Jonah Keri shits out a worthless 2013 retrospective, part 2 of 2

Before we get started, earlier today Deadspin informed me that Scott Miller and Danny Knobler were fired by CBS Sportsline.  Cue up the Nelson Muntz laugh, especially for Knobler (Miller wasn't THAT bad, although he certainly was bad), but mostly, be angry that Heyman remains employed.  Fuck that guy with a blender.

Now for the rest of Keri's groundbreaking opus regarding how baseball teams should be constructed and managed.

3. Having no weaknesses can be just as effective as being loaded with multiple stars.

Which team wins--Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Rickey Henderson and twenty two high school players?  Or 25 above average MLB players?  THE ANSWER MAY SURPRISE YOU.  Buckle your seatbelts and get ready for some fascinating analysis.

The A's have turned this idea into an art form. Josh Donaldson enjoyed a big breakout season in 2013. Otherwise, this was a team that relied on contributions from a wide array of players, all the way down to the bottom of their lineup, the back of their rotation, relief middlemen, and key guys off the bench. 

The Astros and Marlins, meanwhile, actually used no relief middlemen (who the hell came up with that term?) or key guys off the bench.  They just ran out the same 9 guys for 162 straight games.

After two decades of losing seasons, the Pirates finally broke through, rolling all the way to the playoffs. 

Did they do it because of Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte and a dominant bullpen?  No, of course not.  CLINT BARMES WAS THE KEY.  (Side note: Clint Barmes appeared in 108 games and had 330 PAs.  He OPS+ed 58.  Clearly, the Pirates had no superstars or weaknesses.)

Though Andrew McCutchen will likely take home NL MVP honors soon, the Buccos succeeded largely on the strength of diversified talent. They got solid contributions from their nos. 3 through 5 starters (Gerrit Cole, Jeff Locke, and Charlie Morton), from the bottom of their lineup (Jordy Mercer, once he grabbed the starting shortstop job), 

Fair enough, Barmes eventually lost his job.  But still, even if we allow for the fact that I'm picking nits and the Pirates actually were a very well-balanced team, holy Jesus on a pogo stick, no fucking shit not having any weaknesses can be as good as having some superstars to go with a bunch of terrible players.  I'm a Rockies fan.  I get it.  So does everyone else who knows anything about baseball.

and from several relievers beyond the closer and primary setup man (Justin Wilson and Tony Watson chief among them). With the trade deadline approaching, there were some wildly ambitious calls for a blockbuster move. Instead, Pittsburgh filled out its roster with useful complementary parts: Byrd to plug a hole in the outfield (he was great), and a past-prime but still functional Justin Morneau to help at first base (he hit for zero power but did at least post a .370 on-base percentage in 25 games).

I'm not going to point out the fact that the Pirates lost in the first round, as did the A's (for like the 7th time in their last 8 playoff appearances), because that's a doucheball thing to do.  Nevertheless, recent anecdotal evidence suggests that if the goal is not just to make the playoffs but to succeed once you get there, you might want some superstars like David Ortiz, Jon Lester, Buster Posey, Matt Cain, Albert Pujols, Adam Wainwright, etc.

Lest you think this is only a worthwhile strategy for low-payroll teams, remember the mockery the Red Sox went through when they devoted their offseason energy to acquiring players like Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, Stephen Drew, Jonny Gomes, Mike Carp, and Uehara, and the results they got from these complementary players.

That's the worst anecdotal support for a bad argument I've ever read.  

1) The Red Sox already had a bunch of stars which is why it made sense to surround them with complimentary guys 

2) Victorino, Napoli and Uehara are hardly "complimentary guys," each would play a significant roles on any team in MLB 

3) What mockery did the Red Sox go through for signing those guys?  I sure didn't read about it 

4) Jonah Keri is a twat

4. Keep an eye on the minors.

No fucking way.  Again, beyond those three quick words, sarcasm escapes me.  I can't even respond to that in greater detail.

As productive as in-season trades can be for some aggressive teams, the ideal scenario is to promote from within and have rookies shine. 

More of Jonah Keri's patented, trademarked, top secret team building tips:

1) Be sure to have both pitchers AND hitters

2) Guys who were good in high school and college tend to be good as pros

3) It's easier for guys to catch the ball when using gloves, make sure all fielders are using them

The Cardinals 

Oh fucking hell.  Not this narrative again.  HERPA DERP CARDINALS BEST RUN TEAM IN BASEBALL DO THINGS THE RIGHT WAY (as if such a thing exists) HOME GROWN PLAYERS LOW PAYROLL (they're in the top 10 or close to it every year) NONE OF THIS FANCY FREE AGENT NONSENSE.  But yeah, I'm sure Carlos Beltran and Matt Holliday (technically a trade, but they still had to resign him on the open market while he was shopping around) have nothing to do with their success during the past several seasons.  That's only, you know, two of their three best hitters.  Go back to 2011 and you've got Holliday and Lance Berkman, another free agent.  BUT BUT BUT YADI  Kill yourself, imaginary Cardinals fan talking in all caps in my head. 

rode great hitting with runners in scoring position and big contributions from veteran stars like Yadier Molina, Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, and Adam Wainwright in their pennant-winning campaign. But they probably don't make the World Series (or maybe even come close) without huge contributions from their rookies: 

This is true of like, every championship team ever.  Yes, they got huge contributions from established players.  BUT ALSO THERE WERE SOME YOUNG GUYS HOW NOVEL.  Can you name a recent championship or EVEN playoff team that DIDN'T get help from a variety of experienced and young players?  Christ, even the 2009 Yankees, with a payroll of a jillion dollars and an average age of like 35, had 23 year old Phil Hughes, 24 year old Melky Cabrera and 23 year old Joba Chamberlain playing significant roles.

