Tom Jones (nope, still not that one) of the "Tampa Bay Times" (winner of 10 Pulitzer Prizes!) wants Joe Maddon to know that they are never ever getting back together. It's not a love story anymore between Maddon and the Rays. Jones thinks the Rays should have said "no" when they learned the Cubs were looking to hire Maddon, but knowing the vision of Maddon managing the Rays again was just another picture to burn and the story of them was over, it was time to begin again, shake it off, and recognize that everything has changed. Now that Tom Jones knows Joe Maddon was trouble, he also knows the deal with the Cubs was shady so the Rays continuing to win games without Maddon will be better than revenge.
It smells rotten and it looks shady and it feels dirty.
This is why you don't visit the red light district on Friday nights. Nothing good can ever come from it.
No matter how you slice it, it all just feels wrong.
Who knows if the Cubs tampered with Joe Maddon or not? Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. The bottom line is that Joe Maddon was going to be a popular manager once he left Tampa Bay even if the Cubs weren't interested in him. If the Cubs had not jumped on him, some other team would have suddenly found fault with their manager, fired that manager and hired Joe Maddon. It's not like Maddon would not have had options if the Cubs didn't exist. No team had to tamper with Maddon, he had to know his services would be wanted by another MLB team.
Joe Maddon is gone. It's official now. The Cubs introduced him as their manager Monday.
Considering the Rays have duped unsuspected MLB teams to sign players like B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford in free agency, I think karma bites them in the ass that they actually lost a member of the organization who may not suck once he is out of the Rays' employ.
He put on their hat. He put on their jersey. And that's when it truly sunk in.
Just start singing "Teardrops On My Guitar" and you will feel better, Tom. Don't be a sad fanboy. The Rays gave Maddon an opt-out clause, he used it, and now everyone moves on.
He isn't coming back to Tampa Bay next season. It's over.
This type of writing seems too mournful for a professional sportswriter.
He belongs to someone else now.
Oh boy. Maybe the Taylor Swift music isn't working. Perhaps some mid-90's Alanis Morrissette is a better option. You live, you learn.
On Monday, he talked about young talent and promise for the future and
winning pennants and, naturally, he did it in his oddball and charming
way. Except, this time, he wasn't talking about your team.
Yes, I'm pretty sure Rays fans are aware at this point that Joe Maddon is no longer talking about the Rays when he refers to talent and promise.
But, you know, Maddon leaving is not the awkward part. It's how he left. That's the part that's hard to swallow.
You mean the way he left in that he took advantage of a clause in his contract that allowed him to leave? Yeah, it is hard to swallow that he exercised his contractual rights to become a managerial free agent.
As far as leaving, who can blame him? He wanted more money and the Cubs gave him more money.
Then I fail to see the issue. Maddon wanted to leave if he wasn't going to be paid what he perceived as his market value. He wasn't getting a contract he wanted and so he left. Then a team who was willing to pay his market value jumped in, fired their manager (in a classy way if you ask me...in a tough situation the Cubs handled it really well), and hired Joe Maddon. Was there tampering? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, Maddon was getting a new job either this season or next season if he wasn't managing the Rays. It was happening. Whether the Dodgers planted crack cocaine in Don Mattingly's car in mid-January, the Braves suddenly remembered that Fredi Gonzalez didn't in fact know "The Braves Way," or the Yankees disconnected the brakes on Joe Girardi's car, Joe Maddon would be managing for an MLB team in the next 12-15 months.
Maybe he thought the Cubs gave him a better chance than the Rays to win a
World Series. Maybe he wants to work with Cubs president Theo Epstein.
And honestly, that could very well be it. I would want to work with Theo Epstein while making more money, as opposed to working with a new GM in Tampa Bay while making less money. It's a pretty easy decision. Work with a GM who has won a World Series in a large market for more money or work with a new GM in Tampa Bay while making less money and ending up on the manager free agent market at some other point in the future when Maddon's stock may not be as high. It's not a tough call.
Whatever the reason, Maddon has every right to live his life how he wants.
Yes, he does. So what's the problem again?
Wanting more financial security, wanting to call Wrigley Field his
office, wanting the challenge of turning baseball's lovable losers into
champs doesn't make him a traitor.
So your point being that your point about this situation stinking to high heaven is wrong, because even if the Cubs did tamper with Maddon, he would have wanted to manage the Cubs anyway? This isn't a "J.D. Drew goes to the Red Sox" type of situation where Maddon wasn't sure he could get more money as a free agent manager and a team potentially tampered with him allowing him the knowledge of realizing for sure there were green pastures. Maddon was getting paid to manage a team. No team needed to tamper with him for him to know this as a fact. Maddon's value is too high in baseball circles for him to make less or the same money as he was making in Tampa Bay once he left the Rays.
He's not, suddenly, a bad guy.
But it felt shady. Nothing really was wrong with what Maddon did, but something was wrong with what Maddon did.
This was strictly business
Strictly shady business.
And you could bet your bottom dollar that the Rays would have had no
problem firing Maddon if he started losing more games than he was
winning.
You are killing your point that the move was shady by acknowledging the Rays could fire Maddon, it was strictly business and Maddon isn't a bad guy.
But it's how Maddon left that feels a little slimy.
It felt like the use of a contractual clause.
Let's start with the moment Andrew Friedman, the Rays vice president of
baseball operations, left to join the Dodgers. At the time, Maddon told Tampa Bay Times baseball
writer Marc Topkin, "I'm a Ray, I've said it all along, I want to
continue to be one. I still believe … it's the best place in all of
baseball to work, but I also stand by the fact that the ballpark needs
to be improved."
Yes, I think a quote like, "I will be investigating the use of a contractual clause that allows me to become a free agent" might have caused a greater stir than was required at that point. Joe Maddon has the right to leave his options open without stating outright that he will be leaving his options open and can do so contractually. Also, notice Maddon said he "wants" to continue to be a Ray and his mention of the ballpark needing improvement (and let's be honest, going from The Trop to Wrigley Field...that's "movin' on up" like hasn't been done since The Jeffersons took the plunge) tips off that all isn't 100% well. In that phrasing, it's clear that there is some reciprocity required for Maddon to continue to be the Rays manager past his next contract.
Fair enough. The Rays need a new ballpark. But other than that, Maddon said right here was the best place in all of baseball.
Yes, he also said he "wants" to be a Ray. I want to be a millionaire. I "will" not be a millionaire for the foreseeable future. One is a wish, the other is a statement of a current, more permanent condition. I want Chipotle for dinner. I will be eating something else.
He was signed through next season, and the Rays were trying to sign him to an extension. All seemed hunky-dory.
Did it though? I had not thought about it because I'm focused on the Braves manager who has won a lot of games, yet I still think he's incompetent at times. Did it make sense that the Rays would be able to sign Maddon to an extension and things seemed hunky-dory? If I remember correctly, and I do remember correctly, it took about 0.25 seconds for Maddon's name to be linked to the Dodgers after Friedman was hired by the team. So things did seem hunky-dory, unless you choose to ignore the immediate rumors that Joe Maddon would leave Tampa Bay to follow Friedman to the Dodgers. Once Friedman said Mattingly was the manager, it took 0.35 seconds for the Cubs to appear as a possible landing spot for Maddon.
Not to go Bill Simmons on everyone, but Tom Jones saying "all seemed hunky-dory" is like a guy and his very attractive girlfriend still dating while she goes to college and he stays at home to get a job after high school. She sees multiple opportunities to further herself personally and professionally, while he thinks everything is cool because nothing has changed for him. Yeah sure, if you want to ignore the life change (Friedman leaving), everything seems great, but she is attractive and potentially available to a whole new pool of men. Just because things didn't change for the Rays didn't mean things didn't change for Maddon. It all seemed hunky-dory only if the Rays wanted to ignore the reality they had a very attractive (talent-wise) manager and one of the reasons he seemingly stayed was just removed from the equation.
But then came the stunning news that Maddon had a brief opt-out clause
in his contract that was activated when Friedman left the organization.
Maddon took advantage of that window and, before you know it, he's
putting on a Cubs hat.
This is where the story gets a little more messy.
Things like this always are a little messy. It doesn't mean there was tampering. If I were in Joe Maddon's place (or any manager's place really), unless I were with a team I couldn't see ever leaving I would ALWAYS have a list of teams I would like to manage in my head. I would be focused on my team, but have a list of teams I wanted my agent to call ASAP if shit goes bad at my current location. So it's pretty easy to think that once Maddon used his opt-out he had a list of teams he wanted his agent to call. Again, Maddon has to have known he was wanted by other teams if he were ever not the manager of the Rays.
Maddon said he didn't even know he had an out clause until his agent, Alan Nero, told him.
I think he's lying. It doesn't matter if he is lying or not though, because the fact remains the clause was in the contract.
Seems hard to believe that Maddon left the Rays and walked away with no
idea that the Cubs were willing to fire their manager and give him $5
million a year for five years.
If you are in denial about Maddon's value then this could be hard to believe. I am not in denial. I know Maddon worked for a small market team that had a low payroll and he is considered one of the best managers in the game. Maddon had to figure he would get a raise of some sort when he went to a new team and he had to figure that even if he sat out a year his not managing would only make him more attractive. This has happened in other sports. How many times are Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher considered candidates for an NFL job? Absence makes the heart grow fonder of overpaying for a manager because if a team's current manager sucks there is always Joe Maddon sitting out there. I find it hard to believe that Maddon wouldn't know he had really great market value if he and the Rays ever parted ways.
Nero says the tampering charges are "silly'' and "insulting.''
Nero is just fiddling while the city burns to the ground.
No, what's silly and insulting is expecting reasonably intelligent
people to buy that Maddon left the Rays with no job lined up, especially
when rumors that he was headed to the Cubs cropped up almost
immediately.
I have no idea if there was tampering. It is NOT insulting to think Maddon had no job lined up. The fact the rumors said he was heading to the Dodgers before the opt-out clause was known goes to prove that. The rumors of Maddon heading to the Cubs immediately after opting-out is proof of Maddon's value. It's not silly and insulting to think Maddon would have a job soon after leaving the Rays. It's logical.
And, by the way, Nero calling the Rays' accusations "really sad'' as his
client is walking out the door? That's just poor form. Allow the Rays
to pout for a moment and leave it at that.
I understand, but "pouting" isn't accusing the Cubs and Nero of breaking MLB rules against tampering. Pouting is being sad and writing a column like this. Accusing the Cubs and Nero of violating MLB rules is more than just pouting.
Meantime, there's the ugly business that Maddon appeared to have gone after a job that was already filled by someone else.
Okay. It's a business. Do sportswriters get mad at B.J. Upton for going after a centerfield job that was someone else's prior to his joining the Braves?
It's hard to blame the Cubs. Epstein correctly pointed out that he had
an obligation to do what was best for the Cubs and, in his mind, firing
first-year manager Rick Renteria and hiring Maddon was the best thing to
do. Frankly, you can't argue with that.
And they did it in a really nice way. This does lead the world closer and closer to the Cubspocalypse where the Cubs win a World Series and Cubs fans in pink hats becoming 100 times more annoying than Red Sox fans in pink hats became in the mid-2000's. The world will be filled with new Cubs fans and real Cubs fans will go crazy knowing they were there from the beginning while the pretenders wear Rizzo jersey's and think Jerome Walton is Sam Walton's younger brother. I'm just saying, it's going to be a disaster when the Cubs win a World Series. By "disaster" I mean it's going to make the bandwagonism in other fan bases look small in comparison.
But did Maddon break some sort of code? Did he betray a member of the fraternity?
Don't be so dramatic. Players take the jobs of other players all the time. The same thing can happen with managers. What does it matter if the Cubs fire Renteria behind the lie of "cause" or just admit they wanted to hire Maddon? Maddon has a right to get money if another team wants to pay him.
Yeah, it feels like it. Put it this way: I'm guessing Maddon would not
have appreciated someone going after his job when he lost 101 games in
his first season as a major-league manager.
No, he would not have appreciated it. He would have eventually understood that the Rays had a chance to hire a really great manager and accepted a managerial job with another team or accepted a coaching job with another team.
If you're a Rays fan, it's easy to feel like a jilted lover. If you
watched Monday's news conference, it felt like Maddon had already
forgotten about you.
Oh, quit being such a drama queen. He's the Cubs' manager now and will only talk about how excited he is to be their manager. He's not going to cry tears and show a slideshow documenting his years in Tampa Bay with the Rays.
It took him until the 36th and last minute on the podium to finally get
around to thanking the Rays. He spoke almost exclusively about his
future with the Cubs and very little about his past with the Rays.
Because he had just been hired as the Cubs manager and didn't think anyone would act like a jilted lover if he didn't mention the Rays 10 times per sentence. Get out of the bitter barn and come play in the hay. Seriously, why should Joe Maddon talk about his past with the Rays when he takes a new job with the Cubs? Would Tom Jones (no, not that one) talk about his time at the "Tampa Bay Times" during most of his first day at his new job?
There were no apologies, no regrets, not even an acknowledgement that many Rays fans are upset to see him go.
I think it's laughable you wanted this from him.
He has clearly moved on and now the Rays must move on, too.
I feel like Jones is crying as he writes this sentence.
In the end, it's hard to blame anyone.
Except for the part of this column where Tom Jones (no, not that one) blames the Cubs for maybe, possibly, who knows, tampering with Joe Maddon and blames Maddon's agent for lying about whether the Cubs tampered. As long as a reader ignores the entire premise of this woeful column, it's hard to blame anyone. In the end, it's hard to see how Jones could write in this article that it's hard to blame anyone when the entire column is about blaming two parties.
Everyone tried to do the right thing. Maybe they even did the right thing.
Maybe they did or maybe they didn't do the right thing. The important thing is to ignore Joe Maddon's market value away from the Rays and focus on what the sadness surrounding Maddon's departure says. Be bitter, see that the Cubs tampered. Know that Maddon knows his market value, see that it doesn't matter if the Cubs tampered or not.
Still, the whole thing just feels wrong.
Turn the Taylor Swift as loud as possible and just dance until it doesn't hurt anymore. After you get done dancing the pain away, please understand that Joe Maddon knew a team would want to hire him as their manager and the rumors about him going to the Dodgers before he even opted-out support this statement as true.
Showing posts with label bitter much?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bitter much?. Show all posts
Friday, November 21, 2014
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
6 comments MMQB Review: Cutting Through the Hype to Get to More Hype Edition
In last week's MMQB, Peter King rejoiced that there was a couple of obvious storylines he could write about regarding the upcoming Super Bowl. He could write about it being Ray Lewis' last game, the HarBowl, and the youthful inexperience (dare we say precociousness?) of Colin Kaepernick. This week is the off-week before the Super Bowl, so it is a really good chance to drill these stories into our skull and talk about the human-interest stories prior to the Super Bowl that really make no difference in the outcome of the game. This week Peter talks about how Alex Smith is sort-of-but-not-really pretending not to be sad he isn't the 49ers starting quarterback (yep, that's a triple negative) and how if we as fans are tired of the Super Bowl hype then we should get over it because the media doesn't plan on quitting. I wouldn't expect the hype to stop simply because the fans don't want to read the hype. I guess it beats watching ESPN and hearing wall-to-wall Tebow coverage for a week. And before you ask, yes, Peter does get a Brett Favre mention into this column.
Ready to get beaten over the head with the Harbaughs, Ray Lewis past and present and a whole lot of players saying a whole lot of nothing? Well, it's Super Bowl week, and the bad news for you is that the one thing I noticed in my few hours in town Sunday before writing this is there's more media than ever.
"Who cares what the football-loving public wants to read and hear about, this is what they are getting. Enjoy your Ray Lewis coverage and like it. You aren't getting the Super Bowl until you listen to and understand every aspect of the Harbaugh brothers early lives. This Super Bowl week isn't about you as the public and what you want to read about. It's about the fact our company is paying for us to come down to New Orleans on vacation and they expect some half-assed stories that every other media outlet is doing as proof we are doing work."
I saw a Mardi Gras-style Dan Patrick/Artie Lange float in NBC-land. I mean, Super Bowl Week has become the United States of Programming.
Hey, it's what we want as a public isn't it? Peter knows no "official" polls have been taken on the amount of Super Bowl coverage the general public wants, but trust him, he knows we want wall-to-wall hype and saturated coverage of the Super Bowl. After all, CBS and other networks are pouring millions into this Super Bowl coverage so it doesn't really matter what the sports-loving public wants at this point.
We've all seen it in the last two months: Alex Smith is the NFL's MVM ... Most Valuable Mensch. Look at his career path: First pick of the 2005 draft. Clearly over-drafted because the 49ers needed a quarterback so desperately.
By the way, earlier this year Peter did an entire feature in MMQB on Alex Smith and how he had become a super-accurate and trustworthy quarterback for the 49ers. I'm not sure if this is a contradiction from now saying he was over-drafted, but I find Peter calling Smith "over-drafted" while defending him earlier this year and using statistical evidence to do so as fairly interesting.
