Andrew Hawkins Becoming Star in Cleveland Browns Balanced Offense

Andrew Hawkins Becoming Star in Cleveland Browns Balanced Offense

Bleacher Report / by Kristopher Knox / 13min ago

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins is probably a pretty easy player to overlook. At just 5'7" and 180 pounds, he is never going to stand out as the biggest guy on the field. Playing alongside guys such as A.J. Green and Jermaine Gresham with the Cincinnati Bengals for his first three NFL seasons, Hawkins had trouble standing out in the receiving crowd as well. In fact, Hawkins is likely best-known nationally as a runner-up on Michael Irvin's reality-television competition 4th and Long. However, Hawkins was well-known among diehard Bengals fans as a shifty playmaker with plenty of run-after-the-catch ability. He has quickly made himself known to Browns fans during his short time with his new team, and he is on the verge of letting football fans everywhere know that he shouldn't be overlooked any longer. Through three weeks, Hawkins has racked up 21 receptions for 244 yards. Not only does Hawkins lead the Browns in receptions and receiving yardage, he also currently ranks 16th in the entire league in yards and is tied for ninth in receptions. Sportscaster John Telich provides some additional stats on Hawkins: According to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Hawkins is currently the league's second-best overall receiver. For fans who actually have followed Hawkins throughout his young pro career, this shouldn't be a huge surprise. The diminutive wideout is an excellent route-runner who cuts quickly and cleanly out of his breaks, allowing him to gain separation and get open against defenders. "I'd rather guard (Josh) Gordon than him,'' Cornerback Justin Gilbert said of Hawkins during the offseason, reports Northeast Ohio Media Group's Mary Kay Cabot. "He's so little and quick. Those guys are hard to get a handle on. He's out there making plays every day.'' Hawkins has found plenty of ways to make plays on game day because he is a perfect fit for offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan's system. Shanahan's offense is based on a strong zone-running game with plenty of play-action and roll-out passes. Timing is extremely important in the system, as is the ability of the quarterback to deliver the football quickly. Hawkins' ability to quickly get open with precision route running has clearly made him a favorite target of quarterback Brian Hoyer. Hoyer and Hawkins complement each other well, and Hawkins has proved to be capable of delivering in critical situations. It was Hawkins who broke free against the New Orleans Saints defense to set up Cleveland's game-winning field goal in Week 2, and it has been Hawkins who is usually called upon to move the chains. According to Matt Goodwin of NumberFire.com, Hawkins is currently tied for sixth in the NFL with 14 first-down receptions. With Gordon still away serving a 10-game suspension, Hawkins has served as Cleveland's No. 1 receiver, and he has done so well. The interesting thing is that Hawkins would likely be spending another year as a Bengals role player had Browns general manager Ray Farmer not decided to take a chance and had Cincinnati not severely undervalued the Toledo product. During the offseason, the Browns signed Hawkins to a restricted-free-agent offer sheet. The Bengals decided not to match the four-year, $13.6 million deal. Since Hawkins was originally signed as an undrafted free agent, and the Bengals awarded him with an original-round tender, Cincinnati received no compensation in return. Radio host Keith Britton of 92.3 The Fan provided Farmer's comments on Hawkins: The Browns, meanwhile, have been getting a huge return on their investment in Hawkins, and the wideout is finally getting a chance to shine as the go-to guy in Shanahan's offense. “I just thank God for the position I’m in and having great coaches, being here in Cleveland, playing with Brian,” Hawkins said recently, per Scott Petrak of The Medina-Gazette. “I think it’s everything coming together at the right time.” Google+ Visit website

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Ryder Cup 2014 Tee Times: Friday Fourball Pairings Announced

Ryder Cup 2014 Tee Times: Friday Fourball Pairings Announced | Bleacher Report (via http://ble.ac/teamstream-) http://teamstre.am/1DyZb50

Ferguson cops: Key use-of-force report missing in Michael Brown investigation

Ferguson cops: Key use-of-force report missing in Michael Brown investigation via Yahoo News Digest Get the app and the day's need-to-know news. https://yho.com/newsdigestall

Report: Cavaliers in process of trading for Celtics’ Keith Bogans

Report: Cavaliers in process of trading for Celtics’ Keith Bogans

Brett Pollakoff Sep 25, 2014, 8:31 PM EDT

The Cavaliers are already likely to finish as one of the top two teams in the Eastern Conference this season. But just in case a championship isn’t in the cards, the team is positioning itself quite nicely to add significant talent in the future.

Cleveland is nearing a deal that will add a non-guaranteed contract to its books, which could be packaged with another already in place to acquire some real talent next summer, or even later on in the upcoming season.

From Marc Stein of ESPN.com:

ESPN sources say that the Cavs are in process of trading for Boston’s Keith Bogans

Sources say Cavs are expected to package their three non-guaranteed deals (Erik Murphy, John Lucas and Malcolm Thomas) in trade for KBogans

And from Mark Deeks of Sham Sports:

Bogans and Haywood are a combined $16,035,935 in completely unguaranteed contract next offseason. That’s why.

Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com reports that the Celtics will also receive a pair of second-round picks.

The key here for the Cavaliers is keeping Bogans and Brendan Haywood on the roster all season long, so that they’ll have the opportunity to package the two in a potential trade for another superstar next summer.

Cleveland should contend immediately for a championship in the upcoming season with the talent already in place. But in case things go south, it’s nice to know that they’re working towards having the ability to improve in advance of the following season.

Frontrunner Stakes Springboard for Breeders’ Cup and Kentucky Derby

Frontrunner Stakes Springboard for Breeders’ Cup and Kentucky Derby
Lady and The Track » Feed / by Casey Laughter / 5 hours ago
Frontrunner Stakes Springboard for Breeders’ Cup and Kentucky Derby: The Frontrunner (G1) have been a worthy prep race for the Kentucky Derby, and for careers of amazing racehorses since its inception in 1976, when it was known as the Norfolk Stakes. The Frontrunner has seen some very good thoroughbreds enter its winner circle through the years. Lookin at Lucky won the Frontrunner in 2009, while other graded stakes winners such as Stormello (2006), Dixie Union (1999), Free House (1996), Bertrando (1991), and Best Pal (1990), have all used the Frontrunner as their preview of better things to come from them! Could another super star be in the 2014 Frontrunner field? (see 2014 odds below)

Bond Holder and jockey Mario Gutierrez, pictured above, won the 2013 Frontrunner Stakes at Santa Anita Park and went on to the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile where the duo finished in 4th place. Sadly, Bond Holder lost his battle with laminitis earlier this year. Team Lady and The Track encourages fans to donate winnings this weekend to laminitis research at grayson-jockeyclub.org.
Photo: Benoit Photo

This year’s Frontrunner field will line up on Saturday, September 27 at the great race place, Santa Anita Park. The new dirt should be interesting to see, especially with some of these horses trying dirt or two turns for the first time. There are some stakes winners in this field. Daddy D T, by Scat Daddy, broke his maiden in the Oak Tree Juvenile Turf Stakes last month, at the 1-mile distance. Scat Daddy has proven to be a very good turf and synthetics sire. I understand the switch to dirt, trying to earn some early Kentucky Derby points, but this horse has shown that he likes the turf. If he goes unplaced here, expect a switch back to turf. American Pharoah broke his maiden in the grade one Del Mar Futurity, leading every step of the way over the synthetics. The race was his second start, and only around one turn. Baffert instructed jockey Victor Espinoza to get him to the lead. Baffert seems to think the only way American Pharoah will run his race is if he is on the lead. The Pioneerof the Nile ridgling seems to be one dimensional, so far. This will be his first race around two turns as well. Skyway is the other graded stakes winner in the field. He won the grade two Best Pal stakes at 6 ½ furlongs. This Sky Mesa colt is one of the more experienced in the field, which will be making his fifth start here. He broke his maiden at 4 ½ furlongs in a maiden special weight. The colt is likely to like the shorter distances though, as he is out of a Dr. Blum mare, which carried on the Dr. Fager line. The colt is working awesome at Santa Anita though. His last recorded work was 5F in :59.6. He is primed to pounce, if he can make the 8.5F distance.

What about the rest of the field? Let’s start with Calculator. He was second in the G1 Del Mar Futurity. Although he was clearly second best to American Pharaoh, he was also 8 ½ lengths better than the third place horse. Calculator is the only maiden in the race, but he is likely to be one of the top betting choices in the race. He is working very well at the San Luis Ray Training Center, last recording a 6F work in 1:13 flat. He is also trying two turns for the first time, which may be exactly what he needs. Texas Red is an Afleet Alex colt who has the ability to get the 8.5F that the Frontrunner demands. He broke his maiden going a mile at Del Mar in his third start. He doesn’t seem to be the best workhorse though, as all his works are not anything to brag about. He may be better on the turf, as his distaff side is heavy in turf influence. Lord Nelson is the exact opposite of Texas Red. Lord Nelson is by the late Pulpit, out of a Seeking the Gold mare. Lord Nelson should love the distance here. He is also working like a monster over the Santa Anita track. He broke his maiden at Del Mar going 5F and should get better with age and distance.

Any horse in this race could take the G1 Frontrunner, but the mane threats are likely to be the graded stakes winners, American Pharoah, Skyway, and Daddy D T. Whoever does take the G1 Frontrunner will earn 10 points and a place in the running for the 2015 Kentucky Derby. The second place finisher will receive 4 points; third place will receive 2 points, and fourth will receive 1 point. The Frontrunner is also a “win and you’re in” race for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. These horses are running for more than Kentucky Derby points, but for a guaranteed spot in the Santa Anita starting gate on November 1

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Horses to watch is just a guide for starters any circles mean to play to win. Tri super play supers and tris. 

Best bet for the day
Race 1 bet the 4 to win.
@bmdsports for plays throughout the day
Good luck.

