You can tell it's finally, really spring because everything's turning a slightly greener shade of brown, pigeons are doing whatever it is they do and the New York State budget is late.
And because many a young man's fancy (and that of more than a few women) has turned to what's truly important -- the National Football League draft.
The draft was once the sporting calendar's equivalent of Lincoln's Birthday, something most people thought about fleetingly on the day itself, if at all, then largely forgot until the next one rolled around.
Just as Lincoln's Birthday somehow mutated into President's Week, draft day has become the NFL Draft 2003, complete with its own official logo. The proliferation of sports networks, publications and, especially, Web sites has created a hurricane of hype that pounds the opening rounds of the hockey and basketball playoffs, as well as the second and third weeks of baseball season, into the background.
With the Buffalo Bills seemingly a player or two away from serious contention, interest is especially high in these parts this year. Buffalo President/General Manager Tom Donahoe oversaw a strong draft last year, with the Bills landing mammoth offensive tackle Mike Williams on Saturday and stealing Drew Bledsoe in a trade on Sunday.
This year doesn't figure to be as dramatic. The Bills are picking 23rd in the first round, barring any last-minute trades, 19 slots later than in 2002. You can get a very good player in that area of the opening round (Buffalo took Antoine Winfield at No. 23 in 1999 and his partner at cornerback, Nate Clements, at No. 21 in 2001), or you can end up with a stiff (Erik Flowers, released after just two seasons, was the 26th pick of 2000).
The selection of Flowers points up the dangers of the riskiest of draft strategies -- drafting strictly for a specific vacancy. Having released Bruce Smith a couple months earlier, the Bills desperately needed a pass-rushing defensive end.
As it turned out, Flowers was just like Bruce. Except not as fast, strong or motivated. He was also a much nicer guy, which counts for as much in football as having especially pretty eyes.
While Flowers was washing out in Buffalo, three of the four players picked immediately after him -- tight end Anthony Becht and linebackers Rob Morris and Keith Bulluck -- have become productive starters.
Thanks to Donahoe's work over the past two years, Buffalo enters this draft without a singular glaring need. The Bills still don't have a pass-rushing end who can remotely approximate the havoc wrought by Smith, but they don't have to reach for one if he's not really there.
Aaron Schobel led Buffalo in sacks in each of his first two seasons. Veteran free agents Marcus Jones and Keith McKenzie are each coming back from injury-plagued seasons, but one or both could easily emerge as a starter, based on past performances.
The conventional wisdom displayed in the various mock drafts still has Buffalo nabbing a pass rusher (Michael Haynes of Penn State is a popular pick).
But a third defensive tackle to rotate with Adams and Pat Williams could make Buffalo's defensive gut virtually impregnable, and Johnathan Sullivan, a 6-foot-3, 313-pounder from Georgia, might still be on the board, though his stock has risen in the last couple weeks. If he's gone, Texas A&M's Ty Warren and Clemson's Nick Eason should be around.
Then there's safety, a position which cost Buffalo a few long touchdown passes last year. Mike Doss, an anchor on Ohio State's national championship team, is penciled in as a late first-rounder, as are Troy Polamalu of USC and Rashean Mathis of Bethune-Cookman. All three are over 200 pounds and are the type of punishers Bills coach Gregg Williams craves, but has lacked since leaving Tennessee.
While their immediate needs are elsewhere, there's one mitigating factor that could influence the Bills when making that first pick. Winfield is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent after the 2003 season.
The going rate for top corners has skyrocketed, meaning someone may offer him more cash than he's worth (a la Atlanta and Peerless Price).
The two top corners in this year's crop, Terance Newman and Marcus Trufant, should be gone long before Buffalo goes on the clock. But Julian Battle, who played mostly safety at Tennessee, has shot up the charts during offseason workouts.
He and Dennis Weathersby of Oregon State could break the Bills mold of small, speedy coverage guys -- each is more than 200 pounds, a virtual giant for the position by Buffalo standards. Either could serve as the third cover guy in passing situations (another Bills weakness in 2002), then step in as a starter if Winfield gets the big money elsewhere next year.
From this vantage point, Haynes seems the likely pick. But if he's gone, or the Bills' hierarchy likes somebody else better, their moves over the last two offseasons give them that flexibility.
Nice non-apology apology by Dale Petroskey, the Baseball Hall of Fame's Minister of Propaganda.
In case you missed Mike Hudson's column in the April 15 Niagara Falls Reporter, or virtually any other form of remotely sports-related media in the ensuing week, the former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan canceled a scheduled tribute to the beloved baseball film "Bull Durham" because two of its stars, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, have been known to be a tad critical of Republicans in the past.
Petroskey, whose stint as an assistant press secretary in the Ronald Reagan administration two decades ago apparently earned him enough connections to keep him in cushy jobs for life, wasn't taking any chances that Robbins or Sarandon might spout off about the American invasion of Iraq. So he scrubbed the event.
In a single stroke of idiocy, Petroskey politicized a non-political event -- exactly what he claimed he was trying to avoid. His assertion that if Robbins or Sarandon questioned the war (which both adamantly said they weren't going to do), American troops might somehow be endangered, was nothing more than shamefully partisan jingoism.
After thousands of e-mails flooded the Hall's computers and Roger Kahn, author of "Boys of Summer," the classic chronicle of the early 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers, canceled a scheduled appearance in protest, Petroskey relented.
Sort of.
He didn't reschedule the tribute.
He didn't say that his absurd grandstanding was woefully misguided and out of place.
Here's what he did say. "With the advantage of hindsight, it is clear I should have handled the matter differently," Petroskey wrote in an open letter to the 28,000 people who called, wrote or e-mailed the Hall of Fame after the tribute was canceled. "I am sorry I didn't pick up the phone to have a discussion with Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon rather than sending him a letter."
In other words, Petroskey doesn't see a thing wrong with what he did -- just how he did it.
The possibility that he misjudged the situation and made Robbins and Sarandon into sympathetic characters was too much for his tiny partisan brain to handle.
All of which points up the problem with giving political hacks jobs in any field other than politics.
They just don't know any better.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 22 2003 |