7 comments Bill Simmons Is Still Using His Opinion as Fact

I got asked recently on Twitter if BotB was done or not. It's not, though the lack of activity probably gives the illusion of a more definitive answer. I start posts (will I ever post this one? Who knows?) and then get busy and never finish them. I have mixed feelings, as I started a new job two years ago and it felt like a clean break from the writing here that I loved, as writing on this blog took up a large portion of my day and caused me some sort of stress to get completed in a timely fashion. A lot of the posts here had some time sensitivity around them. I still enjoy writing here and that is why I haven't put up a farewell post. I'm also an "all or nothing at all" type of person. I'm in, or I'm out. I write 3-5 times per week or don't do anything, as I hate half-assing things. I want to try to half-ass though. Half-assing is the goal, in terms of posting frequently.

I have not read MMQB, TMQ or any Bill Simmons in the last two years. Okay, maybe a few MMQB, but none of the other two. I didn't even know where TMQ was located on the Interwebs anymore until someone Tweeted the link to me. If I read them, I am compelled to write about them. So no, Bottom of the Barrel is not done, I just haven't figured out how to make it not done. I started this blog in 2008. I was 28 years old and I'm now not 28 years old. I don't want to be Bill Simmons, writing the same shit over and over and over again until nobody cares anymore. I read Drew Magary now and think, "Jesus, this guy is doing the same stuff he was doing 5-6 years ago" and feel sympathy for him despite the fact he's doing quite well for himself. I'm getting older and I have less time to bitch about bad sportswriting. I always feel compelled to adapt and change, because staying in a rut singing all the greatest hits isn't my type of thing. I have to change for fear of becoming stale. The change here was a forced step-back to let off the throttle.

There was always an expiration date on this blog in that I didn't want to and couldn't do the same writing I always did here. Sometimes you just have to stop, because a mid-40 year old person making the same jokes he made 15-20 years ago is just not who I want to be. I can't stand in-authenticity (a word?) and don't want to be in my upper 40's being the person I used to mock for pretending to be younger in order to desperately keep the same readership I used to have. I don't want to be the person quoting Meek Mill when I just had to Google his name in order to make the reference. So it felt like a clean break two years ago, but I knew I didn't want to stop completely. Yes, a clean break involves a break entirely, so you see the contradiction there. I still want to be here writing, just not so badly that it interferes with my job and ruins what I see as the tiny amount of authenticity I have to mail in order to mail-in some posts. You can't cover up bad jokes and bad writing, so I chose/was forced to step back. There is my long answer.

So reading some articles from the same people who I have written about a lot here, they do not have this fear of getting stale. As you will see, Bill Simmons has not changed his jokes at all and Gregg Easterbrook is still rotating the same 4-5 topics every NFL season. It is sad to me. What's even more sad is Bill Simmons has tried other things and failed (which, I predicted on multiple occasions here...he wants to be more than a writer, but that's what he is) or not had the same amount of success he had writing. Now he's bashing ESPN in his writing, because he's free of them! FREE! Finally, he has that annoying corporate backing that made him the name he is and paid for all those nice things he has so he can starfuck all day on his podcast off his back. Did you know he used to write for the Jimmy Kimmel show? I wonder if he's mentioned it recently? Probably. So Bill's new schtick is to bash ESPN and then continue with his old schtick.

So...Bill Simmons hasn't changed at all. Today he tries to figure if the NBA is actually more marketable than the NFL. One could find this answer fairly easily using metrics such as viewership, jersey sales, income the athletes in each sport earn through marketing opportunities, etc., but none of these metrics would be as asinine and kill as much column space as Bill's way of determining the answer. He answer this question in a mailbag where Bill's Simmons Clones write in questions to him, desperately hoping he answers the question this time in order to validate their existence.

Today’s agenda: a mailbag-picks hybrid that ends almost as many times as that Chiefs-Raiders game Thursday night. 

Whoa! A hybrid mailbag!? This is totally different from the other 100 mailbag-picks columns that Bill has released through the years. I'm intrigued enough to read, but first, I need to find out how "The Ringer" is different from "Grantland," how much money HBO has given to get the website going and keep it going, as well as figure out exactly what the hell the site is supposed to be. Other than a hybrid pop-culture/sports site that spent an inordinate amount of space on talking about "Girls," at the behest of the HBO leadership as repayment for their investment in Bill's awful television show ("Any Given Wednesday"? Was that the title?) on HBO which failed for reasons that were ABSOLUTELY NOT Bill's fault...what is the Ringer? We may never know.

Bill blames the time slot, the fact other shows were premiering at the same time and anything other than his ability to run a television show for "Any Given Wednesday's" inability to draw an audience. I'll allow others who actually watched the show figure out the reason the show failed. I can take an educated guess though.

As always, these are actual emails from actual readers.

(Narrator) They were not.

Q: On your podcast you said that the NBA is going to pass the NFL eventually, because NBA players are more likable and marketable. What year did this start occurring in your opinion?
—A. Fitzgerald, Boulder

"A. Fitzgerald"...more like Not A. Realperson.

BS: You know how the WWE tells fans not to try wrestling stunts at home? I’m about to pull a Dan Dierdorf and disagree with myself.

But no one else is allowed to disagree with Bill or prove him wrong, because then he will either (a) change the subject or (b) move the goalposts to show he wasn't wrong. 

How could we actually prove this?

You cannot prove this, as it is not able to be definitively proven by the manner in which Bill will go about it achieving this end. There are ways to prove it, but these ways don't waste nearly as much space and don't involve Bill proving his opinion as fact. 

I hopped on Pro-Football-Reference, determined the biggest stars from the ’97 season, then found their 2017 doppelgängers from an admittedly ambiguous age/talent/career/respect/celebrity/resonance/charisma standpoint. Then, I determined which doppelgänger was, for lack of a better word, bigger.

So to prove this, Bill took his opinion of the stars from 1997 and compared them to his opinion of what these 1997 stars are comparable to in 2017, then he used his opinion on a not-carefully selected seven characteristic scale to compare these two generations of athletes. Adding up these statistics he never complied in which to compare these athletes, he then he used his opinion on which athlete was more marketable. So he based his selections on his opinion, used more of his opinion to think of these characteristics for each athlete that would be used to measure marketability, then didn't use a numerical ranking system of any type to show how he reached his conclusions, instead choosing to use his opinion based on (shrugs shoulders, looks around the room)...but more importantly here is Bill's conclusion! 

Bill couldn't even be bothered to pretend to use random numbers to compare the athletes from '97 and 2017? He's so lazy that he introduces criteria and can't even turn this criteria into numbers at least pretending there was a thought process? Well, onward to the conclusion, which is obviously where Bill wanted to go before he created the question "A. Fitzgerald" had. I mean, before "A. Fitzgerald" emailed the question to him.

Before we get there to the conclusion, let's look at the "Mad Scientist Who Shirks Empirical Data or Numbers Because Because Because Because Let's Just Get to the Conclusion," Bill Simmons, and how he compared NFL players to each other (doppelgangers!) who don't even play the same position. 

Von Miller (’17) > John Randle (’97)

Doppelgangers! One is a LB and the other is a DT and they are separated by 40 pounds. It's all the same though. 

Matthew Stafford/Ben Roethlisberger (’17) > Jeff George/Warren Moon (’97)

I just can't with this comparison. I can't. Warren Moon and Ben Roethlisberger? 

Ndamukong Suh (’17) > Bruce Smith (’97) 

One is a DT and the other is a DE. If Bill thinks Ndamukong Suh and Bruce Smith are doppelgangers then I think that says more about his study based on his opinion which uses no numerical data to reach a conclusion than anything else. 

Bill is mailing in his mailed-in mailbags. 

Khalil Mack/Aaron Donald (’17) = Derrick Brooks/Kevin Greene (’97)

Khalil Mack has 34.5 career sacks in his short career, while Derrick Brooks had 13.5 career sacks over his entire career. Their playing style is the exact same, other than it being entirely different. More like identical twins is what Brooks and Mack are, if the identical twins were not identical and didn't know each other at all. Mack and Brooks are basically Ronde and Tiki Barber, joined at the hip in the lore of NFL history. 

Also, Aaron Donald is the doppelganger of Kevin Greene? Really? I didn't miss reading Bill's drivel. 

Kareem Hunt/Tyreek Hill (’17) = Marshall Faulk/Terry Glenn (’97)
Warren Sapp/Michael Strahan (’97) > Geno Atkins/Myles Garrett (’17)

… and it starts getting silly.

Yes, NOW it starts getting silly. Prior to this moment, the exercise in Bill Simmons circle-jerking was based on proven opinion and the scientific method as shown through the use of 7 carefully chosen categories whose results literally don't exist in any form to show how Bill came to the conclusion based on his opinion. But now, things are getting silly. 

But guess what. I was wrong! 2017’s stars more than held their own against 1997’s stars. There goes that theory. What about hoops? The NBA is more popular today, right? Our 2017 guys would win 80 percent of the matchups, right?

2017: LeBron, Curry, Westbrook, Harden, Durant, Giannis, Kawhi, CP3, Griffin, The Brow, Draymond, Dirk, Klay, Giannis, Kyrie, Wall, Carmelo, Thomas, Love, Embiid, Lillard, Gasol, Hayward, Boogie, Towns, Porzingis, Lonzo, Simmons.

1997: Jordan, Shaq, Iverson, Malone, Barkley, Hakeem, Robinson, Garnett, Kemp, Duncan, Penny, Hill, C-Webb, Ewing, Payton, Miller, Mourning, Hardaway, Kidd, Stockton, Sprewell, Mutombo, Rice, Richmond, Baker, Young Kobe.

Oh shit! Not only were NBA players just as famous and marketable 20 years ago, but Jordan doubled as the biggest basketball star we’ve ever had.

Serious question...are there people who read this and think, "Great point by Bill Simmons!"? I ask because this is honestly pure bullshit and I'm embarrassed that Bill has written it down to where he can share the embarrassment that he has become with the rest of the Internet. 

Where the hell does Bill even get "Our 2017 guys would win 80 percent of the matchups, right?" from? He has absolutely no concrete basis upon which to base this claim. He's basically just typing words. Where in here does it show that NBA players are just as famous and marketable 20 years ago? He literally just wrote down the names of NBA players, typed a curse word and reached his conclusion. I think I can do this.

Is cancer as deadly as the Black Death? 

Cancer: Bones, operations, prostate, breast, Odell Beckham, surgery, brain, liver, doctors, Ewing Theory, Jimmy Kimmel

Black Death: Rat fleas, mice, boats, death, bubonic, Rocky IV, gangrene, pandemic

Oh hell no! Not only is cancer just as deadly as the Black Death, but the Ewing Theory says if I had to have a biopsy to remove malignant tissue, the tissue that grows in it's place could eventually lead to me having even stronger mental and physical abilities. So the Ewing Theory says cancer may not be a bad thing. We all should want it. Let's go to the next mailbag question.

I'm kidding, of course. There is more space to waste with this exercise in showing off Bill's nonsensical findings. 

So, what’s really going on here? Two things …

1. We don’t like football as much because of concussions, greed, Goodell, oversaturation, the gratuitous violence, all the unseemly off-field stuff and everything else I covered in this piece. In 1997, we didn’t cringe when receivers had their clocks cleaned over the middle, or when quarterbacks got annihilated by a weakside blitz and had to be revived with smelling salts. We enjoyed that stuff. That was football, baby! We didn’t feel even remotely guilty about it. The star power didn’t change; we changed.

I see Bill still uses the word "we" to describe himself when he thinks everyone was also wrong or had a misconception. It wasn't Bill that had the misconception, it was all of us. Also, "we" don't like football now as much as "we" liked football in 1997? Really, Bill? Is this a fact? I'm not sure it is.