Career rescued by Jim Harbaugh, though he constantly looked over his shoulder in the Harbaugh Era with the arrival of Colin Kaepernick and the specter of Peyton Manning.
No, Peter. Harbaugh wasn't going to replace Smith with Manning. That was all just a rumor. How many times does Jim Harbaugh have to say this? He never wanted to replace Smith with Peyton Manning and he was simply on the Duke University campus in a disguise watching Peyton Manning workout because he was in the neighborhood, 3000 miles away from the San Francisco 49ers stadium. It's not like he replaced Smith with Kaepernick at the very first available opportunity or anything like that. So of course Harbaugh didn't want to replace Alex Smith with Peyton Manning. He wanted to replace Alex Smith with Colin Kaepernick, but had no interest in replacing Smith with Manning. So again, Kaepernick is a good replacement for Alex Smith, but who the hell would want Peyton Manning instead of Alex Smith?
"It sucks, to put it frankly,'' Smith told me the other day. "Tough pill to swallow."
I can't argue with the result, but I don't like how Smith was replaced. It seems tough to lose your starting quarterback job after you have suffered a concussion, especially when Smith had been performing as well as he had. Though, part of me thinks Smith should feel lucky that Harbaugh even gave him a chance last year and helped to rehabilitate his career. Without Harbaugh supporting him and turning his career around he could be looking for a backup quarterback job next year as opposed to possibly getting a starting quarterback job.
And now we've seen what Colin is capable of. He's a very unique talent, and he's made the most of his opportunity. At the same time, this is exactly how I got my start in college. And I think the biggest thing I can point to in how I've handled this is that I saw how some mature quarterbacks handled it. That started in college, with Brett Elliott.''
Oh yeah, Alex Smith took another quarterback's job in college when that quarterback got injured. So after having six years of trying to nail the starting quarterback job down he got replaced right as he was starting to achieve his potential in the NFL, which is obviously payback for taking another quarterback's job in college. I'm sure Gregg Easterbrook believes the Football Gods are punishing Alex Smith.
Smith explained that, at Utah in 2003, he battled incumbent Elliott for the starting job, lost, but won it when Elliott, in the second game of the season, broke his wrist. And there was no turning back when Smith beat Cal (and Aaron Rodgers), then Colorado State, and then, in a Thursday night TV game, Oregon. Now the job was his.
That's probably why Brett Elliott was so mad and wrote "American Psycho," as a way of getting back at Alex Smith for taking his starting quarterback job. Wait, wrong Brett Ell- sounding name.
"It's a unique situation,'' said Elliott, "and really tough for people to understand. It's the most unique place you can be. The most unique situation in life. You're so invested, being the leader and the guy everybody looks to, your life revolving around this.
Yeah, see here is "the thing"...Alex Smith really wasn't the leader and the guy everybody looked to for the 49ers. He didn't seem to be quite that guy. The 49ers seemed to take to Kaepernick pretty easily which leads me to believe either Jim Harbaugh has good leadership in the 49ers locker room or the 49ers as a team knew Kaepernick was probably going to be the guy at some point. I don't think Alex Smith was the guy everyone looked to in the 49ers locker room, no matter how many VISA commercials he appeared in.
Smith hasn't lost confidence in his ability, saying he is "absolutely sure'' he can be a good quarterback in the league for years. But he says he won't think about the future now. Not this week.
Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuure. Alex Smith isn't thinking about the future during Super Bowl week when he is being asked by dozens of reporters about how it feels to be replaced by Colin Kaepernick and he has the time to think about the starting quarterback in the Super Bowl could conceivably be him if he had not gotten a concussion earlier in the year. If there is a week during the year Alex Smith is at his most bitter and thinking about the future, it is during Super Bowl week when he is being constantly asked about his future and how it feels to be replaced by Kaepernick.
I don't hate the HarBowl aspect of this week. It's great. Will we all be sick of the hype in a few days? Yes. But the historical significance of two brothers meeting in the biggest single game on our sports calendar is great.
See, the reason Peter doesn't hate the HarBowl aspect of the week is because he has to fill space in his columns and talking about the HarBowl is an easy way to do that for him. He doesn't hate the story because the story makes it easier to do his job and people are naturally lazy. That's why Peter would write about Tebow or Brett Favre's non-retirement/retirement a few years ago. Sure it was a story, but it was an easy story to write about and got a strong reaction from readers. Very little effort required, a big impact received. Same thing with the HarBowl. People who love the cutesy stories of these two brothers growing up like the story (and there's nothing wrong with that) and it is an easy story to write.
Then Peter links the stories of other sportswriters and their articles on the Harbaugh brothers in a desperate attempt to fill space so he can respond snidely on Twitter to someone who calls him lazy by citing how many words he writes in MMQB. I will sum up the Harbaugh brother anecdotes for you in a concise manner.
-They are competitive. They went on vacation together and played in the pool together in a competitive fashion.
-They are the same. John is shorter than Jim. John is smarter than Jim. Jim didn't have many friends growing up but was a dreamer, just like John Lennon.
-Jack Harbaugh didn't have a very good team at Western Kentucky, so John and Jim helped him recruit better talent and he magically become a better coach.
-Tom Crean and his occasionally awful butt-cut haircut is brother-in-law to John and Jim.
-Sometimes they hated each other and sometimes they loved each other. They were the first brothers in the history of the universe to have a love-hate relationship, paving the way for other brothers like Cain and Abel to have the same type of relationship.
I am categorically, adamantly opposed to the Jets trading Revis. I believe Woody Johnson will rue the day he trades the best cornerback -- a slightly risky tag, obviously, given that he's coming off October knee surgery -- regardless of how uncomfortable the Jets' salary cap fit is right now. You don't trade great players at vital positions in their prime. You never recoup the value.
Of course Peter has a history of over-hyping cornerbacks. Remember when he thought Nnadmi Asomugha was going to be the greatest free agent grab since Reggie White? It hasn't quite turned out that way for the Eagles. So my response to Peter would be that Revis is also in a good situation with the Jets and if the Jets can get a good enough price for him then they should trade him. The starting cornerbacks in the Super Bowl are Cary Williams, Carlos Rogers, Corey Graham, and Tarrell Brown. Last year I don't recall there being an elite cornerback in the Super Bowl matchup of New England v. New York Giants. A pass rush is more important in my mind than having elite cornerbacks, so if the Jets can get a first round pick or even more for Revis I see why they would trade him. Don't overvalue cornerbacks.
In today's game, quarterback is the most important position, followed in some order by pass rusher, cornerback and left tackle. Given that we've just seen the most passes thrown in any NFL season, I'd say corner or pass rusher is now the second-most important position to fill.
I disagree with this. I think a pass rusher is much more important than a corner. A good pass rusher can get to the cornerback and make even average cornerbacks look good, while a team without a pass rush can make even the best corners look bad. I'm not saying a cornerback isn't valuable, but I would place a pass rusher and a stable offensive line as more important than the cornerback position. A great pass rush is the best defensive weapon a defensive coordinator can have. It's more important than the cornerback position.
Revis will be 28 on opening day next year. Two of the league's best five corners in 2012 were Champ Bailey, 34, and Charles Tillman, 31. There is no reason to suggest age will be an issue with Revis.
I'm not saying Revis won't be valuable, I'm saying he may not be so valuable the Jets should ignore trade offers for him and sign him to (another) contract extension. A team needs competent NFL corners, but turning down very good offers on the table for Revis is short-sighted in my opinion. If the Jets can fix their pass rush it will make the their corners look a lot better and they won't need to tie up money in one cornerback, no matter how good he is.
One: In 2007, when the Jets drafted Revis, they traded their first-, second- and fifth-round picks, 25th, 59th and 164th overall, to Carolina for the 14th pick. Revis was picked 14th. Carolina picked linebacker Jon Beason 25th and center Ryan Kalil 59th. Beason made three Pro Bowls in his first four seasons but has struggled with injuries since; Kalil has started 68 games since, and also has made three Pro Bowl teams. So if you're going to trade Revis, understand you're trading a player who cost you first- and second-round picks to acquire -- and if the Jets had hung onto the second-rounder, they could have turned it into a player at a need position like guard-tackle Marshal Yanda or defensive tackle Brandon Mebane. So it would be folly for the Jets, if they did the deal, to crow about getting first- and second-round picks in return; that's what they traded to get him in the first place.
What? This is idiotic logic. If the Jets believe Revis isn't going to come back strong and the value they would receive in a 1st and 2nd round pick is worth it then they aren't losing anything at all. They were able to secure Revis' services for the prime of his career and then got a good value for him in trade. The Jets didn't really even trade a first and a second round pick for Revis because they got the 14th pick in return for making the trade. So they essentially traded a 2nd round pick and a 5th round pick for the right to move up 11 spots in the draft for Darrelle Revis.
It doesn't work this way though. If the Panthers traded Jon Beason for a 1st round pick would that be folly because they used a first round pick on him? Not at all. They were able to have him on the team for six years and then got their investment in him returned back to them in the form of a first round pick. I think trading Revis for a 1st and 2nd round pick would be something to crow about. If the Redskins traded Robert Griffin in eight years for three first round draft picks would that not be something to crow about since they gave up those first round picks to draft him? Not necessarily. A player's trade value is independent from what they gave up to draft him. Any picks traded to draft the player are a sunk cost, so his trade value would be independent from this cost to originally acquire him. This is especially true if a team (like the Jets) were able to use that player's services for six years, then you would have to factor in how much value they received with that player on the roster for those six years in addition to the draft picks they eventually received in return for trading him.
Two: If the Jets trade Revis, they'll be putting a dagger through coach Rex Ryan's heart. In effect, barring an upset, they'd be firing him nine or 10 months early. They'd be saying to him, We know the most important thing to your defense is the cornerback position, and everything you do on defense is predicated on your corners holding up, but we're trading Revis anyway.
History has shown the Jets overvalued Wilson, who is just a guy. Cromartie is good. Without Revis, it's a pedestrian secondary.
The Jets can go out and try to find better corners if they wanted to. They may not find a guy on the level of Revis, but with a 1st and 2nd round pick they could find a corner in the draft to replace Revis and Wilson. That would improve the secondary.
Now, about the money. Revis has a year left on his contract, provided he doesn't hold out, and he will want to be the highest-paid defensive player in the game. Currently, Chicago defensive end Julius Peppers makes an average of $15.3 million a year; Buffalo pass rusher Mario Williams averages $16 million a year. There is no doubt Revis is better at his position than Peppers or Williams is at theirs -- of course, assuming Revis comes back whole from his surgery.
But is Revis worth the same amount of money as an elite pass rusher? I say no. He's an incredibly good cornerback, but I don't value a cornerback as high as I value a pass rusher. Granted, neither Peppers or Williams may be worth the amount of money they received, but for $16 million per year the Jets could acquire Chris Gamble when/if he is released by Carolina and use a draft pick received in return for Revis to acquire another corner. I'm not advocating the Jets trade Revis, but I also don't think it would be the worst decision in the history of the franchise. Rex Ryan obviously needs more than two quality cornerbacks and trading Revis could help the Jets achieve this goal.
If I were the Jets, I'd tell Revis he needs to show he's back to Revis form in the first, say, half of the season. Then I'd lock him up for five years, at $17 million per, in a deal where the guaranteed money will counter-balance the fact that the Jets are in cap trouble right now.
There is a reason Peter King is not an NFL GM right now. He would have $30-$33 million invested in the cornerback position because you know he would have Revis and Asomugha matched up together on the same team. He was trying to convince us all the Jets would be interested in Asomugha when he was a free agent, so you know if he were a GM he would put Revis and Asomugha together in the secondary. Just look at the cornerbacks for Super Bowl winning teams over the last five years. There are some good ones, but mostly they aren't great corners. Great corners aren't necessarily required to win a Super Bowl.
Andy Reid could be tempted with $17 million of cap room in Kansas City, and GM Trent Baalke in San Francisco could be a player too; the Niners will have significant money available when -- I presume -- they dump Alex Smith before April 1. And there are other teams that might be willing to give a first-round pick plus other value (maybe a third-rounder and a journeyman cornerback as well) for Revis. But remember, the compensation isn't just two picks and a player, or whatever ... it's also wrecking your cap in a flat-cap era for Revis, instead of the significantly more manageable money the fixed-cost high-draft choices now provide.
And yet, Peter says the Jets must back a Brinks truck up to pay Revis after he has proven himself this season...which we all know from Revis' previous holdout may end up turning into Revis not playing next year until he gets a new deal.
But I don't care what they'd get in return, unless someone (other than New England, a team the Jets obviously should do no business with) does something stupid like offer three first-rounders and a decent player. It won't be worth it. In this league, at cornerback, if you've got the best, you grit your teeth and pay the man.
Yeah, just look at the Eagles in regard to how important and crucial quality cornerbacks are. I'm all about Darrelle Revis being the top player at his position, but I don't see paying a cornerback as a "you have to pay this man" position, especially when that corner is coming off knee surgery. I know Peter is just waving off knee surgery as no big deal, but I think there is a risk that Revis could injure his knee again. Peter uses Thomas Davis as an example of a player who came back after three knee surgeries, but on the flip side, he is also an example of a player who suffered multiple knee injuries. A good pass rush can help fix problems in the secondary. He's the best at his position, but I can see why the Jets would trade him and depending on the compensation they would get in return, I can see how it is a good move for them.
Since probably midway through Williams' tenure as defensive coordinator in New Orleans, Payton faulted Williams as a renegade coach run amuck. The league didn't buy that Payton didn't know about the reward program Williams was running with his defensive players and thus suspended him for the season.
Good ol' Sean Payton. Remember prior to the year the Saints won the Super Bowl, when Payton took some of his own money and gave it back to the Saints in order to hire Gregg Williams? Payton was lauded by Peter King and others for making this move to help the team succeed, but once Williams started becoming a renegade, all of a sudden Sean Payton couldn't control this man anymore. He had no idea Williams was running the reward program, but he will still accept congratulations for taking less money to hire Williams as the head coach. Sean Payton has control of his staff and is glad to take responsibility for the team's success until something goes wrong and then Payton pleads he has no control over his staff (yes, I realize I sound a bit like Gregg Easterbrook). It's ridiculous to me and I am not happy to see Sean Payton back.
But you've got to credit Payton for urging local fans to be respectful to Goodell if they see him in New Orleans. That's a class thing to do by a guy who I'm sure is still smarting from his year-long suspension.
Nope, I won't give him credit for this. Considering Payton admitted culpability, to urge Saints fans to not tear Goodell apart limb-by-limb, isn't really a classy thing to do but more of a "let's please remember you are trying to punish the commissioner for rightfully punishing me" thing to do.
I asked former Chiefs GM Scott Pioli, who was in the midst of finalizing the club's preliminary draft board when fired early this month, to examine the record 73 underclass players who declared for the draft and pick the top 10, in his mind. His view of the junior board:
Remember a few weeks ago when Peter claimed his defense of Scott Pioli wasn't entirely based on the fact he liked the guy? Well know that Pioli has been fired, Peter is asking Pioli's opinion on the junior class in MMQB. Learn to separate friendship from your job, Peter. Because we all know the opinion of Pioli on the junior class means a lot. Was Matt Millen not available to comment on the junior class? Okay, maybe Pioli wasn't that bad, but Peter defends his friend in print and then gives him an outlet as a personnel expert in MMQB.
First of all, Jan. 28 is a dangerous time to commit to "top players" in any category, particularly underclassmen. There is still a lot of work to do before we know who and what these players are. Sometimes players look better with less information. NFL rules don't allow teams to officially scout underclassmen during fall campus visits, and scouts can't comment publicly on them either. When scouts go into school visits in the fall, they are not allowed to ask questions about underclassmen when speaking with coaches, trainers and any other support staff.
Thanks for your opinion, Scott. Since this exercise is futile I guess we can all move on without your opinion? Actually, even though the exercise is futile Scott Pioli would like to keep his name out there and his friend Peter King is just trying to help him do this.
Then Pioli lists ten players and his opinion of each player, which is seemingly pointless as Pioli just pointed out. If you are interested in Pioli's list then just look at any mock draft and find the Top 10 juniors mocked in that draft and you will have Pioli's list.
Also, there was no travel note this week. Either Peter learned from berating the cabbie last week or he just didn't travel enough to complain bitterly about the experiences he had interacting with his fellow human beings. Either way, we will try to move on without the weekly travel note.
1. I think I should clarify one thing I learned this week about minority coaches, and it's important: One team in the NFL twice called Stanford coach David Shaw asking him to interview for its head-coaching job. Shaw, who is black, said he wasn't interested in leaving Stanford right now. So there's that.
I don't think there was a need to clarify this. Multiple reports said David Shaw wasn't interested in an NFL job at this point. It was silly for Peter to include him last week as a minority who deserved more consideration for an NFL head coaching job. He isn't interested in the NFL at this point.
