peter king vs. one of his readers in a "who is stupider?" contest

from king's latest mailbag on cnnsi.com. as is often the case when i post about mailbags, i have no idea whatsoever why king chose to print this question. i'm just going to assume it was for the enjoyment of readers like me.

KEEPING IT REAL. From David Floyd of North Carolina. "You are a great writer and I enjoy your columns on a regular basis. But I just have to ask you something. When the average American struggles on a daily basis to get by and faces real challenges daily, how is it one should look upon some of your musings? I mean, you've spoken of what a wonderful daughter or two you have, and you probably have just as wonderful of a wife. You live the life probably any man would dream of, covering the NFL and getting paid for it all the while. So when we see you complain about whichever Starbucks is nearby and the price of working out at a hotel gym center, and the cost of parking in Manhattan or hear any of the other rumblings which seem awfully miniscule to the average person trying to get by, what is one to think? Poor, poor pitiful Peter. How about this Peter? Every day you awake and look in the mirror, tell us how you hit your knees and thank your maker for gracing you with such a rich life."

david of north carolina, you are a bonafide douchebag. in the time you spent conceptualizing and writing that email, you could have written a check to the charity of your choice, put it in an envelope, addressed it, and dropped it off at the post office. talk about selfish! but king, never to be outdone, comes up with perhaps the worst possible answer:

I'm really glad you wrote that and knocked me down a peg or two. I need to hear stuff like that sometimes. Thanks for the wakeup call. The reason I told the story about the airfare and parking fare is that I found the comparison insane and I thought that you might too.

so basically... "yeah, you're right david, thanks for the perspective.... but (repeat of complaint). is that not ridiculous?" what a great example of two people talking to each other without communicating. and better still, in this case they are both extremely dumb. high comedy- that's what firejaymariotti is all about!

ohio state athletic director gives quote directly out of his own ass

this isn't bad journalism, but is definitely hilarious. from a cbssportsline news bit about the new president at ohio state, gordon gee:

"I have zero tolerance for those who do not live by the rules of the university or by the rules of the organizing body," Gee said in an interview Friday. "It's very important for us to set a very high standard for ourselves."

He said Ohio State won't have a bigger fan for players' on-field performance. But, he added, "I'm going to be here to support you to make sure that what we do off the field is consistent with the philosophy and values of the university."

fair enough. i mean, that's mostly public relations posturing, but the guy seems somewhat legit. i don't know when this happened but it claims earlier in the article that this gee fella once "disbanded the athletics department at vanderbilt" because he felt they weren't upholding the values of the rest of the school. anyways that's not the funny part. the funny part is here:

Gee's approach fits the way things work now at Ohio State, athletics director Gene Smith said.

"The focus should always be on what we're here for and that is to educate and to help these young people get their degrees," Smith said. "There's no other priority higher than that."

the NCAA's 2006 graduation rates report contains data for student athletes that entered school between 1996 and 1999. the 1999-2000 entering class is the most recent class for which graduation data is available, because the NCAA gives each class a 6 year window. so for those 4 entering classes (1996, '97, '98, and '99) the national average graduation rate was 55% for football players and 45% for basketball players. at osu, however, only 49% of football players graduated along with a whopping 10% of men's basketball players. ohio state won a football national championship in 2002 and made a final four in men's basketball in 1999. so yeah, i'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you, gene smith. there is a higher priority than educating those young people and helping them get their degrees.

not saying ohio state is the only school that operates like this, but, i mean, cooooooooooooooome onnnnnnnnnn. we all know what the deal is when it comes to big time college athletics. you're not fooling anyone who actually has a brain and pays attention to this kind of stuff.

going way, way, way out on a limb

is foxsports.com's randy hill. in this wonderful column, he wants to tell us all about NFL rookies who are poised to make an instant impact on the league. the concept is nice enough. the execution, however, leaves me wondering why the article was written in the first place. don't have a lot of time so ill just cut straight to the chase: here are the players hill and his NFL-savvy brain want us to know may produce big results (for rookies) next year.

