We Always Give The Readers What They Want

And right now, they want us to continue using Jemele Hill as a punching bag. Just glanced through her recent Patriots/Belichick article and found one particular segment that was juuuuuuust offensive enough to make me want to fire up the computer and complain mindlessly about it on teh ol' blogowebs.

Ever hear the story about how the real Suge Knight allegedly dangled rapper Vanilla Ice from a 20th-floor balcony to coerce Ice into signing over royalties from "Ice, Ice Baby"? If someone else calls Belichick classless, I'm afraid he might do the same thing to LaDainian Tomlinson, the first to publicly make that statement because New England players stomped on the Chargers logo after disposing of them in last season's playoffs.

The attacks on the Patriots' character are certainly amusing and highly hypocritical. Naturally, Tomlinson failed to mention what teammate Drayton Florence reportedly told fans at Gillette Stadium following San Diego's 41-17 win in 2005. "[Expletive] New England and their team," Florence said, according to the Providence Journal. "Get that look of shock off your faces. Don't be shocked. We beat your ass."

So let's apply Jemele's reasoning here to the real world. Basically what she's saying is that if you have ever worked or gone to school with someone who did anything wrong, you're not allowed to complain about anyone else who does something wrong. That would be hypocrisy! How dare you criticize the white collar criminals who make the evening news- aren't you the one whose third cousin once stole a six pack from 7-11? And don't be so quick to get angry about that guy who backed into your tail light in that parking garage and didn't leave his insurance information. It was your college roommate that got a speeding ticket that one time. Haha! Shoe's on the other foot now, it's it, bitch?

Yes, I know that in both those examples the imaginary stranger's crime is worse than the imaginary person you know's crime. But I also think stomping on the opposing team's logo is much worse than talking trash to some dumb, drunk fans who chose to hang around near the visiting team's tunnel after a game. The first is meant to humiliate and anger your opponent and every single one of their fans. Although this is not necessarily the case when a newspaper reports the quote, the second is originally intended only to humiliate those previously mentioned fans (who I'm sure were acting like total angels in the situation and not instigating any conversation with Florence what so ever). Everyone, including both players and fans, is either going to see a logo stomp as it happens or hear about it later on. But unless a newspaper somehow gets ahold of the quote and feels the need to turn it into a story, only like 50 random people and some of their friends are going to hear postgame trash talk aimed by a player into the stands.

All this babbling aside- when is ESPN.com going to fire Jemele Hill? She's somehow making Page 2 look even worse than it normally does, which is saying a lot.