Mark Twain and the Best Gambling Advice You May Ever Hear

Mark Twain and the Best Gambling Advice You May Ever Hear

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.” -Mark Twain

Mark Twain has been called the father of American literature. Rarely has Twain been credited with giving us great gambling insight. Pittsburgh Phil, Barry Meadow, and Andrew Beyer, yes; Mark Twain, not so much. Yet, you could build a solid betting philosophy around Twain’s quote. In the horseplayer’s world, you may call it taking a stand or betting against the favorite. Though we know the public is right the majority of the time (see James Surowiecki’s book The Wisdom of Crowds), we take no pride in picking 3-5 favorites with every other Tom, Dick and Harry. The successful bettor is looking to identify an edge and then bet it. If we want to gain in betting, what we are going to maximize is not the number of wins, but the payoff. And that is why it is important to listen to Mark Twain and be willing to think unconventionally.

“The central premise of parimutuel wagering,” Steve Crist tells us, “is to get a better price from the other bettors than something deserves to be.” For me, the 2013 Arlington Classic was a textbook example. After spending three days handicapping the Arlington card and after hearing Tom LaMarra make some compelling arguments for General Election to win the Arlington Classic, I could not believe that this horse-who was 5-1 on the morning line- was being overlooked. Though LaMarra selected General Election on The Bloodhorse’s That Handicapping Show, several of the experts were looking elsewhere. Pete Denk made a compelling case for Brown Almighty, Jessica Pacheco liked Bambazonki, and Brisnet.com’s The Handicapper’s Edge chose Procurement. Indeed, this was a tough race to handicap and a tough card overall. I had dreams of putting together a 50 cent Pick 5 ticket, but there were several races that were too dicey. And I lacked a key horse to single anywhere on the card. My plan B ended up being a few rolling Pick 3s prior to the Arlington Classic which all fizzled out on a day that saw several longshots win at Arlington. But everything turned around with a straight win bet on General Election.

Mark Ripple writes, “As handicappers, we find value plays in horses the general public overlooks.” The general public was definitely overlooking General Election. This horse was 5-1 on the morning line. My Brisnet PPs and LaMarra both pointed out that General Election was bred to like the turf. And I liked LaMarra’s angle of playing the horse that was trying the turf for the first time. Of course, WinStar and Joe Rocco Jr. were positive factors as well. And you had to notice the fact that Kellyn Gorder was winning at a 28% clip when shipping in. But I also liked the fact that the horse had faced good company- Triple Crown horses Black Onyx, Mylute, Giant Finish, and Departing, along with a decent horse named Pick of the Litter. Regardless of what angle-or angles- you were using, this WinStar horse was a classic overlay.

“Imagination is what sets you aside from every other person in the grandstand,” writes handicapper Brad Free. “If you don’t have a unique opinion- if you’re not able to stand alone from doing what everybody else does- you’re in the wrong game.” Admiral Kitten, Fordubai, and Procurement were taking alot of action at the betting windows as the three favorites. And that is where the advice of Steve Klein comes in. In his book The Power of Early Speed, Klein writes, “When you concentrate most of your bets on horses who are among the first three betting choices, your long-term results will forever be locked into a narrow, unprofitable range. You are kept in check by a low ceiling of possible payoffs.” James Quinn states it another way when he writes, “Never play the underlays because even when you win you lose.”

I don’t want to debate whether you should bet the favorite or not. Instead, I want to point to the advice of Twain in order to profit long-term. Mark Ripple writes, “Always think independently of the crowd; bet what others cannot or are afraid to bet, and you will prosper.” And anyone who bet General Election to win prospered to the tune of $28.20 for a $2 win wager. The Arlington Classic demonstrated an example of betting against the favorite. The authors of Six Secrets of Successful Bettors write, “That’s where the biggest opportunities lie. When you don’t like the favorite and you have a positive opinion on another horse in the race, then that’s a chance to make a real score.” The godfather of modern handicapping, Steve Crist, writes, “I’m usually looking to beat favorites because that’s how you make scores, and making scores quicker than you give them back is how you come out ahead.”

Pause and reflect on the Twain quote the next time you find yourself on the same side as the majority. And remember Crist’s simple wisdom. Focus on making scores quicker than you give them back in order to come out ahead. In Fooled By Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes, “I love taking small losses. I just need my winners to be large.” I lived that philosophy out on the Saturday of the Arlington Classic. I withstood small losses on horses at Churchill and Hollywood. And I had two smaller Pick 3s fade earlier in the day at Arlington. But one discrepancy between my line and the track odds made for a large win in the Arlington Classic. And I am fine with small losses, when my winners pay $28.20.

About the Author

Scott Raymond is a writer, a horseplayer, and an avid reader. He is the author of the popular posts “Why We Don’t Trust Tipsters,” “The Six Best Horse Racing Books of All-Time,” and “A Tale of Two Benches.” His all-time favorite horses are Monarchos and General Quarters. Follow Raymond on Twitter @onehorsestable.
He can also be reached by e-mail at onehorsestable at gmail dot com.
[Scott Raymond]
Scott Raymond

6 Reasons Why Authenticity Is The Key To Success 1K Addicted 2 Success

6 Reasons Why Authenticity Is The Key To Success 1K Addicted 2 Success / by Linda Coussement / 6 days ago What is your definition of success? No seriously, what is it? Is it money? A house? A car? A boat?

Interestingly enough, monetary gains are hardly ever part of the definition of success for big league entrepreneurs. Their definitions all stem from more meaningful insights. Words like perseverance, active engagement and changing the world are continuously present. And just look at the entrepreneurs themselves: they all have 1 major thing in common, don’t they? They’re extremely authentic. Authenticity is mostly associated with not acting like someone else and voicing your own truths. It means NOT being pressured into decisions or judgments by outside influences. It is about trusting YOUR heart and your gut instinct and following it no matter what. Sounds easy enough right? But being authentic is definitely not the easy road to success. It means that you will potentially have to go against the grain of what is considered ‘normal’. You’ll have to stick your neck out for what you really stand for. But here’s the BIG secret…there is no easy road to success! Not one that is sustainable in the long run at least, or one in which you will still like yourself. Sorry to break it to you, but it’s the truth; ask any of the big entrepreneurs out there.   Here are 6 reasons that further clarify that authenticity is absolutely essential to your entrepreneurial success:   1. Decision Making Becomes A Lot More Easy If you are absolutely true and faithful to your vision then nothing will be able to distract you from achieving it. You will no longer spend your time on meetings or projects that do not add value simply because you’re better able to say NO. This does not mean that you’ll need to become harsh and unsympathetic but you’ll be a lot clearer about what is and what isn’t on your priority list. Better yet,the more clear YOU are about your vision and the direction your business is going in, the more clear EVERYONE you work with is on this. Meaning that you’ll spend less time explaining yourself, less time answering questions or making decisions for others. You’ll have made sure others can make the exact same decisions themselves.   2. Sleazeballs Will Have Nothing On You Trusting your own instincts will sharpen your ability to distinguish between those people that are completely honest and those that are not. If you’re working hard on ensuring honesty and trust in your business, than you sure don’t want to be bothered with people who are potentially dishonest and disloyal. You know upfront that these people will just eat up your time and energy and in the long run not bring you, and your business, any value. You need to make sure though that you can see beyond any potential short-term gains and focus on the fact that these types of people can seriously hurt your business in the long run. Listen to those instincts and save yourself a lot of trouble!   3. You Will Attract The Most Awesome People To Work For You What happens to you when someone is not completely straight with you? Does it make you want to listen to that person? Does it make you trust that person? Does that person inspire you to work your very best? Probably not. No scrap that, DEFINITELY not. People are inspired by leaders who interact with them in a meaningful way. Who tell them the truth. Who are not afraid to be human and admit to making mistakes (just like they do). Unfortunately, 82% of people do not trust that their leaders tell them the truth (Edelman Trust Barometer 2013 Annual Global Study) 82%!! That is shocking!! That means that when YOU are part of that exclusive 18% that CAN be trusted and especially when you’ve made sure that that trust is an integral part of your entire business culture, then there is no doubt that you will attract only the best of the best to your business. 4. You Will Learn At An Explosive Rate As you’re open to new experiences and you’re honest about the fact that you don’t know everything – yes, that’s right, you don’t! – it will be a whole lot easier to learn new things. And it’s not just the more elusive spiritual lessons I’m talking about here. It’s also simply the fact that you’ll be self confident enough to hire an expert when it’s required; to acknowledge that you don’t know everything and that you’re open to be taught and coached. It’s actually one of the biggest pitfalls for entrepreneurs: thinking they know it all and being too stubborn to get some help. Keeping this up just means that you’re digging your own business grave!   5. You Will Never Have Any Regrets Sure you will still make mistakes and misjudge situations and people at times, but you listened to your gut and trusted that AT THAT POINT IN TIME. That means that you’ve taken conscious decisions to do whatever it was that you did; even when it was difficult, hard or even scary. So even when the outcome of your efforts were not as you hoped them to be, there’s no way you will be placing any blame or regrets on yourself. All you’re left with are extremely valuable lessons that you’ll take with you to you next decision.   6. You Will Represent Quality And Trust You might say NO to profitable deals. You might say NO to some super qualified employee. You might even say NO to being the CEO of the company you founded. You will say NO when something is just NOT in line with your vision and your truth. And you’re absolutely okay with that! This requires a lot of guts and ultimately means that you cannot be bought. People, investors, clients, will all recognize this and the right ones will value it for exactly what it’s worth. The level of quality you bring to the table is undeniable and that means that people can trust you and your product without any doubt. This is simply priceless.   “Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light” - George Washington   As said before, the authentic road is not necessarily the easiest. But it is the one that will take you, and your business, the furthest.   Authenticity Quotes To Remember “We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” – May Sarton “Why, when we know that there’s no such thing as perfect, do most of us spend an incredible amount of time and energy trying to be everything to everyone? Is it that we really admire perfection? No – the truth is that we are actually drawn to people who are real and down-to-earth. We love authenticity and we know that life is messy and imperfect.” - Brene Brown “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” – C.G. Jung “There is nothing more beautiful than seeing a person being themselves. Imagine going through your day being unapologetically you.” – Steve Maraboli :Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet – thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing – consistently. This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust.” – Lance Secretan Google+ Visit website

Report: Ravens knew about second Ray Rice video hours after assault

Report: Ravens knew about second Ray Rice video hours after assault

Arun Srinivasan Sep 19 2014, 04:03PM

A comprehensive investigation by ESPN's Outside the Lines shows the Baltimore Ravens and NFL purposefully worked to protect Ray Rice despite knowledge of his infamous assault video.

