4 comments Finally, Someone Tackles the Important Topic of Kevin Love's Ratedness

I have come to the conclusion that I just don't like Bill Simmons' writing style. I guess it was obvious to everyone but me. I don't like how he writes like his thoughts are the definitive thoughts on a subject and how he uses his own opinion as proof his own opinion is correct. Bill also tends to confuse his opinion with facts. He'll write something like, "Fact: No center has ever impacted a game the way Bill Russell did," when this is clearly an opinion and not a fact. So Bill has tried to determine Kevin Love's ratedness because he has nothing else to talk about and he needs to keep writing columns in a desperate attempt to trick his lemming-like Simmonsites that he still enjoys writing. Bill does everything I mentioned up above that annoys me in this column when determining whether Kevin Love is over, under, or properly rated. 

How did Kevin Love become part of LeBron’s “I’m Coming Home” package to Cleveland even before that signing went down? LeBron passes 40,000 career minutes during the seventh minute of opening night in October, that’s how. The King doesn’t have time to wait for two Canadian kids to evolve into trusted playoff commodities. Nothing personal, Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett. But you were omitted from that Sports Illustrated letter for a reason.

Oh yeah, another Bill Simmons writing hallmark is using too many words to say something when one sentence would work perfectly. How did Kevin Love become a part of LeBron's "I'm Coming Home" package? LeBron still wants to have proven NBA stars around him, so he was encouraged the trade for Kevin Love would help him make an NBA Finals sooner rather than later.

From what I’m hearing, the trade has been done — in principle, anyway — since before LeBron sent Ohio into a euphoric tizzy. I thought the Cavs should have waited a few months, if only to make sure that Wiggins wasn’t the Pippen to LeBron’s Jordan. But new Cavs GM LeBron James wants to win now.

It never doesn't sound douchey when Bill drops a "what I'm hearing" comment in a column. He's an NBA insider who breaks news after it's happened.

Of everyone involved, Love might have the most at stake. From May to August, he became the league’s most polarizing player without ever playing a game.

Yeah, Love has more at stake than LeBron returning home with the expectations he will win the city of Cleveland an NBA title. Sure.

Few watched him regularly in Minnesota; everyone had an opinion. Lousy defender, chased his own stats, couldn’t lead his team to the playoffs, needs help. That’s where many landed.

And if you landed there, you were wrong.

In this column, Bill will show Kevin Love is sort of a lousy defender, every player needs help to win games, and Love has never been to the playoffs. So, while the opinion on Love may be wrong, three of the four opinions Bill listed were not wrong, yet he describes these opinions as wrong for some reason.

But history says there are 26 different reasons why an NBA star becomes polarizing.

This is another annoying trait of Bill's writing. He writes lists with a specific number of items listed and then acts like this is the definitive list of items. History shows there are 26, not 25 or 27, different reasons why an NBA star becomes polarizing. Don't argue with Bill about pulling this number out of his ass, it's history that proves it. You know, history. The same history that Bill can't reference other than to use the word in a vague manner.

Let’s see …

We had no idea there were 26 different reasons. WE didn't know!

He gets paid way more than he’s worth (Spencer Haywood, Shawn Kemp, Joe Johnson) or he doesn’t come through when it matters (Elvin Hayes, Karl Malone).

Wait, so Joe Johnson is an NBA star? Isn't he overpaid because he's not a star?

He cares about too many things that aren’t basketball (Shaq), or he’s a little too outspoken (Barkley again).

When was Shaq polarizing because he made movies and rap albums? I don't recall him being polarizing because of this at all.

That’s a lot of reasons! Kevin Love hit a polarizing grand slam: He’s been criticized for chasing his own stats, putting up empty stats, being difficult and demanding, and earning “superstar” status without his Minnesota teams ever winning. Love spawns enough arguments and counterarguments to fill three BuzzFeed lists, as you’re about to see.

This is the part where Bill starts writing "Fact:" followed immediately by an opinion that he is stating as a fact. Fact: Bill Simmons is an incredibly frustrating writer. 

Fact: Love is one of the NBA’s 12 best players. It’s LeBron and Durant, then it’s Blake, Curry, CP3, Carmelo, Harden, Westbrook, Howard, Love, Aldridge and Anthony Davis in some order.

Regardless of whether I agree with this or not, this is an opinion, not a fact. Facts are based on information that proves something (like, Kevin Love is the only white guy on this list above), while an opinion is stating something like this exact sentence that is based solely on an opinion (like, Kevin Love is one of the NBA's 12 best players).

Rebuttal: Joakim Noah, Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard and Serge Ibaka weren’t on that list … but their teams would NOT trade them straight up for Love.

Rebuttal to the rebuttal: Trade value has very little to do with whether a player is among the best in his given sport. Also, if the sentence Bill has under "Fact" is actually a fact, then it can't be rebutted. How do you rebut a fact since a fact is based on information that proves something? I can't rebut that the Braves are located in Atlanta or play at Turner Field. I can't rebut that B.J. Upton is the current worst hitter in the lineup. The facts support this. I can rebut an opinion that B.J. Upton is the most disappointing player in the majors with facts that rebut this argument. See how it works? An opinion is stated and can be rebutted with facts. Bill doesn't understand. Saying Kevin Love is one of the NBA's 12 best players is an opinion that could be rebutted with statistics showing this isn't true.

Fact: Last season, Love averaged 26.1 points, 12.5 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game. Only Kareem, Wilt, Elgin and Billy Cunningham ever averaged 26, 12.5 and 4 in the same season. Nobody has achieved that feat in 38 years. Bird, Barkley, Baylor, Lucas and Malone never did it.

Now this is a fact.

Rebuttal: Love has played six NBA seasons and missed the playoffs every time.

This isn't really a rebuttal of the fact above, but is more of a rebuttal to the idea Kevin Love is only playing for himself to achieve these statistics. A better writer might include this so he doesn't confuse the reader on what the hell is being rebutted.

Then Bill goes on and throws more Kevin Love facts out and rebuts them by re-repeating that the Timberwolves have never made the playoffs with Love on the team. As always, Bill is not afraid to say the same thing over and over, just with slightly different re-phrasing to trick his readers into believing he has written more content when he is really just killing space.

Oh, and he finished third in the whole league in rebounding. Offensive power forwards like Love are basically created in Dork Elvis’s basketball lab.

I feel like Daryl Morey should hire Jeff "8-8" Fisher as the Rockets head coach just to complete the circle of guys who inexplicably are considered at the top of their profession.

See, that's an opinion.

Fact: Love grabbed 12.5 rebounds per game in 2014, but he also became one of the 41 NBA players who hoisted 500 3s in one season. Of that group, no other player averaged more than 9 rebounds in that same season. Think about THAT for a second.

Rebuttal: Yeah, and his offensive rebounding dropped from 4.5 in 2011 to 2.9 in 2014. Do you really want the league’s best offensive rebounder standing 24 feet away from the basket?

No, you don't. But...do you want the lane cleared for Kyrie Irving and LeBron James to drive to the basket? Possibly you do.

Of anyone averaging 30-plus minutes per game at power forward or center last season, the NBA’s five worst interior defenders were Thaddeus Young (60.2% FG), Tristan Thompson (59.1%), Kevin Love (57.4%), Nikola Vucevic (56.4%) and Nikola Pekovic (55.2%). By that same criterion, the NBA’s worst shot-blockers were Zach Randolph at 0.3 blocks per game, David Lee, Thompson and Pekovic at 0.4 blocks, then Love, Young and Glen Davis at 0.5 blocks. Yes, Love and Pekovic were Minnesota’s two highest-paid players last season.

Remember back when Bill wrote:

everyone had an opinion. Lousy defender, chased his own stats, couldn’t lead his team to the playoffs, needs help. That’s where many landed. 

And if you landed there, you were wrong.

Bill just showed that Love has not led the Timberwolves to the playoffs and he is statistically one of the worst shot-blockers and interior defenders in the NBA. So how in the holy hell was anyone "wrong" for landing on these conclusions? I recognize that Bill will create his own reality from time-to-time, but Love is a lousy defender, so if I landed on that conclusion I am not wrong just because Bill Simmons wants me to be wrong.

Fact: Even though Love’s 2013-14 PER (26.9) cracked the top-90 all time, he probably hasn’t reached his offensive prime. Duncan’s highest PER happened in Year 7 (27.1). Bird’s highest: Year 9 (27.8). Dirk’s highest: Year 8 (28.1). Barkley’s highest: Year 7 (28.9). Garnett’s highest: Year 9 (29.4). Karl Malone’s highest: Year 12 (28.9). Even Durant peaked last year in Year 7 (29.8).

I'm sure there are zero other examples that Bill didn't include here because they didn't fit what he was trying to prove. Also, when using PER and when each player peaked in terms of PER Bill should pay special attention to the player's age and not how many years that player was in the NBA. Kevin Garnett peaked in Year 9, but he was 27 years old. Tim Duncan peaked in Year 7, but he was 29 years old. Bird was in Year 9, but he was 31 years old. You get the point. I think age is more important than how many years Love has been in the NBA and what this means for his future production.

Rebuttal: Bird, Duncan and Malone never missed the playoffs — not once. 

Rebuttal to the rebuttal. Kevin Love has never played with a teammate of the caliber that any of these three players had on their team as the second and third-best players. But how could the supporting cast around Kevin Love be important?