If you're looking for teams that might outperform expectations next year, scan the high minors of their farm systems for major league–ready talent. 

This is like a tip you would read in a baseball video game instruction booklet.  "To improve your team try to trade with other teams for some of their young stars."  No fucking way, really?  Look for major league ready talent in the high minors as an indicator of future success?  You don't say.  Got any tips as to how I could more effectively drive my car?  Should I insert the key into the ignition before pushing the gas pedal?

5. Don't overreact to a bad season.

This is the only one of his five points that has any level of nuance.  And it's still fucking moronic.

Last Sox reference: 

OH MY GOD CHICKEN AND BEER.  CARL CRAWFORD AND ADRIAN GONZALEZ.  93 LOSSES.  NEVER FORGET NEVER EVER FORGET.  9/11 AND PEARL HARBOR ROLLED INTO ONE.  THE FACT THAT THEY WON A WORLD SERIES THE NEXT YEAR IS LITERALLY THE MOST IMPRESSIVE ACCOMPLISHMENT IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY.

If a talented team can play poorly enough to lose 93 games, then come back the next season and win it all, that bodes well for some of 2013's biggest disappointments. Everyone in the world loved the Nationals heading into this season. But Washington disappointed thanks to subpar seasons by multiple players. 

I don't mind the Nationals, but they disappointed because their 2012 was lucky as hell.  Look at that roster--how did it win 96 games?  They're not as bad as they were in 2013, but they sure as fuck aren't as good as they were in 2012.  That's an 86 win team right there if I've ever seen one.  A rotation that's good at the top but has no depth.  A so-so bullpen, featuring really only one shutdown guy (Clippard).  A lineup that should be good if everyone stays healthy, but which will never come close to staying healthy, because Ramos, Zimmerman, Harper and Werth are hurt all the time.  Let's not get carried away about the potential of the 2014 Nats.  They'll probably miss the playoffs again.

Adam LaRoche's power dipped dramatically, 

He's 33 and was never that good in the first place.

Wilson Ramos missed half the year 

Who could have seen that coming, what with his 238 GP in 4 MLB seasons?

(and Kurt Suzuki stunk in his stead), Bryce Harper missed 44 games, Danny Espinosa was awful, and the bullpen ran into trouble frequently. Think of the Nats' 2013 season as a bad result among a range of outcomes for a young and very talented team. And expect them to be right back in the playoff hunt in 2014, with a great trio of starting pitchers, a balanced lineup, and better luck than they had this year.

Oops, nevermind, let's get carried away and assume those problems with rotational depth, the so-so bullpen, and the injury-prone players will just solve themselves.  I don't know what their team BABIP or BABIP allowed was, but if we want to talk about luck from another angle, they actually outperformed their pythag wins by two last year.

The Jays can't claim the recent success the Nats had in 2012. 

Oh my God, this team again.  TORONTO BLUE JAYS, 2012-2013 OFFSEASON CHAMPS.  Wait, wasn't one of his points from this very article (in my last point) that we shouldn't get carried away with that kind of thing?  I forgot, the Blue Jays are the darling of every hipster baseball writer, so now we get to hear about how they're sure to turn things around in 2014 after somehow failing to win the AL East in 2013, as every Jonah Keri in the world told us they would last year.

In fact, with the Pirates making the playoffs this year, Toronto now owns the second-longest playoff drought in baseball, behind only the 28-years-and-counting Royals. But there were some good reasons for the baseball world to get excited about the Jays this year, even if 2013 ended with a last-place finish in the AL East. 

It didn't just end with that.  It also consisted of that throughout pretty much all of April, May, June, July, August and September.  It was kind of a running theme.  They sucked.  Badly.  Thoroughly.  Deeply.

Granted, the starting pitching sucked, the defense sucked, and Jose Reyes missed a big chunk of the season as everyone figured. But Toronto had a bunch of terrible players suck up tons of playing time this year, which in a twisted way bodes well for 2014. Replace the replacement-level performances of Melky Cabrera, J.P. Arencibia, Emilio Bonifacio, and Maicer Izturis with even average production and that alone could spur a charge back to contention. 

Just get a new catcher, second baseman, left fielder and shortstop (to play during the 120 games when Reyes is hurt)!  Just like that!  That'll fix those starting pitching woes!

As we wrote back in August: 

Oh good, a dash of Will Leitch-esque-ian first person plural.  Thank you so much.

"It's entirely possible that the Jays are a pretty good team hiding inside a terrible season."

I hope they lose 130 games next year.

We'll have to wait a while to see how it all plays out. 

Oh, will we?  Can't we just go down to the mall and buy a time machine to speed things up?

In the meantime, get ready for another hectic Hot Stove season, then for new contenders and new stars to emerge next year. Just 104 days until pitchers and catchers report. Can't wait.

Can't wait for Jonah Keri to hopefully one day go the way of Miller and Knobler.  I can only dream.

TMTMQR: Please have someone edit your work

First of all, I guess I can kind of sort of backtrack on what I said about Theo Epstein. You dastardly commenters have talked some sense into me. I kind of conveniently forgot about the Beckett/Lowell and Schilling trades, which were both pretty big deals. Whatever. I still bet he does nothing special with the Cubs.  Anyways I almost did a post on this NFL player trade value column written by Bill Barnwell and featuring terrible jokes and worse analysis from Simmons in the footnotes. That's the whole problem though--Barnwell is a pretty good writer, and the column is very enjoyable in spite of Bill's David Foster Wallace-inspired idiocy. So I figured it made more sense to rip on Gregg for continuing to be a diptard in all of the ways he's always been a diptard.

