Berlin Thunder: Wir haben begonnen!

Now that things are actually happening, I think it's time for a sizable update.

First off, something I neglected to mention last time. So, my car came in from the cross-country shippers. The guy couldn't really take his 80-foot truck into Pelham, so I agreed to pick it up on 95 after the New Rochelle toll plaza (sketchy). Everything checked out, so I signed off on it and drove off.

On the way home, my sun roof shattered. Yes, shattered. Into hundreds of pieces of safety glass. It came through the little holes in the sun roof cover, too, so there's glass all over the car. It sounded like an explosion on the roof of my car. So now, until the sun roof piece gets into the repair place, I'm driving around with a duct tape fiasco on the top of my car. Just awesome. I'm sure that worked really well in the snow we got last night, too.

Now, onto international matters: the NFL Europa Allocation Draft and Free Agent Draft happened last Friday. I got to watch a little bit of it online, which was interesting. Also, the group of pre-draft allocations were announced a few days before that. Here's Berlin's current roster now that the dust has settled.

Very interesting. If you're a fan of the Berlin Thunder, you've got plenty of reason to be excited. Probably the most recognizable name among this list is Omar Jacobs, who at one time, was a Heisman Trophy candidate. As a sophomore at Bowling Green--coached under Urban Meyer--he threw 41 touchdowns and only 4 interceptions. That ratio is the best in Division 1-A history. His 4,002 yards led the nation as well.

Jacobs is what many people figured the next generation of quarterbacks would be like: big (6'4"), built (224), mobile (4.59 in the 40-yard dash, 300 rushing yards and 4 TDs during that sophomore year), and very cool looking (it's all in the dreadlocks).

While he fell to the fifth round of the 2006 NFL Draft (picked by the Steelers), he was just starting to put it all together in the preseason. He completed 22 of 34 passes for 275 yards, including a 13-for-18 effort with 179 yards and a touchdown in the finale against Carolina. He stuck for a while on their practice squad before being released, and spending time with Philadelphia's practice squad.

He was allocated by the Kansas City Chiefs.

We had a conference call this morning with Jacobs and head coach John Allen. Jacobs said in his opening statement, “It’s a privilege to be part of NFL Europe. I think I’m going to a great situation with the Berlin Thunder. I’m very excited just to be there, to get the experience and get to play football. It’s an opportunity to showcase my talent at that level again.”

The Thunder might also have one of the most talented running backs in NFLE this season, with Chris Barclay. He was the ACC Player of the Year as a senior in 2005, finishing with 1,127 yards on 218 carries (5.2 yards per carry) and 10 touchdowns He finished his career at Wake Forest as the school’s career rushing leader in rushing yards (4,032), scoring (240 points), rushing touchdowns (40), and all-purpose yards (4,930).



At 5'10", and around 180 pounds, you can expect that Barclay is quite a shifty back.

“We’re very fortunate to get Chris," John Allen said. "I was in Cleveland Browns camp this past summer as an intern, and Chris was there. I had a chance to see Chris Barclay play in person, and I’ll tell you, we’re getting a heck of a back. He’s very explosive, he has great speed. He has very good receiving ability out of the backfield. I think he’s a person, that when you look at what we do in the one-back system here in Berlin, and what I had in Amsterdam, he fits that mold. He’s able to get outside with his speed. I think he has great vision. I think he will have the opportunity to showcase his talent.”

Barclay spent most of the season on the Browns' practice squad, but was elevated to the 53-man roster late in the season. The Browns allocated him overseas.

If you scan the results of the free agent draft, you'll see that one of the selections came from Vanderbilt! Yes, Bill Alford is headed to Frankfurt. Go Dores!

So, now that my roster is set, I've started writing media bios for each of the players. Once we get to camp, we put all of the bios for all of the players into one book for distribution. It's interesting see how much some of these guys have bounced around professional football. Here, for instance, is the transaction history for Bryant Shaw:

