Cito Pelon
05-28-2005, 07:53 PM
Lincicome: That Rice might catch on says lots about Broncos
May 27, 2005
To be the Greatest Of All Time is to be at least Muhammad Ali, who loitered too long in his sport just as is Jerry Rice, though Ali still suffers more for it.
And not to be contentious about this, but as we welcome Rice as our famous and temporary neighbor, I would argue that he is not even the Greatest In His Own Draft, pretty good pickings back in 1985 that started with Bruce Smith at No. 1 and had Doug Flutie way down at No. 285.
In fact, were the Broncos really into whimsy - as good a reason as any for offering Rice one last October (my over; August would be my under) - they could have had Flutie-to-Rice, an all-time generational convergence.
Flutie has gone back to his New England roots, clearly nostalgia on both sides, whereas Rice to Denver seems something more wistful, something less tangible. Well, why not? What could it hurt? Isn't it up to him?
No championship football team has ever been constructed by asking or answering those questions.
Getting older on purpose is better left to golf, wine and Robert Redford.
We will let those with greater nose for detail determine at what point the lack of an open-field tackle by the special-team youngster who did not make the Broncos because of Rice loses a game. Or determine just how far back the Broncos' search for a replacement for Rod Smith is set because the glow of Rice blinds the hunter.
The problem that must be solved even before who catches the football is the problem of who is throwing the football, and if Jake Plummer can imagine his lasting glory to be in the parentheses after Rice's name, then the sooner the better.
Not even Rice can argue that in those years with Joe Montana he was Robin and not Batman. When Steve Young stepped in later, maybe the splendor was shared more evenly. Rice did not make Montana nor Young; there is a reason that passing combinations are listed quarterback first.
And now Rice is too much of an artifact to be of much use to the meager legend of Plummer, it being that Plummer is as thick as a stump and the Broncos are stuck with him.
Consider the post-Elway reputation of the Broncos (not counting the lack of playoff success). It is that anybody can run the football in Denver. While it is not true, it is handy to disguise the greater alarm, that any quarterback can run the running game in Denver. Well, between the 20s anyhow.
Rice will not be so great a diversion to deflect the cold reality of inevitable Plummerness, the lack of the simple dependability, the inexactness of direction. The mere fact that Rice could actually make the Broncos receiving corps says more about the defects there than the ability of Rice.
The diminishing reputation of Mike Shanahan, both as an offensive genius and game-day manager, cannot be hidden with stunts like this. Not that it doesn't take a bit of courage to tell the Greatest Of All Time that his time has passed. The applause will be meager when that happens.
But, back to where I came in, there in the 1985 draft, and just to put the time in perspective, one of those drafted was Keli McGregor, then a tight end from Colorado State and now senior baby sitter of the adolescent Rockies.
Whole lives have been lived and careers remade since Rice found himself the 16th player chosen, after some pretty striking talent, chief of which has to be Smith, maybe the greatest defensive end not named Reggie who, like Rice, finished among strangers, not Buffalo as order would demand but in Washington, for money, for one more sack.
I would argue that Smith is higher than Rice on the G.O.A.T. list and, for sheer worldwide celebrity, Rice never reached the freak status of draftmate Refrigerator Perry, not the greatest of any time but still idol enough to be hired in the NFL Europe simply on legend alone. I suppose Rice could play in Frankfurt tomorrow if playing is all that counts.
Flutie has been, too, a much greater oddity than Rice, meeting more doubts for just as long. And for sheer effect on two leagues, two teams and the U.S. Bobsled Team, there is no more prominent name in Rice's draft than Herschel Walker.
Bernie Kosar - the yin to Flutie's yang - was the second overall pick but a quarterback name that will last not as long as either Flutie or Randall Cunningham.
I wonder, in fact, if Cunningham, who left the league and came back, might not be worth a call. Using the logic that put Rice, and much of the unwanted Cleveland defense in Broncos shirts, it couldn't hurt.