When the other team punts, Pulaski rarely has a returner on the field. Kelley reasons that a muffed or fumbled punt is about as likely as a long return, and so is content simply to let the punt roll, in order to ensure his side takes possession. Kelley rarely sends a rush after a punter, reasoning that a roughing-the-kicker penalty is more likely than a block. 

I get that this Arkansas HS coach is doing a good job (Gregg says they've played in the state championship game for two consecutive years, winning one of those games), but isn't the point of being a coach to help teach your players not to make dumb and avoidable mistakes like roughing the punter or muffing catches? I mean, results are results, but this just seems lazy to me. 

"Everyone says football is a game of field position, but it's not," Kelley maintains. 

Well, the extent to which it is important can vary from game to game, but field position is definitely generally something teams should worry a lot about. 

"It's a game of scoring points, which only happens when you possess the ball. 

And call me crazy, but I would guess that there's a direct relationship between how far a team has to go with the ball to score on a given drive and their likelihood of scoring on that drive. 

Last year the typical NFL offensive play gained 5.4 yards. 

Oh God. 

If it's fourth-and-3 or less, going for the first is likely to result in keeping possession. Of course a fourth-down try may fail, giving the other team the ball, but a punt is certain to give the other team the ball. So why do NFL teams almost always punt in fourth-and-short situations, surrendering possession? It's a game of points, and scoring points requires possessing the ball.

You are a simpleton. There is no better word for you. You are a fucking simpleton. 

Here in 2007, TMQ detailed the math of rarely punting. The Accuscore computer simulated thousands of NFL games for TMQ using NFL stats, and found that at the pro level, rarely punting made victory 5 percent more likely. In a 16-game NFL season, that means one additional victory per year. 

That's all well and good, but it's worth noting that if it was known that a team would always go for it on 4th down, the way other teams defended them on downs 1-3 would change. You'd see fewer 15 yard screen pass completions on 3rd and 19, for example, because defenses wouldn't go all soft in order to ensure they forced a 4th down. I'm not sure the net effect would make going for it on every 4th any worse than Gregg supposes it would be, but I'm just saying is all. Let's make sure we try to take everything into account before we start sucking our own dicks and anointing ourselves football savants.

"When coaches go for it on fourth-and-short, announcers call that a huge gamble," Kelley says. "It is not a gamble, it is playing the percentages. The gamble is punting! But coaches are afraid of criticism, so they order punts." 

Well, Mr. Watch How Aggressively (And Incorrectly) I Turn Conventional Wisdom On Its Head, it's probably still fair to say that going for it on 4th and 8 from your own 22 is a pretty decent sized gamble. 

Consider that the Giants-versus-Bills Super Bowl in 1991 came down to a 47-yard field goal attempt on grass as the clock expired. When the kicker missed, he was blamed for the loss, though 47 yards on grass is 50/50 for the best place-kickers. 

DON'T FORGET: FOOTBALL IS NOT A GAME OF FIELD POSITION.  

Though TMQ believes football coaches should go for it more often on fourth down, that does not, of course, mean the tactic will work. Fourth down was Atlanta's bête noire in 2011; the Falcons an awful 4-for-16, including 0-for-3 in their playoff defeat at Jersey/A. Failure on fourth-and-inches at the Giants' 21 in the third quarter was the game's pivotal down. 

BUT THE AVERAGE NFL PLAY GOES FOR FOUR OR FIVE YARDS! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? 

Carolina: Cam Newton's rookie season was seriously impressive -- 4,784 yards of total offense and 35 touchdowns passing or running. He even caught a pass for a first down. The sky seems to be the limit for Newton, plus he has a sense of humor. At a Super Bowl brunch, Newton was asked whether, after he is sacked, he yells at his offensive linemen. His response was to tilt his head upward as if looking high into the sky and say, "I tell the offensive line, 'Now listen you guys ...'" 

I like that Gregg considers this a noteworthy example of someone demonstrating comedic chops. I'm sure he loses his shit when he reads the cartoons in The New Yorker. 

Despite the show put on by their prize rookie, the Panthers finished 6-10 and a weak 1-6 versus teams that made the playoffs. Defense was the main reason: poor overall, and an NFC-worst 143 points allowed in the fourth quarter. New head coach Ron Rivera is a former defensive coordinator, so presumably will have something to say about the tackling. Perhaps he also will break Carolina of its recent habit of cannibalizing future drafts. In the past three years, the Panthers have traded future first-, second- and third-round choices for second-, third- and fourth-round selections right away. The net of those transactions was to swap a first-round draft choice for a fourth-round draft choice. 

And cash in on assets a year early. I like that he came up with that unclever and misleading angle though. HEY LOOK THE NET RESULT OF ALL THE TRADES THE RED SOX HAVE MADE SINCE 1919 WAS TO TRADE BABE RUTH FOR CLAYTON MORTENSON, HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT 

Chicago: The Chicago Tribune reports that once again, Lovie Smith plans to cut back on kick returns by Devin Hester so that he can devote more energy to being a wide receiver. In other news, the United States Navy plans to dry-dock its aircraft carriers in order to devote more resources to wooden sailing ships. 

First of all, there's a real humdinger of a zinger. Also, apparently Hester as a KR : Hester as a WR :: awesome modern warships : warships we haven't used since the 19th century. 

Few NFL teams have fight songs -- why not? 

Because it's not 1955 anymore? 

The Cowboys have 18 coaches including four gentlemen with the title "coordinator." Considering Garrett's Princeton background, how long until the Boys have a faculty senate? 

