Trades we"d like to see happen at deadline - NFL.( Broncos Acquire Vernon Davis)
The NFL trade deadline passed Tuesday without a move from theVikings.
Minnesota needs help on the offensive line and in the running game. However, the Vikings have just $445,692 of salary-cap room, making any possible deal difficult.
The Vikings made a big move Sept. 3 when they acquired quarterback Sam Bradford from Philadelphia for first- and fourth-round draft choices. They also signed tackle Jake Long as a free agent Oct. 11, and he got his first start in Mondays 20-10 loss at Chicago.
Since the signing of Long, Minnesotas injury-riddled offensive line has continued to struggle. Coach Mike Zimmer, however, has said the Vikings are prepared to go with the players they have.
The Vikings are averaging just 70.3 yards agame on the ground, second-worst in the NFL. Running back Adrian Peterson, though, could be back in December after needing surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his knee in September.
Tonight, the Cubs will take the field for Game 7 of the World Series. After falling behind Cleveland 3-1, Chicago is two-thirds of a way to a comeback, thanks largely to the immensely talented core that brought it this far. Wunderkinds such as Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Addison Russell helped the Cubs take the league by storm in 2016, and they should continue to dominate for years to come.
At this point, seemingly everyone knows about Bryant and Rizzo. Russell, by contrast, has gone relatively under the radar, despite excelling at a younger age than both of them. As a 21-year-old rookie in 2015, Russell compiled 3.0 fWAR over 523 plate appearances; as a 22-year-old sophomore in 2016, he followed that up with 3.9 fWAR in 598 trips to the dish. In case you dont have a nose for these things, that adds up to 6.9 fWAR over two years a sum that inspires a great deal of joy in any baseball fan, no matter their allegiance.
But beneath that success lies a little bit of uncertainty. In FanGraphs judgment, Russell has built his value on his play in the field, rather than at the plate. While the latter is generally quite easy to measure wRC+ tells us that Russells hit at a level 7 percent worse than average in his two major-league campaigns the former can cause some problems, which is where our story begins.
Lets take a step back for a moment. Since the Athletics drafted him back in 2012, Russells defense has amazed some scouts and left others a little unsatisfied. That offseason, BPs Jason Parks wrote that he had plus-plus actions at shortstop. Two years later, his successor Nick J. Faleris had a slightly more pessimistic take, asserting that Russell needed to slow down [his] game in the field yet still crediting him for solid actions at short. MLB.coms Jonathan Mayo followed the opposite trajectory in his analysis: In 2012, he wrote that Russell showed good hands, a strong arm and enough range; by 2014, he felt that Russell had erased any concerns about his long-term future as a shortstop. A consensus didnt really exist nobody thought Russell was a defensive slouch, but opinions diverged on whether hed stand out in the field.
That was then. This is now, when Russell has two years of experience in the majors. In 2015, he spent most of his time at second, thanks to Starlin Castros presence; in 2016, with Castro in New York, Russell stayed at short the entire year. All told, hes accrued 746.0 innings as a second baseman and 1,734.0 innings as a shortstop, for a total of 2,480.0 frames of big-league fielding. And what has he accomplished in that time? Well, that depends on where you look:
H/t to Rob McQuown for hooking me up with Russells FRAA positional splits. Also, my apologies to Russell Carleton for the vague subject line.
As with the scouting, we cant find an agreement. Both DRS and UZR gauge Russell as an elite defender, one of the best perhaps THE best in all of baseball. FRAA, on the other hand, thinks hes much more pedestrian. The difference between the former two and the latter amounts to at least two wins, which is impossible to ignore. How should we respond to it, though?
When I encounter a dilemma such as this, I usually turn to FanGraphs Inside Edge data. The companys scouts evaluate each ball hit to a defender, putting it into one of six buckets impossible (those with a 0 percent chance of turning into an out*), remote (1-10 percent), unlikely (10-40 percent), even (40-60 percent), likely (60-90 percent), and routine (90-100 percent). These numbers can act as an informal mediator, sorting out the differences when defensive metrics dont see eye-to-eye.
*In the five-year history of Inside Edge data, no fielder has ever converted an impossible play. Evidently, the name means something.
