0 comments Bob Nightengale Blindly Follows the "A Lot of Red Sox Players Have Beards Which Mean They Are Playing Better Because of It" Narrative

Sportswriters love a good narrative. When they want to explain something they latch on to a narrative as hard as they can and refuse to let go. The Red Sox have been victims of this "beard narrative" ever since they made the playoffs this season and even prior to making the playoffs. A lot of Red Sox players have beards so surely that means there is a bond between them that can't be broken and that's why they have made the postseason. Not because of their baseball skill, but because of their beard bond. You would think the Red Sox were the first team to ever have players who have beards the way the media (including Sports Illustrated) have focused on their facial hair. In fact, here are the results of Googling "Red Sox beards." It's like an epidemic. What's even worse is none of these stories are that much different. Not one to miss a good narrative-building, Bob Nightengale tags along and writes one of the many columns about how the Red Sox turned the season around with the help of their beards. 

The players were piled into a cab, headed to an informal team dinner in Cleveland, when the cabbie slammed on his brakes.

Heads violently jerked forward. The car, which suddenly veered in front of them, stopped. The collision was averted.

Fortunately the beards on the faces of the Red Sox players saved them from getting hurt by cushioning the impact?

Dustin Pedroia, sitting in the front seat, exhaled and told the cabbie: "Careful buddy. You're carrying the 2013 World Series champs.''

It was April 15, the day of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Is Pedroia tall enough yet to sit in the front seat? 

It was also the day the Boston Red Sox came together.

That's absolutely disgusting Bob. Though, if the Red Sox want to repeat the success of the 1980's Lakers then this is definitely be a good step in the right direction. Now all they need is a hot tub and someone to play the part of A.C. Green standing awkwardly to the side of the room.

By the way, just when you aren't sure this column could be worse, the title is "Red Sox pass chemistry class," so that's pretty bad.

"The next day we stood on the field day for a moment of silence,'' Red Sox manager John Farrell said, recalling their game at Cleveland's Progressive Field, "and that's when I thought, 'This group has got a chance to not only be special, but to do something special. They get it. We represent something significant in our city, and guys embrace that and relish that.'

I'm still missing the ever-so-tenuous connection on how beards factor into this. By the way, the Red Sox were 8-4 and in first place on April 15, so we have a double narrative going on here. I don't doubt the Boston Marathon tragedy had an effect on the team, but it's not like the Red Sox were playing poorly prior to the bombing. The urge for the players to all grow beards is also a fun narrative, but the growing of beards by the Red Sox players after the season started coincided with them playing well, but was not the reason they played well.

"That bond now exceeds anything I've ever experienced.''

By the way, John Farrell is married and has three sons. I'm sure they are pleased to hear the bond between his current Red Sox team exceeds anything he's ever experienced.

When they returned four days later to Boston, and had a pre-game ceremony to honor the local officials and heroes, it was time for designated hitter David Ortiz to take the microphone at Fenway Park.

He uttered the line that will forever be cherished in Boston history.

It's a great story, but also irrelevant as to why the Red Sox are in the playoffs and played so well this year. Again, the Red Sox were 11-4 when Ortiz took the microphone. It makes for a great narrative that the Red Sox started playing well to be #Bostonstrong, but it's also a load of shit.

"This team,'' Ortiz told USA TODAY Sports, "is like nothing I've seen. We are so close. We have the same goal in mind.

To grow insanely long beards that allow lazy sportswriters to use the beards as a narrative and then try to trick the casual reader into believing there isn't a tenuous tie between the beards and the Red Sox winning by the sportswriter then tying the beards into the Boston Marathon bombing?

"Man, we want that World Series.''

All of the other playoff teams are pretty nonchalant about winning the World Series, which is why no other team in the playoffs have a single player with a beard, which means no other team has the bond this Red Sox team has. You know what helps the bond these Red Sox players have? Winning games. Otherwise, they are just a bunch of scruffy-looking guys playing baseball who missed the playoffs and Dan Shaughnessy would write a column about how the 2013 Red Sox team were a bunch of nice guys but they need real baseball players to win a World Series. Wait, he already wrote that column back in April. 

The idea a Red Sox title will in any way help to "heal" the city of Boston is being a little bit dramatic. It may make the citizens of Boston feel better and give them a rallying cry, but I'm not sure anyone is going to feel better about the Boston Marathon bombing because the Red Sox won the World Series. 

They don't call themselves the "Idiots'' like in 2004. Nobody is "cowboying up.'' Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez, Johnny Damon, Kevin Millar and Curt Schilling are all gone.

Of course this Red Sox team doesn't call themselves "idiots" or talk about "cowboying up." They would never repeat the same narrative from a previous season. This season the narrative is to win a World Series to help heal Boston and they are doing this by growing beards. The "idiots" have been replaced by beards, but otherwise it's not that different.

Nope, all this team does is win.

The 2004 Red Sox won 98 games. The 2013 Red Sox won 97 games. It appears that the 2004 Red Sox were idiots and cowboy'd up while also winning one more game than the 2013 Red Sox. So it appears all both Red Sox teams did was win. 

I personally believe if a person says any variation of "all this team (or insert player's name here) does is win" then he/she/it should be punched in the face by a polar bear. That's just my opinion.

Grow beards.

And hang together as if it's Rush Week on fraternity row.

This is just such incredibly fucking lazy writing. There's really no way to re-write an article that has already been done 100 times before, but the whole "they are like a college fraternity" analogy has been beaten into the ground. Do better.

Just last week, there were 23 Red Sox players, and three coaches, who spent their off day in Denver hanging out at the Denver Broncos-Oakland Raiders Monday Night Football game. They walked the sidelines. They cheered from their club level seats. They went out to Morton's steakhouse for dinner after the game.

In the wee hours of the morning, guys were still in pitcher Jake Peavy's hotel suite as the recently-acquired pitcher played his guitar.

Here's my problem with a lot of modern sportswriting. The conclusion the writer draws nearly ALWAYS depends on whether that team is losing or winning. If the Red Sox didn't make the playoffs then walking the sidelines of a football game, going out for a steak, and then staying up late listening to Jake Peavy play his guitar would be Exhibit #1 of why these Red Sox aren't serious about winning baseball games and only care about having fun. Dan Shaughnessy would write an article saying this team needs to be more serious and they need a manager who will enforce rules. This is why the "chicken and beer" narrative for the 2011 collapse was so stupid. There's not a hell of a lot of difference in players drinking beer and eating chicken in the clubhouse and players choosing to stay up late and play guitar after spending the evening eating steak and going to a football game.

But no, since the Red Sox are winning games these are just bonding opportunities that the Red Sox have and not any activities that are taking away from the main goal of winning games. A lazy sportswriter's point of view ALWAYS depends on whether that team is winning or not. Nothing is a positive or a negative by itself, but is only viewed through the prism of that team's current record.

"The one guy I wish we hadn't taken was David Ortiz,'' Peavy said, grinning. "When you take him along, it's like taking a zoo animal.

That's pretty fucking racist to say, Jake. Simply because Ortiz is the only minority in the room he has to be compared to a zoo animal?

I mean, people will notice him from blocks away.

Because he's not white. We get it, Jake. You think a person of Latino descent in a nice steakhouse should be in the kitchen making your steak not sharing a steak at the table with you.

"Then we have to play security for him, create a wall around him, just to have some privacy.''

Like a cage? Like a zoo keeps a monkey in a cage? I'm really glad Atlanta didn't trade for Peavy or else Peavy would have had a field day with the fact the entire Atlanta starting outfield are minorities.

When the night finally ended, the early team bus departed six hours before game time at Coors Field.

Every seat was filled.

"Our early bus is always at 12:30,'' Farrell said, "and if you're not out there early, you're not going to get a seat on it.

"It's always full.''

The players arrive in time for the team bus. That definitely shows their commitment to winning. I almost wish the Red Sox had gone 81-81 this season just so I could read the late night guitar playing and sideline visits at a football game get turned into a negative by the Bosto media.

There's a group of at least eight players who hang together in someone's hotel room after games, drinking beer, munching down, and telling stories.

And somehow drinking this beer doesn't get in the way of them playing baseball. It's funny how this happens in 2013, but drinking beer was the total cause for the Red Sox collapse in 2011. These types of narratives are what sportswriters love to cling to in order to explain events related to a team, aren't they?

And, yes, they're certainly not afraid to make fun of themselves, with newcomer Ryan Dempster brining boxes of Popeye's chicken to Fenway Park in September, yelling out:

"I've got the chicken, now who's got the beer?''

Yes, they're willing to go there, mocking their 2011 collapse when newspaper reports surfaced that pitchers were indulging in beer and chicken during games.

Because the Red Sox are in the playoffs this joke is cutesy and fun, but I'll be damned if Dempster's call-back to the 2011 season wouldn't be seen as a lack of focus and concern with winning baseball games if the Red Sox weren't playing well.

"The media obviously wants to feed on the negative,'' Gomes says, "so you have to talk about your negatives. You have to talk about your oh-for-four. You have to talk about your blown save.

"When you do that, everything is fine. As soon as you start running from your negatives, that's when it's going to get a little hairy.''

