NFL DRAFT

Countdown to the NFL Draft

As the NFL draft approaches and the anticipation balloons, we are all still asking many questions with very few answers. What will Carolina do with the #1 pick? Where will Cam Newton land? Who will be this year’s Aaron Rodgers or Brady Quinn? I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I’m going to try and come up with my best hypothesis for the direction of this year’s draft, as well as try and answer the questions that are lingering in the minds of all die-hard NFL fans.

Let’s take it from the top and get in the heads of the Panthers owners, coaches, and GM. We have all heard the Panthers may take any one of the following players: Cam Newton, Blaine Gabbert, A.J. Green, Patrick Peterson, or Marcell Darius. As a Carolina fan, I’m torn between the options. Is it better to bring excitement and sell tickets ala Cam Newton? Should we get the second round QB selection, Jimmy Clausen, some help with A.J. Green? Should we take the most NFL ready QB in the draft and take Blaine Gabbert? Or should we go defense and let Ron Rivera draft a piece that will have an instant impact on that side of the ball? It’s not an easy question, and on top of that you have all the debate on player values. Do you go for the consensus #1 player, Patrick Peterson? Or do you draft the player with the most upside, Cam Newton? These are all legitimate questions and it’s hard to decipher what is ultimately more important, but I’m going to take a shot. I’m going to go ahead and rule out Blaine Gabbert, mainly because I don’t think he’s that much more talented than Jimmy Clausen and at the very least Jimmy has a year of experience under his belt and has worked with fellow rookies Brandon LaFell and David Gettis. The next player I’m going to eliminate is A.J. Green. I understand he’s supremely talented, but 1. Carolina drafted two WR’s who showed promise last year. 2. They still have Steve Smith. 3. If you are going to take a player on the outside, then it has to be Peterson because he’s widely considered the BEST player in this draft. Speaking of Peterson, he is the next person on the chopping block and here is my reasoning. Ron Rivera is ultimately (if not this year) going to switch to a 3-4 defense and Carolina simply doesn’t have the personnel for that brand of defense. Furthermore, the center piece of a 3-4 defense has always been the Nose Tackle. Darius, with all the skills in the world and a 320 lb frame, would be perfect. Maybe I’m old school, but I’ve always thought it’s more important to stop the run first, and Darius will be able to eat up enough space to allow Jon Beason and company to run free. This should immediately help the panthers stop the run, and not to mention the fact that Chris Gamble and Richard Marshall are infinitely better at CB than Nick Hayden and Derek Landri are at DT; DT is a much bigger need. Now we are down to two, Cam Newton and Marcell Darius. I’m so torn between these picks that I can’t put it into words, but I’m leaning towards Newton for a few reasons. The first reason is because I simply don’t think Jimmy Clausen can get the job done. I watched every Panther game last year and Clausen just flat out missed some throws that an NFL QB must make. Furthermore, Newton, if nothing else, will sell tickets and get people in Carolina excited about their team again. We have to remember this is a business, and at least short term it will put money in the owner’s pockets. Also, the QB position has a much greater impact on the game than any other position on the field and if you can draft a QB with this type of talent then you almost have to. Plus, Jimmy Clausen and Cam Newton can push each other for the starting job, which ultimately should lead to them both working harder and playing better. Darius, on the other hand is perfect for our scheme and for a 3-4 defense. He also has all the tools and is a safer pick. Not to mention, we’ve all seen what a great DT can do for a team (N. Suh). But, ultimately, you have to go with the QB in this spot. I’m sure the lions are thrilled with Suh, but how happy are the Rams that they chose Bradford? Exactly. Therefore, the choice must be Cam Newton.

