0 comments The Rams Have Been Saved! Jeff "8-8" Fisher is Gone!

I figure I may as well acknowledge that Jeff "8-8" Fisher has been fired by the Rams. It's well over due and I don't know, other than Fisher's relationship with Kevin Demoff based on his father being Fisher's agent, how he lasted this long. Even by Jeff Fisher's mediocre standards, the Rams have been bad this year on offense. He's had nearly five seasons to fix it and has pumped out more excuses than wins. The most shocking part is the Rams had just given Fisher an extension a week before they fired him. I'm a jaded human being, so I can't help but wonder if the extension wasn't a way for Kevin Demoff to do his father a solid and allow him to churn some more commissions off a coach that was a dead man walking. A son would never help his father out though, would he? The excuses Fisher had were hilarious.

"We had a lot going on this offseason, a lot of stuff going on."

"WE WERE SO BUSY!"

But sure, you also had a month head start on some teams to sort through this stuff because your team didn't make the playoffs. Moving is a big deal, especially when Jeff Fisher is the one driving the truck from St. Louis to Los Angeles. He was the guy driving the truck, right? That's how it sort of seems. Expecting his team to tune out distractions and win games, while using those distractions as an excuse for his failures is peak Jeff Fisher.

“We’ve been through a lot. It’s not an excuse, but we’ve been through more than any other team in the National Football League this offseason and the moves and the travel and all those things. We’re dealing with those as best we can.”

Yes, that is an excuse. The Rams have not been through as much as Fisher wants to believe. Essentially, the entire team got traded and had to move. This happens all the time in the NFL, players and coaches moving teams. It's never an acceptable excuse. I can see a player telling Fisher,

"Well, I just can't focus because I'm looking for an apartment and I still have some stuff back in St. Louis. It's a lot right now."

How do you think that would go over?

“There was constant pressure. The coverage didn’t allow it. We had some shots. He (Goff) made a good throw to (WR) Kenny (Britt), and we didn’t come up with the ball. We would’ve liked to have seen pass interference called on that play, which is a field position change.” 

“Yeah, statistically, we had 10, I would acknowledge maybe six of them,” the coach said. 

Jeff Fisher is basically a comment section 10 minutes after the game is over, bitching about the officiating while trying to make it sound like's not blaming the officiating for his team losing.

Traveling to London is no quick hop. Fisher brought out his standard chestnut to excuse his team’s play after a trans-Atlantic flight.

Jet lag, travel, adjusting to the time change. “That’s the hard part of international games.” Fisher had that one in the bag. 

Did the Rams scrimmage themselves in London? If not, there was another team that had to adjust to jet lag and the time change. Also, HE IS BLAMING JET LAG AND THE TIME CHANGE! IF ONLY THERE WERE A WAY TO PLAN FOR THESE THINGS BEFORE THE TRIP OVERSEAS!

Why did no one tell Jeff Fisher about world time zones? He was so busy personally moving the entire Rams team from St. Louis to Los Angeles he didn't have time to research and understand basic World Geography. 

There are plenty of other excuses, especially based on the Rams roster, a roster he specifically had a hand in choosing of course. But nevermind that, it's not relevant. The key point is the Rams and their fans don't have to hear Fisher's bullshit excuses again. He was disengaged as a coach for the past year if you ask me and the fans deserve better. I would give the Rams front office credit for firing Fisher, but they gave him an extension a week earlier, so the broken clock principle applies here. 

Before I go any further, I wanted to highlight one of the paradoxes of this blog. I don't have a hand in getting any of these coaches or sportswriters fired of course. But when they are relieved of their duties, it gives me less to write about here. Gregg Easterbrook has been through three sites with his awful TMQ column, Jay Mariotti has shit all over nearly the entire online and print media industry during the time I have written here and Joe Morgan was relieved of his duties as the Sunday Night Baseball analyst for ESPN. This meant no more JoeChats, which really stunk. I don't think he deserved the Sunday Night Baseball gig based on his JoeChats, but they sure made for good material. 

I think the JoeChats are my favorite running item I had (have) on this blog. They were so awful and I was so underpaid, underworked, undervalued and any other "under" you can use in the realm of a job that I was able to get very inspired and focused writing them. Then Joe's contact wasn't renewed, I found a different job, and then found a different, different job and it's hard to find time to identify an analyst so bad at his job at the same moment I have time to write about how bad he (or she, women can suck at being an analyst too) is at his job. 

And yes, I know "Fire Joe Morgan" did JoeChats before I did. I don't think I've ever indicated I'm breaking new ground here. I was still inspired writing them, but then Joe abandoned us for a radio show and hating inconsistency on a different medium. Losing punching bags on this blog is not easy. Dylan always wanted to do podcasts, and I enjoyed doing them, but I think I would enjoy doing them more now than I did then. I'd love to do podcasts and post them here, but don't for several reasons: 

1. I have no idea how to set up a podcast to record, etc. 

2. I don't know if anyone cares at this point, mostly because I don't listen to podcasts myself. 

3. Time. I want to do them, but when would I REALLY do podcasts and who would I do them with? 

On that last note, before I continue bashing Jeff Fisher, I will share a regret I have. I had a couple "real" writers propose to do a podcast with me so we could discuss what I had written on this blog about what they wrote (after an email discussion about what I wrote about what he/she wrote) and I think I could have had some writers (featured here and not featured here) on a podcast to discuss sports issues, bad journalism, etc. if I cared enough to ask them. Okay, I would have mostly talked about the bad journalism. I didn't pursue it when I corresponded with these sportswriters for a couple of reasons: 

1. Again, I had no idea how to set up a podcast and was too lazy to figure it out. 

2. I felt it would be a betrayal of this blog's purpose. 

I had no urge to talk to sportswriters about their jobs, sports, etc because I felt speaking with them was selling out and not critiquing them like I wanted to do. It's a double-edged sword. To get a guy I bashed on the podcast and allow him to explain his reasoning for a column could be seen as me being soft. I've written what I thought already and then if we come to an understanding about what was written then I'm just Bill Simmons, a person who backs down when the person hits back against my critique. Still, at times it seemed fair to do the podcast, but I never did.

BUT, to invite a sportswriter I like on the podcast then I would see myself as a kiss-ass who simply writes on this blog because I secretly want a career in journalism and critiquing sportswriters is my bizarre way of getting attention for myself. This is, of course, not true at all.

Hey, I'm not saying it makes sense. I never cared to be a sportswriter and I saw interacting on this blog with sportswriters or journalists as a compromise against what I wanted to write. I write all of this while doing a cameo on my own blog to say I think I disagree with my line of thinking at the time and wish I had engaged more sportswriters when I had the opportunity, simply because it would have been fairly interesting content to post here. My wish to simply write and then be done with it, along with the concern that any interaction or feature from a "real" sportswriter" would diminish the intentions of past, present and future posts, prevented me from posting interesting content. I regret that to an extent. 

I bring this all up as a way of reinforcing the point that the content I post (posted/will post) here is reliant on the very people that I write about. Jeff Fisher gets fired, well there goes the Jeff "8-8" Fisher jokes. Joe Morgan is finally seen as the incompetent I viewed him as, well there goes a weekly post about his chats. I never wanted this to be about more than me writing on a blog about sports with no real long-term intentions, so I guess I succeeded in that goal. This all sounds like a eulogy, but it is not. 

Soooooooooooooooooooo...back to Jeff Fisher. There is a picture of me on my mom's fridge at home at a Charlotte Knights game in 1993. I had no NFL team at the time and didn't really watch football. I did love playing Super Tecmo Bowl and the Houston Oilers were my team on the game. So one day I saw a Houston Oilers shirt at the mall and had to have it. I bought the shirt and was wearing it to this Charlotte Knights game where the picture was taken. Maybe the reason I dislike Jeff Fisher so much is because there is an alternate universe where the Carolina Panthers never exist and I become a Tennessee Titans fan once I fell in love with football. In that alternate universe, Jeff Fisher is my head coach. Maybe that's why I don't like him and mocked his mediocrity. It could also be that Jeff Fisher has an extremely powerful agent who (I believe) encourages his sportswriter clients to only write positive things about Fisher in return for access to Demoff's other clients and Fisher's team. I tend to not like these types of things.

So here are some of the things I've written about Jeff Fisher through the years. Interestingly (okay, it's not interesting), there is no "Jeff Fisher" tag on this blog. I have 146 posts that mention him though, so it seems like I should have added a tag at some point. My comments at the time are in bold red italics and new comments are in non-bold normal font. I was probably harder on Fisher on Twitter than I was on this blog, but a lot of what was covered on this blog shows why Fisher was allowed to last as long as he did.

December 2008:

TMQ likes Jeff Fisher not only because he's the NFL's longest-serving coach, he is among the few who consistently gives straightforward answers to media questions. Against the Texans, the deciding down came when Tennessee, trailing 13-12, faced fourth-and-3 at the Houston 32 at the two-minute warning. Rather than let Rob Bironas attempt a 49-yard field goal, Fisher went for it and the Titans failed. The Reliant Stadium roof was open, and Bironas would have kicked into a swirling wind; he'd failed on long kicks in that direction during warm-ups. After the game, Fisher, who at halftime had the choice of the wind in the third quarter or fourth quarter, explained that he'd chosen the wind in the third quarter "because I thought by then we'd have the game locked up," and should have made the conventional choice of saving the wind for the fourth quarter.
Few coaches would be honest enough to admit they underestimated their opponent --

Notice how Easterbrook does not mention THAT is what happens when you go for it on fourth down all the time, you end up screwing the pooch a few times a year. I like how Jeff Fisher is complimented here for admitting he underestimated his opponent and making a bad decision that cost his team the game,

Even back in 2008, Jeff Fisher was not properly preparing to face his opponents. He's literally not changed. He does not plan before, during or after a game. It's inexplicable the amount of job security he had.

January 2012:

Simply put, Fisher wanted to avoid another situation like he had in Tennessee, where owner Bud Adams, if he chose, could tell him what to do on personnel. Adams told him in 2006 to take Vince Young in the first round. Fisher didn't want to do that, but it was Adams' call.

I think I would not give Jeff Fisher power over personnel. Ever. I am not normally a fan of coaches having power over personnel, except in specific cases and Fisher isn't one of those cases. So Fisher is bitter that Adams told the Titans to take Vince Young? Fisher does realize Young won a bunch of games for the Titans, right? It isn't like Young was a complete failure on the field. If "I didn't want Vince Young" is the main criteria for why Jeff Fisher should have the ability to get some control over personnel then I'm not sure I like his odds as a player evaluator.

Oh yeah, Jeff Fisher also blamed his failures with the Rams on the personnel he was given. Except, he took the Rams job because he wanted some control over personnel decisions. I can't make this stuff up. It's right here, as explained by Peter King, who as I have described repeatedly has the inside track on the Rams and Jeff Fisher. Jeff Fisher didn't want to draft Vince Young. Young burned out of the NFL, but I think this goes to Fisher's inability (along with his entire head coaching history) to effectively evaluate quarterbacks.

