49ers - Ready or Not (Offense Edition)

By Kalen Patrick

Exactly 1 week from right now the 49ers season will officially be underway, being an avid 49er fan I'd love nothing more than coming away from Green Bay with a 'W'. It's gonna be a great well fought game no doubt about it and despite it being week 1 I expect a very well played game (assuming the replacement refs don't stop that from happening.) The 49ers have their 53 man roster in the books so let's take a look at some of the players who are Ready and some who are Not.

Ready - Alex Smith QB - You know that the 49ers starting QB is more than ready to go when he doesn't need much playing time in preseason to look in regular season form. Of course Alex Smith is heavily scrutinized being a former #1 Overall Pick, but just let these numbers sink in and you will know Alex Smith is ready: From the 2009-2011 seasons (40 starts including playoffs) Alex Smith has 54 TD's to only 17 INT's. Alex Smith has NOT thrown an Interception in his last 7 starts and he has a total of 215 pass attempts in those games. He has never been more ready for a season in his life. And I haven't even mentioned all the weapons the 49ers have added this offseason (oh wait.....)

ALEX SMITH IS READY FOR THE 2012 SEASON - ARE YOU?

Not - Colin Kaepernick QB - I really loved the job Kaepernick did in the preseason this year and it is obvious that he is progressing and developing as an NFL QB. I still believe that Kaepernick will not be launching his attack on Alex Smith for 49ers starting QB until next year. The excellent job Colin did in the preseason bodes well for the 49ers moving forward knowing they have a good QB developing well. He has all the tools to be an excellent QB going forward, big arm, mobility and accuracy but he will need to develop further in his ability to read complex defenses, know when to use his mobility as an asset rather than liability. He is getting there, and the future looks bright for Mr. Kaepernick.

Ready - Michael Crabtree WR - This is the first time in his NFL Career that Michael Crabtree will have been able to work out extensively. Of course we all remember his rookie season holdout and last season's NFL lockout. Add in that in all his years in the NFL he has had foot issues that have kept him out of Training Camps and preseason games. Every year Crabtree has progressed in both catches and yards, 48-625 in 2009, 55-741 in 2010 and 72-874 last year. I think 2012 could be the year when Michael finally eclipses 1000 yards and I'd like to see him haul in at least 7 TD's. The situation and offense is perfect for a receiver with Crabtree's skill set and experience.

MICHAEL CRABTREE IS READY FOR THE PRIME TIME

Not - AJ Jenkins WR - While I believe that Jenkins won't have much of an impact in his rookie year, don't take that as a knock against him or against Baalke for drafting him in the 1st round. This season in the first in many that the 49ers have good-great depth at WR. Jenkins was drafted more to be a big contributor in a year or two down the line. He is definitely a raw player, will need a year of seasoning to be able to get the offense down, to be able to read defensive schemes to adjust routes accordingly and of course his route running abilities can be improved upon. I can see he and Crabtree being the 49ers 1 and 2 receivers going forward for a long time.

That was the Offense Edition for my 'Ready or Not' Column in part of my 49ers preview for the 2012 NFL Season. Check back for my Defense Edition of 'Ready or Not'.

Over and Out.

Updates Coming

Been MIA for a while, been really really busy with work. Gonna write some stuff on the various trades in Baseball, and a WHOLE LOT of Football talk coming soon. Be prepared!

Baseball Realignment - My Thoughts

By Kalen
Personally I like how Baseball is with the number of teams going through, it makes it so the best of the best get in, unlike football where teams like Seattle with a 7-9 record get in or in Basketball where the 1st round tends to be a snoozefest the majority of the time. However, I can and do understand the arguments for adding 2 extra teams to the playoffs. And not only this but maybe realigning the divisions too. Is it really fair to have teams like Baltimore and Toronto have to compete with the likes of Boston and New York year in and year out? I think changes can be made without having to completely alter the game. The beauty of this debate is hearing all the interesting ideas people come up with. Here are my thoughts:

What to do with the Divisions? - I've heard arguments that have just 1 division in the AL and NL, and the top 4 teams go though and so on and so forth. This is an intriguing idea but not one I agree with. One of the beautiful things about baseball are the rivalries and division teams playing each other regularly, Boston vs New York, San Francisco vs LA Dodgers, St. Louis vs Chicago Cubs. Not only this, but having the Mets and the Padres in the same division means so much more travel in an already crazy schedule for the players.
Here is my idea, move 1 of the National League teams to the American League. The easy choice has to be the Houston Astros, they are already a team re-building, a great rivalry can be made with the Rangers and they can be slotted in to the AL West. Thus giving each division 5 teams. I never understood why so many thought it was fair having 6 teams in the NL Central but only 4 in the AL West?

