2001, a very good year!

Lets take a walk down memory lane. Hop over to the Washington Post's 2001 High School Football All Metropolitan Players. The group photo is not available. However, check out some of the names.

• Marcus Mason, RB, Georgetown Prep, now trying out for the Redskins


• Terry Caulley, RB, Patuxent, invited to Redskins OTAs, recently released


• Ahmad Brooks, LB, Hylton. The son of former Redskin DL Perry Brooks is now trying out for the Cincinnati Bengals


• Mike Imoh, RB, Robinson, tried out for the Redskins in 2006


• Billy Gaines, WR, Urbana, attended University of Pittsburgh, died as a result of a tragic accident. Based on timing, he should have been a team-mate of H.B. Blades at Pitt.


• Vernon Davis, TE, Dunbar (DC), finding success with the San Francisco 49ers


• Shawne Merriman, LB, Douglass, the most prominent of this group is finding success with the San Diego Chargers


• Conrad Bolston, DL, St. John's, now trying out for the Minnesota Vikings


• Marcus Hamilton, DB, Centreville, now trying out for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Nine of the 44 first and second team All Met schoolboys of 2001 are good enough to try out for an NFL club. That strikes me as a high percentage, although I've made no comparisons to other class years, or to metro areas in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Texas, cradles of football. This suggests that the Washington DC metro area is a ripe recruiting area for football as well as basketball.

Shawne Merriman and Vernon Davis have established themselves, but most of the All-Met Nine are late round draft picks or free agents. Marcus Mason will have a tough time cracking the Redskins line-up. He will have to beat out Derrick Blaylock for a spot at running back, or Rock Cartwright as a special teamer. Terry Caulley was the 2001 All-Met offensive player of the year. He set the rushing record at UCONN; however, he is considered undersized for the NFL. He could catch on as a special teamer elsewhere. Ahmad Brooks, the 2001 defensive player of the year, has good genes going for him.

Best wishes to all these guys.

The Google curse: To get hooked looking stuff up when you should be in bed.

Photo: Shawne Merriman, chargers.com from www.sdhoc.com

Portis: I didn't know . . . .

ExtremeSkins points to a blog entry by LaCanfora at RedskinsInsider Clinton Speaks (And Does Not Insert Foot In Mouth).

CP says he's been reading the letters and pamphlets that came his way after his notorious comments about Michael Vick and dog fighting. That's when he began to understand the issue and why so many people were offended by his comments.

"When I made those comments I didn't understand the seriousness behind it."

JLC says more is coming on this and I hope so. The snippet in the Insider piece doesn't make clear whether CP reached a new understanding on the harm of dog fighting, or a new appreciation of that there are animal lovers who would be offended. Response from the ExtremeSkins readership is mixed, with a sizable group suspecting he's sorry that people were offended, and an equal-sized group wishing he just kept his mouth shut so the issue would go away.

Know what? The best way for our boy to "get it" is for someone to give him a puppy to care for.

See also: "I shouldn't have made the comments."

_________________________

GOOD to have LaCanfora back and writing football. In his other post, Marcus Washington went in full practice, and team nutritionist Ann Litt passed away unexpectedly.

_________________________

My compliments to Skin Patrol at Hogs Haven for for his thoughtful examination of player sanctions comparing Chicago's Tank Johnson, suspended eight games for gun convictions, to Pacman Jones, suspended for the season with no convictions. Twice I caught myself saying "wished I wrote that."

Photo: www.wtopnews.com

Antonio Pierce on dog fighting

"Anyone who fights pit bulls is a punk."

(It still p****** me off that Pierce is playing in a Giants uniform.)

Photo: www.islandstats.com

Why Michael Vick isn't worried

PFT pointed me to this Virginia Pilot story about Gerald Poindexter, the Surry County (VA) Commonwealth Attorney who may prosecute charges from the dog fighting scandal that might involve Michael Vick.

Some interesting factoids:

• The entire population of Surry County is around 7,000.
• Poindexter is the County's only prosecutor -- and he's part-time.
• There are only two lawyers in Surry County.
• The Circuit Court only convenes one or two times a month.
• A previous dog fighting case brought by Poindexter several years ago was dismissed by a judge who ruled that the search warrant was improper. Poindexter felt that he moved too fast in that case and does not want to repeat the error.

So, one of the NFL's wealthiest players might go up against the part-time prosecutor of a thinly populated, resource-poor county. The county is so small that the only tourism message on the Tourism page of Surry County's web site is "Any time of year, Surry is a great place to visit!"

Advantage, Vick.

UPDATE: Poindexter Speaks
_________________________

World of dogfighting seems to be growing despite awareness of its cruel side

Early fantasy look at the NFC East

Skin Patrol over at Hogs Haven lamented that he was reduced to looking at silly 2008 NFL Mock Drafts. We've both commiserated that we've not had much to footblog about. Luckily for us, it's not too early to look at fantasy football.

Michael Fabiano at nfl.com posted an early look at the fantasy value of NFC East players. That's early, too, but at least is more grounded in reality than a 2008 mock draft. I saw no surprises in Fabiano's comments. However, he had this to say about Clinton Portis.

"Portis should now be seen as more of a borderline No. 1 or 2 fantasy runner rather than the elite featured back he has been throughout his career."

The number of carries Portis has had, and the emergence of Ladell Betts leads to that assessment of Portis as a fantasy player.

Fabiano sees the Redskin offense schedule as the 5th easiest for passing and 4th hardest for rushing. The article didn't say how he arrived at that conclusion.

That mock draft thing? Not only do we not know 2007 NFL game results, thus the 2008 draft order, we don't know how the school boys will rank. They, too, have to play to hold or lose their draft rank. Somebody is going to get injured and lose their ranking. Some junior is going to come out early and insert themselves in the ranking. Silly.

Photo: www.msnbc.msn.com