One year since last Dolphins win; Huizenga as Wile E Coyote

But what do you get for a woe-begone team that needs everything?
Well, to quote myself, Darren McFadden, the franchise/playmaker running back from Arkansas is a great start!
http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2007/11/miami-dolphins-select-darren-mcfadden.html

http://www.hogwired.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=30724&SPID=2419&DB_OEM_ID=6100&ATCLID=187502&Q_SEASON=2007

Before I wrote that post last month, and even before UVA came down to the Orange Bowl and laid a 48-0 whipping on the U-M Hurricanes at their last game ever at the Orange Bowl -easily one of the lowest moments in South Florida sports history- I was of the opinion that if the Dolphins won a couple of games before the season ended, they'd consider themselves lucky if they could grab UVA's talented and savvy DE Chris Long, a kid who never takes a down off and has a remarkable sense of anticipation. He seldom gets fooled twice.

http://www.virginiasports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=88799&SPID=10606&DB_OEM_ID=17800&ATCLID=1133501&Q_SEASON=2007

The Baltimore Sun's NFL blog Moving the Chains by Sheil Kapadia, has an interview with Armando Salguero of The Miami Herald on his experience covering the winless team. http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/football/blog/2007/12/qa_on_dolphins_game_1.html Armando answers the McFadden question this way:

Q:I'm sure you started receiving questions about the draft around Week 5. The Dolphins look like a sure bet to land the first pick. What direction do you see them going in?

A: I have no idea whom the Dolphins will draft because the process has really not begun. There is thinking out there that Darren McFadden of Arkansas would be a likely pick, but there is also the argument that picking a running back No. 1 is wasting the pick. No one -- not even the Dolphins -- know which player they will pick. I do know they would love to trade down and garner extra picks in exchange for a minimal move to later in the top 10.

Right, the ol' "trade down" route!

Hmmm...

Other than perhaps the 49ers about 15 years or so under Bill Walsh, who routinely outsmarted other NFL teams with their trades and draft selections the way the Patriots do now, just whom has this trading-down tactic actually worked for, under the current free agent system?

Perhaps that explains why this particular tactic is so very popular with 12-year olds with blogs of their own, who love to opine and write "trade down" on newspaper or NFL team forum sites, with little photo icons of SciFi characters next to their names. They lack a larger frame of reference to understand their own 'borrowed' thoughts lack a solid foundation in reality.

I like Armando Salguero, and even have his blog on the SouthBeachHoosier Media Links, but even at this late date, he has yet to construct a logical scenario where, well, a mystery team, can actually offer the Dolphins more riches for their #1 in an NFL draft that every other sports writer keeps writing is average at best. Like they know? Like anyone knows?

As far as the Dolphins actually drafting Darren McFadden, having gotten to the point where a wrong move in the NFL draft in April could leave them highly vulnerable to possibly losing two interdivision games a year, due solely to one player of absurd ability making one Hall-of-Fame move, I guess I'm just old-fashioned. I like proven talent in a playmaker.

In Arkansas they say: McFadden will surpass Tebow in NFL http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/12/11/columns/harry_king/121207king.txt

Not to state the obvious, but the more talent on your team the better. That's evidenced by this year's woeful Dolphin team which is so clearly bereft of talent, football intelligence and savvy. Not to mention, moxie on special teams, though the special team coach can hardly be blamed when so many components of his team have left the team thru no fault of his, and he's forced to play with guys who so clearly wear their trepidation on their faces.

It's almost like the inexperience of this year's Hurricanes team, where guys run out of bounds while trying to catch kickoffs, rather than simply let the ball sail out and draw a penalty flag, is rubbing off on them by sheer geographic proximity.

You can't let McFadden slip away in April or you'll be chasing your mistake for the next 10-12 years, and have national and local sports writers and talk radio mention it every time you play that team. Every time. Could it be any more predictable?

If the Dolphins have a brain freeze and foolishly trade down, and the lowly Jets pass on Boston selecting the Boston College QB Matt Ryan,
http://bceagles.cstv.com/view.gal?id=19004&template=player_gallery either they or the savvy Patriots will swoop down upon McFadden toute-de-suite!

Then, be prepared to watch not another hammer fall on stumbling-and-bumbling Dolphin owner H. Wayne Huizenga, but rather the proverbial giant ACME anvil or piano fall on him, as constantly happened to beloved Warner Brothers cartoon icon Wile E. Coyote in his pursuit of The Road Runner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wile_E._Coyote_and_Road_Runner

For our purposes here, the role of The Road Runner is played by the two-headed Patriot's brain trust of Scott Pioli and Bill Billichick.

