When Mariotti attacks Simmons, everybody loses, part 2 of 2

Honestly, for an article written by this blog's third most frequently cited moron (and the inspiration for the blog's name for crisesakes), about this blog's most frequently cited moron, this really isn't much to work with here once you get past Jay's own-shit-smelling hatred of bloggers. Let's see what else we can have some fun with.

The network has only itself to blame, enabling Simmons and turning him loose to the point he was uncontrollable.

Except that the only thing that finally got him shitcanned was his direct and pointed insults towards the NFL, the biggest revenue producer (and probably the most powerful entity) in American sports. It's not like ESPN is looking back at how they enabled and supported Simmons and saying "My God, we should have seen this coming! This was obviously the way this would end!" He picked what is probably the one and only insult target that would get him canned, and even still, it took multiple incidents for ESPN to decide they'd had enough.

There is a difference between covering sports with fierce independence — my philosophy —

Hahahahahahahahahahaha. Go play in traffic, you twatmunch. It's pretty easy to be "independent" when no one will hire you because your own misconduct makes you toxic as fuck.

and being a megalomaniacal jackass like Simmons,

No argument here.

who never took a law class

Jay Mariotti, Esq., here to opine on defamation jurisprudence. Oh wait, never mind, he's just got his head up his own colon as usual.

and, thus, didn’t understand why the company suspended him for referring to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as “a liar.”

I'm sure he understood. Also, it takes about 90 seconds on Wikipedia to learn that under 1st Amendment caselaw, since Goodell is inarguably a "public figure," Simmons’s remark would only create liability if it 1) was incorrect, which, with a generic insult/accusation like “He’s a liar” is very hard to prove, and 2) was made with "actual knowledge" of the fact that the statement wasn’t true (or "reckless disregard" for the truth, which is inapplicable here since Bill doesn't, like, work in the NFL executive offices and have access to Roger's personal files or whatever). But Simmons (and anyone in America with a brain) legitimately felt that Goodell really WAS a liar. Bill’s mistake wasn’t failing to stay within the boundaries of defamation law. It was publicly insulting a gigantic cash cow that helps make ESPN into a gigantic cash cow.

Goodell may have lied about what he knew in the Ray Rice case, but Simmons did not have incontrovertible proof,

This is not how libel works. At all. ESPECIALLY with public figures. You don’t need “incontrovertible proof” to accuse your fucking neighbor of being a liar. If that were the legal standard (especially for public figures) that would lead to no one ever bringing scandals to light due to fear of owing large sums of money if a court deemed the proof of the scandal to fall short of “incontrovertible.”

which means the league could have sued the network for megamillions —

No. Also, I think you should just say “millions;” Megamillions is the popular multistate biweekly lottery, and really, that’s just good clean fun.

and may have done so if ESPN wasn’t a broadcasting bedfellow.

Yes, they may have sued, but they’d know they didn’t have a case. They’d do it just to rattle ESPN’s cage, because if there’s anything that would make ESPN panic, it would be the possibility of lost profits resulting from a deteriorating relationship with THE SHIELD.

Simmons also was unequipped to be editor-in-chief of Grantland.com — his insensitivity was appalling when he approved a piece that unnecessarily outed a transgender person, who, because of the outing, committed suicide.

Well, I’ll take Jay’s side here. I still can’t believe he can’t find (or perhaps correctly read) a Wikipedia page about libel.

Anyone else would have been fired after the Goodell and transgender mistakes.

Probably not, actually. Definitely not the Dr. V putter story, anyways. And he got suspended for the Goodell remarks. A pretty big deal for a guy with his profile.

Simmons kept his job both times only because ESPN president John Skipper doesn’t acknowledge his own errors until he must.

This is true—Jay knows firsthand. He probably waited about five years too long to ban Jay from appearing on Around the Horn.

Friday was that day, hours after Simmons had appeared on the radio show of another ESPN pariah, Dan Patrick, with another over-the-top rip job of Goodell.

There is no such thing as an over-the-top insulting of Goodell. Goodell and his dumb shiteating fat fucking face are immune to hyperbolic vitriol.

Simmons destroyed the commissioner because he didn’t immediately announce a suspension in the Tom Brady deflated-balls scandal, and while it’s fair to wonder why Goodell is waiting, his weekend pause doesn’t warrant a nuclear explosion.

No, it probably doesn’t, but 90% of everything else he does.

Clearly, Simmons is immature.

Time for one of my favorite old gags—post a hilariously moronic comment multiple times because it’s so enjoyable to read.

Clearly, Simmons is immature.

Clearly, Simmons is immature.

Clearly, Simmons is immature.

Clearly, Simmons is immature.

Clearly, Simmons is immature.
An excellent point from Jay, paragon of maturity.

Once a fanboy, always a fanboy.

Once a man who is convinced that Ozzie Guillen is responsible for all the evils of the world, always a man who... that.

I’ve had my squabbles with corporate management.

OH HAVE YA

But my complaints were legitimate —

/dying

a Chicago radio station demanded I sign a sheet of paper that I wouldn’t criticize the Bulls or White Sox, which would have painted me into an ethical corner had I agreed.

I’m sure that is about 25% of the story, or possibly less, but I do have to agree that working in sports media probably loses a shitload of its appeal once you get muzzled.

When I refused, I was fired the day after Christmas.

If only you could have been fired while eating dinner with your family ON Christmas, via an in-person visit from your boss, like the end of Christmas Vacation except without the boss changing his mind.

My bosses at the Chicago Sun-Times had business ties with certain sports owners in town, and when they asked me to soften my opinions about those owners, I said no.

Partly because of the whole ethics issue, but mostly because Jay is a petulant baby who hates Jerry Reinsdorf like most people hate Hitler.

Had Simmons used another description for Goodell, he’d probably still be working at ESPN.

No, he would not.

By calling him a liar, and then challenging the network to reprimand him after doing so, Simmons no longer was fighting a free-speech war.

Actually, he was, but it was also a war of “which of these relationships is worth more money to ESPN,” and he lost, badly.

He was leaving himself vulnerable to a mountainous lawsuit.

No, you fucking retard. No. And were that the case, the NFL could just sue Bill directly and bleed him dry, but that’s not happening even though the NFL is endlessly insecure and vindictive, because that’s not how libel law works.

Before he works again, the fanboy needs to take a law class or two.

/still dying

The Internet has enabled recklessness by idiot entrepreneurs — such as the assclown at Gawker Media — who think they can publish lies about anyone because it’s difficult for a public figure to win a libel suit against a web publication.

Wait—what??????? I thought Goodell had an AIRTIGHT case against Simmons! How is Gawker publishing (true) things about Mariotti any different than Simmons saying (true) things about Goodell, then?

So the entrepreneurs hire clueless kid losers for $15 a story and order them to drive traffic, resulting in sleazy techniques and wild inaccuracies.

Hey, much better than paying Jay whatever he made at the Chicago Sun-Times while using sleazy techniques to publish wild inaccuracies. Speaking of wild inaccuracies, Jay needs to take a law class or two.

I told a college journalism class 

shortly before being removed by campus security so the professor could continue their lecture

that you’d be better off cleaning sewage plants than working for something called Deadspin.com,

True from an income standpoint, I’m sure, but those sewage-cleaning plant jobs are probably union and difficult to get unless you know someone. You can probably work for Deadspin, at least on a freelance basis, based solely on your own skills and merit.

where you’re being paid less than a janitor to basically pick up garbage and place it on the Internet. Another website, Bleacher Report, has somewhat higher standards yet also pays peanuts to kids who don’t know what they’re doing. Why? Because entrepreneurs think you don’t have to pay for good sportswriting.

And sadly, as Bleacher Report’s content continues to get less shitty (I know, I know) and Deadspin continues to occasionally publish cool shit alongside all its terrible unfunny shit, they’re right! This is a systemic problem in the journalism industry, driven by supply and demand in both the media and journalism labor markets, and has very little to do with DURR HURR BILL SIMMONS WASN’T ONE OF THE COOL KIDS IN THE PRESS BOX.

The Bleacher Report entrepreneurs, too, are sports fans, making them fanboys much like … Bill Simmons.

OH MY GOD! CONSPIRACY! ALL THE PIECES FIT! JET FUEL CAN’T MELT STEEL BUILDING SUPPORT BEAMS!

One of America’s best sportswriters, Bob Kravitz,

Bob Kravitz is a shitty writer with shitty opinions. We should have posted much, much more about him when this blog was still quasi-active.

broke the Deflategate story in his new position at an Indianapolis TV station/website.

Did he? Did he "break" it? Maybe he did (I’m sure he has sources galore in the Colts organization, which, good for him), and guess how many sports fans give a flying cunt about that? This isn’t the 20th century, Jay, when one newspaper might get a scoop and be the place to read about a story while another has no idea about it until the first newspaper publishes. It doesn’t matter how much you hate the internet—it has reduced the value of breaking a story to essentially nothing. Deal with it, or GTFO of the industry and stop bothering people.

After the Ted Wells report was issued, Kravitz wrote of unprofessionalism he encountered in the New England media the last few months:

Well, come on, what do you expect? It’s the Boston media.

“The people who disappointed me most were the folks at The [Boston] Globe’s website, Boston.com. They are renowned pom-pom wearers, so it wasn’t a surrpise.

Typo is [sic], left in because Jay is such a big fan of professionalism.

But I was struck at the enthusiasm they displayed while carrying the Patriots’ water. It shocked me that a great newspaper like the Boston Globe would employ such rank amateurs and cheerleaders. Sad.”

Because it’s not the 20th century, Bob and Jay, and pretty much all newspapers are shit and are desperate for access. They’ll cut their own dicks off to curry favor with popular local teams. I know it’s hard for you fucking dinosaurs to understand that times have changed, but maybe if everyone else seems out of touch, you’re the out of touch ones.

Where did Simmons grow up? Boston.

HOLY SHIT ANOTHER LEVEL TO THIS WHOLE THING! NO ONE IS SAFE! THE CLOCK STRIKES AT MIDNIGHT!  THE ILLUMINATI ARE ABOUT TO TAKE OVER!

From who did younger Boston.com sportswriters learn? Simmons.

And I’m sure it was only the young Boston.com writers carrying water for the Pats. I’m sure that Dan Shaugnessy, Jackie MacMullan, etc. were NOWHERE near that practice.

Shame on ESPN for empowering Simmons for so many years.

Oh wow, that’s got to sting. “Shame on you.” Go easy, Jay!

ESPN also killed sportswriting when it gave a major platform to a statistics geek, Nate Silver, failing to realize that sport is best covered via the exploration of human emotion, not the joyless crunching of numbers.

BWAHHHHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

SHUT IT DOWN

I DON’T THINK WE NEED TO GO ANY FURTHER

Oh wait, yes we do:

In the process, the network chased off Rick Reilly, only the greatest sportswriter of his generation

Rick Reilly couldn’t sportswrite his way through a wet piece of toilet paper. Fuck him and fuck Jay for cheerleading for him. Die, both of you.

and someone who broke news responsibly,

HEY YOU’RE GONNA SAY I HAD THIS ON TWITTER FIRST, RIGHT???????

covered games and press conferences on site, interviewed subjects, understood libel law and carried the profession with savvy.

/dead

Next, ESPN is trying an African-American site with an editor, Jason Whitlock, who isn’t liked by many African-American writers and is more comfortable in a strip joint than in any mentoring position. The site’s marquee hire so far was a white journalist, Mike Wise.

