07- Lowers his shoulders and powers in for the tough yards and gets the score

There's my take on the three young backs. I obviously love Peterson, how can I not since he's done it on both levels. Reggie Bush...not so much. He was over hyped a few years ago similarly to how McFadden is now. Bush has more moves, better hands but less speed. McFadden is all about the speed but I don't see enough "shiftyness" or "agility" for him to become more than a change of pace back. I'd compare him to Jerious Norwood of the Atlanta Falcons with a little less elusiveness. He'll be a good NFL player, but he's not worth a first round pick to me unless of course you need some lightning in a bottle....and that can be had in later rounds from different players. Also in the NFL character is important, and somebody with 500 paternity suits is more likely to make the All-Maury team than the All-Madden team.

I challenge anybody reading this to show me an impressive McFadden highlight where he does anything besides outrunning people and throwing a stiff arm....because honestly....who can't throw a stiff arm?

It's amazing to me how much the Hawks offense relies on Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson both being N*Sync. If Joe or Mike don't say It's Gonna Be Me then the offense says Bye Bye Bye and the defense won't be far behind.

A big no homo to that last paragraph. Bibby was 0-8 and didn't even look as if he cared. His defense was atrocious and his shot was obviously not falling. Johnson was 13-24 however it wasn't enough. As I said both Bibby and Johnson have to be extremely effective for the Hawks to win and play off of each other. The team has an extremely low basketball IQ and they turn the ball over a lot and the shooting has to be there.

One thing I did like last night was Josh Smith getting a technical foul and immediately getting called for a flagrant on the next inbounds. Josh Smith wants to win and there's no denying that.

Another thing I noticed was Al Horford playing the first 6:30 of the game and the Hawks were I believe +1, and Mike Woodson pulls him with his 2 fouls and he doesn't see action for the rest of the half.....by that point it was too late.

The Hawks just looked like a team that didn't want to win, the Pacers wanted it more and they took it.

PS: Joe Johnson played 44+ minutes in a game that wasn't as close as the score indicated. Damn you Mike Woodson, straight to hell.

The Braves failed to take advantage of several opportunities given to them by erratic starter Ubaldo Jimenez and lose their 5th game of the year by one run. In the 8th inning Bobby Cox double switched Gregor Blanco to centerfield replacing Mark Kotsay and put Manny Acosta on the mound to reliever Jair Jurrjens. Down one run in the 9th is an ideal situation for a homerun, or to try and atleast get a man on base. Giving a rookie who has never been on the base paths besides as a pinch runner the 2nd AB of the 9th with nobody else on the bench being used....idiotic. Bobby Cox we salute you, you are a f'n moron.

The Atlanta Braves fell short yet again in a close game suffering their fourth one run loss of the season. Behind 6.1 scoreless innings from Tom Glavine, the Braves could only muster a one run lead that was eventually blown in the 8th inning by Blaine Boyer. He must have a fetish for blowing wins for Glavine because this is his second of the season.

However I won't put all of the blame on the inexperienced pitcher. The obvious pathetic display of offense and the neurotic nature of Bobby Cox were also to blame. \Cox had no business pulling Glavine with his pitch count totaling 88. Although he wasn't nearly as sharp as he was in the early going I felt he had enough in the tank to get the Braves into the 8th inning. Glavine is a well respected veteran and should be given every chance to work himself out of a runner on first with one out situation. Peter Moylan got the Braves out of the inning unharmed but by using him in the 7th, his services were no longer available in the 8th inning with this being his 3rd day in a row. Boyer threw a first pitch fastball right down the middle to Matt Holliday in the 8th inning and it put the Rockies ahead for good. Boyer should never have pitched in this game, period. The Braves will NEVER get anywhere with Bobby Cox as the manager and that's where I've stood for about the past 3 years.

It all underlies the obvious 4-12 record and constant bashing from the media, the Falcons 2007 season was actually the most productive season for the franchise since the 1998 campaign. Let me tell you why!!!

Being an Atlanta sports fan isn't always easy, hell it's never easy but one thing is certain and that's the fact that the losing won't go on forever. The Falcons have taken drastic steps in rebuilding a franchise that hasn't sniffed the playoffs two years in a row in it's entire 40 year history.

We all know what Mike Vick did by now so there's no need to harp on that, but his indictment and pleading guilty has started a huge trickle down effect throughout the entire organization from front office to 53 man roster and the Stalin-esque cleaning is still taking place to this day.

