Sunday, January 6, 2013

Grab bag: this RGIII injury bullshit can't exit the sports news cycle quickly enough

In the coming days, you will read/hear about 100 different columnists/analysts tell you about how insane Mike Shanahan was to leave Robert Griffin III in the game after he tweaked his knee during the first quarter of today's loss to Seattle.  I am not here to discuss whether these people are wrong or right. (They are probably right--Griffin's injury was messing up his throwing mechanics, hobbling his running ability, and beyond that it's important to think of him as a long term investment for the franchise.  On the other hand, Griffin did insist to his coach that he was fine and his backup is Kirk Cousins.  But whatever.)  Instead, I am here to point out what a big bunch of shitheads pretty much everyone in the sports media are for pushing their perspective on this story.  And the reason they are shitheads is that if Washington's defense had held on for eight more minutes and the Redskins had won the game--without their offense doing a damn thing differently than they did as the game unfolded in real life--not one of these zilches would be saying what they're saying about Shanahan's alleged blunder.  Not one.  They would be talking about the grit and guts of RGIII and the brilliance Mike Shanahan showed in sticking with him.  Saying AW THEY SHOULD HAVE TAKEN HIM OUT IT WAS SO OBVIOUS is one of the most flagrant cases of ex post facto logical analysis you'll ever see.  It's fucking pathetic.  I have respect for any anyone who wants to say "This was a huge mistake, but you can see where Shanahan was coming from at the time."  But the next analyst who takes that position will be the first.

In other news, Skip Bayless continues to rule.  Check out this article: it's good because he correctly assesses the relative merits of the 2012 seasons of Griffin, Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson.  But it's great because before doing that, he spends several hundred words blasting Jim Irsay for cutting Peyton Manning and thus (in Skip's view) reducing the odds of Indy winning a Super Bowl anytime in the next four years.  There is one word for this:

Please don't try to convince me Luck sets you up for a much brighter future. In this league, the future must always be now. Four years is an NFL eternity, and Peyton Manning would've given the Colts a better chance to win the Super Bowl this season and each of the next three.

Strong.

Finally, here's something from a wildly popular "sports" columnist:


The "T" on my ThinkPad flipped off last week as I was typing. My natural instinct was to blame my hellion son or my unlucky dog, Rufus, since they cause 99.99 percent of the disasters in my house. But I've only had this laptop for five months — it usually takes two years for my keyboard to start falling apart like it's Arian Foster on your 2013 fantasy team. How could this happen?

My wife (a longtime MacGyver wanna-be) thought she could Super Glue the "T" back on the keyboard, which made me nervous because Super Glue is probably the most misunderstood product on the planet. You use Super Glue to fix a broken chair, or maybe even the face mask of an autographed Mark Sanchez helmet that you just threw against the wall. You shouldn't use it for anything electronic; it just ends up making an already sticky situation stickier. One stuck "T" and one domestic argument later, I found myself back where I started. Thankfully, I had purchased something called "three-year onsite NBD and three-year priority support and three-year ThinkPad Protection" for $269 when I bought my laptop last June, which meant that if anything happened to my laptop, a technician would arrive the following day to fix it. I called Lenovo, banged out a service order and that was that.

The next day, Lenovo e-mailed me some bad news: My part was on back order and wouldn't be available for five to seven business days. (Random note: I love when the phrase "business days" gets involved — sports teams should start using that for injured athletes so it sounds like they're coming back sooner than they are. When Gronk broke his forearm, the Pats should have announced that he'd be out for 25 business days — I would have felt so much better.) I did the math and realized that "five to seven business days" really meant "You're screwed, we're not fixing your laptop until after Christmas." The good news was that Lenovo would be keeping my $269 for "three-year onsite NBD and three-year priority support and three-year ThinkPad Protection" out of good faith. Cool. Thanks, Lenovo.

And that was that--after what you just read, he went on to discuss things his readers might actually give a flying sloppy fuck about.  Nah, just playing, he spent another 500 words continuing to bitch and moan about the most first world of all #firstworldproblems.  Seriously, fuck that guy with a pineapple.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not okay to second guess Shanahan for keeping RG3 in the game but it is okay to second guess Irsay for letting Manning go?

jacktotherack said...

I don't want to sound like a media shithead, but it was absolutely the wrong call to leave RG3 out there. I'm not even looking at it from a long term investment standpoint. From about the middle of the 2nd quarter on it was plain as day that RG3 wasn't healthy and wasn't able to help the Redskins win. I don't care if he wanted to be out there or not, at some point Shannahan has to not be a complete fucking idiot and realize that RG3 is offering nothing offensively other than being able to hand-off to Alfred Morris. Cousins has been a capable back-up before and would have surely given them a better chance to win than the version of RG3 we saw yesterday who couldn't throw a 10 yard pass or run 5 yards without pulling up lame. I admire his wanting to be there, but both him and Shannahan deserve every bit of criticism for not realizing he was hurting Washington's chance to win, not helping it.

Larry B said...

Jack, it is fine for you to express that idea, and like I said, it is probably the correct one. Maybe I should have been clearer in the post--what annoys me is the way sportswriters and analysts are pushing that perspective when you know for damn sure they would barely have mentioned it if the Redskins had won. They would have happily jumped on board the convenient AW THAT'S JUST FOOTBALL YOU GOTTA PLAY HURT TO WIN GOOD JOB BY SHANAHAN TO STICK WITH HIS GUY train. It's a bit of a subtle complaint and I probably shouldn't have tried to build a post around it. In any case, as you are neither a sportswriter nor an analyst (as far as I know), it's fine with me if you want to say it.

Jethro from Arkansas said...

I cannot think of a bigger troll in the sportswriting/sports media universe than Skip. He must have an internal scale ( much like the oft claimed internal clock top jockeys supposedly possess) that allows him to unerringly pick the position that will annoy the most readers/viewers. Speaking of which, he interestingly mentions Manning who can be heard as I type hacking and gagging on an enormous ball of diphtheria toxin as he preps for yet another playoff flop.

Nice pineapple imagery, Lar.

pnoles said...

#blameJayCutler