I am taking off work for the Thursday and Friday games of the NCAA Tournament. It is my Christmas. I do celebrate Christmas, but I like to think of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament as my real Christmas. Rather than just post a screenshot of my bracket, like Dylan did last year, I figured I would post my bracket and my reasoning behind each pick in preparation for the NCAA Tournament. I know everyone loves reading a ton of text. For the record, I do hate my bracket. After it was completed, I thought it was shit, but I've had a lot better looking brackets that ended up being dead wrong. So I guess you never know.
So here we go with explanations and feel free to call me an idiot in the comments. For someone who watches a lot of college basketball, I sure stink at picking accurate brackets.
South Bracket
Kentucky over MVSU (that's who I picked to win the First Four game): This seems fairly easy to explain. Kentucky is a much better team and will prove it on the court.
Connecticut over Iowa State: I like Royce White, but Iowa State's weakness is rebounding and I think Andre Drummond and Alex Oriakhi give the Huskies second chance opportunities with their rebounding. I don't expect anyone on UConn to stop Royce White, but they will focus on stopping his teammates and that should be enough to win.
Wichita State over VCU: I'm not buying VCU this year. Of course last year I had them losing in the First Four game (whoops!) so I have been wrong before, but I think Joe Ragland can handle the pressure of VCU and VCU tends to have trouble scoring when they can't create turnovers. If VCU can't create enough turnovers, then they won't score.
New Mexico State over Indiana: This was a tough pick, but the loss of Verdell Jones seems to have hurt the Hoosiers so far more than I thought it would. The Aggies are capable of hitting the offensive boards hard and will try to get Cody Zeller in foul trouble early. Indiana is simply a different team away from their home court and the Aggies have the best player on the court, Wendell McKines.
UNLV over Colorado: I'm a sucker for teams with quality veteran leadership and UNLV has that. Though I am a bit nervous they don't seem to be a good team away from Las Vegas, I am not sure Colorado can score enough to beat the Runnin' Rebels. UNLV beat UNC earlier this year and can put up points at will. UNLV should have no trouble beating an offensively-challenged Colorado team.
Baylor over South Dakota State: I spent all day Monday thinking this would be an upset of Baylor. I reconsidered because South Dakota State isn't going to be tall enough to match up with Baylor. Though SDSU shoots the ball well enough, but Baylor has size to rebound any misses on offense and get second-chance opportunities. I think this will be a game 75% of the way, which is better than other #14 seeds may do.
Xavier over Notre Dame: Whatever the opposite of being on a roll ends up being, that's what Notre Dame is on. Strong guard play of Lyons and Holloway carry Xavier past the Fighting Irish.
Duke over Lehigh: I can see C.J. McCullom going for 35 points in this game. I think it will be much closer than it should be, but against Lehigh, even if the 3's aren't falling the Plumlee brothers will be able to rebound the misses.
Kentucky over UConn: UConn has been somewhat of a mess on defense at times this year and I just think Kentucky will be a better team than UConn. UConn has talent, but Kentucky is better than UConn at every position and I don't believe UConn can challenge Kentucky defensively.
Wichita State over New Mexico State: I can think of two specific games this year I saw Wichita State play where it seems the just wore down the opposing team. It was against Davidson and Creighton, both teams in the NCAA tournament this year. The game was going well and it was a fairly close game, then next thing I knew, Wichita State was up 15 points. That happens in this game. Wichita State is sneaky consistent that way.
UNLV over Baylor: I think Scott Drew is an excellent recruiter. He can recruit excellent players. Coaching? I'm not as sold. While Baylor is talented and skilled, I tend to question their motivation at times. They seem to get punched in the mouth and back down. UNLV doesn't mind punching teams in the mouth. Hence, Baylor loses.
Xavier over Duke: Xavier has two strong guards, a quality big man, and can shoot the three point shot well. I'm not saying there is a formula for beating Duke, but while analysts point to a lack of a tall wing player as being Duke's biggest issue, the real issue is that they struggle to guard aggressive guards and the Plumlees can get pushed around at times. Every team that has beaten Duke has had two strong guards who can shoot (Lyons/Holloway) and a big man who can offensively rebound (Frease/Walker).
Kentucky over Wichita State: I think this game is going to be a close one, but Anthony Davis can neutralize Stutz in the post and the Cats play excellent defense on the perimeter. Wichita State is a good team, but Kentucky can be a great team. I can see Wichita State beating Kentucky if everything goes right for them, but how often does that happen?
UNLV over Xavier: I like UNLV because they can score a variety of ways and can rebound the basketball on the offensive boards. In the end, UNLV is simply a better all-around team than Xavier.
Kentucky over UNLV: I almost picked UNLV to win this game, but then I quit drinking. I decided as good as UNLV is all-around, Kentucky will defend the perimeter and try to take Moser out of the game. Anthony Davis is capable of doing things like that. While Kentucky's youth does scare me against a team like UNLV, I don't think Kentucky will go cold and miss 10 straight shots like UNC did against UNLV.
East Bracket
Syracuse over UNC-Asheville: UNC-Asheville can shoot the ball, but they are very small. I can see the 'Cuse zone giving them a lot of trouble.
Kansas State over Southern Miss: I tend to favor teams who can rebound and play good defense. Southern Miss isn't exactly rip-roaring into the NCAA Tourney and they are vulnerable down low, where Kansas State is strong.
Harvard over Vanderbilt: I have no good reasoning for this pick other than Vandy always loses in the 1st round and they have burnt me so many times I simply refuse to pick them to win a game until they actually have won a game. Because I picked Harvard to win, I can see Vandy going to the Final Four. Harvard is a good defensive team and I don't trust Vandy. That's all the rationale I need.
Wisconsin over Montana: I've seen this as a popular upset pick. The Badgers slow the game down so much, I can see Montana becoming impatient on the offensive end wanting to play their game. It will be a close game, but I think Wisconsin prevails.
Cincinnati over Texas: This is probably one of the worst teams Rick Barnes has had talent-wise at Texas. We all know what happens when Barnes doesn't have sufficient talent. That means he has to coach well to win games. Good luck with that. Texas relies so much on J'Covan Brown, I think Cincy will try to take him out of the game and grind out a win against the relatively young Texas team. Plus, I have a strict rule that I bet against Rick Barnes if I am ever undecided on a game he is involved in.
Florida State over St. Bonaventure: Florida State can have trouble scoring and they turn the ball over a lot. Conveniently, St. Bonaventure isn't great on defense and also has trouble turning the ball over. So I don't see the upset happening. Florida State isn't afraid of Andrew Nicholson and will suffocate the rest of the Bonnies (is that what they are called?) on the perimeter.
Gonzaga over West Virginia: I pick Gonzaga because I think they are a better team and West Virginia only has two players I think they can count on (Bryant/Jones). Also, I was visiting West Virginia in November and saw Bob Huggins at a restaurant in Morganton. He did not look happy at all the entire time he was there and left before he could be seated (He had to wait an entire 45 minutes on a Sunday morning for breakfast! Unacceptable.) I think Huggins knew his team would put up a stinker in the NCAA's this year.
Ohio State over Loyola (Md): Ohio State has Jared Sullinger and DeSean Thomas, while Loyola isn't particularly good on the boards. I think Ohio State breezes by Loyola.
Kansas State over Syracuse: There are many traditions in the NCAA Tourament. One of those traditions is a highly ranked Syracuse team not making the Elite Eight. Shockingly and I am not being sarcastic when I say this, Syracuse is a poor rebounding team (like 341st in the country) and the loss of Fab Melo isn't going to help. Kansas State is tough in the middle and have three guys averaging over two offensive rebounds per game. They can also shoot from the outside. I think Kansas State defends well enough and gets a career game from Rodney McGruder.
Wisconsin over Harvard: Both of these play at a slow pace, so this game won't be fun to watch. Wisconsin has the better player in Jordan Taylor and will slowly win this battle. Avert your eyes though, it may be ugly.
Florida State over Cincinnati: Yet another game with two teams that don't mind scoring in the 50's in order to win a game. I think this will be a very close game and the underrated Michael Snaer will be the difference. Cincinnati is a tough team, but Florida State is probably a little tougher (or dirtier as my wife may say) and they are on a roll right now.
Ohio State over Gonzaga: Did you know while the Zags are considered Cinderella's gone favorites they haven't made it past the Sweet Sixteen since 1999? I found that to be interesting and may even venture to say the program is a bit overrated by some. Obviously Gonzaga is still a good team, but they aren't as good as Ohio State. Ohio State is better than the Zags and Aaron Craft will do a good job of harassing the Zag guards.
Wisconsin over Kansas State: I'm not very excited for this game if it should happen. It just doesn't seem like an exciting game. Kansas State can be an up and down team. I think they are down against Wisconsin's tough defense and good three point shooting.
Florida State over Ohio State: I think Florida State's height, depth, and senior-led core is going to give Ohio State on offense. Florida State has the length to cause Sullinger problems and play excellent perimeter defense. I see them as a sort of ACC version of Michigan State with their size and ability to hit guard the 3 point line and Michigan State has given Ohio State problems this year. I choose FSU to win this game.
Florida State over Wisconsin: I cringe at the thought of picking a popular-opinion team like Florida State to represent the East bracket, but they are good enough defensively to slow down Jordan Taylor and the Seminole bigs don't mind playing along the outside the paint. I think they match up well with Wisconsin.
West Bracket
Michigan State over LIU Brooklyn: When I look at a #12-#16 seed, I look for a reason that team can win the game. LIU Brooklyn turns the ball over, don't rebound well and are pushovers on defense. Sound like a team Michigan State can defeat?
Memphis over Saint Louis: Another game where I cringe at picking a popular team. I simply believe Memphis has superior talent over Saint Louis and rebound the ball better. As long as Memphis doesn't suddenly become immature, they should prevail.
Long Beach State over New Mexico: This was a tough pick for me. I love to watch Casper Ware play and if Larry Anderson is healthy I see Long Beach ripping off an upset over a New Mexico team that seems to get up for big games (wins over San Diego State and UNLV), but have losses to TCU, Colorado State, and Santa Clara.
Louisville over Davidson: I will be cheering for Davidson because I don't like Rick Pitino. The only reason I'm not picking an upset is I am favoring my head over my heart. I don't believe Louisville's pressure will affect Davidson, but I believe Louisville will force the 3 point shot happy Wildcats to shoot contested shots.
Murray State over Colorado State: I love Murray State. I think Colorado State is too short to compete with the Racers on the boards and Murray State is simply more talented and deeper. Murray State shoots the ball at an excellent clip (all nine players who average over 10 minutes per game shoot 45% or better from the field). They also rebound well.
Marquette over BYU: Marquette may be a bit undersized, but they also have more talented players than BYU. BYU's run stops here, especially if they turn the ball over like they did in the first half against Marquette. Marquette won't only score 17 points in the last 24 minutes of the game like Iona did.
Florida over Virginia: I didn't believe Virginia deserved an NCAA tournament bid. This is a team running on fumes. They have two options on offense and rely on their defense to keep them in games. Don't get me wrong, they can defend, but they can't score with the Gator's three guard attack.
Missouri over Norfolk State: Missouri is susceptible to teams who can score inside. Norfolk State doesn't have enough inside nor do they shoot 3's well enough to beat Missouri.
Michigan State over Memphis: It is a popular pick to say Memphis beats Michigan State, but Memphis can't keep up with Michigan State defensively. Also, there is a reason Memphis ran through Conference USA while starting off the year slow. That reason is they didn't have to play quality teams in the Top 25 anymore. Michigan State is a quality team.
Louisville over Long Beach State: As much as I like Long Beach State, I think their small run ends here. Louisville can have trouble scoring, but they play very good defense and Peyton Siva played exceptionally well in the NCAA Tournament. So I see that continuing.
Murray State over Marquette: I said I love Murray State and I do. I think they will put pressure on Marquette to shoot the ball well and have a slight advantage in the paint. As good as Marquette has been this year, I think Murray State will take this opportunity to show they belonged as better than a #6 seed.
Missouri over Florida: The big secret about Missouri is they aren't that great of a defensive team. Of course Florida isn't either. I think the Tigers have the matchup advantage over Florida and will make Erik Murphy defend Kim English along the perimeter. I'm not sure that favors Florida.
Michigan State over Louisville: Louisville has been turnover prone this year and I don't think the pressure their pressure will faze Michigan State. This should be a close game, but I think Draymond Green pulls it through for the Spartans. He's the difference.
Murray State over Missouri: Missouri is vulnerable in the middle and I think Ivan Aska and Evan Daniel will be able to score points in the paint and force Missouri to provide help defense down low. As I said a minute ago, Missouri isn't great on defense and Murray State shoots the ball well. So Murray State can score with Missouri and won't have as many matchup difficulties as a slightly taller team may against the Tigers.
Murray State over Michigan State: I'm going with my gut on this one. I'm not sure Murray State can rebound with the Spartans, but Michigan State has struggled against teams who have multiple players who shoot the 3-point shot really well (losses against Duke, Indiana, Michigan). This should be a close game that goes down to the last minute, but I see Murray State pulling out a close victory.
Midwest Bracket
UNC over Lamar: There's no reason to believe Lamar can beat UNC.
Creighton over Alabama: This is a good matchup for Creighton. Alabama isn't the best shooting team, so Creighton's defensive problems shouldn't play a huge factor in the game. As bad as Creighton is defensively, I think they can outscore Bama.
Temple over California: Temple is a very good three point shooting team, but they do struggle sometimes in the post. Fortunately, Cal's strength is on the perimeter. In a contest of strength versus strength I will take Temple.
Ohio over Michigan: I know, I know. This is a chic pick, but hear me out. Ohio plays really good defense and while Michigan is an excellent outside shooting team, they tend to get focused on shooting three's and don't pay enough attention to trying to score in the post. I can see a situation where Michigan is draining three's and the offensively inconsistent Ohio team can't score, but in the end I think Ohio has enough down low with Baltic and Keely to upset the Wolverines.
N.C. State over San Diego State: N.C. State hasn't beaten a great team all year, but San Diego State isn't a great team. N.C. State is a team that can score in the paint and will have the best player on the court in C.J. Leslie. If N.C. State is focused (which is a big "if") then I think they are going to pull off the mild upset in the closing minutes of the game.
Georgetown over Belmont: I really like Belmont's team, but I'm not sure I like this matchup for them. I think Georgetown will be too strong in the post for Belmont and they are too athletic for the Belmont guards. I was going to predict a Belmont upset in the NCAA Tournament, but I just can't do it.
St. Mary's over Purdue: I don't really like either of these teams too much. They both seem pretty average to me. Neither team plays defense very well and I think Rob Jones makes the difference for St. Mary's.
Kansas over Detroit: I think Detroit can hang in there with the Jayhawks because (a) Bill Self's Kansas team just loves losing to mid-majors in the NCAA Tourney and (b) Eli Holman, LaMarcus Lowe, and Ray McCallum would all be household names at a different school. Detroit has the athletes, but I don't think they will defend well enough to win the game. It will be a competitive game though.
UNC over Creighton: Creighton doesn't play defense and UNC can score points in their sleep. It's not a good combination. Even if Creighton is bombing from the outside, I don't know how they will be able to keep up with UNC's size.
