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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 16:14, 15 June 2011 [1].

Scott Zolak

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Scott Zolak (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Wizardman 18:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Before Tom Brady took over as one of the all-time great quarterbacks in the NFL, there was Drew Bledsoe, who was pretty good in his own right. Before that, there was Scott Zolak, who was pretty much a backup. That's right, while great QBs remain in article purgatory, I bring a backup to FAC (I promise to bring a more important athlete here next time). That being said, I do believe this meets all criteria after giving it a couple re-reads and redoing the last section. This is a WikiCup nomination, though if it's not completed in a month I'm not gonna freak out, my fault for waiting so long to bring one here. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 18:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • "He became an unrestricted free agent after the season ended, but was not asked back by the Patriots, ending his tenure there." - source?
  • Ref 9, 19, 26, 40, 46, 47: page?
  • Why do some of the page numbers have lowercase letters and others uppercase? If that's how it's done in the source fine, but I see at least one paper formatted both ways here
  • Make typographical changes to titles to meet MOS - no allcaps, hyphen/dash use, etc. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Issues fixed. For issue three, yes I go by how the paper has it, fixed the ones that were wrong. For the first note, I found the lack of any source on the Pats trying to re-sign him after '98 being all I needed; rather hard to source a negative. I went ahead and added one though. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 15:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Giants2008 (27 and counting) 02:11, 5 June 2011 (UTC) Comments –[reply]

  • College: "Zolak ranked fifth in school history in pass completions with 270, seventh in yards with 3,124 yards, ranked second in school history with 2,589 yards passing in a season". To tighten the prose here, try removing the second "yards" and all but one word of "ranked second in school history"; this would leave "Zolak ranked fifth in school history in pass completions with 270, seventh in yards with 3,124, second with 2,589 yards passing in a season".
  • New England Patriots: "The start of the 1992 season appeared the same, with Zolak being behind Hodson and Millen on the depth chart." This has one of those "with plus -ing" structures that a lot of prose reviewers catch. To me, the easiest fix is just to remove "being".
  • I'm not a fan of too many wikilinks, but for an article like this I think it would be nice to provide links to some football-jargon terms like touchdown, interception, and quarterback rating. I wouldn't go overboard with the links, but in this context they do seem useful.
  • Redundancy here: "and the Patriots drafted Drew Bledsoe with the first pick in the 1993 NFL Draft." Changing "drafted" to "selected" or "chose" will be enough to fix it.
  • Next sentence has a typo in "During the offsesason".
  • Don't need two Atlanta Falcons links in this section. Conversely, if the 49ers weren't linked before the last paragraph of the section, a link would be nice there.
  • What's citing the last sentence of the section (the one about his free agency)?
  • Miami Dolphins: "and left three quarterbacks to settle for two opens spots on the team." Make "opens" singular.
  • Life after football: The information about the show he hosts with Andy Gresh appears uncited.
  • NESN should be spelled out toward the end.
  • As a general note, it would be nice if there was something about his playing style or attributes (things like arm strength etc.), though I do accept that for a quarterback, Zolak is fairly obscure. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 01:33, 1 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Issues fixed. I did not find anything on his playing style when I originally wrote the article, but I'll do another read through of sources and see if I can find anything. Too bad the NFL Draft wasn't as big a deal back then, I'd be able to find plenty if it was. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 14:10, 1 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I found a bit of scouting news that tells a bit about his playing style while he was being drafted. That's all I could find though. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 15:14, 2 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments and spot checks: Spot checks revealed no issues. This is looking good. Just a few points. My main issue is with jargon and accessibility, although the article is by no means bad in this regard. I know almost nothing about football and followed most of this, but I still think parts could be improved for the non-specialist. There are also one or two prose issues to be ironed out. I apologise for the long list, but I look forward to supporting once these issues are addressed. --Sarastro1 (talk) 09:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • "During this time, he played for the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins. Over the course of his career, he played in 55 games": played … played.
  • For poor, deluded non-fans like myself (!) I would be inclined to link the draft to National Football League Draft rather than the 1991 draft. This would help those of us who still struggle to understand how it works.
  • Was he selected to be a first choice player? This is implied when he was relegated to backup by the selection of Bledsoe.
  • "He saw playing time…" A little clumsy. I assume he came on as a replacement in this time? What about "He appeared as a replacement [or whatever the correct term is]…"
  • redshirted, sacked: I'm a little uncomfortable with this jargon-y term in a FA; I appreciate it is linked but to me the tone is wrong.
  • "Zolak was looking to challenge O'Donnell for the starting job, as Henning was graduating.": "looking to" seems unnecessary; what is wrong with "challenging". Also, use of "as" here is not great. Was he only challenging at the precise point that Henning was graduating. I think it needs a better causal connective; "because" would be serviceable here.
  • "Bob Valesente said that Zolak "made tremendous strides and showed a lot to our whole staff…" Minor point, but is there a need for a direct quote here? I think a paraphrase would work just as well as the quote is not particularly elegant.
  • Some jargon is unavoidable, but it would be a good touch for the reader if it was spelt out in full on the first mention. For example, "He completed four of six passes for 28 yards…": "for 28 yards" is slightly meaningless, but it is the standard phrase. Could it be explained in full here as the first mention? Or a note would work just as well. (I cannot think how as I do not know enough of the terminology!) Then, "had an interception returned for a touchdown" is slightly meaningless. Returned where? It is hard to tell for the non-specialist if this is good or bad.
  • "saying, "If there's a guy that I would love to see succeed it's someone like Scott Zolak."" Again, not sure that the quote adds value as a direct quote.
  • "He again offered last minute heroics the following week.." Slightly tabloid-y. What about "The following week, he once more featured in a dramatic conclusion…"
  • "However, he was struggling in other areas." Vague. Academically? Physically? Or another physical area? It should specify areas of the game; disciplines or aspects may be a better word.
It's almost a shame to lose this, as it suggested his form was not the best. To a non-specialist, this is not now obvious. --Sarastro1 (talk) 11:05, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "thrown 12 interceptions": First instance of this, so I would spell it out as "had a pass intercepted 12 times".
  • "accounting for 73% of Maryland's offense" I don't quite get this.
  • " Zolak ranked fifth in school history in pass completions with 270, seventh in career passing yards with 3,124, second in yards passing in a season with 2,589…" Slightly awkward reading; I would rephrase each record "ranked fifth in school history with 270 pass completions, seventh with 3,124 career passing yards…" and so on.
  • Same point about linking draft as in the lead.?
  • "Patriots' quarterback situation" Not good prose.
  • "Zolak reached an agreement with the Patriots on a contract in July": What about "Zolak agreed a contract with the Patriots in July"
  • "to hold out": Not sure of the meaning here.
  • "The start of the 1992 season appeared the same…": May be better to say "At the start of the 1992 season, Zolak also looked unlikely to appear, being behind…"
  • "Relieving for Hodson…" Minor point, but would "Relieving Hodson" work better?
  • "who rushed for 110 yards": Jargon?
  • "After the performance against Atlanta…" The team's or Zolak's?
  • "While Bledsoe's doctors wanted him to sit out another week…" Although may work better than while.
  • "his status as the backup quarterback began to seem hazy a few weeks into training camp": Not sure about hazy. Uncertain would be a better word if his place was in doubt.
  • "taking nearly all the snaps and Tom Tupa serving as the backup upon his signing" Snaps? And I thought Zolak was backup all season? (I think this could be a terminology issue. Or maybe I'm just being dim.)
  • "Zolak also spent much of the season losing weight, as coach Parcells had ordered him to do." Poor phrasing. What about: "Parcells ordered Zolak to lose weight; Zolak did so throughout the season." Was he really losing weight all season?
  • "As training camp ended though, Zolak saw significantly more playing time": "Though" unnecessary; also, "had" would would work better than "saw". In fact, there are lots of "saw"s round here, and some need changing.
  • "Zolak worked out": meaning "trained" or "it went well"?
  • I think it's a little overstating it to say he is looking for a cure for diabetes. Ref 49 only says he is investigating potential causes.
  • "do color analysis": Not quite jargon, but not a well-known term outside North America.
  • When talking about his analyst role, could it be indicated how wide the coverage would be for each station. Non-Americans probably don't know whether a station covers the whole country, a city, a state… In this case, it would be good to have an idea how widely known he would be as an analyst.
  • Final point: I agree with Giants that a playing style section would be beneficial, but I appreciate such information may be hard to track down. --Sarastro1 (talk) 09:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Issues fixed, though I'll note a few points. On the first choice comment, I'm not positive what the situation was with the Patriots at the time. My guess is they were fine with Zolak in 1992, but if they were bad enough to get the first overall pick next year then there was no way they were passing on a franchise QB who could turn the team around with the first pick (could be compared to the current Jimmy Clausen/Cam Newton situation if that helps). Not sure how to have that written in though. I fixed most of the jargon issues, but a couple (the sacks, yards) I can't really make any clearer than how it already is. On the Tupa note, the emergency quarterback is the third-stringer, which Zolak became that year. Why he was moved down to third I'm not positive, my guess is due to the weight issue. Lastly, the radio analysis looks to be local, so I'm sure any Boston listeners would know who he is, though I had no idea he did this until I started writing the article, so he's not that widely known as one. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 03:39, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I'm now happy with the changes made. However, I think some jargon remains and could probably be tidied up. But at the same time, this is an article about a footballer and some will probably always remain. And it is possible for a non-fan like me to throughly understand this article, so I have no problem supporting. I've left a couple of unstruck issues, just in case anything further can be done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 11:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oh, and one more. The article says "Zolak currently resides in Massachusetts..." and "Currently, Zolak is co-host..." and "Zolak also currently contributes": I think these need changing per WP:DATED.
    Thanks. Went and fixed the remaining couple issues. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 16:02, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support - These minor issues have been addressed, and I support promoting this to FA status.

