This Old Man Is a Hack Writer

It is a tough day in the blogosphere, I have tons of articles to read and mock, but they don't quite seem interesting, and wrong, enough for me to write 1,000 words on.

I could go with Ken Rosenthal calling the Red Sox team a bunch of white guys and he seems to think this is going to scare away free agents. I guess just like it did with Kevin Garnett and Randy Moss? I guess the good free agents won't want to play for a team that is going to make the playoffs consistently and the ownership/GM will put the team in a wonderful position every year through shrewd roster moves. Well maybe this will scare away Mark "Show Me The Money So I Can Be the Second Best Hitter on the Team" Texeira but everyone else probably wants to play for a winner...and the Red Sox are not exactly cash poor.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8670984/Will-non-white-free-agents-shun-the-Sox

Or I could go with another Bill Simmons fantasy fixer upper column. This seriously just bores me. I play fantasy basketball and it is my least favorite fantasy sport but I don't really care enough to read how Bill "The GM" Simmons would fix it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3630801

Don Banks at Cnnsi.com thinks that the Tom Brady injury finally made it fair for the rest of the league this year and now he says there is no clear best team. Unlike last year when the Patriots were clearly the best team and the entire year sucked because the Patriots won the Super Bowl and there were no challengers at all. How boring was that? Probably as boring and predictable as this column was.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/don_banks/10/14/brady/index.html

That left...Woody!

"There's no need for anyone to panic or anything," said the young man who claims to have a stronger arm than John Legend, the quarterback.

You mean the quarterback of the Denver Broncos, who are currently 4-2, says the team should not panic? We are talking about Jay Cutler obviously, the young man in question. I would imagine he would not be showing good leadership qualities by being quoted as saying the team should panic, but Woody Paige does not care. He is like John McCain, he gives you straight talk, whether it is accurate or relevant to the situation or not.

If not Sunday, when are we supposed to panic — after another loss in New England, at home on Nov. 2 after the Miami game, on Thanksgiving weekend when the Broncos play several miles from Wall Street against the New York Jets, or when the Broncos finish 7-9 again?

You are actually supposed to panic when things are going really, really badly and it does not look like it is going to get any better any time soon. I don't think Denver is quite at that point. I would say losses in all of those games are not a reason to panic because if the Broncos only lost those games, they would end the year 11-5, thereby avoiding the 7-9 record Woody so fears.

Does the old man, Woody Paige, really think the Broncos are going to go 7-9? They would have to go 3-7 for the rest of the year to reach this mileston, that seems like it is not going to happen. It would be more likely the team and fans would start a panic if Jay Cutler came out and said, "time to panic" so I really have no clue what Woody is driving at.

The young man with an arm that recently has been as erratic as his statements may want to go into panic mode soon.

Jay Cutler's completion percentage has been 59%, 68% and 56% over the last three games. His TD-INT ratio has been 4-3 and the Broncos have lost 2 of the 3 games. The defense gave up 33 points to Kansas City and just gave up 24 points to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Granted, Cutler has not been spectacular lately but the defense has not helped him out all that much either.

I don't think Cutler's arm has been all that erratic either. I would take a QB who puts up his stats in a second.

The Broncos should be 6-0. Instead, they are 4-2, and could have been 1-5 if not for a premature referee's whistle, an opponent's missed field goal and the presence of a lousy opposing quarterback who used to have the same kind of attitude as a young man in Denver —

Woody Paige finally comprehends how close football teams can come to having a great or horrible record. This is an important day in history. Now if he will just comprehend what a lousy writer he is, I would not have to type anymore today.

The young man with the self- proclaimed golden arm reportedly said in an exclusive interview with a magazine that he would be "very surprised, actually" if the Broncos didn't end up first in the AFC West.

He said that? The young man needs to tone it down and say he would be surprised if the offense gains a yard the rest of the year on offense, now that would much more logical and inspire confidence in him from his teammates.

The Broncos should be running away with the division,

That is literally what the young man, Jay Cutler, said in an exclusive interview with a magazine...and you are sitting down at your typewriter to tell him he is wrong.

The way they played Sunday, everybody would be "very surprised, actually" if they won the division.

