ToW #13 - Article from ESPN: "Jaguars to let MJD test market"

Disclaimer: Be it through forgetfulness or repeated negligence, I have clearly neglected to complete this ToW, number 13, before its assigned deadline. That said, I have found APELC to be a very rewarding class, so I am determined to complete this ToW in solidarity with APELC's curriculum. Here goes.

        As someone whose only connection to American Football is passing glances at what his brother has on TV, it seems that football player Maurice Jones-Drew (MJD) is nearing the end of his contract with the Jacksonville Jaguars, an NFL team that I have never heard of. This article presents many of the facts of MJD's career with the Jaguars and quotes a few statements from the Jaguars' General Manager and MJD about his chances of getting recontracted. The article excels in reporting and organizing facts but falls far short in being stylistically pleasing. Its author, Michael DiRocco, seems to have a duality in his credibility, too; he has received multiple awards from the AP Sports Editors but was educated at the lesser-known Jacksonville University. Either way, I would say that he succeeds in the reporting aspect of any article's purpose but fails in the entertaining aspect of it.
        Obviously written for football fans eager enough to look for articles on ESPN.com, DiRocco presents all of the facts that I imagine an avid sport connoisseur could want. In one information-filled but ever-so boring paragraph, he states, "Jones-Drew, who will be 29 years old in March, is a physical runner despite his 5-foot-7, 210-pound frame. He has a lot of mileage on his legs, too. He has carried the ball 1,804 times, caught 335 passes for 2,873 yards, and returned 70 kickoffs and 15 punts." These alphanumerics would constitute an appeal to logos, but DiRocco doesn't have anything to prove to the reader -- he simply presents the facts and lets the reader conclude on them.
        My inability to expertly conclude on these facts may be what made the article so boring to me, but we cannot ignore the rather dull style about it. For example, "He said it would be hard to keep Gabbert if the team re-signed Chad Henne and drafted a quarterback with the No. 3 pick, but he also said the Jaguars aren't automatically going to draft a quarterback with their first pick." The stylistic crime committed here is the double repetition -- of "he said" and "draft a quarterback" -- which makes a parallel structure out of an already boring sentence. So many errors like this are made that I have to wonder if DiRocco ever had a class like APELC to teach him the value of entertaining his audience.

Maurice Jones-Drew punching a guy.