A new low

At least I think it is.  Guess what's on the front page of ESPN.com right now?

Something related to the New England Patriots Official NFL Football Depressurization Scandal (my snappy nickname for it), which, while incredibly fucking stupid, is at least real, hard, sports news?  Surprisingly, nope.

Something related to the NBA, which uses ESPN as one of its broadcast partners, and is in the midst of a relatively exciting playoffs?  Again, surprisingly, nope.

Something related to MLB, which uses ESPN as one of its broadcast partners?  Nope.

Something related to the UEFA Champions League, which uses ESPN as one of its broadcast partners (outside the United States, anyways) and has a crucial semifinal match today?  Nope?

Something related to the NHL?  Well of course not.

No, here's the front cover story on America's most popular sports website during this exciting time to be a sports fan:

Yeah, the more I consider it, the more I'm sure that this constitutes a new low.  Die in a fire, ESPN.

I'm sorry I've said many times that Bill knows the NBA, I was completely wrong (part 3)

I blacked out for a minute there.  What happened?  Did I miss anything?  Better get back to it, because this is one of Bill's worst articles since Grantland started.

So could Carmelo morph into 2011 Dirk if you gave him the right situation? We don’t know because he’s never been in the right situation. 

Emphasis Bill's.  Holy shit, this man has the logical powers of a goldfish.  Having done an absolutely piss poor job of convincing anyone with a brain that the 2011 Mavericks had a way better supporting cast than the 2009 Nuggets, and conveniently ignoring Melo's many many playoff failures, he is doubling down.  Why wouldn't he?  He gets six emails a day from people in Wisconsin who want him to GM their team!

Why do you think his agents frantically tried to shoehorn him into Chicago’s cap these last few weeks? 

Because people in New York are starting to realize he's a ball stopping shoot first do nothing else later volume scorer, and you're not going to sniff a championship while he's your best player?

The money couldn’t work unless the Knicks agreed to a sign-and-trade with Carlos Boozer’s expiring deal (no thanks!) and some future picks (thanks anyway!). As a last gasp, they used the Lakers as negotiating leverage (you better sign-and-trade Melo to Chicago or you’ll lose him for nothing!), only Jackson smartly sniffed it out. That left Carmelo with three choices:

THREE AND ONLY THREE CHOICES.  IF YOU THINK THERE WERE TWO OR FOUR YOU PROBABLY KEEP PLAYING BLACKJACK WHEN THE TABLE IS HOT AND THEN THE STUPID PIT BOSS CALLS IN A SCARY ASIAN DEALER.

Choice No. 1: Grab $122 million over five years from New York, play with another inferior team, miss the Finals for his 12th straight season, 

Excellent framing there--Bill may be auditioning to be Melo's agent/spokesman.  Miss the Finals for the 12th straight season?  Oh, that's a given.  The real question is if he'll miss the second round for the tenth time in twelve seasons, or if he'll miss the playoffs in a pathetically terrible conference for the second straight season?

and pin the rest of his prime — which he’s never getting back, by the way — 

Wait, you're telling me there's no way to reverse the aging process?  How smugly witty of you.  

on Jackson’s promise that “We’ll Have Gobs of Cap Space in the Summer of 2015!!!”

Which they will.  And they probably won't be able to spend it on anyone better than Rajon Rondo or Al Jefferson.  But still.

Choice No. 2: Grab $97 million over four years from the Lakers, become the new face of the second-greatest NBA franchise ever, 

FACK YOU LAWS ANGELUS!  WE AHHHHHH BETTAH!  THIS IS AN IMPORTANT DEBATE IF YOU ARE 9 YEARS OLD AND LIKE ONE OF THESE TEAMS, OR NAMED BILL SIMMONS!  6 FOR 24!

move to Southern California, dabble in the whole Hollywood thing (yes, his wife is an actress), 

"Actress."  Not the most robust resume.

pick his own head coach, convince Pau Gasol to re-sign there, 

ANTHONY WOULD HAVE MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!  KOBE WASN'T ABLE TO DO IT, BUT GASOL DEFINITELY WOULD HAVE WANTED TO STAY AND PLAY FOR A TEAM FEATURING TWO BALL STOPPING SHOOT FIRST GUYS INSTEAD OF JUST ONE!

hope Kobe spent the summer training with Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong and A-Rod, 

Nice setup here.  If Kobe is bad in 2014-15, HAW HAW FACK YOU KOBE.  If he's good, AWBVIOUSLY STAHHHHROIDS!  BOOOOO!

hope they can flip Nash’s expiring contract into one more asset, make some noise next spring and hope the Kevins join him in 2015 and 2016. That’s a lot of hoping, by the way.

Just like the Knicks are doing a lot of hoping that they can build a championship team around Melo.

Choice No. 3: Sign a four-year deal in Chicago for less money (starting around $14-15 million), become the crunch-time guy for an absolutely loaded Bulls team, and answer every question anyone ever asked about him.

Except for the one about whether he can win a title on his own, which is still asked by dunces like Bill Simmons.  However, I do agree with what Bill is about to say--it would have been fun to have Melo go to Chicago, have Rose get hurt again, then watch the Bulls limp to the 8th seed as Melo scores 27 a game on 25 FG attempts.

I wanted him to sign with Chicago for less money — a wildly unrealistic outcome that was never going to happen. 

Lololololololol

Even typing the sentence “For God’s sake, Carmelo, you’ve made over $135 million in salary already, not counting endorsements and whatever this next deal pays you, so it’s not like you’re a candidate for Broke II — 

Awesome reference!  If you're a fucking loser who thinks bad movies are good!

why wasn’t it worth giving up some dough to play for the right team???” looks dumb and naive. I don’t blame him for grabbing the money. He can always force a trade if he’s not happy, right?

Oh, indeed he can.  Indeed he can.  He can do it if his wife is unhappy too.

At the same time, I wanted to know once and for all. I wanted to know how good Carmelo Anthony is. Because, right now, I believe the following things:
1. He’s one of the best natural scorers I’ve ever seen.

And Bill has seen every natural scorer who's ever played for the Celtics!

2. He’s one of the NBA’s eight or nine best players and has been for some time.

LeBron Durant Davis Aldridge Dirk Westbrook Cousins Noah Griffin Curry.  Nope.

3. He could win you a title on his version of the 2011 Mavs.

Good try.

Again, those are just opinions. But what am I about to present to you? All facts.

You only have to wait until fact #1 to find something that's not a fact.

1. His best team ever was the 2009 Nuggets. (Covered above.)

Perhaps true, but I like that this college-educated man does not know what a fact is.  Anyways, I'll stop splitting hairs on this since most of the rest of these are also not actual facts.  What's important is that the 2009 Nuggets minus Melo are more or less equal to the 2011 Mavs without Dirk, and meanwhile, let's not forget that the 2010 Nuggets were essentially the same team as the 2009 Nuggets, and that 2010 version didn't get out of the first round.

2. His best teammates ever: Chauncey Billups (post-Detroit version), Allen Iverson (post-Philly version), Andre Miller, Marcus Camby, Amar’e Stoudemire (post-Phoenix version, right as his knees were going), Tyson Chandler (post-Dallas version), Kenyon Martin (post-Nets version), Nene (never an All-Star — not once) and the one and only J.R. Smith.

Love the recognition for Camby here (assuming these are in order), who was always underrated.  Anyways, this is true, so good for Bill.  Doesn't change Melo's career long string of playoff failures, or his inexcusable failure to get the Knicks into the playoffs last season.

3. He never played with anyone who made an All-NBA team except for Billups (third team, 2009), Chandler (third team, 2012) and Amar’e (second team, 2011).

Hey look!  A fact fact!

4. He had only four teammates make an All-Star Game: Iverson (2007, 2008), Billups (2009, 2010), Amar’e (2011) and Chandler (2013).

Wow!

5. He had five head coaches in 11 years: Jeff Bzdelik (never coached again), Michael Cooper (became a WNBA coach), George Karl (coached 1,887 games, only won two Finals games), 

HAHAHAHAHAHA.  Go fuck yourself, you fucking asshole.  

Mike D’Antoni (sadly, he coached again) and Mike Woodson (now a career assistant). Meanwhile, Dirk had three coaches in 15 years: Don Nelson (Hall of Famer), Avery Johnson (made a Finals and also won 67 games in a season) 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Yes, that was all Avery!  Definitely not him inheriting a loaded team at just the right time!  That's why he's currently very very available to any NBA team that wants to hire him.

and Rick Carlisle (future Hall of Famer).

If Carlisle is a HOFer, so is Karl.  We covered this already.  But let me reiterate, just to be crystal clear: for saying George Karl "coached 1,887 games, only won two Finals games," he can go die in a fire.

6. Dirk has spent his entire career with the same owner — the lovable and influential Mark Cuban, who didn’t always make the right moves, but built a state-of-the-art organization and spent as much money as anyone. Carmelo spent seven years in Denver enduring multiple front-office power struggles, 

Source?  Citation?  Where is one of those cheeky little Grantland footnotes when you really need one?  The reason there isn't one here (I usually delete them, btw, but I didn't do that here) is because this is patently false.  But don't let facts get in the way of your narrative, asshole.  Full speed ahead.

then had multiple Knicks GMs in four years (not counting CAA’s brief takeover last season). Oh, and he had James Dolan calling the shots.

And he had the chance to get away from Dolan... and didn't take it.  

(The real irony here: Carmelo had only one truly competent front-office mind in 11 years. Who was it? Masai Ujiri … who traded Carmelo to New York in 2011 once Carmelo made it clear he was signing there anyway. Carmelo = not blameless. By any means.)