Well start with Russells time at second base, to see how well the Inside Edge scouts thought he performed at a comparatively simple position:
Rankings among 27 second baseman with 700+ innings in 2015.
Again, its a mixed bag. Routine plays make up the vast majority of all opportunities that fielders face, so Russells failure there only Kolten Wong and Rougned Odor converted them at a lower rate would seem to seal his fate. But in every other play that falls outside that category, Russell soared high. He paired a breathtaking ability for the extraordinary with a disappointing (relative) inability for the ordinary.
Perhaps if we turn our attention to Russells time as a shortstop, things will become clearer?
Rankings among 22 shortstops with 1,500+ innings in 2015-16.
This elucidates things by quite a bit. At short, Russell has done much better than average on the routine plays, while also converting a solid amount of plays on the other end of the spectrum. Still, a quandary remains why hasnt Russell done better on the b***s in the middle? And wouldnt a truly superb defensive shortstop place higher than ninth in routine plays?
As much as wed like it to, the Inside Edge data cant guide us to a firm conclusion. Even if we cherry-pick some visual examples from MLB.coms archives, the arguments dont fade. Want a phenomenal catch? Take a look at this one:
How about a slick diving grab? Try this one on for size:
On the other side, maybe your masochistic tastes push you toward an errant throw, such as this one:
Or perhaps youd prefer a headstrong charge to try and catch a dying quail, as demonstrated below:
Russell is a professional baseball player, so he makes some sweet plays. Russell is a human being, so he messes up sometimes. The former tends to outweigh the latter, but it might not do so all the time. In other words, GIF-based analysis wont tell us anything we didnt already know.
So whats our answer is Russell an elite fielder, or just a decent one? At the end of the day, I think we should hew to the principle of the golden mean, as laid out by the brilliant philosopher Ron Fournier: The answer lies somewhere in the middle. Going forward, we should expect him to dazzle pretty frequently, while having enough miscues to stay a tier below the greats.
Of course, thats assuming Russell doesnt improve from here. h**l turn 23 in January, he has great teammates, and he remains a ridiculously talented baseball player, which means the sky is the limit. Regardless of what happens tonight, or what the state of his defense is, Russell should play a significant role in the budding Cubs dynasty. And hey, if he can keep doing this...
Josh Huff arrested Rant | Talk is cheap Nelson Agholor stfu and do something about it!
Tuesday certainly never will be remembered as one of the greatest days in Philadelphia Eagles history.
Not only did the franchise fail at the 4 p.m. trade deadline to add a wide receiver, but learned that it may actually be forced to subtract one in the wake of Josh Huff"s arrest.
Huff was charged with possession of a gun and marijuana during a traffic stop for speeding on the Walt Whitman Bridge, according to reports.
The Eagles had no comment on the Huff arrest except to say they"re still gathering information.
They had all the information they needed on the quality of their receivers before the deadline, though, and did not make a move. That signified they either are satisfied with the group that"s in place or found the price tags too high for some of the receivers thought to be available, such as San Francisco"s Torrey Smith and Chicago"s Alshon Jeffery.
Huff has been mostly a disappointment as a receiver since being drafted in the third round out of Oregon in 2013 but has been outstanding on special teams, particularly this season. On Sunday night at Dallas, he returned a kickoff 53 yards to set up a field goal. The week before, he took one back all the way for a touchdown.
The Eagles" other receivers have been struggling as well. The longest of quarterback Carson Wentz"s 32 pass completions went for just 14 yards in Sunday"s 29-23 loss to the Cowboys.
Lack of a downfield threat has been their biggest shortcoming. Ironically Huff, who might be their fastest runner and is easily their most explosive player, is averaging 5.5 yards per reception on 13 catches.
Jordan Matthews leads the team in receptions (36) and receiving yards (419) by large margins. He also ranks first in yards per reception (11.6) and TD receptions. But he is mostly coming from the slot.
Outside receivers Nelson Agholor (21 catches, 216 yards, 1 TD) and Dorial Green-Beckham (18 catches, 194 yards, 1 TD), who was acquired in a preseason trade with Tennessee, have been barely more productive combined than Matthews has been by himself.
