Shaun King Makes Our Day

The Tulane Green Wave wrapped up its regular season with a not-as-close-as-it-looks loss at Tulsa. Tulsa is not great shakes by any stretch- but they let the Wave have it, running ahead by 21 points with eight or so minutes to play, marooning Quincy Davis on the bench in foul trouble. Tulane did rally back- but never had the ball with a chance to win.

You can’t call it a disappointing loss- as Tulane categorically is not good enough to throw its jock out there and beat anyone on the road. But it was a shame to see them leave their best effort in New Orleans in this spot. They had a chance to get to .500 in League play. They have to play Marshall in the tournament- a game they could lose- rather then one against the horrendous bottom feeders C-USA puts out there.

But going into the season, I think I would have called a .500 mark in C-USA(okay, they’re close), a winnable first round game, followed by a second round game against any team other than Memphis pretty darn okay after the wreckage Finney and Katrina left here. It is a shame they had all those road games prior to Christmas; they might have gotten to .500 for real.

In better news, Shaun King is back in the NFL with the Detriot Lions. Now I realize I might be a little jaded, having watched “quarterbacks” Mike McMahon and Koy Detmer for half-a-season- but I could never figure out why King couldn’t get a job in Our League.

By no means should he be “the guy” anywhere. But Shaun King has singularly proved that he can step in, rally a team, and win a few games- even a play-off game, ask the Redskins about that. In 2000, he threw for almost 3000 yards, eighteen scores, only thirteen picks- and I could never figure out what was so bad about that for a third year pro?

Clearly, a lot of his great college game doesn’t translate to the pros. At Tulane, King was first and foremost a lethal perimeter player operating Tommy Bowden’s spread offense with utter ruthless efficiency. Of course, a pro quarterback isn’t getting many designed roll outs, let alone straight runs outside. King takes a lot of sacks- and he will fumble.

But he’s a pretty accurate passer with decent arm strength- for one thing, he's on the plus side career TDs/interceptions. He’s always healthy, always ready. He was an outstanding back-up in 1999- coming off the bench to go 5-1. He wasn’t that bad in Arizona a few years later- yes, four picks in three games (two starts)- but come-on, its Arizona!

He’s a guy with 700+ career throws and a winning record off the bench. The Lions were right to give him a chance.