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


day twelve: offensive guard

John Hannah



9 All Pro Bowls
10 All Pros
75 Anniversary Team
70's All Decade Team
80's All Decade Team
Offensive Lineman of the Year (78, 79, 80, 81 and 84)
HOF 91


Bear Bryant, "He was the greatest lineman I ever coach."


Viewed as the second greatest lineman to ever play the game of football. Right behind Anthony Munoz who is also on Team Hicks.


Roll Tide!

i knew hannah would be your pick, and i don't hate, hate the pick, but you provide us a good path back to our old school/new school debate. we've already deconstructed the munoz as g.o.a.t. thing. we'll do the same here with hannah.


i don't like arguing against a Bama guy, but let's face it. he weighed in at 265 on a good day. no matter how "fast", "agile", or "intense" dude was, there is no way he has any shot of handling a monster like ted washington. and sure, he's going to get some help from what i assume will be an also undersized center, but you are setting up your pocket to start 2-3 yards behind the line of scrimmage from the jump of every play.

my pick was always going to be bruce matthews, the best guard that i've seen play, and he was probably even a hair past his prime when i started paying close attention.

his resume of pro bowls several-ups hannah with fourteen consecutive. he has an equal number of all-pros as well. he's a member of the 90's all-decade team, which i will contend until the end of this draft meant he was doing his thing around bigger and better athletes than those of generations past. he also was an iron man that never missed a game, playing in a record 296 for an offensive lineman.

what say you?

What do I say?  I am no expert, but the experts say Hannah is the 24th greatest player of all time.  The same experts say Bruce Matthews is the 78th.  Bruce Matthews was a great lineman.  John Hannah he was not.  My grade for this round:  Chris A  Kevin A-
 
yeah, i get that. and i understand where they are coming from. the only way that you can make those lists is to is to grade guys out relative to the competition they were playing against.


to me, and maybe we are approaching this in two different ways, we are doing something completely different. we are putting together two teams that will play when each guy was at the height of his respective powers, lining them up, and playing one game to end all games. if we were just drafting based on the lists that you and i are both looking at, we would just be aggregating 20 lists and picking the next guy in line.

there is no way, in my mind, that hannah was a better offensive lineman than bruce matthews. i think, from what I've read, that hannah was a great lineman, too...for his time. in the same vein, how many of bear bryant's many all-americans could even make a current nick saban team? what about bruce matthews?

 John Hannah may not beat out a guard on Saban's team right now, but he would beat out Bruce Matthews. And right now, that's all that matters. I'm sticking with the greatest Guard of all time. Chris

(ed: chris had first pick, so he's supposed to get last word. after that last statement, though, it's. so. hard.)

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

day 11: defensive line

as i ponder where to go with my third and final defensive lineman selection, two names jump out at me. i assume that both are coming off the board, regardless, in this round, because i feel like chris will take one or the other as well. i won't name both because i don't want to put words in his mouth nor do i want to remove the potential of team tom drafting another dud and dressing him up with numbers and accolades posted against competition that didn't wear facemasks.

i got my mountain of a man in ted washington last round. i've got my rush tackle/end in the greatest defensive lineman to ever play the game in reggie white. i need a guy on the other side of ted washington that can stop the run, primarily, but cause his own havoc in the backfield since he's going to be blocked with one guy every snap of this game.

i'm taking randy white.

from '77 to '85, randy white was the truth for the dallas cowboys. nine pro bowls and nine first team all-pros lead his resume. nicknamed the "manster" (half man, half monster), white was able to play a number of positions for his teams due to his size and freakish (for a white guy) athleticism, lining up at end and some linebacker. white found his home at d-tackle, and seeing him on my line will give system montana bad memories from their showdowns in the 80's.

Deacon Jones

8 Pro Bowls

8 All Pros

NFL 75 Anniversary Team

60's All Decade Team

2 - Defensive Player of the Year

HOF 1980

"Revolutionized the DE position", "First to use the head slap, that they all use now", "Lightning Quick"

Sacks weren't recorded, but the un-official numbers give him 194.5 which would be 3rd all time.

Named #15 on the 100 Greatest Players of All Time. In comparison, Randy White was named #62.

With Deacon Jones on one side of my 4-3 and Bruce Smith on the other. I think this team is shaping up to be pretty good. I feel certain I can find a sufficient DT to go next to Mean Joe.

yep. i could've called it. i was torn with my white pick, because i know the consensus on most of the "best ever" lists have deacon above white, but, as you noted, jones was a true defensive end, and, in my 3-4 scheme, it wouldn't have made sense to have another guy coming off the end.

it is interesting how a guy in white with 9 all-pro teams versus deacon's 8 would be so much less regarded, but, in the end, i think it goes back to the points that were made along with my ted washington pick. there isn't a lot of glamour playing on the inside of a d-line. comparing a rush end and a tackle isn't apples to apples.

