NFL Offseason Thread: March 3, 2011. A date which will live in infamy.

[Rhinox]

People still draft punters/kickers?

[Akiyama]

Turned it to check out the last bit of the draft today and my ESPN's not even working lol

[Moss]

With the 210th pick, the Falcons select

http://factofthedayblog.com/files/20...ew-Jackson.jpg

Who according to Trent Dilfer "might be the smartest man in Fresno." High praise.

[Xajii]

Ravens draft VTech QB Tyrod Taylor and everyone starts screaming WILDCAT lol

[Moss]

Just saw a Thomas Dimitroff interview in which he said they had been looking at making that trade to get Jones for over a month. That makes me feel better about it. Also from an interview I just heard Julio sounds like a class act. Saban said he was one of his favorite players.

[Akiyama]

A shame when he talks, he sounds rather dumb.

[Deejay]

A shame when he talks, he sounds rather dumb.

Sounds like a black forrest gump

[Moss]

That's ok, not drafting him to be our PA announcer

[Plow]

I'm so disappointed with the Bucs' draft man. Not a single one of their 3rd through 7th round picks are going to be immediate starters, and they all look like they're going to take at least 4-5 years to really develop, or be those worthless solid backups nobody wants.

Obviously my opinion is that they should have drafted Freeman's not-yet-conceived son to develop for the next 23 years.

[Headspace]

I am pretty excite for Bengals if the season starts.

[Demosthenes11]

man, rhino sure is mad that his coach blows in comparison to the god that is bill belichick.

also, lol @ our WRs blow. we got the YAC monster WELKER

[Rhinox]

[Rhinox]

wow Donavan made the top 100 players of 2011?

Dumb football players


They also had Lance Briggs at 92 wayyyyyyyyy too high

[Chun Liroy]

So... Cowboys draft was OK I guess. Proud of Jerruh for actually drafting smart for once, but think we could have used some more defensive help other than the ILB and the 7th? round CB. Happy that they took a RB since that solidifies that MB3 is fucking gone. Actually drafted some nice OL for once and not 400lb blobs.

[Zoolander]

I'm so disappointed with the Bucs' draft man. Not a single one of their 3rd through 7th round picks are going to be immediate starters, and they all look like they're going to take at least 4-5 years to really develop, or be those worthless solid backups nobody wants.

Obviously my opinion is that they should have drafted Freeman's not-yet-conceived son to develop for the next 23 years.

Seems like Luke Stocker has the potential to be a starter. Solid all-around TE, dont need him to be a starter yet. Mason Foster seems solid...although yea he might not be starting material with that slow 40 time.

I'm happy with where we're at except for CB...really think we need to go after someone decent in free agency. I was kinda hoping for a fast RB to compliment the bruisers, but I'm really happy we got a safety that could start some games if needed. If only Talib & Tanard Jackson were around...god damnit our secondary would be a strength & not a liability. Just wish free agency would actually start...

Edit: they should still be way under the cap...they could easily go after one of the top CB & go after a WR like Steve Smith, Sydney Rice, etc in free agency. I'd def like to see them add a solid WR if they can. CB is the concern tho.

[Plow]

Seems like Luke Stocker has the potential to be a starter. Solid all-around TE, dont need him to be a starter yet. Mason Foster seems solid...although yea he might not be starting material with that slow 40 time.

I'm happy with where we're at except for CB...really think we need to go after someone decent in free agency. I was kinda hoping for a fast RB to compliment the bruisers, but I'm really happy we got a safety that could start some games if needed. If only Talib & Tanard Jackson were around...god damnit our secondary would be a strength & not a liability. Just wish free agency would actually start...

Edit: they should still be way under the cap...they could easily go after one of the top CB & go after a WR like Steve Smith, Sydney Rice, etc in free agency. I'd def like to see them add a solid WR if they can. CB is the concern tho.

I was making fun of Rhinox, the Bucs did great and I think every single pick they made has a high likelihood of being a key backup at the very least, and they may end up with 3 or more starters from this draft.

[Rhinox]

I'm offended you would think I would offended by that.

oh Colin

[Moss]

So... Cowboys draft was OK I guess. Proud of Jerruh for actually drafting smart for once, but think we could have used some more defensive help other than the ILB and the 7th? round CB. Happy that they took a RB since that solidifies that MB3 is fucking gone. Actually drafted some nice OL for once and not 400lb blobs.

I don't really get the Murray pick. Already have Choice and Jones.

[Chun Liroy]

I don't really get the Murray pick. Already have Choice and Jones.

Me neither. I can see getting a RB in the later rounds for special teams/depth, but it's certainly a head scratcher. Then again what isn't when it comes to JJ. I'm just happy because it means that MB is gone for sure.

