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Source: St.儲存倉 Louis Post-DispatchAug. 09--Rams coach Jeff Fisher is right. Rational human beings don't get too excited or too distressed about Game 1 in the preseason.NFL teams are still early in their preparation cycle for the real games. The scheming and play-calling trend toward vanilla. Rosters are still cluttered with wannabes and never-will-bes.But in Brandon Weeden's case, it was OK to relish Thursday night's demolition of the Rams defense. The second-year Cleveland Browns quarterback completed 10 of 13 passes for 112 yards and a touchdown. His passer rating was 127.7.Weeden had every reason to celebrate with an extra scoop of ice cream last night. The not-so-young man is on the clock with the new Browns management team.A year ago, Weeden posted a 19.0 passer rating in his preseason debut. Then-coach Pat Shurmur insisted on staging a quarterback competition during preseason play, so Weeden wasn't adequately prepared for the regular season.Weeden won the competition but lost the war. Unlike Sam Bradford -- who adapted to Shurmur's dink-and-dunk offense as a rookie -- Brandon seldom looked comfortable during his first NFL tour.His dismal rookie season left folks wondering if his selection at 22nd overall in last year's NFL Draft was a terrible mistake.Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Bud Shaw summed up the scenario:For lack of a better alternative, the Browns' front office is deferring to head coach Rob Chudzinski and offensive coordinator Norv Turner to see if Weeden's big arm can translate to big plays. General manager Mike Lombardi's opinion on Weeden is out there, at least the thoughts shared in his role with NFL Network. Joe Banner's thoughts have been voiced more privately. Let's just say no way he would've drafted a relatively raw quarterback of an already advanced age. So nobody would believe it now if Lombardi and Banner suddenly claimed a happy-ever-after belief in Weeden. Who would they be trying to kid? Their opinions on Weeden only matter if he stumbles. This entire season, beginning with tonight's exhibition opener, is a two-minute drill for Weeden. His future will play itself out in a season in which he turns 30. Beyond saying they are willing to see what he does in an offense better suited to him, why would they commit? If he were 23, different story.So Weeden must make every opportunity count to earn the confidence of his new bosses. He got a good start on that against the Rams, who helped out by charitably blowing some pass coverages.Plain Dealer columnist Terry Pluto offered this assessment:OK, it's the preseason, so none of this counts. But if you're a fan, your heart had to beat a little quicker watching the first team offense . . . Brandon Weeden showed so much more poise than almost any time a year ago. He had a very good idea of what he was supposed to do nearly every time he was asked to throw the ball. That may sound rather elementary, but there were times when it seemed Weeden was stuck in pre-school trying to understand last year's West Coast offense. But the schemes designed by offensive coordinator Norv Turner and head coach Rob Chudzinski placed Weeden in a comfort zone. One of the changes was placing Weeden in the shotgun, where he threw nearly all of his passes at Oklahoma State. Last season, Weeden was only in the shotgun for 43 percent of his passes, ranking 39th out of 40 quarterbacks who threw at least 100 passes. With the new coaching staff, 10 of 13 passes came from the shotgun formation. That matches the approach taken by Chudzinski and Turner, who had their quarterbacks in the shotgun about 75 percent of the time last season. That also may be the reason that Weeden seemed more composed; the offense made sense to him.So while some Rams fans may be feeling fretful today, long-suffering Browns fans are feeling slightly better about their lives. Perhaps drafting Weeden wasn't such a big mistake after all.MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSEQuestions to ponder while the Rams medical staff assesses Rodger Saffold's shoulder:Would Harry Caray and Bill Murray have been baseball's best play-by-play team ever? [wapc.mlb.com/play?content_id=29532793]Is it really a good idea to store candy in your sock during a NFL game? [.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog/wp/2013/08/08/redskins-rookie-keeps-a-starburst-in-his-sock-during-games/]How does your house compare to Rory McIlroy's place? [network.yardbarker.com/golf/article_external/rory_mcilroy_gives_modest_tour_of_incredible_home_before_pga_championship_video/14247101?linksrc=home_x_vv_head_14247101]QUIPS 'R USHere is what some of America's leading sports pundits have been writing:Gene Wojciechowski, ESPN.com: "Jim Furyk was in his PGA Championship post-round happy place -- thank you, 5-under-par 65 -- when someone mentioned the O-word. O, as in Olympic Club. As in the 2012 U.S. Open. As in: 'Oh, no.' Remember? Furyk was in perfect position to win last year's Open, and then his final round cartwheeled over a cliff and burst into flames. Since then, he's gone black ops and disappeared in the majors: two missed cuts this year and no finish higher than a tie for 25th in the past five. So you can understand why Furyk had to engage the Debbie Downer deflector shields when asked about his majors struggles. 