Returns for a third season in NFL Europa after being allocated by the Washington Redskins… Originally signed as an undrafted free agent by the Dallas Cowboys on April 17, 2000…Released by Dallas on August 27, 2000…Re-signed by Dallas at the end of the 200 season and allocated to NFL Europe’s Scottish Claymores, posting 15 tackles, four sacks and three passes defended …Released by Dallas on September 2, 2001… Selected by the Berlin Thunder as a free agent in the 2002 NFL Europe Free Agent Draft…Recorded a sack during the 2002 NFLE season, as he helped the Thunder win World Bowl X…Activated by the Grand Rapids Rampage of the Arena Football League, July 3, 2002…Traded by the Rampage to the Colorado Crush on October 22, 2002 after Colorado traded rights to 11th and 12th pick in the 2003 AFL Expansion Draft to Grand Rapids…Started all 16 regular season games in 2005 and all three playoff contests, including Colorado’s ArenaBowl XIX victory, and posted 11.0 stops, 2.0 sacks and a fumble recovery on the year…Signed with Grand Rapids on November 9, 2005…Released by Grand Rapids on April 18, 2006…Signed by the Detroit Lions on April 20, 2006…Released by Detroit on August 8, 2006…Signed by the Washington Redskins on January 23, 2007.

That, my friends, is what we call a survivor. This will be his third stint in NFL Europe; his last stay was five years ago.

Enough about NFL Europe for now. Has anyone seen the NCAA Men's rankings lately? A quick look at the ESPN/USA Today Top 25: T21) Virginia Tech, 23) Vanderbilt, 24) USC. Not only are those three schools that you NEVER see in the Top 25, but I've got reasons to cheer for both schools through friends. (Yup... HOKIE HOKIE HOKIE HI TECH TECH VPI SOL-A REC SOL-A RAH POLY-TECH VIRGINIA RAY RAH VPI TEAM TEAM TEAM! and sure, fight on.) I'll be pulling for a Vandy-USC-VT-IU Final Four, for sure.

But, expect Villanova to make a pretty exciting run, too.

I'll be back with some more tomorrow and later this week.

"I call him gamblor!"

For better or for worse, I've returned from my one-night craps outing at Mohegan Sun. I didn't make as much money as I thought I would; in fact, I didn't make any money at all. Yes, the perfect streak of me coming out smelling like roses from casinos has come to a drunken end.

Thankfully, I only came out down $270. It could have been a lot worse; most of my craps losses came in the first hour or so, while I spent most of the next 6 or 7 hours playing consistently mediocre. I'd play small-ball, the roller found their rhythm, I bet on them as a show of confidence, and they'd throw a 7.

My streak of good rolling crashed and burned as well. My first two or three turns at rolling ended up fantastic. Most of the money I made/kept for a while resulted from my tosses. Then, as a sign from the gambling gods that my luck had officially run out, I came upon a rather miserable routine; establish a point, 7-out on the first roll or two. I might as well have been wearing my Alex Rodriguez shirt. (Thanks for rubbing it in, Ozzie Guillen.)

One highlight of the weekend, or of any weekend with Chris for that matter, is the endless supply of Simpsons that we can go back and forth on. Since we happened to be at a casino, who can forget the classic gamblor episode?

If you're ever at Mohegan, I recommend the po' boys from Bubba's, which is upstairs in the casino. Great service, and incredible sandwiches.

Take it easy, Norv: In case you live under a rock, you've heard that the San Diego Chargers have hired former 49ers offensive coordinator Norv Turner to be their head coach. That's great for him. Norv is a terrific guy, and he has got a near all-star cast assembled on the south side of his home state. He's even got Ron Rivera as his linebackers coach. Even with all of the staff turnover they had this off-season, you've got to think that they've come out of this just about as good as they possibly could have. They're still in the discussion as the top team in the AFC, or the NFL, for that matter.

My good buddy, Matt Maiocco from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat pointed out today in his blog, that whoever replaces Turner will be the 49ers' fifth offensive coordinator in five years. Simply incredible. (As a side note, his blog is a must-read for any 49ers fan.)

Whaddya mean, Barq's has bite?: Anything you read about the San Diego Chargers these days talks about them as "having the most talent in the NFL." That doesn't just mean that they have good players at all of their positions. The Giants have good players at most of their positions; that didn't turn out so well. The Panthers have good players at pretty much all of their positions; they terribly underachieved.

"Having the most talent in the NFL," in this case, means that they have just got playmakers out of the wazoo. Almost every place you look where you need a playmaker, they're covered. LaDanian Tomlinson is already in the discussion as one of the best running backs ever. Antonio Gates fits the Chargers' offense perfectly and dominates as a pass-catching tight end. Receivers Vincent Jackson can flat out control the passing game at times (it's tough to cover a 6-5, 245 pound guy that can jump), and Eric Parker compliments him and Gates very well. Their offensive line is loaded with young talent.