[Tyche]

Miami drafted a kid that was just released from prison.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/sp...ewanted=1&_r=1

After Acquittal, Player Gets Senior Season Back

By DAN FROSCH

SAN DIEGO — Montana’s Jimmy Wilson hurled himself into the quarterback with such ferocity that it sent the player’s helmet flying. It was in that moment, against Cal Poly in the second game of this season, that Wilson knew he could still play football.
There had been plenty of sleepless nights in jail when he had imagined what it would be like to hit someone again on the field, as he had done for three seasons as a shutdown cornerback for the Grizzlies.
But there he stayed, locked away on a murder charge, his college career seemingly finished and his dreams of the N.F.L. ruined.
More than three years had elapsed since Wilson was arrested for shooting to death his aunt’s boyfriend during an argument on a June night in 2007, before his senior year at Montana.
He had spent much of that time behind bars. Though he maintained his innocence, it did not help that he had left the scene and driven to Montana from California. After one trial ended with a hung jury, with all but one juror finding Wilson not guilty, a second jury acquitted him on July 9, 2009.
In November, at 24, Wilson played his final game for Montana after returning for his senior season. It has been a bitter road back.
“Some things have happened in my life that nobody is ever going to be able to say happened to them,” Wilson said during a recent interview at a friend’s apartment here. “I’m a slim percent.”
Wilson was a star running back and safety at Point Loma High School in San Diego who earned a scholarship to Montana, a power in the Football Championship Subdivision. At 17, he found himself in Missoula, a world away from the poor neighborhood in which he grew up.
A tireless worker with an easygoing charm, the 5-foot-11, 190-pound Wilson tackled with an aggressiveness that raised eyebrows. His hits seemed to carry the heaviness of a hard childhood, one in which his mother worked as a secretary, his father drifted in and out of prison and his best friend was murdered in a shooting.
“It’s not often as a coach that you have to hold a kid back from being physical, but with Jimmy you had to hold him back,” said Mike Hudson, Montana’s linebackers coach. “He was one of the fiercest — if not the fiercest — competitor I have ever coached.”
Wilson played in every Grizzlies game as a freshman. As a junior, he was a second-team all-Big Sky Conference pick. He was poised to lead the defense heading into his final season.
“He was going to be the guy that made the play that helped you win games,” said Tim Hauck, a former secondary coach at Montana now with the Tennessee Titans. “You looked at him and you thought, this kid may get an N.F.L. shot.”
A Bad Decision
On June 2, 2007, Wilson and a teammate, Qwenton Freeman, were driving to Montana for the team’s first preseason meeting of the year. On the way, they stopped at Wilson’s grandmother’s house in Lancaster, Calif., north of Los Angeles, planning to make it a quick visit.
During dinner, the phone rang. It was Wilson’s aunt, Opal Davis, who lived nearby. Davis, who at 26 was close to Wilson, tearfully told his grandmother that her boyfriend, Kevin Smoot, had gotten drunk, beaten her and urinated on her.
“I told my grandmother, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll go get my aunt,’ ” Wilson recalled saying. “I thought I could go get her and their two young kids and be out of there.”
According to Wilson, when he arrived at the house, Smoot emerged from the garage, drunk and yelling at him to leave. Wilson backed away, thinking he saw Smoot clutching something. As the two argued, Smoot drew a small rifle, Wilson said.
“My aunt screams,” Wilson said. “There was a split second and, boom, I grabbed the gun. We were wrestling over the gun and I hear a pop.”
Wilson said he sprinted toward his car thinking Smoot was shooting at him. He sped off. Glancing back, he saw Smoot’s body on the ground and his aunt screaming.
Wilson left for Montana that night. It was a bad decision, he conceded. But Wilson said he felt scared and confused, and his grandmother worried that Smoot’s friends might come looking for him.
“The worst thing that could ever happen, happened,” Wilson said. “It felt like a dream. I kept on thinking about how my mom was going to feel. How my grandmother was going to feel. My aunt. Everything about it was just killing me.”
According to court filings, the authorities had a different theory, saying Wilson, in his zeal to defend his aunt, committed a premeditated act of street justice.
Based on initial witness accounts, the police and prosecutors said that after Davis told her family about being beaten, Wilson drove to her house with a gun. He and Smoot argued. Then, they alleged, Wilson shot him in the head.
Wilson knew he was in trouble. When he reached Montana, he spoke with a lawyer. A day later, he returned to California and turned himself in.
“I wished I had never gone over there,” he said, “but I’d go over there 10,000 times to protect my aunt. That night, I wished I hadn’t gone.”
Wilson was charged with first-degree murder, and bail was set at $2 million, which his family could not raise. He pleaded not guilty, claiming he had acted in self-defense.
“We were all crushed,” said Hudson, the Montana assistant. “Jimmy is like a second son to me. My wife cried for two days. I’m not saying Jimmy is a perfect angel, but everybody knows Jimmy has a good heart. The thing you kept thinking about was that football was his way out.”
Wilson had little time to adapt to life in a Los Angeles County jail. A cellmate helped him understand internal politics. His father, who was in prison, wrote him letters with lessons on jailhouse survival.
