Linebackers, Lewd Tweets and Other Things That Don’t Start With L

As promised let’s get back to some football. The Riders helped in that regard by announcing the signing of 4 new import LBs: Alvin Bowen, Abraham Kromah, Tony Taylor and Jamar Williams. It’s nice to finally see some signings at the LB position since we are going to have to find 3 new starters. At best we may find the next Reggie Hunt, Anton McKenzie, Jerrell Freeman or Mo Lloyd (even though Mo Lloyd is one of the people trying to become one of them). At worst it’ll at least provide some competition for Stewart and Graham.

Since I know next to nothing about these new recruits I will resort to what I do best: stereotypes and wild assumptions based on limited information. It’s the same system that established Demetrice Crawford as the leading RB candidate. Let’s begin:

-       By virtue of having the blackest sounding name Jamar Williams gets my vote as the most likely to be good. (Just because it’s a stereotype, doesn’t make it not true).

-       Depending on which Google search result I believe Tony Taylor is either a second basemanin the MLB in the 60s and 70s or a co-conspirator in the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal... either way I’m just going to go ahead and assume he won’t be much of a football player.

-       Alvin Bowen was drafted by the Buffalo Bills. That fact alone should make you skeptical about Bowen. The Bills haven’t been successful in years and are such good evaluators of talent that they reportedly gave James Robinson a workout.

-       As for Kroham, well... let’s see... he went to Duke. Duke tends to do well in March Madness. It’s almost March Madness. So following that unrelated and mostly random line of logic, he should do well.

The big news in the League this week was of course Jonathan Hefney, who made news for the 100^th time this offseason for tweets he’s made. This time he took it to a whole new level by tweeting a lewd comment and a picture of a partially naked woman. For his dumbass-ery the CFL fined him. It really makes me wonder how long before agents start banning their clients from twitter or at least instituting a Don Cherry-style delay between an athlete tweeting something and it actually being posted for the world to see. It also makes me wonder what the hell people are thinking. I mean I have done and said a lot of stupid things but no matter how drunk I am my first reaction is not “I should post this online for the world to see!” (sometimes my friends are kind enough to do that on my behalf). But that seems to be the new mentality among people these days. They think that every thought and everything they do should... nay must be put online. How much longer before people start tweeting stuff like “Just took a dump”, “I swear this chick looked hotter when I took her home from the bar last night” or “Just because you watch American Idol only to see Ryan Seacrest’s eyes it doesn’t mean you are gay right? “

You’d be amazed the random thoughts you have when you are up in the middle of the night due to a new baby. For example: Someone was joking that CFL teams should be calling Peyton Manning since he is now on the market (I’m actually surprised he’s not on our neg list). Problem is now team could afford Manning... unless (and here is where my 3am genius comes in) Ottawa makes a play for him. Here me out. They won’t start play until 2014 or 2015 at the earliest. So if they pay Manning $4 million in 2012, and $4 mil in 2013 then they will be within the cap and still be paying Manning NFL type money.

It’s really amazing what stupid endeavors the processing power of brain gets directed towards. I could be solving world poverty but instead I’m focusing on alternative contract models to circumvent the CFL cap.

I’ll close with a plug for a charity event. You heard me right a charity event. A blog reader has asked me to promote a charity event... and since I have like 5 readers, its fairly easy to accommodate their requests.

The event is called Hockey Marathon for Kids and it’s in support of pediatric cancer care at Alberta Children’s Hospital (a very worthy cause). Basically, 40 men are going to attempt to break the world record for longer hockey game (10 days) and raise money to support kids fighting cancer in the process. The event was inspired by Diamond Marshall, the little girl who greeted William and Kate in Calgary on their royal tour of Canada.

For more information on the event or to donate check out their websites at www.facebook.com/HockeyMarathon and www.hockeymarathon.com.

Have a good weekend.