Bruce Jenkins seems to have been concerned the designated hitter would ruin the World Series. I have no idea why he was afraid this would happen and apparently he believes the designated hitter ruining the World Series is a fear that many people share. But it's okay, the designated hitter is flawed, but did not ruin the World Series. That's good to know, especially since I'm not sure when exactly the designated hitter has ruined any World Series. Bruce Jenkins is just relieved the World Series went off without a hitch and the DH didn't ruin it all.
Was it really so terrible? Has it ever been that bad?
Yes, this column is really that bad. It's probably terrible. It's a column that screams, "I don't like change, except I like change when it comes to changing things in baseball the way I want them. In that case I like change. Also, I make bad arguments and am generally closed-minded."
Each autumn, we hear that the designated-hitter disparity will ruin the World Series
I don't think it ruins the World Series, but generally the National League has a perceived advantage because the National League rules allow the National League World Series representative to play at normal strength, while the American League World Series representative plays a hitter down or has to put the DH in the field at a National League park. When playing a World Series game in an American League park, the National League doesn't have to adjust their normal lineup and can have the advantage of putting a good hitter at DH and not having the pitcher bat. See, the National League team has to adjust, but this adjustment doesn't change the team in a negative fashion, while the American League team has to adjust in a National League park, and the adjustment is a negative because a hitter who was in the lineup for the entire season has to play the field or be on the bench.
and the rules should be changed immediately, lest we all run for cover as the world is about to end.
I've not heard this either. I've heard someone say the designated hitter rule should be changed immediately, but again, that's about it. I've read columns that simply mention the National League might have an advantage in the World Series (though this didn't help the Cardinals), but I haven't read anything saying the world will end if the DH is used in American League parks, but not National League parks.
All too often, it's a noisy commotion over nothing. I'm still trying to
figure out how this allegedly awkward situation has wrecked the
Cardinals-Red Sox competition - or any other World Series, for that matter.
You know what I would like to read from Bruce Jenkins? I would like to read excerpts from columns written that claim the DH would ruin the World Series. At least that way I would know what Bruce Jenkins was talking about with this "noisy commotion" and his concerns about figuring out how this "allegedly awkward situation" wrecked the World Series. I've read articles from Scott Miller and Jon Morosi saying the National League had an advantage due to the use of the designated hitter. Logic tells me not having the DH is an advantage for the National League, but I have no idea how much of an advantage it would be. It's like if the AFC played a 10-on-10 game of football and the NFC played a 11-on-11 game of football. The NFC team would be at a disadvantage in the Super Bowl if AFC rules were used because a player that is usually on the field would not be on the field as much during the game. That's possibly a bad example, but hopefully you get my point.
The Red Sox were supposed to be in big trouble heading into St. Louis, having to bench either David Ortiz or Mike Napoli because the non-DH landscape would leave one of them without a position.
Is this an argument from 2004 or 2007? I remember there being a concern in both of those World Series that the Red Sox may have to bench Ortiz, but it turned into much ado about nothing. Jon Morosi stated the American League doesn't have a great advantage over the last 19 games during the last seven World Series in National League parks (prior to this year the AL was 5-14 in NL parks over the last seven World Series), but I'm not sure that means the Red Sox were in big trouble because that's not a huge sample size.
Ortiz did some grumbling, but he found his first baseman's glove, went
out to play some authentic baseball and helped the Sox win two of the
three games.
This is David Ortiz grumbling:
"I'm down to do whatever my manager wants me to do," Ortiz said. Then he
added, with a smile, "Just go out there and wish me good luck."
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Thursday, December 5, 2013
6 comments Bernie Miklasz Thinks Yadier Molina Got Overlooked in the MVP Voting Because He Played for a Successful Team
It's pretty well known that many MVP voters factor in how well a player's team performed during the season when deciding which NL/AL player to vote for MVP. This has been done for a long while now. Last year in the American League the fact Miguel Cabrera's team made the playoffs and Mike Trout's team did not, despite Trout's team having won one more game than Cabrera's team, was used as a reason that Cabrera deserved the AL MVP. Bernie Miklasz introduces an interesting idea today that Yadier Molina was overlooked in the NL voting because he plays for a successful team, which is an idea I absolutely can not believe can be true. If anything, the fact Molina played for the NL World Series representative had to help his cause for NL MVP. Not so, says Bernie. While he makes a few valid points in this column, his efforts fall short because Bernie also lauds the two Cardinals beat writers for voting for Molina as MVP because they know of his daily contributions to the Cardinals team. Isn't this true of any beat writer though? They follow a team all year long and so they naturally will think certain players on a team are more valuable than a player on another team and could have a bias towards that player at times.
During the season the Cardinals seemingly had three MVP candidates: catcher Yadier Molina, second baseman Matt Carpenter and first baseman Allen Craig.
Allen Craig is a really spiffy player, but you've lost me off the bat by calling him an MVP candidate. Unless this is Bernie's way of showing that nearly EVERY player is an MVP candidate because any active player could be named MVP, in which case he is mocking the way the MVP is discussed and I send him congratulations.
With three contenders in play for the award, it would make it difficult — if not impossible — for a Cardinal to win it.
The 2012 Detroit Tigers had three MVP candidates: Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder. They all were in the Top 10 of the MVP voting. Against all odds, Miguel Cabrera won the 2012 MVP. Justin Verlander won MVP in 2011 when there were four Tigers in the Top 16 of the voting. So no, it is not impossible at all for three contenders that play on the same team to win the award. It is impossible for three candidates, none of which have an extremely strong case for the MVP, to win the award when they split the vote. That much may be true.
The field was winnowed to two when Craig suffered a serious foot injury on Sept. 4, missing the remainder of the regular season. That unfortunate, fluke mishap essentially eliminated Craig from receiving upper-ballot votes.
This must be as opposed to the non-fluky injuries that athletes suffer during a baseball game.
With the Cardinals' prime MVP contenders reduced to Molina and Carpenter, it led to an obvious question: would the teammates siphon votes from each other? Or more specifically: would support for Carpenter penalize Molina's MVP case?
In other words, can two players from one team, neither of which have the strongest case to be the MVP, win the National League MVP award? The answer is "no." I would submit Carpenter and Molina's MVP candidacy was hurt by their statistics relative to the other MVP candidates more than the idea they split the Cardinals vote. Bernie disagrees.
We know the answer.
Absolutely, yes.
Molina finished third in the voting.
Carpenter was fourth.
Thanks for writing.
Just like Bill Plaschke.
It's appreciated.
And not at all annoying.
Now that we've seen the voting results, Molina had no chance to win the award. He should have finished second. And Molina would have been second without Carpenter making a strong showing.
So basically Bernie admits that Molina would not have won the MVP even if Carpenter didn't receive any votes, yet he will continue down this road of saying the split votes between Cardinals teammates could be what prevented Molina from being MVP.
Not to mention, the idea of a split vote seems silly to me. I don't see how a person would vote for Molina if Carpenter wasn't on the ballot. Wouldn't that person conceivably not for Molina and vote for Andrew McCutchen or any of the other candidates on the ballot? I shudder to ask this, but are there really that many voters who say, "The Cardinals made the World Series, so I need to vote for one of their players as MVP." You know what, don't answer that. I just think a vote for Carpenter isn't necessarily a vote taken away from Molina, but could be a vote given to Andrew McCutchen or Paul Goldschmidt.
And 12 of the 30 MVP voters put Carpenter ahead of Molina on their ballots. Carpenter had a terrific and important season for the Cardinals, and it's nice to see him get this kind of recognition.
Good for you, Matt Carpenter! Now burn in Hell because you took votes away from Yadier Molina, the preferred St. Louis Cardinals MVP candidate.
But if you take a vote of Cardinals players, I'm certain that Molina would win the in-house MVP, and it would probably be unanimous.
Well, Cardinals player don't get to vote. If you took a vote of Matt Carpenter's family, I am sure he would be their choice for MVP and it would be unanimous. If you took a poll of the clubhouse of every team on who the MVP would be, it may not be Yadier Molina. It may be. It doesn't matter, Cardinals player don't vote.
That isn't a slap at Carpenter.
End of paragraph, on to the next paragraph!
It's more of a reflection on how much teammates revere Molina.
Great, his teammates like him. That doesn't make him the MVP.
It really didn't matter what any other NL player did in 2013; this MVP was going to be handed to McCutchen, and voters had their minds made up as soon as the "Cinderella" Pirates clinched a winning season, then a playoff spot. The landslide was underway.
The Pirates had not had a winning season in 20 years. The "Cinderella" can be taken out of quotes. But yes, everyone is biased against the Cardinals and the fix was in. Clearly the Cardinals were undermined by the fact everyone is jealous of what a great baseball town St. Louis is and didn't even consider how the Cardinals play the game the right way.
McCutchen was a worthy winner. I criticize no one who voted him first. But I just hope they voted for him for the right reason — a reason that would show McCutchen the respect he deserves.
This is as opposed to voting for Yadier Molina because, you know, his teammates really like him. Voting for Molina because he's well-liked it what is known as voting for him for "the right reasons."
McCutchen was worthy of the MVP because of how he played... there was no need to vote for him in order to validate the Pirates' surprising year and put a happy ending on a so-called storybook season.
You are just speculating this is why some voters voted for McCutchen. Voters should have voted for Molina because of how well he played and not because his team was the National League representative in the World Series. I hope no voter did that.
If Molina can't win it in a 2013 season in which he (A) won the Gold glove for defense; (B) won the Silver Slugger for offense; and (C) was the best player on the team with the NL's best record ... well, I ask you: when exactly will he win it?
When he has the best individual season among National League players and is considered by voters to be the most valuable player in the National League. That's when Yadier Molina will win the NL MVP. Paul Goldschmidt won the Gold Glove for defense and the Silver Slugger for offense but for some reason Bernie doesn't think he even deserves second place in the NL MVP voting. Why could that be? Oh yeah, Goldschmidt's team wasn't good enough for him to be the best player on the best team. If only Goldschmidt had found a way to have better teammates around him then he could have the same case to be made that Bernie just made for Molina.
Of course, there are some who believe voting for a player simply because he was the "best player" (who decided Molina was the best player on the Cardinals team?) on the best team is a stupid way to decide an MVP vote. So if a person thinks voting for the best player on the best team is a dumb way to decide an individual award, it seems Goldschmidt and Molina have the same case for NL MVP.
The obvious issue: So much of Molina's value is derived from areas that can't be quantified and ranked.
If you can't quantify and rank Molina's value, then how do you know he has value in those areas?
I get to watch Molina play on a daily basis, so I have a full understanding of just how essential Yadi is to every aspect of Cardinals' baseball. I really believe you have to see it every day to fully appreciate Molina's all-around brilliance, which transcends baseball-card stats and grade-school level baseball analysis.
That's great, but nearly every team has a player like this. Nearly very MLB team has a player you must watch everyday to appreciate his greatness and only by watching him everyday do you realize how valuable he is to a team. This doesn't make this player the MVP. I'm not discounting Molina as a serious MVP candidate, just elaborating on the truth that certain writers who see the same players on a daily basis learn to appreciate and think highly of these players. This is where biases are created.
This explains why Post-Dispatch baseball writers Derrick Goold and Rick Hummel cast the only two first-place votes for Molina: Because they see him far more often than the other 28 voters. This gives them a unique and comprehensive perspective of what Molina means to the team, and they recognize Molina's crucial role in elevating the performance of a very young pitching staff in 2013.
Right, but the fact they see him everyday and have a unique perspective doesn't mean the Diamondbacks beat writers don't see Goldschmidt everyday and sees what he means to the Diamondbacks team. A Braves beat writer sees how many runs for the Braves Andrelton Simmons saves with his defense and a Giants beat writer knows how well Buster Posey manages the Giants pitching staff. See, that's the problem. While Molina does have a case for MVP, this unique perspective doesn't mean Goold and Hummel know something the rest of the voters don't that elevates Molina above other candidates. It simply means they see Molina everyday and it creates this own bias of perceived importance to the Cardinals relative to the other MVP candidates and their importance to their team.
I commend my Post-Dispatch teammates for voting their conscience instead of showing anxiety over being called a "homer" by simple minds out there. Molina's problem is that there are no sabermetric valuations or basic baseball-card orthodoxy that accounts for his massive contributions in scouting opponents, running meetings, setting strategy, the calling of pitches, making adjustments, calming pitchers, motivating pitchers, and running the game. There's no way to put a stat on those things. It's something to be savored, not calculated.
Again, that's great. This is a bias of perceived importance relative to the other MVP candidates though. So it is being a bit of a "homer," because it assumes Paul Goldschmidt and Andrew McCutchen don't make the same massive contributions to making adjustments, positioning their fellow fielders or having a positive impact on their teammates.
Early in the postseason an MVP voter asked me to elaborate on Molina's value as a leader of the pitching staff.
"He's more than just a leader," I explained. "He's a de facto pitching coach."
The voter seemed confused by my assertion; I assume he thought I'd lost my mind.
But then during World Series the same voter approached me and said: "I get it now."
Just like if Bernie was around Andrew McCutchen he could see the way he motivates his teammates and helps them play better. I get Molina is a catcher and handles the Cardinals pitching staff, but screaming for voters to take into account intangible evaluations of a player that involves watching that player for more than a few games a year isn't possible. It's a flaw in the MVP voting system, but many times these beat writers who vote don't see all of the candidates as much as they should.
"Exactly," I said. "The pitching coach or manager doesn't have to go to the mound and use one of their visits in an inning. They don't have to, because Molina does it for them. They view him as an equal.
Apparently Dave Duncan had to do zero in-game management of his pitchers when he was with the Cardinals. That's good to know.
Just think about all of the pitching changes that Molina has prevented during a long season by making that trip to the mound instead of the pitching coach or the manager. That way, Mike Matheny can afford to stay with a pitcher a while longer, because the Cardinals aren't using their mound visits."
First off, Molina isn't the only catcher that does this. Second, this doesn't mean Matheny can stay with a pitcher long, it just means he or the pitching coach won't have to use up one of his mound visits to talk to a pitcher. The pitcher won't necessarily stay in the game longer because Molina visits the mound in place of Matheny or the pitching coach.
The people who see it on a daily basis get it. The people who don't have the opportunity to witness Molina daily have no way of really knowing, and I don't rip them for that.
This is just like Bernie doesn't have an appreciation for players on other MLB teams because he doesn't seem them play everyday. There seems to be an overwhelming feeling over the past few months from Cardinals beat writers and fans that the team has this innate specialness that no other MLB teams have.
If I wrote sports in another market, I wouldn't fully appreciate Molina, either.
Just like you don't fully appreciate Andrew McCutchen because you don't write in the Pittsburgh market. Just like you don't appreciate the energy Yasiel Puig brought to the Dodgers team because you don't write in the Dodgers market.
Let's take a look at a few of the interesting ballots in the NL MVP vote:
Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had Carpenter eighth and Molina ninth on his ballot. Brink put the two Cardinals behind two Reds, placing Joey Votto 4th and Shin-Soo Choo 7th. And Brink put the two Cardinals behind Milwaukee's Carlos Gomez. The Cardinals won the NL Central, but Brink had four other NL Central players ahead of Carpenter and Molina on his ballot. That'll teach those damned Cardinals to win the division.
So while I may argue with Brink's ballot, my bigger issue would be that Bernie believes because the Cardinals won their division this means individual players on that team should be more seriously considered for an individual award. That makes not of sense. The MVP is an individual award, so the reasoning that Carpenter and Molina should be above Votto and Choo solely because the Cardinals won the division isn't very persuasive to me.
