By Ken Berger
First, a few words about draft-day booing.
One of the many odd twists of fate in my life has led me to cover the two NFL teams whose fans are known for being the most ardent draft-day boo birds. Before I came home to Long Island, where I grew up, to cover the Jets for Newsday in 2000, I spent two years covering the Eagles. I am sort of an expert in booing, something I will be sure to point out the next time I update my resume. Better yet, I could drop that into my first NFL column after Newsday demotes Glauber to the telemarketing department for putting out a mock draft with Leinart falling to the Vikings at 17.
Jon makes an excellent point, it turns out, about misconceptions regarding fans who boo at the draft. Who are these 20 or 30 people who are portrayed as representating all Jet fans because they boo the first-round pick?
Allow me to explain. I covered the Eagles in 1999 when the talk radio station there, WIP, started an aggressive campaign for the Eagles to select Texas running back Ricky Williams with the second pick. Now most people knew that first-year coach Andy Reid, given his background in the West Coast offense, was going to take Donovan McNabb of Syracuse. One of the talk radio hosts, in a shocking effort to bring attention to himself, organized a bus trip to New York and transported a couple dozen Eagles fans to the draft. It is my educated guess that spring water was not the beverage of choice on that bus ride. Their sole mission (other than drinking heavily) was to boo and hiss like emotionally unstable hyenas if the Eagles passed on Williams -- which of course, they did (they meaning the Eagles and the hyenas).
Since I don't live in Philly anymore, I've often wondered what that host thinks of the fine career Williams has carved out for himself in the years since. But the whole point is that fans in this vocal minority don't deserve to speak for the passionate-yet-knowledgeable ones who have flooded this blog with fairly serious and well-researched commentary for the past few days.
But alas, they will be on TV and we will not, which means all we can do is change the channel if we don't like it.
Now what do we do about Glauber? You try to offer some plausible explanation for your colleague's absurd position that a quarterback who was 37-2 as a college starter will be selected 17th, and this is the thanks you get? It seems somebody should spend more time looking at film and less time gazing at my photo on the Newsday web site.
Then again, it seems unfair to be too rough on the guy who put the "mock" in "mock draft."
Comments (5)
sorry about my abscence i had back surgery yesterday.boy does it hurt. no i am not who you thought i am, i'm just some regular john doe, using john doe bc i dont want my sports loving boss to know i am online and not doing work.
now onto bashing you. your "rumors everywhere" article made me question your skills. now i know you have skills, your my favorite jets reporter. cannizaro and that ditzy daily news guy are just awful.
so what made me question your skills was this: "Another Jet-related rumor addressed in a published report yesterday had Tannenbaum potentially involved in a three-way trade purportedly involving the Raiders and Saints. That one is so convoluted, and probably so far off base, that it's not even worth addressing."
what do you think we are dumb? when i heard three player trade i had to go to another source to hear about that trade. and OH BABY what a trade it would have been, at least from a blockbuster stand point.
well ken you failed me. i got more information from a san diego newspaper, than i did from you.
Ken, I'm glad you have told us your life story, which is about as interesting as the fourth round of the draft. Thanks for all your insights into why fans boo and why it's unfair to lump all fans together. Great stuff. Now just answer me this, Smiley. Why are you so obsessed with mocking my pick of Matt Leinart? At least I had the guts to take a stand on the guy, and - lo and behold - what's the big story of draft day? It's Matt Leinart falling. Sometimes, Berger, you're a dunderhead. I guess that's what happens when you cover the Jets all these years.
Oh, and by the way, knucklehead, I did pick both Ferguson AND Nick Mangold for the Jets in the first round. If I recall, you were a bit afraid of picking below the top 10 because you hadn't heard of anyone's name before.
:)
Yeah, Bob, but you also said all the fans would boo anyone but Leinart and clearly that didn't happen. Good job with the picks. Looking at the draft now and seeing Winston Justice available tot he jets twice later -it would have been cool to snag Davis or Hawk at #4 and Grab Justice later. Who's to know?
Wow, Glauber's not even getting paid here to irritate the readers... just doing it for free! :D
Although I was watching from home, I didn't see/hear much in the way of booing from the Jets fans... I was suprised that many didn't throw themselves off the balcony when Mangold was taken at 29. Don't get me wrong they are both great picks, but I thought there would have been riots with two O lineman in the first round... that said, those guys could anchor the line for a long time.
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