Donté Stallworth

So apparently Donte Stallworth is in a bit of hot water after he allegedly killed a man with his Bentley early this morning. There were no indications that Stallworth was drunk and/or influenced by some other substance but that's usually the case with these rich, young, high profile athletes. Now I'm not a forensic investigator but by looking at the evidence on hand (downtown Miami, 7 am on a Saturday, NFL offseason) I would assume that Stallworth was probably coming back from a late night out on the town and he wasn't exactly sober.


I really like Stallworth. I do. For one, he has long dreads and any athlete with dreads get an automatic bonus point in my book. Donte gets even more points because he looks a lot like Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne is currently my favorite rapper so any resemblence to him is a plus.

I was hoping that their was a chance that Donte could land with the Broncos. It's clearly not working out with the Browns and bringing Donte back to McDaniels system where he thrived would benefit us a lot. A burner like Stallworth paired with a bruiser like Marshall would open up a lot of touches for Eddie "Casino" Royal. Eddie will be used a lot like Wes Welker was used in McDaniels scheme but in order for Eddie to get the touches he needs to have room to work with. Stallworth's wheels will keep the DB's honest and Marshall will draw a lot of attention down low from the linebackers. That leaves Royal in single coverage with a corner and there isn't a CB in the league (outside of Nnamdi Asomugha) that can cover Royal one on one. The Raiders tried it with DeAngelo Hall and you can see for yourself how that turned out (2:20 and specifically 4:20 mark):

Don't you like how I was just talking about Lil Wayne and then he randomly appears in that Eddie Royal highlight mix right at the 2:20 mark? Man I'm having a good day.

Anyways back to Stallworth, he is a speed wide out that runs good routes and has good hands. If we want to utilize Cutler's arm strength then were going to need a legitimate deep threat. Marshall is too slow and Royal is too short. Stallworth would be a guy that could fill that hole. I have always felt that Stallworth has been underrated and over looked due to the elite wide outs that he has lined up along side with - Randy Moss, Joe Horn, and Braylon Edwards to name a few. The one season where he was "the guy" was in '06 with Philly. He tore it up that year and single handedly won me my fantasy league. Another reason why I love the guy ;) The only downside to Donte (besides this latest incident) is that he is injury prone. He is just one of "those" athletes that just can't manage to play a full game without getting banged up. You know the Marcus Camby, Clinton Portis, and Chipper Jones' of the sports world. But I am more than willing to put up with annoying day-to-day (DTD) tag that will come with his health status every week as long as he hits the gridiron on Sundays.

My dream situation would be that this incident actually play's into our advantage. The Browns are not happy with Stallworth's production and an incident like this (especially at this point in the offseason) is a great excuse to cut the receiver. Assuming he was not intoxicated, I would hope that the legal issues could be resolved through a nice compensation check thus eliminating any chance of Donte serving a legthy jail sentence. Then, McDaniels and the Broncos bring him in for a veterans minimum with backloaded incentives based of production and games played.