That's not irony.  Ujiri trading him to New York and him now playing in New York because he wanted to be traded there so he could play there is... pretty unironic.

7. He suffered bad luck two different times — when an already loaded Pistons team unbelievably picked Darko over him in 2003, 

Yeah, had he played on that 2003-2004 Pistons team that knocked off the Lakers in the Finals, the question would finally have been answered: can you win an NBA title if Carmelo Anthony is your 8th man, playing 12 minutes a game?

Yes.

Yes you can.

and when his agent didn’t follow LeBron’s and Wade’s lead by putting a three-year out into Melo’s first contract extension (with Denver). 

That's because Melo signed his extension almost a week before LeBron and Wade did, you fucking fuckhole.  Try doing some fucking research you horsefucker.

In the summer of 2010, Melo could have stolen Bosh’s spot in Miami or jumped to the up-and-coming Bulls, only he couldn’t get out of his deal for another year. Those were his two best chances to find a true contender. 0-for-2.

One inconsequential to the current argument, the other never actually existed.

8. Here’s how much Carmelo’s teams have relied on him since 2003 — right now, he owns the fifth-highest career usage rate ever (31.7 percent), 

Chicken/egg--yes, his teams have relied on him, and yes, he's a ball stopper who loves to take long twos and other ill-advised shots.

trailing only Jordan (33.2 percent), Wade (31.9 percent), Iverson (31.8 percent) and Kobe (31.8 percent). In the playoffs, he has the fourth-highest career usage rate ever (32.6 percent), trailing only Jordan (35.6 percent), Iverson 34.3 percent and T-Mac (33.5 percent). 

And nearly a .350 winning percentage!

On the other hand, he has played with only two 20-point scorers (Iverson in 2007 and 2008, Amar’e in 2011) and three guys who averaged more than 15 points (Billups in 2009 and 2010, Amar’e in 2012, and J.R. in 2013). I mean, didn’t someone have to shoot?

You know nothing about basketball.  Fucking... nothing.

Some jackass wrote a puff piece about Simmons for Rolling Stone, and it's horrible (part 3)

First of all, I meant to include this in the initial post in this series but forgot.  Check out the photo accompanying this piece, which presumably took up a full page in the print edition of Rolling Stone.  Look at it.  It's magnificent.  HE'S SO EDGY.  Nothing says "Authority on Sports" like an awkward dad wearing a douchey LA outfit about to throw a basketball at you.



This is your favorite "sports" columnist, America.  Good job.  You assholes.

In his columns, Simmons embodies the precise average of American maleness: He loves sports, 

Fine.

movies, 

Women love movies too.

fantasy baseball 

Much as I enjoy it, fantasy baseball is not that popular.  

and hot actresses, and is not unfamiliar with porn. 

YEAH!  THAT'S TOTALLY ME!  OMG I SHOULD WRITE HIM A LETTER AND TELL HIM AND MAYBE I'LL GET PUBLISHED IN THE MAILBAG!  YEAH TITS HIGH FIVE BRO

"I don't have a shitload of hobbies," he says. "I'm not very complicated."

You don't say.

Once a year, he goes to Vegas with several friends — 

 But why????  Tell us, Rob Tannenbaum!  Why would anyone go to Vegas?  It's hot there!

to gamble. 

No fucking way.

This is so shitty.  Why is this an article?  Even for Rolling Stone, this sucks.  Would it have been "controversial" if he went there to visit strip clubs?  More importantly, does anyone give a flying fuck why this simpleton goes on vacation?  He could be going to Vegas to check out its public library.  Who cares?  Is any of this relevant?

"He's much more interested in playing cards than in seeing naked girls," Jimmy Kimmel says, with a tone of disdain. 

OK?  I guess Kimmel is razzing him?  Is this relevant?  Come to think of it, it might be relevant, because if he's as bad at cards as he is at picking NFL games, man, he's going to have some financial problems.  

On his podcast, Simmons often talks about betting on games — up to $1,000 on individual games, or $2,000 on futures bets, he tells me. "I love gambling. I wish it was legal. But I never bet a lot, even in Vegas. Unless I'm really drunk."

HIGH FIVE AGAIN BRO!  REMEMBER THAT TIME YOU WERE SO BOMBED????  Bill Simmons is a 17 year old boy who somehow makes 7 figures a year.

He won't say whether or not he has a bookie in L.A., which means he likely does. 

SPICY!  SALACIOUS!  Who is reading this and going "Wow, I gotta keep going.  There might be something EVEN BETTER further down the page!"

And if he offers you a bet, you should probably take it — last football season, he won only 108 out of 256 picks against the spread in his column. "It was kind of a bummer," he says, though he points out that in 2006, he had his wife Kari make her own football picks in his column. "And she beat me. So if I had credibility after that gimmick, it was an accident." 

Another surprising display of self awareness.  Fair enough.  Although I suspect he is only saying this because he feels he has to, and still is 100% confident in most picks he makes.  THAT SPREAD IS WAY TOO HIGH.  THANKS FOR THE FREE TWO POINTS, VEGAS.  /team Bill didn't bet on beats spread by two touchdowns

(Kari was also at least as funny as her husband. 

Not a chance.

She said Lindsay Lohan would "look like a leather purse in 25 years no matter how much Proactiv she takes," and theorized that Katie Holmes "had her ankles removed" so she'd be the same height at Tom Cruise.)

Watch out, Joan Rivers!  Someone's coming for your "queen of celebrity bashing" crown!  Actually, now that I re-read the first part of that parenthetical, I totally agree.  Bill's wife IS about as funny as he is.

Simmons will always be associated with New England — he might love Tom Brady and Larry Bird as much as he loves his wife and two kids — but he's unsentimental about his roots. 

Wrong.  I can't wait to see how he spins this one.

"I don't think you could get him to go back to Boston at gunpoint," Kimmel says. 

If he could maintain his current role at ESPN while doing that (which of course would be impossible if he wanted to stay on NBA Countdown and he obviously does), I'm sure he'd do it in a second.  TOO MANY LAKER FLAGS ON CARS.  GOD THOSE FANS ARE JUST INSUFFERABLE.  FACK YOUUUU!

Simmons is credited as an Internet visionary, but he went into new media only because old media rejected him. 

That is completely correct.  While this article does suck, I like that it's being honest about Bill imperfections.  It's not that in 1990whatever he was like "I know exactly what the internet will be in 2014, so I'm getting on the train early."  It's that he's a bad writer and allegedly insufferable to work with, so he couldn't get an old media job.  Just because he stumbled ass-backwards into success by being good at making pop culture references appreciated by people as dumb as him (and I was that kind of person until 2004 or 2005, I admit, but I was also a lot younger and dumber then) doesn't mean we need to pretend like he invented the idea of blogging about sports.

"Boston," he says, "is where I failed."

Well, Los Angeles is where you continue to fail, but yeah, I get what you're saying.

He began his career as a lackey at the Boston Herald, the lesser of the city's two daily papers, "organizing Chinese-food orders" and covering high school teams. 

His co-workers could never understand what he was saying due to the huge silver spoon in his mouth.  I wonder how many other "applicants" he beat out to get that job?

He stood outside the Herald building on the Mass Turnpike, smoking cigarettes and "wondering what the fuck I was gonna do with my life."

Bill Simmons is, and always was, a boring clod.

Except for the addition of tall buildings, Boston hasn't changed since Paul Revere bought a horse. 

Still as racist as ever!

TV anchors and newspaper columnists keep their jobs for decades, and at the Herald, "mediocre writers were blocking my way," Simmons later wrote. 

Just as they should block the way of any sub-mediocre writer.  You know, I hate that all those guys who play minor league baseball are blocking the way and preventing me from playing major league baseball.  They've got a lot of nerve!

"I didn't do myself any favors," he adds now. "I was probably too arrogant, 

NO WAY I DON'T BELIEVE IT NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT

and could barely hide my disdain for some of the writers." After three years, "frustrated to the point of insanity," he quit and worked as a bartender. At 24, he began smoking pot, 

MORE SCANDAL.  I BET HE HAD A BOOKIE TOO.

and soon owned a four-foot purple bong. (In L.A., he discovered West Coast weed was way more potent, and one night, ended up "hiding behind the curtains in my living room for 40 minutes because I thought somebody was watching us. After that, I phased back big time.") 

BUT DOES HE LIKE STRIPPERS?????

He considered going into commercial real estate 

Dear sweet baby Jesus, can you imagining negotiating a contract with this guy?  My head hurts just from typing that sentence.

with his stepdad before he came across a new website, AOL, where even a Herald reject could write.

What if he had somehow caught on and stayed there, rather than moving to ESPN?  Would ESPN still be as cool as it was in the 90s, with AOL's sports wing filling ESPN's current role of "purveyor of incredibly shitty and celebrity-obsessed sports content?"  I guess it all depends on who gets bought by Disney in this hypothetical world.  Fuck Disney.

He wrote with a fan's dismay and delight, rejecting the idea of being objective (a Boston partisan, he openly despises the L.A. Lakers and any team from New York), 

Here are all the teams from New York he can name:

1) YANKEES!  FACK THE YANKEES IN SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER!

2) Knicks (but really, why hate them, they're not really worth hating)

3) Nets INSERT MIKHAIL PROKHOROV/YAKOV SMIRNOV JOKE HERE

4) They might have another baseball team, but I don't follow the minor leagues

5) /Bill eats paste

and attacking local sportswriters by name. No team would give him a press pass, so while newspaper guys padded short articles with boring quotes from athletes, Simmons distinguished himself by mixing in references to bands and movies (especially Shawshank Redemption and Karate Kid), 

Thank goodness.  Someone who really had their finger on the pulse of America's tastes.

and by writing long: "85,000-word essays about Rocky IV," Kimmel jokes.