Considering the division contains Kansas City and Oakland I would be surprised if the Broncos don't win the division. What does Woody want Cutler to say? Would this do?: "We are probably going to get our butts kicked against the Chargers and have no chance against the rest of the AFC."

Woody would tear this quote apart and right a shitty article about it as well. There is nothing wrong with a little confidence in your team and teammates. There are a 1,000 reasons no one likes Woody Paige and he has to hang out with Jay Mariotti on television all day, and among several hundred of those reasons is that Woody is a negative person and loves to hear the typerwriter he uses click as he types away more useless journalistic bullshit.

The Broncos' defense is not the No. 1 dilemma any longer. The offense was supposed to be the solution, but has become the primary problem.

False. In the two losses the defense has given up 24 points and 33 points. No matter what happens on offense, if your defense gives up that many points, you do not have a great chance at winning the game.

The defense can't stop being the #1 dilemma just because the Broncos offense can't outscore every opponent. That is like saying pitching was not the problem for the Yankees this year because the offense could not average 7 runs per game.

The Broncos scored 41, 39 and 34 points in the first three games.They have scored 19, 16 and 17 in the past three. Given the defense's inadequacies, a 17.3-point average by the offense won't win many, if any, more.

Clearly, this is completely the offense's fault. I would bet Woody $100 and a ham sandwich on rye that if the offense averages 17.3 points for the rest of the year they will win another game. I would also bet that if the offense does average this amount and the Broncos don't win another game, it is not the offense's fault.

At Kansas City, the young man was intercepted twice, and his receivers fumbled twice. At the stadium on Bryant Street on Sunday, he was intercepted once and fumbled once.

I like how Woody cherry picks Cutler's worst performance of the year as a reason Cutler should not be confident. Cutler also has no control over his receivers fumbling, placing blame there is like blaming your co-workers for your shitty writing and humorless wit.

His favorite target, Brandon Marshall, fumbled for the third time (losing two), this time at the Jacksonville 7-yard line when the Broncos had a decent opportunity to go up 14-3 in the second quarter. Instead, they went down 10-7 and never led again.

What the fuck Jay Cutler/young man? How can you let Brandon Marshall, your favorite target and also the best receiver in the division, fumble three times? You should tell Marshall to sit out the next game if he is going to suck so bad. The sky is falling!

The Broncos were chewed up and spit out by the Jaguars for the fifth game in the nine the teams have played — including the most famous upset.

William Shakespeare is rolling around in his grave reading the end of this sentence - including the rest of the article. (I know what Woody is talking about with "the most famous upset" but it is very awkwardly placed in this sentence and you would think he would attempt to at least clarify for those who may not have been around in 1996.)

Losing five of the 9 games means the Broncos are 4-5 against the Jaguars, so the Jaguars have not completely dominated them. This is not a reason to say the sky is falling nor to panic.

The Broncos are minus-4 in turnover ratio this season, which ranks them among the rank teams in the NFL.

How the hell does this pass for journalism? If I wrote on this blog, "JaMarcus Russell ranks #32 in the NFL in touchdown passes, more gas has been passed by him than touchdowns," then emailed it to Buzz Bissinger he would think I am crass and probably attempt to murder me...but that Woody, he is clever!

The Broncos showed about as much imagination on offense as a stick drawing.

Or one of Woody's columns.

In the fourth quarter, the Broncos were milling around on the sideline or sitting with heads bowed on the bench.

Not because it was time to panic, but because they were losing. Would you rather the players have been on the bench celebrating?

You get mad at Cutler for saying there is still hope in this year and it is not time to panic, because you think the team should panic and just fold now. Then you get mad at the team because you think they have folded. Doesn't Woody get it, that if the QB for the team says it is time to panic, then there will be more Broncos showing indifference and sitting with heads bowed because the team leader has given up on the year?

Is this hard to understand?

Panic, psychologists say, is an acceptable reaction to a disastrous situation. The Broncos do need to panic.

4-2 is not a panic situation. If so, the teams that should not panic are the Bills (they are 4-1 though), the Steelers (also 4-1), Titans, and Giants (they lost last night to a 2-3 team...eeek!). That's right 4 teams in the NFL have a better record than the Broncos.

If panic is an acceptable reaction to a disastrous situation, then I would say Woody Paige needs to panic because this column is a disaster.