Cankosyan is amazed that six teams passed on Adrian Peterson in this year's NFL Draft.

None of the six teams that bypassed Peterson had a healthy, top-flight running back.  The team that came the closest to fulfilling that criterion is the Detroit Lions with Kevin Jones.  However, Jones is coming off a very serious foot injury, so his future is hardly guaranteed.  Also, he put up terrific fantasy numbers last year, but he’s not even remotely considered a great running back in league circles.  Some folks will say that I’m being harsh on the Lions, because they drafted Calvin Johnson instead of Peterson, but I’d make that swap any day of the week.

The Browns have really got to be really kicking themselves.  They drafted offensive lineman Joe Thomas instead of Peterson.  That’s not exactly equal to the colossal blunder that the Packers made when they passed on Barry Sanders in favor of Tony Mandarich, but it does strike up a similar chord.  The Browns have no one that they can call the face of the organization, so Peterson would have been the perfect pick.  This column is not long enough to list all of the high first round offensive linemen that have been busts, so I’ll leave you with two words:  D’Brickshaw Ferguson.  The party line on the Jets is that they are very pleased with his progress, blah, blah, blah.  The truth is that he’s a softie that gets frequently overrun by good defensive linemen.  Have I made myself clear yet?  You NEVER pass up a potential franchise running back talent in favor of an offensive lineman folks if you want to win in the NFL!

Speaking of my beloved Jets, the team is in complete disarray right now.  Chad Pennington looks like crap, and the defense is even worse.  I’d love to tell you where exactly the Jets went wrong on their salary cap allocations, but it would be easier to get a straight answer from my editor.  League salary information is pieced together on private sites like USA Today and local papers.  It’s very hard to track, because the league and the Players Association don’t publish the information themselves.  Suffice to say that the Jets are idiots, because they’ve let the offensive line and the defense go to pot.  The whole situation reminds me of the Giants a few years back when I tried to figure out how the Giants were over the cap, because their whole team sucked.  The Jets leave me with the same feeling, because I can’t think of one guy that I’d break the bank for.

I’d love to tell you that the Jets are going to get much better soon, but it’s not going to happen.  Eric Mangini coaches not to lose rather than to win.  I will never fathom why he didn’t run the ball two straight times into the gut of a soft Philly defense last week when he had third and one deep in their territory late in the fourth quarter with his team down 16-9.  Mangini tried a very unmanly quarterback sneak on third and one, and he had Pennington throw to Coles in the endzone on fourth down.  Neither play was very macho.  That’s what bugs me about Mangini.  He always has Pennington bark out signals for about twenty seconds in an attempt to draw the defense offsides on fourth and short yardage instead of just being a man and going for it.  Once in a while is tolerable, but this guy needs to grow a backbone.  Football is about imposing your will on the opposition.  You can’t always trick your way to victory.

Years ago, my editor (then college drinking buddy) John Georgopoulos gave me the only sound advice he’s ever given me. In a simple computerized football game produced by the now-defunct XOR Corporation,  he noticed that I always threw the ball on third and short. When he asked me why I did that, I claimed that the defense was expecting the run—so I threw the ball.  John told me to start playing like a man and to execute the high percentage play (run) regardless of what I thought the defense was doing in short yardage situations late in the game.  To make a long story short, I never threw the ball again on third and short—and was a multiple-time champion of that league. So my advice to Mangini is: MAN UP!