Asante Samuel Needs To Work On Not Dropping Quite So Many Interceptions

 

Alert!  As part of their post-draft minicamp coverage, the Eagles have posted an oh-so-rare Asante Samuel interview video.  We've long since been impressed by Asante's jedi skills in re: his media engagements, in that you would expect a dude who signed a $57-million to occasionally be held accountable to the press, and Asante's on-camera work with Eagles staffer Chris McPherson this weekend does not disappoint.  

When we last heard from Asante Samuel, he was sending huffy text messages to Derrick Gunn in response to Andy Reid's suggestion that Samuel -- among other players -- had some things to work on this offseason, Specifically, Samuel texted D- Gunn to say that, "The whole team needs to improve from the front office to the head coach to the players."

The head coach, huh?  Normally that sort of statement from a prominent player would be more than enough to get the headline writers rolling, but then something happened with some guy getting traded later that same day, and, um, like, the Asante Samuel story didn't seem like a big deal. 

At this point in the offseason, it's accepted as pretty close to gospel truth among Eagles fans that Asante Samuel is neither a talented nor a willing tackler (thank you, Paul Domowitch!).  It tends to be pretty difficult to get Eagles fans to agree on much (bless us, really), but you'd have a hard time finding folks to convincingly argue the case for Asante Samuel's tackling skills. 

Thus does hilarity ensue as Chris McPherson asks Samuel more than once exactly what he thinks he needed to work on as he prepares for the 2010 campaign -- essentially, this is Asante's chance to tell us he's going to be more physical this year.  Andy Reid has even hinted that Samuel has bulked up in the offseason to help himself along.  Should be easy to just address the tackling thing and be done with it, right? 

So, Asante, what do you think you need to improve?      

"Maybe I dropped too many interceptions or something."

Zing!

In terms of Andy Reid and post-McNabb-era code words and memes, Asante does dutifully makes a point of declaring his love of the game, and his love of competition on the practice field.  That's excellent cliche discipline right there, son.  Well done.

But then McPherson can't help himself and attempts to get Asante to fess up on the tackling question yet again, leading to this exchange:    

"When you're someone who's been at a Pro Bowl level for years, what do you try to improve...?"

"If I don't win defensive player of the year, then I need to get better."

"Well what do you need to do that?"

"I don't know, man.  It's politics and voting, so I guess I have to impress them."

RIGHT!  Politics and voting!  If we get those parts right, then we should have no problems at all stopping wide-receiver screens.

Or, for those of you who are more into a traditional SAT-style formulation:  

JOE BANNER : "WE'RE REBUILDING" :: Asante Samuel : "I need to work on my tackling."

(More Asante Samuel, please.)

Knowledge of overtime rules: F; PR/ Spin strategy: D+

For the most part, we tend to be Super Duper Donovan McNabb Fans here at BountyBowl, and believe that history will actually remember Big 5 a lot more kindly than current circumstances (or Warren Sapp) suggest. But man, did Dunavin ever blow this not-knowing-the-rules thing.

He flubbed his way through his presser yesterday, offering a ton of excuses about how no one else knew the rule either, and that they change the rules all the time, and how some of the officials don't know all the rules, etc etc.:

On how he feels now that there has been so much discussion about his lack of knowledge of the overtime rule: "It doesn't make me feel bad at all. I was truly being honest. The thing about it is that now other people are starting to say that they didn't know it either. Am I wrong for that? No. Should I have known that rule? There are a lot of rules that coaches, officials, players, they don't know. Any time an official goes out on the field and then you see (NFL vice president of officiating) Mike Pereira trying to correct that mistake, that shows that officials don't even know everything in the rule book. (Neither do) coaches (or) players. What people may say about me, it doesn't bother me. As you can see, every time something happens that I have been a part of, more and more things have come out and people begin to sit back and say, 'Oh, maybe he was right.' Should I have know that rule? Yes. But, there are a lot of rules in that rulebook that a lot of us don't know, and we ask questions."

On the fact that ties have been around since 1970: "The rule has been adjusted. I know that there is a tie. I was expecting to at least go to another overtime, maybe with less minutes. The last time it happened was Pittsburgh, I believe, in 2002. From what I understand (Steelers WR) Hines Ward was a part of that and didn't even know it was still in there. So, I guess I'm not the only one."