And of course when the Red Sox are playing well the media lets the players get away with talking about the negatives, while when things are going bad the Boston media leeches onto the negative and won't let go until these players have been driven from the organization (see: Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez...both players who couldn't handle the large city of Boston, but somehow get along fine in the gigantic city of Los Angeles).

Well, in this clubhouse, real hairy.

BECAUSE THE RED SOX PLAYERS HAVE BEARDS!

There's more hair on their faces these days than their head, with players actually overheard last week talking about beard conditioners and styles of beard combs.

Just like those limp-wristed homos! Right, Jake Peavy?

"I made the mistake of having mine trimmed,'' Ross said, "and when Nap[oli] saw me, he looked like I shot his dog. So I kept growing it. And so did everyone else. It's really caught on. It's hilarious.

I mean, it sure sounds hilarious. I'm laughing on the inside.

You know when someone tells a story and it's clear you had to be there? Yeah...

"When you're growing your beard out when you're in last place, people don't find it as intimidating as when you win.''

Nobody finds it intimidating when you are in first place either. It's just a cheap way for the sports media to grasp on to a team full of players with beards to further a narrative.

They spent 159 days in first place, becoming the first team in franchise history to go from worst to first, and winning more games from one season to the next since 1946.

Nevermind the Red Sox playing well during the 2013 season predated the team members growing beards, they became a great team because opposing teams were afraid of them because they have beards. This is Bob Nightengale's story and he is sticking to it.

The Red Sox, who brought in six new free-agent faces and strong clubhouse personalities, had a chemistry makeover that could become the biggest trendsetter in baseball since the one-inning save.

Baseball players wearing beards, who would have ever thought it could happen? Yes, the Red Sox started playing well this season so they had a chemistry makeover, but more importantly, they had a talent makeover. Talent wins baseball games.

"For people to tell me that clubhouse chemistry and personality doesn't matter,'' Peavy told USA TODAY Sports, "is an absolute joke. I'll fight you with every last dying breath on that.

Clubhouse chemistry and personality do matter. Players have to get along and it's easier to get along when (repeat after me) that team is winning baseball games. When a team is winning baseball games chemistry is great because everyone is happy. When a team is not winning baseball games all of a sudden a little personality may become grating and the small little issues one player has with another player becomes a bigger deal.

"You look at that San Francisco Giants team that won the two World Series, and try to tell me that clubhouse chemistry doesn't matter. I promise you there's a direct correlation on how much this team cares about each other off the field, and how hard this team plays together on the field.

And it's easier to care about each other off the field when the team is winning games. Chemistry isn't overrated, but using beards and chemistry as the reason a team is winning is overrated. Chemistry suddenly disappears when a team struggles.

"I've lived it. I witnessed it. And I'm experiencing it right now.

Peavy has pitched in two games and 9.2 innings in the postseason prior to playing for the Red Sox. I'm not so sure he has witnessed it.

"We've got a special chance now to show everyone ourselves.''

That is true. Because the Red Sox team is talented, not because the Red Sox team has beards. 

8 comments Field Goals Must Die!

I got an email from reader Tom providing me with a link to a Frank Deford article (thanks for the link, I always appreciate a heads-up on a bad article) with the heading "Where To Begin." I clicked on the link and read the article by Frank Deford about why field goals, punting and extra points should be permanently removed from football. The first thought I had going through my head as I read it was "where the hell do I start with this article?" So Tom not only provided the link for the article, but he also provided my introduction with the title of his email, because this article is so nonsensical and bad I really don't know exactly where to begin.

The article is a vigorous rant against field goals. What startles me is his anger at field goals does not even begin to match the enormity of the problem, especially since there is no problem. Imagine I wrote 1,000 words about how the NBA needs to use a blue basketball from now on and explained why the traditional brown ball stunk so much. It would be a lot of anger for a little problem. So without more writing and really knowing how to cover this appropriately...here is the article.

Hey, I got a kick coming.

This article was written and posted on the NPR site. Maybe that explains something?

I think field goals are really lousing up football. Punts too.

Yes, the traditional elements of football are really screwing up the right way the sport is supposed to be played.

I feel the same way about that damn rosin bag in baseball! What the hell is that thing? Outlaw it from baseball because it serves no purpose! Same thing with the pine tar on a bat. That's what gloves are for. If you can't grip the bat, then buy better gloves! Pine tar sucks and the rosin bag is the cause for the decreased attendance in baseball! (begins cutting his wrists with a credit card)

Football coaches, who by nature are conservative executives, are just entirely too foot-dependent.

I absolutely agree. I think instead of kick-offs a team should throw the ball down the field. It will be like neighborhood flag football, except a whole lot more stupid because it is professional athletes in uniforms doing it.

I don't think Frank Deford thought about kick-offs when he was writing this article. There is not a better solution than kicking the ball off. I just think throwing the ball would look ridiculous.

Let me place two caveats in here:

1. I agree coaches in the NFL are too conservative and play for field goals when they should possibly go for it on fourth down. Coaches should change their mindset, rather than the NFL change the way the game is played.

2. The extra point attempt is a foregone conclusion, but it is a part of football. There is really no reason to just make a touchdown count 7 points or eliminate the extra point attempt. It's a part of football and it works.

OK, field goals first. They’re too easy to make. For some time now, in the NFL, kickers have been succeeding on more than four out of every five field goal attempts

See how this rant is a little more vigorous than the problem? Did someone steal Frank Deford's meds or something? I don't usually have a problem with him, but there is a fly in his Brylcreem and he is just plain pissed off right now.

I am a little confused as to why due to the fact kickers in the NFL are good at kicking field goals this is a bad thing. Shouldn't the fact they are good at their jobs be celebrated instead of used as a way of getting rid of field goals?

Yes, it seems to be true that kickers seem to be getting more accurate, but I don't see this as a bad thing. What is the appropriate percentage for kickers to make field goals at? 65%? 70%?

and, of course, extra points are pointless because they’re so seldom missed that they’re beside the point.

Should the NBA outlaw dunks because they are so infrequently missed? Last year out of every kicker that attempted an extra point (which there were 41), there were 19 missed extra point attempts. That is a high percentage of makes to misses, but extra points are supposed to be difficult. I haven't looked into the history of field goal attempts and why they are a part of the game of football (so I am not sure their original purpose), but I see no reason to get rid of them.

But field goals.

And we are immediately back to field goals. Of any point, Deford made in this article, the only one that has some merit is eliminating the extra point attempt. Naturally, he doesn't focus on that very much.

I don’t know exactly at what percentage it is when something in sport is so easy that it becomes too good for the good of the game, but certainly 80 percent is way too high.

Frank doesn't know when the "good of the game" question comes into play, but he does know it is below 80%. Any field goal percentage over 80% is just an abomination to the sport, while 76% seems much more reasonable. For most field goal kickers this amounts to a difference in less than one more missed field goal a year. The average kicker kicks 20-30 field goals a year, so the percentage of field goals made and missed can rise and fall pretty quickly if a kicker has a good or bad day.

So its fine for a kicker who attempts 25 field goals to miss 6 field goals, but only missing 5 field goals is way too high and ruins the sport of football for not only ourselves, but future generations of football fans?

I kept asking two questions while reading this article:

1. But why do this?

2. What purpose would this serve?

These questions came up in my mind over and over and they never gets answered.

If you want to be entertained by perfection instead of competition, go watch Meryl Streep doing an accent or a good magician doing card tricks.

There is competition when it comes to field goals. Both teams are hitting field goals and extra points at the same pace, or near to the same pace. It is not like one team has a huge advantage over another (in regard to one team having an unfair advantage, obviously some kickers are better than others). There is an even playing field, so there is competition.

It’s easier to kick a field goal in the NFL than to make a free throw in the NBA –– and free throws are just that: free. Nobody is contesting you.

There is really no comparison here. It's easier to complete a pass to a receiver in the NFL than it is for an ice skater to perform a triple lutz triple loop, but no one wants to outlaw the forward pass. My head is hurting from this comparison even being made.

If field goals, contested, are guaranteed, better than 80 percent good, then, I’m sorry, but the game is lacking.

This standard that has been set for why the game of football is lacking is easily the dumbest standard I have ever heard of. Field goal kickers are too good at their job and this is a bad thing. That's the premise of this article.

Now, in the NFL, even better than half the field goals from beyond 50 yards split –– as they always say –– the uprights.

There were 102 attempts (by my count) from 50+ yards last year. Of those, 55 were made. That's a percentage of a little under 54%. Again, it is a percentage over the arbitrary percentage that Frank Deford set as the standard, but it is a sign these kickers are good at their job, which isn't a bad thing.

Excuse me, couldn’t we at least get a new cliche for making field goals besides "split the uprights"?

They are uprights and the kick goes between them. Therefore the ball does split the uprights.

How ‘bout "cleave the verticals"? After a century of split the uprights, couldn’t we at least say cleave the verticals?

It sounds like a sexual term. No we can't do this.

If we can’t improve the game, at least let’s improve the cliche. Thank you.