True story: The Madden NFL ’96 video game arrived with a then-hilarious wrinkle. Whenever a player got injured, you heard a crunch followed by Pat Summerall saying, “Oh no, there’s a man down.” Eventually, anyone playing realized that you could maim players after the whistle, which led to more hilarity, real-life arguments (“How could you do that, you dick????!”) and actual truces between two buddies agreeing NOT to maim players after the whistle. This really happened. I swear to God.

Bill writes this like nobody else in the world has ever played "Madden NFL '96."

He's swearing to God and everything when talking about a video game many people have played and it takes 2 minutes to pull up footage (Bill includes a YouTube link by the way) of this "then-hilarious" wrinkle, but he's perfectly fine blazing through the entirely unprovable conclusion the NBA is more marketable than the NFL without a single shred of empirical evidence outside of his opinion. You can find evidence of the video game wrinkle in a matter of minutes, yet Bill feels the need to swear to God it exists. But proof his conclusion the NBA is more marketable than the NFL, he is confident his complete lack of empirical evidence presented here shows all the proof necessary. No swearing to a deity necessary.

Bill Simmons as a used car dealer:

(Bill) "This car can fly once it gets to the speed of 88 mph."

(Customer) "That's not true."

(Bill) "This car also gets 28 miles per gallon. You have to believe me, I swear to God. Fucking believe me, man."

(Customer) "I do. It's right here on the stic---"

(Bill pulls a knife and threatens a child with it) "You gotta believe me. This car. It gets great gas mileage. Swear to God. It really does!" (starts carving the gas mileage number into his cheek)

(Customer) "I believe you!"

(Bill) "Great, thanks. Also, magic elves are the reason the car flies."

(Customer) "I don't believe you." 

(Bill) "Well, we will just be wrong about that then if the car doesn't really fly. Let's sit down in my office and start talking numbers. I'm kidding, I don't use numbers to quantify anything."

2. We like basketball more than we did in 1997,

There you go. This is how "we" feel. I know you may think you personally feel differently, but you don't. Trust Bill's instinct on this. You like basketball more now than you did in 1997.

YouTube and Twitter allowed us to consume specific plays in easily digestible bites; and the people covering the sport itself went from a bunch of older, out-of-touch white guys to a younger, more diverse group that actually consumed it.

You see how out of touch Bill is? He believes that because the demographics of those who cover basketball has changed, the sport has become popular as a result. Four issues here with these claims: 

1. What? So younger, diverse people were not watching the NBA and now they are because those who cover the sport reflect a younger, diverse crowd? I've heard of people needing to see themselves reflected on a movie screen, television show or in the athletes actually playing a sport, but I've never heard "Well, I would watch the NBA but there just aren't enough young, diverse journalists covering the sport."

It's nonsense, that's what it is.

2. Bill is an older, out of touch white guy.

3. This reasoning could also be used for why the NFL is more popular now. Highlights are everywhere and there is a more diverse group of people covering the sport now. Of course, Bill is functionally incapable of making a cogent point because frankly he doesn't give a shit. Of course, his loyal readers seem to have the same problem solving and reasoning skills as he does.

4. Where is the evidence there is a younger, diverse group of journalists covering the sport and this has caused more people to watch? I'm slowly going dumb at this claim. Bill absolutely does not think his points through. What if the NBA is losing viewers due to white, out of touch white guys not watching it as much due to their demographic no longer represented as often in the sports journalism industry? Bill never thinks about this because he's lost in his tunnel vision, no-facts-used argument right now.

Check out this email from Rez in Sacramento …

“It's October 18 with a full slate of MLB playoff games and another NFL weekend coming, yet it feels like the world is watching the NBA. Boston fans are on suicide watch, Kings fans are screaming the refs screwed them, Giannis is having a statement game, my dad is texting me Thibs is overrated, my girlfriend is arguing Bobby Portis wasn't suspended long enough ... IT'S OCTOBER 18TH!!!! The only people who are supposed to be watching NBA games right now are Zach Lowe and youth groups who scored cheap tickets. No seriously, that's the list. Am I crazy??? This idea of NBA dominance is so delightful my brain won't accept it as possible.”

Until this decade, when did anyone ever treat the preseason, summer league, Opening Night and July 1 like these were monumental events? It’s unbelievable. Did you ever think you’d care about LeBron James’s shirtless workout videos or Russell Westbrook’s passive-aggressive Instagram photos? It never ends. NBA stars stumbled into a way of connecting with fans—during the season, during games, and even during the offseason—that stars from the No Fun League simply can’t replicate.

"Yes, I have anecdotal evidence on line 1, it would like to talk to you." 

This is peak "Here is what my friends and I think, so it must be what everyone else thinks as well" reasoning. I can't argue the NBA didn't have an eventful offseason, but the NFL owns the offseason just as much if not more than the NBA. And NBA diehard fans treated the preseason, summer league, and Opening Night as a monumental event. Did other people who are casual fans feel this way to and this reflects the improved marketability of the NBA? Eh, not so sure. Try to remove yourself from your social media bubble and try to accept that your thoughts are not reflective of everyone else's thoughts. Also, everything that was written here about preseason games being monumental events can be said for the NFL too. 

But again, Bill doesn't care about facts, evidence or anything of the like. He knows the point he wants to prove and will ignore evidence contrary to his point. 

Football isn’t dying by any means; the ratings and attendance and merchandising money tell us as much. 

The ratings say the NFL is more popular than the NBA. 

But culturally? NBA careers last twice as long 

The length of an NBA career is not a culturally related point. Also, the length of a player's NBA career has almost nothing to do with marketability, absent outlying extremely popular players whose careers are cut extremely short for one reason or another. 

and the league’s stars shine a little more brightly.

This is not a fact. This is an opinion. Over the past twenty years Bill has consistently not been able to tell the difference. I'll help him. 

Bill's HBO show was awful - an opinion

Bill's HBO show was canceled- a fact

How does Roger Goodell not get fired yesterday? He’s grown the league so poorly that the NFL’s signature video game was forced to use NBA STARS to seem a little more hip! What?

This is regarding Madden 18 using NBA players in an advertisement for the game. 

I have a very low opinion of  Bill's intelligence. He says a lot of things that are lies, he lives in his own world where the facts are what he chooses them to be, he has the capacity to do better but just doesn't seem to want to go in that direction, and the people who do like him are very loyal, which confuses me. But to say Roger Goodell should be fired because a private company chose to use NBA players in their marketing for an NFL game is an incredibly ridiculous statement. It would be like firing John Skipper because a column on Grantland outed a transgender golfer who eventually committed suicide. There is a lack of causation there.

It's a fucking video game. There are 100 reasons to fire Roger Goodell that are valid. I don't know how Bill Simmons manages human beings at "The Ringer" if he wants to fire the NFL commissioner because of how Madden 18 is marketed. 

Next is a mailbag question about "The Challenge" on MTV. I would think after taking two years off from Bill's mailbags something would change. How naive I am. 

Q: Why don’t we refer to Philip Rivers as Octo-Dad?
—Dean, Juniper Hills, Calif. 

Because it's stupid and only someone who thinks he is funny would call him that. 

BS: I can’t think of a single reason.

As I said. 

Q: Can we find Jared Goff a nickname?
—Tyler Goffi, Shamokin, Pa.

 

BS: Sure—what about J-Go? I’m not afraid of Jared Goff down four with two minutes left. You know who I’m afraid of? J-Go. Done!

Are there really people who read Bill Simmons and are entertained by it? If so, how? Do these people lack friends who can answer these questions? Why must it be Bill who answers them? Also, "J-Go" as a nickname? It's so lazy, but it allows Bill to keep churning content. 

Q: On the heels of Al Michaels's “Harvey Weinstein/Giants” joke, followed by the ensuing apology within an hour, it made me wonder what are the Top 5 or Top 10 Sports “On-Air Comments Then Apologies” of recent memory? A few that come to mind are: Lee Corso's F-bomb, Matt Millen/Jaws Polish Comment, Brent Musburger oozing over Katherine Webb, and Bob Griese's Taco Apology.
—Ross M., San Francisco

BS: Let’s answer this next week. America, please, send me the best on-air apologies you remember to themailbag@theringer.com.

My favorite apology, though it was not on-air, was the one where the editor-in-chief of Grantland apologized for outing a transgender golfer (Dr. V), helping to ruin that golfer's life to the point that golfer committed suicide. That editor-in-chief was really, really sorry for helping to ruin a life though. It's understandable though. Who knew outing someone was a misstep? Certainly not anyone that runs in Bill's young, diverse crowd that has caused the NBA to exceed the NFL in popularity. Bill was surprised to hear you shouldn't just fucking "out" someone:

Caleb’s biggest mistake? Outing Dr. V to one of her investors while she was still alive. I don’t think he understood the moral consequences of that decision, and frankly, neither did anyone working for Grantland. That misstep never occurred to me until I discussed it with Christina Kahrl yesterday. But that speaks to our collective ignorance about the issues facing the transgender community in general, as well as our biggest mistake: not educating ourselves on that front before seriously considering whether to run the piece.

I didn't realize grown adults still needed to be educated on this issue, but again, I also wasn't so concerned with "the scoop and story" that I was willing to publish a story without looking into the impact some parts of the story could have on the subject's life. 

Anyway, Bill needs to bash ESPN real quick. 

I’m always partial to ESPN apologizing at 12:30 a.m. (when just about everyone in Boston was asleep) for erroneously saying two different times that the Patriots illegally taped a St. Louis Rams walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI.

Isn't it funny how we didn't hear Bill complain about this a decade ago as ESPN was bankrolling his career, giving him a platform to make his career and throwing money into Grantland? I know Bill is going to bash ESPN, but it's always going to feel spiteful to me based on where he came from and what they helped him to achieve in his career. Bill wasn't a journalist who worked his way up to ESPN like 90% of the other ESPN employees. He was smoking pot, bar tending, and writing a blog when ESPN plucked him up out of obscurity and gave him a platform. It doesn't work that way for most other ESPN employees, so Bill being resentful probably won't ever make sense to me, no matter how it all ended. Plus, I always think Bill is going to come crawling back to ESPN at some point.

Q: In your 9/22 mailbag you wrote: “Bill Simmons is never changing his mind on these six things” and one was “Rocky 3 was the best Rocky movie.” And yet in 2002, you wrote a lengthy breakdown where you not only claimed that “the first Rocky was the finest of the bunch, no question” but went on to rank Rocky IV AHEAD of Rocky III for rewatchability. How can we ever trust you again? My children cried when they found out.
—Ben, Chicago 

Oh no, Bill is contradicting himself again. We all know that Bill is NEVER wrong, so he will weasel out of the fact he can't remember he once had a different opinion based on the point he wants to prove at the time. 

BS: Rocky III is the best Rocky movie. Rocky IV is the most rewatchable movie. Huge difference.

Yes, semantics say this is a massive difference. But let's see how Bill addresses that he ranked "Rocky" ahead of "Rocky 3" in 2002 and now claims in 2017 that he is never changing his mind that "Rocky 3" was the best Rocky movie. I'm sure he will sufficiently expl---

By the way, now Sly Stallone is directing Creed 2? He’s 71 years old!

"By the way, LOOK! SOMETHING SHINY! GO PLAY WITH IT! Now let's go to the next mailbag question and ignore how I ignored a question posed to me about how I contradicted myself. Also, the fact I chose to publish a question where I contradict myself probably doesn't show how little mail I'm getting these days. I'm still popular. It's not like I'm answering questions posed by the same person or anything. THAT would be a clear indication I'm not getting as much email from my SimmonsClones asking me to justify their existence as I used to. Thank goodness that's not happening."

Q: I literally just dropped Aaron Rodgers for Orleans Darkwa on my fantasy football team. Can we all agree to stop doing fantasy football? Thanks.

—Marc, Madison, Wis.

Q: I can't wait for you to mispronounce/misspell Brent Hundley's name for the rest of the Packers season. Or is it Brett Hundley? Brent Hudley?
—Marc, Madison, Wis.