It was pretty awkward, and not very accountable. Mentioning Hines Ward? Huh? John Smallwood beat him up for it in the paper this morning, and Smallwood was right to do so. That's because the correct answer was "I made a mistake, I should have known the rules. My bad." Repeat after me: "I made a mistake, I should have known the rules. My bad." And again: "I made a mistake, I should have known the rules. My bad."

McNabb then followed it up with a post on Yardbarker that essentially offered the same story, and not the simple answer that would have ended this nonsense:

Everybody wants to know about the overtime situation. Whatever happened had no bearing on the outcome of the game. That's all that matters. We all know the rules now. There is no need to waste any more time on the subject.

No "I made a mistake." No "I should have known that." He's essentially asking us to forget about it and move on. And we'd love to. But bungling the PR makes it harder to move on.

My opinion in re: what he should have done: go with the blog first, ahead of the presser. On his blog, he gets to control every word of the message. People could have taken a look at it (like his PR guy, Rich Burg, or a friend or family member) and he could have made sure his message was completely clear before he posted it. Then, when he walks into the Wednesday presser, he can acknowledge that he already addressed the issue on his blog, that he should have known the rule, and then play the "we need to talk about the Ravens" card. I thought that's what the blog was for -- for direct communication with the public in media kerfuffles like this one.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. And not very accountable. This was not a proud moment for the Donovan McNabb marketing team.

Sheldon Brown convinces us we ’ re not actually crazy

When the 49ers blocked the field goal at the end of the first half and returned it for a TD -- a swing of at least 7 points, since it would be presumptuous to believe that Akers would have made it from that distance -- my buddy and and I turned to each other and admitted that we weren't even shocked.  We didn't freak out, or start complaining about how unlucky the Eagles were, none of that.  We just turned to each other and admitted that we kind of expected things like this to happen to the Birds -- after the last couple years, how could we not?

Or, more succinctly, as a middle-of-the-road NFL team, you're naive if you think crazy mistakes won't doom your team to at least a couple losses over the course of the season.

Then, as the second half began and the Niners started methodically moving the ball on the Birds' defense, well, it started to smell a lot like last week. And the week before. And probably the rest of the season.

(Of course, it all ended up working out beautifully, but there were some twists along the way.)

You'd think that the anxiety we were feeling as fans wasn't shared by the players -- that, being involved in the actual game, they see more than the sports-page cliches and storylines during the course of the game. Ummm, according the Sheldon Brown, that's exactly what they saw:

"The adversity we had before the half, everybody in the locker room said, 'Never again,' '' cornerback Sheldon Brown said. "Then they came out and drove it right down our throats."

and,

"We were panicking," Brown said. "This is a team that's supposed to get turnovers and we weren't getting any. We're saying, 'What's going on?' Then they started to come. That's what happens."

Huh.  Glad to know we're not the only ones that were worried!

Of course, this is the sort of unfiltered honesty that we've come to expect from #24, and it's what makes him our favorite Eagle quote (more on this topic later in the week, I swear).  Brown is the one who, in describing the Eagles' win over the Redskins last year, said, “Normally, we’d find a way to lose that football game.”

Go Birds. 

These aren ’ t the droids we ’ re looking for (the lowest-key $57 million the Birds have ever spent)

So we're less than 24 hours from kickoff of Week One. Whew. Long offseason. Many words written, many friends bored by my long-winded monologues in re: the Birds. Yet as we approach the end of the offseason and the start of the actual season, the guy who was the most important part of the Eagles' offseason -- at least in terms of team resource allocation, which is a pretty honest metric -- is barely a storyline.

Asante Samuel, take a bow. You sir, are a PR and marketing genius!

How else to explain the complete absence of Samuel storylines and associated Pressures heading into Week One? You'd think that $57 million would get your name in the papers a bit more, but what with the wideout drama, Donovan McNabb's tenth anniversary in Philly, and even the drama that Samuel himself indirectly caused (Litogate), Asante Samuel is pretty low-profile.

Shouldn't we be demanding a certain number of interceptions, if not touchdowns, from this high-priced addition?  And wasn't Samuel supposed to be doing weekly pressers with the other expensive veterans?  How has he managed to distract us so?

