A Risky Draft for the Rams and Eagles

There is a line from the move Citizen Kane (most of life’s situation can be summarized by a line from Citizen Kane) where someone says a news story isn’t worthy of a banner headline, and Kane replies, “If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough.”  The Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles are apparently applying this philosophy to quarterbacks—if you pick someone at number one or number two in the draft, that MAKES them deserve a number one (or number two) pick.

Supposedly The Rams and the Eagles expended a truckload of draft picks in order to draft Carson Wentz of North Dakota State and Jared Goff of Cal with the first two picks of the NFL draft.  This despite the fact that ESPN rates both prospects outside of the top ten in potential.  Both the Rams and the Eagles apparently believe that taking Wentz or Goff at the top of the draft will magically turn a moderate pro prospect into another Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck.

First of all, prospects who WERE in the top two often turn out to be busts; exhibit A is Ryan Leaf.  At the end of the college season neither Wentz nor Goff were considered top flight talent; neither was invited to the Heisman Award ceremony, and neither competed for the national championship.  But now two teams desperate for a quarterback have traded away their futures on these two athletes being able to not only succeed in the NFL, but succeed immediately despite never working with a pro-style offence.

This is logic born of desperation.  The Denver Broncos proved you really don’t need a quarterback to win it all in the NFL (a lawn gnome could have played as well as Manning did in the Super Bowl), but the QB is still the most important cog in any NFL machine.  If you can’t acquire one through free agency, the only other avenue is the draft.  But what do you do if there is no quarterback project in the draft?  Instead of taking a QB prospect with the 15^th pick, at which point Goff might have been available according to ESPN, the Rams gave a bunch of picks to the Titans and now will draft Wentz or Goff number one. 

This is an example of what economists call the “greater fool” theory.  In some economics experiments, people will bid more than a dollar for the right to own a dollar, if they believe there is a bigger fool than them who will bid even more.  The Rams believed someone else (the Eagles) would take Goff or Wentz too high, and then neither would be available at 15, so they traded to be number one.  This proves that they are an even bigger fool than the team that considered taking Goff in the top ten.

Goff was not a terribly successful QB at Cal, and North Dakota State didn’t exactly play Notre Dame or Alabama.  Yet these two quarterbacks will be drafted one and two and be asked to immediately step in and lead an NFL team to a winning record.  Both Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston, two QBs who earned the #1 and 32 draft slots, struggled to adapt to the NFL, so how will two supposedly less qualified QBs adapt?

And this is coming at a time when Sports Illustrated has run a couple of pieces on why there is a chasm between the college game and the pros.  Could Wentz really run a wide open offense at North Dakota State (school motto: yes, we are part of America) and then learn to run a complex pro-style system?  If he was the 12^th pick in the draft and had time to learn the system, that would be one thing; to pick him #1 and let him start on day one, that would be a huge set of baggage for him to carry.

Okay, stranger things have happened.  A gangly back up QB from Michigan State drafted in the sixth round is now considered one of the best QBs of all time.  But as Damon Runyon warned, “Remember, the battle is not always to the strongest, nor the race to the swiftest; but that’s the way to bet.” 

The Cleveland Browns, surprisingly, made a smart choice to trade away their #2 pick.  They need everything, so multiple picks will help.  And if you are going to take a chance on Robert Griffin III as a free agent, there is no need for a backup plan; if he succeeds, you don’t need a QB, but if he fails you’ve got a high draft pick in next year’s draft.  If this is Hue Jackson’s influence, then he just may be the coach to turn the Browns around.

Goff and Wentz may prove worthy of their #1 and #2 draft statuses.  One or the other or both may show un-demonstrated skill at checking off pass rotations or reading NFL defenses.  But neither has done so yet.  And doing it with the burden of expectations that come with a high draft pick for a quarterback?  That has crushed more promising prospects (seriously, you do remember Ryan Leaf, right?).  There haven’t been many of these mega-deals to move up to the top of the draft, mainly because they almost always help the team collecting the draft picks.  It will probably be a frustrating, but exciting, season for the Rams and the Eagles.

