Nate Longshore Interview with the Examiner

The Nate Longshore Media Train continues this week with Robert Calonge's interview with Longshore over at the examiner. You can read the interview here.

(Quick thoughts after the bump.)


It's interesting that I've posted more links about Longshore this week than I have in a few months, considering he'll likely wind up a free agent. But according to the interview, enough teams have expressed interest that it's feasible a team may take a shot and draft him in later rounds, just to ensure that he'll be in their camp come fall. Who knows?

It's a good and fairly lengthy read, which is a treat considering how tight-lipped Longshore had become with the media towards the end of last season. He addresses topics from how he's benefited from playing for Coach Tedford, his thoughts about fan reaction, and why he feels like belongs with all the top QB prospects.

Oh, and fun fact: Longshore scored a 37 on the Wonderlic exam, better than any combine QB scores, and Aaron Rodgers' score of 33.

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Cal Bears NFL Draft Recaps 2003-2008

With the 2009 NFL Draft just days away, I thought I’d provide links for recaps of previous years’ drafts to see where our favorite Bears from years past have ended up.

Keep in mind I wrote these last year, so obviously some info has changed, but it’s still fun to see where and how our Bears have been drafted.

• 2008 NFL Draft Recap (Desean Jackson)

• 2008 NFL Draft Recap (Other Cal Players)

• 2008 NFL Draft Recap (Free Agent Signings)

• 2007 NFL Draft Recap

• 2006 NFL Draft Recap

• 2005 NFL Draft Recap

• 2004 NFL Draft Recap

• 2003 NFL Draft Recap

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Nate Longshore NFL Prospects

(ESPN.com)

Jonathan Okanes has some interesting and decently illuminating bits about the always enigmatic Nate Longshore and his NFL chances as Saturday’s draft approaches. The resonating theme from the media might be the story of how a once projected first round pick has fallen to the likelihood of not being drafted at all.

However, Longshored refuses to be dissuaded from pursuing his dream of playing pro ball, and is confident that he’ll end up in a preseason camp, even if that means going the free agent route.

You should definitely read J.O’s story with the Contra Costa Times and his blog write up with additional notes.

I thought the most interesting bit was a quote regarding his relationship with Coach Tedford:

After complaining at the end of the season that he didn’t get a fair chance this season, Longshore said having time to reflect gave him more understanding of Jeff Tedford’s decision-making.

“If you have one guy who is completely healthy and coming on strong and your veteran is a little banged up, you have to do what you feel is best,” Longshore said. “I can’t blame him or be mad at him for that. I don’t fault him for anything. I understand that I wasn’t playing nearly as well as I needed to be effective.”



I found this encouraging to hear, given that I was a bit saddened to hear that Longshore’s relationship with Tedford had come to what seemed to be an icy conclusion at the end of last season. It’s been nice to see the ways that Longshore has grown and handled himself over the years.

While I completely wouldn’t rule out the possibility of Nate getting drafted in the fifth or sixth round, as his agent says he might, I’m fairly convinced that Longshore will wind up as a free agent. Here’s hoping he gets signed to camp, and given a chance to compete. I for one would love to have the chance to see him throw the ball again, even if it’s in only in a preseason game.

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Rulon Davis Story up on Yahoo! Sports

Michael Silver (Cal Alum) has an interesting writup on former DE Rulon Davis. Davis goes into the most detail about his duty in Iraq that I've ever had a chance to read about.

There's also brief mention about his "chilly relationship" with Coach Tedford, as well as this fun tidbit:

Teammates still marvel at the tantrum Davis threw last September at an Oakland hotel the night before the Bears traveled east for a game at Maryland, a tirade which required the intervention of one of Tedford’s assistants to calm him down.

“All of us were really hungry after practice,” Davis explains, “and the [caterer] ran out of burgers. About 20 or 25 of us were standing around for 30 minutes, and they brought out about six or seven more. It was all bad.”



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Spring Scrimmage 09 Recap...Sorta

Ok, so I kinda goofed in regards to the Spring Scrimmage. I thought it was going to be similar to last year’s scrimmage, with the first half of the practice being position drills, and the actual 11-11 portion following afterwards.

So after circling the streets of Berkeley for 40 minutes looking for parking (we were nearly ready to pay the frat boys $30) for a spot, we found a nice spot on Haste and Ellsworth, and made our way up to the stadium. Thinking that we would simply be missing warm-ups and stretches, we swung by Asian Food Ghetto (Durant Food Court) before we eventually wound up in Strawberry Canyon.

Hence, it was with some confusion that I saw Covaughn Deboskie get chased down by Chris Little in full scrimmage mode.

Puzzled, I asked an old Bear next to me, “How long have they been scrimmaging?”

Old Bear: “Oh about an hour now.”

Me: (silence). “Have they been going 11 on 11s the entire time?

Old Bear: “Pretty much.”


So yeah, I missed a good chunk of Spring Ball. And even had I stuck around the entire time, it would have been difficult for me to top some of the thorough reports of Saturday’s scrimmage already out there.

• Rusty Simmons, SF Chronicle.
• Jonathan Okanes, Contra Costa Times.
• HydroTech, California Golden Blogs
• Official Cal Website
  

So instead, some fun tidbits:

• Watched in amusement as DE Tyson Alualu got into a slapboxing match with his young daughter after the scrimmage. Well, let me explain. A little girl who I presumed to be Tyson’s daughter (as I can’t imagine it being any other kid), was standing on a bleacher seat in front of him, and appeared to be playing some quirky father-daughter game. Essentially, the gist of the game goes as follows: Papa Alualu stares down his daughter, Daughter giggles, sticks her tongue out at Papa Alualu, smacks him in the face, and Papa Alualu immediately responds back with a hearty smack to her cheek. Daughter collapses into a barrel of laughter, stands back up, rinse and repeat. The kid is tough.

• Saw former Cal FB Will Tau’ufo’ou in the stands. Dude looks even bigger.

• Jahvid Best has grown his hair out a bit. No more Mohawk. We’ll see if that returns come fall camp.

• Briefly Met up with Ragnarok and TwistnHook from the California Golden Blogs. I must say, they are almost exactly how I imagined them to be. They really talk exactly like they blog. It certainly makes for a pretty surreal experience.

• Got to meet Ken Crawford from Excuse Me For My Voice and his lovely family as well. Became depressed when I realized Crawford’s kids got to see more of the scrimmage than I did.

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