Blizzard: My eyes are still on "all eyes on"

All our eyeballs really are stuck to Matt Ryan
Last April, I first brought it up. A year later, let's look at some NFL articles written in the last couple of months and see where our eyes are now.

Don Banks of SI says that "Obviously all eyes will be on Atlanta's first pick, No. 3, to see whether the Falcons make the splashy franchise quarterback call in favor of Boston College's Matt Ryan, or go the less-sexy route in tabbing LSU defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey." Obviously. Where else would all of our eyes go?

About a month earlier, a headline for a Don Banks column read "All eyes on Ryan." Well, that's OK: if all eyes are on Atlanta's #3 pick to see if they'll take Matt Ryan, then naturally all eyes are on Ryan.

And apparently, all eyes really are on Matt Ryan, since Sheil Kapadia of the Baltimore Sun headlined a post with "All eyes on BC's Ryan," Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe also notes that "All eyes will be on Ryan..." and Eric Avadon of the MetroWest Daily News writes that "Yesterday - with all other action stopped dead and all eyes upon him - he threw 52 passes, completing 48."

Apparently, though, we all took a break from staring at Matt Ryan: an AP article in the Sporting News revealed that we were really staring at Jason Taylor, with the headline "All eyes on Taylor in 'Dancing With Stars.'"

And in Wisconsin, Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal reminds us that for the season opener, "All eyes will be on Rodgers in the first half of the Monday twin bill, assuming he's healthy and still in possession of the Packers' starting quarterback job." People in Wisconsin have different tastes: they don't realize the rest of us are staring at Matt Ryan and occasionally breaking to stare at Jason Taylor.

But of course, as Scout.com reminds us, Spygate is all we really want to think about: "Until then, all eyes and ears are tuned into the topic that just won't go away."

So that's where eyes are in the NFL. In other sports, of course, "all eyes" are on other teams and players, according to various sportswriters.

Links
Brad Childress went with Anthony Herrera to support him as he became a U.S. citizen (Star Tribune).

I'm actually getting exhausted from these lists, but Forbes came up with a system to rank miserable sports cities (Yahoo). Minneapolis-St. Paul ranked 10th. Personally, I don't think the list gives enough consideration for length of time since the last pro championship: some cities that saw relatively recent championships rank higher than I think they should.

Viking Update asks, "What about Brohm?"

I hadn't followed baseball with any degree of seriousness or consistency since 1994, and I'm really enjoying falling back into the game right now. Let's see, when I quit watching baseball, Greg Maddux was the most dominant pitcher in the game. Now it's 2008, and, what's this, Greg Maddux is still kicking ass (Fanhouse).

MJD is still one of the best bloggers out there; at Shutdown Corner, he comments on Marvin Harrison and the Colts.

I Dislike Your Favorite Team on the Twins' pitchers.

TrueHoop on the NBA MVP race.