So now that we have the first pick out of the way, we should take a look at the remaining top 10 choices. At #2 I think the clear choice for the Broncos is Von Miller. I’ve heard all these comparisons to Clay Matthews, and that’s more than good enough for me. Denver needs a play maker on that side of the ball and Miller, who is the best pass rusher in this year’s class, will provide exactly that. Moving on to Buffalo, the Bills must take Marcell Darius. I know everyone thinks they need a QB, but QB is not the problem. Ryan Fitzpatrick is a more than serviceable player in the NFL and the passing game was just fine with him at the helm last season. Where do the Bills struggle the most? Versus the run. The Bills ranked dead last in the NFL against the run, giving up a league high 2714 yards and a whopping 4.8 yards per carry. Darius can come in and have an immediate impact on the defensive side of the ball and can help them improve dramatically against the run. At number 4 the Bengals have a few options, but I think the clear choice is Blaine Gabbert. Management should face facts and realize Carson Palmer will not be back in a Bengals uniform ever again. I don’t know if they don’t believe him or if they are in denial, but it seems to me the man means business. Gabbert could be the answer at QB and will allow the team to begin the rebuilding process and possibly move Palmer for more draft choices. At five the Cardinals have an easy choice with CB Patrick Peterson. CB is a need and he is also the best player remaining on the board; seems like a simple decision. Moving on, the Browns have a few needs: WR, DE, and DT among them. For me, the choice has to be A.J. Green. He is the best player on the board and he will also give Colt McCoy a viable option at WR, not to mention he will finally give the Browns the playmaker they have been longing for. At seven, the 49ers aren’t going to get either Gabbert or Peterson, so they should go with the next best option in CB Prince Amukamara. He is a talented kid with good speed and good ball skills. He has also been playing CB for only a few years so he will only get better. At the number eight pick we have the Titans, and what better fit for them than Nick Fairley. He has great feet, quickness, and hands. His game changing skills can immediately help the Titans in the middle. Also, if anyone knows how to deal with a DT with character issues it’s the Tennessee Titans (see Albert Haynesworth). Next, the Cowboys should select Tryon Smith from USC. Quite simply put, he is the best OT in the draft and OT is one of the Cowboys biggest needs. Finally, rounding out the top 10 are the Washington Redskins. Most people believe they should choose Julio Jones, and while I think this choice would be fine, I still believe Robert Quinn is a better choice. Imagine the possibilities when you put him on the other side of Brian Orakpo. He could potentially give Washington the best pass rush in the NFL, and that could do wonders for this struggling franchise. I’ll take a great pass rusher over a great WR any day.

Regardless of the direction the draft takes, and regardless of who is chosen where, one thing is for certain…this will be a draft for the ages. So much uncertainty and speculation creates for great drama. I, for one, cannot wait for tomorrow night and will not miss one second of this historic draft, not only because my favorite team has the first selection, but because it will make for great entertainment. Hope you all get the player you covet and happy drafting.

Zack

Job Caldwell

Now that poker is out for me I am pursuing other options. I've had a few interviews over the last week and they have all gone pretty well. They've also helped me realize what I'm looking for in a career. I've always struggled with the idea of working for "the man" because everyone who I know seems to dislike their job. And by dislike I mean they either hate their boss, their coworkers, the nature of their work, or their pay. I have always wanted to freedom to make my own decision and make money based on how hard I work, not by how long I've been at a particular job. Although, I suppose a stable, reliable job that will kick start my life financially doesn't sound all that bad. I still one day would like to own my own business and be independent of all the politics and frustrations that the job environment creates. My ultimate goal is to become a financial analyst, even though my degree is in accounting. What most people don't realize is that the two have a great deal in common and I think my skill set is much more geared towards the analytical nature of finance. My friend Josh is also helping me out and trying to get me a job at RBC bank. I think this could be a great opportunity because it pays fairly well and it also will help me get my foot in the door and allow me to advance up the ranks. I'm very thankful for him, and my other friends, who are always doing what they can to help me out and they have my best interests in mind. Having said all that, I'm excited about my horizons and the prospect of being employed again. Hope things work out like I'm intending, and here's to new beginnings.

God bless

The day they took it all away

Disclaimer: I never claimed to be anything close to Hunter S. Thompson in the first place, but this blog will be especially jumbled. Hope you enjoy anyway.

If you follow this blog you probably already know what has happened. If you don’t just read the two posts below mine.

I guess I’ll start by how this affects me. Barring any significant changes I will be moving to a new country very soon. When I tell people this they think I am crazy, which is understandable I guess, but everyone that plays online poker for a living completely gets it. Pokerstars has been blocked to all US residents and my account has been frozen. Pokerstars has expressed that account balances are safe, but the best/quickest way to get my account unfrozen is to move to another country and get a non-American address at a non-American bank. This will at least give me a chance to unlock the money in my account. This is very important because a huge % of my net worth is locked up in that account. Also considering I was going for Supernova elite I must at least finish out that goal to realize the equity I have earned this year. I don’t want to get into explaining why this is, but if you don’t understand just ask me some time. I basically have no idea how hard moving will be so if you have any details about immigrating to a country please let me know (nhatley@gmail.com).

Now for the sad part: Like most Americans I have been disappointed with the government and the general nature of our country in the past few years. The economy has been at an all time low since the great depression and this has had a direct effect on me. This put a bad taste a mouth. I started working hard at poker and have experienced a great deal of success this year. I was on pace to make more than I could have expected by receiving the degree I was on track, and I would be doing something I actually enjoyed. It gave me a sense of accomplishment to be doing well in a society in which most were not. These recent activities just make me feel like the government has failed me again. Maybe I’m just being overly sensitive but this is how I feel. When I walk around in public places I look at people wondering why they are not freaking out, but then I realize no one really knows anything about what is going on. Makes me realize how tiny of a blip on the radar every person really is.