WOULD MOVING THE ASTROS TO THE AL BE GOOD FOR BASEBALL?

What to do with the Playoffs? - As I said before, I quite like how Baseball is done with the playoffs, but I can't help but think it can be improved. Hear me out on this, 10 teams go through, 5 in the AL and 5 in the NL. The winners of each of the divisions automatically go through to the 2nd round, so in both the AL and NL you have 2 teams play each other. 1 game, and whoever has the better record gets the home field advantage. Can you imagine how exciting this one game would be in each League? Imagine the Phillies, Cardinals and Giants win their respective divisions and then you have the Braves travel to the Brewers to play sudden death. How great of a start to the postseason would that be? What a way to kickstart it.

Minimum Team Salary - First off I want to say that Baseball will never be like the NFL where you can have 1 salary cap figure for every team, its just impossible. What my idea is to implement a minimum team salary that owners must spend. MLB needs to do this on a team by team basis, and the number is based on how much income the team gets. Example, the Yankees make so much more than the Pirates, so the minimum salaries are going to need to be significantly different. I just don't think it's fair or reasonable to fans of say the Pirates to look at their awful team of 18 straight years losing, most owners should wanna spend money to win and therefore make money. In recent years, all the Pirates have done is dump contract after contract and spend so little on the team and they just keep losing. I feel that owners of each team need to be serious about the team and not just in it to make money. This would be good for all the smaller markets like Kansas City, Florida, etc.

WHILE HAVING A SOLID 2011, THE PIRATES HAVE NOT SPENT ENOUGH TO KEEP THE TEAM COMPETITIVE

All in all I think Baseball is in a great position and with the pending Lockouts of both the NFL and MLB, they can hope to expect a big surge in interest. By possibly implementing my ideas I feel it could vault Baseball to be right there with Football and ahead of Basketball once again. The one issue you can say about Baseball, is the refusal to alter the game for the better. This is something that Football has been great at.

Baseball is my 2nd favorite sport behind......you guessed it Football. Who knows how that will go in the future? Giants are playing great and the 49ers have been tough to watch. I like the direction of the 49ers and the Giants and Bulls are all in great positions going forward. God it's good to be a sports fan.

Kalen from the Sports Cave. Check in tomorrow when I update my weekly MLB Power Rankings.

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The NFL Lockout - Where do you stand?

By Kalen
The most popular sport in the US has been locked out for over 3 months now and while we do hear rumors of progress being made, how much? We really don't know. What makes this Lockout so difficult is that both sides have valid arguments. Now while fans in general tend to agree with the players, there are numerous issues where I do have to side with the owners. I think that, ultimately the game will be better for the fans if the owners come out on the winning side of this (and they most likely will).

THE LEGACY OF ROGER GOODELL WILL HINGE ON THE OUTCOME OF THE LOCKOUT

Now I don't think they should get everything they want, I do agree with several issues. Such as:

Installing a rookie salary cap - The draft was designed in order to help the bad teams get better, correct? Well the Raiders take Jamarcus Russell #1 overall, and at the time I think most people thought it was a solid choice. That Russell had all the talent, tools etc etc etc. 3 years and a guaranteed $32 million dollars later, Jamarcus is not only out of the NFL but out of sports. There is no such as a sure thing when it comes to the draft, why put teams in a horrible position should the draft pick not work out. It defies the logic of the draft. Also think about this, a lot of the guys coming in to the league are maybe 21 or 22? And they are being guaranteed $30-40 million now? What incentive do they have to put in the work? I know I know, the draft screening process should reveal this, but if so many draft "experts" get it wrong so often then can we really blame teams for this? I think the NBA has it right here, I think there should be a price slot allocated to each draft position and a contract of 3-4 years. Paying crazy money to rookies is already an insult to veterans who are proven, why potentially cripple an entire franchise over 1 selection not working out?