Oh no. There are probably two guys named "Marc" who live in Madison, Wisconsin. Most likely. I doubt Bill gets such little mail these days that he had to publish two unrelated questions from the same person to fill out his mailbag. That would never happen.

Q: The Saints-Packers line moved 10 points with Aaron Rodgers’s injury. Why isn’t this a good way to tell who the MVP is? Which players would cause the biggest line moves?—Eric, Denver

Because gambling lines are not necessarily indicative of which individual players are the most valuable. Gambling lines are set up by Vegas to get gambling action on a game, not an indication of which player that is missing could be the most valuable. Of course, Bill likes this idea because Bill lacks logic and is stupid in that way.

BS: You’re right — only Rodgers swings it by double digits. I’m fine with deciding the MVP this way. 

Okay, I'll play. Drew Brees gets injured and now the line moves 11 points, because Brees' backup isn't as good as the Packers' backup in this scenario. Does this mean Rodgers is not the MVP, instead Brees is? And how in the fucking hell can you tell who the MVP is when that player plays all 16 games? If Tom Brady plays all 16 games and throws for 6000 yards and 98 TD's, is he not the MVP because the line didn't move due to his never getting hurt? This ridiculous method to choose the MVP requires the person to become injured in order to see how much the line would move. Also, this theory is subject to so many outside influences that can affect a gambling line that I can't believe I've wasted this many words talking about it. It's dumb, Eric. That's why it's not a good way to tell who the MVP is.  

My old ESPN teammate Chad Millman once came up with a great “I wish I had thought of that!” idea called PSVAR (point spread value above replacement) that’s basically gambling VORP. Guess who had the highest number every year? Aaron Rodgers. 

It would be really nice if Bill shared how this PSVAR was calculated, but anybody who knows Bill Simmons or how he writes his columns know that PSVAR is calculated through a really shitty process that we are better off never knowing. More than likely, it uses subjective numbers to get to the PSVAR calculation. 

Our PSVAR top five for this goofy 2017 season probably looks like this:

Rodgers: +10
Brees: +8
Brady: +7
Ryan: +7
Wentz: +7
Watson: +7

That. Is. Six. Players. Not. Five. Learn. To. Count. You. Fraud.

What’s the most amazing thing about that list? 

That you are incapable of counting to the number 6? That you don't tell your readers how you came to these numbers which make up PSVAR? That even you don't know how you came to these numbers because you wrote the word "probably" meaning you haven't calculated the actual numbers and are making them up in order to prove the point that Aaron Rodgers is #1 and to feign surprise when your made up list of five players that is really six players comes to a conclusion based on fake data that you think should surprise everyone but really shouldn't, because again, YOU ARE MAKING IT ALL UP OUT OF THIN AIR?

I find all of those things amazing.

Deshaun Watson! Who knew?

Yes, who knew that Deshaun Watson would make the Top of PSVAR? Certainly not anyone who can count to 5 and knew that Watson was number 6 on the list. Certainly not anyone who still has no idea how PSVAR is calculated.

Also, I can't emphasize enough that Bill is feigning surprise at the fact Deshaun Watson is in the Top 6 of PSVAR when it appears to be a metric based on absolutely no real data. In fact, here are my Top 5 NFL players in PSVAR this year:

Aaron Rodgers (+10)
Blake Bortles (+3)
Brian Hoyer (+2)
Drew Brees (-2)
Frank Gore (-455)

OH MY GOD! WHO KNEW THAT FRANK GORE WAS THE FIFTH MOST VALUABLE PLAYER IN THE NFL THIS YEAR? AND HIS NUMBER IS NEGATIVE, WHICH JUST GOES TO SHOW HOW ALL NFL PLAYERS ARE TRASH THIS YEAR AND WHY MADDEN 18 HAD TO USE NBA PLAYERS TO MARKET THE GAME WHICH PROVES THE NBA IS MORE MARKETABLE THAN THE NFL!

This is empirical evidence that PSVAR proves the NFL is less marketable than the NBA right now!

Q: I am perplexed about the cries that the NFL is conspiring to keep Kaepernick out of the league. Isn’t this just a case of the talent not matching the headache? Other notables chased from a job for the same reason: Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, Tim Tebow, Bill Simmons.

—Britt 

If you want circumstantial proof that Bill makes up these mailbag questions, this is an email from "Britt" who apparently doesn't live in a city or state. More than likely, Bill put this fake mailbag question in here as an inside joke. As Britt McHenry, the ex-ESPNer and now conservative pundit, believes that Kaepernick is being kept out of the NFL because of his talent level, not as a result of his being blackballed by the NFL. So I am betting this is a made-up mailbag question that Bill put in as an inside joke directed at an ex-coworker and this is one of many mailbag questions Bill has made up over the years. 

Then Bill outlines the plot for "Speed 3." It's so bad I didn't even have the energy to copy and paste it here. I like you all that much, as there are some things I will spare you from. 

Q: There has been a lot of talk about how the Browns have blundered by passing on good QBs such as Wentz and Watson. I think this wrongly assumes that these quarterbacks would play at a similarly high level if they were with the Browns—it’s the opposite of the Ewing Theory, players of a high caliber will get dragged down on a terrible team. Can you come up with a snappier title than the “Our shit team will always result in shit players” theory?
—Brendan, New York, N.Y.

BS: The Pewing Theory? [Wincing.] Come on! He baited me into that one! Don’t judge me!

So a theory based on money charged for pews. Ummmm...okay. 

By the way? I actually believe in the Pewing Theory. 

No way! Bill believes in a ridiculous theory where he will have to manipulate certain information and leave out certain information in order to show the veracity of his theory? This is so unlike Bill.

We have nearly 20 years of evidence now that the Browns ruin everything. Twenty years! The 2.0 Browns are right around the same age as Shawn Mendes, Lonzo Ball, Markelle Fultz, the daughter from Modern Family and 528 different YouTube stars.

Bill is pretending like he doesn't know who Ariel Winter is. That's funny and kind of inexplicable from the guy who made part of his fame from making it okay to ogle Anna Kournikova when she was still underage. But whatever.

The Browns kept turning away franchise QBs like one of those tortured TV heartthrobs who doesn’t want anyone to fall in love with him because he knows they’ll get hurt.

I mean...what? This is the best tortured comparison Bill can make? 

They’re basically Dylan McKay after he came back to 90210 a few years after his gorgeous wife was murdered by her father’s mafia hitmen, only now he had a heroin problem and even MORE baggage. Guess what. Even THAT pop culture reference was older than the 2.0 Browns.

The self-awareness around knowing you are using an old pop culture reference doesn't take away from the fact that you still used that pop culture reference. That reference is from 1995, so it would be the equivalent of someone in 1995 repeatedly making a pop culture reference to a television show from 1973. Feels old. 

Q: What did you think of your dad’s performance on Curb Your Enthusiasm?

—Brendan, Perth, Australia

BS: It’s been a brutal October for my dad. The Red Sox got knocked out. The Yankees are still alive. It’s the worst Patriots team in eight years.

Oh yeah, cue those violins for Bill's father that this is the worst Patriots team in the past 8 years. This team may not even make the AFC Championship Game, which makes me wonder how Bill's father will ever get past such misery.

The Hayward-Kyrie era lasted five minutes before being derailed by the most gruesome NBA injury maybe ever.

It's so hard being a Celtics fan these days, knowing your team that spent big money to bring in Hayward in order to not win the NBA title this year still isn't going to win the NBA title this year. What a letdown.

Speaking of letdowns, Bill's mailbags are always a letdown for those who don't worship him.

7 comments Bill Simmons Posts an NBA Playoffs Mailbag and Promises More Mailbags to Come; Essentially Making a Mockery of the "Columns" Heading On His Grantland Page

In the last Bill Simmons post I did, which was about his NBA lottery preview, I wrote the following: 

Bill Simmons must have made a mistake. It seems he actually wrote a column and posted it on Grantland. I keep waiting for it to be pulled back and Bill to admit it was an accident and he didn't mean to actually write a column that isn't a mailbag.

But hey, I'm sure the SimmonsClones are just excited to have another column from Bill they can worship and send in questions to him about, thereby allowing Bill to answer the questions in a mailbag and justify the existence of the SimmonsClone asking the question.

So as expected, Simmons' very next column up on Grantland is in fact a mailbag. Let's just say I'm not entirely shocked. It's all circular. Bill writes a column, waits a week or two and spits out a mailbag. Then his readers respond to ideas in that mailbag and he writes another mailbag about these responses. Hey, it's better than actually having to think of a topic to write about when Bill really has no urge to put his quest for television celebrity status on hold to write like a simple little blogger would write. But, it's expected of him that he spit out words written on to a computer screen, so here is the mailbag reunion tour. Yeah, that's what he is calling it. If you would like to know why, it's easily explained in knowing that Bill Simmons has to have a contrivance for everything he writes now. He just can't write, there has to be a contrivance. Whether it's quotes from a movie, tons of YouTube videos in a column, comparing an athlete to something in pop culture or thinking of a contrivance to call the mailbag to cover up for the fact it's just a fucking mailbag, there will be a contrivance. So here is Bill's mailbag and I can feel Bill's indifference through my computer screen.

But first, it’s a Grantland Basketball Hour alert! On the heels of last night’s “Hardcore Playoff Preview” with me, Jalen Rose and Zach Lowe …

… we have a second playoff special counting down the “25 Most Intriguing People” of 2015’s postseason premiering tonight on ESPN at 7 ET. We’re also running these GBH shows as podcasts and throwing segments online (like this one). And we’re producing four to six more shows during the playoffs, so if you want to contribute a mailbag question, send it to mailbag@grantland.com.

Ah yes, the partial true intent for posting articles or mailbags again rings true. It's a great way to cross-promote Bill's other ventures with Grantland. So Bill answers questions in a mailbag in his columns and answers questions from a mailbag on television. Essentially, he is just answering questions now. He's basically become a sports version of Andy Cohen from "What Watch Happens Live." As usual, I will be making fun of the person asking the question, as well as Bill.

Hey, speaking of mailbags …
 
Q: You do mailbags so infrequently, every time you actually do one, it feels like you’re doing a Mailbag Reunion Tour.
 
—Ryan, Boston

Bill's first question is from a guy who lives in Boston. I don't believe it.

BS: First of all, words hurt. Second, I’d like to welcome everyone to the 2015 Sports Guy Mailbag Reunion Tour! I’m gonna try my hardest to write a Friday mailbag every single week during the 2015 NBA playoffs. That’s 10 weeks in all. If you’ve been reading me for this long, you know that I’m notorious for making column promises that I can never totally keep.

It is difficult to write a mailbag. Bill has to have somebody else pick out the questions he will answer, then that person has to email Bill the questions he is going to answer/ignore/try to top with original ideas of his own, and then finally Bill will have to post the questions and his answers. This time could be better used to try and have conversations with famous people that he can publicly relay to his readers or trying to make tortured comparisons between an NBA team that hasn't won an NBA title in 60+ years and the New England Patriots.

Q: I have gotten laid TWICE since you wrote last. And I am married 10 years with two little kids, so you KNOW that is a long time. Don’t make me get laid again without writing. How about “just a mailbag”? Seriously.
 
—Brian, Harrisburg, PA

It's sad that Brian's life is so empty. His wife probably doesn't want to have sex with him anymore ever since that time she caught him jerking off to one of Bill's podcasts while simultaneously watching a DVR'd re-run of the "Grantland Basketball Hour." That's probably the real reason for his lack of sex.

BS: You got laid twice even though you have two little kids? You need to be happier about this. Cheer up. You’re putting a damper on the 2015 Sports Guy Mailbag Reunion. As always, these are actual emails from actual readers.

Some of these actual readers are Bill Simmons reading his own columns and then asking himself questions, so I guess theoretically they are actual readers.

Q: Admit it Bill — Rather than following your instincts and declaring James Harden as the undisputed MVP candidate, you surveyed the field, figured out which way the winds of popular opinion were blowing and chose to give Steph Curry the edge. How could you do this, especially after coming up with the best way to judge the MVP’s candidacy? (‘Replace the guy with a decent guy in the same position and evaluate how the team would have done.’)