Poker has taught me to have a very analytical mind so I have been spending a ton of time in the last few days just thinking about the motives of the DOJ. Usually behind any course of government action, in poker at least, there is some sort of company behind it. This indictment had nothing to do with any kind of company. This was not a move of anyone for financial gain. This was simply the DOJ proving that no one is above them and no one is outside the “law”.

On Friday the FBI shut down the domains of Pokerstars.com, FullTilt.com, and AbsolutePoker.com. No type of trial, no jury, nothing other than immediate shut down. This and the indictments forced all of the sites to cut off access to Americans and sent the millions of people who play poker for money in America into a frenzy. Wasn’t our country founded on the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”? Where in that statement lies, “ We’ll seize your domain and freeze accounts, but when you prove your innocence you can have them back.” The most upsetting part about this is that most legal minds estimate the chances of the DOJ winning this case to be low, but it could take years to finish the trial and get these pokersites back to the place they were Thursday. After reading more into how the FBI could even do this I learned that congress passed an act in 2006 that permits the FBI to seize domains, mainly the ones with unlicensed media, child pornography and other “illegal” websites. Online poker has NEVER been illegal. Anyone that tells you that is wrong. The DOJ is arguing that is illegal under The Wire Act. This has NEVER been proven in a US court. Actually it has been proven otherwise. How is this even possible? How can the FBI seize a domain and the DOJ indict under a pretense that US courts have already proven to be false? This I just cannot get past.

I’ll probably blog again in the next few days out of sheer boredom. Talk to you guys soon.

uhh guys?

Make sure to read Zack's rant below.

"uhh guys?" said Rash as he pulled up PokerStars.com on the afternoon of Friday, April 15th. "What is going on with their site?" (checkout the site if you haven't seen the FBI seizure graphic). It was only 2:20 PM so I wasn't quite awake yet but I wiped the sleep out of my eyes to see one of the most troubling things I had ever seen. As Rash tried to pull up a table on stars he got a notice saying that due to government regulation our area was not allowed to play in real money games. We all immediately knew this was trouble for the near future.

Now more than 24 hours has passed since the original indictment and charges were released from the Southern District of New York. The DOJ (Department of Justice) has called for the indictment of owners/higher ups of Full Tilt, Poker Stars, the pathetic Absolute/UB, and others who coordinated the 'illegal' payment processors. All of this is a product of the 2006 UIGEA bill and the things the poker sites have done to circumvent these banking regulations against gambling.

Since the specific details and further coverage about the actual law suit are available all over the internet, I want to focus this blog on its impact to our group specifically. Since we have all played a great deal of online poker on and off for the last several years, the fact that we can no longer play comes with a huge cost. The best way to explain what has happened to us to the common person is to use college as an example. Say you complete college and go to medical school for 3 or 4 years. Upon your completion, you find out that your government no longer allows people to practice medicine in this country. Shocking right? We've all studied and played the game for several years up to this point where we were truly profitable and making enough money to seriously make us consider online poker as a profession. Now that we've reached this plateau, its seemingly all for nothing.

Although we don't know how long this law suit will last and what will come of PokerStars and Full Tilt, most reputable sources believe it could be months before we could get our money back, let alone play. Chances are that online poker will not be allowed in the United States again until it can be fully regulated by legislation passed in congress. Who knows how long that could take.

The most frustrating aspect of this poker catastrophe to me is that the rest of the world licenses and regulates online poker without any problem. It would be so simple for the United States to pass similar legislation, make tons of money through taxation, and create a safer environment for players all over the country. Thus far, they have refused to do so.

So whats next? Luckily for us, we're "students" (I use that term lightly but it's still true), we're single (obviously), and we're not stuck anywhere. The most logical choice is simply to move for the duration of the forced online poker blackout. Since the information is all so new, we don't know the extent of how this will affect us yet but if we find out it's going to be at least six months there will be a new trend on twitter from @nhatley and @msauce_, #packurbags.

I'll write again next week once we know more and have a better idea of what's to come. For now I'll leave you with my foreshadowing fortune from a PF Changs fortune cookie...



Coincidence?

