Bill Simmons Bores Us With Facts

It's been a tough week for crappy articles this week. There has not been all that much out there to pick on. Simmons has two articles up this week...sort of. One is a long drawn out explanation for how he gambles and the other is his NFL picks.

Here is why Bill is so successful at gambling this year.

For the first 11 weeks of the regular season, home-field advantage has not mattered like it once did.

Normally I would rip Simmons for not backing this up with information that supports his claim, but not this time. He gives the next 2,000 words to support his claim. Does it support his claim? I did not read hard enough to find out because I don't care about gambling and the reasons why his picks are correct. Now I know why he never attempts to use facts to support his random blanket statements...and that reason is that when he does this it is boring...really, really boring. I never thought he could go from annoying and pissing me off to absolutely boring me to death, but he does it quite successfully.

Ok, his facts actually sort of back up his claim, except the reason is not because of new stadiums but because of parity in the NFL. Bill will later admit this. It is still boring though.

I realized this during the Bears-Colts game in Week 1, when Kyle Orton waltzed into Indy and ruined the grand opening of Lucas Oil Stadium, the latest state-of-the-art football venue that seems much more interested in looking cool and making money over, you know, actually helping its home team win games.

Bill of course realized this Week 1 of the season before everyone else realized this. He in no way was wondering why he was actually making good picks this year and then went back and got help searching for this information.

(At the end of the column it says this: NOTE: ESPN researchers Mark Simon and Matthew Willis, as well as the Las Vegas Sports Consultants, contributed with research for this column.)

Of course someone helped him. He is not that familiar with the use of factual information.

Also, a stadium is not supposed to help a team win games, it is supposed to allow it's occupants a chance to go see the team play and make noise to affect the other team. In a way a stadium could help a team win a game, but that is not its sole purpose.

I remembered a conversation between me and my buddy Bug right before the season.

What follows is an almost 10 paragraph story about how much "Bug" liked to go games and blah, blah, blah. Is there anything more interesting in this world than reading a story where you know none of the parties involved? I have had two root canals and they were shorter and more fun than this conversation. By not relating it, I have saved you. It proves Bill's point from hyperbolic perspective and...that is about it.

Through 11-plus weeks (including Thursday night's Pittsburgh cover), the 14 teams that built SOTAS since 1999 (including Washington) are 29-44 against the spread.

SOTAS are "state of the art stadiums" and this "fact" Bill just pointed out is proven for 11 weeks of one year. You may not find these facts at any other point in the past 10 years but for 11 weeks of this year, it is the case. If this is not enough proof for you, then you clearly have a mind of your own and are not suspectible to small sample sizes and outliers. Good for you.

Week after week, those teams keep getting toppled at home or fail to cover big spreads, typified by three Week 10 games

Is it possible, and I don't want to burst anyone's bubble, this could be the result of parity in football this year? I could see his point if the home team in a SOTAS was not winning games in their home field, but we are talking about covering the spread. I don't see how a stadium can help a team cover the spread better. I think this is all a result of parity in football. Of course I don't have all the neat facts Bill has.

Hmmmmmmmmm. Could it just be a fluky season? Let's look at the past six years of SOTAS teams at home against the spread:

2002: 30-41 (13-26 as faves)
2003: 51-33 (37-24 as faves)
2004: 42-49 (28-32 as faves)
2005: 47-48 (37-28 as faves)
2006: 49-52 (27-41 as faves)
2007: 55-42 (41-35 as faves)
2008: 29-44 (19-34 as faves)

So this theory seems to waver from year to year. It also doesn't explain why Bill has absolutely sucked at picking games the past 6 years before this year. Regardless, if he had not just this day randomly created this theory to kill space in a column, you would have thought he would have noticed this six years ago.

I still think it is a sign of parity.

Bill, explain the reason the numbers fluctuate please:

Quick follow-up to those numbers: Your typical NFL season goes one of two ways, either predictable or unpredictable. Predictable seasons play out like the '03 or '07 seasons did, with a clear separation between high-end teams, middle-class teams and the lower class.

Remember those are the ONLY ways a season can play out. Bill just made this up. He can't even get through a fact based article without covering it in some bullshit theory that has no factual basis.