This despite rookie quarterback Carson Wentz"s remaining on pace to set the franchise record for completion percentage. He is 150 of 228 for 1,526 yards and nine TDs.
Head coach Doug Pederson last week denied the team was interested in trading for a wide receiver.
"There"s no legitimacy to that," he said, "and I"m thrilled with the guys we have and going to work with them every day."
In Sunday night"s game, Agholor dropped a ball and had a catch wiped out when it was ruled he stepped out of bounds (without being forced) before stepping back in to catch the ball, then in the postgame locker room directed some rage at reporters who questioned him about the team"s problem with drops.
"We have a responsibility to win football games and I get it," he said. "Certain plays could have helped us. But there"s still four quarters of football to be played. We"ve got to win. You heard it from me I don"t got time for that no more. I only got time to win football games. No statistics, no "did this," just win. And that"s all that matters.
"That"s what the coaching staff cares about, that"s what I care about, winning football games," he said.
Gran Desfile de Día de Muertos 2016 en la CDMX #DiaDeMuertosCDMX
En miamidiario.com les presentamos a nuestros lectores un breve resumen de las 5 informaciones que marcaron la pauta local al sur de la Florida durante la semana del lunes 05 al viernes 09 de octubre.
Una historia para contarUn nio de 14 aos se recupera luego de sufrir un ataque de tiburn en la costa de Florida. Funcionarios del Condado de Volusia dijero que el nio, de Vero Beach, estaba en las aguas de New Smyrna Beach practicando al surf cuando un tiburn lo mordi la maana del domingo pasado.
Otros cuatro surfistas se encontraban con l a la hora del incidente. Segn el informe, el nio sufri laceraciones en una mano. Su reaccin tras el mordisco fue sorprendente. El adolescente golpe al tiburn antes de volver a tierra firme a unas 100 yardas de distancia.
Justa condenaUn hombre condenado por matar a su hija, a su exmujer, a su exsuegra y su excuada, ser ejecutado el 29 de octubre. El Gobernador de Florida, Rick Scott, firm una nueva orden de ejecucin el martes en contra de Jerry Correll (59).
Las autoridades dicen que Correll fue a la casa en Orlando de su ex suegra, Mary Lou Hines, en junio de 1985. Apual a Hines de forma fatal, a su exesposa Susan Correll, su hermana Marybeth Jones y y a la hija de 5 aos de su expareja Tuesday Correll.
Huellas dactilares sangrientas junto con otras pruebas fsicas, vinculan a Jerry Correll con la ejecucin del crimen.
La ejecucin de Correll estaba programada para principios de este aos, pero la Corte Suprema de Florida la suspendi despus de que la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos decidi revisar el uso de una inyeccin letal sedante. La droga fue autorizada para su uso en junio y la suspensin de la ejecucin fue levantada el viernes.
Triste noticiaUna nia de 2 aos contina luchando por su vida luego de sufrir quemaduras severas a causa de la explosin de una olla de presin en Fort Lauderdale el mes pasado.
La abuela de Samantha Gonzalez se baaba el 14 de septiembre mientras cocinaba la cena en una olla de presin. Segn el reporte de local10.com, las autoridades sealaron que la olla colaps, creando vapor y liquido hirviendo que quemaron a la nia. Samantha fue trasladada al Broward Health Medical Center y luego al Jackson Memorial Hospital en Miami, donde permanece desde hace unas 3 semanas.
Los doctores sealaron que la nia tiene ms del 60% de su cuerpo cubierto con heridas de segundo y tercer grado. Fue sometida a varias cirugas, pero las lesiones son tan graves que su hgado y sus riones estn fallando.Sus familiares recibieron la dolorosa noticia de que una de las piernas de Samatha deba ser amputada.
Propuesta polmicaLos propietarios de armas con licencia podran llegar a portar su armas abiertamente en pblico en virtud de un proyecto de ley aprobado por un comit de la Cmara. El Subcomit de Justicia Penal vot 8-4 por el proyecto de ley el pasado martes.