Come on Jay, don’t half-ass it. Tell us how you really feel. Heat up that taek, it’s a little lukewarm for you.

I appreciated my eight years at ESPN; the TV show was fun,

I’ll bet he signed a settlement agreement with ESPN that prevents him from saying the show's name.

and when I was on, the ratings were much higher and the banter much livelier.

Kill yourself.

But the culture is not conducive to doing one’s best work. It’s a political loony bin where Skipper, like Goodell, can’t maintain consistency in issuing disciplinary punishments. Seems he finally got one right Friday.

Again, as in the case with Jay, it was a mere five-to-ten years late.

And, no, I would not hire Bill Simmons at this news organization if he applied. Our standards are too high.

Aw, you mean the San Francisco Examiner, the country’s 58th most important newspaper, wouldn’t hire Bill? Pity. My guess is he lands at Bleacher Report and continues to grab a whole fucking shitload of eyeballs and pageviews.

Jay Mariotti is sports director and lead sports columnist at the San Francisco Examiner. He can be reached at jmariotti@sfexaminer.com. Read his website at jaymariotti.com.

Never. Never ever ever.

More of the same? Why not

[Note added after writing all of this: I'm sure one or two of you out there in internetland are good, non-bandwagon Heat fans.  I tried to add modifiers like "many" every time that I took cheap shots at Heat fans, so as to not throw out the good apples with the bad, but I may have missed a few spots.  As PFTCommenter would say, no offense.  I'm sorry the bandwagon shitheads make you actual fans look bad, and I hope you keep reading.]

So I guess we're not quite done discussing this whole frontrunning Heat fans thing, given the volume of comments on that last post.  That has to be a record number for this blog as far as the last year or so goes.  Sure, most of the comments in there were made by the same anonymous bozo, but it's still nice to see some participation.  And while I hesitate to give that bozo the attention he wants and doesn't deserve by addressing some of his claims in a separate post, right now it seems like the thing to do.  So let's dance.

1) Anonymous bozo, while I admire your perseverance, just understand that you will never be the most obnoxious and worthless anonymous bozo in FireJay history.  That title will always be held by the guy in the comments to this post.  Looking back, hey, how about that: in 2008, I successfully predicted that Vince Young would be out of the NFL by 2013.  That took about as much skill as predicting that the sun will rise in the East tomorrow, but still.  Feels good to be validated.

2) Re: the Boston fans and their behavior in game 7 against the Leafs and game 6 against the Blackhawks (side note: the fact that I'm defending Boston fans to continue this argument is nauseating).  You say that the Bruins had a 0.5% chance of winning the Leafs game when they were down 4-1.  I don't know where you got that, I looked around for some NHL win expectancy charts and couldn't find any, so I will accept that number as correct although I suspect it's a little high.  Whatever.  It's cute that you think you turned my own schtick on me by noting that HA HA THIS ARTICLE OVER HERE SAYS THERE WERE EMPTY SEATS MIDWAY THROUGH THE THIRD PERIOD, THAT'S SOMETHING YOU WOULD MAKE FUN OF YOURSELF FOR DOING IF YOU READ THAT YOU WROTE THAT AND DIDN'T KNOW YOU WROTE IT NYUCK NYUCK NYUCK.  But I have a few points to make.

First of all, it's pretty dumb to say the Bruins chance at coming back was A SINGLE PERCENTAGE POINT away from being the same odds the Heat faced near the end of game 6.  It is a true statement, but a much better way to put that same piece of information, given that both numbers are small, is to say that the Heat were three times more likely to come back than the Bruins were.  That's more intellectually honest, don't you think?  What if the Heat had a 1.1% chance and the Bruins had a 0.1% chance?  Would you still try to hammer home the percentage point difference rather than the percentage difference?  I hope not.  I don't think anyone should leave when it's a game 7, but still, it was more rational from a mathematical perspective for those Bruins fans to leave.  Three times more rational, perhaps.  That's pretty significant.

Second of all, while Bruins-Leafs was a potentially season-ending game for those fans, I still say it's much worse to walk out in the championship round before the game ends than to walk out in the first round of the playoffs.  And hell, check out the highlights--I'm sure the arena wasn't 100% full when they won in overtime, but it looks pretty full and sounds pretty full to me.  (To be fair to the Heat fans, they didn't exactly empty their arena during game 6 either, although I'm willing to bet a lot of the people who were there for OT had left their seats, gone to the concourse and then returned when they heard all the noise during the comeback.)

Third of all, and most importantly, the scoring effects are much different in hockey than they are in basketball.  In basketball, pretty much every team is going to score between 80 and 110 points in pretty much every game.  More to the point, a 5 point deficit with 30 seconds left pretty much always means the exact same thing in the minds of players.  We need a couple threes, need them to miss some free throws, whatever.  In hockey, especially in a playoff series when a team is facing the same opposing goalie game after game after game, a three goal deficit could mean many different things.  If it's the best offense in the league against a bad goalie, three goals might not be much to worry about.  If it's a defensively oriented team that is used to winning low scoring games, or if the other team's goalie is hot, a three goal deficit could feel like a ten goal deficit.  In that series against the Leafs, the Bruins had no trouble scoring in games one through four.  But they lost games five and six by a 2-1 score.  So at the time the Leafs went up 4-1 with 14 minutes left in game seven, the Bruins 1) had lost two in a row, always a bad thing in a seven game series, and more importantly 2) had scored three goals in the previous 8+ periods (and Toronto's James Reimer was no slouch, 8th in the league in save percentage during the regular season).  They would then need three goals in the last 14 minutes of that period to force overtime.  I think you can excuse the people who left much more easily than you can excuse the Heat fans who left game 6.  Much, much more easily.

And of course, as commenter tony harding pointed out in the comments to the last point, the cherry on top is how many Heat "fans" tried to get back into the building after they found out the game wasn't actually over.  We don't know if any Bruins fans tried that during the Leafs game, because there weren't as many cameras around since it was only the first round of the playoffs, but I'd be surprised if the scene was anything like the one that developed in Miami during game 6.

3) Your attempt to turn whether Miami is actually a superficial place into an argument is so ridiculous that I'm not going to entertain it.  But I will entertain you on the debate as to whether Miami generally has good sports fans or not.  You seem to think you've made a great point by noting Miami's attendance and local TV ratings are great during the LeBron era.  (You cite LeBron era TV ratings, but none from any other point in time; if you know of a place to get them, I'd love to see them, but for now that doesn't establish jack fucking shit, as I will discuss below.)  You also say things like

If current Heat TV ratings were bad, then that'd be taken evidence that Miami has no real fans. But the ratings are good, so it "means" that those fans are bandwagon frontrunners. Either way, the fanbase can't win, off the court at least. Nobody will ever say, "Boy those fans are really supportive," even if that's the case.

and

Well, if the attendance and ratings were relatively weak in this improved 2013 situation, then people would probably cite that as bad fandom. That's generally how a negative confirmation bias works. Damning evidence is meaningful, positive evidence is dismissed.

No, dummy.  I don't know if you're intentionally or unintentionally kicking the shit out of that straw man, but please stop.  No one is dismissing the great attendance and TV ratings the Heat currently enjoy.  It's reflective of a lot of support for the team.  It's just that the support is bandwagon support.  Let me slow this down and connect all the dots for you: this evidence is not being ignored to confirm a negative bias, because the negative bias is not "Miamians do not support the Heat in 2013."  Everyone agrees Miamians support the Heat right now.  They just don't think many of those fans always have liked the Heat or always will like them, no matter who's on the team and how long it's been since the last deep playoff run. 

Since you seem to want to ignore this point, given that I've made it four or five times now, I might as well add in no uncertain terms that bandwagon support is much better than no support at all.  Plenty of pro sports teams enjoy great support when they win and crappy support when they lose.  On again off again fans of those teams do not deserve to be mocked... unless they do things like leave game 6 of the finals when their team is down five with 28 seconds to play.  

Anyways, for reasons unknown, assuming you are being honest about not being a Miami fan, you seem to want to believe that because Miamians are supporting the Heat now, they're great fans at all times.  While I maintain that attendance figures are often misleading, we don't have comprehensive TV data, and you want to use attendance figures, so let's use them.  They definitely don't make the point you want them to make.  

The Heat have been a very successful franchise, as long as the metric for success is "going to the playoffs," which for a lot of fans it is.  Even though the NBA lets in more than 50% of its teams, it's still impressive that they have existed for 25 seasons and made the playoffs 17 times.  So there haven't been many lean years for them.  But let's take a look at couple important recent stretches.  They made the playoffs every year from 1996 through 2001.  Then:
2000-2001: 50 wins, first round playoff loss, 15th in attendance
2001-2002: 36 wins, missed playoffs, 19th in attendance
2002-2003: 25 wins, missed playoffs, 22nd in attendance
2003-2004: 42 wins, second round playoff loss, 24th in attendance

First of all, winning 50 games and finishing 15th in attendance is kind of crappy.  But the more important data point here is the 2003-2004 season.  The two year playoff drought that preceded it was only the second in franchise history.  Now, that'll hurt attendance.  But 2003-2004 was Dwyane Wade's rookie year, and a 42 win playoff season.  And attendance decreased relative to the previous season?  That's the sign of a fanbase that doesn't give a shit.  In contrast, the Cavaliers, Nuggets and Raptors also had exciting rookies trying to lead them back to relevance that year.  The Nuggets went from 25th in attendance in 2002-2003 to 12th in 2003-2004.  The Cavaliers went from 29th to 9th.  The Raptors went from 10th to 8th.  You have any wiseass explanations for that?  Were James, Anthony and Bosh just that much more exciting than Wade?  Maybe LeBron was, but those other two?

The Cavs and Raptors didn't even make the playoffs like the Heat and Nuggets did that year.  Why were the other three teams all in the top 12 in attendance, including two non-playoff teams, but the Heat were in 24th?  Could it be that Miami fans are a bunch of stupid fucking frontrunners who have a one season lag time between the team getting good and them deciding to pay attention to it?  Sure, the fact that the Heat surged to 4th in attendance in 2004-2005 kind of supports that idea, as does the next thing I'm about to talk about, but you're the snarky genius here.  I'm sure you have some kind of explanation.

Since Wade joined the team, the only time they've missed the playoffs was in 2007-2008, when they won just 15 games and somehow managed to find significant minutes for Chris Quinn and Earl Barron.  Let's look at that season and the two that bracketed it.

2006-2007: 44 wins, first round playoff loss, 4th in attendance
2007-2008: 15 wins, worst season in franchise history, 8th in attendance
2008-2009: 43 wins, first round playoff loss, 15th in attendance

And here we see the same effect we saw above.  The team has a bad year, attendance goes down.  That happens.  But the following year, the team is good again and... attendance declines again.  Hmmm.  How about some more parallel comparisons, like I gave above?  Here's a list of all of the "missed playoff sandwiches" (playoff year, non-playoff year, playoff year) that have happened in the NBA going back to 2001, with the team, years in question, and the attendance rankings in those three years.

Bulls, 2007-2008-2009, 1st, 2nd, 2nd
Jazz, 2010-2011-2011, 6th, 7th, 6th
Lakers, 2004-2005-2006, 7th, 7th, 7th
Suns (double decker sandwich, on/off/on/off/on), 2001-2002-2003-2004-2005, 9th, 17th, 16th, 17th, 10th
Rockets, 2005-2006-2007, 23rd, 28th, 21st
76ers, 2009-2010-2011, 23rd, 26th, 25th
Hornets, 2009-2010-2011, 19th, 23rd, 26th
Suns, 2008-2009-2010, 13th, 14th, 16th.