2. I think Tony Dungy brought up an interesting point on NBC's Football Night in America show Sunday night about minority coaches. He said he spoke with Steelers chairman Dan Rooney -- author of the Rooney Rule, which mandates that every team with a head coaching opening interview at least one minority candidate -- and Rooney told him teams needed to slow down. Agreed. What's the hurry? Why the race? Pittsburgh had a deliberate process that resulted in the hiring of Mike Tomlin on Jan. 22, 2007, the day after the two conference title games.
There is a race because some NFL teams are going after the same candidate. If the Chiefs wanted to interview Andy Reid as their head coach they couldn't wait until the AFC/NFC championship week to do this because he was going to be hired by the Cardinals or another NFL team at that point. There isn't a race among NFL teams to hire these coaches, it is just if Team A goes hard after a coach that Team B wants badly, then Team B is going to have to move up their deadline to hire a coach. It's hard to interview a head coaching candidate who has already taken another head coaching job. It's fine to sit back and wait if you are fine with potentially missing out on interviewing some of the top candidates for your head coaching position.
Also, what the hell is Dan Rooney chiming in on this issue for? He's hired three coaches in the last four decades. It's not like he has vast experience trying to find a suitable head coaching candidate. This is a credit to how the Steelers run their organization, but if Mike Tomlin was close to interviewing and being hired by another NFL team the day after the divisional round of the playoffs then the Steelers would have to hurry to get their man...or at the very least interview their man.
The last of eight coaches hired this year, Bruce Arians, got the job three days before the championship games. That's an anecdotal story, obviously, but Rooney's point is that teams seem to be sprinting to get a coach named instead of making sure they've interviewed a wide spectrum of candidates.
Remember when there were members of the media who were criticizing the Bears for interviewing a wide spectrum of candidates? It is an anecdotal story, but teams have to sprint to get a head coach because if they don't sprint then the number of quality head coaching candidates that can be interviewed quickly dwindles.
5. I think a lot of parents feel like Barack Obama. "I'm a big football fan, but I have to tell you, if I had a son, I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football," the president told The New Republic.
I thought it was hilarious this comment gained some sense of national momentum. What is Barack Obama really saying? Absolutely nothing. He is simply saying if he had a son (which he doesn't, so this is all hypothetical), he would have to think hard about letting his son play football (but he didn't say he wouldn't let his son play football). Maybe it is an important message that the President of the United States would have to think before letting his son play football, but Obama doesn't have a son and never said he wouldn't allow this non-existent son to play football. He would have to think about it. "I have to think about it" is parent language for "I don't feel like talking about his right now and will make a decision later depending on how I feel."
A lot of parents feel the same way as Obama, but I just thought it wasn't very newsworthy since his opining on an issue that he won't ever have to confront as a parent. It's all hypothetical and the acknowledgment he would have to think about letting his kid play football reflects what every other parent thinks. It's just Obama's opinion means less since he doesn't have a son and won't ever have to make this decision.
9. I think if Ed Reed becomes a free agent, he ought to last about 48 hours on the street ...
Dan Rooney wants to know why NFL teams are in such a rush to sign free agents. The Steelers take their time signing free agents, why can't other teams?
I think it is interesting how Peter states Ed Reed will be on the street for 48 hours if he becomes a free agent, but Peter also can't understand why NFL teams are so quick to interview and hire potential head coaches. It's like Peter can't understand there is a limited pool of talent for head coaching jobs, but he understands there is a limited pool of talent for NFL players. There isn't a huge difference in a coach being a free agent and a player becoming a free agent. If a team wants a player/coach, they have to move fast sometimes.
and as I said on NBC Sunday night, my money's on the Patriots and the president of the Ed Reed Fan Club, Massachusetts Chapter, Bill Belichick.
Peter thinks the Patriots are going to sign every pending free agent or draft every draft pick. He repeatedly said he thought the Patriots might draft Tim Tebow, correctly hit on Fred Taylor going to New England, said it wouldn't surprise him if the Patriots tried to sign Julius Peppers when he was a free agent or even sign him when he was under contract with Carolina, and now he has the Patriots signing Ed Reed. This may happen, but add it to the list of guys Peter thinks New England will have interest in.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. I missed The Debt in theaters a couple of years ago. Glad I caught it on DVR over the weekend. Heart-pounding.
I can't wait to read Peter's thoughts on "Zero Dark Thirty" as soon as he gets around to watching it in the year 2016.
b. What an idiotic softie I am. Got all teary the other night watching the last 30 minutes of Parenthood.
There are some things that are better left alone and not shared with others.
e. So Terry Francona came to the Barnes and Noble in my Manhattan neighborhood the other day to sign copies of the book he and Dan Shaughnessy wrote. I stopped by. Naïve me. I'd never met Francona, and, being a Sox partisan, I wanted to stop by and just say thanks for the two World Series titles. Silly me. Seventy-five minute wait. In Manhattan, no less. Well, thanks in spirit, Terry. And I'm sure I'll enjoy the book.
Whoever could have foreseen that there would be a long wait for Terry Francona to sign a book? It's Manhattan, which is a city where only native New Yorkers live, and there is a long wait for a famous person to sign a book? Peter King, a Boston Red Sox fan who lives in Manhattan is shocked that there are Red Sox fans who live in Manhattan. That should tell you anything you need to know about Peter. He is a Red Sox fan who lives in Manhattan, but he is shocked there are other humans alive who live near him that are also Red Sox fans. Peter seems to have no concept of life outside of his own existence.
f. My knowledge of the NBA could fit in a thimble. But I love watching Rajon Rondo. So a little of me died with the Rondo ACL tear Friday.
"I know very little about the NBA, but here is an opinion on an NBA player I care to share with you."
i. Beernerdness: Grew quite fond of the LA 31 Biere Pale Ale in New Orleans Sunday night. Dry and hoppy -- and brewed in Kiln, Miss., home of you-know-who.
Who, Peter? Who is this home to? Can't go an entire MMQB without mentioning his name or referring to him can you?
The Adieu Haiku
The Niners arrive.
Saw Alex Smith at Drago's.
Hope Staley paid tab.
Hope haiku gets gone.
Irritating more and more.
Just make it go away.
Ready to get beaten over the head with the Harbaughs, Ray Lewis past and present and a whole lot of players saying a whole lot of nothing? Well, it's Super Bowl week, and the bad news for you is that the one thing I noticed in my few hours in town Sunday before writing this is there's more media than ever.
"Who cares what the football-loving public wants to read and hear about, this is what they are getting. Enjoy your Ray Lewis coverage and like it. You aren't getting the Super Bowl until you listen to and understand every aspect of the Harbaugh brothers early lives. This Super Bowl week isn't about you as the public and what you want to read about. It's about the fact our company is paying for us to come down to New Orleans on vacation and they expect some half-assed stories that every other media outlet is doing as proof we are doing work."
I saw a Mardi Gras-style Dan Patrick/Artie Lange float in NBC-land. I mean, Super Bowl Week has become the United States of Programming.
Hey, it's what we want as a public isn't it? Peter knows no "official" polls have been taken on the amount of Super Bowl coverage the general public wants, but trust him, he knows we want wall-to-wall hype and saturated coverage of the Super Bowl. After all, CBS and other networks are pouring millions into this Super Bowl coverage so it doesn't really matter what the sports-loving public wants at this point.
We've all seen it in the last two months: Alex Smith is the NFL's MVM ... Most Valuable Mensch. Look at his career path: First pick of the 2005 draft. Clearly over-drafted because the 49ers needed a quarterback so desperately.
By the way, earlier this year Peter did an entire feature in MMQB on Alex Smith and how he had become a super-accurate and trustworthy quarterback for the 49ers. I'm not sure if this is a contradiction from now saying he was over-drafted, but I find Peter calling Smith "over-drafted" while defending him earlier this year and using statistical evidence to do so as fairly interesting.
Career rescued by Jim Harbaugh, though he constantly looked over his shoulder in the Harbaugh Era with the arrival of Colin Kaepernick and the specter of Peyton Manning.
No, Peter. Harbaugh wasn't going to replace Smith with Manning. That was all just a rumor. How many times does Jim Harbaugh have to say this? He never wanted to replace Smith with Peyton Manning and he was simply on the Duke University campus in a disguise watching Peyton Manning workout because he was in the neighborhood, 3000 miles away from the San Francisco 49ers stadium. It's not like he replaced Smith with Kaepernick at the very first available opportunity or anything like that. So of course Harbaugh didn't want to replace Alex Smith with Peyton Manning. He wanted to replace Alex Smith with Colin Kaepernick, but had no interest in replacing Smith with Manning. So again, Kaepernick is a good replacement for Alex Smith, but who the hell would want Peyton Manning instead of Alex Smith?
"It sucks, to put it frankly,'' Smith told me the other day. "Tough pill to swallow."
I can't argue with the result, but I don't like how Smith was replaced. It seems tough to lose your starting quarterback job after you have suffered a concussion, especially when Smith had been performing as well as he had. Though, part of me thinks Smith should feel lucky that Harbaugh even gave him a chance last year and helped to rehabilitate his career. Without Harbaugh supporting him and turning his career around he could be looking for a backup quarterback job next year as opposed to possibly getting a starting quarterback job.
And now we've seen what Colin is capable of. He's a very unique talent, and he's made the most of his opportunity. At the same time, this is exactly how I got my start in college. And I think the biggest thing I can point to in how I've handled this is that I saw how some mature quarterbacks handled it. That started in college, with Brett Elliott.''
Oh yeah, Alex Smith took another quarterback's job in college when that quarterback got injured. So after having six years of trying to nail the starting quarterback job down he got replaced right as he was starting to achieve his potential in the NFL, which is obviously payback for taking another quarterback's job in college. I'm sure Gregg Easterbrook believes the Football Gods are punishing Alex Smith.
Smith explained that, at Utah in 2003, he battled incumbent Elliott for the starting job, lost, but won it when Elliott, in the second game of the season, broke his wrist. And there was no turning back when Smith beat Cal (and Aaron Rodgers), then Colorado State, and then, in a Thursday night TV game, Oregon. Now the job was his.
That's probably why Brett Elliott was so mad and wrote "American Psycho," as a way of getting back at Alex Smith for taking his starting quarterback job. Wait, wrong Brett Ell- sounding name.
"It's a unique situation,'' said Elliott, "and really tough for people to understand. It's the most unique place you can be. The most unique situation in life. You're so invested, being the leader and the guy everybody looks to, your life revolving around this.
Yeah, see here is "the thing"...Alex Smith really wasn't the leader and the guy everybody looked to for the 49ers. He didn't seem to be quite that guy. The 49ers seemed to take to Kaepernick pretty easily which leads me to believe either Jim Harbaugh has good leadership in the 49ers locker room or the 49ers as a team knew Kaepernick was probably going to be the guy at some point. I don't think Alex Smith was the guy everyone looked to in the 49ers locker room, no matter how many VISA commercials he appeared in.
Smith hasn't lost confidence in his ability, saying he is "absolutely sure'' he can be a good quarterback in the league for years. But he says he won't think about the future now. Not this week.
Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuure. Alex Smith isn't thinking about the future during Super Bowl week when he is being asked by dozens of reporters about how it feels to be replaced by Colin Kaepernick and he has the time to think about the starting quarterback in the Super Bowl could conceivably be him if he had not gotten a concussion earlier in the year. If there is a week during the year Alex Smith is at his most bitter and thinking about the future, it is during Super Bowl week when he is being constantly asked about his future and how it feels to be replaced by Kaepernick.
I don't hate the HarBowl aspect of this week. It's great. Will we all be sick of the hype in a few days? Yes. But the historical significance of two brothers meeting in the biggest single game on our sports calendar is great.
See, the reason Peter doesn't hate the HarBowl aspect of the week is because he has to fill space in his columns and talking about the HarBowl is an easy way to do that for him. He doesn't hate the story because the story makes it easier to do his job and people are naturally lazy. That's why Peter would write about Tebow or Brett Favre's non-retirement/retirement a few years ago. Sure it was a story, but it was an easy story to write about and got a strong reaction from readers. Very little effort required, a big impact received. Same thing with the HarBowl. People who love the cutesy stories of these two brothers growing up like the story (and there's nothing wrong with that) and it is an easy story to write.
Then Peter links the stories of other sportswriters and their articles on the Harbaugh brothers in a desperate attempt to fill space so he can respond snidely on Twitter to someone who calls him lazy by citing how many words he writes in MMQB. I will sum up the Harbaugh brother anecdotes for you in a concise manner.
-They are competitive. They went on vacation together and played in the pool together in a competitive fashion.
-They are the same. John is shorter than Jim. John is smarter than Jim. Jim didn't have many friends growing up but was a dreamer, just like John Lennon.
-Jack Harbaugh didn't have a very good team at Western Kentucky, so John and Jim helped him recruit better talent and he magically become a better coach.
-Tom Crean and his occasionally awful butt-cut haircut is brother-in-law to John and Jim.
-Sometimes they hated each other and sometimes they loved each other. They were the first brothers in the history of the universe to have a love-hate relationship, paving the way for other brothers like Cain and Abel to have the same type of relationship.
I am categorically, adamantly opposed to the Jets trading Revis. I believe Woody Johnson will rue the day he trades the best cornerback -- a slightly risky tag, obviously, given that he's coming off October knee surgery -- regardless of how uncomfortable the Jets' salary cap fit is right now. You don't trade great players at vital positions in their prime. You never recoup the value.
Of course Peter has a history of over-hyping cornerbacks. Remember when he thought Nnadmi Asomugha was going to be the greatest free agent grab since Reggie White? It hasn't quite turned out that way for the Eagles. So my response to Peter would be that Revis is also in a good situation with the Jets and if the Jets can get a good enough price for him then they should trade him. The starting cornerbacks in the Super Bowl are Cary Williams, Carlos Rogers, Corey Graham, and Tarrell Brown. Last year I don't recall there being an elite cornerback in the Super Bowl matchup of New England v. New York Giants. A pass rush is more important in my mind than having elite cornerbacks, so if the Jets can get a first round pick or even more for Revis I see why they would trade him. Don't overvalue cornerbacks.
In today's game, quarterback is the most important position, followed in some order by pass rusher, cornerback and left tackle. Given that we've just seen the most passes thrown in any NFL season, I'd say corner or pass rusher is now the second-most important position to fill.
I disagree with this. I think a pass rusher is much more important than a corner. A good pass rusher can get to the cornerback and make even average cornerbacks look good, while a team without a pass rush can make even the best corners look bad. I'm not saying a cornerback isn't valuable, but I would place a pass rusher and a stable offensive line as more important than the cornerback position. A great pass rush is the best defensive weapon a defensive coordinator can have. It's more important than the cornerback position.
Revis will be 28 on opening day next year. Two of the league's best five corners in 2012 were Champ Bailey, 34, and Charles Tillman, 31. There is no reason to suggest age will be an issue with Revis.
I'm not saying Revis won't be valuable, I'm saying he may not be so valuable the Jets should ignore trade offers for him and sign him to (another) contract extension. A team needs competent NFL corners, but turning down very good offers on the table for Revis is short-sighted in my opinion. If the Jets can fix their pass rush it will make the their corners look a lot better and they won't need to tie up money in one cornerback, no matter how good he is.
One: In 2007, when the Jets drafted Revis, they traded their first-, second- and fifth-round picks, 25th, 59th and 164th overall, to Carolina for the 14th pick. Revis was picked 14th. Carolina picked linebacker Jon Beason 25th and center Ryan Kalil 59th. Beason made three Pro Bowls in his first four seasons but has struggled with injuries since; Kalil has started 68 games since, and also has made three Pro Bowl teams. So if you're going to trade Revis, understand you're trading a player who cost you first- and second-round picks to acquire -- and if the Jets had hung onto the second-rounder, they could have turned it into a player at a need position like guard-tackle Marshal Yanda or defensive tackle Brandon Mebane. So it would be folly for the Jets, if they did the deal, to crow about getting first- and second-round picks in return; that's what they traded to get him in the first place.
What? This is idiotic logic. If the Jets believe Revis isn't going to come back strong and the value they would receive in a 1st and 2nd round pick is worth it then they aren't losing anything at all. They were able to secure Revis' services for the prime of his career and then got a good value for him in trade. The Jets didn't really even trade a first and a second round pick for Revis because they got the 14th pick in return for making the trade. So they essentially traded a 2nd round pick and a 5th round pick for the right to move up 11 spots in the draft for Darrelle Revis.
It doesn't work this way though. If the Panthers traded Jon Beason for a 1st round pick would that be folly because they used a first round pick on him? Not at all. They were able to have him on the team for six years and then got their investment in him returned back to them in the form of a first round pick. I think trading Revis for a 1st and 2nd round pick would be something to crow about. If the Redskins traded Robert Griffin in eight years for three first round draft picks would that not be something to crow about since they gave up those first round picks to draft him? Not necessarily. A player's trade value is independent from what they gave up to draft him. Any picks traded to draft the player are a sunk cost, so his trade value would be independent from this cost to originally acquire him. This is especially true if a team (like the Jets) were able to use that player's services for six years, then you would have to factor in how much value they received with that player on the roster for those six years in addition to the draft picks they eventually received in return for trading him.
