2013 Offseason Update, Week 11

Pat Summerall (left) suffered a cardiac arrest and died last Tuesday. Summerall and
John Madden (right) called football games together for 22 years; 1979-1994 for CBS
and 1994-2002 for FOX. Photo credit to Yahoo! Sports.

I’m going to jump right into this week’s news.

Pat Summerall

John Madden’s former partner passed away last Tuesday at the age of 82. He suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. John Madden’s words were much more eloquent than mine would be, so here is what he said last week:

“Pat was my broadcasting partner for a long time, but more than that, he was my friend for all of these years. We never had one argument, and that was because of Pat. He was a great broadcaster and a great man. He always had a joke. Pat never complained and we never had an unhappy moment. He was something very special. Pat Summerall is the voice of football and always will be.”

NFL Schedule Release

The 2013 regular season schedule was released on Thursday night. I broke my usual mid-week silence on Friday to post my thoughts on the schedule. Check out that blog post here.

Rex Ryan Talks Baseball

Well, not exactly. What really happened was that he blasted the Orioles for not doing enough to allow the Ravens to play the NFL Kickoff Game at home, as every Super Bowl champion has done since 2004. The Orioles offered to play their game earlier in the day, but that was not enough because the two Baltimore sports teams share a parking lot and there was no way to ensure that it would be empty hours before the Ravens game.

Crab cakes and football; that’s the essence of the state of Maryland. Most people want the Ravens to be able to host the NFL Kickoff game. But I think the majority of people are over it now and know that opening the season on the road in Denver might actually be advantageous to them as the season wears on.

In any case, this was not Rex Ryan’s battle in the first place, even if he did coach with the team from 1999-2008.

Darrelle Revis Traded

This one just came through yesterday. Revis was traded to the Buccaneers for a couple of draft picks, including Tampa Bay’s #13 overall pick.

I feel bad for what Jets fans have to go through. As a Redskins fan myself, I appreciate the task of cheering for a team whose executives make boneheaded decisions. Thankfully, those days appear to be behind us in the D.C. area. Jets fans may have a while to wait for brighter days. New York would have received the other pick just by letting Revis go and sign with another team. So they essentially traded Revis for a first round pick. In other drafts, maybe that would be fair. But this draft isn’t very top heavy and you don’t use a first round pick for depth.

If I’m missing anything important, or if you just want to hear my thoughts on any other offseason news from the past week, feel free to contact me via my Twitter account, @cpuffnfl.