So let me parse that for you.  Eight instances (really nine if you count the 2001-2005 Suns twice).  In six (or seven) the team's attendance rebounded when the team's performance did.  In the two where attendance failed to rebound during the second playoff year, the dropoff was not as precipitous as the 2009 Heat's was.  I'm not trying to write a thesis here so I won't take much time to explore all the ins and outs and possible reasons for these trends.  I will just theorize that bandwagon frontrunner fans (like those in Miami) take longer to warm up to the idea that the hometown team is good, because they don't actually give a shit about the team and only hear they're doing well when "buzz" has been building around town for some time.  Heat fans in 2002-2003: "They suck."  In 2003-2004: "I hear they drafted some guy but I remember them sucking last year, I'm not going."  In 2004-2005: "Wait they made the playoffs last year?  OMG D WADE IS THE BEST I LOVE THIS TEAM!!!!!"  Fans that aren't shithead frontrunner bandwagoners tend to follow their teams closely, and either will not be deterred from going to games even if there's a lean year, or if they are deterred, will return quickly once the team is good again.  I think this is the Occam's Razor explanation, although if you have a better one, I'd love to hear it.

Hey, maybe Miami fans support their other teams more fervently!  The Marlins won a World Series in 2003.  Let's take a look at how their numbers have stacked up since then.

2003: 91 wins, 28th in attendance
2004: 83 wins, 26th in attendance
2005: 83 wins, 28th in attendance
2006: 78 wins, 30th in attendance
2007: 71 wins, 30th in attendance
2008: 84 wins, 30th in attendance
2009: 87 wins, 29th in attendance
2010: 80 wins, 28th in attendance
2011: 72 wins, 28th in attendance
2012 (new stadium!): 69 wins, 18th in attendance
2013: currently 30th in wins, 30th in attendance

I'll do the math for you: during the nine seasons from 2003-2011, they were exactly a .500 team.  They never finished out of the bottom five in attendance.  Sure, bad ballpark, hot summer weather, much of the 2003 title team was dismantled and shipped away before the 2004 season even started.  None of those things are anywhere close to being good enough to explain those attendance numbers.  The 18th place finish in attendance in 2012 is the worst for any team in a brand new stadium since 2001, by the way.  No other team since then finished below 13th (Cincinnati in 2003, Milwaukee in 2001).  You know what I said about Heat fans being bandwagoners?  It appears there are no Marlins fans at all.  And a town that doesn't support one team at all is probably the kind of town that will have bandwagon fans for other teams.

I won't bother to post the Panthers' attendance numbers, they're too depressing.  And NFL attendance is meaningless.  In conclusion, feel free to continue commenting on this matter, but unless you want to address what I just presented or otherwise show that Heat fans have always supported the team and are definitely not frontrunners, maybe just keep your mouth shut.

-----------------------------

Bonus!  You complained that Deadspin was going out of its way to show the bad side of Heat fans.  While I agree that Deadspin wants (and gets) clicks by putting up posts about true and hilarious things, like the fact that many Miami fans are frontrunners, they also posted a counterpoint piece over the weekend.  It's got some real gems of non-insight and unintentional comedy.

Miami Heat Nation Encompasses More Than Brats, Ghouls, And Idiots

Awesome, awesome headline.  I think "Miami Heat Nation" is my favorite part, but use of the term "ghouls" in this context is a close second.

When the Miami Heat won its only LeBronless title, in 2006, I was living outside Fort Lauderdale. My building fees included basic cable, which was enough to get just about every Heat game and virtually nothing else worth watching. My girlfriend at the time could tolerate basketball well enough — better, in fact, than we could generally tolerate one another. So there were abundant Heat games on at my place.

It helped, too, that they were a great bunch to adopt.  Practically everyone seemed to be getting the most out of his talent, which is all it really takes to make a city proud.

So while the author is obviously not a Heat fan by birth, he claims to have adopted the team.  That's fine.  He then explains how likable the players were, from old Shaq to young Wade to supporting case members like White Chocolate and James Posey.  All things told, the author's purpose is to establish the credibility of Miami fans, a group of which he is clearly establishing himself a fringe member.  

The night they won the title my girlfriend insisted we go to the beach instead of watching the game, so I set the VCR (seriously) to record Game 6. 

OK, again, I get that this guy was not a Heat fan by birth.  But still, I find this very funny and completely out of place in an article meant to defend the honor of Miami fans.  This was your adopted team, you watched a lot of their games, and on the night they could clinch a title... you went to the beach.  Got it. 

I'd planned to drive straight back home, rewind the game and watch in something close to real time. Instead, as we walked back to the car, an unmistakable sound came down A1A: BEEEEPbeeepbeeepbeep BEEEP BEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Dammit, I thought. They won it.

I should've known better than to think I could block out an NBA title in South Florida, and looking back, that's why I get my hackles up any time someone shits on All Miami Fans.

How fucking great is that?  Let's summarize: "I was kind of a Heat fan, but not enough of one to pass up a trip to the beach (which is open and beautiful 365 days a year) to watch their title clinching game.  And then, would you believe it, PEOPLE WERE BEEPING THEIR CAR HORNS WHEN THE HEAT WON IT ALL.  WHAT A BUNCH OF CAPITAL T TRUE CAPITAL F FANS.  To this day I get annoyed that people call them frontrunners, because they know exactly how to beep their horn when their team wins a championship."  Get the fuck out of here.

The city may be an open sewer of humanity, all drug-money mansions and teen-aged plastic surgery and narcissism as a dogma, and it may include this shameless harpy, and this slappable douche nozzle, and these window-fogging twits, and after the Heat won this year a club owner comped them the one hundred thousand American dollars the team rang up for 103 bottles of Champagne, which, hospitality aside, is a moral abomination in a city that for all its overcompensating opulence routinely ranks among the nation's poorest.

Hey, at least this author probably wouldn't try to debate whether or not Miami is superficial.  Then he goes on to point out that of course, Miami is more than just South Beach, and there are a lot of poor people and regular blue collar people and middle class people, none of whom are the glitz and glam plastic surgery fake tans expensive jewelry superficial types.  Sure.  Fair enough, although I don't really think any of that challenges the idea that Miami sports fans are mostly shitty.  Then:

Rembert Browne picked up on this as he reported this serendipitous Grantland piece; (note: link removed because fuck Rembert Browne and the rest of his shithead fellow Grantland writers) left without a seat of his own (metaphor!) 

OH MY GOD THAT'S SO DEEP

he circles the concourses until he winds up in the bowels of the arena where the rank-and-file building and team staff are hanging on every play. The Larry O'Brien trophy goes by, and one person, a mover, dares to predict, "There go the trophy, bruh, right there. You know we 'bout to get that," only to see the Heat's lead become more tenuous. Brown notes the key pronoun here — "we," instead of "they" — 

SOMEHOW EVEN DEEPER THAN THE SEAT THING!!!!!

and concludes that these folks are some of the most unabashed fans in the building, the ones who possibly wouldn't be able to afford to enter the building had they not been paid to be there.

There you have it, folks: there are some low level employees in American Airlines Arena who like the Heat and seem to be "real" fans.  Therefore: everyone who likes the Heat is a real fan.  Case closed.

Seriously, give me a fucking break.

What this world needs is more love letters from sportswriters to Derek Jeter

How many more years will sportswriters sit down at their keyboards, or whatever awesome brain-connected device replaces the keyboard 20 years from now, and decide that the world really desperately needs to read more drivel like this?  Don't get me wrong, I know it'll go on until he dies, so at least another 40ish years, but will it stop at some point after that?  I guess Bob Costas still blabs He Was More Important Than The Game Itself garbage about Mantle to this day, so the answer is probably no.  Christ.  It's excruciating to think about.

THE MAGIC OF baseball will always live in the storytelling --

And this is why a lot of people hate baseball.  For all the shit I shovel on the NFL for being a sport for meatheads, the assface baseball fan equivalent to the NFL fan meathead is the person who thinks the magic of baseball is in the storytelling.  It most certainly does not, not anymore than the magic of any sports is in the storytelling.  The magic of baseball is in the accessibility, the quirkiness, the way it starts with spring and dies with fall every year, and a hundred other things that are not related to constructing obnoxious and often factually incorrect narratives around dreamy-eyed True Yankees.

the grandeur of Ruth, the Midwestern identification with Musial, the unbreakable Robinson and the complex defiance and moral ambiguity of Bonds.

The magic of all those guys were that they were phenomenal players.  Reading about them (and, for example, the fact that Bonds and Ruth dominated the game in very similar ways 70ish years apart) is awesome, but it's not awesome "storytelling."  It's awesome because they were awesome at baseball.

It's what gives life to the statistics.

I'm sure you can see where this is headed.

Unfortunately, in the age of Moneyball and fantasy leagues,

And NERDS who are NERDY STAT NERDS

the numbers have been detached from, and become more important than, the players.

This is about as phenomenal a straw man as you could hope to construct to try to tear down STAT NERDS.  Hey, I'll bet you STAT NERDS think NUMBERS are more important than BASEBALL PLAYERS, don't you?  You'd get rid of the players entirely if you could!  Don't deny it!

All but one.

You guessed it... Frank Stallone.

The Yankees' Derek Jeter has defied the impact of the two most influential elements of his time: the institutional shift toward quantitative analysis and the cynical lust for home runs, fueled by performance-enhancing drugs.

This is pure horseshit.  I'm sure you were thinking the same thing as you were reading it so I'll spare you the paragraph-long response.  Needless to say, there is nothing about a guy with a .382 career OBP and 94 oWAR that "defies" the shift towards quantitative analysis.  If you want to out yourself as a shithead, be sure to say things like YOU STAT NERDS PROBABLY DON'T EVEN THINK DEREK JETER IS GOOD.  Somewhere along the line, shitheads like Bryant have tried to drastically change the message promoted by people who say things like "Jeter is a bad defensive shortstop" and "Jeter is a first ballot HOF guy, but I'm tired of reading love letters to him from people like Howard Bryant" to JETER SUX.  It's embarrassing.  Also, sorry Howard, but it's not 1998 anymore.  No one is "lusting" for home runs.

For now, he's stuck at 3,304 hits, sidelined until after the All-Star break with an ankle injury. But with Jeter, the visual has always been better than the numerical --

Those steely, calm, steel eyes.  They look right through you.  And when Derek says "Sorry guys, no more questions, I've got to shower and go home" the eyes are saying something much naughtier than that.

and there's never been a better time to appreciate that than in his absence,

Or every March through October of every year from 1996 through 2012, which apparently were also great times to appreciate him, according to numerous baseball writers across the country.

which only underscores his longevity.

It certainly underscores that he's old as shit and about to retire.  Not sure if it underscores how long he's been playing.

For years, most stats guys never liked him as much as his All-Star rivals at shortstop: Alex Rodriguez,

They both became regulars in 1996.  Between then and 2004, when A-FRAUD joined the Yankees, there was exactly one season when Jeter was better (1999).  The other eight seasons, PAY-ROD was somewhere between "somewhat better" and "insanely better" than Steely McGiftBasket.  Jeter is one of the 20 best players of the past 20 years.  Rodriguez is one of the 20 best players of all time.