Two: If the Jets trade Revis, they'll be putting a dagger through coach Rex Ryan's heart. In effect, barring an upset, they'd be firing him nine or 10 months early. They'd be saying to him, We know the most important thing to your defense is the cornerback position, and everything you do on defense is predicated on your corners holding up, but we're trading Revis anyway.
History has shown the Jets overvalued Wilson, who is just a guy. Cromartie is good. Without Revis, it's a pedestrian secondary.
The Jets can go out and try to find better corners if they wanted to. They may not find a guy on the level of Revis, but with a 1st and 2nd round pick they could find a corner in the draft to replace Revis and Wilson. That would improve the secondary.
Now, about the money. Revis has a year left on his contract, provided he doesn't hold out, and he will want to be the highest-paid defensive player in the game. Currently, Chicago defensive end Julius Peppers makes an average of $15.3 million a year; Buffalo pass rusher Mario Williams averages $16 million a year. There is no doubt Revis is better at his position than Peppers or Williams is at theirs -- of course, assuming Revis comes back whole from his surgery.
But is Revis worth the same amount of money as an elite pass rusher? I say no. He's an incredibly good cornerback, but I don't value a cornerback as high as I value a pass rusher. Granted, neither Peppers or Williams may be worth the amount of money they received, but for $16 million per year the Jets could acquire Chris Gamble when/if he is released by Carolina and use a draft pick received in return for Revis to acquire another corner. I'm not advocating the Jets trade Revis, but I also don't think it would be the worst decision in the history of the franchise. Rex Ryan obviously needs more than two quality cornerbacks and trading Revis could help the Jets achieve this goal.
If I were the Jets, I'd tell Revis he needs to show he's back to Revis form in the first, say, half of the season. Then I'd lock him up for five years, at $17 million per, in a deal where the guaranteed money will counter-balance the fact that the Jets are in cap trouble right now.
There is a reason Peter King is not an NFL GM right now. He would have $30-$33 million invested in the cornerback position because you know he would have Revis and Asomugha matched up together on the same team. He was trying to convince us all the Jets would be interested in Asomugha when he was a free agent, so you know if he were a GM he would put Revis and Asomugha together in the secondary. Just look at the cornerbacks for Super Bowl winning teams over the last five years. There are some good ones, but mostly they aren't great corners. Great corners aren't necessarily required to win a Super Bowl.
Andy Reid could be tempted with $17 million of cap room in Kansas City, and GM Trent Baalke in San Francisco could be a player too; the Niners will have significant money available when -- I presume -- they dump Alex Smith before April 1. And there are other teams that might be willing to give a first-round pick plus other value (maybe a third-rounder and a journeyman cornerback as well) for Revis. But remember, the compensation isn't just two picks and a player, or whatever ... it's also wrecking your cap in a flat-cap era for Revis, instead of the significantly more manageable money the fixed-cost high-draft choices now provide.
And yet, Peter says the Jets must back a Brinks truck up to pay Revis after he has proven himself this season...which we all know from Revis' previous holdout may end up turning into Revis not playing next year until he gets a new deal.
But I don't care what they'd get in return, unless someone (other than New England, a team the Jets obviously should do no business with) does something stupid like offer three first-rounders and a decent player. It won't be worth it. In this league, at cornerback, if you've got the best, you grit your teeth and pay the man.
Yeah, just look at the Eagles in regard to how important and crucial quality cornerbacks are. I'm all about Darrelle Revis being the top player at his position, but I don't see paying a cornerback as a "you have to pay this man" position, especially when that corner is coming off knee surgery. I know Peter is just waving off knee surgery as no big deal, but I think there is a risk that Revis could injure his knee again. Peter uses Thomas Davis as an example of a player who came back after three knee surgeries, but on the flip side, he is also an example of a player who suffered multiple knee injuries. A good pass rush can help fix problems in the secondary. He's the best at his position, but I can see why the Jets would trade him and depending on the compensation they would get in return, I can see how it is a good move for them.
Since probably midway through Williams' tenure as defensive coordinator in New Orleans, Payton faulted Williams as a renegade coach run amuck. The league didn't buy that Payton didn't know about the reward program Williams was running with his defensive players and thus suspended him for the season.
Good ol' Sean Payton. Remember prior to the year the Saints won the Super Bowl, when Payton took some of his own money and gave it back to the Saints in order to hire Gregg Williams? Payton was lauded by Peter King and others for making this move to help the team succeed, but once Williams started becoming a renegade, all of a sudden Sean Payton couldn't control this man anymore. He had no idea Williams was running the reward program, but he will still accept congratulations for taking less money to hire Williams as the head coach. Sean Payton has control of his staff and is glad to take responsibility for the team's success until something goes wrong and then Payton pleads he has no control over his staff (yes, I realize I sound a bit like Gregg Easterbrook). It's ridiculous to me and I am not happy to see Sean Payton back.
But you've got to credit Payton for urging local fans to be respectful to Goodell if they see him in New Orleans. That's a class thing to do by a guy who I'm sure is still smarting from his year-long suspension.
Nope, I won't give him credit for this. Considering Payton admitted culpability, to urge Saints fans to not tear Goodell apart limb-by-limb, isn't really a classy thing to do but more of a "let's please remember you are trying to punish the commissioner for rightfully punishing me" thing to do.
I asked former Chiefs GM Scott Pioli, who was in the midst of finalizing the club's preliminary draft board when fired early this month, to examine the record 73 underclass players who declared for the draft and pick the top 10, in his mind. His view of the junior board:
Remember a few weeks ago when Peter claimed his defense of Scott Pioli wasn't entirely based on the fact he liked the guy? Well know that Pioli has been fired, Peter is asking Pioli's opinion on the junior class in MMQB. Learn to separate friendship from your job, Peter. Because we all know the opinion of Pioli on the junior class means a lot. Was Matt Millen not available to comment on the junior class? Okay, maybe Pioli wasn't that bad, but Peter defends his friend in print and then gives him an outlet as a personnel expert in MMQB.
First of all, Jan. 28 is a dangerous time to commit to "top players" in any category, particularly underclassmen. There is still a lot of work to do before we know who and what these players are. Sometimes players look better with less information. NFL rules don't allow teams to officially scout underclassmen during fall campus visits, and scouts can't comment publicly on them either. When scouts go into school visits in the fall, they are not allowed to ask questions about underclassmen when speaking with coaches, trainers and any other support staff.
Thanks for your opinion, Scott. Since this exercise is futile I guess we can all move on without your opinion? Actually, even though the exercise is futile Scott Pioli would like to keep his name out there and his friend Peter King is just trying to help him do this.
Then Pioli lists ten players and his opinion of each player, which is seemingly pointless as Pioli just pointed out. If you are interested in Pioli's list then just look at any mock draft and find the Top 10 juniors mocked in that draft and you will have Pioli's list.
Also, there was no travel note this week. Either Peter learned from berating the cabbie last week or he just didn't travel enough to complain bitterly about the experiences he had interacting with his fellow human beings. Either way, we will try to move on without the weekly travel note.
1. I think I should clarify one thing I learned this week about minority coaches, and it's important: One team in the NFL twice called Stanford coach David Shaw asking him to interview for its head-coaching job. Shaw, who is black, said he wasn't interested in leaving Stanford right now. So there's that.
I don't think there was a need to clarify this. Multiple reports said David Shaw wasn't interested in an NFL job at this point. It was silly for Peter to include him last week as a minority who deserved more consideration for an NFL head coaching job. He isn't interested in the NFL at this point.
2. I think Tony Dungy brought up an interesting point on NBC's Football Night in America show Sunday night about minority coaches. He said he spoke with Steelers chairman Dan Rooney -- author of the Rooney Rule, which mandates that every team with a head coaching opening interview at least one minority candidate -- and Rooney told him teams needed to slow down. Agreed. What's the hurry? Why the race? Pittsburgh had a deliberate process that resulted in the hiring of Mike Tomlin on Jan. 22, 2007, the day after the two conference title games.
There is a race because some NFL teams are going after the same candidate. If the Chiefs wanted to interview Andy Reid as their head coach they couldn't wait until the AFC/NFC championship week to do this because he was going to be hired by the Cardinals or another NFL team at that point. There isn't a race among NFL teams to hire these coaches, it is just if Team A goes hard after a coach that Team B wants badly, then Team B is going to have to move up their deadline to hire a coach. It's hard to interview a head coaching candidate who has already taken another head coaching job. It's fine to sit back and wait if you are fine with potentially missing out on interviewing some of the top candidates for your head coaching position.
Also, what the hell is Dan Rooney chiming in on this issue for? He's hired three coaches in the last four decades. It's not like he has vast experience trying to find a suitable head coaching candidate. This is a credit to how the Steelers run their organization, but if Mike Tomlin was close to interviewing and being hired by another NFL team the day after the divisional round of the playoffs then the Steelers would have to hurry to get their man...or at the very least interview their man.
The last of eight coaches hired this year, Bruce Arians, got the job three days before the championship games. That's an anecdotal story, obviously, but Rooney's point is that teams seem to be sprinting to get a coach named instead of making sure they've interviewed a wide spectrum of candidates.
Remember when there were members of the media who were criticizing the Bears for interviewing a wide spectrum of candidates? It is an anecdotal story, but teams have to sprint to get a head coach because if they don't sprint then the number of quality head coaching candidates that can be interviewed quickly dwindles.
5. I think a lot of parents feel like Barack Obama. "I'm a big football fan, but I have to tell you, if I had a son, I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football," the president told The New Republic.
I thought it was hilarious this comment gained some sense of national momentum. What is Barack Obama really saying? Absolutely nothing. He is simply saying if he had a son (which he doesn't, so this is all hypothetical), he would have to think hard about letting his son play football (but he didn't say he wouldn't let his son play football). Maybe it is an important message that the President of the United States would have to think before letting his son play football, but Obama doesn't have a son and never said he wouldn't allow this non-existent son to play football. He would have to think about it. "I have to think about it" is parent language for "I don't feel like talking about his right now and will make a decision later depending on how I feel."
A lot of parents feel the same way as Obama, but I just thought it wasn't very newsworthy since his opining on an issue that he won't ever have to confront as a parent. It's all hypothetical and the acknowledgment he would have to think about letting his kid play football reflects what every other parent thinks. It's just Obama's opinion means less since he doesn't have a son and won't ever have to make this decision.
9. I think if Ed Reed becomes a free agent, he ought to last about 48 hours on the street ...
Dan Rooney wants to know why NFL teams are in such a rush to sign free agents. The Steelers take their time signing free agents, why can't other teams?
I think it is interesting how Peter states Ed Reed will be on the street for 48 hours if he becomes a free agent, but Peter also can't understand why NFL teams are so quick to interview and hire potential head coaches. It's like Peter can't understand there is a limited pool of talent for head coaching jobs, but he understands there is a limited pool of talent for NFL players. There isn't a huge difference in a coach being a free agent and a player becoming a free agent. If a team wants a player/coach, they have to move fast sometimes.
and as I said on NBC Sunday night, my money's on the Patriots and the president of the Ed Reed Fan Club, Massachusetts Chapter, Bill Belichick.
Peter thinks the Patriots are going to sign every pending free agent or draft every draft pick. He repeatedly said he thought the Patriots might draft Tim Tebow, correctly hit on Fred Taylor going to New England, said it wouldn't surprise him if the Patriots tried to sign Julius Peppers when he was a free agent or even sign him when he was under contract with Carolina, and now he has the Patriots signing Ed Reed. This may happen, but add it to the list of guys Peter thinks New England will have interest in.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. I missed The Debt in theaters a couple of years ago. Glad I caught it on DVR over the weekend. Heart-pounding.
I can't wait to read Peter's thoughts on "Zero Dark Thirty" as soon as he gets around to watching it in the year 2016.
b. What an idiotic softie I am. Got all teary the other night watching the last 30 minutes of Parenthood.
There are some things that are better left alone and not shared with others.
e. So Terry Francona came to the Barnes and Noble in my Manhattan neighborhood the other day to sign copies of the book he and Dan Shaughnessy wrote. I stopped by. Naïve me. I'd never met Francona, and, being a Sox partisan, I wanted to stop by and just say thanks for the two World Series titles. Silly me. Seventy-five minute wait. In Manhattan, no less. Well, thanks in spirit, Terry. And I'm sure I'll enjoy the book.
Whoever could have foreseen that there would be a long wait for Terry Francona to sign a book? It's Manhattan, which is a city where only native New Yorkers live, and there is a long wait for a famous person to sign a book? Peter King, a Boston Red Sox fan who lives in Manhattan is shocked that there are Red Sox fans who live in Manhattan. That should tell you anything you need to know about Peter. He is a Red Sox fan who lives in Manhattan, but he is shocked there are other humans alive who live near him that are also Red Sox fans. Peter seems to have no concept of life outside of his own existence.
f. My knowledge of the NBA could fit in a thimble. But I love watching Rajon Rondo. So a little of me died with the Rondo ACL tear Friday.
"I know very little about the NBA, but here is an opinion on an NBA player I care to share with you."
i. Beernerdness: Grew quite fond of the LA 31 Biere Pale Ale in New Orleans Sunday night. Dry and hoppy -- and brewed in Kiln, Miss., home of you-know-who.
Who, Peter? Who is this home to? Can't go an entire MMQB without mentioning his name or referring to him can you?
The Adieu Haiku
The Niners arrive.
Saw Alex Smith at Drago's.
Hope Staley paid tab.
Hope haiku gets gone.
Irritating more and more.
Just make it go away.
Monday, October 8, 2012
0 comments ...Our Pets' Heads Are Falling Off!: Week 5
Not to be a huge downer, but this was not an incredibly exciting week in the NFL, yet still probably better than watching any type of one game Wild Card playoff game in Major League Baseball. This is probably one of the most ugliest weeks in the NFL I can remember. There were some ugly games. As many things annoy me about the NFL, at least they don't have any bad ideas to make the game "more exciting" by creating drama using gimmicks in the playoffs. Anyway, Tom Brady beat Peyton Manning when they went head-to-head...again. The Bills defense leaked like a sieve...again. The good news is Gregg Easterbrook's idea from last week that the NFL needs to do something about this offensive power in the NFL didn't look so smart this week.
St. Louis Rams 17 Arizona Cardinals 3
After Thursday evening was over this game looked like it would be the ugliest offensive game of the NFL week, but it was surpassed during the weekend by another game involving a NFC West team. Sam Bradford completed seven passes and won the game. Kevin Kolb got sacked nine times and the Arizona Cardinals offensive line clearly wanted to remind us it still isn't a very good unit, despite the fact the Cardinals had not lost a game until they played the Rams. The Rams defense won this game really. The Cardinals couldn't run the ball (as usual) and the Rams harassed Kevin Kolb as I had expected defenses to do to him all year. This is the type of game where if it were a baseball game old-school sportswriters would say that Sam Bradford did enough to earn the win. What that means is he did a great job of being on a team that played great defense. This is the Cardinals team I expected to see this year. I am also surprised at what an excellent defense the Rams have put together. Though I have to admit, considering they haven't been very good for a while now they probably should start putting some semblance of a good team together. At some point getting high first round draft picks has to pay off, right?
Miami Dolphins 17 Cincinnati Bengals 13
If Ryan Tannehill has about 10 more games like this I might consider saying I was wrong about him. I never thought he would be a good NFL quarterback and he has played really well over the last two games. Neither team really put up an excellent offensive showing, but the Dolphins got a nearly mistake-free game from Tannehill, which the Bengals can't say about Andy Dalton. If the Bengals really want people to take them seriously as contenders in the AFC then these are the type of games they have to win. They can't be losing at home to the Dolphins against a rookie quarterback. The Bengals had just come off a good defensive showing while missing their top four cornerbacks and then follow it up with a loss to a pretty average Dolphins team? It's not the progress Bengals fans are wanting to see. The Bengals couldn't take advantage of opportunities to score touchdowns early in the game and the Dolphins defense held them to two field goals in the first half. Gregg Easterbrook would say "fortune favors the bold" so I am sure if the Bengals had gone for it on fourth down the entire game it would have turned the result all around.
Indianapolis Colts 30 Green Bay Packers 27
That sound you heard at 4:15pm EST on Sunday was the sportswriters of America getting a little too excited in their pants at being able to (finally!) say that Andrew Luck had a signature win as an NFL starter. NeckBeard beat the Green Bay Packers all by himself, helped an old lady cross the street and then saved a cat from a burning building. Luck has a signature win that 5 years from now nobody but Colts fans will remember, but for right now the sports media will describe as a "signature win" in order to make it seem like it was a win that will forever be remembered by sports fans everywhere. When in doubt, create a narrative. The best narrative for this game is the Colts played emotionally for Chuck Pagano and put together a good win at home that hopefully for them serves as a springboard to show the plan in place is working. Pagano wrote an email to the team urging them not to play for him, but to play for themselves. It was one of those old "here is correspondence from your ailing coach" emails which explicitly is sent to motivate the team to play more emotionally and focus more...but not on the ailing coach's behalf course, but for themselves. Naturally, it always takes the opposite effect and the team ends up playing well for the ailing coach. Reggie Wayne went bananas and reminded everyone that Andrew Luck is fortunate to have a Hall of Fame receiver to throw the football to. Apparently the Packers also played in this game, though you wouldn't know it from any of the game recaps I read.
