FanHouse Jamesdavis

A message to Marion Barber: don't mess this up for Felix Jones.

It's going to be Monday Night Football. The Cowboys are taking on the Carolina Panthers, who haven't yet shown a good run defense. Felix is a home run hitter, as evidenced by his 56-yard run last week, his 98-yard kick return touchdown last season and his career 8.9 yards-per-carry average on 43 carries. Give him 15 carries a week, and the sky is the limit. When news of Barber missing 1-2 weeks popped, it appeared the stars were aligning for Felix's breakout party. Now, it's looking like Barber might suit up and play. If he does, it would be like refusing to leave your friend alone with a girl at a bar. There's a hyphenated word for that, Marion, and the second part is "block." Don't be that guy. Back off and allow your buddy to get his.

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This Saturday, Jamal Lewis will turn 30. Considering that age, along with the multiple knee surgeries and the 2,399 career carries, it's pretty safe to say his best days are behind him. The Browns still plan on entering the 2009 season with Lewis as their starting running back, but -- all of a sudden -- it seems there is some competition cropping up.

When training camp began, there was no talk of a running back battle in Cleveland. Jerome Harrison was set to be the back and change-of-pace back, while rookie James Davis would fight for a roster spot. After two preseason games, though, there are whispers from Cleveland that Davis could catapult all the way to the starting gig.

Who moved to the head of the NFL class during the draft? Find out with FanHouse's team-by-team 2009 Draft Grades.

One year removed from a 10-win season, and on the heels of a four-win effort, owner Randy Lerner decided change was in order. He fired head coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Phil Savage and brought in Eric Mangini and George Kokonis.

If the first draft under the new leadership is any indication, the Browns will use the last weekend in April to restock the roster, and eschew high-priced, quick-fix free agents. The previous regime had a healthy mix of the two: Gary Baxter, Eric Steinbach, LeCharles Bentley and Donte' Stallworth were signed as free agents; Kamerion Wimbley, Joe Thomas and Brady Quinn were all high-round draft picks.

"WTF. December already?"

The Clemson Tigers were the hope of the ACC this year, especially after Virginia Tech coughed up an L to East Carolina in Charlotte earlier today.

Yes, I understand that Wake Forest and *shudder* North Carolina are supposed to finish with good records and have dangerous teams (note that Carolina only beat McNeese St. by a touchdown). But still, Clemson, Tommy Bowden, Lightning, Thunder, Hope.

Or, at the very least, I think we all believed that maybe Tommy could take his team deep enough into the season with a high enough rank that the BCS berth they earned vis a vis the ACC title would seem legitimate. Okay, okay, fine. We knew that Clemson wouldn't be flat out embarrassed by Nick Saban and Alabama in Atlanta during week one.

Or, perhaps I'm delusional. Because Clemson got destroyed 34-10 by the Tide on Saturday night, in the ACC's third consecutive national television debacle of the first weekend of the college football season.

We can all rattle off the list of Matt Millen's biggest draft blunders over the years -- Charles Rogers, Mike Williams, Shaun Rogers -- but what does it take to ruin an entire draft? Look at the crop Millen plucked in 2003. The numbers:

11 - players selected by Detroit; 7 - players currently out of the league; 3 - players who did at least something positive in the NFL, though not necessarily for the Lions; 1 - player who's still a Lion.

Those are awful results. Cory Redding (#66 overall) is the only player remaining, and the best of the crop overall, and it's not like he's been an impact player himself.

Charles Rogers (#2) is obviously the pick that hurts the most. The other six no longer active are tackle Ben Johnson (#216), receiver David Kircus (#175), linebacker James Davis (#144), receiver Travis Anglin (#260), fullback Brandon Drumm (#236), and cornerback Blue Adams (#220).

Boss Bailey (#34) has been bust-ish himself, but at least he and Terrence Holt (#137) have made plays. Kircus and running back Artose Pinner (#99) haven't done anything worth noting, but at least they convinced more than one team to employ them, which is ... um ... notable, I guess.

So, yeah -- you're 2003 Detroit Lions draft class. A testament to incompetence.

A look at the 2007 junior class as players decide whether to enter the 2008 NFL draft.

Clemson running back James Davis said early this week that he was leaving school to declare for the 2008 NFL draft. But after giving it some thought, Davis -- who hadn't hired an agent -- pulled out of the draft just before the final deadline.

I think that's the right move. Davis says he was projected as a third-round draft choice, but my bet is that he would have gone lower than that, since there's such a glut of junior running backs turning pro. Darren McFadden and Felix Jones of Arkansas, Jonathan Stewart of Oregon and Rashard Mendenhall of Illinois all definitely would have gone ahead of Davis, and Jamaal Charles of Texas, Ray Rice of Rutgers, Kevin Smith of Central Florida and Steve Slaton of West Virginia could have, too.

Instead, Davis will wait until the 2009 draft. Assuming Chris Wells of Ohio State turns pro, I think he'll be the top running back prospect 15 months from now. But Davis could be next in line. If he has a good senior season at Clemson, he'll make himself millions.

