A Possible Solution to the Ravens lack of depth at Wide Receiver

Going into the off-season, the Baltimore Ravens have plenty of needs. The most glaring of which are at wide receiver and corner back. The local sports radio has been filled with people calling in and expressing their hopes and aspirations for the Ravens acquiring a big play wide receiver such as Brandon Marshall or Anquan Boldin. While I would certainly welcome either one of those receivers to the team, I think it is far fetched that either one will end up in purple and black, so that leaves the Ravens with two options: free agency and the NFL draft. Judging from the Raven's past in the NFL draft when it comes to wide receivers, that option seems rather bleak. Travis Taylor and Mark Clayton are the only two receivers the Ravens have selected in the first round and both of them have turned out to be busts. Clayton still has a chance but that chance is getting smaller and smaller by the moment. So that leaves free agency or trade and there are only a few names out there. Buccaneers wide out Antonio Bryant could be of some help, he is a vertical threat who can stretch the field, but he has injury problems. There is also the guy who cries about his quarterback, but he is getting old and also dissed the Ravens several years back so that probably won't happen either. I'm going to propose one option for the Ravens that the majority of talk show hosts and obnoxious fans that call in to bother the talk show hots have failed to mention. Sign the one and only guy out there that can not only catch, but can also cure cancer. The man who can make Chuck Norris cry and the man who will deliver the city of Baltimore from twelve straight losing seasons, the man who gets repulsive girls from Frederick all hot and sweaty to play wide receiver next year, a man named Matt Wieters.

Once again, I am running short on time and have to post another short entry. Hopefully, next week I will be able to post a decent entry. Currently, I've got some ideas brewing, but I guess they will just have to continue to wait and develop in that great mind of mine. Plus, the 100th blog entry is rapidly approaching and that one most certainly will have to be special.

Gambling on Old-Timers who Partake in Shakespearian Tragedy

I logged onto ESPN.com this morning and noted that one of their feature stories regarded Archie Manning. Supposedly, Archie Manning rooting for his son in the upcoming Superbowl is a major news story. Now, Manning does reside in New Orleans and did spend the majority of his career playing for the Saints, but anyone who actually thought he would pull for the Saints instead of the Colts on Super Sunday, is an absolute moron. Granted, Archie has plenty of ties to his former team and his city, but to imagine someone rooting for a team they no longer play for rather than rooting for their own son is just absurd and far from a major news story.

I'm taking this class on Shakespearian tragedy at the university across the street and there is an old-timer in the class. Not your typical college old-timer who may be in his late twenties or early thirties but an old-timer by anyone's standards. This old geezer must be pushing 80 and it appears that at any minute he may just peel over, but yet he is out there trying to pursue new academic challenges. In fact, the old timer greeted the professor as soon as he walked into the door with a stern handshake and introduction. During this introduction the old-timer mentioned his high expectations for the course and spoke of his days working in the union. I didn't want to eavesdrop on the conversation so I wasn't able to catch what specific union the old man was a part of, but either way it should be interesting to see how the man fares throughout the remainder of the course. I'm tempted to start a pool with my fellow classmates to see if he makes it through the whole course.

Short and pointless entry today, hopefully there will be more soon, but I have to skedaddle.

The Greatest Athlete....??

As everyone probably already knows, Tiger Woods was recently named Athlete of the Decade. Woods's accomplishments on the golf course in the past decade were undeniably amazing and he undoubtedly deserved the honor of being donned as the decade's greatest athlete. Lance Armstrong, Roger Federer, and Michael Phelps finished second, third, and fourth respectively, and either one of those three would have been a viable choice. Finishing out the top five was Tom Brady, but with only three votes out of 142, it was obvious that Brady didn't really garner much attention.

The debate over who is the greatest athlete is one that has always developed lots of interest. Sports radio hosts are constantly fielding questions and offering their opinions on who is the greatest athlete of all time. Shortly following the completion of the last century, ESPN composed a list of the 100 greatest athletes of the past century. They named the series Sportscentury and revealed the so-called top 100 athletes of the 20th century. Topping the list was Michael Jordan, the legendary Chicago Bulls guard who dominated the 1980's and 1990's with his fade away jumper and gravity defying moves. Jordan prevailed over Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Wayne Gretzky, and 95 others. While, I am not here to argue that Jordan was not the greatest athlete of 20th century, I do find it funny that his own coach felt that Jordan was not even the greatest athlete he ever coached. Jackson claimed in an interview that Dennis "The Worm" Rodman was the most athletic player he ever coached, a pretty prestigious claim considering Jackson has coached Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O'Neal and of course, Kobe Bryant. Jackson's comments although not well known are similar to the comments offered by a number of sports fans and sport talk hosts across the country when it comes to the debate on the level of certain athletes.

The majority opinion seems to direct one to an athlete's dominance in their individual sport. For this reason, the Jordan and Gretzky's of the world are often considered the top athlete. However, this opinion leaves some great athletes in the dust. Athletes such as Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, because it was Prime Time who ran one of the fastest forty yard dashes ever recorded, succeeded in both baseball and football at the professional level, and retired as quite possibly the greatest cover corner in the history of the National Football League. ESPN ranked Sanders as the 74th greatest athlete of the century, nearly forty spots behind a horse. Another phenomenal athlete who didn't even crack the list was Dave Winfield. Winfield, a Hall of Fame baseball player, is the one of only two players too be drafted by Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Football League. The other? Dave Logan. It was once considered that the person who won the decathlon was the greatest athlete on Earth, but yet, Jim Thorpe was the only decathlon winner listed on Sportscentury's list.