OK, I will back off a little and admit that I like Rocky IV.  Non-ironically.

Simmons' early work had flaws — bitterness, cheap cracks about the manliness of female athletes, praise for the Counting Crows — 

Please delete the word "early" from that sentence and change "had" to "will always have"

but it was also funny, fresh, expansive, and even sentimental, especially when he wrote adoringly about his dad and their sports bond. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

That's the secret element of Simmons' success: He's the most emo sportswriter around. 

I wouldn't call it a secret.  I'd call it an unfortunate and insufferable reality.

He once penned a 3,000-word column describing how his dog Daisy died of lymphoma. It's the Fall Out Boy of sports columns.

In that it's terrible and no one should pay attention to it?  Gotcha.

In 2000, when ESPN launched Page 2, a site that mixed sports, pop culture and humor, Simmons waited for his phone to ring. "That was probably the lowest I sunk, when ESPN didn't hire me for Page 2," he says. 

What an entitled little shithead.

He was in his early thirties, still borrowing money from his parents. 

But those mean people at the Boston Herald were mean and didn't let me write whatever I wanted to write!  It wasn't fair!  I didn't want that stupid really hard to get job anyways!

A few months after the launch, he wrote a column mocking ESPN's annual awards show, and his taunts got noticed. "I was on the floor laughing," recalls ESPN's John A. Walsh. 

John Walsh is a fucking dummy.  He certainly comes off as such in Those Guys Have All the Fun.

Soon, Simmons had his first ESPN assignment. If there's a moral, it's this: Bite the hand you cannot kiss.
I'd say the obvious "moral," if you're going to give the story of Simmons's success that much gravitas, is to appeal to stupid people.  There's a lot of them and they're easy to please.  His rise to power at ESPN is idiocracy in corporate media form.  I'll give him this, though--he's probably less of a shithead than Mariotti.

I'll wrap this up later.

Guess who has some bad ideas and unfunny jokes to share? (Part 2)

Since I started this series of mailbag columns, Bill published another mailbag column. The more the merrier, that's what I say. I could do this for a while. It's a lot more fun than Jeter Month. Anyways, I'll pick up where I left off last week, and depending on how comfortable my butt is in this chair, maybe I'll power straight through into the next mailbag. You'll know you're there when you encounter yet another "BILL FOR BUX GM CUZ HE IS SMRT!" email.

Q: I know it’s impossible. But, for argument’s sake, the Knicks grab the 8 seed, and then beat the Heat in the first round, would that be the greatest sports upset ever? Would USA-USSR 1980 finally be outdone?
—Mike, New York, NY

Only took us one question to get to more mindless hyperbole. People are fucking idiots. They really are.

SG: Settle down. Besides, it wouldn’t even be the greatest NBA first-round upset ever.

[Denver-Seattle 1994 video]

And I'm not even sure that's right--the 1994 Sonics won 63 games while the 1994 Nuggets won 42.  That was a five game series, which makes things easier on the underdog.  The Nuggets also had a +1.5 PPG differential over their opponents.  In 2007, the 42 win Warriors beat the 67 win Mavericks in a seven game series, and that Warriors team was outscored by their opponents on the season.

Q: Could you see Kevin Ollie being the next coach of the Thunder if they crash and burn in the playoffs? 

WOULD IT BE THE GREATEST CRASH AND BURN IN THE HISTORY OF PRO SPORTS IF THEY LOST IN THE FIRST ROUND?????

In your podcast with Kevin “The Servant” Durant, he spoke very highly of Ollie as a leader.
—Ricardo, McAllen, TX

I know Ollie finished his playing career in OKC, and I hate Scotty Brooks, but I'm pretty sure Brooks is a good coach.  I'm also pretty sure he's not on the hot seat, despite losing to Memphis in the 2nd round last spring.

SG: Had the same thought as I watched Ollie coach his ass off last weekend, then abandoned that thought last night when I remembered that OKC can still make the 2014 Finals because they’re such a horrendous matchup for the Spurs. 

Spurs in 5, should that matchup occur.  MY NBA PLAYOFF GAMBLING MANIFESTO SAYS SO.  Just kidding, I have no fucking idea what will happen, but I know that Bill isn't the person you want to listen to regarding such things.

(Then again, that’s the coolest thing about the 2014 playoffs — there’s a little rock-paper-scissors action going on. Everyone has someone they don’t want to play.) 

That's probably been the case for 90% of the playoffs held in every professional sport for the last thirty years.  This isn't the pre-expansion era, where you could often safely bet on the Canadiens/Yankees/Celtics to kick the jizz out of everyone else.  Every team has strengths and weaknesses.  Very profound of Bill to point that out.

Anyway, I asked Durant in that podcast if he believed in the whole “veteran leadership thing.” His answer …

“Most definitely. Kevin Ollie, he was a game-changer for us. He changed the whole culture, I think. He might not say it, but he changed the whole culture in Oklahoma City. 

The culture that had been there for all BOTH of the franchise's previous seasons with that nucleus of players.  The Thunder stunk the year before Ollie got there (allowing them to draft James Harden--watch out or Bill will remind you that the Harden trade was not a very good one!) and then made the playoffs during Ollie's only season, but surely that was mostly attributable to Ollies gritty gutty crusty veteranness, and not to the development of Durant and Westbrook and the addition of Harden and Serge Ibaka.  Right.  I think this is just another case of Durant being too damn nice to tell it like it is.

Just his mind-set, his professionalism, every single day. And we all watched that and we wanted to be like that. It rubbed off on Russell, myself, Jeff Green, James Harden — and everyone that comes through now, that’s the standard you got to live up to, as a Thunder player, and it all started with Kevin Ollie.”

Not buying it.

Now, I can’t see the Thunder changing coaches unless they get bounced in Round 1. Not because they’d be unhappy with Scott Brooks, but because they’re too friggin’ cheap to pay two coaches. 

BURNNNNN!!!!!!!!

But Ollie is a super-intriguing name to file away, especially if OKC doesn’t win the title in 2014 or 2015 and wants to avoid “The Decision II” (Durant in 2016). It all started with Kevin Ollie. Hmmmmmmmm.

Obviously Ollie will be coaching in the NBA (or turning down very lucrative offers to do so) within the next 12 to 18 months.  When this happens (regardless of which team hires or pursues him), Bill will be sure to remind everyone about how brilliant he was for publishing this clod's email and pointing out that a 41 year old ex-player who just won an NCAA championship in his second year as HC is a hot commodity.  Shut up, Bill.  I'm telling you in advance.

Q: I’m ready for your annual trade value column. 

This is how you get Bill to publish your email.  Stroke that ego.  Stroke it good and hard.  Put some elbow grease into it.

This is where you’re going to explain why Goran Dragic and his cap friendly salary and slashing style are more valuable than Damian Lillard and his eventual max contract and poor percentage at the rim. I’m going to get mad because Damian is my guy and I’ll think you’re an idiot. 

You'll be right.

Then I’ll come to grips with the fact that you’re right, 

Even if that's the case, you'll still be very right about the whole who's an idiot thing.

I’m a homer, and watching my Blazers crawl to the finish line while the Suns seem to not go away only verifies your point. 

The Suns eventually went away and finished in 9th in the West.  Not that I'm hating on them or anything.  They're good.

I suppose that’s why you’re a necessary evil. I don’t have to like it though.
—Jake, Gold Beach, OR

Oh, Jake, you sly dog!  Look at you--a little false mockery of Bill to round out your written word tonguing of his taint.  Now you're in the mailbag.  Make sure to print out a copy and tape it to your dorm room door.  It'll totally get you laid, according to the many (alleged) women who have written Bill emails about how sexy Bill's fans are.

SG: That was this month’s winner of the Backhanded Compliment Award. 

I'll see your false mockery, and raise some false self-deprecation as I pretend that you really weren't genuflecting before your computer while writing that. 

I don’t know when we’re seeing the annual Trade Value Column — if I wrote it right now, I’d end up putting Anthony Davis first, second and third. Might be better off waiting until the summer when I can’t overreact to everything. I love overreacting. It’s one of my weaknesses.

That, and being a fucking dunce.

Q: I can’t think of a scenario where Frank Kaminsky isn’t at least useful in the NBA. Seven feet, can shoot it from anywhere, quick, good free throw shooter, good intangibles. I spent 30 minutes trying to find him in the top 100 NBA prospects, but could not. Am I missing something?
—David Moore, Charleston

Plugging a terribly unathletic (on the scale of NBA players) white guy as a legitimate pro prospect?  YOU'VE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE, DAVID MOORE OF CHARLESTON.

SG: FRANK KAMINSKY SHOULD BE A LOTTERY PICK! WHAT IS EVERYONE MISSING HERE?
(See, I love overreacting. 

OK.  When are you going to start?

But seriously … this guy couldn’t be an effective big off the bench for a contender? 

He couldn't guard anyone on any NBA roster right now, and couldn't create his own shot against any defense employed by any NBA team right now.  Those could be issues.

The Spurs couldn’t figure out how to use a 7-footer who shoots 3s, plays with his back to the basket and doesn’t do anything else? 

Holy shit, you really don't know anything about basketball, do you?  I've often said "Well at least Bill knows the NBA" and then had commenters here say "No he doesn't."  Guess I was wrong for the first time ever in my life.  Good on you, commenters.

Watching Kaminsky dismantle Arizona like he was Pau circa 2006 whupping on Lithuania in the World Basketball Championships or something — that was absolutely delightful. I loved it.)