Would you call a "predictable" season a season with less parity in the NFL? I think I would. So the solution is not stadiums or any black magic, it is when the NFL has parity, the home team does not cover the spread as often. This has nothing to do with stadiums but the talent level on each team being very close to equal. Bill just admitted this. I am glad to be right.

We can usually determine by late September if we're headed for an unpredictable season -- remember, I predicted goofiness in 2008 after three weeks -- and those are the times you HAVE to think, "Road teams! Road teams!"

"Unpredictable" meaning, "teams are equal in talent which means teams will play games with scores closer to each other...meaning parity, which has nothing to do with a stadium."

So that's the bad news. The good news is that we can keep profiting from home-field disadvantage during those first 11-12 weeks before Vegas finally catches on. And they haven't.

How can Bill say this is an unpredictable year where you don't know what is going to happen because the teams are so equal and not chalk home teams unable to cover the spread up to the actual game of football being played, but rather to a new stadium being built. Only in Bill's world.

Now on to his picks.

Jets (+5.5) over TITANS

Bold prediction No. 1: Jets 30, Titans 17. It's time. The Titans haven't had one of those "everything is going wrong" games yet. And Jets fans aren't hysterical enough yet about how they don't believe in this Jets team despite mounting evidence that it's a playoff contender; an upset in Tennessee would turn them into Little Bill during the driveway scene in "Boogie Nights."

I don't care if Bill is trying to win some stupid contest to see how many times he can pigeonhole Boogie Nights into a column, please, please, please think of a new reference.

Niners (+10) over COWBOYS

Yet another rule for my Sports Czar platform: Mike Singletary will be miked up with cameras following him 24 hours a day.

This Sports Czar thing is not going away. Bill enjoys the attention way too much. It is neither funny nor engaging for his readers to hear about. Remember how I told you Bill takes causes and manages to make them all about him? Try to remember why he is going to be the Sports Czar and then think it has been a week or two since he started his platform and it is already all about him. The reason he started the platform is hard to remember under all the "me, me, me" talk in Bill's columns.

Remember my predicting who Bill was going to fall in love with in the college basketball game this year? Well both USC and UCLA choked last night so knock out DeMar Dozian and Jrue Holiday, and Bill has to be in love with a winner, so I am sticking with B.J. Mullens of Ohio State unless they lose and then all bets are off.

Anyway, with Troy Aikman calling this Cowboys game, I'd like to introduce a new running character for this column: "Cliff's Notes Troy."

Nobody likes Troy Aikman but can we stop with the Pantheon Faces, the running character's and the fake platforms for positions that don't exist? Just write a fucking column that is funny, engaging, and is not all about you. That is all I ask.

Because of this e-mail from D. Unsdorfer in Columbus, Ohio: "Am I the only one who thinks that Romeo Crennel's playbook consists of pictures of different pizzas? Can't you just see him flipping through as he's thinking, 'Hmm ... third-and-1, huh? There's pepperoni ... mushroom and onion ... supreme! Yes, that's it -- supreme! Run me that now!'"

Yes, you and Bill are the only ones that think that. You are also both the only ones that laugh at such a lame joke. Just wait for knock-knock jokes from Bill. They are coming. He wrote for a "comedy" show and now he is making jokes about obese coaches looking at pictures of pizzas instead of football plays. If there was any doubt he was fired from the Jimmy Kimmel show instead of quit, those doubts should be erased now.

CHIEFS (+3.5) over Bills From this week's USA Today Sports Weekly:

"Facing a fourth-and-2, late against New Orleans, coach Herm Edwards elected to punt rather than gamble, hoping that his 32nd-ranked defense could stop the league's No. 1 offense. It didn't happen." The good news? WE CAN BUILD ON THIS! I love Herm Edwards. He's got a ton of uncommon sense.

What happens when Gregg Easterbrook and Bill Simmons combine forces to form the worst columns ever read? You get hyperbolic column filled with second guesses of decisions with analogies to movies from the 1980's. It would be hell.

(Another newbie for my Sports Czar platform: No announcing crew can bring up the words "Scott Norwood," "wide right" or "47 yards, the same distance as the Norwood Kick!" right before the biggest kick of a Bills game.

He is about 3 more mentions away from a Sports Czar assassination attempt. Is there any doubt at this point Bill is running out of material quickly or he is just mailing it in now?