Temple over Ohio: Ohio scores points by creating turnovers. Temple has experienced guards who won't turn the ball over. If Temple makes Ohio score in their half court offense then I see the Owls making the Sweet Sixteen. Temple can be inconsistent, but their guards also tend to play with a lot of poise.
Georgetown over N.C. State: N.C. State has come up short all year against very good teams. Georgetown is a very good team. I don't believe N.C. State can win a game like this until they actually do. Georgetown isn't good offensively, but they are good enough to beat the Wolfpack.
Kansas over St. Mary's: It is tempting to pick a mid-major to defeat Kansas, but I think Kansas is too strong from the outside (Relaford/Teahan/Taylor) to lose to St. Mary's. St. Mary's won't guard the perimeter well enough to win this game.
UNC over Temple: I see no way Temple can guard Henson and Zeller in the post. As good as Temple's guard play can be, a team can beat Temple inside the paint. There is no team better than UNC in the country at scoring inside the paint. That's a major disadvantage Temple can't overcome.
Kansas over Georgetown: This Georgetown team seems to have a ceiling. They have already lost to Kansas earlier this year and Kansas has improved more than Georgetown has over the past few months in my opinion. Tyshawn Taylor will have a big game and lead the Jayhawks to victory.
UNC v. Kansas: We will get an entire week's worth of "Roy Williams playing against Kansas" stories for us to be sick of and I will be sick of these stories by Tuesday. Jeff Withey has a reputation for getting in foul trouble and Tyler Zeller is excellent at drawing fouls. John Henson can control Thomas Robinson and I think the deciding matchup will be Kendall Marshall versus Tyshawn Taylor and the UNC bench versus the Kansas bench. I think Marshall and the UNC bench can win this battle.
Final Four
Kentucky over Murray State: The Cinderella story ends here. Kentucky doesn't get near enough credit for their defense and if they shut Murray State down on the perimeter, then they will win this game. Though I have a very difficult time trusting a team where Terrence Jones plays a prominent role in that team's success, I think this game leads us one step closer to the inevitable re-match.
UNC over Florida State: Florida State has beaten UNC twice this year and there have been extenuating circumstances during both games. FSU beat the shit out of UNC in Tallahassee earlier this year because Deividas Dulkys was unconscious from three point range. FSU then beat UNC in the ACC title game because John Henson was injured and Florida State shot the ball unusually well again. All things being equal, which I think all things will be equal at this point in the season, UNC is the better team. Without the ability to drill three point shots, FSU won't be able to beat UNC again.
NCAA Championship Game
UNC over Kentucky: No, I am not trying a reverse-jinx here. I think this matchup is inevitable and I believe UNC will win this time. We saw the excellent game earlier this year in Lexington where Kentucky won at the last second on a blocked shot by Anthony Davis. I had a feeling these two teams would match up again and this time UNC would win. UNC only lost by 1 point on the road earlier this season and I think James Michael McAdoo and Reggie Bullock are playing at a different level now than they were earlier in the season. So while knowing the Kentucky players have also progressed, I favor Kendall Marshall over Marcus Teague and the UNC bench over Kentucky's very short bench.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
8 comments Rick Reilly Is Just Taunting Us with His Lack of Original Ideas Now
Rick Reilly has run out of ideas. He actually ran out of ideas a few years ago and began copying his old work and re-writing his old work as original ideas. Unfortunately, while Reilly has run out of ideas ESPN has not run out of money, so they still pay Reilly to write for the site. So Reilly still writes for ESPN.com and spends most of his writing time making lists and using current sports events to populate his list. Today, Rick breaks down where Peyton Manning should sign and does it only in the way he knows how. In a way that is annoyingly poor.
You need advice, Peyton Manning. We need a column. It works out.
I would like to think "I need a column, what's the easiest route to go?" doesn't go through Rick Reilly's head on a weekly basis, but I know better. This train of thought probably goes through his head every week.
Because Reilly is a Broncos "fan" then this whole column is a way of trying to convince Manning to come to Denver. I put "fan" in parenthesis because Rick Reilly secretly hates sports and has no interest in covering them at all. There is very little every sports-oriented about his columns and sports is the backdrop to his writing and not the reason for his writing. Pretending to enjoy sports his how he pays the bills.
You seem to have whittled your Stick Your Neck Out Tour down to four teams: Denver, Arizona, Tennessee and Miami.
Actually it is at two teams right now supposedly. Tennessee and Denver. Also, I hate the name for this tour.
These teams all want you the way Chelsea wants vodka, yet none of them is even sure you can play anymore. Who cares? You are The Bachelor, and they are four blondes in five-inch heels with daddy issues. Let's do this.
Bill Simmons would like his writing style back, please. Please stop stealing from people, including yourself.
As I have said before, if I am Bill Simmons I am pissed at how much Rick Reilly makes for the crap he puts out. Reilly's current writing output makes Simmons look original and creative. Of course, Simmons has Grantland.com now and can write "fuck" in a column and make all the pornstar references he has ever wanted to make, so I would assume he's pretty happy with his spot in the universe right now. Maybe I don't feel so bad for Simmons.
Divisions
This is unreadable stuff. Yet somewhere, there is a person chuckling at this reference and marveling at how creative Rick Reilly is.
The Broncos won it last year with a guy who tossed more dirtballs than a Hooters bouncer.
Rick Reilly has reproduced his previous work more than a Xerox machine. Rick Reilly tosses out bad analogies like Anthony Davis tosses out weak layups.
Seriously, anyone can write like this, but few can do it with this amount of douchebaggery. It's actually quite impressive once you come to terms with Rick Reilly stealing money from ESPN without using a gun. If Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor, then Rick Reilly is stealing from the rich and keeping it all for himself.
Arizona -- even with you and your brother -- is not going to beat the 49ers.
There can only be one quarterback behind center for each play and the last time I checked neither Eli or Peyton Manning were a running or catching threat, so this comment doesn't really make sense. Usually a comment like this is reserved for when the people being named can actually play a sport at the same time on the same team. It's more proof that Rick Reilly just doesn't give a shit.
Miami, going up against Tom Brady twice a year? You'd get to Saturn before you'd get to the playoffs there.
Because in the NFL you have to win your division in order to make the playoffs, right? There isn't two Wild Card spots in both leagues or anything like that. So if Peyton went to Miami, there is absolutely no way his team could win the division and therefore have a chance to make the playoffs.
Sometimes I wonder if Rick Reilly really understands sports or follows them at all. I think there is a 15% chance he doesn't know the NFL has two Wild Card spots for teams that didn't win their division. I know for a fact he didn't edit this column nor did anyone for ESPN.com or they would have caught that Peyton could still be in the same division as Tom Brady and still make the playoffs.
Wide receivers
In Arizona, you could throw to Larry Fitzgerald Jr., which is like a chef cooking for Vince Wilfork. But he is only one man, and the Cardinals don't have much beyond him.
Early Doucet and Andre Roberts both had 50+ catches last year with 689 yards receiving for Doucet and 586 yards receiving for Roberts. Obviously they aren't elite receivers, but they also aren't below average, especially with the lack of consistent quarterback play the Cardinals had last year.
Doucet will be 27 years old when the 2012 season starts and Roberts will be 24 years old. Their age will be important in a minute.
In Miami, you could throw to Brandon Marshall, if you can throw all the way to Chicago. He just got traded.
Awkward sentence structure here based on Marshall being traded and this column having to be edited at the last minute. You would think Reilly would edit the column to sound less awkward, but he had a tee time to catch and really doesn't give a shit if his writing is of average quality or not.
Denver has Demaryius Thomas, who is only 24 and already a ball-gobbling glutton. Plus, the Broncos have a possible star in Eric Decker.
So let's review the moronic point of view of Rick Reilly about these two Cardinals and Broncos receivers...
Andre Roberts (24 years old): 51 catches 586 yards.
Early Doucet (27 years old): 54 catches 689 yards.
They aren't much behind Larry Fitzgerald in the opinion of Rick Reilly.
Demaryius Thomas (24 years old): 32 catches 551 yards.
Eric Decker (25 years old): 44 catches 612 yards.
Thomas is a ball-gobbling glutton and Decker is a possible star. Yet, neither of them caught as many passes for as many yards as the #2 and #3 receivers for the Cardinals who Reilly appears to have little respect for. Granted, Tim Tebow was throwing Decker and Thomas the ball. Well, John Skelton and Kevin Kolb were throwing Doucet and Roberts the ball and neither of them are even the #1 passing option for the quarterback (that's Larry Fitzgerald). We have to acknowledge Doucet and Roberts would be better receivers with Manning throwing them the ball over Skelton and Kolb.
So basically I am saying Rick Reilly is absolutely wrong and the superlatives he throws on Decker and Thomas are perfectly fine, but he can't simply dismiss Doucet and Roberts. Those two receivers had better statistics than the ball-gobbling glutton and possible star Rick sees on the Broncos roster at the wide receiver position. Of course I don't want facts to get in the way of Rick's argument.
Tennessee has receivers even people in Nashville don't recognize. In uniform.
You mean Kenny Britt and Nate Washington? Maybe Rick Reilly doesn't recognize them while they are in their uniform, but Tennessee Titans fans do recognize them. If any receiver mentioned in this column is a future star it is Kenny Britt. So again, Rick Reilly needs to stick to writing puff pieces and making bad puns/analogies. When he talks sports, it becomes incredibly obvious he is over his head.
Weather
Do you realize the average Denver high in December is 46? That's seven degrees higher than in Indianapolis. Denver also gets about 250 clear, sunny days a year. There's a reason there's no dome in Denver. The Broncos don't need one.
Right, because it is never cold outside in Denver during the months of November, December, or January.
Cap room
It's not as though you're Tom Brady. You can't throw and catch the passes yourself. You're going to need some help...The Broncos could pay you and sign ungodly talented Chargers WR Vincent Jackson.
The Titans have a lot, too: $28M, but you'd have to stop after Vincent.
The Titans would want to stop after Vincent Jackson because the receiving corps for Tennessee would be Britt, Washington, Damian Williams, and Vincent Jackson. That's pretty good, especially counting Jared Cook and Lavelle Hawkins into that equation. But again, Rick Reilly doesn't know Tennessee doesn't have a terrible receiving corps because he knows very little about the topic he is discussing. He just wants to spit out a column and go on to more important parts of his day.
Crime
So murder is the only type of crime committed in each of these cities? I'm not going to argue crime statistics, but under the heading "Crime" you can't simply state the murder rate of each city and call it a day as if murder is the only type of crime committed in these cities. Label it "Murder rate" if you are only going to include the murder rate.
Coaches/Front office
Philbin has been a coach at some level since 1984 and ignoring his time in college football just seems really short-sighted. What else would I expect from Rick Reilly though?
What better guy to watch every day than John Elway? And don't forget, Elway won his two Super Bowls at 37 and 38. You're 35. He'll know what you need.
Probably the same thing John Elway needed, a Hall of Fame tight end, a great running game, a good defense and a great group of receivers. I'm not sure Denver currently has all of this.
Lifestyle
I can't decide if this comment is supposed to be funny or not. It just seems stupid. Also, Rick somewhat contradicts himself by saying children who grow up in Arizona become golfers. One of Rick's categories for Peyton was "Golfing" and he said the following in that section:
I believe you're a very tough 5 handicap. And you're obsessed. So I'm sure you think the Phoenix area has the best golf of the four cities. Maybe. But the Denver area actually has more courses in Golf Digest's top 100 rankings than any of the other three towns -- Castle Pines (29th) and Cherry Hills (67). (Not going to be hard to get you on, either -- Fox and Elway belong.) Scottsdale has Estancia (62nd), but that's it.
Denver may have better ranked courses as rated by Golf Digest, but if Rick thinks children from Arizona grow up to the be golfers, then possibly wouldn't Arizona be a better place for Peyton Manning to go to play golf? Rick is the one making up stereotypes about people from Arizona being golfers, I'm just trying to follow along.
Arizona ranks first in the nation in number of ant species. (Your two 1-year-old girls aren't going to like that.)
Because all women hate bugs. Women only like cleaning, cooking, getting pregnant, fetching alcohol for their man and getting their nails done.
Nashville ranks first in the nation in Internet shopping. (Uh-oh. No real shopping. Your wife isn't going to like that.)
Women hate shopping over the Internet. It's probably because their brains are smaller than a man's brain and they can't figure out how to turn the computer on.
And Denver ranks first in beer production per capita.
And we all know one-year old children absolutely love beer.
So, let's see where you should go, according to our entirely objective and arbitrary system:
You need advice, Peyton Manning. We need a column. It works out.
I would like to think "I need a column, what's the easiest route to go?" doesn't go through Rick Reilly's head on a weekly basis, but I know better. This train of thought probably goes through his head every week.
Because Reilly is a Broncos "fan" then this whole column is a way of trying to convince Manning to come to Denver. I put "fan" in parenthesis because Rick Reilly secretly hates sports and has no interest in covering them at all. There is very little every sports-oriented about his columns and sports is the backdrop to his writing and not the reason for his writing. Pretending to enjoy sports his how he pays the bills.
You seem to have whittled your Stick Your Neck Out Tour down to four teams: Denver, Arizona, Tennessee and Miami.
Actually it is at two teams right now supposedly. Tennessee and Denver. Also, I hate the name for this tour.
These teams all want you the way Chelsea wants vodka, yet none of them is even sure you can play anymore. Who cares? You are The Bachelor, and they are four blondes in five-inch heels with daddy issues. Let's do this.
Bill Simmons would like his writing style back, please. Please stop stealing from people, including yourself.
As I have said before, if I am Bill Simmons I am pissed at how much Rick Reilly makes for the crap he puts out. Reilly's current writing output makes Simmons look original and creative. Of course, Simmons has Grantland.com now and can write "fuck" in a column and make all the pornstar references he has ever wanted to make, so I would assume he's pretty happy with his spot in the universe right now. Maybe I don't feel so bad for Simmons.
Divisions
Denver plays in a division that could be taken by a team of girl scouts armed with Pez dispensers.
This is unreadable stuff. Yet somewhere, there is a person chuckling at this reference and marveling at how creative Rick Reilly is.
The Broncos won it last year with a guy who tossed more dirtballs than a Hooters bouncer.
Rick Reilly has reproduced his previous work more than a Xerox machine. Rick Reilly tosses out bad analogies like Anthony Davis tosses out weak layups.
Seriously, anyone can write like this, but few can do it with this amount of douchebaggery. It's actually quite impressive once you come to terms with Rick Reilly stealing money from ESPN without using a gun. If Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor, then Rick Reilly is stealing from the rich and keeping it all for himself.
Arizona -- even with you and your brother -- is not going to beat the 49ers.
There can only be one quarterback behind center for each play and the last time I checked neither Eli or Peyton Manning were a running or catching threat, so this comment doesn't really make sense. Usually a comment like this is reserved for when the people being named can actually play a sport at the same time on the same team. It's more proof that Rick Reilly just doesn't give a shit.
Miami, going up against Tom Brady twice a year? You'd get to Saturn before you'd get to the playoffs there.
Because in the NFL you have to win your division in order to make the playoffs, right? There isn't two Wild Card spots in both leagues or anything like that. So if Peyton went to Miami, there is absolutely no way his team could win the division and therefore have a chance to make the playoffs.
