Monday, August 07, 2006

 

FOOTBALL ON TV!!! It's not NCAA, but I'll take what I can get in early August

The Raiders and Eagles played last night, quenching my horrible thirst for televised football. It was NFL preseason, and that's like throwing a starving man a single saltine. As a wise man once said, however, "eventually you wake up one day and say 'hey, I just got some regular old crackers.'" It's still a long way until August 31, but I'll go with whatever the magic glowing box gives me.

Former Devil Andrew Walter entered the game at quarterback for the Raiders in the second quarter and did little to impress. AW (pronounced A-Dub) looked confused, nervous, ackward and a little clumsy in the pocket, especially with a new set of "happy feet." He never had happy feet as a Sun Devil, in fact they were more like hooves wrapped in concrete and glue. I don't know if the Raider coaches have tried to teach him this in an effort to make him more mobile, but STOP IT. He's not mobile, he never will be. His apparent nervousness was surprising to me. Having watched him for three years I never saw him as nervous as last night, even when in his first possession of his first rivalry game he threw a pick-for-6. And oh by the way, any man who is 6'6" and weighs 230 pounds should not be able to be taken down when someone grabs their sleeve, no matter how big the grabber may be.

I recieved the following email from a whiny Raiders fan. I'll protect his anonymity, but his name starts with a "B" and it rhymes with Trent.
"can you explain why andrew walter throws over everyone's head?
did he do that in college?
does he have a depth perception problem?"

Well Mr. X, the answers you seek are yes, yes, and I don't think so. I'll expound.

1.) When AW misses, he misses looooong. Usually when he misses it looks like the reciever ran the wrong route, and I'm not kidding. Dude has a bazooka for an arm. His best season was actually his sophomore campaign when he had current St. Louis Ram Shaun McDonald catching balls. Walter's specialty is the high deep ball where recievers can adjust to it. Lil' Shaun was the type of guy where anybody (and I do mean anybody) could throw the ball as far as they could and he could go and get it. He was like a friggin golden retriever out there, (which is the nickname of yet another great ASU reciever) and I guess it's too bad Oaktown doesn't have anybody on their roster who can do that. You know, a wide reciever that can use amazing natural talent to make circus catches on deep balls.

2.) After McDonald left yes, he did that quite often.

3.) I'm not aware of any eye problems and I never saw or heard of anyone seeing him with glasses. In all fairness, there was one play last night where Johnnie Morant (#19) stopped on a route and tried to make a leaping catch. Had he continued running he would have made the first down and then some. Or maybe it just looked like that. If AW chills out AND gets the chance to throw to Moss the Silver and Black will be having fun as long as their porous O-line can protect the passer.

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Comments:
I agree about the reps. I actually remember thinking the same thing about AW as a frosh at ASU. He was as high of a qb recruit as we'd seen in quite some time, and all the while I'm watching Jeff "chicken legs/D2 powerhouse" Krohn scrambling for his life. You figure it's a sacrifice for one season (not that the 2001 Devils were going anywhere anyway) and let him learn through experience, as it will pay off later. I'd recommend the same for Oakland.
 
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