January 2012:

After spending five hours at the Rams' practice facility in suburban Earth City, Mo., Sunday, the former Titans coach returned to Nashville to consider his options. By Tuesday, I expect he'll have figured out whether St. Louis or Miami is the best place for him; and his agent, Marvin Demoff, will begin negotiating with one team, or both if it's every close. Expect a resolution by Thursday.

I always love it when coaches "retire" or leave a team before they have gotten fired. It feels like many of these coaches end up wanting to coach somewhere else. Teams are always after these coaches because they did the unthinkable and didn't leave their last team because they got fired. Jeff Fisher has a lifetime record of 142-120 and a career playoff record of 5-6. He coached for 16 years and made two AFC Championship Games and made the playoffs six times. He's not a bad coach, but is this the kind of coach a team should pay $8 million per year and also hand over personnel decisions to? I just don't think so. He's available though and since Cowher isn't coming back anytime soon, the fact Fisher has had more .500 or below .500 seasons than above .500 seasons doesn't seem to scare teams off that much.

Three things:

1. Peter King wrote the first part and the fact his agent, Marvin Demoff, was feeding him this information is so crystal clear. Demoff used Peter King (and others) to drive up the competition for Fisher.

2. I said Fisher was "not a bad coach" which is accurate...I guess.

3. I thought Fisher's record was bad back then. Little did I know how his mediocrity would continue and he would somehow manage to never have another winning record.

November 2012:

"It was two-fold,'' said Rams coach Jeff Fisher, who suspended Jenkins and Givens for an unspecified violation of team rules Saturday. "They weren't going to play, so they needed a workout. And I guess you can say it was part punitive. We still have to sort some things out about what happened, but hopefully this helps them get the message.''

"I didn't even know that happened,'' said St. Louis receiver Danny Amendola.

Well then, message received loud and clear.  

Jeff Fisher sent a message through actions his team didn't know occurred. He's the best. This is leadership.

March 2013:

Miami was in on Long aggressively, and one Dolphins official Sunday seemed confident Long would return for a sixth year. But no. And the Rams Sunday night were giving the credit for the migration to coach Jeff Fisher. "One of our players texted Jake and told him he'd retire if he had to play for any other coach besides Jeff,'' Rams GM Les Snead texted me late Sunday night. "Jeff gets veterans to Sunday ready to play ... Gets them to December ready to play ... So yes, he knows how to keep vets fresh physically, mentally and spiritually as good as anyone in the NFL."

The Rams are the only team with three picks in the top 50 of the draft (16, 22, 46), and they'll need a receiver upgrade after losing two in the first five days of free agency. Tight end signee Jared Cook is an expensive question mark, though Fisher had him in Tennessee and loves him.

Stop it Peter! Is Jared Cook's agent paying you to say nice things about him? If not, focus more on Jeff Fisher.

I am making this more about what I've said about Peter King than what I've said about Jeff Fisher, but they kind of go hand-in-hand. Jeff Fisher gets players ready to play in December, not January, because Fisher's teams don't often play in January.

April 2013:

I was here to write a story on the Rams for this week's issue of Sports Illustrated (shameless plug -- on iPads Wednesday and newsstands Thursday!).

So we get a preview of the article on the Rams in MMQB AND we get an entire full article in "Sports Illustrated" this week? It's going to be interesting to read about the Rams war room, but it is such a coincidence that Peter was embedded with Jeff Fisher's team. I'm interested to learn more about Jeff Fisher's plan to go 8-8 this upcoming year. I am kidding of course, the Rams seemingly did a great job in the draft and it is just a coincidence Peter breathlessly reported on Fisher's decision between the Dolphins and the Rams over a year ago. It was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with Peter throwing his agent a solid by driving up the interest in his client.

Well, I lucked out, as you'll read in the story this week, because GM Les Snead, coach Jeff Fisher and COO Kevin Demoff made stuff happen.

Wait, wait...Kevin Demoff? That must be a misspelling because there is a Marvin Demoff that represents Fisher and Peter King. It turns out this is not a misspelling and Kevin Demoff his Marvin Demoff's son.

So for those of you keeping track, Jeff Fisher was hired by his agent's son and now that same agent has another of his clients who is a respected reporter in the Rams war room reporting on the Rams draft day dealings and selections. A more jaded person would say Marvin Demoff worked this all out so his client, who is a reporter, could report positive things about another one of his clients, Jeff Fisher, so that his son who happens to be the COO of the Rams would look good. I am not jaded and would never suggest anything like this was ever thought nor happened. It was all just a coincidence.

You saw the Rams trade twice -- from 16 up to eight, to take wideout/returner Tavon Austin, and from 22 down to 30, to take versatile linebacker Alec Ogletree -- but what you didn't see was the glee in the room when both picks were made.

You also won't hear from Peter about the red flags that came along with Alec Ogletree and how Austin is a bit of a risk because he put up his fantastic numbers in a very wide receiver-friendly college system and is not built like the typical #1 wide receiver.

Of all the shady situations Peter King has been in over the years I wrote on this blog, his being embedded with the Rams for the 2013 NFL Draft is a close second to the time he wrote an article explaining exactly how opposing teams could match any offer the Browns made to Alex Mack (who was a restricted free agent at the time) when it comes to "conflicts of interest caused by Peter sharing an agent with the person he is writing about."

May 2013: 

Time will tell if they're right on the Jenkinses and the Alec Ogletrees, and I could be throwing stones at them in coming years. The Cardinals don't have a track record for taking questionable character guys. They thought the talent of Mathieu was worth the risk. That's one I think the team will end up regretting.

Jenkins has already missed a game for violating team rules, so we have evidence he hasn't stayed on the straight and narrow, but Peter thinks Mathieu was the bad risk. It's his opinion and he is entitled to it of course. I think Jeff Fisher could draft Jodi Arias and Peter wouldn't criticize the selection.

I cringe at the Jodi Arias reference, but I don't cringe at Peter saying the Cardinals would regret drafting Mathieu. This shows just how much deference Jeff Fisher was given over the years by sportswriters and why his firing was a year or two too late. And it's not a coincidence to me that most of the Jeff Fisher references can be found in MMQB, which is written by Peter King.

August 2013:

8. I think I keep hearing great things about two offensive weapons: St. Louis utility star Tavon Austin 

I've never heard of this Tavon Austin fellow. Why hasn't Peter mentioned Austin or what a great offensive weapon he could be before this very MMQB?

and the guy who, to me, is a sort of Tavon Austin Jr., Jacksonville wideout/multipurpose player Ace Sanders.

He's like Austin, but nowhere near as good as Austin is, right? How could he be?

The Rams practiced in the Edward Jones Dome Saturday and gave local fans a whiff of what to expect from Austin, playing him at several spots. “You’re going to have to come out, watch and see what we do with him,’’ said coach Jeff Fisher. “Obviously, there’s things everybody does across the league in camp that they don’t show until the regular season.” During draft prep in St. Louis, the Rams privately knew if they somehow weren’t able to get Austin, they’d have gone after Sanders, who is emerging in camp as the kind of versatile weapon Jacksonville hoped it was drafting last April.

So if Jeff Fisher had not drafted and then misused Tavon Austin, he would have drafted a guy who made little impact in the NFL and was out of the league in two years. But again, Jeff Fisher had no control over the personnel issues he insisted he have when signing a contract with the Rams.

August 2013:

Then there is this column. Just, pretty much any part that dealt with Jeff Fisher is what should be read. Peter calls out Bernie Kosar for being a drunk and marvels at the weapons that Jared Cook and Tavon Austin are. It's inexplicable how anyone can't see Peter is propping up Jeff Fisher.

November 2013:

o. Zac Stacy, proving the Rams were lucky Steven Jackson walked. Hope he’s okay after leaving with a head injury.

Zac Stacy was drafted by the Rams and the Rams are really good at drafting! You should read this article Peter wrote in May about how good the Rams are at drafting. They are on the right track to becoming a really successful team under Jeff Fisher. It's a rebuilding process though, so give Fisher another year or two after this year once he decides Sam Bradford isn't his quarterback of the future, at which point Fisher will be buying himself more time by pointing out Rams fans shouldn't expect immediate success with a new quarterback at the helm.

This is EXACTLY what happened! The Rams traded Sam Bradford to the Eagles and then Jeff Fisher started talking about how many young players the Rams had, while also holding back Jared Goff in order to fake there was some hope with him (Fisher) at the helm.

By the way, the amount of times I have gone out of my way on this blog to bash Jeff Fisher or call him Jeff "8-8" Fisher is tremendous. I would be embarrassed, but I'm not.

July 2014: 

It’s hard to find anyone to knock Fisher’s coaching ability, some of the great teams he put together in Tennessee, the identity they forged, or even the early results of the current reclamation project in St. Louis. It’s harder to explain how he only made the playoffs six times, and had six winning seasons, in 17 years with the Oilers/Titans. The record needs to catch up with the reputation at some point.

IT'S BEEN 17 YEARS!

This is the world we lived in. The jury is still out for Fisher's success to catch up with his reputation, but children are being born and getting ready to go to college while the jury on Fisher's coaching ability is deliberating. It's hard to knock Jeff Fisher's coaching ability, despite the fact his teams on average were not successful. And "the early results" of the reclamation project in St. Louis resulted in ZERO winning seasons. But still, it's hard to knock a record like that.

July 2014:

Might not show up in the record, but the Rams are going to be hell to play, and they’ll be a playoff team if Sam Bradford plays the way he was drafted to play.

Read that sentence and try to tell me Peter's relationship with Marvin Demoff doesn't come into play when he discusses the Rams. "It may not show in the record." He's already making excuses even if Fisher doesn't make the playoffs this year. For what Jeff "8-8" Fisher gets paid to coach the Rams, the team's talent sure as shit better show up in the record. Fisher gets paid enough for that to happen.

Almost three years later and I'm still stuck on this "might not show up in the record" comment. On what, pray tell, should Jeff Fisher be judged? He isn't judged on his win-loss record, so how should he be judged? By the manliness of his mustache? By how many excuses he could put forth before he got called on his bullshit? For a guy who worships the ground Bill Parcells walks on, Peter sure forgets the "You are what your record says you are" mantra Parcells preached...but only when it is convenient to forget it.

August 2014: 

“We don’t have any glaring holes. We do have a glaring lack of experience.”

—Les Snead, the general manager of the Rams, to me. St. Louis had the youngest roster in the NFL last season, and likely will again this year.

This is just a reminder Snead and the Rams have been using the same excuses for multiple years as to why the team couldn't succeed. Apparently the Rams organization believes the players on the team would never age, so this excuse could always be used to explain away the team's mediocrity under Jeff Fisher.

August 2014: 

“We’ve got to go on,” Fisher said, “and that’s basically what I told [backup] Shaun Hill. Shaun shifts gears, and we go. I told him, ‘This is why you’re here. Let’s go.’

Hill is 34. He’s started 26 games (13-13) with San Francisco and Detroit—but his last start was four seasons ago.

