Boom Mode

Bidding for its 3rd correct prediction of the Super Bowl winner in 6 tries, my crystal ball (CB, for short) advised you last September to put your money on the Denver Broncos to win the Super Bowl following the 2013 NFL season. And for the longest time last season it looked like CB was going to be right. But as we all know, it didn't happen, thanks to that team from the Northwest. After Super Bowl 48 was over, all the confetti was falling on the Seattle Seahawks, celebrating their no-doubt-about-it 43-8 drubbing of the Broncos.

Marshawn Lynch, as usual, was in Beast Mode for the Seahawks' offense in 2013; and the Seattle defense was definitely in Boom Mode - as in the Legion of Boom, the nickname given to group of players in the team's all-star secondary. Richard Sherman repeated as a 1st team all-Pro. Earl Thomas three-peated as a 1st team all-Pro. Kam Chancellor, a 232-pound safety no receiver wants to get hit by (just ask the Broncos) earned a 2nd team nod on the all-Pro team. And when the 4th member of the legion, Brandon Browner, was suspended (controversially) late in the season, Byron Maxwell took his place and played just as effectively (if not as physically). It was a secondary that allowed the fewest yards passing and had the most interceptions in the league. 

CB actually got it right that the Seahawks would finish the regular season with the best record in the NFC, but it got little else right in yet another year mostly clueless predicting.

DG45 - Revisited

Back in the early days of the house of dread - back when it took me 2 hours to do a dread gallery instead of 2 weeks, and back when Yardbarker was a popular way for pro athletes to interact with fans (before Twitter came along and became a far more popular way) - I ventured into the world of college football recruiting (which is practically a sport all by itself) when I posted DG45 a month or so after National Signing Day (Feb. 4) in 2009. I quickly checked the websites of a few newspapers along with internet coverage of the Under Armour All-America game trying to find as many photos as I could of high school players with dreads that had just chosen the college teams they were going to be playing for. I had no idea how much (if any) interest there would be. It was the first DG I did that didn't feature action photos. As it turned out - and much to my amazement - DG45 became the most popular DG I did.

Five years have passed since then, and the 51 players I featured have now finished their college careers. So I thought it would be a good time to see how they - and their dreads - are doing after all this time. While I knew back then that several of the players were expected to be stars, most of them I had never heard of before and had no clue how they would perform. As it turned out, 11 of them have already made it to the NFL (one of those has already been cut), and another 5 are rookies currently in NFL training camps. Several had very good college careers, while several others didn't finish at the same schools they started. Some are ex-dreads (of course). One was shot after finishing his career.

So, with all the details and updates - and without any further delay - here once again is dread gallery #45 - five years later.

1. Wearing a hat like that, there's only one school that Trent Richardson could be signing with - and it ain't Auburn!

DG154

Concluding our look at action from College Basketball '14, dread gallery #154 focuses mostly on the teams with more than one player with dreads - specifically, Nebraska, Lamar, VCU, and Louisiana Tech - and on a player who had no choice but to excel in basketball from the day his parents named him ...... Jordair.

1. Jordair Jett, 6-1, 215-pound senior G for Saint Louis U, has his eyes on the rim while driving between F Ryan Rhoomes (#30) and G Mandell Thomas of Fordham during 1st half on Jan. 18. Jett had a better game than his season averages, finishing with 18 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists as Saint Louis improved to 17-2 with a 70-48 home victory.

DG153

Dreads on teams in the Pac-12, SEC, and MAC, as well as four of the starters on my dread all-America team are the feature attractions in dread gallery #153, the second of three DGs covering the 2013-14 season in college basketball.
We'll begin with the MAC. There were 4 players with dreads on teams in the MAC this season, and two of them earned all-conference honors .....

1. One of the two, 6-9 Ohio junior F Maurice N'dour puts up a shot against G Jaryd Eustace of Miami (Ohio) during a game on Feb. 8. N'dour, a native of Senegal, had 14 points and 8 rebounds as Ohio picked up an 82-75 home victory.

DG152

Football season is knocking at the door; but in the house of dread it's still basketball season - and it will continue to be for as long as it takes me to finish these next three dread galleries. That won't be long, though, because in an attempt to save time I'm trying something different: I'm only going to post the photos; it'll be up to you to figure out who everybody is!

Seriously though, as we take a look at the recently (?) concluded 2013-14 College Basketball season in DG152, DG153, and DG154, for most of the photos I just didn't take the time to research the exact points of the game when the photos were taken; so I guess you'll have to use your imagination. Although I'm doing only half as many dread galleries as last season, I will have at least one photo of every player with dreads in Division 1 that I know of; and I'll be including this season's stats for most of them. (If I don't list a player's stats, it means they were already listed in the dread news report I did three weeks ago.)

Let's begin dread gallery #152 in the Big 12.

1. D.J. Johnson, a 6-9, 250-pound sophomore F for Kansas State, grabs a rebound against G Jeff Mullahey of Troy during 2nd half on Dec. 15. Johnson had 7 rebounds and 3 points in 18 minutes as the Wildcats rolled to a 72-43 home win over Troy, part of their 7-0 December.

DG151 - Part 1

From the moment he first put on a South Carolina uniform in September 2011 and started living up to the huge amount of hype he received in high school, it quickly became obvious that Jadeveon Clowney was going to be the 1st pick of the 2014 NFL Draft. And so it indeed came to pass, finally becoming official on the evening of May 8, 2014. Even after his overanalyzed, overcriticized, disappointing, injury-plagued junior season with the Gamecocks, the Houston Texans decided he was worth taking with their 1st overall selection in the draft. And with good reason. In today's pass-happy NFL, having a good defense begins with having a great pass rusher. And that's Clowney's specialty. He has the potential to be one of the best pass rushers the league has ever seen. The Texans are counting on it, while all the rest of the teams in the AFC are hoping he never reaches that potential.

Clowney's selection at #1 marks the first time a player with dreads has been the first player selected in the NFL Draft (it was bound to happen sooner or later). Previously the highest anybody with dreads had been selected was 3rd overall, which happened three times - Larry Fitzgerald in 2004, Tyson Jackson in 2009, and Trent Richardson in 2012. In addition to Clowney there were 27 other players with dreads drafted, including six selected in the 1st round (photo below) - five of whom were on hand in person to take that walk across the stage and be greeted by Commissioner Goodell. In dread gallery #151 we'll look at all the rookies with dreads currently in training camp hoping to be on their teams' rosters on opening day.

DG151 - Part 2

And now, the second half of dread gallery #151, featuring rookies on teams in the two South divisions as well as the AFC West.

We finished part 1 with a look at Brandon Dixon, so we'll begin part 2 with his twin brother, Brian Dixon.

1. He was not drafted, as was his brother, but CB Brian Dixon faces the same difficult task of trying to win a roster spot - although not with the same team as his brother - after signing with the New Orleans Saints, here participating in his first practice on May 16.