The man who gave us the term “The Quar­ter­back Sack” has died.  David “Dea­con” Jones, the first to be called “The Min­is­ter of Defense” and all-pro foot­ball hall of fame defen­sive end, has passed.

Known for <a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrcNQyMxemU” onclick=“javascript:_gaq.push([’_trackEvent’,‘outbound-article’,‘http://www.youtube.com’]);” rel=“prettyPhoto[g17042]””>his head slap and his instinc­tual hatred of all quar­ter­backs.  (He once was quoted as say­ing he wished he “killed more quar­ter­backs” and hated nearly all of them since they were “too pretty” and “needed to be uglied up…”)  Jones had been open in recent years about how he hated the NFL was “try­ing too hard to pro­tect every­one” and not let­ting a vio­lent game be just that — violent.

He was one of a kind, and his blunt­ness about how the NFL once was will be missed.

“Dea­con Jones was one of the great­est play­ers in NFL his­tory. Off the field, he was a true giant,” said Red­skins gen­eral man­ager Bruce Allen, whose father, George, coached Jones with the Los Ange­les Rams. “His pas­sion and spirit will con­tinue to inspire those who knew him. He was a cher­ished mem­ber of the Allen fam­ily and I will always con­sider him my big brother.”

Because sacks didn’t become an offi­cial sta­tis­tic until 1982, Jones’ total is uncer­tain. His impact as a pre­mier pass rusher and team leader is not.

Jones was the leader of the Rams’ Fear­some Four­some unit from 1961–71 and then played for San Diego for two sea­sons before fin­ish­ing his career with the Red­skins in 1974. He was inducted into the Pro Foot­ball Hall of Fame in 1980 and made the league’s 75th anniver­sary all-time squad.

“Dea­con Jones has been the most inspi­ra­tional per­son in my foot­ball career,” said for­mer team­mate and fel­low Hall of Famer Jack Youngblood.

Jones made the Pro Bowl every year from 1964–70 and played in eight over­all. He com­bined with fel­low Hall of Famer Mer­lin Olsen, Rosey Grier and Lamar Lundy on a defen­sive line that at times was unblockable.

Olsen died in March 2010 at age 69 and Lundy died in Feb­ru­ary 2007 at 71. Grier, who is 80, is the only sur­viv­ing mem­ber of the Fear­some Foursome.

Most foot­ball sta­tis­ti­cians who have gone over game footage put Jones’ final career sack total as 194.5 sacks.  He’d be third all-time with such a fig­ure, behind Bruce Smith of the Buf­falo Bills (200) and the late Reg­gie White (198).

One does not wish such a man like Dea­con Jones to “Rest in Peace.” One hopes he put in a request to St. Peter for the abil­ity to sack more quar­ter­backs for the rest of eternity.

From for­mer Brew­ers, and now Kansas City Roy­als man­ager Ned Yost, in a post-game melt­down for the ages.

Keep in mind, Yost was just asked about what the team was going to do in regard to the strug­gles of Roy­als third base­man Mike Mous­takas, who cur­rently has an abysmal bat­ting aver­age of .174.

Yes, that’s not a typo.  He’s bat­ting as of today, 5/24/2013, .174.

For the seven days, he’s bat­ting aver­age is .050.  That’s 1 for 20 folks.  Rickie Weeks hasn’t even hit that low…yet (1 for 16 for those wondering.).

Any­way, here’s Ned.

“You know what?” Yost said. “Maybe when we get home, I can go to the third base tree and pick another third base­man. … Obvi­ously, third base­men who can hit and hit with power, they must grow on trees.

“They’ve got to. Like relief pitch­ers. And start­ing pitch­ers. Right field­ers. Left field­ers. First base­men. All of these guys must grow on trees, and you must be able to just go get another good one. A ripe one. Make sure it’s ripe.

“Those trees are at a hid­den loca­tion but, obvi­ously, they’re some­where. Because that’s what every­one wants to do. Let’s just go pluck another one out of the tree. That’s the non­sense that really ticks me off.”

Epic.

Well…that is one man’s opin­ion.  And I’m sure it car­ries a lot of weight at 1265 Lom­bardi Ave.

Hon­estly, I’m not there yet.  Per­haps I never will be.

Aaron Rodgers said Wednes­day that it’s time for the “heal­ing process to begin” between the Green Bay Pack­ers and Brett Favre, adding that he hopes the quarterback’s No. 4 can be retired by the team before he is inducted into the Pro Foot­ball Hall of Fame.

Rodgers, in a radio inter­view with “The Jim Rome Show,” said he’s “excited” about the prospect of Favre and the Pack­ers reunit­ing in some way.

“It’s been too long,” Rodgers said. “You know, our coun­try and the state of Wis­con­sin, these peo­ple are a peo­ple of sec­ond and third and fourth chances. I think it’s time to let the heal­ing process begin for those who are still upset for what went down.”