This is part of my issue too. Hill isn't the present or the future. The future at the quarterback position isn't on the Rams roster most likely. Jeff Fisher just bought himself three more years. He's a "name" coach who has suffered some bad luck and honestly hasn't done much to help his luck at the quarterback position, but that doesn't matter. The Rams are probably going to draft a quarterback in the upcoming draft, which they probably should have done this year, and Fisher will start over. I don't hate Jeff Fisher or the Rams, but Rams fans deserve better than this. Fisher is incredibly overrated as a coach. He's not a bad coach, but he and Snead have made crucial personnel mistakes at the most important spot on the roster. They've built a really good team around a quarterback who can't stay on the field. Logic would dictate the best backup plan isn't Shaun Hill. Hill is an okay backup and he very well may succeed this season. I feel like Fisher and Snead are getting a pass for completely counting on a injury-prone quarterback who may not even be very good when healthy. I'm not sure I could even tell you what kind of quarterback Bradford is because he can't stay on the field. That's the point. I would feel better about this situation if the Rams had a younger guy they wanted to see play (I don't think Austin Davis counts as that guy) if/when Bradford got hurt. It would give that younger guy a chance for some snaps to see if he can stick with the team.

The Rams are in the toughest division in the NFL. Don't they realize if they really want to compete they can't rely on Bradford so much? Why does this frustrate me so? It's just proof to me of how untouchable Jeff Fisher and Les Snead are. It's the third year of the Jeff Fisher era, where he is 14-17-1, is he really that cocky or unconcerned about his job security that he felt comfortable relying on Shaun Hill as the backup if/when Bradford gets injured? I guess he knows his buddies in the media will go to bat for him. Can't be on the hot seat if no one reports that he is on the hot seat.

October 2014:

q. Tre Mason. Not a lot to like about how the Rams are playing as we approach midseason, but the rookie has a burst and some power to him, as shown against Seattle.

Team...on...the...rise. See, no one should accuse Jeff "8-8" Fisher of not knowing what he's doing. The Rams drafted Isaiah Pead in the second round, then drafted Zac Stacy in the fifth round and pretended to want to play him, but Fisher really was sandbagging and wanted to have Tre Mason be the starter. It's just like how Fisher made idiots like me think he had built his team around Sam Bradford when that wasn't AT ALL his plan. He was really getting ready to build the team around the Rams' third-string quarterback, Austin Davis, and wanted to mask his plan by starting Sam Bradford and signing Shaun Hill to be Bradford's backup.

Another running back that Peter describes as having "speed/burst and power" because that's what Jeff Fisher wants in a running back. Of course, we will later learn Peter doesn't believe the Rams ever found the right running back until Todd Gurley came along. Despite the fact his words (at the time) said differently about Mason and Zac Stacy.

November 2014: 

b. Austin Davis continues to show he belongs, and not just as roster filler.

Look Jeff, Peter tried to hype these guys up. It's not for lack of trying.

November 2014: 

For the record, with all of the mayhem around Robert Griffin III and his fate in Washington, here is what the St. Louis Rams received in return for trading the second overall pick to Washington so Washington could select Griffin in 2012. Turns out to be an 8-for-1 trade, with five starting players (as of today) but no superstars harvested by Rams GM Les Snead. But any team that thought it had its long-term starting quarterback (as St. Louis did with Sam Bradford in the spring of 2012, pre-double-knee-injury) in the house would absolutely have made the trade if told this: Trading the number two overall pick will yield five starting players three seasons down the line. Amazing, to me, that as it turns out, St. Louis traded the number two overall pick in 2012, and got the number two overall pick in 2014—and seven more choices:

Again Jeff, Peter tried to hype your team up as if you were geniuses robbing other NFL teams for draft picks to build up a soon-to-be-great team. Jeff, you blew it.

And just because the Rams got "starters" out of the draft picks doesn't mean those "starters" would start for a team that could actually make the playoffs.

December 2014:

9. I think Rams owner Stan Kroenke must be thinking (though how would we know what he thinks—the man never speaks) this after the team’s 11^th straight non-winning season:

Why am I paying Jeff Fisher $8 million per year and not getting good results?

Of course not! It's not Fisher's fault and isn't Les Snead's fault and certainly isn't Kevin Demoff's fault. Nothing is.
 
I empathize with Jeff Fisher never having a good quarterback situation to deal with.

Really? You empathize with Fisher that he and Les Snead have chosen to do nothing with the quarterback position and continue to rely on Sam Bradford, a guy the Rams aren't even certain should be the quarterback of the future, to be the starter going into the season with little competition for his job? The conscious choice to waste the time and money of Rams fans by relying on a player who consistently can't stay healthy, you empathize with Jeff Fisher about that? I personally think decisions like that are why coaches and GM's get fired. There would be a good quarterback situation to deal with if Fisher and Snead had not relied on Austin Davis and Shaun Hill to be the options at quarterback if Bradford got injured.

April 2015: 

One big problem: coach Jeff Fisher was against drafting Young.

Jeff Fisher is never wrong and you take it back right now.

Still, Young often made me look pretty good. He was offensive rookie of the year. He made two Pro Bowls. He went 30-17 as Tennessee's starter.

And that's really what this is all about isn't it? Which quarterbacks made Skip look good and which quarterbacks didn't make Skip look good. Vince Young did have success for a while, but this doesn't mean Skip was right about him. I think Mario Williams was the right pick for the Texans. 

But predictably, he often clashed with Fisher. It appeared Fisher helped turn some in the local and national media against Young. His skin grew thin.

This is a reminder that Jeff Fisher didn't want to draft one of the two quarterbacks he actually had some semblance of success with as a head coach. This feels important to me.

June 2015:

St. Louis has been dying for a franchise running back. Since Steven Jackson left for Atlanta two years ago—and even before, actually; the Rams thought Jackson was declining in 2012—coach Jeff Fisher has wanted a back like Gurley.

It sounds like the Rams are a team on the rise. Next stop, Jeff Fisher's first playoff win in a decade. You can feel the tension in excitement in Los Angeles St. Louis as the team is ready to finally be the team on the rise that Jeff Fisher has always promised they would be. Jeff Fisher has always wanted a running back like Todd Gurley and he finally has him.

Fisher is a throwback coach.

"Throwback" meaning "Go back in the past to find where he has been successful, but only pay attention to the seasons where his team made the playoffs and ignore the vast majority of the seasons where his team had a .500 or losing record."

Most of the league craves an offense with a 60-40 pass-run split. Fisher would love it to be 50-50, or even 55-45 run. He likes to play offense with a back capable of wearing down defenses with long drives early in games and eating the clock in the fourth quarter.

And yet, it's taken Fisher four years to get to that point with the Rams. It must be nice to have such job security to know as a head coach you have four years to get the team you are coaching to resemble the team you would like it to resemble. I'm hard on Jeff Fisher, but at no point does Peter King acknowledge that Fisher has had three full seasons to get the Rams team how he wants it and has so far seemingly failed to do so? Why is this not a relevant point? Peter presents it as Fisher accomplishing the equivalent of a coup to get Todd Gurley so the Rams team can run it's offense how he wants it to. IT TOOK THREE FUCKING YEARS THOUGH! Why? Is this not a question that should be asked while up the organization's butt hole for drafting Gurley? What took so fucking long? It's the same thing as the quarterback position for the Rams. I feel miserable for Rams fans to have a coaching staff that seems happy to dick around for a few seasons knowing there is job security.

There are quite a few times I noticed in MMQB (as I was reviewing them for this post) that Peter referred to Zac Stacy as "the type of running back Jeff Fisher loves." So as I said earlier, it seems Peter will just forget he said that and keep moving the goalposts for Fisher, as if he had no control over which players the Rams drafted.

October 2015:

Now we know why Gurley went 10th

I'm not smart at all, but I knew why already. He's a stud. You know what I'm going to say about the Rams. Team on the rise! Give Jeff Fisher that contract extension and it's all downhill from there. I mean, uphill, it's all uphill. Wait, if it is "downhill" then that means things are bad, right? But going "uphill" means things are more difficult. Now I'm confused. Just give Jeff Fisher a contract extension.

“I got one game ball!” St. Louis coach Jeff Fisher said in the Rams’ locker room. “Where’s 30? Thirty! Come up!”

Fisher handed Gurley, No. 30, the football.

“This is just the beginning,” Fisher said.

JUST THE BEGINNING, RAMS FANS! JUST THE BEGINNING!

(The Rams pack up their bags and leave for Los Angeles)

(Shrugs) It happened, right?

Now the reign of Jeff Fisher as an NFL head coach is over...at least until a team like the Jacksonville Jaguars wants a head coach with experience and inexplicably hires him at a salary of $7 million per season. Let's hope this doesn't happen. Actually, maybe I should hope for it to happen, as it is good for the jokes.

I'll try to make the gap between posts shorter in the future.

14 comments MMQB Review: In a Non-Shocking Revelation It Turns Out Peter King Really Liked Interviewing Brett Favre

Peter King interviewed Tom Brady in last week's MMQB, but wanted us to know that we would learn nothing specific from this interview. Peter also marveled at food trucks, explained that Roger Goodell usually waits for the legal system to run it's course before punishing a player/NFL management figure except for the times when he doesn't wait for the legal system to run it's course, and said he thinks we are too hard on people who speak their mind candidly, unless these people are saying something Peter disagrees with in which case I'm sure Peter will wish that person would stop talking. This week Peter talks about improving locker room culture, wants us to know HR doesn't mean Home Runs but means Human Resources, discusses his 25 year anniversary with Sports Illustrated, transcribes graduation speeches (at least he's not transcribing the conversations of total strangers like he tends to do), and of course gets two more shots at Josh Freeman in. 

A varied day in the world of Monday Morning Quarterback:

It's not one of those boring football-only days in MMQB. It's a varied day where Peter talks about himself, annoying traveling notes, and some more things about Peter and his thoughts. It's very varied.

In the wake of Tampa Bay owner Malcolm Glazer’s death, thoughts on his colorblind impact on the game, and on the creeping ageism of NFL ownership.

BREAKING NEWS: People who can afford to own an NFL team are usually older rather than younger!

The disastrous Sean Lee injury for Dallas.

Every other NFL team could afford to lose their best linebacker for the year due to an injury, but not the Cowboys. Their best linebacker is more important than other team's best linebacker because ESPN loves talking about them too much.

The week’s my 25-year anniversary at Sports Illustrated. I reflect on my Johnny Cash interaction at the beginning, Steve Young vomiting perilously close to my shoes in the middle, and me being an ogre of a boss at the end. (Groaning, you skip the 25^th anniversary section.)

While Peter's career at Sports Illustrated has certainly been long and impressive (especially to himself), I have heard the story of Steve Young vomiting close to Peter's shoes so many times. The story has been told so many times in one way or another by Peter there's not much else to reflect on at this point.

Players, get ready for a lot of HR talk in the next three weeks.

Not home runs. Human Resources.

How stupid does Peter think his readers are? I think most of his readers know that "HR" stands for "Human Resources." Sure, why would it make sense for NFL players to be talking about Human Resources? Probably for the same reason it would make sense for NFL players to be talking about home runs. I don't know if Peter is trying to be cutesy, but people know what HR stands for and there's no need to write "HR," and then clarify what this stands for, rather than just writing "Human Resources." It's like Peter wants desperately to come off as smarter or like he's educating his readers on every topic he discusses.