IT WAS LIKE WATCHING BIRD, COUSY AND MCHALE TAKE DOWN MAGIC, KOBE AND KAREEM!!!

Q: What would be the most IMPROBABLE BUT FUN thing that could happen in the 2014 NBA Playoffs?
1. “The Heat are swept in any round”
2. “Knicks enter as 8 seed and beat Indiana or Miami”
3. “Phoenix goes to the Conference Finals”
4. “It gets leaked that Prokhorov offered 5 hookers to each Net if they won the East.”

What are we missing?
—Mauricio, Santa Monica

Anything that resembles a good joke, for starters.

SG: You missed the comedy of NBA TV getting stuck with every single Indiana-Charlotte game. Has that ever happened before? An entire series getting the NBA TV hammer?

God that would be IMPROBABLE BUT FUN.  I agree 100%.

/Larry B drinks lead paint

Q: I almost died when I read the title of this TED talk: “Dan Gilbert: Why We Make Bad Decisions.” Unfortunately, it’s not the Cavs owner, just a namesake. But imagine if it were!
—Francois Aube, Montreal

Unsurprising to see an overlap between people who write to Bill's mailbag and people who are interested in TED Talks.

Q:
Player A: 21.6 ppg, 6.4 APG, 41.7 fg%, 32.4 3-point%
Player B: 21.3 ppg, 8.9 APG, 42.8 fg%, 33.5 3-point%
Player C: 21.1 ppg, 6.2 APG, 42.8 fg%, 36.6 3-point%

Player A is Steve Francis Year 3.
Player B is Stephon Marbury Year 3.
Player C is Kyrie Irving Year 3.
—Kyle B., Indy

Q: Look at this.
Player A: 20.7 ppg, 6.4 apg, 1.3 spg, 3 tpg, 45.3 fg%, 35.4% 3fg.
Player B: 21.1 ppg, 6.3 apg, 3.6 rpg, 1.4 spg, 2.7 tpg, 42.8 fg%, 36.6 3fg%.

Player A is Isaiah Thomas. Player B is Kyrie Irving.
—Aamir Shakir, San Francisco

SG: My counter to Kyle and Aamir …

Player A: 21.1 ppg, 6.3 apg, 3.6 rpg, 43.1 FG%, 36.6 3FG%, 20.1 PER
Player B: 21.3 ppg, 6.9 apg, 3.3 rpg, 43.8 FG%, 29.1 3FG%, 21.6 PER

Player A? Kyrie. Player B? Devin Harris in 2009.

(YES! I just won the “Who Could Freak Cleveland Fans Out The Most With a Blind Player Comparison To Kyrie Irving” Contest!!!)

First of all, that was Harris's best season by a lot, a complete outlier, and it happened when he was 25.  Irving is 21.  And 21 year old Isiah Thomas (the HOFer who played for the Pistons, not the current Sacramento King) went for 22.9 ppg, 7.8 apg, 4.0 rpg, 47.2 FG%, 28.8 3FG%, and some PER that is probably higher than 21.6 but not significantly, as Thomas average 4.0 turnovers to Irving's 2.7.  From all of this, we have learned... absolutely fuck-all.  What a good use of everyone's time.  And while Isaiah Thomas is nothing special, and Francis definitely washed out well before his time, I love the implication that having a career like Marbury's would somehow be a bad thing for Irving.  Sure, he's not making the HOF, but gee, he was ONLY a top five PG for five more seasons after the one Kyle B. from Indy presented.  What a bum!

Q: What is your opinion on Vivek Ranadive’s “V Plan” to stop tanking?
—Lawrence Faulkner, Sacramento

For those who don't want to click the link, the Kings' owner's idea is to 1) freeze the lottery order at the All Star Break, which, no, and 2) implement the idea Bill has presented many times (but almost surely didn't make up) of the top seven teams in each conference making the playoffs, and then the eighth spot going to the winner of a single elimination tournament among the remaining teams in each conference.  Bill has a name for it--it's too dumb for me to reference it here.  Nevertheless, rest assured that A) these are idiotic ideas and B) Lawrence Faulkner from Sacramento should be kicked in the balls for pandering to Bill like this.  "Hey Bill, this guy likes and idea you like!  What do you think of his thoughts on your idea???"

SG: Put it this way — if I bought a small-market team, gave my polarizing young head case a massive extension, overpaid an injury-prone free agent to become the sixth power forward on my roster, told my local TV cameras to shoot my reactions as much as possible during our home games, then traded for one of the league’s worst contracts who doubled as the least popular player in the advanced metrics community at the time, I would not have the balls to call this “The B.S. Plan.” Just kidding, Vivek. But you might want to check the Internet.

Hey look!  A link to some vintage Bill retardery!  Sadly, that was published six weeks before this blog was started, so we didn't cover it.  Too bad.  I'll have to go back and pick it apart one of these weeks.  Check it out, it's got this line:

In retrospect, though, what’s worse: Tankapalooza 2007 or a young team winning two straight lotteries? Did it negatively impact TV ratings, attendance or general fan interest to have a suddenly stacked Magic team? Were you turning off your TV in the mid-’90s because Shaq and Penny were on? The NBA’s crucial mistake was forgetting that it’s better to have more quality teams, even at the expense of a few extra doormats. This isn’t the NFL; parity can’t work.

You're a fucking idiot.  A fucking idiot.  A fucking buttfucking idiot.

Q: Could you please make sure that near the end of the NBA season you tease us with a breakdown of what your Entertaining-as-Hell Tournament would look like?
—Scott Scattergood, Korea

I only left this question, with the reference to Bill's atrocious joke name for the "play in tournament," because this is the setup for his essay about how to fix the playoffs.  Take it away, pinhead.

SG: I thought the lopsided 2013-14 NBA season vindicated the Entertaining As Hell Tournament premise. 

"I liked my idea before, and I have the critical thinking skills of a cow, so I still like it."

Right now, we’re headed for a 50-win Western team missing the playoffs (my guess: the Suns) 

Sort of correct, although 1) they won't win more than 48, and 2) as of when this mailbag was published, they were in the 9th spot anyways, so it's not like this was a bold prediction.

as well as the reprehensible 35-win Knicks reprehensibly sneaking into the reprehensible no. 8 seed.

Thankfully for the sake of those of us who don't want to watch bad basketball in the playoffs, they did not.  Although Atlanta sucks too.  But at least they don't suck while being shoved into the viewing public's face every four seconds.  They suck quietly, off to the side, and their series with Indiana won't get the best TV timeslots.  This is a good thing.

When the 2014 Suns can miss the playoffs and the Knicks can make it, we’re fundamentally doing something wrong. 

I would feel bad for the Suns if it weren't already the case that 53% of the teams in the NBA make the playoffs.  This isn't baseball pre-wildcard when you could have a legitimate claim to best team in the league (1993 Giants, e.g.) and miss the playoffs.  The Suns have the 13th best record in the league, and if you stretched it, you could make a case that they are the 10th best team, give or take.  Because of an administrative rule, they won't be able to play for the championship.  Boo fucking hoo.  Maybe if they hadn't lost back to back games to the horrendous Kings in November, or lost two in a row to the Pistons and the Knicks in January, or lost at home to the Cavs last month, they would have made it.  I'm not saying the "cherry picking bad losses" method is the best way to show that a team's playoff resume is insufficient, but Christ.  Sixteen teams make it.  If you can't get in that field, regardless of the power balance between the conferences, it's not exactly a travesty.

When the Sixers can blow 26 straight games, then win at home to break the streak as their mortified fans don’t know whether to cheer or cry, we’re fundamentally doing something wrong. 

The whole point of the lottery is to prevent outright tanking.  If there was no lottery and the NBA used MLB's or the NFL's method for determining draft order, the fans definitely would have had more reason to cry than cheer for that win.  At least under the current system they could enjoy it a little.

When the 2014 Hawks say,We’d rather fall into the lottery than make the playoffs, we’re doing something fundamentally wrong. 

Yeah!  It's not like Bill has stated time and time and time and time again that being mediocre is the worst thing you can be in the NBA.  We need some kind of rule that prevents teams from wanting to stop being mediocre!  We need MORE mediocrity!

Such a frustrating season. I love watching 10 teams, tolerate maybe five others, and don’t want any part of the other 15.

Wait, what did you say in 2007 about that?

In retrospect, though, what’s worse: Tankapalooza 2007 or a young team winning two straight lotteries? Did it negatively impact TV ratings, attendance or general fan interest to have a suddenly stacked Magic team? Were you turning off your TV in the mid-’90s because Shaq and Penny were on? The NBA’s crucial mistake was forgetting that it’s better to have more quality teams, even at the expense of a few extra doormats. This isn’t the NFL; parity can’t work.

Ah right.  Go fuck yourself then.

OK, so here’s how the EAHT would play out if the season ended on Wednesday (before Thursday’s games). Remember, here’s the premise: The top seven seeds in each conference make the playoffs, then it’s a single-elimination tournament for the last two playoff spots.

First-Round Winners: No. 1 Memphis over no. 16 Milwaukee (“Welcome to Tru TV!”) … no. 2 Phoenix over no. 15 Philly (Sam Hinkie: “Hey, Thad and MCW, it’s OK to try in this one”) … no. 3 Minnesota over no. 14 Orlando (yes, ’Sota could absolutely blow this game) … no. 13 Boston over no. 4 Denver (OUR FIRST UPSET! LET’S GO CELTS! HERE WE GO GREEN!!!!!!!) … 

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

no. 5 New York over no. 12 Utah (with the Knicks nearly blowing a 22-point lead as every Knicks fan melts down on Twitter) … no. 11 Lakers over no. 6 Atlanta (17 assists for Nash, 35 points for Kobe) … no. 7 New Orleans over no. 10 Detroit (34 points, 19 rebounds and eight blocks for the Brow) … no. 8 Cleveland over no. 9 Sacramento (triple-OT!!!).