Segn el reporte de nbcmiami.com el representante republicano. Matt Gaetz seal que su proyecto de ley har que el estado sea ms seguro, apuntando a las estadsticas que muestran que los crmenes violentos y robos son ms bajos en los estados que permiten el porte abierto de pistolas.
Tambin el martes, el Comit de Justicia Penal del Senado aprob por unanimidad un proyecto de ley que prohibira los campos de tiro improvisados y disparos de armas por motivos de celebracin en las zonas urbanas y altamente pobladas.
Peculiar confusin
Parte de la Interstate95 fue sido cerrada en ambas direcciones el viernes luego los patrulleros hallaron lo que pensaron era una granada explosiva cuando investigaban un accidente de trnsito en Miami Gardens Drive. Los carriles de las I-95 fueron clausurados desde Miami Gardens Drive hasta Ives Dairy Road.
Segn local10.com, la polica de Miami-Dade dijo que asistan al Florida Highway Patrol en el cierre de las rampas de entrada y salida hacia la autopista en esa direccin.
Luego los detectives determinaron que la granada era de juguete.
Quizs le interese leer:
Surfista de 14 aos se defendi de ataque de tiburn en la costa de Florida
Hombre que asesin a esposa e hija en Florida ser ejecutado en Octubre
Amputan pierna de nia que sufri quemaduras de olla de presin en Fort Lauderdale
Comit de la Cmara de la Florida aprueba proyecto de ley para permitir portar armas abiertamente
Reabren la I-95 tras hallar granada de juguete en un vehculo
MEXICO CITY - Hollywood movies, zombie shows, Halloween and even politics are fast changing Mexicos Day of the Dead celebrations, which traditionally consisted of quiet family gatherings at the graves of their departed loved ones bringing them music, drink and conversation.
Mexicos capital held its first Day of the Dead parade Saturday, complete with floats, giant skeleton marionettes and more than 1,000 actors, dancers and acrobats in costumes.
Tens of thousands turned out to watch the procession, which included routines like a phalanx of Aztec warriors with large headdresses doing tricks on rollerblade skates.
It would be hard to conserve these traditions without any changes, said Juan Robles, a 32-year-old carpenter who led the skating Aztecs. This way, people can come and participate, the young and old.
Such a spectacle has never been a part of traditional Day of the Dead celebrations.
The idea for the parade was born out of the imagination of a scriptwriter for last years James Bond movie Spectre. In the film, whose opening scenes were shot in Mexico City, Bond chases a villain through crowds of revelers in what resembled a parade of people in skeleton outfits and floats.
Its a bit of a feedback loop: Just as Hollywood dreamed up a Mexican spectacle to open the film, once millions had seen the movie, Mexico had to dream up a celebration to match it.
When this movie hit the big screen and was seen by millions and millions of people in 67 countries, that started to create expectations that we would have something, said Lourdes Berho, CEO of the governments Mexico Tourism Board. We knew that this was going to generate a desire on the part of people here, among Mexicans and among tourists, to come and participate in a celebration, a big parade.
Mexico City authorities even promised that some of the props used in the movie would appear in the parade. The government board sponsoring the march called it part of a new, multi-faceted campaign to bring tourists to Mexico during the annual Day of the Dead holiday.
Women with faces painted to look like the popular Mexican figure called Catrina are seen in Zapopan, Mexico, on October 30, 2014.
REUTERS
Add to this the increasing popularity of Zombie Walks around the Day of the Dead, and the scads of Halloween witches, ghouls, ghosts and cobweb decorations sold in Mexico City street markets, and some see a fundamental change in the traditional Mexican holiday.
Johanna Angel, an arts and communication professor at Mexicos IberoAmerican University, said the influences flow both north and south. She noted U.S. Halloween celebrations now include more Mexican-inspired candy skull costumes and people dressed up as Catrinas, modeled on a satirical 19th century Mexican engraving of a skeleton in a fancy dress and a big hat.
I think there has been a change, influenced by Hollywood, Angel said. The foreign imports are what most influence the ways we celebrate the Day of the Dead here.
Traditionally, on the Nov. 1-2 holiday, Mexicans set up altars with photographs of the dead and plates of their favorite foods in their homes. They gather at their loved ones gravesides to drink, sing and talk to the dead.