Has Love become this generation’s Jerry Lucas, a gifted power forward who chases his own numbers without making anyone else better?

I don't know. I guess we will find out soon, won't we? As opposed to wasting time asking questions that will be answered in a year or so, why not just have patience and wait? I ask the question already knowing the answer. See, Bill has to find something to write about. The Celtics aren't interesting to him because they aren't winning, the same goes for the Red Sox, and it isn't NFL season quite yet. So because he is out of column ideas, he tries to determine the ratedness of Kevin Love using the scientific method of giving his opinion. He's got to write something, so this is what comes out. "The Sports Guy" doesn't really write about sports as much anymore and is more of an NBA guy now.

Could he become a better version of Bosh, someone who submitted big numbers on bad teams before recalibrating his game to fit in with a champion? Is he doing something wrong? Or has he been wronged? Or both?

Or neither? Or either/or? Or neither, but possibly one of those, but definitely two of those? (checks to see how much column space has been used) Or definitely two of those, but most likely another one, but doubtful for all three at the same time? Or possibly the first one, doubtful for the second one, and just maybe for the third one?

The big question for me: How can someone experience that much individual success without having it translate to team success?

(Checks the Timberwolves roster and finds the answer)

Ideally, everyone falls into different roles — most contenders feature an alpha-dog scorer/creator (LeBron, Durant, Griffin, whomever), along with a second scorer and/or distributor as his running mate, then an interior defender/rebounder, two or three shooters and some role players.

But Kevin Love isn't really an alpha dog scorer. He got his points with the fifth most field attempts in the NBA and he plays an entirely different type of game from LeBron and Durant. He's a scorer, but I wouldn't describe him as an alpha dog scorer.

The 2014 Timberwolves followed much of that model on paper.

Love = alpha dog. Ricky Rubio = distributor. Nik Pekovic = big man. Kevin Martin/Chase Budinger = shooters. Everybody else = role players.

Except on the Timberwolves roster there is no interior defender, no second scorer, and the distributor isn't a very good scorer. The second and fourth- best scorers on the T-Wolves roster required 25 shots per game to score 31 points. One of the shooters shot 35% from three-point range and the other shooter took 15 shots per game. Yeah, the T-Wolves followed some of this model, but they had the B or C-level player at each of these positions. Their big man can't protect the rim, their shooters and scorers have to shoot a lot to score, and their distributor is the guy passing the ball to these volume scorers without scoring too much himself because he's a bad shooter.

You can pick apart Thompson’s résumé on paper — he’s only good for 18, 3 and 2 every night and can’t create shots for anyone else. Still, he’s a beloved teammate who stretches the defense in a Korver-like way and defends three positions well.

I disagreed with the Warriors because, in my opinion, they severely overrated Thompson. But at least they put real thought into their decision … you know, as opposed to how last year’s Timberwolves team was slapped together.

I think I'm losing my mind here. So the Warriors put thought into their decision to not trade Klay Thompson, unlike the T-Wolves who did their best to follow the model Bill himself states a contender would want to follow. I'm confused how the T-Wolves, by Bill's own admission, followed the model of a contender but also slapped a team together in Bill's opinion. Didn't the T-Wolves put thought into the roster if they sort of follow the model Bill is advocating that a contender should follow? I feel like these two opinions of Bill's aren't entirely consistent with each other.

Pekovic might be a crafty pick-and-roll guy and a solid rebounder, but he’s a lousy interior defender (as described above); teaming him with Love was like building a human layup line. And Kevin Martin couldn’t defend anyone five years ago. 

Throw in Rick Adelman’s family issues and nobody should have been surprised when the T-Wolves capsized in a loaded Western Conference.

And no one was surprised, which is why a few paragraphs ago I gave the reason Love has never made the playoffs as being because he has played with shitty teammates. I feel like this is very well understood and there's no reason to kill space proving something that many people reading this column probably already know. I figured it was assumed Love has shitty teammates. Why else is he wanting to leave Minnesota? So I was hoping when having this discussion on Love's ratedness Bill could bring something other than "He didn't have good teammates" to the table as to why Love has never made the NBA playoffs.

They outscored opponents by 2.7 points, and Basketball-Reference.com had their “expected” record at 48-34, but they struggled in close games. During one three-month stretch from November 1 through January 31, they went 1-13 in games decided by five points or fewer. Then again, saying they had “bad luck in close games” is like saying “My buddy would get laid all the time if he knew how to close with girls.”

Great analogy, Bill. I feel like you understand the college age crowd and the struggle they experience trying to get laid. You are the cool dad!

Minnesota’s defining collapse happened in Phoenix in late March, a must-win game that I happened to watch. 

Minnesota's defining collapse just happened to be the game that Bill watched. Nothing exists until Bill has acknowledged it's existence, so of course the defining collapse is the game that Bill watched. If Bill didn't watch a Timberwolves' collapse then it couldn't be defining because Bill didn't witness it.

The good news: Love finished with a 36-14-9, and the Wolves scored a whopping 73 points in the first half. The bad news: They blew a 22-point lead and scored 17 points in the fourth, missing 16 of 21 shots and committing six turnovers. Adelman even broke out his classic “Uh-oh, we’re collapsing and I can’t stop it!” face; you would have thought C-Webb, Porter, Drexler and Peja were out there.

A bad defensive team couldn't score points and turned the ball over.

And here’s where numbers deviate from intangibles …

(And why Golden State ultimately avoided Love … and why people have been picking Love apart these past few months … and why so many basketball junkies and NBA lifers are down on Love … and why Coach K warned him before the 2012 Olympics to tweak his attitude if he wanted to play a meaningful minute … and why so many basketball people wonder if LeBron might ultimately regret pushing Cleveland to mortgage its trade assets for someone who hasn’t played a big game since he was in high school … )

Coach K warned Love to tweak his attitude if he wanted to play a minute, which turned into "Okay, you are tall and we have no height so go out there and play with whatever attitude you may have at the moment."

When the collective personality of an NBA team is off, you can see it.

Much like I can see when unnecessary italics are being used.

We come to know their every expression. It’s like going out to a marathon dinner with another couple — you just know them better after the check comes. And anyone who watched the 2014 Timberwolves regularly, or fairly regularly, knew something was amiss. Love has always been a lead-by-example star, not a galvanizing, get-on-my-back guy.

Remember when this column was about whether Kevin Love was underrated, overrated, or properly rated? It's halfway through this column and at no point has Love's ratedness been discussed. Bill is just doing his typical rambling form of writing.

When your best player, your coach AND your point guard aren’t on the same page? Uh-oh. Their off-court issues bubbled over when Love publicly (and probably stupidly) called out two bench players for sulking during games. But I knew something was wrong sooner than that.

Bill totally knew something was wrong before then. HE KNEW! Bill just didn't write about it at the time, because he forgot to, but otherwise he would have written about it if he had remembered to. Bill promises he isn't claiming now to have known something before anyone else knew something. He really did know and he's not lying. He just didn't mention it, that's all, but Bill knew. Oh yes, he did.

In December, when I caught them in Lob City, Minnesota choked away a winnable road game (surprise!) despite Love exploding for 48 points and doing everything short of drinking Blake Griffin’s milkshake.

Fact: Blake Griffin has one of the NBA's 12 best milkshakes.

But on the game’s biggest play — overtime, down one, final seconds — Rubio inexplicably ignored a scorching-hot Love (open near the 3-point line) and fed Pekovic for the game-losing shot, followed by a perplexed Love slowly backpedaling in disbelief. I wanted Love to tear into Rubio right there. What are you doing? I HAVE 48 POINTS, YOU DUMBASS!!!! Instead, he remained in WTF mode for two extra seconds before glumly walking back to the bench. 

This is when Bill KNEW something was wrong with the Timberwolves. Really, he did know then. He wrote it in his diary, which he would show you, but he forgot it at home. Bill knows everything before everyone else knows anything, he just consistently fails to mention what he knew until after the fact. He can tell you after a movie was over he knew how that movie was going to end.

We pay them like franchise players before they’re ready, and we expect them to magically evolve into leaders by watching a few dozen sports movies or getting advice from their buddies from home.

Quit with the "we" shit. I don't pay anybody in the NBA and I don't expect players to become better at their sport because they watch movies. Maybe Bill expects this out of franchise players and is just doing his typical "we" crap he does, but don't draw me into this.

You can pick apart Kevin Love’s first six seasons in a variety of ways … just as long as you admit that he was the league’s secret League Pass MVP last year, as well as someone who needs to be seen in person to be believed.

I'll admit this just as long as you can admit you pull most of your column ideas out of your ass and haven't really cared about what you are writing for two years now.

He’s a flat-out weapon and an underrated heat check guy. And whenever he grabs a rebound and flicks a 60-foot outlet in one motion, it’s genuinely breathtaking to watch.

I'm glad Bill is pointing this out. I am too stupid to understand how much fun to watch Kevin Love is without watching him in person or having Bill describe it to me.

I mention these things only so people will stop comparing 2014-Love-going-to-Cleveland with 2011-Bosh-going-to-Miami. Bosh was never, at any point in his life, THAT good. Bosh never could have eviscerated 10 or 11 teams in one season like Love just did.

Plus, Bosh's team did make the playoffs (twice) before he went to the Heat with Anthony Parker as his wingman and Jamario Moon and Juan Dixon getting plenty of minutes. So yeah, they are different in that way.

