All-time ultimate mock draft, pick No. 14

The NFL Draft may have come and past, but "Greatest Pro Bowls of all time, and other stuff" continues its countdown from pick No. 32 to pick No. 1, recalling the greatest players ever selected in those spots.

The ultimate all-time mock draft marches on with pick No. 14 ...

Jim Kelly, QB, Buffalo Bills (1983, Miami, Fla.)


After opting to initially sign with the Houston Gamblers of the United State Football League, Kelly joined the Bills in 1986, and went on to one of the most productive careers a quarterback has ever enjoyed. Teaming with future Hall of Famer James Lofton and go-to receiver Andre Reed, Kelly ran the Bills' potent "K-Gun" no-huddle offense (in often-colder-than-chilly Buffalo, mind you) that helped fuel Buffalo's four consecutive Super Bowl appearances.

"Don’t get me wrong -- my heart will always belong to Jim Kelly. He’s my guy. Irish tough, full of swagger, a dynamic passer, and let the record show he is the last significant quarterback who actually called his own plays," -- Nick Bakay on Kelly.

Other notable players selected at No. 14 include ...

Jeremy Shockey, TE, New York Giants (2002, Miami, Fla.), whose team won a Super Bowl without him.

Eddie George, RB, Houston Oilers (1996, Ohio State), who was the workhorse behind the Tennessee Titans' run to Super Bowl XXXIV.

Randy Gradishar, LB, Denver Broncos (1974, Ohio State), who was the catalyst for the Broncos' "Orange Crush" defense and has been nominated a number of times for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Gino Marchetti, DE, Detroit Lions (1952, San Francisco), who famously refused to go to the locker room and watched the rest of the classic 1958 NFL championship game from the sidelines on a stretcher after suffering a broken leg.

All-time ultimate mock draft, pick No. 15

The NFL Draft may have come and past, but "Greatest Pro Bowls of all time, and other stuff" continues its countdown from pick No. 32 to pick No. 1, recalling the greatest players ever selected in those spots.

The ultimate all-time mock draft marches on with pick No. 15 ...

Jim Taylor, FB, Green Bay Packers (1958, Louisiana State)


Jim Brown was the most dominant running back in the history of the game, leading the league in rushing in all but one of his nine seasons. That one time he didn't lead the league was in 1962, when the Green Bay Packers' Taylor rushed for 1,474 yards (Brown actually finished fourth that season in rushing yards Quick, can you name the other two back who beat him? That's a real noodle-scratcher of a question, which is why we looked it up for you!).

Taylor's 1,474 yards rushing that '62 marked a Packers team record that stood until 2003, when Ahman Green finally surpassed it (1,883 yards). The most important aspect of Taylor's career was that he was the driving force behind an offense on four NFL championship teams (1961, 1962, 1965 and 1966, which included Super Bowl I).

Other notable players selected at No. 15 include ...

Tony Eason, QB, New England Patriots (1983, Illinois), who was the fourth quarterback taken in that famed 1983 quarterback draft class (John Elway, Todd Blackledge and Jim Kelly were selected before him).

Alan Page, DE, Minnesota Vikings (1967, Notre Dame), who went from member of Minnesota's famed "Purple People Eaters" to eventually become justice with the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Thursday's hot stove report

"I can take apart the remote control
And I can almost put it back together." -- from Flobots' Handlebars.

The Cubs were defeated 4-3 by the Brewers in the rubber match of a three-game series on Thursday afternoon at Wrigley Field. This came a day after the Brewers were on the wrong end of a 19-5 debacle.

Somewhere in Chicago, there's a Cubs fan at a local sports bar downing his Budweiser and lamenting to anyone who will listen, "Why couldn't the Cubs have saved a couple of those runs last night for today?"

Do people seriously think teams can just simply hold on to some runs one day, and score those the next? A 19-run game is the happy confluence of bad pitching, timely hitting and likely some phsychological intangibles for both sides. Usually a 19-run game one day means pitching duel the next. That's just the way baseball works.

A college football playoff ... coming in 2015? At the earliest. :-(

But, there is some good news, two new bowls were approved for the 2008 season -- the St. Petersburg Bowl and the Congressional Bowl. Awesome! Somehow, the NCAA managed to regect something called the Rocky Mountain Bowl. Bummer ... if there's one thing college football needs more of, it's bowl games. Every team should get to go to a bowl game. Why not? Right? Right ...?

Once I hear the Flobots' song Handlebars, I can't get it out of my head. I'm really in trouble if I hear it in the morning.

Apparently, Handlebars has some sort of social/political message. All I can think about is the lyric "Me and my friend saw a platypus." Oh, and the Gobots, which were totally lame.