According to the report released Friday, Ravens director of security Darren Sanders was told about the graphic detail of the video by an Atlantic City police officer hours after Rice knocked out his then-fiancee, Janay, in February.

Sanders relayed the specifics to Ravens executives shortly thereafter.

Outside The Lines details the Ravens and the NFL's actions - or lack thereof - in the subsequent months. Here's what you need to know:

Ravens coach John Harbaugh advocated for Rice to be cut, but he was denied by general manager Ozzie Newsome, owner Steve Bisciotti and president Dick Cass. The Ravens denied Harbaugh's recommendation, stating Friday "Harbaugh did not want to release Ray Rice until he saw the second video on Sept. 8 for the first time. The video changed everything for all of us."
Rice's attorney Michael Diamondstein acquired a copy of the video in April and told Cass "It's f---ing horrible." Sometime between Feb. 17 and Feb. 19, Rice instructed Diamondstein, "Keep me out of jail, and keep my bosses happy."
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell met with Rice on June 16 at NFL headquarters. Rice was joined by his wife, who pleaded for a penalty that would not damage his reputation. Rice told Goodell that he knocked his wife out, and Goodell later told him that he could be a spokesman against domestic violence. Goodell would later tell CBS that Rice's story was 'ambigous.'
Bisciotti texted Ray Rice after the second video emerged: "When you're done with football, I'd like you to know you have a job waiting for you with the Ravens helping young guys getting acclimated to the league."
Bisciotti, Cass and Newsome all lobbied Goodell to give Rice a two-game suspension or less. Rice was initially suspended for just two games by the league. Goodell maintains that it was illegal for the league to obtain the assault video, but legal experts said that claim is false.
Feature photo courtesy of Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports

Book Five of 2014 Keeneland September Sales Should Spark Buyer Interests

Book Five of 2014 Keeneland September Sales Should Spark Buyer Interests

Book Five of 2014 Keeneland September Sales Should Spark Buyer Interests: Book 5 of the Keeneland Sale (on Friday, September 19, 2014) is the second to last book, and sometimes, it may be the last time the buyers get to visit the sale until next year. Book 5 really caught my eyes with some really “neat” pedigrees. Let’s jump right in!

Friday’s edition of the 2014 Keeneland September Sale features a few colts and fillies worth a second glance.
Photo: Keeneland

Hip 3196 – Pioneer of the Nile filly, out of the Anasheed mare Lil Indy, already has a name! Named Indynile Princess, this filly has a lot of potential! Her sire is a younger sire, which has already proven to be a very good sire. This filly is out the half sister to multiple graded stakes winner, Flat Out, who recently retired to stud at age 7. This filly should love dirt, and likely middle distances, but could stretch out with the right training, as she has the right pedigree.

Hip 3210 – This Hard Spun colt is likely to find the turf to his liking. Why? His dam is a half sister to Winter Memories, the multiple graded stakes mare, who loved the grass. This colt’s second dam, Memories of Silver, was also a multiple graded stakes winner. The distaff line here is very healthy and ripe with winners. Hard Spun gets those distance runners, and this colt could very likely find the longer the distance, the better.

Hip 3226 – this filly, named Tale of Indy, is by the Pulpit stallion, Ice Box. What I like about this filly is that she is inbred 3Sx3D so A.P. Indy. We know the inbreeding is likely to work, as we have graded stakes winner I Spent It bred on the same cross. This filly is out of a Tale of the Cat mare, which should lend some speed to all the stamina up top. This filly will likely relish the two turn dirt races.

Hip 3235 – this First Dude filly will likely be found on the front end of her races, when she gets there, that is. She is out of the Phone Trick mare, New York Jessica. The appealing thing about the distaff line here is, that New York Jessica, is half to the multiple graded stakes winner, Unbridled Belle. This filly should find the traditional dirt to her liking, and be able to carry her speed two turns.

Hip 3312 – this City Zip colt would be a likely candidate for sprint races. Not so fast though! This colt is out of the Fusaichi Pegasus mare Sea Pegasus. Sea Pegasus is out of a Seattle Slew mare. In the bottom half of the pedigree, there are two Kentucky Derby winners, one being the winner of the 1977 Triple Crown. The 2nd dam, Seattle Classic, is also a half sister to Dance Smartly, winner of the Canadian Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup Distaff, and Smart Strike, grade one winner and champion sire. This colt should balance out well and find the mile distance to his liking, or maybe a little further. Dirt should be his preferred surface.

Hip 3335 – this Super Saver filly is likely to turn some heads. Her dam, Smart Society, is by the recently deceased, Beau Genius. While this filly has 5 half siblings, 3 of them have races, but none have won. The 2nd dam here though, produced multiple graded stakes winners Colonel John and the flat racer turned steeplechaser Mr. Hot Stuff. This filly is likely to find middle distances to her liking and would likely take to any surface.

Hip 3336 – This Northern Afleet filly has quite a lovely pedigree for the distance lovers. Out of the Candy Ride mare Smoothe as Candy, she has quite a distaff line. Her dam is a full sister to graded stakes winner Chocolate Candy. The distaff line of this filly would also show up in the champion Twirling Candy. The most interesting and exciting thing in the pedigree, though, is the 4th dam Won’t Tell You. Won’t Tell You produced the 1978 Triple Crown winner, Affirmed.

Hip 3434 – This filly by Drosselmeyer should be well received. She is out of the A.P. Indy mare Brilliant Disguise, who also is a half sister to multiple graded stakes winner Jersey Town. While Brilliant Disguise was unraced, her dam, Jersey Girl, was a multiple graded stakes winner. She took the Mother Goose Stakes (G1), the Test Stakes (G1), and the Cicada Stakes (G3), among others. Brilliant Disguise has proven that the Distorted Humor sire line works with her, as she has produced a winner by Distorted Humor. This filly has a very good distaff line and should find the two turn dirt races to her liking.

The post Book Five of 2014 Keeneland September Sales Should Spark Buyer Interests appeared first on Lady and The Track.

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Alibaba goes public this morning. Forty minutes after the market opened it still was unclear when the first trade of BABA would occur — it could still be an hour more, according to designated market maker Pat Barclay of Barclays, just interviewed on CNBC outside Post 8 at the New York Stock Exchange.

Alibaba goes public this morning. Forty minutes after the market opened it still was unclear when the first trade of BABA would occur — it could still be an hour more, according to designated market maker Pat Barclay of Barclays, just interviewed on CNBC outside Post 8 at the New York Stock Exchange. But the first mandatory indication was a whopping $80-$83 in the 30-million-share range, he said. Where BABA opens is still up on the air, but even at the striking price of $68 Alibaba would be worth a staggering $168 billion. Alibaba’s largest stockholder, Japanese investment giant SoftBank, was not expected to be among the first sellers. But Yahoo has said it would be, and this is good-news-bad-news for the company, as Douglas MacMillan writes in the Wall Street Journal:

The windfall, long awaited by Yahoo investors, puts pressure on Chief Executive Marissa Mayer to find new areas of growth. More than two years into her attempt to turn around the aging Internet portal, its core advertising business is shrinking and Yahoo continues to cede share of the market to Google.

Yahoo will return at least half of the Alibaba proceeds to shareholders, finance chief Ken Goldman said in July. He didn't specify whether that would take the form of a buyback or dividend.

Among the beneficiaries will be some newly-minted millionaires, Andrew Jacobs and Neil Gough write from Hangzhou, China for the New York Times:

Started here in 1999, Alibaba has followed the model of Microsoft, Google and other American technology companies, generously handing out stock to all levels of workers, from senior executives to receptionists. It has created a wealth diaspora rarely seen in China, where the economy is still dominated by state-owned enterprises, and private companies generally reserve riches for executives at the upper echelons.

The initial public offering ... will provide Silicon Valley-style payouts. At Alibaba and its affiliates, around 6,000 current and former employees owned stock worth nearly $8 billion before the I.P.O. And that sum represents only a piece of the shares doled out over the years to employees, some of whom cashed out earlier at lower, albeit still lucrative, prices.

So where does Alibaba founder Jack Ma get his inspiration? Ma reminded investors during a morning appearance CNBC's Squawk Box this morning: Forrest Gump. As he has said of the fictional poster boy for overachievers: "Forrest Gump is not a smart guy, but he is focused. He's not talented, but he is very, very hard working, and he's very simple and opportunistic."

And Ma's aspirations? "We want to be bigger than Wal-Mart ... We want people to say this is a company ... that changed the world."

_____

THE ORACLE OF ORACLE: Larry Ellison, one of the most colorful, successful and opinionated titans of tech, is stepping aside at Oracle, the company he co-founded in 1977 and turned into a behemoth with nearly $38 billion in revenues last year in the decidedly unsexy but critical arena of enterprise software. Ellison will become executive chairman and CTO, and has named Mark Hurd and Safra Catz as co-CEOs. As Josh Bersin in writes on LinkedIn, this is a succession done right:

[I]t shows that Oracle is now mature enough and smart enough to build a long term succession plan for Ellison himself … This puts Larry where he fits best: watching the product strategy, observing market trends, and pushing Oracle to aggressively move when the time is right.

Ellison may thrive on his reputation as a flamboyant entrepreneur who made it very, very big, but he is hardly all hat and no cattle. Steve Jobs and Ellison were friends for a quarter century and when Ellison hired Hurd - who had been hounded out of Hewlett Packard - Ellison invoked an allusion to Jobs' ouster by Apple to express his incredulity that so valuable an executive could be disposed of. Now the question is, does the co-CEO thing work? On paper, it would seem to be asking for trouble. It seems to work well enough over at Chipotle.

