Annual Madden Comparison

So for a few years now after the draft ends I've compared that to my Madden Franchise to see how the digital versions of the same players turned out.  So this is five years into all of their careers:

It's the player, their position, and their rating out of a best possible 99.

Luck - QB - 99

RG3 - QB - OUT OF LEAGUE

Richardson - RB - 94

Kalil - LT - 72

Blackmon - WR - 88

Claiborne - CB - 74

Barron - SS - 95

Tannehill - QB - OUT OF LEAGUE

Kuechly - LB - 93

Gilmore - CB - 96

Poe - DT - OUT OF LEAGUE

Cox - DT - 85

Floyd - WR - 86

Brockers - DT - OUT OF LEAGUE

Irvin - DE - OUT OF LEAGUE

Couples - DE - 69

Kirkpatrick - CB - 96

Ingram - DE - 77

McCellin - DE - 85

Wright - WR - OUT OF LEAGUE

Jones - DE - OUT OF LEAGUE

Weeden - QB - 93

Reiff - LT - 92

DeCastro - LG - 85

Hightower - LB - 86

Mercilus - DE - OUT OF LEAGUE

Zeitler - RG - 71

Perry - DE - 75

Smith - FS - OUT OF LEAGUE

Jenkins - WR - OUT OF LEAGUE

Martin - RB - 69

Wilson - RB - 77

Out of League means the obvious - OR, it could mean that they were just never drafted.  I have no way of knowing.  So good job, Washington and Miami.  You drafted QBs that have a very crappy digital counterpart.

And nice job Cleveland apparently, for getting two players above 90 in the first round.

In this Madden Franchise - I have Andrew Luck as the best QB in the NFL, Cam Newton is 2nd best, and Aaron Rodgers is 3rd best.

UNDRAFTED Chris Polk is the best RB in the NFL.

AJ Green and Calvin Johnson are the two best WRs.

Here is how the rest of Cleveland's Draft Went..   Overall, except for the first two picks…absolutely horrible:

Richardson - RB - 94

Weeden - QB - 93

Schwartz - T - OUT OF LEAGUE

Hughes - DT - OUT OF LEAGUE

Benjamin - WR - OUT OF LEAGUE

Johnson - MLB - OUT OF LEAGUE

Miller - G - OUT OF LEAGUE

Acho - LB - 83

Wynn - DT - 75

Wade - CB - OUT OF LEAGUE

Smelley - TE - OUT OF LEAGUE

We'll see if Acho turns out to be a good linebacker, but based on the digi counterparts, don't look for anything special out of this one..

Browns 2012-13 Season

Cleveland Browns 2012 Schedule and pre-draft predictions.  I know it's silly to even guess at this point, because like last year who knew that San Francisco would go 13-3 or whatever they did...

Sunday, September 9 vs. Philadelphia Eagles, 1 p.m. ET
This should be a horrible, horrible loss.  Possibly around 35-3.

Sunday, September 16 at Cincinnati Bengals, 1 p.m. ET
This could be a good game, but a loss.  24-21.

Sunday, September 23 vs. Buffalo Bills, 1 p.m. ET
This could be a win.

Thursday, September 27 at Baltimore Ravens, 8:20 p.m. ET
Loss.  100-0.

Sunday, October 7 at New York Giants, 1 p.m. ET
This I can almost guarantee will be a win.  The Giants will be overlooking the Browns, as usual; and we will shock them here.

Sunday, October 14 vs. Cincinnati Bengals, 1 p.m. ET
Loss.  Andy Dalton will be in stride with his new weapons by this point.

Sunday, October 21 at Indianapolis Colts, 1 p.m. ET
Win.  Andrew Luck will still be getting used to the NFL.

Sunday, October 28 vs. San Diego Chargers, 1 p.m. ET
Loss.

Sunday, November 4 vs. Baltimore Ravens, 1 p.m. ET
Loss.  107-0

Sunday, November 11 BYE WEEK
Loss.