—Ram Sridhar, Rutherford, NJ

BS: There are a couple of other ways too. I spent four solid years working on a trial-and-error method of determining the MVP award,

Jesus Christ. This so worthless. Bill insists on creating rules for things where there are no rules because the situation changes from year-to-year.

I settled on four fool-proof questions for determining every MVP season. What better way to solve our most polarizing MVP race in years: Harden or Curry?

These are four FOOL-PROOF questions for determining every MVP season. These rules will not change until they are proven incorrect, at which point Bill will add an addendum as a way of pretending that he simply wasn't wrong about there being a fool-proof way of determining every MVP season. These four questions will stand the test of time (for one year, at the very most) and will go to prove that Bill's opinion on who the MVP is will consistently agree with Bill's opinion on who the MVP is. Few writers are better at using his own opinion to prove his opinion correct.

"Chipotle is better than Qdoba and Moe's due to this three-prong test I just created. LOOK! The three-prong test I created agrees with my already set conclusion Chipotle is better than Qdoba and Moe's."

Question No. 1: If you replaced an MVP candidate with a decent player at his position for the entire season, what would be the hypothetical effect on his team’s record?

This is a fool-proof question that contains two assumptions or questions that are purely subjective. What is a "decent player" and how do we measure the hypothetical effect on the team's record? Both of these are answers that rely entirely on a person's opinion.

Normally, you’d say James Harden wins under this framework — if you replaced him on that injury-ravaged Rockets team with, say, Arron Afflalo, Houston probably would win 35-38 games instead of 56.

Actually Bill, I have Houston as winning 45 games without James Harden.

I don't think it takes a genius to see how worthless this first question ends up being. Bill takes a guess at how many games Houston will win without Harden. It's an opinion-based question that leads to the answer simply being an opinion as well.

Couldn’t you say the same about the Warriors? Yeah, if you replaced Curry with Reggie Jackson, the Warriors might lose 15-20 more games while grabbing a no. 7 seed. 

No, actually I have the Warriors as losing 20-25 more games with Reggie Jackson AND Jackson will drown while swimming in the ocean midseason. Boy, this hypothetical is a brutal one.

It’s an exceptionally coached team with enough depth to just bench David Lee whenever they feel like it. 

I have absolutely no idea why "bench" is italicized here. It's a huge mystery to me.

And their defense has been as good as their offense, which people always forget because it’s so damned fun to watch their offense.

Nope, "people" remember this. "People" don't forget it simply because it's convenient for you to think "people" forget it so that you can feel like you just made an excellent point.

But Curry was the biggest reason that the 2015 Warriors were the seventh member of our .800/10 Club — any team that finished with an .800-plus winning percentage and a plus-10 point differential — which is relevant because the first six teams won a title.

Again, why italicize "won a title"? If you read this sentence aloud and emphasize "won a title" the sentence sounds ridiculous. Play this game at home if you like. It sounds stupid to read the sentence like Bill wrote it.

Oh, and don't forget if you are reading it aloud to use a grating voice as well for the full Bill Simmons effect.

Harden turned a .500 team into a 56-win team. Curry turned a no. 7 seed into one of the best regular-season teams ever, as well as an unforgettable League Pass team and the single best story of the 2014-15 season. So Curry wins this one.

So basically Bill didn't even get through the first question before he was like, "Fuck it, I'm not going to pay attention to my own rules. I want Steph Curry to win, so he will."

These are FOOL-PROOF questions that MUST be answered in order to find out who the MVP will be. By "fool-proof" Bill must mean "questions with arbitrary answers based on the person answering the question's opinion on the topic of who the MVP is and if the person answering the question wants a certain answer to be correct then he can just make up something on the spot."

Question No. 2: In a giant pickup game with every NBA player available and two knowledgeable fans forced to pick five-man teams with their lives depending on the outcome, who would be the first player picked based on how everyone just played in the regular season?

LeBron James. There are no other answers I would listen to as correct.

I love this question.

Bill loves this question. The same question that HE FUCKING THOUGHT OF HIMSELF! WHAT A GENIUS THAT BILL SIMMONS IS! BILL SIMMONS THINKS THAT BILL SIMMONS IS A GENIUS!

As much as I want to pick Russell Westbrook, the thought of hinging my life on a night when Russ might lose his mind and start going 1-on-5 while maybe earning a 16th technical that the league can’t even rescind because the loser of the hypothetical bet would be dead already … I mean, that scares the bejesus out of me. The safest bet? LeBron James 

I feel like Will Ferrell's version of Alex Trebek on SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy sometimes when I'm covering a Bill Simmons mailbag. I just want to rip up the cards with the questions on them and ask Bill, "What conclusion would you like to reach? Just state what you think and we can ignore all the bullshit you use to get there."

In this case, I'm going to try and ignore what "knowledgeable fans" would be considered in this situation. Again, it's a subjective opinion on who is knowledgeable and who is not.

You know who the answer to this question might be? KAWHI LEONARD!!!! 

It might be Kawhi Leonard or it might be Meyers Leonard or it could be Meyer Lansky. All of these would be the right answer in Crazy Land. This is the same Crazy Land where Kawhi Leonard is the first pick in a draft among knowledgeable NBA fans.

If I take Kawhi — who proved after the All-Star break that he’s the most destructive perimeter defender since Apex Scottie Pippen — then I can lock down the other team’s best offensive player and still grab an elite offensive guy with my second pick.

Or you could pick the elite offensive guy with the first pick and still have a few rounds to select Kawhi Leonard. And what if the other team doesn't choose James Harden? Does that ruin part of Leonard's value? I don't know why I ask these questions...

The truth is, there were too many terrific players this season. Westbrook was 2015’s night-to-night balls-to-the-wall alpha dog; LeBron was 2015’s hibernating alpha dog; Harden was 2015’s alpha-dog-as-long-as-Kawhi-wasn’t-around; Kawhi was 2015’s alpha dog stopper; Anthony Davis was the alpha-dog-in-training; and Curry was the alpha dog on 2015’s alpha dog. It’s a cop-out, but there’s no clear answer.

It's a fool-proof set of questions to where the first question has been ignored and the second question didn't come up with a clear answer. THESE ARE THE GREATEST QUESTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS AND SHOULD BE ASKED BY ST. PETER UPON ENTRANCE TO HEAVEN! WHO SAYS "NO" TO THIS?

Nothing is more typical of Bill Simmons than to take four years to think of four questions to determine who should win MVP that provide no clear answer as to who should win MVP.

(Important: In mid-June, we might feel differently.)

Yes Bill, since you believe yourself to speak for every NBA fan on the planet because you are the expert of all experts, "we" may feel differently in June. Spoiler alert: I won't. If the Cavs don't make the NBA Finals, I'm still picking LeBron. I'm sure "we" will find out my opinion is wrong though, because overreacting to something that just happened is a specialty of Bill's.

Question No. 3: If you’re explaining your MVP pick to someone who has a favorite player in the race — a player whom you didn’t pick — will he at least say something like, “Yeah, I don’t like it, but I see how you arrived at that choice”?

Oh for fuck's sake. This isn't even really a question. My head might explode so I hope you see the issue I have with this question. How can a question be fool-proof if it is so overly-reliant on the opinion of another person? Riddle me this Simmons!

Applies only if you’re discussing the MVP race with a Cleveland fan who counters, “Um, we were so dreadful that we won three of the last four lotteries, and then LeBron showed up and helped us overhaul our team, and suddenly we’re -230 favorites to win the East, and LeBron has looked like LEBRON for the past three months, and since we’ve already collectively agreed that he’s the best basketball player since MJ and one of the best seven or eight players ever, um, why isn’t he the MVP again?

Bill should be kicked in the groin by a horse for writing "LeBron has looked like LEBRON..." Do Bill's readers realize just how awful he is at writing, arguing a point and just generally putting together a coherent, logical thought? His writing is that of a high school kid, but is it that he's so funny and in touch with today's youth and the struggle they go through that they don't care?

Important: The Bulls went 203-43 during the three regular seasons from 1996 through 1998, then 45-13 in the three postseasons (winning all three titles). They never lost three games in a row and played only one Game 7, even though they played 304 games in 31 months. JORDAN PLAYED IN 304 OF THOSE 304 GAMES.

Important: I don't know why this is important.

And during the second of those three seasons, even though we’d already decided that MJ was the greatest basketball player ever,

Who the fuck is "we" Bill? YOU? YOU decided that Michael Jordan was the greatest player ever? Even if it is true for me personally, it annoys me Bill truly believes because he's just written in 1997 "we" decided Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player ever that is is true. He should be kicked in the groin by two horses and one of the horses needs to be wearing spikes.

a majority of media members said to themselves, I think Karl Malone was slightly more valuable this season. It’s probably the dumbest thing that ever happened. Anyway, Jordan’s numbers never slipped during that stretch.

Oh, they didn't? And again, read that last sentence aloud and hear how dumb the emphasis on "slipped" sounds in the context of the sentence. Anyway, Jordan's numbers didn't slip. Not at all.

They dipped a little, but that’s it.

So his numbers did slip? See Bill, stating Jordan's numbers didn't "slip" and then using another word that means "slip" in place of "dip" only goes to show that you are making things up as you go along. There is no difference in "dip" and "slip." It's the same thing and attempting to differentiate them is simply a desperate way of making it seem like Jordan's numbers didn't decline just slightly when they did.

LeBron in ’15: 25.3 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 7.4 apg, 49-35-71%, 25.9 PER, .199 WS/48
 
LeBron ’08-14: 28.0 ppg, 7.6 rpg, 7.1 apg, 52-35-76%, 30.1 PER, .283 WS/48

Now that’s a dip.

It's the same things as a "slip." These things I end up arguing about when covering a Bill Simmons article makes me question my sanity.

Question No. 4: Ten years from now, who will be the first player from that season who pops into my head?

Oh for motherfucking fuckityfuckeverlastinglightforallthatisholyfuckityfuckfuck. The last "fool-proof" question depends, yet again, entirely on the opinion that a person holds? This is not fool-proof, this is just an opinion. A regular, boring opinion. It's not a way to find out who the real MVP is (which we all know is Kevin Durant's mom), but this question is just another in a long line of bullshit lists, questions, corollaries, etc that Bill spent all of 10 minutes concocting. These lists, questions, corollaries, etc all end up essentially just being a way to back up the opinion Bill holds by extrapolating out a series of opinions that Bill holds to reach his ultimate opinion. It's always, "My opinion isn't wrong because here is more of my opinion that proves my original opinion correct." The game is rigged to reach the conclusion Bill wants it to reach.

But around 2007, I remember praising Nash for being the only “driver” who could have handled the race car that was the Seven Seconds or Less Suns; they were like a special Ferrari built for his exact qualities. You could say the same about Curry and 2015’s Porsche Warriors.

Okay Bill, let's play this game. If I were a Hawks fan, what if Jeff Teague is the player from this season who pops into my head? Does that mean Jeff Teague is the NBA MVP or does it just mean I'm a Hawks fan and that is the team I identify with most? Nothing can be fool-proof if it relies entirely on a person's opinion. Four opinion-based questions are even less fool-proof when based on four separate opinions. Please stop writing for Grantland.

Last Curry point: I grew up with my father telling me, You missed out on Maravich. Every weekend, they showed one nationally televised college game and we used to pray it would be Maravich. There will never be another Maravich. I always felt cheated that I never caught Pistol Pete in his prime; by the time he landed on the Celtics in 1980, he was pretty much washed up. Fast-forward 35 years: Isn’t Curry really Pistol Pete reincarnated as a more efficient, more unselfish model?

Yes, he is Bill. Steph Curry is reincarnated as a more talented Pete Maravich. You nailed it.

Over everything else, Stephen Curry performed.

Read it aloud. It sounds stupid.