Well I'm not distracted.  This dude's getting paid a ton of cash, his presence has gotten Drew Rosenhaus some extra attention, and the Birds' defense needs to cause some turnovers this year.  Consider me the peanut gallery of one on Samuel.  Let's see it, Asante.  You may be under the radar with the media, but nothing escapes the all-seeing eyes of the Philly fans.  And remember, the boos are NEVER that far away.

Coming clean with Shawn Andrews

After watching Shawn Andrews' soul-searching press conference yesterday and the attendant coverage thereof, I'm not ashamed to admit that I had a few moments of reflection myself.  Not just about Shawn and what he's been dealing with, but also my role in the whole affair.  Still, if Shawn can man up and talk about his issues, then certainly I can as well. 

With apologies to the very excellent Bleeding Green Nation, I'd like to step forward and admit my role in this little drama.  Those leaks to the press and the blogs that Shawn was talking about?  The outrageous rumors coming from Shawn himself?  Yeah, that was me.  The Bounty.  And it's time to own up to it.

I guess I first knew something wasn't right with Shawn about a month and a half ago.  We were playing Scrabulous (as an aside, Shawn really enjoyed him some Scrabulous, and we can't discount the impact of its removal on Shawn's mental state) and he sent me a Scrabulous chat message indicating that he'd been spending a lot of time thinking lately.  I didn't think much of it, but resigned to keep an extra-careful eye out on Shawn's status updates in the coming weeks.

If only I knew how bad it would get!  Shawn was updating his Facebook status two, three times a day.  Sure, it started innocently ("Shawn is feeling tired this afternoon," "Shawn is wondering what he wants to do with himself"), but pretty soon things started to get a little scarier ("Shawn can't believe the things they're saying on talk radio," "Shawn is sorry he isn't picking up his phone, but he really doesn't want to talk about football or see any of you ever again").

After leaving a few unanswered messages on his Wall, I decided that I need to be more direct.  So I tried winking at him on SuperPoke.  No response.  Then I bought him a margarita.  Nothing.  Finally, I threw a sheep at him.  Full stop.  If he didn't have time to defenestrate or fling a thong at me in reply, I knew we had some real issues.  But no, crickets.  And he'd almost totally stopped updating his Twitter! 

After a few more unreturned SuperPokes, I was close to giving up when I caught Shawn lurking on Google Chat.  Now I knew I had him, so I reached out directly.  Was he feeling good?  Not so much.  Did the team know the story?  Not really.  Was there anything I could do to help?  And that's when I agreed to be his uncredited voice to the media.  Seeding wild rumors didn't seem like the most prudent or mature way to deal with some tough times, but hey, who among us would say no to a friend?  

And so it began.  The anonymous message board posts.  The awkward comments on obscure blogs.  The late-night calls to WIP.  The threatening letters to Tom Coughlin (seemed a bit off-topic, but if Shawn wanted it, I couldn't say no?).  And finally my own "mock" Shawn Andrews post a few weeks back.  In retrospect, I may have tipped my hand a bit with that one, but we thought it would be a clever way to throw suspicious parties off the case. 

I wouldn't say I felt good about any of this, but I've never been one to ignore a friend in need.  So you can imagine my relief when Shawn finally spoke to the press yesterday and shared the details of his struggles -- dirty laundry and all.  And now that he's shared his story, I think we can all move forward together.  Sure, it'll be a little tougher without Scrabulous, I always thought Shawn was cheating anyway.   

Asante Samuel Press Conference Review

 

We got our first Asante Samuel press conference of the Eagles season today. It appears that a $57 million contract gets you a regular appointment with the blathermonkeys, along with grizzled press conference veterans like Dunavin, Dawk and Westbrook.

Given that I'm planning to watch most of these things ("It's just a TV show"), I was pretty psyched to check out the new character. Quick hits:

So I definitely enjoyed it. Looks like a nice counterpoint to some of the other guys who do the pressers: a little younger, a little cockier, a little less cynical than the others. Didn't sound like a dummy, but also didn't sound like someone who was reading the local papers yet. So he's still a little naive about the dynamic in there, but I would assume his recent liquidity event has lent him a certain confidence.

