[washingtonismoney]

As a postscript--I think this sort of exercise is most helpful in revealing a kind of weird disjunction in punditry thinking. When asked to take a bird\'s eye view of the team they make it sound as if the team is Andrew Luck and twenty-one pygmies; however, when they go position-by-position more frequently than not they discover Stanford has as much talent as anyone in the conference.

(One note about the specific picks: it\'s very hard to believe a Stanford TE isn\'t among the four best tight ends in the conference.)

On kal: I mean, I do think they might well be that bad. The general impression of the team is that they\'ve been competent throughout T.edford\'s tenure, and so there\'s a certain appeal to the idea that they\'ll remain competent at the least. But last year they were mediocre, and they\'re losing their best players, and their quarterback couldn\'t excel against the mediocre competition offered by the MAC, and there\'s no one on the team that particularly impresses me. Last year\'s team had Shane Vereen, Mohamed and Cameron Jordan at least. All three of those players are gone. The only player that you can honestly project to be on that level--that is, has both potential and has a reasonable amount of production to justify some assumptions about--is Keenan Allen. And, honestly, he hasn\'t done it yet either. So there are no excellent players and a number of obvious holes. I remember these teams: Walt Harris coached some of them, clad in cardinal and white.

[washingtonismoney]

As a postscript--I think this sort of exercise is most helpful in revealing a kind of weird disjunction in punditry thinking. When asked to take a bird\'s eye view of the team they make it sound as if the team is Andrew Luck and twenty-one pygmies; however, when they go position-by-position more frequently than not they discover Stanford has as much talent as anyone in the conference.

(One note about the specific picks: it\'s very hard to believe a Stanford TE isn\'t among the four best tight ends in the conference.)

On kal: I mean, I do think they might well be that bad. The general impression of the team is that they\'ve been competent throughout T.edford\'s tenure, and so there\'s a certain appeal to the idea that they\'ll remain competent at the least. But last year they were mediocre, and they\'re losing their best players, and their quarterback couldn\'t excel against the mediocre competition offered by the MAC, and there\'s no one on the team that particularly impresses me. Last year\'s team had Shane Vereen, Mohamed and Cameron Jordan at least. All three of those players are gone. The only player that you can honestly project to be on that level--that is, has both potential and has a reasonable amount of production to justify some assumptions about--is Keenan Allen. And, honestly, he hasn\'t done it yet either. So there are no excellent players and a number of obvious holes. I remember these teams: Walt Harris coached some of them, clad in cardinal and white.