The NFL’s executive vice president and chief human resources officer, Robert Gulliver, leads a three-man NFL team into Flowery Branch, Ga., today to meet with all players, coaches and selected executives (owner Arthur Blank will be on hand) to discuss how to improve locker-room culture.

Not Flowery Branch, like the branch of a tree that has flowers on it. Flowery Branch is a city in Georgia. Peter also wants his readers to know Arthur Branch won't actually be on someone's hand during this meeting, but "on hand" means he will be present in the room during the meeting...but not on someone's hand and most likely in a chair.

Today, the Atlanta presentation will be about an hour long, and former Falcon defensive end Kerney—now the league’s vice president of player benefits—and Darius, the former Jaguar, will be there to help Gulliver drive home the point about respecting the guy next to you in the locker room.

And we all know a lecture about being nice to others will probably have a huge effect on grown athletes who play a violent sport where the intent is to hit the opposing player as hard as possible so he falls to the ground.

What can be accomplished in an hour? It’s a logical and skeptical question. “It’s to start the dialogue, to provoke conversation,” said Kerney. “As players, we need to understand we’re all going to be out of there soon and into the real world. If we continuing some of the behavior of the past, we’re enclosing ourselves in the bubble even further.”

In a bubble. But Peter wants us to know that no one is really going to be in a real bubble like the bubble boy from "Seinfeld," but this is a phrase that's often used. Peter wants to be very clear so he doesn't confuse his readers.

Will it work? Can it work? I think the most important element here is the acceptance by coaches and the team leaders—especially the team leaders...Kerney’s message is correct: This abusive and raunch boys-club-gone-wild atmosphere bubble doesn’t exist in the real world. Just because it’s been the tradition is many NFL locker rooms, why does it have to continue?

Because professional athletics are not the real world, athletes are used to staying in the bubble of playing sports and there's no better way to understand how the real world outside of the NFL works than having to live a life outside of the NFL and most of these NFL players won't get a chance to do this until they retire. Anyone who has been to a college where there are athletics knows that even the shittiest of athletes exists in the bubble of playing sports in some way or another. Obviously every athlete isn't like this for the entirety of his/her life, but NFL players are professional athletes who are used to being the absolute best at their sport and the abusive, teasing atmosphere in locker rooms is just part of professional sports. It doesn't have to be, but it's going to be hard to take players out of the athletic bubble while still keeping them in the bubble of athletics. That's why.

Again, not every athlete is this way, but it's a difficult culture. I've seen members of a shitty Division-I basketball school throw a punch because he and his friend lost at beer pong and couldn't stand having shit talked to him about it. The team won 5-6 games during the year, so he had to be used to losing, but he couldn't stand to be teased about losing at a stupid drinking game. I had a Division-II football player tell a girl I knew that she is coming home with him that night right in front of her boyfriend. When he came to get her at the end of the night, she did not and he was displeased. This isn't abusive locker room culture, but it's an example of a different mindset at times for some athletes. As we've seen in the case of the Dolphins last season, all it takes is 2-3 players and a team gets bad reputation or there starts locker room problems because of "boys-club-gone-wild." To change this completely would be to essentially change part of the mindset of some athletes starting as early as middle school and I'm not sure that can happen.

I got a bit nostalgic on Friday when I told my crew at The MMQB—we were gathered in New York City for our microsite’s offseason seminar—that Sunday was the 25^th anniversary of Sports Illustrated managing editor Mark Mulvoy offering me a job and saying, “I want you to cover the NFL your way.”

Which Peter took to mean, "In a couple of decades I want you to be writing a long football-related column that is often only 50% related directly to football despite the fact there is a seeming 24 hour news cycle of football news. You need to start writing about yourself and what you do and don't like."

It's natural for Peter to talk about himself in a weekly column, but just 10-15 years ago MMQB was 2 pages at the most and now it has bloated into a 5-6 page column where half of it involves quotes of the week, Tweets of the week, a travel note, a fact Peter finds interesting, a stat Peter finds interesting, and usually an interview or discussion of something only sort of related to the NFL. This is before the entire last page of MMQB is dedicated to Peter's own personal thoughts that may or may not be about the NFL. I write about it every week and it gives me more material to write about, so that's a positive.

Either I should get lost, and go where the dinosaurs go. Or I should, as many athletes say, stay till they kick me out of the game.

I’ve opted for the second choice, at least for now. Twenty-five years, 25 memories:

Only 25 memories. But don't worry, we get a page of things that Peter thinks he thinks as well.

First assignment: June 1989. The NFL’s trying to birth a minor league, the World League of American Football, and I’m sent on the road for three days with the new exec of the league, banished Cowboys czar Tex Schramm, as he private-jetted from Jacksonville to Orlando to Birmingham to Charlotte to Nashville scouting for American franchises for an uninvented league. Highlight: I’m sent down the stairs of the plane first when we get to Nashville, and at the bottom of the stairs is the Man in Black, with his right hand out to shake. “Hiyah, welcome tah Nashville. Ahm Johnny Cash,” said Johnny Cash.

Peter loves writing EXACTLY how he perceives other people sound when talking to him, as if they are the ones who talk funny and it isn't Peter whose accent or lack thereof is the one who talks funny. If you are a person who meets Peter, be sure to talk with no accent or he will quote you by writing down exactly how he thinks you sound when speaking.

3. I loved the openness, the bawdiness, the intelligence of Jimmy Johnson. In training camp in 1990 we dined one night and he told me what a living hell the 1-15 season was, and he detailed all the crap that went on all season. At one point Johnson realized how much he was saying and his glare bore a hole through me. “Peter,” he said. “If you f— me on this story, I will squash you like a squirrel in the road.” 

Peter swore from that point on he would never fuck someone on a story. Ever.

7. The media … what a difference a generation makes. I traveled in the early ’90s with a large notebook, a few pens and a small computer that most often stayed at the hotel. I’d take notes at a game, do interviews post-game, and go back to the hotel and write my piece for the magazine. When that was done, so was I for the week. The End. Now: I use a smart phone, a tablet and a laptop, daily. I phone, I tweet, I skype, I research the ’net. I do talk shows. I do video chats. The other day I did something called a Google+ hangout with Brandin Cooks and A.J. McCarron.

I like how Peter "researches the 'net." Does he do research on the Internet or is he actually doing research while surfing the Internet? I prefer to picture Peter doing research ON the Internet and typing searches like, "When did Al Gore invent the Internet" and "This Internet thing, tell me more about it, no, tell me everything about it."

Back in the day you prayed something you found out on a Friday would hold until it got to peoples’ mailboxes six days later. Now that thing you found out will probably be on the internet in six minutes by someone else if you don’t rush to get it up first.

Back in the day, Peter didn't have to hear all this negative feedback about what he writes and he, like other sportswriters, could bask in the glow of receiving awards from their friends and colleagues while fully knowing that their shit don't stink. It's not that way anymore to his dismay. Then there are guys like Bill Simmons who partly made his name bullying and criticizing sportswriters using the Internet, but now he thinks there is just a meanness on the Internet by those who criticize sportswriters. 

9. In 1995, Mike Holmgren, the Green Bay head coach, let me spend a week inside the Packers. That was fun.

It's when Peter first met his football soulmate Brett Favre. What a bunch of tender and loving days those were. 

Brett Favre farted in quarterback meetings a lot.

It's great to know. Amazingly Favre's farts smelled exactly like what a child playing the game of football smells like.

What a memory he had. He’d be looking up at the ceiling, seemingly not paying attention, and QB coach Steve Mariucci would say, “Brett, what are you looking for with this protection?” Favre would just spit out, “Strongside ’back. C’mon Mooch. Gimme something tough.”

Favre had a great memory or it could just be that he was really paying attention even though it didn't look like it. That wouldn't be a fun story to tell though.

11. Maddest a coach ever got? One time Bill Parcells told me we were through—he was coaching the Jets, and thought I told another writer something out of bounds—and that lasted about six or eight months. Now we talk a lot. I guess Bill Belichick got mad after some of my coverage of Spygate in 2007. I’m not sure, though. He hasn’t talked to me since.

Peter must think that if he links every possible NFL Draft prospect who doesn't have an exact position to the Patriots and state that they will figure out how to use that player then Belichick will forgive him. Either that or Peter is trying to get back in Belichick's good graces by becoming super-besties with Scott Pioli.

Then Peter recounts the story of Steve Young almost throwing up on his shoes after the Super Bowl victory over the Chargers. It's a good story, but not the first or even fifth time I have heard it.

18. I’ve covered a lot of fun games, but for some reasons I’ll remember the game New England won to set the record for consecutive NFL wins (19) in 2004, because that story contained my favorite SI line.

HERE'S MY FAVORITE THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN!

(The list of good lines is a very short one, believe me.)

You are being so modest about it that it's tough not to believe you. I mean, you are spending part of MMQB recounting your 25 years at Sports Illustrated. It's all very modest.

You guys know how I feel about having a separate column for a lot of the stuff Peters puts into MMQB. It goes for his 25 years of remembrances as well. Peter has his own web site now. I think there is a good "remembrance" column he could write for that site.

In a quiet moment in the locker room after New England beat Miami to earn the record, I got Belichick about as celebratory as you’ll hear him. And I wrote, “ ‘It’s great to be in the history books,’ said the man who has read them all.”

This is the perfect Peter King line because it has just the right degree of loftiness about a topic (history) in it with the right amount of the admiring tone that I find Peter has for his subjects at times.

19. Best interview: Brett Favre edges Peyton Manning, Richard Sherman, John Randle and Jimmy Johnson.

Not a shock. Peter has probably talked to or interviewed Favre about as much as Randle, Sherman and Johnson combined.

I’ll never forget what Favre told me about his post-football life. This was in 2000. I asked him where he’d be and what he’d do in retirement. “I’ll be down in Hattiesburg [Miss.]. You’ll never find me. You know the ‘Where are they now?’ segments on ‘Inside the NFL?’ They’ll do one on me, but they’ll have to get Robert Stack, like on ‘Unsolved Mysteries.’ I’ll disappear.”

Oh yeah, and Favre has definitely disappeared. I guess it's all relative. Most people who "disappear" go out of the spotlight completely, but for Favre "disappearing" means he sticks his head up to remind the world that he does indeed exist. Fortunately he is using his webcam to talk about football and not show everyone pictures of his penis, as he has been prone to do in the past.

Who knows what he's up to now? It's not like anyone has reported on what Favre is doing these days. His idea of disappearing isn't quite mine. Also notice in one of those columns that Favre won't commit to coaching next year. It seems he enjoys the attention of people wondering about his future no matter what he does.

"Who knows if I'll do it next year," said Favre, who is in his second year coaching at the high school. "I really don't know. It's been a lot of fun. I enjoy it. It's easy and it's not too time-consuming."

I imagine Favre's wife, Deanna (and I know her name, which pisses me off), wakes up on a Saturday and spends the first two hours of the day trying to get Favre to commit to whether he will be mowing the grass next week or pay someone to do it.

