bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part one)))


at some point in the next 25 or so posts in this series, i am going to ask chris hicks to give you a detailed origin story behind the characters known almost exclusively to us as "bill" and "tom". i could give you a very surface level re-telling, but one thing that my oldest friend has always had on me was a knack for remembering things the outside world would consider useless. one of the many ways we bonded, however, was that much of that "useless" knowledge had to do with the sports and the sports history that we loved. more specifically, we both loved football history and incorporated that history into almost every "water cooler" conversation we ever had in his duster, at my house, at his house, or wherever we happened to have a gaming station set up to play video-game football.

what is relevant to this particular series of post, though, is this. my oldest friend, whom you all know as chris hicks, and i both think we know more about football than the other. this series of posts will serve mostly to entertain each other, since, deep down, we are still very capable of being the kids that would talk endless trash whilst creating brackets on top of brackets of video-game football tournaments.

what this series of posts will finally settle is, left to our own devices and based on rules that we've both agreed to, which human, kevin o'kelley or chris hicks, could create the best football team made up of the best players (in OUR estimation) to have ever played the game.

the rules are these:

- the entire universe of current and former players are available to be drafted.
- we will draft one position per post and provide intelligent (sometimes) rationale for our pick
- we will be able to deconstruct each other's picks and call each other funny names to poke fun of each other's picks without ever acknowledging that our competitor may have gotten the best of us on a given day
- at the end of the series, we will ask you, the three or so people that frequent this blog when i am not talking about humc, to judge the worth of our respective teams and crown a champion, once and for all.

we will strongly encourage feedback from whomever would like to join in the fun. tell us how ignorant we both are. tell us who you saw with your own eyes back in the 60's that could eat ray lewis for lunch. the more commentary, the more fun we'll have with it. we'll even call you pet names, too. what could be better, right???

so, there's the gist. we'll give you more as the series rolls along, but i will close this introduction with the fact that both of us are so excited at the prospect of this draft, that each day's draft choices may end up being 5,000 word head-to-heads and we might run everyone off by the end of day three. we'll see. it's not likely that we'll care. this is, after all, the only draft that matters to us.

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to the picks!

day one: corner

chris won the coin flip to get us started. his choice and his (ed: fairly weak) reasoning:

deion sanders:  very simply...the greatest shutdown corner ever. perhaps ...the greatest athlete ever to put on a professional uniform. as a side note: he would also return punts for this team.

my choice:

rod woodson: i will tip my hat to chris' first pick and admit that deion would have been my second corner taken had he been on the board. operative word, my second pick. he was a brilliant, mind-numbing, freak of an athlete, and his reputation scared coordinators from throwing in his direction. he was exciting on special teams, also true. his failing, and my victory on day one of this draft comes from prime's inability to perform one of the most fundamental elements of defensive footballing, that is to say he couldn't tackle. scratch that, he was afraid to tackle. i have no room for fear on my team, so i thank chris for saving me from myself and taking prime first.

to woodson. in a word, he was a prototype. big size, big speed, covered the other team's number one. later in his career, he reinvented himself as a missile of a safety in the mold of ronnie lott, blitzing every time dick labeau would allow him. let's look at his numbers compared to mr. sanders. career interceptions: woodson - 71 prime - 53. interception return yards: woodson - 1,483 prime - 1,331 fumble recoveries: woodson - 32 prime 15 tackles: woodson - 1050 prime - i'm not sure he ever recorded one.

woodson also tallied 11 pro bowls, a 1993 defensive player of the year and a super bowl ring.

prime was elite, no doubt. every player picked will be. he wasn't as good as woodson, though. that's just a fact.

mr. hicks?

chris: my rebuttal to your comments? the masses will agree that deion sanders is the best. the fancy internet search for stats impresses one person...you. primetime was the best. it was a simple decision. round 1 - Tom Next???

yes, yes, tom. what a ridiculous idea for me to cloud our debate with actual, measurable data. if you are not a fan of stats, this is going to be a loooong draft for you. there will be plenty of room for highlights, romance and revisionist history when it comes to drafting our teams. i get that. i will, no doubt, throw around any number of "he was the best i've ever seen"s as well, but, when it comes to separating the best from the best, stats are bill's best friend. i won't spend too much time on the tackling thing, but, seriously, how can you be the best at any position on a football field when your idea of full-contact is two hand touch? woodson, for the win!

last word?

chris: regarding deion and his tackling...ask any of the receivers that he played against (ed: i'm not sure how i can do that), and they will tell you he was a physical corner. ask those same receivers who was the best corner they ever faced (ed: i'm still not sure how i can do that), they will say deion. by the way...those same receivers faced woodson. if hall of fame receivers who went against him say he was the best, i can't disagree. however, if you have ever lined up and beaten him on a skinny post, maybe you can (ed: i have not.). i would venture to say you are in the same boat as me. was he a great tackler? no. did he need to be? no. he took away one side of the field (ed: so did woodson) in the passing game. he did his job better than any corner in the history of this game. that is my final word.