The rela­tion­ship between Favre and the Pack­ers has been frayed since 2008, when the Pack­ers traded Favre to the New York Jets after he came out of retire­ment, choos­ing to go with Rodgers as their quar­ter­back. Favre signed with the Min­nesota Vikings, the Pack­ers’ NFC North archri­val, a sea­son later, fur­ther weak­en­ing the bond between the star quar­ter­back and the team.

Favre and Rodgers made a sur­prise joint appear­ance at the NFL Hon­ors awards show ear­lier this year to present Pey­ton Man­ning his Come­back Player of the Year Award. Rodgers said the reunion between the two for­mer team­mates “felt great.”

“I was totally OK with being out front of that, and I’m very secure of the things I’ve been able to accom­plish with the team and indi­vid­u­ally here in Green Bay, and excited about the chance to see him again and get his num­ber retired here before he goes into Can­ton,” he said.

Amaz­ing how in five years, ESPN is still doing revi­sion­ist his­tory for Favre.

Noth­ing on the, what was it $15 or $20 mil­lion(?) he was offered to be “Mr. Packer” after he retired the first time?  The one that which was labeled “Go Away Money” by his dick of an agent “Bus” Cook.

Or the plane the Pack­ers char­tered in March 2008 after Favre called them up when he was recon­sid­er­ing his retire­ment (again, the first one) and the team was ready to take him back?

In fact, Thomp­son — he has been crit­i­cized pub­licly by Favre’s agent, James “Bus” Cook, and by mem­bers of Favre’s fam­ily for sup­pos­edly not want­ing the quar­ter­back back — made the final call on whether the team would wel­come Favre’s return. Thomp­son agreed to bring back Favre, even though it meant forc­ing heir appar­ent Aaron Rodgers to sit yet another year behind the future Hall of Famer.

The Pack­ers went so far as to char­ter a plane to Mis­sis­sippi to final­ize the agreement.

But two days before the meet­ing was set to take place, Favre called and informed McCarthy that he had changed his mind yet again and had decided that he wanted to stay retired.

Don’t for­get the three-straight off-seasons he was play­ing “Will I, Won’t I?” with Chris Mortensen regard­ing retirement?

Or divid­ing all of Pack­ers Nation in half into those in Favre’s camp and those into the team’s camp?

Favre has never had to answer for all of that in the five years since the first retire­ment.   While I respect him for every­thing he did in a Pack­ers uni­form on the field, it is the off the field antics which have made me ques­tion his hon­esty, his integrity, his matu­rity and his loy­alty to his teammates.

It is impos­si­ble to look at this with­out the view­ing the two years in Min­nesota as noth­ing more than Favre’s per­sonal vendetta of revenge against Green Bay, its fans, and team man­age­ment.  Maybe I’m ask­ing for too much when I say I’d like some sort of apol­ogy to the fans for that.

Maybe Oprah can pen­cil it in…or ESPN.  Lord knows they’ve been han­dling most of his pub­lic rela­tions for the past decade.

With this move — and a resched­ul­ing of the com­bine from early March to mid-to-late March — the NFL pretty much has an event in every sin­gle month of the off-season.

Jan­u­ary is the Playoffs.

Feb­ru­ary is the Super Bowl (and the Pro Bowl if it con­tin­ues on…).

March is the Combine.

April is the start of free agency signings.

And now May is the Rookie Draft.

Say what you want about Good­ell, this is smart marketing.

Roger Good­ell con­firmed Tues­day at the NFL’s spring meet­ings in Boston that the draft will be moved to May in 2014, some­time between the 8th and 17th of the month.

Good­ell said the change was needed next year because the venue, Radio City Music Hall, will host an Easter show in April.

“At this late stage, for us to do it the right way, we don’t see hav­ing any choice but to move the date,” he said.

How­ever, Good­ell said he expects the draft to remain in May, with other adjust­ments to the NFL’s cal­en­dar, includ­ing the dates for the com­bine and the open­ing of free agency, to be dis­cussed with the play­ers’ union.

He said try­ing to stage the draft in April would mean the NFL would have to find a dif­fer­ent venue or city. He empha­sized, how­ever, that the league is pleased with its expe­ri­ences at Radio City Music Hall.

“We think we have found a loca­tion in New York that meets our require­ments and where we think we can con­tinue to grow the event,” he said.

Under the cur­rent col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment, Good­ell can set the date of the draft with­out the NFLPA’s approval, although he would pre­fer to have the union’s bless­ing to main­tain league harmony.

Good­ell said own­ers “didn’t reach any con­clu­sion” in their dis­cus­sion about chang­ing the dates of the com­bine and free agency.