Sunday, November 18 at Dallas Cowboys, 1 p.m. ET
Probably a loss, but you never know what Dallas is going to do..

Sunday, November 25 vs. Pittsburgh Steelers, 1 p.m. ET
Loss, but it will be close.  Pittsburgh lost a lot this off season.  Getting rid of Hines Ward will honestly mean that the other receivers will be better covered.

Sunday, December 2 at Oakland Raiders, 4:15 p.m. ET
Loss.  We can't ever beat Oakland.

Sunday, December 9 vs. Kansas City Chiefs, 1 p.m. ET
Loss.  Someone will throw their helmet.

Sunday, December 16 vs. Washington Redskins, 1 p.m. ET
This will probably be a win.  We'll be due at this point.

Sunday, December 23 at Denver Broncos, 4:05 p.m. ET
Loss.  Manning will be well on his way to leading Denver to the playoffs.

Sunday, December 30 at Pittsburgh Steelers, 1 p.m. ET
Loss, but it will be close again....

Pre-draft prediction: 3-13.

Wrestlemania

I'm a little torn on this show, but overall was happy with it.. First post in a while here on the blog, why not it be about Wrestlemania?

Show started with Daniel Bryan defending the World Heavyweight Title against Sheamus. I hate Sheamus. He's a worthless wrestler. He's an awful character. There's absolutely nothing good about him and I feel like he's positioned to become another Randy Orton.. (The guy who accomplished absolutely nothing other than management saying: "You're going to be our new guy.") Sheamus won the Royal Rumble and picked Bryan as his Wrestlemania opponent. I rule I've become to hate, because you shouldn't create feuds for Wrestlemania, Wrestlemania should be the culmination of a feud.... Anyways. The crowd boos Sheamus during his intro (rightfully so) and then cheers Daniel Bryan. Half the crowd is screaming "YES!" over and over (Daniel Bryan's catchphrase of sorts) and have "YES!" signs in the crowd.

Front row: 10 people, each with a sign that says "YES!". And then, the WWE decides to have Sheamus win with one kick to the head. Match was 18 seconds long. Sheamus beats Daniel Bryan to no reaction from the crowd, just a bunch of people who couldn't believe what they just saw. The WWE now looks like ASSHOLES. They've deflated the crowd. The crowd no longer gives a shit. We're 2 minutes into WRESTLEMANIA and suddenly no one gives a shit anymore and we all hate this show. Negative Five Stars.

Second Match: Randy Orton versus Kane. This match was absolutely terrible and boring as we would all expect. Then Kane, the villain, wins clean. This will naturally set up Orton v Kane, Anything Goes next month and we'll get to watch this awful match all over again. This match was 10 minutes long and the only thing I remember was an 8 minute headlock before Kane won with a chokeslam off the top rope. Zero Stars. Match was boring as hell and made me start to drink.

Third Match: Big Show challenges Cody Rhodes for the Intercontinental Title. Another stupid, pointless match. This was another feud where which happened AFTER the match was announced. Show wins the Intercontinental Title clean; I don't even remember how. Another zero star match where nothing happened.

Fourth Match: The Divas Tag. I didn't watch any of this. I did other things.

Fifth Match: Hell in a Cell, Undertaker versus HHH. This match, looking back on it, was a war. It started with Taker in control, then HHH got the upperhand, then Taker came back and won. Taker started off strong, then HHH got the advantage, leading to a similar battle like last year's match. HHH just kept hammering Taker and couldn't keep him down. Shawn was pleading with him to stop the fight, everything. Taker kept getting up. Then Taker made the comeback he never made last year. The two matches played off each other perfectly. The Hell in a Cell wasn't really a factor, but it's always a nice visual. Aside from one Superkick from Shawn (because he just wanted the match ended, for both competitors' sakes..) He was completely impartial. When Taker made the comeback he never made a year ago, it was fantastic. It was HHH absolutely being pummeled into jello. Then Taker smashed him with his own sledgehammer and tombstoned him for the win. It was a fantastic match and I'll give it Four and a half stars. Initially, I said that last year's match was better, but it wasn't. This year's was better, but only because of last year's match. Taker got his revenge and destroyed The Game.

