Stupid Internet Explorer 7

I was putting the finishing touches on a lengthy post regarding the current state of the Eagles special teams when I opened a new tab in IE7 to check Dirk Johnson's punting stats from last season, which proceeded to crash the browser and kill my post. 

That completely sucked.

I'm not interested in re-writing the whole thing, particularly seeing how it wasn't that good in the first place, so I'll just recreate the gist.  Look at the special teams depth chart and then consider the following:

• Our #1 long-snapper suffered a serious neck injury last season, has a wife and four kids, and probably shouldn't be in a position where insane 300-pounders are ready to snap his head back 0.1 seconds after he snaps the ball.
• Our #2 long-snapper is roster deadweight who can't play any other position -- a bad thing on a team with so much young, marginal talent.
• Our #3 long-snapper chucks snaps that look like too many of my golf drives -- worm-burners.
• Our #1 punter had a net average of 34.9 yards last season and had a number of flat-out shanks (again, compare to my golf game).
• Our #2 punter has never played professional football (American style).
• Our kicker has fully recovered his leg strength but seems to hate it when anyone other than Koy Detmer holds his ba-- holds for him.
• Speaking of which, our #1 holder sucked at the job last year and may not even win a spot on the roster this year.
• Our #2 holder has, again, never played professional football, although he has spent most of his life trying to corral that crazy-bouncing Australian pigskin, which should come in handy should our #3 long-snapper be called into service (see above).
• Our #3 holder is Matt Schobel, which is ... sort of funny.  Isn't catching an integral part of the whole holding experience?
• On the plus side, we may have the best back-up punter returner in the league.

Looks like the new guy has his work cut out for him.

Comments

[McTumms]

Don't know if it means anything about the Bartrum retirement rumors, but Dorenbos has wallpaper on PE.com and Bartrum doesn't.

[EaglesChronicles]

very scare indeed... nobody ever gives an consideration to this part of the game. And it is more important than you think... the net yards on punts and the ability to convert 3 points is an integral part of winning. I hope Andy knows how to judge talent when it comes to the minutiae of the sport.

[BrianS]

Dorenbos wallpaper? Wow. Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel.

[Me]

Is he wearing his magic cape?

[McTumms]

It is the black-alternate-Reno-Mahe-jersey of wallpapers. (Speaking of Reno: people seem surprisingly underwhelmed that the Birds didn't resign him. In some ways, it's a much bigger surprise than the Kolb pick. Are we all just assuming that they're going to bring him back at some point?) I almost mentioned yesterday my lingering surprise that they passed on Olsen at 26. I think he was a little more hyped than he ought to have been because of the UM pedigree and lack of any depth in the TE class this year, but he seemed a sensible choice in light of his abilities, which include long snapping, and Smith's uncertain future. I've read the same stuff as you guys that the Birds may be thinking of using their TEs differently this year, focusing more on their blocking than their pass-catching, but I'll believe it when I see it. I wonder what they'd have done if they knew that Smith was going to go down (for a while, at least) with a sports hernia. Would they still have passed on Olsen? Man, LJ gets hurt alomst as often as he fumbles. Keep an eye out for Bubba Franks on the waiver wire. His best days may be behind him, but he has considerable WC offense experience and contract the GB is going to have trouble justifying for a reserve.

[BleedingGreenNation]

www.getfirefox.com

do it now!!! It's saved something I wrote many a time!