Also, Carlos Gomez had a very good year if you want to consider defense. And clearly Bernie is considering defense when it comes to evaluating Yadier Molina's MVP candidacy, so I don't know why he wouldn't do the same for Carlos Gomez. If Gomez's defense is factored in, minus points for not playing the game the right way (the Brian McCann rule), then he is a pretty good NL MVP candidate.
Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald voted Molina 10th. If that wasn't odd enough, consider that Spencer had Votto 3rd, Dodgers shortstop Hanley Ramirez 6th, Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig 7th, and Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons 9th. Simmons is an exceptional fielder, the best shortstop (defensively) in the majors. I respect Spencer for putting Simmons on there. Too many voters fail to acknowledge defense. But if a voter puts a premium on defense, then why wouldn't he have Molina ranked better than 10th?
This is a good point by Bernie. Simmons isn't a great hitter so the 9th place spot on the ballot is for his defense, but then wouldn't a good hitting catcher who plays excellent defense be rated higher on the ballot? I don't see how Hanley Ramirez can be 6th on anyone's ballot. Don't get me wrong, he would have had an outstanding year if he had played 162 games. But he didn't play 162 games. He played 86 games. I just don't see how a player how a position player who has played less than 100 games in a season could be the MVP. Maybe that's just me.
Molina was on the DL, but he still caught more innings (1,115) than any NL catcher. And Puig was terrific, but he played in only 104 games. He was in the minors for the first two months. Sorry, but a player that wasn't in the majors for two months this season wasn't more valuable than Molina.
Of course after saying a player needs to play at least 100 games I will point that even though Puig didn't play in the majors for two months of the season, his presence in the Dodgers lineup had a positive effect on the team. Maybe it was a coincidence, but since Puig was called up on June 3 the Dodgers were 69-38. That's winning at a 64.5% clip. Of course this can't be attributed solely to Puig, but there does seem to be some evidence of how valuable he was to the Dodgers.
Juan Rodriguez of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel put Molina 9th ... behind Votto, Choo and Hanley Ramirez. Goodness, imagine if Ramirez had actually suited up for, say, 100 games.
Ramirez did hit .345/.402/.638 with 20 home runs and 190 OPS+ in the games he did play in, so it's fair to wonder if Ramirez had played the entire season what kind of numbers he could have put up. I don't know if it makes him a serious MVP candidate, but if he played a full season I think he would have been the MVP if he kept those numbers up.
I'm not going to go off on guys that put Carpenter ahead of Molina on their ballots. And most voters had Carpenter and Molina listed close together on their ballots. But it was a little strange to see Bill Center (San Diego Union Tribune) have such a wide gap, putting Carpenter 2nd and Molina the 7th.
This guy clearly should have asked the Cardinals players who the MVP was and then he could have switched Carpenter and Molina's spots. I still think it is interesting that Bernie wondered if Yadier Molina didn't win the MVP this past year when he would win it, but then admits Andrew McCutchen deserves the award. So Molina deserved it this year, but he didn't deserve it too.
Oh, well. I've also made some peculiar ballot choices through the years, so I guess I should hush up.
If Bernie has ever based an MVP vote entirely on whether that player was on a winning team or not, which I feel like he has done, then "peculiar" is a nice word for this kind of ballot.
During the season the Cardinals seemingly had three MVP candidates: catcher Yadier Molina, second baseman Matt Carpenter and first baseman Allen Craig.
Allen Craig is a really spiffy player, but you've lost me off the bat by calling him an MVP candidate. Unless this is Bernie's way of showing that nearly EVERY player is an MVP candidate because any active player could be named MVP, in which case he is mocking the way the MVP is discussed and I send him congratulations.
With three contenders in play for the award, it would make it difficult — if not impossible — for a Cardinal to win it.
The 2012 Detroit Tigers had three MVP candidates: Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder. They all were in the Top 10 of the MVP voting. Against all odds, Miguel Cabrera won the 2012 MVP. Justin Verlander won MVP in 2011 when there were four Tigers in the Top 16 of the voting. So no, it is not impossible at all for three contenders that play on the same team to win the award. It is impossible for three candidates, none of which have an extremely strong case for the MVP, to win the award when they split the vote. That much may be true.
The field was winnowed to two when Craig suffered a serious foot injury on Sept. 4, missing the remainder of the regular season. That unfortunate, fluke mishap essentially eliminated Craig from receiving upper-ballot votes.
This must be as opposed to the non-fluky injuries that athletes suffer during a baseball game.
With the Cardinals' prime MVP contenders reduced to Molina and Carpenter, it led to an obvious question: would the teammates siphon votes from each other? Or more specifically: would support for Carpenter penalize Molina's MVP case?
In other words, can two players from one team, neither of which have the strongest case to be the MVP, win the National League MVP award? The answer is "no." I would submit Carpenter and Molina's MVP candidacy was hurt by their statistics relative to the other MVP candidates more than the idea they split the Cardinals vote. Bernie disagrees.
We know the answer.
Absolutely, yes.
Molina finished third in the voting.
Carpenter was fourth.
Thanks for writing.
Just like Bill Plaschke.
It's appreciated.
And not at all annoying.
Now that we've seen the voting results, Molina had no chance to win the award. He should have finished second. And Molina would have been second without Carpenter making a strong showing.
So basically Bernie admits that Molina would not have won the MVP even if Carpenter didn't receive any votes, yet he will continue down this road of saying the split votes between Cardinals teammates could be what prevented Molina from being MVP.
Not to mention, the idea of a split vote seems silly to me. I don't see how a person would vote for Molina if Carpenter wasn't on the ballot. Wouldn't that person conceivably not for Molina and vote for Andrew McCutchen or any of the other candidates on the ballot? I shudder to ask this, but are there really that many voters who say, "The Cardinals made the World Series, so I need to vote for one of their players as MVP." You know what, don't answer that. I just think a vote for Carpenter isn't necessarily a vote taken away from Molina, but could be a vote given to Andrew McCutchen or Paul Goldschmidt.
And 12 of the 30 MVP voters put Carpenter ahead of Molina on their ballots. Carpenter had a terrific and important season for the Cardinals, and it's nice to see him get this kind of recognition.
Good for you, Matt Carpenter! Now burn in Hell because you took votes away from Yadier Molina, the preferred St. Louis Cardinals MVP candidate.
But if you take a vote of Cardinals players, I'm certain that Molina would win the in-house MVP, and it would probably be unanimous.
Well, Cardinals player don't get to vote. If you took a vote of Matt Carpenter's family, I am sure he would be their choice for MVP and it would be unanimous. If you took a poll of the clubhouse of every team on who the MVP would be, it may not be Yadier Molina. It may be. It doesn't matter, Cardinals player don't vote.
That isn't a slap at Carpenter.
End of paragraph, on to the next paragraph!
It's more of a reflection on how much teammates revere Molina.
Great, his teammates like him. That doesn't make him the MVP.
It really didn't matter what any other NL player did in 2013; this MVP was going to be handed to McCutchen, and voters had their minds made up as soon as the "Cinderella" Pirates clinched a winning season, then a playoff spot. The landslide was underway.
The Pirates had not had a winning season in 20 years. The "Cinderella" can be taken out of quotes. But yes, everyone is biased against the Cardinals and the fix was in. Clearly the Cardinals were undermined by the fact everyone is jealous of what a great baseball town St. Louis is and didn't even consider how the Cardinals play the game the right way.
McCutchen was a worthy winner. I criticize no one who voted him first. But I just hope they voted for him for the right reason — a reason that would show McCutchen the respect he deserves.
This is as opposed to voting for Yadier Molina because, you know, his teammates really like him. Voting for Molina because he's well-liked it what is known as voting for him for "the right reasons."
McCutchen was worthy of the MVP because of how he played... there was no need to vote for him in order to validate the Pirates' surprising year and put a happy ending on a so-called storybook season.
You are just speculating this is why some voters voted for McCutchen. Voters should have voted for Molina because of how well he played and not because his team was the National League representative in the World Series. I hope no voter did that.
If Molina can't win it in a 2013 season in which he (A) won the Gold glove for defense; (B) won the Silver Slugger for offense; and (C) was the best player on the team with the NL's best record ... well, I ask you: when exactly will he win it?
When he has the best individual season among National League players and is considered by voters to be the most valuable player in the National League. That's when Yadier Molina will win the NL MVP. Paul Goldschmidt won the Gold Glove for defense and the Silver Slugger for offense but for some reason Bernie doesn't think he even deserves second place in the NL MVP voting. Why could that be? Oh yeah, Goldschmidt's team wasn't good enough for him to be the best player on the best team. If only Goldschmidt had found a way to have better teammates around him then he could have the same case to be made that Bernie just made for Molina.
Of course, there are some who believe voting for a player simply because he was the "best player" (who decided Molina was the best player on the Cardinals team?) on the best team is a stupid way to decide an MVP vote. So if a person thinks voting for the best player on the best team is a dumb way to decide an individual award, it seems Goldschmidt and Molina have the same case for NL MVP.
The obvious issue: So much of Molina's value is derived from areas that can't be quantified and ranked.
If you can't quantify and rank Molina's value, then how do you know he has value in those areas?
I get to watch Molina play on a daily basis, so I have a full understanding of just how essential Yadi is to every aspect of Cardinals' baseball. I really believe you have to see it every day to fully appreciate Molina's all-around brilliance, which transcends baseball-card stats and grade-school level baseball analysis.
That's great, but nearly every team has a player like this. Nearly very MLB team has a player you must watch everyday to appreciate his greatness and only by watching him everyday do you realize how valuable he is to a team. This doesn't make this player the MVP. I'm not discounting Molina as a serious MVP candidate, just elaborating on the truth that certain writers who see the same players on a daily basis learn to appreciate and think highly of these players. This is where biases are created.
This explains why Post-Dispatch baseball writers Derrick Goold and Rick Hummel cast the only two first-place votes for Molina: Because they see him far more often than the other 28 voters. This gives them a unique and comprehensive perspective of what Molina means to the team, and they recognize Molina's crucial role in elevating the performance of a very young pitching staff in 2013.
Right, but the fact they see him everyday and have a unique perspective doesn't mean the Diamondbacks beat writers don't see Goldschmidt everyday and sees what he means to the Diamondbacks team. A Braves beat writer sees how many runs for the Braves Andrelton Simmons saves with his defense and a Giants beat writer knows how well Buster Posey manages the Giants pitching staff. See, that's the problem. While Molina does have a case for MVP, this unique perspective doesn't mean Goold and Hummel know something the rest of the voters don't that elevates Molina above other candidates. It simply means they see Molina everyday and it creates this own bias of perceived importance to the Cardinals relative to the other MVP candidates and their importance to their team.
I commend my Post-Dispatch teammates for voting their conscience instead of showing anxiety over being called a "homer" by simple minds out there. Molina's problem is that there are no sabermetric valuations or basic baseball-card orthodoxy that accounts for his massive contributions in scouting opponents, running meetings, setting strategy, the calling of pitches, making adjustments, calming pitchers, motivating pitchers, and running the game. There's no way to put a stat on those things. It's something to be savored, not calculated.
Again, that's great. This is a bias of perceived importance relative to the other MVP candidates though. So it is being a bit of a "homer," because it assumes Paul Goldschmidt and Andrew McCutchen don't make the same massive contributions to making adjustments, positioning their fellow fielders or having a positive impact on their teammates.
Early in the postseason an MVP voter asked me to elaborate on Molina's value as a leader of the pitching staff.
"He's more than just a leader," I explained. "He's a de facto pitching coach."
The voter seemed confused by my assertion; I assume he thought I'd lost my mind.
But then during World Series the same voter approached me and said: "I get it now."
Just like if Bernie was around Andrew McCutchen he could see the way he motivates his teammates and helps them play better. I get Molina is a catcher and handles the Cardinals pitching staff, but screaming for voters to take into account intangible evaluations of a player that involves watching that player for more than a few games a year isn't possible. It's a flaw in the MVP voting system, but many times these beat writers who vote don't see all of the candidates as much as they should.
"Exactly," I said. "The pitching coach or manager doesn't have to go to the mound and use one of their visits in an inning. They don't have to, because Molina does it for them. They view him as an equal.
Apparently Dave Duncan had to do zero in-game management of his pitchers when he was with the Cardinals. That's good to know.
Just think about all of the pitching changes that Molina has prevented during a long season by making that trip to the mound instead of the pitching coach or the manager. That way, Mike Matheny can afford to stay with a pitcher a while longer, because the Cardinals aren't using their mound visits."
First off, Molina isn't the only catcher that does this. Second, this doesn't mean Matheny can stay with a pitcher long, it just means he or the pitching coach won't have to use up one of his mound visits to talk to a pitcher. The pitcher won't necessarily stay in the game longer because Molina visits the mound in place of Matheny or the pitching coach.
The people who see it on a daily basis get it. The people who don't have the opportunity to witness Molina daily have no way of really knowing, and I don't rip them for that.
This is just like Bernie doesn't have an appreciation for players on other MLB teams because he doesn't seem them play everyday. There seems to be an overwhelming feeling over the past few months from Cardinals beat writers and fans that the team has this innate specialness that no other MLB teams have.
If I wrote sports in another market, I wouldn't fully appreciate Molina, either.
Just like you don't fully appreciate Andrew McCutchen because you don't write in the Pittsburgh market. Just like you don't appreciate the energy Yasiel Puig brought to the Dodgers team because you don't write in the Dodgers market.
Let's take a look at a few of the interesting ballots in the NL MVP vote:
Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had Carpenter eighth and Molina ninth on his ballot. Brink put the two Cardinals behind two Reds, placing Joey Votto 4th and Shin-Soo Choo 7th. And Brink put the two Cardinals behind Milwaukee's Carlos Gomez. The Cardinals won the NL Central, but Brink had four other NL Central players ahead of Carpenter and Molina on his ballot. That'll teach those damned Cardinals to win the division.
So while I may argue with Brink's ballot, my bigger issue would be that Bernie believes because the Cardinals won their division this means individual players on that team should be more seriously considered for an individual award. That makes not of sense. The MVP is an individual award, so the reasoning that Carpenter and Molina should be above Votto and Choo solely because the Cardinals won the division isn't very persuasive to me.
Also, Carlos Gomez had a very good year if you want to consider defense. And clearly Bernie is considering defense when it comes to evaluating Yadier Molina's MVP candidacy, so I don't know why he wouldn't do the same for Carlos Gomez. If Gomez's defense is factored in, minus points for not playing the game the right way (the Brian McCann rule), then he is a pretty good NL MVP candidate.
Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald voted Molina 10th. If that wasn't odd enough, consider that Spencer had Votto 3rd, Dodgers shortstop Hanley Ramirez 6th, Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig 7th, and Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons 9th. Simmons is an exceptional fielder, the best shortstop (defensively) in the majors. I respect Spencer for putting Simmons on there. Too many voters fail to acknowledge defense. But if a voter puts a premium on defense, then why wouldn't he have Molina ranked better than 10th?
This is a good point by Bernie. Simmons isn't a great hitter so the 9th place spot on the ballot is for his defense, but then wouldn't a good hitting catcher who plays excellent defense be rated higher on the ballot? I don't see how Hanley Ramirez can be 6th on anyone's ballot. Don't get me wrong, he would have had an outstanding year if he had played 162 games. But he didn't play 162 games. He played 86 games. I just don't see how a player how a position player who has played less than 100 games in a season could be the MVP. Maybe that's just me.
Molina was on the DL, but he still caught more innings (1,115) than any NL catcher. And Puig was terrific, but he played in only 104 games. He was in the minors for the first two months. Sorry, but a player that wasn't in the majors for two months this season wasn't more valuable than Molina.