How the hell would outlawing field goals improve the game? I know there is a section of people who wants to go for it on fourth down on every play, but I don't think moving from kickers being an intregal part of the game to no punting or field goals at all would improve the game. If anything, it would cause the score in games to increase because of improved field position for the offenses of each team due to the "no punting" rule. Then the quarterbacks, running backs, and receivers will have more touchdowns because of the better field position and the next thing we know Frank Deford is writing that touchdowns are too easy to achieve and they should be worth only 4 points.

Because field goals are so cheap now, the easiest thing is simply to devalue them, like a currency that’s over-inflated. Field goals should only count two points.

This would do absolutely nothing to improve the game. So the game of football would improve if every field goal counted one point less? Is Frank Deford overly worried about inflated scoring in football? Is that the real problem here? It sounds like it.

If it took three field goals to equal a touchdown, instead of just two, cowardly coaches would have to actually play more pass-ball and run-ball and actually try to score more touchdowns.

Not necessarily, but it is possible. So it may have some effect that causes coaches to go for it on fourth down more often (is that the point of this article? how to make coaches go for it on fourth down more often?), but it would also increase the value of the extra point if the field goal is devalued. I thought Frank Deford thought extra points were pointless, but now he wants to increase their value. This is writing idiocy at its best.

Then we have this other fourth-down problem. If coaches don’t give up and send in the field-goal kicker, they surrender and send in the punter. Is there anything worse than wimp coaches punting instead of going for it on fourth-and-one?

It depends on the situation. Punting isn't always a bad move because it changes field position for the other team. Punting is overused, but it also serves a purpose in certain situations on fourth down.

Various baseball-type statistical nuts have proven that it’s really more advantageous, in the long run, to try for short yardage on fourth down rather than punting.

So instead of changing the sport of football around, wouldn't it be easier to convince coaches it is worthwhile to go for it on fourth down more often?

I am not sure what Frank Deford's opinion on modern statistics is, though I can guess from him calling them "statistical nuts," so I think it is pretty ironic a guy who probably doesn't enjoy the use of modern baseball statistics is citing these same people who come up with the statistics as proof of why his "get rid of field goals" idea is right. So the "statistic nuts" are really only useful when they prove a point he wants to make.

Today’s stronger field-goal kickers and punters are the human equivalent of modern technology-advanced golf clubs. Golf courses have been modified to accept this reality, so it’s time for football to do the same and make adjustments before football becomes kickball.

What is the solution? Make the field longer?

The difference in golfers using modern technology in the form of clubs to hit the ball further is that there is no technology being used by the kickers in the NFL. Kickers aren't using an advanced form of the human leg, but they are just specially trained to kick the ball longer and more accurate than kickers have in the past. Tennis has also had modern technology advance in their sport in regard to the rackets being used and they have done nothing to change the sport around. So while golfers and tennis players use a technological tool to improve their game, kickers are merely specializing and focusing on their tool (their leg) to get better at their job.

Get some guts, coaches, and stop punting, and if you must try a field goal –– OK, but only two points if you do cleave the verticals.

Which would overvalue the extra point, which is pointless according to Frank Deford.

I don't get it. Devaluing the field goal only serves to overvalue the other ways of scoring in football. It is not as if kickers getting better at making field goals is a competitive issue since the trend seems to be league wide. I just don't get this article at all.

17 comments Mike Celizic Talks College Football and Mayhem Ensues

Sunday the first BCS Bowl Standings were revealed to the public. In a normal world, this would create a ho-hum effect among journalists because it was pretty obvious at this point which teams were the best teams in the country and it would also be obvious there is still a lot of college football to be played. As Desmond Howard (yes, I am quoting him) said last night on ESPN, "everyone calm down" and then he began to list what each team who won the National Championship was ranked during the first BCS poll of the season...and I will give you a hint, it wasn't #1 for any of them. So ho-hum should be the reaction.

Not so shockingly, because American sports journalists are not capable of ho-hum, it has created a shit-storm of controversy where there are being articles written about how dumb the BCS is, how the new poll doesn’t clear up the National Championship picture, and of course Pete Carroll is already questioning the release of the BCS standings. I swear, I feel like the National Championship game is going to be played in less than a month instead of three months from now.
To quote Pete Carroll when he was complaining:

"Is the goal to find the team with the best record or the best team?"

Well actually, the goal is to find the best team in the country, which often happens to be the same team that has one of the best records. This is an annual tradition among NFL head coaches to complain about the BCS standings and it is usually the coach whose team lost a game early in the year doing the complaining. In this case, USC lost a game in the Pac-10 to Washington and Pete Carroll is bitching the BCS is not accurately reflecting his team's skill and his team is the best team in the country right now even though they have lost a game already. At the end of the year columnists always write something like, “USC is the best team right now so they deserve to be in the National Championship Game this year.” USC has always been consistently the best team in the country at the end of the year according to many people. Unfortunately that is not enough to get them in the National Championship game. Really it is just a bad break at this point, which results in Pete Carroll sending half his team off to the NFL, him getting more 5-star recruits and the process starts over.

If it were up to Pete Carroll the ranking system in college football would not be the BCS or any other logical system, but instead would be a system of determining the second best team in the country that will play USC in the title game. No matter whether another team in the country has played against tougher in-conference competition or have less losses, Pete Carroll like most other coaches, always believes his team is the best team in the country and then whines about it publicly. Then the coaches blame it on the BCS, like if there was an 8 team playoff there would not be teams who felt left out or like they belonged.

Taking a brief break from claiming the World Series doesn’t matter because the real World Series is between the Angels and the Yankees, Mike Celizic feels the need to chime in on the discussion. Unfortunately he adds nothing to the discussion but more panic stricken and critical comments about the BCS.

First, I will give everyone a chance to look at the BCS Standings and study them intently. For some reason Mike Celizic and I have different BCS Standings. I believe mine over his.

I am not a BCS person nor am I an anti-BCS person. I feel like the system currently in place is the best system until a better alternative can be thought of. I don’t like many of the non-BCS ideas simply because they will require a cut-off for the number of teams who can make the playoffs. I am not saying every team should be in the playoff. What I mean is that if the idea for a playoff consists of taking 8 teams and making them play each other, Teams #9-#12 are going to feel left out and will have the same problems with the playoff system that many people currently have with the BCS system. There has to be a cut-off somewhere and somebody is going to end up being pissed off. It's just a fact at this point.

I don’t think the system currently in place is the fairest system, though I do believe it causes every game every week to be important. I am not sure if this could happen in a playoff. I could be wrong. For example, USC knows they can’t lose another game or they are completely out of the BCS championship picture, but if there were a playoff system in place with 16 teams they could play poorly for one more game and possibly still make it into the playoffs.

Now on to Celizic’s column and his need for college football to be a predictable sport where all the good and bad teams are easily defined. My intention isn’t to bash the BCS or bash whatever Celizic thinks should be the system (it’s funny but many people who hate the BCS and bashes it in print never have presented a good alternative...Celizic just bitches here and doesn't suggest any other alternatives), but to point out how what he is complaining about doesn’t make much sense.

The first BCS poll is finally out, and you have to wonder if the results are due to voters and computers searching their neurons and transistors for truth or a monkey throwing darts at a board.

Do you mean much like the preseason polls amount to? I find it funny sportswriters like Mike Celizic hate the BCS because he feels it is arbitrary, but preseason rankings when college football teams have played zero games don’t bother him at all. I know preseason polls don’t mean that much in the grand scheme of the season, other than to overrank/underrank teams, but it is much more arbitrary and non-scientific than anything the BCS has ever put together.

It probably doesn’t matter which method is being used.

Wow. What an absolutely idiotic way to undermine the entire point of the column by the second sentence of said column. So to sum it all up…the BCS sucks and the rankings make no sense, but the rankings wouldn’t make sense no matter what system is being used. This is not a page out of “Formulating An Argument For Dummies.”

It’s hard to remember a year when there’s been less certainty about which college football team is the best in the land. Seven teams remain undefeated

Awesome. How is this not absolutely fantastic? There are seven teams who could be the best team in the country, so from week-to-week each of these teams are going to try their best to not lose a game and remain undefeated. Parity is not bad in college football in my opinion. I like to see a bunch of good teams playing football games against each other. I find it much more preferable than seeing 4 excellent teams at the top of the poll and the rest of the teams in the Top 25 are just above average.

I would also expect there to be little certainty right now since the season is only halfway finished. I think this has been a problem nearly every single year in college football at the halfway point, but every year columnists claim this current year is more muddled than any other year.

Isn’t parity what the NFL, MLB, and the NBA are constantly striving for? So why is it so bad in college football? Oh yeah, because people can’t accept ambiguity or the idea a team that never lost a game may not win the National Championship. Last year Utah went undefeated and Florida lost once, but the Gators are still considered the National Champion outside of the state of Utah. The world did not end and nearly every single person considers Florida to be the defending National Champion for college football. I am not cool with Utah getting screwed, but we all got over this occurrence. Basically we all end up moving on.

