An ESPN reporter who covers the Saints called up Brent Venables and was probably glad he did after Venables gave him some good stuff on Stephone Anthony.
It's certainly no surprise that Venables holds Anthony in high regard, but in the article you learn just how high.
Everywhere Brent Venables has been, he has coached a future New Orleans Saints middle linebacker. Mark Simoneau at Kansas State. Curtis Lofton at Oklahoma. And now Clemson’s Stephone Anthony, whom the Saints drafted with the 31st pick in Round 1.
“Those three guys, there’s a lot of similarities,” said Venables, who has spent the last three years as defensive coordinator at Clemson, which led the nation in total defense last season (260.8 yards per game). “Those are three damn good ones.”
Venables said those similarities include maturity, decision-making, love and passion for the game, toughness and leadership -- a word the coach used repeatedly while describing Anthony.
Acording to Venables, Lofton was the most instinctive (“crazy, crazy, crazy good” instincts), a tackling machine, a model of consistency. Simoneau was a great worker, super tough and physical, and could run like hell. Anthony, meanwhile, shares a lot of those qualities while also being faster and probably the most naturally gifted of the bunch.
“Stephone, he’s probably the total package when you put it all together,” Venables said.
In this article, Anthony talks about playing for energetic linebackers coach Joe Vitt.
“Coach Vitt, he’s wide open,” said a chuckling Anthony, whom the Saints selected with their second first-round pick, No. 31 overall, in this year’s draft. “(Vitt) does a great job. He’s going to do whatever he has to do to help us, he tries to get us in the right position. He’s all about his players and he’s an awesome coach.”
But many of the reflections of Clemson will end there for Anthony.
Now, he’s a professional. He has a new, four-year contract (he signed Tuesday) and Friday, he’ll take to the practice field with his fellow Saints rookies to begin their three-day rookie minicamp.
“I think you get a high-energy guy,” Anthony said of himself, “a guy with a lot of want-to that loves to play the game and he’s willing to do whatever is going to help the team.”
And this:
And Anthony understands that it won’t be an easy process. He was top-of-the-food-chain good at Clemson, a leader who garnered the respect of his teammates through his work and production.
“I think it comes natural to me,” he said. “I think a lot of guys, especially back at Clemson, they respect the way somebody works, somebody that’s not afraid to get out there and say, ‘I’m going to be first,’ or that’s willing to challenge other people and work hard.”
This guy dispels the doubts that came after the Saints made their surprise pick in the first round.
“There are a handful of guys that are going to get drafted early (on the second day of the draft) with how we had them stacked,” Payton said. “I think that’s going to happen. We’ll see a few more of those inside linebackers taken within the first 10 or 15 picks (in the second round).”
What Payton should have done instead is turned on the Clemson-Florida State game from last season, dropped the microphone and stepped down from the lectern as the video played. Once the film concluded, many of the doubters and critics would have had a different take on things.
This article says Anthony could serve as the communicator of defense.
“I think this guy is a special guy,” Ryan said. “He’s one we identified as being the best inside ’backer in the draft. We’re excited about him. He’s really smart. He loves football. Everything we’ve put at him, he’s run like he’s run it a million times.”
Anthony already feels comfortable in the role. He sees similarities between this defense and the one he mastered at Clemson. Some of the language and concepts are the same. That has made the transition easier.
He said the learning curve hasn’t been too steep, and he embraces the parts that have been difficult. But mostly it feels natural. He said football is football. And part of football, at least for a middle linebacker, is communicating in the huddle.
“It’s part of the game. It’s my job now,” he said. “You just have to take it head-on and do the best you can.”
A few more Monday links:
-- Jim Boeheim gets in some digs at Jimbo Fisher, John Calipari and Steve Spurrier.
Boeheim was the lone basketball coach honored Friday night, with Bucs coach Lovie Smith and FSU coach Jimbo Fisher sharing the spotlight. "To be here tonight with Jimbo and Lovie, let me tell you, they're two of the nicest football coaches I've ever met. Now the only other coach I've met was Steve Spurrier." ("I only did that because Steve does that to me," he added.)
He wasn't done with the roasting. With FSU's Jameis Winston, top draft pick of the Bucs, in attendance, he set up Fisher nicely, saying "If I had a son, and he could play football, he could play at Florida State." Before the applause had quieted: "Jameis only lost what, one game? and now he's going to get coaching!"
-- The gobs of money from the new TV contracts are going to coaches, facilities ... and conference commissioners, apparently.
Jim Delany gets a nice little cost-of-living raise of 800 grand.