"It's too early in the week to say what I will do. I enjoy it but I'm also getting to the point I have other interests outside of mowing grass for two hours during the week. I really don't know what I'm going to do or not. I'm just focused on breakfast right now. The time is going to come soon when I stop mowing the grass though. Be sure to ask me every single weekend until I decide I won't ever mow my own grass again."

I can never get him on the phone anymore. He’s disappeared, except to coach the offense for the local high school football team.

Again, my definition of "disappeared" isn't necessarily the same as Peter's definition. Favre certainly poked his head up around draft time this year and has done so in the past as well. I'm sure Peter is hurt he can't get Favre on the phone. More importantly, why is Peter trying to call a retired NFL quarterback? Does he often call Troy Aikman or Joe Montana? I just don't know why he would be calling Favre, other than to just speak with him, which totally proves Peter is obsessed with Favre.

21. Smartest professional decision I made in these 25 years: listening to Steve Robinson, the first editor of the magazine’s website, in 1997 when he asked me to empty out my notebook on Monday morning with whatever I wasn’t writing for the magazine that week. That’s how “Monday Morning Quarterback” was birthed.

It started that way and has turned into the behemoth that it currently is which now doesn't have a lot to do with whatever Peter wasn't writing for the magazine that week any more than it has to do with Peter's thoughts during the week.

The Glazers have hired five coaches. Dungy turned the franchise from sad-sack losers to annual contenders. Gruden finished the job. Raheem Morris largely failed, lasting three years. Greg Schiano didn’t have a long-enough chance (two years), but he failed too.

You like how Peter points out how his boy Greg Schiano didn't have a long-enough chance with the Bucs, but Schiano had only one more year than Raheem Morris (who had no experience as a head coach) and his career winning percentage with the Buccaneers is worse than that of Morris? At least Morris had one winning season. But yeah, Schiano just needed more time.

NFL ownership is aging. Four teams in the last eight months have had a transition in ownership with the death of principal owners.

The youngest owner who passed away was 85 years old. These aren't exactly spring chickens running around. So the lesson is that older owners die.

Of course, in many of the places where owners are aging, teams have strong family plans in place. Dean Spanos is a well-respected presence at league meetings for the Chargers, as is Art Rooney II for Pittsburgh, Katie Blackburn (Mike Brown’s daughter) for the Bengals, Michael Bidwill for the Cards, Jonathan Kraft for the Patriots and Stephen Jones for Dallas.

I'm just happy there is no ownership succession plan in place for my favorite team. It makes me feel very confident. 77 year old owners with a history of a heart condition generally make it to age 100 though, right?

Arthur Blank is very bullish on expanding the NFL’s borders.

My Q&A with the Atlanta owner:

The MMQB: What’s the short- and long-term future of the NFL in Europe?

Blank: The games in London, I think are a tribute to the NFL, a tribute to the fans there, the quality of the game—and I think that it’s proved conclusive that fans will come out when they see the real players playing games that are really meaningful, as opposed to NFL Europe...The approach that the international committee and the commissioner have taken is, ‘Let’s do London right, and then move from there to potentially somewhere else.’

I can't imagine how there would be logistical problems with NFL teams playing football games across the ocean in Europe and then having to come back to the United States to play the very next week. Or would every team that has to play in Europe get a bye the week after?

I’m sure there are wonderful cities in Europe, and elsewhere.

There are wonderful cities in every country, but that doesn't mean every wonderful city in every country needs an NFL team.

The MMQB: Is it more likely there would be a franchise in London or that there would be six to eight games a season?
 
Blank: I think it will lead to [a team]. I think it will start with an increased number of games. That will be translated into a very successful series of games, and eventually, I think a franchise. And maybe more than one.

Oh, goodie. I can't see how this idea would fail at all. I'm not against the NFL expanding overseas, but I'm afraid of the NFL trying to hard to expand their product they end up diluting the product. For example, I don't know how many more NFL teams there needs to be. 32 teams is a lot of teams and there are only so many good quarterbacks to go around.

Then Peter re-prints commencement addresses given by some athletes, celebrities, politicians and I generally skip over those.

“I call Twitter the microphone for morons.”

—Denver GM John Elway, at a NFL event, the career development symposium, Saturday at Penn’s Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia.

I call losing more Super Bowls than you win a little disappointing for a Hall of Fame quarterback.

I don't really, I like to get chippy when people bash Twitter. Plus it's not like Elway (@johnelway is his Twitter handle) is too good for Twitter. He just bashes the technology he uses, that's all.

“It is completely unacceptable that Daryl has once again put us in this position. We all know what the consequences are and will deal with them.”

—Arizona GM Steve Keim, in an unusually strongly worded statement condemning linebacker Daryl Washington, one of his best players, for being suspended for the 2014 season. Washington said he tested positive for marijuana.

Wow, that is strongly worded. Washington did know the consequences of marijuana use and he should pay the price. If only he could find a way to convince the Cardinals he has "a problem," then hit up rehab for a month, be a wealthy owner and writers like Peter King would feel bad for him.  

“It’s a war. It’s on. I have no respect for him no more … You can’t be acting like a little girl out there … a little b—-.”

—Red Sox DH David Ortiz, on Tampa Bay pitcher David Price, after Ortiz was hit in the back by the first Price pitch he saw in 2014, the first time they faced each other this season, on Friday at Fenway Park.

Cool baseball drama.

I'm sure if A-Rod or a Rays player said this about a Red Sox player then Peter would feel like it is "cool baseball drama." It's cool drama until Peter decides he doesn't like the messenger.

So if there were nine taunting fouls in 2012, and if 43 such fouls could have been called in 2013, imagine what happens when officials are ultra-sensitive to make such calls in 2014. Either players will get see the quick trigger fingers the refs have and cut it out early this year, or there will be an epidemic of taunting calls this fall.

Mike Mitchell would have gotten called for 43 taunting calls all by himself, followed by him getting beaten for a touchdown.

Roger Goodell takes a trip every year to Silicon Valley to meet and talk to innovators in the technology, TV, social media and academic set. On one of his first such trips, he met with Steve Jobs, the Apple boss, who had one word of advice for Goodell: “Wifi.”

When you hear owners and club presidents and league officials say they’re intent on enabling all fans able to use their smart phones inside all NFL stadiums, you can trace that advice to Jobs.

Or I could trace that to the fact airplanes, restaurants, Starbucks, hotels and every other place where consumers will choose to go have wifi and eventually NFL stadiums were going to get wifi. Steve Jobs died over three years ago and all NFL stadiums don't have wifi yet, so clearly Goodell listened to the advice not-so intently or wasn't in a hurry to get wifi in every NFL stadium.

Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week

I have heard of flight delays and I have heard of emergency landings, but what happened on a US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia last Wednesday sets an American aviation record for incredulity. Lucky for all of us, Chris Law, a 30-year-old NFL Network producer—he handles Rich Eisen’s podcast and produces programming about fantasy football, the draft and the combine—was in row 10 of the plane and was an eyewitness, and nasal witness, to airline history.

Yes, thank God he was there or else I wouldn't get the chance to read about someone complaining regarding how frustrating it is to travel. There is no where else I can go to hear complaining, so it's just a stroke of luck that Chris Law was on this flight.

“I fly US Airways all the time,’’ Law said over the weekend from Virginia, where he was attending a bachelor party. “I have status with them.

I wouldn't have been so sarcastic in the last paragraph if I had known this story was being told by someone who had status. RISE UP PEOPLE! CHRIS LAW HAS STATUS WITH US AIRWAYS AND THEY DID THIS TO HIM! IMAGINE WHAT CAN HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WITHOUT STATUS! ARM YOURSELVES IMMEDIATELY!

Before we board, I see this lady with a full-grown dog. I have never seen a full-size dog on a plane in coach. This dog had a service tag on it, and the lady looked healthy, fine. But whatever. I get on the plane, everyone boards, the lady and her dog go in back.

This story is long, but the dog starts shitting everywhere and the shit stinks. The plane has to land and Hazmat has to come on the plane to take care of the issue.

(Speaking of which, and I know I will regret putting this idea out there, but I feel like this is the plot of a movie. Terrorists plan to get on a plane and want to avoid going through the detectors, so they have a dog crap all over a plane, Hazmat comes in, but it's actually the terrorists, and take over the plane on the runway and shenanigans en sue ...I'm just saying this is a terrible, terrible idea but it came to me and I have no doubt Bruce Willis would be in this movie somehow)

Now back to Chris Law: “So we land. We stay on the plane. Hazmat is actually five guys in orange vests.

I'm pretty sure they wouldn't suit up completely to face the impending crisis of dog shit on a plane.

“But when we were in Kansas City, she and the dog got off. It was clear this dog was ‘serving’ no purpose. The woman was walking fine. The dog had its own seat. So when she got off, it was like a walk of shame. Her and the dog walked off. People were clapping when she got off the plane, maybe 10 or 15 people clapping. Some people were pretty pissed off. Two people missed their cruise to Greece. People missed their connections. A lady sitting near me was getting honored by a charity that she runs in Hartford that night, and had to make a speech there, but she never made it.

Is that normal? She runs a charity and is being honored by that charity. So she is being honored by...herself? I don't know, really. It seems odd to me to run a charity and then be honored by the charity you run. Maybe it was for longevity of service or something.

I will never, ever, ever complain about anything related to travel for the rest of my life.

At least until next week.

Peter would have absolutely had a shit-fit if this happened on a flight he was on. Peter would have eviscerated this woman in MMQB and then demanded the airlines personally apologize to him.

Red Sox losing streak reaches ten. It's like watching one of your good friends, normally sober, get drunk and puke on his shoes.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) May 26, 2014

That sounds exactly like something Bill Simmons would Tweet. I wonder which person stole this manner of speaking from the other? It has all the identifiers of something Bill Simmons would say or Tweet. Very weird.

Ten Things I Think I Think

1. I think the most meaningless, dumb story of this offseason is the constant, unending, logic-defying debate over who is the Jets’ starting quarterback, and that anything done before the battle is joined once training camp is a tangible factor in who will win the job—Geno Smith or Michael Vick.

Peter then takes up #1 and #2 "things he thinks" in talking about the Jets quarterback situation. Yeah Peter, I sure do wish some people would stop discussing this meaningless, dumb story. If only more people would follow your lead in not discussing it by discussing it.

Speaking of dumb, meaningless stories...Peter hasn't bashed Josh Freeman in a month, so here goes:

3. I think there’s an incredible story out there, waiting to be written about Josh Freeman. It could be called: “How to ruin your football career in just 18 months.” In the span of the past year and a half, Freeman:

Threw for 4,065 yards at age 24 in 2012, appearing to be one of the best young quarterbacks in football for a young Tampa Bay team.

Had his work ethic questioned in Tampa, where he was mostly scarce on game-planning Tuesdays, a day very few if any starting NFL quarterbacks take off.

Was benched by coach Greg Schiano in Tampa.

Was signed by Minnesota last October.

Completed 43 percent of his passes, a laughable figure, in seven games in 2013.

Got cut loose by the Vikings after the season.

Got signed April 21 by the Giants, who planned to give him a chance to win the number two job behind Eli Manning.