When Bosh played for Toronto, he never made me say, “Oh, cool, he’s coming to town tonight and I get to go!!!!”

Bills believes his personal feelings about a player has a role in how good of a player that athlete is. Why am I not shocked that Bill believes an athlete can only be seen as great if seen that way through the eyes of Bill Simmons? The world revolves around Bill, you know.

If you remember, a much doughier Love jumped from UCLA to a rebuilding lottery team in Minnesota, went through two coaches and two GMs, lost 58 games and watched Al Jefferson tear his ACL. And that was just his rookie season. During the 2009 draft, the immortal David Kahn passed on Curry twice — with the no. 5 and no. 6 overall picks — to take Rubio (knowing he might spend an extra two years in Europe — which he did) and Jonny Flynn (bustaroo). So much for some help.

Again, since Bill is the one who brought the comparison up. Look at the roster for the Raptors two playoff teams. 2006-2007 and 2007-2008. If Bill wants to make the comparison, I would argue Chris Bosh had as much help in Toronto as Love had in Minnesota.

Nobody can do worse than McHale, Kahn, Flip Saunders and beleaguered owner Glen Taylor did running the Timberwolves these past 10 years.

This is a true statement. Where this leaves me is to still ask the question of when the hell is Love's ratedness going to be discussed? Also, it was very well accepted that Kevin Love hasn't had great teammates so why is Bill wasting so much time proving something that has already been proven as if this is new information?

You can’t blame him for leaving skid marks. And if Minnesota’s overwhelming incompetence inadvertently affected his spirit these past two seasons, you can’t blame him for that, either.

No, you can't blame Love, but it does bring up the question of whether Love can adapt his game to playing with good teammates and not sacrificing those things that have made him great in Minnesota. Bill already stated in this article that Love was,

learning all the wrong lessons on the wrong team.

So the question becomes, and again Bill made the comparison himself, if Love is more talented than Bosh then can Love still end up being Chris Bosh on the Heat because he learned wrong lessons for six years in Minnesota? Is the comparison apt because what Love has in talent over Bosh, he lacks the chemistry part that Bill thinks is so crucial to a team's success? Is he going to sulk when LeBron gets the last shot or LeBron passes the ball to Kyrie for the last shot rather than hit Love in the corner? None of these questions Bill will answer in this column.

Here’s the entire list starting with the 1976-77 season, right after the merger, of forwards who made All-NBA first or second teams.

Karl Malone: 11 first teams + two second teams
Tim Duncan: 10 + 3
Larry Bird: 9 + 1
LeBron James: 8 + 2
Charles Barkley: 5 + 5
Julius Erving: 5 + 2
Kevin Durant: 5 + 0
Dirk Nowitzki: 4 + 5
Kevin Garnett: 4 + 3
Scottie Pippen: 3 + 2
Elvin Hayes: 2 + 0
Bernard King: 2 + 0
Grant Hill: 1 + 4
Dominique Wilkins: 1 + 4
Chris Webber: 1 + 3
Chris Mullin: 1 + 2
Marques Johnson: 1 + 2

Working off of that list, here’s everyone who made an All-NBA team at least twice but missed the playoffs in at least one of those seasons.

Spoiler alert: There are five players, including Kevin Love. 

Grant Hill, 1998 (second team): Did Grant Hill things (21-8-7) for a 37-win Pistons team … although this was such a shallow year for good forwards that (a) Vin Baker (?!?!?!?!??) made the second team, and (b) Scottie Pippen missed 38 games and somehow made third-team All-NBA anyway.

Baker did put up 19-8-2 that year with a 20.4 PER. It's not like he was terrible.

Love, 2012 and 2014 (second team): Our only post-merger player to be named a top-10 guy twice … and miss the playoffs both of those times.
 
Is that a historical fluke or a major red flag?

It could be the product of the team around Kevin Love not being very good. Hasn't this been the main assertion of this column so far?

Let’s return to Barkley for a second, because that’s the best parallel here. I was there for Barkley. The whole time.

Bill was there the whole time for Barkley, so he KNOWS about Charles Barkley. What a bizarre sentence Bill has written. It's like Bill is bragging that he was old enough to see Barkley's entire career and he's talking down to his readers who he believes lack the perspective Bill has as one of the few people still alive to see all of Barkley's NBA career.

He’s one of the best 25 players ever by any calculation —

I sort of feel like this is an opinion by any calculation, but carry on...

Barkley was definitely a superstar, whereas Love is an almost-but-not-quite superstar. Big difference.

Oh, and in 1992, Barkley was traded to Phoenix for Jeff Hornacek, Andrew Lang and Tim Perry … while Barkley was still in his prime.

What players Charles Barkley was traded for isn't really a good way to begin a comparison between him and Kevin Love. It's a silly way to start a comparison, but of course it makes perfect sense to begin this way in Bill's mind.

We didn’t really have the Internet in 1992,

We didn't have the Internet in 1992, but Bill knew the Internet was coming and the impact it would have on society. He knew before anyone else did, even before Al Gore, the man behind the creation of the Internet.

but if we did, Charles Barkley would have been picked apart the same way we pick Love apart right now.

Not an opinion. Fact.

And Barkley was un-freaking-believable in person. He wasn’t just on my “Oh, cool, he’s coming to town tonight and I get to go!!!!” list during his first 10-11 years; he’s on my permanent all-time list with people like MJ, Magic and Julius.

Well, then that definitely increases Barkley's legacy if Bill Simmons had a high opinion of him. If Bill liked to watch Charles Barkley play, then this obviously means Barkley is a better player than "we" thought.

I love watching Kevin Love, but I don’t think I would ever tell my grandkids about him. I’d tell my grandkids about seeing Chuck.

Bill wouldn't tell his grandchildren about seeing Love play, but Bill also thinks Love is on the list with LeBron, Durant, Westbrook, Griffin, Davis and Curry as players he can't wait to watch play. Love is one of the seven most fun NBA players to watch right now, but not notable enough for Bill to tell his grandchildren about. The NBA must have some fairly boring players to watch live if there are only six active players Bill would mention to his grandchildren that he saw play.

Other than that, it’s easier to compare Love and Barkley than I thought.

Bill is surprised at how much his opinion on how easy it is to compare Love and Barkley contradicts his previous opinion on how easy it is to compare Love and Barkley.

Like Love, Barkley battled weight issues early in his career that led to him dropping lower in the draft than he should have gone.

Well, that and Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Jordan were selected before Charles Barkley. Sam Perkins was taken right before Barkley and he didn't turn out to be a terrible player either. Barkley had weight issues though, so that's true, but he fell partly because there were good players taken in front of him. The same goes for Kevin Love, who had Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook taken ahead of him.

Like Love, Barkley was a below-average defensive player who ideally needed to be flanked by a shot-blocker, although he protected the rim much better than Love does.

If this is an indication of how bad Kevin Love is at protecting the rim, Barkley is six inches shorter than Love and protected the rim better than Love does. But no, those who say Love is a bad defender, those people are just wrong in Bill's opinion.

And like Love, Barkley had evolved into a polarizing personality by the time that 1991-92 season ended. Here’s what Clifton Brown wrote for the New York Times in his story about the Barkley trade. My notes are in parentheses.

“The 76ers acknowledged they were trading a superstar, but they are gambling that acquiring three quality players from Phoenix will make them a better team.”

(The 76ers went 115-295 over the next five seasons. To extend that gambling analogy,

Bill, the author wasn't using a gambling analogy, he used the word "gambling." There is a huge difference. The mere use of the word "gambling" isn't the use of an analogy. Of course, Bill really wanted to make an analogy about gambling and that's why he's pretending the author's use of the word "gambling" is an analogy. Talking about Vegas is an old standby for him.

Philly was the guy on your Vegas trip who lost $500 an hour after everyone got there, disappeared in a huff, found the seediest club possible, woke up in his hotel room the next day with no wallet and no pants, then texted everyone later that day saying, “Heading home — it’s a long story.”)

The use of an analogy is intended to help a person understand better what is being said or what point is being proven. This analogy seems to have nothing at all to do with trading Charles Barkley.

“Barkley’s outspokenness and behavior were a constant concern to the 76ers. Only hours before the trade, Barkley was acquitted in a Milwaukee court of disorderly conduct and battery charges … Such controversy has followed Barkley throughout this career. On various occasions, he has criticized 76ers management, criticized his teammates and clashed with Philadelphia reporters. During a game against the Nets in New Jersey two seasons ago, Barkley mistakenly spat upon a girl who was sitting near a fan who was heckling him.”

(Read all of those things again. What did he REALLY do?

-Beat up a guy in Milwaukee
-Spit on a girl
-Criticized his teammates which is bad for the team chemistry that Bill cares about so much
-Criticized management, which as the best player on the team could help undermine management's authority

I recognize that Bill thinks he is a rebel and tends to throw hissy-fits when he does things wrong, but at pretty much any job in the United States criticizing management is a good way to no longer work at that job. Because Bill is the golden boy at ESPN he can say or do whatever he wants in the middle of a temper tantrum, but that's not how it works for 99% of people. Criticize management and you can get your way and find new management at a new job. Also, Barkley spit on a girl (accidentally) and beat up a guy. That's what he really did.

Those were the reasons that you traded one of the best 25 players ever for 35 cents on the dollar???