Just like we all got over LSU being a 2 loss champion the year before that. Just like Boise State not getting a shot at the National Championship before that has been forgotten due to the excitement of the Oklahoma-Boise State Fiesta Bowl in 2007. I don’t love the BCS, but what I find is these “problems” and incongruities in the BCS system are largely forgotten the year after the major controversy. To my original point, having seven undefeated teams including 2 from the not from the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big 10, Pac-10, and SEC is fantastic. There will be controversy but there will also be quality football being played.

Florida, Alabama, Texas, Boise State, Cincinnati, Iowa and TCU — but not one of them stands head and chinstrap above the rest.

Yet again I find this good, not bad. There is a reason we play the entire college football season and don’t stop the season the week after the BCS standings are released. That reason is because these 7 teams will probably not be undefeated at season’s end. I don’t want there to be 2 teams that are great and the rest are just above average because even in this crappy system we have a chance to see teams fighting to stay undefeated and have a chance at the National Championship game…in theory.

Therein does lie the problem, that only two of these teams will even have the chance to play for the National Championship, but it has happened before and the world did not end. I know what I am saying doesn’t sound fair, and it isn’t fair, but we know at least Florida and Alabama will at least lose once this year because they have to play each other for the SEC Championship if neither team loses, so that clears the picture up a little bit…if we get to that point. The rest of these teams are in different conferences so this is an example of nearly every major conference having good teams at the top, which again is not a bad thing. I would bet at least 3 of these undefeated teams are going to end up with one loss at the end of the year.

The polls should all come with a disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein do not reflect objective reality.

Newsflash big guy, many playoff results also do not reflect objective reality. Were the NY Giants really the best team in 2007? No, the Patriots were. Were the Cardinals the best team in baseball in 2006? No, they were barely above .500, but they won the World Series. Was N.C. State the best college basketball team in 1983 or Villanova in 1985? Those were just four examples of a playoff not really determining the best team, it’s not like a playoff system means every single year the most worthy or the best team will win. So unless you want to just crown the team with the best record as “Champion” (which is really impossible many times in college football) at the end of every year without bowl games or a playoff system, many times objective reality will not be reflected in the result of the polls or playoff system.

My inclinations are to rant about how college football needs a playoff system like Glenn Beck needs a Valium. But there’s no point in that.

Instead, I’ll just fulminate about what a muddle this college football season is turning out to be.

Brilliant idea. Instead of furthering an actual idea to solve an issue, Mike Celizic is just going to bitch and moan about how screwed up this college football season is…which by the way makes this college football season exactly like nearly every other college football season over the past several years. Let’s remember, the college football season is barely halfway over at this point, so there should be a lot of muddle because teams haven’t separated themselves from the pack yet.

At a point when teams normally show why we should believe in them, it seems as if there was a contest going whose object was to show which top team is least deserving of its exalted ranking.

So we have 7 undefeated teams who all suck because they had close games? I don't see that way. I guess I must enjoy a different type of college football from Mike Celizic. Honestly, I would bet he doesn't even follow college football that closely. I enjoy games that are close and don’t necessarily believe because a team has a couple close games that means that team is a weak team, but instead believe it could mean that team has to play other great teams yet still found a way to win each game.

Sportswriting is clearly not a science. On one hand we have Gregg Easterbrook who thinks anytime a team blows out other teams it is because they are all teams that are easy to beat, and on the other hand we have Mike Celizic who believes a team is not strong if it has a close game or two.

Florida, No. 1 on the coaches’ and Harris charts and No. 2 in AP hearts, needed a big assist from the zebras and some new heroics from Tim Tebow to eke out a comeback win over Arkansas,

That second link is to College Football Talk, which alleges SEC officials helped the Gators win the game. How SEC officials are helping Florida over Arkansas, who is also in the SEC, is beyond me. I thought the pass interference call was a good one and I don’t really know too much about the other penaltybecause I was at dinner and could barely see what happened on the television.

The simple fact is Arkansas had plenty of chances to win that game and they did not. Ohio State won the National Championship over USC a few years ago because of a semi-arguable pass interference call in the end zone and USC got an arguable good non-call from the officials when Reggie Bush pushed Matt Leinart in the end zone against Notre Dame. I don't think USC won the National Championship that year but it shows good teams do get breaks every once in a while and it is not a sign a team is weak.

a team that was drilled by Alabama three weeks ago.

Simply because Florida barely beat Arkansas and Alabama whipped Arkansas, Celizic uses this as an argument the Gators are a weak team. I like how he uses the BCS margin of victory measurement to show Florida is not a good team, yet Celizic also hates the BCS because he finds the measurements it uses to be arbitrary. Ironic huh?

Here is another fun little fact Celizic overlooks, Florida will have a chance to play Alabama if they meet in the SEC Championship Game…so really comparing the two teams until they meet serves no purpose because the odds are really good these teams will meet.

The Gators will probably finish undefeated and get one berth in the BCS’ mythical championship game, but it would be nice if they could at least show that they have something going for them other than Tebow.

This is what makes me think Celizic doesn't watch much college football, I am not sure he is aware there is an SEC Championship game. Florida will have a chance to show they are a good team when/if they play in the SEC Championship Game potentially against another undefeated team like Alabama. The Gators really can’t get a better chance than that to show the world they have something going for them other than Tebow by playing and defeating another undefeated team at a neutral site. Also, the comment inferring Florida doesn’t have talent, other than Tim Tebow, is just plain stupid. They are loaded on defense and offense.

But, while Mark Ingram’s nearly 250 yards rushing were impressive, ‘Bama’s offense still has scored just two touchdowns in its past nine quarters. It’s as if the Tide seems determined to test the adage that defense wins titles.

If a team has a dominant defense then obviously that team can’t be considered one of the best teams in the country according to Celizic. Who cares if Alabama is #1 in the country in total defense? Who cares if the offense is 21st in the country in yards per game and 13th in points per game? That’s not impressive to Mike Celizic because the offense has only scored two touchdowns over the last nine quarters. He is so clearly wrong here because Alabama isn’t just a defensive team, they can play some offense also. He just wants us to ignore this and focus on his own cherry picked statistics that show Alabama isn’t a team of National Championship caliber, which is absolutely not true.

Texas, the No. 3 team in every poll, hardly looked impressive in slipping past Oklahoma 16-13. The Sooners played without reigning Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford for most of the game, but Texas insisted on playing as if he’d been replaced by Brett Favre. On offense, alleged Heisman Trophy candidate Colt McCoy performed like a man playing the flute while wearing boxing gloves.

I am going to ignore the absolutely horrible flute analogy and say Celizic needs to stick to talking about the Yankees and the Red Sox because he is shading things incorrectly here again in an effort to prove his point. Oklahoma is #8 in the nation in total defense, so it isn't exactly easy, Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback or not, to score against them. If Celizic is inferring the Longhorns should have blown out the Sooners because of the absence of Sam Bradford, then I will respond by saying Landry Jones isn’t exactly a joke at quarterback. He was highly recruited and played pretty well in the absence of Bradford earlier in this year.

I don’t know why Celizic is under the impression the top teams in the nation should run all over the teams they are playing, because I don’t think this is true at all. Close games are not necessarily a sign of a team being weak.

For some reason, USC is fourth.

Actually they are seventh in the poll I have linked, but let’s pretend Celizic is right and USC is ranked fourth, just to play devil’s advocate. They currently have 3 big road wins to their credit at Notre Dame, Ohio State and California. Those are not easy road games to play. I am all for the little guy coming up and busting the BCS Standings, but I do find it hard to reconcile ranking Cincinnati and TCU above them. TCU barely beat Air Force, and Cincinnati hasn’t played any really good teams yet. Boise State may have an argument more than any other team for this spot, but they are #4 in the BCS Standings, which they deserve.

We’re all familiar with Boise State crying about not getting any respect, and it doesn’t. But it’s for good reason: If you want respect, play in a respectable conference, or at least have the decency to lay a decent whupping on Tulsa, instead of sneaking away with a one-touchdown win.

It may not have been impressive, but they won the game. That’s all that really should matter. I don’t get the infatuation with having a bunch of teams that blow out their opponents and think this makes for good college football to watch. I know Celizic is used to watching the Red Sox and Yankees dominant in the AL East but parity in college football is not a bad thing, quit acting like it is.

If they were Ohio State or Michigan and had the same results, they’d be ranked no worse than fourth; they’d certainly be ahead of USC. But because they’re Iowa, they have a big climb ahead just to get into the Top 5.

As usual, Mike Celizic is cherry picking games, leaving out Iowa beating Northern Iowa by only 1 point and Arkansas State by 3 points. It’s easy for him to not include those games because it doesn’t go to serve his point that Iowa is getting screwed by the BCS system. Unfortunately this supports his own theory that Iowa is not a dominant team and the voters see the same thing knowing that Texas and Florida struggled against Oklahoma and Arkansas respectively, but Iowa struggled against vastly inferior competition and ranked the Hawkeyes accordingly. I also don't think the comment if Iowa were OSU or Michigan they would be ranked higher has too much basis.

But no matter what TCU and Boise State do, they’re still not going to rise into one of the top two rankings — and a shot at the BCS’ big crystal football

This is an absolutely incorrect statement. Either Florida or Alabama are going to have a loss at by the end of the year which would probably vault Boise State over one of those teams, and then if Texas loses during the season or in the Big 12 Championship game Boise State could easily play in the National Championship game. Matter of fact, I am pretty sure the eventual National Champion over the last 3 years has never been ranked #1 in the initial BCS Standings.

