This is really astounding. Bill Simmons, who at one time wrote as many as three items a week for espn.com's Page 2, is now able to perpetuate the myth that he is the voice of the fan by writing not three, not two, but actually what we consider to be at best 1.5 items per week on the four letter dot com.
Consider this week's effort. Good ol' Billy Boy throws together a "links" item, which had to take all of 10 minutes, then he puts together what he calls a "Basketball Blog" post in which he makes up fake emails, and pretends to answer them. In a thinly disguised effort to counter this lack of zeal that first made him popular, Billiam posts three podcasts, which are, in actuality, phone call conversations with his buddies. The exception here, of course, is his podcast conversation with Jason Whitlock, the former Page 2 writer who was fired after writing too much of the truth. We view this episode of Simmons' podcast as a token effort to try to further his claim that he is anti-establishment. There was a golden opportunity here to discuss Whitlock's dismissal from the sports behemoth, or his feud with Scoop Jackson, or at the very least, JW's thoughts on controversial subjects such as Herm Edwards' weak leadership and submission to poor ownership in Kansas City, or Whitlock's opinions on Kelvin Sampson, or the increasingly sad state of character in the NFL.
To paraphrase Jack Black's character Barry from High Fidelity, how can a person who has no interest in writing about sports continue to write for the largest sports entity on the face of the earth?
In full disclosure, Simmons is still a regular stop for me when I'm perusing the net. However, he has continued to move down the list of sites or columns I check, and his new Sports Guy page has become my destination for items that I know I can lampoon with relative ease. All in all, I consider this a huge shame. I used to be a huge fan of Simmons, and he is part of the reason that I started this site. I can only hope that one day, he will sit back and survey his career, and realize that he willingly became a Sean Salisbury when he could have been a Ron Jaworski.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
This is just another reason we love college sports
If you have been reading Bill Simmons recently, or paying attention to the NBA at all, you probably know that the Seattle Supersonics are most likely on their way out of town, and the residents of Seattle are beside themselves. This is a truly terrible situation, and we certainly don't intend to make light of it. However, this does serve to highlight just one more difference between college and professional sports. True, sports at both levels are certainly a business, but life as a sports fan at the collegiate level at least guarantees that your team won't pack up and leave town. If your favorite pro team suffers through years of inept management, and the corresponding losing seasons, ownership might just see fit to tuck tail and run for the next green pasture with a shiny new publicly funded arena. At the college level, the Athletic Director feels much more pressure, and much more quickly if his teams don't perform, and he is much more likely to make a change in staff than his professional counterpart might be, especially since his job may be the next one on the line. For all of the criticism that boosters take for tainting the "purity" of college athletics, they are the ones who are primarily responsible for your favorite team remaining competitive, or for the rebuilding efforts put forth by your university of choice. After all, without these boosters, collegiate athletic programs would be largely unable to build state of the art facilities, recruit prized blue chip athletes, and secure the large paydays that come with playing on national t.v. or in bowl games. Yes, sports at this level are very much a business proposition, but at least you can rest easy knowing that as long as your favorite university exists, they'll never flee their home city. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for your local professional team.
The Beginning of the End of an Era?
With the retirement of Brett Favre this week, the NFL has officially entered the second half of the current Golden Age of Quarterbacks. A mere two years ago, the league was enjoying a phenomenal run of high profile, exciting to watch quarterbacks. Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Donovan McNabb, and Michael Vick were all "Faces of the League", and all were helping to sell out road games in whatever city they happened to be playing in that week. The fact that guys like Carson Palmer, Daunte Culpepper, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning and even Philip Rivers were performing at a high level or at least seemed to add to the already high profile of the position just served to add that much more to the feeling that we were seeing an unprecedented level of league wide talent at the position. My, how quickly things change. Vick, as you know, is currently in prison, McNabb may or may not be on his last legs in Philly, and now, Favre has called it quits.
