Wednesday, May 25, 2005

(Insert Dumb Rice Pun Here Because He's Cooked)

Finally! The Broncos have today filled a gaping hole by reaching an agreement with wide receiver Jerry Rice, recently of Seattle Seahawks fame, to maybe play for us next year. From ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli:

"Rice on Wednesday agreed to a one-year contract with the Denver Broncos, where he is expected to vie for a spot as the team's No. 4 wideout."

No. 4 wideout? Here I was worried about mounting a pass rush, or running the football, but our detail-orineted organization surely left no stone unturned in finding a competent fourth receiver. Wait a second, I'm not even sure we have a competent No. 2 receiver.

Again from ESPN: "Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said last week that, when he made his sales pitch to Rice by phone, he made no guarantees about a roster spot."

Ouch. I'd make age jokes here and talk about how it might be time for Rice to retire, but that time has long, long since past.

Rice is occasionally referred to as the best football player ever, which I think is beyond ludicrous, but he is clearly history's preeminent receiver.

One nice thing about this clearly-meaningless turn of events, though, is that it gives the Broncos the chance to claim they once had arguably the NFL's all-time greatest player at a fourth position, joining John Elway at quarterback, Shannon Sharpe at tight end, and Gerald Wilhite at fullback.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

something about the rocky mountain air... and wanting to squeeze the last few productive seasons out of a horse that should've been taken to the glue factory years before.

we should've been eating jerry rice jello years ago.

take a cue from elway, go out on top man.

how many more proverbial boners can mikey s. pull before we're convinced his statergry isn't going to get the job done?

Anonymous said...

*strategery...

Mike said...

First of all, I don't think you can really misspell a made-up word.

And second, it's obviously too late for Rice to go out on top. I guess I don't really care if he wants to continue his career or even if he wants to do it here (nor do I think his decision not to quit is worthy of high praise), I just think there are better ways the team can spend its time-I mean, who the fourth receiver is is pretty irrelevant.

One reason we brought him along was for veteran leadership...yet Rice has never been that kind of player...aside from which, doesn't Rod Smith do enough of the ra-ra-ra? But it's not like it was a bad move, because he'll almost never see the field.

Anonymous said...

true... it's a waste of time

shanahan should have people working overtime on his retirement speech.