Of course after saying a player needs to play at least 100 games I will point that even though Puig didn't play in the majors for two months of the season, his presence in the Dodgers lineup had a positive effect on the team. Maybe it was a coincidence, but since Puig was called up on June 3 the Dodgers were 69-38. That's winning at a 64.5% clip. Of course this can't be attributed solely to Puig, but there does seem to be some evidence of how valuable he was to the Dodgers.
Juan Rodriguez of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel put Molina 9th ... behind Votto, Choo and Hanley Ramirez. Goodness, imagine if Ramirez had actually suited up for, say, 100 games.
Ramirez did hit .345/.402/.638 with 20 home runs and 190 OPS+ in the games he did play in, so it's fair to wonder if Ramirez had played the entire season what kind of numbers he could have put up. I don't know if it makes him a serious MVP candidate, but if he played a full season I think he would have been the MVP if he kept those numbers up.
I'm not going to go off on guys that put Carpenter ahead of Molina on their ballots. And most voters had Carpenter and Molina listed close together on their ballots. But it was a little strange to see Bill Center (San Diego Union Tribune) have such a wide gap, putting Carpenter 2nd and Molina the 7th.
This guy clearly should have asked the Cardinals players who the MVP was and then he could have switched Carpenter and Molina's spots. I still think it is interesting that Bernie wondered if Yadier Molina didn't win the MVP this past year when he would win it, but then admits Andrew McCutchen deserves the award. So Molina deserved it this year, but he didn't deserve it too.
Oh, well. I've also made some peculiar ballot choices through the years, so I guess I should hush up.
If Bernie has ever based an MVP vote entirely on whether that player was on a winning team or not, which I feel like he has done, then "peculiar" is a nice word for this kind of ballot.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
5 comments MMQB Review: An NFL Committee Should Help NFL Teams Make More Decisions Edition
Peter King had no travel-related note last week in MMQB, but he did talk quite a bit about the Manning v. Brady matchup in Foxboro. This wasn't unexpected of course and Peter looked forward to the next matchup between these two quarterbacks (not these two teams, but these two quarterbacks) next season. This week after almost writing the Colts off last week, Peter gets back on the Colts bandwagon (again, we see his level of reaction elevated based entirely on the immediacy of what happened on the football field), is upset the officiating got in the way of a "Robert Griffin has totally redeemed himself" narrative, and is eager to tell us about what a bust Josh Freeman has been with the Vikings.
What a day. What a weekend. And it’s not over:
What? I thought the NFL season was over with a five-way tie for Super Bowl victor between the Saints, Seahawks, Patriots, Broncos, and 49ers. They are all going to Disney Land together, as a group, but only the quarterbacks for each team.
There will be time to get to that. Lots to cover before then, including:
1. What does Meryl Streep think about Starbucks?
2. What really is Colin Kaepernick's favorite type of pizza?
3. A quick list of things that annoy Peter about the general public.
4. Brett Favre on the farm. How is it going?
1. If the season ended today, Houston would have the first pick in the 2014 NFL Draft. Question is, who will be coaching Teddy Bridgewater?
The twist: Charlie Strong is the correct answer.
2. An officiating snafu roiled the end of the Sunday night game. Just what the NFL wants: Robert Griffin III’s trying to redeem himself, and the Monday morning headlines are all about Jeff Triplette.
How dare the officials get in the way of the narrative that Peter King wants to see played out. Robert Griffin was totally going to redeem himself and Peter was totally going to write about, then Jeff Triplette has to go and make a mistake which doesn't allow Griffin to redeem himself for a (perceived) underwhelming performance this season. The narrative was being written that Griffin would redeem himself for daring to not meet the media's expectations of him, but now the media won't let Griffin off the hook because of an officiating mistake. Don't blame Peter, it's not like he can control what he writes.
5. Denver’s most recent four foes are a combined 32-16. Next four: 16-32. The Broncos have a one-game lead for AFC home-field over New England, and they don’t play a winning team the rest of the way.
Remember earlier in the season when Peter was concerned that Peyton Manning would play a road playoff game against the Patriots? Lo and behold, now the Broncos are in the solid lead for home field advantage throughout the playoffs. It's been a very over-reactionary season for Peter.
8. The Mike Tomlin discipline for his bizarre or calculated (doesn’t matter which) pas de deux on the field in Baltimore Thursday will be discussed inside 345 Park Avenue today, with a decision likely by Wednesday. I expect a heavy fine, but no suspension or loss of draft picks.
How about the public execution of a Steelers' staff member? Because that seems about as logical as suspending Tomlin or taking away draft picks from the Steelers.
9. The Colts essentially won the AFC South Sunday. Actually, their magic number now is one—one loss by Tennessee or win by Indy clinches the division.
I hate over-using the word "literally," but it was literally last week when Peter King was writing about the Colts possibly losing the AFC South to the Titans. Peter even talked about the Colts possibly missing the playoffs. One week later...just one week later...Peter makes a note that the Colts have essentially won the AFC South now. This is yet another example of sportswriters putting too much emphasis on what happened the week before. It takes away some of the relevance and impact of MMQB when Peter overreacts to what happened during that current week's slate of games. Anyone with a brain knew the Colts had a bad habit of falling behind in a game and having to comeback, which could prevent them from winning games for the rest of the season, but they were still in good shape to win the AFC South. One week later, the Colts have essentially won the AFC South.
Now, a little bit of a different lead to the column, featuring a trip into a subject I’ve never been able to cover.
I hope it's not that discussion of the muff that Peter wanted to have with his readers last week. Just keep it NSFW, please .
Give me a few paragraphs before we get to the current events of Week 13.
Peter has written almost half of a page of this five page MMQB prior to writing this. So he has written almost 10% of MMQB already and wants a few more paragraphs before he discusses the events of Week 13. So what was the previous half-page of writing discussing? Just killing space to make the column look longer?
Last month I trailed Gene Steratore’s officiating crew—one of 17 seven-man officiating teams in the NFL—for a week, for a three-part series that will begin Wednesday at The MMQB.
But this week with the officials … this was unique.
The officials not only provided free coffee, but provided free Starbucks coffee. What a unique experience for Peter and a welcome breath of fresh air.
We typically know very little about the lives of officials or the inner workings of the jobs they do. The linguistic shorthand they use (“UNR” for “unnecessary roughness”) and the way jobs change just before the snap of the ball (the head linesman has the slot receiver, but if the slot receiver goes in motion beyond the quarterback, the head linesman switches to the innermost receiver on his side) become dizzying to keep track of.
If only they trained thoroughly in order to perform this job and received compensation for performing this job. Then I wouldn't feel so bad for the officials.
Here's the thing. "We" typically know very little about the lives of anybody in any profession, the shorthand used in that profession or the real difficulties those in a certain profession face until "we" do that job. So I wouldn't expect officiating NFL, college, or high school games to be any different.
Just a thought while Peter talks about how little we know about the officiating profession.
I’ll give you an example that just reared its head Thursday on the controversial Mike Tomlin play. Did you know that before every game, the head linesman asks the head coach: “Who is your get-back coach today?” That, of course, made me ask Mackie on the day I spent with him, “What in the world is a get-back coach?”
Really? Peter covers the NFL for a living and doesn't know what a "get-back" coach is? He's gotta be kidding. This is clearly a joke. Peter is making a funny.
“Every team designates one man on the sidelines to keep the coaches and players back from the field,” Mackie said.
I wish Mackie had haughtily told Peter to Google or Bing it for the answer to the question, just like Peter does to his MMQB readers when he wants them to research a question he poses.
That six-foot-wide white stripe on the sidelines, called the “No Fly Zone” by some crews, is supposed to be free of everyone during the game. But as you saw Thursday night, the enforcement of that is too lax. There were several breakdowns when Tomlin strayed too far on the stripe and actually had his right foot on the field, forcing Baltimore kick-returner Jacoby Jones to slightly alter his path. Pittsburgh’s designated get-back coach didn’t do his job. The two officials on Clete Blakeman’s crew running the sidelines following Jones, line judge Ron Marinucci and field judge David Maslow, should have flagged Tomlin for unsportsmanlike conduct (amazing they didn’t see it, or chose not to flag it) and didn’t do their jobs.
Losing a draft pick for something like this? I don't know who floated this as a possibility first, but it seems a little too draconian to me.
Now you know what the “get-back coach” is.
I'm not that smart and I already knew what this was. Peter should have known too.
So the Eagles are tied for the lead in the NFC East with Dallas this morning at 7-5—though Dallas holds the tiebreaker—and Philadelphia can thank Foles for that. Since he wrested the job from an injured Mike Vick a month ago, the Eagles are 4-0 and Foles has been close to perfect. For the season he’s a 63 percent passer, with 19 touchdowns and no interceptions. It’s December, and that’s right: no interceptions.
No interceptions. Is that right?
that’s right: no interceptions.
Thanks for clarifying that, Peter.
“Man, horrible throw, horrible decision,” Foles said from Philadelphia an hour after the game. “When I saw the flag and heard the call, I said, ‘Thank you God.’
God responded by saying, "I'm sorry, but I don't care about the outcome of a sporting event nor did I help you throw or not throw an interception. I got bigger and better things to do."
Foles is not an athletic quarterback, which everyone can see. But this game showed he has the kind of functional athleticism
Basically, Foles is a white quarterback and he doesn't trip over his feet as he runs, so he has "functional athleticism."
Foles said he appreciates how magnanimous Vick has been, both in the quarterback room and publicly; Vick has said Foles should keep the job because he’s playing so well. “One of the most dynamic quarterbacks in NFL history is also an incredible teammate,” Foles said. “He helps me every day.” He thinks he’s proven you don’t have to be a Vick to succeed in the Chip Kelly offense, and who can argue with him?
I think at this point it has been proven that you can't be Mike Vick to succeed in the Chip Kelly offense. I thought Chip Kelly's offense was a really good offense for Vick, but I also thought Charles Rogers was a great draft pick.
“I feel I’ve played well, but not as well as I can,” Foles said. “I’m 24. There’s still a lot of growth in my game. I need to improve a lot of things, especially my game management. But I think everyone tries to overanalyze the kind of quarterback that’s best for this offense.”
Apparently the best quarterback for the Eagles offense is a quarterback who doesn't throw interceptions. Who would have thought this could be true?
Foles, a clear No. 2 on Labor Day, is one of the most important players in the league as the NFL heads into the final quarter of the season.
BREAKING NEWS: The quarterback for a team trying to make the playoff is very important to that team.
What? Another officiating debacle? Washington did quite enough to lose to the Giants 24-17 at FedEx Field, and probably would have lost without striped impediments; their receiving corps ought to be nicknamed The Bad Hands People.
"Sure, this controversy I'm about to manufacture may not have made a difference in the result of the game, but let's pretend it did so I can manufacture a controversy and talk about Robert Griffin for a little bit."
Of course, this call did have an impact on the outcome of the game.
But referee Jeff Triplette’s crew had far too big a role in the final Washington drive of the game, and far too big an influence on the outcome.
And this will obviously be the first time the officials have had an impact on the result of an NFL game.
In the first play after the two-minute warning of the fourth quarter, on 2nd-and-5 from his own 41, Robert Griffin III hit Pierre Garçon for a gain close to the first down. The head linesman, Phil McKinnely, motioned for the chains to be moved forward for a first down, and the chain gang rushed up and changed the down marker from “2″ to “1.” First down. Except Washington was in the hurry-up offense, and the ref, Triplette, standing behind the offense, held up three fingers. Third down.
On the sideline, coach Mike Shanahan said he asked an official for a measurement, and the official responded, “You don’t have to. It’s a first down.”
Now, using complete hindsight, I think it's fair to say this is the point where Shanahan should have flipped out and said the officials were contradicting each other. I honestly have no clue how he should have done this, but when two officials are obviously contradicting each other then a head coach has to help them resolve this contradiction immediately rather than see how it plays out. Maybe Shanahan was hoping John Elway would help resolve the situation for him.
Fourth down, signaled Triplette. Shanahan seemed apoplectic on the sidelines. The side judge was telling him first down on the previous play; the head linesman had already signaled first down and moved the chains up … and now Triplette was insisting it was fourth down...safety Will Hill stripped Garçon of the ball. Giants ball. Game over. Had Garçon not coughed it up, Washington would have had a first down at the Giants’ 49 with the clock running and about 1:19 to play. So this didn’t cost Washington the game, per se. But it was a massive failure of the crew.
I would say this call was on par with the missed holding call in the New England-Carolina game, especially since the Redskins would have more than one play to win the game if the officials had made the correct call. This wasn't a judgment call that was made, but two officials signaling information to each team that contradicted each other. This call didn't cost the Redskins the game, but it at least cost them a chance to try and win the game.
After the game, in a pool report with a local writer, Triplette said he felt it would have been “an unfair advantage” to Washington to stop the clock and get the down situation straight with his crew and the chain gang.
Yes, it would be an unfair advantage to make sure the officials are making the correct calls, so instead the officials handed the Redskins a disadvantage by providing conflicting information on what down it was. Makes sense. The officials want to make sure everything stays fair to both teams, by handing out contradictory information that hurts one team.
By the crew’s failure to clarify what was going on, Washington’s play-calling was bastardized by the obvious impression that it was a different down than what it was.
I'm just sad that Robert Griffin's redemption narrative can't be continued now that he lost this game due to poor officiating. Obviously whether a quarterback wins a football game or not is what decides whether he performed well in that game, not his statistics during the game. So Griffin's tale of redemption in this game is completely dependent on being a winner and not a loser, through no fault of his own.
As I reported on NBC last night, the committee finalized its plan to address minority hiring last week by compiling a double-digit list of candidates for head coaches and general managers, going beyond the usual suspects. In essence, the league will provide the kind of service teams have been buying through headhunting firms:
Oh good, I'm glad the NFL has decided to start offering a service themselves that teams usually have to pay for. I always like it when the NFL meddles in the affairs of individual teams.
If an owner calls wanting to know whom the top offensive prospects are, the league will have a list of prospects to discuss with them, and will make available the men they’d want to discuss the openings with anyway—such as former coach Tony Dungy or former GM Bill Polian,
And really, doesn't every owner want to discuss the opening with Tony Dungy anyway? He's the conscience of the NFL, no, the conscience of the world overall. I think the NFL should make it mandatory that an owner gets permission from Tony Dungy to hire a head coaching candidate before the hire can be made.
“The focus is not just the hot name,” said Robert Gulliver, the NFL’s executive vice president for human resources. “It’s identifying the new talent too. New names will emerge.”
Well yes, the names of new head coaching candidates emerge every year. New talent emerges every year. The NFL doesn't need to help make this happen.
The coaching list, for instance, will contain the top names—Stanford coach David Shaw, former Bears coach Lovie Smith [both African-American] and former Bucs and Raiders coach Jon Gruden, who is white. But Jon’s not the only Gruden on the list. Brother Jay is on it; he’s the Cincinnati offensive coordinator who has shepherded Andy Dalton through two straight playoff seasons and is on the way to a third. And minority coaches Mel Tucker (Chicago defensive coordinator] and Eric Studesville (Denver running backs coach), both of whom have been interim head coaches, got high marks from the committee too.
Here's the thing though...these names would be on the short-list that any NFL team looking for a head coach would have. The NFL doesn't need to compile this list because smart NFL teams already are looking at these candidates...except for Jon Gruden. He just wants attention and isn't worth $9 million per year compared to these other candidates. I think paying attention to him as a head coaching candidate is a waste of time.