Something to build a season on.
May 27, 2005
To be the Greatest Of All Time is to be at least Muhammad Ali, who loitered too long in his sport just as is Jerry Rice, though Ali still suffers more for it.
And not to be contentious about this, but as we welcome Rice as our famous and temporary neighbor, I would argue that he is not even the Greatest In His Own Draft, pretty good pickings back in 1985 that started with Bruce Smith at No. 1 and had Doug Flutie way down at No. 285.
In fact, were the Broncos really into whimsy - as good a reason as any for offering Rice one last October (my over; August would be my under) - they could have had Flutie-to-Rice, an all-time generational convergence.
Flutie has gone back to his New England roots, clearly nostalgia on both sides, whereas Rice to Denver seems something more wistful, something less tangible. Well, why not? What could it hurt? Isn't it up to him?
No championship football team has ever been constructed by asking or answering those questions.
Getting older on purpose is better left to golf, wine and Robert Redford.
We will let those with greater nose for detail determine at what point the lack of an open-field tackle by the special-team youngster who did not make the Broncos because of Rice loses a game. Or determine just how far back the Broncos' search for a replacement for Rod Smith is set because the glow of Rice blinds the hunter.
The problem that must be solved even before who catches the football is the problem of who is throwing the football, and if Jake Plummer can imagine his lasting glory to be in the parentheses after Rice's name, then the sooner the better.
Not even Rice can argue that in those years with Joe Montana he was Robin and not Batman. When Steve Young stepped in later, maybe the splendor was shared more evenly. Rice did not make Montana nor Young; there is a reason that passing combinations are listed quarterback first.
And now Rice is too much of an artifact to be of much use to the meager legend of Plummer, it being that Plummer is as thick as a stump and the Broncos are stuck with him.
Consider the post-Elway reputation of the Broncos (not counting the lack of playoff success). It is that anybody can run the football in Denver. While it is not true, it is handy to disguise the greater alarm, that any quarterback can run the running game in Denver. Well, between the 20s anyhow.
Rice will not be so great a diversion to deflect the cold reality of inevitable Plummerness, the lack of the simple dependability, the inexactness of direction. The mere fact that Rice could actually make the Broncos receiving corps says more about the defects there than the ability of Rice.
The diminishing reputation of Mike Shanahan, both as an offensive genius and game-day manager, cannot be hidden with stunts like this. Not that it doesn't take a bit of courage to tell the Greatest Of All Time that his time has passed. The applause will be meager when that happens.
But, back to where I came in, there in the 1985 draft, and just to put the time in perspective, one of those drafted was Keli McGregor, then a tight end from Colorado State and now senior baby sitter of the adolescent Rockies.
Whole lives have been lived and careers remade since Rice found himself the 16th player chosen, after some pretty striking talent, chief of which has to be Smith, maybe the greatest defensive end not named Reggie who, like Rice, finished among strangers, not Buffalo as order would demand but in Washington, for money, for one more sack.
I would argue that Smith is higher than Rice on the G.O.A.T. list and, for sheer worldwide celebrity, Rice never reached the freak status of draftmate Refrigerator Perry, not the greatest of any time but still idol enough to be hired in the NFL Europe simply on legend alone. I suppose Rice could play in Frankfurt tomorrow if playing is all that counts.
Flutie has been, too, a much greater oddity than Rice, meeting more doubts for just as long. And for sheer effect on two leagues, two teams and the U.S. Bobsled Team, there is no more prominent name in Rice's draft than Herschel Walker.
Bernie Kosar - the yin to Flutie's yang - was the second overall pick but a quarterback name that will last not as long as either Flutie or Randall Cunningham.
I wonder, in fact, if Cunningham, who left the league and came back, might not be worth a call. Using the logic that put Rice, and much of the unwanted Cleveland defense in Broncos shirts, it couldn't hurt.
Something to build a season on.