They all walked out together and hugged, this could be an unofficial retirement match for all three involved..

Sixth Match: The 12 man tag. How can you screw up a 12 man tag? No flow, no anarchy, no anything. Match was boring as hell. Then Zack Ryder FINALLY got involved and then just lost to the Miz. Match was awful. Everyone in it was awful. Completely pointless. Zero stars.

Seventh Match: WWE Championship, CM Punk defending against Chris Jericho. Very slow start to this one, then it picked up nicely. Just a good solid match, but I felt like they could've done more. I'll give it Four Stars. CM Punk winning assures me that he's around to stay as a top guy. He's quickly getting on the WWE's imaginary ranks of Cena and Orton levels. But CM Punk actually deserves his spot. He wasn't just picked. I don't know what is next for Jericho unless they do a rematch next month. Or maybe this was it for Jericho and he's going back to his band?

Eighth Match: John Cena versus The Rock. This match was great, except for Cena's odd choice of using a bear hug multiple times. Other than that, absolutely fantastic. Energy was off the charts, Cena was boo'ed out of the building. Rock was cheered like a hero. They were in Miami, so that's no shock. Rock actually won this match. Which was insanely shocking. Had Cena won, they would've needed that Brock Lesnar run in to save things. But he didn't, Rock did. Great match, great sequences, great effort. Rock hasn't lost a step. He had that warm up match back in November, but never really needed to get going in that one. Here, he had the spotlight and didn't disappoint. Four and a half stars, easily.

So - I'm torn on this show, because the top four matches... one of them wasn't a match and the other three kicked ass. So what was really hyped delivered.. and the rest was complete garbage. But with three fantastic matches... Let's see how that stacks up against the rest of the Wrestlemania's:

1: no good matches. (0)
2: one decent tag team match. (0)
3: biggest match ever, but awful; possible best match ever.. (1)
4: no good matches, long and boring (0)
5: long and boring, one great main event (1)
6: long and boring, one great main event (1)
7: great main event; then possible best match ever.. (2)
8: two great matches...(2)
9: nothing
10: two of the best matches ever, otherwise garbage (2)
11: nothing at all, then the best celeb match ever.. (1?)
12: boring or stupid from start to finish, (yes, including the Ironman match...) (0)
13: garbage and then one of the best matches ever (1)
14: overall a fun show, but nothing spectacular... Good main event (1)
15: garbage, and a good main event (1)
16: two good undercard matches, otherwise crap.. (2 barely)
17: probably the best WWE show ever: (vince v shane in a fun match; THE TLC match you remember; HHH v Taker in an all out brawl; angle v benoit in a masterpiece; and a possible best match ever with austin v rock) (5)
18: lots of average matches and then rock v hogan (1)
19: another good show (austin v rock; booker v hhh; hardy v mysterio; angle v lesnar; jericho v shawn) (5, but less important matches)
20: around three good matches, surrounded by crap. (3)
21: crap. crap. crap. and michaels v angle in one of the best matches ever (1)
22: long and forgettable. good cena v hhh main event (1)
23: long and forgettable. I think this was the donald trump show.. good main event(1)
24: edge v taker and nothing else i remember (1)
25: lots of nothing, an awful kid rock concert, and then possibly the best match ever with shawn v taker.. (1)
26: a very well planned wrestlemania.. (edge v jericho; cena v batista; shawn v taker) and a bunch of other average matches.. nothing terrible. (3)
27: this is the worst wrestlemania of all time. the main events were edge v del rio; cena v miz; and hhh v taker. HHH v taker was great, everything else was complete garbage. iron sheik f's this show and makes it humble. (1)
28: (cena v rock; jericho v punk; hhh v taker) (3)..