Nomar Garciaparra

He became a regular in 1997.  Between then and 2003, when he finished his run as an impact player thanks to his groin/hamstring exploding like a firework in 2004, Jeter was better in 1999 and 2001 (because NOMAH got hurt and played in only 21 games).

and Miguel Tejada.

Tejada was definitely not as good as Jeter, although I don't remember too many "stat guys" insisting on that, especially considering Tejada's weakness relative to these other three was always OBP.

Jeter, now 38, has outlasted them all at the position

Lol.  Yes, Jeter did a fantastic job of outlasting Rodriguez at the position, mostly by being the world's greatest teammate and forcing the defensively superior Rodriguez to switch positions in order to accommodate Jeter's ego.

and created a more compelling legacy. (Rodriguez and Tejada will always be drug-tainted,

Fortunately, non-idiots will still be able to appreciate how good they were anyways.  Also, $1,000 to the Red Cross if Jeter tests positive before the end of the season.

and Jeter likely will finish with twice as many hits as Garciaparra's 1,747.)

Take that, guy whose career was ended by crippling and unpredictable injuries!

Jeter most clearly defined his essence on separate occasions in the 2001 ALDS against the A's. Moment One was, of course, [LB edit: THE FLIP PLAY OMG NEED TO GO CHANGE MY PANTS]. But while the scorebook registers Jeter's play as simply an out -- albeit one that was 9-to-6-to-2 -- it demoralized the A's.

This is the kind of stuff we're going to be reading from our rocking chairs at the old folks home in 2070, and the person writing it is going to think they're shining light into darkness.

The second defining moment came two nights later, with the A's spent, wondering as the noise cascaded on them just how they were here playing a deciding Game 5 at Yankee Stadium, how they had let the series slip away. Terrence Long hit a foul ball along the third base line that Jeter chased and caught, spilling into the stands. It was, again, just another out, F6, but on the field it was a referendum of championship toughness.

A ball a faster guy might have gotten to without having to sell out and dive into the stands.  But hey, GRIT TOUGH STEELY EYES CLUTCH.  Hard to argue with that.

The Yankees had it. The A's didn't.

The ability to win three out of five games in that particular series: the Yankees had it.

That intangibles notion is murky, of course, and complicated.

Could have ended the article right there.

Jeter played in an era when everyone was suspected of PED use. For those choosing to believe the shortstop that he was, is and always has been a clean ballplayer, the monument to his fidelity and greatness lies in his old-school bona fides.

That's awesome.  "Those who assume he never used credit it to something ill-defined, the existence of which can't be proven or disproven."  And let's also point out that as of June 2011, Jeter was coming off by far his worst offensive season and was hitting .257/.321/.329 with zero home runs in the not-exactly-young season. Then he rebounded nicely to finish 2011 and had a .316/.362/.429 season with fifteen home runs in 2012.  Let's just put that out there.  Something clicked for him.  Did a nagging injury heal?  Did he change his approach?  You know what--it could have been anything.

Jeter, along with possibly Ken Griffey Jr., is the only player in the modern game whose iconic moments were generated by all five tools -- not just by standing in the batter's box and hitting another home run in a game that encouraged nothing but.

Again, if you want to out yourself as a shithead, make sure you tell everyone that Jeter is one of only two players in the last 25ish years to generate "iconic moments" with all five tools.  That will make it very clear to everyone reading your writing that you're a fucking shithead.  It will also require you to ignore the existence of Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, and about 200 other position players to play during that time.

Like Jackie Robinson, Jeter is pure baseball.

True Yankee.  Steely Eyes.  Pure Baseball.  Gift Basket.

He will be remembered for his baserunning (the clever beating of the shift by swiping third base that he made routine).

How many players don't capitalize on that?  More importantly, how many teams are like "screw it, ignore than runner on second, we're putting the full shift on?"  My guess is this happened once with Jeter in like 1997 and Bryant now wants to credit him with a) making it routine and b) inventing cars, airplanes, and computers.

He will be equally celebrated for his fielding and throwing.

He will be remembered for being an adequate to good shortstop through his 20s, and then receiving a bunch of Gold Gloves he didn't deserve during his 30s.  Not sure "celebrated" is the right term.

(Even though he doesn't rank anywhere near the top 1,000 in career defensive WAR, you can't deny the Flip, the nailing of Arizona's Danny Bautista at third in the 2001 World Series or the flying leap into the crowd against the Red Sox in the summer of '04.)

That's right.  Those three plays cannot be denied.  They really happened, they were not optical illusions that fooled everyone who saw them.  I will grant that.  He's still been a shitty defensive shortstop for a decade and running.

And his hitting consistency is close to unmatched. (His injury likely will make his quest for 4,000 hits unsuccessful, but he is in range to catch Henry Aaron at 3,771 for third all time.)

I'm not trying to overhate here, but that's not going to happen.

Not that he couldn't power the ball out of the ballpark too -- there was the first-pitch leadoff home run in Game 4 of the 2000 Series when the Mets had won the night before,

"Not that he couldn't power the ball out of the ballpark too -- remember, he hit a home run once."  Take a step back and think about this article.  What the fuck are you getting out of this?  What the fuck could Derek Jeter's closest admirers (other than Howard Bryant and his family) get out this?  Much of this can be summarized as "Jeter was great."  Holy dog balls, this is awful.  Almost over though.

and the two-out, full-count walk-off home run the following year in Game 4 against Arizona.

Why did the Yankees lose that series?  I blame A-Rod, even though he was a Ranger at the time.

As if that wasn't enough, there's also the imprint he's had on the Yankees, the first homegrown star to lead the franchise to the World Series since Mickey Mantle. (1977-78 belonged to Reggie, not Munson.) 

As Chris W put it, what a fun and worthwhile use of our time--let's argue whether Munson really "led" the Yankees to that title.  After that we can go back to debating the existence of Jeter's "old school bona fides."

He became the signature player for the game's signature team when it returned to power, and in an era of drugs and cynicism and ruined reputations, he never embarrassed the sport, his team or,

This describes 99% of all MLB players.  One of the ones it does not describe is Barry Bonds, who was still fucking awesome, way more awesome than Derek Jeter.  Neener neener neener.

most important, his family name.

Most importantly, he never embarrassed the sacred Jeter family name?  What?  Why are we giving him credit for this?  "Most importantly, he never pushed anyone off of the Statue of Liberty.  For this, he deserves a parade."

There is no metric for that. Just a magical story.

It really isn't.  This was a colossal waste of time and I apologize to you for having made you read it.

If you think Andrew Luck had a better year than Robert Griffin III, you are a bozo

And ESPN's Ashley Fox is definitely a bozo.

It is award season in the National Football League.
The part of the year where NFL writers and commentators devote 100% of their time to mind-numbing bullshit meaningless analysis of nothing, as opposed to the rest of the year, during which they only devote 90% of their time to mind-numbing bullshit meaningless analysis of nothing.

Can an interim coach take home coach of the year? 

WHAT WILL IT SAY ABOUT US AS A SOCIETY IF ONE DOES?

Which dazzling quarterback will win rookie of the year? 

Probably the white one, because even though the black one has vastly superior numbers and had led his team to essentially identical regular season success with a much more difficult schedule, the white one just looks like a quarterback, doesn't he?  I don't know for sure that race plays a part in this, but Jesus, what else would convince Fox (and plenty of other bozos out there) that the guy with the way shittier numbers is the better QB?

Here is how one voter's ballot is shaping up:

Coach of the year: Indianapolis' Chuck Pagano/Bruce Arians.

#CHUCKSTRONG!!!!! My opinion on Pagano has shifted as the year has gone on. That locker room speech he gave after week 6 or 7 or whenever was undoubtedly the douchechilliest moment of the season for me. You know the one, the highlight shows each played it like 12 times that evening.  The one where he was yelling at his team about dancing with his daughters and their wedding.  Look, I have no problem with Pagano and I am glad his disease is in remission, but holy balls. That speech was 80% idiotic football coach bravado and 20% heartfelt emotion, which, at least for me was a horrible mixture. That speech and the praise it got from waterhead ex-player tv pundits made me root against the Colts (not Pagano himself, obviously--I'm not THAT much of a hater).  

Anyways, a few weeks ago I saw some clips of him interacting with cancer-stricken kids, and that actually did warm my heart a little (probably because it was 0% idiotic bravado and 100% heartfelt emotion). So I'm down with the Colts now. But please, could someone please burn that locker room speech clip? Every time I see/hear it, he comes off as a loud version of the boom goes the dynamite kid.

There will be a lot of competition in this category, including Mike Shanahan,

That's rich. I'm pretty sure everything Shanahan has done when his QB was named something other than Elway or Griffin--particularly the job he did in Washington from 2009 through 2011--has solidified his status as a mediocre at best coach/personnel evaluator. If you have Dan Snyder writing checks for you and you go 15-33 over the course of your first three seasons (after the team went 9-7 and 8-8 in the two seasons preceding your hiring), you should absolutely be fired. I'm not sure why he should win an award for stumbling into one of the best pro-ready QBs to come out of college in the last thirty years. He deserves credit for trading up for the pick that enabled the Redskins to take Griffin. He deserves no "coach of the year" level credit for being the guy who walks the sidelines as Griffin wins games for him.

Mike Smith,

No.

Mike McCarthy,

No. 

Jim Harbaugh

Maybe.

and Pete Carroll,

Might be my pick, but Pagano/Arians works too.

but no one endured what Pagano and Arians did. Few expected much from the Colts, who finished last season with two wins and the No. 1 overall draft pick. Pagano made the brilliant decision to hire Arians, whom Pittsburgh had cast aside, 

TMQ would not that weasel coach Mike Tomlin did this to deflect blame from himself, and actually, TMQ kind of might be right.

as offensive coordinator and then relied on him to coach the Colts while Pagano took a sabbatical to fight leukemia.

That's all true, but shouldn't we consider giving the award to McCarthy for having more or less the exact same team that won the Super Bowl two seasons ago and won 15 games last year, and coaching them to 11-5 this year?

Offensive rookie of the year: Luck.

Luck:

339/627, 4374 yards, 54.1% completions, 6.98 Y/A, 23 TDs, 18 INT, 76.5 QB rating, 11-5 record

Griffin:

258/393, 3200 yards, 65.6% completions, 8.14 Y/A, 20 TDs, 5 INT, 102.4 QB rating, 10-6 record

So the difference between them is that Luck accumulated 1000 more yards than Griffin and 3 more TDs on 200+ more attempts, and Griffin was so much more efficient that it's not even worth having a conversation about which of them is better. And this is isn't even factoring in Griffin's large edge in rushing.  Give Griffin 600+ attempts and his numbers would absolutely put Luck's to shame. The difference between them is somewhat similar to the difference between Matthew Stafford and Aaron Rodgers this year-Stafford has way more attempts and thus more yards, and Rodgers is abundantly better in every other way. But yeah, go ahead, tell me about how great Luck was this year.

There was ample competition here, with Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III and Seattle Seahawks QB Russell Wilson each leading their teams to winning records with a chance to win their respective divisions.

Christ, even Wilson's numbers put Luck's to shame in every category other than total yards and lightness of skin pigment.  Why would anyone pick Luck?  I can't think of any theories other than the depressing one I've already floated.  Anyone got any others?  Plz share.

But look at Luck's numbers running a pro-style offense.