“We are nego­ti­at­ing that with the union,” he said. “We have a dis­cus­sion with them some­time in the next cou­ple of weeks, and I am sure that will come up. We think that is a good change for fans and for football.”

By the way, June now would be the start of mini-camps and  “OTA’s” oth­er­wise known as “Orga­nized Team Activ­i­ties,” July has the start of Train­ing Camp, August has pre-season games; with the real thing kick­ing off in September.

The move also has one other ben­e­fit for teams after the Draft.  If the Draft really is this late, nearly all four-year seniors in col­lege will have had their com­mence­ments and received their degrees.  That will allow team to not have to worry about new draft picks miss­ing OTAs (as hap­pened this year for some) and other activ­i­ties because they don’t have their col­lege degrees yet.

[NFL union bylaws and the CBA cur­rently state that you must be three years removed from high school before enter­ing the league. If you stay for the fourth year and are grad­u­at­ing, you can’t par­tic­i­pate until awarded said degree with the rest of your grad­u­at­ing class at your col­lege.  Actu­ally hap­pened to a few teams this year.]

The biggest hur­dle to any sort of sched­ule and cal­en­dar change is going to be con­vinc­ing the NFLPA that there will be enough time for vet­eran free agents to be signed and learn the sys­tems their new teams use.  Usu­ally, the Com­bine is the start of the “NFL New Year,” which means that’s when free agents can begin look­ing for new teams.  Report­edly, the new cal­en­dar is sup­posed to say the new start of the year is a few weeks after the Super Bowl.

With some vet­er­ans still unsigned as of right now, or cur­rently strik­ing last-minute deals, that’s some­thing the NFLPA may have a hard time believ­ing will be pos­si­ble under a new calendar.

Hon­estly, blame this one on the Wash­ing­ton Post.  For rea­sons that only they have yet to defend, they thought it was news­wor­thy to their read­er­ship that pub­lish­ing the con­tents of Wash­ing­ton Red­skins quar­ter­back Robert Grif­fin III and his finance Rebecca Lid­di­coat list of gifts they wanted from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Not sur­pris­ingly, the cou­ple was taken aback from get­ting every­thing — mul­ti­ple times — on the reg­istry.  RGIII went to Twit­ter to thank fans, show­ing him­self in front of all the boxes that had been deliv­ered to them.  Not sur­pris­ingly, this set off a back­lash by some who thought it unfair that a mega-rich NFL quar­ter­back was get­ting gifts for his weddings.

(Boy, I hate to see the reac­tion of what he might get for Christmas…)

He later responded to appar­ent back­lash he received by peo­ple who objected to the prospect of fans buy­ing gifts for an NFL quarterback.

“I didn’t ask the fans to buy me any­thing,” he wrote.

“They found it on their own and decided to get what they could. SMH [shak­ing my head] at all these Deb­bie downers.”

He also tweeted: “Because you are rich you are not allowed to receive gifts and any gifts you receive should be donated to char­ity???? #WOW Smh …”

The pair is set to be wed some­where on July 6. 

Would an alias had worked instead for the pair of 23 year old col­lege sweet­hearts?  Maybe, but I for one don’t blame the pair for try­ing to be a nor­mal couple.

Again, why the hell did the Wash­ing­ton Post decide it was news­wor­thy to post the reg­istry in the first place?  Last time I checked, they weren’t a tabloid like the New York Post?

As for Grif­fin and his bride to be, good for them for donat­ing the extras to char­ity; and many bless­ings on your upcom­ing nuptials.

Found this via Face­book.  Appar­ently this actu­ally being served at one of the ven­dors, the Plaza Grill, at Miller Park in the 100 level.

All yours for $9.

This is truly a unique item that one would find only in Mil­wau­kee.  The Beast is a grilled bratwurst sliced in half and stuffed with a grilled hot dog.  Those two items are then wrapped in bacon and grilled to per­fec­tion.  Served with sauer­kraut and grilled onions on–of course–a pret­zel roll.  House made chips and a pickle are also served on the side.

Would be inter­est­ing to know what the calo­rie count is.

What was it again, six or seven straight years that UW-Whitewater faced off against Mount Union?  With the senior Kehrse now retir­ing, the Warhawks and other WIAC schools might finally get their chance at win­ning a D-III NCAA Col­lege Foot­ball title.

Larry Kehres, who turned Mount Union into a Divi­sion III pow­er­house while stock­pil­ing 11 national titles, is step­ping down.

Kehres, 63, had a remark­able 332–24-3 record in his 27 sea­sons with the Pur­ple Raiders. His teams were unbeaten in the reg­u­lar sea­son 21 times. The national cham­pi­onships came in 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008 and this past season.

His .929 win­ning per­cent­age in all games is the best ever at the col­lege level.