This was a virtuoso performance that included staggeringly good individual efficiency and once-a-decade team success. When I think about the 2014-15 regular season, I will remember Curry and the Warriors first … and then I’ll remember everyone else. He’s my MVP.

But Bill, you said these four questions would figure out who the MVP was and you worked on these questions for four years (again, I feel like I'm Will Ferrell's Alex Trebek where there is so much stupidity being thrown at me I can't even focus on piece of that stupidity...Bill worked on these four questions for FOUR YEARS?...It would have taken me possibly an hour to come up with these rules). After four years this is all you got? These four questions figure out who you think is the MVP, so as I said, they are basically just a way to reinforce your own opinion. I think of LeBron James when I think of this NBA season. Let's pretend. So does that make him the MVP? That's what I remember most, so he's the first guy I would choose in a pick up game and if you take him off the Cavs we've seen what happens, plus it's never bad to choose LeBron and it's hard to disagree with LeBron as a choice. So this means he's MVP according to Bill's "fool-proof" four questions. Then how come Bill's MVP was Steph Curry?

Q: You once wrote that every MVP trophy’s size should depend on “the quality of the MVP race” and the “transcendence of the season itself.” How large should 2015’s trophy be?

—Josh, Grand Rapids, MI

Bill had separate weights for each MVP season and the heavier the trophy then the closer and more exciting the race was...or something like that. It obviously doesn't matter because it's another example of Bill just making things up and mistaking it for creativity.

Well, 2015 was an undeniably memorable race (along with 1987, 1990 and 1993, one of the four best of the past 30 years) … and Steph Curry is a future Hall of Famer (if he stays healthy) … and Curry definitely gutted out that award (we don’t even know if he won). So I’m awarding 25-pound status for the 2015 trophy.

(Bengoodfella makes a wanking motion with his hand)

The rest of my 2015 awards ballot, since we’re here: Andrew Wiggins for rookie (over Noel and Mirotic); Lou Williams for sixth man (over Isaiah Thomas); Steve Kerr for coach (over Budz and Pop);

Here is where I am a little confused. Steve Kerr is Coach of the Year because he took a team that was already a playoff team (got 6th seed over the last two seasons) and has the MVP on the roster over the Hawks, who were also a playoff team previously, but added no real impact players in the offseason and have almost zero stars on the team. The Hawks went from an 8-seed to the 1-seed in a matter of one season without adding real impact players, meanwhile Steve Kerr had the MVP (according to Bill) on his team.

Which guy did the better coaching job? The Warriors won 51 and 47 games over the last two seasons, while the Hawks won 44 and 38 games over the last two seasons. Both teams got a 1-seed and the Warriors went from 51 to 67 wins while the Hawks went from 38 to 60 wins. Which coach did the better coaching job again? Bill's buddy Steve Kerr of course.

Q: Don’t you think Byron Scott could play a police commissioner in a TNT drama? He definitely has the stache for it.
 
—James Houston, Redondo Beach

Uh-oh, one of Bill's readers has an original idea. We all know what this means. Bill has to shit on it and think of a much funnier, more clever idea to be the most clever guy in the room.

BS: I think it’s more fun to watch him play Unfrozen Caveman NBA Coach. I don’t believe in your pace-and-space offenses or spreading the floor so players can attack the basket. I see someone taking a 3-pointer and say to myself, “Why wouldn’t he just take two more dribbles and fire off a 20-footer?” I’m just a caveman! I was frozen during the 1988 Finals and recently thawed out to help turn the Lakers into a perennial lottery team! 

Yep, not really that funny. But hey, it's important to know that Bill heard a reader's funny idea and managed to again be the most clever guy in the room. It's about Bill's ego.

Q: How many more hours of motionless staring does Derek Fisher need to record during games before we can start calling him NBA Jim Caldwell?
 
—Ross, Santa Barbara

An idea that Bill wishes he had thought of writing down. That means he'll have to acknowledge this joke and then change the subject quickly so that everyone thinks Bill is the smartest, most clever guy in the room. Bill has jokes!

BS: Um, zero! We’re here! I always wanted an NBA Jim Caldwell. It’s too bad that Wittman doesn’t have an NFL equivalent; you can’t run the Clogged Toilet offense in football. We’ll have to wait for an NFL coach who spends every first and second down running the ball into the middle of the line, then every third down throwing it 25 yards downfield. Maybe this will be Jim Tomsula’s new offense for the 49ers. I mean, would you rule out anything incompetent with the 49ers at this point?

Bill is that guy who always turns one person's joke or idea into a dick-measuring contest where he feels like he can't stop talking until everyone has acknowledged HIS joke or idea is the best one yet. Bill has to be considered the best and therefore receive the most attention. It's shocking to know he's an only child when he certainly feeds the stereotype.

Q: Putting aside the once and future king (Jim Dolan), which team owner do you think is currently despised by the greatest percentage of the fans of their team? Right now I’d go with a toss up between Jed York and Jimmy Buss — they both feature similar combinations of ran great coaches out of town/running team solely due to nepotism/entitlement/general desire to be treated like a big boy by employees, media and fans without ever having earned it. Thoughts?
 
—James F., San Francisco, CA

BS: But in Jimmy Buss’s case, it actually is impossible — he couldn’t run a Jack in the Box, much less the Lakers. Still, everyone knows he’s getting pushed out by his sister soon. And also, he’s just been more hopeless and sad and overmatched than anything. I live in Los Angeles

You do, Bill? You live in Los Angeles? Why haven't you mentioned this little fact before in your columns? This is brand new information.

(By the way, I love how Bill's initials are "B.S." It's just very apt)

and don’t know any Lakers fan who actually hates Jimmy Buss. He’s the closest we’ll ever come in real life to Fredo running the Corleones. I feel bad even writing this paragraph.

And if Bill doesn't know any Lakers fans who like Jimmy Buss then obviously there are no Lakers fans who like Jimmy Buss. After all, how could the people that Bill knows personally NOT be a sample size that reflects the opinion of everyone?

Then again, nobody has a lower fan approval rating than Washington’s Daniel Snyder, who inspired me to write a December 2014 column based on the premise, If you’re a D.C. football fan, would you be OK if Snyder moved your team … as long as you got another NFL team three years later? When D.C. sports guru Dan Steinberg tossed that question to his readers, more than 80 percent of them responded “YES!!!!!” Now that’s a disapproval rating! Nobody is topping Daniel Snyder right now. Sorry, Jimmy Dolan haters.

But if zero Lakers fans like Jimmy Buss then that is a 100% disapproval rating. It's hard to beat that. Unless everyone Bill knows personally doesn't reflect the opinion of Lakers fans everywhere, which is an impossibility.

Q: Simple NBA lottery fix — what if any team that picks 1-thru-3 isn’t eligible for those picks the following year? So in 2015: the Cavs, Bucks and Sixers would be ineligible.
—Jordan D., Portsmouth, NH

BS: So everyone gets the same amount of lottery balls like always, but if Philly wins a top-three pick, they just slide into the no. 4 spot and that’s that? Fine by me.

Wait, Bill acknowledged a reader's idea wasn't bad AND didn't try to top that idea? I'm overcome with positive emotion.  

I’d also create a “no NBA team can win the first pick twice in a five-year span” rule. 

Oh. I guess Bill didn't top the idea, he just added to it. The positive emotion still somewhat continues.

Q: If Boogie pushes his way out of Sacramento this summer, which team is the favorite to get him? Probably not my Hornets I am guessing.

—Thomas, Ballantyne, NC

BS: You guessed right.

Because the favorites to get Cousins are the favorites that Bill will decide are the favorites.

I came up with three Boogie Summer Trade medalists without including the Celtics and their armada of future first-rounders.

Amazingly, Bill manages to include the Celtics in this discussion by not including the Celtics in this discussion. Everything NBA-related revolves around the Celtics, even when it doesn't.

THE BUCKS (Bronze) — What about Giannis, Zaza Pachulia and Milwaukee’s no. 17 pick to Sacramento for Boogie?

Stop it. A week ago Bill was comparing Giannis to Tracy McGrady. Now this.

And if I’m the Bucks, deep down, I know Giannis might be kinda sorta maybe slightly expendable with Jabari Parker returning next season.

I will admit Bill knows more about the NBA than I do, at least in general. But Jabari Parker is not anywhere close to the same thing as Giannis. Parker is a scorer who can play small forward and power forward in a pinch, while Giannis can guard seven positions on the court and can blend in well with pretty much any lineup the Bucks put out there. There is no such thing as another player duplicating what Giannis does, much less Jabari Parker being the guy doing the duplicating.

(My verdict: I don’t think Milwaukee should put Giannis on the table. It’s just fun to discuss.)

Kidding, not kidding!

THE KNICKS (Silver) — Let’s say they win a top-two pick, even if the odds dipped a little after Derek Fisher’s boys beat Atlanta on an unusually devastating night even for the always-devastated Knicks fans. Would you flip the rights to Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor for Cousins? And what would be more fun than Boogie in New York? Anything?

Why on Earth would the Knicks do this?

(My verdict: I’d do it if I were Sacramento … but I wouldn’t do it if I were the Knicks. Instead, I’d draft Towns or Okafor and spend Boogie’s money on a free agent.)

By the way, Bill is giving his verdict on what he thinks about trade ideas that he himself has thought of. This is like the first cousin to Bill using evidence he creates based on his opinion to prove his own opinion correct. So the first two trades ideas that Bill thinks about are both not going to work because Bill thinks his own ideas are bad. Thanks for killing space, Bill. 

THE MAGIC (Gold) — Your clear favorites. In July, the Magic could whip out a Nikola Vucevic/top-five 2015 pick package and maybe even throw in their future Lakers pick just to show off...And Orlando could build around their electric Elfrid Payton–Victor Oladipo backcourt, Boogie, Aaron Gordon and Tobias Harris (if they re-sign him), plus cap space galore.

Or the Magic could just keep Vucevic and the top-five pick and build around Payton-Oladipo-Vucevic-Winslow/Russell/Cauley-Stein-Gordon and Tobias Harris. Can you imagine Aaron Gordon and Cauley-Stein on the same team? They may set a record for "Most physical talent without any offensive game at all between two teammates." (How's that for a Bill Simmons-esque category?) Both Gordon and Cauley-Stein are great basketball players on paper, but their offensive games need a lot of help AND they would be on the same team? That would be fun to watch.

(My verdict: yes for Orlando, no for Sacramento unless Boogie unequivocally says, “GET ME OUT OF HERE.”)

Cousins is great, but I would almost keep the two high picks the Magic have and see how they shake out rather than trade them for Cousins.

Q: You said on a recent NBA podcast that the Thunder should have held out Durant longer, and that you can’t always trust the player’s judgement in this matter. I think you’re right. Look how Pop handled Kawhi’s wrist injury. Kawhi said his injury wasn’t that serious; Pop shot that down immediately. Even if Kawhi missed almost five weeks, look at the end result. The lesson, as always, is: Do things like the Spurs do them.
 
—Felix

BS: Should we be worried that Westbrook and Durant had six combined surgeries for two injuries? Who is the head of OKC’s medical staff, Dr. Dre?

The 90's called and they think this joke is hilarious. Couldn't there be a better punchline than "Dr. Dre" to this joke? How about an actual doctor who is incompetent or a television doctor who is incompetent? I mean, "Dr. Dre" as the punchline? That's some half-ass writing.

Q: What NBA starting Five would make for the best “5 guys who have to live in a Jersey Shore apartment” together? I first thought Cleveland, but the more I think about it I think The Clippers would be the best.

—Jonathan, North Hollywood

BS: Great call. 

TWO IDEAS! BILL HASN'T TRIED TO TOP TWO OF HIS READER'S IDEAS! IT'S A MIRAC---

That’s not your winner, though.

Sadness accrues. It wasn't meant to be.