TCU probably does not have a shot and I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing to be honest. They are a good team, but I don’t believe they are one of the best teams in the country. I will be proven wrong this weekend if they manage to defeat BYU, because that will give them a little more credibility in my mind. I respect them but they haven't played incredibly difficult teams so far...but I am not going to bury them quite yet. I am not ruling them out, but I would not put them higher than Boise State, Iowa, or USC.

For this week, it’s still about the teams that have been marked as the nation’s best since before the season began. Florida, Alabama and Texas remain undefeated, but as we watch the season enter its final month, we’re left to wonder when any or all of them will start to play up to their rankings.

Florida has beaten a good LSU team on the road, Alabama has obliterated Ol’ Miss on the road and South Carolina at home, and Texas has beaten Oklahoma and it’s very good defense at a neutral location. Simply because they did not blow these teams out doesn’t mean they are not good teams or the BCS Standings have it all wrong. Parity in college football is not a reason to get rid of the BCS system and this parity is actually something that should be celebrated. It may make it hard to rank teams midway through the season, but it makes for good football discussions and games.

Good teams win close football games, they don’t just win football games by large margins.

The BCS is not a perfect system, but until a perfect system comes along it is the system we are currently stuck with having to deal with. The National Championship picture is not any more muddled this year than it has been in the past several years, it’s just early in the season now and teams haven’t played enough games to set themselves apart from each other by winning or losing the games remaining. Every year we get these columns stating what a mess college football is, yet it remains a popular sport, and interest from the fans never goes away.

If the same situation of having 7 undefeated teams in the country exists after the bowl games have been announced, then yes there may be a problem or it really was just a crazy year. The National Championship picture is always muddled halfway through the season and it’s what makes the sport so intriguing to watch. Mike Celizic doesn't really pay attention to either of these facts and instead just decides to start a panic by writing that there are no good teams and the BCS is screwing up the country.

6 comments Jay Mariotti Is Still Not Impressed With Roger Federer

I may not hate Jay Mariotti quite as well as the guys from his home hate site FJMariotti do it but I would say that I feel a certain disregard for him as a human being. He just seems like a completely negative and antagonistic person. I am not sure I have ever heard someone come out and just say what a great guy Jay is, which is probably because he is not a great guy, he is most likely a jerk like he seems to be in print.

Either way, Mariotti is still not completely impressed with Roger Federer and thinks he should have to do more to be the greatest tennis player ever. I am not saying I necessarily disgree, I am saying Jay Mariotti does not make a very good case for why he believes this. He contradicts himself and then sets a standard for Federer to achieve this goal and then completely ignores the own standard he set.

Yes, Roger Federer at last had seized the French Open, the one crater on his Grand Slam resume. But he'd done so only after Rafael Nadal, his injured nemesis, was bounced in a fourth-round loss that ended his 31-match winning streak at Roland Garros.

I wasn't aware that if the Finals of one of the Grand Slam events was not Nadal v. Federer, it did not count as an actual Grand Slam victory for whoever wins that tournament. Under this logic, if Nadal and Federer both lost early in a tournament and if someone else won the tournament, Mariotti would not think it really counted because that person did not beat Nadal or Federer.

Plus in this present case, Nadal was injured, so Federer may as well just throw his trophy away.

This is akin to having a tryst with Angelina Jolie while Brad Pitt is in a coma. It's a bit misleading, wouldn't you say?

No, I would not say. The fact that Nadal lost should be of no concern to Federer. Federer has played through injuries repeatedly. He had mono last year. Nadal lost and Federer did not, this should not take away from his achievement. He did not beat Nadal to win the French Open, that is true, but he still won the French Open after Nadal had lost.

Doesn't he have to beat Nadal at least once on the Paris clay, stlll a glaring bugaboo, before being declared the preeminent player of all time?

I see Mariotti's logic here, but since Nadal is not the greatest player of all-time I would say that Federer doesn't have to beat him to be declared greatest player of all-time. Maybe if Federer played against those players thought to be the greatest of all-time in a tournament, which is impossible of course, then yes he would have to defeat all of them to be considered the greatest.

I don't think beating Nadal in the French Open one time will all of a sudden make Federer the greatest player ever. One victory would not do that in my mind. Not defeating Nadal on clay is a slight against Federer's resume but every single great tennis player has a rival that has given them trouble. Nadal is fantastic on clay and Federer has dominated him previously on other surfaces.

Almost arrogantly, that ignores the epic achievement of a old-schooler such as the Australian, Rod Laver, who won the true Grand Slam twice -- all four majors within a calendar year, which Federer has not done. Laver won 11 Grand Slam titles, leaving him three shy of Federer and Pete Sampras, but he surely would have won many more in his prime had he been allowed to play in the majors between 1963 and the advent of the Open era in 1968.

Yeah, well Laver wasn't allowed to play in the majors so he didn't. We have no idea what he would have done. If Federer did not have to play Nadal he would have won more French Opens by now, but he had to so it's a moot point.

You don't. Yet Federer and his boosters take a quantum leap anyway, as if not considering what happened as recently as January at the Australian Open, where he was such an emotional wreck in losing another big one to Nadal that he wept uncontrollably at the trophy ceremony and had to be consoled by the Spaniard.

I tell you what we should do. We should not consider Federer the greatest tennis player of all time because he cried at a trophy ceremony one time. That makes perfect sense. I need better reasoning than this.

At that point, Nadal had beaten him five straight and won 13 of their previous 19 matches. Suddenly, we're forgetting all of that? Do we really think Nadal, at full health, would have lost to Federer in Paris? How do we anoint Federer as THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME when he has been on a lengthy death spiral against Nadal, whose most memorable triumph in the rivalry was the five-set classic in the Wimbledon final last July?

No one is forgetting this. Why are you forgetting that Federer absolutely owned Nadal on grass and at the US Open prior to this? Federer is old for a tennis player and Nadal is absolutely in the prime of his career. When comparing Nadal and Federer, which is really what Mariotti is doing, you have to consider this as well.

I am not saying Federer is the best player of all-time but you can't even compare Nadal's accomplishments to Federer at this time because Nadal has never been the hard court and grass court player that Federer has been.

Career records on each surface:

Clay courts: 9-2 (Federer is the clear cut #2 best clay court player...I don't think he has to be #1 to be the greatest of all-time.)

Hard courts: 3-3 (Since 2004, Federer has won 8 of the 11 Grand Slams on hard courts, including 5 straight US Opens)

Grass courts: 2-1 (Federer won 5 straight Wimbledon Championships from 2003 to 2007)

My point is this: Federer is the best hard court and grass court player in the world, even not being in the prime of his career, and is the #2 clay court player in the world. That counts for something in my book. The only time Federer has lost a Grand Slam Final is to Nadal and considering Nadal is shaping up to be one of the greatest players ever, I find it hard to hold that against him. If Mariotti is really insisting on comparing Nadal and Federer, he would also have to take into account the fact that Nadal has struggled to be consistent on hard courts throughout his career and hasn't always played well on grass either.

I feel very uncomfortable crowning Federer when Nadal has been appreciably better in head-to-head competition.

I don't think Federer is the greatest player ever and Nadal does hold the advantage head-to-head over his career 13-7, that is true. 11 of the 20 matches have been on clay and Nadal is the greatest clay court player I have ever seen. You can't hold this against Federer, I just don't think you can. Outside of clay courts Federer has a record of 5-4 against Nadal. It's actually a pretty even rivalry now, compared to what it used to be.

Can we not make the argument that Nadal, who just turned 23 and is almost five years younger than Federer, is positioned to win the most Grand Slams of anyone?

If we want to have pure speculation, how about this? What type of record would Nadal have against Federer if Federer were 23 and Nadal were 28? I don't know, I am just asking. I am admitting Federer may not be the greatest ever but I think it is closer than we think because he is having to go against one of the other greatest players ever and Federer has dominated on two surfaces. It would be helpful if they were the same age.

Point is, the only way Federer got his mojo back was when Nadal struggled at the French.

And Nadal only beat Federer at Wimbledon after they changed the grass surface to bounce a little bit more like a hard court.

The announcement should come by Wednesday. If Nadal skips Wimbledon, Federer will have a golden opportunity to win his 15th -- again, because Nadal was absent.

Yes, Federer will have a great chance to win his 15th because Nadal may be absent. I don't like the implication that Federer would not win the tournament no matter if Nadal was able to play. Federer has been an absolute master on grass in the past and regardless of whether Nadal is the defending champion, I would still consider Federer the better grass court player.

With advances in racket technology and physical training, you sense we're watching the game at its optimum level, even if tennis doesn't jazz the masses as it did 30 years ago.

Just a few paragraphs ago Jay Mariotti was saying that Rod Laver could be the greatest tennis player ever when he played in the 1960's, but he thinks tennis is being played at it's optimum level now. So the greatest player ever would have to come from the era of when tennis is being played at its optimum level (logically), which would mean Federer or Nadal are the greatest tennis players ever. I don't agree, but I am not also not undermining my own point like Mariotti is.