Their front seven is straight-up sickening. One of the best unknown players in the NFL, nose tackle Jamal Williams, is the prototype interior lineman to build a 3-4 defense around. They can afford to play two good, young defensive tackles out at end (Igor Olshansky and Luis Castillo) because their linebackers are so darn good at pass rushing. Say what you will about Shawne Merriman: he's probably one of the best defensive players in the NFL. They just signed Shaun Phillips to a contract extension through 2012, who, by the way, had 11.5 sacks this year. (Merriman added 17 of his own, playing in only 12 games.) Donnie Edwards, considered an undersized guy for an interior 3-4 linebacker, had over 140 tackles (according to ESPN.com) and grabbed 3 interceptions.

Their weakness, you could argue, would be in their secondary, where they have spent a slew of first round picks over the years. A quick peek over at DraftHistory shows that 3 of the Chargers' last 6 picks in the first round have been defensive backs. (Their other three picks? Merriman, Castillo, and Eli Manning, who turned into Phillip Rivers.) They even used a second round pick in 2000 and two second round picks in 2003 on defensive backs as well. That's six picks in the first two rounds on defensive backs since 2000. In 2001, they picked Tay Cody in the third round. They really should be one draft pick or free agent from fielding two young, talented secondaries. Yet, it's still an area of concern.

Parting shots:

• The NFL Europa allocation draft is on Friday. While most of my team has been announced via roster allocations, there's still a bunch of player movement still yet to be determined. Once I've got the final official roster, I'll put it up. Stay tuned.
• Whatever happened to Linkin Park? Didn't their last CD come out my freshman year of college?
• Happy birthdays this week: Pete Monaldo and Chris Krosche.
  

Back in the airport; Nashville edition

Somehow, I seem to do my best/most frequent updating in airports. That's quite a statistic. Above, you'll find the birds-eye view after the Commodores beat the Gators at Memorial Gym yesterday.

Nerd alert: I don't know what it was, but for some reason or another, I had zero ability to access the Internet in Nashville. My Blackberry couldn't check mail or access websites. My laptop told me I had an invalid IP address (what?) which could not be fixed without unplugging everyone in the frat house from the Internet. Not even the technology experts could figure that one out. I guess all I needed to do to fix everything was leave. That's heartwarming.

Oh yeah, college WAS fun: So last night, we had a frat party. It was "preps vs. punks." I wore, for the most part, what I wear to work, which I guess qualified me as a prep. Why did I leave this again? Endless supply of beer; drunken phone calls; 3 AM Quiznos (euughhhh); and lots of upset Florida fans.

What....the hell: I did happen to visit Nashville on the coldest weekend ever. It was around 20 degrees last night, with a stiff wind that made me cry and tested my desire to live. In typical Nashville fashion, the city wasn't prepared for cold AND precipitation at the same time, so they had no salt or sand anywhere. As a result, all roads and sidewalks were covered in a sheet of ice. Sweet. That made the walks to and from the Holiday Inn (11 PM, 3:30 AM) both tearjerkers.

Old links to know: Here are the links from my Super Bowl blogs from 49ers.com:

• Sunday, January 28th (looking very intern-ish)
  
• Monday, January 29th (Me and Ronnie Brown)
  
• Tuesday, January 30th (Media Day)
• Wednesday, January 31st (Frank Gore and I looking mean, me and Emmitt Smith)
• Thursday, February 1st (Prince...so hot right now)
• Friday, February 2nd (looking very intern-ish again)
• Saturday, February 3rd (my name is spelled wrong...)
• Sunday, February 4th (the game day recall)

Sports things to know:

• Vanderbilt might get fined since its fans stormed the court after beating #1 Florida yesterday. Since this would be their second offense, they are subject to a $25,000 fine. From Andy Katz's blog on ESPN.com: (Vanderbilt head coach Kevin) Stallings said an administrative official told him the storming of the court was "money well spent."
• For future reference: The penalty for dumping a TV star for a super model is a baby. Courtesy Tom Brady.
• Michael Irvin is out at ESPN.
• Randy Johnson thinks he can continue the trend of big-time free agents fizzling in New York, then leaving and regaining their stardom.
• What is the point in having the NBA's second-year players beat the crap out of a group of mediocre rookies every year?
  
