Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Information Blast? No.

I have some substantial posts on their own. I don't need to blast them at you. I will say this on the other hand. I was reading about Heath Shuler voted for the expansion of FISA to allow the Bush administration to do pretty much whatever they want. Seeing as I was against giving them such grand expansive powers, it only raised my ire for him once again.

If you are not from Washington or New Orleans and/or a huge football fan, you probably have no idea of who Heath Shuler is. Currently, Heath Shuler is the representative for the 11th Congressional district of North Carolina, the place that he retired to once he finished his football "career". I say "career" because Shuler was one of the worst quarterbacks to ever step onto an NFL field. He's only second to Ryan Leaf as one of the major quarterback busts of all time. Shuler was a fantastic college quarterback. He led a very successful Tennessee team before Peyton Manning came on board to do the same although neither won the dreaded big game.

Shuler's raw collegiate level talent led to many NFL teams thinking that he would be a good professional quarterback, someone to lead the team into the future. With this as his thinking, Charlie Casserly, the then-GM, decided to spend the Washington Redskin's first round pick (Third Overall) on Shuler in 1994.

He held out at the beginning, which did not make him a fan favorite when he got to D.C. When he got around to playing, expectations were high because of the holdout; everyone wanted to see if he was worth the wait. It turned out that he wasn't. Shuler was a terrible quarterback. He had no field presence. He couldn't control a game. He was the epitome of the black years of the Redskins. If you look it up on Wikipedia, there is no history of the Redskins from 1993 when Joe Gibbs retired to 1997, the year of Daniel Snyder's purchasing and subsequent wrecking of the team (Snyder is the reason that I am not a Redskins fan anymore. The bad years were OK, but I can't stand that dude. I've been a Ravens fan since the Marchibroda days, and I have no intentions of looking back). They went through coaches. They went through talent. But, regardless of what they did, the Redskins just didn't get better. The best move they made during this period was getting rid of Desmond Howard and Heath Shuler leaving after a couple of years in the nation's capitol.

Now, I mentioned Desmond Howard as well. Following a successful campaign at the University of Michigan which netted him the Heisman Trophy (throw the stiff-arm!) in 1991, Howard was a highly scouted prospect. The Redskins ended up with him in their stable. He played three full years in the league as a featured receiver with the Redskins. He only got FIVE touchdown passes. TWO full years went by before he got a touchdown. People literally booed him when he caught the ball. Everything evened out after Howard left because the Redskins drafted Michael Westbrook who, while frequently injured and short-tempered, was a far better receiver than Howard. Howard got the last laugh on the other hand because he actually won a Super Bowl after leaving D.C. Yea, after the win in Super Bowl XXVI where Mark Rypien played one of the best games of his life, D.C. doesn't really have much to remember except for all of the failures. Someone is saying that D.C. United is the most successful club in MLS. My response to you is yea, so? Do you want me to care about MLS? I like soccer, and I don't care about MLS. I'll watch if I'm desperate, but I prefer the European and South American games more. It's more skilled and has better fluidity.

My larger ranging point before going off on that extended rant is that Heath Shuler still sucks whether he's in a suit or in a set of pads. And the fact that I don't have an Information Blast.