Five twisted predictions for 2003

By Eric Poole Sports Central Columnist

Here in southwestern Pennsylvania, high school football season started last week, so it seemed like a good time to talk about the best scholastic quarterbacks I've seen in the last 10 or so years.

Two of them -- Penn-Trafford's Tony Zimmerman, who got a scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh and transferred to Duquesne, and South Fayette's Niel Loebig, who is entering his senior year at Duquesne, wouldn't be familiar to a national fan base.

The third, Tony Morelli of Penn Hills High School, just committed to Pittsburgh and is regarded as one of the top-five high school QBs in the U.S.

And then there's that Bulger guy.

While most of you were poleaxed by Marc Bulger's 2002 performance, which almost saved the St. Louis Rams' season, I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "Told ya."

I once saw Bulger throw for almost 300 yards in a high school game.

By the way, the best high school football player I've ever seen was LaVar Arrington. But I never saw Brian Davis play high school ball. Most people who saw Davis and Tony Dorsett play -- and there are a lot of them -- say Davis was better.

As it happened, college classwork tripped up Davis like few tacklers could. Certain people aren't cut out for college and Davis was one of them.

But I digress. Back to Bulger, the subject of the first of my top-five predictions for the 2003 NFL season -- and beyond, as Buzz Lightyear would say:

5. Bulger's Impending Superstardom

Marc Bulger will be an NFL superstar someday, maybe as soon as this season. I think a healthy Kurt Warner will regain his 2000 form this year (call that prediction 1-A). But Bulger won't be anybody's understudy for long. During his spectacular emergency session last season, the WVU product earned an opportunity to start on a permanent basis. Somewhere.

However, barring injury, that chance won't come at Warner's expense. With a year to rehab and heal, he should be healthy.

And if he is, all of the factors that made the former supermarket bag boy into the best story in the NFL will still be in place -- his mind, honed by having played in the speed-freaky Arena Football League, is still among the quickest in football and if his hand is healed, Warner showed two years ago that he makes all the throws better than any QB in the league.

I know there are some questions about Marshall Faulk, but running backs are basically interchangeable parts in any offense (see Prediction No. 2).

So, to some extent is Warner (see above).

The Greatest Show on Turf is slated for a comeback this year, regardless of who is playing quarterback.

4. Travel By Air to Win

A running back will be the most overrated player in the league. To me, this one is a no-brainer. Considering the salary cap conundrum -- every penny overspent at one position is a penny weaker the rest of the team is -- no running back is worth more than, say $1 million a year.

You could find a dozen guys in the Arena Football League who could get you 1,200 yards in the NFL behind a good offensive line while making the league minimum, freeing up all kinds of money to spend on other positions.

And there is little, if any connection between having a stud running back and winning.

Quick, what do these guys have in common: Ricky Williams, LaDainian Tomlinson, Priest Holmes, Clinton Portis, and Travis Henry. If you said they were the NFL's top-five rushers last season, take yourself a star out of petty cash.

Now, for part-two: how many playoff games, combined, did those five players appear in last year?

If you said zero, you're right.

Conversely, four of the five quarterbacks -- Koy Detmer, Chad Pennington, Marc Bulger, Rich Gannon, and Brad Johnson -- with the best passer ratings and more than 200 pass attempts last season, got their teams into the playoffs. And the exception (Bulger) almost turned the trick after the team had gone into the dumper while he was on the bench.

Two of those quarterbacks played in the Super Bowl last year.

The lesson is clear. If you want to get to the championship, travel by air.

3. Maddox's Continued Success

Tommy Maddox will continue the stirring comeback he began last season. A lot of Maddox's detractors say last year was a fluke and 2003 will begin his express trip back to obscurity.

However, as with Warner, Maddox still has the instincts honed in Arena ball. He also has the All-American pedigree that Warner didn't and a maturity he didn't have when he bolted college early.

He's also enormously popular with his Steelers teammates, which was something he didn't have going for him when he was with the Broncos as the designated pawn in the power struggle between Dan Reeves and John Elway.

The other factors working in Maddox's favor are Plaxico Burress, Hines Ward, and Antwan Randle El. A receiving corps like that can cover a multitude of bad passes. Just ask Terry Bradshaw, one of Maddox's predecessors as Steelers quarterback. Bradshaw got to work with two Hall-of-Famers in Lynn Swann and John Stallworth and they made him look good on many an occasion.

2. Rookie of the Year, Kyle Boller

This isn't so much a prediction as an opportunity for me to gloat. In a Sports Central column earlier this summer, I said he would be the best of the 2003 quarterback picks. Now, he will probably be named the Ravens' QB to start the season and I'm looking almost as smart as Certified Offensive Genius Brian Billick.

1. The Super Bowl Champion Bills

I must confess, I'm as surprised at this as you are. To be honest, I'm more inclined to expect a Tampa Bay repeat or maybe a Donovan McNabb-led Eagles flight to the title. Maybe even a New York Giants team with something to prove after their playoff fiasco by the bay last year, or a huge performance by a healthy Steve McNair and the Tennessee Titans.

But this is the NFL, and in recent years, the Super Bowl champion has been an unexpected team -- an unusual suspect, if you will.

Most likely, if there is a weakness in my prediction of the Bills to win the Big Game, it came in the methodology I used in making the pick.

I took all of the available information on every NFL team and carefully analyzed it. Then, I threw it all away and used a binary random outcome generator. Or, to put it in English, I flipped a coin.

After eliminating the teams that, in my view, have no chance -- Cincinnati, San Diego, Arizona, Houston, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Minnesota, and Washington. I used a series of coin tosses to determine my pick for this year's Super Bowl winner, which turned out to be Buffalo.

The coin, by the way, was a Canadian quarter.

A Canadian dollar coin, colloquially known as a "loony" would probably have been more fitting.

After all, what could possibly be more loony than trying to pick a Super Bowl champion in the age of parity?

But that's what puts the NFL at the top of the professional sports heap.

And I, for one, am ready for some football.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.