Big Ten Conference commissioner Jim Delany's base compensation increased by $800,000 to nearly $2.1 million during the 2013 calendar year, according to the conference's new federal tax return.
Delany was credited with nearly $3.4 million in total compensation for the year on the new return, including a $1 million bonus. However, the return also stated that more than $830,000 of the total had been reported as deferred compensation on prior years' returns.
Big Ten deputy commissioner Brad Traviolia described the $1 million bonus as the payout of deferred pay and a retention bonus. But he declined to provide details about the period of time over which the previously reported amounts had accrued or the rates at which they accrued.
As a private, non-profit organization, the conference is not required to make public its employment contracts.
-- Andrew Carter of the Raleigh paper writes about the increasing urge of college basketball players to leave early for the NBA Draft.
Montross came along just before it but insisted he’d follow the same path today. A large number of other players are following their own, hoping it pays off. Tokoto, the UNC wing forward, is among them.
He left school believing he’d developed as much as he could at UNC. The chance of playing on a team that could potentially compete for a national title didn’t outweigh his perceived benefits of leaving.
“I had to do something about my jump shot,” Tokoto told the Charlotte Observer recently at the NBA Draft Combine. “I didn’t want to worry about school, just worry about basketball.”
It’s a gamble, but one Tokoto is comfortable taking. He could find his way onto an NBA roster, which would provide financial security, or he could make his way overseas, where players in some European leagues start with six-figure contracts.
Tokoto could become a cautionary tale, too. A number of players who left early likely will. During the past five NBA drafts, 79 underclassmen went undrafted. Some wound up in the NBA, anyway, but the great majority were forced down another path.
-- Lars Anderson of Bleacher Report says there's a lot more to the Lawrence Phillips story than what's been perceived.
In the evenings, he was free to roam in what is called the "Day Room Floor," an area inside Kern where inmates can sit at tables and converse. But inmate No. G31982 almost always kept to himself—which made him an ideal prisoner to his jailers.
"He was not someone who caused problems, and he was really quiet, just doing his own thing," said Denning. "We have got the worst of the worst in here, the most violent of the most violent, and that was not Lawrence Phillips from what I saw. Not at all."
According to three sources, Phillips—the former Cornhuskers running back who was the No. 6 overall selection in the 1996 NFL draft by the St. Louis Rams—asked prison officials several times to be put in solitary confinement for his own protection.
In at least two instances, Phillips' wishes were honored, according to a source. But then in early April, for reasons that remain unclear, Phillips, 39, was moved from isolation into a cell with 37-year-old DamionSoward, who was the cousin of former USC Trojan and NFL wide receiver R. Jay Soward.
Prison officials didn't respond to a request from B/R seeking clarification on why Phillips was moved out of isolation.
According to court documents, Damion Soward was a member of the Inland Empire Projects Gang in San Bernardino, California. He was serving 82 years to life for the murder of Michael Fairley, a rival gang member.
"Lawrence wanted nothing to do with the gangs in that prison," said Tony Zane, Phillips' high school football coach at West Covina(California) High, who has communicated with Phillips about twice a month for several years. "That was why he was always asking to be moved into isolation. He knew that guys could make a name for themselves, so to speak, if they came after him because of his notoriety."
-- Clay Travis wonders why pro sports leagues are in the punishment business.
Being mad at the NFL for inadequately investigating domestic assault is as illogical as being mad at McDonald's for not doing a better job of investigating a murder involving its fry guy. McDonald's does an okay job of making hamburgers, because, like the NFL, it's in the business of producing things for paying customers. No one expects any other employer to conduct criminal investigations and levy punishments for non-work behavior. If the CEO of McDonald's, following a slew of employee arrests, announced that McDonald's was now going to clean up its image by conducting investigations of employees for what they did outside of work hours and, when their behavior wasn't appropriate in the mind of the CEO, the restaurant would suspend employees without pay, we'd all think that was absurd, and potentially illegal, right?
Yet that's exactly what the NFL did. And the public applauded so vociferously that every other pro sports league followed suit. The result is that this is now what every pro sports league does -- punishes and investigates players for things that don't involve their jobs at all.
Hell, what was the first question most people asked when allegations arose that Adrian Peterson beat his children? What's the NFL going to do about this? Let me reiterate this, our first thought was -- WHAT IS THE NFL GOING TO DO ABOUT ADRIAN PETERSON'S POTENTIAL CHILD ABUSE?
How insane is this?
-- And that's a good segue into today's music offering, "Glory and Consequence" by Ben Harper:
LW