Of course, owners don’t have to use the committee’s recommendation. Who knows if any will? Owners will do what owners want to do. The system works when owners and hirers go into the process with a truly open mind. In 2007, Pittsburgh’s Dan Rooney had a blank slate entering the process, and he ended up hiring a coach he’d never met before, Mike Tomlin. In Chicago last winter, GM Phil Emery went into his search wide open, interviewed 13 candidates and hired Marc Trestman from the CFL—a man on no one’s radar entering the process.
So while acknowledging the NFL isn't where they want to be in terms of hiring minorities as head coaches, wouldn't it be fair to say most NFL teams have a wide open search process and often a candidate who was on few team's radar could end up with the head coaching job? So if the NFL wants to increase minority hiring, that's great, but I'm not sure asking teams to use this committee will increase the number of minority hires. You know what will increase the number of minority hires? If guys like David Shaw, Kevin Sumlin, and James Franklin show interest in coaching in the NFL or if a guy like Eric Studesville blows away an NFL team with his interview. It would also help if sportswriters like Peter King stop floating guys like Jon Gruden as possible head coaching candidates. It wastes time.
Just wondering what happens when owner Zygi Wilf and GM Rick Spielman, who went out on a limb to spend $2 million to bring Freeman in, have an encounter. Does Wilf say, “Why exactly am I paying $2 million to someone who’s a healthy scratch every week?”
I know Peter is full-on "Let's help save Greg Schiano's job in Tampa Bay by continuing to bash Josh Freeman" mode, but I don't think spending $2 million to bring Freeman into Minnesota is that much of a waste. There's no long-term commitment and $2 million for one season is a small price to pay in order to determine if Freeman could be "the answer" to the Vikings quarterbacking issues. I understand Peter's agenda here though. He likes Greg Schiano and is using his status as a writer to make it look like Schiano did a great thing in running the lazy bum Josh Freeman out of Tampa Bay. I get this feeling Peter has some sort of an agenda.
Fine Fifteen
1. Seattle (10-1). The Seahawks, who haven’t played in about three years, were supposed to be all healthy and happy entering December. Now Percy Harvin’s likely out tonight. His ailing hip is acting up. As every hour passes before this game for likely NFC home-field advantage against the Saints tonight, the worry beads get rubbed a little harder in the Pacific Northwest.
I wonder if Peter has any criticism for the Seahawks to trade a first round pick (where the Seahawks could have drafted DeAndre Hopkins, Cordarrelle Patterson, Robert Woods, or Keenan Allen) in exchange for Percy Harvin, as well as criticism for giving Harvin a big, new contract coming off an injury and fully knowing he was a malcontent at times in Minnesota? Of course not, because the Seahawks are winning games, while the Vikings are not. It's interesting to me how Peter points out the Vikings are idiots for paying $2 million to Josh Freeman for one year, then moving on to discuss the Seahawks and Percy Harvin, a player who has been injured almost all year and has a big long-term contract.
I'm not saying they are the same thing, but I think the $2 million for Freeman isn't a big deal. For some reason, Peter thinks differently. I think his agenda makes him think differently.
3. Denver (10-2). After playing three Sunday night games out of five, the Broncos saw daylight Sunday afternoon in Kansas City. They liked it.
Well, the game did end when it was dark out.
With a sweep over the Chiefs, the Broncos would have to collapse in the last four games to blow a first-round playoff bye now.
Remember earlier in this season when Peter had handed the Chiefs the AFC West and was getting hyped about a Brady-Manning wild card matchup?
6. San Francisco (8-4). Niners versus Rams, 2012: St. Louis wins the series, 1-0-1, by a composite score of 40-37. Niners versus Rams 2013: San Francisco wins the series 2-0, by a composite 58-24.
In the Rams' defense, they are missing their starting quarterback and they really weren't as good last year as their record against the 49ers indicated. The really bad news is that the Rams are 5-7 with games against Seattle, Arizona, Tampa Bay, and New Orleans ahead. This means Jeff "8-8" Fisher may have a hard time going 8-8 for the sixth time in his coaching career. The good news is he has a good chance of going below .500 for the sixth time in his coaching career. That's right, out of the seventeen full seasons he has coached in the NFL, Fisher has been .500 or below .500 in eleven of those seasons. Not that he isn't a fantastic coach of course.
10. Indianapolis (8-4). Well, the last month of games in the AFC South now has no meaning, with the Colts building a four-game lead over Tennessee with four to play. (Four, because the Colts swept the Titans this season, making a three-game lead in the standings beefier thanks to the head-to-head tiebreaker.)
And here just one week ago Peter thought the Colts could lose the division to the Titans. Things change so quickly in one week...
11. Kansas City (9-3). Reeling. A trip to Washington Sunday should help.
This is the team Peter had at #1 in his "Fine Fifteen" until the week of the first Broncos game when he dropped them to #2 in his "Fine Fifteen" after the Chiefs were coming off a bye. Very interesting. It's funny what happens when a team's schedule gets more difficult.
“I’m sounding a bit like a broken record, but sometimes you gotta gut out a win, however ugly it is.”
—Andrew Luck, Indianapolis quarterback, after winning ugly over the Titans 22-14.
At least until the Colts don't win a game, at which point Peter King will point out how they have won ugly and could be in a free fall. Also, notice Andrew Luck's statistics for the season. Then compare it to Robert Griffin's statistics for the year. One quarterback is perceived as selfish and underachieving and the other is perceived as continuing to improve as one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, despite the fact the underachieving quarterback has more passing yards, a higher completion percentage, more rushing yards, a higher QB rating, the same number of touchdown passes, but three more interceptions. It's always interesting to me how expectations and a team's performance relate to a quarterback's performance in the eyes of the media. Griffin has at least been the comparable quarterback to Andrew Luck in many ways this year. That's not what gets written though.
I admit I’m being hasty here. But just look at the numbers before you tell me I’m nuts to suggest Calvin Johnson, 990 catches from passing Jerry Rice, might one day challenge Rice for all-time greatness.
Peter is hasty in all things that he does. Calvin Johnson is 33% of the way to Jerry Rice's reception record and now Peter thinks Johnson could catch more passes than Rice. Hey, it could happen, but yes, it is also very hasty. Of course, this has been the year of being hasty and making snap judgments for Peter. So I don't know why I would expect anything to change.
I don’t believe he will, because he’s already missing a lot of practice time (and one game this year) to injury; he has a knee condition that troubles him regularly and, at 238 pounds he’s just a larger man than Rice was. More can go wrong with a bigger receiver than with one of Rice’s build, someone more lithe and 35 pounds lighter than Johnson.
"Calvin Johnson may pass Jerry Rice or he may not pass Jerry Rice. Either way, it will or won't happen. Now let's kill some space with speculative statistics."
I'll save your eyes. The two players' statistics will look similar when Calvin Johnson is 29 years and 1 month old and Peter projects this to mean that Johnson could pass Rice's receptions record.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
Didn’t travel for Thanksgiving.
Great, I was wondering if you had or not.
I did duck out just before 7 a.m. to buy a couple of newspapers in Manhattan, and I saw something I’d never seen before in my two years living on the East Side: A light changed to green on Second Avenue, and by the time it was red again (maybe 35 seconds), no cars had passed. That’s when you know it’s a holiday in the city.
Peter has never really seen a traffic jam on the East Side to where the light goes green and no cars pass the light? I would imagine this has to happen quite frequently.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think this is what I liked about Week 13:
a. Justin Tucker, in 32 career games including playoffs, has made 93 percent of his field goals (63 of 68). That says two things: Tucker should be DNA tested for the clutch gene.
Which won't be found because there's no such thing.
And the NFL needs to do something to make field goals harder.
b. I believe I’ve made that point before.
Perhaps you should mention that you have made this point before in point A where you are actually making the point yet again instead of mentioning you have made the point before in point B.
c. Is there a better 1-2 running back punch in football today than Reggie Bush and Joique Bell? Absolutely unequivocally not.
Great. Glad that's decided.
d. Bush: 182 total yards against Green Bay. Bell: 128. That’s 310 yards from people not named Calvin Johnson for Detroit in one game.
And naturally, despite whether this statement is true or not, Peter bases his opinion on the results from one game.
f. Julius Peppers is a hard day’s work for any offensive lineman, and Sunday in Minnesota was no different.
Well, he's a hard day's work when he feels motivated to be a hard day's work.
j. Tim Ryan’s excellent analysis on FOX about Cam Newton being late with a first-quarter throw that turned into an interception.
Newton was 18-29 for 263 yards with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions, along with 68 rushing yards and this seems to be the sum total of what Peter took from the performance. Newton threw an interception because he was late in throwing the football.
k. Trent Cole. Stunning that his first-quarter strip-sack of Carson Palmer was only his fourth sack of the year (he added another one later in the game). He’s too good for that.
Apparently he's not.
o. Cam Newton definitely crossed the plane of the goal line before fumbling in the second quarter against Tampa. Definitely a TD, and good use of replay.
The call on the field was a touchdown and all scoring plays are automatically reviewed, so by "good use of replay" if Peter means "the officials followed the rules set out by the NFL to review the play" then yes, good use of replay.
2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 13:
e. Arizona CB Jerraud Powers, you cannot interfere in the end zone. But you know that. If you’re going to tamper, at least try to disguise it.
Cheat, but just don't get caught. That's Peter's advice.
3. I think the more I see London Fletcher, even now at 38, the more I think he’s the kind of player who will deserve honest consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I mean, how long has he been the defensive centerpiece for teams?
I wasn't aware that "was he a defensive centerpiece for his team" was a Hall of Fame criteria a player must meet.
Did you see Sunday night how he made a stop with a couple of minutes to go and forced the Giants to punt—and Washington had a chance to win at the end instead of the Giants running out the clock.
Since there is no question mark at the end of the sentence I guess that's a statement and not a question?
4. I think if you want to measure the value of a good coach, look at what Gus Bradley is doing in Jacksonville. In the last month the formerly winless Jaguars are 3-1. They’re feisty on defense, imaginative on offense and the thing you notice is even though they have nothing to play for, they play as though a playoff spot is on the line. Owner Shad Khan has to be thrilled with the hire.
I'm shocked the Jaguars were able to hire a competent coach without the NFL providing the opinion of a committee on who the Jaguars should hire as their head coach. It's amazing it was a quality hire without the NFL providing a list of good candidates for the job, as well as Shad Khan getting an opinion from Tony Dungy.
5. I think we all thought Darrelle Revis had enough time to rehab and play well this season. We all were wrong.
What's this "we" shit? Don't you love how sportswriters start writing "we" when they are wrong about something? They can't say "I" was wrong, but no "we" were wrong for reading a column where Peter King presented an opinion. The mere reading of MMQB means "we" were all wrong about Darrelle Revis and his health.
Here's what Peter wrote in an August MMQB:
I spoke with Revis, Dominik and coach Greg Schiano late in the week and, interestingly, Revis was probably the least optimistic of them all about his September readiness.
Here is what I wrote:
Yeah, that's really not good news considering Revis is the one who knows first-hand how good his knee feels. The fact Revis is less optimistic than Dominik and Schiano doesn't strike me as a good thing, especially considering we just experienced a basketball player (Derrick Rose) who missed the entire 12-13 season because he didn't think his knee felt good enough for him to play.
Don't "we" me. Peter King reported that Revis was least optimistic and I thought that didn't sound good. I'm not smart, so I know I'm not the only one who thought perhaps Revis couldn't rehab and play well this season.
9. I think if you’re wondering what Brett Favre will be doing Friday night,
I'm not, because I don't give a shit about Brett Favre. Brett Favre is an obsession with Peter King. He constantly has to bring Brett Favre up in his MMQB. It's on-par with his use of the word "precocious" as being really, really bizarre.
the offensive coordinator of the Oak Grove (Miss.) High football team will be accompanying his ballclub north to Jackson for the 6A Mississippi High School Football Championship Game against Tupelo High.
No, really Peter, no one but you cares about your obsession with Brett Favre.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. I have tried to think since the end of the Alabama-Auburn game whether I’ve ever seen a more significant, thrilling and shocking end to a sports event.
This is a thought about a football game. Therefore it is not a non-football thought.
g. I can see Carlos Hyde being a Trent Baalke draft choice. Perfect physical Niners back.
And it's not like the 49ers have any running backs on the roster or anything. Frank Gore, Kendall Hunter, LaMichael James, Marcus Lattimore...
i. Only 113,511 at the Big House. Thinking that should on my bucket list. Covered a game there; never sat in the stands.
I'm not sure if this counts as a humblebrag or not. Probably not.
l. Coffeenerdness: In the midst of a jillion Manhattan Starbucks shops, here comes Ground Central, on East 52nd. Very good espresso. Hope it can survive.
Don't be confused though. Peter is still completely planning on going to Starbucks every morning, but he hopes other people support Ground Central enough to keep it in business.
Seattle 30, New Orleans 27. For this to happen, I have to have some belief in the Seattle bench at cornerback—particularly in 2011 sixth-round pick Byron Maxwell, making his first career start, and the marginal Jeremy Lane, now in the nickel role. How’d you like to be Maxwell? Eyes of the nation on this game, national TV, first start, knowing as the corner opposite star Richard Sherman that Drew Brees has a bulls-eye on your chest for four quarters? “All our corners will be confident in this game,” safety Earl Thomas told me the other day. “The way our attitude is, just because you’re not starting doesn’t mean you’re not a starting-caliber player. Our backups are just as good as our starters—that’s our feeling.
I'm not sure this is the negotiating tactic that Richard Sherman will use when trying to get a new contract from the Seahawks, but I'm sure Sherman and Browner are very happy that Earl Thomas thinks they are easily replaceable like he claims they are.
Chaos at FedEx.
A ref’s job: control the game.
Jeff Triplette didn’t.
I still don't get the point of the adieu haiku. I'm not sure I ever will.
What a day. What a weekend. And it’s not over:
What? I thought the NFL season was over with a five-way tie for Super Bowl victor between the Saints, Seahawks, Patriots, Broncos, and 49ers. They are all going to Disney Land together, as a group, but only the quarterbacks for each team.
There will be time to get to that. Lots to cover before then, including:
1. What does Meryl Streep think about Starbucks?
2. What really is Colin Kaepernick's favorite type of pizza?
3. A quick list of things that annoy Peter about the general public.
4. Brett Favre on the farm. How is it going?
1. If the season ended today, Houston would have the first pick in the 2014 NFL Draft. Question is, who will be coaching Teddy Bridgewater?
The twist: Charlie Strong is the correct answer.
2. An officiating snafu roiled the end of the Sunday night game. Just what the NFL wants: Robert Griffin III’s trying to redeem himself, and the Monday morning headlines are all about Jeff Triplette.
How dare the officials get in the way of the narrative that Peter King wants to see played out. Robert Griffin was totally going to redeem himself and Peter was totally going to write about, then Jeff Triplette has to go and make a mistake which doesn't allow Griffin to redeem himself for a (perceived) underwhelming performance this season. The narrative was being written that Griffin would redeem himself for daring to not meet the media's expectations of him, but now the media won't let Griffin off the hook because of an officiating mistake. Don't blame Peter, it's not like he can control what he writes.
5. Denver’s most recent four foes are a combined 32-16. Next four: 16-32. The Broncos have a one-game lead for AFC home-field over New England, and they don’t play a winning team the rest of the way.
Remember earlier in the season when Peter was concerned that Peyton Manning would play a road playoff game against the Patriots? Lo and behold, now the Broncos are in the solid lead for home field advantage throughout the playoffs. It's been a very over-reactionary season for Peter.
8. The Mike Tomlin discipline for his bizarre or calculated (doesn’t matter which) pas de deux on the field in Baltimore Thursday will be discussed inside 345 Park Avenue today, with a decision likely by Wednesday. I expect a heavy fine, but no suspension or loss of draft picks.