And there's the not-so-subtle dig at Griffin and Wilson--apparently they're not running "pro-style offenses."  I haven't seen a ton of Seattle's games this year but I see plenty of Washington's and it's not like they're in the wishbone.  Griffin probably takes 50-60% of his snaps from the pistol.  Who gives a shit?  The numbers are the numbers.  Griffin isn't just an awesome running QB, he was also one of the best passers in the league this year.  He was a significantly better passer than Luck.  I wasn't aware that "number of snaps taken from under center" was an important input into MVP decisions.

In 15 games, he set the rookie record with 4,183 passing yards. 

On 600+ attempts.

He set the single-game rookie record with 433 passing yards against Miami in Week 9. 

There's a good chance he deserved Week 9 offensive MVP.  I'll grant that.

He set the rookie record for attempts 

Big ups to him for being drafted to a team that really needed a QB, and playing for a coaching staff that likes throwing.

and is within 29 of Sam Bradford's rookie record for completions. 

This was written before week 17--he didn't get that number, because at the rate he completes passes, he would have had to throw 57 times in week 17 to reach it.

Luck's six 300-yard passing games are two better than Peyton Manning's previous rookie record of four, 

Yards yards yards yards yards yards.  Hooraaaaayyyyyyyy MVP!

and his 10 wins are the most ever by a No. 1 overall pick, three better than Bradford's seven. 

That's fine--Griffin won 10, and Wilson won 11.  But did they do it running a PRO STYLE OFFENSE?

Plus, Luck has seven game-winning drives this season, and the Colts are in the playoffs. 

Again.

Detractors will point to Luck's 18 interceptions and 54.3 completion percentage as reasons not to vote for him, 

And they will be right, particularly about the completion percentage.

but he has thrown a lot of interceptions because the Colts have asked him to make a ton of throws.  No team has asked more of its rookie quarterback.

Sure, the Seahawks have Marshawn Lynch and a great defense, and I wouldn't bet on Wilson being better than Luck in five years, but the numbers are the numbers.  Washington asked a ton of Griffin, given his RB situation (no one expected this from Alfred Morris, and he's helped out mightily by Griffin's play) and the horrid injuries the team sustained on defense early in the year, and the numbers are still the numbers, and Ashley Fox is still a bozo.

ThMTMQR: Face, Meet Keyboard, Keyboard, Face

It's a busy time of year, meaning I'm down to about a post per week.  And it's pretty stupid of me to spend back to back weeks dissecting Greggggggggggggggg's tripe.  I apologize in advance.

The United States Postal Service might be losing billions of dollars, but much of the National Football League tried to bail it out by mailing it in this week. 

That's probably the best joke he's ever written.  D minus.

To say many teams mailed it in this week actually is sugarcoating. They didn't even phone it in. They barely bothered to text it in.

DID THEY EMAIL IT?  WHAT ABOUT CARRIER PIGEONS LOL.  OK, you had a decent thing going, and then you got excited, took it too far, and ruined it.  That's fine, it happens to a lot of 5 year olds the first time they discover what jokes are and that it's enjoyable to make people laugh.  Learn from the experience.

Eric Decker of Denver beat Cary Williams of Baltimore for a 51-yard touchdown. Once Decker broke into the clear, Williams came to a stop and watched him, not bothering to pursue. 

Patently untrue.  Watch the highlight.  Horrible coverage, yes.  Stopping and watching, absofuckinglutely not.  God, he really gets off on accusing players of giving up on plays.  What a zilch.

Later, Denver's Knowshon Moreno jogged across the goal line untouched as the Ravens' front seven stood watching.

Fuck you.

Detroit trailed Arizona 24-10 but was still alive with the ball on the Cardinals' 2 in the fourth quarter. Someone ran the wrong pattern, 

No.

as two receivers went to the short left corner of the end zone. 

No.

The pass was intercepted by Greg Toler. Wide receiver Kris Durham, the Detroit player closest to Toler, casually jogged to about the 10-yard line 

No, he was in a dead sprint, trying to catch Toler.  The problem is that he is not fast and Toler is.

and then just stopped and watched as Toler went 102 yards for a touchdown, making no attempt to chase down the play.

This time he is mostly right, everyone stopped.  This is because Toler had a convoy of about twenty Cardinals with him, and is probably faster than everyone on Detroit's offense except first round megabucks glory boy Calvin Johnson.

Seattle's Marshawn Lynch was running for a touchdown with only Buffalo's Da'Norris Searcy between him and pay dirt. At the goal line, Searcy stepped out of Lynch's way so he would not have to exert himself by attempting a tackle. 

Not really.  And what if Searcy had hit Lynch after he was across the goal line?  What DIRTY UNETHICAL play that would have been!  That sounds like something a weasel coach would tell his players to do!  

He goes on like this.  For paragraphs.  It's incredibly tedious.  You know what they say about someone who constantly goes out of their way find a perspective that allows them to indignantly spout off about the on-field character of people who play professional sports for a living (usually without any basis in fact): they deserve to be punched in the testicles.

Philip Rivers dropped back into the pocket and, without being touched by anyone, fumbled. The Chargers gained 164 offensive yards playing at home.

Well, that's actually 100% true.  And enjoyable to watch.

The Giants and Ravens are strong teams that played poorly; 

NO THAT'S NOT TRUE THE RAVENS QUIT.  YOU COULD TELL BY WATCHING THE GAME AND THEN IMAGINING THAT THEY QUIT ON EVERY PLAY.

the Bills, Bucs, Chargers, Chiefs, Jaguars, Jets, Lions and Raiders simply quit. 

QUITTING QUITTERS, ALL OF THEM.  EVERY PLAYER ON THOSE TEAMS HAS A GUARANTEED CONTRACT FOR NEXT SEASON, WHICH IS WHY THEY'RE ALL QUITTING NOW.

And it wasn't just players who quit. Many coaching staffs quit on Sunday's games, too. Norv Turner, job in jeopardy, nevertheless looked bored on the sideline as his charges were embarrassed at home. 

Holy shit, have you watched an NFL game in the last 15 years?  What do you think Norv usually looks like?

The NFL is a year-round enterprise that, for 20 of 32 teams, builds up to only 16 games. Every quarter ought to matter. Thousands of hours of offseason preparation, then teams simply quit when the playoffs become out of reach. Even if 

DIE DIE DIE DIE.  You are atrocious.

In other football news, TMQ maintains that sports stars who hold records should be honest about hoping their records stand. Thus it was refreshing to hear that Eric Dickerson does not want Adrian Peterson to break the single-season rushing record. Dickerson says he wishes Peterson well, just hopes he pulls up shy of the mark. This is being honest. It's great to hold a record. Why should any athlete root to be bested?

And why should anyone write in the vernacular of 17th century England?

Sweet Defensive Plays of the Week: The score tied with 1:34 remaining in regulation, the visiting Steelers had first-and-10 on their 46, holding three timeouts, and seemed ideally positioned to drive to a winning field goal. Dallas showed an unusual blitz alignment 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

and got a sack. 

/Larry B faints

Because the Broncos yield the tiebreaker to New England, Denver needs at least one more victory to attain a bye week. 

A basic grasp on tiebreaker rules, or the ability to look them up on the internet machine, would reveal that Denver most likely has to win both of its remaining games to keep the second seed and the bye.  Or, if New England somehow loses its last two, Denver could also keep the bye even if they also lost their last two.  He's wrong in two different ways here.  Nice.

The Broncs' final regular-season foes are Kansas City and Cleveland, combined record 7-21. This puts Denver in the driver's seat for resting starters in the regular-season finale, 

If both Denver and New England win in week 16, that will not be happening.

followed by a week off -- the very situation in which Peyton Manning tended to falter in Indianapolis.

OHHHHH.  Now we see why he went down that road--it helped him preach a tired old narrative about heart, and effort, and gloryboyship, or some bullshit like that.  PS-which round was Peyton drafted in?  Thought so.

Sweet 'N' Sour Play of the Week: Dallas leading Pittsburgh 3-0, the Boys had first-and-10 on the Steelers' 17. Little-used safety Robert Golden entered the contest. Tony Romo noticed and audibled to a seam route for tight end Jason Witten to run directly at Golden. Touchdown: sweet.

Perhaps you assume Golden was the sour player on this down. 

But you would be wrong, because he was signed as an undrafted free agent and has never made a mistake in his life.

Veteran linebacker Lawrence Timmons ignored Witten, letting him run past; veteran defensive back Ryan Clark ignored Witten, letting him run past. 

Probably because that was what the defensive play called for.

Timmons and Clark are experienced performers. They knew a green guy had just come in and was likely to be targeted, yet ignored the receiver heading toward the green guy. Sour.

Yeah, it would have been better for them to abandon the scheme and leave giant holes in the defense by triple covering Witten.  Classic glory boy move, not bending over backwards to accommodate the undrafted player who doesn't really belong on the field.

Unified Field Theory of Creep: John Denny of Big Rapids, Mich., reports, "Just read the January 2013 issue of Car and Driver, which featured a review of the 2015 Volkswagen Golf TDI, a car that won't be available in the U.S. until 2014." 

A magazine?  Reporting on topics of interest to its readers?  What next?!?!?!?!

Matt Coombs of Lynn, Mass., reports the 2014 GMC Sierra went on sale Dec. 13, 2012.

OK, I will admit that that's a little dumb.

Brees complained angrily to officials when City of Tampa defenders didn't hustle to get back to the line as seconds ticked down before halftime. So just snap the ball, and the Bucs are offside!

And already in the offensive backfield, ready to concuss you a quarter of a second after you get the snap!

The Falcons leading the defending champion Giants 34-0 just inside the two-minute warning, Atlanta reached first-and-goal. Mike Smith had his backups in and had them kneel. Now that's class.

TAKE NOTES, SCHIANO.  YOUR ATTEMPTS TO WIN GAMES BY FORCING TURNOVERS WILL BE THE END OF YOU.

Offseason Blame Game Starts Early: What exactly was accomplished by the Ravens' firing Cam Cameron -- known to this column as the Crafty, Clever, Cunning Cam Cameron -- 

/projectile vomit into nearby houseplant

By firing Cameron now -- rather than this past offseason, when the offensive coordinator position could have turned over in an orderly manner -- Ravens coach John Harbaugh sent the signal that he expects yet another playoff collapse and wants an excuse lined up. At the postgame media event following the playoff collapse Harbaugh/East appears to expect, he can blame Cameron for the team's troubled offense. Firing an assistant coach just before the playoffs isn't a bold move to invigorate the team. It's a desperate move about blame shifting.

If the Ravens had fired Cameron after the season: "By firing his offensive coordinator now, rather than during midseason when something might have been done about the team's offense, Harbaugh sent the signal that he wants to shift blame away from himself."  Don't get me wrong, it was a dumb move, but you can just smell Gregg's insincere posturing coming right off the page.

Your columnist put himself through college, doing so partly by taking extra classes so I earned a bachelor's degree in three and a half years, 

Here's your fucking sticker.

cutting out one semester of expense. 

And not being liked by anyone.

Jiminy Cricket: 

GODFREY DANIELS!!!!

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk: Its season on the verge of implosion, Philadelphia faced fourth-and-goal on the Cincinnati 1, score tied at 10, in the final minute of the first half. 

You know what's coming: just remember, going for it on 4th down always works, because even if you fail and lose the game, you have inspired your team and when they win a Super Bowl 15 years later, it can all be traced back to that gutsy call.

"Last Resort" Update: 

Finally!  Why not lead off the column with this item?

