This is crazy. This is unbelievable. This is nuts. Okay, it's not really any of those things, but it is pretty neat. The NL West, the team thought by many to be the worst division in baseball, isn't. Not stopping there, every team in the NL West is above .500. That is crazy, and if you had told anyone this would be the case last year, they would have thought you were nuts. Remember, last year there were talks about a team making the playoffs from the NL West with a losing record. San Diego finished the season 2 games above even, ending that story, but it could have easily happened. Even at 2 games above .500, a mark that 13 other teams managed, San Diego was 5 games ahead of the rest of the division. I was originally going to talk about how everyone was wrong; not just in considering the NL West to be the weakest, but also in considering the NL East to be the strongest. This is somewhat true, but not as true as I was hoping. The NL East had a big problem until recently; only the Mets were performing. Then the Phillies went on a tear and caught up, before promptly slowing down, and now the Braves are currently the ones trying to catch up to the Mets. All three teams at the top are streaking teams, equally capable of losing or winning several in a row, but I think that they will steady the ship as we progress into the regular season. Consistency is key, and those teams have a better record with consistency. The NL West, on the other hand, is a division without a leader. San Diego has gone through and won series against the Dodgers and Giants, then lost several games against the Rockies and Diamondbacks. All 5 teams are within 2 games of each other, so whichever team goes on a run and wins several in a row will have a good lead in the division. The depth of the division, however shaky its leader is, does keep it from being considered the worst division in baseball. That distinction goes to the AL West, with two teams tied at 2 above .500 and the other two teams left 4 and 5 games back.

One thing that I don't get is how NFL teams operate the draft in regard to trades. As everyone who follows the draft knows, there is a trade value chart that all teams go by in determining what is fair. Every team this year went by it, as far as I could tell, both when they made their trades and when deciding not to accept a trade. This is the part that I don't understand, however; if a decent offer comes along, one that benefits your team, why not take it, regardless of what the chart says? This comes into play with the Texans and the Saints drafting out of the #1 and #2 spot. I understand the Texans drafting Mario Williams to shore up their defense, but any pretext of signing him because he was asking for less does not seem like the truth. From every report that I heard, Bush was taken out of the negotiations before there was any real chance to make a deal, and they actually signed Mario for more than they had offered Bush originally. As for the actual selection, I am under the belief that regardless of who you would like, Reggie Bush should have been taken first overall. Therefore, the Texans would have been better off trading down to the #2 spot at least, if not lower, and probably would have still managed to get their DE. The only problem with that, however, is the tricky trade value chart. If you look at it, had the Texans attempted to trade down one selection to the #2 spot, New Orleans would have had to cough up 400 points, or the equivalent of a 50th overall selection. That is doable; I don't know whether New Orleans would have, but that small gap is easily overcome. If they tried to trade down to #4, however, the gap grows to a very large 1200 points. 1200 points is the equivalent of a 12th overall pick, a giant gap that I don't believe should exist. Think of the trade that the Jets were willing to do with the Saints-they would give up their #4 slot, add a #29 and either a second or a third rounder. They had 49 overall in the 2nd, or 76 or 97 overall in the third. The #29 pick itself fills about 640 of the 1200 gap, so it still leaves a hole. Adding in the 49th pick would have added 410, leaving only 150 shy of being equal. If they were given this offer, I would say they should have definitely taken it, but I doubt the Jets would have given up their 2nd as well. Here is where I differ from the rest, however. If the Jets had packaged a deal giving up their 4th, 29th and 76th picks for the 1st or 2nd pick, that package only amounts to 2650 points. That is enough to "equal" the 2nd pick, but still 350 shy of the first, yet I would have taken it. It is hard to correctly predict a draft, so bear with me as I try, but I would speculate that had the Jets jumped into the 1st overall selection, they would have taken Reggie Bush. The Saints would have faced the dilemma of picking either Mario Williams or Ferguson, but I would hope that they would take the offensive lineman and help protect their new acquisition in Drew Brees. They already have good DE's; while they did rank near last in the league in sacks, I think that there are other ways to combat that without adding a third DE to platoon with two very good ones. I will admit that this is the biggest question mark, had the Texans traded down, but if the Saints had selected Ferguson, the Titans would have grabbed Vince Young and the Texans could have grabbed Mario Williams with the 4th pick. If they were able to do this, they would have been able to pay him much less, while also adding to their draft the 29th and 76th selections to grab more playmakers to help out a pathetic defense. If they weren't able to grab Mario, assuming the Saints took him, they would have still been in position to grab A.J. Hawk or Ferguson, giving help to two other positions of need. For the Saints, I can understand why they wouldn't accept the offer; they had Reggie Bush fall into their laps. Regardless of the fairness of the trade, they could use the upside of Reggie Bush and utilize him alongside Deuce McAllister to create a powerful running game. For the Texans, however, I definitely feel that they would have been able to upgrade more of their team and maybe even landed the exact same player that they drafted first overall had they traded down. The reason they didn't, it seems, is the trade value chart. What is the Trade Value Chart? It is a noble idea, a chart that assigns numeric values to every draft pick to create some kind of standard for assessing fair value in trades. Yet what makes it definitive and the hallmark of the NFL? This I don't know-it was formally created in the early 90's, attributed to Jeep Chryst, an assistant coach with the Carolina Panthers, but its essence existed long before he wrote it down. Jimmy Johnson was the one that articulated the idea for a formal chart, Jeep was the creator of this chart, and the rest is history. How he created it makes some sense; it was based on the leagues history of draft day trades, assigning points based on where the lines are drawn in available talent. A top 5 pick is worth more than a 25th pick, as typically there is a difference in talent that far apart. But how helpful is the chart in reality? It gives a good guideline; it is a starting point, akin to determining the price of a house on the market. Unfortunately, it hasn't been used quite like a starting point; instead it is used as a concrete number, with teams not veering far from what is expected. The reason for this, according to some, is that the charts have actually handcuffed teams looking to make deals. Any general manager that strays too far from the chart is open for criticism, regardless of how much is benefited by doing so. I would argue that teams ditch the chart, explain to their fans what they intend to do, and use whatever system that they would like in order to make a trade. Consider this-the Jets drafted Santana Moss and Lamont Jordan at 16th and 49th in the 2001 draft. If any team above pick #8 traded for those two picks, they wouldn't have been adequately compensated according to the trade value chart. That means that Leonard Davis, Gerard Warren, and Justin Smith were worth a large amount more (at the time) than a receiver that came in 2nd last year in receiving yards and a running back who "only" managed to come in 15th in rushing yards. It all depends on who you take; I had a hard time finding any teams from 1998-2004 that hit on both their 1st and 2nd round draft picks. Whenever I found a real good player, the next pick was off the mark; showing, at least to me, that the more picks you have the better. I think more teams need to realize this; more teams need to look at their drafting history and see that sometimes, as long as you remain in the same tier of talent level, moving up or down doesn't really make much of a difference. Be open to it, and whatever you can get makes it worth it. I mean think about it, part of the reason the #1 pick is worth so much is because it is a chance to get a true game-changing playmaker, someone like Reggie Bush. If you don't plan on drafting Reggie Bush, you aren't getting value for the pick anyways, so trade away.