How about the public execution of a Steelers' staff member? Because that seems about as logical as suspending Tomlin or taking away draft picks from the Steelers.
9. The Colts essentially won the AFC South Sunday. Actually, their magic number now is one—one loss by Tennessee or win by Indy clinches the division.
I hate over-using the word "literally," but it was literally last week when Peter King was writing about the Colts possibly losing the AFC South to the Titans. Peter even talked about the Colts possibly missing the playoffs. One week later...just one week later...Peter makes a note that the Colts have essentially won the AFC South now. This is yet another example of sportswriters putting too much emphasis on what happened the week before. It takes away some of the relevance and impact of MMQB when Peter overreacts to what happened during that current week's slate of games. Anyone with a brain knew the Colts had a bad habit of falling behind in a game and having to comeback, which could prevent them from winning games for the rest of the season, but they were still in good shape to win the AFC South. One week later, the Colts have essentially won the AFC South.
Now, a little bit of a different lead to the column, featuring a trip into a subject I’ve never been able to cover.
I hope it's not that discussion of the muff that Peter wanted to have with his readers last week. Just keep it NSFW, please .
Give me a few paragraphs before we get to the current events of Week 13.
Peter has written almost half of a page of this five page MMQB prior to writing this. So he has written almost 10% of MMQB already and wants a few more paragraphs before he discusses the events of Week 13. So what was the previous half-page of writing discussing? Just killing space to make the column look longer?
Last month I trailed Gene Steratore’s officiating crew—one of 17 seven-man officiating teams in the NFL—for a week, for a three-part series that will begin Wednesday at The MMQB.
But this week with the officials … this was unique.
The officials not only provided free coffee, but provided free Starbucks coffee. What a unique experience for Peter and a welcome breath of fresh air.
We typically know very little about the lives of officials or the inner workings of the jobs they do. The linguistic shorthand they use (“UNR” for “unnecessary roughness”) and the way jobs change just before the snap of the ball (the head linesman has the slot receiver, but if the slot receiver goes in motion beyond the quarterback, the head linesman switches to the innermost receiver on his side) become dizzying to keep track of.
If only they trained thoroughly in order to perform this job and received compensation for performing this job. Then I wouldn't feel so bad for the officials.
Here's the thing. "We" typically know very little about the lives of anybody in any profession, the shorthand used in that profession or the real difficulties those in a certain profession face until "we" do that job. So I wouldn't expect officiating NFL, college, or high school games to be any different.
Just a thought while Peter talks about how little we know about the officiating profession.
I’ll give you an example that just reared its head Thursday on the controversial Mike Tomlin play. Did you know that before every game, the head linesman asks the head coach: “Who is your get-back coach today?” That, of course, made me ask Mackie on the day I spent with him, “What in the world is a get-back coach?”
Really? Peter covers the NFL for a living and doesn't know what a "get-back" coach is? He's gotta be kidding. This is clearly a joke. Peter is making a funny.
“Every team designates one man on the sidelines to keep the coaches and players back from the field,” Mackie said.
I wish Mackie had haughtily told Peter to Google or Bing it for the answer to the question, just like Peter does to his MMQB readers when he wants them to research a question he poses.
That six-foot-wide white stripe on the sidelines, called the “No Fly Zone” by some crews, is supposed to be free of everyone during the game. But as you saw Thursday night, the enforcement of that is too lax. There were several breakdowns when Tomlin strayed too far on the stripe and actually had his right foot on the field, forcing Baltimore kick-returner Jacoby Jones to slightly alter his path. Pittsburgh’s designated get-back coach didn’t do his job. The two officials on Clete Blakeman’s crew running the sidelines following Jones, line judge Ron Marinucci and field judge David Maslow, should have flagged Tomlin for unsportsmanlike conduct (amazing they didn’t see it, or chose not to flag it) and didn’t do their jobs.
Losing a draft pick for something like this? I don't know who floated this as a possibility first, but it seems a little too draconian to me.
Now you know what the “get-back coach” is.
I'm not that smart and I already knew what this was. Peter should have known too.
So the Eagles are tied for the lead in the NFC East with Dallas this morning at 7-5—though Dallas holds the tiebreaker—and Philadelphia can thank Foles for that. Since he wrested the job from an injured Mike Vick a month ago, the Eagles are 4-0 and Foles has been close to perfect. For the season he’s a 63 percent passer, with 19 touchdowns and no interceptions. It’s December, and that’s right: no interceptions.
No interceptions. Is that right?
that’s right: no interceptions.
Thanks for clarifying that, Peter.
“Man, horrible throw, horrible decision,” Foles said from Philadelphia an hour after the game. “When I saw the flag and heard the call, I said, ‘Thank you God.’
God responded by saying, "I'm sorry, but I don't care about the outcome of a sporting event nor did I help you throw or not throw an interception. I got bigger and better things to do."
Foles is not an athletic quarterback, which everyone can see. But this game showed he has the kind of functional athleticism
Basically, Foles is a white quarterback and he doesn't trip over his feet as he runs, so he has "functional athleticism."
Foles said he appreciates how magnanimous Vick has been, both in the quarterback room and publicly; Vick has said Foles should keep the job because he’s playing so well. “One of the most dynamic quarterbacks in NFL history is also an incredible teammate,” Foles said. “He helps me every day.” He thinks he’s proven you don’t have to be a Vick to succeed in the Chip Kelly offense, and who can argue with him?
I think at this point it has been proven that you can't be Mike Vick to succeed in the Chip Kelly offense. I thought Chip Kelly's offense was a really good offense for Vick, but I also thought Charles Rogers was a great draft pick.
“I feel I’ve played well, but not as well as I can,” Foles said. “I’m 24. There’s still a lot of growth in my game. I need to improve a lot of things, especially my game management. But I think everyone tries to overanalyze the kind of quarterback that’s best for this offense.”
Apparently the best quarterback for the Eagles offense is a quarterback who doesn't throw interceptions. Who would have thought this could be true?
Foles, a clear No. 2 on Labor Day, is one of the most important players in the league as the NFL heads into the final quarter of the season.
BREAKING NEWS: The quarterback for a team trying to make the playoff is very important to that team.
What? Another officiating debacle? Washington did quite enough to lose to the Giants 24-17 at FedEx Field, and probably would have lost without striped impediments; their receiving corps ought to be nicknamed The Bad Hands People.
"Sure, this controversy I'm about to manufacture may not have made a difference in the result of the game, but let's pretend it did so I can manufacture a controversy and talk about Robert Griffin for a little bit."
Of course, this call did have an impact on the outcome of the game.
But referee Jeff Triplette’s crew had far too big a role in the final Washington drive of the game, and far too big an influence on the outcome.
And this will obviously be the first time the officials have had an impact on the result of an NFL game.
In the first play after the two-minute warning of the fourth quarter, on 2nd-and-5 from his own 41, Robert Griffin III hit Pierre Garçon for a gain close to the first down. The head linesman, Phil McKinnely, motioned for the chains to be moved forward for a first down, and the chain gang rushed up and changed the down marker from “2″ to “1.” First down. Except Washington was in the hurry-up offense, and the ref, Triplette, standing behind the offense, held up three fingers. Third down.
On the sideline, coach Mike Shanahan said he asked an official for a measurement, and the official responded, “You don’t have to. It’s a first down.”
Now, using complete hindsight, I think it's fair to say this is the point where Shanahan should have flipped out and said the officials were contradicting each other. I honestly have no clue how he should have done this, but when two officials are obviously contradicting each other then a head coach has to help them resolve this contradiction immediately rather than see how it plays out. Maybe Shanahan was hoping John Elway would help resolve the situation for him.
Fourth down, signaled Triplette. Shanahan seemed apoplectic on the sidelines. The side judge was telling him first down on the previous play; the head linesman had already signaled first down and moved the chains up … and now Triplette was insisting it was fourth down...safety Will Hill stripped Garçon of the ball. Giants ball. Game over. Had Garçon not coughed it up, Washington would have had a first down at the Giants’ 49 with the clock running and about 1:19 to play. So this didn’t cost Washington the game, per se. But it was a massive failure of the crew.
I would say this call was on par with the missed holding call in the New England-Carolina game, especially since the Redskins would have more than one play to win the game if the officials had made the correct call. This wasn't a judgment call that was made, but two officials signaling information to each team that contradicted each other. This call didn't cost the Redskins the game, but it at least cost them a chance to try and win the game.
After the game, in a pool report with a local writer, Triplette said he felt it would have been “an unfair advantage” to Washington to stop the clock and get the down situation straight with his crew and the chain gang.
Yes, it would be an unfair advantage to make sure the officials are making the correct calls, so instead the officials handed the Redskins a disadvantage by providing conflicting information on what down it was. Makes sense. The officials want to make sure everything stays fair to both teams, by handing out contradictory information that hurts one team.
By the crew’s failure to clarify what was going on, Washington’s play-calling was bastardized by the obvious impression that it was a different down than what it was.
I'm just sad that Robert Griffin's redemption narrative can't be continued now that he lost this game due to poor officiating. Obviously whether a quarterback wins a football game or not is what decides whether he performed well in that game, not his statistics during the game. So Griffin's tale of redemption in this game is completely dependent on being a winner and not a loser, through no fault of his own.
As I reported on NBC last night, the committee finalized its plan to address minority hiring last week by compiling a double-digit list of candidates for head coaches and general managers, going beyond the usual suspects. In essence, the league will provide the kind of service teams have been buying through headhunting firms:
Oh good, I'm glad the NFL has decided to start offering a service themselves that teams usually have to pay for. I always like it when the NFL meddles in the affairs of individual teams.
If an owner calls wanting to know whom the top offensive prospects are, the league will have a list of prospects to discuss with them, and will make available the men they’d want to discuss the openings with anyway—such as former coach Tony Dungy or former GM Bill Polian,
And really, doesn't every owner want to discuss the opening with Tony Dungy anyway? He's the conscience of the NFL, no, the conscience of the world overall. I think the NFL should make it mandatory that an owner gets permission from Tony Dungy to hire a head coaching candidate before the hire can be made.
“The focus is not just the hot name,” said Robert Gulliver, the NFL’s executive vice president for human resources. “It’s identifying the new talent too. New names will emerge.”
Well yes, the names of new head coaching candidates emerge every year. New talent emerges every year. The NFL doesn't need to help make this happen.
The coaching list, for instance, will contain the top names—Stanford coach David Shaw, former Bears coach Lovie Smith [both African-American] and former Bucs and Raiders coach Jon Gruden, who is white. But Jon’s not the only Gruden on the list. Brother Jay is on it; he’s the Cincinnati offensive coordinator who has shepherded Andy Dalton through two straight playoff seasons and is on the way to a third. And minority coaches Mel Tucker (Chicago defensive coordinator] and Eric Studesville (Denver running backs coach), both of whom have been interim head coaches, got high marks from the committee too.
Here's the thing though...these names would be on the short-list that any NFL team looking for a head coach would have. The NFL doesn't need to compile this list because smart NFL teams already are looking at these candidates...except for Jon Gruden. He just wants attention and isn't worth $9 million per year compared to these other candidates. I think paying attention to him as a head coaching candidate is a waste of time.
Of course, owners don’t have to use the committee’s recommendation. Who knows if any will? Owners will do what owners want to do. The system works when owners and hirers go into the process with a truly open mind. In 2007, Pittsburgh’s Dan Rooney had a blank slate entering the process, and he ended up hiring a coach he’d never met before, Mike Tomlin. In Chicago last winter, GM Phil Emery went into his search wide open, interviewed 13 candidates and hired Marc Trestman from the CFL—a man on no one’s radar entering the process.
So while acknowledging the NFL isn't where they want to be in terms of hiring minorities as head coaches, wouldn't it be fair to say most NFL teams have a wide open search process and often a candidate who was on few team's radar could end up with the head coaching job? So if the NFL wants to increase minority hiring, that's great, but I'm not sure asking teams to use this committee will increase the number of minority hires. You know what will increase the number of minority hires? If guys like David Shaw, Kevin Sumlin, and James Franklin show interest in coaching in the NFL or if a guy like Eric Studesville blows away an NFL team with his interview. It would also help if sportswriters like Peter King stop floating guys like Jon Gruden as possible head coaching candidates. It wastes time.
Just wondering what happens when owner Zygi Wilf and GM Rick Spielman, who went out on a limb to spend $2 million to bring Freeman in, have an encounter. Does Wilf say, “Why exactly am I paying $2 million to someone who’s a healthy scratch every week?”
I know Peter is full-on "Let's help save Greg Schiano's job in Tampa Bay by continuing to bash Josh Freeman" mode, but I don't think spending $2 million to bring Freeman into Minnesota is that much of a waste. There's no long-term commitment and $2 million for one season is a small price to pay in order to determine if Freeman could be "the answer" to the Vikings quarterbacking issues. I understand Peter's agenda here though. He likes Greg Schiano and is using his status as a writer to make it look like Schiano did a great thing in running the lazy bum Josh Freeman out of Tampa Bay. I get this feeling Peter has some sort of an agenda.
Fine Fifteen
1. Seattle (10-1). The Seahawks, who haven’t played in about three years, were supposed to be all healthy and happy entering December. Now Percy Harvin’s likely out tonight. His ailing hip is acting up. As every hour passes before this game for likely NFC home-field advantage against the Saints tonight, the worry beads get rubbed a little harder in the Pacific Northwest.
I wonder if Peter has any criticism for the Seahawks to trade a first round pick (where the Seahawks could have drafted DeAndre Hopkins, Cordarrelle Patterson, Robert Woods, or Keenan Allen) in exchange for Percy Harvin, as well as criticism for giving Harvin a big, new contract coming off an injury and fully knowing he was a malcontent at times in Minnesota? Of course not, because the Seahawks are winning games, while the Vikings are not. It's interesting to me how Peter points out the Vikings are idiots for paying $2 million to Josh Freeman for one year, then moving on to discuss the Seahawks and Percy Harvin, a player who has been injured almost all year and has a big long-term contract.
I'm not saying they are the same thing, but I think the $2 million for Freeman isn't a big deal. For some reason, Peter thinks differently. I think his agenda makes him think differently.
3. Denver (10-2). After playing three Sunday night games out of five, the Broncos saw daylight Sunday afternoon in Kansas City. They liked it.
Well, the game did end when it was dark out.
With a sweep over the Chiefs, the Broncos would have to collapse in the last four games to blow a first-round playoff bye now.
Remember earlier in this season when Peter had handed the Chiefs the AFC West and was getting hyped about a Brady-Manning wild card matchup?
6. San Francisco (8-4). Niners versus Rams, 2012: St. Louis wins the series, 1-0-1, by a composite score of 40-37. Niners versus Rams 2013: San Francisco wins the series 2-0, by a composite 58-24.
In the Rams' defense, they are missing their starting quarterback and they really weren't as good last year as their record against the 49ers indicated. The really bad news is that the Rams are 5-7 with games against Seattle, Arizona, Tampa Bay, and New Orleans ahead. This means Jeff "8-8" Fisher may have a hard time going 8-8 for the sixth time in his coaching career. The good news is he has a good chance of going below .500 for the sixth time in his coaching career. That's right, out of the seventeen full seasons he has coached in the NFL, Fisher has been .500 or below .500 in eleven of those seasons. Not that he isn't a fantastic coach of course.
10. Indianapolis (8-4). Well, the last month of games in the AFC South now has no meaning, with the Colts building a four-game lead over Tennessee with four to play. (Four, because the Colts swept the Titans this season, making a three-game lead in the standings beefier thanks to the head-to-head tiebreaker.)