See the full list of 2008 NFL draft early entries.

Tomorrow, Maryland and Clemson face off in Death Valley at high noon. Or regular noon -- one of the two. I think in Death Valley every noon is high noon. Both teams can help their chance to win the Atlantic Division of the ACC with a win. Clemson has been rolling until Virginia Tech rolled over them in Blacksburg last week. Asides from that and a one point loss to BC, Clemson has been dominant this season. They showed Georgia Tech who's boss in the ACC with a 31-7 beating two weeks ago.

Maryland has been on an upswing lately. They've won three in a row against UVA, NC State, and FSU. Yes, those are all games Maryland should have won -- they should have beat Georgia Tech in Atlanta but instead they beat themselves -- but good teams win the games they should. Great teams beat the teams they shouldn't as well. I'm not saying Maryland is going to be great if they beat Clemson, but they won't be if they don't start beating some ranked teams. They have three ranked teams left, the others being Boston College and Wake Forest.

So we've established that Maryland needs to win this game if they want to be considered more than just a decent team. I think that was pretty obvious. Now how does Maryland go about this?

James Davis must prefer darkness to daylight.

You see, Davis has crossed the century mark on the ground six times in his career.

All six games have been at night. All six have been Tiger victories.

I can't explain it.

I won't even try.

What I will do is point out that the next two Clemson games are scheduled to kickoff at night.

Aside from the bright lights of an evening game, James Davis has other motivation to shine against Georgia Tech this Saturday. Davis is from Atlanta, and he wants to show the guys back home what he couldn't show them last year against Tech due to a wrist injury.

And he's clearly motivated:

"Like I told my teammates, I'm not going to eat this week. I'm going to wait until Saturday to eat.

The lights will be on in Death Valley this Saturday, and the menu is set. We'll just have to wait and see if Mr. Davis's appetite is big enough to take down the Yellow Jackets.

Clemson came into Tallahassee Saturday night and beat the Seminoles 27-20 in a game the was close to as ugly as it gets. Especially if you are a Nole.

Florida State went into halftime without scoring a single point on offense for the second straight game at home. The offense was only able to gain 89 total yards in the first half. Thanks to a blocked extra point return and blocked field goal return for a touchdown (both by Tony Carter), we were still in the game at the midway point.

After giving up a TD pass less than 3 minutes into the 3rd quarter to make the score 20-9, FSU was able to move the ball with some success to eventually tie the game at 20 apiece with 10:27 to play in the game. Joe Surratt's 1 yard TD plunge and a 2 point conversion from DW to CD5 gave Seminole Nation the confidence that we finally had got it together and would barely escape another close game.

That looked like it would be true until the great Bobby Bowden elected to punt the ball away on 4th and 1 inch with just over 6 minutes left in the game. The offense had been moving the ball well for most of the half up until that point. After appearing to recover a Tiger fumble inside the 10 yard line, the call was controversially reversed and the ball was given back to Clemson. Apparently, when 2 players fall on a ball simultaneously, the player that is man enough to come out of the pile with it is not rewarded in the ACC.

After getting the ball back with 2:22 left, Clemson made the most of their final possession. A quick snap caught the FSU defense sleeping while James Davis ran 47 yards untouched until he was pushed out at the 4 yard line. This set up Davis's 1 yard game winner a couple plays later to seal the deal.

This heart-breaking loss leaves us with a lot to assess heading into the rest of the season.

Today's game against Bobby's son's Tigers should prove to be quite the challenge. Even coming off a loss to Boston College, Clemson has more than enough weapons to pull off the upset. There are several key points to focus on in order to be successful.
The first is we must find a running game. I don't care how many people (Lee Corso, Bobby Bowden) will say you don't need one, if we don't fix this major problem, we will not make it out of the regular season where we want to be. If Lorenzo Booker and Antone Smith are given opportunities to make plays and aren't doing so, we can't be afraid to see what our more power based backs such as Jamaal Edwards and Matt Dunham can do in the second half. They certainly can't be less productive than what we've had so far. But like I said, Booker and Smith have to first be given opportunities.
The next focus point is we have to be able to stop Clemson's trick plays. They will do a lot of quick WR screens, reverses, and maybe even have a RB or WR throw a pass once or twice. If we allow them to make a couple big plays off these, it could be a longer night than we wished for. Also in this category, KNOW WHERE CHANSI STUCKEY IS AT ALL TIMES.
Another key is to slow down Clemson's running game. Between James Davis, Reggie Merriweather, and super recruit C.J. Spiller, the Tigers will be putting the ball in their hands early and often. We will be playing a lot more 3-4 defensive schemes with our many DT injuries so the linebackers will need to close gaps hard.
There of course are other factors that will play big roles in determining who wins tonight's Bowden Bowl Whatever (Excuse me for losing count, or interest). I drove up to Tallahassee this weekend to take in the game atmosphere first hand so I'm expecting big things from our team. As long as we take care of the above points, I will be drving back to Tampa tomorrow satisfied. If we don't, Bobby's son will have taken 3 of the last 4 against his dad and the debate will surely heat up on who is currently the better Bowden coach.