What's that? You thought we were going to be talking about football? Oh, how naive. Grab some popcorn, it's gonna be a fun day of overreaction and self-righteousness!
- If you haven't been paying attention, the Cliff Harris' traffic stop tape after he had been driving 118 mph has been released. The new items we learned: Cliff Harris is still a quote machine. Darron Thomas was in the car. Someone in the car had smoke marijuana.
- Now for the only reaction that matters: Chip Kelly came to full defense of his players, especially Darron Thomas. Kelly had known the details of this situation since the incident, so there was no need to reassess anything. He went on to call Darron "as good [a leader] as I've been around."
- And of course we have, the reaction. Canzano says that Darron is no great leader. Meanwhile, Schroeder apparently thinks real leaders shouldn't let anyone smoke pot around them, and suggests that Thomas should have been doing the driving, even though he apparently did not have a valid license. Thanks for the great suggestions George. I think both these articles show a fundamental misunderstanding of leadership. Leadership isn't about enforcing your will upon others all the time. It's about setting an example. It's not being a mom and giving self-righteous lectures. Sometimes, you need to just shut up and wait out a bad situation. Darron Thomas has shown incredible leadership on the football field, where he has earned authority. A situation like this does not change that.
- Alright, how about some actual football talk. Rob Moseley has a practice update from yesterday, and includes some Chip Kelly video talking about actual football.
- Today the Ducks will be in a closed practice in Autzen. Officials will be on hand to keep the Ducks honest during drills.
- Just remember Duck fans, while this offseason may have been testing, it could have been worse. Oh so much worse.
I'm sure there will be a lot of opinions on the Cliff Harris/Darron Thomas situation below. Leave that in the comments. GO DUCKS!