THE FUTURE OF FOOTBALL RESTS IN THE HANDS OF THESE GUYS

The future ramifications to fans - Should the owners lose out in the new CBA, you know prices for basically everything football related is going to increase significantly. Imagine ticket prices? Jersey prices? That $10 beer suddenly turns in to $15. And the NFL owners know they can do this and get away with it because of the popularity and demand for basically anything football related. Who knows how far owners could take things in order to recuperate the losses made, should the players come out on top.

Salary Cap needs to be reinstated - I'm not 100% sure on how the owners or players feel on this issue. I tend to feel that the owners would be in favor of the Salary Cap. It keeps things fair and keeps every team at a similar competitive level. Do we really want to see the Redskins and Cowboys turn in to the Red Sox and Yankees? I feel if owners are able to budget and know exactly where they stand financially with player contracts, we can expect better prices. Put a decent size Salary Cap in place and I think a minimum amount needs to also be implemented so the NFL does not have a Pittsburgh Pirates on their hands (18 straight losing seasons would never fly in the NFL).

A get out of Contract Clause - I think this should be implemented in most professional sports. What I mean by "get out of contract clause" is that teams should be able to terminate a contract with zero financial consequences under certain circumstances. I feel that a team should be able to put forth 1 contract per year for review by a neutral party (or else a party with an even vote between players association and league representatives). For example, lets say the San Francisco 49ers signed Nnamdi Asomugha and gave him a 7 year $100 million dollar contract. Now if Nnamdi comes in and plays well the Niners will have no problem paying him that. Now lets say if Nnamdi has constant injuries or else his level of play drops dramatically and he comes in to camp out of shape and is basically a huge bust, then the 49ers should be allowed put forth that contract to the 3rd party and from there a verdict can be made on how to restructure or terminate the contract. A good real life example would be Albert Haynesworth in Washington. Now there would have to be a drastic significant decrease in the level of play for a change to be made.

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

These are just some of the issues that I think I would favor the owners in AND would benefit the League. There are however many issues that I disagree with; such as retirement medical insurance, wanting players to play 2 extra regular season games without improving the current contracts or medical coverage. While 4 preseason games can be torturous, think about this, each team will have maybe 10 fringe players to make the 53 man roster and 8 to make the practice squad. That is 18 per team. We times that by 32 (for all the teams) and we get around 575 players who need all those 4 games to prove themselves to make the team in some capacity. Plus owners keep complaining about their high priced stars getting injured, yet you want more games to put them in harms way? In these cases it clearly can be perceived that the owners care about their wallet and not for the players health and safety.


The whole CBA issue is so complex, and there are so many issues which can be looked at so many ways that it's hard to even digest the whole issue. This is why it has and will take a long time to solve. Ultimately all I can ask for is we still have the game we all love back ASAP and not ruined by this whole ordeal.

Let me know what you guys think about my points, let me know what issues of the CBA are on your mind and maybe we can get a discussion going. Thanks for reading (if you made it this far).

This is Kalen from the Sports Cave.
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Favorite Athletes from My Childhood

Sports has been my life for as long as I can remember, whether it was watching the 49ers on Monday Night Football with my Dad, going to Giants games in Candlestick Park with my Friends and Family, staring in awe as Michael Jordan would seem to do the impossible or playing Soccer and Little League, sports has dominated my life and I love every minute of it. So I am gonna talk about my favorite players from the sports I watched as a kid. Lets do this.