We'll start with Coach Bobby Petrino; he had a whole playbook prepared with certain plays and sets to utilize Vick's rarest of abilities to their fullest potentials, but this never manifested. Instead the hand that Coach Petrino was dealt had only four fingers. The young inexperienced NFL head coach had to call an audible so to speak and attempted to tone down his extensive play book towards Joey Harrington. Going from the fastest quarterback in the history of the NFL with one of the strongest arms to one of the slowest with one of the weakest arms and has been a perennial disappointment since his arrival in the NFL, Coach Petrino never stood a chance.

However, I'm not giving Petrino a free pass for the burden that Vick left the Falcons to bare. Before bolting from the team after week 13, it was obvious to me that Petrino was overwhelmed with the whole experience. His inability to manage the clock or locate talent left the Falcons hung out to dry. Quarterback Chris Redman whom Petrino coached at Louisville in his collegiate days was brought out of his other career of selling insurance to have a shot at landing the Falcons third string quarterback role. Although excelling during the pre-season, Redman never got his shot until week 13 of the regular season; 2 games before Petrino left. Redman thrived in his starting role and ended the season with a 2:1 touchdown to interception ratio. To me there was no reason that Redman shouldn't have had his shot earlier, with Harrington constantly being flustered and anxious in the pocket and lacking confidence it surely would not have hurt. In retrospect it would have been the correct move and there's no doubt in my mind that the Falcons would have at least 1-2 more wins. As an NFL player, coach, owner or fan you never want to hope your team loses but sometimes it just turns out for the best (I'll get to this in a bit). The only correct moves that Bobby Petrino made were bringing in Redman and signing promising offensive tackle Renardo Foster from Louisville (what a homer). I think he'll develop into an excellent third tackle in the league.

The lack of communication from Coach Petrino left the players constantly confused and if a player had concerns then they had to go through multiple members of the organization just to reach the head coach. According to running back Warrick Dunn, Petrino called plays that they never even practiced and left the team befuddled in the huddle. I don't know how they expected anything to work well if the team and the coach aren't even on the same page! With that being said, then General Manager Rich McKay signed fullback Ovie Mughelli to a 6 year 18 million dollar contract with a 5 million dollar signing bonus. Mughelli barely even played and was not even used as a short yardage back like he probably should have been. I won't call it a bad signing just yet, but he has big shoes to fill with the vacation of fan favorite Justin Griffith and personally I will gladly give him another year to see if he can prove his worth in a real offense with an actual coach.

To me 2007 was a great year for the Falcons, not for the players or fans but for the long term health of the franchise. You might be calling me a moron and saying how much of an idiot I am but let me speak my piece. Bobby Petrino was obviously an incompetent coach and clearly he would never have reached a championship level of success in the NFL, but if Michael Vick was still around then he would still be masking the inabilities of the coaching staffs and front offices regardless of who they are. It's similar to what Vick did with former Head Coach Jim Mora Jr. He leads the team to a middle of the road finish of about 8-8 or 9-7 and then gives everybody a whole new year of false hope and repeats the same finish. If Vick were still in command then Petrino might still be the coach and Rich McKay might still be calling the shots. Another fortunate thing happened for the long term of the Falcons with Petrino quitting during the season. It gave Arthur Blank the heads up that a new GM was needed to pick the new coach and he began his search almost a month sooner to get a jump on the competition.

A new era of Falcons football was born on January 13th 2008. After an extensive search for a general manager, Owner and CEO Arthur Blank hired Thomas Dimitroff who was the Patriots director of college scouting. Picking the ripest looking apple from the ripest tree in the NFL, Blank might have just made the right move to bring a winner back to this city. Dimitroff is a new age thinker and brings many of the methods and strategies learned from Scott Pioli and Bill Bellichick in New England to the Falcons front office. First and foremost he believes in building the team through the draft and supplementing the remaining pieces in free agency. Having a long background in college scouting, I have complete trust in Mr. Dimitroff's judge of talent. The front office is not going to be a monarchy, Dimitroff has stated that he takes the opinions of the scouts and coaches very seriously. His communication with new coach Mike Smith has reportedly been top notch and I am very confident that they will put all of the new pieces in the right places to succeed and function as a cohesive unit. They believe in building the system around the players and not the players around the system. Warrick Dunn and Alge Crumper did not fit the system so they were cut. It's a tough thing to do but Dimitroff did his job. Another goal of his is to closely review the history of any player or draft pick. He looks for hard nosed and intelligent players that buy into the team concept. DeAngelo Hall was victim number one and the new GM certainly showed his swagger by quickly shipping him to Oakland (haha Oakland, a nice subtle way of saying FU to Hall). I wonder what he complains about first, Asomugha having his number 21? I'll give it a few months to a year for his whining to come to fruition.

