Talking Bout.. Summer

I apologize for the month long hiatus. Following a brief return to the great state of Ohio, I packed my bags and headed to the Windy City for the summer, where someone thinks it is a good idea to pay me for telling people what to do. The job has been rough on this blog though as being on the road Monday through Thursday combined with working without internet during the day (not like I have much time to write there anyway) have tapped into my expendable time that I normally use for covering the Irish.



June is normally a pretty dull month in terms of football news, but with Quinn battling for a starting spot, recruiting hitting a hot streak, and some good positions battles (finally) set to take place during offseason workouts, the summer of 2009 is off to a good start.


NFL Irish: The Browns completed their first set of minicamps last week, and from all of the reports I’ve read, it sounds like the team is going through some growing pains with another new coaching regime. Playing for his third Belichik-tree coach in Eric Mangini, Brady Quinn's accuracy in the short game may trump Derek Anderson's strong arm in the new, more conservative offense. Of course Quinn couldn't have hurt his chances of starting by wowing the new coach with his off season workout regime:

“[The weight room] was something that allowed me to propel to start when I was a freshman coming in at Notre Dame, as well as giving me an advantage in high school. Then as I've gotten to the NFL I noticed guys become limited by injuries, and a lot of injuries happen because guys don't take care of their bodies. So I've always prided myself on hard work and that's just extended into the weight room. It's something where, not only do I enjoy it, but I feel like it gives me an advantage over everyone else, because I work so much harder there and do the little things."

-Brady Quinn


I feel like too many of my previous posts have dealt with Quinn, so I'll try to mix in some other NFL Irish news as well.


Video of John Carlson talking up the next season in Seattle

Even with the departure of Matt Birk, Vikings center John Sullivan knows he still has to win the starting job in Minnesota.

...ok so when I had the idea of doing a small NFL Irish segment I thought I would be able to dig up more on the rookies (Bruton et al), but so far I haven't found anything, so I guess that will have to wait...

Recruiting: The last week has been full of Notre Dame recruiting news as the Irish have landed 4 verbal commits in the last 7 days. Highlights include QB Hendrix (who BGS points out will continue the tradition of easily memorable ND signal caller names) and 4 star DE Blake Leuders.
There are a lot of blogs that recover recruiting more in depth than the Nasties crew, so if you want to dive deeper into the new commits, I’m going to recommend a new site that I’ll soon add to the ND Blog section. The Daily Shillelagh (besides having a nice ring to it) keeps up on its implied promise and cranks out quality updates on a frequent basis.

Thats all the time I have for now - Go Irish!