The Sixers didn't know they were trading Barkley for 35 cents on the dollar. They thought the trade would make them a better team. Bill knows now they traded Barkley for 35 cents on the dollar, but assumes because he has the ability to use hindsight then that means the Sixers knew at the time they weren't getting value back for Barkley...which is obviously insane for anyone who understands the inability of humans to predict the future.

Like Barkley in 1992, Love doesn’t have the greatest reputation right now. Everyone respects him, everyone thinks he’s talented … but too much scuttlebutt piled up these past two years, fair or unfair, that Love was a selfish, me-first teammate in Minnesota. He doesn’t have a stellar reputation in NBA circles.

Reputations are magically changed by winning. It's weird how that works.

Until I started researching this column, I believed that Love had to be overrated because of his 0-0 playoff record. And actually, he’s underrated. 

There is the final answer. With 10% of the column left to be read, Bill finally gets to mentioning the title of the column and the question this entire column was supposed to be answering using the scientific method of Bill using his opinion to come to the final answer.

Barkley’s 1989 and 1990 seasons were better than his first Phoenix season, but he stole the MVP from Jordan because WE thought Barkley was better that year.

Hey look! Bill was wrong about something so "WE" were wrong about it. Bill can't be wrong by himself. It would hurt his ego too much to find out that he actually isn't correct 100% of the time.

Why did we think that?

Why do you think "we" thought that? Why do you use "we" to describe an indescribably large group of people all with indescribably different opinions on Charles Barkley?

It’s not rocket science. Put a very good basketball player in a great situation and he’s going to thrive.

This is the moral of this column. This is why Bill wrote so many words, just to prove this. Kevin Love didn't have good teammates and good basketball players thrive in good situations. So basically the rest of this column was a circle jerk because the conclusion Bill came to is the conclusion that most people already knew before the beginning of the column.

But that's just Bill. He restates the obvious in a non-obvious way in order to make it seem like he is saying something interesting. He will restate the obvious using an overly long analogy, a comparison to pop culture or by throwing a bunch of statistics around with a "fact" that is actually an opinion. In the end, his conclusion is often the conclusion already reached by others without doing as much work to get there.

He acquired the world’s best player, a talented point guard, a heat-check scorer, a decent group of role players and an intriguing twist to the “Uncle Drew” franchise. He won’t have to settle for 24-footers because he’s tired of being double-teamed. He can do what he does best — rebound, play the inside-outside game, throw outlets and rebound some more.

Here's the difference that Bill is too lazy to acknowledge, doesn't care to acknowledge because it doesn't fit his Barkley comparison, or he hasn't thought of. Kevin Love is not the best player on the Cavaliers team. He is the second-best player and the third-scorer. Charles Barkley with the Suns was the best player on the team and the first scorer. So Bill's comparison to Barkley may seem apt until it's understood that Barkley was the best player on the Suns team and Love will not be the best player on the Cavs team. Therefore their careers can be comparable, but their roles on their new team after being traded are different, which means the way they adjust to those roles may be different.

I see Cleveland playing Love as a small-ball 5 much like Coach K did.

The problem still lies in who is guarding the rim? When the Cavs play a team who can get to the rim, who is protecting that rim? I'm not saying the Cavs can't succeed, but Coach K played small ball in the Olympics. His small ball strategy has not worked in college over the past few years when facing a good team that can get to the basket. There is a difference in college, the Olympics and the NBA of course, but I feel like this needs to be mentioned.

I see him becoming a legitimate threat to be a 22-15-5 guy and maybe even average 16 boards a game (which hasn’t happened since Rodman).

This is as opposed to him being an illegitimate threat to be a 22-15-5 guy.

I see my favorite Cavs lineup being their small-ball group with LeBron, Love, Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters and a spread-the-floor shooter … and not-so-coincidentally, looking very ’93 Suns-ish.

Bill is going down with the ship while using this analogy isn't he? The '93 Suns didn't have LeBron James by the way.

I see anyone who said this week that (a) Cleveland gave up too much, and/or (b) Love isn’t as good as people think, feeling stupid.

I think Kevin Love is as good as "people" think. I also think that playing with talented teammates and not being able to put up the fifth most shots in the NBA per game could be an adjustment for Kevin Love. Going from the best player on a team to the second/third-best player on a team where his role becomes different will be an adjustment. Granted, an adjustment he can make, but an adjustment either way. Regardless, if Love isn't a 22-15-5 guy then I am sure Bill will say "we" were wrong about Love.

I see this trade reinventing Love’s NBA career much like Phoenix reinvented Barkley. Love won’t win the MVP, but he’ll win our respect. And he won’t be polarizing anymore. He’s going to kill it in Cleveland.

He might, but he is going to playing with two other guys who are very used to being the best player on their team. Irving is used to it, LeBron is used to it (though I have no doubts he will adjust as he has done before), Love is used to it, Waiters will want his shots, and Varejao will be injured at some point during the season. I think the Cavs are going to be very good, but just like the Heat took a season to fully mesh together I could see it taking a season for the Cavs to mesh well.

But you know what’s really funny? I don’t know if Love would have killed it in Golden State. This goes back to the Carmelo-Dirk discussion from my Carmelo column — superstars can play with anyone, but almost-but-not-quite-superstars need the right supporting cast to thrive.

Another obvious statement painted as a new and original thought. You mean Kevin Love will thrive more playing with the best basketball player on the planet as opposed to not playing with the best basketball player on the planet? You don't fucking say!

Instead, he gets to play with LeBron James on the league’s newest signature team. That’s right … David Kahn was Kevin Love’s savior all along. I’m going to walk outside and wait for it to rain frogs.
 
Final verdict: underrated.

Final verdict: properly rated until more information is provided over the next season. And that's a fact because it's my opinion.

Fact: Bill Simmons really said nothing new in this column, yet he wrote 5300+ words.

0 comments Mike Klis Is Still Not Taking the Broncos Super Bowl Loss Very Well

We first heard from Mike Klis when he stated the key to winning the Super Bowl is to lose games. Well, the Broncos dutifully did as he suggested and lost the Super Bowl, but that probably doesn't count as what Klis was talking about. Then we heard from Mike Klis when he started dropping excuses/reasons for the Broncos Super Bowl loss. He was acting like an angry fan-boy who couldn't handle that his favorite team lost the Super Bowl. Well, Mike is still acting like a baby and still not taking the Broncos Super Bowl loss very well. He's very excited for the Broncos to face the Seahawks twice (yes, he is including the abomination that is an NFL preseason game) so the Broncos can exact revenge. Because we all know a victory in Week 3 is directly equal to a Super Bowl victory. It's pretty much the same thing. My apologies to those who read Mike Klis in the Denver area. He sounds hideous. I'm sure all in the Denver area get tired of his schtick.

Can't anybody tell those mouthy Seahawks in Seattle to shut up?

I wasn't aware the Seahawks were still talking junk about the Broncos and their Super Bowl victory over the Broncos. It sounds like Mike Klis is reminiscing rather than the reality being that the Seahawks are still rubbing their Super Bowl victory in...at least to my knowledge. 

"We really felt like we could knock the crud out of these guys," Carroll said shortly after 43-8. 

That was seven months ago. It's a new season. Let it go. Carroll was cocky after the Super Bowl victory and now he's stopped talking about it. Perhaps Mike Klis should take the hint and do the same. 

Seattle linebacker K.J. Wright said his team would beat the Broncos "90 out of 100. They might've got lucky those other 10 times."

I'm pretty sure Mike Klis used this exact quote in his last bitter, fan-boy column about the Broncos losing to the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. If he's going to write a column which starts off insinuating the Seahawks are still being "mouthy" and not shutting up, then he may want to find new quotes that show this to be truth. Otherwise, this column is just message board material. Actually, it's worse than message board material because it's intended to be sports journalism. 

Act like you've won it before. Oh, wait. They hadn't. 

What a burn. Act like the Broncos have won it in the last 15 years or don't have a 2-5 record in Super Bowls. Nothing against the Broncos, but a team that has gone 2-5 in the Super Bowl doesn't exactly have room to taunt a team that has gone 1-1 in Super Bowls and just manhandled the 2-5 team in the Super Bowl. "Count the rings" usually feels like a loser's argument coming from the loser of the Super Bowl.

"That's where they get their edge from," Broncos defensive tackle Terrance Knighton said. "They have a quarterback (Russell Wilson) who came in underrated. People don't talk about their offensive line. Sherman was a fifth-round pick. Then they have receivers with chips on their shoulders.

"That's how they make themselves feel better, or build their image. But they have the right talk."

The Seahawks incessant talk could hide some inferiority complex, but they are the reigning Super Bowl champions. To shut them up, you have to beat them. The Seahawks will have the right talk until they can no longer back that talk up.

Chest-thumping became cheap shot, though, when another windbagged Seattle linebacker, Bobby Wagner, took the bait from ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, a loquacious man himself.

"They looked scared out there," Wagner said. "Nobody wanted to catch the ball. Nobody wanted to come up the middle. ... They were very timid."
 
Bobby Wagner said these things back immediately after the Super Bowl. Come on, write a new article and don't just take the same quotes from the old less-than-message board material article and claim the Seahawks are still talking shit. No one needs to close the Seahawks big mouths because they aren't running their mouths anymore. 

It's correct to say Seattle destroyed the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII. Beat them up. Bullied them.

But scared to come up the middle? Demaryius Thomas set a Super Bowl record with 13 catches — averaging 9 tough yards per reception.