But here’s your NBA/Jersey Shore winner: the Phoenix Suns. You know, the team I described earlier this season as, “If you put all 30 NBA teams in the same nightclub, the Suns would be the ones that kept getting kicked out for reasons like ‘We didn’t like the way Blake Griffin was looking at us’ and ‘Who does Draymond Green think he is????’” You’re not topping Alex Len, P.J. Tucker and Markieff Morris living in the same Jersey Shore house, especially when Marcus Morris keeps sleeping on the sofa because he refuses to be left out of the show. It’s just not happening.

Haha! Bill's idea is a better idea than yours!

Can’t this just be a show? What’s stopping us?

Because these players probably don't want to be on a reality television show? Because nobody would watch it? I could go on, but I care not to. I'm sure Bill can relate to simply not giving a shit anymore.

Q: What (somewhat realistic) NBA Finals match-up do you think the NBA fears the most? Portland vs. Atlanta? And do you think Atlanta is getting any calls when it plays Chicago or Cleveland or will it be Kings-Lakers, Game 6, for the entire series?
 
 —Luke, Lee’s Summit, MO

BS: We know this much: From a “Who the F are these guys?” standpoint, the NBA should worry only about Atlanta crashing the Finals. In the past 35 years, the only teams seeded lower than no. 3 that made the Finals were the 1981 Rockets (no. 6), 1995 Rockets (no. 6), 1999 Knicks (no. 8 in a lockout season), 2006 Mavs (no. 4) and 2010 Celtics (no. 4). That’s five times in 35 years! You have an 86 percent chance of seeing two of the following 2015 Finals opponents: Golden State, Houston or the Clippers, and Atlanta, Cleveland or Chicago.

The NBA. The professional sports league that everyone who writes "There needs to be a salary cap in MLB" and "MLB is dying because only certain teams have a chance of winning the World Series at the beginning of the year" columns seem to forget about as an example of a league where only certain teams really do start the year off as having a chance to win the NBA Finals.

Let’s rip through the pluses and minuses of the Hawks making the 2015 Finals.

Hey, it beats Bill shitting on ideas from his readers. 

Pluses: Hawks-Warriors would feature the most diverse crowds, by far, in NBA Finals history … this is important: IT’S REALLY FUN TO WATCH THE HAWKS PLAY BASKETBALL BECAUSE THEY PLAY BEAUTIFULLY TOGETHER … there’s a Tree of Pop scenario if it’s Hawks-Warriors or Hawks-Spurs … oh, and Atlanta pro sports fans have rooted for exactly one championship team since 1958 (the ’95 Braves during the shortened post-strike season when everyone hated baseball).

Yes, EVERYONE hated baseball that season so this championship doesn't really count. It took the Yankees to really make the world love baseball again.

Minuses: I hate typing this because I love watching them, but the ’15 Hawks would unequivocally be our most anonymous Finals team since the ’76 Suns …

"Our" most anonymous Finals team. Because it's an "us" thing who don't know who the '15 Hawks are. By the way, if Bill hates typing this then why did he do it and thereby give credence to this idea?

Atlanta is America’s strangest big city because it doesn’t have a discernible downtown, which makes it a quagmire for “big sporting event purposes” (there’s no epicenter and it’s a traffic disaster)

This is important as it pertains to why it would be bad for the Hawks to make the NBA Finals. I know all the fans that watch on television would be deeply worried about the traffic situation in Atlanta.

if ABC got stuck with San Antonio–Atlanta, they’d have to save the Finals ratings by replacing Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson and Mike Breen with Shonda Rhimes, Kerry Washington and Viola Davis …

Why would ABC do this? Because there are a lot of black people in Atlanta so the only way fans of the team would watch is if ABC replaced a mostly white announcing crew with a black announcing crew you racist asshole?

(I just like calling Bill racist in an absurd fashion...that's all)

Add everything up and there’s some undeniable 1999 Pacers/2001 Bucks/2002 Kings potential here for the 2015 Hawks. The good news: Officiating is better than it was during that 1999-2003 WWE era, and there’s more internal accountability for poor performance, as well as YouTube and GIFs and Vines lingering over everything (and a score of Internet detectives ready to pounce). The bad news: The way Cleveland is playing now, I can’t imagine them blowing Round 3 to an overachieving team that has only one defender to throw at LeBron. It’s just too far-fetched.

Yeah, but Bill, the Hawks have ubuntu and really believe in each other. Haven't you seen how they seem to enjoy playing with each other on the court and are constantly giving each other high-fives? The Hawks players do all this and from my understanding upon reading your columns is this type of team always succeeds because the players believe in each other. 

Q: Who’s winning the title? Who are we betting on in Round 1? Stop watching re-runs of The OC and text me back.
 
—Cousin Sal, Los Angeles

BS: I am making seven gambling recommendations, and only seven …

1. Cleveland to Win the East (-230)
 
Just parlay that number with Floyd to beat Manny (-210) and thank me after Memorial Day.

Yes, because Bill is historically so good at gambling. I'm sure everyone will be thanking him.

You could have maybe talked me into the Hawks if they were running on all cylinders and I had two drinks in me, but after the NYPD took out Thabo Sefolosha for reasons that remain ludicrously unclear, I don’t see how Atlanta beats Cleveland four times.

So after the Hawks lost a guy who played 18 minutes per game? Okay, then. It's not like Sefolosha could guard LeBron or anything like that.

3. Amount of Time Bill Simmons Watches the Hawks-Nets Series (52.5 Minutes)

Take the under. I can’t believe Deron Williams and Joe Johnson crashed the 2015 playoffs; I thought The Walking Dead already had its last episode. And why isn’t this entire series showing exclusively on NBA TV? What’s the point of having NBA TV if not for this series?

Bill just wrote this:

this is important: IT’S REALLY FUN TO WATCH THE HAWKS PLAY BASKETBALL BECAUSE THEY PLAY BEAUTIFULLY TOGETHER 

I hate typing this because I love watching them,

Bill likes watching the Hawks, except not really enough to watch them play a team he doesn't like watching play.

4. Cavs in Five (-120)

Here’s the smart bet. President Stevens isn’t getting swept. Baby Zeke isn’t getting swept. Jae Crowder and Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley aren’t getting swept. There will be one game in this series — in Cleveland, in Boston, doesn’t matter — when the Cavs are sleepwalking and the Celtics just care more. You watch.

Read it aloud again. The word "care" emphasized sounds silly to me.

Hey, Isaiah and Jae, can you measure this Cleveland basket for me?

A "Hoosiers" reference. It's so unlike Bill to make a "Hoosiers" reference.

Houston-Dallas has a chance to be one clunky, ugly, ridiculous, way-more-forgettable-than-you-think series. (I hope not.)

Thanks to Bill for telling "us" how forgettable "we" will find the Houston-Dallas series to be. I wasn't sure how forgettable I thought it would be.

7. Spurs in Six (+250) AND Spurs in Seven (+600)

This Spurs-Clips series is fundamentally overqualified for Round 1. That’s what makes it so great. I can’t imagine this being a dud. Too improbable.

I'm not even sure what the hell this means. This statement seems like an example of Bill giving a label to the series for the sake of something. I'm not even sure why. Apparently there are underqualified Round 1 series as well.

And second, Game 7 would happen on Saturday night, May 2, West Coast time … which would likely put the game head-to-head against Manny-Floyd in one of the all-time TV channel-flipping conundrums in the history of TV channel-flipping conundrums.

It is a channel-flipping conundrum unless a person might realize that it's not 2008, so Manny-Floyd isn't really going to be the boxing match that the headline "Manny-Floyd" makes it seem like it will be. So yep, Game 7 would probably win for me. As Bill would say, "Manny-Floyd" is underqualified for the amount of hype it will receive.

It’s destiny. It’s meant to be the Greatest Sports Night In Recent History. 

The Greatest Sports Night in Recent History, even though it hasn't happened yet to deserve this hypothetical moniker. 

So imagine having the Spurs +600 that night. Sign me up. Enjoy the playoffs, everybody.

Congrats on achieving another mailbag, Bill. The readers who worship you are an embarrassment to humanity.

4 comments Oh Look, Another Mailbag From Bill Simmons...

But it's not the Super Bowl mailbag. It's the mailbag Bill did before he took a week off from writing a Friday column only to come back and do another mailbag for the Super Bowl. I've stated multiple times Bill Simmons needs to quit writing for Grantland/ESPN. Of course, his ego can't stand the idea of giving something up and he requires the constant reinforcement from his SimmonsClones that he is the smartest guy in the room. So he won't give up writing, even though he has seemingly already done so. There have been too many mailbags and too many columns based on Bill's own failed gambling prowess of late. I'm not usually nostalgic for "the good old days," but Bill used to write columns that were at worst interesting to read, even if they involved the same jokes. At this point, the brand that is Bill Simmons has begun to eat itself. His columns have delved into a regurgitation of his previous ideas and ideas started in his mailbags. There is very little originality or new ideas that aren't somewhat based off old ideas he has had. His writing has become very insular and self-referential in that aspect. Of course his idiot minion fans still consistently read what he writes and think he's the greatest writer since---well they just think he's the greatest writer ever. Bill's columns have nothing new, it's just another extension of the old extension of Bill's brand. So what happens is Bill takes the easy road and puts out mailbags so he can be reminded by his readers of how original and creative they believe him to be.

Can you think of an NFL Championship Sunday more worthy of a mega-mailbag? Me neither. Screw the foreplay, let’s get right to it.

The foreplay might be the only interesting part of a Bill Simmons mailbag.

As always, these are actual emails from actual readers.

Sure, they are. I completely believe this. I want to believe these are real emails from real readers, but I shudder to think there is such a large group of people who appear to be idolize Bill so much that I don't want to think these are real emails.

Q: You know what this weekend is right? It’s the G.O.A.T. Bowl between Brady and Manning. If Brady beats Manning and plays spoiler to Evil Manning’s sensational season, can the Brady v. Manning debate finally be over? Manning can’t be the best ever if he is 1-3 against Brady in AFC championship games and 4-11 overall. It’s the final nail in the coffin of Manning’s playoff legacy. Isn’t beating Brady crucial for his career credentials?
—Peter, Saratoga Springs

It's always fun to read about someone following the media's narrative like it's their job to do so. The media lays out breadcrumbs to get those who don't care to think for themselves to follow a narrative and a few people eagerly follow these breadcrumbs.

After that 2006 comeback, I wrote that he only needed a Super Bowl victory “to enter the John Elway Zone — loosely translated to mean, ‘All right, here’s my ring, now you guys can all shut the hell up and leave me alone.’” And that’s how it played out. You win the ring, everyone shuts their trap.

I'm feeling like Bill is pretty wrong about this. Of course, because Bill can't fathom the world outside of his own head he thinks he is right. Unfortunately, even Bill's own colleagues like Gregg Easterbrook and David Fleming haven't shut their trap. Even writers from Seattle point out that criticism of Manning hasn't stopped due to his postseason record not being stellar. Bill's perception is that everyone has shut their trap about Peyton Manning, but this isn't entirely true.

I don’t see us ever solving the Quarterback GOAT question — it’s not like basketball, where the best player in the Finals almost always wins.

I'll let someone else touch this one. I guess the perception of this statement's veracity depends on what "almost always" means and an argument over which player is the best on each team. I think the 2011 Heat and 2008 Lakers would like to argue this statement though.

Brady came within two plays of winning five Super Bowls and one first down in Indy of battling the immortal Rex Grossman in a sixth … but any fan of the 2001 Raiders, 2001 Rams, 2003 Panthers and 2011 Ravens would stomp their feet in disbelief if you played the “If only Brady had better luck!” card.

I wouldn't stomp my feet, but simply point out that Brady is one first down from a sixth Super Bowl and one bad officials call from still being in five Super Bowls. Also, how many times has a kicker kicked the ball out of bounds in the Super Bowl? Luck happens, but the universe tends to even things out.

And you can’t have the “Best QB” conversation without these five guys being involved: Brady, Manning, Montana, Elway and Unitas. (Every other candidate comes with a “But … ,” whether it’s Marino, Favre, Young, Bradshaw, Luckman, Graham, Baugh or whomever.)

