Hope springs eternal

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Right now, the spring is the ultimate season of possibility. Enjoy it while you can. Across the country, sports fans love the spring. There's hope for every player, every team and every city. Baseball is starting up and everybody is in first place. And the NFL will soon see a slew of new players added to rosters with the annual college draft and free agency. I'm looking toward this spring with pure enthusiasm. Like R. Kelly at recess, I'm in heaven.\nThe NFL has just finished the annual cattle call that is the combine, and now all 32 teams are getting excited about their future possibilities. With no sure-fire superstars, every scout has a different take on who will be the top pick. Right now it looks like the only player people agree will make an impact is Michigan wide receiver Braylon Edwards. And who can argue with the scouts on this one? When you look at the way other Michigan wide outs such as David Terrell, Desmond Howard and Marquis Walker have torn up the NFL, it's hard to disagree with their assessment. No disrespect to Edwards, but if Mike Williams hadn't been screwed by the NCAA and had been allowed to play this year, there would be no question who the best player in this draft would be. Williams sat out an entire year and ran a 4.6 for his 40-yard dash, making some scouts forget he had 176 receptions and 30 touchdowns in only two seasons at the University of Southern California. Guess what, regardless of what a stopwatch tells you, the man can play.\nIn other news from the combine, Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers seems to have distanced himself from the other players at his position. I heard one scout's take on Rodgers and I was, for once, speechless. The guy said that Rodgers has a chance to be as good as Kyle Boller. Are you trying to insult the kid? That's like telling an NBA prospect he has a chance to be as good as Darko. People call Cal head coach Jeff Tedford a "quarterback guru" but the signal callers who have played for him reads like a who's who of first round busts. Names like Trent Dilfer, Akili Smith, Joey Harrington and Boller have all put up great college numbers, then gone on to pull a John Rocker and absolutely disappear off the face of the earth. Does anybody else wonder what happened to that guy? Or is it sort of like what happens when Tony whacks someone on the Sopranos, we just accept it, try to forget it and move on? At this point, I wouldn't really be shocked to hear Ted Turner say that Rocker went into the witness protection program.\nOh, and speaking of idiots and gigantic busts, there's comedy, there's high comedy and then there's Maurice Clarett bombing out of the combine. After he ran slower than many of the lineman in his sprinting drills, Clarett showed how much progress he's made with his maturity by refusing to finish his workout. A running back with no work ethic, personality issues and problems with the media, are you thinking what I'm thinking? With the second pick in the 2005 NFL draft the Miami Dolphins select ...\nAs far as baseball goes, it's spring training, and every team has a chance. Right now all fans are drinking their team's Kool-Aid and are excited about their free agent acquisitions. I actually heard a Dodgers fan yapping about how great the Jeff Kent signing was and how Milton Bradley is really going to step up and be a leader this year. Tiger fans think the addition of oft-injured outfielder Magglio \nOrdonez is their ticket to the playoffs. Orioles fans love that they have Sammy Sosa and are even defending him for getting tossed out of a spring training game this weekend. But Cubs fans and I know the truth; he just wanted to pack up his stuff and leave early. But I'm not going to hate on stupid, myopic fans right now, because last week I caught myself thinking that Woody Williams could actually win 20 games this year for the Padres ... I promise I'll never go off my medication for that long ever again. \nBut hey what can I say, it's the spring and anything is possible.