It's correct to say Demaryius Thomas did have these 13 catches for 9 yards per reception, but that's a little misleading. Here is the funny part, Mike Klis knows it's misleading but doesn't really care. 

Granted, the record meant nothing. Many of those catches were in garbage time. But it does mean Wagner's claim is a lie.

Granted the record that Mike Klis just recited as if it meant something in response to Bobby Wagner's comments made 7 months ago means nothing to him, but wouldn't it be cool if this record did mean something? 

Let's look at Demaryius Thomas's catches to see if Wagner's claim is a lie. He's probably using hyperbole, but let's see the yardage of catches Thomas made, where he made them, and when he made them.

From the play-by-play: 

1- P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to DEN 40 for 2 yards (1st quarter)
 
2- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass short right to D.Thomas to DEN 22 for 6 yards (2nd quarter)
 
3- P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas to DEN 25 for 3 yards (2nd quarter)
 
4- P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas to DEN 37 for 7 yards (2nd quarter)
 
5- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short right to D.Thomas to DEN 40 for 1 yard (2nd quarter)
 
6- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short right to D.Thomas to SEA 34 for 9 yards (2nd quarter)
 
7- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass deep left to D.Thomas to SEA 43 for 19 yards (2nd quarter)
 
8- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas to SEA 46 for 4 yards (3rd quarter)
 
9- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to SEA 43 for 3 yards (3rd quarter)
 
10- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to SEA 44 for 10 yards (3rd quarter)
 
11- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass deep left to D.Thomas to SEA 21 for 23 yards (3rd quarter)
 
12- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas for 14 yards (3rd quarter)
 
13- P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to DEN 45 for 17 yards (4th quarter)

So Mike Klis is partially wrong. 7 of the 13 catches Thomas made were in the first half, not garbage time. Thomas did have more yardage in garbage time though.

Thomas caught four passes over the middle for gains of 2, 3, 10, 17 yards. 
Thomas caught three passes on the right for gains of 6, 1, and 9 yards. 
Thomas caught 6 passes on the left for gains of 3, 7, 19, 4, 23, and 14 yards. 

Thomas averaged 8 yards per catch in the middle, 5.3 yards per catch on the right, and 11.7 yards per catch on the left. It's not right to negate one of the catches but I think it's important to know his average in the middle would have been 5 yards per catch if the last catch in the fourth quarter when it was a 43-8 game wasn't counted. So Thomas does seem to have gotten more yardage in garbage time, but not more receptions. I don't believe the Broncos were scared to come over the middle, but Thomas did gain 71 of his 118 yards in the second half when the Seahawks were playing a softer defense. His average yards per catch was 6.7 in the first half. It's impossible to know if the Broncos were scared or not, but the numbers reflect while Thomas caught the ball for longer gains in the second half, in the first half when the game wasn't entirely decided the Seahawks had managed to keep his gains to a minimum.

It's nearly impossible to know if Wagner's claim is a lie anyway and it doesn't really matter. 

Wes Welker caught eight passes. He receives between the hash marks.

Welker's catches during the Super Bowl: 

1- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to DEN 25 for 5 yards (1st quarter)

2- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to SEA 43 for 16 yards (2nd quarter)

3- 1st and 10 at SEA 43 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to SEA 38 for 5 yards (2nd quarter)

4- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to W.Welker to DEN 37 for 14 yards (3rd quarter)

5- 1st and 20 at DEN 10 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to DEN 13 for 3 yards (3rd quarter)

6- 1st and 10 at DEN 41 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to W.Welker to SEA 47 for 12 yards (3rd quarter)

7- 1st and 10 at SEA 36 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to W.Welker pushed ob at SEA 14 for 22 yards (3rd quarter)

8- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to SEA 47 for 7 yards (4th quarter)

Five of Welker's eight catches were over the middle. So for the sake of fairness I'm not going to leave out an assertion Mike Klis makes that has merit. It doesn't seem the Broncos were scared to go over the middle. If that's his big victory coming from the Super Bowl, that Bobby Wagner exaggerated in making this statement, then I hope it's a great moral victory for Klis. 

It wasn't a case of intimidation," said Broncos tight end Julius Thomas, who caught four Super Bowl passes. "That's certain. When you win and you're the Super Bowl champion, you've earned the right to say whatever you want. That's something that can't be taken away from them.

Yeah, but Mike Klis wishes the Seahawks would stop mouthing off about their Super Bowl victory, even though they haven't really mouthed off about it publicly in several months. In Mike's fan-boy head, the Seahawks are still chirping about intimidating the Broncos. It's causing him to go insane. 

The Broncos and Seahawks meet again in their preseason opener, Aug. 7 at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. The starters won't play long. Just long enough to get some pushing and shoving in.

But if the Broncos win this game, then revenge is Mike Kli---I mean, revenge is the Broncos to savor!

The teams meet again for keeps in Week 3 of the regular season.

Yes, this regular season game is "for keeps." The season ends after this game is played. If the Broncos are able to defeat the Seahawks in Week 3 then the Super 48 title will be handed to Denver and the Seahawks will forever be shamed. This Week 3 game is "for keeps," just as long as the other 13 games each team plays, as well as the playoffs, aren't counted as being part of the 2014 NFL season, which apparently is how Mike Klis views it. 

That game will be played in Seattle. Home of the gloats.

I'm pretty sure the Seahawks stopped gloating a few months ago. The reality in Mike's head isn't adjusting well to this.

The visiting team's locker room figures to have a filled bulletin board.

Does the visiting team's locker room even get a bulletin board to hang comments the home team has made in the past on? I feel like a bulletin board isn't provided to the visiting team. Maybe the comments will be written on the whiteboard in the Broncos locker room. Even if the Broncos beat the Seahawks 43-8, it won't make up for the Super Bowl loss. It may be revenge, but it will be a bittersweet revenge. Well, except for a sportswriter like Mike Klis who seems to think a regular season game counts as playing "for keeps." 

"Me, personally, I'm tired of hearing about it: Seahawks, Seahawks, Seahawks," Knighton said. "We accomplished some things last year. Not everything we wanted, but we took a step forward from the year before. We're going to reload, and when the time comes, we'll be ready to play them. And it's a good thing we play them twice."

And when/if the Broncos beat the Seahawks we can be sure that Mike Klis will write a column about how the loud mouthed Seahawks have finally been shut up, despite the fact they quit talking smack about the Broncos a few months ago, and he will believe revenge was really sweet and the teams are now considered "even." Good for him. It won't be true, of course. If the Seahawks win that Week 3 game, which is apparently the most crucial regular season game ever, then I'm sure Mike Klis will complain further about the Seahawks big mouths...or just blame it all on injuries.

10 comments ESPN Grade Is The Exact Academic Metric Gregg Easterbrook Would Normally Rip Apart in TMQ, So Naturally He Loves It

Gregg Easterbrook arose from wherever the hell he goes during the summer and ruined my soul with his insistence on continuing to write TMQ. Gregg made the astute observation that offenses are playing faster now than they used to, as well as made the non-astute observation that a three-pointer and a dunk doesn't involve teamwork like a layup does. Apparently the only place Gregg Easterbrook watches the NBA is in his head with imaginary teams that play imaginary basketball, which is the only way I can explain his bizarre statements about the NBA. For example, he referred to LeBron as a disappointment because he has lost three NBA Finals, but then complimented the Spurs for making two straight NBA Finals. Nevermind that LeBron has made four straight Finals, that's irrelevant to Gregg and doesn't mislead his readers enough into believing the narrative he is pushing.

This week Gregg has an AFC "Preview," even though he doesn't really preview anything, helps debut ESPN Grade, brings back his pointless and stupid "creep" feature, and is still surprised fictional television shows are not realistic. 

First, I'll start with ESPN Grade. It's purpose is to,

think about college football polls -- uniting on-field outcome with educational results.

A top 25 football program's ESPN Grade is calculated by combining its ranking in The Associated Press and USA Today coaches' polls, then adding its position in a top 25 sorted by football graduation rates.
 
So if a university is fifth in one poll, sixth in the other and 10th in graduation rates, its ESPN Grade would be 5 + 6 + 10 = 21.
 
Only teams receiving a vote in either the AP or coaches' poll are ranked in ESPN Grade -- it's an academics-adjusted ranking of the power teams, not of all teams in college football.

Gregg was trumpeting ESPN Grade last week in TMQ as something really important and new. Unfortunately, only teams who get votes in the AP or Coaches poll are ranked in ESPN Grade, which sort of ruins the point doesn't it? Gregg is constantly bitching and moaning about football factories who don't graduate players, then ESPN kicks out a grading system that only focuses on the football factories Gregg dislikes so much. Look at the summary of where teams were ranked in ESPN Grade and where they were ranked in the AP Top 25 Poll. It underscores the pointlessness of only ranking the power teams. Alabama is #1 in ESPN Grade and #2 in the AP Top 25 Poll. My questions are two-fold.

1. What's the fucking point? You are only ranking teams that get votes in the Top 25 AP Poll, so ESPN Grade is only comparing these teams to each other. It seems rather pointless.

2. How is Gregg going to sell this as a grading system that means something when ESPN Grade only uses a sample size that only includes teams Gregg normally calls football factory schools (teams ranked in the Top 25 of the AP or Coaches poll) and doesn't include any of the other Division-I schools that don't have good football teams? ESPN Grade weighs how that team performs in the football poll as 66.66% of the grade compared to 33.33% percent based on graduation rate. This ESPN Grade is the type of grading system Gregg would bitch about in TMQ, but now he has to sell it.