• The NCAA might take back some of the clock changes they made last season.
• One of my favorite web sites, DraftHistory, has posted a review of the difference between having the #3 and #4 overall picks in the NFL Draft, since the Bucs and Browns will coin flip for the pick.

We're sorry, luck doesn't exist here: Up $250 from Mandalay Bay, and $1150 at the Bellagio, I'll get my chance to take on the craps tables at Mohegan Sun on Tuesday. I'm either due to bank $4000 bucks (the linear progression of my rise) or lose about $4000 (my overconfidence biting me in the ass, and my luck coming crashing down to Earth). As a precaution, I plan on drinking around $4000 in free liquor.

Weekend excursion to Nash-vegas: Prepare for Impact!, The Return of Go Dores, and snow for everyone

Seeing as I haven't posted in a while--more on that in a bit--it's only appropriate that I pick back up once I get back to Vanderbilt.

Of course, it's 20 degrees here. Actually, right now, it's snowing. I can't seem to escape that all of a sudden. I'm in New York just long enough to shovel snow, so I go south, and what happens? Snow. I suppose since I kept telling people how much I missed the cold weater, I'm getting my payback now.

Coming back this time, as opposed to Homecoming last semester, I feel old. Really old. When I was here in October, I felt like I still could have been a student. This time, I don't feel like a student; they just feel like "people" to me. Spending the whole season among older, working people, I guess has really changed my outlook. The people that are juniors and seniors just look like college students. The freshman and sophomores look like little kids.

Not to mention I am a lightweight these days. (sigh)

Anyhoo, the whole reason I came down was to teach Impact 1 to all the froshies and sophomores in the house. It went really well! To be honest, I didn't put as much time into studying it as I should have--but they were all smarties and they carried a lot of the discussion. What good little frat boys! Remember...your intent should equal your impact.

We've got a frat party tonight (Saturday), "Preps vs. Punks." Yay college!

Vanderbilt beat #1 Florida today, for all of you college basketball fans. Acutally, more like, Vanderbilt beat the SHIT out of #1 Florida, here at Memorial Gym. (Memorial Magic baby!) What's funny is, we hosted Florida when Ray taught Impact 1 my sophomore year. (Ray's first college basketball game) (even though he ATTENDED Syracuse the year they won the championship). That was the game that Daron told Matt Walsh to "die in a fire." Classic.

It's great to be back here. I really love this city. Something about this place comforts me very much. The people here that I know probably have a lot to do with it, but Nashville is just a great place, too. I feel like this is a place I could settle down and live very easily. Not that San Francisco isn't that way--I just don't feel like I got to know the city or the area enough to make that decision.

It was nice to see the guys at the Titans and at Vanderbilt media relations. They're all doing really well.

Why the hell haven't I been updating??? Well, during Super Bowl week, the grind of writing two blogs, while surviving on 5 AM to 1 AM working hours, just didn't hold up. I did blog for 49ers.com throughout the week, and they put up some GREAT pictures. I'll post the links later. (for some reason, when I blog from a Mac, I can't make hyperlinks....)

Then, I flew back to San Jose from Miami, and pretty much moved out. I gave myself four days between getting back to the West coast and flying back to New York. In that time, I had to ship boxes home, sell all the things I couldn't take with me (bed, TV, dresser, etc.), and totally move out.

My computer desk, which I bought used, was starting to fall apart. So, I broke that into a million pieces. That was AWESOME.

As hectic as the moveout was, I made it back to NY with all of my belongings out of the apartment and the 49ers facility. It was tough to leave, yes, but it isn't like I was moving out with nothing to look forward to. I mean, I AM about to spend 4 months working in Germany. I really can't complain.

Back in NY, I have been chillin', hard core. To kill time, I've been playing Super Mario 64. It was on my list of games that I hadn't ever beaten that I really wanted to. (Yup, that's actually a list I keep.) I'm on 90-something stars...but I HAD to take a break. I had stopped going outside...I stopped shaving...typical Andy Vacation Syndrome.

My time in NY will be nuts. I leave Nashville on Sunday. On Tuesday, I'm going to Mohegian Sun with Chris and Virginia and a friend of hers. (So far, I'm 2 for 2 making money gambling. Now, the pressure is on.) On Friday, the NFL Europa Allocation Draft happens...and I find out who I have on my roster! Then, I pretty much start working on making each player's biographies. And I've got to get down to DC at some point....

S'pose that's all I've got for now. Expect more consistent updates from here on out. Oh, and uhh, Go Dores.