Thursday, May 22, 2008

Quote of the Week

No, that's not a typo, the quote of the week is back. While the segment has been MIA for a long time, I found some time after packing/leaving school and starting my summer job to dig up a moderately respectable Notre Dame related quote: after the first few days of OTA's, the Browns team site gave a shoutout to undrafted free agent signee Travis Thomas.


"The team also added two rookie running backs following the draft this year in Notre Dame's Travis Thomas and Penn State's Austin Scott, who looked impressive in rookie minicamp."


This is coming from a team site that made 7th round draft pick Alex Hall seem like the next Julius Peppers, but it is always nice to hear that an Irish player is holding his own in the big leagues. If TT keeps up the good work, he might even get a chance to switch back to defense as one of the Browns' three remaining cornerbacks sustained a season ending knee injury in practice yesterday...


UHND.com dug up a screenshot of the top players on ND's roster for the upcoming NCAA 2009 video game, and as always, there a few major head scratchers. In the 2008 game, I was able to tear it up with DE #90 (who was black), and a speedy white runningback (#25) that led me to a national championship while winning the Heisman. This year's roster seems to be more of the same.
Sam, Mo, and Bruton seem like decently fair choices for the top three, but the players underneath are questionable to say the least. Paul Duncan and James Aldridge will both be fighting for playing time next season, and to be honest, I would be mildly surprised if either of them got more than 4 or 5 starts next year. And it is a crime to put Schwapp ahead of some other players on next season's roster; UHND put it well when they asked "Who does Schwapp know at EA sports?"


My last gripe about these rankings is Sam Young's break tackle. At only a measly 65, the EA game creators obviously never saw him returning punts in spring practice.

Go Irish!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pops, can your next post be a polite request to Brady Quinn to stay away from cameras:

http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2008/05/guess-whos-ready-for-summer.html#comments

--GoldenBoy

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't exactly say that Travis Thomas is "holding his own in the big leagues"...
I mean in addition to being one of the students' most hated players for the 2007 season, as well as a notoriously underachieving player (two year captain??), I'd say he's just lucky he was a free agent...

Pops said...

As far as I'm concerned, if you sign with a team as a free agent, you are holding your own in the league until you get sent down to the practice squad, and even though I pounded my head every time he got a carry last year, I still wish him all the success in the NFL.
God knows I would like to see the next Ryan Grant in the orange and brown.