Sometimes I wonder if Rick Reilly really understands sports or follows them at all. I think there is a 15% chance he doesn't know the NFL has two Wild Card spots for teams that didn't win their division. I know for a fact he didn't edit this column nor did anyone for ESPN.com or they would have caught that Peyton could still be in the same division as Tom Brady and still make the playoffs.
Wide receivers
In Arizona, you could throw to Larry Fitzgerald Jr., which is like a chef cooking for Vince Wilfork. But he is only one man, and the Cardinals don't have much beyond him.
Early Doucet and Andre Roberts both had 50+ catches last year with 689 yards receiving for Doucet and 586 yards receiving for Roberts. Obviously they aren't elite receivers, but they also aren't below average, especially with the lack of consistent quarterback play the Cardinals had last year.
Doucet will be 27 years old when the 2012 season starts and Roberts will be 24 years old. Their age will be important in a minute.
In Miami, you could throw to Brandon Marshall, if you can throw all the way to Chicago. He just got traded.
Awkward sentence structure here based on Marshall being traded and this column having to be edited at the last minute. You would think Reilly would edit the column to sound less awkward, but he had a tee time to catch and really doesn't give a shit if his writing is of average quality or not.
Denver has Demaryius Thomas, who is only 24 and already a ball-gobbling glutton. Plus, the Broncos have a possible star in Eric Decker.
So let's review the moronic point of view of Rick Reilly about these two Cardinals and Broncos receivers...
Andre Roberts (24 years old): 51 catches 586 yards.
Early Doucet (27 years old): 54 catches 689 yards.
They aren't much behind Larry Fitzgerald in the opinion of Rick Reilly.
Demaryius Thomas (24 years old): 32 catches 551 yards.
Eric Decker (25 years old): 44 catches 612 yards.
Thomas is a ball-gobbling glutton and Decker is a possible star. Yet, neither of them caught as many passes for as many yards as the #2 and #3 receivers for the Cardinals who Reilly appears to have little respect for. Granted, Tim Tebow was throwing Decker and Thomas the ball. Well, John Skelton and Kevin Kolb were throwing Doucet and Roberts the ball and neither of them are even the #1 passing option for the quarterback (that's Larry Fitzgerald). We have to acknowledge Doucet and Roberts would be better receivers with Manning throwing them the ball over Skelton and Kolb.
So basically I am saying Rick Reilly is absolutely wrong and the superlatives he throws on Decker and Thomas are perfectly fine, but he can't simply dismiss Doucet and Roberts. Those two receivers had better statistics than the ball-gobbling glutton and possible star Rick sees on the Broncos roster at the wide receiver position. Of course I don't want facts to get in the way of Rick's argument.
Tennessee has receivers even people in Nashville don't recognize. In uniform.
You mean Kenny Britt and Nate Washington? Maybe Rick Reilly doesn't recognize them while they are in their uniform, but Tennessee Titans fans do recognize them. If any receiver mentioned in this column is a future star it is Kenny Britt. So again, Rick Reilly needs to stick to writing puff pieces and making bad puns/analogies. When he talks sports, it becomes incredibly obvious he is over his head.
Weather
Do you realize the average Denver high in December is 46? That's seven degrees higher than in Indianapolis. Denver also gets about 250 clear, sunny days a year. There's a reason there's no dome in Denver. The Broncos don't need one.
Right, because it is never cold outside in Denver during the months of November, December, or January.
Cap room
It's not as though you're Tom Brady. You can't throw and catch the passes yourself. You're going to need some help...The Broncos could pay you and sign ungodly talented Chargers WR Vincent Jackson.
The Titans have a lot, too: $28M, but you'd have to stop after Vincent.
The Titans would want to stop after Vincent Jackson because the receiving corps for Tennessee would be Britt, Washington, Damian Williams, and Vincent Jackson. That's pretty good, especially counting Jared Cook and Lavelle Hawkins into that equation. But again, Rick Reilly doesn't know Tennessee doesn't have a terrible receiving corps because he knows very little about the topic he is discussing. He just wants to spit out a column and go on to more important parts of his day.
Crime
Here's the 2010 murder rate per 100,000 people. Hey, you have to consider these things. Denver 3.6; Phoenix 7.6; Nashville 8.9, Miami 15.4.
So murder is the only type of crime committed in each of these cities? I'm not going to argue crime statistics, but under the heading "Crime" you can't simply state the murder rate of each city and call it a day as if murder is the only type of crime committed in these cities. Label it "Murder rate" if you are only going to include the murder rate.
Coaches/Front office
You're practically a coach already, but you can't make all the decisions. Miami's rookie head coach Joe Philbin has been in the NFL for just nine years. You have wristbands older than that.
Philbin has been a coach at some level since 1984 and ignoring his time in college football just seems really short-sighted. What else would I expect from Rick Reilly though?
What better guy to watch every day than John Elway? And don't forget, Elway won his two Super Bowls at 37 and 38. You're 35. He'll know what you need.
Probably the same thing John Elway needed, a Hall of Fame tight end, a great running game, a good defense and a great group of receivers. I'm not sure Denver currently has all of this.
Lifestyle
You have twins, a boy and a girl. You need to think about where you want to raise them. Do you want them to grow up to be singers (Tennessee), skiers (Denver), golfers (Arizona) or assisted-living nurses (Miami)?
I get it! Everyone in Nashville likes to sing country music and everyone in Miami is really old! Hilarity ensues!I can't decide if this comment is supposed to be funny or not. It just seems stupid. Also, Rick somewhat contradicts himself by saying children who grow up in Arizona become golfers. One of Rick's categories for Peyton was "Golfing" and he said the following in that section:
I believe you're a very tough 5 handicap. And you're obsessed. So I'm sure you think the Phoenix area has the best golf of the four cities. Maybe. But the Denver area actually has more courses in Golf Digest's top 100 rankings than any of the other three towns -- Castle Pines (29th) and Cherry Hills (67). (Not going to be hard to get you on, either -- Fox and Elway belong.) Scottsdale has Estancia (62nd), but that's it.
Denver may have better ranked courses as rated by Golf Digest, but if Rick thinks children from Arizona grow up to the be golfers, then possibly wouldn't Arizona be a better place for Peyton Manning to go to play golf? Rick is the one making up stereotypes about people from Arizona being golfers, I'm just trying to follow along.
Arizona ranks first in the nation in number of ant species. (Your two 1-year-old girls aren't going to like that.)
Because all women hate bugs. Women only like cleaning, cooking, getting pregnant, fetching alcohol for their man and getting their nails done.
Nashville ranks first in the nation in Internet shopping. (Uh-oh. No real shopping. Your wife isn't going to like that.)
Women hate shopping over the Internet. It's probably because their brains are smaller than a man's brain and they can't figure out how to turn the computer on.
And Denver ranks first in beer production per capita.
And we all know one-year old children absolutely love beer.
So, let's see where you should go, according to our entirely objective and arbitrary system:
Denver +40
Arizona +15
Tennessee 0
Miami -10
(We'll keep a cold one waiting for you.)
You may believe Rick Reilly didn't do any research for this article. That's not true. He had to research which division and conference each of these teams played in. Rick probably also had to research who "Peyton Manning" is.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
2 comments Kentucky Rides Out of Town on the Wave of Bitter Bianchi's Tears
I thought I would go with a more poetic title for this post. It seems appropriate for some reason. I am guessing not many people like the one-and-done rule in college basketball. I say this because a lot of people I speak with don't like the rule. Of course it is actually an NBA rule where the burden and blame gets shifted to college basketball in order to make it look like the NBA gives a shit about the players who eventually enter the league. David Stern is a master spin artist. The poster-coach (not sure that's a word) for the one-and-done rule has become John Calipari and whatever team he is currently coaching. I don't like the one-and-done rule, but I have come to terms with the way John Calipari recruits. He has a recruiting strategy and he uses that strategy to win games.
Whether you think he is a dirty recruiter or not (and if you do think he is dirty then you should also know many other programs are probably dirty as well...like Baylor), he wins basketball games with freshmen at key positions. That isn't always easy. Of course they are talented freshmen, which always helps, but it still doesn't ensure success. Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel doesn't like all of this one-and-done business and he doesn't like the way Calipari wins games. Rather focusing on the positive and celebrating the Florida Gators' Senior Day as an example of an athlete staying in college for four years, he looks at the negative and says Kentucky ruined Florida's Senior Day by having the audacity to defeat the Gators. He's pretty bitter about this it seems. One would believe if Bianchi was concerned with Erving Walker getting attention on Senior Day then he would have written this article about Walker. One would believe wrong.
It was Freshman Day at the University of Florida on Sunday.
Yes, this Kentucky team has a lot of freshmen. Calipari has embraced the one-and-done rule and made it work for him in a way that other programs (Duke in the mid-2000's) were unable to do. I don't like the one-and-done rule, but I've come to terms with how coaches have to use the rule to build their teams and stay competitive. I don't like it, but I have to accept it if I continue to watch college basketball.
Even when it is supposed to be Florida's Senior Day.
I'm not even sure what this means. Should Kentucky not have played their freshmen that day out of deference for the one senior Florida has one the roster? Florida has exactly one senior, so it isn't like this was a freshman versus seniors game or anything of the like. Kentucky is a team that recruits a lot of one-and-done players, but that's living life on a thin line. Calipari has to bring in quality recruiting classes year after year to keep this up, which brings its own kind of pressure. I am not a huge fan of Calipari or Kentucky, but they didn't write the one-and-done rule, they are just playing by that rule. So it was supposed to be Florida's Senior Day and it still was.
Take a look at the Gators roster though. Brad Beal leads the Gators in minutes played. What year is he? A freshman. He also is 2nd on the team in points (as of when Bianchi wrote this article), 1st in rebounds, 1st in steals, 3rd in assists, and 3rd in blocks. Beal is also seriously looking at going to the NBA after this year. So the complaining about the Kentucky one-and-done players seems a bit disingenuous knowing Florida has a probable one-and-done also. Sure, Florida doesn't have three one-and-done players, but they also heavily rely on a freshman (who is a probable one-and-done) for the team's success.
Beal isn't the only young player Florida relies on. Patric Young is a sophomore. He is tied with Beal for the team lead in rebounds, 4th in points, 2nd in blocks, and 4th in minutes played. It isn't like the Gators don't have any young players on their team. They do have more upperclassmen who play a large role on the team than Kentucky does. Kentucky has two seniors, two sophomores, and four freshmen in their 8-man rotation. That is a young team. It is not as if the Kentucky freshmen are the only contributors to the team.
In a idyllic world, this would have been a fitting sendoff for Erving Walker, Florida's inspirational 5-foot-8 senior point guard
Well, it is not an idyllic world and Kentucky doesn't have an obligation to lay down and allow Florida to win the game simply because it is Senior Day. Another fitting send-off would be to have written about Walker, rather than write a half-assed piece simply because you don't like the way Kentucky recruits.
who is a testament to what college basketball once was.
"Back in my day college basketball only featured seniors and the media turned a blind eye to NCAA violations that occurred."
In four years, Walker never missed a game and has become the fourth-leading scorer, second-leading three-point maker and No. 1 assist man in school history.
That is fantastic. Too bad he lost the game against Kentucky on his Senior Day. It sucks, but it happens. No team has the obligation to lay down on the opposing team's Senior Day.
Florida has one player who was at the school for four years and didn't miss a game and Kentucky has one player who was at Kentucky for four years, played in 143 games and is the example, just like Walker, of what coaches want their four year student-athletes to turn into. Darius Miller has accepted his role on the team and progressed his game through the four years at Kentucky. Bianchi wants us to forget this and focus on the horror that is Florida losing at home on Senior Day.
But that nostalgic, idyllic world gave way the real one Sunday when Walker and the Gators were overshadowed once again by Kentucky's high-flying One-and-Doners, whose 74-59 victory was UK's 22nd straight and completed an undefeated 16-0 romp through the SEC.
Any nostalgic, idyllic world of college basketball never existed. It's all in your head and isn't true. It sure is fun to think teams from yesteryear were all clean and had athletes that really gave a shit about their college eduction. Unfortunately, it just isn't true.
This, sadly, is what college basketball has become — a temp agency for rogue UK coach John Calipari's whooping, swooping, alley-ooping rent-a-stars.
How the hell is Calipari "rogue" if he obeys and rules and recruits his team in accordance with those rules? Yes, we all know about violations on teams that Calipari previously coached for, but within the one-and-done rule, Calipari is making it work for him. He isn't rogue.
Especially at Kentucky, where seemingly the only thing that can stop the Childcats is the NBA draft.
This year Kentucky will probably have three freshmen enter the NBA Draft. Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Marcus Teague.
The only reason people get on Calipari's ass is because he wins games with freshmen. If Calipari was a shitty coach who couldn't get the most out of his players, like Rick Barnes (and yes, I realize Calipari gets better recruits than Barnes does. Barnes still stinks with the talent he has), people would not care as much about how many of his players are one-and-done. Over the past two seasons, Calipari has had four players go straight to the NBA and Rick Barnes has had three. It is true Calipari's Kentucky teams often have one-and-done players, but he wins games with these players which I think pisses people off more than anything else.
Freshman center Anthony Davis is the centerpiece of Calipari's current crop of freshmen slambinos and you could certainly see Sunday why he has already been tabbed as the consensus No. 1 pick in the upcoming June draft.
If he is ready to go to the NBA, then what's the problem with him being one-and-done? If Calipari doesn't care for his program to be run this way, why should Mike Bianchi care...other than the fact he doesn't like that Kentucky wins so many games? I hope Bianchi realizes it isn't easy to have the turnover from year-to-year like Calipari has. He has to do more than roll a basketball on the court, drink a soda and eat Cheetos while his team plays. Kentucky plays great defense and defense doesn't come naturally to freshmen and has to be taught.
That may be true, but Calipari has built the nation's most dominant basketball team by becoming the sport's ultimate baby-daddy.
It's rogue of Calipari to work within the one-and-done rule. By the way, Calipari has red-shirted Jon Hood and transfer Ryan Harrow will be able to play next year. So next year's Kentucky team doesn't look to be as nearly freshmen-heavy as this year's team was. There will still be talented freshmen on the team of course.
The way Calipari recruits simply isn't sustainable. He knows he needs a certain amount of guys contributing who aren't freshmen so he can withstand the turnover of the one-and-done players.
after finishing with a 35-3 record and advancing into the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament — had five players, including four freshmen, taken in the first round of the NBA draft. Calipari, obviously forgetting the seven national titles the storied Wildcats have in their history, called it "the biggest day in the history of the Kentucky program."
I didn't say I necessarily liked John Calipari and I didn't like this comment. I thought it lacked a certain perspective of Kentucky's basketball history.
Translation: Sending players to the NBA is more important to Calipari than all that other stuff college is supposed to be about.
The cynical translation of his comment can be seen as that. What I believe Calipari intended was to say the Kentucky basketball team had five players drafted into the NBA, so there is talent on the roster, and the program is back from the dead. The acknowledgement by the NBA of the talent on the Kentucky roster was Calipari's proof he was turning the Kentucky basketball program back into the program the fans wanted and into the program Calipari wanted it to be.
You know, stuff like growing up, developing as a person, going to class, getting a degree, blah, blah, blah.