In some towns, families leave a trail of orange marigold petals in a path to their doorway so the spirits of the dead can find their way home. Some light bonfires for the same purpose, sitting around the fire and warming themselves with cups of boiled-fruit punch to ward off the autumn chill.
These days, many cities set up huge, flower-strewn altars to the dead and hold public events like parades, mass bicycle events and fashion shows in which people dress up in Catrina disguises.
Some say the changes dont conflict with the roots of the holiday, which they say will continue.
Samuel Soriano, a 35-year-old insurance executive, decorates his Mexico City home Halloween-style (think giant spider webs and inflatable tombstones) and each year hands out candy to about 100 trick-or-treaters. But in his dining room, he has a more traditional Dia de los Muertos shrine with portraits of departed loved ones, candles, decorative skulls and marigolds.
We decorate for the sheer pleasure of it, and to see the smiles on childrens faces, Soriano said. We also celebrate Day of the Dead ... Theres no reason to see it as a contradiction.
People dressed as zombies participate in a Zombie Walk procession in Mexico City, Mexico, October 22, 2016, a week ahead of the countrys Day of the Dead celebrations.
REUTERS/Edgard Garrido
On a recent Zombie Walk, in which hundreds paraded through Mexico City in corpse disguises one week before the Day of the Dead, most participants said it was just good, clean fun.
We are not fighting against our cultural traditions, Jesus Rodriguez, one of the organizers, said as he waved a fake plastic arm he was gnawing on. On the contrary, if you take off the zombie*s flesh, there are skeletons, there are Catrinas.
Yet Mexicos traditional view of the dead was never ghoulish or frightful. The dead were seen as the dear departed, people who remained close even after death. Could the outside influences threaten that?
I dont think that will change, Angel said. I think Mexico maintains the sense of remembering the dead with closeness, not fright.
Indeed, Mexicans still enjoy the graveside celebrations. Some cemeteries grow so packed and rowdy that authorities have been forced to ban alcohol sales at nearby stores.
And Mexicans have changed the holiday themselves, without outside influences, making it a time to express social protest and social causes.
Many have erected public shrines for the nearly 30,000 disappeared in Mexicos drug war. In downtown Mexico City in recent years, prostitutes have put on skull masks and erected a shrine to murdered prostitutes.
Day of the Dead - itself an amalgam of Spanish and pre-Hispanic beliefs - seems likely to survive, despite the rapid changes, in a festival-loving country that has long managed to successfully absorb many outside influences.
Any opportunity for a festival is welcome, Angel noted, and with any influences from at home or abroad, and in all possible combinations.
As the arm-gnawing zombie Rodriguez put it, We love these days, Day of the Dead, Halloween, and Zombies, that is the reason why this crowd is here year after year.
ESPN First Take - Ray Allen Announces His Retirement From The NBA
I had to get there. I just had to get there.
The UConn women had ended Tennessee"s NCAA record 69-game home winning streak on a Saturday in early January 1996, and now I was stranded in Knoxville. A blizzard had crushed the Northeast coast with more than 2 feet of snow and a flight home was not to be found.
Bradley? Logan? Nothing. LaGuardia, Kennedy, Newark? Not a chance. No flights early Sunday. No flights late Sunday. The UConn men were scheduled to play Villanova on Monday night at Gampel Pavilion in one of the most anticipated matchups of the college season. Ray Allen was going against Kerry Kittles. I just had to be there.
On Monday, Scott Gray and Meghan Pattyson, who had broadcast the game, and I finally finagled a flight to Albany. The snow wasn"t as bad farther north and inland. We rented a car at the airport to get back as quick as we could. The closer we drew to Connecticut the higher the snowbanks grew and somewhere amid those snowbanks in the Berkshires we found out the game had been postponed 24 hours.
I would get to Gampel after all. A few years later, Ray Allen, who officially retired from basketball Tuesday at age 41 with an inspired letter to his 13-year-old self, would take on the nickname of the character he played in Spike Lee"s 1998 movie. Allen wasn"t Jesus Shuttlesworth of "He Got Game" yet, but there was a growing, almost mystical draw to this military man"s kid out of South Carolina.