_____

SCOT UNFREE: Scots have voted to remain part of the United Kingdom in a rare public referendum that maintains a 307-year-old affiliation that began by choice and remains voluntary. Turnout was extraordinary: Some 3.5 million voters of an eligible pool of four million, and, despite a plethora of too-close-to-call polls, the final tally was decisive: 55%-45%. Leader of the independence movement Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond was gracious in defeat but pointed out that 1.6 million Scots had voted to secede. "I don't think of any of us … would have thought such a thing could be credible or possible," he said. This is now a stubborn fact London will have to factor in when it comes to internal relations with the rest of the Commonwealth. Prime Minister David Cameron, who may have bet his political future on the decision to allow the vote to proceed, acknowledged as such:

It is absolutely right that a new and fair settlement for Scotland should be accompanied by a new and fair settlement that applies to all parts of our United Kingdom. In Wales, there are proposals to give the Welsh government and Assembly more powers. And I want Wales to be at the heart of the debate on how to make our United Kingdom work for all our nations. In Northern Ireland, we must work to ensure that the devolved institutions function effectively.

What's changes? The Sterling strengthened on the news, and inside baseball analysts say this bolsters "Brexit" — a UK exit from the European Union. And, of course, as Alistair Heath of the Telegraph says: Everything.

*****

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The imminent listing of Alibaba Group Holding on the New York Stock Exchange will mark the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history.

The imminent listing of Alibaba Group Holding on the New York Stock Exchange will mark the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history.

  The big Chinese e-commerce outfit will sell up to $24 billion in shares, and the market value of the firm will approach $200 billion. Many a frenzied investor is trying to decide whether to hop aboard at the IPO price or wait until the stock trades and excitement surrounding this historic offering settles down.

The public offering of Alibaba is a 21st century version of the China consumer dream. For centuries, merchants have dreamed of conquering the consumers of the world’s most populous country (current population: 1.4 billion). At the dawn of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, the British imagined that the textile mills of Manchester would whir forever if they could just “add an inch of material to every Chinaman’s shirt tail.” In the early 20th century, Standard Oil’s John D. Rockefeller dreamed of supplying “oil for the lamps of China.” In 1937, Carl Crow, an American who opened the first Western ad agency in Shanghai, published a best-seller about the market entitled “400 Million Customers.”

So back to today, should an investor purchase shares of Alibaba? We have no opinion on the stock or the fairness of the offering price. But we have conducted extensive research on the history of IPOs, their pricing and performance subsequent to listing on the market, and think the results of that research could be helpful to investors contemplating such a purchase.

Is the IPO price fair?

Underwriters often set low offer prices, leading to high first day returns when IPOs are initially traded on an exchange. Given the potentially high returns earned by investing in IPOs, should an investor buy IPOs from an underwriter at the offer price?

For the price to be fair, two requirements need to be satisfied:

Transparent information on the expected price at which a security is bought or sold
High expectation that securities can be bought and sold at that price
For public securities that trade on an exchange, the Bid reflects the market’s expectation for the price that a security can be sold, and the Ask is the price at which a security can be purchased. Market orders that are sufficiently small in size will be executed at or near the Bid and Ask prices. For an IPO, there is often a range provided by the lead underwriter for the offer price. The underwriter, however, can set an offer price that is outside of this range. Since the price is not known at the time an IPO deal is won by the lead underwriter, IPOs fail the first criterion for prices to be fair.

IPOs also fail on the second criterion. For an IPO where demand for shares exceeds supply (aka “Hot Issue”), the amount of shares you submitted as an indication of interest to purchase will most likely not be available for allocation to you if the supply of shares available is not sufficient to meet demand. Thus, while an investor will still benefit from a high initial day return, he will often not get the number of shares requested, thus reducing his potential profits. For an IPO where demand is less than supply, your indication of interest will most likely be allocated in full, but in many of these cases the price falls on the first day. The potential lack of a fair price and the non-transparent nature in which IPOs are allocated make it difficult for an investor to know whether the potentially high initial day returns to investing in an IPO are in fact achievable.

Are IPO stocks good long-term investments?

A second, related question is whether IPOs are suitable investments after a firm has gone public and shares are being actively traded in the market. Executives and owners of a company that has an IPO are subject to restriction on trading their shares of the company. In many cases the restriction or “lock up” period to sell their shares of the company stock may be six months to one year after the trade date of the IPO. When this lock-up expires, however, our research has shown that in many cases the share price declines in value for these companies as the insiders are now able to sell their shares in the open market.

IPOs, historically, are often for companies that are smaller and more growth-oriented than the established companies listed on an exchange. Prior academic research shows that historically, small growth stocks have had poor performance. To control for size and value characteristics, each month we compared the return of an IPO firm to the return of firms that have similar Size and Book-to-Market ratios. We then divided IPOs into three groups by their market capitalization: Microcap, Small Ex-Micro, and Large. The results were reported in the time period following the IPO. The abnormal returns (return minus size/value-matched benchmark) for IPOs were averaged across all IPOs in that size group. For example, quarter six for Microcap is the average abnormal return six quarters (or one and a half years) after the firm has gone public and reflects all IPOs. The cumulative performance since the IPO (Quarter zero) is displayed in the line chart below.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that, while first day returns for Hot Issue IPOs are quite high, they are unlikely to be achievable for investors because they are unable to get the shares they indicated for due to oversubscription. Additionally, IPOs historically have underperformed for up to two and a half years after going public. For these reasons, we believe, that despite the allure of trying to buy an IPO, the costs and speculative nature outweigh the benefit for an individual investor.

Gregg S. Fisher, CFA, CFP® on LinkedIn

Baba Ma and IPhone 6 all on one day. To Chinese economy sociology smog and Tesla Steel Space Ghost Towns hidden cities and Liquid Natural gas

AliBaba. OK so every single Chinese stock unveiled in the USA has ended at 10-15% the ipo price. So the people who will be making the money are the people who own shares in the company in China. Finally the first person I have seen on Xbox who thinks the same as me. There's more than enough ways and opportunities to make money in our market day trading or long-term. However if so valuable why would one of, if not the smartest men in the world,  founder Jack Ma. Yes I know that he's making a ton of money you don't have to be a genius to figure that out. This isn't a kid in his garage with a startup stoked to be moving out of mom's house. the man has made a fortune. It's just something that makes me pause and let everyone else sell off their holdings and probably make a good amount of money. You can do the same by using your head and common sense. If my ass was able to see ahead and invest on natural gas in the good old USA. To be precise it was 6/20/2010 somewhere around then I took a position in (LNG) at $6.25  a share it's now $80+. Same thing when I made my position a few months ago on (X) good old steel with Chinese banks seemingly in trouble no matter what the perceptions are they continue to build these huge ghost towns hidden cities whatever you want to call them. It's like you lie and have to keep making up lies to to cover the one before and so on. That's why I prefer brutal honest truth that rubs some people the wrong way.  I go to bed great at night knowing that usually only the people who are the ones it rubs the wrong way are one's that don't want to be confronted with the truth all the time. Trust me those are people who you are better not having in your life anyway. The whole steel position paid of the last 2 weeks especially and it could be from a totally different reason. Except in my mind a country that doesn't have any steel and is building tower after tower and empty city followed by another they will probably need steel. We just so happen to still be on top of the mountain when it comes to steel and last I checked have a pretty good import export with China. This is another factor that ties into some of my larger holdings and ones I won't touch. AliBaba is as a company goes, the way it is set up, is tied to their respective government as much as any company out there. Sorry I don't want my money tied to any government let alone China.  However the one factor I do like about China is not only the fact that the population is only behind India in numbers and fastest growing middle classes in the world. Tesla has been one of my favorite companies since I first read about Elon Musk and what it was all about along with space ex before the thought of stocks ever entered my mind I've followed his companies I guess out of natural curiosity. Once I myself educated myself understood what he was doing and believing for years now that if anyone will figure out how to make it work I'll bet on him any day. I'm just pissed that his company space ex who is beneficiary along with Boeing to be sending us to space not the Russians anymore at a hefty price tag. Not just NASA but you and I. I have been a huge believer in the same Chinese economy and economic factors along with many other factors like smog would be a great fit for largest moving and growing middle class to be perfect for the electric car from Musk's Tesla. Time will tell however considering that tesla is a company from the ipo price that has only grown 1000% I think it would take quite a huge problem for me not to be able to get out in time. obviously I wasn't in on the IPO or I would be retired already. Either way I'm definitely excited to see what price AliBaba opens up at but I am expecting a nice spike early and it to be in the $80s possibly $90 range. The only company that will be happier with that price then Baba itself will be Yahoo. Since mid 2000s YAHOO! WHO'S's ALREADY MADE A TON BEING IN BED WITH BABA HAS A 23% STAKE OF BABA. WE SHALL SEE BUT I'M SITTING OUT. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE SOME QUICK MONEY TODAY LOOK INSIDE THE NEW IPHONE6 NOT APPLE BUT THE COMPANIES WHO'S WHOLE BUSINESSES HAVE QUADRUPLED BE IT A MICROCHIP OR A DAMN WIRE. BELIEVE IT OR NOT THE IPHONE6 SALES WONT REALLY CHANGE APPLES BOTTOM LINE THAT MUCH. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU COULDN'T HAVE BEEN SET UP ALREADY TO MAKE MONEY BY USING COMMON SENSE AND THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX. WELL IN THIS CASE INSIDE THE BOX OR BETTER YET  CASE FOR THAT MATTER. PUNS A PLENTY INTENDED. GOOD LUCK TO ALL TODAY. TIME FOR THE HORSES AND THE NEXT SPECULATIVE MONEY MARKET ALONG WITH SPORTS AND SOME EARLY MORNING FÚTBOL.