Lingering first-round thoughts: Can you really go wrong with a single-elimination tournament featuring 

I'll stop you right now: yes.  Yes you can.  It doesn't matter what you wrote as the rest of that paragraph.  I know it's really fun to come up with an idea, ponder its legitimacy for ten seconds and then scream WHO SAYS NO? as loudly as you can.  But this is a bad idea.  It just is.  Most of the players will not want to be there.  Most of the coaches will not want to be there.  They will just want to go home.  Most of the arenas will be empty.  This is not March Madness.  No one is clamoring for the chance to get curb stomped by San Antonio or Indiana in the first round, especially after having to win three games in three days or four games in four days (assuming we're not trying to fuck over the fourteen playoff teams TOO badly by making them wait for like a fucking week for the playoffs to start).

Second-Round Winners (re-seeding): No. 13 Boston over no. 1 Memphis (MASSIVE UPSET! BRAD STEVENS LOVES TOURNAMENTS!!!!! RONDO WITH A 17-19-16!!!!!!) … just kidding, no. 1 Memphis over no. 13 Boston (golf clap for the C’s) … 

Oh my God.  This guy is proud of his team's imaginary performance in a tournament that doesn't exist.  That's not a tongue-in-cheek "golf clap for the C's" right there.  That's real.  This man should be sealed inside a cave forever.

no. 2 Suns over no. 11 Lakers (final score: 129-125, and I gotta admit, I came damned close to picking Kobe, Nash and Vertigo Pau) … no. 8 Cleveland over no. 3 Minnesota (here’s the textbook 2014 T-Wolves game in which they score 70 points in the first half, then blow a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter, choke the game away on a Dion Waiters Heat Check, then lose in the last 10 seconds because someone other than Kevin Love took the final shot, followed by Love taking his jersey off on the court and angrily flinging it into the stands as Rick Adelman turns maroon) … no. 7 New Orleans over no. 5 New York (38 points, 22 rebounds and eight blocks for the Brow!).

Lingering second-round thoughts: I really, really, really, really, really enjoyed pretending to watch all of those games. Look at what we accomplished already. We convinced Kobe to come back. 

AND THEN CHOKE AGAIN MUHAHAHAHHAA TAKE THAT IMAGINARY KOBE

We figured out a new and improved way for the Knicks and Timberwolves to torture their fans. 

No one in Minnesota would give a flying fuck about this tournament.  The Wild are in the playoffs.

We rewarded the Brow for turning into a franchise guy — now he has something to play for other than the lottery. 

THANK GOD!  I was worried that imaginary Anthony Davis was feeling unappreciated.

Same for that goofy Cavs team that floundered for four months and needed a mini–Ewing Theory situation with Kyrie Irving to find itself. I like our Final Four. And we ended up with four spectacular second-round games. You’re enjoying this!

I want to jump into an electric fence!

Final Four Winners: no. 1 Memphis over no. 8 Cleveland (too much Big Spain, too much Z-Bo, too much Mike Brown), and no. 7 New Orleans over no. 2 Phoenix (the Brow! The Brow! THE BROW!!!!!!!!!!!).

Excellent fake cheering.  Top notch fake fanboyism.

Lingering Final Four thoughts: This was beautiful. The Grizzlies earned a playoff spot they deserved anyway; they’re 29-12 since January 9. 

You know what they can be happy about?  Having actually earned a playoff spot in real life.  And they can earn the 7 seed by beating the Mavs tomorrow night.  Also, pretty great that his tournament nearly ended with the top two seeds winning anyways.  And pretty great that IT'S AN INJUSTICE THAT PHOENIX CAN'T MAKE THE PLAYOFFS, LOOK AT THEIR RECORD turned into THE 33-48 PELICANS DEFEAT THE 47-34 SUNS TO CLINCH A PLAYOFF SPOT HOW AWESOME IS THIS!  And pretty great that even with this system, the 42-39 Bobcats are still in the playoffs, because life isn't fair. 

The Brow pulled a 1988 Danny Manning and single-handedly dragged his boys to glory. And we ended up with a better no. 8 seed than the freaking Knicks. The only downer: Phoenix got bumped from The Show. But hey, if you can’t fake-beat New Orleans at fake-home, then you don’t fake-deserve to make the fake-playoffs.

DIE

All right, so we found our last two playoff teams. Now what? The more I think about it, the more I think (a) the EAHT should end after three rounds (it doesn’t make sense to have a championship game), 

Oh, you think?  And you think maybe the teams that qualified for the playoffs might be a little annoyed that the season ended on Wednesday, and now it's Sunday (at the earliest) and they're waiting around?  And the two winners of the EAHT just played four games in four days, including Wednesday's regular season finale (if it's Sunday), so it really wouldn't be fair to make them play again until at least Tuesday, forcing at least two of the top fourteen teams to wait on ice for nearly a week between games?  None of this resonates with you?

and (b) we should just dump conferences and go with an NBA Sweet 16 for the actual playoffs.

Yeah!  The idea of a California team being able to play three straight seven game series with teams from the east coast in a 2-2-1-1-1 series just to make the finals sounds awesome!  That won't lead to sloppy basketball.  No way.  Look below: most matchups work out to be non-horrible this year, but of course mileage would vary by year.  And that Clippers/Nets series should be a fun one.  If it goes seven, I'm sure the winner will be nice and fresh and ready to play the Pacers or Bulls.



So, why not? Why wouldn’t we want an extra week of rest for the best playoff teams? 

Because no team wants to rest for a fucking week right before the playoffs?

What’s wrong with 14 single-elimination playoff games over one action-packed week? 

Most players and coach won't want to be there?  The stands will be empty in many arenas, leading to embarrassment for the league?

Why not open the door for a late-peaking team? 

Because they had 82 games to be in the top 53% of the league and they couldn't do it?

Why avoid a scenario in which someone like Kobe says, “You know what? I’m coming back,” instead of, “There’s no reason for me to come back”?

Because the league doesn't exist to make sure Kobe comes back?

And doesn’t re-seeding 1-through-16 for the actual playoffs, NCAA-style, make more sense than what we’re doing now? You’d still have your best team in each conference on opposite sides of the bracket, 

No the fuck you wouldn't, not if the top three teams were all in one conference and the fourth was in the other conference.  

only someone like Indiana couldn’t be rewarded for hiccuping down the stretch. Instead of getting gift-wrapped the below-.500 Bobcats in Round 1, the Pacers now get Noah, Thibs and the Bulls. Good luck going on cruise control in THAT series.

Oh snap!  Take that, imaginary Pacers!

How would the EAHT affect tanking? 

I don't know, but I'm sure you have more runny dogshit ideas up your sleeve.

I’m throwing out my fourth different idea for this one … what if we blew up the lottery format and reinvented it with three tiers:

Worst Six Teams: 9 percent chance of winning
Worst Teams 7 through 12: 4 percent chance of winning
Worst Teams 13 through 16: 2 percent chance of winning

Wait, that’s only 86 percent. Hmmmmmmm … let’s give each of the 14 playoff teams 1 percent odds. That’s right, we’re putting everyone in! TRY TANKING NOW!!! 

OK.  Bad teams will still do it, because it gives them a better chance at winning the lottery than not tanking.  You got anything else?

We run the lottery for the first four picks, then the draft goes in reverse order of record from the fifth pick on. You really think Philly is casually blowing 26 straight under this revamped system?

Yyyup.

Oh, and Adam Silver? You’re shopping your next slew of media rights packages right now to ESPN/ABC, Turner, Fox and everyone else, right? And you’re thinking about adding a third package that includes a Saturday-night regular-season bundle, right? Wouldn’t it make the most sense to combine that bundle with the Entertaining As Hell Tournament into a third, mack-daddy package? 

No.  The Entertaining As Hell Tournament is basketball ebola.  It's a terrible idea and the world is a worse place for it having been conceived.

Conceivably, Disney would pay more for the same deal it already has; same for Turner and its current deal; then a third party comes in (Fox Sports? NBC? Maybe even … gulp … Google or Apple TV?) 

MALCOLM GLADWELL TOLD ME TO PUT THOSE LAST TWO IN!!!!

and grabs those Saturday-night games and the Entertaining As Hell Tournament? Thank you and please drive through.

I am at a loss for words.  May this man somehow be fired as soon as possible.  Fuck Bill Simmons.

Mariotti vs. Simmons in an ethics-off. WHO YA GOT? (Part 1)

So I did not post about Simmons's conference championship game picks, but needless to say, he took both underdogs to win outright, and instead both favorites covered.  To be fair to him, had I posted my picks, I would have only gone 1-1, as I liked the Broncos and Niners to cover, and the Niners to possibly win outright.  To be unnecessarily generous to both him and me, the Niners were about a foot away from winning outright.  Anyways, much as we all wanted to enjoy some tasty Simmons schadenfreude after the GREATRIOTS laid a huge egg in Denver, his Twitter feed was silent between Friday evening and Monday morning, and when he did get around to tweeting on Monday, he had bigger concerns to address.

I assume you know what I'm referring to, but if you don't, Google "Grantland Dr. V article."  You'll find plenty of thoughtful (and some not very thoughtful) responses to what went down.  It's a tragic story that reflects very poorly on Grantland and Simmons, but I'm not here to pile on them.  I'm here to bring you the response the incident prompted from sports journalism's foremost expert on ethics: Jay Mariotti!