While he didn't sound like a total Eagles robot yet, he does have some media training. He did a nice job of not saying "talking shit" in reference to the predilections of the Philadelphia supporters. That is, he politely substituted "talking mess" and then "talking crap" in response to a question of fan behavior. Asante, we appreciate your manners.

Went for the easy joke and it worked. He made a crack about Belichick not having a personality and it drew a round of guffaws from the assembled press. I would have laughed if I was there as well. Who doesn't like laughing at the guy who got caught cheating, ran up the score in meaningless mid-season games, and then choked in the Super Bowl? That guy is a total jerkface!

He parried the first volley from the locals well. Someone cheekily asked Samuel about his absence from training camp last year (meaning his "WELL-DOCUMENTED HOLDOUT"), "Was that a hamstring last year? You said you missed all of training camp, was that also a hamstring?" "No," replied Samuel, "it was a contract situation." Followed by a big smirk. Solid.

Did okay with the second volley. They tried to goad him a bit by asking him about the recent article in SI that intimated that other guys on the Pats had blamed Samuel for the Tyree catch. While his answer convinced me that he definitely "could give a mess what those guys think," he got momentarily riled, insisting that the game wasn't about a single play. But he chilled out quickly and moved on and said all sorts of nice things about the catch.

Other items of note. Samuel has apparently played every defense you can play from high school to college to the pros, so we shouldn't worry about him picking up the defense. Sweet! That should be fine then.

Looking forward to seeing more of Samuel up there. Go Birds.

Flattery, obsequiousness among Booker ’ s strengths

I'm going to try not to make a habit of copy-editing the Birds' official site, but there was a line in Bob Kent's piece today on Lorenzo Booker that was just too good to pass up.

In re: how Booker will fit into the Eagles offense, Kent writes,

Coaches believe Booker, a third-round pick of the Dolphins in the 2007, can step in immediately and compliment [emphasis added] Pro Bowl running back Brian Westbrook. Like Westbrook, Booker figures to line up all over the formation and be a threat in both the run game and the pass game.

"The offense and the team is exciting itself, but being able to work with a guy like Brian is priceless. That was one of the things that excited me, just being able to see his style of play and the success that he's had in this offense," Booker said. "You can't help but be excited because that's what you do. You know that you're not coming into a situation hoping they use you right, hoping they understand what your strengths are."

Stickler for grammar that I am, I thought that I would be able to ding Kent for using the wrong term to indicate that Booker would make Brian Westbrook "whole, or bring [him] to perfection."  Silly me!  What Kent actually meant is that Booker was good at sucking up to Number 36 ("priceless," "the success that he's had in this offense").

Look for continued flattery, fawning, and toadying from Booker throughout the season.  

(Slow week, I know.)

NOTE: They've since fixed the typo, so I guess I'll have to semi-retract my comments.  Still, I think the joke worked.  Sort of.

 

Reggie Brown needs to quit the sissy-talk and embrace the natives

So I'm thinking that the Reggie Brown too-cool-for-school act is getting a little old. For those of us who pay attention to these things (where "these things" = "making character assessments of people we've never met"), the Reggie Brown smirk -- manifest in his look-away-from-the-camera-and-laugh-everything-off style in interviews -- has always worried me a bit. I had always hoped it was just quiet, cool confidence, and that this guy was cocky because he was such a ridiculous baller. But now that it's clear that he's a competent, but not ridiculous, baller, it might just be that he's kind of a jerk.

Or, even worse, it might be that he's actually scared and insecure.

This quote from last week doesn't sit well with me:

Still, when asked about the excitement that comes with the opener being at home, Eagles wide receiver Reggie Brown admitted he wouldn't mind working out some of the kinks on the road before giving the fans their first taste of the team.

"I don't know," Brown said jokingly. "Maybe it's good to play away for the first game, but it will be exciting. At least we don't have to travel. The crowd gets to come and watch the game, so it will be fun."

Right, so the non-haters will try to tell me that he was only kidding (hence the "jokingly" from the author), but, um, we don't kid unless there's a kernel of truth there, right? Otherwise it isn't really funny.

And the joke here is that it might be better to open the season on the road so that the team is well rehearsed before they raise the curtain in front of the home audience. But what he's actually saying is "I'm scared that if we don't play well enough the first week the people are going to boo us and that will hurt my feelings almost as much as it hurts my feelings when the people call WIP and demand a new wideout."