And here just one week ago Peter thought the Colts could lose the division to the Titans. Things change so quickly in one week...
11. Kansas City (9-3). Reeling. A trip to Washington Sunday should help.
This is the team Peter had at #1 in his "Fine Fifteen" until the week of the first Broncos game when he dropped them to #2 in his "Fine Fifteen" after the Chiefs were coming off a bye. Very interesting. It's funny what happens when a team's schedule gets more difficult.
“I’m sounding a bit like a broken record, but sometimes you gotta gut out a win, however ugly it is.”
—Andrew Luck, Indianapolis quarterback, after winning ugly over the Titans 22-14.
At least until the Colts don't win a game, at which point Peter King will point out how they have won ugly and could be in a free fall. Also, notice Andrew Luck's statistics for the season. Then compare it to Robert Griffin's statistics for the year. One quarterback is perceived as selfish and underachieving and the other is perceived as continuing to improve as one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, despite the fact the underachieving quarterback has more passing yards, a higher completion percentage, more rushing yards, a higher QB rating, the same number of touchdown passes, but three more interceptions. It's always interesting to me how expectations and a team's performance relate to a quarterback's performance in the eyes of the media. Griffin has at least been the comparable quarterback to Andrew Luck in many ways this year. That's not what gets written though.
I admit I’m being hasty here. But just look at the numbers before you tell me I’m nuts to suggest Calvin Johnson, 990 catches from passing Jerry Rice, might one day challenge Rice for all-time greatness.
Peter is hasty in all things that he does. Calvin Johnson is 33% of the way to Jerry Rice's reception record and now Peter thinks Johnson could catch more passes than Rice. Hey, it could happen, but yes, it is also very hasty. Of course, this has been the year of being hasty and making snap judgments for Peter. So I don't know why I would expect anything to change.
I don’t believe he will, because he’s already missing a lot of practice time (and one game this year) to injury; he has a knee condition that troubles him regularly and, at 238 pounds he’s just a larger man than Rice was. More can go wrong with a bigger receiver than with one of Rice’s build, someone more lithe and 35 pounds lighter than Johnson.
"Calvin Johnson may pass Jerry Rice or he may not pass Jerry Rice. Either way, it will or won't happen. Now let's kill some space with speculative statistics."
I'll save your eyes. The two players' statistics will look similar when Calvin Johnson is 29 years and 1 month old and Peter projects this to mean that Johnson could pass Rice's receptions record.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
Didn’t travel for Thanksgiving.
Great, I was wondering if you had or not.
I did duck out just before 7 a.m. to buy a couple of newspapers in Manhattan, and I saw something I’d never seen before in my two years living on the East Side: A light changed to green on Second Avenue, and by the time it was red again (maybe 35 seconds), no cars had passed. That’s when you know it’s a holiday in the city.
Peter has never really seen a traffic jam on the East Side to where the light goes green and no cars pass the light? I would imagine this has to happen quite frequently.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think this is what I liked about Week 13:
a. Justin Tucker, in 32 career games including playoffs, has made 93 percent of his field goals (63 of 68). That says two things: Tucker should be DNA tested for the clutch gene.
Which won't be found because there's no such thing.
And the NFL needs to do something to make field goals harder.
b. I believe I’ve made that point before.
Perhaps you should mention that you have made this point before in point A where you are actually making the point yet again instead of mentioning you have made the point before in point B.
c. Is there a better 1-2 running back punch in football today than Reggie Bush and Joique Bell? Absolutely unequivocally not.
Great. Glad that's decided.
d. Bush: 182 total yards against Green Bay. Bell: 128. That’s 310 yards from people not named Calvin Johnson for Detroit in one game.
And naturally, despite whether this statement is true or not, Peter bases his opinion on the results from one game.
f. Julius Peppers is a hard day’s work for any offensive lineman, and Sunday in Minnesota was no different.
Well, he's a hard day's work when he feels motivated to be a hard day's work.
j. Tim Ryan’s excellent analysis on FOX about Cam Newton being late with a first-quarter throw that turned into an interception.
Newton was 18-29 for 263 yards with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions, along with 68 rushing yards and this seems to be the sum total of what Peter took from the performance. Newton threw an interception because he was late in throwing the football.
k. Trent Cole. Stunning that his first-quarter strip-sack of Carson Palmer was only his fourth sack of the year (he added another one later in the game). He’s too good for that.
Apparently he's not.
o. Cam Newton definitely crossed the plane of the goal line before fumbling in the second quarter against Tampa. Definitely a TD, and good use of replay.
The call on the field was a touchdown and all scoring plays are automatically reviewed, so by "good use of replay" if Peter means "the officials followed the rules set out by the NFL to review the play" then yes, good use of replay.
2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 13:
e. Arizona CB Jerraud Powers, you cannot interfere in the end zone. But you know that. If you’re going to tamper, at least try to disguise it.
Cheat, but just don't get caught. That's Peter's advice.
3. I think the more I see London Fletcher, even now at 38, the more I think he’s the kind of player who will deserve honest consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I mean, how long has he been the defensive centerpiece for teams?
I wasn't aware that "was he a defensive centerpiece for his team" was a Hall of Fame criteria a player must meet.
Did you see Sunday night how he made a stop with a couple of minutes to go and forced the Giants to punt—and Washington had a chance to win at the end instead of the Giants running out the clock.
Since there is no question mark at the end of the sentence I guess that's a statement and not a question?
4. I think if you want to measure the value of a good coach, look at what Gus Bradley is doing in Jacksonville. In the last month the formerly winless Jaguars are 3-1. They’re feisty on defense, imaginative on offense and the thing you notice is even though they have nothing to play for, they play as though a playoff spot is on the line. Owner Shad Khan has to be thrilled with the hire.
I'm shocked the Jaguars were able to hire a competent coach without the NFL providing the opinion of a committee on who the Jaguars should hire as their head coach. It's amazing it was a quality hire without the NFL providing a list of good candidates for the job, as well as Shad Khan getting an opinion from Tony Dungy.
5. I think we all thought Darrelle Revis had enough time to rehab and play well this season. We all were wrong.
What's this "we" shit? Don't you love how sportswriters start writing "we" when they are wrong about something? They can't say "I" was wrong, but no "we" were wrong for reading a column where Peter King presented an opinion. The mere reading of MMQB means "we" were all wrong about Darrelle Revis and his health.
Here's what Peter wrote in an August MMQB:
I spoke with Revis, Dominik and coach Greg Schiano late in the week and, interestingly, Revis was probably the least optimistic of them all about his September readiness.
Here is what I wrote:
Yeah, that's really not good news considering Revis is the one who knows first-hand how good his knee feels. The fact Revis is less optimistic than Dominik and Schiano doesn't strike me as a good thing, especially considering we just experienced a basketball player (Derrick Rose) who missed the entire 12-13 season because he didn't think his knee felt good enough for him to play.
Don't "we" me. Peter King reported that Revis was least optimistic and I thought that didn't sound good. I'm not smart, so I know I'm not the only one who thought perhaps Revis couldn't rehab and play well this season.
9. I think if you’re wondering what Brett Favre will be doing Friday night,
I'm not, because I don't give a shit about Brett Favre. Brett Favre is an obsession with Peter King. He constantly has to bring Brett Favre up in his MMQB. It's on-par with his use of the word "precocious" as being really, really bizarre.
the offensive coordinator of the Oak Grove (Miss.) High football team will be accompanying his ballclub north to Jackson for the 6A Mississippi High School Football Championship Game against Tupelo High.
No, really Peter, no one but you cares about your obsession with Brett Favre.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. I have tried to think since the end of the Alabama-Auburn game whether I’ve ever seen a more significant, thrilling and shocking end to a sports event.
This is a thought about a football game. Therefore it is not a non-football thought.
g. I can see Carlos Hyde being a Trent Baalke draft choice. Perfect physical Niners back.
And it's not like the 49ers have any running backs on the roster or anything. Frank Gore, Kendall Hunter, LaMichael James, Marcus Lattimore...
i. Only 113,511 at the Big House. Thinking that should on my bucket list. Covered a game there; never sat in the stands.
I'm not sure if this counts as a humblebrag or not. Probably not.
l. Coffeenerdness: In the midst of a jillion Manhattan Starbucks shops, here comes Ground Central, on East 52nd. Very good espresso. Hope it can survive.
Don't be confused though. Peter is still completely planning on going to Starbucks every morning, but he hopes other people support Ground Central enough to keep it in business.
Seattle 30, New Orleans 27. For this to happen, I have to have some belief in the Seattle bench at cornerback—particularly in 2011 sixth-round pick Byron Maxwell, making his first career start, and the marginal Jeremy Lane, now in the nickel role. How’d you like to be Maxwell? Eyes of the nation on this game, national TV, first start, knowing as the corner opposite star Richard Sherman that Drew Brees has a bulls-eye on your chest for four quarters? “All our corners will be confident in this game,” safety Earl Thomas told me the other day. “The way our attitude is, just because you’re not starting doesn’t mean you’re not a starting-caliber player. Our backups are just as good as our starters—that’s our feeling.
I'm not sure this is the negotiating tactic that Richard Sherman will use when trying to get a new contract from the Seahawks, but I'm sure Sherman and Browner are very happy that Earl Thomas thinks they are easily replaceable like he claims they are.
Chaos at FedEx.
A ref’s job: control the game.
Jeff Triplette didn’t.
I still don't get the point of the adieu haiku. I'm not sure I ever will.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
4 comments Bill Simmons Really Thinks We Should Pay Attention to this Calvin Johnson Guy
Like an absent-minded grandfather who tells the same stories over and over, I have mentioned repeatedly that I think Bill Simmons is out of ideas and wants to quit writing his weekly column. He used to write 2-3 times per week and now he's done to 1 time per week. Unfortunately, Bill doesn't have the guts to alienate his readers and just stop writing. So what we get are half-assed columns where he clearly isn't trying. He wrote about Calvin Johnson in his Week 12 picks column and it basically consists of his typical "A is like B which is like something else and I hope you aren't paying attention anymore so you don't realize I haven't made a cogent point" writing and a recitation of statistics that is supposed to substitute for substance. He can do better, but he won't. So let's read why we should all pay attention to Calvin Johnson, because after all, if Bill hasn't paid enough attention to Johnson during hits NFL career then that means no one else has either.
Back in September, Nike launched an ad campaign for the one and only Calvin Johnson. It's impossible to screw up a Calvin Johnson commercial. He's either the LeBron of football or the Dominique of football (a.k.a. the Human Highlight Reel).
Being an electric and exciting athlete doesn't mean a commercial featuring said athlete will be exciting. Overall, Calvin Johnson comes off as not exciting off the field. This is a point Bill will bring up repeatedly in this column, yet he can't figure out why Nike had trouble launching an ad campaign for Johnson.
He's the second-best receiver I have ever seen.
Clearly Nike should have been told prior to shooting the commercial where Johnson ranked in Bill Simmons' hierarchy of receivers. I'm positive this would have enabled them to make a better commercial.
And on top of everything else, he has a cool nickname: Megatron. I don't know how you screw THAT up.
Considering there are probably legal and licensing issues with Nike using the term "Megatron" in a commercial, I can see how this nickname almost becomes an issue when attempting to market Johnson. Bill can't see past his own nose, so he clearly isn't thinking about these legal and licensing issues.
Spoiler alert: Bill does think of these licensing issues, but just glosses over why Nike couldn't use the "Megatron" nickname in a commercial.
Nike screwed it up. It made a perfectly fine commercial that accentuates everything we already knew about Calvin Johnson: He's humble and soft-spoken, someone who only cares about winning games and making plays.
Alas, not someone who is good for an entertaining commercial. That's why Nike had to bring in P-Diddy or Puffy or whatever his name is, to liven Johnson's brand up. Johnson is awesome at football, but his recognition isn't so high because he doesn't self-promote.
And yet, Calvin Johnson has spent more time getting his name out there than you realize.
Please tell me more about the quantity of what I do or don't realize. It's not annoying at all.
There's Calvin walking to work, dressed in a suit and moving through a fancy building. He's telling himself that 1,964 (receiving) yards is waiting again, as long as he avoids annoying distractions like interviews, fans and demands. At that point, 50 reporters and photographers appear and start screaming, "Calvin! Calvin! Calvin! Calvin!"
As if this commercial wasn't bad enough, Bill is now going to kill space by transcribing it for us. I get the feeling Bill is filibustering his writing career. He's just going to stop writing good quality stuff until his readers stop caring and move on from wanting him to continue writing. In the meantime, Bill is just going to keep writing crap.
At that point, Diddy (???) enters the commercial as Calvin's alter ego, "Johnson." He's there to help.
Again, it's not a good commercial visually or in writing.
I'm guessing they named him "Johnson" after furious negotiations to call him "Megatron" fell through right before they filmed the commercial.
So Bill does realize why Nike didn't call him "Megatron" in the commercial. I'm not marketing specialist, but I know enough about marketing to know that if you are marketing Calvin Johnson then you may want to market him by his actual name and not pay $500,000 (or more?) for the use of a nickname which will further confuse those who don't know who Megatron is and don't know what Calvin Johnson looks like. Again, from a marketing standpoint the nickname Megatron is great, but Nike is marketing Calvin Johnson, not his cool nickname.
He's freeing Calvin from all this crap. So a satisfied Calvin walks away from the crowd, nodding to himself, as Johnson's voice trails him: "There's only one thing you have to do." And that's when a big "UNLEASH SPEED" graphic comes flying at us. The end.
Everything about this commercial seems cool … you know, until you actually think about it. What's the point of a sneaker ad?
Everything about this article seems fine until you actually think about it. What's the point of this article? Why did Bill just spend 250 words saying a commercial sucks? Why can't Bill just recite Calvin Johnson's statistics and not ramble about a bad commercial that he finds to be so terrible, yet he not only links the commercial in a YouTube clip but also gives us a written transcript of what happens in the commercial?
To make me like the endorser, to grab my attention, and to make me more likely to purchase the product. And not in that order. Well … why would I like Calvin Johnson MORE after that commercial?
Because it's a commercial and you associate Johnson as being all-business. I don't know.
Now I have to hear him complaining about distractions and outside forces?
Um … YOU JUST SPENT YOUR ENTIRE DAY FILMING A SHOE COMMERCIAL THAT COSTARRED A GUY WHO'S ON HIS FOURTH NICKNAME! That day wasn't a distraction?
Thanks Gregg Easterbrook. Does ESPN give a course at orientation on how to kill space in a column to make it seem like you are writing more original material than you really are?
And why make a commercial that says, "I don't have the personality, or the will, to pull off the ancillary parts of my life — I wish I could hire someone more dynamic, like Sean Diddy Combs, to do it." What???? Who would want this?
The commercial says, "I am focused on football. That's all I care about." No further analysis is required after this.
If you're selling Calvin Johnson without emphasizing his most important quality, then you've failed. I would have tackled it differently.
There's nothing Bill Simmons can't do better than someone else. He's the VP of Common Sense, a GM-in-waiting, and now smarter than Nike when it comes to marketing their athletes. It sounds like Johnson's most important quality is his focus on being the best wide receiver he can be, which the commercial does tackle.
Maybe we see an eclectic mix of fans preparing to watch a Lions game on Sunday morning. Really, they're getting ready to watch Calvin Johnson. They're getting ready to do this either because they love the Lions, they wagered on the Lions, they picked him for their fantasy team, or because watching Calvin Johnson catch footballs has nothing in common with absolutely ANYTHING right now. I'd want to see those fans getting ready, then I'd want to see Calvin, and then I'd want to see him do Megatron shit. There's your Calvin Johnson commercial.