Baltimore Ravens 9 Kansas City Chiefs 6
Joe Flacco proved once again he is a consistently elite quarterback by helping the Ravens run up the score on the Chiefs 9-6. Flacco did it all, throwing for a blistering 48% completion percentage and even running for 14 yards, including getting the first down on a 3rd-and-15 with a few minutes left in the game, which kept the football out of the hands of the powerful Chiefs offense and Brady Quinn. Top that, Eli Manning. The Ravens couldn't afford to give the football back to Brady Quinn with time left on the clock. Oh, Ray Rice ran for 100 yards and the Ravens defense held the Chiefs offense to 124 yards passing. That may have had something to do with this win as well. Romeo Crennel, who as we learned from last week is ready for the Chiefs to get better somehow, found that not having Matt Cassel as the quarterback could be the key to getting better and the "somehow" part of that statement may have an answer as "not having Matt Cassel as the quarterback." As always, the fact Cassel struggled again in this game only further proves Tom Brady is the most overrated quarterback in NFL history.
This week, with the change in quarterback comes a different focus for the Chiefs offense. Now they have tried to get better somehow, they just need to learn not to drop the ball. I'll let Brady Quinn explain:
"We just want to play a sound football game where we're not dropping the ball as much," said Brady Quinn, who finished the game out and appears likely to start at quarterback when the Chiefs visit Tampa Bay next Sunday. "If we can fix that, we can be a pretty solid team."
As soon as the Chiefs find a way to not drop the football, IF they can do that, they will be on their way to becoming a solid football team. I find it shocking Chiefs fans want Scott Pioli fired. He's a genius don't you know? Remember all those years where he, not Bill Belichick, was running the Patriots team? Well kiss that genius goodbye if you choose to fire him. It's not like he has overpaid for a mediocre quarterback and missed on some first round draft choices while he has been the architect of this Chiefs team. Also, calling Pioli the "architect" of the Chiefs is insulting to the Chiefs players and architects everywhere. If the Chiefs were a building it would be a building well-constructed in certain parts but these well-constructed parts would be wearing down quickly under the weight of the terribly-constructed and mildewed portions of the building.
New York Giants 41 Cleveland Browns 27
The Giants are a really good offensive team. With injuries to their wide receivers they decided Ahmad Bradshaw would have to run the ball 30 times in this game, which he did for 200 yards. The Giants spotted the Browns a 14-0 lead so they could finally be in Eli Manning's comfort zone and have to come back in the game, then put up 41 points on the Browns. Weeden was very mature in this game and handled the adversity of losing well, which is all he is required to do. That's the best part about Weeden after all. He's mature and knows how to lose gracefully and then talk about how he is going to bounce back from it. A couple of Giants rookies had good games, David Wilson and Rueben Randle, which will undoubtedly lead to Peter King showing a graph of Jerry Reese's last six drafts and just how good they have been. The Browns committed 10 penalties for a total of 91 yards, plus they had three turnovers which isn't going to get it done against a good team like the Giants. I almost feel bad for the Browns because I feel like there is some talent on this team. They keep getting in their own way though. Oh, and Victor Cruz scored three touchdowns doing his salsa dance after each one. I'm not sure if salsa music was piped in by the network for each touchdown dance, but let's pray this didn't happen. Let Cruz dance to pretend salsa music please.
Pittsburgh Steelers 16 Philadelphia Eagles 14
I feel like these are the types of games the Pittsburgh Steelers always win. They came into the game 1-2 and had a home game against a quality opponent like the Eagles. The Steelers always find a way to win these type of games. It must be nice to cheer for a team that consistently pays for the fans' support and confidence in that team with well-played games or ugly games that result in wins. Clearly I chose the wrong team to be my favorite NFL team. Mike Vick fumbled twice again and the Eagles couldn't hold the lead late in the game. I wasn't convinced coming into this year the Steelers defense was that great, but they played well in holding the Eagles to a little less than 250 yards of offense. It's depressing how the Steelers even had a penalty hold them back on the final drive of the game and they still managed to convert a first down and get in field goal range to win the game. It's not easy, but sometimes they make it look so easy. The Steelers defense bounced back well after the terrible game against Raiders, which it seems like the Steelers defense always manages to do. So this recap can be summed up with, "The Steelers are annoyingly good at being annoyingly good at bouncing back from bad games."
Atlanta Falcons 24 Washington Redskins 17
The Falcons continue their trend of living right after last week's big comeback at home against Carolina. They knocked Robert Griffin out of the game and then Matt Ryan was able to lead the Falcons back to a road win. I could say the Falcons are getting fortunate, but good teams get opportunities and then take advantage of those opportunities. Robert Griffin got concussed and had to leave the game. This was a concern I had for him in that he is a mobile quarterback who was built more like Mike Vick than a Daunte Culpepper or even a Christian Ponder (I should remember we have to compare Griffin to black, mobile quarterbacks only). The Falcons took advantage of Griffin's injury and Matt Ryan had another MVP-type game. I imagine we will be hearing quite a bit about Matt Ryan for the actual MVP award if he keeps these types of games up. The Falcons weren't incredibly effective in this game at scoring until Griffin got injured and then they were able to put some points on the board. I'm still not entirely sold on the Falcons being the NFC's best team, but I guess we can't argue with their results. If Griffin isn't able to play next week perhaps we'll see if Kirk Cousins is a NFL-quality quarterback. Those concerns I had about Cousins' presence putting too much pressure on Griffin seem a bit silly now.
Seattle Seahawks 16 Carolina Panthers 12
Oh the humanity of this game. This was one of the worst offensive games between two NFL teams I've seen in a long while. Mostly it was Carolina's fault. The offensive coordinator for Carolina seems to show he cares more about how creative of a play he can draw up as opposed to drawing up a play that may actually work and gain yardage. To the average observer it seems the Panthers offense is regressing and the high expectations the team was selling is just fool's gold. Ron Rivera isn't having any of that though:
"This is by no stretch done," second-year Panthers coach Ron Rivera said. "This is 1-4 and we're not going to quit. We're going to show up and we're going to be back on the job (Monday). We will find answers and we're going to win."
It seems Carolina "isn't going to quit" because they have already quit. There's something to be said for talking about fighting and trying to win games, but even more can be said for actually winning games. Results matter. The Seahawks played fantastic defense as they have shown they know how to do and frustrated Cam Newton into missing open receivers and getting the Panthers offense away from the run game. Maybe in head coaching interviews this offseason (if he gets any) Rob Chudzinski can talk about how awesome of a play he knows how to draw up and skip over the whole "if you have fourth-and-goal with three running backs who can get the touchdown along with a 6-foot-5-inch quarterback why not call a roll out to the right and target a blocking tight end" offensive mantra he seems to favor. Both defenses played well, but this game was decided by the great defense Seattle plays. I would vent more and mention Brandon LaFell caught all three passes targeted to him or Greg Olson caught two out of the three passes targeted to him, but that would be underplaying the great job the Seahawks defense did and suggesting a game plan built around receivers who can catch a pass or running the football like a normal NFL team does is a smart idea. Clearly, I'm not as smart as Chudzinski because he can draw up some really cool and creative plays.
Chicago Bears 41 Jacksonville Jaguars 3
I sincerely believed Blaine Gabbert was going to have a good year. I thought he wasn't being given enough help last year and with an increase of offensive weapons and offensive line help he could raise his level of play. He threw more touchdowns to the Bears than he threw to his own teammates and averaged 4.3 yards per attempt in this game. That's pathetic. I know the Jaguars want to focus on a short passing game for Gabbert, but they have to open up the offense a little bit more and stop babying him. If it leads to even worse play on his part, then so be it. They are already losing games as it is. The Bears offense ran up 501 yards in this game, none of those yards will Jay Cutler be given credit for of course. The Bears ran and threw the ball well, further showing Cutler can play well when protected. The saddest quote of the day goes to Maurice Jones-Drew who said:
"It's been the same thing for five years," Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew said. "Obviously, we're not working hard enough. I don't know. We're just not playing well right now. We have to figure something out. No one here is going to save us. It's the guys in this locker room. There's no one we can bring in to help. We got to look man to man at each other and figure out what we're going to do."
Those are the words of a player who knows the Jaguars don't appear to be going anywhere, the players on the current team can't do anything to help, and there isn't any other help available. That is a pretty sad quote to read. Much of these issues start with the quarterback position and right now Gabbert isn't close to being an NFL-caliber starting quarterback. Yes, the Bears are fantastic on defense, but this game was tied at halftime so it as in reach at one point. What's next? "Blow for Geno" maybe?
Minnesota Vikings 30 Tennessee Titans 7
The good news is that Chris Johnson was back to his sub-2.0 yards per carry average in this game. At least things are normal for him. Matt Hasselbeck in one year has gone from a quarterback who can be counted on to start a game and keep his team in the game to a quarterback who gets to be one of my bad punchlines. The Titans defense is somewhat to blame, even though they did create two turnovers, they couldn't stop the Vikings from scoring when they needed to. This was a team loss for the Titans. Offense, defense and penalties killed them. The Vikings ran the ball very well, which allowed Christian Ponder to be comfortable in the pocket and find receivers like Percy Harvin. It's amazing what drafting an offensive lineman like Matt Kalil can do to help a young quarterback feel comfortable. It is almost like quarterbacks don't like pressure in their face during a game. I didn't expect this turnaround from the Vikings, mostly because I didn't think Christian Ponder could play this well. What a crazy plan the Vikings had in making draft picks recently. Draft a quarterback (Ponder), protect him (Kalil), give him offensive weapons to work with (Rudolph) and then shore up the defense (Harrison Smith). It seems to have worked for them so far.
New England Patriots 31 Denver Broncos 21
The Patriots have turned themselves into a running football team. The Patriots ran for 251 yards in the game and Wes Welker continued his rise from the dead to catch 13 passes. I've seen a John Fox defense get killed by the running game and unable to stop a slot receiver/tight end quite a few times, but it never gets easier to watch. I'm confused as hell about the Patriots defense. I feel like one week they look bad and the next week they look great. The Broncos fell behind early and then had to make their way back by throwing the ball. Peyton Manning almost led the Broncos all the way back, but Willis McGahee forgot to take a few extra sips from the Fountain of Youth prior to the game and fumbled on the New England 11-yard line. Brady is 9-4 in his career against Manning, which obviously means Peyton Manning is overrated, which makes me wonder how good of a quarterback Peyton Manning really is since Tom Brady is apparently the most overrated quarterback in NFL history. If the Patriots are going to decide they can run the ball for 200 yards in every single game that is going to make it extremely hard to stop them from scoring 30 points in every game.
San Francisco 49ers 45 Buffalo Bills 3
This wasn't a very good matchup for the Bills coming into the game. The 49ers have a tough defense and the Bills haven't been able to stop teams from scoring over the past couple of weeks. The 49ers agreed and ran up 621 yards of offense while holding the Bills to 204 yards of offense. This was a Grade-A beatdown. The 49ers ran for 311 yards of offense and threw for 310 yards. I'm sure Gregg Easterbrook is going to have a lot to say about the highly-paid, glory boy defensive line of the Buffalo Bills while ignoring the high draft picks the 49ers have on their offensive line who do their job very well. Alex Smith went over 300 yards in a game for the third time in his career. He's been in the NFL since 2005 by the way and has played in 75 games in that span. So I am still calling him a game manager for the foreseeable future and not considering it an insult. I don't think the 49ers are as strong on offense as they showed against the Bills, but when they can run the ball they are incredibly hard to stop. The Bills...well, I would point to the quarterback as an issue because Fitzpatrick hasn't played great, but he only had one interception in this game. The loss goes against the Bills defense and Dave Wannstedt. This type of shoddy defense is completely unacceptable.
New Orleans Saints 31 San Diego Chargers 24
The Saints won a game! That's great, but the more important thing that happened in this game is that Drew Brees had a personal achievement and broke an NFL record. He threw a touchdown pass in his 48th consecutive game, which means absolutely nothing to him of course, because he is humble and not about personal achievements. That's why Sean Payton and Joe Vitt attended this game to see him break the record, because Brees isn't about personal achievements and didn't care if they were there to see him break the record or not. Also, Brees celebrated the record with Payton and Vitt after the game because the personal achievement isn't something he cares about as you can tell by this quote:
"It gave us a good mojo for sure," Brees said of Payton's presence. "I love my coach, so glad he could be here. Mickey and Joe Vitt as well. It is special for our team, special they could be a part of this record."
It was also special Payton and Vitt could be there for the Saints win as well, right Drew? Of course, it's all about the team isn't it?
The Saints defense played really well and sacked Philip Rivers five times, though they still gave up 427 yards of offense. When the Saints defense starts to turn it around, the Saints are going to start winning games. That's an easy prediction to make. The Chargers played well, but they couldn't overcome two turnovers late in the game. If the Chargers want to be considered a really good team they need to start beating teams like Atlanta and New Orleans. Good thing for the Chargers they have the Broncos and then can feast on a soft schedule of Cleveland, Kansas City, and Tampa Bay over the next three games before they play a tough stretch of Denver, Baltimore and Pittsburgh over three of the next four games after that. That's when we'll find out how good of a team the Chargers really are.
St. Louis Rams 17 Arizona Cardinals 3
After Thursday evening was over this game looked like it would be the ugliest offensive game of the NFL week, but it was surpassed during the weekend by another game involving a NFC West team. Sam Bradford completed seven passes and won the game. Kevin Kolb got sacked nine times and the Arizona Cardinals offensive line clearly wanted to remind us it still isn't a very good unit, despite the fact the Cardinals had not lost a game until they played the Rams. The Rams defense won this game really. The Cardinals couldn't run the ball (as usual) and the Rams harassed Kevin Kolb as I had expected defenses to do to him all year. This is the type of game where if it were a baseball game old-school sportswriters would say that Sam Bradford did enough to earn the win. What that means is he did a great job of being on a team that played great defense. This is the Cardinals team I expected to see this year. I am also surprised at what an excellent defense the Rams have put together. Though I have to admit, considering they haven't been very good for a while now they probably should start putting some semblance of a good team together. At some point getting high first round draft picks has to pay off, right?
Miami Dolphins 17 Cincinnati Bengals 13
If Ryan Tannehill has about 10 more games like this I might consider saying I was wrong about him. I never thought he would be a good NFL quarterback and he has played really well over the last two games. Neither team really put up an excellent offensive showing, but the Dolphins got a nearly mistake-free game from Tannehill, which the Bengals can't say about Andy Dalton. If the Bengals really want people to take them seriously as contenders in the AFC then these are the type of games they have to win. They can't be losing at home to the Dolphins against a rookie quarterback. The Bengals had just come off a good defensive showing while missing their top four cornerbacks and then follow it up with a loss to a pretty average Dolphins team? It's not the progress Bengals fans are wanting to see. The Bengals couldn't take advantage of opportunities to score touchdowns early in the game and the Dolphins defense held them to two field goals in the first half. Gregg Easterbrook would say "fortune favors the bold" so I am sure if the Bengals had gone for it on fourth down the entire game it would have turned the result all around.
Indianapolis Colts 30 Green Bay Packers 27
That sound you heard at 4:15pm EST on Sunday was the sportswriters of America getting a little too excited in their pants at being able to (finally!) say that Andrew Luck had a signature win as an NFL starter. NeckBeard beat the Green Bay Packers all by himself, helped an old lady cross the street and then saved a cat from a burning building. Luck has a signature win that 5 years from now nobody but Colts fans will remember, but for right now the sports media will describe as a "signature win" in order to make it seem like it was a win that will forever be remembered by sports fans everywhere. When in doubt, create a narrative. The best narrative for this game is the Colts played emotionally for Chuck Pagano and put together a good win at home that hopefully for them serves as a springboard to show the plan in place is working. Pagano wrote an email to the team urging them not to play for him, but to play for themselves. It was one of those old "here is correspondence from your ailing coach" emails which explicitly is sent to motivate the team to play more emotionally and focus more...but not on the ailing coach's behalf course, but for themselves. Naturally, it always takes the opposite effect and the team ends up playing well for the ailing coach. Reggie Wayne went bananas and reminded everyone that Andrew Luck is fortunate to have a Hall of Fame receiver to throw the football to. Apparently the Packers also played in this game, though you wouldn't know it from any of the game recaps I read.