NAILED IT!!!! 

In 2011, Aaron Rodgers was close to perfect: a 122.5 rating -- best ever for a single season -- plus 39 more touchdown passes than interceptions. For his career, Rodgers' 6.25 percent touchdown passes is the best in a generation, while his 1.8 percent interceptions is the best of active quarterbacks. But Graham Harrell is his backup. Aaron Schatz notes, "Over the last 10 years, 11 different undrafted quarterbacks with no NFL starting experience have started games because of injury to the No. 1 QB. Those players have combined for a 38-to-48 touchdown-to-interception ratio, and their teams were 10-18 in these starts." 

Here's your Packers preview, everyone: if Rodgers gets hurt, they are kind of fucked. 

Now high school football teams are jetting all over the nation for games put together by promoters and shown on television. Surely this is exciting for the boys involved - but also distracts them from schoolwork, while cutting into study time. Football keeps getting bigger and bigger. Where is the sense of perspective in high school programs that act like college programs?

My monthly "gotta agree with Gregg on this one" moment. Fuck high school sports being on national TV, and doublefuck the disgusting companies like ESPN that make money off of it. 

Last season the Vikings were 1-2 when rushing for at least 200 yards, which may mean the run is overrated in the contemporary pass-wacky NFL. 

Last year the Broncos were 1-0 against the Jets during Thursday night games, which may mean that the Jets are the worst Thursday night team in the history of organized sports, or might not mean anything because holy shit who thinks that's a meaningful sample size. 

Want to lead the league in sacks? Any team can lead the league in sacks by blitzing a lot and ignoring "contain." In 2011 the Steelers were a modest 17th for sacks but had the NFL's top-rated defense, because Pittsburgh defensive ends first contain and get after the passer second. Allen ignores contain -- an old lady with a walker could get around Jared Allen. 

No one is trying to "get around" Allen.  He is trying to get around offensive tackles. Please reconsider that line, it doesn't make sense when you're referring to a defensive end. You are a bad writer. 

Not honoring contain is good for his personal self-promotion, but bad for the team. Why should Allen care? 

Present tense. 

He is very well paid for sacks, 

He is paid well to accumulate sacks. 

and none of the 23 Minnesota coaches seemed concerned about defense. 

Past tense. Holy Moses, that paragraph made my brain bleed. 

"Procedurals" Update: TMQ wound up last season spoofing the "procedurals" that have taken over network television, and soon will have more on the nuttiest of them all. Here are "procedurals" lowlights from the offseason: 

Oh no. 

On "NCIS: Los Angeles," the agents look super-cool by wearing tight jeans and fashion tees. Then they pull out cell phones, pistols (sidearm plus backup), handcuffs, flashlights, badges, wallets and extra magazines for lengthy gun battles. Where were they carrying this stuff? In one episode the mega-babe detective attends a party wearing the sort of short, skin-tight outfit that starlets sport on a red carpet. Her partner asks where her gun could possibly be hidden; she replies, in a bra holster. Moments later a firefight begins against mobsters with automatic weapons. She pulls her gun and fires dozens of rounds. Viewers never find out where the extra magazines could possibly have been hidden. The instant the battle ends -- with, of course, the bad guys dead while all their automatic weapons fire missed at point-blank range -- the babe detective pops her pistol back into the bra holster. A gun that has just fired dozens of rounds would burn her skin! 

THE NERVE OF THOSE PRODUCERS! 

Meanwhile, later in the column: 

If you haven't seen "Necessary Roughness," it's a pleasant diversion -- a clever show that's more or less about pro football. Catch it while you can since the midseason finale is Wednesday night.

And I'm sure life in the NFL is depicted with pinpoint precision on that show. 

New Orleans: The Sinners -- their new TMQ name -- 

ROASTED!  Billy Joel, sit back and wait for those royalty checks to start rolling in.

Several times over the past three seasons, before the bounty scandal broke, TMQ said things like this: "Tuesday Morning Quarterback continues to feel unease about the New Orleans defense which, under the tastefully named Gregg Williams, blitzes way too much." 

And then the Saints won a Super Bowl and continued to make the playoffs every year after that and we were all like, oh yeah, that's right, Easterbrook has his head in his ass as usual. 

Reader David Starnes of Fletcher, N.C., notes, "Now we know why the Saints blitzed too much. The game plan was predicated on payday hits. You can't get those hits without big blitzes." 

You are the stupidest person alive. You are stupider than the Manning/Unitas/Colts curse guy from last week. Please destroy your computer and never use the internet ever again.

NFL.com, the league's website, has been aggressive in coverage of Sinnersgate, running many items that surely made the owners squirm. One NFL.com front page showed Gregg Williams in a graphic with Pete Rose and Mike Tyson; the attached report hit hard on sports scandals. This is a positive sign. NFL.com being honest about an NFL scandal, along with the NCAA being honest about the Penn State scandal, is a step in the right direction for the traditionally closed, "how dare you criticize us" culture of football. 

My God. Gregg is a much bigger sucker than I realized. HEY THE LEAGUE PUT OUT SOME NEGATIVE P.R. REGARDING THE SCANDAL THING! I'M SURE THEY DIDN'T DO THAT FOR SELF-INTERESTED REASONS AT ALL, CERTAINLY NOT TO INFLUENCE PUBLIC OPINION REGARDING THE PUNISHMENTS THEY HANDED DOWN IN THE SCANDAL'S AFTERMATH! 

HEY LOOK, THIS SON OF A DEPOSED NIGERIAN KING JUST EMAILED ME AND WANTS TO GIVE ME A MILLION DOLLARS! BETTER SEND HIM MY BANK ACCOUNT INFO! 