I don’t think someone like Aaron Rodgers cares about being remembered as the GOAT; he just wants to win some titles, make some money, stay healthy and turn that list from five to six.

So if Aaron Rodgers wants to turn the "official" list (because it came from Bill and he is the supreme authority on these things of course) from five to six, then doesn't this mean Aaron Rodgers does care about being remembered as the GOAT? If he wants to win titles and be in the "Best QB" conversation, that has to mean Rodgers cares about being the GOAT.

When I called Brady about his “rivalry” with Manning in 2011, I gotta admit, it was mildly disappointing to find out that he didn’t care. 

This is your reminder from Bill Simmons that he has talked with Tom Brady before. He like knows Tom Brady you know. When Bill talked to Tom Brady, because he totally did, he found Brady didn't care. This is much like I don't care that Bill got to talk to Tom Brady, worked with Jimmy Kimmel, has talked with Bill Russell or any of the other famous athletes/celebrities that Bill seems to name-drop when he can.

Only one thing mattered to him: that playing Manning was always a challenge, something you couldn’t take lightly. That’s it. We want these guys to care about legacies and rivalries and all of that 24/7 talking head/sports fan/message board bullshit, but at least in football, you can’t think that way. They’re concentrating on staying healthy, outsmarting opponents, remembering playbooks, competing, working out, brainstorming … there’s just too much to do. That’s the reality.

I like how Bill is giving his readers a mini-lecture about how Manning and Brady don't care about the rivalry that fans want to see them have. The question from his reader didn't ask about this. It asked about the perception of Manning and Brady, but Bill couldn't resist giving his readers a mini-lecture about what Tom Brady really cares about since he talked to Tom Brady one time and he knows Brady doesn't care about a rivalry with Manning.

Bird and Magic clashed in three out of four NBA Finals, at the peak of their powers … and then it never happened again.

And these two basketball players are the only two superstars to ever meet each other in the playoffs to determine which team gets to move to the next round. 

Brady and Manning battled in three AFC playoff games in four years, right as they were hitting their primes … and then it never happened again. So this is cool. Everyone wins, I say.

Everyone wins, Bill says. 

Q: We need to be prepared for the very real possibility that the two teams playing in the Super Bowl will be representing the only two states that legalized marijuana. I think before we go any further, don’t we need to come up with a name ASAP? The best I could do is the Smoke-A-Bowl. I know you and your readers can do better.
—Scott M, Chicago, IL

SG: I narrowed it down to five choices that would definitely be sponsored by Taco Bell, Sour Patch Kids and Cheetos: The Weed Bowl, the 420 Bowl, the Pot Bowl, the Smoke-A-Bowl, or the Doobie Bowl. (Thinking.) Wait a second, why am I narrowing this down? What could possibly be better than the Doobie Bowl?!

None of those are particularly good, but the Smoke-A-Bowl is definitely better than the Doobie Bowl. Of course, Bill has to one-up his readers when it comes to being creative, so it shouldn't shock me that he thinks the Doobie Bowl is the better option.

Q: I’ve been amused by your “Aaron Hernandez coming in last place for Sportsman of the Year joke” and got to wondering what that list would actually look like. Here’s what I came up with before getting bored: 2013: Aaron Hernandez; 2012: Lance Armstrong; 2011: Jerry Sandusky; 2010: Ben Roethlisberger; 2009: Tiger Woods; 2008: Marvin Harrison; 2007: Michael Vick; 2006: Albert Haynesworth; 2005: ???; 2004: Ron “Melee” Artest. Also, nothing will ever top 1994 (OJ beating out Tanya Harding), but don’t sleep on 2007 when Vick’s runners-up included Tim Donaghy, Todd Bertuzzi, Pacman “Strip Clubs” Jones and Barry Bonds for breaking (Hank Aaron’s record). Finally, Ben Roethlisberger seems a little weak in 2010.  Is it possible Tiger Woods won back to back awards?  We found out about like 300 additional floozies that year!
—Jason, Harrison, NJ

SG: First — incredible email.

I feel like Jason from New Jersey got sexually aroused upon hearing that his idol and hero Bill Simmons thought this email was incredible. I'm not sure there is a higher honor that can be given to a SimmonsClone.

Q: If I had told you our best players in the most important win of the Pats season would be LeGarrette Blount and Jamie Collins, would you have actually believed it? And now we get Brady and Manning again??? This is easily the most extraordinary NFL season since Saving Private Ryan.
—Trent Chabot

SG:

"Fuck you, Trent. Let's talk about me."

Even more amazing: All four Round 2 favorites advanced for the first time since January 2005, and only a few days after I warned everyone, Whatever you do, don’t throw the favorites in a three-team tease BECAUSE YOU WILL GET BURNED. I’d like to meet the one guy who went against every piece of gambling advice I dispensed these past four months. Wait, check that — I’d like to fly to Kahua or St. Barts and check out that guy’s new beach house. 

While I appreciate the self-deprecation here, the fact Bill understands he is terrible at gambling won't stop him from writing three columns next NFL season about new gambling rules that he has pulled out of his ass. It's amazing to me that Bill can write "I'm so terrible at gambling, but look at my new hard-and-fast rules that will change next year about how to gamble on NFL games. I'm bad at it, but I'm an expert too" in his columns and at no point do his readers think maybe Bill makes these rules up as he goes along.

Also, Bill includes emails that end with "...since 'Saving Private Ryan'" as a reminder to us that his quote about how great "Lone Survivor" was is included in the advertisements for the movie. Bill tries to come across as self-deprecating but I know it's really just his way of reminding his readers one of his quotes from a movie review ended up in the advertisement for that movie.

Then, because Bill's mailbags are also cheap excuses to discuss his favorite teams at length he goes on about how what a great coach Bill Belichick is and how if the Patriots had won the Super Bowl how this would be Belichick's best coaching job ever.

Q: Gun to your head, is Johnny Football going to be great, average, or a bust if he goes #1 overall? I have a very strong ‘bust’ vibe, but I don’t know anything. Of course I’d argue that nobody really knows anything.
—Ian, New York

Great way to take a position Ian. You would argue that nobody can actually predict the future. Don't go too far out on that limb there Ian. You never know when someone will be able to predict the future, so never say "never."

Your best-case scenario: Starting at the combine in April, the experts start picking apart Johnny Football for being too short/too immature/too big of an injury risk. The league cools off on him. Just a little. But there’s no way he’s getting past the Vikings on draft night, right? Well, Houston (no. 1), Cleveland (no. 4) and Minnesota (no. 8) all pass on him for other QBs, an especially stinging sequence because one of those other QBs had the how-can-anyone-ever-become-a-famous-QB-with-this name of “Blake Bortles.” So Johnny unexpectedly falls out of the top 10, launching a Rodgers-like tailspin because nobody from no. 11 through no. 19 needs a QB. Arizona grabs him at no. 20, followed by a chastened Johnny Football dedicating himself to haunting every team that passed on him — à la Brady, Rodgers, Brees and Wilson before him.

There's no way Johnny Manziel will last to #20 in the draft. The whole idea of being too short isn't quite the problem it was over the past few years due to the success of Russell Wilson, not to mention NFL teams believe they can prevent injuries to a mobile quarterback by teaching him to slide or get out of bounds. Sure, Manziel falling in the draft would be a good thing for him but I really doubt he will fall that far. Maybe if he gets caught with a kilo of coke or does something stupid followed by a terrible Combine and workout day at Texas A&M he could fall, but other than that, he's going to be taken early in the NFL Draft in my opinion. I find it hard to believe too many teams are turned off by his frat boy exploits while at Texas A&M.

Q: The NFL’s version of Jose Canseco. That sentence should scare Roger Goodell to death. The discussion of concussions and life impacting injuries in the NFL is growing louder and will continue to do so as players continually become bigger, stronger, and faster. The NFL will love it as long as their game stays on top and rakes in money. More games? A team in London? Football on every Thursday? Whatever it takes. A former player so desperate for the limelight (and money) is going to burst this bubble. My bet for who that player is and when it will happen? Chad Johnson within the next five years. Who would you predict?
—Josh Hanson, Eau Claire

SG: If we’re using the Canseco model, it needs to be a troubled attention hog who can’t be taken seriously and has no problem making outlandish accusations, only he’s so troubled that nobody takes him seriously right away. It also needs to be someone shameless enough NOT to be afraid to break “The Code.” It has to be a big enough name. And it has to be someone who probably needs money, and may have even been imbalanced enough to (a) change his name to honor his uniform number, (b) change it back, and (c) propose to Evelyn the Gold Digger from Basketball Wives. So Chad Johnson checks every box here.

Isn't it amazing how Bill creates the criteria and then acts like he has proven something by stating that Chad Johnson fits the criteria? It's the typical move that Bill makes where he creates rules for something in order to prove himself correct. In this case, he is proving a reader correct, but given the fact it is Bill Simmons he of course can't allow Josh from Eau Claire to be the smartest guy in the room. Bill has to give his own suggestions as well.

Great pick. My runner-up choices: Tiki Barber, Terrell Owens, Aaron Hernandez.

And now Bill ignores that none of these players are imbalanced enough to do A through C and Owens/Barber probably don't need money. But hey, this is all a joke right (but it really isn't)? That's why Bill didn't follow his own criteria.

Q: Do you realize Michael Crabtree tore his Achilles on May 22nd 2013, and played a major role in an NFL playoff game on Jan 12 2014? That’s less than eight months! This yet again confirms my theory that the NFL runs sports, and produced the A-Rod suspension announcement and 60 Minutes piece strategically so people wouldn’t bring up Crabtree’s miraculous recovery.
—Matt Brady, Louisville

SG: But let’s keep sticking our heads in the sand with the current guys, then spending our outrage on retired baseball players trying to get into Cooperstown — while moaning How could we not have known? and all the other baloney from last week. You know, because God forbid some enterprising creatine guzzler affected the most broken institution in sports. Instead of caring about whether Mike Piazza’s back pimples should prevent him from getting a bronze plaque, shouldn’t we care about our current athletes (a) bending all realistic expectations of how a human body recovers from a traumatic injury, and (b) how they happen to be doing said bending?; and (c) in the case of football, bulking up to impossible sizes/speeds to cause even more of these injuries (that lead to more miraculous comebacks).

It pains me, but I do agree with Bill on this. I think it's interesting how there is all this concern for the baseball Hall of Fame and making sure guys from the PED era aren't allowed in the Hall of Fame, but the fact these athletes are bouncing back enormously quickly from injuries that require months of rehab doesn't seem to concern the NFL. I recognize medicine has gotten better, but a torn ACL is a torn ACL. There is only so quickly the body can recover from a torn ACL, but it seems like athletes (and especially NFL players) are coming back even more quickly every year.

Vonn returned to the slopes in September even though her recovering knee never felt right. She thought it felt unstable. A little wobbly, even. She kept pushing it … and in November, she crashed and tore her ACL. So long, Olympics. My friend emailed me shortly after: “Lindsey had the best resources in the world and couldn’t come back within a year. Turns our your theory was spot-on. At least in this case.” I don’t know if that’s right or wrong — we’re talking about a one-person sample size.

Of course a one person or one team sample size hasn't prevented Bill from making assumptions about something in the past, so I'm not sure why that would change in this situation. Even if Bill's point on this issue may have merit in my opinion, he's considered himself to be correct in different situations with a one person sample size. Bill tends to make rules up based on one event or what one person did and then tries to shoehorn more examples to fit these rules.

But had that February knee injury happened to any player on any of this weekend’s football teams, would they be “recovered” and playing this weekend? You tell me.

Skiing seems to be a lot harder on a person's knees as well. So I can see how Vonn returned and then the pressure put on her knee caused another ACL tear. Obviously NFL players use their knees, but anyone who has spent time skiing knows how hard a day on the slopes is on your knees and back. Imagine skiing everyday with the violence that Vonn trains at. I think that type of violence involved with skiing would be extremely hard on her knees and would explain how she tore her ACL again.

