An Offseason of Dreams: The Life Cycle of Anthony's LB Corps

In the tradition of Planet Earth and Shark Week, The Quarter-Slack offers you an epic tale of survival, of love, of life, of the struggle to be heard in a cacophony of other voices.  I give you:

Life as a LB on Mushin no Shin

3/8/12 dropped Sean Weatherspoon, LB ATL.  LB Count: 5

The first step in a dance that has no end.  Anthony discards the old, infertile LB from Hotlanta and begins to search for greener pastures.

4/10/13 dropped Paul Kruger, LB CLE.  LB Count: 4

The second casualty of the offseason.  After finishing the year with 6 linebackers, Anthony is finally in range of a normal amount of players for the position.  Sadly, it would not last, and we can consider this the high point of the offseason.

6/28/13 traded for Paul Posluszny, LB JAC.  LB Count: 5

A tackling machine who seems bitten by the injury bug, the former ND product is a worthwhile addition to any LB corps.  I think we're good here.  No?

7/22/13 added Bruce Carter, LB DAL.  LB Count: 6

Apparently no?  We must be done here though...

8/14/13 added Mykel Kendricks, LB PHI.  LB Count: 7

We seem to be headed in the wrong direction. Most teams have 7 players between DE/DT AND LB.

8/19/13 dropped Mykel Kendricks, LB PHI.  LB Count: 6

And then Anthony realized that there would be an RFA and UFA coming.  Why spend $0 on an LB if you could spend $15 on one!?  Better free up some space.

8/22/13 added Kiko Alonso, LB BUF, dropped Bruce Carter, LB DAL.  LB Count: 6

Okay, treading water, but at least there's no add.  2 back-ups is a fair amount, but not unreasonable.

8/25/13 added Jarvis Jones, LB PIT.  LB Count: 7

Building for the future?  In what future would you need 7 LBs??  They only needed 4 in the Matrix. I checked.

So this is where we stand heading into the season.  I have full confidence that we'll see at least 4 more add/drops before the first round.  I think Anthony put it best:  "8 LBs?!  That's more than a gallon of milk!"

Team Name Rankings 2013

Okay folks, so we've come to that glorious time of year when Anthony's forced to drop some IDPs for the rest of us and we can finally fill out our roster.  We've ALSO come to the time when your lovable, cuddly, non-threatening league-mate Tuesday Morning Quarter-slack returns for commentary, constructive criticism, congratulations, and curmudgeonly caustic confabulation.  I WILL use this thesaurus.  Up first we have one of my favorite types of new-season awards: The kind you didn't know that you were being graded on!  Allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is

TUESDAY MORNING QUARTER-SLACK:

SPECIAL SATURDAY EDITION

2013 TEAM NAME RANKINGS

I've used a complicated process here to reward points for ingenuity, football relevance, relation to style of play, to style of manager and of course, ease of pun.  Teams were graded on a 1-5 scale in each category and the results speak for themselves.  Step up your game, BORT.  Some of you have are 0-1 before your players even step onto the imaginary field we hold so dear.

10. Replacement Ref's Gone Wild.

Replacement Ref's winning?  I can't quite picture it...and neither can anyone else, because they've had a broken link up as a picture for almost a full season now.  Is the big red "X" incisive commentary to show that the D-AA refs were too incompetent to even post a picture correctly?  Is it a cry for help from a fractured soul?  Or is it laziness?  How about the grammatical error of having an apostrophe in "Refs"?  Do the Refs physical "have" the "gone wild"?  I don't think so.  Finally, the creative aspect.  Like a flower in overcast Seattle, the replacement ref saga in the NFL was a short-blooming event.  Appropriate, even timely last season, when the real referees came back so should have had the good sense to change the name.  I don't see any teams named "The Ronnie Brown Wildcat Jazz Exploration" in 2013.

9. Mushin no Shin

I have "nothing" to say.  There are so many possibilities for this team due to the bizarre and delightful quirks of its manager.  "Got an IDP? Yeah you know Me"?  "Watt's Love Got to Do with It?"?  "Back in Aldon Days"?  "On Aldon Pond?"  "Time travel at 21 JJ Watts"?  "Who will stop Goliath? David Will, son"?  There's so much opportunity here, and instead...nothing.