Andy Reid has guided the Eagles to 19 playoff appearances -- of active coaches, only Bill Belichick received more postseason invites. 

Each NFL postseason game should not be described as an "invite." This is bad writing. 

This year's wide receiver corps includes the me-first Randy Moss, the me-first Michael Crabtree,

BEWARE THE CRABTREE CURSE, TEAM THAT NEARLY MADE THE SUPER BOWL LAST YEAR IN PART DUE TO CRABTREE'S 72 CATCHES FOR 874 YARDS! 

Mega Millions is one of many lottos run by the Multi-State Lottery Association, which has 33 member states. Governors and lawmakers of those states say they want to help average people. Yet they sponsor lottos that pick the pockets of average people. In 2010, Americans spent $58 billion on Powerball games run by state governments. Did the states extend that much in in aid to average people? When state and local income taxes, sales taxes, energy taxes and property taxes are combined with billions wasted to buy state lottery tickets, it may well be that on balance, the poor and working class are harmed financially, rather than helped, by state and local governments. 

OK, fine, I'll agree with Gregg twice in the same column. Lotteries are awful. 

It's been a laff a minute at quarterback for the Seahawks under Carroll, six players attempting forward passes in his two seasons. The laffs will continue with two new signal-callers, Matt Flynn and Russell Wilson. 

Not sure I follow the use of "laffs" here. I mean, it's kind of funny to spell it that way (not Cam Newton pretending to be on the ground after a sack funny, but funny all the same) but it comes in from out of nowhere.  Also, Wilson looks like a pretty legitimate QB so far. 

TMQ likes Miami over Seattle on Nov. 25. That game follows the Seahawks' bye, and Seattle is a league-worst 6-17 after bye week. 

Context? Check for typos? Come on man, you're taking my attention away from pointing out how much you suck at thinking and putting it on how much you suck at writing. That's annoying. 

I AM THE SOOTHSAYER

I know you all adhere closely to my gambling manifesto at all times. Always take the spread against a rookie QB on the road, unless it's Vince Young or Ben Roethlisberger or Andy Dalton or another rookie QB capable of covering on the road. Never count on Norv Turner or another shitty coach after Thanksgiving, unless it's one of those seasons where Norv Turner actually has some momentum going and his team is playing well. And of course, always make sure to lose to your sports-ambivalent wife in your annual gambling competition. Yes, I'm a brilliant prognosticator. That's why last post I said (about Bill):

I get that basketball is your thing, and that it's exciting that the US is great at it. But come on--we get amazing basketball for like 7 months out of every year here. You're no better than NBC, cramming basketball, gymnastics and swimming down our throats.

So what did he do next? Wrote a 3,000 word breakdown of swimming and gymnastics. I am a brilliant genius.

You never think of swimming and gymnastics as Summer Olympics rivals in the Magic-Bird sense,

Because they aren't individual athletes with a cool backstory competing against one another at two different levels of their profession for an extended period of time

much less the Tupac-Biggie sense,

And because they aren't artistic non-rivals who happened to peak at roughly the same time and die tragically within 9 months of each other

but that's exactly what they are.

They definitely aren't. Then again, Simmons's cultural knowledge runs about as deep as my knowledge of how to interact with women, so why shouldn't he choose Bird/Magic and Tupac/Biggie for this analogy?

They peak in the splashiest way possible for just two weeks every four years.

Just like two basketball players who wrote a new chapter for their rivalry pretty much every year for a decade, or two musicians who were really only in the public eye for a few years each!

During that precious window, they battle for worldwide attention, television ratings, prime-time real estate,

Pretty sure NBC finds time to show us each and every second of everything that happens in both of them. At the expense of anything else happening during the Olympics.

SNL cameos,

In order to remain podcast buddies with Seth Meyers, Bill is contractually obligated to pretend that SNL is still relevant.

SportsCenter commercials,

If you can find me a Sportscenter commercial featuring a swimmer besides Phelps or any gymnast, please drop a link in the comments.

patriotic pride,

No.

the affection of horny teenage boys,

No.

pop-culture relevancy

You already tried to say that in other ways, and still, no.

and tens of millions of dollars in endorsements.

No.

If swimming and gymnastics were people, they would absolutely despise each other while pretending publicly that everything was totally fine — you know, kind of like Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte.

JUST LIKE LARRY LEGEND AND MAGIC, EXCEPT THAT THOSE TWO ACTUALLY LIKE EACH OTHER, OR TUPAC AND BIGGIE, EXCEPT THAT THOSE TWO NEVER PRETENDED TO LIKE EACH OTHER!

Look, I know most of my posts these days pick on Simmons, and that most of the time I just mock him for constantly recycling material and being unfunny, and you feel like you've read this all before blah blah blah. But let me take a step back and riff on the bigger topic here. This is unfathomably shitty writing. It really is. He wants to compare gymnastics and swimming, which is dumb, but whatever, it's better than a lot of other garbage he's written about, so I'll allow it. But he can't just say "I'm going to break down these two sports for you." No. He's got to try to (poorly) analogize them to two recent rivalries (one of which isn't really a rivalry), then provide no support for the analogies, then try to change the analogies midstream, all the while cracking pathetically terrible jokes. Look, sportswriters aren't necessarily supposed to be good writers. They don't have to be master essayists, they don't have to wow me with their prose. But holy dogshit on a stick: this man sucks asshole at writing. It's astonishing just how bad he is.

Just know that I have no dog in this race. I don't care who captures the imaginary Summer Olympics title.