-JaMarcus Russel
-Calvin Johnson
-Joe Thomas
-Gaines Adams
-Levi Brown

boldly going where no analyst has ever gone before, hill is pretty sure that as rookies go, the top 5 picks are all going to play well this year. wow.

-Patrick Willis
-Adam Carriker

these two tumbled all the way down to picks 11 and 13, but dont be fooled! theyre still good enough to make an impact. who'd have thunk it?

-Justin Blaylock

ok, this is MAYBE a slightly more interesting choice for the list. not really, i mean, its rare to see OGs go in the first round (only 2 have been taken there in the last 4 drafts). blaylock was taken 39th overall, with the 7th pick in the second round. so he's got to be pretty good. but still, this is relatively less dumb than your first 7 choices, randy. why will he play well this year?

Jamaal Anderson, who went eighth overall — seems like a solid first-round pick for the Falcons. But Blalock, who slipped to the second round, is a bulky sort and had the top Wonderlic score at the 2007 combine.

This suggests he's smart enough to avoid flipping off the home crowd, creating a ridiculous alias or engaging in several other ill-advised, off-field pursuits.

a michael vick reference. hilarious. if "not being like vick when he's off the field" is a ctrierium for being able to make an impact in the league, its going to be a very impactful year for a lot of guys. nice analysis randy.

-Dwayne Jarret
-Ryan Kalil

ok, again 2 second round guys. both were highly touted coming out of college. jarrett dropped because of his 40 time. kalil "dropped" because centers get taken in the first round about as often as guards. still not telling readers anything remotely interesting.

-Mike Walker
-John Broussard

With Dirk Koetter (Arizona State) on board as offensive coordinator, look for the Jags to supplement an already-excellent ground game with a vertical approach to passing.

The Jags' prevailing lineup of rangy receivers lacks the downfield speed to take advantage of Byron Leftwich's gun. Walker and Broussard — whose hands were stickier in minicamp than advertised — could fill the bill.

ill give randy points for effort here; these guys were taken in the 3rd and 7th rounds respectively. on the other hand, how the hell are they going to get on the field? the jags already have matt jones, reggie williams, and ernest wilfod. none of those three is exactly on the verge of making the pro bowl, but considering theyre all relatively young i have a hard time seeing a couple of rookies taking a lot of playing time away from them. whatever, im a not a jags fan, so i can't act like im 100% sure about this. but given how dumb and non-analytical the column has been up to thisl point, im not exactly ready to give hill the benefit of the doubt here. also, correct me if im wrong, but isn't it a contradiction to say the guys the jags already have are "rangy" but also "lack downfield speed"? isnt that what "rangy" is?

-Robert Meachem

wow. another first rounder ready to make an impact. you don't say!

-David Harris

and another mid-second rounder. fascinating.

finally, hill closes out the column with another shocker:

-Adrian Peterson

wow. this article reminded me a lot of that NBA draft lottery preview i did a couple weeks ago, in which i blasted the author for offering no interesting information whatsoever. this was marginally better... kind of. its not that it's dumb, over-the-top, woody paige or skip bayless style crap. its just not the kind of thing that needs to be published on a major sports website. anyone with a brain and a low to middling interest in the NFL already knew 90% of the stuff written here. look, its like i said at the end of the aforementioned draft lottery piece: im not trying to be overly finnicky. i'm really not that hard to please, i promise. but if you're going to claim to an "expert" on a particular league, tell me something i (as a definite non-expert, by most peoples' definition of the word) don't already know! its not that hard. in this case, although i blasted his logic about the 2 jacksonville WRs, hill could have done a bunch more blurbs about 3rd-7th round guys, cut out the part about 7 of the top 13 picks being ready to play, and i would have never spent 20 minutes tearing this apart. simple as that.

oh, i almost forgot to include the best part of the whole piece, which hill actually put back near the beginning:

Please note that this is not intended as a fantasy-draft primer.

thanks, rich.