Got cut by the Giants on Friday.

Did Josh Freeman break up with one of Peter's daughters? Did Freeman insult Peter in some way? I just wonder because Peter goes out of his way to bash Freeman and he even slightly deceives his reading audience to make Freeman seem worse than he is. Peter states Freeman completed a "laughable" (I like the editorializing, as if giving the number isn't good enough) 43% of his passes in seven games in 2013. As Peter documented on a near-weekly basis, Freeman didn't play after his one start with the Vikings in October and he only started four games all season. Yes, Freeman did complete 43% of his passes, but that was only in four starts and even during the season where he threw for 4065 yards he only completed 54.8% of his passes. So he was a fairly inaccurate quarterback who threw for a lot of yardage in 2012 and it's not like his star was completely on the rise. If Peter can get past his rage towards Freeman he would remember the Bucs didn't give him a new contract prior to the 2013 season because they wanted him to prove he was worth a new contract. He did not prove this and now he's out of the NFL again. End of story. He isn't the first or the last 1st round pick to perform poorly in the NFL and I have no idea why Peter picks on Freeman like he does.

4. I think it’s easy to say Sean Lee is injury-prone and leave his latest bit of terrible news—he suffered a torn ACL last week when he was jarred by rookie offensive lineman Zack Martin at a non-padded Dallas workout—at that. But with DeMarcus Ware and Lee gone for 2014 (Ware was cut in a cap move), and defensive tackle Jason Hatcher not re-signed, I cannot see any way new defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli can make a strong defense out of what he has left in Dallas. Talk about pressure on Tony Romo. He certainly was looking forward to not having to outscore every team he played this fall. Now, the Cowboys’ only real chance for the playoffs seems to rest on just how high-scoring the offense can be.

But it will always be Tony Romo's fault when the Cowboys lose a game. Always.

5. I think Arizona GM Steve Keim (see Quotes of the Week) is justifiably fuming over the year-long suspension handed to Daryl Washington, the best player on his front seven...In March, Keim essentially handed Washington a $10 million option bonus to trigger his contract for 2014. Now Keim has to feel altogether double-crossed, and it’s certain the team won’t allow Washington to keep that money without a fight. Arizona also could move on from Washington, figuring a player the coaches cannot trust (suspended for 20 of 32 games over a two-year span) is worthless to them.

Here is a great example of Peter treating a player who has had drug/alcohol issues purely from a "What does it mean in terms of football" point of view, rather than the "I wish this guy could get the help he needs" point of view. When it's an owner who gets detained for an alcohol/drug-related violation then Peter hopes this guy gets some help, but when it's a player who may or may not have alcohol/drug-related issues then Peter looks at it from a pure football standpoint and talks about how the coaches can't trust the player or feel double-crossed. Seems fair.

8. I think if Will Hill can blame second-hand smoke for his positive drug test—the league suspended him six games for the positive test last week—I can blame second-hand pizza for my weight.

Hill is probably thinking of an excuse, but second-hand smoke is a real thing and second-hand pizza is not. It was just last week that Peter bitched about a bar in Tennessee allowing their customers to smoke because it was bothering him while he ate. I get that Hill is using an excuse but it's interesting Peter makes this joke since second-hand smoke bothered him at a bar just over a week ago.

10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:

b. Holy cow, Edwin Encarnacion. You’re the most dangerous hitter in baseball right now. Encarnacion hit two homers the other night—16 for the month of May—that traveled the length of three homers in any ballpark in America. Wow.

So who is the first sportswriter who wants to speculate, but not come out and actually say it, that Encarnacion is using PED's?

h. Coffeenerdness: So I’m weak, and I just had a five-latte week. Just don’t tell the nutritionist.

Hopefully Peter's sort of-nutrionist is illiterate and stupid like Peter assumes the rest of his MMQB readers are and can't read what Peter just wrote in this MMQB. Otherwise she probably knows Peter had five lattes. Besides, someone who negotiates with a nutritionist about how many lattes he/she can have during the week probably isn't very serious about their goal of losing some weight.

The Adieu Haiku

Freeman, cut again.
How were so many so wrong?
Two words: work ethic.

We get it, Peter. Josh Freeman sucks and you think he sucks and everyone thinks he sucks. He's lazy. It's understood. Why do you harp on Freeman so much as if he is the only first round quarterback to ever not play up to expectations in the NFL? I must ask this because I'm not sure I've ever read one sportswriter so pointlessly down on a quarterback like King is down on Freeman. Freeman wasn't even a top-5 pick and it's not like he was terrible his entire career. Yet, he draws Peter's ire to where Peter talks about him in MMQB whenever possible, just to remind his readers that Josh Freeman is indeed a lazy, useless, money-stealing asshole.

5 comments Bill Simmons Gives the History of His Mailbag...Because, You Know, We Care and All

Bill Simmons does mailbags a lot now. Bill Simmons likes doing mailbags. Bill Simmons gives the history of his mailbags today. I don't particularly care. Because mailbags are Bill's favorite gimmick to use (and they are his favorite because he doesn't have to think of a column idea, which is convenient given the fact he seems to have run out of column ideas), he did another mailbag to go with his NFL Playoffs Divisional Round Picks. As always I will be mocking the SimmonsClones that write the questions and desperately want Bill's acceptance, as well as critiquing Bill himself.

{I am aware this isn't Bill's latest column and are his picks for the Divisional Round. I accidentally posted something else last week when I wanted to post this column, so figured I would rather post this on Tuesday rather than post TMQ on Monday. Bill's column, since it was mostly a mailbag felt less immediate than TMQ does. Plus, I like to give TMQ time to breathe during the week and not post over it too quickly with another long post, so the idea of posting TMQ late Thursday, this post on Friday and then my conference picks before the games on Sunday seemed like a lot of writing in a short time period. I'm just rambling at this point. Look! Something shiny!}

I had a more ambitious plan for my Round 2 playoff column, but my readers sent along so many quality mailbag questions that I didn't have a choice.

(Bill thinking) "Do I have any column ideas this week? I don't think I do. I could sit here and think of an idea or I could simply have my lemming-like readers write in questions and I will respond in a manner that reminds everyone I am the smartest guy in the room at all times. Yeah, mailbag it is."

Quick background on mailbags:

This "quick background" takes up 1088 words by the way. I can't cover it all. I have patience, but not that much patience.

Before my site launched, I sketched out a few running gimmicks that, in my opinion, could definitely work for a frequent online column. One idea was a straight rip-off of one of my favorite David Letterman gimmicks: "Viewer Mail." 

Don't ever think this whole "famous for being a sportswriter who writes like a fan" thing happened accidentally. Bill wasn't just writing and then got discovered for how well he wrote. It's all a plan. He plays the role of writing like the fan and the  mailbags and other gimmicks were part of his plan to get readers. I'm not knocking it, (thinks introspectively) we all play a certain role when we write, but Bill didn't just one day come up with his mailbags, it was a plan to have a running gimmick in order to get noticed. Again, not knocking it, just saying Bill had a plan and his success wasn't all an accident. He wrote in a way to get readers to read what he writes and did an outstanding job of reaching this goal.

I was especially excited for three ideas: I wanted to write a running diary of watching the NBA draft at my dad's house, I wanted to write about the 30 Worst Sports Movies of all time, and I wanted to write a "Viewer Mail" column. But I needed enough decent e-mails to pull it off. I posted my first four columns and stuck my AOL e-mail underneath every one of them, hoping I'd get enough e-mails for an entire "Viewer Mail."

I'm not sure why this story hasn't been turned into a movie yet. Get Aaron Sorkin writing the script immediately. I need David Fincher to direct.

But in 1997 the Internet was a bizarre cross between the Wild Wild West and a maximum-security prison. There were no rules, no accountability, and more incoherent, typo-infested, all-caps e-mails than you can possibly imagine.

Two comments from me: 

1. How the hell is this different from how the Internet is today? This is a perfect description about the Internet in 2013. In 2013, where is there accountability, rules or a lack of trolls at nearly any site you choose to visit?

2. I'm glad Bill is around to tell us all what the Internet was like 1997. Without him, we wouldn't have an idea of what the Internet was like 16 years ago. As I always say, nothing truly exists until Bill acknowledges its existence. He had to tell us what the Internet was like because we are all too stupid in his mind to remember what the Internet was like. Either that or Bill believes he was the only one who used the Internet in 1997.

I thought about calling the first one "Reader Mail" (as a Letterman homage) before ultimately settling on the totally forgettable moniker "Feedback."

This is as opposed to the original moniker "The Boston Sports Guy" and the even more original-pretending-to-be-less-Boston-centric moniker "The Sports Guy." Those are some unforgettably original and non-generic monikers.

Just for unintentional comedy's sake, here was the e-mail (and my response):

MZAMIARA WRITES: You've got it out for the Tiger. Let's see you make that kind of money on your sticky candy-coated couch potato Sega joy stick. Do you get nervous when that pizza man is about to bang on your door when you go to make that 12 foot putt?

SG: Hah! When I'm playing Sega Genesis, I can tune out just about everything — Charlestown parents screaming at their children ("Bow-bby, Maaaaak, Jenni-fah, come he-ahhh!"), the sweltering heat of my 4th floor apartment, the cackling sounds of my roommate as he watches Howard Stern's "E! Television" show, girlfriends leaving nasty messages on my answering machine ("Bill, I think we need to talk … I don't like how you make me wear Larry Bird's jersey to bed every night … "). Let me tell you, the pizza man ringing the doorbell doesn't even faze me. I welcome the distraction.

For God's sake, read that thing again! Did I even write that?

Bill could take the Sega Genesis and Howard Stern reference out of this answer and I would think it was from a 2013 column. Bill has become less creative and more repetitive since 1997, but if he thinks his writing style and jokes have changed that much in 16 years then he isn't very self-aware.

Who was that guy?

That guy is the same guy writing right now. There are differences, but possibly fewer than Bill wants to admit.

We posted the "Feedback" column and … boom! Coherent e-mails started trickling in! The next "Feedback" was significantly meatier. From there, we were off and running. To be clear — I'm not taking credit for creating mailbags or anything. It couldn't have been a more obvious gimmick for an online column.

Bill isn't taking credit for creating mailbags. Not at all. He knows he is the creator of mailbags, but he's not taking credit at this point.

But there was no model to point to in 1997, either. How long should these be? How long should my answers be? Could I make fun of readers within the column, or would they take it personally? Could I use the same person twice in the same column, or would it seem like I was desperate for e-mails? If a reader wrote something offensive, could I still run that e-mail and make fun of it, or was I condoning that e-mail by running it?

Boy, these are tough questions. I say Bill doesn't answer these questions right now and just saves the answers for the inevitable "30 for 30" episode about him and his reader mailbags.

"What if I told you readers could interact with a sportswriter in a way that has never been accomplished before? What if the readers made that sportswriter famous through a symbiotic process where they each justified the other's existence? What if the sportswriter threw the fact he had success beyond his wildest dreams back in the reader's face by bragging about how many famous people he knows and they were too stupid to realize it?"

I have never made up an e-mail simply because I never needed to make one up.

Sure, I believe this. Bill "never" made a question up (wink, wink).