If Nadal plays at Wimbledon and beats Federer, the Swiss gentleman will lose the cachet he reclaimed in Paris. The sport will belong to Nadal again.

I will agree with this sentiment. It will show the Wimbledon Final from last year was an outlier and Federer is still the greatest player on grass. I still think we have to take their ages into account and the fact Nadal is a great tennis player in his prime, while Federer is not in his prime right now.

Not to mention Nadal has been so much more inconsistent in reaching Grand Slam Finals than Federer has been...as exhibited this year when he lost in the 4th round and Federer won the French Open. Something has to be said for consistency over a long period of time.

Federer should be all about amassing major championships over the coming two or three years, aiming for a final number that history can't ignore.

Jay Mariotti irritates the shit out of me. He doesn't even stay on topic with his argument. So if Federer wins three more Grand Slams over the next two or three years and loses in the French Open to Nadal every year, how does this make him the greatest player ever? Mariotti was basing his whole argument on the fact Federer can't beat Nadal on clay, but Mariotti is ready to say he is the greatest player ever even if he never beats Nadal at the French Open? That doesn't make sense to me.

I can't remember an athlete trying to make history when the precious present is holding him back. Federer got a reprieve in Paris -- a shot of rejuvenation -- but it will be forgotten if Nadal continues to school him.

Nadal has never schooled Federer, except on clay courts. Federer has schooled Nadal and the rest of his competitors on nearly every other surface. Federer has been in the Finals of Grand Slam events consistently while Nadal has been out of the tournament already before reaching the Finals. Somehow Mariotti forgets all of this. The only reason Nadal-Federer have not played more on grass and hard courts is because Nadal can't always make the Finals.

Head-to-head it is a close matchup but when you look at the big picture, Federer is a better player.

And don't be surprised if in 10 years, we'll be calling Nadal the greatest tennis player ever.

You can't. Federer won 5 straight Wimbledon titles, 5 straight US Open titles and three Australian Open titles, at the exact time when Nadal was playing as well. Only after Federer has gotten older and Nadal has entered his prime has the matchup become more even on any surface other than clay.

Fourteen is debatable. Nineteen is unassailable.

Even if he never beats Nadal at the French Open? Based on Jay's argument how the hell does this make sense? He argues that Federer is not the greatest tennis player of all-time because he has not beaten Nadal at the French Open, but says if Federer wins 5 more Grand Slam tournaments he will be the greatest tennis player of all-time...and he can do this without beating Nadal on clay. That doesn't make sense to me. I just wish he would make a clear-cut argument and stick with it.

2 comments Woody Paige Makes Bad Puns, Millions Lose Their Will To Live

I love puns. They are so clever and prove the point that you are a smart person, though unwilling to take the time to make a real joke. Puns are not really funny but they still tend to make us giggle like 9 year olds at a Jonas Brothers concert (I am going for the Bill Simmons/Rick Reilly intro here). The problem with puns is when they are relied on to write columns for a newspaper, they can come off as lazy and the over reliance on them to cover up a lack of quality material makes you Woody Paige.

TGIF!

ER is a big hit on TV.

14 years ago it was. Now it is a medical drama that is 14 years old and was running out of steam five years ago. In medical drama years, it is 4 major character deaths, 2 AIDS scares, 3 Bomb Crisis, and 16 Cheating On Your Spouse With a Co-Worker years old.

Eddie Royal excited the Broncos and incited the Raiders with an amazing debut Monday night.

This must be a puff piece. I can spot these pretty quickly, especially when the word "amazing" is used to describe one game that has been played.

I would also like to tell everyone the Raiders are horrible. At this point Woody would say Hagar the Horrible plays for the Raiders but I will not say that. I will say I would expect a receiver to do well against the Raiders because they are not good.

Brandon who?

Marshall. Brandon Marshall. He had 1,000 yards receiving last year and falls on McDonald's wrappers sometimes, whereupon he hurts his knee.

Bluntly, the Broncos have discovered a complement to Brandon Marshall in the royal rookie.

Royal had a great game but I would not get too excited over one game against one of the worst teams in the NFL.

Shit like "the royal rookie" is just bad writing. It reeks of a third grade writing level.

Guess who's first in the AFC West after a compelling 41-14 triumph over Oakland?
Guess how many games it has been so far in the year? One.

The Patriots, Bills, and Jets are tied for first in the AFC East at this point and I severly doubt the standings will end this year in the exact same fashion.

Woody seems to enjoy jumping to conclusions. I bet when Woody watches "Office Space" he does not get the irony/patheticism of the "Jump to Conclusions" board mat that is shown in the movie. Woody probably spends sleepless nights angry with himself at not thinking of the idea first and wondering how the hell they have the audacity to present it to the public in a movie first, rather than try to put it on the market where it can make so much more money? Then he probably goes to the refrigerator and looks for foods he can make bad puns out of in future columns, thinks about how funny the autobiography he is writing, called "Turn the Paige," is going to be, and then walks slowly back to his bedroom to weep again.

Oh, and again, they beat Oakland. I would say 9-10 teams will be able to brag about this at the end of the year.

The 5-foot-10, 182-pound Royal was considered too short to be a premier receiver in the NFL.

He was a 2nd round pick. Out of all the football players eligible to play in the NFL, he was among the top 64 players. No one was doubting him, quit puff piecing this, and stick to bad puns.

So was Rick Upchurch, 5-10 and 175 pounds. In his first professional game for the Broncos in 1975, against Kansas City, Upchurch finished with 284 all-purpose yards (three receptions for 153, one rush for 13, one punt return for 30, three kickoff returns for 88).

This was maybe the weakest attempt ever to show much knowledge one person has about football. It's like George W. Bush trying to name foreign leaders that he is friends with or knows by name. Except this is way more random, it's like if George W decided he was going to name who the Prime Minister of Latvia was in 1988 to prove he knows foreign leaders.

In the most impressive rookie wide receiver/returner/rusher performance since then, the award goes to: Eddie Royal.

This award is recognized by being named in a Woody Paige column. Such a prestigious award. Only the Dundies can compare to the prestige that this unnamed award bestows on a person.

In one case you have a fictional character, Michael Scott, who acts like a juvenile, tells bad jokes, none of his co-workers or friends respect him, and appears to be oblivious to the fact he is a loser. In the other case you have Woody Paige, whose name sounds like a fictional character's name, writes and acts like a juvenile, no one in the world respects him, tells horrible puns, and knows is oblivious to the fact he is a loser. The similarity is striking.

He's certainly more seasoned than a couple of wide receivers on the Raiders' roster. Javon Walker, dumped by the Broncos in the offseason, didn't play because of an injury, and Ashley Lelie, dumped by the Broncos after the 2005 season, had a couple of receptions and came up with a late catch in the end zone.

More seasoned than Javon Walker and Ashley Lelie after one game? He has neither been in the league longer than these two players nor has he put up any numbers yet, after one game, that would lead anyone to say this. Javon Walker has two seasons of 1,000 yards receiving and Ashley Lelie has one in their careers respectively. Granted both are horrible players right now, but comparing Eddie Royal to two horrible WR's on the worst team in the league does not prove any type of point. Then saying he is more "seasoned" makes even less sense, just simply because Eddie Royal has played one game in his NFL career.

Eddie Royal may be the next Jerry Rice or he could also be the next Michael Clayton, not the movie, the Tampa Bays WR. Don't get too excited quite yet until there have been a couple more games played...preferably against higher quality opponents.

No wide receivers were drafted in the first round this year. Ten were picked in the second round. Royal was the fifth.

Wow, what a slap in the face. You mean teams had the audacity to not think he was the 4th best WR in the entire country coming out of college, but only the 5th? He should be beyond angry. He may as well have not even gotten drafted at that point.

Many scouts in the NFL and some people in Denver questioned the Broncos for taking Royal over DeSean Jackson, who went to Philadelphia six selections later.

Many scouts may end up being correct...or wrong. It has been one game.

And scouts and skeptics were still wondering after Jackson, in his own debut Sunday, finished with eight catches for 97 yards and six returns for 106 yards.

That is 203 total yards of offense. Not bad but it was against St. Louis. Eddie Royal had 185 total yards. Not bad either, but it was against the Raiders. Under Woody Paige thinking, where one week makes up the entire year, the Broncos would have been correct in choosing Jackson over his new BFF Eddie Royal. Just wanted to point this out.

It should be fun to compare the two all season. The other eight second-rounders were of little or no help in Sunday's and Monday's games.

Most WR's in their first year are of little to no help traditionally. This does not make Eddie Royal any better or any worse.

"ER," the TV show, may own Thursday nights, but E.R., the rookie receiver, possessed Monday night. He was anything but Monday night raw.

This is horrible, horrible journalism. This is the type of conclusion a high school student in remedial classes would write and the Denver Post should be embarrassed they printed this. I am starting to think the way you are promoted within the newspaper industry is that you are the last one who did not quit your job or die of natural/non natural causes. That would explain Woody Paige's columns still being printed in a newspaper. That has to be the reason.

2 comments Bad Ego!