The retirement of number 4 has spawned an alarming amount of discussion on sports talk radio and the internet regarding just how good he really was. After being force fed years of man-love from Peter King and John Madden, the sports punditry has let loose with a backlash that's a little unsettling, to say the least. Is Favre the best quarterback in NFL history? That's not what we're saying. But, to reduce his 17 years to a series of poor decisions, forced throws, and avoidable turnovers is a tad over the top.
Certainly, the "Brett Favre just has fun playing football" notion has been beaten to death, but he did manage to bring a level of enjoyment to watching football that any of the other players mentioned above haven't done, and most likely, won't do. The reason that Favre resonated with the average fan is because he played the game the way that we would like to think we would play it, given the chance. The fact that he made a snowball and threw it at a teammate during the Divisional Round playoff win against the Seahawks underscores that point. Imagine if you were in the backyard, playing your own personal version of the Icebowl in a driving snowstorm. Doesn't that seem like something you would do to one of your buddies if you had just thrown a game turning touchdown pass? Sure it does. That's why Joe Sixpack loved watching Brett Favre. He seemed like one of us. A down to earth type that realized that playing quarterback in the NFL was a blessing and a dream come true. At a time when other players in the league were busy running around with models or pop starlets, Favre was content to live the married life on his farm in the offseason, and stay out of the blinding flash of the papparazzi. When you view him in these terms, it's easy to understand why Peter King and John Madden, as well as casual fans around the country loved to watch him play. As for his place in history, let's discuss that for a moment.
While Favre holds just about every meaningful passing record, he is probably just keeping the seat warm for Peyton Manning. And, yes, he only has the one Super Bowl ring. And, he's probably not in the top five quarterbacks that played in 2007 on the list of "If you had to pick one quarterback to start one game you had to win". With all of that said, Favre still sits at the top of our list for quarterbacks we would pick if we had to make one play to win a game. Time and time again, he seemed to make plays that nobody thought he could make, or should make. Whether it was forcing a pass into double coverage, stumbling out of the pocket and making one of those underhanded tosses like in the Divisional playoff game this year, or drawing up plays in the dirt in the huddle, Favre had a knack for making the most exciting and memorable plays over and over. One such play that defined his career took place in a playoff game that the Packers actually lost. In the fourth quarter of a close playoff game with his team trailing the 49ers, Favre led his team down the field, and threw a go ahead touchdown pass to Antonio Freeman on a play that Mike Holmgren later said was "drawn up in the dirt". With little time remaining, and his team knocking on the door of the endzone, Favre told Freeman in the huddle that he would "audible" at the line, but to run a different route than the audible called for. In fact, the route he told Freeman to run wasn't in the playbook at all. Since the 49ers ran the same version of the West Coast Offense that the Packers ran at that time, the San Francisco defense was extremely familiar with the verbiage and hand signals that the Packers were using. Coming to the line, Favre surveyed the defense, and used a hand signal to change Freeman's route to "Q18", a route in the West Coast Offense that called for him to break off his pattern if he saw the safety playing over the top. In the huddle, Favre told Freeman to break as if he was going to cut the pattern short, and then bolt behind the safety once he had bitten on the underneath route. Once the safety saw the hand signal for "Q18", he certainly knew the route, and was in what he thought to be perfect position to make the play. After the snap, Freeman ran his route as Favre had instructed him, and the safety made only one fateful step forward. Freeman slipped behind him, and Favre threw what Steve Young called "the ugliest duck" of a pass over the safety's head for six. Returning to the sideline, Mike Holmgren uttered not a word to his quarterback, furious that Favre had just run what amounted to a backyard play at a crucial time in a playoff game. If he had, one would imagine that he would paraphrase the manager in "Major League": "Nice throw. Don't ever fucking do it again." That's what made Brett Favre a fan favorite and frequent recipient of slurp jobs from many in the media. If the running soap opera of his will he or won't he retirement over the past couple of years, or the seemingly constant stream of obnoxious praise heaped on him by the media have served to make some talk show hosts or bloggers sick of him, almost everyone will miss watching Brett Favre make plays that he probably shouldn't.