How convenient! Neither do we.

But after seeing swimming and gymnastics in London, I feel qualified to answer a question that you always secretly wanted to know:

I feel qualified to answer a question Klosterman has always kind of secretly wanted to know, just because each sport is so overunderrated:

"What's more fun to watch in person … Olympic swimming or Olympic gymnastics?"

I hate to be a party pooper but I'm going to guess that it depends on whether you find swimming or gymnastics more interesting. Sorry.

(Thinking.)

Yep, he's still using that device.

Wait, this sounds like the perfect topic for one of my favorite old-school gimmicks … that's right, it's the Dr. Jack Breakdown!!! 

Please don't use three consecutive exclamation marks in your columns!  Why are you writing like a 15 year old texts!

Let's do this.

Let's present some very brief lowlights of this, because I want to go to bed.

VENUES
They're holding swimming in a 17,500-seat venue with seating on just two sides, so for many fans, they could have called this Noseblood Arena. When IOC members, sponsors and heavy hitters with quality seats started no-showing events, they earned the collective ire of everyone in London. (We never totally knew who to blame, but one thing's for sure — the Olympics should definitely consider using seat fillers à la the Oscars.) Even if you dropped some coin for a night of swimming, there's a good chance you ended up watching tiny dots thrash in the pool from the 137th row. There's definitely a "haves vs. have-nots" vibe for swimming.

You know where else that vibe exists?  Between people who can afford to travel to London for the games and get any tickets at all and people who are watching at home on TV.  You oblivious fucking cuntball.

Meanwhile, gymnastics is in a 20,000-seat, state-of-the-art arena 

The swimming venue is the same age and same state-of-the-artness.  It opened in July 2011.  I get that you're doing a breakdown/competition piece, but Jesus, given that there are absolutely no rules and nothing at stake, you could at least try to minimize the spin.

in North Greenwich that doubles as the site for basketball's medal round games, and eventually, the Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings, Charlotte Bobcats or NBA Expansion Team X. Tickets were similarly tough for gymnastics despite an equivalent number of annoying no-shows, but at least there were more seats and you could enjoy the action from any section 

Watching tiny little dots on gymnastic apparatuses is WAY better than watching tiny little dots in a pool!

(especially with the big video screen).

I don't know this to be true for sure, but I'd bet good money that the swimming venue has one of these too.

So what should you like more — an inclusive sport that accommodates as many fans as possible, or an exclusive sport that operates like a snotty nightclub with a bouncer who reeks of chlorine? 

What I would like most is for you to stop being an entitled little taint hair who has it better than 99.99% of all sports fans and still thinks he doesn't have enough access.

EDGE: GYMNASTICS

(Confused as to why I am supposed to give a shit.)

As usual, Bill's ability to write outpaces my ability to point out how godawful he is at writing.  

FireJay lurches its way through the summer

Sorry about the lack of posts.  I've been trying to, like, go outside and shit.  Play some baseball.  (Well, softball.)  Do stuff besides write a blog.  Feel the infield dirt between my fingers.  Listen to the sound the bat makes when it hits the ball.  Move runners over.  Lay down bunts.  Steal bases, even though that's not legal in softball.  Play the game the right way.  Talk to a woman without having to give her my credit card number.  And let me promise you: I have been extremely uncomfortable doing those things.  Back to the basement for me.  What's that, Bill?  You're using your sphincter as a mouth again?

Now that we're a mere 53 days away from the start of the 2012 Patriots 19-0 victory party NFL season, 

2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP0Q5I0vgS4

2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJshw2Axsqc

2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-3dGiilJjM

2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuClWeD9ouI

2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAO0AwlH9KA

Etc., etc., I'm just as petty and pathetic as Bill is, etc.

I have some good news for you ... Drew Brees signed a five-year, $100 million extension with the Saints!!!!!! Why did that deserve six exclamation points? Well ...

1. One of the dumbest ongoing sports stories is finally over. 

At last, we finally know what LeBron thinks about Tim Tebow's first training camp as a Jet!  Oh, sorry, just had Sportscenter on in the background and starting typing what I was hearing.

I hate any sports story that doesn't lend itself to an argument or at least two fairly interesting opinions. 

Yeah, talking about what happened during a game?  BORING.  Guessing point spreads, and telling everyone who will listen how the billion dollar gaming industry has incorrectly set certain of those spreads?  RIVETING.  

Why wouldn't the Saints take care of Brees? 

They feel like he's getting old and they didn't necessarily want to spend a jillion dollars on him?  I'm not saying that's necessarily the right perspective, but he's 33.  With Sean Payton suspended for the upcoming season, maybe they felt like they were on the verge of entering a rebuilding phase.

What took them so long? What were they doing? They couldn't say, "Well, they never won a Super Bowl with him," because they did. They couldn't say, "Well, he doesn't really mean that much to our franchise or our city," because he does. They couldn't say, "He stopped throwing up monster fantasy seasons," because he never stopped. 

Bill is a perfect example of a fan who thinks real players and teams give a shit about fantasy sports.  I'd never fully realized it until now because of the fifty other obnoxious traits he has, but that comment kind of drives it home.  I can almost hear him complaining about a coach who uses a committee of running backs right now.

They couldn't say, "Well, the Mannings and Brady didn't get taken care of, either," because they did. They couldn't say, "We don't really need the good publicity or the good will with our fans," because post-Bountygate, they clearly did. They couldn't say, "If only his ESPY speeches could be a little longer," because they always are. 

THERE ARE SIX AND ONLY SIX REASONS TO NOT GIVE A GIANT CONTRACT TO YOUR FRANCHISE QUARTERBACK.  NONE OF THEM APPLIED TO BREES SO HE GOT PAID.  WHO SAYS NO?