I realize I have not been focusing on hard hitting journalism lately but the national sportswriters have been very sneaky as of late and have not written anything I feel the need to attack. Bill Simmons is taking a 10 week vacation to focus on making himself more money through book sales, Jemele Hill wrote a column I agree with as much as I can agree with a column she writes, and Peter King is talking about kids making out under a blanket, so I can't count on any of them. Fire Joe Morgan even attacked the Dave O'Brien column I had bookmarked.

Good thing Mark Kriegel and his mug shot photo tackle an enormous scientific problem. How to separate one's ego from his body so the ego, which as everyone knows is just some asshole hanging out in your body causing you to be an asshole, can not disrupt the football team. It's kind of like Innerspace except the ego is not quite as annoying as Martin Short.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/8363808/On-the-Mark:-Shockey

It was often said that Jeremy Shockey possessed the physical skills of a wide receiver. The problem, at least for the defending Super Bowl champions, is that he had a receiver's ego as well.

Ba-da-boom! Good one Mark! I can do it too!

It is often said Bill possessed the demeanor of a little child. The problem, at least for his neighbors two young children, is that he liked little children too much.

It is often said Mark possessed the writing skills to suck an audience in. The problem, at least for his audience, is that he sucked too.

Maybe that one was a little off. What a way to start a column though. I AM sucked in. If this were Grease and I were in a leather jacket, I would be surrounding Mark right now asking him to "tell me more, tell me more." Later I would get a girl who looks like a man pregnant, dance on a car and get knocked out before a big car race.

The position has become the greatest haven for trash-talkers, self-promoters and prima donnas in all of American sports.

Oh hell yes Mark, that is so true. I have never heard this before though. Is ESPN aware of the penchant for receivers to do this? If not, then need to hire some of them for the pre game shows they have, possibly interview them, and cover these gentlemen in training camp. That would make terrific television.

I suspect you need their kind of ego (though not necessarily the mouth) to catch a pass over the middle of the field, to fear not that blow from the blind side.

Marvin Harrison has it, so you are completely correct. Tony Gonzalez has to be the biggest ego tripping star I have ever heard of. Did you know he saved a man from choking recently? What everyone failed to mention is he was beating the shit out of the guy and just happened to knock the food out after he hit the guy in the chest with a tire iron. What an ego!

Despite the imposing physique and all his biker-chic body art, Shockey wasn't unlike that snot-nosed kid you may recall from your touch football days. He was always open.

Yeah....that snot nosed kid was always....open? I am going to go ahead and stop you there. This analogy does not make sense. Is it an analogy or a reference to Shockey's ego? Sorry but wouldn't you want your players to feel they are open all the time and how is this a bad thing? Would you prefer Gerald Contrarian, the WR who played for the Idaho Lightning in the old PFL (Pacific Football League), who always insisted he was never open. Great guy, always opened the door for his mother, paid his bills on time. He played one year in the PCL because he never was open. From then on, coaches took players on their team who always claimed to be open. Historians still wonder why.

The great egos are tolerated, even celebrated, as long as they're cost-effective. But Shockey, the 14th pick in the 2002 draft, never developed into the franchise player he was forecast to be, that game-breaking receiver who came off the line.

This was all his fault. Back in 2002 the tight end was actually responsible for throwing the ball to himself. Not many people remember that time.

Ok, enough sarcasm. Can we be honest? Eli Manning was not exactly the model QB for his first couple years. Do you think maybe the fact Eli could not get him the football when he was wide open had anything to do with this? This is like blaming a WR for having a bad Quarterback. No, it is blaming the receiver for having a bad QB. Other than a four week period last year, Eli Manning has been bad.

He'd never play a full 16-game season. Most damning, of course, was the fact that the Giants would go on to win the Super Bowl without him.

Injuries were a problem with Shockey as well. I think it was his ego that would break his leg from the inside of his body because it was just so pissed off that he never got the ball.

Just because they won a Super Bowl without him does not mean he sucks and is no reason why he should not still be on the Giants team. This is the same logic people use when they say Alex Rodriguez sucks because the Yankees won 4 World Series with Scott Brosius at third base.

None of this has anything to do with an ego problem.

Four days before that championship game, I asked Eli Manning if he had spoken to Shockey since the team's arrival in Arizona.
"I've not spoken to Jeremy this week," said Manning, before adding none too convincingly, "Uh, so, I'll try to talk to him sometime."

I am going to take a deep breath before I write this because I want to stay calmish. There is a litany of reasons that Eli Manning did not talk to Jeremy Shockey before the Super Bowl. I will list them below for your perusal and you can choose which of these make more sense than the fact Shockey is such an asshole Eli did not want to talk to him.

1. Eli was preparing for the fucking Super Bowl and did not have time to to talk to Jeremy Shockey because this was going to be the biggest game of his entire life against a team that had gone undefeated throughout the entire season, so Manning knew it was going to be a difficult chore and he had to be focused, so he did not have time to answer stupid fucking questions about injured players because that certain injured player was not even playing in the game that Manning was preparing for and Eli was also wondering why the stupid writer would ask this question of him when he was obviously preparing for the most important game of his life in front of the biggest audience that any athlete can ever play in front of.

In fact, Manning — who flourished, unadmonished, in Shockey's absence — hadn't even seen him. Nor did he care to.

He did not care to because he was preparing for the Super Bowl.

What's more, outside of a few reporters who could've used the smart-ass quotes, nobody seemed to miss him.

You know why the reporters did not use the quotes? They were smart enough to realize the quote was given four days prior to the Super Bowl when Manning was probably too focused on the game ahead and the players who were actually playing. Basically this quote was a non story, except to Mark Kriegel, who found it so important he put it in an article after the Giants traded Shockey.

And do you know why nobody missed him? Because the bigger story was the game and the Patriots attempting to go perfect throughout the entire season. Is this a hard issue to understand?

Think about it: The Giants actually decided to quarantine him in a luxury box for the duration of Super Bowl XLII.

Think about it: The luxury box has free food, beer and a great view of a historical game. I would not call it quarantine.

The end came Feb. 3 in that luxury box, where Shockey was forced to watch as Manning earned the Super Bowl MVP.

I am sure everyone in the luxury box was holding Shockey's head forward forcing him to watch his team win the biggest game on a national stage that he could not play in because of an injury that had nothing to do with ego.

A receiver like Shockey can endure broken bones, but never a bruised ego.

Ba-da-boom! The Giants are not better off with Kevin Boss as the starting tight end and you are stupid if you think they are better off.

0 comments Jemele says "Hiel Hitler!"

What is female, has two legs and constantly insults her readers with needless references to race and her own incredibly useless writing?

Jemele Hill. She has come out of the closet as a Celtics hater. That's not the problem, the content of the article and her writing is the overriding problem.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/080614

I thought I would be OK. Turns out, I was as wrong as Skip Bayless.

Ba-da-boom.

I'm not sure I can handle seeing Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett -- three of the NBA's most likable players -- hoist the Larry O'Brien trophy.

I am not sure I can handle reading this rest of this column now that I have started it. It's like chugging a two liter of Pepsi, where it seems like a good idea but once you start you realize you have to commit completely or you will throw up. That's how I feel.

Not that there's anything wrong with those three guys, but old dislikes die hard. I came of age in my NBA fandom in the 1980s. Being from Detroit, you already know what that era means to me.

You like teams that were the very epitome of dirty players?

They've outplayed the Lakers. They've smothered Kobe Bryant. They practically have Pau Gasol in the fetal position sucking his thumb.

I mean this column is already shit, I am just going to let the writing speak for itself and comment as a little as possible. I would say I was going to give her enough rope to hang herself, but I am not Kelly Tilghman.

Oh by the way, Miss Captain Research. as I will now call her, must not have noticed Gasol is averaging 15 ppg and 11 rebounds in the series and Kobe has only scored 26 ppg and has 6 assists a game. Just saying.

Equally appalling is that some of my friends -- people I consider hardcore Detroiters -- have actually been rooting for the Celtics in the Finals.

Maybe they are not so short sighted as you seem to be to realize the Pistons had a rivalry with the Lakers in the late 80's and early 90's that was a step or two below the Celtic rivalry. So possibly these hardcore Detroiters realize they don't really care who wins and just like basketball. Maybe they would like to to have lost in the Eastern Conference Semifinals to the team that won the NBA Title.

That's just gross.

Not as gross as your hair. Just saying.

Rooting for the Celtics is like supporting inflation, unemployment and locusts. It's like praying for Eva Mendes to get married and for Brad Pitt to be disfigured.
It's like wishing dollar bills and free time for Pacman Jones. It's like hoping the pit bull doesn't take Michael Vick's pinky as a memento. It's like wanting Ron Artest's raps on repeat. It's like coveting fungus.

These analogies are stupid and so are you. As an economist I would like to submit, and I realize you did not know this because you are stupid stupid person and have an IQ around 95 which officially would qualify you as a stupid stupid person, that some inflation is not bad and some unemployment is not all together bad at all for the economy. Moving on...

Reading this I realized what was missing from this. Fortunately Deadspin.com helped me!

Rooting for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It's like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan.