The retirement of number 4 has spawned an alarming amount of discussion on sports talk radio and the internet regarding just how good he really was. After being force fed years of man-love from Peter King and John Madden, the sports punditry has let loose with a backlash that's a little unsettling, to say the least. Is Favre the best quarterback in NFL history? That's not what we're saying. But, to reduce his 17 years to a series of poor decisions, forced throws, and avoidable turnovers is a tad over the top.
Certainly, the "Brett Favre just has fun playing football" notion has been beaten to death, but he did manage to bring a level of enjoyment to watching football that any of the other players mentioned above haven't done, and most likely, won't do. The reason that Favre resonated with the average fan is because he played the game the way that we would like to think we would play it, given the chance. The fact that he made a snowball and threw it at a teammate during the Divisional Round playoff win against the Seahawks underscores that point. Imagine if you were in the backyard, playing your own personal version of the Icebowl in a driving snowstorm. Doesn't that seem like something you would do to one of your buddies if you had just thrown a game turning touchdown pass? Sure it does. That's why Joe Sixpack loved watching Brett Favre. He seemed like one of us. A down to earth type that realized that playing quarterback in the NFL was a blessing and a dream come true. At a time when other players in the league were busy running around with models or pop starlets, Favre was content to live the married life on his farm in the offseason, and stay out of the blinding flash of the papparazzi. When you view him in these terms, it's easy to understand why Peter King and John Madden, as well as casual fans around the country loved to watch him play. As for his place in history, let's discuss that for a moment.
While Favre holds just about every meaningful passing record, he is probably just keeping the seat warm for Peyton Manning. And, yes, he only has the one Super Bowl ring. And, he's probably not in the top five quarterbacks that played in 2007 on the list of "If you had to pick one quarterback to start one game you had to win". With all of that said, Favre still sits at the top of our list for quarterbacks we would pick if we had to make one play to win a game. Time and time again, he seemed to make plays that nobody thought he could make, or should make. Whether it was forcing a pass into double coverage, stumbling out of the pocket and making one of those underhanded tosses like in the Divisional playoff game this year, or drawing up plays in the dirt in the huddle, Favre had a knack for making the most exciting and memorable plays over and over. One such play that defined his career took place in a playoff game that the Packers actually lost. In the fourth quarter of a close playoff game with his team trailing the 49ers, Favre led his team down the field, and threw a go ahead touchdown pass to Antonio Freeman on a play that Mike Holmgren later said was "drawn up in the dirt". With little time remaining, and his team knocking on the door of the endzone, Favre told Freeman in the huddle that he would "audible" at the line, but to run a different route than the audible called for. In fact, the route he told Freeman to run wasn't in the playbook at all. Since the 49ers ran the same version of the West Coast Offense that the Packers ran at that time, the San Francisco defense was extremely familiar with the verbiage and hand signals that the Packers were using. Coming to the line, Favre surveyed the defense, and used a hand signal to change Freeman's route to "Q18", a route in the West Coast Offense that called for him to break off his pattern if he saw the safety playing over the top. In the huddle, Favre told Freeman to break as if he was going to cut the pattern short, and then bolt behind the safety once he had bitten on the underneath route. Once the safety saw the hand signal for "Q18", he certainly knew the route, and was in what he thought to be perfect position to make the play. After the snap, Freeman ran his route as Favre had instructed him, and the safety made only one fateful step forward. Freeman slipped behind him, and Favre threw what Steve Young called "the ugliest duck" of a pass over the safety's head for six. Returning to the sideline, Mike Holmgren uttered not a word to his quarterback, furious that Favre had just run what amounted to a backyard play at a crucial time in a playoff game. If he had, one would imagine that he would paraphrase the manager in "Major League": "Nice throw. Don't ever fucking do it again." That's what made Brett Favre a fan favorite and frequent recipient of slurp jobs from many in the media. If the running soap opera of his will he or won't he retirement over the past couple of years, or the seemingly constant stream of obnoxious praise heaped on him by the media have served to make some talk show hosts or bloggers sick of him, almost everyone will miss watching Brett Favre make plays that he probably shouldn't.
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