Calipari will have one player graduate this year and three players from the 2010-2011 team graduated. Granted, those players aren't players he has recruited. So only time will tell if he gets guys to stay four years and graduate, but I'm guessing he will have players graduate. Calipari can only help these players grow up, go to class, and develop as long as they are at Kentucky. It isn't like Calipari is taking in players no other programs want. If Cousins didn't go to Kentucky to be a one-and-done, he would have gone to Memphis. Same thing with Wall. He would have gone to Baylor or N.C. State to play for one year. The system is the problem in my opinion. It just so happens Calipari has a few examples of what is wrong with the system on his team every year.
It wasn't so long ago that Billy Donovan had Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer, Tauren Green, and Maureese Speights leave early and not graduate over two consecutive seasons. Again, I will admit those players were juniors and sophomores, but not graduating is not graduating.
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo probably put it best when he told Sports Illustrated recently: "It [Kentucky] is like a factory. Nobody has any ties to the place."
Don't mislead your readers. Let's look at the entire quote, in context, and see what we think about Izzo's quote at that point.
"He doesn't get enough credit for the job they do defensively," Izzo says. "It's hard to get freshmen to play defense. And he's gotta do it with five, six of them [on his roster]."
Izzo says he would happily take a one-and-done player, but he doesn't want a whole team of them,
Wait, Izzo would take a one-and-done player? I must have read that wrong.
Izzo says he would happily take a one-and-done player, but he doesn't want a whole team of them,
I guess not. Also, it doesn't appear Izzo was talking directly about Kentucky with his "factory" comment, but I don't want to let facts get in the way of Bianchi's sour grapes.
nor does he think the likes of Krzyzewski or North Carolina's Roy Williams would either. "I don't think I would enjoy my job that way," he says. "It's like a factory. Nobody has any ties to the place."
There may be a small difference, but Izzo isn't saying "Kentucky is like a factory," he is saying if he had a team of one-and-done players he wouldn't enjoy his job because players wouldn't have ties to the school. So yes, he is talking about Kentucky indirectly, but not directly saying, "Kentucky is a factory."
The difference is in Izzo saying he would not enjoy his job because Michigan State would be like a factory and Izzo directly saying Kentucky is a factory. It's a small difference perhaps, but the difference is in acknowledging what would work for him as a coach and what works for Kentucky. Need proof of this difference? Great, here it is...
Which isn't to say that Izzo—or any other coach—could make such an institutional change, even if he wanted to. "As [basketball] crazy as Kentucky is," says Izzo, "that's probably one of the few places you could do that."
So Izzo's comment doesn't fit as neatly in the context of Bianchi's article as much as he would like for it to.
When I asked him about his reputation as the king of the one-and-doners Sunday, he went on an animated rant about what the NBA and college basketball should do to encourage players to stay for more than one year.
Who would have thought Calipari wouldn't want to discuss the one-and-done rule after his team has completed a perfect conference record? What an unforeseen turn of events!
Among his suggestions: The NCAA should give players a sizable stipend and the NBA should allow players to who stay in college to subtract years from their less-lucrative rookie contract.
I am a fan of two-and-through and otherwise an high school player wants to go straight to the NBA he can. But the player has to stay in college for two years. As long as the NBA takes away the options a college athlete has, John Calipari should build his team as he sees fit, even if I don't personally like it. It is naive to blame the players in the system for the rules that have been set up. The real culprit are those people who limit the options available to high school basketball players and pretend to care about the graduation of student-athletes.
Calipari, though, refuses to apologize for signing the best players in the country even when he must know his program is nothing more than a glorified AAU squad.
Mike Bianchi would not be saying this if he ever watched an AAU game and saw the amount of defense and discipline on the part of the players in those games. If anything Calipari's teams are a D-League team, but not a glorified AAU team.
"What I would tell you is this is not my rule," he says. "I can't stand the rule, but it's the rule so I go out and recruit players who want to play here.
I think this is true. Calipari has found a way to differentiate the Kentucky program from other programs across the country. He differentiates by recruiting more one-and-done players with the idea he can help them play in the NBA. Most college basketball players want to play basketball professionally, this isn't a big secret.
He then added facetiously: "This year, we're doing OK — we're hanging on."
Welcome to college basketball's worst nightmare.
What, you writing a column about the one-and-done rule?
Freshman Day in Gainesville.
The Kentucky Childcats.
This may be Mike Bianchi's worst nightmare, but I'm not sure this is college basketball's worst nightmare to have a team of freshmen players have success during the regular season. Any coach will tell you, and Tom Izzo did tell us, you can't just throw a bunch of talented players on a team and have them win a national title. In fact, John Calipari has never won a national title. So the worst nightmare is a bit overblown.
I know Mike Bianchi likes and respects Erving Walker. He wanted his Senior Day to go smoothly and end with a win for the Florida Gators. If the Gators don't want to lose on Senior Day, don't schedule Kentucky. Plenty of other seniors who are really good guys lost on their Senior Day (Draymond Green) and it doesn't matter if they lost to a team full of freshmen or a team with more upperclassmen. We can be nostalgic about it all we want, but plenty of freshmen have come in and handed a group of seniors their ass on Senior Night. It didn't start this year and it won't stop this year. Whether these freshmen are one-and-done players doesn't matter. It doesn't overshadow a player's Senior Night any more or any less by losing to a group of freshmen. Losing on Senior Night sucks no matter what.
No. 1.
And done.
Yep, just like Brad Beal. In fact, Florida could have possibly had two one-and-done players if Austin Rivers had not de-committed in April 2010. There is no "right" way to build a competitive college basketball team, as long as a coach doesn't break NCAA rules. I'm not sure we can fault coaches who recruit within the rules that have been set up and forced upon college basketball. It doesn't mean we have to like it. If Mike Bianchi really wants to honor Erving Walker and how great he has been for Florida, perhaps he should have spent his column talking about Walker rather than being bitter towards Florida for "overshadowing" Walker's Senior Day.
Whether you think he is a dirty recruiter or not (and if you do think he is dirty then you should also know many other programs are probably dirty as well...like Baylor), he wins basketball games with freshmen at key positions. That isn't always easy. Of course they are talented freshmen, which always helps, but it still doesn't ensure success. Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel doesn't like all of this one-and-done business and he doesn't like the way Calipari wins games. Rather focusing on the positive and celebrating the Florida Gators' Senior Day as an example of an athlete staying in college for four years, he looks at the negative and says Kentucky ruined Florida's Senior Day by having the audacity to defeat the Gators. He's pretty bitter about this it seems. One would believe if Bianchi was concerned with Erving Walker getting attention on Senior Day then he would have written this article about Walker. One would believe wrong.
It was Freshman Day at the University of Florida on Sunday.
Yes, this Kentucky team has a lot of freshmen. Calipari has embraced the one-and-done rule and made it work for him in a way that other programs (Duke in the mid-2000's) were unable to do. I don't like the one-and-done rule, but I've come to terms with how coaches have to use the rule to build their teams and stay competitive. I don't like it, but I have to accept it if I continue to watch college basketball.
Even when it is supposed to be Florida's Senior Day.
I'm not even sure what this means. Should Kentucky not have played their freshmen that day out of deference for the one senior Florida has one the roster? Florida has exactly one senior, so it isn't like this was a freshman versus seniors game or anything of the like. Kentucky is a team that recruits a lot of one-and-done players, but that's living life on a thin line. Calipari has to bring in quality recruiting classes year after year to keep this up, which brings its own kind of pressure. I am not a huge fan of Calipari or Kentucky, but they didn't write the one-and-done rule, they are just playing by that rule. So it was supposed to be Florida's Senior Day and it still was.
Take a look at the Gators roster though. Brad Beal leads the Gators in minutes played. What year is he? A freshman. He also is 2nd on the team in points (as of when Bianchi wrote this article), 1st in rebounds, 1st in steals, 3rd in assists, and 3rd in blocks. Beal is also seriously looking at going to the NBA after this year. So the complaining about the Kentucky one-and-done players seems a bit disingenuous knowing Florida has a probable one-and-done also. Sure, Florida doesn't have three one-and-done players, but they also heavily rely on a freshman (who is a probable one-and-done) for the team's success.
Beal isn't the only young player Florida relies on. Patric Young is a sophomore. He is tied with Beal for the team lead in rebounds, 4th in points, 2nd in blocks, and 4th in minutes played. It isn't like the Gators don't have any young players on their team. They do have more upperclassmen who play a large role on the team than Kentucky does. Kentucky has two seniors, two sophomores, and four freshmen in their 8-man rotation. That is a young team. It is not as if the Kentucky freshmen are the only contributors to the team.
In a idyllic world, this would have been a fitting sendoff for Erving Walker, Florida's inspirational 5-foot-8 senior point guard
Well, it is not an idyllic world and Kentucky doesn't have an obligation to lay down and allow Florida to win the game simply because it is Senior Day. Another fitting send-off would be to have written about Walker, rather than write a half-assed piece simply because you don't like the way Kentucky recruits.
who is a testament to what college basketball once was.
"Back in my day college basketball only featured seniors and the media turned a blind eye to NCAA violations that occurred."
In four years, Walker never missed a game and has become the fourth-leading scorer, second-leading three-point maker and No. 1 assist man in school history.
That is fantastic. Too bad he lost the game against Kentucky on his Senior Day. It sucks, but it happens. No team has the obligation to lay down on the opposing team's Senior Day.
Florida has one player who was at the school for four years and didn't miss a game and Kentucky has one player who was at Kentucky for four years, played in 143 games and is the example, just like Walker, of what coaches want their four year student-athletes to turn into. Darius Miller has accepted his role on the team and progressed his game through the four years at Kentucky. Bianchi wants us to forget this and focus on the horror that is Florida losing at home on Senior Day.
But that nostalgic, idyllic world gave way the real one Sunday when Walker and the Gators were overshadowed once again by Kentucky's high-flying One-and-Doners, whose 74-59 victory was UK's 22nd straight and completed an undefeated 16-0 romp through the SEC.
Any nostalgic, idyllic world of college basketball never existed. It's all in your head and isn't true. It sure is fun to think teams from yesteryear were all clean and had athletes that really gave a shit about their college eduction. Unfortunately, it just isn't true.
This, sadly, is what college basketball has become — a temp agency for rogue UK coach John Calipari's whooping, swooping, alley-ooping rent-a-stars.
How the hell is Calipari "rogue" if he obeys and rules and recruits his team in accordance with those rules? Yes, we all know about violations on teams that Calipari previously coached for, but within the one-and-done rule, Calipari is making it work for him. He isn't rogue.
Especially at Kentucky, where seemingly the only thing that can stop the Childcats is the NBA draft.
This year Kentucky will probably have three freshmen enter the NBA Draft. Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Marcus Teague.
The only reason people get on Calipari's ass is because he wins games with freshmen. If Calipari was a shitty coach who couldn't get the most out of his players, like Rick Barnes (and yes, I realize Calipari gets better recruits than Barnes does. Barnes still stinks with the talent he has), people would not care as much about how many of his players are one-and-done. Over the past two seasons, Calipari has had four players go straight to the NBA and Rick Barnes has had three. It is true Calipari's Kentucky teams often have one-and-done players, but he wins games with these players which I think pisses people off more than anything else.
Freshman center Anthony Davis is the centerpiece of Calipari's current crop of freshmen slambinos and you could certainly see Sunday why he has already been tabbed as the consensus No. 1 pick in the upcoming June draft.
If he is ready to go to the NBA, then what's the problem with him being one-and-done? If Calipari doesn't care for his program to be run this way, why should Mike Bianchi care...other than the fact he doesn't like that Kentucky wins so many games? I hope Bianchi realizes it isn't easy to have the turnover from year-to-year like Calipari has. He has to do more than roll a basketball on the court, drink a soda and eat Cheetos while his team plays. Kentucky plays great defense and defense doesn't come naturally to freshmen and has to be taught.
That may be true, but Calipari has built the nation's most dominant basketball team by becoming the sport's ultimate baby-daddy.
It's rogue of Calipari to work within the one-and-done rule. By the way, Calipari has red-shirted Jon Hood and transfer Ryan Harrow will be able to play next year. So next year's Kentucky team doesn't look to be as nearly freshmen-heavy as this year's team was. There will still be talented freshmen on the team of course.
The way Calipari recruits simply isn't sustainable. He knows he needs a certain amount of guys contributing who aren't freshmen so he can withstand the turnover of the one-and-done players.
after finishing with a 35-3 record and advancing into the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament — had five players, including four freshmen, taken in the first round of the NBA draft. Calipari, obviously forgetting the seven national titles the storied Wildcats have in their history, called it "the biggest day in the history of the Kentucky program."
I didn't say I necessarily liked John Calipari and I didn't like this comment. I thought it lacked a certain perspective of Kentucky's basketball history.
Translation: Sending players to the NBA is more important to Calipari than all that other stuff college is supposed to be about.
The cynical translation of his comment can be seen as that. What I believe Calipari intended was to say the Kentucky basketball team had five players drafted into the NBA, so there is talent on the roster, and the program is back from the dead. The acknowledgement by the NBA of the talent on the Kentucky roster was Calipari's proof he was turning the Kentucky basketball program back into the program the fans wanted and into the program Calipari wanted it to be.
You know, stuff like growing up, developing as a person, going to class, getting a degree, blah, blah, blah.
Calipari will have one player graduate this year and three players from the 2010-2011 team graduated. Granted, those players aren't players he has recruited. So only time will tell if he gets guys to stay four years and graduate, but I'm guessing he will have players graduate. Calipari can only help these players grow up, go to class, and develop as long as they are at Kentucky. It isn't like Calipari is taking in players no other programs want. If Cousins didn't go to Kentucky to be a one-and-done, he would have gone to Memphis. Same thing with Wall. He would have gone to Baylor or N.C. State to play for one year. The system is the problem in my opinion. It just so happens Calipari has a few examples of what is wrong with the system on his team every year.
It wasn't so long ago that Billy Donovan had Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer, Tauren Green, and Maureese Speights leave early and not graduate over two consecutive seasons. Again, I will admit those players were juniors and sophomores, but not graduating is not graduating.
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo probably put it best when he told Sports Illustrated recently: "It [Kentucky] is like a factory. Nobody has any ties to the place."
Don't mislead your readers. Let's look at the entire quote, in context, and see what we think about Izzo's quote at that point.
"He doesn't get enough credit for the job they do defensively," Izzo says. "It's hard to get freshmen to play defense. And he's gotta do it with five, six of them [on his roster]."
Izzo says he would happily take a one-and-done player, but he doesn't want a whole team of them,
Wait, Izzo would take a one-and-done player? I must have read that wrong.
Izzo says he would happily take a one-and-done player, but he doesn't want a whole team of them,
I guess not. Also, it doesn't appear Izzo was talking directly about Kentucky with his "factory" comment, but I don't want to let facts get in the way of Bianchi's sour grapes.
nor does he think the likes of Krzyzewski or North Carolina's Roy Williams would either. "I don't think I would enjoy my job that way," he says. "It's like a factory. Nobody has any ties to the place."
There may be a small difference, but Izzo isn't saying "Kentucky is like a factory," he is saying if he had a team of one-and-done players he wouldn't enjoy his job because players wouldn't have ties to the school. So yes, he is talking about Kentucky indirectly, but not directly saying, "Kentucky is a factory."