If you've gotten this far you'll remember about 25 years ago or 25 paragraphs ago when I stated that the 2007 season was actually good for the Falcons, let me expand on that. After the 2006 season the Falcons let Patrick Kerney go and he notched 14+ sacks on the season. You might ask how this is good news, but when it combines with probable first round bust Jamaal Anderson's 0 sacks then it nets a pretty damn appetizing 3rd round compensation pick. The pick is chosen by high ranking NFL officials in a complicated process and one step is the comparison for those positions the previous year (Kerney v Anderson). The Falcons lost a key free agent (Kerney) and his replacement did very little (Anderson). Combine the Falcons original 7 picks with the compensatory selection, two second rounders for Hall and Schaub and a 7th rounder for Allen Rossum and you've got 11 picks to build the team. As I said before, losing is a terrible thing but that number 3 overall selection sure looks good now doesn't it? Aren't we all glad that Petrino was such a crappy coach and terrible person?

I almost forgot to mention, what if Vick was accused of those charges 5 weeks sooner? It seemed almost too bad to be true that just as the Falcons traded their prized backup, Vick was called out by the government. However didn't this end beautifully? The Falcons get two draft picks for a player that probably won't even amount to more than a spot starter and career backup.

According to Bodog, a popular gambling site, the Falcons have the worst odds of winning the Super Bowl (125 to 1). While I agree that they won't win it, there are teams in much worse situations. The Falcons have a young, strong and promising foundation to work with. Here's where I think the roster stands

QBs: Obviously we need to use Oakland's second rounder here and pick somebody up. Henne might be nice, but I'd trust the Falcons scouts. Redman will be a good fill in option for this year and has shown willingness to mentor the rookie that will come in.

RB: Turner and Norwood is an excellent combo of thunder and lightning. Funny thing is that Turner is both thunder and lightning in one. These two backs have two of the highest yards per carry averages in the NFL the past two years.

WR: Roddy White, 1200+ yards and he's a legit #1. Laurent Robinson has shown that he can play in the league, just needs a little bit more time. Michael Jenkins sucks and a new third receiver with size would be nice (James Hardy)

FB: Mughelli- We'll See

OL: Clabo is an underrated player and can definitely start in the league (we'll see what position) and Justin Blalock who was just a second rounder last year will only get better at guard. McClure and Forney who are better suited for the zone blocking scheme are cap casualties depending on the draft. Todd Weiner needs to show that he can still play following his knee surgery at age 33.

TE: Releasing Alge Crumpler was difficult but Ben Hartsock is the blocking tight end needed in the offense. Hopefully Martrez Millner's hands sure up.

DT: With the release of Rod Coleman, it leaves nothing certain. Odds are Jonathan Babineaux will win the job as the under tackle but the nose tackle position is still at large. Kindal Moorehead, Rashad Moore and Simon Fraser were good depth signing by Dimitroff, something that the team has lacked for a few years now.

DE: John Abraham. Shall we move on to the other side? Jamaal Anderson didn't record any sacks last year and is edging towards becoming a bust but I will give him time to get stronger and to play the position longer than the one season that he did in college after coming up as a wide receiver. Mario Williams only had 4.5 his rookie season so there is still hope!

LB: Michael Boley has pro bowl written all over him on the strong side and up and coming second year player Stephen Nicholas showed enough last year to warrant the job on the weak side. Keith Brooking is a team player but it's hurting him in this case, he is not cut out to be a middle linebacker and doesn't force the issue. He tends to be a pile jumper. Hopefully his offseason knee surgery helped him and that he's not showing signs of slowing down soon.

CB: Second year players Chris Houston and David Irons have all the talent in the world, can they harness it??? New addition Von Hutchins should help them along.

S: Lawyer Milloy is trust as always, how much longer can he go? Newcomer Erik Coleman thrived in the Jets cover 2 a few years ago before falling out of favor with the new regime. He'll make an excellent FS for years to come.

K/P: Koenen does an excellent job each year as long as he's held to kickoffs and punting! The signing of Jason Elam brings the Brookwood High School standout back to Atlanta. I like the move because it's one less spot to worry about in the draft and no more relying on Morten Andersen to cover up the mistakes of Rich McKay. Hopefully he has enough left in the tank to play out his four year contract.

So there you have it, my first blog. Hopefully there will be many more to come, let me know what you think!