Baseball

WILL CLARK 1B of the SF GIANTS

Will Clark 1B - San Francisco Giants - Will "The Thrill" Clark will probably always be my favorite Giant of all time. Bonds has come very close, and no doubt Tim Lincecum and Buster Posey will come close too, but #22 is my guy. There was just something about him, he had that sweet sweet swing, was the first player I got to see live who was a superstar in not only my eyes but in the Baseball world. He was the guy who I would pin my hopes on to come up with the big hit, or make a diving play at first. I remember trying to imitate Will's swing playing Little League but never getting it right, and of course I wore #22. The great thing about Will Clark and Baseball, was that they looked like every day guys (stress the past tense), players back then didn't have bulging muscles, heck some of them even wore glasses! Seeing these kind of players made me think I could be one of them. Will Clark will always be the guy I thought I could be, and that's a pretty awesome feeling.



Football

THE FAMOUS FUNKY CHICKEN DANCE

Merton Hanks FS - San Francisco 49ers - Yeah there were a ton of Hall of Fame players I could have gone with here, Rice, Montana, Young, Lott, Craig, some LEGENDARY names, and I course I loved every last one of them, but Hanks was always a personal favorite, with Tom Rathman coming in a close 2nd. While Rice and the other Hall of Famer's were the most talented of the bunch, they were not flashy, business like even, but they got the job done, Hanks also got the job done, but he did it while maintaining character. Not a big guy but he could lay the wood if needed, and of course Hanks is known for the famous funky chicken dance for whenever he would score a TD on an interception or fumble return. Hanks is one of the more underrated and forgotten men of the great 49er teams. While his career was short lived (9 seasons), he made quite an impact, Superbowl winner and 4 time Pro-Bowler. Hanks had the personality fans loved and had a great game to back it up.

Basketball
Scottie Pippen SF - Chicago Bulls - As much as I would love the best players on my favorite teams, I guess I always was a bigger fan of the Robin to the teams Batman (sidenote: Batman is way more awesome than Robin). Sure I loved Jordan as much as any other kid growing up in the 90's, but Pippen was always my favorite. Always got overlooked despite being a great player, he even led the Bulls when Jordan went on sabbatical and did a more than admirable job at that. I definitely don't agree with Pippen's recent comments regarding Lebron being a better player than Jordan, he will always have my respect. He despite being a Hall of Fame caliber player understood, that Jordan was the guy for the Bulls. I am a big fan of ESPN's Bill Simmons, and in his book of Basketball he references "The Secret". This involved putting the team first, and knowing your role on the team. Pippen "got this" and knew that he was the secondary player and that in crunch time, just give the ball to Michael.

Soccer
Enrico Chiesa - Parma - Manchester United and Parma were my 2 favorite teams growing up. I have about 10+ players from Man United who I loved, but for Parma it was always all about Chiesa. Often overshadowed (seeing a theme here?) by other great strikers in the Italian Soccer League (Serie A) but was so extremely talented in his day. Chiesa is a personal favorite, not many casual soccer fans will know of him or too much about him. I guess I can be a Soccer snob when it comes to this.

Formula 1
Michael Schumacher - Benetton/Ferrari - Yes back in the day I was a HUGE fan of Formula 1, and instantly Schumacher was my favorite. I loved the rivalries with Mika Hakkinen, Damon Hill, David Coulthard, Jacques Villineuve etc etc. Having spent a great deal of my growing up in Ireland, Formula 1 occupied many of my Saturdays and Sundays. The qualifying on Saturday and race on Sunday. Even I have to admit that it did get boring for a few years where Schumie just seemed to win every race with ease, but there is nothing better than two cars going 175+mph trying to do everything they can to get by one another on crazy turns on the creative racetracks. In recent years I have definitely lost track of F1, which is a shame, even Schumacher returning wasn't enough to get me interested again. My advice to people not familiar with the sport is to watch the Monaco Grand Prix. Intense action, any tiny mistake and you are done, Monaco is certainly a non-forgiving race track but it is essentially the highlight of the race year and always worth the watch.

              Michael Schumacher - Greatest Formula 1 driver of all time.

Wrestling
Bret "The Hitman" Hart - What kid growing up in the late 80's or 90's didn't love wrestling? I loved the Sharpshooter, I loved the "Best there is, best there was, best there ever will be", and what I loved was that he was never the biggest wrestler, but always put up a good fight and held his own.

These are some of my favorite athletes from my childhood, post comments on who your guys' favorites were when you were younger. Would be interested to get some answers and feedback from the readers.