  • Article says "In an October game against Georgia Tech, Zolak was sacked 11 times." Zolak was sacked ten times in that game, not 11. (The Washington Times: "Georgia Tech's Kevin Battle moves in to collect one of the 10 sacks the Yellow Jackets recorded Saturday against Maryland's Scott Zolak"; Atlanta Journal–Constitution: "Saturday against Georgia Tech. Zolak was sacked 10 times in the Terrapins' 31-3 loss before 31941 in Byrd Stadium").
  • "In his college career, at the time of his graduation, ranked fifth in school history with 270 pass completions, seventh with 3,124 career passing yards, and second with 2,589 passing yards in a season." — I think the first two clauses are redundant and one can be removed. The sentence also appears to be missing a subject (i.e. "he" or "Zolak"). Strikehold (talk) 23:14, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Fixed. I double-checked the archives at the time and some sources have 10 sacks, others have 11; my guess is that the 11th sack by GTech came after Zolak was removed late in the game, so 10 is probably right. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 23:59, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, I meant that "in his college career" was redundant with "at the time of his graduation", not that you should remove one of the statistics. I re-added it and removed one of the redundancies. Revert my change if you disagree. Otherwise, I think this is FA material and am lending my support. Strikehold (talk) 00:50, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:02, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Images are unproblematic. The only suggestion I have is for the source on File:Bledsoephoto.jpg to be more descriptive than "a photo" - at least say it's self-made. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:18, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Modified the Bledsoe pic source note over on commons. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 20:44, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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