Giants at Ravens on Christmas Eve Eve might in effect be an elimination game both ways.

DEPARTMENT OF REDUNDANCY DEPARTMENT LOL   #funnycoffeemugsfrom1983

Public-company boards of directors approve this kind of insider luxury because most boards rubber-stamp whatever the CEO wants. Supposedly boards of directors are keeping watch on management. In practice they are lapdogs concerned with maintaining the lavish fees they receive for practically no work. 

BREAKING SCANDAL ALERT!  SOMEONE CALL THE SEC!  I've got another new one for you: sometimes, people cheat on their taxes.

If boards of directors are selling out workers and shareholders to pamper the CEO, are they also pampering themselves? 

YES, YOU MORON.  Holy moly.  Why are you presenting this like you just discovered the cure for polio?

San Francisco is 3-2 versus clubs likely to make the playoffs and next faces the surging Bluish Men Group. San Francisco will hold Seattle to fewer than 50 points.

THE DECIDING FACTOR: WHICH TEAM'S COACH IS MORE WEASILIER.

Good Seats Were Available: Facing Arizona in the season's first bowl game, Nevada gained 659 yards on offense, made 39 first downs and lost. In the Florida 8A state title game, Cypress Bay scored 50 points and lost.

We are not in 1930.  No one is amazed by this.  No one.  And yet, every week, there it is.

For the Bills, their performance was what looked bad. The Bills now are 1-4 in "home" games at Toronto and seem to save their worst for what ought to be an important marketing opportunity. 

Your grasp on the nuances of the possible Bills relocation is really impressive.

On Sunday, there was more derisive laughter from the Rogers Centre crowd than cheering. Toronto Star columnist Cathal Kelly opined, "Caring about the Buffalo Bills must be a real downer. Glad we don't have that problem." One doesn't encounter many sports columns with a reference to August Strindberg.

HO HO HO, INDEED!  No, I don't know who he is either.  But enough about August Strindberg, is the new Star Trek movie going to portray intergalactic travel accurately or not?

In the Miami-Jacksonville collision, 

Even your attempts to use slang come off sounding pretentious.

Bonus College Score: Marian (Ind.) University 30, Morningside (Iowa) College 27 (NAIA championship). Located in Indianapolis, Marian of Indiana 

OH MY GOD WHO GIVES A SHIT.  There has to be a local newspaper in central Montana who will hire this guy away from ESPN and have him cover nothing but Division III football year round.  Please.  I'll chip in to buy the plane ticket for his interview.

Simmons and Easterbrook square off in a Thunderdome of inanity

Unless you consider this entire format to be a gimmick (which you probably should), we really don't do a lot of gimmicky posts here.  THAT CHANGES TONIGHT.  THINGS ARE ABOUT TO GET SILLY.  I'll bring you some highlights from Greggggggg's and Bill's most recent efforts, but I'll mix them up, switching back and forth, and I won't tell you which one of them said what.  If you've read this blog for more than a month you will have absolutely no trouble assigning blame to the correct party for each logic and/or comedy blimp crash you read.  I mean, it's all kind of pointless because Gregg's column mostly looks back and speaks in past tense while Bill's mostly looks forward and predicts (and gives us example after example of his horrific gambling skills).  But bear with me.  Pretend it's fun.  Lord knows I've been pretending that writing these posts is fun for like three or four years now.

Last week, I hammered Greg Schiano for having his defense charge the offense on a final-snap kneel-down at the end of the Giants-Bucs game. 

So that pretty much gives it away right there.  Still, this is so good that it's worth highlighting even if it's super obvious which nimrod said it.

Schiano has since defended himself by claiming this tactic actually works. Schiano told "Mike & Mike in the Morning" that charging the victory formation "caused fumbles several times" at Rutgers. Schiano told Pro Football Talk the tactic "actually created a fumbled C-Q exchange four times in the past four or five years. It does work."

Schiano did not add: Rutgers never got a turnover. I asked Jason Baum, associate athletic director of Rutgers, what happened when the Scarlet Knights attacked kneel-downs under Schiano. Baum said that four times the quarterback fumbled -- against North Carolina in 2011, against Pitt and West Virginia in 2009 and against Cincinnati in 2007. Rutgers recovered once, but the play was nullified by a Rutgers offside. Any defense can cause the quarterback to fumble by jumping offside and slapping the ball before the snap! The other three times, quarterbacks covered their own fumbles.

So in other words, Schiano was absolutely right, and while he may ruffle some feathers by using this tactic, it seems justified from a "WE DO ANYTHING WE CAN TO WIN FOOTBALL GAMES ON THE FOOTBALL FIELDS OF THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE OF FOOTBALL" perspective.  Which is the perspective of pretty much every FOOTBALL coach who's ever been successful so I can't really fault him for having it.  Considering the way Schiano's tactic has twisted panties into bundles all over the league, I encourage him to keep doing it.  The kind of people who are complaining about it (both inside the game, as well as among the media) are generally the kinds of people who deserve to be tied to rockets and shot into space.

Atlanta is 8-1 all-time versus San Diego.

GOTTA TAKE THE FALCONS AND THE OVER THIS WEEK, AMIRITE?  Nah just kidding, that's one of Gregg's ever-captivating stats of the week.

Wouldn't you rather have that on Baltimore's résumé than a frightening riot? Let's add that to the "Welcome to Baltimore" sign on whatever the highway is there: "WELCOME TO BALTIMORE: HOME OF THE WIRE AND THE WORLD'S LOUDEST BULLSHIT CHANT."

Yeah, not like anyone who has grew up on the East Coast should know that every big city between Boston and Washington is on I-95, right?  And that's certainly not something Google Maps could help with.  Whatever your highway is, Baltimore (if you even have one!), here's an unclever slogan for it.  NOW, LET ME TELL YOU MORE ABOUT UBUNTU SINCE YOU'VE ALREADY HEARD SO MUCH ABOUT IT.   THE NATIONAL DISCUSSION SURROUNDING IT IS INTENSE, I KNOW.

Twice a year, I stumble across a stupendously good reader e-mail and think about stealing it, then pretending I never saw it, before ultimately deciding against it for karmic reasons.

Could have been either of them, I know, except that Gregg's readers are merely unfunny whereas Bill's are unfunny AND mirror images of their fuckbag columnist (a columnist who loves to navel gaze, at that).  Thus you know he wrote that because Gregg would never dream of stealing anything his readers send him; I'm sure he considers himself much smarter than all of them.

When Detroit reached fourth-and-1 on the Tennessee 7 in overtime, trailing by three, the Lions botched a first-down try, ending the game with a Titans win. The coach was immediately mocked by the sports press: "Jim Schwartz's Risky Call Costs Detroit Lions in OT Loss" read a typical headline. Schwartz said afterward his offense was supposed to try to draw Tennessee offside; failing that, he planned to kick the short field goal to continue overtime. Botched communication between center and backup quarterback caused the ball to be snapped while most of the Lions stood around. (It was a botched play, not an attempt at the silent sneak.) Schwartz had to supplicate in his postgame comments, apologizing for defying orthodoxy.

But fortune favors the bold!  Even if the coach never actually intended to try for the first down, shouldn't the Football Gods have rewarded the team for accidentally going for it anyways?  I'm so confused.

For that matter, the Lions could have gone for the win on the untimed try that ended regulation. A fake kick for two would have been maybe 75 percent likely to succeed -- and then there would have been no overtime.

That's just fucking awesome.  Breaking news, everyone: fake extra point attempts, particularly those attempted with your team trailing by one and with no time left on the clock, are 75% likely to succeed.  Source: SCIENCE.  (Correction: MAYBE 75% likely to succeed.  So, also, maybe only 4% likely to succeed.)

The Dolphins threw incomplete toward the sidelines three consecutive times, then kicked a field goal and went on to lose in overtime. But Miami had all three timeouts, why not throw down the middle? The Dolphins acted as if it was critically important to stop the clock, despite holding three timeouts. At least the unused timeouts can be donated to charity.

That joke is so bland and non-awful, you can be sure Bill didn't write it.

Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees are 2-9; Kevin Kolb is 3-0. Norv Turner is guaranteed to end this September with at least as many wins as Bill Belichick, and probably one more. The NFC West is in the conversation for the best division in football. And fans are talking reverently about the real NFL referees. Does anyone doubt the Mayans anymore?

CURVEBALL MOTHERFUCKERS.  That's actually one of Bill's readers who happens to sound a lot like Gregg.  BEWARE THE MAYAN NON-FOOTBALL GODS; THEY ARE VENGEFUL.

I'm feeling good about the Seahawks pick and see this week being "The Russell Wilson Breakout You-Wouldn't-Want-Him-In-Fantasy-But-At-Least-You'd-Halfheartedly-Look-Up-His-Stats-On-The-Waiver-Wire Game."

A week after having a not very good game against a nothing special Green Bay defense, Wilson went for 160 yards, 0 TDs and 3 INTs against a nothing special St. Louis defense.  

Suppose you were a father and mother who knew all technology was about to stop working -- you'd buy more than one bag of groceries! You wouldn't wait until the last conceivable instant to draw water or copy the magic software. 

Hmmm... is this Bill using a tortured analogy to make a point about what Aaron Hernandez means to the Patriots' offense, or is it Gregg pointing out that characters in a TV show or movie do not behave exactly like a perfectly rational person would?  Of course it's the latter, you knew that.

Here's my theory on the day after Thanksgiving in 2009: I think Jack Nicklaus heard the news, went out and bought a bottle of 20-year-old Pappy Van Winkle, found an antique shotgun with 300 rounds of ammo, then drove to a secluded spot in the woods 25 miles away from any other human being. He got out of his car, started jumping around and screaming like he won the Super Bowl, did this for 20 solid minutes, then started swigging whiskey and shooting at things while whooping it up. Eventually, he drank the entire bottle, got back into his car and just started happily ramming into trees until the car stopped moving. Then he passed out in the driver's seat, woke up the next morning and walked home.

Bill Simmons: somehow, not employed as a Hollywood comedy writer.

Canceled by Christmas; lucky to make it to Thanksgiving.

If only that were an internal ESPN memo referring to the employment prospects of both these clods.

Sportsmanship note: Leading 24-14, Buffalo reached first-and-goal on the Cleveland 1 at the two-minute warning. Bills coach Chan Gailey ordered his charges to kneel. The football gods should reward this.

New England beat them by 24 today, throwing the ball long after the outcome was in question.  Conclusion: the Football Gods will definitely have their revenge on the Patriots at some point!  Probably!

Democrats would have been happier had Romney claimed every possible deduction, lowering his tax rate even further and embarrassing him politically. Unspoken in all this -- not claiming deductions is admirable behavior!

Holy shit, I definitely do not want this blog to get political, but I will say this: only someone as sheepfucking clueless as Gregg could fail to connect the dots and realize that it's very likely Romney didn't claim all his available deductions because he anticipated a Democratic attack on that point, not because he wanted to be Mr. Charitypants.  Christ, Easterbrook fancies himself some kind of Beltway Insider.  Simply pathetic that this is his take on the situation.

But the need for higher tax rates on the rich should not stop anyone from being impressed that Romney voluntarily paid more than current law requires. Voluntarily paying more than required is not being a sucker. It's being civic-minded.

No, in this case, it's neither.  It's being an image-conscious politician.  Holy Christ, Gregg.  I think someone wrote "gullible" on the bottom of that swimming pool over there.  You should go check it out.