Like you, I had no idea he had a job again.  Somehow, he convinced some outlet called Sports Talk Florida to pay him for his labor.  As far as I can tell, Sports Talk Florida is an internet radio station that also publishes STRONG TAKES from its personnel on its website.  Jay apparently hosts a show from noon to three every afternoon, and also gets to write.  And when he writes, you know he's not going to shy away from the hot topics of the day.  Bill Simmons: prepare to be TAKEN TO TASK.  As Chris W said when sending this link to Jack M and I, let's root for the meteor.  (Late breaking edit: I didn't realize commenter tony harding also placed this link in the comments to my last post until just now.  Thanks dude.  I assume SportsTalkFlorida is in your blogroll.)

A fanboy should not be a sports columnist, a TV analyst and a website editor. 

Can we just end the article here?  Actually, even that's taking things too far and giving Jay's thoughts too much credit.  I think it's fine for fanboys to be columnists.  I'm a nerdy blogger who lives in his parents' basement, etc., so I have to support the idea of fans having a voice in the sports world.  I don't hate Simmons because he became a popular writer on a huge platform without any journalism credentials.  I hate Simmons because he's a fucking idiot.  However, I will agree with Jay that just because you have the magic formula that causes dipshit sports fans everywhere to gobble up anything you write doesn't mean you should be given a role on TV or creative and editorial control over a (corporate-funded) website.  Jay and I are definitely on the same page there.

A fanboy should remain a fanboy, 

Oh no.  You know where this is headed.

root vacuously for his teams 

If you use your imagination, you can hear Mariotti's voice morphing into Wilbon's as this sentence goes along.

and leave the serious work to the trained journalists. 

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Only SERIOUS JOURNALISTS like Bill Plaschke and Jay should be able to offer up HOT TAKES on matters related to sport.  If you don't own a journalism degree, you shouldn't be allowed to offer your opinion as to whether or not Ozzie "the Blizzard of Oz" Guillen is utilizing his bullpen properly.  

What a fucking cunt.

Several years ago, ESPN turned a fanboy named Bill Simmons into a blogging cartoon character 

It is true that they literally turned Simmons into a cartoon character at one point (2005?  2006?) for a very short-lived online series that was as poorly executed as it was conceived.  I think Jay is referring to the fact that ESPN employed him at all here, but I just wanted to remind you that "Sports Guy's World," or whatever the fuck that web cartoon was called, was a thing that ESPN spent money on.

— the Sports Guy, he was called — who was cast as a role model for legions of other fanboys unqualified for professional sports media and used by the network to generate traffic for then-fledgling ESPN.com.

I know you feel threatened by the fact that just about anyone can start a blog and develop a reader base these days, Jay, but let's not take it too far.  At the time ESPN hired Simmons (1999?  2000?) blogs were still several years away from being a thing (I hate using that terminology, but it's the weekend and I'm feeling lazy) and your cozy little job at the Chicago Sun-Times was still perfectly intact.  Simmons was only hired as a role model in the sense that his appeal was based on being an everyday fan.  Jay seems to think that ESPN hired him in order to inspire other knuckle-dragging non-accredited journalists to become successful BLOGGERS (term used pejoratively in this case) and RUIN SPORTS MEDIA FOREVER.  Kind of sounds like sour grapes from a hard-partying no-contest-pleading-to-charges-of-woman-punching fuckass who has no one to blame for his own downfall from major newspaper columnist to internet radio station guy.

This was when the Internet was swallowing the world and newspapers were starting to die, a perfect segue to a sportswriting fad. 

Yes, a "fad," which played a huge role in the death of many gigantic newspaper institutions, as you just acknowledged, and which will be the main way people get sports content for a long time to come.

Problem was, Simmons spawned a lot of other fanboys who could become sportswriters simply by signing onto Word Press and launching blogs. 

Although there are relatively inconsequential differences between a Blogger-hosted blog and the site Jay is using now, for all intents and purposes, one of these so-called "weblogs" is the only reason he has a voice right now.

Around this time, web entrepreneurs with no conscience about accountability and ethics 

Yeah, I hate those unethical bloggers!

launched their own grubby sites, 

I'm not going to link to it, but if you're feeling generous, go to Sports Talk Florida's site, and soak up the non-grubbiness.

then hired fanboys for pennies while ordering them to accrue as many clicks as possible by whatever means possible, 

LEAVE BLEACHER REPORT OUT OF THIS.  THEIR MOBILE APP IS ACTUALLY KIND OF GOOD.  (No really, it is.  ESPN Scorecenter has become progressively shittier with every upgrade, and Bleacher Report TeamStream is non-horrible.)  I also love the insinuation that it's only bloggers who ever stoop to ethical lows to generate buzz.  No mainstream old media print journalist would ever consider such a thing!

even if it meant stalking famous athletes and media people and publishing blatant lies, blind items, dick and vagina photos, whatever attracted the eyeballs of various stoners and losers.

Deadspin's commenters are the worst people on the internet, but I'm pretty sure there are at least some non-commenting readers who are neither stoners nor losers.

All of which brings us to Simmons today. Having ruined the sports media industry in too many ways to count, 

This is attributing too much power to Bill.  He's an obnoxious, talentless pile of dinosaur shit--but his overall impact on the sports media industry is probably no worse than "kind of bad."  It might even be neutral.  Sure, he's spawned a massive crowd of mouth breathers who think that liking sports means comparing athletes to characters from TV shows, and that the Ewing Theory is demonstrably provable via the scientific method.  But he's also probably inspired a lot of smart and entertaining people to start writing about sports.  Lord knows I'm not one of them (I'm not inspired by Simmons, nor am I smart or God knows entertaining).  But many of your favorite bloggers, and maybe even some of your favorite mainstream writers, probably owe a little bit of their success to him.  Plus, Grantland as a whole is a steaming sauna of shit fumes, but it employs some great writers like Bill Barnwell and Zach Lowe.  If I had magical past changing powers, I'd cut off Simmons's career around 2003 (and even that might be too late), but I certainly wouldn't stop him from ever having begun writing.

he now finds himself in an unforgivable legal predicament that could end his hollow reign atop a media empire that should know better. 

If the fallout from this Dr. V situation is the end of Grantland, I'll grow a mullet.  Wishful thinking on Jay's part.

It was Simmons, as editor-in-chief of ESPN’s Grantland spinoff site, who approved the publication of a piece last week called “Dr. V’s Magical Putter.” The story was intended to determine the legitimacy of a unique piece of golf equipment. It ended with the transgender community crying foul over the insensitive work of the story’s author, Caleb Hannan, who discovered in the course of his reporting that the putter’s inventor, Essay Anne Vanderbilt, was a transgender person.

When Vanderbilt learned that Hannan was aware of the information and that he had told Phil Kinney, one of the putter’s investors, she e-mailed Hannan and accused him of a “hate crime.” Then she committed suicide. The date was Oct. 18, 2013.

Last week, Hannan’s story ran on Simmons’ site, outing Vanderbilt as transgender and not treating the suicide with the proper tact and care. After reading it, and then absorbing the firestorm of criticism accompanying it, all I could ask myself was: 

How can I make this about me somehow?

Why is a career fanboy 

To be fair to Bill, he's been a professional writer in some capacity or another (term "writer" used loosely for the past seven or eight years, as he's averaged about three columns per year, but still) for pretty much his whole adult life.  He's an insufferable fanboy, and a real piece of shit to work with, but he knows the sportswriting industry.  I'll give him that much.  He still shouldn't be Grantland's editor, but acting like he's nothing but a guy who likes sports is disingenuous.  He's shitty sportswriter, but he's still a sportswriter.

making critical decisions about a difficult story involving suicide and a transgender person? Why was Bill Simmons in this position to begin with? Shouldn’t he have been back in Boston, wearing a Celtics throwback jersey and screaming from the cheap seats that Doc Rivers quit on the team?

While that is some top-notch mockery, let's face it: if Jay were editing a site as big as Grantland, he'd make horrendous ethical gaffes like this fucking constantly.

Part 2 later this week.

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

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

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

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

Strong.

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

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

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

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

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

SMTMQR: Gregg is a Batman movie series hipster

We turn now to Gregg's AFC preview. BUT WAIT! First, more anti-Christopher Nolan contrarianism from the sports media's most outspoken critic of a series of movies that's as universally loved by both audiences and critics as any in the last several decades. BUT THOSE MOVIES ARE SO UNREALISTIC (more on that later)!

There have been 11 Batman theatrical-release films, beginning in 1943 and ranging from super-straight to camp to semi-serious to preposterous to the recent dark, brooding iterations. At the end of last season, Tuesday Morning Quarterback promised to reveal his favorite Bat-flick.

What a tease that was! Holy shit, move over, "Who Shot J.R."

It's "Mask of the Phantasm," the sole theatrical-release cartoon in the series.

BWAHAHAHAHAH (not that I've seen it, but come the fuck on)

"Mask of the Phantasm" hit theaters on Christmas Day 1993, and promptly bombed, though it enjoyed a second life as a cult hit on VCR 

Yeah, VCR, it's this old way of watching DVDs, you've probably never heard of it.

and now DVD. In the flick, Bruce Wayne and Batman are voiced by Kevin Conroy, whose deep tones are perfect for the character and a refreshing change from the obviously fake synthesized Batman voice in the movie "The Dark Knight."

Cartoons: known for their realistic and not at all fake or synthesized voices.

Other roles in "Mask of the Phantasm" are voiced by Dana Delaney, who in 1993 could smolder even if you couldn't actually see her,

Gregg thinks cartoon chicks are hot. Gross.

Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker),

Have you ever noticed how fake and synthesized Darth Vader's voice was? Dealbreaker for that whole
series of movies if you ask me. Also, we're just supposed to believe that spaceships can go faster than the speed of light?  I'm pretty sure it's scientifically established that you can't do that.  YOU SUCK GEORGE LUCAS BOOOOO

Stacy Keach, Efrem Zimbalist and Abe Vigoda. Delaney's character is first a love interest, then foe, then a vital ally for Batman: the formula for the Anne Hathaway character in "Dark Knight Rises."

And for like every chick in every Bond movie ever, and thousands of other mysterious female roles throughout movie history.

In Tuesday Morning Quarterback news, all good things must end. Two perennial items are being retired,

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!  BRING BACK WACKY WINE OF THE WEEK!

or at least put into storage to be curated by future historians of sports columns: Christmas Creep

BUT IT HAD SO MUCH UTILITY! AND WAS NEVER REPETITIVE!

and Cheerleader of the Week.

WHERE ELSE ON THE INTERNET WILL I FIND PICTURES OF ATTRACTIVE WOMEN?

In a mere decade, Christmas creep as a social phenomenon has gone from outrageous to common to all but required by federal law.

Over that same span of time, the people who enjoy pointing it out have gone from not interesting to even less interestinger.

The amusement value of noting Christmas creep has

never existed.

worn off.

Potato/po-TAH-toe.

The Unified Field Theory of Creep item will continue.

Whew! I was worried we were getting rid of ALL the worthless horseshit clutter in this column!

A decade ago, when TMQ began the Cheerleader of the Week item, many people didn't realize that NFL team websites were posting photos of scantily clad gorgeous women,

The median age of this group of people was 84.

and selling bikini calendars. Now everyone knows that.

Everyone continues to be very uncomfortable with the mini-scripts Gregg likes to write in which the cheerleader of the week leads a cheer related to her full time profession. OOH HOW CLEVER! SHE'S A TEACHER, SO HE'S PRETENDING SHE IS CHEERING HER STUDENTS TO GOOD TEST RESULTS! (He also pointed out that by being a cheerleader and a teacher, she's fulfilling two common male fantasies! CHEEKY!)

But now that many sports websites run NFL cheerleader photos -- usually just cheesecake pics, with the woman not even identified --

FOR SHAME, BLEACHER REPORT! THESE WOMEN SHOULD BE TREATED WITH RESPECT! I DEMAND TO KNOW THEIR NAME, FAVORITE BAND, AND FAVORITE PART ABOUT BEING A BUFFALO JILL!

TMQ's take is no longer distinctive.

Holy shit, you thought that giving readers the cheerleader of the week's name and profession made your take "distinctive?" Gregg may be a dunce, but he's usually not noticeably full of himself like this.

That I did it better doesn't matter.

Dude.

Since NFL cheerleaders are part of the entertainment -- pretty dancing girls have a long history in entertainment, at least as far back as vaudeville -- the cheerleaders will continue to be discussed and shown, as circumstances merit. Just no more regular items.

I like the way he's explaining this in explicit detail, let we really need to know the specifics of his "post pictures of cheerleaders" policy. Then again, people are fucking idiots, so I suppose if he said he was discontinuing cheerleader of the week but then posted a picture of a cheerleader in a subsequent column, he's get like 500 emails that said DUR U SAID NO MOAR CHEERBABEZ, U R A LYER and I can't fault him for wanting to avoid that.

Why do the Ravens sputter in January? TMQ's journalist pal Jim Fallows speaks of the Dull Ray, an evil ray gun that editors fire at interesting stories to make them dull.

Why do the Giants have New England's number in the Super Bowl? Let me tell you a story about my journalist friend and his vivid imagination.

Baltimore coaches seem to possess a Dull Ray, and they fire it at Ravens game plans in the postseason.

Baltimore's AFC title game loss last January: 36 passes and 31 runs.

During the fall, the Nevermores perform with swagger and take risks.

You know, having read his columns these last two weeks, I'm starting to feel like football season is here again. But it wasn't until I read that sentence and was reminded of his utterly thoughtless "taking more risks is always better for every team in every scenario ever" stance that I really could picture the leaves changing color and falling off the trees and imagine the crisp fall breeze blowing against my skin. 

In the 2011 season opener versus Pittsburgh, gaining a 27-7 lead to start the third quarter, the Ravens went for the 2-point conversion and iced the contest.

That was the key to their victory! Not the 20 point lead they already had!

Fortune favors the bold!

It sure does, on occasion, and fortunate also sometimes favors playing conservatively!

But when January rolls around, Baltimore goes into a shell.

Examples? Support? No? Super.

Does Coach Harbaugh/East get the yips when the pressure is on?

I like how that's phrased as a question, in the same way tabloids phrase damaging accusations about celebrities as questions to avoid libel suits. Did Craig James kill five hookers while at SMU? (James, of course, being the least sympathetic "celebrity" to ever fall victim to that dirty tactic.)

Maybe a moved-franchise curse is at play.

Great point. Also, maybe a "teams that wear purple" curse is at play. Maybe a "teams that play in Maryland" curse is at play. Maybe I will start shitting gold bricks tomorrow. Let's not rule out any possibilities.

Reader Jay Lenrow of Baltimore notes, "The Baltimore Colts had an iconic quarterback named Johnny Unitas and the Indianapolis Colts had an iconic quarterback named Peyton Manning. Both were released by members of the Irsay family. The football gods don't like that sort of thing."

Except for the fact that the Baltimore Colts are not the same franchise as the Baltimore Ravens, and Indianapolis Colts won a Super Bowl after releasing Unitas, and Manning was released after the 2012 postseason so that wouldn't have anything to do with anything that has happened to the Ravens in the playoffs in the last 5 or so years if curses did exist, and to the extent that Baltimore Colts could have left behind a curse for the Ravens to assume, the Ravens have ALSO won a Super Bowl since Unitas, yeah, I think that guy might be onto something. He is onto one thing, though: in order to get published in a TMQ column, all you have to do is send him an email blaming something bad that happened to a team on a curse that is the result of a different team having done something 35 years earlier. Jay from Baltimore: throw yourself off the highest building you can find, please.

Buffalo Bills: The Bills may have paid too much for Mario Williams, who is good-not-great with 53 sacks in six seasons, and has not been a star since 2008.

He went to the Pro Bowl after the 2009 season. Not that Pro Bowls are the perfect indicator of stardom, but since Greggggg is the kind of guy who seems to place a pretty heavy emphasis on number of sacks (Williams was averaging one per game before getting hurt last season, btw, if you think sacks are the end all be all statistic for an OLB/DE), you'd think he'd also care a lot about Pro Bowl appearances.

But Buffalo may benefit from overpaying for Williams, because his signing added a sense of excitement to the season.

That's just good solid management right there. Team sucks? Fans disgruntled? Best thing to do:
overpay for a free agent! Also, let's not forget that Williams is a high-drafted GLOREE BOY who has NEVER BEEN CUT.

The Bills' run of 11 years without a playoff appearance is worst in the NFL, and during much of that time they seemed content to lose on the cheap, cutting costs and pocketing the guaranteed network money. This offseason, Buffalo spent freely on Williams and Mark Anderson. Plus late in the draft, the Bills chose the sole kickoff specialist selected this April. A kickoff specialist makes sense only for a team that expects to score a lot.

Well, with OLB/DE Mario Williams and DE Mark Anderson on board, shouldn't they?

Final Score: Ohio State Nil, Penn State Nil: Reader Andrew Fournaridis of Pittsburgh notes

something uninteresting that every college football fan has already had pointed out to them 100 times by various media outlets and coworkers in the last couple of months.

that last year when Ohio State vacated its 2010 victories owing to the Jim Tressel scandal, that made Penn State the winner of the 2010 Buckeyes-Nittany Lions contest, previously viewed as a 38-14 Ohio State win. But now Penn State has vacated all victories from 1999 to 2011, owing to the rape cover-up scandal. That, Fournaridis observes, "means no one won the 2010 Ohio State-Penn State game."

OMG FASCINATING! TELL ME, ANDREW, DID THE OLYMPICS PRODUCE ANY HEARTWARMING STORIES ABOUT DISABLED SPRINTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA? I'D LOVE TO HEAR MORE, IF THAT IS SOMETHING THAT INDEED HAPPENED.

In the 2011 offseason, the Browns banked draft choices for the future, and the result was a 4-12 record.

[joke about how that's a good season in Cleveland here]

This offseason Cleveland spent its banked choices plus used the team's second-rounder in 2013 to get Josh Gordon, who did not play anywhere in 2011. Cleveland bid a second-round choice for Gordon in the supplemental draft. Adam Schefter reported the Browns were the sole team to offer a second-round pick, and that many teams bid nothing, meaning they thought Gordon was not worth a seventh-round selection.

Right, or they were already set at the WR position. If one team thinks a guy is worth a 2nd round choice, I think it's reasonable to think that the other 31 teams all think that guy is at least worth a 4th or 5th rounder. Then again, that one team is the Browns in this case, so maybe Gregg is right.

Denver Broncos: When the Packers made their wrenching decision to show Brett Favre the door, soon Green Bay was happy and the teams that snagged Favre were troubled. Post-Packers, Favre managed in three seasons to get two head coaches -- Eric Mangini and Brad Childress -- fired.

Both of those guys should have been fired years earlier. I hate giving Favre credit, but he was also the best or second best QB in the league in 2009. He got the Vikings within a play of the Super Bowl, and then spoiled the whole thing in typical Favreslinger fashion. Still, it's silly to say that Favre brought nothing but misery to the Jets and Vikings. Their other QB options at those times were Chad Pennington and Tavaris Jackson.