Q: To add more suspense to Sunday night’s game, what would make for a better halftime than the NFL announcing the results of every player’s drug test in the game? Couldn’t you see multiple Seahawks suspended for the second half, only to have their lawyers convince the NFL to overturn the rulings midway through the 4th quarter, allowing the players to return to the game. Even though your dream of seeing players pee in a cup won’t come true, this is the next best thing.
—Eddie Rein, Columbus

Wait, why is Bill's dream to see players pee in a cup? Is that really his dream, to watch a grown man pee in a cup? I feel like this is something Gregg Easterbrook would like to see, except he would want the player to be completely nude and peeing in the cup. Also, these are Bill's readers...so that should tell us something about Bill that is his reader thinks of this idea. And of course Bill loves this idea. It seems Bill has gone from "The voice of the fan" to "That annoying guy in your dorm who talks too loud and thinks he and his friends are much more hilarious than they actually are."

SG: Or, you could go this way — during every NFL playoff game, both teams nominate one player from the other team to pee in a cup. That way, they could discuss it in the pregame show — “Terry, which Niner would you pick to pee in the cup if you were Pete Carroll?” — then the halftime show would pretty much revolve around the two drug tests.

And as much as I disdain halftime shows and going back to the studio to hear the talking heads show highlights and discuss the game, I think I would prefer this rather than a halftime show consisting of two grown men peeing in a cup and then getting the results immediately.

Q: You on the cold: “Take it from a lifetime New Englander who spent the last 12 years in Southern California … ” Why didn’t you just say, “Take it from a SoCal sellout pussy”?
—Jack, Cleveland
 
SG: OK, I’m gonna put on a jacket.

Damn, Jack from Cleveland was a little chippy. I blame the Browns for his chippiness. Also, I like how Bill prints three (this was the last one) emails that are not kind to him. I have to say, it's a nice change of pace from the usual kiss-ass emails that Bill seems to get. Of course, Bill doesn't take the time to actually retort or point out why Brady would have won as many Super Bowls as Manning did if he (Brady) played for the Colts and Manning played for the Patriots. So I'm guessing he's going to concede that point as being true? I think this would be an interesting breakdown (of course Bill would screw it up) to look at in a column. I hate "what if's" but I'd like to see how biased Bill would be when comparing Manning as a Colt and Brady as a Patriot. Just for shits and giggles, even though I hate "what if's."

Q: I’m a die-hard 49er fan and my office mate likes to give me a hard time about my 49ers … especially Jim Harbaugh.

As I am prone to saying, if you tell us you are a "diehard" fan of a team then you are probably insecure or feel you need to prove your fandom for some reason.

Q: I opened up your latest write-up on the NFL playoffs to see what you had to say. As a Lions fan I started to read the Chiefs fan tale of woe and in my head was saying, “OH BOOOO-HOOOO” until I got to a certain line: ‘(Of the 32 NFL fan bases, only Vikings fans, Bills fans and Browns fans could fully identify with that email.)’
I was about to throw my laptop across the room until a wave of confusion hit me. Are the Lions seriously SO bad that Bill friggin Simmons forgot to even mention us? OR … Are the Lions so bad they have not had enough playoff heart-break to “identify” with the Chiefs fan?

SG: You should absolutely take it as a slight. I apologize. My honest explanation: I forgot to include the Lions, realized it after the column went up, then made the in-the-moment decision, “Well, it doesn’t matter, they haven’t had enough playoff heartbreak to identify with what happened to the Chiefs, anyway.”

And because we all know it's much worse to have heartbreak in the playoffs as opposed to being so terrible that your favorite team doesn't ever make the playoffs. Sure, that makes sense.

Then Bill begins bashing Jim Caldwell after his readers write in bashing Jim Caldwell as well. This is something I can get behind.

Q: I read every word you every write — including your NFL picks.

You need a life. Read a book, find a hobby, or find someone else to idolize. This is the saddest thing I have read all day.

I just couldn’t help but laugh when I got to the end of your Division Playoffs column this week right after you picked the Broncos to win by 20 — and saw your season record for this year. OMG, what a great country!  You totally sucked all season at picking games and yet I just read about 5,000 words from you on this weekend’s four games and hung on every frickin word. —Pete Nellius, Philadelphia

SG: That was the “Backhanded Compliment of the Month” for January.

Again, perhaps this should tell you something about the types of articles that you choose to read. Maybe find someone else to idolize and realize Bill is making shit up as he goes along.

Q: Roger Goodell said in an interview he’s in a fantasy league with his daughter. What do you think they named their team? I was thinking “18 Weeks” or “The Road to Hell is Paved With Goodell Intentions”?
—Dan, Endicott, NY

SG: Personally, I think he picked something super-vanilla and non-controversial like “Roger That” or “Roger’s Dodgers.” But that’s no fun. I loved this question so much that I opened it up to everyone who follows me on Facebook. Just when you thought this column couldn’t get lazier — that’s right, I’m answering reader emails with Facebook replies! Could I reach a point where I don’t even write this column myself? I say yes!

Seriously guys, Bill really, really wants to stop writing weekly columns. Just give him permission to do so. Don't have him turn into Peter King where he manages to makes his weekly column longer and longer, while also containing more material written by someone else. It's bad enough he does mailbags at least once a month, don't make Bill do entire columns consisting of mail he receives without responses from him. He's done it before under the guise of, "This column I wrote was so interesting a lot of people wrote into me, so here is a list of emails I received from people you don't know or care about," and he will do it again, but only more frequently if he has to.

Q: In baseball, specifically Moneyball, they learned that a walk is as good as a hit. ”He gets on Base!” We have not learned that in football. I am admittedly a Peyton Manning fan, and I get sick of hearing about his miserable playoff record. So I thought — why is not making the playoffs at all almost better for a QBs legacy than losing in Round 2 after going 13-3? Earning a first round bye should be considered just as good as winning a wild-card game — the result is the same. And not making the playoffs should be just considered just as bad as losing a wild-card or any other playoff game. Better to have loved and lost right? Ok, so when you figure missed playoffs and first round byes as losses and wins respectively, you get a TRUE PLAYOFF WIN percentage.

It is interesting what happens when you tell the whole story! Why don’t we use this stat?
—Micah Kormylo, Dallas

Quarterback	Playoff Record	Byes (W’s)/No Playoffs (L’s)	True Playoff W-L	True Playoff W%
Tom Brady	18-7	7-1	25-8	0.758
Joe Montana	16-7	8-2	24-9	0.727
Joe Flacco	9-4	1-0	10-4	0.714
Troy Aikman	11-4	4-4	15-8	0.652
Ben Roethlisberger	10-4	3-3	13-7	0.650
Steve Young	8-6	5-2	13-8	0.619
Eli Manning	8-3	1-3	9-6	0.600
John Elway	14-7	7-6	21-13	0.618
Jim Kelly	9-8	5-3	14-11	0.560
Aaron Rodgers	5-4	1-1	6-5	0.545
Peyton Manning	10-11	6-2	16-13	0.552
Donovan McNabb	9-7	3-4	12-11	0.522
Brett Favre	13-11	4-7	17-18	0.486
Drew Brees	6-5	2-6	8-11	0.421
Dan Marino	8-10	4-6	12-16	0.429
Phil Simms	6-4	2-5	8-9	0.471
Warren Moon	3-7	1-7	4-14	0.222

I have to admit this is interesting. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, other than it probably overvalues whether a quarterback's team was very good or not when awarding that quarterback a playoff win or loss. Aaron Rodgers doesn't have a long history, but he hasn't traditionally played with very strong defenses and so he is getting a loss for his team not making the playoffs when this isn't necessarily his fault. Of course, a quarterback could get a bye (and therefore a win) based on being in a weak division or because of the strength of his defense so perhaps it equals out. It's a fun use of numbers but it does come off as sort of contrived and inaccurate to me if the purpose is to get a quarterback's "true" playoff winning percentage. I don't think a quarterback should get a win for having a bye nor should he get a loss for his team not making the playoffs.

I think if the purpose is to get a quarterback's true playoff winning percentage there would have to be a better way of doing it without giving him wins or losses for games he didn't even participate in. Of course, because it makes Tom Brady look good Bill Simmons loves it. If this metric had Peyton Manning as having the highest career playoff winning percentage you can bet Bill would have pointed it may not make sense to give a quarterback a loss based on his team not making the playoffs or have some other argument against the use of the metric.

SG: That’s an early contender for Mailbag Email of the Year. You’re right — why don’t playoff byes ever get factored into playoff record? Even if we just said, “Brady is 18-7 in the playoffs with seven byes,” that information is so much more enlightening than “18-7.” But the concept of “true playoff percentage” is really good. And simple.

But the metric is also factoring in a loss or win for a game the quarterback never played in. I'm not sure if failing to make the playoffs should count against a quarterback's playoff winning percentage. It doesn't make complete sense to me.

Q: I can’t think of anyone more appropriate than you to answer this question...

You need a role model or perhaps just to find a life outside of worshiping a 40+ year old man with two children. Seriously, quit kissing Bill's ass. It won't make him love you.

Q: At what age does a man: 1) Realize he can’t drink like he used to, 2) Realize he can’t eat like he used to, 3) Realize he is more attracted to younger women than older, 4) Realize an athlete he has long hated is an all-time great and begins to respect the hell out of him? I just turned 26, and with Tom Brady on the verge of a sixth Super Bowl I think I have finally reached all four stages. Thanks bud!
—Eric, New Orleans

It varies for every man. Now go back to your Saints message board to talk about whether Rob Ryan will get a head coaching job after this upcoming season and how the Saints are always so overlooked and never get any respect.

SG: My answers: 33, 38, 31, 17.

Well of course Bill has exact answers for this question. After all, isn't Bill's experiences in the world the only ones that really count? Bill believes himself to be representative of every sports fan and now he's representative of every man. His ego isn't massive at all.

I say “17” for the last one because that’s the year (1987) when I began to begrudgingly respect how great Magic Johnson was. And that’s someone who, before the 1987 Finals, I probably would have tried to run over in my car if nobody was looking.

Well of course "17" is the answer to the question because that's when Bill started respecting Magic Johnson. Bill's experiences mirror and exceed the experiences of everyone else, mostly because Bill is incapable of understanding everything he sees and does isn't necessarily the greatest or most important experience. Why did Eric from New Orleans even ask these questions, other than to jerk off at the idea of getting his email into Bill's mailbag?

Also, you left out the following realization tipping points: (5) the age when you’re peeing in a urinal at a game next to a little kid and get jealous of the velocity of his pee stream (42); (6) the age when you fall asleep before midnight as you’re watching TV even if you’re not drunk or tired (40); (7) the age when farts stop being funny (never). 

And of course Bill can't allow this reader to post a question without him improving on the question in some way.

Regardless, I think we might be in range.

In range of crazy emails from Bill's overly-devoted readers. This hasn't gotten old after 10 years at all.

Q: Every afternoon when I roll out of bed, there are two things I need to do: Check out Grantland and poop. I always read Grantland on my phone while pooping, and my leg always ends up falling asleep. A couple of days ago, I’m reading your column, I get up, and I fall down immediately because my leg is fast asleep. I limp into the living room, fall down again, and then my girlfriend says “What the hell is the matter with you?” I tell her “I just read Bill Simmons’ column, and now I can’t walk.” She says “He must be one hell of a writer.”
—Bryan M, Brockport, NY

If Bryan is a real person then I would imagine this girlfriend is not a real person.

Then Bill does a short preview of the 49ers-Seahawks NFC Championship Game and a lengthy preview of the Patriots-Broncos game because he's always has been and always will be "The Boston Sports Guy" as opposed to ever being "The Sports Guy."

Now Bill calls it a day, skips a week of writing a column because he had to write the apology column for the "Dr. V Magical Putter" column and that was a good excuse to avoid the reality he is out of column ideas and doesn't want to write a column anyway.