when dumb lists and anecdotal bullshit converge

remember espn's baseball "hot stove heaters?" i hope not. i've been trying to forget them for months now. they were a series of pathetic lists and countdowns about supposedly the league's best hitter, division, ballpark, etc., meant to get readers ready for spring training. they were terribly written and completely uninteresting. unfortunately, espn decided those worked so well that they'd do something similar in preparation for football season. their unoriginally titled series "the best" concluded this week with this list of the game's "best" owners. this is obviously a pretty tough category to judge; other than spending money and hiring upper level personnel, what exactly do owners do that make them good or bad? the four espn analysts chosen to judge this category split their votes between pittsburgh's dan rooney and new england's robert kraft. here are some of their reasons-

John Clayton: Dan Rooney, Pittsburgh
Rooney is the game's best owner because he cares about the game
he runs the Steelers the right way
He treats employees right

he's the david eckstein of football owners, i guess.

Matt Mosley: Bob Kraft, New England
Obviously he's a highly successful business man, but his best trait is that he still has the ability to think like a frustrated fan.

what the hell? frustrated fans are stereotypically full of bad ideas formulated from kneejerk reactions. if all owners operated like frustrated fans nearly every team in the league would turn over 75% of their roster every year and the average length of a caoching tenure would be about 1 season.

Len Pasquarelli: Rooney
The late Jim Finks, a terrific football man whose administrative skills earned him a well-deserved niche in the Hall of Fame, once noted, and we're paraphrasing a bit here, that players play, coaches coach and general managers generally manage. Well, the best owners pretty much own, and that's why they're so good. They get out of the way and allow their football people to do their jobs. And, because of that quality, they have a lot of Super Bowl hardware sitting in their respective trophy cases.

that must be the problem with the owners of teams that don't win titles; they're overstepping their boundaries. just last season i saw bills owner ralph wilson slap on a leather helmet, push j.p. losman aside, and take an offensive series at QB against the jets. cardinals owner bill bidwill calls most of his team's 3rd down plays- no wonder they haven't been to the playoffs in 10 years. (note: sarcastic jokes do not apply to al davis of the raiders, who i would not put past doing either of these things.)

Merril Hoge: Kraft
Consistency and the ability to trust those to whom you delegate decision-making authority are the hallmarks of great ownership and that's why Bob Kraft is my pick for best owner in the league. Over the years, the Patriots have consistently won because of the trust that Kraft puts in his staff. You never see Kraft meddling in the concerns of his staff even when the team might look to be down-and-out due to injuries or other concerns.

i think what merril was going for here was "owning a team that spends money on the right players and coaches and thus wins a bunch of super bowls is the hallmark of great ownership. over the years the patriots have done this, so, therefore, i'm picking kraft. also, because i need to write something else besides that, here's some anecdotal bullshit."

to be fair, all four of these guys are pretty good writers/analysts most of the time. (at least espn didn't ask joe theisman for his opinion.) i think the problem here is more stupid question-related than bad writing-related. if that's the case, then why was the column written in the first place? i can't wait until october, when espn prepares us for the upcoming NBA season by telling us mike brown of the cavaliers is one of the league's best coaches because he knows how to utilize lebron.