This sounds like, and I'm not intentionally exaggerating here, one of the worst commercial ideas ever. So Bill thinks the commercial should be people getting ready to watch Calvin Johnson play football together? That's it. People getting ready to watch football and then Calvin Johnson does something cool? Don Draper is not impressed.
Quick tangent: I hate this football season.
The first 15% of this column was a review of a Nike commercial. I would say the entire column is a tangent to kill time prior to getting to Bill's picks for the week.
My picks have flagrantly sucked, my fantasy teams are relentlessly mediocre, I can't win a bet to save my life, the refs keep screwing over the Patriots,
Poor Bill. I hope he has time to cry into his 2013 Boston Red Sox World Series Champions t-shirt later tonight while reminiscing on how sad he is about the officials screwing over the Patriots ALL THE TIME.
So what's been fun about 2013? Start here: We get to watch Calvin Johnson in his prime. The following anecdote makes me sound like Chuckie driving to Will Hunting's house every morning, but I don't care. Every Sunday, when I'm setting up the televisions in my office so I can watch four games at once,
This is Bill's way of reminding us he can watch four televisions at one time. I watched 12 televisions at one time earlier this year at a sports bar, so I'm not impressed. But the important covert brag here is that Bill's office has four televisions.
I love watching that guy, and so do you,
Don't tell me what I do or don't like. Despite what your lemming followers tell you, you don't speak for the average sports fan and you don't know what everyone is thinking. It's a lazy writing tool that is used to prove or disprove a point you want to make. The whole "everyone thinks this" writing tool is the worst.
If you were watching football with a group of friends, and one of them blurted out, "Enough with that Calvin Johnson, I hate that guy," what would happen?
I would ask him why he doesn't like Calvin Johnson and then after he explains why find a way to move on with my life.
Would people recoil in slow motion? Would everyone gang up and start screaming at him? Would everyone start laughing, like it was simply impossible for anyone to hate Calvin Johnson — which meant this joker had to be kidding? I'm not even sure someone has uttered the words "I hate Calvin Johnson" in Milwaukee, Chicago or Minneapolis, much less anywhere else. He might be the only current professional athlete with a 100 percent approval rating.
It must be tiring to talk in circles and never actually have an intention to get to your point. Actually, it's probably not tiring because Bill has the Simmonsites propping him up telling him how great he is through their emails to him.
There has to be SOME way to pick them apart, to throw a wet towel on them, to make everyone else feel worse about them. When Breaking Bad avoided that massive sinkhole and cranked out its treasured final season, one that pleased the hell out of just about everybody, it went down as a greater accomplishment than the show itself. Gaining universal respect and approval in 2013? Incredible. Who pulls that off anymore?
This is typical Bill Simmons writing. Calvin Johnson has universal respect and approval because Bill Simmons perceives Calvin Johnson as having universal respect and approval. It's true because it is what Bill believes and reinforces the point he wants to prove. The world revolves around Bill and his beliefs. If any other sportswriter has "Only Child Syndrome" more than Bill Simmons, I've never met that person.
And you wonder why Kanye keeps flying off the handle. He's not a lunatic, just someone driven to achieve that same universal respect. Kanye truly believes that he's a musical genius, that he has a higher calling of sorts, that he's repeatedly creating art that stands alone.
See? A is like B which is like something else. At last, through his rambling Bill believes he has proven his point. Calvin Johnson may have universal respect, but I guarantee there are some people that hate him.
Calvin Johnson plays it the other way. He complains by humbly pointing out in a Nike commercial, "Distractions are a little annoying; I wish I could just play football." That's actually how receivers used to carry themselves —
Back in Bill's day when there weren't so many uppity minorities playing the wide receiver position.
We're accustomed to elite receivers "performing" now — it's part of that position, for better and worse.
This using "we" to describe what a group of people think is a writing crutch Bill has worn out over the past couple of years. I wonder if he used it prior to 2011 or I just started noticing at that time? It's pretty obnoxious either way.
You would never call Calvin Johnson a "performer," but again, you can't call him a recluse. Google him and you'll stumble across a surprising number of commercials, TV appearances, NFL Films "Wired for Sound" clips and mildly awkward behind-the-scenes-at-the-shoot videos. I watched a crapload of them this week trying to understand him better. Didn't work. Calvin Johnson seems like a really nice guy. That's it.
Which circles me back to my original point...if Calvin Johnson isn't a performer and is just a really nice guy, then how it is impossible to screw up a commercial for him? He's not overly-exciting, so a commercial featuring him that makes him seem exciting could be a difficult thing to do.
Even his "controversial" moments never seemed even remotely controversial because he's so damned nice.
If Bill cared one bit about the content of his writing then he would notice this statement explains why this statement,
It's impossible to screw up a Calvin Johnson commercial.
isn't true at all. If Bill Simmons takes a week to try and understand Calvin Johnson better but only walks away with the thought that Calvin Johnson is only a really nice guy, then how will a 30 second commercial convey another attribute of Johnson better without just making one up?
In fantasy football, Calvin Johnson always goes four picks too late or $12 too cheap, and by Week 3, you're always kicking yourself that it wasn't you
Oh, is this what I am always doing? Thanks for telling me what I do, since you know me better than I know myself all-knowing master of everything who knows what everyone is thinking at all times or at least pretends to in order to lean on this assumption as a crutch when writing.
But it's the in-the-moment stuff that makes him special. I'm 40 NFL seasons in at this point. During that time, only five non-quarterbacks made me feel like their games never had a ceiling: Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders, Lawrence Taylor, Adrian Peterson (2012 only) and Megatron.
If Peterson only made Bill feel this way for one season, should he be on this list?
I came up with that list during last Sunday's Pittsburgh game, at halftime, when it seemed entirely possible that Calvin Johnson might finish with 400 receiving yards in one game. FOUR HUNDRED RECEIVING YARDS?????? This was possible?
That led to this moment: Wait a second … what the hell am I watching right now? Is this the greatest receiver who's ever lived and I'm the last person who realizes it?
Then Bill remembered that everything starts and ends with him, so if he just realized Calvin Johnson may be the greatest receiver that ever lived then no one else has noticed this either. He better write an entire rambling column about this topic very soon.
Also notice how Bill is watching football on Sunday, makes up a half-assed list on the spot and there you have his next Friday column. Not that Bill is out of creative writing ideas of course.
Unlike with 2,000 rushing yards, 60 homers or 50 touchdown passes, we don't have the proper benchmarks for receiving seasons to put them in perspective. Only seven receivers finished an NFL season with more than 1,600 receiving yards, 100 catches and 10 touchdowns while also averaging 100+ yards per game and 13+ yards per catch. Sadly, the 1600-100-10-100-13 Club isn't the catchiest name.
But it is an semi-arbitrarily chosen set of categories (specifically the 13+ yards per catch) and whether it is a catchy name is completely irrelevant.
All right, so let's simplify it a little. You want 100 yards and a touchdown from your best receiver every game, right? Those are the benchmarks that ultimately matter.
I'd also prefer he catch 95% of the passes that go his way and doesn't lead the league in drops, but I guess I'm just being picky. Yes Bill, you are right. All I want from my best receiver is 1600 yards and 16 touchdowns on the season. It doesn't seem like that much to ask.
Then Bill recites some statistics that say Calvin Johnson is a really good receiver. I would include these statistics in this post since I am sure no one else but Bill Simmons is aware of Calvin Johnson's greatness, but I am too lazy to do so.
Jerry Rice must watch these 2013 games and think, Man, I could have averaged 2,000 yards and 20 TDs a season with these rules. And he wouldn't necessarily be exaggerating. With NFL defenders struggling to adjust to belated safety concerns and so many rules working against them, the passing/receiving numbers from Johnson's era could mirror baseball's power surge from the Bonds/McGwire/Sosa era.
And as a jaded individual, I am guessing the whole "PED use" portion of the passing/receiving numbers from this era also mirrors the Bonds/McGwire/Sosa era.
We might pass an invisible point where it becomes impossible to compare receiving eras against each other.
I think we are already there. Wait, that's right. We aren't there until Bill tells us we are there. Nothing exists until Bill Simmons has acknowledged that thing's existence. So we must continue to wait until Bill officially states that it is impossible to compare receiving eras against each other.
At the same time, I can't remember any receiver other than Calvin Johnson pulling down more bombs while wearing three guys. I can't remember defensive backs bouncing off another receiver like it's a Pop Warner game.
Which is why a commercial idea for Nike where a bunch of people get together to watch Calvin Johnson is the best possible Nike commercial involving Calvin Johnson. Nothing says excitement more than watching someone else watch something exciting.
I also can't remember feeling more wishy-washy about a quarterback than I do about Matthew Stafford right now. Is Matthew Stafford good? Is he really good? Is he potentially great? Is he wildly overrated? Did he win the quarterback lottery?
I think Matthew Stafford is slightly overrated, he did win the quarterback lottery, is potentially great and would be somewhat lost without having Calvin Johnson to throw the football to. Of course, the same goes for Joe Montana relying on Jerry Rice.
Or how much of Stafford's success can be directly attributed to the part where, you know, HE GETS TO THROW FOOTBALLS TO A FREAK OF NATURE? What would Stafford's numbers look like if we removed the 20 catches every season that no other human could make?
Perhaps the same way Wes Welker's numbers would look if he had quarterbacks other than Tom Brady and Peyton Manning throwing him the football. The same way Jerry Rice's numbers would look if he didn't play in Bill Walsh's West Coast offense with Joe Montana running the show. In football, a player's statistics are often dependent on a teammate doing his job well also.
I think I've written this story before, but we went on a family vacation in the late-1980s and brought my buddy Geoff with us. Geoff and I were watching a Niners playoff game in some Caribbean bar one Sunday, throwing back tropical drinks and pretending to be 21. One rowdy drunk who wagered heavily on the Niners kept screaming for Jerry Rice to come through. He wasn't angry at Rice; it was more that he was beckoning him, imploring him, as if Rice were a spirit who could be summoned on command. Every time Montana went back to pass, the guy would scream, "JERRY RICE!" and then celebrate after every Rice catch.
This is such a great story. In fact, THIS should be the Nike commercial for Calvin Johnson. Just have a drunk guy at the bar screaming for Calvin Johnson to catch the football. Commercial gold. This commercial would definitely win an Addy.
And he kept doing it. And he kept doing it. We thought it was annoying at first, then funny, then legitimately funny.
Not just funny, but legitimately funny. Of course something being legitimately funny is a matter of opinion, but in Bill's case his opinion is fact (at least in his own mind).
In four decades of watching football, three receivers stand out for me over everyone else: Rice, Megatron and Moss. I'd take Rice for any important game, Moss for any deep ball, and Megatron for any "sitting at home on a lazy October afternoon expecting to see someone kick ass for three hours" situation. I will remember watching all three. Even if it's too early to wonder if Megatron can leapfrog those other two, he has launched the conversation.
Has Calvin Johnson legitimately started the conversation though? That's when the conversation is really starting.
That should be the most fascinating subplot of the Calvin Johnson era, but it's actually this one: I don't know if we'll ever see anything like this again. And by "this," I mean "a 6-foot-5 freak receiver wreaking havoc on a football field every week."
I think we will probably see another receiver like Calvin Johnson. Football players are getting more athletic and I don't see why another receiver who is as tall as Johnson couldn't come along in 30 years to be unstoppable on the football field. Quit with the drama.
Think about what we know in 2013 that we didn't know 10 years ago. If you were a ridiculously talented, perfect specimen of an athlete who could make millions playing any sport, why pick football? Why assume the risks? Why worry about concussions, wear and tear and collateral damage? Why not gravitate toward basketball, baseball or soccer and be done with it?
It's possible football will become safer and give parents relief that their son isn't going to end up with brain trauma from having played the sport. An athlete might decide to play football because that's the sport he loves. Not every athlete makes a conscious decision about what sport to play based on his long-term health interests. Plus, receivers are becoming more and more well-protected by the NFL, so it's still pretty attractive for a great athlete who loves football to play the sport.
Maybe Nike should dump that Diddy commercial, press the RESET button and make a new one called "Calvin Johnson, the Last of the Freak Receivers." Show him doing Megatron things for 58 seconds, then close with the tagline "YOU WILL NEVER SEE THIS AGAIN."
So show highlights of Calvin Johnson's career and then end it with "YOU WILL NEVER SEE IT AGAIN"? Bill believes himself to be smarter than everyone else, so of course this commercial will be a great success. It might confuse casual NFL fans and not help with Johnson's name recognition to sell shoes, but commercials aren't intended to sell a product anyway, right?
Because it might be true.
So okay guys, pay attention to this Calvin Johnson guy. Even if you never heard of him until Bill alerted you of his existence, watch Johnson's games because no one hates him and he has such a boring personality it is impossible to not make a great commercial featuring him. Do you want Bill to transcribe the commercial that he linked in a YouTube clip again, thereby negating the need for you to watch the clip at all?
Back in September, Nike launched an ad campaign for the one and only Calvin Johnson. It's impossible to screw up a Calvin Johnson commercial. He's either the LeBron of football or the Dominique of football (a.k.a. the Human Highlight Reel).
Being an electric and exciting athlete doesn't mean a commercial featuring said athlete will be exciting. Overall, Calvin Johnson comes off as not exciting off the field. This is a point Bill will bring up repeatedly in this column, yet he can't figure out why Nike had trouble launching an ad campaign for Johnson.
He's the second-best receiver I have ever seen.
Clearly Nike should have been told prior to shooting the commercial where Johnson ranked in Bill Simmons' hierarchy of receivers. I'm positive this would have enabled them to make a better commercial.
And on top of everything else, he has a cool nickname: Megatron. I don't know how you screw THAT up.
Considering there are probably legal and licensing issues with Nike using the term "Megatron" in a commercial, I can see how this nickname almost becomes an issue when attempting to market Johnson. Bill can't see past his own nose, so he clearly isn't thinking about these legal and licensing issues.
Spoiler alert: Bill does think of these licensing issues, but just glosses over why Nike couldn't use the "Megatron" nickname in a commercial.
Nike screwed it up. It made a perfectly fine commercial that accentuates everything we already knew about Calvin Johnson: He's humble and soft-spoken, someone who only cares about winning games and making plays.
Alas, not someone who is good for an entertaining commercial. That's why Nike had to bring in P-Diddy or Puffy or whatever his name is, to liven Johnson's brand up. Johnson is awesome at football, but his recognition isn't so high because he doesn't self-promote.
And yet, Calvin Johnson has spent more time getting his name out there than you realize.
Please tell me more about the quantity of what I do or don't realize. It's not annoying at all.
There's Calvin walking to work, dressed in a suit and moving through a fancy building. He's telling himself that 1,964 (receiving) yards is waiting again, as long as he avoids annoying distractions like interviews, fans and demands. At that point, 50 reporters and photographers appear and start screaming, "Calvin! Calvin! Calvin! Calvin!"
As if this commercial wasn't bad enough, Bill is now going to kill space by transcribing it for us. I get the feeling Bill is filibustering his writing career. He's just going to stop writing good quality stuff until his readers stop caring and move on from wanting him to continue writing. In the meantime, Bill is just going to keep writing crap.
At that point, Diddy (???) enters the commercial as Calvin's alter ego, "Johnson." He's there to help.
Again, it's not a good commercial visually or in writing.
I'm guessing they named him "Johnson" after furious negotiations to call him "Megatron" fell through right before they filmed the commercial.