The many Mr. Holmes

It has always fascinated me that two of the most popular characters in popular fiction are Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Spock.  Both are idolized for their ability to perform logical analysis, yet this is a capacity every human being has, save for the mentally ill and the brain damaged.  It’s as if the world decided to embrace a superhero whose superpower was to distinguish right from left.

The character of Sherlock Holmes was created nearly 130 years ago in 1887 with the publication of A Study in Scarlet.  The next story, The Sign of Four, began the series in earnest and also displayed Arthur Conan Doyle’s incredible laziness as to details—he has Watson say he was shot in the shoulder during the Afghan campaign in A Study in Scarlet, but in the leg in the sequel.  Watson says Holmes knows nothing of philosophy, then later says Holmes discussed current philosophers like an expert.  The mistakes became more egregious when Doyle had resurrected Holmes after his attempt to kill him off failed, and he resigned himself to cranking out Holmes tales for the money.

There are currently two television series with Sherlock Holmes as a character, the CBS show Elementary with Johnny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Liu as undoubtedly the most attractive Dr. Watson ever, and the BBC series Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Watson.  Both series have proven quite popular, and the BBC version has won several Emmy awards.  But how accurate to the original text are the remakes?

The quick answer is, not very.  In both series Holmes is portrayed as misanthropic, ill-mannered, curt, insulting, and contemptuous of nearly everyone.  In Elementary his addiction to cocaine has Holmes label himself as an addict; he comes into contact with Watson when she is hired to be his “sober companion.”  The BBC production has not focused on his drug use, but in several episodes Holmes refers to himself as “a high-functioning sociopath” (in one episode he makes this declaration immediately before he shoots someone on the head). 

A reading of the original canon reveals a completely different Holmes.  Yes, he is sometimes smug, but mostly at the incompetence of Scotland Yard’s Lestrade and not at his own superiority.  He is unfailingly polite, solicitous of his clients, and is able to extract information from strangers through flattery or subtle cajoling.  His drug use is only mentioned in passing, and then rather sparingly.

Are these differences wrought by those updating the series to reflect modern society?  Cocaine was legal and seen as medicinal in 1880’s London; would Holmes today indulge in an illegal narcotic today, as he does in Elementary, or would he find a more socially acceptable outlet for his addictive personality, as Holmes seems to do in Sherlock?  For the definitive discussion of Holmes’ drug use, see the wonderful film “The Seven Percent Solution” written by Nicholas Meyer.

Is Holmes abrasive personality in the two current TV shows a commentary that we live in a time that is far less civil than 1890’s London?  Is the Holmes of Elementary and Sherlock more flippant with insults because in these days being insulting is such socially acceptable behavior that Presidential candidates can trade venom that would give Don Rickles pause?  Only the showrunners can say how much they have deliberately altered the character to fit in with modern society.

Some of the changes made for the TV shows are obvious, Watson being a woman being one of the slightly more noticeable changes in Elementary (interestingly, there is no sexual subtext in Elementary while over on Sherlock everyone assumes Holmes and Watson are gay).  Other changes may be deliberate, while others may be due to an unfamiliarity with the original canon.  Over the years Holmes’ personality has steadily coarsened; Basil Rathbone’s portrayal was polite but icy, while Jeremy Brett (the definitive interpretation, I believe) was more aloof and detached than the fictive original.  Portrayals in individual movies have tended to use a Holmes that is a carbon copy of a carbon copy until little of the original is left except his logic and his inhumanity.

I have watched the four seasons of Elementary, but I am becoming increasingly tired of Johnny Lee Miller (a wonderful actor who should have received an Emmy nomination for his work by now) presenting Holmes as a series of tics and idiosyncrasies that increasingly bear little resemblance to the eminently civilized sleuth in the books.  Sherlock is one of the finest shows being produced, and count me among the frustrated that are unhappy that Cumberbatch and Freeman are so popular that this year they only had time to make a single episode.  Of course, if they made more episodes, the quality would diminish. 