Call me crazy, but I'm legitimately excited for tonight's Red Bull New York-Toronto FC game (airing on ESPN2 at 4 p.m. PT). This will be my first glimpse of the crowd at Toronto's BMO Field, which is being touted as the closest to an European atmosphere as there is in Major League Soccer.

Also, I have Toronto's Laurent Robert on my MLS fantasy team, so I have that going for me.

The top five Champions League finals I've seen

"We were sitting in the dressing room and we could clearly hear thousands of fans singing You'll Never Walk Alone. Can you imagine how that felt? We were 3-0 down in the Champions League final and all we could hear were 45,000 people letting us know they still believed in us. We knew they had endured a long journey and made so many sacrifices to be there. It was at that point we started to believe too." -- Liverpool's Luis Garcia, on what inspired his team's amazing comeback in the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul.

While England won't be participating in this year's Euro 2008 festivities in Austria and Switzerland, at least it gets an all-English Champions League final to cheer for when Chelsea FC and Manchester United FC take to the pitch at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium on May 21.

For the stat fan in all of us, this will only be the third time in the Champions League's 50 or so year history (it was previously known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, which was often abbreviated to European Cup) that clubs from the same country have met in the finale. The other two times? Well, those happened ever so recently ... twice in the last eight years, in fact. In 2003, AC Milan beat Juventus FC in an all-Italian finale, and three years before that Real Madrid CF bested Valencia CF in an all-Spanish finale.

In honor (honour?), of this momentous occasion, here are the top five Champions League finals I've seen (going all the way back to 2002ish) ...

5. AC Milan 2-1 over Liverpool, 2007 -- AC Milan got a measure of revenge for that epic collapse in the 2005 Champions League final.

4. Real Madrid 2-1 over Bayer Leverkusen Fußball-bund, 2002 -- I remember this game only because it was played about a month before the first World Cup I can remember actually being excited to watch. It also marked the last time a German Bundesliga team played in the UEFA Champions League finale.

3. Barcelona 2-1 over Arsenal, 2006 -- Barca won, despite getting no goals from Ronaldinho, a precursor of things to come for the Brazilian in that year's World Cup.

2. AC Milan 0-0 (3-2 pen.) over Juventus, 2003 -- Watched this game from the Cock N Bull Pub in beautiful Santa Monica, Calif. Just happened to have off of work that day. It was cool drinking Guinness at 11 a.m.

1. Liverpool 3-3 (3-2 pen.) over AC Milan, 2005 -- Greatest Champions League final ever ... and to argue with a guy who's only seen a few of the 50 or so Champions League finals would be foolhardy.

Your first place (Devil) Rays

"The only thing that keeps this organization from being recognized as one of the finest in baseball is wins and losses at the major-league level." -- former Devil Rays GM Chuck LaMar in 2005.


Tonight, the Baltimore Orioles host the Tampa Bay (formely the Devil) Rays in a base-ball game at venerable Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

It should be noted that this is the latest in the season in recent memory that either team has played in a game that mattered.

Many have joked that the Rays' current six-game winning ride has to be the longest in team history. This statement is usually appropriately followed with some LOLs.

However, let's set the record straight ... the longest winning streak in Tampa Bay Devil Rays/Rays franchise history is 12 games, and that magical march took place in June 2004. It should be noted, that monumental winning streak helped the Devil Rays reach a season-high two games over .500 on July 3 (40-38). This was a historic benchmark in the team's history.

So, this year's incarnation of the Rays is still only half way home to tying the franchise mark. Still, congratulations Rays, enjoy this brief moment of bliss of looking down at the Red Sox and Yankees in the AL East standings.

Today's daily baseball notes: Roger Clemens appears to be in some hot water. ... Coco Crisp remains a strong candidate to get moved in a trade. ... Cubs fans will have a new curse to blame for their team's losses on the ballfield. New Wrigley sensation Kosuke Fukudome is on the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated. SI goes as far as to suggest now might be the time for Cubs fans to start snatching up those World Series tickets. Fukudome won't be the first Japanese baseball import to appear on the cover of SI. Ichiro's made at least one appearance we can think of at the moment. ... Speaking of SI covers, here's Rollie Fingers wearing the classic Milwaukee Brewers threads in 1981. ... The Onion is reporting that the Yankees have buried Bernie Williams under their new stadium for good luck. ... So, Jason Taylor was on Dancing with the Stars doing a little ditty to the theme to Monday Night Football while sporting outfits in the colors of the Miami Dolphins. Which leads us to one question: What if Taylor had been traded during the draft to, say, the Cleveland Browns? ... University of Wisconsin-Whitewater running back Justin Beaver has been invited to try out for the Green Bay Packers at this weekend's minicamp. ... I just found a way to fit David Beckham under the salary cap for my Major League Soccer fantasy team.