8. The Magnetic Turf

It's difficult to rank a classic like this so lowly, and there were certainly points given for this sustainability of its long-term appeal.  However, with the recent lack of turf-related injuries, combined with the picture of the Panda Bear, Phil couldn't quite get out of the bottom half.  Back in its heyday "The Turf" by mention alone was enough to strike fear in the hearts of ACLs everywhere.  Now we have All-Day and RGIII, who seem to shrug off knee ligaments as if they were tackling linebackers.  I don't advocate a name change because it'd be a shame to lose a mainstay like da Turf, but I also can't in good conscience rank him any higher than here.

7. The Dawg Pounders

Like and yet unlike The Magnetic Turf, The Dawg Pounders is a fixture in the team name hierarchy for the Rocky Top but lacks the ironic football wink that accompanies the other.  That being said, there's no way I'm going to criticize 1) The Browns while I'm anywhere near Tracy, or 2) Anything to do with the Browns while I'm anywhere near Tracy including but not limited to: The color brown, Jim Brown, Brown Bread with butter, Spongebob Squarepant's lederhosen, The India Arie song "Brown Skin", Certain preparations of meatloaf, Charlie Brown, James Brown, extremely tan people and frowns turned upside-brown.  The name stays, and I risk my soul by ranking it this low.

6. Chinese Mafia

The last of the non-contenders in my book, Chinese Mafia gets points for being Chinese, the only racist points of this exercise, but applicable in terms of name-owner continuity.  Newcomer Da is docked points for the lack of a team picture, the only team to not have one by this point of the season.  Time will tell if the mafia parallels are a continuing theme throughout the season, but at this point in the year The Mafia has effectively dominated the FAAB budget rankings.  As morally pristine youth Anthony Montana put it: "First you get tha money, then you get tha power."  If the second shoe drops at any point Da may rocket up these rankings for 2014 as "The Changfather".

5. Chicks with Ditkas
A red-hot maelstrom of pun majesty when it first debuted in 2011, Chicks with Ditkas has faltered in recent years as new, sexier puns have emerged and overshadowed the terrifying image of mustachioed gal-pals.  Like with Mushin no Shin there was an opportunity to start a trend and really expand the theme but it has not to this point been realized.  "Howie Longs with Dongs"?  "Southern Blitz Packages"?  "John Madden's Turducken"?  A great debut, but it's time to move on. 

4. The Over/Undertakers
This was a tough one to rank.  I love the Paul Bearer icon.  I'm digging the Vegas betting line reference.  I just think that Rob has fallen a bit short in a year of strong contenders.  Like Capone's henchman in The Untouchables, he brought a wrestling pun to a football league.  Nothing wrong, but not a real title contender this year.

3.  Muscle and Flow
And now we get to the big guns.  Candace goes from one strong owned player pun in Murray'd to the Mob to another with the Doug Martin moniker that is, in my opinion, the best in football.  Add in the hippity-hop smooth roll-off-the-tongueability (a real thing, but don't look it up) and you have one of the best names in many years.  The only things holding this juggernaut back are the lack of a thematically cohesive picture and the missed opportunity to go with "Muscle and Flo" and tie in Progressive Insurance's garish pitchwoman.  Just think of the picture possibilities!  Don't even think!  Just look below!

2. Midnight in the Gordon of Weeden
Another tough one.  Nils received points for originality, for having one of the two reference Browns players in his roster in Josh Gordon, and for having a tremendous picture. He lost points for only having one of the two players, however, and especially since he'd actually rostered Brandon Weeden at two different times last season.  Inexcusable.  There's also some penalty for having a long name, and it certainly lacks the elegance of "Muscle and Flow", and of course, the winning name.  A solid effort, and better than "DreamBoat Trash", but not quite as good as we've come to expect from our resident unsufferable punster.

1. Cordarrelicte Campaign
God damnit John.  Lose once, will ya?  This has everything.  The franchise-owned player usage, the pop culture reference, the smooth pun-flow, the picture, and even some comfortably crushed alliteration.  It would be difficult to top "Sir Jardarrelle Patterstokes" but I think we can all agree that John succeeded here.  Bravo.

As the first post of the season finishes, the next one begins!  Join us tomorrow for another look at Born On Rocky Top 2013 as we rev our engines for what's shaping up to be a delicious molten hot pocket of competition!