He will con­tinue as Mount Union’s ath­letic direc­tor. Kehres did not spec­ify why he was step­ping aside as coach, but he will be replaced by his 37-year-old son Vince, who is tak­ing over the job after a resume which par­al­lels his father’s.

“The best part of the job was devel­op­ing rela­tion­ships with play­ers and con­tin­u­ing those rela­tion­ships fol­low­ing their grad­u­a­tions,” Kehres said. “Coach­ing the Pur­ple Raiders has been a tremen­dous expe­ri­ence for my fam­ily. We have shared many great expe­ri­ences with our play­ers, fel­low coaches, train­ers and their fam­i­lies. We plan to con­tinue to enjoy work­ing with Mount Union coaches and athletes.”

The elder Kehres, in his 39th year work­ing at his alma mater, began work­ing as an assis­tant foot­ball coach and pro­fes­sor in 1974. He was Mount Union’s first head swim­ming coach, was hired as ath­letic direc­tor in 1985 then assumed head foot­ball coach­ing duties in 1986.

The 1971 Mount Union grad’s teams won 23 Ohio Con­fer­ence titles.

I’m pretty sure the 1997 title was against UW-Eau Claire.  We had a good team that year, but we sure did fall short against Mount Union in the championship.

Of course, this was been well-discussed and pointed out by Big Ten fans and UW alumni for the past week when the plan to replace “Leg­ends and Lead­ers” with an “East / West” for­mat was undertaken.

All that’s keep­ing Bucky from near annual appear­ances from the Big Ten Title game is Nebraska unless some­one steps up.

Admit­tedly, if you wanted a more real­is­tic, com­pet­i­tive Big Ten (with 14 teams), you’d be bet­ter off going with a “North / South” align­ment with “The North” being Min­nesota, Wis­con­sin, North­west­ern, Michi­gan, Michi­gan State, Penn State and Rut­gers.  “The South” would be Nebraska, Iowa, Illi­nois, Indi­ana, Pur­due, Ohio State, and Maryland.

I don’t design this league, but I do watch it.

Not sur­pris­ing.

His team couldn’t trade him dur­ing the off-season and just this past week­end, took the 1st quar­ter­back (West Virginia’s Geno Smith) in the just com­pleted NFL Draft.  Tim Tebow is bound for either Canada, the Arena League, or some other minor foot­ball league like the UFL (the lat­est in attempts at a pro­fes­sional spring foot­ball league) if he wants to try to play foot­ball professionally.

Of course, the play­ers and coaches of the UFL have recently sued league own­er­ship for not pay­ing them after they can­celed the sec­ond half of the 2012 sea­son, so who knows if that league will even be around anymore.

One year after bring­ing Tim Tebow to Broad­way, cre­at­ing a nation­wide fas­ci­na­tion that slowly evolved into a sala­cious con­tro­versy, the New York Jets made the long-anticipated move Mon­day of releas­ing one of the NFL’s most pop­u­lar players.

The Jets con­firmed the release in a three-paragraph news release, a long way from his Super Bowl-sized news con­fer­ence last March.

“We have a great deal of respect for Tim Tebow,” coach Rex Ryan said. “Unfor­tu­nately, things did not work out the way we all had hoped.  Tim is an extremely hard worker, evi­dent by the shape he came back in this off­sea­son. We wish him the best mov­ing forward.”

Ryan and gen­eral man­ager John Idzik informed Tebow early Mon­day morn­ing in a face-to-face meet­ing at the team’s facil­ity, before he worked out with team­mates, a source said. Tebow left the build­ing shortly thereafter.

Tebow was dressed in his work­out clothes Mon­day when he was called to Idzik’s office, accord­ing to league sources.

So ends one of the strangest chap­ters in team his­tory — maybe in league history.

The saga of Tim Tebow is an analy­sis of both lost poten­tial and media over sell­ing of a player.  While there is lit­tle doubt that Tebow was a great leader of men and moti­va­tor of his team­mates both at the Uni­ver­sity of Florida and in Den­ver, he also never did much to over­come his flaws when it came to foot­ball mechan­ics (his throw­ing motion is still one of the most hideous I’ve ever wit­nessed) and abil­ity to move past his inabil­ity to han­dle the speed of the pro game.

Add in the media exam­i­na­tion of being a two-time NCAA champ, the New York media mar­ket, a strange com­pul­sion of some to focus only on the Chris­t­ian aspects of Tebow’s life, and the men­tal bas­ket case which is the Jets orga­ni­za­tion were all a recipe for dis­as­ter for Tebow in the end.  I wish the kid luck in try­ing to find some kind of safe land­ing given all the atten­tion which will now be back upon him, but seri­ously think he’s going to be in the Arena league if at all still in foot­ball this fall.

It’s not fair, but it is how the busi­ness of foot­ball goes.