Baltimore Ravens 9 Kansas City Chiefs 6
Joe Flacco proved once again he is a consistently elite quarterback by helping the Ravens run up the score on the Chiefs 9-6. Flacco did it all, throwing for a blistering 48% completion percentage and even running for 14 yards, including getting the first down on a 3rd-and-15 with a few minutes left in the game, which kept the football out of the hands of the powerful Chiefs offense and Brady Quinn. Top that, Eli Manning. The Ravens couldn't afford to give the football back to Brady Quinn with time left on the clock. Oh, Ray Rice ran for 100 yards and the Ravens defense held the Chiefs offense to 124 yards passing. That may have had something to do with this win as well. Romeo Crennel, who as we learned from last week is ready for the Chiefs to get better somehow, found that not having Matt Cassel as the quarterback could be the key to getting better and the "somehow" part of that statement may have an answer as "not having Matt Cassel as the quarterback." As always, the fact Cassel struggled again in this game only further proves Tom Brady is the most overrated quarterback in NFL history.
This week, with the change in quarterback comes a different focus for the Chiefs offense. Now they have tried to get better somehow, they just need to learn not to drop the ball. I'll let Brady Quinn explain:
"We just want to play a sound football game where we're not dropping the ball as much," said Brady Quinn, who finished the game out and appears likely to start at quarterback when the Chiefs visit Tampa Bay next Sunday. "If we can fix that, we can be a pretty solid team."
As soon as the Chiefs find a way to not drop the football, IF they can do that, they will be on their way to becoming a solid football team. I find it shocking Chiefs fans want Scott Pioli fired. He's a genius don't you know? Remember all those years where he, not Bill Belichick, was running the Patriots team? Well kiss that genius goodbye if you choose to fire him. It's not like he has overpaid for a mediocre quarterback and missed on some first round draft choices while he has been the architect of this Chiefs team. Also, calling Pioli the "architect" of the Chiefs is insulting to the Chiefs players and architects everywhere. If the Chiefs were a building it would be a building well-constructed in certain parts but these well-constructed parts would be wearing down quickly under the weight of the terribly-constructed and mildewed portions of the building.
New York Giants 41 Cleveland Browns 27
The Giants are a really good offensive team. With injuries to their wide receivers they decided Ahmad Bradshaw would have to run the ball 30 times in this game, which he did for 200 yards. The Giants spotted the Browns a 14-0 lead so they could finally be in Eli Manning's comfort zone and have to come back in the game, then put up 41 points on the Browns. Weeden was very mature in this game and handled the adversity of losing well, which is all he is required to do. That's the best part about Weeden after all. He's mature and knows how to lose gracefully and then talk about how he is going to bounce back from it. A couple of Giants rookies had good games, David Wilson and Rueben Randle, which will undoubtedly lead to Peter King showing a graph of Jerry Reese's last six drafts and just how good they have been. The Browns committed 10 penalties for a total of 91 yards, plus they had three turnovers which isn't going to get it done against a good team like the Giants. I almost feel bad for the Browns because I feel like there is some talent on this team. They keep getting in their own way though. Oh, and Victor Cruz scored three touchdowns doing his salsa dance after each one. I'm not sure if salsa music was piped in by the network for each touchdown dance, but let's pray this didn't happen. Let Cruz dance to pretend salsa music please.
Pittsburgh Steelers 16 Philadelphia Eagles 14
I feel like these are the types of games the Pittsburgh Steelers always win. They came into the game 1-2 and had a home game against a quality opponent like the Eagles. The Steelers always find a way to win these type of games. It must be nice to cheer for a team that consistently pays for the fans' support and confidence in that team with well-played games or ugly games that result in wins. Clearly I chose the wrong team to be my favorite NFL team. Mike Vick fumbled twice again and the Eagles couldn't hold the lead late in the game. I wasn't convinced coming into this year the Steelers defense was that great, but they played well in holding the Eagles to a little less than 250 yards of offense. It's depressing how the Steelers even had a penalty hold them back on the final drive of the game and they still managed to convert a first down and get in field goal range to win the game. It's not easy, but sometimes they make it look so easy. The Steelers defense bounced back well after the terrible game against Raiders, which it seems like the Steelers defense always manages to do. So this recap can be summed up with, "The Steelers are annoyingly good at being annoyingly good at bouncing back from bad games."
Atlanta Falcons 24 Washington Redskins 17
The Falcons continue their trend of living right after last week's big comeback at home against Carolina. They knocked Robert Griffin out of the game and then Matt Ryan was able to lead the Falcons back to a road win. I could say the Falcons are getting fortunate, but good teams get opportunities and then take advantage of those opportunities. Robert Griffin got concussed and had to leave the game. This was a concern I had for him in that he is a mobile quarterback who was built more like Mike Vick than a Daunte Culpepper or even a Christian Ponder (I should remember we have to compare Griffin to black, mobile quarterbacks only). The Falcons took advantage of Griffin's injury and Matt Ryan had another MVP-type game. I imagine we will be hearing quite a bit about Matt Ryan for the actual MVP award if he keeps these types of games up. The Falcons weren't incredibly effective in this game at scoring until Griffin got injured and then they were able to put some points on the board. I'm still not entirely sold on the Falcons being the NFC's best team, but I guess we can't argue with their results. If Griffin isn't able to play next week perhaps we'll see if Kirk Cousins is a NFL-quality quarterback. Those concerns I had about Cousins' presence putting too much pressure on Griffin seem a bit silly now.
Seattle Seahawks 16 Carolina Panthers 12
Oh the humanity of this game. This was one of the worst offensive games between two NFL teams I've seen in a long while. Mostly it was Carolina's fault. The offensive coordinator for Carolina seems to show he cares more about how creative of a play he can draw up as opposed to drawing up a play that may actually work and gain yardage. To the average observer it seems the Panthers offense is regressing and the high expectations the team was selling is just fool's gold. Ron Rivera isn't having any of that though:
"This is by no stretch done," second-year Panthers coach Ron Rivera said. "This is 1-4 and we're not going to quit. We're going to show up and we're going to be back on the job (Monday). We will find answers and we're going to win."
It seems Carolina "isn't going to quit" because they have already quit. There's something to be said for talking about fighting and trying to win games, but even more can be said for actually winning games. Results matter. The Seahawks played fantastic defense as they have shown they know how to do and frustrated Cam Newton into missing open receivers and getting the Panthers offense away from the run game. Maybe in head coaching interviews this offseason (if he gets any) Rob Chudzinski can talk about how awesome of a play he knows how to draw up and skip over the whole "if you have fourth-and-goal with three running backs who can get the touchdown along with a 6-foot-5-inch quarterback why not call a roll out to the right and target a blocking tight end" offensive mantra he seems to favor. Both defenses played well, but this game was decided by the great defense Seattle plays. I would vent more and mention Brandon LaFell caught all three passes targeted to him or Greg Olson caught two out of the three passes targeted to him, but that would be underplaying the great job the Seahawks defense did and suggesting a game plan built around receivers who can catch a pass or running the football like a normal NFL team does is a smart idea. Clearly, I'm not as smart as Chudzinski because he can draw up some really cool and creative plays.
Chicago Bears 41 Jacksonville Jaguars 3
I sincerely believed Blaine Gabbert was going to have a good year. I thought he wasn't being given enough help last year and with an increase of offensive weapons and offensive line help he could raise his level of play. He threw more touchdowns to the Bears than he threw to his own teammates and averaged 4.3 yards per attempt in this game. That's pathetic. I know the Jaguars want to focus on a short passing game for Gabbert, but they have to open up the offense a little bit more and stop babying him. If it leads to even worse play on his part, then so be it. They are already losing games as it is. The Bears offense ran up 501 yards in this game, none of those yards will Jay Cutler be given credit for of course. The Bears ran and threw the ball well, further showing Cutler can play well when protected. The saddest quote of the day goes to Maurice Jones-Drew who said:
"It's been the same thing for five years," Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew said. "Obviously, we're not working hard enough. I don't know. We're just not playing well right now. We have to figure something out. No one here is going to save us. It's the guys in this locker room. There's no one we can bring in to help. We got to look man to man at each other and figure out what we're going to do."
Those are the words of a player who knows the Jaguars don't appear to be going anywhere, the players on the current team can't do anything to help, and there isn't any other help available. That is a pretty sad quote to read. Much of these issues start with the quarterback position and right now Gabbert isn't close to being an NFL-caliber starting quarterback. Yes, the Bears are fantastic on defense, but this game was tied at halftime so it as in reach at one point. What's next? "Blow for Geno" maybe?
Minnesota Vikings 30 Tennessee Titans 7
The good news is that Chris Johnson was back to his sub-2.0 yards per carry average in this game. At least things are normal for him. Matt Hasselbeck in one year has gone from a quarterback who can be counted on to start a game and keep his team in the game to a quarterback who gets to be one of my bad punchlines. The Titans defense is somewhat to blame, even though they did create two turnovers, they couldn't stop the Vikings from scoring when they needed to. This was a team loss for the Titans. Offense, defense and penalties killed them. The Vikings ran the ball very well, which allowed Christian Ponder to be comfortable in the pocket and find receivers like Percy Harvin. It's amazing what drafting an offensive lineman like Matt Kalil can do to help a young quarterback feel comfortable. It is almost like quarterbacks don't like pressure in their face during a game. I didn't expect this turnaround from the Vikings, mostly because I didn't think Christian Ponder could play this well. What a crazy plan the Vikings had in making draft picks recently. Draft a quarterback (Ponder), protect him (Kalil), give him offensive weapons to work with (Rudolph) and then shore up the defense (Harrison Smith). It seems to have worked for them so far.
New England Patriots 31 Denver Broncos 21
The Patriots have turned themselves into a running football team. The Patriots ran for 251 yards in the game and Wes Welker continued his rise from the dead to catch 13 passes. I've seen a John Fox defense get killed by the running game and unable to stop a slot receiver/tight end quite a few times, but it never gets easier to watch. I'm confused as hell about the Patriots defense. I feel like one week they look bad and the next week they look great. The Broncos fell behind early and then had to make their way back by throwing the ball. Peyton Manning almost led the Broncos all the way back, but Willis McGahee forgot to take a few extra sips from the Fountain of Youth prior to the game and fumbled on the New England 11-yard line. Brady is 9-4 in his career against Manning, which obviously means Peyton Manning is overrated, which makes me wonder how good of a quarterback Peyton Manning really is since Tom Brady is apparently the most overrated quarterback in NFL history. If the Patriots are going to decide they can run the ball for 200 yards in every single game that is going to make it extremely hard to stop them from scoring 30 points in every game.
San Francisco 49ers 45 Buffalo Bills 3
This wasn't a very good matchup for the Bills coming into the game. The 49ers have a tough defense and the Bills haven't been able to stop teams from scoring over the past couple of weeks. The 49ers agreed and ran up 621 yards of offense while holding the Bills to 204 yards of offense. This was a Grade-A beatdown. The 49ers ran for 311 yards of offense and threw for 310 yards. I'm sure Gregg Easterbrook is going to have a lot to say about the highly-paid, glory boy defensive line of the Buffalo Bills while ignoring the high draft picks the 49ers have on their offensive line who do their job very well. Alex Smith went over 300 yards in a game for the third time in his career. He's been in the NFL since 2005 by the way and has played in 75 games in that span. So I am still calling him a game manager for the foreseeable future and not considering it an insult. I don't think the 49ers are as strong on offense as they showed against the Bills, but when they can run the ball they are incredibly hard to stop. The Bills...well, I would point to the quarterback as an issue because Fitzpatrick hasn't played great, but he only had one interception in this game. The loss goes against the Bills defense and Dave Wannstedt. This type of shoddy defense is completely unacceptable.
New Orleans Saints 31 San Diego Chargers 24
The Saints won a game! That's great, but the more important thing that happened in this game is that Drew Brees had a personal achievement and broke an NFL record. He threw a touchdown pass in his 48th consecutive game, which means absolutely nothing to him of course, because he is humble and not about personal achievements. That's why Sean Payton and Joe Vitt attended this game to see him break the record, because Brees isn't about personal achievements and didn't care if they were there to see him break the record or not. Also, Brees celebrated the record with Payton and Vitt after the game because the personal achievement isn't something he cares about as you can tell by this quote:
"It gave us a good mojo for sure," Brees said of Payton's presence. "I love my coach, so glad he could be here. Mickey and Joe Vitt as well. It is special for our team, special they could be a part of this record."
It was also special Payton and Vitt could be there for the Saints win as well, right Drew? Of course, it's all about the team isn't it?
The Saints defense played really well and sacked Philip Rivers five times, though they still gave up 427 yards of offense. When the Saints defense starts to turn it around, the Saints are going to start winning games. That's an easy prediction to make. The Chargers played well, but they couldn't overcome two turnovers late in the game. If the Chargers want to be considered a really good team they need to start beating teams like Atlanta and New Orleans. Good thing for the Chargers they have the Broncos and then can feast on a soft schedule of Cleveland, Kansas City, and Tampa Bay over the next three games before they play a tough stretch of Denver, Baltimore and Pittsburgh over three of the next four games after that. That's when we'll find out how good of a team the Chargers really are.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
7 comments T.J. Simers Decides to Attack His Colleagues Using the Written Word, Still Has Insatiable Need to be Punched in the Face
Many of you may remember T.J. Simers' bizarre, random attack on Marcus Thames in Spring Training last year. I can't describe exactly what Simers did, so read it for yourself if you care to. Basically, he was pissed Marcus Thames plays like Marcus Thames, confronted Thames in a hostile fashion and then couldn't understand why Thames wouldn't talk to him. This year Simers decides to attack the Dodgers and just for good measure his fellow LA Times employees. I sort of buried the lede with my title, I realize that. Simers decides to semi-question why his employer even covers the Dodgers and tells us all how bad the Dodgers indeed do suck. Of course, a better writer would explain WHY the Dodgers suck, but no one expects T.J. Simers to be a better writer at this point. He's closer to "bitter" than to "better."
What is really interesting is Simers wrote his article randomly attacking Marcus Thames on March 21, 2011 and he wrote this article attacking the Dodgers and his fellow LA Times writers on March 19, 2012. Something must happen every year around this time that really pisses Simers off. One could only speculate what that could be. Oh, and don't worry, Marcus Thames is mentioned (Why? Because Simers hates Thames, that's why). No T.J. Simers article is complete without a mention of Marcus Thames, who at this point has reached the status of "war criminal" in the mind of T.J. Simers.
We all know the Dodgers may not be a great team this year, but Simers has no interest in explaining why HE believes the Dodgers will be bad. Why do that when you can just indiscriminately bash them without giving a reason why? Where's the fun in logic? More importantly, what the hell is Marcus Thames doing now? Probably giving hand jobs to homeless men for $2. What a piece of shit that Marcus Thames guy is, huh? If T.J. Simers could find out where Thames disappeared to, then he would angrily confront Thames over his refusal to acknowledge he is a terrible baseball player.
Consider the excitement, arriving here and finding Vin Scully's car parked in the stenciled spot reserved for Dodgers "ownership."
If that were only true, but like Tommy Lasorda saying he never says something he doesn't believe, things are not always so.
Great way to start off a column. Vague, snarky and immediately bitter sounding when discussing the topic at hand.
So far The Times has sent six writers here in the quest for truth.
So a major city newspaper has dispatched writers to cover the professional baseball team that plays in that city? Has anything ever been done like this before? We are in uncharted waters now, folks.
Also, The Times hasn't dispatched the writers to discover the truth but to write a bunch of special interest and fluff pieces about this year's team. It happens every year. Fans want to be excited and the newspaper wants readers to read about the local team and get excited because they means the fans of the team may buy the newspaper. Fans will eat up any story on their favorite team in Spring Training and sportswriters know this. It's a win-win.
Most of them have left Phoenix singing the praises of the Dodgers as if this team suddenly got good.
"Suddenly got good." I didn't realize there had been regular season games played already and we know which teams were definitely bad.
And believe me, you don't want to hear Dwyre sing.
That would be Bill Dwyre being referred to and the last time he had written about the Dodgers was March 7th. Dwyer has written about the Dodgers three times this year so far. Mostly, he writes for The Times sports section concerning tennis and golf. I feel like this is important to know as Simers starts calling out his colleagues for suckling at the teat of the Dodgers organization. Dwyre writes about one Dodger player and T.J. Simers takes him to task for daring to cover the local professional sports team.
Little known fictional fact: T.J. Simers has standing to mock another man's singing voice because in college his nickname was "Songbird" due to his eerily accurate Eddie Cantor impression.
But digging deeper, beyond the fact the Dodgers were waiting on a rental agency to retrieve or repossess the car, the Dodgers are the same dogs they were a year ago.
It's not like the Dodgers have faced any monetary or ownership issues, so one would have no idea why they chose to essentially keep the same team as the 2011 team that went 82-79. That team missed the Wild Card by 7.5 games and would have missed the second Wild Card (now that there is one) by 6.5 games. My point is the Dodgers weren't great, but also weren't a terrible team. I don't want facts to get in the way of Simers' whining though.
They didn't try to bring back cuddly Jamey Carroll, the team's MVP two years ago while averaging .290 in his stay.