Ségolène Royal's Christmas present to the people of France: lots of insider dirt!

You might recall that I told you all a couple of months ago, during the French presidential election campaign, that Joshua Boswell's then-extant blog http://frenchelection2007.blogspot.com/ was great for getting a real sense of what was going on in La France.
The issues, the personalities, the hidden agendas of the people behind the curtain, what levers the unions were pulling on a particular day, plus the group that never matters in the U.S.: the self-proclaimed intellectuals. (And you know who you are!)

More often than not, I used Josh's blog to follow-up on the nightly campaign reports I watched on France 2's excellent news program 20 Heures, http://jt.france2.fr/20h/ , which I watched every night at 11:30 p.m. instead of ABC News Nightline, which I watch only intermittently these days.
For someone with a news junkie DNA like me, I'm fortunate to live in a part of South Florida where www.SCOLA.org telecasts on a local Miami-based low-power TV station, Channel 53, which airs TV news and cultural programming from all around the world, 24/7, via satellite directly from the originating stations/networks.
It's not a "must-carry" for Comcast, but is available to anyone who knows about it, and has either a rabbit ears antenna or a cable line to act like an antenna.
Video is usually okay but not great.

Usually I'd either watch 20 Heures from France 2 -or tape it and watch it later- when it comes on every night at 11:30 p.m., or the 10:30 a.m. encore the following morning.
On Saturday mornings, before I did any errands, I'd zip thru the tapes looking for anything good I might've missed, before throwing out the Post-Its and then put the tapes in my re-use pile.

They usually have an English language translation crawl below the screen that's usually pretty accurate, though during the run-up to the 2nd round, there were the occasional lapses.
I'd usually catch the mistakes when I was being careful in writing down facts that I either didn't know or hadn't read anywhere, or, in transcribing parts of speeches by Sarkozy, Royal, Fillon, et al to their devout supporters, esp. Sarkozy's zingers aimed at Royal and her supporters.

(Speaking of keeping your word, there this, just in from the Financial Times:
Sarkozy’s 100 steps to slimmer government
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9ad8f52-a8ee-11dc-ad9e-0000779fd2ac.html )

Reading Josh, I was much better able to connect some of the subtle policy points that were sometimes lost on me, especially given the generally poor U.S. TV coverage of the election.
That tended to have the same p.o.v. or undercurrent to it regardless of the date or subject, a point often hammered home then by Matt Drudge on his syndicated Sunday night radio show: Ségolène Royal as a Hillary precursor.

(In the future, since I wrote down so much, I'll post a lot of the notes I took on Sarkozy's public policy pronouncements during the campaign, which I always found clear and persuasive.)

Josh's follow-up blog, http://frenchpolitique.blogspot.com/ continues his excellent work.
I think this particular recent post about Royal's new book proves it!

A week after the fact, you'd think this Royal story would have Elaine Sciolino's New York Times byline all over it, mais non. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/elaine_sciolino/index.html?inline=nyt-per

Besides bookmarking Josh's site, you might also want to consider adding the Times' own homepage for all things France:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/france/index.html

Without further ado, the aforementioned bit of delicious political dirt with context and commentary by Joshua Boswell
http://frenchpolitique.blogspot.com/2007/12/royals-christmas-present.html
Tuesday, December 4, 2007 Royal's Christmas Present

HB resident earned it the old-fashioned way: Brad Adamonis qualifies for PGA Tour

Noticed this news last week in The Miami Herald and meant to post it sooner.
Since he's from Rhode Island, if I ever run into him, I'll have to ask him if he knows my old Arlington housemate Jennifer Dugan, since as I was always told by Jen's friends whenever they came down from R.I. to Washington for a weekend visit, "Everyone who's anyone in Rhode Island knows" the adorable and personable Jen.
And that was before she was flying out of Logan Airport for U.S. Airways.

Nice backgrounder on Brad's years of hard work in The Boston Globe from October is below the
Herald excerpt of last week.
_____________________________________________
http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/story/332651.html

SPOTLIGHT ON GOLF: Honda Classic diversifies
Miami Herald

By Jeff Shain jshain@MiamiHerald.com
December 5, 2007

ADAMONIS ARRIVES
Brad Adamonis (Hallandale Beach) is headed to the PGA Tour, capping a breakthrough year by earning one of 26 cards handed out Monday from qualifying finals in Orlando.