“Where you from?” gang members hissed at him. The tiniest perceived slight would end in violence, and Wilson said he had to fight other inmates so he would be left alone. The occasional impromptu football game using a plastic bottle was a rare respite.
“Every day somebody was getting beat up or cut,” Wilson said. “Imagine a bad high school where everyone was the bully.”
The Trial
It took more than a year for Wilson’s case to go to trial. During that time, Hauck, who had been hired as an assistant at U.C.L.A., visited Wilson in jail. Hauck was shaken to see him.
“You don’t realize what it’s all about until you’re there face to face with a young man who had everything in the palm of his hand and it had been taken away from him,” Hauck said. “It hurt.”
Meanwhile, Wilson’s case was dragging. At a pretrial hearing, his aunt testified that she saw Wilson and Smoot fighting but that she did not know who fired the gun or even whose gun it was. Prosecutors tried to show that Davis changed her story.
When the trial finally began, prosecutors argued that Wilson had killed Smoot in cold blood. His lawyer, Jerome Bradford, countered that Wilson was defending his family and that Smoot was the aggressor. The gun, which was never found, was Smoot’s, Bradford contended.
After nearly six days of deliberation, the jury deadlocked. Eleven jurors wanted to acquit. The judge declared a mistrial.
Believing they could still get a conviction, prosecutors decided to retry Wilson. A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, Sandi Gibbons, said it was unusual to retry a case after a deadlocked jury leaned so heavily toward acquittal. The decision, she said, was based “on evidence that law enforcement had presented to us.”
Wilson remained in jail, resigned to possibly never leaving. Six months passed before he went to trial again. This time, prosecutors called an expert on crime scenes. He testified that Smoot was shot from a few feet away. Bradford argued that the rising trajectory of the bullet and scratches on Smoot’s hands showed there had been a struggle.
It took less than a full day for the jury to acquit Wilson. After a little over two years behind bars, he left jail later that day.
“He lost two years of his life,” Bradford said. “But Jimmy had his life.”
Steve Rubino, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who helped investigate the killing, declined to comment on the acquittal but said Wilson would have to live with the events of that night.
“He knows what happened,” Rubino said. “His aunt was the only witness. She’s related to Jimmy Wilson. He’s no hero.”
Life on the Outside
For Wilson, freedom was not easy. His jailhouse routines stayed with him. Lighthearted ribbing from friends angered him. He found it difficult to connect with anyone.
Instead of returning to college, Wilson worked construction for a year with his uncle. In the meantime, the five-year period the N.C.A.A. gives athletes to complete four seasons in a sport had expired.
Last May, in light of Wilson’s acquittal and after Montana’s new head coach, Robin Pflugrad, visited Wilson and his family, university officials successfully petitioned the N.C.A.A. to extend the deadline to allow him to play his senior season.
“After looking at all the facts and closely following the court proceedings, we discussed this thoroughly with various campus officials and our football staff,” Montana’s athletic director, Jim O’Day, said in a statement. “We felt it was in the best interest of this young man.”
Wilson returned to Montana to a locker room thrilled to have him back. He vomited after his first team workout, and it took weeks to regain his football legs.
Things were not much smoother off the field. In August, a woman accused Wilson of biting her leg while they were in a car with friends after a night out.
Wilson insisted that he and the woman were horsing around. Still, he was furious at himself. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, reduced from misdemeanor assault. He was suspended for a game. Coaches warned him that everyone was watching.
“I know I can’t get in any trouble,” Wilson said. “Everyone has put their name on the line for me.”
Wilson worked his way into a starting role from the third string, this time at safety, his old tackling talents having returned. Despite a hamstring injury, he finished the season honorable mention all-Big Sky. Coaches voted him the team’s hardest hitter. They also noticed a gentle, appreciative side to Wilson that was not always apparent before he went to jail.
“He’s tough because he’s had to be,” Hudson said. “Jimmy hasn’t had an easy road.”
Back in San Diego recently on winter break, Wilson said that a few N.F.L. teams had expressed interest in him as a possible special-teams player. Scouts from the Jets, the Cleveland Browns and the New England Patriots watched him play this season. A former teammate, Colt Anderson, now a Philadelphia Eagles safety, described Wilson as one of the few he had played with at Montana good enough to make it to the pros.
Pflugrad said Wilson reminded him of Patrick Chung, the hard-hitting Patriots safety who played for him at Oregon.
Wilson knows his past troubles could turn some teams off. If the N.F.L. does not pan out, he said, he will try to play in Canada. And if that does not work, then perhaps with the sociology degree he is working toward he might become a social worker.
Wilson said he tried not to think about the night of the shooting or his long days in jail. But they still pass through his mind, as do memories of the inmates who shook their heads when he vowed to reach the N.F.L.
“I told them: ‘Man, you’ll see. I can play,’ ” he said.
Ana Facio Contreras contributed reporting from Lancaster, Calif.