1. We love y'all! Y'all should rule the world. Would y'all consider breeding with all the females in our family so as to produce a race of Super Cold Blooded Ones?
2. We hate y'all and hope that everyone affiliated with this website gets butt-hole cancer and dies a slow death.
3. Requests
In fact we get all sorts of requests....things like: can you link this, can you talk about this, can y'all commit suicide, can y'all talk about the Falcons. The Falcons thing along with more talk about one of the Patron Saints of Cold Bloodedness Tyrus Raymond Cobb dominates our requests. Now once football season is over we will drop a little Ty Cobb love but as for the Falcons that is more complicated.
I worked in D.C. briefly and while there I would fascinate my Yankee co-workers because I loved college football and didn't really care for the NFL. They would say things like "How can you say that? The NFL is so great...blah,blah,blah". Most Southerners don't care that much about the NFL and here is why:
1. It took the NFL roughly 47 years after it's beginnings to give the South a team.
2. The teams we got were expansion teams so they sucked for about another 40 years.
3. Southerners are regional jingoists and so they find it hard to root for a QB that grew up in Pennsylvania and played college ball in Boston.
4. Southerners are usually not casual fans that like to watch glorified arena league games and prefer to watch football in which the defense is allowed to play.
For the Falcons in particular I find it difficult to be seriously invested in them because of all the Yankee players, the overall suckiness of the NFL, and on a far more petty level a Falcon is just a stupid mascot.
I mean what does a Falcon have to do with Atlanta, Georgia, or the South? Nothing that's what. Here are a few suggestions that are much better:
1. The Atlanta Grays- Gray is the color worn by the South in the War of Northern Aggression and is also the most recognized Negro League Baseball Team. It is also a perfect mix between black and white. It therefore holds regional and historical significance as well promoting racial harmony.
2. The Atlanta Bandits- Burt Reynolds is from Georgia, Burt Reynolds played the Bandit, the Bandit spends a large portion of Smokey and the Bandit tearing up Georgia back roads and interstates, Smokey and the Bandit marks the high water point in American Film production.
3. The Atlanta Runners
The Atlanta Shiners - Take a pick here but the South is well known for it's moonshine production and running. Shine running spawned NASCAR and countless country songs. Also, Rhett Butler was a "Runner" that broke Union blockades while simultaneously compromising the virtues of countless proper Southern Women before marrying Scarlet. I am not really an expert on male attractiveness but lets be honest here Ashley Wilkes was a huge douche while Rhett Butler had a ballerific moustache.
4. The Atlanta Crackers- As in a Georgia Cracker which is a racial slur but is one of the few that is not only alright but also encouraged by the PC Police because as we all know white Southerners are the worst human beings of all time. Plus a Crack is a particularly hard hit.
The Friday before the Bama/LSU game Colin Cowherd said that an NFL GM once told him that you could draft strictly SEC players and you would have a perennial play-off team. If the Falcons really wanted to earn the love of Southerners they should draft straight SEC players. Outside of your school Southerners have no more loyalty to anything in life than the SEC. With that in mind here is what the Falcons would look like had they been applying this principal for the past ten years. What I did was looked over my old notes and player rankings (what is that you don't track and rank prospects every year? You clearly have never been subjected to a law school class or a continuing legal education seminar...boredom will produce things like an in-depth draft analysis) and simply put in my highest rated SEC player that would have been avaliable when the Falcons selected. I also did not change the pick if the Falcons took and SEC player (with one exception I subed Patrick Willis in for Jamaal Anderson because I graded Anderson as a late second round pick and gave Willis the highest ranking I have ever given a player). Finally, I went strictly by my old rankings so I will not have Peyton Hillis going in the second round or Steven Johnson in the first. I tried to give a honest breakdown but would like to point out that if the Falcons took all SEC players they would be picking between 30-32 every year. So here it is:
