Running off at the typewriter …
Raise your hand if you trust the Jacksonville Jaguars to make the right choice with the No. 1 overall pick in Thursday night’s NFL Draft.
Anyone?
Anyone?
The Jaguars also had the No. 1 overall pick last season, but the pick was a no-brainer because purported can’t-miss franchise quarterback Trevor Lawrence of Clemson was at the top of everybody’s big board. This year, there is no clear-cut No. 1, which means much-maligned Jaguars GM Trent Baalke and his brain trust will be expected to somehow make the astute and correct pick.
This is akin to giving a kindergartner some finger paints and telling him to re-create Whistler’s Mother.
Will the Jaguars choose Michigan edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson, who had a monster season for the Wolverines last year and finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy?
Will they choose Georgia edge rusher Travon Walker, who wasn’t nearly as productive as Hutchinson but is said to have a “higher ceiling” and more “upside”?
Personally, if I were the Jags, I would protect Lawrence, my franchise quarterback, by drafting one of the two elite offensive tackles in the draft — North Carolina State’s Ikem Ekwonu or Alabama’s Evan Neal. There’s no denying Lawrence played awful during his rookie year, partly because he was under duress for much of the season.
Of course, we know the Jaguars will somehow blow it.
If NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had a sense of humor, he’d step up to the podium Thursday tonight and declare: “With the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, the Jacksonville Jaguars select … The Wrong Guy!” …
Short stuff: How much has the NFL Draft grown over the years? Florida Gators legend Steve Spurrier, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1966 and was the first quarterback taken in the 1967 draft, told me once that he never even had a conversation with the San Francisco 49ers before they chose him No. 3 overall. The only team rep Spurrier talked to in those days before the advent of the NFL Scouting Combine was iconic trumpet player Al Hirt, who was a minority owner of the expansion New Orleans Saints. Hirt was playing a concert in Gainesville before the draft and contacted Spurrier to get him excited about the new team in New Orleans. Hirt was buried with his trumpet years ago, but now we have an entire network (ESPN) tooting the horn for the NFL Draft. …
Now that Detroit Tigers legend Miguel Cabrera has reached the 3,000-hit milestone, the Miami Marlins trading him in 2007 will go down as the worst business decision since Decca Records turned down the Beatles in 1962, telling them, “Guitar groups are on the way out.” Oopsy. … Jerry West wants an apology from HBO for the unflattering, dramatized portrayal of him in the series Winning Time about the building of the Showtime Lakers. Memo to the Logo: The Orlando Magic are still waiting on you to apologize for tampering (allegedly) with Shaq and convincing him to leave Orlando for L.A. all those years ago. … Was reading in the Sentinel earlier this week that Delta has become the first major U.S. airline to announce it will start paying flight attendants and cabin crews during the boarding process. Um, shouldn’t this be something all airlines do and why has it taken decades for this to happen? Last I checked, all of these employees are usually pretty damn busy during the boarding process. Hey, airlines, not paying your employees for working is an idea that should never fly!!! …
From Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: “The Oakland Coliseum, home to the Athletics, has been invaded by an estimated 50-100 feral cats. Animal control has been trapping the squatters, spaying or neutering them and returning them to the ballpark. On the plus side, the Coliseum no longer has a rat problem!” … Move over, Miami Hurricanes Turnover Chain, and make way for the Tennessee Volunteers mink coat. That’s right, every time a player on the No. 1-ranked Vols baseball team hits a homer, he dons a full-length fake mink coat. If you ask me, that’s taking showboating a little too fur, er, far. … Still can’t believe Elon Musk just bought Twitter for $44 billion. That’s almost as much as Texas A&M boosters spent on “NIL deals” for their No. 1-ranked recruiting class. … Headline at Beaverton.com: “Study finds cycling healthiest way to get hit by a car.” … I’m not normally one who endorses physical violence, but I have to admit I was rooting for Mike Tyson when he beat up the drunken, obnoxious airplane passenger who wouldn’t leave Tyson alone last week. Tyson, it seems, foreshadowed the incident in a Facebook post back in 2020 when he wrote: “Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.” …
I saw where the Guinness Book of World Records just identified the oldest dog in the world as a chihuahua that lives in West Palm Beach and is 21 years, 109 days old. The dog is named TobyKeith after the country music superstar who sang the song, Should’ve Been a Cowboy. As for the chihuahua, he reportedly is working on a new song as well: Should’ve Been a Great Dane. … Speaking of records, did you see where somebody caught a 131-pound blue catfish in the Mississippi River the other day, surpassing the Mississippi state record by nearly 40 pounds? In related news, Manti Te’o said, “Puh-leeze, you call that a catfish?!” …
Last word: With Thursday being National Poetry Reading Day, the great G.K. Chesterton once pointed out: “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
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