I guess ESPN took that part out because I did not get to read it without Deadspin helping me find out about it. Her references now officially make zero sense, make light of a nuclear standoff, AND mock the single greatest attempted extermination of a race of the last 100 years. That's like the triple crown of offensiveness in writing. Really hard to do.

Warning: At this point, reader may have difficult understanding what the author is attempting to say and her reasoning will not make sense. The author obviously needed to write a longer article and had no more material.

I realize most people don't consider the Boston-Detroit rivalry the same as Yankees-Red Sox,

If I were her editor, I would have her change "most people" to "no one I have ever heard about/met/seen" and then look for a new job or kill myself.

There was a certain amount of begrudging appreciation for the Lakers because Magic is from Michigan and won an NCAA championship at Michigan State.

Sttttttretchiiiiiiiiiiiiing logic has commenced. So the people appreciated the Lakers because one player on the team won a championship while attending a school in the state? I guess he may have been a legend in the state but I don't see how they could not hate the Lakers who had beaten the Pistons in the Finals in 1989.

Based on this logic, these are some teams I could have "appreciated."

1. The 1980's Lakers with James Worthy

2. The 1990's Bulls with Michael Jordan

3. The 2000's Pistons with Rasheed Wallace.

4. The 2000's Spurs with Tim Duncan.

Actually, the last two don't really count but why don't I fucking appreciate them anyway. I realize state pride is super rad but this is a weak reasoning for "appreciating" a team that could be your second biggest rival in the 1980's and early 90's.

Admittedly, to some degree it was about race. Detroit is 80 percent African-American, the mostly white Celtics teams of the past had a tough time being accepted by black audiences.

Does this come off as a bit racist by Jemele? By the way, if we switched this rationale of thought, and the white audience had a similarly narrow line of thought about race then the NBA would be disbanded by now. I am again just mentioning this for you to chew on and think about before you admit again your city was slightly racist in the 1980's.

Boston was the home of the infamous Charles Stuart case -- in which a white man murdered his pregnant wife and blamed it on a black suspect who didn't exist.

Again, I am having a difficult time putting the logic in line for this isolated event causing you, 20 years later, to not want the Celtics to win. If you had just left it at, "I am a Pistons fan," it would have made sense. Bringing in other variables only helps to muddy up your point. Why don't you see this? I realize Boston is a racist city but can't you just stick to basketball reasons you hate the Celtics?

Those feelings toward the city and the Celtics have subsided, in large part because our own racial attitudes have progressed.

If by "our" you mean "apparently everyone but me" then this sentence would make sense.

Considering Detroit is America's favorite impoverished punch line, it probably hurts every Detroiter just a little to see Boston succeed.

Ouch, sorry the city we were looking for was the generic "ghetto." Sorry, but please play Six Degrees of Offensiveness again next week.

It's an anguish, I'm finding, that never truly goes away.

Finally, an emotion we have in common. I feel that way when I see you on television, hear your name, or read your columns.

0 comments Randy Hill Helps the World Avert Another Crisis

Do you believe in jinxes? Randy Hill does. Do you think the reason some teams don't make it back to the Super Bowl year after year has more to do with what the difficulty of getting to the Super Bowl in the first place entails? Randy Hill disagrees. Do cutesy columns about jinxes not belong on major sports websites? Randy Hill disagrees. Do you believe the Patriots are going to make the playoffs? Randy Hill agrees. Do I understand this column or what point Randy Hill was trying to prove? No.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/8186744/Jinx-has-its-work-cut-out-for-it-in-Patriots

Randy's article begins with the word "jinx" in it, which we all know does not exist, so this article is obviously tongue in cheek and he is going to mock the jinx. Right?

I understand and appreciate your distaste for the New England Patriots.

If you did, you would know it is not a distaste.

Maybe the word distaste is an understatement and should be replaced by the words screaming hatred.

I think my previous thought was that they could burn in Hell forever, but screaming hatred works for me. What is the point of your article?

With that in mind, I'm here to assist in building a reasonable case against the Patriots relative to their potential success during the upcoming season. Unfortunately, we have some work to do; according to the sharpies in Vegas, the Pats are favored to win the next Super Bowl.

I am not suing the Patriots for being a good team, I hate them for it, that and cheating, and also being douchebags, so there is no need to build a case. Oh, they are also douchebags who have bandwagon fans, I forgot that part. So this article is tongue in cheek, I think. He references how Vegas is always wrong. So, there is no need to "work" to build a case, we can just let fate take care of it's self?

But the anti-Patriots crowd may have karma on its side.

We have karma, Vegas always being wrong, AND a jinx. This is like a Fox Sports column version of a Science Fiction movie. If we had the Force, then and only then, would I feel good about the Patriots not making the playoffs next year. Also, if they weren't the best team in the league right now on paper, that would make me cuddle with my blankie tighter at night as well.

By the way, what the fuck is this "jinx?" If you are going to start a column off about a jinx, generally you want to define the jinx at some point.

Yeah, that would be the not-quite-infallible jinx attached to NFL teams returning to action following a Super Bowl defeat. With recent history as our touchstone, please note that six of the last seven Super Bowl losers failed to make the playoffs the following season.

Thanks Randy, and your fly is open.

So the jinx is that six of the last seven Super Bowl losers failed to make the playoffs the next year? I would agree and say this is odd but think it may have more to do with the parity in pro football and is a reminder of how hard it is to put together a good team year after year. Or it could be a magical jinx. Your fly is still open.

While acknowledging that it would seem impossible for the Patriots to sink to those levels, let's take a look at the potential categories defining their potential (though slim) for demise:

Although New England's candid-camera activities cost the franchise a first-round draft choice, the hit was mitigated because the San Francisco 49ers had coughed up a first-round pick to the Pats the year before. Commissioner Roger Goodell destroyed the video evidence, and despite recent allegations of injured-reserve shenanigans, the Patriots' greatest sanctions may already be in the rearview mirror.

That's it. The potential for demise is increased because they were not affected by the punishment the league gave them and the issue has been taken care of and should not affect the team in any way? You don't understand what you are writing. Put down the Natural Light and re-read the sentence you just wrote.

(Randy Hill as a doctor): "I am afraid it looks bad for little Tommy. He is bleeding internally and he may lose his leg due to the blood loss."

(Timmy's mother) "Where does he stand doc? Will he be able to walk again?"

(Dr. Randy Hill) "Fortunately, we stopped the internal bleeding and he is in the recovery room right now running sprints."

(Timmy's mother) "I thought you said..."

(Dr. Randy Hill) "We'll just pray the blood loss does not affect him too much. He is touch and go."
OK, losing cornerback Asante Samuel is good for the anti-Patriots crowd, but draft wonks believe the Pats did well (second-round pick Terrence Wheatley) at replenishing the DB pool. Never underestimate this franchise's ability to almost always develop its existing talent. Observers hoping the Pats' aging linebacker corps will become a liability grudgingly admit the addition of Jerod Mayo with the Niners' pick was a swell move. Adalius Thomas and newcomer Victor Hobson aren't exactly ready for the seniors' tour.

So are you being sarcastic and saying there is no way the Patriots miss the playoffs? Then you should have called the article, "Why there is no jinx and the Patriots will be in the playoffs" and specifically began the sentence before this list with this heading, "Turning the negatives for the Patriots to return to the playoffs into positives."

Here's the problem Randy. We have no idea if Wheatley is good and no one is going to know if Mayo is any good because he has not played a game yet either. So just saying these players are going to be good does not prove your point, whatever the hell that point you are trying to make is.

So you wrote the article as tongue in cheek saying the Patriots have nothing to worry about in making the playoffs, and then bring up points why they could not make the playoffs but not actually include any reasons why they would not make the playoffs in these points. Are we on the same page?

Jerod Mayo may be Jesus in cleats but you can't just assume he will be great and say, "See, they have nothing to worry about," and end it with that. Maybe Victor Hobson and Adalius Thomas are not old but the other two LBs they have are. Who the fuck is Victor Hobson?

OK, so the loss of this future Hall-of-Fame quarterback could be our last gasp at making an argument against the Pats' playoff return. It would help if EA Sports put Brady's likeness on the cover of Madden '09, but his absence must be part of some conspiracy.

I get it now, Randy is mocking Patriot haters! Funny shit Randy! So this whole article was written to mock people like myself who hope the Patriots miss the playoffs? You are pathetic and the sad part is I read your article like nine times and still don't know exactly what the hell it says.

After sifting through our four Pats-demise categories, it seems obvious that keeping New England out of the playoffs would require more mojo than this prevailing jinx can muster.

You said nothing negative about them in any your "demise" categories about the Patriots. How about these "demise" categories that happened to a couple other teams that did not make the playoffs. These could all happen to the Pats, but it would not be a jinx, it would just be how football is:

1. They end the season with 14 players on the IR (Panthers- 2004)
2. They lose their quarterback for the majority of the season (Eagles- 2005)
3. The entire team gets old at the exact same time (Raiders - 2003)

See, it does not have to be odd jinx that you just made up that explains everything, it can just be bad luck. Stop the jinx talk and begin writing articles that are coherent. I think you look like Randy Quaid a little bit.