Elementary and Sherlock have their place, but for a representation of Holmes closer to the original you have to stick with the Jeremy Brett version.  Sherlock showrunner Stephen Moffet is a genius, but his Holmes is increasingly similar to the central character on Doctor Who, another show he was the showrunner for.  Better yet, I am re-reading the original canon.  Doyle really was a masterful storyteller, and there is no substitute for going back to the original source.

Fridays just got more Grimmer

Success in the television industry is a mercurial thing.  Sometimes a show can look like it will run for decades, but it is cancelled after 12 episodes (although Firefly is more prominent now in popular culture than when it was on TV in 2002).  Other times, a show about a bunch of sots in a bar in Boston (Cheers), or in Philadelphia (It’s Always Sunny) will debut with abysmal ratings and end up running for years.  You never now.

Five years ago NBC debuted an unpromising horror show from a former writer f Buffy the Vampire Slayer and gave it the Friday Night Death slot. The show had a clever premise, but a lead actor who was as uncharismatic as they come, a lead actress who was even blander, a backstory that wasn’t fully thought out, and they never did figure out what to do for the opening credits.  But here we are five years later and Grimm is being renewed for a sixth season.

When Grimm started it had two things going for it: a premise that put a modern spin on ancient fairy tales, and Silas Weir Mitchell, the sidekick Monroe who was a Blutbaden, a sort of wolf that looked human.  David Giuntoli, the titular Grimm who was a Portland detective by day and slayer, er, killer of monsters by night, was a dull character with a dull partner (Russell Hornsby) and a dull live in girlfriend (Bitsie Tulloch).  Mitchell was the only actor able to show any kind of emotion when strange things started happening and dead bodies started piling up.  The relationship between Giuntoli’s Nick Burkhardt and Tulloch’s Juliet Silverton (I didn’t know her last name until I looked it up just now) bugged me a lot; they were the typical TV couple who had absolutely nothing in common except they were both good looking, yet we were supposed to accept on faith that they were deeply in love.

Through the first two years of Grimm I longed to give the creators some advice, especially David Greenwalt who had worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.  I wanted to tell him that the secret to Buffy’s success was that the audience loved Buffy and didn’t just want her not to die, but to be happy, have a boyfriend, and enjoy herself.  Nick Burkhardt wasn’t given enough personality to root for.  The scripts were often clever, but while the monsters were excellent the human element was missing.

Grimm made some smart decisions.  The backstory involving some strange Middle European royalty made the stakes much larger, and also integrated Nick’s police captain (Sasha Roiz) to a greater extent.  The belated decision to let police officer Drew Wu (Reggie Lee) (possibly the worst character name in history) in on Nick’s secret life paid huge dividends.  And if you thought they couldn’t write romance, they added a love interest for Monroe (Bree Turner’s Rosalee) with whom he had real chemistry.  The stories were less about a case of the week and more about the maneuverings of secret societies on a global scale.  Tulloch was dispatched (temporarily) and replaced with long time guest star Clare Coffee, who’s character had a child with both Nick and Nick’s captain (don’t ask about the details).

Grimm still isn’t close to the Buffy/Angel comparisons in aspires to.  But the plotting has become faster paced, the characters deeper, and the monsters more imaginative.  However, the is still not much of an emotional connection with Nick, despite him now having a child and a much more promising relationship.  Nick is a homicide detective but relies on Monroe and Rosalee’s help far too frequently to solve his cases; just once I’d like to see Monroe look at his caller ID and ignore Nick’s call.

Grimm just passed its 100^th episode threshold, which is a milestone in television. An additional season makes it one of the longer running fantasy/horror shows in television history.  Not bad for a clever little show that never figured out how to do opening credits.