Sorry again, I just couldn't let that one slip.  Let's end on a lighter note.

I would NOT advise taking kids to this week's Giants-Eagles game … especially if it goes the way I think it's going to go. You realize the Giants are 33-17 in their last 50 regular season road games, right?

Road performance of the 2006 Giants: definitely relevant in 2012. With the Monday night game still to come, Bill's picks ATS are 6-8 this week, and he's now 30-31-2 on the season. ESPN pays this man millions of dollars per year. Other than his somewhat substantial number of NBA columns, these NFL pick columns are pretty much the only writing that is actually about sports. You would have lost money by following his picks nearly every year for the past decade. I will now light these copies of "Now I Can Die in Peace" and "The Book of Basketball" on fire.

A hilarious love letter to the 10th best team in the NBA

Bill Simmons to the Celtics: DRAW ME LIKE ONE OF YOUR FRENCH GIRLS!

You know what happens when you're rooting for a creaky but lovable basketball contender?

DUH- you write articles full of ridiculous nonsense about them because you're convinced that they're special and different and definitely not destined to get swept out of the second round of the playoffs by the Bulls or Heat (should they get past the first round).

You relish the big victories. All of them. Every single one.

You're not like OTHER fans. You're a fan's fan. You appreciate winningness.

You know the season could collapse at any time, and you're perfectly aware that a torn meniscus, calf tear or herniated disk might sucker punch your season when you least expect it. It's a little liberating, actually. Your expectations are low because you shouldn't expect anything at all.

And yet you keep in mind that it's important to tweet like a petulant child when your team gets bounced out of the playoffs.

And with that said … I actually expected the Celtics to prevail in Miami last night. I really did. Had you told me as recently as six weeks ago, "The Celtics are going to win in Miami in mid-April, and by the way, you will expect it to happen," I would have assumed that LeBron and Wade had crashed on Bobby Petrino's motorcycle or something.

Topical! DO TIM TEBOW AND LINDSEY VONN NEXT

Miami IN Miami? No way.

They've got nearly as formidable a home court advantage as the Grizzlies!

How did we get here? It wasn't that long ago that the great Bob Ryan described Boston's situation as "Year Five of a Three-Year Plan."

For a Bob Ryan line, that's pretty great.

A five-game losing streak had dropped the C's to a measly 15-17, as a-hole writers like myself were grabbing shovels and burying the team.

Boston writers/fans pointing in the direction the wind is blowing w/r/t one of their teams? Now I've heard it all. Fortunately Simmons learned how to be more levelheaded from that experience though, and now sees the Celtics for what they are--an aging team with no depth and no shot at the Finals. *record scratch* Wait, what?

With trade rumors swirling around All-Star Rajon Rondo — planted by other teams hoping to cause chemistry problems and drive down his price, by the way —

Love the snide insecurity there. THEY WERE NEVER GOING TO TRADE HIM! NUH-UH! THAT WAS JUST JERRY BUSS BEING A POOPHEAD!

the Celtics won three straight, then throttled the Knicks on a Sunday ABC home game

As I type this, the Knicks are putting the finishing touches on an eight point win over the Celtics that wasn't nearly that close.

that we'll always remember

I forget the blog I was reading that pointed out how oddly obsessed Simmons is with speculating about how we will one day look back on insignificant things that are currently happening, but man, they were spot on.

as Rondo's "Look, You're Not Effing Trading Me, You'd Be Insane" game (18 points, 20 assists, 17 rebounds). The next two weeks were fairly fascinating:

MESMERIZING. The world's eyes were squarely trained on Big Papi Nation. Moreso than usual, Earth's 7 billion inhabitants spent their days and nights wondering what was going on in THE HUB.

The Celtics hoping to rebuild around Rondo and cap space, while steadfastly refusing to give away their valuable veterans.

I can't believe the media had time to focus on anything else! Republican primaries? Recovering economy? Civil war in Syria? WHO CARES, THE CELTICS ARE THINKING ABOUT MAKING A COUPLE TRADES

Before the Clippers game at Staples, less than three days before the deadline, I spent 25 minutes talking to Ainge and fellow BYU grad Michael Smith, now a broadcaster for the Clippers. It was becoming more and more clear that Ainge should keep the team intact; the day before, they played extremely well in a last-minute Lakers loss, and it's not like anyone in the East was pulling away from them. Making the decision easier: Nobody was offering anything decent for Pierce (owed $32 million total in 2013 and 2014) or Garnett (whose $21 million cap figure made it near impossible just to match salaries in a trade). Allen's expiring contract and crunch-time pedigree made him more appealing, but no contender had the right assets to pursue him. At one point, Smith brought up a young player who could, conceivably, have been the centerpiece of an Allen trade. Danny just started laughing."We're not trading Ray Allen for [the player's last name]," Danny said. "Come on! It's Ray Allen!"

This man is in charge of one of the most valuable and respected franchises in the league. To his credit, the Garnett/Allen trades worked out swimmingly. To his detriment, he's still obviously a huge fucking toolshed.

[400 words of Simmons wearing Ainge as as hat omitted]

Anyway, I left our conversation thinking that Danny honestly didn't know how the deadline would play out. Chatting with Wyc Grousbeck a few minutes later, the Celtics' owner seemed similarly confused. Why break these guys up without a really good reason? What's the point?

My thoughts right now exactly--why include any of this in this article? The point?

After the Celtics played a superb game against the Clippers, I came to my own conclusion: "The Celtics are what they are: old, proud, stubborn and (mostly) fun to watch simply because they know each other so well … Leave them alone and the 2012 Boston Celtics will go down swinging. That's all we know, and frankly, that's good enough for me." I flew to Oakland for the Warriors game two nights later, if only because the trade deadline was the following day, and, I mean … not to sound corny, but you never know with this stuff. If this happened to be the last night for the Pierce/Rondo/Garnett/Allen foursome, I wanted to be there.

Bill Simmons, everyman. Regular old John Q. Public. Just a fan like the rest of us. ALSO, DAMMIT DONALD STERLING, YOU RAISED PRICES ON MY SEASON TICKETS BY 6% LAST YEAR! THAT'S FOUR MEALS AT SPAGO, DOWN THE DRAIN!

They prevailed by two behind another throwback KG game (24 points, 11-of-15 shooting), which made little sense because Garnett looked salad-fork-in-the-back-finished as recently as January. I remember when Bird's body broke down (a four-year spiral that started during the '88 Detroit series and crested in the 1992 playoffs, when he could barely move), when McHale's ankles slowly betrayed him (1991), when Parish just couldn't fight off younger leapers anymore (1993). You usually know with these things. You just do.

Unless you're proven wrong, which you usually are. In which case, you'll later point out that really, you knew the opposite of what you knew all along.

And I would have wagered anything that Garnett was more finished than Desperate Housewives.

What?

Guys were jumping over him (shades of Parish), his jumper was flat, and worst of all, he looked absolutely miserable. Like he didn't want to play basketball anymore.

Just like Greg Oden looked that time Bill saw him for four seconds at the ESPYs and used those four seconds to flawlessly predict the future!

Even during his signature staredown/pointing routine before tip-offs at home games, you never felt like his heart was totally in it.

WEEI listeners are writing that one down so they can call in and use it on various Red Sox players throughout the summer.

When his game inexplicably rebounded in February (17.6 PPG, 9.3 RPG, 54% shooting), everyone attributed it to Rivers moving him to center. News flash: Garnett had been playing center since the Perkins trade. Everyone was just pretending otherwise for KG's sake. He's weird about this stuff. It's the same reason Garnett likes to be listed at 6-foot-11 when he's really 7-foot-1, or Tim Duncan always wants to be listed as a forward even though he's been playing center for the past seven years. You don't ask questions with big men; you just do whatever it takes to keep them happy.

Guards, though, guards you can fuck with. Well known fact from the universe of facts Bill Simmons has made up.

You know what really fueled Garnett's resurgence? He's a competitive MF'er. That's really it.

HE'S SOUTHIE TOUGH! What has fueled Andrew Bynum's strong play during the past couple of weeks? Simmons: "STEROIDS, PROBABLY."

The lockout ended, he couldn't get going those first few weeks … and then, suddenly, the "KG is done" talk started, and even worse, opponents started treating him differently. They stared him down after dunks, talked shit to him, accorded him little to no respect.

Strange, considering all the sportsmanship he's demonstrated over the years.

He probably remembered doing the same to Patrick Ewing, Derrick Coleman, Chris Webber or whomever

or pretty much everyone

over the years and thought to himself, I'm not ready to be That Guy yet. The flame started flickering again. As he told WEEI's Paul Flannery two weeks ago, "I hear you all calling me old. I hear you calling me, um, older. Weathered. I'm motivated. It don't really take much to motivate me, man. I'm older in basketball years, but in life I'm thirtysomething."

Jamie Moyer will have what he's having.

The trade deadline passed with Rondo reinvested and Garnett reenergized. You know who else stuck around? The second-leading scorer in Celtics history, Paul Pierce, who stunk in February (16.4 PPG, 39.5% FG) and inadvertently murdered his own trade value.

Every season Simmons accuses four or five players of intentionally playing like shit before the deadline to sabotage their own trade value. Couldn't have been the case with Captain Knifehole though. As Simmons already pointed out, he had no trade value in the first place given his atrocious contract situation.

Remember when New Jersey's bid for Dwight Howard fell through, then they panicked and swapped a top-three protected 2012 pick to Portland for Gerald Wallace, and everyone said, "Wait a second, why would someone give up a top-three protected pick for the third-best player on a sub-.500 team?" Not reported at the time: New Jersey could have landed Pierce for that same pick, only they chose Wallace because he was a full five years younger.

Danny Ainge would never have done that! Instead he'd have paid Shaq to unretire so Shaq could re-retire as a Celtic!

Little did they know no. 34 was slowly morphing into Paul Pierce again: In 23 games since March 2, he's averaging a 22-6-3 with 46/38/85 shooting splits and looking no different than the Pierce from 2008-11. If you're scoring at home, suddenly Pierce, Rondo AND Garnett were playing their best basketball again. But this still-creaky Celtics team wouldn't have morphed into a contender without three other developments.

1. Simmons wearing his lucky Welker jersey during every game

2. The Ewing theory, somehow

3. WE NEED A TOTALLY SWEET TOURNAMENT AMONG THE NON-PLAYOFF TEAMS TO SEE WHO GETS THE #1 PICK! HOW WOULD THIS NOT BE BIGGER THAN THE SUPER BOWL?????

1. The league's six best perimeter defenders right now, in some order, are LeBron, Tony Allen, Andre Iguodala, Shawn Marion, Iman Shumpert and … (drumroll please) … Avery Bradley. You might remember me writing on February 10 that "I watched Trick or Treat Tony for the first five years of his career. I watched [Bruce] Bowen for the first three years of his career. Bradley is just as good of a one-on-one defender as they were at the same point in their careers. All Bradley needs to do is learn how to shoot corner 3s and he'll have a 15-year NBA career and play a significant role for at least one contender. I swear, I'm not going Heinsohn on you."

"Also, fuck the fucking Celtics! I never liked them anyways! Pitchers and catchers report next week!"

So the defense wasn't a shock.But when those jumpers started going in? That was a shock. Doc started playing him. Everything snowballed. Avery started driving to the basket and making plays. Celtics diehards started glancing at each other and saying, "Wait a second, is Avery Bradley good or am I crazy?"