3 Photos That Help Explain the Frenzy Over Alibaba's IPO

Bloomberg - 3 Photos That Help Explain the Frenzy Over Alibaba's IPO http://bloom.bg/1qZCsK6

September 19th (Friday), Woodbine will have a $481,187.00 Jackpot High-5 carryover.

On September 19th (Friday), Woodbine will have a $481,187.00 Jackpot High-5 carryover.
 

posted from Bloggeroid

Imagine a trillion-dollar market that runs on faxes and phone calls while routinely tying up investors’ money for months before they get any return.

An employee counts a stack of U.S. one hundred dollar bills inside a currency exchange center in Mexico City, Mexico. Photographer: Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg
Imagine a trillion-dollar market that runs on faxes and phone calls while routinely tying up investors’ money for months before they get any return.
That’s not fiction: It’s the unregulated market for leveraged corporate loans. In a financial system that is increasingly automated, the origination and trading of loans is in the relative dark ages while money pours in from mainstream investors such as Kansas and New York pension plans and mutual funds catering to individuals seeking high yields in an era of near-zero interest rates.
The antiquated structure of a market that’s ballooned from a mere $35 billion in 1997 poses a growing threat, raising the odds of gridlock in a downturn when investors expect to get their money back with a click of a button. As of yet, no regulators have taken responsibility for fixing the deficiency.
“It’s a critical issue,” said Beth MacLean, a money manager at Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., which oversees $1.97 trillion, including the world’s biggest bond mutual fund. “Any single retail fund not being able to meet their redemptions would have a ripple effect on the whole market.”
The time it takes to settle a loan has gotten worse since the financial crisis, lengthening to an average 20 days as of June, from 17.8 days in 2007, according to data tracked by the Loan Syndications and Trading Association. In the high-yield bond market, it generally takes three or fewer days.
Not Securities

When regulators were drafting securities laws more than seventy years ago, company loans were excluded because they were mainly private transactions between one bank and one borrower. That’s no longer the case, as the debt is mostly syndicated, or distributed, to investors who can then trade the loans among themselves like a bond or a stock.

Judith Burns, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has placed a priority on monitoring corporate and municipal bond trading more closely, declined to comment. So did representatives of the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. which have all raised concern that banks are being too lax in their loan underwriting standards.
The logjam in the modern syndicated-loan market, founded in 1982 by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Vice Chairman James B. Lee Jr., matters to more people than ever.
Riskier Things

Investors poured an unprecedented $62.9 billion last year into mutual funds that buy the debt, which is mostly speculative-grade, according to Lipper data. They have been lured by yields greater than those of higher-rated securities and interest payments that float above benchmark rates with the latter being an attractive feature amid speculation the Fed may boost borrowing costs next year.
Mutual funds bought 32 percent of new loans last year, up from 15 percent in 2012, LSTA data show. The New York City Employees’ Retirement System held about $961.8 million as of March 31, regulatory filings show.


“Pension and retirement funds have poured in for the reason you know: They need yield,” said Erik Gordon, professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The low-rate environment has “forced people’s retirement to be invested in riskier and riskier things and this is an example of a riskier thing.”
Some of the worst delays in settlement times can be found in the market for new loans, where Pimco’s MacLean said it’s not uncommon for months to pass before a purchase is completed.
Huntsman Loan

Investors committed $1.2 billion in October to fund a loan for junk-rated Huntsman Corp. For about 10 months, they didn’t receive a dime.
Salt Lake City-based Huntsman obtained the financing to help pay for its purchase of Rockwood Holdings Inc.’s titanium dioxide business. The merger has taken longer than anticipated because of an antitrust holdup.

Kurt Ogden, a vice president of investor relations at Huntsman, said last month the loan commitment has been extended through Dec. 17. Investors were paid a fee in August, at which time the company also started putting aside interest that they’d receive upon settlement, said spokesman Brad Hart.
While the delays wouldn’t happen in a bond offering, it’s permissible in the loan market, where each financing is crafted according to individual borrowers’ desires.
One reason there’s little momentum to streamline trading is that Wall Street banks benefit from the status quo, according to Scott Page, director of bank loans at Boston-based mutual fund firm Eaton Vance Corp. Banks earn fees for committing to fund deals until they close while shifting risk to investors.
Archaic System

“The biggest banks who act as underwriters have an apparent self-interest in maintaining this archaic system,” Page said. “We are mystified by the fact they seem to have no interest in fixing it.”
JPMorgan and Bank of America Corp., the two biggest underwriters, as well as other big banks, typically earn fees of 1 percent to 5 percent for arranging a leveraged loan, according to Standard & Poor’s data. That compares with 0.5 percentage point on bonds for investment-grade companies, and 1.3 percent for junk notes last year, Bloomberg data show.

While buyers and sellers can trade stocks and bonds among themselves, they need the approval of corporate borrowers before they can exchange loans. Clerks must then update loan documents to reflect new lenders.
With loans, “there’s a high amount of faxing going on still,” said Virginie O’Shea, a senior analyst at Aite Group LLC in London. “People don’t realize that fax machines are still around in this day and age but they are.”
No Incentive

Banks have no incentive to drag out the time it takes to settle a loan, according to Bram Smith, executive director of the New York-based LSTA, the market’s main lobbying group.
“It’s a well-known fact to market participants that loan settlement is different from that of other asset classes,” he said. By recognizing the difference, both mutual funds and other investors have “prospered and grown quite nicely.”
Brian Marchiony, a spokesman for New York-based JPMorgan, and Zia Ahmed, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, declined to comment.
While loans may be inefficient to process, their ability to be crafted for unique financing situations is what makes them attractive to many borrowers and lenders, the LSTA’s Smith said.
Wall Street’s biggest banks have helped speculative-grade companies including cable-television provider Charter Communications Inc. and hospital operator Community Health Systems Inc. raise $405 billion this year through loans that were distributed among investors, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s the fastest pace ever.
Less Liquid

“Bank loans are a popular topic these days –- a source of stable returns, less risk to rising interest rates,” Dennis MacKee, a representative of the Florida State Board of Administration, wrote in an e-mailed response to questions. “In return, there is a trade-off of some liquidity.”
The Kansas Public Employees Retirement System board of trustees agreed in May to commit $100 million to a strategy focused on high-yield bonds and leveraged loans.
The concern is that there may be a mass exodus from mutual funds that could strain the loan market as investors anticipate rising borrowing costs and defaults. Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds settle investors’ redemption requests within three to seven days, according to Moody’s Investors Service data.
“There’s kind of a liquidity mismatch,” the University of Michigan’s Gordon said. When investors try to redeem and can’t get their money back right away, more will try to pull cash, risking a run, he said.



Market Risk

The expense to investors resulting from a paper-based market’s inefficiencies stretch beyond missed payments. The market can easily turn in a month, leaving investors funding deals at yesterday’s rates.
The 1.19 percent decline in loan prices since the end of June suggests that buyers of $1 billion of loans at rates set then would be overpaying by $11.9 million if the deal closed now, based on S&P and LSTA index data.
Investors have started to push back, demanding fees on loans that fail to settle within a designated period, often a month or more, Bloomberg data show.
“The longer the wait, the greater the danger of a problem” for investors, former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt said in a telephone interview.
Levitt, who is on the board of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, warned more than a decade ago that debt traders and bankers needed to shrink the time it took to complete trades.
Cost Cuts

The labor-intensive process of settling a loan trade requires banks to maintain teams of back-office staff at a time when they’re eliminating jobs to boost profitability.
JPMorgan charges a $3,500 fee for each trade made by investors who exchange debt it helped distribute with competing firms, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg News earlier this year.
Those types of fees would decline or disappear if the debt fell under securities rules, according to Elisabeth de Fontenay, a Duke Law School professor in Durham, North Carolina, who previously worked as a corporate lawyer at Ropes & Gray LLP.
There are other costs to investors. Fund managers often pay to maintain credit lines they can draw upon to meet redemptions and hold extra cash to mitigate the risk they’ll be unable to quickly sell underlying loan holdings.
Fund Flows

“Should investor flows reverse, the mismatch in bank-loan funds could pose a material risk,” Moody’s analysts led by Stephen Tu wrote in a July 7 report.
While mutual-fund investors have started souring on the loans, pulling $4.7 billion this year, other institutions have continued to amass record amounts of money to buy the debt.
Firms from Apollo Global Management LLC to GSO Capital Partners LP raised an unprecedented $60.7 billion in the first half of 2014 for collateralized loan obligations, which pool loans and slice them into pieces of varying risk and return.
“It’s a very complex, very large challenge requiring the consensus of market participants, including, in some cases, the borrower,” LSTA representative Howard Moore said in an e-mail. “Progress has been slower than we wanted, but the LSTA and its members are committed to improving the settlement process.”
Without pressure from regulators, Wall Street’s biggest banks haven’t yet overhauled the market. They’ve been cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs to reduce costs as they face stricter regulations intended to help prevent another crisis.
“You have to believe having an archaic system break would ultimately be more expensive for everyone, including the agent banks,” Eaton Vance’s Page said. “Many people have approached them and they have no interest” in fixing the problem.


To contact the reporter on this story: Lisa Abramowicz in New York at labramowicz@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shannon D. Harrington at sharrington6@bloomberg.net Caroline Salas Gage

posted from Bloggeroid

Kentucky Downs HTW (horses to Watch)

Belmont late pick 4s

Late pick 4s

KENTUCKY DOWNS HORSES TO WATCH

These are horses to watch my horses that I start my handicapping around from trainer to jockey to the horse themselves. I also go the extra mile to watch every single sale, a step that makes the purchase price of a horse actually useful. Anyone can see what they paid for a horse. What was the bidding action like though? When there are two or three of the biggest buyers at each sale are going back and forth between one another and the horse only sells for 40k that doesn't show up in the daily racing form. Having the best clockers doesn't hurt nor does having a direct line to the connections of horses be it friends with jockeys and trainers to blood stock agents. All of these are perks only found under one roof. The roof of the BMDs and my father and I having a combined 60+years in business. You get all facets covered with the BMD SQUARED PICKS GROUP. HORSES SPORTS AND STOCKS. ALL OF THEM HAVE ONE COMMON THREAD THEIR ALL SPECULATIVE MONEY MARKETS. WITH THE SAME WEAKNESSES TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF..... THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

posted from Bloggeroid

Belmont 4

R BEL

PICK 3S WIN BET AND EXACTA BOXES RACE 3. $$$ CASHED FIRST FREE POSTED PICK. POUNDED THE $2.80 TO WIN & GOT A GREAT $18.20 ON EXACTA HORSE RACING THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 17TH.