So what was happening here? Shit, the Bensons BOUGHT AN NBA TEAM during the time they could have been taking care of Brees. I remain confused.

It's almost like an NBA team is a business that, with sports as popular as they are these days, is virtually guaranteed to generate a ton of cash for its owners.  And at the same time, it's also almost like Drew Brees is a super talented player who can help his team generate cash, but can also get injured or start playing poorly and immediately become a money pit.  It's almost like that's the world we live in.  MY NEIGHBOR INVESTED A BUNCH OF MONEY IN MUTUAL FUNDS INSTEAD OF BUYING A LUXURY CAR.  I REMAIN CONFUSED.

2. Brees was headed for the first defensible contract holdout in the recent history of team sports. 

Except for all the guys in the last thirty plus years whose abilities greatly exceeded the contracts they were signed to, and thus were able to get a new contract that more accurately paid them what they were worth in light of the fact that in most sports you are always literally a single play away from being forced into retirement.  Except for all those guys, who were able to get the market to pay them what they were worth, this would have been the first defensible holdout.

When does that ever happen? Did you really want to sit around with your friends saying, "Yeah, I don't blame Brees at all, playing for $16 million this season would have been totally insulting."

Let me try to parse this.  Bill thinks Brees would have been justified in holding out.  He then says that CLEARLY, it would have been no fun to have Brees hold out because then everyone would have noted that it was OK for Brees to hold out, and for some reason, apparently no one wants that.  Huh.  Also, remember when he said he hates stories that don't allow for two interesting opinions?  I guess "GRRRR HONOR THE CONTRACT YOU SIGNED OR IN THIS CASE THE FRANCHISE TAG CONTRACT THAT YOUR UNION APPROVED DURING THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING PROCESS" vs. "THEY SHOULD TAKE CARE OF HIM BECAUSE HE IS REALLY GOOD AND LIKES THE CITY AND STUFF" doesn't count?  Even though that's, like, a pretty interesting argument?  Especially if the person pushing the first opinion is a loud idiot?  Why am I ending every sentence with a question mark oh God I am turning into Simmons? 

(nodding)

3. Did you really want to read fantasy football previews that had an asterisk next to Brees? Did you really want to do Chase Daniel research? Did you really want some asshole in your league to take a fourth-round flier on Brees, then luck out five days later when Brees signed? Or conversely, did you really want to pick Brees, then have him torture you for the first weeks of the season?

I mean, sure, a holdout would have made playing fantasy football in 2012 1% more stressful than it usually is, making it still extremely fun and a great distraction from all the stuff in life that actually sucks ass.

4. The bad news: They announced the contract on Friday the 13th. That's a terrible idea. I wouldn't even buy one of those 27-inch LCD TVs from those weird companies that you've never heard of at Best Buy on Friday the 13th.

CURSES AHHHHHHHH REAL!  MAHHHHHHK MY WARDS!  GRADY SHOULD NEVAH HAVE LET LET PEDRO STAHHHHT THE EIGHTH IN THE FARST PLACE!  FIE-AH GRADY!  FIE-AH BAWBY V!

5. The good news: Brees's contract guarantees him $60 million ... a million less than the Nets guaranteed Brook Lopez this week. I think this cancels out the Friday the 13th thing — when you're paying your franchise QB a million less than the "good" Lopez, you have to feel good about that.

Nice job shoehorning in some irrelevant bullshit about NBA salaries, probably the only substantive area of sports he actually knows anything about.

6. What's worse than reading about someone's contract holdout every day? 

Having NFL analysis crammed down your throat in March or June?  Having to watch WNBA highlights ever?  "Who's Now?"

Even the hideous Dwight Howard trade quagmire is more fun — at least there, you can enjoy derisive Internet nicknames like "Dwight Coward" 

BURNSAUCE: BROUGHT

or derisive headlines like "Dwightmare"; 

!!!!!

you can make up fake trades for hours on end; you can watch Daryl Morey keep adding assets and doing everything but open a www.dwightorbust.com website; 

And that is certainly a last ditch bottom of the barrel plan a GM who is trying to trade for a superstar player would enact!  I mean, it would never happen, but you know that at some point, Morley has said to himself "I should open that website I've been thinking about, maybe that will get Dwight's attention.  NO WAY, NEVERMIND, WHAT AM I, CRAZY?  THAT'S TOO FAR!"

you can make jokes like "any time you can give up every asset you have AND take on multiple bad contracts for a wishy-washy guy coming off back surgery who doesn't want to play for you and can easily leave in 11 months, you have to do it"; 

Seeing as how Bill's basketball opinions are infallible, I have to conclude that there is no other interesting opinion on Houston's pursuit of Howard.  Therefore: BORING STORY.

and you get to hear Chris Broussard and Stephen A. Smith drag out the word "Daaaaaah-wight" for five or six seconds at a time. 

Racist.

Contract holdouts aren't nearly as much fun.

And if it's not fun and it doesn't lead to obnoxious, blithering PTI-style banter and it doesn't involve Greg Steimsma, BILL DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT.  MOVE ALONG, NON-STEIMSMA STORIES. 

In conclusion, here is Drew Brees doing Drew Brees things.

And here's how not to start a piece of sports journalism

Who wrote this intro? I'll be you can figure it out without looking for the name in the labels section of the post.

