I know that everyone is hard-up for NFL news of consequence at the moment, but the AJC slideshow-story hybrid actually made me laugh out loud. If you head over to the AJC's Falcons page now and click on the Andre Woodson story, you'll see what I'm talking about. For those too deeply invested in their game of Dungeons and Dragons to do so, I'll break it down.
Kentucky coach Rich Brooks gave everyone five reasons why they should draft Andre Woodson, which seems like an admirable thing to do. After all, he was a great QB for Kentucky and seems likely to go to some team in the first round. It's when Brooks attempts to give those five reasons that everything goes horribly awry.
1. "He has NFL size at 6 foot 5, 230 pounds." ...See, it's good you cleared this up, Rich. I always thought that Andre Woodson was a Lilliputian gunslinger who stood three feet on his best day. I guess I assumed that without stilts and padding, Woodson's tiny 30 pound frame could not hope to withstand the rigors of an NFL career. This should jump him all the way from undrafted to the sixth round. Wowee!
2. "He has great arm strength and can make all the throws NFL teams require." First you tell me he's tall enough to play in the NFL, and then you tell me he can make all the required throws? You're a sly one, Rich Brooks! I thought that he could only throw the ball to fans, coaches and camera crews, which are most certainly not throws teams want you to try to make. How have you been hiding this phenom from us all this time, you gumption-having son of a bitch?
3. "He's a very good student of the game, with knowledge of defenses and coverages." Holy shit! Most quarterbacks only have knowledge of one or the other! How did this unassuming Kentucky college student figure out both defenses and coverages?! He must have discovered some ill-omened grimoire, fighting off demons and wights which sought to claim it for their own. Truly, it adds to a man's draft stock when he is also an infamous adventurer! Rich Brooks strikes again!
4. "He has leadership ability and character." Again, the double whammy! If Brooks was any more specific, his words would pierce my heart like the point of a spear. As a veteran of the Korean, Vietnam and top-secret wars against aliens, Andrew Woodson knows how to lead a goddamn football team. While he's at it, he'll show you what character really means. It means taking down a pile of alien spaceships with a .44 magnum and then throwing two touchdown passes against Louisville. Suck on that, Matt Ryan!
5. He knows how to win. This just clinches it for me. You can't even draft a guy like Andre Woodson in the first round; you have to draft him before that, devising some sort of nebulous and shadowy Zero Round to take him in. Unlike every other QB ever drafted, Woodson knows how to win. It is a physical, tangible thing to him, a mass of atoms which can be devoured to lead his team to victory. God bless you, Andre Woodson. You shall carry the Falcons to the promised land!
So thanks to Rich Brooks, we now know that Andre Woodson possesses unique and specific qualities. There can only be one choice for us. We must welcome him with open arms to the Atlanta Falcons, who shall ever more be an undefeated juggernaut.
P.S. I'd like to point you to Athletics Nation, our flagship baseball blog and the first to undergo the changes I talked about in this morning's post. Obviously the color and logos will be different, but the platform is basically what you're going to see once The Falcoholic switches over. Glimpse it and love it, guys.