Again, I implore any of his faithful readers who love to hear the same jokes over and over and the same references constantly to seek medical attention. The sad part is that he has readers who email him shit constantly, as well as a staff at ESPN who can help him with column ideas and we still get the same thing over and over. Yet he claims ESPN is strangling him creatively because he could not be in a porn star fantasy league.

I wish I had the heart to write a "Goodbye to Fantasy Football" letter like when Joey wrote his "Goodbye to Drugs" letter on the "Real World: Hollywood."

Yes, that would be the same Real World: Hollywood that Bill once referred to as merely a tax write off for MTV. He is now quoting it.

(Funniest e-mail of the week, from a Philly fan calling himself "Andy Reid": "So, I pulled into my local drive-thru. After analyzing the menu for 25 minutes I quickly placed my order. As I pulled to the first window I was shocked to see Donovan McNabb working the register. Unfortunately, I pulled a foot away from the window. I had no idea how to get my money in there. Do I hand it in or try and throw it? I decided it would be better to waste five minutes backing out and pulling back in. After I handed Donovan my money, he threw my change five feet over my car. After receiving my food, I double-checked to make sure I had the right order. I checked for three minutes and knew they messed it up. I pulled back to the window to complain. After giving the employee a stare of mild confusion, he informed me that I had received what I ordered. I pulled away stunned.")

Maybe his readers don't provide him with that many good ideas, because if that was the funniest email of the week, I don't want to see second place. Maybe you have to watch Eagles football to get it...or not have a sense of humor.

The good news: Jake Delhomme definitely has more zip on his passes, thanks to Tommy John surgery. The bad news: He's still Jake Delhomme.

How can Bill tell if Delhomme has more zip on his passes? That would involve watching another NFL team...and the fact most of Delhomme's throws now zip to the other team or out of bounds may tip him off. The good news: the Panthers are 8-2. The bad news: they are about to hit a three game losing streak.

Anyway, I was thinking about Michael Vick recently. How many teams will try to sign him? Will he still have his fastball?

I am an admitted Mike Vick hater. I never thought he was any good as a QB and I never thought he wanted to be any good as a QB. A career completion percentage somewhere in the 55% range just never did it for me and his ability to scramble never made up for it in my mind. He was exciting to watch and it was also exciting to watch when the Falcons O-Line would be able to hold defenders at will whenever Vick started running.

All right, it's finally time to discuss last week's "Troy Polamalu Game" and its ranking on the "Alcoa's Greatest Football Gambling Moments" list. I batted it around with an eight-man committee of buddies, and we came up with the following top seven moments from the past 25 years:

Do you really think Bill's friends hate him? I really believe they do.

2. The Polamalu Game: At least 700 readers e-mailed me Sunday after the Miracle Cover That Wasn't to say either, "I thought of you as soon as it happened!" or "You have to write about this!" Apparently, I am the go-to columnist for any watershed gambling event.

Probably because you are the only national columnist that is allowed to talk about gambling in your columns and allowed to talk about it to such a great extent. The rest of the national columnists are covering sports and trying to think of insightful and creative articles to write. You are the guy who "entertains" the audience while the real work is going on backstage.

7. The Tamarick Vanover Game: A Monday night game from '95 that … well, allow one of my friends to explain. Here's his unedited memory of the Vanover Game:

"I lost a ton of money. Called my bookie (who had paid me seven weeks in a row) and told him that I would pay him on Thursday. Wednesday, Oct, 11, I am on a plane to boot camp.
"I had signed up for the Navy in May of that year, things were way out of control gambling, credit card fraud, casino, credit card fraud, drugs, credit card fraud and I knew at some point I would need to disappear. Then the O.J. trial started and I sat home everyday and watched it. I had avoided the Navy recruiter for months. Minutes before the verdict was read there was a knock on my door and it was him. He told me he came by then because it was the one time he knew exactly where I would be. Since I was winning at gambling, I told him to screw off. Not long after I was knocking on his door explaining that I had a sudden burst of patriotism and got on a plane."

Does it scare anyone that this may be a friend Bill asks sports opinions of at any point? This guy seems like a Grade A loser. I don't mean to offend any of the readers of this blog who are into fraud, drugs, and joining the military to get out of their commitments in the world. Hopefully there are none, but who knew Bill had friends that were so overly shady?

I have no way of ending this column appropriately after that.