The Florida Masochist

Miami Dolphins prediction and some sports notes

The Dolphins are playing their game tonight rather than on Sunday. This is due to Hurricane Wilma. This is the team's first Friday night game in 22 years but one of a half dozen times in last 12 years that Miami has had to re-schedule a game due to weather.

My opinion is the short week will affect both teams equally. Miami is going to get thrashed also, my prediction Kansas City 34, Miami 14.

*- The game will be broadcast on television in Kansas City, Miami, West Palm Beach and Ft. Myers television markets. But as James Joyner and the Tampa Tribune notes, the game won't be on NFL Sunday ticket live tonight or broadcast in the Tampa or Orlando areas. The NFL really needs to re-vamp their television rules.

*- How pathetic is it when a team that traded away a 2nd round pick to get a player have to turn around barely a year later by giving away a 6th to get rid of the same player. That's what Miami did the other day to unload AJ Feeley. A 6th round pick and Feeley for a QB that's never played a down in the NFL and is not likely to do so this year either. Why not release Feeley out right or just keep him to the end of the year. Just another dumb personel(or pardon the pun a lemon.) decision by Miami, and it looks like nothing has changed but the names of management for this team.

*- Houston Astros vs Chicago White Sox in the World Series. Two very dissimilar ballparks in my old Strat-O-Matic days. A lefty homer park vs. a Righty homer park. Creative managing and lineup juggling would be needed.

But we're talking real-life not a board game. I pick the White Sox in 6.

*- The Golf tours are winding down. The LPGA is off this week after seeing Annika stomp the field last weekend. They play in South Korea a week from now, then Japan before coming back to the US for the final two weeks of the year. Four weeks to the ADT Championship here in West Palm Beach. I will be attending.

This weekend's PGA tour stop is in Orlando. Tiger Woods is playing but Hunter Haas is leading so far. So there will be golf for me to watch this weekend.

Bust

That describes the AJ Feeley era with the Miami Dolphins. The team traded the Quarterback today to San Diego for another 3rd string QB and an undisclosed draft pick. Its a certainty now- Miami flushed a valuable 2nd round pick down the toilet a year ago.

The Dolphins have traded A.J. Feeley to San Diego for fellow third-string quarterback Cleo Lemon and an undisclosed draft choice, a source said Tuesday.

Feeley was acquired by the Dolphins in the 2004 offseason from Philadelphia for a 2005 second-round draft choice in hopes he could become a full-time starter. Instead, Feeley never lived up to those expectations and ended up sharing playing time with Jay Fiedler for most of last season. Feeley then failed to best Gus Frerotte for a starting position during the 2005 preseason and was relegated to a third-string role behind Sage Rosenfels.

Lemon, 26, has served as San Diego's third-string quarterback for both of his two NFL seasons. A product of Arkansas State, the 6-2, 215-pound Lemon has never thrown a pass in an NFL game.

Good luck Tedy

I admire Tedy Bruschi's courage. He is coming back to football eight months after suffering a mild stroke.

A side note- The image I probably remember best from the last Super Bowl broadcast wasn't a play from the game but one of Bruschi playing with his young sons some time before the game. Those boys have a remarkable father.

Open Post- Jo's Cafe

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - Tedy Bruschi is ready to play football again, just eight months after a mild stroke left him unsure whether his life would ever return to normal.

The Patriots linebacker said he'll practice with the team Wednesday after doctors cleared him. Just 10 days before the stroke, Bruschi intercepted a pass in New England's second straight Super Bowl victory last Feb. 6.

"I came to the point where they tell me I can play. I feel like I can play. Shoot, I know I can play," Bruschi said Monday. "So let's just play."

Coach Bill Belichick will decide when to use him in a game, but Bruschi said he has no doubt it will be this season. Belichick said it's possible Bruschi will play in the Patriots' next game against Buffalo on Oct. 30 after a bye next weekend.

"Tedy's come a long way," Belichick said on his regular Monday appearance on WEEI radio. "He looks pretty normal to me. So it's great to see him just acting and carrying himself that way.

That's the Tedy Bruschi we all know and love."

Bruschi, the emotional and tactical leader of the defense, said he isn't returning because the Patriots are struggling. And it's not because his hunger to play needs feeding or his ego demands massaging, he said.

In the early days after the stroke, one of his biggest concerns was "would I ever see again?"

So the decision to return is something the 32-year-old defensive captain and father of three young sons didn't make lightly.

"We've made sure," a relaxed Bruschi said in his first news conference after declining interview requests since the stroke. "We've checked and checked and checked and, OK, let's check another time because we wanted to be sure.

"I'm not just doing this just because I just want to play," he added. "I mean, come on. I lost my sight. One morning, one day you wake up and you can't see your sons very clearly anymore because you've had a stroke. You can't walk. You can't walk write."

Gradually, he and his wife, Heidi — "what husband would just do this on his own?" he said — came to the realization that he was ready to practice.

"There were times, in my mind, I thought I was done," Bruschi said. "If I could express to you what this means to me (to return) I would, but I don't know if I really can."

The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is former NFL player Lawrence Phillips. He was arrested yesterday for running down three teenagers with his car. This isn't Mr. Phillips first run-in with the law. He has had a history of them going back to his playing days at the University of Nebraska. At the time of his arrest Phillips was also wanted on charges of Domestic abuse.

Note to Yahoo- Lawrence Phillips was never a NFL star contrary to your headline. He was a bust, a bum, a failure and alot of other words. Star isn't one of them.

Hat tip- LaShawn Barber

LOS ANGELES - Former NFL running back Lawrence Phillips, who was wanted by police for domestic violence, was arrested Sunday after allegedly running his car into three teenagers who argued with him during a pickup football game, police said.

Phillips, 30, was booked on suspicion of attempted murder and domestic abuse and held without bail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Web site. It wasn't immediately clear if Phillips had an attorney to represent him.

Police had been seeking Phillips since earlier this month for allegedly attacking his girlfriend twice, once choking her into unconsciousness.

Phillips joined a group of 16- and 17-year-olds in a pickup football game in Exposition Park on Sunday and got into an argument with some of the teens, said Los Angeles Police Officer Sandra Escalante. He left, but came back and drove a car onto the field, hitting three of the boys, she said.

The three teenagers were treated at a hospital; none of their injuries was considered life threatening, police said.

The car was reported stolen in San Diego last week, Escalante said.

Phillips was arrested and held on the domestic violence felony warrant. Charges are pending in the Sunday incident, Escalante said.

It wasn't immediately clear if Phillips had an attorney to represent him.

The former University of Nebraska star has a history of high-profile trouble with the law going back a decade to his time as one of the nation's top college football players.