Bottom of the Bird Cage 6/8

It is the 159th day of the year.

On June 8, 1949, Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson were named in an FBI report as members of the Communist Party. On June 8, 1966, an F-5 tornado smashed into Topeka, killing 16, injuring hundreds, destroying thousands of homes and creating $100 million in damages.

On this day in 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

And on June 8, 1917 in Ft. Collins, Colorado, Byron Raymond White was born. He would become known as Whizzer White, a name he would grow to despise. He was an All-America halfback at the University of Colorado, where he also played basketball and baseball. White was also the student body president. He graduated in 1938 and signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates of the still fledgling National Football League. White signed for $15,000, making him the highest paid player in the league.

White led the league in rushing that season, but spent 1939 in England at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. When he returned, White played the 1940-41 seasons with the Detroit Lions. World War II saw him enter the U.S. Navy where he was an intelligence officer. After the war, he went to Yale Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1946.

It was in 1962 that President John F. Kennedy named Whizzer White to the United States Supreme Court, a post he held until his retirement in 1993. He helped rule on some of the biggest court decisions in American history.

Byron “Whizzer” White passed away at the age of 84 in 2002.

From Miami Herald columnist Dan Le Batard: This is where the sweat is, in a cramped and dark room away from all the light in his life. It is the only place you will find the scent of who Jimmy Johnson used to be, back when the chase defined him and made him a so very unhappy champion, and it smells a lot differently than the rest of his manicured property out here in paradise.

Just outside is a private beach and a swimming pool with a bar and a saltwater pond he fills with lobster and fish he catches himself. And a Corvette with less than a thousand miles on it because, if he has to leave this breathtaking area at all, he does so in one of his two boats.

But in here, in this musty weight room in the guest house, near all his worn-out scuba tanks and fishing rods, is just about the only proof that Johnson once presided over kingdoms. All the magazine covers are in frames on the wall, dozens of them from inside and out of sports, plus the photos with Bill Clinton and Paul McCartney and Gene Hackman and the like. The photos are not unlike the football life that gave birth to them — faded, out back, behind him.

”The old days,” Johnson says, sweeping a hand across the room. “[My wife] says she doesn’t want any of this crap in the house.”

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While over the weekend readers of the Kansas City Star were getting a piece from a columnist complaining about going to a Chiefs practice, the readers of the Herald were getting this great story about Jimmy Johnson and his life after football. In those days of “How about those Cowboys!” J.J. wasn’t a very likeable personality in the league. But you can’t read this story without (1.) wishing you had Johnson’s lifestyle and (2.) liking the guy. Too bad we can’t get more of that in our local fish wrap.

From San Jose Mercury-News columnist Mark Purdy: There were no visible bruises on Jimmy Raye’s face Saturday morning. He looked pretty good for a guy who had come through such a brutal revolving door. Raye, to refresh your memory, is the 49ers’ seventh new offensive coordinator in the past seven seasons. Records are sketchy. But it’s hard to believe that any other current NFL team has gone 7 for 7 in that department.

Makes you wonder how the 49ers have managed to stay so offensively dominant and awesome over these past seven years. Oh, that’s right. They haven’t. Raye’s job is to fix all of that in the next five minutes, if possible. That’s what everyone wants. But that is not possible.

And so, at this weekend’s 49ers mini-camp, Raye continues to go about his business methodically and quietly. He is installing his pretty-much-old-school offense and trying to get all of his personnel on the same page. He has three more months.

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This is a good piece about Jimmy Raye trying to implement the offense that he ran with the Chiefs a decade ago with the 49ers. Raye did a good job during his time as coordinator of the Kansas City offense, but unfortunately like the situation in San Francisco, he never had a top notch quarterback to run the show. The closest he had was Rich Gannon, but that was at a time when the Chiefs had invested heavily in Elvis Grbac. Now, his choices are Alex Smith and Shaun Hill. Maybe he can get Gannon to come out of retirement.

From Denver Post columnist Mark Kiszla:
Hey, Brandon Marshall: Get with the program. Or get lost. As you might have heard, the Broncos are going to try something new this season. They will put the team first.

And Marshall might whole-heartedly embrace the team concept . . . right after he gets a raise from the Broncos. Talk about putting the money cart before the horse. Marshall has taken his football and gone home to Orlando, Fla., while new coach Josh McDaniels tries to install a new offense and new attitude with the team here in Denver.

And we all know how the long- distance relationship between McDaniels and former Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler turned out. Whether you respect it or not, the way McDaniels does business is clear. The focus on this NFL franchise no longer will be on what individual player wears No. 6 or No. 15, but how a team that has failed to make the playoffs since the 2005 season can increase its number of victories from last season, when the Broncos’ collapse down the stretch was almost as unthinkable as Mike Shanahan no longer being the coach for life.

What part of no more me-first attitude does Marshall fail to understand?

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Brandon Marshall has become a polarizing figure  in Denver, just another hurdle for the new head coach to deal with as the Broncos move out of the Shanahan Era.  There’s one thing that’s true in the NFL today, and that’s the every team has its little soap operas that must be dealt with by the front office or head coach. Denver has had  it’s share with the Cutler situation and now Marshall. It will be very interesting to see how Josh McDaniels handles the load.