Adamonis was one of just four players to break 70 in each of the final three rounds of the six-day marathon at Orange County National. He tied for ninth at 18-under-par 414.A six-year Nationwide Tour veteran, Adamonis broke into the win column last October by surviving an eight-hole playoff in West Texas. He wound up 33rd on the money list.
_____________________________
Brad's PGATour.com profile page: http://www.pgatour.com/players/02/37/78/
_____________________________
http://www.boston.com/sports/golf/articles/2007/10/18/the_long_awaited_payoff/

Boston Globe
GOLF NOTES
The long-awaited payoff
Adamonis on cusp after playoff win
By Jim McCabe, Globe Staff
October 18, 2007

It went into the record books as a victory that needed eight playoff holes, but Brad Adamonis knows better. It required years of perseverance.
Now in his fifth year on the Nationwide Tour, the Rhode Island native is 34, married, and the father of two, so how his life has changed since he graduated from Miami of Ohio and began his quest as a professional golfer. There always have been flashes of good play to keep him motivated, but what transpired last Sunday validates the time he has put into his game.
"I've been chasing the dream," said Adamonis. "So it feels good to finally win."
He insists that he surprised himself by being so calm in an eight-hole playoff to win the WNB Golf Classic in Midland, Texas, that he was actually more nervous in the closing holes of a final-round 70 that left him at 10-under-par 278. There had been birdies at the 14th, 15th, and 17th holes, but a bogey at the 72d hole, thanks to a poor drive, had cost him.
Or so he thought.
"Guys closing behind me were in good position, so I figured I'd just have a good finish," said Adamonis. "I felt fortunate to get into a playoff."
Vance Veazey and Ron Whittaker were eliminated on the first two holes, so onward went Adamonis and Tjaart van der Walt. They matched pars on the next five holes, but on the eighth extra hole, van der Walt made bogey, so Adamonis's par earned him $85,500 - though it could be a far greater payoff if things continue on an upward turn the next three weeks.
"I know I need at least one more good tournament the rest of the way," said Adamonis.
He was referring to the fact that he has vaulted to 30th on the money list and the top 25 will earn PGA Tour cards for 2008. With $161,735, Adamonis knows he's just $11,379 behind No. 25. He's in Tennessee for this week's stop, with tournaments in Miami and the Nationwide Tour Championship in Lakeside, Calif., to follow.
There's much to look forward to, yes, but so, too, has he tried to savor a victory that has been a long time coming.
"I've been playing fairly well, but it's always felt like I'm one or two shots away from being really good," said Adamonis, who inherited his passion for the game from his father, Dave, the founder of the US Challenge Cup Tour for junior golfers.


Woe is Wie
What has to rate as the season's saddest story took another disheartening turn when Greg Nared became the second manager within a year to walk away from Michelle Wie. "After careful consideration for my future, I have resigned, effective immediately," said Nared, who worked for the William Morris Agency. Wie just turned 18 and has been a pro for barely two years and already she's gone through two managers, both of whom - Nared and Ross Berlin - had her best interests at heart. Game plans envisioned by first Berlin and then Nared never emphasized high-profile tournaments against the men, nor was it ever considered best for the teenager to get her wrapped up in aggressive endorsement deals. Both managers had paid close attention to the almost flawless way in which Tiger Woods had been brought along slowly, and they felt a similar blueprint was in order for Wie. Somewhere, somehow, it has all gone terribly wrong, and since her parents are so in control of their daughter's life - from picking agents to hiring and firing caddies, which they've done at such a pace that father B.J. Wie was back lugging the bag at last week's Samsung Championship - they are the ones who must share the blame. In 2006, Wie was very much in contention to win three majors. In 2007, she played in eight LPGA Tour events and had a stroke average of 76.7. Yet, the numbers don't explain the half of it. The year has been a public relations nightmare, from the disrespectful way in which she treated LPGA Tour members and organizers at the Ginn Tribute, to the shame of accepting a sponsor's exemption into the Samsung when the dignified thing to do would have been to say, "Thanks, but I'm not worthy of this right now." Wie is enrolled at Stanford, which is a nice place for any 18-year-old to be. It's the perfect opportunity for her to take care of herself and tend to decisions for herself. But with her parents having left Hawaii to rent a house near Stanford, you wonder if that's possible.