The difference is in Izzo saying he would not enjoy his job because Michigan State would be like a factory and Izzo directly saying Kentucky is a factory. It's a small difference perhaps, but the difference is in acknowledging what would work for him as a coach and what works for Kentucky. Need proof of this difference? Great, here it is...
Which isn't to say that Izzo—or any other coach—could make such an institutional change, even if he wanted to. "As [basketball] crazy as Kentucky is," says Izzo, "that's probably one of the few places you could do that."
So Izzo's comment doesn't fit as neatly in the context of Bianchi's article as much as he would like for it to.
When I asked him about his reputation as the king of the one-and-doners Sunday, he went on an animated rant about what the NBA and college basketball should do to encourage players to stay for more than one year.
Who would have thought Calipari wouldn't want to discuss the one-and-done rule after his team has completed a perfect conference record? What an unforeseen turn of events!
Among his suggestions: The NCAA should give players a sizable stipend and the NBA should allow players to who stay in college to subtract years from their less-lucrative rookie contract.
I am a fan of two-and-through and otherwise an high school player wants to go straight to the NBA he can. But the player has to stay in college for two years. As long as the NBA takes away the options a college athlete has, John Calipari should build his team as he sees fit, even if I don't personally like it. It is naive to blame the players in the system for the rules that have been set up. The real culprit are those people who limit the options available to high school basketball players and pretend to care about the graduation of student-athletes.
Calipari, though, refuses to apologize for signing the best players in the country even when he must know his program is nothing more than a glorified AAU squad.
Mike Bianchi would not be saying this if he ever watched an AAU game and saw the amount of defense and discipline on the part of the players in those games. If anything Calipari's teams are a D-League team, but not a glorified AAU team.
"What I would tell you is this is not my rule," he says. "I can't stand the rule, but it's the rule so I go out and recruit players who want to play here.
I think this is true. Calipari has found a way to differentiate the Kentucky program from other programs across the country. He differentiates by recruiting more one-and-done players with the idea he can help them play in the NBA. Most college basketball players want to play basketball professionally, this isn't a big secret.
He then added facetiously: "This year, we're doing OK — we're hanging on."
Welcome to college basketball's worst nightmare.
What, you writing a column about the one-and-done rule?
Freshman Day in Gainesville.
The Kentucky Childcats.
This may be Mike Bianchi's worst nightmare, but I'm not sure this is college basketball's worst nightmare to have a team of freshmen players have success during the regular season. Any coach will tell you, and Tom Izzo did tell us, you can't just throw a bunch of talented players on a team and have them win a national title. In fact, John Calipari has never won a national title. So the worst nightmare is a bit overblown.
I know Mike Bianchi likes and respects Erving Walker. He wanted his Senior Day to go smoothly and end with a win for the Florida Gators. If the Gators don't want to lose on Senior Day, don't schedule Kentucky. Plenty of other seniors who are really good guys lost on their Senior Day (Draymond Green) and it doesn't matter if they lost to a team full of freshmen or a team with more upperclassmen. We can be nostalgic about it all we want, but plenty of freshmen have come in and handed a group of seniors their ass on Senior Night. It didn't start this year and it won't stop this year. Whether these freshmen are one-and-done players doesn't matter. It doesn't overshadow a player's Senior Night any more or any less by losing to a group of freshmen. Losing on Senior Night sucks no matter what.
No. 1.
And done.
Yep, just like Brad Beal. In fact, Florida could have possibly had two one-and-done players if Austin Rivers had not de-committed in April 2010. There is no "right" way to build a competitive college basketball team, as long as a coach doesn't break NCAA rules. I'm not sure we can fault coaches who recruit within the rules that have been set up and forced upon college basketball. It doesn't mean we have to like it. If Mike Bianchi really wants to honor Erving Walker and how great he has been for Florida, perhaps he should have spent his column talking about Walker rather than being bitter towards Florida for "overshadowing" Walker's Senior Day.
Monday, March 12, 2012
3 comments I Think It Is Time to Change the Pro Football Hall of Fame Voting Process
I have started a Fantasy Baseball league and Fantasy NCAA Tournament Bracket in Yahoo if anyone cares to join. The league ID is 76959 and password is "eckstein" for the Fantasy Baseball league and the league ID is 5876 and password is "eckstein" for the NCAA Tourney bracket. We have about two spots left in the Fantasy Baseball league and feel free to give feedback on the set up of the league if you would like.
Peter King wrote in his Tuesday mailbag a few weeks ago that he was considering stepping aside from Hall of Fame voting. While I do feel like he is being a bit overdramatic and whiny about stepping aside, especially given the reasons he states for doing so, I can also see why Peter would step aside. The Pro Football Hall of Fame process could definitely use some changes. The Pro Football Hall of Fame process shrouds the voting in secrecy and then sends their voters out into the world to sort of defend their picks, but not to defend them enough to reveal how they voted. See, voters aren't supposed to explicitly come out and say who they did or did not vote for. I see Peter's issue with taking heat for the Hall of Fame choices, but he also needs to understand he is going to get heat for the results of the process, especially given the secrecy surrounding the voting process. His best chance at affecting any changes is to not step aside.
I think a few tweaks can be made to the Pro Football Hall of Fame process and I also don't believe Peter King will step aside. He is just being a little dramatic and emotional when he wrote in his mailbag he was considering stepping aside. Of the many things we complain about concerning the Baseball Hall of Fame, there are quite a few aspects of the Baseball Hall of Fame voting that are done well. The voting is made public, the voters tend to defend their picks (even if I disagree with the defense) and the ballot is done by mail, which for better or worse is less labor intensive for Hall of Fame voters.
So I've been giving my role in the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection process some thought. It's a good time to give it some thought, too. I just finished my 20th year deliberating the immortality of retired pro football greats.
I rag on writers who tend to think backwards and use what I perceive as the wrong criteria for (any) Hall of Fame voting process. I do see veteran Hall of Fame voters as as a positive for the voting process though, as long as they are willing to be open to new and different techniques in evaluating players during the process. Therein lies the issue with the baseball Hall of Fame voting process. The voters are often seeming to use different sets of criteria to evaluate the players. Of course we have no idea what criteria Pro Football Hall of Fame voters use because it is never explained or discussed. Apparently it is a huge secret.
I've been thinking of stepping down from the committee of 44 selectors. Many of you are right. Twenty years is a long time.
Peter King isn't stepping down. I simply don't believe he will. I'm not sure I believe he should step down either. Peter was just emotional from getting negative feedback on the Hall of Fame results for this year when he wrote these comments. This is much like when Peter said his brother-in-law was considering not paying his part for Red Sox season tickets because of the way the 2011 season ended. I bet $100 his brother-in-law paid his part for the season tickets. After the emotion fades away, logic and reason sets in.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame selection process seems to be fairly simple. So I would think making some changes could be done simply as well, since there doesn't seem to be too much to change.
The three major/minor tweaks I would make to the process are:
1. Quit with this shroud of secrecy shit. Make it public which selector voted for which player and what percentage of the vote each player got. All the secrecy does is cause the fans to wonder which idiot writer did/didn't vote for a certain player and then all of the Hall of Fame voters get shit for that player not being/being included. When the fans can't direct their frustration at a certain voter, any voter gets to hear the frustration. Making the vote public isn't just about allowing fans an outlet for frustration, but opening up the process more to the public. If a selector wants the privilege of voting, that selector should have the responsibility of standing by his vote. I can't see how this is a controversial view. If a selector can't stand by or explain his vote during public scrutiny then perhaps he should not be a part of the voting process.
Fans have an interest in how the voting went and which selector voted for which player. Isn't that who the Hall of Fame is truly for? The fans? Allowing their to be a shroud of secrecy around the voting helps to distance fans from the process, which I think bringing fans into the process is a strength of the baseball Hall of Fame voting process. Fans debate a player's merits back-and-forth which engages them in the process. Allowing fans to hear a selector defend his/her Hall of Fame choices reveals the reason why a player did/didn't make it. This a characteristic of the baseball Hall of Fame process, even if the fans aren't in the room doing the actual voting. I see this as important.
2. I think agree with Peter King there should be a member of each NFL team represented on the selection committee. Whether it can be an ex-player, coach, or front office official, as long as it is someone affiliated with the team. I see it as important to allow the writers to vote, but also have a member close to the team to have a vote. Yes, it will result in longer debates and I know that isn't necessarily what Peter King or other Hall of Fame selectors would want, but I think it gives the process more credence. I see this as a minor tweak.
3. Players should be individually voted upon at the point where there are ten modern day candidates and two senior committee candidates. Again, I realize this makes the process longer, but I think it is important to keep the individual voting open to more than just five modern day candidates. If we want to fix the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I don't see how the suggestion by the Hall of Fame which states "between four and seven new members will be selected each year" can still deserve merit. Simply put, if there are eight candidates who are worthy, they should be voted into the Hall of Fame, just like if there are two candidates worthy then those are the only ones who should be voted in.
I'm fine with the vote that takes the modern-day finalists from fifteen to ten, but then taking the field from ten to five candidates? I consider that to be too narrow. I'm a Hall of Fame snob in many ways, but narrowing the list to five candidates is too small of a number in my opinion. What are we trying to prevent by keeping the number at five? Too many players being voted into the Hall of Fame? If eight players deserve induction, then what's the issue if eight players are voted in? A requirement of 80% of the vote helps to ensure only those worthy of the Hall will get in. I think the selectors should take a list of ten players, plus two nominees from the senior committee, and vote individually based on that list of twelve players. I consider this to be an important tweak the Hall of Fame needs to make.
So back to Peter King's explanation for why he is considering stepping aside...
And I've thought, independent of the argument some have proposed for term limits for Hall voters, that maybe it's time for someone else to sit in judgment of these great players, coaches and league and club officials. Fresh voices are good things.
I don't think the selectors are broken, I think the Pro Football Hall of Fame system is broken, but can be easily fixed. Once we correct the system, I think we will be able to better tell if fresh voices are needed. At this point, who knows if fresh voices are needed? We have no idea which selector voted one way or why they voted that way.
In 20 years, sitting on the panel has gone from an honor to equal parts burden and honor. I never got in this for pats on the back.
I don't think this is true. Part of the reason Peter states he wants out of the voting is because of the negative feedback he has gotten. Accordingly, the positive feedback he gets probably makes him happy he votes for the Hall of Fame. So I don't believe he necessarily does it for the pats on the back, but they certainly don't hurt.
When Chris Doleman got in this year, he said that night that the only thing better in his life would be when he died and met his maker.
Clearly, he hasn't ever met Tim Tebow. Being inducted into the Hall of Fame would immediately move to third on this list.
It's an honor -- with a heavy weight attached. And the weight gets heavier every year.
But the key point to know is the negative feedback Peter gets is what makes this weight get heavier. We can stop Peter's semi-whining simply by letting him off the hook for his votes by making the vote public. No one would question why Peter didn't vote for Cris Carter if Peter could reveal he did vote for Cris Carter. I believe part of the weight on the selectors is the inability to make their votes public.
In the last few years, I've lost count of how many people in the game and on the street have told me, in various ways, "You're an idiot, you're incompetent, you stink at this, and how can you leave [fill in the blank] out of the Hall of Fame?" And after a while, you just start thinking, Why am I doing this anyway?
So basically Peter is reacting to the negative feedback he has gotten. He can talk all around this fact as much as he wants, but the negative feedback is the impetus for his feeling like he wants to step aside from Hall of Fame voting. If we made the votes public, at least Peter would get incredulous comments about players he didn't vote for. This is as opposed to getting incredulous comments about players he did vote for, but he just can't reveal this fact because of the idiotic veil of secrecy around the voting process.
I figured the other day that I spend the equivalent of about four days of my life each year on the Hall of Fame -- asking former coaches and players and officials about the cases of certain candidates.
This is about the right amount of time that should be spent doing this.
I try to do the best and most conscientious job I can, knowing that there are, in almost every class of 15 modern-era finalists, more candidates I'd vote yes on than no.
Now while I don't think Peter King is right about everything when it comes to the Hall of Fame vote, I do tend to side with him on more issues than I disagree with him on concerning this issue. I don't know what the other selectors would do, but the idea one selector has more candidates has more players he'd vote "yes" on than "no" tells me more than five modern-era finalists should be the final list.
Maybe Peter King votes in a way it would open the floodgates too much in regard to letting players in the Hall of Fame. That is entirely possible. I think the selectors should have a wider field of players to actually vote on, it doesn't mean all these players have to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. It is true there is a discussion of fifteen candidates, but individual candidates don't get voted on until the vote gets to five candidates. I think that's too narrow. So why not narrow the field to ten modern day candidates and vote on individuals from there?
This year, when all the discussions in the room were finished, I looked down my list and checked 11 men I'd have voted for and four I would have turned down.
I will admit inducting eleven players seems like a lot. This doesn't mean Peter is representative of how other selectors would vote though. I can easily see where Peter is too lenient in allowing certain players in the Hall of Fame (from reading MMQB every week), but again, 80% of the vote is required for induction. Four out of five voters would have to be as lenient as Peter for a player to be inducted. So I'm not sure other voters are as lenient as Peter. This is what would make the process work well. Some voters are lenient, others are not as lenient. The best candidates would (hopefully) get voted in.
But we whittle the list from 15 to 10, and then from 10 to five, before we vote yes or no on individual candidates. That means, on my list this year, six deserving men wouldn't get in.
Therein lies my problem with the process. This isn't a reaction to Peter's overly-emotional claim he may step away from Hall of Fame voting, it is a reaction to a voter validly feeling (in my opinion) there are deserving candidates who won't receive induction. I don't agree there were six other deserving candidates, but why shouldn't this be for the Hall of Fame committee to decide rather than rule out players because of an arbitrary numbers game that limits the individual voting to five candidates?
The 11 I favor? It's not because I covered them or worked on TV with them; I have twice voted against men I respect and covered as a team beat writer. It's not because they are my friends. One of the men I opposed never spoke to me again after he learned of my vote. That's life.
It doesn't seem like Peter would be against his vote being made public. Now, whether this is just bluster coming from Peter or he actually thinks "that's life" if someone doesn't talk to him again is a different discussion. I see no reason the votes shouldn't be made public.
I believe all votes should be made public, because we should stand behind our opinions. I believe the committee should be expanded to include a conscientious player, coach or club official from the existing 32 teams.
I agree with Peter on both counts.
But if you think that's going to end the arguments and the perceived biases, you're crazy. It would, however, give the vote more legitimacy, in my opinion.
It is not about getting rid of arguments or perceived biases, it is about finding which selector used what criteria in voting or who has the perceived bias against a player. It isn't about blaming a certain selector for a player not being inducted into the Hall of Fame, but it is about understanding the thought process and reasoning that goes into voting/not voting for a certain player. It doesn't allow the results to be hidden behind a veil of secrecy and cause all voters to take shit for Player X being/not being in the Hall of Fame. I think the public wants to know how the vote broke down.
I try to be as honest in my writing as humanly possible, and I don't write this today to engender any sort of pity party.
No, but if Peter was being completely honest he could say the negative feedback had gotten to him.
It's a tremendous honor to be asked to be a Hall of Fame voter. I have a lot of thinking to do about this. It might be time to make it someone else's tremendous honor.