PICK 3S WIN BET AND EXACTA BOXES RACE 3.

$$$ CASHED FIRST FREE POSTED PICK. POUNDED THE $2.80 TO WIN & GOT A GREAT $18.20 ON EXACTA.

THE NAME OF THE GAME IS REBATE. YOU ARE NOT A HORSE RACING FAN YOUR A FAN OF MONEY.

IF I TOLD YOU THAT I CAN EARN YOU 40% ON EVERY DOLLAR WE WIN, PLUS MY REBATE FOR WIN BET 3% WIN OR LOSE ON YOUR DOLLAR ON  YOUR INVESTMENT IN LESS THAN 2 MINS YOU WOULD BE ALL OVER IT.

THINK ABOUT IT. PEOPLE PUT MONEY INTO 20 YEAR NOTES TO MAKE 2.602 % TODAY RIGHT NOW.

20 YEARS OR 2 MINS??????

YOU ADD IN A GOOD HANDICAPPER WITH THE REBATE WHO HAS BEEN BORN AND BRED TO PLAY REBATE AND YOU WOULD HAVE MADE FOR EVERY DOLLAR BET TO WIN 43%

GIVE ME $1.00
IN 2 MINS
I GIVE YOU $1.43
AND I JUST KEEP 30% NOT TO BAD IN 2 MINS.

HORSE RACING FOR TODAY SEPTEMBER 17TH

Belmont Race 1
Win #6
Exacta Box #6 / #1 & #2

TMT- TheMoneyTeam

Making Money: How Floyd Mayweather Produces Boxing's Biggest Fights


Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Tim
Smith
Sep 10, 2014

The floor rumbles and your ears feel like they’re stuffed with cotton from the combination of the crowd noise and the blaring music. The flashes from cameras and smartphones dot the darkened arena like a million fireflies on a summer night. As the boxers make their way toward the ring, it all intensifies to a maddening crescendo that doesn’t stop until after the first punch is thrown.  

There is nothing quite like the atmosphere of a big-time championship fight night.

Floyd Mayweather Jr., the reigning and defending champion of big-time boxing, knows all about the atmosphere of championship fight night. He helps create it. From the positioning of the television cameras to the staging of the fight and choreography of the ring walk, Mayweather has a hand in it. Not to mention he is the star of the show under the bright lights in the ring.

Little do all those screaming fans know that the man they’re watching in the ring collects money on the tickets they bought, the beer or soda that they’re drinking, the hot dogs that they’re munching and the signs on the ring posts that they’re looking at.

Because of his unique business model, Mayweather reaps huge financial rewards from all aspects of fight night. All revenue streams for a Mayweather fight flow to the man who calls himself “Money.’’ And while he has to pay some of the cost for his big events, his representatives have negotiated deals that save him money and minimize his risk of losing money.

Interviews with boxing industry insiders, cable television executives, rival promoters and managers and members of Mayweather Promotions detailed the exhausting 12-week process of staging a Mayweather boxing event like his rematch against Marcos Maidana at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Showtime Pay-Per-View on Saturday, Sept. 13. They also laid out the various financial arrangements that Mayweather and his representatives have negotiated for his megafights that made him Forbes magazine’s highest-paid athlete for 2014 ($105 million).  


In a star-driven sport that is also star-starved, Mayweather is the brightest in the boxing constellation. And fortunately for him, Mayweather has come along at a time in boxing when he is able to leverage his talent into deals that no other boxer would even dare ask for. 

“I think his ability to harness the revenue to himself has arisen from two things,’’ said Stephen Espinoza, Showtime vice president and general manager of sports and event programming. “It’s the recognition early in his career that he wanted and needed to control his own marketing and image and how his events were presented. The second is he had the ability to make it big, extravagant and loud and eye-catching.

“Certainly other people have tried this business model. But trying this business model where you rely on your own blood, sweat and tears to maximize your event doesn’t work if you haven’t built over time the kind of appeal that Floyd has. If Floyd wasn’t Floyd, then the business model wouldn’t work as well.’’

That financial power gives Mayweather the kind of shot-calling clout that no other athlete in sports has today. When he announces the date that he is going to fight, Mayweather becomes the general commanding a small army that works furiously for 12 weeks to create his vision of fight night.

“With Mayweather’s fight, where it all starts is the spectacle of the event,’’ Espinoza said. “The athletes, the celebrities make it a star event. The outrageous ring walks with Lil Wayne and Justin Bieber and social media creates this electricity, enthusiasm and adrenaline when the athletes are walking out. The task when promoting the event is to take all that and communicate what it’s going to feel like in that moment. Anybody who gets a taste of that will want to come back to the next one and the next one and the next one.’’

Espinoza is well-versed in putting on major boxing events. He was the attorney for Oscar De La Hoya, one of boxing’s major stars before Mayweather. He also helped handle Mike Tyson’s bankruptcy filing.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Floyd Mayweather and Leonard Ellerbe
The first and most important element of every Mayweather fight is the opponent. Mayweather makes the selection with his adviser, Al Haymon, a Harvard-educated businessman whose association with Mayweather has made him boxing’s major power broker, and Leonard Ellerbe, the CEO of Mayweather promotions who has been with Mayweather in various capacities for 18 years. Ultimately, Mayweather has the final say.

The right opponent could mean the difference between less than 1 million and more than 2 million pay-per-view buys. At $65 a pop ($75 for hi-definition) it is a significant amount of money to Mayweather’s bottom line and Showtime’s coffers. Mayweather takes 50 percent of all pay-per-view revenue on top of what he is guaranteed for each match. Showtime collects that money and takes its small percentage before sending the remainder to Mayweather. The distributors of the pay-per-view take the other half when people who bought the pay-per-view pay their cable bills.

Showtime signed Mayweather to a six-fight deal in 2013, which could be worth more than $250 million depending upon his opponent in each of the six fights, according to industry insiders. Espinoza refuses to talk specifically about Mayweather’s deal with the network, but needless to say, they have a huge stake in the success of every Mayweather fight.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Mayweather with Canelo Alvarez
To illustrate the importance of the opponent, Mayweather’s first fight in the Showtime deal was against Robert Guerrero, a lowly regarded and little-known opponent. It generated just under 900,000 pay-per-view buys. His second match was against Saul “Canelo’’ Alvarez, a Mexican superstar who many believed had a chance of beating Mayweather. The fight did 2.2 million pay-per-view buys and generated a record $150 million in pay-per-view revenue.

Mayweather has been involved in two matches that have done over 2 million pay-per-view buys. His fight against Oscar De La Hoya amassed 2.5 million buys and generated $136 million in pay-per-view revenue.

“Historically, the biggest pay-per-view fights have featured fighters where both have fought 15-to-20 times or more on HBO or where there has been a fighter with a particularly strong following in his community. Guys like Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather fought on HBO several times before becoming pay-per-view boxers,’’ said Mark Taffet, HBO senior vice president of sports operations and pay-per-view. In the boxing industry, Taffet is considered a pay-per-view guru.

“That’s the formula for pay-per-view success. Very rarely does a fight hit 1 million pay-per-view buys where the opponent is not very well-known and hasn’t had significant following and hasn’t fought on HBO. It takes a lot of name recognition.’’

Marcos Maidana doesn’t fit any of those criteria. And his first match against Mayweather reflected it. Mayweather’s representatives and Showtime have refused to release the figures from the first match on May 3, but industry insiders say the number is close to 900,000 pay-per-view buys.

Maidana defeated Adrien Broner to set up the first fight against Mayweather. He gave Mayweather a tough challenge in losing a 12-round majority decision to earn the rematch. It let Mayweather off the hook from coming up with another opponent for his fourth match on his deal with Showtime. As the promoter, Mayweather pays his opponents anywhere from $1.5-$4 million, though he paid Miguel Cotto $15 million.

After Mayweather selects his opponent, he concentrates on putting together the undercard.

“You try to put together an undercard that rounds out the attractiveness to all segments of the market,’’ Espinoza said.

Typically, he litters his big pay-per-view shows with some boxers from his company, Mayweather Promotions, and Golden Boy Promotions, which he pays a flat fee to help run the promotion of the show. Industry insiders said that he pays Golden Boy Promotions between $500,000-$2 million depending upon the size of the fight and whether he fights one of the boxers it has under contract in the main event.

As the promoter, Mayweather pays for the undercard boxers on the show. He spends $1.5-$3 million depending upon how many championship bouts are on the undercard.

Harry How/Getty Images
The MGM Grand on fight night
The site for a big Mayweather fight seems to be set in granite at the MGM Grand. Mayweather has fought his past 11 fights in Las Vegas, with the last nine being at the MGM Grand.

“For a Mayweather fight, Vegas is the capital of excess and extravagance. It’s a natural home. That’s where Floyd feels at home,’’ Espinoza said. Mayweather also lives in Las Vegas.

The casino has given him a sweet deal to play host to his fights. For most of his fights, they buy 3,500 of the prime seats at $1,000 each, giving the revenue ($3.5 million) to Mayweather. They also turn over blocks of tickets to him, which he is able sell on the secondary market. He gets all the live gate revenue, which ranges from $12-$15 million. His match against Alvarez set a record for live gate in Nevada with $20 million.  

“There’s been a lot of criticism to the Mayweather model because there has been some softness in the market and plenty of tickets on the streets. Brokers start to give the tickets away to fill the house, which affects the true number on the gate,’’ said one boxing industry insider.