They did lose Jamey Carroll, who is at the ripe age of 38 years old, which is a tragedy of epic proportions (losing Carroll is the tragedy, not Carroll's age). I'm going to go on a limb and suggest even though Carroll played well in his stay with the Dodgers, keeping a 38 year old utility infielder isn't high on the team's priority list on how to build for the future. The Dodgers did keep Matt Kemp, who was runner up to the NL MVP just last year while being an incredibly good hitter and still in his prime. It's good this is on the team's priority list for the future.
Instead they chose to replace him with the Automatic Out.
I didn't know the Dodgers re-signed Juan Pierre.
"Mark Ellis, he's a better offensive player than Jamey," says Don Mattingly, and it's no surprise he knew who I was talking about.
I don't know if Mark Ellis is a better or worse offensive player than Jamey Carroll. They are different offensive players (Ellis has more power, while Carroll tends to get on-base more) and Ellis is four years younger than Carroll. I do know Don Mattingly is probably thrilled T.J. Simers is grilling him about the players the Dodgers front office chose to sign or not sign in the offseason. I am sure Simers sees the signing of Ellis as being Mattingly's fault.
It also isn't a surprise Simers knew who "Jamey" was because Simers covers the Dodgers for a living and Jamey Carroll was the only "Jamey" on the Dodgers team last year. The two players also play the same position (mostly), so I would be concerned if Simers didn't know who "Jamey" was since Mattingly is directly comparing the two players. Basically, it is a safe assumption for Mattingly to make that T.J. Simers knows to whom "Jamey" is referring.
Ellis, the Dodgers' power response to the Angels' signing of Albert Pujols, hit .248 over the last two years.
Yes, but Ellis hit .291/.358/.381 two years ago. That's very similar to what Dodgers MVP Jamey Carroll hit. Or are supposed to go two years back only in order to find evidence that proves T.J. Simers is correct in saying Ellis sucks?
Also, the Angels and Dodgers play in different leagues. The Dodgers play in the National League and the Angels play in the American League. There is really no need for one team to "respond" to the other team's signing on the free agent market since they are not directly competing against each other.
"Mark Ellis is solid," says Mattingly. Yet for some reason, the El Hombre Ellis billboards have yet to appear around town.
I must have missed the Jamey Carroll billboards around town. We are a 1/3 of the way through this column and the only reason the Dodgers suck is because they didn't re-sign a 38 year old utility infielder. This is the only proof we will receive of why the Dodgers will suck. Now T.J. Simers takes on his colleagues at the LA Times for daring to cover the Dodgers and rips his colleagues an asshole for not writing articles about the Dodgers saying they suck while providing very little or no supporting evidence. Also, it appears he asks Don Mattingly hostile and leading questions and seems shocked Mattingly doesn't give him the answer he wants.
Now maybe you have been reading our Dylan Hernandez's love letters from Dodgers camp, Dwyre's slobber about catcher A.J. Ellis or Plaschke throwing his support behind Mattingly.
Is this as opposed to T.J. Simers slobbering over Ben Howland, a true man of distinction when it comes to ruining a historic college basketball program? Or is this like Simers writing repeated love letters to Chris Paul here and here? Perhaps it is similar to Simers throwing his support behind Kenyon Martin?
Regardless, T.J. Simers is an upstanding journalist just doing his job, while all of his colleagues are useless hacks just working as mouthpieces for the Dodgers and daring to write positive Spring Training stories. I hate fluff pieces as much as anyone, but it makes no sense to write an article eviscerating an entire team while giving no supporting evidence as to why the team should be eviscerated.
James Loney hits a home run the other day, but Hernandez fails to tell us whether Loney will hit more home runs this year than he did cars back in November on an L.A. freeway.
Exactly like T.J. Simers says Mark Ellis is a .248 hitter over the last two years, but fails to tell us Ellis will hit better than that this year. I don't get Simers' feeble attempt at making a point.
Dwyre begins his ode to Ellis: "If we search for a silver lining in the aftermath of the Frank McCourt scorched-earth era, we might find A.J. Ellis.''
I'd rather find Ellis playing on scorched earth in Albuquerque.
Why? Why would you rather find Ellis playing on scorched earth in Albuquerque? The title of this article begins "The truth is out there..." so let's hear the truth from T.J. Simers. I want the truth. Simers seems to have such strong opinions on the Dodgers players, yet he resorts to whining and pounding his fist angrily on the table about the ineptness of the Dodgers rather than explain in detail to what few readers he has left exactly what the hell he is talking about.
Lasorda could close his eyes, or fall asleep, and finish better than third place and 111/2 games out in one of the league's weakest divisions.
Considering Tommy Lasorda is 84 years old there is a good chance he would close his eyes AND fall asleep during games if given the chance to manage the Dodgers again. I like Tommy Lasorda too, but he shouldn't be managing at this point.
I find it interesting T.J. Simers spends the first half of this shit-ridden column complaining the Dodgers players aren't very good, then complains that Tommy Lasorda could do better than Don Mattingly. So is the Dodgers perceived ineptness the fault of Mattingly or shitty players? It's hard to tell because Simers' ramblings never actually specify the problem, other than saying EVERYONE is the problem and the only solution is to re-sign Jamey Carroll and hire Tommy Lasorda as manager.
And that's with Mattingly having a Cy Young Award winner and MVP runner-up on his side.
I love how Simers makes this fictional comparison and wants his readers to believe it is based on fact. Simers states exactly what Tommy Lasorda could hypothetically do with this team as final proof Don Mattingly sucks as a manager. Thems are facts Simers is stating! Thems is facts coming straight from the brain of Simers, a vast empty area which only houses enough complete thoughts to hate Marcus Thames and feel complete anger in the direction of nearly everyone he encounters.
But then everyone agrees Mattingly is a nice guy, Plaschke writing the same about Mike Brown to start the season. Here's hoping they both don't finish last now.
I'm not a Plaschke fan, but criticizing your LA Times colleagues in print shows a certain lack of class. Of course, T.J. Simers has never had class. We all saw that last year when he waged a one-man war on Marcus Thames.
In reading about the Dodgers before arriving, I see that Todd Coffey is comfortable being fat.
Only a person who keeps himself in peak physical shape like T.J. Simers can call someone else fat. Here is another picture of this Olympic (sized) (non) athlete. In that picture Simers appears to be irritated because the gentleman beside him ate the last donut. Glass houses. Stones. There's a saying that goes along with these phrases. Maybe T.J. Simers should gain more familiarity with this saying.
That worked so well for Jonathan Broxton.
It did work so well for Jonathan Broxton until he got a non-fatness related injury elbow injury during 2011.
But apparently Coffey is different because he likes to run from the bullpen to the mound.
As opposed to T.J. Simers, who only runs when someone he has criticized in print shows up to kick his ass.
On a bright note, with Aaron Harang, Ted Lilly and Chris Capuano in the pitching rotation, Coffey might get the chance to run himself into shape.
Again, this sentence consists of cheap shots and cited support of why these three pitchers suck so badly.
There doesn't seem much to write about around here, which explains why Hernandez concentrates on Clayton Kershaw, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. He wrote 25 inches on Kemp switching to Manny Ramirez's locker.
But don't you get the irony of writing an entire column about the inane and useless items other LA Times writers are producing about the Dodgers?
One writer searching for something of note confronted Mattingly with the disturbing news Monday morning that he had heard Coffey had pitched in a secret simulated game a day earlier.
Why anyone other than Coffey's immediate family would care when the guy pitches is beyond me.
Good point. Because everyone cares about T.J. Simers' article on Garry Marshall and how he helps youth baseball. Keeping up with what Garry Marshall is doing is riveting stuff.
A year ago, Mattingly was telling these same guys how much he just loved the weapons he had to platoon in left field. Everyone believed him.
Except for T.J. Simers. He always believed that Marcus Thames was a piece of shit.
Now Mattingly says, "I had to love it," essentially admitting he lied while talking about Jay Gibbons and Marcus Thames, who disappeared.
Mattingly could also essentially be admitting he had to love it because the Dodgers financial constraints presented no other options. So Mattingly could have loved it out of necessity and wasn't lying. Thames didn't disappear, he was released, probably much to T.J. Simers joy.
But is there any reason for Dodgers fans to be excited about this year's team knowing it's essentially last year's team, which wasn't very good?
The team was over .500 last year, which is better than 17 other teams could say last year. So the Dodgers were an above average baseball team. Also, I am 100% sure T.J. Simers asked the question this way and will be pissed off when he doesn't get a sufficient answer.
"This team played the game right last year," Mattingly says. "This team was a good club."
I wonder whether he's saying the team played the game right last year, because that speaks well about the guy preparing them to play.
Yes. Don Mattingly is taking this opportunity to talk about what a great manager he is and he isn't at all trying to avoid your idiotic question by giving a canned, boring response.
I know this, the Dodgers were not a good team. They were terrible.
The Dodgers won 82 games last year. That isn't terrible. Simers' writing on the other hand? His writing is terrible.
The new owner might be stuck with these guys this season, but do you think he's going to make his mark in L.A. going with Ellis & Ellis?
Well no. I'm not sure anyone is arguing Mark and A.J. Ellis are building blocks for the future. LA Times beat writers are simply writing stories about these two players because they play for the Dodgers and the beat writers have been tasked to write about the Dodgers during Spring Training.
If the new guy doesn't do better than that, those Frank McCourt parking lots are just going to sit empty.
Not that I'm complaining.
Of course. Why complain about empty parking lots when you can complain about the Dodgers without giving any context, complain about the articles your colleagues write about the Dodgers despite the fact you write the same drivel they do, and be overly hostile to nearly every single person you encounter?
What is really interesting is Simers wrote his article randomly attacking Marcus Thames on March 21, 2011 and he wrote this article attacking the Dodgers and his fellow LA Times writers on March 19, 2012. Something must happen every year around this time that really pisses Simers off. One could only speculate what that could be. Oh, and don't worry, Marcus Thames is mentioned (Why? Because Simers hates Thames, that's why). No T.J. Simers article is complete without a mention of Marcus Thames, who at this point has reached the status of "war criminal" in the mind of T.J. Simers.
We all know the Dodgers may not be a great team this year, but Simers has no interest in explaining why HE believes the Dodgers will be bad. Why do that when you can just indiscriminately bash them without giving a reason why? Where's the fun in logic? More importantly, what the hell is Marcus Thames doing now? Probably giving hand jobs to homeless men for $2. What a piece of shit that Marcus Thames guy is, huh? If T.J. Simers could find out where Thames disappeared to, then he would angrily confront Thames over his refusal to acknowledge he is a terrible baseball player.
Consider the excitement, arriving here and finding Vin Scully's car parked in the stenciled spot reserved for Dodgers "ownership."
If that were only true, but like Tommy Lasorda saying he never says something he doesn't believe, things are not always so.
Great way to start off a column. Vague, snarky and immediately bitter sounding when discussing the topic at hand.
So far The Times has sent six writers here in the quest for truth.
So a major city newspaper has dispatched writers to cover the professional baseball team that plays in that city? Has anything ever been done like this before? We are in uncharted waters now, folks.
Also, The Times hasn't dispatched the writers to discover the truth but to write a bunch of special interest and fluff pieces about this year's team. It happens every year. Fans want to be excited and the newspaper wants readers to read about the local team and get excited because they means the fans of the team may buy the newspaper. Fans will eat up any story on their favorite team in Spring Training and sportswriters know this. It's a win-win.
Most of them have left Phoenix singing the praises of the Dodgers as if this team suddenly got good.
"Suddenly got good." I didn't realize there had been regular season games played already and we know which teams were definitely bad.
And believe me, you don't want to hear Dwyre sing.
That would be Bill Dwyre being referred to and the last time he had written about the Dodgers was March 7th. Dwyer has written about the Dodgers three times this year so far. Mostly, he writes for The Times sports section concerning tennis and golf. I feel like this is important to know as Simers starts calling out his colleagues for suckling at the teat of the Dodgers organization. Dwyre writes about one Dodger player and T.J. Simers takes him to task for daring to cover the local professional sports team.
Little known fictional fact: T.J. Simers has standing to mock another man's singing voice because in college his nickname was "Songbird" due to his eerily accurate Eddie Cantor impression.
But digging deeper, beyond the fact the Dodgers were waiting on a rental agency to retrieve or repossess the car, the Dodgers are the same dogs they were a year ago.
It's not like the Dodgers have faced any monetary or ownership issues, so one would have no idea why they chose to essentially keep the same team as the 2011 team that went 82-79. That team missed the Wild Card by 7.5 games and would have missed the second Wild Card (now that there is one) by 6.5 games. My point is the Dodgers weren't great, but also weren't a terrible team. I don't want facts to get in the way of Simers' whining though.
They didn't try to bring back cuddly Jamey Carroll, the team's MVP two years ago while averaging .290 in his stay.
They did lose Jamey Carroll, who is at the ripe age of 38 years old, which is a tragedy of epic proportions (losing Carroll is the tragedy, not Carroll's age). I'm going to go on a limb and suggest even though Carroll played well in his stay with the Dodgers, keeping a 38 year old utility infielder isn't high on the team's priority list on how to build for the future. The Dodgers did keep Matt Kemp, who was runner up to the NL MVP just last year while being an incredibly good hitter and still in his prime. It's good this is on the team's priority list for the future.
Instead they chose to replace him with the Automatic Out.
I didn't know the Dodgers re-signed Juan Pierre.
"Mark Ellis, he's a better offensive player than Jamey," says Don Mattingly, and it's no surprise he knew who I was talking about.
I don't know if Mark Ellis is a better or worse offensive player than Jamey Carroll. They are different offensive players (Ellis has more power, while Carroll tends to get on-base more) and Ellis is four years younger than Carroll. I do know Don Mattingly is probably thrilled T.J. Simers is grilling him about the players the Dodgers front office chose to sign or not sign in the offseason. I am sure Simers sees the signing of Ellis as being Mattingly's fault.
It also isn't a surprise Simers knew who "Jamey" was because Simers covers the Dodgers for a living and Jamey Carroll was the only "Jamey" on the Dodgers team last year. The two players also play the same position (mostly), so I would be concerned if Simers didn't know who "Jamey" was since Mattingly is directly comparing the two players. Basically, it is a safe assumption for Mattingly to make that T.J. Simers knows to whom "Jamey" is referring.
Ellis, the Dodgers' power response to the Angels' signing of Albert Pujols, hit .248 over the last two years.
Yes, but Ellis hit .291/.358/.381 two years ago. That's very similar to what Dodgers MVP Jamey Carroll hit. Or are supposed to go two years back only in order to find evidence that proves T.J. Simers is correct in saying Ellis sucks?
Also, the Angels and Dodgers play in different leagues. The Dodgers play in the National League and the Angels play in the American League. There is really no need for one team to "respond" to the other team's signing on the free agent market since they are not directly competing against each other.
"Mark Ellis is solid," says Mattingly. Yet for some reason, the El Hombre Ellis billboards have yet to appear around town.
I must have missed the Jamey Carroll billboards around town. We are a 1/3 of the way through this column and the only reason the Dodgers suck is because they didn't re-sign a 38 year old utility infielder. This is the only proof we will receive of why the Dodgers will suck. Now T.J. Simers takes on his colleagues at the LA Times for daring to cover the Dodgers and rips his colleagues an asshole for not writing articles about the Dodgers saying they suck while providing very little or no supporting evidence. Also, it appears he asks Don Mattingly hostile and leading questions and seems shocked Mattingly doesn't give him the answer he wants.
Now maybe you have been reading our Dylan Hernandez's love letters from Dodgers camp, Dwyre's slobber about catcher A.J. Ellis or Plaschke throwing his support behind Mattingly.
Is this as opposed to T.J. Simers slobbering over Ben Howland, a true man of distinction when it comes to ruining a historic college basketball program? Or is this like Simers writing repeated love letters to Chris Paul here and here? Perhaps it is similar to Simers throwing his support behind Kenyon Martin?
Regardless, T.J. Simers is an upstanding journalist just doing his job, while all of his colleagues are useless hacks just working as mouthpieces for the Dodgers and daring to write positive Spring Training stories. I hate fluff pieces as much as anyone, but it makes no sense to write an article eviscerating an entire team while giving no supporting evidence as to why the team should be eviscerated.
James Loney hits a home run the other day, but Hernandez fails to tell us whether Loney will hit more home runs this year than he did cars back in November on an L.A. freeway.
Exactly like T.J. Simers says Mark Ellis is a .248 hitter over the last two years, but fails to tell us Ellis will hit better than that this year. I don't get Simers' feeble attempt at making a point.
Dwyre begins his ode to Ellis: "If we search for a silver lining in the aftermath of the Frank McCourt scorched-earth era, we might find A.J. Ellis.''
I'd rather find Ellis playing on scorched earth in Albuquerque.
Why? Why would you rather find Ellis playing on scorched earth in Albuquerque? The title of this article begins "The truth is out there..." so let's hear the truth from T.J. Simers. I want the truth. Simers seems to have such strong opinions on the Dodgers players, yet he resorts to whining and pounding his fist angrily on the table about the ineptness of the Dodgers rather than explain in detail to what few readers he has left exactly what the hell he is talking about.