I don't think there is a way that Peter King isn't a Hall of Fame voter next year. I also think there isn't any way the voting process gets revamped. What's interesting is this voting process and Peter's problems with the voting process won't get changed if he steps down. There is a much better chance of the issues with the Hall of Fame voting process being tweaked if current members of the selection committee want to see changes made. Peter King can help affect those changes, assuming he really wants to see changes made, by staying on the selection committee.
While I deliberated in the last few days, an e-mail from a fellow voter came to me. I won't name the voter, but I asked if I could share the sentiments, and the voter said yes. This voter is having some of the same doubts about the process as I am.
At a certain point it almost seems like some of these voters want the honor of voting for the Hall of Fame, but not the criticism and responsibility that may come with it. I'm not saying this is for all Hall of Fame voters. I think some of the angst over voting would go away if selectors could voice why they voted one way or another.
I try to make choices based on one man's case against the other others. Why is that so hard for people to grasp? Several of us are questioning whether we want to continue on the committee. The pressure and responsibility at times is overwhelming to me.
I can't help but wonder if voters for the baseball Hall of Fame feel the same way. It doesn't seem they do. It seems baseball Hall of Fame voters don't get a hernia voting. I think that is partially because they don't meet to vote for the Hall of Fame and they can make their vote public.
I feel physically ill every time I take a ballot and reduce it to 15. (Am I preventing this person from entering the discussion in the room because I'm more impressed by another player's body of work?)
Yes, you are preventing a player from entering the discussion because another player's body of work is better. That's the job. To remove a player from discussion because you think another player has a better body of work. That is the entire goal of voting for the Hall of Fame. You can't make it personal and you have to judge a player on the body of work.
Taking it to 10 on Selection Saturday is excruciating. When I present a person and he fails to make it to Canton, I feel as if I've failed him.
I probably will never understand this feeling and believe if a voter thinks this way then he is making the process way too much of a personal selection rather than a selection based on professional accomplishment. That being said, opening up the player to individual voting at ten candidates would help to take away this feeling of failure. The reasoning behind this feeling may be suspect in my opinion, but in terms of the process I think it makes sense to put individual voting at ten candidates.
Mike Florio -- who I really like and respect -- is banging the drum for turnover and a fresh crop of selectors every few years. Yet this is lost on Mike and many others: There are fewer of us who can commit to attending the meeting each year.
If you can't commit, then don't be on the selection committee. It is pretty simple.
This brings me to another question...why do the selectors have to meet? Why can't they get the number of players to twenty-five and then vote on them through mail like the baseball Hall of Fame does? Why does there have to be a discussion? Wouldn't it be possible for the selectors to vote through mail so they don't have to attend the meeting and there is less pressure on the "whittling down" part of the process?
I also would reveal my vote if asked (and permitted), and I'd state my case for why I chose one player over another.
I think most voters would do this. Votes should be made public and I think the maximum number of players who could be voted in should be the ten players individually voted on, plus the one senior committee player. 80% is a high threshold to achieve and I have a hard time believing ten players would get inducted in one year. If that happens, well then one of two things can happen. Either we realize these ten candidates deserved induction or we can start to look at the selection committee members and determine if there needs to be a change made there. Otherwise, I don't know if we can change the selection committee too much (other than possibly add a member from each NFL team) while they feel as if they are being handcuffed by the process.
Peter King wrote in his Tuesday mailbag a few weeks ago that he was considering stepping aside from Hall of Fame voting. While I do feel like he is being a bit overdramatic and whiny about stepping aside, especially given the reasons he states for doing so, I can also see why Peter would step aside. The Pro Football Hall of Fame process could definitely use some changes. The Pro Football Hall of Fame process shrouds the voting in secrecy and then sends their voters out into the world to sort of defend their picks, but not to defend them enough to reveal how they voted. See, voters aren't supposed to explicitly come out and say who they did or did not vote for. I see Peter's issue with taking heat for the Hall of Fame choices, but he also needs to understand he is going to get heat for the results of the process, especially given the secrecy surrounding the voting process. His best chance at affecting any changes is to not step aside.
I think a few tweaks can be made to the Pro Football Hall of Fame process and I also don't believe Peter King will step aside. He is just being a little dramatic and emotional when he wrote in his mailbag he was considering stepping aside. Of the many things we complain about concerning the Baseball Hall of Fame, there are quite a few aspects of the Baseball Hall of Fame voting that are done well. The voting is made public, the voters tend to defend their picks (even if I disagree with the defense) and the ballot is done by mail, which for better or worse is less labor intensive for Hall of Fame voters.
So I've been giving my role in the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection process some thought. It's a good time to give it some thought, too. I just finished my 20th year deliberating the immortality of retired pro football greats.
I rag on writers who tend to think backwards and use what I perceive as the wrong criteria for (any) Hall of Fame voting process. I do see veteran Hall of Fame voters as as a positive for the voting process though, as long as they are willing to be open to new and different techniques in evaluating players during the process. Therein lies the issue with the baseball Hall of Fame voting process. The voters are often seeming to use different sets of criteria to evaluate the players. Of course we have no idea what criteria Pro Football Hall of Fame voters use because it is never explained or discussed. Apparently it is a huge secret.
I've been thinking of stepping down from the committee of 44 selectors. Many of you are right. Twenty years is a long time.
Peter King isn't stepping down. I simply don't believe he will. I'm not sure I believe he should step down either. Peter was just emotional from getting negative feedback on the Hall of Fame results for this year when he wrote these comments. This is much like when Peter said his brother-in-law was considering not paying his part for Red Sox season tickets because of the way the 2011 season ended. I bet $100 his brother-in-law paid his part for the season tickets. After the emotion fades away, logic and reason sets in.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame selection process seems to be fairly simple. So I would think making some changes could be done simply as well, since there doesn't seem to be too much to change.
The three major/minor tweaks I would make to the process are:
1. Quit with this shroud of secrecy shit. Make it public which selector voted for which player and what percentage of the vote each player got. All the secrecy does is cause the fans to wonder which idiot writer did/didn't vote for a certain player and then all of the Hall of Fame voters get shit for that player not being/being included. When the fans can't direct their frustration at a certain voter, any voter gets to hear the frustration. Making the vote public isn't just about allowing fans an outlet for frustration, but opening up the process more to the public. If a selector wants the privilege of voting, that selector should have the responsibility of standing by his vote. I can't see how this is a controversial view. If a selector can't stand by or explain his vote during public scrutiny then perhaps he should not be a part of the voting process.
Fans have an interest in how the voting went and which selector voted for which player. Isn't that who the Hall of Fame is truly for? The fans? Allowing their to be a shroud of secrecy around the voting helps to distance fans from the process, which I think bringing fans into the process is a strength of the baseball Hall of Fame voting process. Fans debate a player's merits back-and-forth which engages them in the process. Allowing fans to hear a selector defend his/her Hall of Fame choices reveals the reason why a player did/didn't make it. This a characteristic of the baseball Hall of Fame process, even if the fans aren't in the room doing the actual voting. I see this as important.
2. I think agree with Peter King there should be a member of each NFL team represented on the selection committee. Whether it can be an ex-player, coach, or front office official, as long as it is someone affiliated with the team. I see it as important to allow the writers to vote, but also have a member close to the team to have a vote. Yes, it will result in longer debates and I know that isn't necessarily what Peter King or other Hall of Fame selectors would want, but I think it gives the process more credence. I see this as a minor tweak.
3. Players should be individually voted upon at the point where there are ten modern day candidates and two senior committee candidates. Again, I realize this makes the process longer, but I think it is important to keep the individual voting open to more than just five modern day candidates. If we want to fix the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I don't see how the suggestion by the Hall of Fame which states "between four and seven new members will be selected each year" can still deserve merit. Simply put, if there are eight candidates who are worthy, they should be voted into the Hall of Fame, just like if there are two candidates worthy then those are the only ones who should be voted in.
I'm fine with the vote that takes the modern-day finalists from fifteen to ten, but then taking the field from ten to five candidates? I consider that to be too narrow. I'm a Hall of Fame snob in many ways, but narrowing the list to five candidates is too small of a number in my opinion. What are we trying to prevent by keeping the number at five? Too many players being voted into the Hall of Fame? If eight players deserve induction, then what's the issue if eight players are voted in? A requirement of 80% of the vote helps to ensure only those worthy of the Hall will get in. I think the selectors should take a list of ten players, plus two nominees from the senior committee, and vote individually based on that list of twelve players. I consider this to be an important tweak the Hall of Fame needs to make.
So back to Peter King's explanation for why he is considering stepping aside...
And I've thought, independent of the argument some have proposed for term limits for Hall voters, that maybe it's time for someone else to sit in judgment of these great players, coaches and league and club officials. Fresh voices are good things.
I don't think the selectors are broken, I think the Pro Football Hall of Fame system is broken, but can be easily fixed. Once we correct the system, I think we will be able to better tell if fresh voices are needed. At this point, who knows if fresh voices are needed? We have no idea which selector voted one way or why they voted that way.
In 20 years, sitting on the panel has gone from an honor to equal parts burden and honor. I never got in this for pats on the back.
I don't think this is true. Part of the reason Peter states he wants out of the voting is because of the negative feedback he has gotten. Accordingly, the positive feedback he gets probably makes him happy he votes for the Hall of Fame. So I don't believe he necessarily does it for the pats on the back, but they certainly don't hurt.
When Chris Doleman got in this year, he said that night that the only thing better in his life would be when he died and met his maker.
Clearly, he hasn't ever met Tim Tebow. Being inducted into the Hall of Fame would immediately move to third on this list.
It's an honor -- with a heavy weight attached. And the weight gets heavier every year.
But the key point to know is the negative feedback Peter gets is what makes this weight get heavier. We can stop Peter's semi-whining simply by letting him off the hook for his votes by making the vote public. No one would question why Peter didn't vote for Cris Carter if Peter could reveal he did vote for Cris Carter. I believe part of the weight on the selectors is the inability to make their votes public.
In the last few years, I've lost count of how many people in the game and on the street have told me, in various ways, "You're an idiot, you're incompetent, you stink at this, and how can you leave [fill in the blank] out of the Hall of Fame?" And after a while, you just start thinking, Why am I doing this anyway?
So basically Peter is reacting to the negative feedback he has gotten. He can talk all around this fact as much as he wants, but the negative feedback is the impetus for his feeling like he wants to step aside from Hall of Fame voting. If we made the votes public, at least Peter would get incredulous comments about players he didn't vote for. This is as opposed to getting incredulous comments about players he did vote for, but he just can't reveal this fact because of the idiotic veil of secrecy around the voting process.
I figured the other day that I spend the equivalent of about four days of my life each year on the Hall of Fame -- asking former coaches and players and officials about the cases of certain candidates.
This is about the right amount of time that should be spent doing this.
I try to do the best and most conscientious job I can, knowing that there are, in almost every class of 15 modern-era finalists, more candidates I'd vote yes on than no.
Now while I don't think Peter King is right about everything when it comes to the Hall of Fame vote, I do tend to side with him on more issues than I disagree with him on concerning this issue. I don't know what the other selectors would do, but the idea one selector has more candidates has more players he'd vote "yes" on than "no" tells me more than five modern-era finalists should be the final list.
Maybe Peter King votes in a way it would open the floodgates too much in regard to letting players in the Hall of Fame. That is entirely possible. I think the selectors should have a wider field of players to actually vote on, it doesn't mean all these players have to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. It is true there is a discussion of fifteen candidates, but individual candidates don't get voted on until the vote gets to five candidates. I think that's too narrow. So why not narrow the field to ten modern day candidates and vote on individuals from there?
This year, when all the discussions in the room were finished, I looked down my list and checked 11 men I'd have voted for and four I would have turned down.
I will admit inducting eleven players seems like a lot. This doesn't mean Peter is representative of how other selectors would vote though. I can easily see where Peter is too lenient in allowing certain players in the Hall of Fame (from reading MMQB every week), but again, 80% of the vote is required for induction. Four out of five voters would have to be as lenient as Peter for a player to be inducted. So I'm not sure other voters are as lenient as Peter. This is what would make the process work well. Some voters are lenient, others are not as lenient. The best candidates would (hopefully) get voted in.
But we whittle the list from 15 to 10, and then from 10 to five, before we vote yes or no on individual candidates. That means, on my list this year, six deserving men wouldn't get in.
Therein lies my problem with the process. This isn't a reaction to Peter's overly-emotional claim he may step away from Hall of Fame voting, it is a reaction to a voter validly feeling (in my opinion) there are deserving candidates who won't receive induction. I don't agree there were six other deserving candidates, but why shouldn't this be for the Hall of Fame committee to decide rather than rule out players because of an arbitrary numbers game that limits the individual voting to five candidates?
The 11 I favor? It's not because I covered them or worked on TV with them; I have twice voted against men I respect and covered as a team beat writer. It's not because they are my friends. One of the men I opposed never spoke to me again after he learned of my vote. That's life.
It doesn't seem like Peter would be against his vote being made public. Now, whether this is just bluster coming from Peter or he actually thinks "that's life" if someone doesn't talk to him again is a different discussion. I see no reason the votes shouldn't be made public.
I believe all votes should be made public, because we should stand behind our opinions. I believe the committee should be expanded to include a conscientious player, coach or club official from the existing 32 teams.
I agree with Peter on both counts.
But if you think that's going to end the arguments and the perceived biases, you're crazy. It would, however, give the vote more legitimacy, in my opinion.
It is not about getting rid of arguments or perceived biases, it is about finding which selector used what criteria in voting or who has the perceived bias against a player. It isn't about blaming a certain selector for a player not being inducted into the Hall of Fame, but it is about understanding the thought process and reasoning that goes into voting/not voting for a certain player. It doesn't allow the results to be hidden behind a veil of secrecy and cause all voters to take shit for Player X being/not being in the Hall of Fame. I think the public wants to know how the vote broke down.
I try to be as honest in my writing as humanly possible, and I don't write this today to engender any sort of pity party.
No, but if Peter was being completely honest he could say the negative feedback had gotten to him.
It's a tremendous honor to be asked to be a Hall of Fame voter. I have a lot of thinking to do about this. It might be time to make it someone else's tremendous honor.
I don't think there is a way that Peter King isn't a Hall of Fame voter next year. I also think there isn't any way the voting process gets revamped. What's interesting is this voting process and Peter's problems with the voting process won't get changed if he steps down. There is a much better chance of the issues with the Hall of Fame voting process being tweaked if current members of the selection committee want to see changes made. Peter King can help affect those changes, assuming he really wants to see changes made, by staying on the selection committee.
While I deliberated in the last few days, an e-mail from a fellow voter came to me. I won't name the voter, but I asked if I could share the sentiments, and the voter said yes. This voter is having some of the same doubts about the process as I am.
At a certain point it almost seems like some of these voters want the honor of voting for the Hall of Fame, but not the criticism and responsibility that may come with it. I'm not saying this is for all Hall of Fame voters. I think some of the angst over voting would go away if selectors could voice why they voted one way or another.
I try to make choices based on one man's case against the other others. Why is that so hard for people to grasp? Several of us are questioning whether we want to continue on the committee. The pressure and responsibility at times is overwhelming to me.
I can't help but wonder if voters for the baseball Hall of Fame feel the same way. It doesn't seem they do. It seems baseball Hall of Fame voters don't get a hernia voting. I think that is partially because they don't meet to vote for the Hall of Fame and they can make their vote public.