'I'm o迷你倉沙田 a nice little high, but y'all are trying to bring me down,' Furyk said. 'Damn.' You'd be on a nice little high, too, if you shot your best opening round in a PGA Championship and co-led with reigning Masters champion Adam Scott after Day 1. Or if you came within one shot of tying the Oak Hill Country Club competitive course record and one shot from tying your lowest score in a major. But it is hard to ignore what's happened to the 43-year-old Furyk since the meltdown last June. The former U.S. Open champion blew a Sunday lead at the 2012 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, was part of Team USA's Ryder Cup collapse and this year has had a hate-hate relationship with his driver and putter."Alan Shipnuck, SI.com: "The Greater Rochester Open (formerly known as the PGA Championship) found a perfect first-round co-leader in plodding Jim Furyk, who fired a pizzazz-free 65 at Oak Kill Country Club, a fine but unmemorable test of golf that was softened by overnight rains. Furyk's life-sucking monotone is the perfect soundtrack to a tournament struggling for an identity with a leaderboard crowded with randoms. (Raise your hand if you had Kiradech Aphibarnrat in the office pool.)"Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports: "Quietly -- or as quietly as a 6-foot-3, 240-pound, heavy-lumber-swinging ox of a human being can -- Chris Davis passed the 40-home run mark this week. He's at 41, actually, the last one as Chris Davis a shot as there can be, towering and resplendent and a reminder of the majesty that still exists with home runs, especially ones he hits. Baseball spent a lot of time this week in introspective mode. From the dissection of Alex Rodriguez's 647 home runs to the lesson in hypocrisy of how hyper-vigilant baseball once rode steroids to its homer-fueled resurgence, one does not come up in conversation without the other, even if most performance-enhancing drug users partake of their particular drug more to speed up injury recovery than whack balls over fences. Home runs are still the casualty anyway. That might be the saddest piece of damage done by PEDs: not the obliteration of records as much as turning such a vital piece of the game into a curse. Home runs are still exciting as hell. They just come with a caveat, especially when they come in bunches, as they have off the bat of Davis all season. There is a stigma on home run hitters. The guy who owns the all-time and single-season records looked like Bane. There were as many 40-home run hitters in 1996 alone as there were over the last five seasons. The home run was bastardized, so much that this is the twisted reality of today: Because Davis has hit so many, the suspicion shifts toward him, no matter how unwarranted it may be. Such is the result of Alex Rodriguez serially doping for three years and beating every test."Dennis Dodd, CBSSports.com: "Consider this a formal apology, Terrelle Pryor. You too, Devier Posey and Boom Herron. All the Buckeye Five. You have been wronged. You also have been lapped. Johnny Hancock, er, Football has taken care of that lately. In light of recent events, those were misdemeanors committed by those Ohio State players a few years back. They sold their jerseys, helmets, even those venerated gold pants. I get that they needed the money. Better them than the NCAA. What I don't get is that Johnny Cursive -- if he reportedly accepted $7,500 in return for his signature -- didn't need the cash. That's really where this debate takes its latest turn. Perspective, scandal and a rich, Heisman-winning quarterback did it for me. Both the Buckeye Five and Johnny Uniball conceivably violated NCAA rules. Only one of them deserves to be damned to the eternal fires of talk show critics."Jonathan Bernhardt, Sports on Earth: "The Braves have their foot on the National League's throat and don't look to be letting up any time soon. They're not the league's flashiest success story -- that's the Pittsburgh Pirates -- nor do they have anything approaching the in-season narrative of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who at one point a couple months ago were seriously considering firing manager Don Mattingly before the team got healthy and started winning games. What the Braves have done, however, is grab first place in a division that was supposed to belong to the Washington Nationals and not let go. They've spent exactly one day in second place this year, April 4, and have had sole possession of the division lead since April 7. Save for a brief scare in mid-May, no one's been within four games of them in months, and their lead is so impressive that the talk about the Nationals perhaps needing to get a Wild Card spot instead of win the division started at the All-Star Break."MEGAPHONE"The round realistically could have been under par easily. I played really well today. One loose 9-iron shot. I made a few par putts out there as well. As I say, I feel like I played well enough and made some nice key putts, and the key is I left it in good spots too. I'm still right there. I mean ... as of right now, I'm only six back and we have a long way to go."Tiger Woods, after fading in the first round of the PGA.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at .stltoday.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉價錢