Reggie, we appreciate candor from our pro athletes, but we do not appreciate candor about US, THE PAYING CUSTOMERS. We prefer flattery (see: David Akers quotes in same article).  Better not let too many people catch wind of this; you sure don't want the natives to turn on you (cause if there's anything the natives love doing, it's turning on people).  Also, said candor is a lot cooler when you're, um, awesome instead of average. 

Link:
Brown, Akers offer thoughts on schedule

Mike Patterson gets caught smoking doobie; Reid kids snicker, “ Weed is for sissies. ”

Well I guess I'll have to abandon my "Isn't it ironic how Andy Reid's kids are in trouble with the law, but none of the Eagles' players ever get arrested (unlike the rest of the league)." Congratulations, Mike Patterson! You've gotten the Birds on Turd Watch for the first time ever, and have totally killed my spin on the Reid kids.

Still, all things considered, this isn't the worst thing that's ever happened.  No guns, no strippers, no fisticuffs.  Just a kid from California getting caught with low-level drugs in his car.  Patterson's a west-coast kid; he probably didn't even know it was illegal in Pennsylvania.  (We shall not comment on the potential DWB scenario here.)

We might also add that, compared the exploits of the Reid kids, Patterson seems, well, a little bit soft.  It's not like he got caught with a rectum full of pills.  Garrett and Britt are sitting in jail smirking about this right now.  See below for a dramatization of the conversation between Garrett, Britt and Mike:

The bummer here is, of course, that Patterson will likely get some penalty from league office, and will potentially be suspended for a few games. BOOOO. Come on Mike, you're better than that.

McNabb displays levels of passive aggressiveness typically only encountered in the Pacific Northwest

In a sense, I'm shocked it took this long for someone in the McNabb camp to commit a PR faux pas. I mean, it'd been a whole week since the season ended; the employees of WIP need to eat too! 

To recap in case you haven't been following closely (and it's easiest to just review the excellent summary that Derek posted on Iggles Blog): two weeks before the regular season ended, a blathermonkey asked Dunavin if he thought that the Eagles needed to add more players in the offseason. Dunavin went to great lengths to give a very PC answer: that the Eagles needed to add playmakers in all phases of the game.

In response to follow-up questions, he did NOT say that he needed a wide receiver (and even chided the blathermonkey who asked the question for trying to draw him into a trap -- yes, this is actually the state of things if you're Dunavin: you have a jokey relationship with the jackals who are trying to goad you into a headline-worthy quote). He just said that the Eagles could be better if they had a couple more playmakers. Uh huh.

This sentiment was relayed to Andy Reid in a separate press conference, and Andy Reid scolded Dunavin for indirectly insulting his teammates. This was a little silly in itself (since Dunavin didn't really say anything too crazy), but whatever. You'd think that this wasn't such a big deal.

You'd think.

But no, Dunavin was inspired to post a defense of his comments on his own blog, which included a couple words in his own defense in re: whether or not he'd insulted his teammates with his initial comments.

Oh geez, really?

My questions:

1. If Dunavin is worried about insulting his teammates, or even that his coach thinks that he's insulted his teammates, perhaps he could, um, talk to them about it instead of posting on his effing web site.  If I'm concerned about having insulted my co-workers and boss with a comment, I'm likely to do things like "stop by their office," "call them," or "send them an e-mail."  I don't post it on my web site.  I wonder if Dunavin is the kind of guy who leaves passive-aggressive notes in the kitchen at the NovaCare complex? 

2.  If Dunavin is doing this as a calculated PR move to impress the fanbase and even his teammates ("former company man calls out management"), well, that's kind of sad.  It just seems insecure.  But I'll allow that this scenario (trying to impress the fans and the guys) is a lot more plausible than the poppycock that PFT posted.

3. To those who say Dunavin can't win in these situations (he's either a company man or a crybaby), I think he could have won by doing everything possible to make it through the offseason without any imaginary controversy and hullaballoo.  He complains that "every year it's something," but pulling nonsense like this on his blog doesn't help to avoid those somethings.  How bouts we use the blog for interesting links, lolcats or vacation photos and skip the passive-aggressive responses to minor slights?

On the bright side, at least it wasn't his mom.