I feel physically ill every time I take a ballot and reduce it to 15. (Am I preventing this person from entering the discussion in the room because I'm more impressed by another player's body of work?)
Yes, you are preventing a player from entering the discussion because another player's body of work is better. That's the job. To remove a player from discussion because you think another player has a better body of work. That is the entire goal of voting for the Hall of Fame. You can't make it personal and you have to judge a player on the body of work.
Taking it to 10 on Selection Saturday is excruciating. When I present a person and he fails to make it to Canton, I feel as if I've failed him.
I probably will never understand this feeling and believe if a voter thinks this way then he is making the process way too much of a personal selection rather than a selection based on professional accomplishment. That being said, opening up the player to individual voting at ten candidates would help to take away this feeling of failure. The reasoning behind this feeling may be suspect in my opinion, but in terms of the process I think it makes sense to put individual voting at ten candidates.
Mike Florio -- who I really like and respect -- is banging the drum for turnover and a fresh crop of selectors every few years. Yet this is lost on Mike and many others: There are fewer of us who can commit to attending the meeting each year.
If you can't commit, then don't be on the selection committee. It is pretty simple.
This brings me to another question...why do the selectors have to meet? Why can't they get the number of players to twenty-five and then vote on them through mail like the baseball Hall of Fame does? Why does there have to be a discussion? Wouldn't it be possible for the selectors to vote through mail so they don't have to attend the meeting and there is less pressure on the "whittling down" part of the process?
I also would reveal my vote if asked (and permitted), and I'd state my case for why I chose one player over another.
I think most voters would do this. Votes should be made public and I think the maximum number of players who could be voted in should be the ten players individually voted on, plus the one senior committee player. 80% is a high threshold to achieve and I have a hard time believing ten players would get inducted in one year. If that happens, well then one of two things can happen. Either we realize these ten candidates deserved induction or we can start to look at the selection committee members and determine if there needs to be a change made there. Otherwise, I don't know if we can change the selection committee too much (other than possibly add a member from each NFL team) while they feel as if they are being handcuffed by the process.
Friday, March 9, 2012
5 comments Gregg Easterbrook Not One to Miss a Chance to be Haughty Chimes in on the Saints Bounty Scandal
I have started a Fantasy Baseball league and Fantasy NCAA Tournament Bracket in Yahoo if anyone cares to join. The league ID is 76959 and password is "eckstein" for the Fantasy Baseball league and the league ID is 5876 and password is "eckstein" for the NCAA Tourney bracket. We have about three spots left in the Fantasy Baseball league and feel free to give feedback on the set up of the league if you would like.
Most people who are on Facebook probably have that friend who constantly posts shit they do and bless us with pictures to go along with the description. These people tend to post everything they do. This person manages to do this is in the most pretentious way possible. You would de-Friend them, but you like seeing how pretentious they can be so you can discuss it with mutual friends (okay, maybe that's just me).
My person tends to post a picture of him/her judging a contest with a D-level local celebrity or if anything he/she writes gets published in a newspaper the picture of the article is posted. Usually the caption is something like, "Had a lot of fun judging the pie eating contest. Bob Weatherman is much nicer in person!" It's clear he/she is very proud of the accomplishments in his/her life. Nothing wrong with that, but it takes a certain talent to do this in the most frustratingly pretentious annoying way possible. Few people have that skill to discuss a daily topic and make you want to punch them in the face. Gregg Easterbrook has that skill as well. Though I would refrain from any physical aggression towards him, his article on the Saints bounty deserves a good ass-whupping.
This column almost gets me to the point I would defend the Saints actions. It's just so lofty, hyperbolic and (head explodes).
Sinnersgate --
And he's given it a damn name now.
the Saints are no saints --
Ba-da-boom! I get it! The Saints aren't Saints. They aren't because they are sinners! And sinners can't be Saints...even if they do use motion on fourth-and-one because that's the best and only way to get a first down.
is worse than Spygate.
No, it is not, because these two events are not comparable. Spygate involved the videotaping another team and the Saints bounty program involved paying players to hurt members of the opposing team. If the videographer for Spygate received $1000 for injuring an opposing player and he taped it...then they they would be more comparable.
Spygate was cheating, but caused no one harm.
Says the columnist who has brought it up nearly once a month for the past five years.
Sinnersgate is about being paid to cause injury, which takes a beautiful sport and makes it a low, filthy thing.
Exactly. The bounty program took players who were well-paid to knock the shit out of the opposing player and paid them a smaller stipend in addition to their normal paycheck to knock the shit out of the opposing player in a more brutal way in order to cause injury.
But don't NFL players know they are assuming risk? Of course. So let me tell you the worst part of this latest scandal to afflict football:
You coming back from wherever the hell you go in the winter/spring to write a column about this story and act like the Saints were paid to murder players on the opposing team and then eat their internal organs in front of their friends and family?
(Sorry, I probably shouldn't be allowed to watch any more Walking Dead for a few months)
"I want someone hurt!" the high school coach was screaming. "I want some kid's mother crying in the stands because her son was carted off the field! Unless someone from that team is taken off injured in the second half, you will do punishment drills at 6 a.m. tomorrow!"
The coach got his wish -- two opposition players were helped off in the second half, and his team rallied to victory.
Obviously this type of behavior is unacceptable from a coach, no matter what level. No children should be taught to intentionally injure another competitor during a competition. Having said that, football is an incredibly violent sport and it still involves rough play and the possibility of severe injury. So it isn't like we are taking a docile sport and dirtying it up with bounties. Bounties are simply a way of a team incentivizing even more violent play with the specific goal of injuring another player in mind. It is not right, but it also isn't a hell of a lot different from the normal goal in football.
The league is setting a terrible example for the overwhelming majority of football players who, unlike NFL players, never receive a dime from the sport.
This is why Roger Goodell is probably going to come down hard on these players and coaches who participated in this bounty program. Gregg will be criticizing the NFL a lot for the Saints actions. In some way, the NFL is guilty, but they do deserve some credit for investigating the Saints' bounties and punishing the offenders.
But high school players are exposed to injuries that at minimum cause pain, expense and lost school time, and at worst may bring lifelong physical or mental debilitation
This is not going to change regardless of whether teams run a bounty program or not. Football is, and always will be, a violent sport.
If the example being set by the NFL is one of a Super Bowl team acting gleeful over injured opponents, the worst harm isn't done to the pros.
In his own special way, Gregg Easterbrook misses the major issue involving these bounties. It isn't the defensive player's reaction that is the issue. Anytime an NFL player gets injured on the field teams usually don't start celebrating that player's injury publicly. So "the kids" aren't going to see Jonathan Vilma dancing over an injured quarterback once Vilma knows the quarterback is injured. The issue are the bounties, which "the kids" usually know nothing about until they hear about it in a news story. Being gleeful over a fallen opponent isn't the issue, it is the act of paying a player to intentionally injure another player.
Each year, all NFL clubs receive a memo reminding them, "No bonus or award may directly or indirectly be offered, promised, announced or paid to a player for his or his team's performance against a particular team or opposing player or a particular group thereof. No bonuses or awards may be offered or paid for on field misconduct, for example, personal fouls to or injuries inflicted on opposing players."
That the Saints, and perhaps the Bills and Redskins, violated this clearly stated rule is bad enough.
What's worse is the effect it has on the kids? WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?
The deeply troubling offense of Sinnersgate is that the pros, who are looked up to by the young, are setting a terrible example for the high school players and coaches who emulate what they see on Sundays in the NFL.
High school coaches are grown-ass men. They should be able to coach their team how they see fit without emulating their favorite NFL team's head coach. You can't blame the NFL for the actions of a grown-ass man who coaches high school players, just like the one Gregg described earlier in this column, who want their players to intentionally injure the opponent. These adult high school football coaches can't blame the NFL and should take responsibility (yes, responsibility, what a concept!) for their actions.
This is much worse than Spygate, bringing a new low to the National Football League.
Different. This is much different from Spygate.
With football being hammered by scandal after scandal, where is the person of honor who will take a stand to return integrity to the sport?
Oh dear God. I want to just answer this with "Tim Tebow" and move on.....................but you know I am not capable of doing that.
Where is the person who will take a stand and BRING integrity to the sport of football. This is a sport where four players I can name off the top of my head playing in the NFL have been paralyzed on the field, drug abuse is rampant (which drug you ask...name one, it's probably rampant or was rampant at one point...except for crack of course. Everyone knows rich people would NEVER do crack.), and it took fifty years for the league to realize "Oh yeah, our sport involves players violently tackling an opposing player to the ground often leading with their helmet. I wonder if that could potentially cause any long-term injury to a person."
The NFL is a great sport to watch and enjoy, but integrity can't leave the sport until it has arrived.
Here are points to consider:
1. I can be an idiot.
2. I am pretentious.
3. Here is an overly long explanation of why a science fiction show isn't realistic.
There will always be injuries in football. But the intent of a football player never should be to injure; the intent should be to hit hard, legally. American law places considerable emphasis on intent
Which is exactly why the NFL is so concerned about this bounty program and seems prepared to punish those who participated severely.
Hard-hitting football games need not involve harm.
Football shouldn't involve harm, other than the proven effects playing the sport has on a person's brain over a long period of time which could lead to depression and severe physical debilitation at an early point in a person's life. Other than that, football shouldn't involve harm at all...just as long you avoid playing the sport.
Michael Vick went to prison for nearly two years for harming dogs, which he should not have done.
(Checks the byline of this article. It is not dated August 2007. Bengoodfella is confused.)
Williams offered players money to harm people. And there was no misunderstanding: Williams told the league Friday, "We knew we were wrong while we were doing it.'' The situations are not directly analogous.
"This situation has nothing to do with the bounty program, but fuck it, I have to fill 2500 words so I'll just keep motoring along towards a terrible analogy."
But if prison was the fair punishment for causing harm to animals, the punishment Williams faces must be severe.
The only punishment severe enough for Gregg Williams would be for him to be forced to spend an entire year living with Gregg Easterbrook. During this year Gregg Williams would be unable to speak with any other human other than Gregg Easterbrook. That'll learn him a lesson he will never forget.
Torturing and killing dogs who lack free will and therefore could not prevent this torture from occurring is now analogous to running an NFL team running a bounty program with a group of players who willingly participated in trying to injure opposing players who willingly play a violent game. It's pretty much the same thing, outside of the whole "not having free will to make decisions for yourself" issue.
Often, athletes are severely sanctioned for minor failings, while coaches and front-office personnel receive a slap on the wrist.
No penalties have been handed out yet. Perhaps wait until the punishments are handed down before you start bitching about the inequity of it all.
Williams, along with Sean Payton and New Orleans general manager Mickey Loomis, who the NFL says did nothing to prevent the bounty system, thumbed their noses at NFL integrity. Why should they be allowed the privilege of remaining in the league?
Probably because the players are at-fault as well. They didn't have to participate in the bounty program. So I agree Payton, Loomis and Williams should be punished, but this doesn't mean Goodell should go lighter on the players.
On the game's first snap, Favre handed off, turned away from the play and was hammered with a forearm to the chin by New Orleans linebacker Scott Fujita. Not only should a personal foul have been called -- Fujita should have been ejected on the game's first offensive snap. Instead, no call. Scott, were you paid for behaving like a street thug?
Perhaps because he inherently likes contact, much like other NFL players. Or maybe it is because he is a lowly drafted, unwanted player (he was traded at one point in his career...he's unwanted!), which is the exact type of player Gregg absolutely loves.
Beginning midway through the first quarter, whenever Favre handed off, he immediately ran backward 10 yards -- to get away from New Orleans late hits.
Oh yes, I forgot about Gregg's ability to read minds and decipher exactly what a player's intent may be on a certain play.
Football players are elaborately conditioned to please coaches. They also know that if they want to get on the field, they must do what the coach instructs.
While this is true, I'm not so sure this is as true at the NFL level. I have a hard time believing Roman Harper, Darren Sharper or Jonathan Vilma were concerned they would be benched for not participating in the bounty program. In the NFL, talent trumps a lot of things. Those three players have/had talent.
If you wish to review the Saints-Vikings championship game for yourself, good luck finding it on NFL Network. By coincidence, the league's TV outlet long had been scheduled to re-air the game on Monday afternoon. Viewers who tuned in and pressed the "info" key on their cable controls saw the game identified as Minnesota at New Orleans for the NFL title. But on the screen, a 20-year-old Cowboys game was airing.
Yet NFL Network pulled a hot product off the air, substituting a stone-cold product. Knuckleheaded business judgments do happen. But unless the people running NFL Network are knuckleheads, there may have been an agenda here. Perhaps the league did not want viewers to see for themselves how many vicious late hits went uncalled in the game that put the Saints into the Super Bowl.
What hypocrisy on the part of Gregg. Gregg pretends to be concerned football players of all ages will see the actions of the Saints and think it is fine to intentionally injure an opposing player. This appears to be Gregg's #1 concern in relation to the Saints bounty scandal, that younger football players will emulate the Saints. Yet Gregg also criticizes the NFL Network for not showing the Vikings-Saints game that was scheduled to air. If Gregg is so concerned about "the kids" wouldn't he want NFL Network to not air the Vikings-Saints game in an effort to make sure the actions of the Saints' defenders can't be emulated?
In reality, just like usual, Gregg wants it both ways. He wants to criticize the NFL for having a negative effect on kids, while also criticizing the NFL for not airing the Vikings-Saints game. It can't worth both ways. If Gregg is really concerned about the effect the Saints bounty program had on kids then he would celebrate the game not being show on NFL Network.
Gregg Williams has a classy first name, but may be a man of twisted values.
I'm not sure why, but this sentence makes me want to punch a puppy.
Not just Williams, but all Saints players and coaches knew rules were being broken. NFL spokesperson Greg Aiello told me, "The prohibition of noncontract bonuses has been a formal part of the collective bargaining agreement since 1993...It would not be plausible for anyone in our league to say, 'I didn't know about that rule.'"
Which is convenient because NOBODY HAS SAID THEY DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THE RULE AND GREGG WILLIAMS HAS ADMITTED HIS WRONGDOING.
Other NFL defenses besides those run by Williams may have offered cash bounties or related rewards for vicious hits. But when is "other people are doing it" an excuse?
I don't understand this at all. The Saints are the only team that got caught offering cash bounties. No team or player has ever said "other people are doing it" as an excuse. So "other people are doing it" is not an excuse and doesn't really pertain to this certain situation.
If other NFL teams rewarded vicious hits, this is totally, utterly irrelevant to the Saints' sins. Williams, and perhaps Payton and Loomis, knew they were breaking a clearly stated rule.
The fact other NFL teams rewarded vicious hits is also utterly irrelevant to the discussion about the Saints bounties being offered since neither Williams or any other member of the Saints organization has indicated other teams (outside of other teams Williams coached) were rewarding vicious hits.
(By the way, I accidentally wrote "vicious shits" three times as I was writing this last sentence. I'm not sure what that means, but it definitely sounds more painful than a vicious hit.)
The Saints' Super Bowl win is now tainted. The Saints' feel-good story is over.
I don't like the Saints and think Sean Payton is an asshole. There was never a feel-good story for me.
The larger question is whether Sinnersgate shows there is rot throughout the structure of America's most lucrative sport.