Let's how he does that in TMQ...

The NCAA and the football-factory conferences endlessly say their players are not unpaid semipros; rather, they're true student-athletes.

So let's take them at their word and rank the country's top college football programs with education as important as victory.

Except education isn't as important as victory in these rankings because the football programs' ranking in two polls is factored in with graduation rate. That's two polls weighted with one graduation rate. In Gregg Easterbrook terms, education is 50% as important as victory in ESPN Grade. Also, the ESPN Grade system only ranks teams who received votes in the Top 25, so it's football factory teams being compared to other football factory teams, which obviously doesn't give accurate results when trying to find which college football programs care about education the most. I don't see the purpose of only using the top college football programs, since that seems to sort of defeat the point of what Gregg has been railing against for quite a few years now.

Gregg has to sell this metric as if it is exactly what he's been looking for to measure how schools rank education compared to victory. In actuality, only comparing the top football programs to each other in a metric is something Gregg would normally mock as being inaccurate and a poor way of determining which schools care the most about education.

Introducing ESPN Grade, a whole new way to think about college sports rankings. ESPN Grade combines on-field performance with commencement-day performance.

Except it only combines this on-field performance with commencement-day performance for a school that is ranked in the Top 25 of the AP or Coaches poll. So, it's like introducing a quarterback metric to see which NFL QB is the best, but only including quarterbacks who led their team to the playoffs last year.

Here's how it works: ESPN Grade adds each Top 25 college program's position in the Associated Press (media) and USA Today (coaches) polls with the program's position in ranking of graduation rates. The numbers are combined to produce a blended victory-education ranking.

Except it produces this ranking only for the best college football teams. Gregg has to see the issue with this, right?

Florida State drops from first to sixth based on a low football graduation rate of 58 percent; Oklahoma drops from third to 10th based on an even worse football graduation rate of 51 percent, lowest of any ranked team. Florida State and Oklahoma offer first-rate football on the field, but second-rate football academics.

Are you sure about that? Florida State is the best football team in the country and better than 19 other teams in academics, while Oklahoma is still better than 15 other teams in academics. The data that Gregg is basing his conclusions is so flawed that I find it almost impossible to believe this ESPN Grade really says anything. I mean yeah, compared to Top 25 teams Oklahoma and Florida State are not great, but a real metric showing how bad these programs are in terms of graduation rate would be to compare them to all Division-I schools. Also, the fact Oklahoma and Florida State are still 10th and 6th respectively shows how ESPN Grade still overvalues what happens on the football field. I like how Gregg pretends this isn't true.

Alabama rises to No. 1 in ESPN Grade based on a football graduation rate of 70 percent. 

No, they rise that high because they are #2 in both polls and have a graduation rate at #12. Football puts Alabama up that high, not academics. It's amazing to me how Gregg can take information and then work so hard to lie and mislead his readers on what this information says.

UCLA vaults to No. 2 on a rate of 82 percent, while Ohio State reaches No. 3 on a football graduation rate of 75 percent. These programs achieve the student-athlete ideal -- great sports followed by diplomas on commencement day.

So does this mean Gregg will take back anything he has said about Nick Saban not caring about his players graduating? Of course not! He will continue to say Nick Saban doesn't care about his players graduating, while stating Alabama "rises" to #1 because of a high football graduation rate. Gregg Easterbrook doesn't give a shit about consistency or the truth. He's here to sell you whatever narrative and position pops up in his head at that very moment. He's a snake-oil salesman, unless you want him to sell you something else, in which case snake-oil is a terrible product.

Elsewhere in ESPN Grade, South Carolina and USC are among programs that drop downward, owing to low football graduation rates. Clemson, Georgia and Stanford are among those whose strong commencement-day numbers cause them to rise.

If it tells you how heavily football is weighted, despite South Carolina having a low graduation rate and Clemson having a high graduation rate, they are tied for #13 on ESPN Grade because South Carolina is ranked higher in both the AP and Coaches polls.

The first step in compiling ESPN Grade is making a ranking of teams based solely on their most recent football graduation rates, ranking every school that makes either the coaches or AP Top 25. Only the ranked power teams are sorted by graduation rate.

I will say it again, if the NCAA used ESPN Grade to advertise how great Alabama's graduation rate was, Gregg Easterbrook would take a flamethrower to the NCAA for only using ranked teams in their calculations. I love how Gregg is defending a system he in no way would usually like, but has to like because it comes from his employer. This is great.

Employed is the Graduation Success Rate as computed by the NCAA, which gives credit for players who transfer in or out, and is generous in other statistical respects. Another metric called the Federal Graduation Rate is lower than the numbers you'll see used in ESPN Grade.

I am LOL'ing all over the room right now. So not only does ESPN Grade only use Top 25 teams and give higher weight to what happens on the field compared to what happens in the classroom, but it also uses a generous statistical measurement of Graduation Success Rate. This is a metric that Gregg would blister in TMQ if it didn't come from ESPN. In fact, he has blistered schools for using the higher graduation rate that ESPN is using here in their ESPN Grade metric...which is the same metric Gregg is touting as being super-special and informative. Hilarious.

The most recent year for which graduation statistics have been released had 53 early entrants, about half of 1 percent of upperclassman scholarship players. As ESPN Grade shows, some football-factory programs maintain high graduation standards in spite of early departures, while others have low standards in spite of no early departures.

Well, they have high graduation standards compared to other Top 25 schools. Just like I'm really tall as compared to every jockey who rode in the Kentucky Derby this year.

Isn't it possible that someone can graduate from college without really getting an education, after taking easy courses? Yes, and this is a problem in collegiate athletics. But it's a problem in all of higher education; many non-athletes take easy courses, skip class and graduate without meaningful education, too.

Oh. So after years of talking about how athletics get too much funding and schools allow their players to do very little in the classroom when compared to non-athletes, Gregg tells us that non-athletes are just as lazy and cheat as much as athletes do. I'll remember this the next time Gregg goes on a rampage about a school letting athletes do the minimum to get by. While it's true at certain places, I think it's interesting that when it's convenient for his current viewpoint, Gregg takes the whole "Well, I mean, many college students take easy classes and only do what they can to get by" attitude towards it all.

All that anyone can be sure of about a college student is whether that person walked to "Pomp and Circumstance" holding a diploma, and that's what ESPN Grade either rewards or penalizes.

And of course, if the NCAA talked proudly about an academic metric that only measured if an athlete walked or not, Gregg would rip this metric apart in TMQ. Opinions change when ESPN uses the standards Gregg routinely rips apart as being faulty and misleading in terms of whether a student got an education or not.

By ranking teams both on gridiron and graduation, ESPN Grade creates a new, simple way to assess the student-athlete overlap. Alumni and boosters of universities that do well in ESPN Grade should feel proud. Alumni and boosters of universities that do poorly in ESPN Grade should feel embarrassed.

None of these parties should feel good or bad. It's a metric that only measures the performance of a small sample of Division-I college football teams and weighs the performance by the team on the field heavier than the performance by the team in the classroom.

In other news, the resumption of the football artificial universe approaches. Here's an AFC preview:

A preview is what will happen during the year, what Gregg does is mostly a review of what that team did last year.

Last season, Baltimore became the 15th of 48 Super Bowl victors to fail to reach the succeeding postseason. The Nevermores followed a Super Bowl trophy season with a missed-the-playoffs season partly owing to declining stats.

This is analysis, people! Stand back and give Gregg Easterbrook room! The Ravens did not make the playoffs last year because their players didn't play as well during the 2013 season as they played during the 2012 season. Yes, it's a shocking turn of events, but it's still true.

In 2012, Baltimore was plus-16 in turnovers and allowed 44 sacks in 20 games. In 2013, the club was minus-4 in turnovers and allowed 48 sacks in 16 games. The offense tanked in 2013, dropping to 25th overall.

Wait, so because the Ravens didn't play as well and didn't win as many games, they didn't make the playoffs? This is new information for me that a team playing poorly could result in that team losing football games.

Over the summer, Joe Flacco said of football players, "We're not the brightest people, so therefore how hard can an NFL offense be?" He said this on the Ravens' own website!

He said this as a joke, not being serious. I like the audacity of Gregg linking the article, almost daring his readers to find out he's taking this comment out of context.

Judith Grant Long, an urban planning professor at Harvard, has shown that about 70 percent of the cost of building and operating NFL stadia has been paid by taxpayers -- many not even sports fans.

You have to love the certainty in this statement. Gregg writes that "many" of these taxpayers are not sports fans. There's a certain amount of "I know this to be true" in this statement, so wouldn't using the term "some" be better used in this sentence in order to make it seem less like a certain majority and more like a possible majority? I am picking the utmost of small nits here, I get that. Why use a term like "many" to indicate a majority when Gregg isn't certain this statement is true? I can answer that question. He wants to believe this statement is true and so he hopes by just saying "many" he can convince his readers it is true. Who is to say how many of the taxpayers are sports fans? By stating the majority of taxpayers are not sports fans it goes to prove his point better. Unfortunately, there is no way to prove/disprove this statement.

Also, Gregg takes the time to rip the Bills for wanting public funds to build a stadium by saying:

The new owner is likely to be a billionaire. Why should taxpayers with a median household income of $54,000 be compelled to give a new stadium to a billionaire who will keep all profit the facility generates?

