5-at-10: Friday mailbag filled with yummy goodness

Friday, July 26, 2013

It's been a great week with a river of splashy comments, highlighted by JMC's Animal Farm literature throwback. Well-played indeed.

Be safe this weekend and know that football teams start reporting next week and Stephen Hargis will take another of his famous Prep Tours on Monday. Good times.

From the "Talks too much" studios, hey Clark, bet you could use a cool one, eh? Now you're talking Eddie.

From Mr. Spud

What is your Rushmore of locations to have a co-cola?

4) Minor league baseball park...you pick it....nothing like peanuts and cold co-colas

3) Your back yard grilling...how else do you time turning the burgers or steaks...duh?

2) Tailgating at your favorite SEC football venue...I dont' care if you have tickets to the game or not.

1) Da Beach....and yes...I sent photographic proof to our 5@10 Head Coach.

Stay quenched my man!

Mr. Spud,

We have included the photo you sent along as testament to your solid week kicking back Co-Colas in a desirable locale.

This may be crazy, but our list would be identical to yours. The only one we might add is on the back deck with the Mrs. when the weather turns a touch cooler. But that kind of falls into the grilling scenario and which one off the above list would you remove. Good times.

Since we have little to add to that list - well-played indeed - we'll raise the stakes by giving the Rushmore of worst places to lift a Co-Cola.

1) The pre-Church tailgate. Bad idea on every level.

2) The pre-court appearance Co-Cola. We know some judges, and have some regular readers well-versed in the legal ways of the world. We believe those folks would concur that a tipsy defendant is not the wise approach. Plus, that's not what they mean by sidebar and here's saying judges likely are not going to grant a continuance so you can go to the little defendant's room.

3) At work. Hey, while there have certainly been times on the job that have made us kick back a few later to blow off some steam, the desk Co-Cola is not a good play.

4) Your kids' school. No one wants to be that guy do they? (Now if your kid goes to Auburn and we're talking about a tailgate, well, all bets are off. But the pre-K cocktail may mean you need to re-evaluate.)

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TommyIce

Huge Falcons fan and really like this team and Matty Ice.

His recent contract puts him up there with the best QBs in the NFL. Where do you think Matt Ryan ranks among QBs. Thanks and thanks for the 5-at-10.

TommyIce,

Thanks for the letter and we grew up a Falcons fan too, so we're hopeful of big things this year as well.

That said, we think Matt Ryan is right around the top-10 of NFL quarterbacks. His new contract extension makes him the second-highest paid QB, but that certainly does not mean the second best.

And we rank NFL quarterbacks in tiers, and those tiers are as follows:

photo Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning (18). (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Elite:

1) Rodgers

2) Brady

3) Peyton Manning

4) Drew Brees

5) Eli Manning

Next level

6) Big Ben

7) Andrew Luck

8) Matt Ryan

9) Joe Flacco

Good QBs

10) Matt Schaub

11) Tony Romo

12) Philip Rivers

13) Jay Cutler

14) Cam Newton

15) Matt Stafford

Could make big strides this year

16-18) Russell Wilson, RGIII, Colin Kaepernick

19) Andy Dalton

20) Ryan Tannehill

Below that.... Everyone else

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From McPell

Which team in the SEC is in the best shape if their #1 QB goes down? I know UT and Auburn are still unsettled at QB, so they are off the board.

McPell -

This is an excellent question, and a point that will become even more crucial if the current wave of emotion among power programs of only scheduling power foes continues. That war of attrition would mean multiple effective QBs would be a must.

Before we answer, we'll say that schools like Auburn or Tennessee or UK that do not have a real answer at QB would be hurt less by losing their QB1 than Texas A&M or Florida - two schools that have built their offenses around their QBs.

The answer is South Carolina, which has Connor Shaw and Dylan Thompson, and either of those two cats would be the starter at roughly half the SEC schools.

The wealth of QB talent among the better teams in the SEC means there would be several choices for which team would be the most affected, though.

A&M obviously would be crippled if Johnny Hangover was injured. Losing Jeff Driskell would hurt the Gators, as would losing AJ McCarron at Alabama.

Aaron Murray is a stud duck, but we think Georgia has high-quality back-up pieces.

Two sneaky QBs in terms of value to their teams are Tyler Russell at Miss. State and Zach Mettenberger at LSU, because behind those cats are monster unknowns.

From Sportsfan

Jay - for the mailbag. Is it time for Tiger to retire the red and black traditional Sunday attire? Doesn't seem to pack the punch it used to. Now it just seems kinda sad.

Sportsfan,

photo Tiger Woods had to a take a drop during the second round of the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga.

While we can certainly see that logic, the red-and-black combo is really about the green that Nike forks over to Mr. Woods.

There's no doubt the blood-red Sunday attire has lacked the production of late, though. As with most questions about replacing something, though, we have to ask, what would be better? A nice plaid, maybe? Or even a chartreuse? (Hoi polloi, where'd you come from a Scotch ad?)

Still when the Yankees stunk through the 1980s, they didn't hang up the pinstripes, you know?

This question got us thinking about how things become routine and whether we should look about changing the 5-at-10 as we speed toward our third anniversary this football season. Thoughts?

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From Rookie

Jay,

I've been a 5@10 reader for more than a year, and I am thinking about trying to be a sports writer. Your job seems really cool. Do you have any advice?

Also, because stories off the field interest me the most, who do you think is the weirdest athlete in sports?

Thanks and keep up the good work - PressRow is pretty hilarious, and did that SEC ref yesterday say one of his co-workers pooped his pants?

Rookie,

Thanks for the kind words and for the question. I'll send you my thoughts on getting into this BID-ness, but be prepared to start out poor. We worked two jobs to stay in journalism at our first gig, where we made right at $14K a year - in 1997 with a college degree. Cha-Chump.

As for PressRow, yes we had former SEC referee Toby Silberman on the show yesterday and we asked him if he ever had to go to the bathroom during a game. He said no, but told a story about one of his peers who had some issues one afternoon as you described. One of the best things about our gig is the twists and turns of conversations you can never foresee. Good times.

As for the strangest athlete, that's a great question. For the longest time the answer was always Mike Tyson, because there really wasn't any sentence no matter how outlandish that could surprise you about Tyson. Talked about eating someone's kids? Yep. Face tat? You bet. Married a farm animal? Sure, why not.

Now, though, we think A-Rod is closing in on that point. His antics have long-since been tired, but Holy Buckets the drama has reached Hill Street Blues level.

In fact, going by the Tyson factor of what sentence would surprise you, well, here's the latest on A-Rod. The Washington Post reported that one of his companies is managing a run-down apartment complex in Maryland that has been reported to authorities dozens of times.

Yes, A-Rod is a slum lord. And we're not really surprised are we.

Gang, feel free to weigh in on any of the above and remember UTC football coach Russ Huesman is going to join us in the 1 p.m. hour of Press Row on ESPN Radio 105.1 FM and on espnchattanooga.com

Have a great weekend.