Along the way, Mayweather’s representatives will put together deals for sponsorships ($2 million), international television rights ($2 million), domestic television and closed-circuit rights ($1.5-$2 million) and Showtime’s delayed-broadcast rights ($750,000). All of that money trickles to Mayweather Promotions, which is Mayweather.

Once Mayweather has an opponent, an undercard and a site, a horde of marketers, TV producers and directors and public-relations specialists who work with Showtime, the MGM Grand, Mayweather Promotions and Golden Boy Promotions swing into action.

“Once you have the event itself put in place, quickly you turn into how do you package and market the event,’’ Espinoza said. “What’s the hook, the quick way to capture the excitement of the event that’s easily communicated to the audience? Sometimes it’s a catchy name, song or artwork.’’

A promotional tour is often organized with both the fighters and their entourages hitting several large cities for press conferences, radio and television interviews to sell the fight. Flights, hotels, transportation and meals have to be arranged for each city. Sites and locations have to be secured for the press conferences. The media has to be alerted.

Mike Stobe/Getty Images
Mayweather promoting his rematch with Marcos Maidana
Mayweather will pick up the cost for the press tour and purchase magazine and newspaper ads. The pay-per-view distributors will also produce and air commercials for the fight at their expense.

Showtime does a large share of the marketing and promotion for the fight with programs like All Access, which is basically a series of 30-minute documentaries/commercials to drive interest in the pay-per-view. Mayweather worked out the concept for that type of show when he was at HBO and did the first 24/7 for his match against Oscar De La Hoya in 2007.

A person who used to work with Mayweather when he was at HBO said Mayweather saw scripts for the pay-per-view commercials and signed off on them and that he had a creative vision for each fight that carried over into some elements of the TV production. Mayweather encouraged active debate, though he ultimately made all the final decisions.

“He wanted everybody’s opinion and he wanted people to disagree with him,’’ he said. “If you’re not good enough to sit at the table and add value, then he’s not going to respect you and you’re not going to be at that table for long.’’

Mayweather operates the same way at Showtime. He doesn’t micromanage, but he wants to have input and in the end, whatever he says goes in terms of how his fights are marketed and promoted.

Unlike any other major boxing stars in the past, Mayweather has utilized social media to his advantage to promote and market fights.

“That has contributed to his visibility and his popularity,’’ Espinoza said. “That was not a tool that Oscar De La Hoya or Mike Tyson had at their fingertips for promotion. Being able to utilize that is a major plus. Among current athletes and entertainers, there isn’t anyone better than Floyd in creating attention in traditional media and social media.’’


Mayweather after defeating Marcos Maidana in May
The athlete-centric business model that Mayweather is using isn’t new. Mike Tyson deployed it after he parted ways with promoter Don King and during the latter stages of his career. Oddly enough, he was also signed to an exclusive deal with Showtime. De La Hoya used it, too, once he left promoter Bob Arum.

With the help of his adviser, Al Haymon, Mayweather has taken it to another level. Even though Mayweather acts as the promoter, his risks are minimal. The biggest risk would be his inability to go through with a fight for some reason. His deal with Showtime has taken most of the financial risk out of each of his boxing events. Not only has it afforded him guaranteed purses that bottom out at $32 million, but he can cover the cost of his shows through other revenues from the fight.

“They underwrote a big check to move him from HBO to Showtime. His model is the least risk and the most profitability for him,’’ said one boxing promoter. “There is no promoter taking the risk. It’s a network taking the risk. If his fight tanks, Golden Boy isn’t at risk. Mayweather Promotions isn’t at risk. If my fight tanks, we sweat it out. We’re at stake. Every person in my office is at stake. That’s our job.’’

Mayweather’s business model closely resembles that of major music artists or groups. They pay a promoter a flat fee to handle the marketing and promotion of the concert and then basically rent the building, taking in all the money from ticket sales, concession and merchandising. Mayweather’s model may be closely associated with musical acts because Haymon made his fortune in the music promotions business before getting involved in the boxing industry. No other athlete controls all aspects of the revenue linked to an event like Mayweather does.

“You think LeBron James is getting a cent from the hot dogs that are being sold at concession stands in the arena?’’ asked one boxing industry insider.

Some boxing industry insiders say that Showtime lost $9 million on the first fight in the Mayweather deal against Robert Guerrero. Espinoza refutes that.

If Espinoza is sweating any risks with his deal with Mayweather, he’s not letting on.

“It has paid off far beyond what we had originally hoped for,’’ Espinoza said. “Floyd’s level of commitment to elevating our programming and network isn't something that we anticipated. He’s outperformed from a promotional standpoint and from his visibility on the network. The financial aspect is an absolute success. There’s not a fighter out there today that even comes close to the types of numbers that he generates.’’

Mayweather may be the first and last boxer to have this type of control over his shows.

Leonard Ellerbe, CEO of Mayweather Promotions, said no other boxer will be able to repeat the business model that they have with Mayweather.

“Too many things have to go right,’’ he said. “There will be another great boxer to come along and win titles. But this will never be duplicated again because there will never be another Floyd Mayweather Jr.’’

 

Timothy Smith is a former sportswriter for The New York Times and the New York Daily News. He is currently a freelance writer based in New Jersey.


Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved. BleacherReport.com is part of Bleacher Report - Turner Sports Network, part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Network.

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2015 NFL Draft: Matt Miller's Scouting Notebook for Week 2

2015 NFL Draft: Matt Miller's Scouting Notebook for Week 2

Chris Pietsch/Associated Press
Matt
Miller
Sep 12, 2014

The NFL season has officially kicked off, and already fans are asking who the No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft will be.

It's too soon to know that definitively, but this week's Scouting Notebook tells you who five NFL scouts like atop their boards right now, as well as hits on a ton of information coming in now that scouts are on the road each week.

Who is the top player in this class? Which SEC pass-rusher has NFL teams excited in his sophomore season? And which wide receiver is a "lock" to be a top-20 pick?

 

The Scout's Report
— I sent text messages to five NFL scouts this week asking who their top-rated player is heading into college football's third week. Each person replied with the same name—Oregon's Marcus Mariota. The Michigan State game was a big one for the redshirt junior, and talk around the league is that the top spot is his to lose.

— Speaking of quarterbacks, NFL people (scouts, coaches, general managers) I spoke with this week continue to praise Michigan State's Connor Cook. While the Oregon game did show some mistakes from the junior quarterback, his size, arm and instincts are all receiving high marks.

— The Jacksonville Jaguars may have a steal on their hands in undrafted free-agent wide receiver Allen Hurns. One NFL scout texted me this week to see where I had him ranked (he didn't make my final board) and said his team gave Hurns a "priority free-agent grade. We thought he could contribute in a year or two." Time will tell if Hurns is the real deal, but it's looking that way.

David Goldman/Associated Press
— Georgia linebacker Leonard Floyd is reportedly "open" to turning pro early, according to SI.com's Pete Thamel and Thayer Evans. People I talked to this week said Floyd is "100 percent coming out" and is likely to be the first or second outside linebacker off the board.

— There has been a lot of talk about Amari Cooper so far this year, and he's earned it. People close to the Alabama football program are calling Cooper "Julio Jones special." NFL scouts expect that he'll be the first wide receiver off the board this year.

— The quarterback market will be hot in the 2015 draft, and one high-level scout texted saying, "The top four are set, pretty much." That would be Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston, Brett Hundley and Connor Cook.

— NFL scouts can't help but compare players in their conversations, and this one really stuck with me this week; Washington's Shaq Thompson to Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier. Thompson is more likely to play outside linebacker in the NFL, but from an athletic standpoint, the two match up well.

— In messages with Iowa tackle Brandon Scherff this week, he told me he's "taking it day-by-day" after what he called a "short, quick cleanup" on a knee he injured against Ball State.

 

Five Up, Five Down
Each week, "Five Up, Five Down" will monitor the movements of players on my draft board.

5. WR Devin Funchess, Michigan

The move from tight end to wide receiver is more than just a number change for Devin Funchess. The Michigan star is now playing against cornerbacks, as opposed to safeties and outside linebackers and is asked to run a more diverse route tree. The early results are good.

Funchess is thriving on a bad offense but has the skills (strength, length, vision in traffic) that will quickly remind scouts of Alshon Jeffery, Kelvin Benjamin and Mike Evans. His deep speed may never be great, but his ability to beat defenders at the high point is eye-opening. 

 

4. RB Todd Gurley, Georgia

Georgia's bulldozer running back Todd Gurley has now been featured on the Five Up, Five Down for two straight weeks. It may become a trend. That's what happens when NFL teams are calling you "an elite talent".

One evaluator I spoke with this week had this to say about Gurley: "He's just better than everybody else. Rare, AD (Adrian Peterson)-type prospect. And his character is awesome."

Gurley's stock continues to soar with each passing week.

 

3. OT Ty Sambrailo, Colorado State

The offensive tackle crop in 2015 looks good, but one player not enough people are noticing is Colorado State's Ty Sambrailo. 

He's well-coached, has the ideal build (6'5", 315 lbs) and has shown the technique and quickness to be a true left tackle in the NFL. Through early looks at big No. 51, it's easy to see Sambrailo becoming a first-round pick in the 2015 draft. Definitely keep your eye on this one.

 

TONY AVELAR/Associated Press
2. WR Ty Montgomery, Stanford

Some players are great on the field, but headaches off of it. Some are amazing human beings but don't quite have what it takes to make it in the NFL. And then some are both exceptional on and off the field. Those players are the kind you highlight.

Ty Montgomery is a top-notch talent at wide receiver, showing explosive movements in space and the type of build (6'2", 215 lbs) to withstand the punishment of an NFL defense. But he's also what one coach called an "elite guy in the locker room" when we talked this week. Montgomery will quickly win over NFL decision-makers on and off the field—especially if he plays like he did against USC.