I don't want to down play the "Manster" because he was on my list! Both are outstanding picks. No matter where they end up on the 100 All Time Players list, they are both very high on the d-line list.

you can tell it's been too long since we logged a pick. all this kumbaya crap is going to have to end fast.

hannah and caroline and me
(the last one before we add another name to the list)


this blog's kind of gone off the rails the last few months, hasn't it?

for all that's been said and done about this being a love letter of sorts to my girls that will one day be handed the keys to this kingdom, there haven't been many them related updates in a while. the "bill and tom" series has taken front and center and, while fun, sports and nothing but sports has never really been what this place is all about.

sure, sports makes up, always has and always will, a large portion of HACATLKAM, because sports makes up a large portion of me. but, where have the church updates been? where have the updates on the family or something silly that has happened to one of the girls been? where are more posts about the boondocks or lost or something stupid i read on facebook that one time?

well, all of that has been kind of muddled.

i feel like, for the last few months, my life has been on shuffle. i wake every morning with no idea what song is going to be playing. am i going to be in a good mood? a bad mood? how long will it take one of the girls to say something completely innocuous that will end up setting me completely off simply due to my being primed to be pissed off in the first place?

things are happening fast. we are about to be a family of fucking five, bro. FIVE!!! i still don't have any idea what that is going to mean. we don't have cars for a family of five. we don't really have a house for a family of five. hell, we still don't even have a name for the fifth yet! what are we doing? or, moreover, what have we done?

it's silly. for nine months now, we've been skipping along not really preparing for much to change. i mean, we know, know that things are changing. sarah's belly isn't getting bigger and bigger for nothing. but our routines haven't been evolving with a focus towards us adding another baby to the family. they've just been evolving with a focus to being even more busy than we ever were.

sarah's stressed at work. i've been asked to be more proactive in the community for my store, networking and creating referral based relationships with other businesses for the first time in my life. hannah's playing (and i am coaching) soccer again this fall, committing us for two nights and one saturday morning of each of the last six weeks. caroline's doing gymnastics on monday nights at the same time humc is still rocking the green and playing softball out at trussville. i'm now running over 20 miles a week. we've eaten dinner at home as a family, like, once in the last month (i am pretty sure this is not an exaggeration). even though i am backing off and away from my many roles at the church (which feels fantastic!), sarah can't really afford to yet, because ncd still has eight years to go and the children's place (in spite of some pretty nasty behind her back scuttlebutt to the contrary) can't afford to not have her leadership. we've got fajita fridays and falcons season tickets and etc. to boot. we try and find time to let the girls be girls, but, most of the week, they are caught in their parents' current, being swept away to whatever commitment we've made for them next. trying to breathe it all in at one time feels like being congested. you can get the breath down and you're still making it all work, but it feels like it takes a lot of effort and sometimes it's really fucking uncomfortable and snotty. and so, since we have all this shit figured out, we're going to go ahead and add a fifth dimension to the o'kelley universe.

in some ways, it feels like we are idiots.

in most other ways, it just feels like this is what families do.

it's no real surprise that life skips by in the blink of an eye. we do it to ourselves. our commitment calendar in the paragraph above? that's every family. even though it sounds like i am, i am not complaining. we signed up for everything above with not one gun placed to our heads. we did it. we wanted it. and now we've got it.

so, we deal with it.

hannah and caroline are about to be big sisters, together for the first time. they've already mastered the first step, which was to move into the same bedroom. not one complaint from either, they've jumped into their literal and figurative bunk beds and they are ready for their baby sister to come. i am sure they are more ready for her than us. hannah's going to be incredible. we already know that. caroline wants to hold the baby and feed her and call her sleeping beauty, which, to be fair, is as good as anything her parents have come up with so far. the girls, if nothing else, are a daily example to just roll with the punches, man "mommy". have some "chocolate milk", go "i'm gonna color this picture" and get ready for the next "iCharlie". life comes at them fast, too. they don't bitch much. they just live it. there's a lesson there.

hannah and caroline and the little kumquat and me will change again as soon as the kumquat arrives. it always has. it always will. in many ways. i'm excited for some new subject material. i'm excited to freshen this place up again soon with new ideas and new adventures that come with being a father of three.

there will still be some more "bill and tom". there will definitely be some whining about sports. but, i hope, hope, hope that there will be even more of the other, "the other" being come what may.