2002
1(18) Lito Sheppard CB UF (T.J. Duckett)
3(80) Will Overstreet LB UT
4(116) Andra Davis LB UF (Martin Bilba)
5(148) Jermaine Phillips S UGA (Kevin McCadam)
5(158) Freddie Milons WR Bama (Kurt Kittner)
6(184) Howard Green DT LSU (Kahlil Hill)
7(217) Carlos Hall DE Ark (Michael Coleman)
7(244) Ryan Clark S LSU (Kevin Shaffer)
2003
2(55) Jason Witten TE UT (Bryan Scott)
4(121) Justin Griffith FB MSU
5(159) Hunter Hillenmeyer LB Van (Jon Olinger)
6(196) Mario Haggan LB MSU (LaTarence Dunbar)
6(202) Waine Bacon DB Bama
7(238) Demetrin Veal DE UT
2004
1(8) Dunta Robinson CB USCe (DeAngelo Hall)
3(90) Travelle Wharton OT USCe (Matt Schaub)
4(101) Robert Geathers DE UGA (DeMorrio Williams)
5(142) Chad Lavalais DT LSU
6(186) Charlie Anderson LB OM (Etric Pruitt)
7(219) Donnie Jones P LSU (Quincy Wilson)
2005
1(27) Corey Webster CB LSU (Roddy White)
2(59) Channing Crowder LB UF (Jonathan Babineaux)
3(90) David Stewart OT MSU (Jordan Beck)
4(128) Fred Gibson WR UGA (Chauncey Davis)
5(160) Wesley Britt OT Bama (Michael Boley)
6(201) Reynaldo Hill CB UF (DeAndra’ Cobb)
7(241) Darrell Shropshire DT USCe
2006
2(37) Andrew Whitworth OT LSU (Jimmy Williams)
3(79) Jerious Norwood RB MSU
5(139) Greg Blue S UGA (Quinn Ojinnaka)
6(184) Kendrick Golston DT UGA (Adam Jennings)
7(223) D.J. Shockley QB UGA
2007
1(8) Patrick Willis LB OM (Jamaal Anderson)
2(39) Sidney Rice WR USCe (Justin Blaylock)
2(41) Chris Houston CB Ark
3(75) Charles Johnson DE UGA (Laurent Robinson)
4(109) Marcus Thomas DT UF (Stephen Nicholas)
4(133) Martrez Milner TE UGA
6(185) Chase Pittman DE LSU (Trey Lewis)
6(203) Dallas Baker WR UF (Daren Stone)
7(244) Kenneth Darby RB Bama (Jason Snelling)
2008
1(3) Glenn Dorsey DT LSU (Matt Ryan)
1(21) Felix Jones RB Ark (Sam Baker)
2(37) Quentin Groves DE Aub (Curtis Lofton)
3(68) Chevis Jackson CB LSU
3(84) Craig Steltz S LSU (Harry Douglas)
3(98) Jacob Tamme TE UK (Thomas DeCoud)
5(138) Jonathan Goff LB Van (Robert James)
5(154) Matt Flynn QB LSU (Kroy Biermann)
6(172) Thomas Brown RB UGA
7(212) Peyton Hillis FB Ark (Wilrey Fontenot)
7(232) Keith Zinger TE LSU
2009
1(24) Peria Jerry DT OM
2(55) Jared Cook TE USCe (William Moore)
3(90) Jonathan Luigs C Ark (Christopher Owens)
4(125) Jasper Brinkley LB USCe (Lawrence Sidbury)
5(138) Cornelius Ingram TE UF (William Middleton)
5(156) Herman Johnson G LSU (Garrett Reynolds)
6(176) Captain Munnerlyn CB USCe (Spencer Adkins)
7(210) Jamarca Sanford S OM (Vance Walker)
2010
1(19) Kareem Jackson CB Bama (Sean Weatherspoon)
3(83) Corey Peters DT UK
3(98) Mike Johnson G Bama
4(117) Al Woods DT LSU (Joe Hawley)
5(135) Riley Cooper WR UF (Dominique Franks)
5(165) Anthony Dixon RB MSU (Kerry Meier)
6(171) Greg Hardy DE OM (Shann Schillinger)
2011
1(6) Julio Jones WR Bama
3(91) Akeem Dent LB UGA
5(145) Pernell McPhee DE MSU (Jacquizz Rodgers)
6(192) Jerrell Powe DT OM (Matt Bosher)
7(210) Lee Ziemba OT Auburn (Andrew Jackson)
7(230) Cliff Matthews DE USCe
Akeem Dent representing tonight!
ReplyDeleteCracker is short for whip-cracker. It was shorthand that slaves used to warn that the overseer was coming. So when you call someone a cracker, you’re calling that person your master.
ReplyDelete-Anon @ 8:53
ReplyDeleteThat is a new one to me and I thought I knew them all.
Some things about the South are real and some are revisionist history propaganda. I am not calling you wrong because I don't know but I am saying I would check my sources on that one.
-Anon @8:53
ReplyDeleteIn the American dialect the term "cracker" was a slang term used by wealthy Southerners as well and Yankees to describe a poor white. This was based on the fact that the staple diet of poor whites (especially in Georgia and Northern Florida) was grits which are made from "cracked" corn. It appears that the slang was taken from a much older English slang use for cracker which describes a miser or tightwad who would not purchase fresh bread but would instead opt for the dried older bread or cracker that bakers usually sold at a discount or even for free.
An even older british use of the term "cracker" is to describe one who is a foolish bragger. This is believed to be where the term "cracking a joke" comes from.
I did look around and I found one mention of your use of cracker. Just as I suspected it cannot be documented and appears to be a "post" time period assumption of the use of the word or a revisionist use in an attempt to make everyone's favorite bad guys, White Southerners, look bad.