I have been busy keeping up with my finals and everything coming to a close this semester, so for this past week it has been too hectic to write. I am going to make up for that this weekend; I have several things on my mind.

Just a note to anyone reading this blog: I have never written a blog before, so I range through several topics that are interesting to me without any real coherent force binding the thoughts together. I hope that that is fine for everyone, as it gets even more chaotic with my changing writing style as I am oft to try new things or be creative. I've already had one person comment that I should save it for my creative writing class. I also will admit that I can be a little late in my writing; I am busy with college and it takes a bit to write a good post, so I might be a few days behind a good story. One last note-I renamed my blog "Coma Slide," a name that only the lacrosse players (and then only some) reading this will understand. I had a more artsy creative name before, but I thought it was not fitting for a sports blog. In lacrosse, a slide is a shifting of the defense to help someone out when they lose their assignment. Picture someone attacking the goal from the outside; if he burns his defender, another defender needs to "slide" over to pick him up, denying him a clean shot on the goal. A "Coma Slide" occurs when the defense slides directly across the crease, usually as a last ditch effort to stop a goal. Picture an attackmen bringing the ball up from behind the net, trying to get enough of an angle to get a good shot off on the goalie. As soon as he gets above the goal-line, the defenseman on the other post slides across and attempts to hit him as hard as he can. Usually, the attackman will not be able to see the sliding defenseman; the combination of a big hit and having it come from the blind side is what makes it a coma slide-the intention is to hit the player hard enough to put them in a coma, although it is not meant literally to harm anyone. I employ the reference in the sense that I hope to have the strength of a logical argument on my side, thereby in any sort of debate being able to close the door and prevent a point from being made. No violence necessary, and I don't mean to insult anyone by any of my counter arguments, most of the time I just have a different opinion.