That jump shot, man, it was beautiful. That jump shot was a magnet, a magnet great enough to first draw fans from all over Connecticut and eventually great enough draw the awe of the basketball world.
Allen"s 2,973 regular-season three-pointers stand as the most in NBA history. The three-pointer he so dramatically hit to force overtime in Game 6 of the NBA Finals and preserve the path to the Miami Heat"s 2013 title will go down in history as his grandest.
Among the appropriate tributes Tuesday from Jim Calhoun, Geno Auriemma, Kevin Ollie and NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Stephen Curry, one of two or three others who could challenge for such a lofty title, called Allen, "The greatest shooter to play the game."
This is Rembrandt talking about Michelangelo, folks.
Yet the greatest shooter to play the game missed his first three shots against Villanova that night in 1996. Calhoun took him out for a minute, reminding him he couldn"t win the game in the first 30 seconds. Allen had spent the previous day watching the snow fall outside his apartment window and watching a VCR tape of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. He was over-revved. When he re-entered the game, he was spectacular. He hit nine of the next 10 shots. He hit four threes in a row. My jaw dropped again and again and again. Allen was unstoppable in scoring 22 points in the final 16 minutes of the first half.
There may have been better halves by a UConn player over the decades, but only Caron Butler"s second half in the NCAA Elite Eight against Maryland in 2002 comes to mind. After UConn had beaten Villanova, Calhoun called Allen the best player in the country. He called Allen the best player he had ever coached.
There were times when I wrote something that demonstrated basketball acumen short of, oh, James Naismith, that Calhoun was known to refer to me as "a hockey guy." He was right. I had covered the NHL for two decades before becoming The Courant"s sports columnist late in 1995. I had fallen away from the game, missed important chunks of basketball while chasing pucks in Winnipeg and Quebec.
Yet growing up in Rhode Island, dating from the 1960s, there also was no bigger college basketball fan. I"d score every Providence College game off the radio. For years from Lenny Wilkens to Ernie D. and Marvin Barnes, I followed PC religiously. Later at college, I carried my love of the sport to covering Missouri during a period when the Tigers advanced to the Elite Eight. Heck, even had a girlfriend dump me for one of the starters.
Jimmy Walker was my guy, my idol. The top pick of the 1967 NBA draft, ahead of other legendary guards like Earl Monroe and Walt Frazier, he was the only New England college player ever to go No. 1.
Jimmy Walker made me love the game as a kid. Ray Allen made me fall in love with the game again as a man. He turned me from a hockey guy into a basketball guy. That night against Villanova, the love was sealed.
Precious few things in life are perfect.
Ray Allen"s jump shot was one of them.
In 2011, when Allen was about to break Reggie Miller"s record for NBA three-pointers, I asked Kemba Walker what he saw in Allen"s jumper.
"What do I see?" said Walker, who has gone from UConn to become one of the NBA"s top guards. "He don"t miss. That"s what I see."
I love that answer.
Over the years, I asked Calhoun, Howie Dickenman, Tom Moore, Scott Burrell and a few others about Allen"s shot. They talk about how he was able to quickly find his balance. How he keeps his shot pocket so tight. How he is so shot-ready with his body square to the hoop. How he has such great legs that help him elevate effortlessly. How, as a high school player his shot had too flat of a trajectory, but his mechanics from his toes to his fingertips had become flawless.
You listened and you felt like you were standing at a museum with them as they were dissecting the nuances of a great portrait hanging on the wall.
Yet each of them would always return to the process that so relentlessly drove Allen. Compulsion for perfection. Pursuit of perfection. Chase of perfection. Obsession for perfection. Those were the words they used and it always ended with perfection. From his summer training, to shooting at specific spots on the floor, to the pregame nap, to the pregame meal of chicken and white rice, to shaving his head, the relentless routine, the inexorable drive to leave nothing to chance.
He may have been Jesus Shuttlesworth, but the jealous ones who viewed him only as the lucky recipient of G*d-given talent did not please him.
"An insult," Allen told Jackie McMullen, then of the Boston Globe, in 2008 when he helped lead the Celtics to the NBA championship. "G*d could care less whether I can shoot a jump shot."