I genuinely love writing them. And actually, I always write them long and end up cutting backward — there's usually 1,000 or so words that get chopped every time.

I'm intrigued by this idea of cutting backwards, as if it is different from editing. What is the alternative to cutting backwards? Cutting forwards? Cutting out words from a column when those words haven't been written yet? So basically Bill is thinking of a creative way (I guess he can still be somewhat creative when he needs to be) to say he edits his mailbags.

This week? We were about 10 e-mails too long. So fuck yeah, we're doing a two-part mailbag before Round Two picks.

He said "fuck." What a rebel. Creating Grantland was totally worth it in order to be able to write down curse words in his columns. It's so edgy you could cut yourself on the printed words.

Q: Why isn't it a bigger deal that Aaron Rodgers is going up against the team that passed on him with their first pick in the 2005 NFL Draft?
—Mike, Oregon, WI

SG: Hmmmmmmmm …

Are you telling me Aaron Rodgers hasn't gone to bed every night since April 23, 2005 waiting for a moment like this give the 49ers a huge F-U? This has the potential to be the biggest revenge story since Arnold in Commando.
— Matt Gullickson, Laguna Niguel

SG: Whoa, video evidence plus a forced reference to a 1980s movie? You know the key to my heart, Matt Gullickson.

Self-awareness does no good if it doesn't result in any type of change. Plus, it was considered a pretty big deal that Aaron Rodgers was going against the team that passed on him with the first pick and right near the hometown he grew up in as well (not really, because supposedly Aaron Rodgers grew up 170 miles from San Francisco, but never let the truth get in the way of a story). The media talked about this a lot. Like more than they should have considering Rodgers grew up three hours from San Francisco. Think of what city is three hours from where you live. Is that close to your hometown? Then that's why this story was somewhat silly. Other teams passed on Rodgers too, so it isn't like the 49ers were the only ones who didn't draft Rodgers.

Let's quickly zip through Rodgers's potential for an Eff You game.

Motivation: Through the roof. He's been waiting for eight solid years to play this specific game. And it's do-or-die to boot.

What about Colin Kaepernick's motivation to play a great game since he grew up a Wisconsin fan? Does that story just not fit the narrative?

Danger of Him Being Adrian Balboa'ed: (a.k.a. domesticated by a new wife or girlfriend who is either giving him phenomenal, mind-altering sex or saying things to him like "You have to stop blaming the Niners, it's juvenile, you're better than that" or "Your offensive line can't block, you're playing on the road … YOU CAN'T WIN!!!!!!").

No Bill Simmons column would be complete without a little bit of woman-hating. The only thing that can stop athletes from reaching their potential is some woman nagging him or using her special woman powers to divert him from his real ambitions. It was tongue-in-cheek the first 100 times Bill brought this exact same issue up in his columns over the last decade.

Niners star Justin Smith is either missing the game or playing hurt (huge blow to their pass rush) … Green Bay's receiving crew is the healthiest it's been all year … Rodgers is going against a first-year starter, so really, you'd be taking A FIRST-YEAR STARTER AGAINST AARON F-ING RODGERS … 

Notice through this entire summary of why Aaron Rodgers may have an "Eff You" game there isn't one mention of Green Bay's defense. It's almost like defense is important and the Packers have to try to defend the 49ers from scoring points as well. What ended up happening? The Green Bay defense couldn't stop the 49ers offense.

oh, and he's playing in the Bay Area against his hometown team, which didn't take him in the draft, in case you forgot.

This narrative drives me crazy. This isn't his hometown team. Aaron Rodgers grew up three hours away from San Francisco. Three hours is a long drive to say the 49ers are Rodgers' "hometown" team. Yes, Rodgers is from California, but it isn't like he grew up wandering around Candlestick Park or anything.

Q: Can we get a Levels of Losing ruling for the Redskins-Seahawks game: Watching the amazing athlete who saved your team shred his ligaments bit by bit, knowing he has no chance of pulling it out, yet the defense holds you in there until the end, realizing it was a wonderful season but now, with the bad snap everyone saw coming for three quarters, it may never happen again, confirming your fears that this was just too good to be true. The game doesn't matter. If only RGIII had made it out OK, I'd be alright.
—Milse, Brooklyn

I can give you a ruling that you need to put your big boy pants on and stop whining to Bill Simmons. I can also get a ruling for you that even if RGIII had made it out of that game ok, then you would still not be alright because you whine to a national columnist about your favorite sports team as if he was actually a friend of yours.

SG: After Tom Brady blew out his knee eight minutes into the 2008 season, I created a new Level of Losing called "The Left at the Altar Loss", which I described at the time as "When you're waiting for months and months for the season to start (like planning a wedding), then you have your fantasy drafts (the bachelor party), then you have the rehearsal dinner the night before (making your starting fantasy lineups, making your bets, figuring out which games you'll watch Sunday), then you go to the church for the actual wedding (getting in front of the TV for the 1 p.m. ET games) … and as you're standing on the altar, you find out your bride either changed her mind or got run over by the limo driver. 

Or as every other sports fan would have described what happened to the Patriots in 2008, "Our best player got injured the first week of the new NFL season." Bill likes to over-describe a situation in order to give the illusion of creativity. Mind you, the Patriots went 11-5 that year and somehow didn't make the playoffs. So using his typical technique of whining about it whenever his team doesn't win the championship in a given year, Bill is basically wanting everyone to feel bad for him because the Patriots lost Tom Brady and went 11-5. Yes, the Patriots lost Tom Brady in 2008, but I have a hard time feeling bad for an NFL team that has been to five Super Bowls since 2002...yet this sympathy is what Bill expects because he is always so freaking tortured by his teams.

Q: Was watching the Seahawks-Redskins game with a couple friends. As it was coming to an end, we were trying to figure out who the Hawks were going to play next. We easily named off SF and GB, but we couldn't remember who the other NFC playoff team was. It took us all about two minutes to finally say, "oh yeah, the Falcons!!!" Nobody believes in them. I can't be the only one who finds this hilarious. They could have finished 16-0 and still only Rembert would believe in them.
—Derek, Seattle

SG: (Suddenly nervous about the Seahawks +2.5.)

Right, because you, Derek, didn't remember the Falcons were the #1 seed in the NFC then this means no one else knew this either, because your thoughts have to be the same as every other sports fan's thoughts. I can see why Bill is your hero. Both of you have very self-centric points of view on the world.

Q: So I was preparing for my first sexual experience this weekend

I'm assuming this first sexual experience was with a hooker or with yourself because no self-respecting person would write to Bill Simmons about his first sexual experience and actually have a woman want to sleep with him.

and I encountered something more nerve-wracking than the experience itself … buying the condom. How does one go about it?

You put on your big boy pants (my phrase of the day apparently), go into a store, and then buy a box of condoms. It's very, very nerve-wracking unless you have nerves of jello or are 13 years old. I'm feeling bad for this kid. He's not only writing to Bill Simmons about his first sexual experience, but he also seems to not understand how to buy condoms. Here's a little tip. If you are too nerve-wracked to buy condoms, then you are going to be super-screwed (no pun intended) once you begin experiencing your first sexual experience and the girl throws a curveball in the gameplan.

Do you go to a convenience store far away so no one recognizes you? Do you buy other things with it so it looks like you haven't been dreading this moment all day? Do you look the cashier in the eye like "Yeah … you know what's up." No sports question here, just an important life question.

You go to a store where condoms are sold and then purchase a box. If the cashier is male and looks at you funny or with a smirk, simply say, "I need these for sex because aluminum foil didn't work so well last time. You probably know better than me actually, what kind of condom does your sister prefer?" If the cashier is a female and looks at you in a judging fashion, simply say, "I would ask you to join, but we do have a weight limit" and that should diffuse any tension immediately.

SG: Two tips: Always buy a few other things and ALWAYS make eye contact. And make the eye contact with one of those "That's right, I'm getting laid tonight" looks on your face. 

Not terrible advice. The scariest part is that someone actually wrote into Bill Simmons with this question.

I watched every play of that game with Mays and Jacoby from Grantland; we didn't even have the "Should they pull Griffin for Cousins?" conversation until Seattle went up by seven. (They said no. I said yes, but only because I thought Cousins had proven himself in a similar situation.)

Bill with the name-dropping as usual. Bill is incapable of simply saying he watched a sporting event with other people. He always has to name that other person for some reason, usually because the person he watched the sporting even with is a celebrity or has some level of fame.

Q: This should have been an easy victory for the NHL. The season will happen, hockey is back, Hallelujah Amen. BOOM! Instead they picked the worst possible time/manner to announce the deal. First, they made the announcement on 6 am on a Sunday. I don't know about you, but I'm almost always guaranteed to be passed out at that point. By the time I'm awake/not hungover it's football time. Why would the NHL announce the deal on a day that some major playoff games were happening? Are they shortsighted when it comes to EVERYTHING? I need ANSWERS!
 
—James Cutler, Philly

SG: That e-mail was Reason No. 193 why Gary Bruce Bettman is the NHL's serial killer. Reason No. 194: Instead of "leaking" a tentative schedule for that first weekend of games (January 19 and 20) before the players ratified the new CBA, the league smartly decided not to leak anything — now we're eight days away from the start of the season, and no NHL season-ticket holder can make plans that weekend or effectively answer questions like, "Should we make dinner reservations for that Saturday night or do you have a hockey game?" or "Are we still going camping this weekend or do we have to stick around?" And god forbid you have kids with scheduled playdates, birthday parties, soccer games or whatever — you're at the whim of Gary Bruce Bettman, the most incompetent sports commissioner who ever lived.

Doesn't Gary Bettman know that Bill Simmons, extremely casual hockey fan whenever the Kings or Bruins are winning, needs to know the NHL schedule now so that no playdates or soccer games interfere with the games? Because we all know yanking your kid from a birthday party to go to a fucking hockey game would go over incredibly well. Or was Bill looking to force the birthday kid to change the date so he can attend a hockey game?

"Sorry little Alex, if you want my son, and therefore me, to attend your birthday party you have to reschedule it around the Kings' hockey schedule. Change the date or I won't be there. I will send you a list of acceptable dates for your party by email later tonight."

True story: My father is visiting next weekend to see his grandkids and possibly watch the Broncos-Patriots game if the Patriots can get past Houston this weekend.

That's a true story and not at all made up? Riveting. True story: We don't need an update on what your family is doing or who is visiting. Though I could go for another picture of Bill's dad's mustache because it is awesome.

The Sports Gal and I ended up having this exchange.

So Bill's readers get an update on who is visiting the Simmons household AND a lengthy transcript of a conversation he had with his wife? Is this Christmas in January? I will mention an interesting comment my wife or someone else made from time-to-time on Twitter, but I'm not going to include a lengthy transcript of a conversation because NOBODY CARES.

I hate to ruin the entire conversation for everyone, but it ends this way:

Her: "So we can't plan anything on Saturday until we find out if there's a hockey game."
Me: "Basically."
Her: "Even thought it's basically a week from now?"
Me: "Right. And even though they've been holding my season-ticket money since last April."
Her: "SERIOUSLY, WHY IS HOCKEY SO STUPID?????"