Game, Set, Match

As you all know, Friday April 15th at approximately 1pm poker in the United States was banned indefinitely. Pokerstars, Fulltilt, UB, and many other sites have been indicted on charges that range from money laundering to fraud. It's extremely frustrating and disheartening to have your livelihood taken from you in the blink of an eye. It's even more frustrating to have ignorant people tell you many times over that this is what people more or less "deserve" for relying on poker for a living. I can't explain the anger I feel every time I have to hear this for many reasons. 1. I'd bet my life that more people in the last 3 years have lost their day jobs than poker players have lost their jobs. 2. The economy is in shambles and yet I continuously hear "Just go get a job." If it were so easy to "Just get a job" then how come the unemployment rate is 9.2%? 3. At least when those 9.2% got laid off they were eligible for unemployement. I feel really bad for those poker players who have been playing for years and paying their taxes and giving the government "their piece" even though they weren't obligated to. Now, those same people are getting their only source of income snatched away from them with no prior notice or warning. Furthermore, the government has frozen and seized online poker bank accounts and therefore the sites cannot pay people out. It's basically the equivalent of a normal person being laid off on a random friday when they show up for work and also having their bank account frozen for an undetermined amount of time (probably anywhere from 2 months to 3 years) simultaneously. These people can't get unemployeement, and they also have to go out in the worst economy in 80 years and find a job. Awesome! It's so sad on so many levels. The US Government isn't concerned with the well-being of their citizens, or the morality of poker. They are simply worried about getting their piece of the poker pie. I guess they won't be truly happy until they tax every dollar down to nothing. This whole process has opened my eyes up to just how many things the government is probably doing every single day to millions of people that are unjust, unconstitutional, and ignorant. I wish, at the very least, people who had knowledge of the subject were the ones shutting poker sites down. I wonder how many hands of poker U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Preet Bharara has played in his life. I'd bet not many. He said poker sites were "tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others" to get illegal gambling money to people. It's hilarious to me that he thinks these people were "tricked." Nobody can be naive enough to believe that these people did anything they did except for the fact that they were being paid quite handsomely. My question is, why are the banks not being prosecuted? Why are the CEO and CFOs of these corporations not being charged with crimes? Why? Because the government is getting their tax dollars, and as soon as they get their hands on poker money they will leave us alone too. Oh well, I suppose I'll just got find a low paying, unfullfilling job that I'm probably over qualified for until I can go back to doing something I love. Funny to me that people can't do what they love because others are too greedy and ignorant. And please, please don't try and make the argument that the Government is "helping" people or that this is a morality issue. Let us not forget about prohibition. If alcohol, which kills countless people and ruins countless lives per year, is legal in the US then poker definitely should be also. And don't get me wrong, it will be legal again....as soon as the Government regulates it in a way that benefits them and nobody else. The only solace I take in this is knowing that everything happens for a reason and that things always tend for work out for the best so I'm just putting my faith in God and letting him guide me through this. Good luck to the rest of you and I hope this maddness can be figure out in a timely fashion. God Bless

Welcome to the Good Life

Today I had a revelation of sorts. I was just hanging out and I read an email my Dad sent me yesterday and it really touched me and put things into perspective. The jist of the email was telling me how much he loves my brother, my sister, and myself and about things we did when we were younger that showed him what type of character we had. It was honestly one of the coolest, my sincere, and meaningful things I've ever received in my life and it came at a great time. Over the last month or so poker has been very so/so. I've made a few peanuts here and there, but for the most part I've run very very poorly and it's been getting to me. I suppose every man reaches his breaking point and although I fully admit mine comes sooner than most, it's still very frustrating. But anyways, my point is that I realized I've been fully focusing all my energy and attention into the negative things associated with poker the last month and have forgotten to concentrate on all the positive things in my life like my relationship with my family, my fiance', and God. It's kind of scary for me to thing of how good I have it and I think I often take for granted how amazing my life really is. I have everything in the world to be grateful for and have been blessed beyond measure and still I find ways to complain. When I put it that way it makes me feel pretty lousy. I vow, though, that I will try and be more positive and above all focus on the things that are really important. Poker is weird because it's so easy for it to consume you. Don't get me wrong, there are alot of great things poker brings to the table, but I often choose to focus on the bad things and I believe there in lies the problem. I'm going to continue to play, but I'm going to treat it more like a job and try and seperate it completely from the rest of my life. One thing I've been doing that has helped a bit when I play is to look at everything as an investment and try to ignore the outcome. I ask myself if I made a positive investment (aka the correct decision) and if I did then I just try and leave it at that. Win/Lose/Draw and it shouldn't matter because it's all out of my hands at that point. I guess one thing that bothers me alot is a feeling of helplessness and that's the essence of poker. I know one thing for certain, if I don't get my head right and control my emotions then I won't last long doing this.

One another note, I finally gave in and made a twitter account. You can follow me @ZackCaldwell. I think twitter is cool but I feel like a bit of a creep following all of these random people who I have never met. Either way, I try and tweet often about what's going on in any given day or in my life in general. But anyways, gotta run...going to watch Poker After Dark. They have a great line up this week and they are playing my favorite game (PLO). WOOOOHOOO!

Zack