Auriemma, whose 11 NCAA national championships are more than any coach in the men"s or women"s game, says he brings up Allen to his players. His message is nobody worked harder at practice. Nobody got up more shots when no one else was around. In his retirement letter to himself in The Players" Tribune, Allen repeated that G*d will give you a lot in life but he won"t give you your jump shot.
"The secret is there is no secret," Allen wrote.
Twenty years have passed since Ray Allen made me fall in love with college basketball again. I have passed on that love. I have a son who plays at prep school and will play small college basketball. He needed only two words to describe Ray Allen: "Great man." I need only two words to send him a reminder to work hard, to shoot more, to prepare endlessly.
Ray Allen.
As a dad, I can use no more powerful words.
That"s why I hoped that after sitting out since 2014, Allen would come back to play a final season. Burrell, as close to Allen as anybody, was convinced he"d still light it up. If he had signed with one of the contenders, nobody"s going to convince me Ray Allen, at 41, wouldn"t have hit the three to win the 2017 NBA Finals.
He wasn"t Jesus. He was the most-prepared man in the room. That was enough for miracles to happen.
Just two weeks after logging a season-high in touches and snaps, Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles will miss Sundays game against the Indianapolis Colts because of lingering problems in his surgically repaired right knee.
The knee, it was up and down, Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. Well just back him off here and see if we cant get that thing to settle down.
Charles, 29, logged a single touch and two snaps in Sundays win over the New Orleans Saints. The reduced workload came after he recorded 11 touches in 15 snaps in the Chiefs 26-10 win over Oakland on Oct. 16, his second game of the season. He also played briefly at Pittsburgh.
On Monday, Reid said Charles drop in snaps against the Saints had more to do with his injury hes still working his way back to normal after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament last October than the effectiveness of his 24-year-old replacement, Spencer Ware, who is enjoying a very strong season.
Reid added that Charles knee acted up during last weekends game, and the Chiefs want to handle that accordingly.
Yeah, you have to be smart with it, Reid said. He might take a step back and come forward with something better. Thats what you try to do. Were never going to put him out there if its not right. Thats just not going to happen. It doesnt matter who the player is thats how we roll.
Ware has logged 95 carries for 492 yards an average of 5.2 yards per carry and two touchdowns. He has also emerged as a factor in the passing game, catching 15 passes for 285 yards and a touchdown.
Charles absence Sunday means the only other healthy tailback, aside from Ware, on the Chiefs 53-man roster will be Charcandrick West, who battled ankle and elbow problems earlier this season. West was actually the Chiefs leading rusher last year, with 634 yards and four touchdowns in 160 carries, though Ware boasted a superior yards-per-carry average (5.6 to Wests 4.0).
The Chiefs have the option of calling up one of their two running backs from the practice squad, as Darrin Reaves, 23, impressed during the preseason, while the club signed 23-year old rookie Zac Brooks, a former seventh-round pick of the Seattle Seahawks, on Thursday.
On Friday, Reid said thats unlikely to happen.
We wont do that, Reid said. Were alright with it. Some of the young guys can play there.
Reid is referring to the Chiefs pair of smallish but dynamic skill-position threats: fifth-round rookie Tyreek Hill and three-year veteran DeAnthony Thomas.
Hill, who is listed at 5 feet, 10 inches and 185 pounds, has logged five carries for 17 yards this season. Most of those carries have come on jet sweeps, but he occasionally lines up at running back, a position he played some in college.
Thomas, a fourth-round pick in 2014 who sat out the first four games of this season, has seen his workload increase the last two weeks, when he has logged a total of 23 offensive snaps. He hasnt recorded a carry this season, but the 5-foot-9, 176-pound Thomas has rushed 23 times for 147 yards a sterling average of 6.4 yards per carry over the course of his career.
Yeah, Im playing everywhere thats what I do, said Thomas. Ive been doing it all my life. I dont even have a certain position I play. I could play wherever they need me to go.
Thomas added that people neednt worry about his size, or Hills, for that matter. They may be small for running backs, but they can do the job.
Size doesnt matter at all, Thomas said. The game matters, knowing whats going on. Making people miss.