Will a similar scenario play out with the Broncos?

Probably! It's the curse of the HOF QB who switches teams! Also, I like how he pointed out that Green Bay was soon successful after getting rid of Favre without giving that fact any analysis. Hmm, wonder if things went down that way because of the presence of a more than capable successor waiting in the wings? Watch, Andrew Luck will be an All Pro within a couple of years, and Gregg (should he still be writing this column, God help us all) will be like LOOK AT GREEN BAY POST 2007 AND INDIANAPOLIS POST 2011, IT'S A SCIENCE FACT: CUTTING YOUR OLD QBS LEADS TO SUCCESS!

Now coaching the great Peyton Manning, John Fox will be expected to win big.

Whereas up until this point, Broncos fans were just hoping he could win 7 or 8 games a season and be
affable during his press conferences.

But Manning is on a 1-5 streak versus the Chargers, and now will face them twice a season.

He hasn't faced them since 2010, and they suck now. He'll be fine.

When the stats dust settled on the 2011 season, to TMQ one of the biggest questions was: Why did Denver, with the league's best rushing attack -- No. 1 in yards per game, the only NFL offense of 2011 with more net yards rushing than passing -- constantly punt on fourth-and-short?

Because like 30% of their rushing yards came on Tebow scrambles on passing downs, making that statistic a poor indicator of their likely ability to convert 4th and short?

Katie Sharp of ESPN's research desk reports the Broncs punted 23 times on fourth-and-2 or less, most in the league; their fourth-and-2 or less punt percentage of 72 percent also was highest in the league. Denver had an awesome running game, yet kept booming the ball back to the other side on fourth-and-short. Had Fox shown even a little guts on fourth-and-short, Denver's offense might have been more effective.

The fact that a team QBed by Kyle Orton and Tebow made the divisional round of the playoffs is sports miracle on par with the 1980 US Olympic hockey team. It's not that this what Gregg is saying is ridiculous or unfair criticism, but I think you could play the 2011 Broncos season out with that roster 100 times and they might make it as far as the divisional round once, lose in the wild card game twice, and miss the playoffs the other 97 times. Let's not get too picky about how they got where they went.

Houston Texans: The Texans jumped on teams early in 2011, with a 217-117 first half scoring edge. The Texans jumped on the season early, at one point being 10-3, then going 1-4 down the home stretch. Three of those four loses were close games, and of course Matt Schaub was injured.

DIAGNOSIS: NOT ENOUGH 4TH DOWN CONVERSION ATTEMPTS

There were times in 2011 when the Texans looked like Super Bowl contenders, and times when they looked like a team that lost to Indianapolis, which finished 2-14.

Yeah, like you already pointed out, there's a pretty strong correlation between that first set of games and Matt Schaub and Mario Williams being healthy.

So many Houston starters departed in free agency over the winter that it's hard to guess how the Moo Cows

Another season in the books and that's still hilarious!

will look in 2012.

That's the whole thing.  Great season preview. Last year they played better when their best players were healthy, and this year they have some new players, so who the fuck knows what will happen?

Indianapolis Colts: The Colts did not just use the first overall choice of the 2012 draft on a player from Stanford University, they used the second overall choice of the 2012 second round on a player from Stanford University, too. Four of the first 42 players chosen in the draft were from Stanford, where 87 percent of football players graduate. Alabama, Auburn, LSU, South Carolina, other big football programs with atrocious graduation rates -- what's your excuse?

Those schools are just trying to make as much money as they can off their football program, and know their fans/alumni don't care how many players graduate? Is it that hard to figure out?

Hoping to discourage celebration penalties, coach Mike Mularkey announced he and the team would donate $500 to charity each time a Jacksonville player who scores a touchdown simply hands the ball to an official.

While that is the most disgustingly "crusty white coach who is trying to please crusty white fans" move of all time, I do have to give them a modicum of credit for making it into a charity thing. Might as well have something good come out of that dumbass policy. In a related story, REMEMBER WHEN JOHN WALL DID THE DOUGIE DURING PREGAME WARMUPS AND UNDID EVERYTHING MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WORKED TO BUILD????

Taking into account that Jax recorded a league-low 12 touchdowns in 2011, had the offer then been in force and no celebrations occurred, the Jaguars would have donated $6,000 to charity, or about 0.0002 percent of a typical NFL team's annual revenue. Make that 0.00016 percent after the tax deduction.

I'm sure the Jaguars have other charity initiatives.

Considering that nearly everyone involved with the Jaguars as players, coaches and in ownership is a millionaire, an offer of a miniscule donation to the underprivileged seems more like self-promotion than altruism.

No, it's just Mularkey being a crusty obnoxious white guy. The charity aspect of it is kind of insidious, because it's like an enforcement mechanism; tell the players not to celebrate and some of them will celebrate anyways, but put charity money behind it and they probably won't lest they hear about it from fans and crusty white pundits. YOU JUST TOOK A MEAL AWAY FROM AN ORPHAN WITH THAT SPIKE, JUSTIN BLACKMON. HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT? This is the kind of move that should thrill an asshole like Gregg, but I really don't think it's about self-promotion.

Jacksonville wants good publicity in return for doing just shy of nothing. Jags fans, get the message?

If you're not going to donate millions to charity, don't bother donating anything at all. That's the message I got.

Kansas City Chiefs: The Chiefs play three of their final four contests away, which, being on a 29-51 road streak, does not bode well for the season's home stretch. Then again since the 1970 merger, just four NFL clubs having winning records on the road -- Miami, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Dallas.

He added some other bullshit about their drafting habits, but really, this was somehow even less insightful than his Texans preview.

Miami Dolphins: The "authentic games" metric is not kind to the Marine Mammals either -- they went 0-4 in 2011 against teams that reached the postseason. Miami becomes the eighth "Hard Knocks" contestant, and no "Hard Knocks" team has made the Super Bowl that season.

CONCLUSION: CURSE OF HARD KNOCKS

And here's the good stuff. I'm not even going to add any analysis. I'll just let Gregg's asshattery and bizarre grudge against Christopher Nolan (Is Nolan a Jew? Is that where this comes from? I'm too lazy to Google whether he is or not) speak for itself.

Spoiler Alert: 3,000 Police Officers Were Held Prisoner in the Gotham Sewers for Months, and When They Escaped, Their Uniforms Were Clean:The Christopher Nolan Batman movies were overblown comic-book flicks plus faux-philosophizing, which obviously is a lot more popular than the serious kind of philosophy. But since these movies have been lauded as contributions to cinema, the enormous width of the plot holes bears mention.

Despite hours of exposition in episodes one and three of the trilogy, viewers never found out why the League of Shadows was obsessed with destroying Gotham City. To "restore balance"? There was no hint of why a small army of highly skilled, super-competent and, in a few cases, super-wealthy people believed that killing everyone in America's largest city would "restore balance." Audiences never found out why Bane and Talia al Ghul wanted to commit suicide by setting off a nuclear bomb in Gotham City while they themselves were there.

Audiences never found out how the League of Shadows could place hundreds of tons of explosives around Gotham without anyone noticing. A dozen long bridges into Gotham Island (roughly modeled on Manhattan) explode during the League's takeover. Since 153 pounds of blasting material were needed to take down this small bridge, huge amounts would have been required for what's shown in the movie, and the reference to a truck that pours "exploding concrete," whatever that is, is no explanation of how large quantities of munitions were hidden on bridges that were already built or underneath a stadium that was already built. Demolition of Three Rivers Stadium required 4,500 pounds of explosives. How could a similar amount have been hidden beneath Heinz Field, as depicted in the movie, without anyone noticing?

In all the Nolan movies, Batman gets to the roofs of skyscrapers, or the tops of communication spires, in mere seconds. Does he use the elevator? When daredevil Alain Robert climbed the outside of Portland House, a 29-story building in London, it took him 40 minutes; climbs of higher buildings have taken Robert an hour or more. In Nolan's flicks, Batman requires seconds to go from street level to the tops of skyscrapers, without explanation.

Then there's Miranda Tate plot hole. Bruce Wayne's love interest and seeming benevolent philanthropist trying to save Gotham, Tate is revealed in the last reel to be the sinister Talia al Ghul, leader of the League of Shadows. The big shock is that she has always hated Bruce and always been Bane's boss! But then why does Bane treat her as a captive until the final minutes of the movie? The League of Shadows is depicted as controlling Gotham in a reign of terror that lasts months, with the entire U.S. military suddenly unable to remember how its smart bombs work and Batman believed out of the picture. Yet rather than revel in her moment of control of the city she has plotted all her life to seize, Talia spends these months making it seem she is Bane's prisoner. In order to fool who? Like a lot of Hollywood last-reel surprise twists, once the secret villain's true motivation is revealed, her previous actions make no sense.

This goes one for like another 1,000 words.  Is this guy not the biggest asshole of all time?  AND WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE BAD GUYS? THEY SHOOT A LOT BUT NEVER SEEM TO HIT ANYONE!!!!

San Diego Chargers: Norv Turner is 111-117, the NFL's only active head coach who has coached at least 10 seasons and has a losing career record. What does this man have on Bolts' team ownership that he is still employed?

Mere sentences from the end of his column, Gregg finally stumbles into some correct analysis.

Marc Williams of Bloomsburg, Pa., writes, "You stated, 'Wall Street managers are about as ethical as sharks circling.' This is unfair to sharks. Sharks do not deceive, they make it abundantly clear that they are there to eat you."

In other words, besides being bad at analysis, you're also bad at writing.