Archive: April, 2010
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
Foster Hewitt was the broadcaster who invented hockey broadcasting, the man who first said "he shoots, he scores" into a microphone. Back in the day, when he was doing Hockey Night in Canada on the radio, he would open his Saturday night broadcasts with this line: "Hello Canada, and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland."
Well, for the Flyers and Devils, forget the United States.
There are eight first-round playoff series in the National Hockey League. Seven of them are scheduled to have at least three games telecast in the US either on Versus or on NBC. One series will not. You guessed it.
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
Donovan McNabb made a funny at his introduction-to-Washington press conference on Tuesday when he said the Redskins would run a more balanced offense than the Eagles did. He said, "...the things they were able to do with that offense (under coach Mike Shanahan in Denver). Obviously that starts with the run game. Probably a lot of you who came from Philly don't know much about that part, the run game. We will run the ball here. We've got three solid running backs that are very effective and have done well with their given teams."
Nobody has the energy to re-have the run/pass debate today. The truth is, Reid did change a bit last season and threw a more balanced attack out there, with pretty good success. But this much can be said: for all of the people who think that Andy Reid is going to run the ball a lot more and try to protect Kevin Kolb somehow, well, it isn't happening.
That is the conspiracy theory: that Reid did a disservice to McNabb all of these years by not giving him enough weapons and by not running the ball enough, and that he will protect Kolb by comparison. The numbers, though, suggest otherwise.
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
I think NFL teams over-value draft choices. Most people on the outside think they over-value draft choices. But the fact is, they do -- they all do, pretty much. And they all live their lives with one hand on a draft value chart, which assigns point values to every slot in the draft. There is some ongoing discussion about some of the numbers on the chart, but there is no disputing that everyone has a chart.
And based upon the chart, the Eagles did get the equivalent value of a first-round draft choice in exchange for McNabb.
People say they tried to drive too hard a bargain, that they insulted teams in the NFL by their stance and et cetera. I will say this: if the Eagles infuriated other teams it was because they did not make a demand. They are like that. They sit back with their arms folded and make you show your cards, and then they thank you for the peek at what you're thinking. In that way -- and it has happened time after time -- they determine the market for a player, and then they go about their business.