Lasorda could close his eyes, or fall asleep, and finish better than third place and 111/2 games out in one of the league's weakest divisions.
Considering Tommy Lasorda is 84 years old there is a good chance he would close his eyes AND fall asleep during games if given the chance to manage the Dodgers again. I like Tommy Lasorda too, but he shouldn't be managing at this point.
I find it interesting T.J. Simers spends the first half of this shit-ridden column complaining the Dodgers players aren't very good, then complains that Tommy Lasorda could do better than Don Mattingly. So is the Dodgers perceived ineptness the fault of Mattingly or shitty players? It's hard to tell because Simers' ramblings never actually specify the problem, other than saying EVERYONE is the problem and the only solution is to re-sign Jamey Carroll and hire Tommy Lasorda as manager.
And that's with Mattingly having a Cy Young Award winner and MVP runner-up on his side.
I love how Simers makes this fictional comparison and wants his readers to believe it is based on fact. Simers states exactly what Tommy Lasorda could hypothetically do with this team as final proof Don Mattingly sucks as a manager. Thems are facts Simers is stating! Thems is facts coming straight from the brain of Simers, a vast empty area which only houses enough complete thoughts to hate Marcus Thames and feel complete anger in the direction of nearly everyone he encounters.
But then everyone agrees Mattingly is a nice guy, Plaschke writing the same about Mike Brown to start the season. Here's hoping they both don't finish last now.
I'm not a Plaschke fan, but criticizing your LA Times colleagues in print shows a certain lack of class. Of course, T.J. Simers has never had class. We all saw that last year when he waged a one-man war on Marcus Thames.
In reading about the Dodgers before arriving, I see that Todd Coffey is comfortable being fat.
Only a person who keeps himself in peak physical shape like T.J. Simers can call someone else fat. Here is another picture of this Olympic (sized) (non) athlete. In that picture Simers appears to be irritated because the gentleman beside him ate the last donut. Glass houses. Stones. There's a saying that goes along with these phrases. Maybe T.J. Simers should gain more familiarity with this saying.
That worked so well for Jonathan Broxton.
It did work so well for Jonathan Broxton until he got a non-fatness related injury elbow injury during 2011.
But apparently Coffey is different because he likes to run from the bullpen to the mound.
As opposed to T.J. Simers, who only runs when someone he has criticized in print shows up to kick his ass.
On a bright note, with Aaron Harang, Ted Lilly and Chris Capuano in the pitching rotation, Coffey might get the chance to run himself into shape.
Again, this sentence consists of cheap shots and cited support of why these three pitchers suck so badly.
There doesn't seem much to write about around here, which explains why Hernandez concentrates on Clayton Kershaw, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. He wrote 25 inches on Kemp switching to Manny Ramirez's locker.
But don't you get the irony of writing an entire column about the inane and useless items other LA Times writers are producing about the Dodgers?
One writer searching for something of note confronted Mattingly with the disturbing news Monday morning that he had heard Coffey had pitched in a secret simulated game a day earlier.
Why anyone other than Coffey's immediate family would care when the guy pitches is beyond me.
Good point. Because everyone cares about T.J. Simers' article on Garry Marshall and how he helps youth baseball. Keeping up with what Garry Marshall is doing is riveting stuff.
A year ago, Mattingly was telling these same guys how much he just loved the weapons he had to platoon in left field. Everyone believed him.
Except for T.J. Simers. He always believed that Marcus Thames was a piece of shit.
Now Mattingly says, "I had to love it," essentially admitting he lied while talking about Jay Gibbons and Marcus Thames, who disappeared.
Mattingly could also essentially be admitting he had to love it because the Dodgers financial constraints presented no other options. So Mattingly could have loved it out of necessity and wasn't lying. Thames didn't disappear, he was released, probably much to T.J. Simers joy.
But is there any reason for Dodgers fans to be excited about this year's team knowing it's essentially last year's team, which wasn't very good?
The team was over .500 last year, which is better than 17 other teams could say last year. So the Dodgers were an above average baseball team. Also, I am 100% sure T.J. Simers asked the question this way and will be pissed off when he doesn't get a sufficient answer.
"This team played the game right last year," Mattingly says. "This team was a good club."
I wonder whether he's saying the team played the game right last year, because that speaks well about the guy preparing them to play.
Yes. Don Mattingly is taking this opportunity to talk about what a great manager he is and he isn't at all trying to avoid your idiotic question by giving a canned, boring response.
I know this, the Dodgers were not a good team. They were terrible.
The Dodgers won 82 games last year. That isn't terrible. Simers' writing on the other hand? His writing is terrible.
The new owner might be stuck with these guys this season, but do you think he's going to make his mark in L.A. going with Ellis & Ellis?
Well no. I'm not sure anyone is arguing Mark and A.J. Ellis are building blocks for the future. LA Times beat writers are simply writing stories about these two players because they play for the Dodgers and the beat writers have been tasked to write about the Dodgers during Spring Training.
If the new guy doesn't do better than that, those Frank McCourt parking lots are just going to sit empty.
Not that I'm complaining.
Of course. Why complain about empty parking lots when you can complain about the Dodgers without giving any context, complain about the articles your colleagues write about the Dodgers despite the fact you write the same drivel they do, and be overly hostile to nearly every single person you encounter?
Sunday, November 20, 2011
6 comments What? Jemele Hill Wrote a Column about Race?
You may not believe this, but JemeHill has written a column about race that feels like it isn't well-thought through. This time she goes after Steve Williams, who is better known as Tiger Woods' former caddy, for his comments about Tiger Woods' asshole. Obviously when Williams said he wanted to shove something up Woods' black asshole this was incredibly racist to JemeHill. This caused JemeHill to think of other racist terms Williams may use to refer to Tiger Woods and decides these imagined terms are what makes Williams such a terrible racist. So even if Williams' language wasn't racist, just imagine what else he could say about Woods! There's no further proof required to know Williams is a huge racist to the point he probably refuses to go out at night while the sky is black.
JemeHill also has some harsh words for Tiger Woods, who absolutely refuses to see things from JemeHill’s point of view publicly on race. Clearly this doesn’t mean Woods’ point of view could be correct or does this mean his view has any merit, but just shows how in denial about race Tiger Woods truly is. It is like her own version of a racial dictatorship where those fellow minorities who don't agree with JemeHill are cast as being out of touch or have an ulterior motive to ignore "the truth."
JemeHill also has some harsh words for Tiger Woods, who absolutely refuses to see things from JemeHill’s point of view publicly on race. Clearly this doesn’t mean Woods’ point of view could be correct or does this mean his view has any merit, but just shows how in denial about race Tiger Woods truly is. It is like her own version of a racial dictatorship where those fellow minorities who don't agree with JemeHill are cast as being out of touch or have an ulterior motive to ignore "the truth."
If Steve Williams is bold enough to tell a room full of people that he wanted to shove Adam Scott's WGC Bridgestone Invitational win up Tiger Woods' "black a------," then what does Williams say about Woods in private?
Who knows what else Steve Williams says? I am sure it is 100% more racist than his comment about Tiger Woods’ asshole. JemeHill isn’t satisfied with merely looking at Williams’ comments and determining if they are racist or not, she has to add other potentially fictional layers to this situation in order to make Williams seem even more racist. She isn’t satisfied with commenting on the current comments, she has to add other layers to further her own agenda.
I think it's a fair question.
Well, you did create the question just now. So I’m not shocked you think your own question is a fair one.
Williams was among his peers at the caddie awards in Shanghai when he added that biting racial qualifier to express his utter disdain for Woods, who fired him in July.
A normal person would think, “What a jerk comment by Williams. He’s clearly a bitter man.” Then this normal person would move on with his/her life. Not JemeHill. She wonders how she can blow these comments into an even bigger deal in order to write a column. It isn't that Williams' comments aren't stupid or he doesn't seem bitter, I am not just sure his comment about Woods' "black asshole" deserves to be subjected to further analysis such as this.
So I immediately wondered if what Williams says about Woods in private is even more candid, even more venomous and, yes, even more racial when he isn't in a crowd.
And that's the scary part.
So here is what we have so far:
Steve Williams said something bitter and racially-toned about Tiger Woods.
JemeHill wonders if Steve Williams says even worse things about Woods in private and then creates thoughts of how venomous Williams is privately.
JemeHill thinks the idea of Williams making terribly racist comments in private is scary and immediately begins writing a column about how the imaginary things she herself believes Williams says in private makes him an even bigger racist.
So we have JemeHill reacting to a racially-toned comment by expanding this one comment into an entire set of thinking she believes Williams to hold privately and then proudly begins to write an article as if the imagined thoughts she had are real statements Williams made. To think I re-tweeted something JemeHill wrote the other day. Embarrassing for me.
When Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman used a lynching metaphor in early 2008 to describe how Woods' younger competitors should treat him -- this was back when Woods was still the top player in the world -- the remark felt clumsy and misguided, but not necessarily racist.
That comment felt more racist than talking about someone’s black asshole. Given the racial undertones of lynching I can see how that remark can be considered racist by some. Saying the color of someone’s skin and then talking about their asshole…not so much. Of course, I wouldn’t expect any consistency from JemeHill.
Williams' statement, on the other hand, seems so vindictive that it stinks with entitlement and racism.
So the amount of vindictiveness in a statement also determines the racism of the comment, but only if the correct amount of entitlement is present. Got it. I feel like I need to be presented with an official formula adding in the amount vindictiveness and entitlement that puts a statement up to the threshold of racism.
So unlike Adam Scott, Williams' current boss, I'm not willing to give Williams a free pass and excuse what he did as simply a poor choice of words.
Much like comments later in this column about Tiger Woods, because Adam Scott doesn’t agree with JemeHill’s point of view these comments were racist, he is giving Williams a free pass. So you either agree with JemeHill’s point of view or there is something wrong with you and you are giving Williams a free pass. I have no issue with those who bring up race in a discussion, but I have a problem when those who talk about race and believe their point of view is infallible enough to where it should be universally shared.
It's more than that.
You want it to be more than that.
Williams' words seem calculating.
Because we all know when a person threatens to shove an object up someone’s asshole this is a well-thought use of wording.
Williams' bitterness toward Woods is understandable. Woods fired him after he'd caddied 13 of Woods' 14 major victories.
It’s business. I’m not sure Williams should still be bitter, but if he is then maybe that’s understandable.
But here is where things get murky. After Williams caddied Scott's Bridgestone victory, he said it was the most gratifying win of his career.
Gratifying? How racist! It was gratifying to beat Tiger Woods, who is a minority by the way. If Steve Williams finds it gratifying to beat Tiger Woods at golf, in what other ways would Steve Williams like to beat Tiger Woods? Perhaps physically, with a whip? If Steve Williams wants to lash Tiger Woods with a whip while Tiger is in submissive position then that reeks of racism. I can’t believe Steve Williams said it would be gratifying to beat Tiger Woods with a whip. How racist!
Really? Winning Bridgestone is more gratifying than 60 wins and 13 majors? That's like someone saying an NFL wild card playoff berth is more fulfilling than making it to a Super Bowl.
Clearly Williams is using some hyperbole when making this statement. Still, I can see how a single win over Tiger Woods would be more gratifying than the wins with Woods were. Athletes are able find wins that aren’t in championship games to be the most gratifying of their career. I would imagine there are some Red Sox fans who find defeating the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS to be more gratifying than winning the World Series. An athlete beating a team that cut or released him could also be a very gratifying win compared to a playoff victory.
But this time, it just seems as if Williams' bitterness has morphed into something far more personal and toxic.
Of course JemeHill has no proof of this. She is taking his statement about Tiger’s “black asshole” and turning into the tip of the potentially fictional iceberg of what Williams says privately. If you combine Williams' fictional private thoughts about minorities with his satisfaction at winning a golf tournament as a caddy for a different golfer, then you can turn it into Williams’ toxic racial vendetta against Woods. I just think this is a hard leap to make. There are a lot of assumptions and imagination required to get to this conclusion.
The fact that he injected Woods' race into a description of how badly he wanted to show Tiger up is a troubling indicator that this wasn't just about usurping his former employer.
If we want to get technical, Woods isn’t actually black. He considers himself to be “caublanasian.” So would it have been as offensive if Williams said he wanted to shove it up Tiger’s Asian asshole? Maybe Williams did mean the comment to have racial undertones other than merely being a description of a portion of Tiger’s race, maybe he didn’t. The point is we can only take the comment on its face and turning the comment into something bigger by creating other layers of what Williams COULD think or MAY believe is pure speculation. Yet, JemeHill bases much of her entire conclusion on this speculation.
It seems like Williams was especially displeased that he'd been fired by a black man.
The only way you can get to this point is to read way too much into what Williams said. He said something stupid, but nowhere in “Tiger Woods’ black asshole” does it say he is mad he got fired by a black man. If anything, he was mad he got fired for doing his job well and is angry he seemed to be the sacrificial lamb to help explain Woods' struggles on the course post-divorce.
Williams might as well have told the audience, "How dare this black so-and-so fire me?"
Williams may as well have said that, except HE DIDN’T SAY THAT. To get this point you have to make a ton of assumptions:
-You have to assume Williams made the comment in a manner intended to be racial.
-You have to assume Williams has private thoughts which are much more racist than this one comment and this one outward comment was a small representative of the private thoughts Woods has towards minorities.
-You have to assume Williams is still bitter he was fired by Tiger Woods.
-You have to assume Williams did not like being fired by Tiger Woods because Tiger Woods is black and not for any other reason.
-Then you have to assume he was expressing his dislike for being fired by a black man by quickly allowing his long-held and previously unseen private racial toxicity to be seen in public.
-Finally, you have to assume the best method Williams had of expressing he didn’t like to be fired by a black man was to threaten to shove an award up this black man's ass.
And that is racist.
In the completely fictional conclusion you have come to, that would be racist. It would also be racist if Williams had come to the podium in black-face wearing a red shirt, eating fried chicken, drinking grape soda and then pretended to have sex with a porn star while screaming racial slurs. That would be very racist. Of course, much like actually Williams saying he didn’t like to be fired by a black man, this didn’t happen.
JemeHill should be embarrassed to write like this. She is not even misconstruing Williams’ words, but is actively making up words Williams never actually spoke and then gives them a reason behind Williams saying these fictional words based on beliefs we don’t know for sure that Steve Williams actually has.
Woods, who spoke of the incident for the first time on Tuesday, also characterized his former caddie's comments in the same manner.
"Stevie's certainly not a racist," Woods said in advance of the Australian Open.
Tiger, JemeHill thinks you are just turning a blind eye to the racist situation she just singlehandedly created. Since you do not agree with her position, and because there is no way she is wrong, you are in denial about race in America.
I don't know what's in Williams' heart,
Apparently you do since you just wrote an entire column speculating what you believe Williams actually believes and meant by his comment. You can’t write an entire article speculating and dissecting what Steve Williams said, while creating racial undertones, and then say you don’t know what is in Williams’ heart. Your writing says something different about what you think you do and do not know.
so I can't address his overall attitudes toward people of color.
Which, again, you just did address his overall attitude toward people of color.
And considering how much Woods has spent his career trying to be racially neutral -- despite arguably being the most noteworthy person of color to play professional golf -- it isn't surprising that he would once again sidestep anything involving race in his response to Williams' comment.
Or Tiger Woods may actually believe Steve Williams isn’t a racist and didn’t intend this comment wasn’t racially motivated, but he believes it was just a really poor choice of words. JemeHill thinks this is nonsense, because by not agreeing with her point of view, Tiger is just in denial. She feels there is absolutely no possibility she is misunderstanding the situation or her point of view is wrong. That would be impossible.
It was Tiger who reportedly told racially insensitive jokes to GQ writer Charles Pierce in a 1997 profile that followed his historic Masters win.
If Tiger tells racially insensitive jokes to Charles Pierce for an article then imagine the filth that comes out of his mouth in private!
(Cue joke about porn stars and weird sex games that Tiger probably played with his mistresses while he was married)
At some point, Woods has to understand that no matter how many cute nicknames he devises to explain his complicated ethnicity, and no matter how much he'd like to pretend his race is not an issue,
Yet again, JemeHill struggles with what words actually come out of a person’s mouth and what these words mean. Tiger never said race wasn’t an issue, he just didn’t have a problem with Williams’ comments from the point of view of race.
it still matters to some people.
Like JemeHill. Because if she couldn’t write about race then she would have nothing else to write about. So the conclusion JemeHill has reached is Tiger Woods pretends race is not an issue and that is why he didn’t find Williams’ comments to be racially-tinged. I realize race matters to some people, but JemeHill is really stretching to go from Steve Williams saying he wants to shove an award up Tiger Woods’ black asshole to Williams meaning he couldn’t believe he got fired by a black golfer.
JemeHill has to understand no matter how many assumptions she wants to stretch out in order to get to the “real” meaning behind Williams’ comment, no matter how much she’d like to pretend Williams’ comment meant more than an urge to shove something up Woods’ butt, it doesn’t mean her point of view is correct.
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