Then they collectively willed the Celtics to home victory after home victory by being the most smartest and knowledgeable fans in the whole BOOOOO KOBE BOOOOO YOU FACKIN' [horribleness]

Near the end of March, Allen missed a few games and inadvertently transformed Bradley's career; with the kid playing 40 minutes a game, suddenly the Celtics were causing turnovers, getting easy fast-break points, locking dudes down and basically wreaking havoc. They haven't played defense like that in three years. And it's contagious. People were taking charges, switching at the perfect time, flying from the weak side to block shots … everything just snowballed.

Teams played during this stretch: Washington, Charlotte, slowly fading Utah, already completely faded Minnesota.

And it happened because of Garnett and Avery Bradley. He's for real. Do I trust the kid defending Rose or Wade in a playoff series? Yes. Yes I do. So there.

/gets bowl of popcorn, waits for Rose or Wade to drop 40 on the Celtics

2. Bradley's coming-out party can be explained — it came down to confidence and minutes. But Stiemsanity? I have no answers.

HE'S GOT THE SPIRIT OF SCALABRINE!

Greg Stiemsma never averaged more than 12 minutes per game in any of his four Big Ten seasons. (Seriously. Look it up.) He bounced around for four solid years after college. He looked decent in the preseason, earned the Tommy Heinsohn Seal of Approval (getting compared to Bill Russell), quickly lost his mojo and seemed headed for a low spot in the All-Time White Celtics Rankings right between Andrew DeClercq and Brett Szabo. Then, Jermaine O'Neal went down, and so did Chris Wilcox … and just like that, the Stiemer was playing 19 minutes a game, blocking shots (he's averaging two a game since the All-Star break), running the floor, making open 15-footers, taking charges, banging bodies and doing everything you'd ever want from a backup center, with the added bonus that Boston fans loved him more than horny middle-aged housewives love Fifty Shades of Grey.

Not really something to hang your hat on.

Does any of this make sense? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! It makes no sense whatsoever!

Except for the fact that every year there are guys who come out of nowhere and become decent contributors in the right role on the right team! I think some guy who plays for the Knicks kind of also did it this year. J.J. Barea did it a few years back. If you need to compare Stiemsma to another ugly white guy, Chris Andersen.

Again, he's playing 19 minutes a game in the NBA when he never played more than 12 minutes a game in college. Did I mention that he's doing this with a badly sprained foot? And that he can't practice? And that he was wearing a walking boot for a couple of weeks? Let's just move on before we jinx Stiemsanity.

But even if something went wrong and you DID jinx him, which of course can happen, you could always do a double reverse jinx in a podcast with Seth Meyers, and then a triple security jinx via Twitter just to lock it down.

3. I already made Doc Rivers's case as "Coach of the Year" in last week's column, a moment that gave the Mayans extra conviction that 2012 is going to be their year. But you know what's been even more incredible than Bradley morphing into a young Joe Dumars,

HAHAHAHAHA

Rondo shrugging over trade rumors and somehow raising his game,

A world class athlete felt his greatness questioned, so he elevated his level of play in response? TRULY FLABBERGASTING.

Pierce and Garnett playing like they just flew to Germany with Kobe,

THERE'S your steroids dig. Right team, wrong target.

or Stiemsanity sweeping the nation?

Just like ubuntu swept the nation in 2008! Who could forget?

What about Doc finally (and belatedly, but whatever) figuring out the value of a locked-in playing rotation? Even when they won the 2008 title, Doc was routinely playing 11 guys in one half — he just couldn't grasp the concept of "stick to eight or nine guys, make sure everyone knows their minutes, don't deviate from this" (or as Vinny Del Negro calls it, "The Opposite of What I Do"). Now, you might say Doc didn't have a choice this year — after a few putrid Danny signings,

Ainge on Jeff Green: "Come on! What could go wrong? He's Jeff Green. No, I'm not worried that he failed his physical. I'm a winner."

the Celtics have seven reliable players (Rondo, Pierce, Garnett, Allen, Bradley, Stiemsma and Brandon Bass), with three key bench guys (Jeff Green, Chris Wilcox and Jermaine O'Neal's Corpse) missing and Mickael Pietrus still recuperating from a scary concussion last month. You can't play fewer than eight guys, so Sasha Pavlovic has gotten Pietrus's "Backup Perimeter Guy" minutes by default. But here's the thing about the NBA … you only need eight guys every night.

Everyone take notes, Red Auerbach is giving a free clinic. Christ, I wouldn't trust Simmons to run a hot dog stand.

Just look at how Doc handled Tuesday night's Miami game. Pierce and Rondo played 40 minutes each; Bass played 39; the old guys (Allen and KG) played 35 and 33, respectively; Bradley played 25; Stiemsanity played 20; and Pavlovic played eight. Nobody else played. Doc never had fewer than two of the Pierce/Rondo/Allen/Garnett quartet out there at all times. With Rondo and Pierce sitting in the fourth quarter, Miami made a charge as I was muttering, "Uh-oh … Doc's going to wait two minutes too long … we're about to give this game away … " when BOOM! Doc felt the game slipping and brought back the starters at the 9:30 mark.

Really a questionable onomatopoeia choice for the act of changing your basketball team's lineup.

Allen made a backbreaking three, then Garnett headed down to Bosh's Pit and started swishing old-school KG jumpers — not one, not two, not three (copyright: LeBron), but four in a row! — and before you knew it, the Celtics were ahead by double digits again.

All Doc had to do was tell them to score on every possession! 2012 NBA Title: theirs to lose.

They never really looked back. How are they playing defense this well? Why aren't their jumpers flat anymore? Why is Rondo clicking so well with the vets again? Can they really be peaking during the most brutal part of their schedule (11 games in 15 nights)?

I'm not really sure about those answers...

Are they evolving into this year's version of the '99 Knicks, the late bloomer who meshed at the perfect time and sneaked into the Finals?

But I am about this one: NO, YOU FUCKING IDIOT! The whole reason the 1999 Knicks made the Finals was that the Eastern Conference was a joke that year! The Heat and the Bulls are abundantly better than the Celtics, regardless of how the Celtics have played the Heat this month. The only way a Heat/Celtics playoff series gets to game 6 is if Wade and LeBron forget to show up for games 4 and 5.

I'm prepared for anything.

He's not at all prepared for disappointment, but you could already tell that.

The players looked like they were drifting apart in January and February; in Miami, they were hugging and slapping palms like a team that (a) totally believed in themselves, and (b) absolutely, unequivocally believed that they were winning that game.

UBUNTU!!!!!

Now, if you're a Miami fan, you come away from that game thinking, That's a fluke loss, there's no way they can shoot 61 percent against us four times in a playoff series. And you'd be right.

There's no way the Celtics can shoot 50 percent against the Heat four times in a playoff series, so yeah, you'd be really right.

But that wasn't the lesson from that game.

Go on...

The Celtics know who they are. It's Year 5. They trust each other. They trust their coach. They trust the three newer guys, and when Pietrus comes back, they'll trust him again, too. They know where to go and what to do. They can score and get stops. They will fight. They will keep coming.

The lesson was apparently "Derpa derp derp Celtics cliche cliche derp." Got it.

What does Miami know about itself? Let's start backward. LeBron and Wade are having superb individual seasons. In the open floor, they rank among the most breathtaking combinations ever (if not no. 1 all-time), but in the half court? It's still "Dueling Banjos," something that hasn't changed since day one.

Miami: 4th in the league in offensive efficiency. Boston: 25th. Either Miami never plays in the halfcourt, or maybe, just maybe, Simmons is talking out of his asshole.

Meanwhile, poor Chris Bosh got eviscerated by Garnett last night, yet another ignominious moment for someone who had already squandered any and all "Big Three" privileges. He's just not that good.

Pierce's 19/5.5/4.5 on 43% shooting: WHAT A WARRIOR! Bosh's 18/8/2 on 49% shooting? TRASH.

Their veterans (Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem and Shane Battier) all peaked three to four years ago, especially the 33-year-old Battier (December's most overrated signing), who can't even crack 35 percent from 3 (all of them wide open, by the way).

HOLY SHIT. Three of Boston's four best players peaked five to six years ago. Wow. That is astonishing cognitive dissonance. I don't care how old Garnett is in real life human years, or whatever terminology he used in that radio interview: he's fucking old. You don't want to bet on him in May and June.

Their 2011 point guard situation is just as messy as 2011's situation; sometimes Mario Chalmers shows up, sometimes he doesn't, and their two rookie backups (Norris Cole and Terrel Harris) can't be trusted. And just last week, Erik Spoelstra benched Joel Anthony for Ronny Turiaf. Yeeesh. So if you're scoring at home, we're less than three weeks from the playoffs and Spoelstra has no idea …A. Which six guys he can trust after LeBron, Wade and (by default) Bosh. B. Which five guys should be finishing every game. Seems like two pretty big questions, no?

I suppose the Heat will just have to keep doing whatever it is that has landed them eight games in front of Boston in the standings, then.

The latest media narrative has been, "Maybe Miami should just play LeBron at point guard," something the numbers back up (especially Tuesday night's stats). Really, the narrative should be, "How the heck does this team not have an identity yet?"

A laughable life preserver of a concept for a desperate fan of a good-not-great team to cling to.

Last night, they played their butts off and STILL lost.

Never happened before in NBA history.

I remember thinking that Boston couldn't beat Miami if LeBron had one of those Mega-LeBron games — you know, 36 points, seven rebounds, seven assists, a couple of fast break dunks/blocks, a couple of 3s, some post-up moves, just one of those games when he's involved — and that's exactly what happened last night. Guess what? They still lost. We'll remember it

Good God, stop. No one is going to look back in any fashion on a non-Christmas NBA regular season game between two teams that were going to make the playoffs no matter what.

as one of the single most meaningful victories of the Three-Year Plan That Lasted Five Years:

Wait for it.

the night Boston officially threw its hat into the 2012 title race.

Sorry if Bill just made you LOL at work.

It doesn't totally make sense,

No, it makes no sense, because they didn't, and they won't, and I'll post an apology if they make the conference finals. Hell, I'll post that apology if they take the conference semifinals past game 5. I'll shut the blog down if they make the Finals. I won't even bother coming up with an imaginary thing to do if they win it all. GMAFB.

but then again, none of this makes sense. Rondo could be playing for the Hornets. Pierce could be stuck on the Nets. Doc could be announcing games with Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy. Bradley could still be buried on the bench. Danny could have panicked right before the deadline and had a fire sale for Garnett and Allen. It's a swollen list of "what ifs," and just about every one of them went Boston's way. At least for now. You never know with those creaky but lovable basketball contenders. We've reached this specific point six other times in Celtics history.

OOOH, SUMMARIZE CELTICS HISTORY FOR ME SOME MORE!

Russell's last two squads ('68 and '69) won consecutive titles while running on fumes. The same thing happened with the last good Havlicek-Cowens team ('76). The last two Bird-McHale-Parish efforts ('91 and '92, two severely underrated teams) fell short because the Legend just couldn't stay healthy. More recently, the 2010 squad came within Perkins's knee injury and Artest's improbable no-no-yes 3 from stealing a championship. Now, the fellas from 2012 are making a run. Nobody saw this coming. And really, that's the single best thing about it.

The best thing about it you thinking they're making a run in the first place. Bill Simmons: making the Lakers and their fans seem like a tolerable bunch of people since 2007.