Why can't the Sports Gal write Bill's columns for him anymore? I still think the reason she quit writing in Bill's columns like she used to do is because Bill realized the readers found her to be more interesting than him. Bill has to be the smartest and most clever guy in the room, so the Sports Gal had to go.

Q: Since Nate Silver is predicting a Pats-Seahawks Superbowl (and seeing that he has been 100% right lately) what are you going to do if that happens?
—Dave, So. Florida

Well, it turns out this ended up not happening. I'm not sure I get the question though. What would Bill do? Umm...maybe watch the Super Bowl on television or try to attend the game?

SG: And if it ends up being Pats-Seahawks, I need you to understand something. There's only one thing worse than losing a Super Bowl to anyone named "Manning" … and that's losing a Super Bowl to Pete Carroll. If the Seahawks are standing in the way of our fourth Bowl, I will turn on Russell Wilson faster than Magic Johnson turned on the Mike D'Antoni hiring.

"We're so tortured! It would be so terrible to lose to Pete Carroll, because when the Patriots fired Pete Carroll it led to the Patriots hiring one of the greatest head coaches in NFL history, five Super Bowl appearances and a Patriots dynasty. It's so terrible if we had to play Pete Carroll and lost the Super Bowl even though it led to the greatest period of success in Patriots history! Sympathy me!"

Is there nothing Bill Simmons will refrain from whining about? He works so hard to give New England fans a bad reputation. It would have been interesting if the Patriots had lost a Super Bowl to their ex-head coach, but it isn't the worst thing that could happen next to losing to a Manning. The firing of Pete Carroll led to the greatest period in Patriots history, yet Bill still finds a way to whine about potentially losing a Super Bowl to Carroll. Things could not have worked out better for the Patriots after Carroll got fired, but Bill still plays the whining/sympathy card.

Then Bill brings up a pretty good point about Christian Ponder and how the perception of him has changed slightly because Joe Webb stunk it up in the playoff game against the Packers. Ponder was seen as the weak link for the Vikings, and while there is still this perception, his stock has increased some with Webb's performance against the Packers. When Bill doesn't have his head up in his own ass, he can still make an interesting point.

Q: It's finally here, the moment I've been waiting for all season; the chance to bet a road underdog against the Falcons in the Playoffs. But now I'm second guessing myself. Thinking this is the year Matt Ryan finally breaks through because they are the "Nobody believes in us" 13-3 #1 seed. I hate this.
—AJ, Peabody, MA

SG: Keep your eyes on the prize. Don't get suckered in by the whole "West Coast team playing a 1 p.m. East Coast game" thing, Chris Clemons's knee injury, or even the fact that it's the most important game Matt Ryan has ever played (and he knows it). And don't worry about the "Nobody Believes In Us" thing. The Giants murdered that theory this season. Everyone's onto it now. Can't work if everyone has their guards up. Take the Seahawks, take the points. They are better.

Bill Simmons created the "Nobody Believes in Us" thing himself, so now he is the one proclaiming it to be dead because it didn't work for the Giants? Does he really believe the 2012 New York Giants were the first team to do the whole "Nobody Believed in Us" thing and not have it work out? Nearly every sports team at some point plays the "Nobody Believed in Us" card and sometimes it turns out not working for them. But no, in 2012 because it didn't work for the New York Giants then the theory has been murdered.

Look for Bill to use the "Nobody Believed in Us" mantra at some point in the future in one of his columns (spoiler alert: or this column). He'll think of an excuse for why the theory is no longer murdered.

Q: After the formal introduction of Andy Reid as Kansas City's new head coach, do you realize the Chiefs have hired two more of your "Flabbergasted Four" as head coaches, giving them three in all (Herm Edwards, Romeo Crennel and Andy Reid)! Can I get a "ladies and gentlemen your Kansas City Chiefs?"
—Chris James, Blackstone, NY

SG: And don't rule out the Chiefs firing Andy in 2016 and hiring Brad Childress to complete the Flabbergasted Four Trifecta! (Wait, what? They're already talking to Brad about joining Andy's staff? Are we sure?) In all caps … LADIES AND GENTLEMEN … YOUR KANSAS CITY CHIEFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've always noticed how a lot of what Bill writes becomes a circular discussion and very self-contained in the topics discussed...at least in the mailbags he runs. A mailbag usually consists of Bill's readers telling him how right he was about something, contributing to an idea that Bill has created or Bill improving upon an idea his readers already have. Bill's writing usually progresses this way:

1. Bill creates a "team" of athletes or celebrities or makes a joke/observation in his column.

2. Bill's readers add names to that team or add on to the joke/observation.

3. Bill then uses this team or joke/observation the reader added, improves on it 10%, because he can't allow someone to be smarter than him and then claims ownership.

4. Bill's readers tell him how smart he is for thinking of this joke/observation or team.

5. Bill's own perception that he is the smartest and most clever guy in the room is reinforced, which is all that seems to matter anyway. The readers see that Bill listens to them and acknowledges their ideas, but because he is so much smarter than them, he had to improve on the idea. It's like one big circle-jerk so that Bill's readers can remind him of how clever and funny he is.

Q: Have you realized that if Peyton's Broncos beat the Patriots this year, Tom Brady & the Patriots will most likely have been denied four additional Super Bowls directly because of the Manning brothers? This got me thinking of a movie idea, involving Bill Belichick as an evil mastermind (not too far off from real-life), who creates a time machine and sends Brady back to the 1970s to stop Archie Manning from conceiving his two sons. With all the different time-travel rules the movie could play with, the possiblities are endless. Wouldn't this be a must-own Blu-ray?
—Adam, Lexington, MA

Uh-oh, this reader has a good idea and seems to be very clever. Bill will not stand for this.

SG: I knew this was a great idea because it could easily be a movie or animated series, but also, it's something I spent about 15 seconds mulling over while thinking, Wait, what if this could actually happen in real life?

Commence with Bill improving the idea by 10% so that he can claim it as his own and also show Adam from Massachusetts that he (Bill) is the smartest and most clever guy in the room at all times.

But you left out a crucial part of the plot: Roger Goodell catching wind of Belichick's scheme, then going back in time himself to stop Brady (like Robert Patrick in Terminator 2) so he can protect a future world where the Mannings rule football. Oh, and he could spend his spare time convincing thousands of 1970s players to sign documents releasing the league from all accountability for their future health issues while he's there.

Bill can not allow this good idea to stand on its own. He has to improve upon this reader's idea for some reason. This is a common occurrence in Bill's mailbags. His readers submit an idea and then Bill improves on the idea because his ego can't stand the idea of presenting a reader idea without showing how much smarter than the reader he is.

You want to make sure they can throw the ball downfield (they can) and that their big-play guys can make two big plays (yes for the Ravens with Ray Rice, Torrey Smith, Anquan Boldin and even Bernard Pierce), and that they're on something of a mission (Ray Lewis's announcement clinched that). You want to make sure they can handle the January elements (no problem there). And if there's a dash of "Nobody Believes In Us!," even better (and there is).

From earlier in this column:

And don't worry about the "Nobody Believes In Us" thing. The Giants murdered that theory this season. Everyone's onto it now. Can't work if everyone has their guards up.

It seems everyone is on to it now, except when Bill needs to use this theory when it becomes convenient to use this theory. When Bill needs to use "Nobody Believes in Us" reasoning for why a team should win a game, then the idea isn't murdered anymore. So was the "Nobody Believes in Us" thing only dead as it pertains to the Giants? If so, why wouldn't this logic pertain to the Ravens as well? After all, it is hard to believe no one really believes in the Ravens since they made the AFC Championship Game last year. This is the issue with creating theories and not sticking by them, it creates confusion and allows the theory-creator to apply the theory whenever it is convenient for him to do so. Basically, the theory turns into this malleable idea that has no impact on the reader.

Then Bill had the same strange feeling about the Ravens beating the Broncos that I had, which disturbs me beyond belief. This led to a riveting exchange with Mike Lombardi:

Me: "Am I crazy or can the Ravens win this game?"
Lombardi: "You are NOT crazy."

I'm just glad Bill relays these conversations to us. I do find it interesting that Mike Lombardi is supposed to be such a good friend of Bill Belichick's, but Belichick hasn't seen fit to hire Lombardi over the past few years. Maybe Lombardi just liked working for the Cleveland Browns and NFL Network.

My fears for picking against the Falcons: Taking three road teams in Round 2 … going against Matt Ryan in what's clearly a "My Career Is On Trial" Game … the "Nobody Believes In Us Even Though We're A No. 1 Seed" thing … 

Again, this despite the fact Bill said "Nobody Believes in Us" was dead earlier in this very column when discussing these same Falcons. The idea is dead until Bill needs it again.

My fears for picking the Falcons: ...the fact that Seattle has "the look" (as Lombardi loves to say) …

Mike Lombardi, genius in his own mind.

Seattle's oversized cheating cornerbacks matching up nicely with Atlanta's oversized receivers …

After the 2004 AFC Championship Game where the Colts receivers were manhandled by the Patriots secondary, it's hard for me to read Bill referring to the Seahawks corners as "cheating." Or is this a reference to the fact the corners both claim they took Adderall and that's why they tested positive for a banned substance? It's probably a little of both.

PATRIOTS (-10) over Texans

Keep this in mind: The Patriots haven't submitted a dominant playoff performance against a quality team in years. (No, you can't count the Denver Tebows last January.)

And why doesn't this game count? It was a dominant playoff performance. I am guessing it doesn't count because Bill doesn't want it to count, which is pretty much bullshit. He can't say "this game doesn't count" simply because if the game counted it would ruin the point he wants to prove.

"Keep this in mind: Peyton Manning has never won a Super Bowl. (No, you can't count the Super Bowl against Rex Grossman and the Bears)."

It's been 11 years since that first Super Bowl victory in New Orleans, back when Bledsoe and Ty and Willie were still around, when the Patriots franchise was still something of a joke, when the Boston sports scene was stuck in a rut, when it seemed absolutely inconceivable that the New England Patriots would ever win anything other than a booby prize. They ended up winning three Bowls. With a couple of breaks, they could have won three more.

And with a couple of breaks not going their way, they could have won one Super Bowl (Bill continues to consistently try to make people hate New England sports fans, doesn't he?). Keep that in mind as well. The breaks in Super Bowls didn't just go against the Patriots, though I know Bill can't fathom the idea one of his favorite teams may have gotten a break or two. In Bill's mind, his teams are always so tortured that the breaks always go against his favorite teams. So it is unfathomable to Bill that the Patriots benefited from a break or two along the way. Bill is enamored with "what if?" scenarios because it allows him to control sports history in the way that he sees fit.

But the mission will remain the same. And it starts this weekend.

Bill was right, the Patriots won. I don't know who I want to win the Super Bowl, but I always lean towards anti-Patriots just so I don't have to hear Bill Simmons gloat and make up drama-filled narratives about how resilient and outstanding the current Patriots team was as compared to every other team in NFL history. I already have to deal with that bullshit when he discusses the Celtics (which now that they are winning games, he should be discussing the Celtics more often very soon).