This is the same type of question that eventually gets posed anytime there is a sniff of controversy or scandal in the NFL. The NFL is what it is and any attempts to sanitize the NFL's past in order to make it seem like the Saints' bounty program is a crippling blow to the sport willfully ignores the NFL has never been nor will it ever be perfect.
That's the way they teach Pop Warner kids. Certainly Aikman is correct -- and that is why football must be reformed, from youth leagues up to the NFL, to eliminate the encouragement of vicious play.
"No, no, Billy tackle the opposing team's ball carrier and make sure he is on the ground. Just don't do it as hard as you would normally do. When making full-body physical contact in order to bring another human being to the ground while both of you are in motion at a high speed you should be as careful as possible not to be overly physical."
Football will never be a non-vicious sport. The sooner Gregg accepts this the sooner he can retire and annoy someone else with his inaccurate football musings and unwanted/undrafted player bullshit.
Spygate threatened the reputation of a coach. Sinnersgate threatens the entire sport.
Now THAT's a dramatic way to end an article. Gregg Easterbrook's writing threatens the sanity of civilization.
Most people who are on Facebook probably have that friend who constantly posts shit they do and bless us with pictures to go along with the description. These people tend to post everything they do. This person manages to do this is in the most pretentious way possible. You would de-Friend them, but you like seeing how pretentious they can be so you can discuss it with mutual friends (okay, maybe that's just me).
My person tends to post a picture of him/her judging a contest with a D-level local celebrity or if anything he/she writes gets published in a newspaper the picture of the article is posted. Usually the caption is something like, "Had a lot of fun judging the pie eating contest. Bob Weatherman is much nicer in person!" It's clear he/she is very proud of the accomplishments in his/her life. Nothing wrong with that, but it takes a certain talent to do this in the most frustratingly pretentious annoying way possible. Few people have that skill to discuss a daily topic and make you want to punch them in the face. Gregg Easterbrook has that skill as well. Though I would refrain from any physical aggression towards him, his article on the Saints bounty deserves a good ass-whupping.
This column almost gets me to the point I would defend the Saints actions. It's just so lofty, hyperbolic and (head explodes).
Sinnersgate --
And he's given it a damn name now.
the Saints are no saints --
Ba-da-boom! I get it! The Saints aren't Saints. They aren't because they are sinners! And sinners can't be Saints...even if they do use motion on fourth-and-one because that's the best and only way to get a first down.
is worse than Spygate.
No, it is not, because these two events are not comparable. Spygate involved the videotaping another team and the Saints bounty program involved paying players to hurt members of the opposing team. If the videographer for Spygate received $1000 for injuring an opposing player and he taped it...then they they would be more comparable.
Spygate was cheating, but caused no one harm.
Says the columnist who has brought it up nearly once a month for the past five years.
Sinnersgate is about being paid to cause injury, which takes a beautiful sport and makes it a low, filthy thing.
Exactly. The bounty program took players who were well-paid to knock the shit out of the opposing player and paid them a smaller stipend in addition to their normal paycheck to knock the shit out of the opposing player in a more brutal way in order to cause injury.
But don't NFL players know they are assuming risk? Of course. So let me tell you the worst part of this latest scandal to afflict football:
You coming back from wherever the hell you go in the winter/spring to write a column about this story and act like the Saints were paid to murder players on the opposing team and then eat their internal organs in front of their friends and family?
(Sorry, I probably shouldn't be allowed to watch any more Walking Dead for a few months)
"I want someone hurt!" the high school coach was screaming. "I want some kid's mother crying in the stands because her son was carted off the field! Unless someone from that team is taken off injured in the second half, you will do punishment drills at 6 a.m. tomorrow!"
It was a few years ago, and I was standing in a high school football locker room in Montgomery County, Md., where I live. A favored school trailed a perennial loser at halftime, and the coach of the favored team was screaming -- I've deleted the many obscenities -- that he wanted his boys to intimidate the other team by injuring players.
How it affects the kids. That's the real tragedy. Now Pee-Wee football players will grow up dreaming of playing in the NFL in order to make $1000 injuring an opposing player by knocking the shit out of him, instead of growing up dreaming of playing in the NFL in order to make millions of dollars knocking the shit out of opposing players.The coach got his wish -- two opposition players were helped off in the second half, and his team rallied to victory.
Obviously this type of behavior is unacceptable from a coach, no matter what level. No children should be taught to intentionally injure another competitor during a competition. Having said that, football is an incredibly violent sport and it still involves rough play and the possibility of severe injury. So it isn't like we are taking a docile sport and dirtying it up with bounties. Bounties are simply a way of a team incentivizing even more violent play with the specific goal of injuring another player in mind. It is not right, but it also isn't a hell of a lot different from the normal goal in football.
The league is setting a terrible example for the overwhelming majority of football players who, unlike NFL players, never receive a dime from the sport.
This is why Roger Goodell is probably going to come down hard on these players and coaches who participated in this bounty program. Gregg will be criticizing the NFL a lot for the Saints actions. In some way, the NFL is guilty, but they do deserve some credit for investigating the Saints' bounties and punishing the offenders.
But high school players are exposed to injuries that at minimum cause pain, expense and lost school time, and at worst may bring lifelong physical or mental debilitation
This is not going to change regardless of whether teams run a bounty program or not. Football is, and always will be, a violent sport.
If the example being set by the NFL is one of a Super Bowl team acting gleeful over injured opponents, the worst harm isn't done to the pros.
In his own special way, Gregg Easterbrook misses the major issue involving these bounties. It isn't the defensive player's reaction that is the issue. Anytime an NFL player gets injured on the field teams usually don't start celebrating that player's injury publicly. So "the kids" aren't going to see Jonathan Vilma dancing over an injured quarterback once Vilma knows the quarterback is injured. The issue are the bounties, which "the kids" usually know nothing about until they hear about it in a news story. Being gleeful over a fallen opponent isn't the issue, it is the act of paying a player to intentionally injure another player.
Each year, all NFL clubs receive a memo reminding them, "No bonus or award may directly or indirectly be offered, promised, announced or paid to a player for his or his team's performance against a particular team or opposing player or a particular group thereof. No bonuses or awards may be offered or paid for on field misconduct, for example, personal fouls to or injuries inflicted on opposing players."
That the Saints, and perhaps the Bills and Redskins, violated this clearly stated rule is bad enough.
What's worse is the effect it has on the kids? WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?
The deeply troubling offense of Sinnersgate is that the pros, who are looked up to by the young, are setting a terrible example for the high school players and coaches who emulate what they see on Sundays in the NFL.
High school coaches are grown-ass men. They should be able to coach their team how they see fit without emulating their favorite NFL team's head coach. You can't blame the NFL for the actions of a grown-ass man who coaches high school players, just like the one Gregg described earlier in this column, who want their players to intentionally injure the opponent. These adult high school football coaches can't blame the NFL and should take responsibility (yes, responsibility, what a concept!) for their actions.
This is much worse than Spygate, bringing a new low to the National Football League.
Different. This is much different from Spygate.
With football being hammered by scandal after scandal, where is the person of honor who will take a stand to return integrity to the sport?
Oh dear God. I want to just answer this with "Tim Tebow" and move on.....................but you know I am not capable of doing that.
Where is the person who will take a stand and BRING integrity to the sport of football. This is a sport where four players I can name off the top of my head playing in the NFL have been paralyzed on the field, drug abuse is rampant (which drug you ask...name one, it's probably rampant or was rampant at one point...except for crack of course. Everyone knows rich people would NEVER do crack.), and it took fifty years for the league to realize "Oh yeah, our sport involves players violently tackling an opposing player to the ground often leading with their helmet. I wonder if that could potentially cause any long-term injury to a person."
The NFL is a great sport to watch and enjoy, but integrity can't leave the sport until it has arrived.
Here are points to consider:
1. I can be an idiot.
2. I am pretentious.
3. Here is an overly long explanation of why a science fiction show isn't realistic.
There will always be injuries in football. But the intent of a football player never should be to injure; the intent should be to hit hard, legally. American law places considerable emphasis on intent
Which is exactly why the NFL is so concerned about this bounty program and seems prepared to punish those who participated severely.
Hard-hitting football games need not involve harm.
Football shouldn't involve harm, other than the proven effects playing the sport has on a person's brain over a long period of time which could lead to depression and severe physical debilitation at an early point in a person's life. Other than that, football shouldn't involve harm at all...just as long you avoid playing the sport.
Michael Vick went to prison for nearly two years for harming dogs, which he should not have done.
(Checks the byline of this article. It is not dated August 2007. Bengoodfella is confused.)
Williams offered players money to harm people. And there was no misunderstanding: Williams told the league Friday, "We knew we were wrong while we were doing it.'' The situations are not directly analogous.
"This situation has nothing to do with the bounty program, but fuck it, I have to fill 2500 words so I'll just keep motoring along towards a terrible analogy."
But if prison was the fair punishment for causing harm to animals, the punishment Williams faces must be severe.
The only punishment severe enough for Gregg Williams would be for him to be forced to spend an entire year living with Gregg Easterbrook. During this year Gregg Williams would be unable to speak with any other human other than Gregg Easterbrook. That'll learn him a lesson he will never forget.
Torturing and killing dogs who lack free will and therefore could not prevent this torture from occurring is now analogous to running an NFL team running a bounty program with a group of players who willingly participated in trying to injure opposing players who willingly play a violent game. It's pretty much the same thing, outside of the whole "not having free will to make decisions for yourself" issue.
Often, athletes are severely sanctioned for minor failings, while coaches and front-office personnel receive a slap on the wrist.
No penalties have been handed out yet. Perhaps wait until the punishments are handed down before you start bitching about the inequity of it all.
Williams, along with Sean Payton and New Orleans general manager Mickey Loomis, who the NFL says did nothing to prevent the bounty system, thumbed their noses at NFL integrity. Why should they be allowed the privilege of remaining in the league?
Probably because the players are at-fault as well. They didn't have to participate in the bounty program. So I agree Payton, Loomis and Williams should be punished, but this doesn't mean Goodell should go lighter on the players.
On the game's first snap, Favre handed off, turned away from the play and was hammered with a forearm to the chin by New Orleans linebacker Scott Fujita. Not only should a personal foul have been called -- Fujita should have been ejected on the game's first offensive snap. Instead, no call. Scott, were you paid for behaving like a street thug?
Perhaps because he inherently likes contact, much like other NFL players. Or maybe it is because he is a lowly drafted, unwanted player (he was traded at one point in his career...he's unwanted!), which is the exact type of player Gregg absolutely loves.
Beginning midway through the first quarter, whenever Favre handed off, he immediately ran backward 10 yards -- to get away from New Orleans late hits.
Oh yes, I forgot about Gregg's ability to read minds and decipher exactly what a player's intent may be on a certain play.
Football players are elaborately conditioned to please coaches. They also know that if they want to get on the field, they must do what the coach instructs.
While this is true, I'm not so sure this is as true at the NFL level. I have a hard time believing Roman Harper, Darren Sharper or Jonathan Vilma were concerned they would be benched for not participating in the bounty program. In the NFL, talent trumps a lot of things. Those three players have/had talent.
If you wish to review the Saints-Vikings championship game for yourself, good luck finding it on NFL Network. By coincidence, the league's TV outlet long had been scheduled to re-air the game on Monday afternoon. Viewers who tuned in and pressed the "info" key on their cable controls saw the game identified as Minnesota at New Orleans for the NFL title. But on the screen, a 20-year-old Cowboys game was airing.
Yet NFL Network pulled a hot product off the air, substituting a stone-cold product. Knuckleheaded business judgments do happen. But unless the people running NFL Network are knuckleheads, there may have been an agenda here. Perhaps the league did not want viewers to see for themselves how many vicious late hits went uncalled in the game that put the Saints into the Super Bowl.
What hypocrisy on the part of Gregg. Gregg pretends to be concerned football players of all ages will see the actions of the Saints and think it is fine to intentionally injure an opposing player. This appears to be Gregg's #1 concern in relation to the Saints bounty scandal, that younger football players will emulate the Saints. Yet Gregg also criticizes the NFL Network for not showing the Vikings-Saints game that was scheduled to air. If Gregg is so concerned about "the kids" wouldn't he want NFL Network to not air the Vikings-Saints game in an effort to make sure the actions of the Saints' defenders can't be emulated?
In reality, just like usual, Gregg wants it both ways. He wants to criticize the NFL for having a negative effect on kids, while also criticizing the NFL for not airing the Vikings-Saints game. It can't worth both ways. If Gregg is really concerned about the effect the Saints bounty program had on kids then he would celebrate the game not being show on NFL Network.
Gregg Williams has a classy first name, but may be a man of twisted values.
I'm not sure why, but this sentence makes me want to punch a puppy.
Not just Williams, but all Saints players and coaches knew rules were being broken. NFL spokesperson Greg Aiello told me, "The prohibition of noncontract bonuses has been a formal part of the collective bargaining agreement since 1993...It would not be plausible for anyone in our league to say, 'I didn't know about that rule.'"
Which is convenient because NOBODY HAS SAID THEY DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THE RULE AND GREGG WILLIAMS HAS ADMITTED HIS WRONGDOING.
Other NFL defenses besides those run by Williams may have offered cash bounties or related rewards for vicious hits. But when is "other people are doing it" an excuse?
I don't understand this at all. The Saints are the only team that got caught offering cash bounties. No team or player has ever said "other people are doing it" as an excuse. So "other people are doing it" is not an excuse and doesn't really pertain to this certain situation.
If other NFL teams rewarded vicious hits, this is totally, utterly irrelevant to the Saints' sins. Williams, and perhaps Payton and Loomis, knew they were breaking a clearly stated rule.
The fact other NFL teams rewarded vicious hits is also utterly irrelevant to the discussion about the Saints bounties being offered since neither Williams or any other member of the Saints organization has indicated other teams (outside of other teams Williams coached) were rewarding vicious hits.
(By the way, I accidentally wrote "vicious shits" three times as I was writing this last sentence. I'm not sure what that means, but it definitely sounds more painful than a vicious hit.)
The Saints' Super Bowl win is now tainted. The Saints' feel-good story is over.
I don't like the Saints and think Sean Payton is an asshole. There was never a feel-good story for me.
The larger question is whether Sinnersgate shows there is rot throughout the structure of America's most lucrative sport.
This is the same type of question that eventually gets posed anytime there is a sniff of controversy or scandal in the NFL. The NFL is what it is and any attempts to sanitize the NFL's past in order to make it seem like the Saints' bounty program is a crippling blow to the sport willfully ignores the NFL has never been nor will it ever be perfect.
That's the way they teach Pop Warner kids. Certainly Aikman is correct -- and that is why football must be reformed, from youth leagues up to the NFL, to eliminate the encouragement of vicious play.
"No, no, Billy tackle the opposing team's ball carrier and make sure he is on the ground. Just don't do it as hard as you would normally do. When making full-body physical contact in order to bring another human being to the ground while both of you are in motion at a high speed you should be as careful as possible not to be overly physical."
Football will never be a non-vicious sport. The sooner Gregg accepts this the sooner he can retire and annoy someone else with his inaccurate football musings and unwanted/undrafted player bullshit.
Spygate threatened the reputation of a coach. Sinnersgate threatens the entire sport.
Now THAT's a dramatic way to end an article. Gregg Easterbrook's writing threatens the sanity of civilization.
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