Worried he will take the blame if the Bills move -- and needing to divert attention from his considerable ethical problems -- Cuomo now says the state "would be interested" in funding a new stadium if that kept the Bills in Buffalo. That is easy for the governor to say, since taxpayers, not him, will be the ones handed the invoice. How could a huge subsidy for the super-profitable NFL be justified when the state is cutting funding from public schools? (Look up "Gap Elimination Adjustment.") But from Cuomo's standpoint, he might get to make a dramatic announcement claiming a subsidized stadium would generate thousands of jobs, then be out of office before the red ink begins to flow.

Then Gregg says this:

This said, if there is one city where public investment in an NFL stadium might be justified, it's Buffalo. Should Atlanta or Miami lose its NFL team, that would be a shame, but these cities would still have strong economies. Should Buffalo lose the Bills, this could be perceived as the "last one turns out the lights" moment, reducing the odds of a Buffalo urban recovery.

So perhaps the fact the Buffalo economy could go full force into the shitter is a good reason to build a new stadium and let the new owner keep the profits? Perhaps subsidizing a stadium that generates jobs is a better move than allowing the Bills to leave, and in Gregg's own words, "reducing the odds of a Buffalo urban recovery." As usual, Gregg is the worst. He bashes the Bills hypothetical new owner and the New York governor for wanting public funds, while explaining the very reason it is important to keep the Bills in Buffalo. Gregg argues both sides well and can take credit no matter what happens.

Public investment in an NFL stadium might be justified only if the facility is located downtown. The Buffalo News reports that 15 sites are under consideration for a new stadium. Two are in Toronto. Several are suburban, including an abandoned shopping mall property an hour's drive from the city. One is near Niagara Falls, where the tourist activity is on the Canadian side, not the American side. One is on the Buffalo Outer Harbor, which is cut off from downtown by a freeway and doesn't contribute to the pulse of urban life. Only downtown locations should be considered if public funds are spent.

So it's fine to rip off the taxpayers as long as the stadium is built in a certain location? I'm just wondering when it is/is not fine for taxpayers to pay for a stadium and let the red ink flow.

Also in the offseason, NBC's Luke Russert said the Bills should stay in Buffalo for "all eternity." For a trillion years? Your columnist tweeted, "By then Bills will have won the Super Bowl." Jesse Griffis of East Aurora, New York, tweeted back, "Don't jinx it!"

Oh, this flirty interplay is so fun to read.

In his 11 years holding the whistle for the trick-or-treats -- impressive longevity by current NFL standards -- Marvin Lewis is 90-85-1 in the regular season and 0-5 in the postseason. Cincinnati hasn't won a playoff contest since 1991.

What Gregg intentionally leaves out is Marvin Lewis has led the Bengals to the most successful time in their franchise since the 1980's. The Bengals made the playoffs zero times from 1991-2004 and had not had a winning season since 1990, which is before Marvin Lewis came to coach the team. So while Gregg is correct, he also isn't reading his history to find out that Marvin Lewis has been a huge improvement for the Bengals franchise.

Two interceptions and a lost fumble by Andy Dalton didn't help. In the offseason, Cincinnati rewarded Dalton with a contract extension with a $115 million paper value and about $25 million guaranteed. Dalton, 0-3 in the postseason, now boasts a richer contract than Tom Brady, 18-8 in the postseason with three Super Bowl rings.

I pointed out last week how this isn't entirely correct.

There are differences in their situations -- Brady is 37, and in his last negotiation sought higher guarantees in exchange for lower maximum. But these three contracts tell us much about the goofy state of pro sports economics.

"Sure, my point is misleading and I wasn't entirely truthful when making the comparison, but ignore that and pretend it still proves the point I was trying to prove."

Reader Ty Kuck of Batavia, Ohio, notes that the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl with conventional, conservative defense, while Bengals defensive coordinator Paul Guenther has decided to try gimmick fronts.

Blogger Bengoodfella notes that the Seahawks didn't need to do anything but have a conventional, conservative defense because they have a great defensive line who can put pressure on the quarterback without blitzing, while if reader Ty Kuck would read the article linked he would see the Bengals are without Geno Atkins and lost Michael Johnson to free agency. There is some uncertainty about the Bengals defensive line so the defensive coordinator wants to use different strategies. This doesn't mean it will be a failure because only conservative, conventional defenses win Super Bowls. That is stupid thinking.

Give the ball to the law firm! The Bengals and Patriots are a combined 32-5 when BenJarvus Green-Ellis scored a touchdown for them.

I dislike statistics like this one. They can be misleading. NFL teams run the football more when they are winning the game, so the odds of BenJarvus Green-Ellis scoring a touchdown are higher when his team is running the ball more often. 

Unified Field Theory of Creep: Reader Natalie Pasternack of Palo Alto, California, notes that at around the Fourth of July, Kmart began running ads themed "the new school year starts here."

The fundamental disregard for how retail sales work and how companies make profits continually angers me. Kmart wants to sell school supplies so they advertise early to create urgency in the consumer to purchase the school supplies as much as possible. See, retail stores want to sell products. They can't sell products if they don't create urgency in the consumer to buy the product. If Kmart doesn't advertise for the new school year until a week before school begins then this will decrease profits. Companies like profits, so they advertise early to encourage consumers to spend money at their store. If you are incapable of understanding this or think this is "creep" then you are simply not informed enough about how a company makes money.

If Johnny Football runs around like a madman as he did in college, his career will be short -- defenders are so much faster and stronger than they once were; Fran Tarkenton couldn't use his crazed scrambling style today, either.

I guess this explains why there are fewer and fewer running quarterbacks in the NFL than there used to be?

Colin Kaepernick has learned to head for the sideline when he runs. Manziel must learn this. 

It's been two preseason games. You would think Manziel would have learned to head to the sideline by now, right? WHEN WILL HE LEARN? HE'S PLAYED A LITTLE UNDER TWO WHOLE PRESEASON GAMES ALREADY!

Even should Josh Gordon get to play, the Browns have a weak receiving corps. That will tempt Manziel to take off running. Or it may tempt Cleveland management to trade some of the team's stockpiled draft choices for receiving help now (Cleveland holds two choices in the 2015 first round, plus other extra selections).

Brilliant suggestion. Because if the Browns were going to trade draft picks for a wide receiver, they would do it with two preseason games left, right before the season is beginning. THAT is the ideal time to trade for a wide receiver, so I can see why the Browns would be tempted to make a trade now as opposed to three months ago.

The Browns used the eighth overall choice of the 2014 draft on corner Justin Gilbert, who is athletically gifted. A generation ago, scouts would have shied away from a corner from Oklahoma State, fearing all he'd know is run support.

(Bengoodfella looks around the room wondering how Gregg pulls these comments out of his ass)

Does this explain why Perrish Cox, Darrent Williams, Jacoby Shepherd, and R.W. McQuarters have all been drafted by NFL teams since 1998? Or is Gregg talking about DB's from Oklahoma State like Mark Moore, Chris Rockins, Greg Hill, and Scott Burk who were drafted by NFL teams from 1979-1987? I'm just a little confused, that's all.

Denver: Now with five Super Bowl losses, the Broncos have taken the pressure off the Bills and Vikings (four losses apiece). And when Denver loses a Super Bowl, the Broncs really lose; their defeats are by 45, 35, 32, 19 and 17 points. Perhaps the altitude advantage that assists Denver during the regular season, and at home playoffs games, propels the Broncos to Super Bowls where they don't really belong.

Which explains why the Broncos have won two Super Bowls and were 6-2 on the road last year, including wins over two playoff teams?

As Denver's chief executive, former great John Elway is 37-17. As chief executive of the Wizards and Bobcats, former great Michael Jordan is 285-488.

I can't even begin to understand why Gregg Easterbrook put a comparison of John Elway and Michael Jordan as chief executives in this TMQ.

At the 11-1 juncture in 2012, Houston went to New England for a "Monday Night Football" contest that Texans faithful viewed as the team's debutante party -- a chance for the nation to see in prime time what the Texans could do. Houston was blown off the field, trailing 42-7 early in the fourth quarter. The Texans' confidence was shattered and has not recovered.

It's the time of the year when Gregg Easterbrook attributes a team's loss to something that the loss isn't attributable to. Yes, I'm sure it is the Texans' confidence being shattered that led them to playing poorly during the 2013 season and not the fact they had no reliable quarterback throwing the football for them. The Texans' record in 2013 is all about confidence and not at all about Matt Schaub becoming a turnover machine and no other reliable quarterback being on the roster.

Now the Texans enter 2014 with Ryan Fitzpatrick, who owns a 27-49-1 career record as a starting quarterback, backed by Case Keenum, who's never won an NFL start, and rookie Tom Savage, who didn't play anywhere in 2011 and 2012. What could go wrong?

Come on, Gregg! Ryan Fitzpatrick went to an Ivy League school that isn't a football factory. Doesn't that mean he is a better quarterback option than a lazy, highly-paid glory boy who went to a football factory?

The "24" franchise is up to nine seasons and 204 episodes, meaning Jack Bauer has fired that special gun that never needs reloading for more episodes than Jerry Seinfeld and Julia Louis-Dreyfus fired one-liners.