Nine years from now, the associated press will probably honor someone else with by naming the athlete of the decade. LeBron James, Albert Puljols, and several other athletes will probably be among the finalists. It's quite possible that Tiger Woods could once again win the competition, because whenever Tiger comes out of that Hooter's girls bedroom and emerges back on the golf course he will inevitably be successful, but one question will remain. Are they truly the best athlete of the decade? I guess that's just up for debate and left for radio hosts and obnoxious idiots who call in to the show to continue to babble over.

In other news, this silly blog finally proved that it has some meaning. After months and months of wondering and searching, I came across a Megatouch 2009.5 edition. If you remember I once mentioned I was considering boycotting Megatouch due to their refusal to accept Geilfuss as a valid last name. Following my post, I was contacted by the Director of Marketing and Finance for Megatouch who assured me that in their 2009.5 edition, Geilfuss would be accepted as a valid entry. So you can only imagine my excitement when I came across this new machine at JD's bar in Canton. After a few rounds of Race Poker, I finally achieved a high score, entered in my last name, and was quite pleased to see Geilfuss as the bearer of high scores. It won't be long till more and more bars have the 2009.5 edition and no longer will the Jacoby's have to enter in multiple versions of my last name upon receiving a high score.

Also, it has come to my attention that Dennis Rodman will be teaming up with Dr. Drew on the new season of Celebrity Rehab and if this is true, good things are bound to happen, because when it comes to entertainment, there are few people in this world as entertaining as The Worm.

Stuck on A Deserted Island

I'm taking a winter course over at the University near by and on our first class the professor made everyone in the class play a completely silly game as an icebreaker. Supposedly, the point of this icebreaker was to help me bond with my other classmates so I will be more likely to ask them questions outside of the classroom if I need help or something like that. The professor wanted us to write down 10 things that we would each bring with us to a deserted island, submit the answers to her, and than as a class we would try and guess who in the class has submitted each answer. She also mentioned that certain items such as cell phones and computers which would typically seem like pointless items to bring to a deserted island, would get reception on this island but yet you still couldn't use it to rescue you. So basically she was proposing a scenario that is never going to happen to anyone and making it even more far fetched. Making things even worse, if we were going to take an item such as a television or computer we had to limit ourselves to one channel or one feature on the computer. I found this game to be very pointless, but yet I've never been much of a rebel so I decided to go along with the rules, plus, it kinda reminded me of one of those utterly pointless games I used to play with Pat on a Monday night at the Kent when there was no one at the bar. Anyways, my list looked something like this:

A television with ESPN
A beautiful woman
A dog
A high powered and accurate rifle( I assumed ammo came with the rifle since it was a silly game)
A machete
A lighter
An unlimited supply of water bottles
An unlimited supply of booze
An unlimited supply of suntan lotion
Good strong rope

Now, that I had finished this pointless and redicoulous game, I was forced to listen to all the other silly answers my classmates had jotted down. Cell phones, computers, books, and a wide variety of utterly pointless and meaningless answers were given. Some people even went to the extreme of bringing other family members or friends, and in some cases there were a few people that wanted to bring specific pieces of jewelry or clothing. As for me, I would never choose to bring someone I truly liked or respected with me to a desserted island, because I just couldn't wish that upon them. Being stuck on an island sounds pretty awful, if you've ever seen the movie Castaway, you will remember Tom Hanks' character made friends with a volleyball because it was so bad. Granted, one of my choices was a beautiful woman, but this beatiful woman would have to be someone I've never met or interacted with in my life, because well there are certain needs a beautiful woman can help fulfill, plus it wouldn't be awful to possibly have some human companionship. Bearing that I wouldn't be responsible for selecting the beautiful woman, a dog seemed like the next most reasonable choice. Because the phrase beautiful woman can be left up to interpretation and for all I know, the person selecting the beautiful woman to accompany me to this deserted island could be someone like Big Adam in which case I could very well be stuck with a member of the Dream Team or perhaps a woman even more repulsive than any member of the Dream Team, in which case I would resort to the dog for companionship. Quite simply, the dog is merely a backup plan in case the woman is either not that beautiful or an obnoxious wench. Plus, even an amazing woman would probably drive me insane at times on a deserted island, so a dog seemed like an essential selection.

The high powered rifle and ammo seemed to be the next most plausible selection, because eventually I would need to find food and a rifle would not only make hunting easier, but a lot more entertaining. Plus, I could probably find various items on the island to use for target practice. The machete kinda goes hand-in-hand- with the rifle as it would be used for hunting purposes as well as safety purposes. The lighter, well if you've ever seen any movie where someone is forced to make fire on their own it doesn't seem to easy, so a lighter just seemed like an obvious choice.

The water bottles should be a pretty obvious selection too, being that the majority of islands are surronded by salt water and salt water tends to not be the most hydrating of liquids. As for the booze, well if I'm stuck on a desserted island with no one to talk too besides one woman and my dog, booze seems pretty crucial. It would help ease the fact that my next few years are basically going to suck, could serve as a painkiller if I were to ever injure myself, might help me fall asleep on the cold and windy nights, and plus it might make that broad I'm stuck with a bit more amusing. As for the suntan lotion, well you may remember several years ago, I got sun poisining on an 80 degree day and it resulted in a few very painful days, so it's basically there for pain prevention. As for the rope, I've never been very good at making knots and those kinda things, but if I'm stuck on a deserted island, I figure I could get lots of practice and the rope would one day help me build a raft and if it didn't I could use it to help me with other tasks on the island. As for the TV with ESPN, that seemed pretty self explanatory. If I'm stuck with only one channel, I might as well go with ESPN, because with ESPN comes Sportscenter and Monday Night Football.