So Bill does realize why Nike didn't call him "Megatron" in the commercial. I'm not marketing specialist, but I know enough about marketing to know that if you are marketing Calvin Johnson then you may want to market him by his actual name and not pay $500,000 (or more?) for the use of a nickname which will further confuse those who don't know who Megatron is and don't know what Calvin Johnson looks like. Again, from a marketing standpoint the nickname Megatron is great, but Nike is marketing Calvin Johnson, not his cool nickname.
He's freeing Calvin from all this crap. So a satisfied Calvin walks away from the crowd, nodding to himself, as Johnson's voice trails him: "There's only one thing you have to do." And that's when a big "UNLEASH SPEED" graphic comes flying at us. The end.
Everything about this commercial seems cool … you know, until you actually think about it. What's the point of a sneaker ad?
Everything about this article seems fine until you actually think about it. What's the point of this article? Why did Bill just spend 250 words saying a commercial sucks? Why can't Bill just recite Calvin Johnson's statistics and not ramble about a bad commercial that he finds to be so terrible, yet he not only links the commercial in a YouTube clip but also gives us a written transcript of what happens in the commercial?
To make me like the endorser, to grab my attention, and to make me more likely to purchase the product. And not in that order. Well … why would I like Calvin Johnson MORE after that commercial?
Because it's a commercial and you associate Johnson as being all-business. I don't know.
Now I have to hear him complaining about distractions and outside forces?
Um … YOU JUST SPENT YOUR ENTIRE DAY FILMING A SHOE COMMERCIAL THAT COSTARRED A GUY WHO'S ON HIS FOURTH NICKNAME! That day wasn't a distraction?
Thanks Gregg Easterbrook. Does ESPN give a course at orientation on how to kill space in a column to make it seem like you are writing more original material than you really are?
And why make a commercial that says, "I don't have the personality, or the will, to pull off the ancillary parts of my life — I wish I could hire someone more dynamic, like Sean Diddy Combs, to do it." What???? Who would want this?
The commercial says, "I am focused on football. That's all I care about." No further analysis is required after this.
If you're selling Calvin Johnson without emphasizing his most important quality, then you've failed. I would have tackled it differently.
There's nothing Bill Simmons can't do better than someone else. He's the VP of Common Sense, a GM-in-waiting, and now smarter than Nike when it comes to marketing their athletes. It sounds like Johnson's most important quality is his focus on being the best wide receiver he can be, which the commercial does tackle.
Maybe we see an eclectic mix of fans preparing to watch a Lions game on Sunday morning. Really, they're getting ready to watch Calvin Johnson. They're getting ready to do this either because they love the Lions, they wagered on the Lions, they picked him for their fantasy team, or because watching Calvin Johnson catch footballs has nothing in common with absolutely ANYTHING right now. I'd want to see those fans getting ready, then I'd want to see Calvin, and then I'd want to see him do Megatron shit. There's your Calvin Johnson commercial.
This sounds like, and I'm not intentionally exaggerating here, one of the worst commercial ideas ever. So Bill thinks the commercial should be people getting ready to watch Calvin Johnson play football together? That's it. People getting ready to watch football and then Calvin Johnson does something cool? Don Draper is not impressed.
Quick tangent: I hate this football season.
The first 15% of this column was a review of a Nike commercial. I would say the entire column is a tangent to kill time prior to getting to Bill's picks for the week.
My picks have flagrantly sucked, my fantasy teams are relentlessly mediocre, I can't win a bet to save my life, the refs keep screwing over the Patriots,
Poor Bill. I hope he has time to cry into his 2013 Boston Red Sox World Series Champions t-shirt later tonight while reminiscing on how sad he is about the officials screwing over the Patriots ALL THE TIME.
So what's been fun about 2013? Start here: We get to watch Calvin Johnson in his prime. The following anecdote makes me sound like Chuckie driving to Will Hunting's house every morning, but I don't care. Every Sunday, when I'm setting up the televisions in my office so I can watch four games at once,
This is Bill's way of reminding us he can watch four televisions at one time. I watched 12 televisions at one time earlier this year at a sports bar, so I'm not impressed. But the important covert brag here is that Bill's office has four televisions.
I love watching that guy, and so do you,
Don't tell me what I do or don't like. Despite what your lemming followers tell you, you don't speak for the average sports fan and you don't know what everyone is thinking. It's a lazy writing tool that is used to prove or disprove a point you want to make. The whole "everyone thinks this" writing tool is the worst.
If you were watching football with a group of friends, and one of them blurted out, "Enough with that Calvin Johnson, I hate that guy," what would happen?
I would ask him why he doesn't like Calvin Johnson and then after he explains why find a way to move on with my life.
Would people recoil in slow motion? Would everyone gang up and start screaming at him? Would everyone start laughing, like it was simply impossible for anyone to hate Calvin Johnson — which meant this joker had to be kidding? I'm not even sure someone has uttered the words "I hate Calvin Johnson" in Milwaukee, Chicago or Minneapolis, much less anywhere else. He might be the only current professional athlete with a 100 percent approval rating.
It must be tiring to talk in circles and never actually have an intention to get to your point. Actually, it's probably not tiring because Bill has the Simmonsites propping him up telling him how great he is through their emails to him.
There has to be SOME way to pick them apart, to throw a wet towel on them, to make everyone else feel worse about them. When Breaking Bad avoided that massive sinkhole and cranked out its treasured final season, one that pleased the hell out of just about everybody, it went down as a greater accomplishment than the show itself. Gaining universal respect and approval in 2013? Incredible. Who pulls that off anymore?
This is typical Bill Simmons writing. Calvin Johnson has universal respect and approval because Bill Simmons perceives Calvin Johnson as having universal respect and approval. It's true because it is what Bill believes and reinforces the point he wants to prove. The world revolves around Bill and his beliefs. If any other sportswriter has "Only Child Syndrome" more than Bill Simmons, I've never met that person.
And you wonder why Kanye keeps flying off the handle. He's not a lunatic, just someone driven to achieve that same universal respect. Kanye truly believes that he's a musical genius, that he has a higher calling of sorts, that he's repeatedly creating art that stands alone.
See? A is like B which is like something else. At last, through his rambling Bill believes he has proven his point. Calvin Johnson may have universal respect, but I guarantee there are some people that hate him.
Calvin Johnson plays it the other way. He complains by humbly pointing out in a Nike commercial, "Distractions are a little annoying; I wish I could just play football." That's actually how receivers used to carry themselves —
Back in Bill's day when there weren't so many uppity minorities playing the wide receiver position.
We're accustomed to elite receivers "performing" now — it's part of that position, for better and worse.
This using "we" to describe what a group of people think is a writing crutch Bill has worn out over the past couple of years. I wonder if he used it prior to 2011 or I just started noticing at that time? It's pretty obnoxious either way.
You would never call Calvin Johnson a "performer," but again, you can't call him a recluse. Google him and you'll stumble across a surprising number of commercials, TV appearances, NFL Films "Wired for Sound" clips and mildly awkward behind-the-scenes-at-the-shoot videos. I watched a crapload of them this week trying to understand him better. Didn't work. Calvin Johnson seems like a really nice guy. That's it.
Which circles me back to my original point...if Calvin Johnson isn't a performer and is just a really nice guy, then how it is impossible to screw up a commercial for him? He's not overly-exciting, so a commercial featuring him that makes him seem exciting could be a difficult thing to do.
Even his "controversial" moments never seemed even remotely controversial because he's so damned nice.
If Bill cared one bit about the content of his writing then he would notice this statement explains why this statement,
It's impossible to screw up a Calvin Johnson commercial.
isn't true at all. If Bill Simmons takes a week to try and understand Calvin Johnson better but only walks away with the thought that Calvin Johnson is only a really nice guy, then how will a 30 second commercial convey another attribute of Johnson better without just making one up?
In fantasy football, Calvin Johnson always goes four picks too late or $12 too cheap, and by Week 3, you're always kicking yourself that it wasn't you
Oh, is this what I am always doing? Thanks for telling me what I do, since you know me better than I know myself all-knowing master of everything who knows what everyone is thinking at all times or at least pretends to in order to lean on this assumption as a crutch when writing.
But it's the in-the-moment stuff that makes him special. I'm 40 NFL seasons in at this point. During that time, only five non-quarterbacks made me feel like their games never had a ceiling: Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders, Lawrence Taylor, Adrian Peterson (2012 only) and Megatron.
If Peterson only made Bill feel this way for one season, should he be on this list?
I came up with that list during last Sunday's Pittsburgh game, at halftime, when it seemed entirely possible that Calvin Johnson might finish with 400 receiving yards in one game. FOUR HUNDRED RECEIVING YARDS?????? This was possible?
That led to this moment: Wait a second … what the hell am I watching right now? Is this the greatest receiver who's ever lived and I'm the last person who realizes it?
Then Bill remembered that everything starts and ends with him, so if he just realized Calvin Johnson may be the greatest receiver that ever lived then no one else has noticed this either. He better write an entire rambling column about this topic very soon.
Also notice how Bill is watching football on Sunday, makes up a half-assed list on the spot and there you have his next Friday column. Not that Bill is out of creative writing ideas of course.
Unlike with 2,000 rushing yards, 60 homers or 50 touchdown passes, we don't have the proper benchmarks for receiving seasons to put them in perspective. Only seven receivers finished an NFL season with more than 1,600 receiving yards, 100 catches and 10 touchdowns while also averaging 100+ yards per game and 13+ yards per catch. Sadly, the 1600-100-10-100-13 Club isn't the catchiest name.
But it is an semi-arbitrarily chosen set of categories (specifically the 13+ yards per catch) and whether it is a catchy name is completely irrelevant.
All right, so let's simplify it a little. You want 100 yards and a touchdown from your best receiver every game, right? Those are the benchmarks that ultimately matter.
I'd also prefer he catch 95% of the passes that go his way and doesn't lead the league in drops, but I guess I'm just being picky. Yes Bill, you are right. All I want from my best receiver is 1600 yards and 16 touchdowns on the season. It doesn't seem like that much to ask.
Then Bill recites some statistics that say Calvin Johnson is a really good receiver. I would include these statistics in this post since I am sure no one else but Bill Simmons is aware of Calvin Johnson's greatness, but I am too lazy to do so.
Jerry Rice must watch these 2013 games and think, Man, I could have averaged 2,000 yards and 20 TDs a season with these rules. And he wouldn't necessarily be exaggerating. With NFL defenders struggling to adjust to belated safety concerns and so many rules working against them, the passing/receiving numbers from Johnson's era could mirror baseball's power surge from the Bonds/McGwire/Sosa era.
And as a jaded individual, I am guessing the whole "PED use" portion of the passing/receiving numbers from this era also mirrors the Bonds/McGwire/Sosa era.
We might pass an invisible point where it becomes impossible to compare receiving eras against each other.
I think we are already there. Wait, that's right. We aren't there until Bill tells us we are there. Nothing exists until Bill Simmons has acknowledged that thing's existence. So we must continue to wait until Bill officially states that it is impossible to compare receiving eras against each other.
At the same time, I can't remember any receiver other than Calvin Johnson pulling down more bombs while wearing three guys. I can't remember defensive backs bouncing off another receiver like it's a Pop Warner game.
Which is why a commercial idea for Nike where a bunch of people get together to watch Calvin Johnson is the best possible Nike commercial involving Calvin Johnson. Nothing says excitement more than watching someone else watch something exciting.
I also can't remember feeling more wishy-washy about a quarterback than I do about Matthew Stafford right now. Is Matthew Stafford good? Is he really good? Is he potentially great? Is he wildly overrated? Did he win the quarterback lottery?
I think Matthew Stafford is slightly overrated, he did win the quarterback lottery, is potentially great and would be somewhat lost without having Calvin Johnson to throw the football to. Of course, the same goes for Joe Montana relying on Jerry Rice.
Or how much of Stafford's success can be directly attributed to the part where, you know, HE GETS TO THROW FOOTBALLS TO A FREAK OF NATURE? What would Stafford's numbers look like if we removed the 20 catches every season that no other human could make?
Perhaps the same way Wes Welker's numbers would look if he had quarterbacks other than Tom Brady and Peyton Manning throwing him the football. The same way Jerry Rice's numbers would look if he didn't play in Bill Walsh's West Coast offense with Joe Montana running the show. In football, a player's statistics are often dependent on a teammate doing his job well also.
I think I've written this story before, but we went on a family vacation in the late-1980s and brought my buddy Geoff with us. Geoff and I were watching a Niners playoff game in some Caribbean bar one Sunday, throwing back tropical drinks and pretending to be 21. One rowdy drunk who wagered heavily on the Niners kept screaming for Jerry Rice to come through. He wasn't angry at Rice; it was more that he was beckoning him, imploring him, as if Rice were a spirit who could be summoned on command. Every time Montana went back to pass, the guy would scream, "JERRY RICE!" and then celebrate after every Rice catch.
This is such a great story. In fact, THIS should be the Nike commercial for Calvin Johnson. Just have a drunk guy at the bar screaming for Calvin Johnson to catch the football. Commercial gold. This commercial would definitely win an Addy.
And he kept doing it. And he kept doing it. We thought it was annoying at first, then funny, then legitimately funny.
Not just funny, but legitimately funny. Of course something being legitimately funny is a matter of opinion, but in Bill's case his opinion is fact (at least in his own mind).
In four decades of watching football, three receivers stand out for me over everyone else: Rice, Megatron and Moss. I'd take Rice for any important game, Moss for any deep ball, and Megatron for any "sitting at home on a lazy October afternoon expecting to see someone kick ass for three hours" situation. I will remember watching all three. Even if it's too early to wonder if Megatron can leapfrog those other two, he has launched the conversation.
Has Calvin Johnson legitimately started the conversation though? That's when the conversation is really starting.
That should be the most fascinating subplot of the Calvin Johnson era, but it's actually this one: I don't know if we'll ever see anything like this again. And by "this," I mean "a 6-foot-5 freak receiver wreaking havoc on a football field every week."
I think we will probably see another receiver like Calvin Johnson. Football players are getting more athletic and I don't see why another receiver who is as tall as Johnson couldn't come along in 30 years to be unstoppable on the football field. Quit with the drama.
Think about what we know in 2013 that we didn't know 10 years ago. If you were a ridiculously talented, perfect specimen of an athlete who could make millions playing any sport, why pick football? Why assume the risks? Why worry about concussions, wear and tear and collateral damage? Why not gravitate toward basketball, baseball or soccer and be done with it?
It's possible football will become safer and give parents relief that their son isn't going to end up with brain trauma from having played the sport. An athlete might decide to play football because that's the sport he loves. Not every athlete makes a conscious decision about what sport to play based on his long-term health interests. Plus, receivers are becoming more and more well-protected by the NFL, so it's still pretty attractive for a great athlete who loves football to play the sport.
Maybe Nike should dump that Diddy commercial, press the RESET button and make a new one called "Calvin Johnson, the Last of the Freak Receivers." Show him doing Megatron things for 58 seconds, then close with the tagline "YOU WILL NEVER SEE THIS AGAIN."
So show highlights of Calvin Johnson's career and then end it with "YOU WILL NEVER SEE IT AGAIN"? Bill believes himself to be smarter than everyone else, so of course this commercial will be a great success. It might confuse casual NFL fans and not help with Johnson's name recognition to sell shoes, but commercials aren't intended to sell a product anyway, right?
Because it might be true.
So okay guys, pay attention to this Calvin Johnson guy. Even if you never heard of him until Bill alerted you of his existence, watch Johnson's games because no one hates him and he has such a boring personality it is impossible to not make a great commercial featuring him. Do you want Bill to transcribe the commercial that he linked in a YouTube clip again, thereby negating the need for you to watch the clip at all?
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