 

1. DE Shawn Oakman, Baylor

The NFL remains a height/weight/speed league, and for the most part, when you find an elite athlete in one or two of those areas, you worry about teaching technique later. Margus Hunt is a good example of this—despite being a raw football player, the Cincinnati Bengals invested a second-round pick in the SMU defensive lineman in the 2013 draft. 

Shawn Oakman is built like Hunt but has more of a football background and Day 1 readiness to his game. He's exceptionally long and is the ideal build and temperament for a 5-technique position (outside the tackle's shoulder) in a 3-4 defense. 

Oakman may not be a top-15 pick, but he looks like a late Round 1 guy.

 

1. WR Jaelen Strong, Arizona State

Jaelen Strong is benefitting from aggressive preseason coverage, leading to many people assuming he's a Round 1 talent. The tape says something else.

Strong (6'4", 212 lbs) has the big body that's currently trendy, but he lacks the type of quickness you want in a wide receiver. Watching ASU games from last season and this year, Strong really only dominates on one route—the back-shoulder fade. He struggles in his route tree and doesn't show the quickness you want in and out of breaks to consistently separate from defenders at the next level.

Unlike a guy highlighted earlier, Funchess, Strong doesn't make enough contested catches in coverage for me to feel comfortable with his lack of route-running savvy.

 

2. OT La'el Collins, LSU

I fell victim to the crowdspeak about La'el Collins before the season began. Every scout who spent time in the SEC last season talked up the big LSU left tackle, so he had to be good, right? Maybe not. 

By shutting out the noise and focusing on Collins' games, I'm not overly impressed. Maybe he was billed up as too good, but I see a body and athleticism better suited to guard or right tackle. At left tackle in the NFL, Collins doesn't appear to have the quickness to effectively cut off the corner and truly defend the edge. For him to work in that position at the pro level, he'll need to work on explosion off the ball laterally and in getting depth (his kick step) and learn to better time punches to counter pass-rushers.

As the SEC schedule approaches, Collins has room to rise or dramatically fall down the board.

 

3. DE (Edge) Randy Gregory, Nebraska

Randy Gregory has been high atop my rankings all offseason, but a knee injury, plus talk from inside the NFL and NCAA about his effort, have led to me moving him down this week. Gregory is talented, but when does that talent become production? Now that the eyes of the football world are upon him, Gregory must produce and do so while showing NFL-level traits in his quickness, length, hips and eyes. So far, that hasn't happened.

And as one NFL scout told me this week: "He's just not a good team guy. There will be character questions. Wait and see." 

 

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press
4. CB Marcus Peters, Washington

Marcus Peters is no doubt talented, but the Washington cornerback was suspended for this week's game after a sideline tantrum. That led me to ask around the NFL about Peters and how teams and coaches (both pro and college) view him.

The word I received was bold. "He's a 'stay-away' character player." Peters will be an interesting case. It's rare for a top-tier player to be suspended in college, which makes this all the more worth watching as the season unfolds.

 

5. CB Deshazor Everett, Texas A&M

A&M cornerback Deshazor Everett was a player many, myself included, liked at the end of last season. At 5'11" and a solid 188 pounds, he definitely looks the part with long arms and a good lower-body build. Everett has stopped looking the part when challenged this year, though.

In two games, Everett has struggled to keep pace in man coverage and had a mental lapse against South Carolina that led to a touchdown. He's still a draft-worthy cornerback, but more of a Day 3 player than the rising potential he showed last season.

 

Scouting Report: Jeff Heuerman
Throughout the 2014 college football season, one senior draft prospect will be highlighted each week with a first-look scouting report.

Chris Trotman/Getty Images
 

Tight End, Ohio State

6'5", 255 pounds

 

Strengths: A versatile, big tight end who has shown the ability to play in-line (in a three-point stance beside the offensive tackle) or standing up in space (F-tight end, generally in the slot). Has the body type NFL teams love right now and is a much better athlete than Ohio State has produced at tight end in recent history. The Buckeyes haven't had a tight end drafted sine 2004 (Ben Harstock), and Heuerman will end that. Has developed as a blocker and is playing primarily in pass protection due to injuries and inexperience this season. He has the quickness, strength and length needed to play the position in multiple offensive schemes at the next level. Heuerman looks like a high-level starter and potential Pro Bowl player at tight end.

 

Weaknesses: Cannot compete with other tight ends in terms of production (zero targets through two games in 2014 season). Struggled at times in 2013 to play with strength in-line and spent a lot of time on the ground as a blocker. Heuerman won't be utilized as a receiving threat as much this year, which will lead to an inevitable numbers drop. He doesn't have the elite separation skills of an Eric Ebron, but has the body style to develop good catch-point separation with his body.

 

Pro Player Comparison: Tyler Eifert, Cincinnati Bengals

 

Scouting Dictionary
"Anchor"

 Some scouting terms get used more than others, and one of my favorites is "anchor". I use this term when referring to both sides of the ball (offensive linemen and defensive linemen), but the definition doesn't really change for one side of the ball versus the other.

A player's ability to anchor means he can hold his spot without giving up ground. A good defensive tackle can anchor the line by holding his assignment and not letting the offensive line push upfield past him. Similarly, a good offensive guard can hold anchor by keeping defensive linemen from penetrating the line of scrimmage and getting into the pocket.

 

The Big Board
The NFL draft has become dominated by underclassmen, but the senior class in 2015 looks to be a strong one at positions other than quarterback. Here's a look at my top 25 senior players heading into Week 3.

Top 25 Seniors
Rank Player Position School
1 Cedric Ogbuehi OT Texas A&M
2 Brandon Scherff OT Iowa
3 Michael Bennett DT Ohio State
4 Ifo Ekpre-Olomu CB Oregon
5 Vic Beasley OLB Clemson
6 Ty Montgomery WR Stanford
7 Haouli Kikaha DE Washington
8 Carl Davis DT Iowa
9 La'el Collins OT LSU
10 Ty Sambrailo OT Colorado State
11 DeVante Parker WR Louisville
12 Ameer Abdullah RB Nebraska
13 Cedric Reed DE Texas
14 Denzel Perryman ILB Miami (Fla.)
15 Trey Flowers DE Arkansas
16 Markus Golden DE Missouri
17 Cameron Erving OT Florida State
18 Zach Hodges DE Harvard
19 Kurtis Drummond FS Michigan State
20 Rashad Greene WR Florida State
21 Eric Kendricks ILB UCLA
22 Quandre Diggs CB Texas
23 Kasen Williams WR Washington
24 A.J. Cann OG South Carolina
25 Derron Smith FS Fresno State
Matt Miller

  

Parting Shots
10. In talking with one very powerful NFL decision-maker this week, he told me: "You cannot undersell character." NFL teams are investing more and more time into focusing on the character and mental make-up of their players. And that's trickling down to area scouts and even agents. More and more, top-level agents are shying away from controversial players and focusing more on high-character/high-talent players who they feel can make it to a second and third contract.

9. On the topic of character and scouting, a player destined to make me look very wrong is Tyrann Mathieu. A turbulent college career plagued with arrests and off-field issues had me as a very vocal critic of the LSU defensive back before the 2013 draft. Mathieu, though, has proven me wrong with his play on the field and his turnaround off the field. Here's hoping he continues to prove me wrong and becomes the top-tier defender he looks to be.

8. Everyone loves to talk about draft misses—it's one of the questions I'm asked most often—and a player on my Bust Radar is Trent Richardson. The Alabama running back was my No. 3 overall player in the 2012 draft and my top-ranked running back ever. But in the NFL he's struggled to run with discipline and aggression. Another mediocre season from Richardson will have many—myself included—talking about what should have been.

7. As fun as draft busts are, how about great draft classes? In doing research this week I stumbled upon this fact—the 1998 draft produced three of the best players ever at their respective positions. Peyton Manning (QB), Randy Moss (WR) and Charles Woodson (DB). 

6. It's always fun to look back at draft rankings after Week 1—and my Twitter followers will tell you it's fun to point out which players I had too low or too high—but let's all take a deep breath. One week rarely tells the whole story. Remember Eddie Royal last year? He went off for 10 catches and five touchdowns through two weeks, but finished with just 47 catches and eight touchdowns. Patience is the key when trying to evaluate big pictures on small sample sizes.

5. South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier made a little news when he indicated in a radio interview, per The State's Josh Kendall (h/t NFL.com's Dan Parr), that running back Mike Davis might go pro after this season. Davis, who currently ranks as my No. 3 running back and a Top 32 player, would be wise to forego his final season of free bumps and bruises in college for paid bumps and bruises in the NFL. 

4. There is no doubting that the running back position has been devalued by NFL teams (see the fact that no running back has been drafted in the first round for two straight years). With that in mind, smart player representatives will be approaching college sophomores and juniors at the position to encourage them to leave school early. The fewer hits a running back takes in college, the longer (theoretically) his NFL career can be. Expect to continue to see high numbers of running backs leaving college early.

3. Ever wanted to know what the average NFL player is in terms of size? The folks at Ourlads.com have an amazing resource giving you the average size of NFL draft picks at each position. There are, of course, outliers at every position (guys like Drew Brees and Russell Wilson), but this is something NFL scouts are trained to look at with each player they evaluate.

2. With so much attention now focused on the NFL and domestic violence (and it's about time), how will NFL teams view former Missouri wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham? The star wide receiver was dismissed from the program after it was alleged he broke into a woman's apartment and pushed her down the stairs. He's now at Oklahoma and will be draft-eligible this coming year, but will teams take a chance on a player with one strike against him in the new domestic violence policy?

1. The Ray Rice saga dominated NFL storylines again this week, and this article is no different. That said, this is an NFL draft article, so how does losing Rice affect this team? The Ravens have a need at running back—even with Bernard Pierce, Justin Forsett and rookie Lorenzo Taliaferro in place. Don't be surprised if general manager Ozzie Newsome (an Alabama graduate) plucks T.J. Yeldon in Round 2 if he's there in April.


Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved. BleacherReport.com is part of Bleacher Report - Turner Sports Network, part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Network.

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