So..this was actually one of the better ones. Even with the horrendous start. This actually makes (wrestling-wise) 17 the best, followed by 19, then 20, 26, and 28. Dare I say this was the fifth best Wrestlemania ever, strictly by the good match count?


I'm somewhat shocked I came to this conclusion.

Good show, WWE. But F you for the Daniel Bryan match. Two years in a row.

Kyrie Irving

Kyrie Irving just tied LeBron James' All-Time game winning shots record.

PIPA/SOPA

The Scout Team.net does not support PIPA/SOPA.

However, since this is just a google blog, we can't figure out how to take it down for today.

The two people responsible for these two bills have no idea how the internet works, and what they have written is going to have many unintended consequences. I can only assume they're sitting back going, "No, this is fine. We don't need all that technical mumbo-jumbo in there."

Seriously, here's the most insulting piece of the SOPA bill, paraphrased: "A domestic site is a site defined as having a commonly used extension, such as .com, .net, .org, etc. And a foreign site is a site defined as not being a domestic site." Now, what's funny about this is there's one popular pirating site called thepiratebay.org. Which is an overseas, protected from the US website DEDICATED to illegally hosting media. But according to SOPA, that's a domestic site.

Huh!?

This would be like (and please believe me, this is just a stupid example) say we made it illegal for black people to say.. shop on Amazon.com. Our bill defined white people as people with light skin complexion. And Black people as "Not White People."

Therefore, an Asian person is Black. How stupid is that?? THAT is exactly how this bill is written, but in regards to websites.

And here's the goal: So that Hollywood studios can directly shut down sites like YouTube/Facebook/etc when they notice that someone has posted a funny movie clip without their permission. Or so that the music industry can have YouTube shut down if they notice someone put a Lady Gaga song in the background of their stupid birthday party video.

It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous.

The people who drafted this bill want to see an internet where you can't post comments, have forums, share videos, or input any sort of content whatsoever; because it MIGHT be copyright infringement.

With these bills, the NFL could go after Mike and I for talking about a Browns game.

Imagine if our physical world operated like the internet once this bill is in place: Say you're walking out of a movie theater and you say to your friend, "That movie really sucked." And he says, "Yeah, why on Earth did we go see the Rock'em Sock'em Robots movie??" Immediately after that a cop ran up and shot you because you just talked about the movie, and it was in a negative way.

These bills would allow a Hollywood studio to tell The Government to shut down a website because they spoke badly about an upcoming film.

Would they ever do that? I think that would be suicide to have that kind of press. Oh, but then they could just have the news sites be shut down as well, because the bill doesn't have anything in it to prevent abuse.

If you want to stop piracy, how about this novel idea: GO AFTER THE FUCKING PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING IT!!! Not the very essence of the internet!!! Put pressure on whatever country hosts the god damn piratebay to get it shut down! Keep fining the shit out of people who bring cameras into the theaters! But don't block facebook because someone put up a link to the piratebay on it!



Anyways.... OK back to sports.

If the Browns take RG3 they're stupid. That's not a knock on RG3 at all. The Browns need to stick with Colt McCoy and get him a fantastic Wide Receiver. Colt + Justin Blackmon + Cribbs is 100% better than RG3 + Cribbs + Massaquoi. End of discussion.

Mike

Mike, what is your new email address? I've been emailing the Case address like an idiot for the past week and you have not been answering. (Which I now understand.) Here are the two most recent things I've sent you. Yesterday I sent this:

"i hate knowing that part of what we pay for for espn insider is mel kiper."

Then today I sent you this:

"So after that, there's going to be a college football playoff, right?

Like, there's no way they can still justify this system, yes?

LSU is 13-1, Alabama is 12-1, Oklahoma State is 12-1. Boise State is 12-1 but they don't count.

LSU beats Alabama in a crappy game back in November.

LSU vs Alabama picked to be the national championship game? They just played. LSU already won.