Another random comparison. Speaking of television shows that were unrealistic...how about "Seinfeld" being unrealistic? How did Jerry pay his rent? Comedians are always traveling doing gigs to make money, but Jerry was always around New York. Plus, women were always attracted to George, which is ridiculous given the appearance of George as an overweight, balding man who didn't have a steady job and wore glasses.

I'm not turning into Gregg Easterbrook, don't worry. I'm just pointing out how Gregg Easterbrook uses "Seinfeld" as a comparison to "24" and even a comedy like "Seinfeld" isn't realistic. They are all fictional television shows.

In the alternative-reality London of "24," driving scenes repeatedly showed central London rolling by the windows without the car ever so much as slowing down, let alone stopping for a light or traffic. If you haven't been lately, London is the most traffic-clogged metropolis in all the world. But by the show's clock, it took Bauer four minutes to drive from an industrial area in East London to the United States embassy in Westminster, and three minutes to drive from central London to suburban Hampton, using an M3 motorway on which there was not a single other car.

These types of complaints are so boring. It's a fictional television show produced entirely for entertainment. At no point should any type of realism be expected. As I have said multiple times, the fact Gregg expects realism on fictional television shows says much more about him than the lack of realism on a fictional television show says about that show.

New character Kate Morgan, a valorous CIA agent, saves Jack's life at 3:06 p.m. Jack was barricaded in the safe room of the U.S. embassy in London, about to be killed by a huge force of Marines. Luckily, Kate knew about the gigantic air shaft that led directly to the safe room! By 3:17, Kate had driven across London, cracked a complicated computer code that stumped military intelligence and been suspended because of a "formal complaint that a Marine at the embassy" filed regarding her actions at 3:06. Thus, it took 11 minutes from when a Marine said, "How do I file a formal complaint about unauthorized use of an embassy air shaft?" until the complaint had been written, gone up the chain at the Pentagon, been reviewed by the State Department and accepted by CIA top brass at Langley.

Again, entertainment is what this show is. No viewer wants to watch Jack Bauer take a piss and read a book while he waits for someone to save him. Viewers want to be entertained...well viewers who aren't Gregg Easterbrook. He wants realism and goes searching for it on fictional television shows and science fiction television. One would think the "fiction" in "science fiction" would tip Gregg off as to how realistic a television show may be, but one would be wrong.

Action on the latest "24" begins with a diplomatic crisis. "The Chinese have sent one of their supercarrier strike groups to the Persian Gulf," the president gravely is informed. This veers "24" further into alternative reality, since the People's Republic does not have a supercarrier strike group.

What an egregious error on the part of the "24" writing staff to not stick strictly to showing weaponry and war vehicles the Chinese currently have. 

There are 10 supercarriers in the world, all with an eagle and sailing ship painted on the side. China's sole aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, is a short-deck turbine-propelled "ski jump" ship intended for coastal use, not a full-deck nuclear supercarrier designed for the blue water. When the Chinese carrier is shown on the show, computer-generated graphics depict a full-sized supercarrier of the U.S. type, not a ski-jump carrier of the Chinese type.

Just stop watching these shows, please. Make it stop.

If had to watch a television show with Gregg, I would either kill myself or sit silently while I hoped he choked on a popcorn kernel. Gregg is that relative who thinks he knows everything about everything and can't wait to share this knowledge he thinks he knows with everyone in the room.

By the test of Authentic Games, the 2013 Colts were terrific. But all contests count. The Colts lost to St. Louis by 30 points, to Arizona by 29 points and wheezed out in the postseason at New England. Strong regular seasons culminating in a postseason wheeze-out are a recent Indianapolis norm; since trotting onto the field for the 2010 Super Bowl versus the Saints, the Colts are on a 1-4 playoff stretch.

The Colts haven't won the Super Bowl every year they have made the playoffs, therefore Gregg Easterbrook considers them to be a failure.

Some 52,000 people came to the Jaguars' stadium just to watch the new scoreboard unveiled. Most likely the crowd was not told that Jacksonville taxpayers paid $43 million for the scoreboard and miscellaneous stadium improvements, while Jax billionaire owner Shad Khan contributed only $20 million. Obviously diverting public money to an NFL owner's private profit is more important than improving Jacksonville public schools.

Linking the same article you linked last week isn't going to make that article all of a sudden blame the Jacksonville public school issues on a lack of funding.

The Jaguars went into training camp with a league-high $28 million in unused salary cap space. Perhaps Khan's plan is to milk the franchise, and Jacksonville taxpayers, for maximum profit while exerting minimum effort to improve the team.

Or maybe they aren't wasting money by overspending on players who aren't a part of the future of the franchise just so they can claim they have been spending money. There's that too.

One reason is that the Jets used a second-round draft choice in 2012 on wide receiver Stephen Hill, who did little in college but ran a 4.36 40 at the combine. Hill has done little in the NFL. Two picks later, Chicago chose Alshon Jeffery, who was super productive in college but ran a 4.48. Jeffery is already a Pro Bowl player. Hill has measurables, Jeffery performs.

Hilarious.

Stephen Hill's numbers during the 2011 college season: 28 receptions, 820 yards, 5 touchdowns.

Alshon Jeffery's numbers during the 2011 college season: 49 receptions, 762 yards, 8 touchdowns.

Hill had fewer receptions, but had comparable production to Alshon Jeffery. I would like to also add that Stephen Hill did not have a great QB throwing him the football, while Alshon Jeffery had South Carolina's all-time leading passer throwing him the football.

Jeffery also has measurables, which of course Gregg wouldn't know, given the fact he is a huge target with great speed for his size. Jeffery is 6'3" and ran a 4.48. In the NFL, Jeffery has had Brandon Marshall on the other side of him with Jay Cutler throwing him the football, while Stephen Hill has had Geno Smith/Mark Sanchez throwing him the football.

Reader Joe Hertz of Sterling, Virginia, suggests another: "The decline of the RB is attributable directly to the 'outside the pocket' rule change for intentional grounding. Before 1993, the quarterback needed an outlet receiver. Typically that was the tailback on a flare route. Now that a quarterback outside the pocket can just throw the ball away, teams can be fearless with five-wides."

Oh, that's the specific reason for the decline of the running back. I can't believe it is traced back to this one reason and the decline of the running back took place a short 15 years after the rule change. These are Gregg's readers I guess. Apple doesn't fall too far from the TMQ tree.

Miami: The Dolphins' offensive line curse continues,

There's no such thing.

But lately, the Patriots have acquired Cincinnati Postseason Wheeze-Out Syndrome, which apparently is communicable. Over the last four seasons, in the second half of the regular season, New England is 29-3 -- then in the playoffs, New England is 4-4.

New England doesn't win the Super Bowl every year and Gregg sees this as a failure, obviously.

Oakland: In 2013, the Raiders onside kicked six times and didn't recover any;

Yes, but I wonder how many of these were surprise onside kicks? Gregg Easterbrook says they work more often than they don't, so I'm sure none of these onside kicks were surprise onside kicks.

Since jogging onto the field for Super Bowl XXXVII, the Raiders are 53-124. Ouch. And despite a huge investment in their secondary in free-agency dollars and draft choices, the Raiders allowed a league-worst 68 percent completions and were second worst with 33 touchdown passes allowed.

It's almost like being tied for 18th in the NFL in sacks could have had something to do with this as well.

Pittsburgh: Kevin Seifert reports that just before training camp, the Steelers were down to $6.5 million in salary cap space. That's a sign of a team approaching the end of a talent cycle.

Oh, that's what it means? So if Jacksonville had spent more of their salary cap room then this would mean they are a team approaching the end of a talent cycle? That's what it means for sure? Like, definitely? It doesn't mean a team has chosen to spend a certain amount of money on players and this may not necessarily mean one thing or another about the talent cycle?

Gregg is the best at making shit up.

San Diego: Consider this proof of TMQ's Twilight of the Running Back theory. Entering the season, of the 27 active players with the most touchdowns scored, 17 are pass-catchers, and just 10 are running backs. Tied for first among the receivers is Chargers tight end Antonio Gates, an undrafted free agent who has 87 touchdown receptions and a decent chance of joining a very rarefied club -- undrafted members of the Hall of Fame.

Which is shocking considering anyone who reads TMQ regularly knows how Gregg shoves the idea hard-working undrafted free agents are better players to have on your team than highly-drafted, lazy glory boys. Yet, there aren't many undrafted members of the Hall of Fame. I'm sure this doesn't mean anything for Gregg's theory about undrafted players and isn't at all proof of just how full of shit Gregg is when he cherry-picks information to make his points about undrafted players look better to those too lazy to do research.

Reader Animadversion: Last week I chided the public schools of Montgomery County, Maryland, for replacing letter grades with mysterious designations such as "ES" instead of A. I wrote, "ES stands for exceptional, a word that does not include an S." Dana Tofig of Rockville, Maryland, replies, "There's an error in your item about the grading system in Montgomery County Public Schools. ES stands for Exceeds Standard, not Exceptional.

Hey look, someone called out Gregg for his lack of research and inability to read the links he provides in TMQ. I wish this happened more often. Gregg will link an article, then comment on the article when it's clear he hasn't thoroughly read the article he linked.

Next Week TMQ's NFC preview.

It's not a preview if you only talk about what an NFL team did last season. I can't wait to see Gregg weakly defend ESPN Grade all season, when it's the exact type of metric for college athletics related to graduation rates that Gregg would normally take great care to tear apart in TMQ.