One QB Will Have 2 Super Bowl Wins at End of Day

Kurt Warner won it in 1999 and Ben Roethlisberger just two Super Bowls removed from his first NFL championship. Sunday night one of those two will add another and put himself in rare company, most of which are in the Hall of Fame.
The Arizona Cardinals will depend on Kurt Warner to drive the train for his team to be successful, while the Pittsburgh Steelers stand a good chance of winning the game if Ben Roethlisberger just stays out of trouble. That is not a knock on Bib Ben. He is very good, but it is just the make-up of his team to play it a little closer to the vest and let the defense take care of the other team's offense.
The Cardinals defense has shown throughout the playoffs that they are no slouch unit, but it is the wide-open offense, triggered by Warner's quick decisions and release that make most of the headlines.
While I love offense and am very comfortable in the Cardinals style offense, I do understand the history of this game favors the better defense and in this case I believe it will be Ben Roethlisberger hoisting the Lombardi Trophy once again.

The NFL Experience

As a current player for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers back in 1991, I remember the Super Bowl coming to Tampa in the midst of Desert Storm (the original Iraq war) under then president George H.W. Bush. Tampa Stadium was surrounded by chain-link fence as security precautions were ramped way up against terrorist threats and Whitney Houston sang the most memorable rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner”.

Fast forward to 2009 and the Super Bowl is back in Tampa, but the chain-link fence has shifted to the parking lot of Raymond James Stadium where “The NFL Experience” is now in its 18^th year. It is now an amazing extravaganza, growing bigger and better each and every year. In 2001, it was on the north end of the stadium's parking lot, but has grown in scale that it had to move to the south side to accommodate all the fun. The economy may be in the tank for everything known to man, but it hasn’t touched this experience. The price-point on entry isn’t stopping massive crowds from piling inside the chain-link fences that cover the entire south side parking lots of the stadium.

I took my two sons to the experience this past weekend, hooking up with a couple of other friends on the way in. We traversed the crowds at every feature and made our way into the most important portion of the attraction for the kids, The NFL Pro Shop, to get our commemorative Super Bowl mini footballs. We stood in line for a number of the football related simulations, only to have our young ones get bored each time and decide to move on over and over. What turned out to be the #1 attraction for our group of boys aging from 6-11 was a dirt area about 25 yards square, where they played their own pick-up game of football for the better part of 30 minutes. Yes, the NFL has a winner with the fans in The NFL Experience, but it is the love of playing THE GAME OF FOOTBALL in the dirt that makes it the real experience come to life!

P.S. Don’t make the mistake of buying footballs at The NFL Store. The footballs are half the price on the other side of the event at the football manufacturing display. And by the way, I now know that I am exactly the same speed as my 11 year old thanks to the "Under Armour Combine Experience" 40 yard dash event!

Signing Day Doesn't Mean Staying Day

I read an article in the St. Pete Times by John C. Cotey about high school players fulfilling their dreams of a college scholarship on national signing day, only to quit, transfer or flunk out the next year. The statistics are pretty staggering. Most of the kids that sign letters-of-intent don't make it to their degree and a big percentage don't make past their first year. Locally, Robert Marve was the Florida Player of the Year two years ago and now he is looking for a new school to take his QB services, after falling out of favor at the University of Miami.
I almost didn't make it past my freshman year at Weber State. Bobby Petrino (University of Arkansas Head Coach) almost single-handedly drove me back to a southern California junior college at the Christmas break. I may have been a little home sick, but it was my treatment on the football field that I felt was my biggest disappointment and biggest reason for checking out the local JC's back home.
After much thought and prayer, I decided to return, mostly so that I wouldn't burden my parents by coming back and the gamble that I could find the right fit in a new school that I could earn another scholarship the following year.
Thankfully Coach Petrino moved on to another school and I flourished under Dave Arslanian and Mike Price. I earned my degree and made my football dreams come true in the NFL as well.
So to all of you who are priveleged to sign your scholarship papers next week and consider transferring because things aren't going as planned, be careful, the grass isn't always greener elsewhere.

Matt Cassel, Class Act, 2008 ABQB of the Year

It is always just a matter of opinion on post-season awards for any sport and so it is with the best NFL QB in 2008. I believe the award deservedly goes to the Patriots' Matt Cassel. Arguments will be made that Drew Brees almost broke Dan Marino's single season yardage mark and Peyton Manning did great things to get Indianapolis back to the playoffs again and the Patriots didn't even make it. All those things are true, but what Matt Cassel did this season as he came off the bench in the first quarter of the first game to replace Tom Brady was truly remarkable.
Cassel did not play much at USC behind Matt Leinart, but he is a top notch player with a huge future. Not only that, but talk of the future of playing QB for the Patriots was put to rest by Cassel himself, assuring us that there is no quarterback controversy in New England. It's Tom's team. Check out the link to this ESPN story (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3854561). Now that is leadership, something sorely missing in Big D and elsewhere. Matt's full-time work will come and it may even need to be in New England if Tom is not ready to go, but Cassel's technique is almost as clean as Tom Brady's and that will spell success wherever he may go.
Congratulations to Matt Cassel, America's Best Quarterback of 2008.

Leadership Key to QB Success

I think Troy Aikman has a pretty good grasp on the Cowboys' leadership issue with Tony Romo. Leadership is talked about with regard to the quarterback position as much as anything and it will always be a nebulous concept. It's one of those things where you say I can't explain it, but I know it when I see it.
Right now Tony Romo is a fun-hearted guy that doesn't take his game seriously enough. Aikman made the point about perceptions. Romo doesn't currently understand that perception is reality and when you lead "America's Team", those perceptions matter. Aikman was careful in wording Romo's weekend jaunt to Cabo San Lucas with Jessica Simpson and Jason Whitten while waiting for the wildcard playoffs to finish and how it wouldn't reduce your preparations for the following week, but let's get real. It was a real dumb "life-choice".
Keeping a low profile off the field is important, so when the playoffs roll around and the ball slips through your fingers holding on a field goal try and you lose or you throw it to the other team a few too many times and you go "one and done" again as favorites, at least the fans' perception is that you were 100% focused on winning the game, not a celebritiy's heart!
Perception is reality, not reality TV. Leadership--good leadership is key to a QB's success!