Seriously, how retarded is this:

2016 NFL Season:

Green Bay 14-2
Atlanta 14-2
Philadelphia 13-3
San Francisco 12-4
Detroit 10-6 (at large)
New Orleans 10-6 (at large)

Indianapolis 16-0
Cincinatti 15-1
New England 11-5
Cleveland 10-6 (at large)
Pittsburgh 9-7 (has tie breaker over Baltimore, voted by the coaches) (at large)
Denver 6-10 (won division... Tebow, man.)


Dallas 8-8 (automatic qualifier to any NFL post-season, Jerry Jones splits them from the NFC East)
Baltimore 9-7 (at large)



So the NFL post season would look like this:

NFL Championship, The Allstate Super Bowl: Green Bay vs Indy (but what about Cinci and Atlanta?)
Cream Cheese Bowl: Phily vs Cinci (the prestigious, traditional NFC East v AFC North game)
Bad Newz Kennelz Bowl: Atlanta vs New England
Alcatraz Bowl: San Francisco vs Denver
Blue Collar Bowl: Detroit vs Pittsburgh
Art Modell Bowl: Cleveland vs Baltimore (Loser leaves the NFL)
Jerry Jones Bowl: Dallas vs New Orleans"



And now I wonder why this wasn't just an elaborate blog post in the first place.

Ok, thanks. Let me know about that email address.

Cleveland Browns Off-Season

If I was in charge, here's what I would do:

Offensive Coordinator. This is tricky, because if someone is available, there's a reason they're available - they suck. So I would like to see a college Head Coach become our Offensive Coordinator. I feel like we won't be able to lure in an OC from another team...so we'd have to promote one up from being a WR Coach or a QB Coach. Can we get New Orleans' WR Coach to be our OC? What about Green Bay's QB Coach? If you can't bring in an awesome guy like that, then what's the difference between grabbing some other Coordinator who's been on 32 different NFL teams or grabbing a Head Coach from the NCAA? I don't know, I feel like my logic is falling apart and I'll admit it. That's more than the Browns do. One way or another, we need an OC.

I would make offers to the following free agent WRs:
Marques Colston, Vincent Jackson, Dwayne Bowe, Reggie Wayne, Wes Welker, Mario Manningham and Robert Meachum. All of which are long-shots to ever come to Cleveland, but if we don't make the offers we're stupid.

I would make offers to the following free agent Offensive Linemen:
Ben Grubbs, Carl Nicks. Again, both long-shots.

I would try to bring back Peyton Hillis and accept that he gets hurt a lot and that we'll need a second option. I would make offers to the following RBs:
Ryan Grant, Arian Foster, and Michael Bush. Long-shots, as usual.

Defensively, there's not much of note we can do in Free Agency. No one is really an upgrade, or they're old and a waste of time. Sheldon Brown needs to be replaced.

The draft is impossible to predict, because no one knows anything about players 100 to 250. We have pick 4, and pick 22. With pick 4, They need Justin Blackmon. There's no one else. RG3 will have all the same problems that Colt McCoy has with this team. Colt + Justin Blackmon + Josh Cribbs is probably better than RG3 + Josh Cribbs + Mohammad Massaquoi.

The pick later on...who knows who is available. If there's another Wide Receiver, maybe we even do that. Look at the Steelers: their offensive line has historically been terrible, but Roethlisberger can just toss a ball up and his receivers get open and make the catch. If there's a good RG or RT, we could do that. I don't know how highly the scouts think of LaMichael James, but if he's a first round pick, I'd say do it. Clearly the 5'5" RB WORKS in the NFL. MJD, Sproles, Woodhead.. All better RBs than Montario Hardesty and Brandon Jacobs. Probably better than Peyton Hillis. You know what the answer is? Draft LaMichael James, put him back there with Hardesty.. Move Hillis back to Fullback.. Cut Owen Marecic who is the worst player on our team. That's a win for everyone. Except Marecic. He can go be on someone's practice squad.

...I digress. I don't know what the hell they do.

At least The Steelers are out.