My son watched a few holes of the Masters with me on Sunday. He's nearly 3 and a half and hasn't figured out how to crap in the toilet yet. He spends most of his time naked or partially naked, barking out orders like "Put on Wow Wow Wubbzy!" and "I want graham crackers!" Every night, he promises us that he won't climb into our bed in the middle of the night, and yet, I always wake up around 4 a.m. because some snoring wildebeest is kicking me in the kidneys. Last week, the stubborn bastard sat still for a haircut for the first time only because we allowed him to play "Angry Birds" on an iPad. He's a man of many quirks. I'm not gonna lie.

I'm not gonna lie- I either think my main audience is new parents (Kids are a handful am I right?), or simply don't give a flying shit about trying to entertain anyone else. Listen, it's all well and good to try to connect with your audience by bringing up something they're familiar with. To start a column about Tiger Woods with 125 words about how your toddler behaves like every toddler in America kinda goes above and beyond that. I hate you with the intensity of a thousand burning suns, mystery writer whose obvious identity I won't reveal yet.

Here, check out how he ends the piece. Eventually he gets around to talking about Tiger and then wants to wrap up by going back to the kid. And how Tiger isn't a role model, or is, or something.

I am supposed to think that he's a poor role model -- that he's an adulterer, that he's selfish, that he's a phony, that he behaves badly on golf courses, that he's someone I wouldn't want my son to emulate some day. That's horses---. I want my son to know that you haven't lived until you've fought back, that you haven't won until you've lost, that you can't understand what it's like to relish something until you've suffered, too.

Hmm. So I guess being married with a kid but fucking everything that moves and then inevitably being caught is somehow equivalent to fighting a terminal disease or something.

I want him to understand that it's the 21st century, that we sit around picking our heroes apart all day, that we expect them to be superhuman at all times, that we get pissed off when they aren't, that it's hypocritical if you really think about it.

Who ISN'T secretly banging at least 15 random broads from all over the country at any point in time, you know?

If my son needs a role model, and he will, that person should be me. I don't need Tiger to teach my child how to behave. I need him to teach my son that it's fun to watch golf. Yesterday was the first lesson. There was a putt, and a roar, and a fist pump, and then my son screaming "Again!" Only Tiger Woods could have made it happen. It's a gift.

I'm so confused. So confused. If the point of this article was "Tiger Woods is fun to watch when he's golfing well" then I'm on board. Unfortunately the point might actually have been anything from "HI I'M CHARLES BARKLEY AND I JUSS WANTED TO REMIND YOU DAT AFLETES ARE NOT ROLE MODELS" to "I have a 3 year old who likes to act like a 3 year old." So I'm just going to turn in for the night.

Did you figure out who the author was? That's right, it was Hunter S. Thompson. Nah, just fucking with you, it was Simmons.

Memo to ESPN: This Headline is Still Pretty Much Unacceptable. And Fuck You for the LeBron TV Thing

Still dumb and unnecessary, although less awful than yesterday's. What is the obsession with puns?



Headlines ESPN considered but rejected (most courtesy of Chris W):

Puyol la Tengo
Don't Put it in my Puyol
Pardon me but do you have any grey Pu-yol?
Spain't no Doubt About it
No Spain, No Gain
In Spain in the End Game
That's the Sound of Men Working on the Spain Gang
Are you a Germaid? No I'm a German
Spain Washes Hands, Kills Germ(an)s
A Bunch of Deutsch Bags

All of those would be better.



By the way, read this, because it's (unsarcastically) awesome. And not much else needs to be said about this LeBron ego fluff special tomorrow. It's a fucking disgrace. Wojnarowski nails it. The only way that won't be the most pathetic hour of manufactured TV in history is if LeBron comes out, says "I'm coming back to Cleveland... JUST PLAYIN'!" And then Donnie Walsh comes out cackling with a briefcase full of money, and LeBron puts on a solid gold crown with a Knicks logo on it.

Completely Unexpected

What? What's that? Pete Rose would vote Alex Rodriguez into the Hall of Fame if he had a ballot? So what you're telling me is... a guy who really wants to be in the HOF, but can't get in because he did something the game finds reprehensible, would allow another guy who did something reprehensible in? Well at least we know Rose isn't a huge hypocrite. Oh wait, actually, he kind of is.

"When you take steroids you have a direct outcome of the game," Rose said. "That's the integrity of the game. And when you can change records when you do something illegal, it's just not right."

Emphasis added. But hey, at least he's not a hypocrite when it comes to the HOF balloting itself.

I'm not taking a holier than thou stance here- I actually think Rose deserves to be in, in some capacity. I'm undecided about steroid users. But the point of this post is that this is a pretty hilarious sound bite. Hey Pete, how about you go away and don't talk for a while.

PS- Happy second birthday to us. Yeah, motherfuckers. That's right. Two whole years. Counting the 2008 leap year, that's 731 days! We may be withering on the vine and dying, but we are certainly not dead yet. I expect us stick around at least another 5 or 6 months before we stop posting altogether. Also- in our first post ever, I actually tried to make a joke about Mel Kiper Jr.'s hair. I still need to kick my own ass for that. What was my next topic going to be- airplane food?

Rick Reilly: Now wasting his time in addition to yours

Rick Reilly is an award winning journalist who is paid over $1 million a year. His column appears ONCE A WEEK.

I used to think the worst jobs in sports were: (1) Thong wrangler for John Daly.

But being a thong wrangler for Phil Mickelson wouldn't be a SHIT job!? Get it? Thong...SHIT job.

(2) Mark McGwire's injector.

Second thing having to do with touching someone's butt. Is (3) going to be "NFL Quarterback ewwwwwww!"

(3) Detroit Lion.

Topical....check
Real....check
Low paying job that every football fan is glad they don't have.....uncheck

These are the folks who come running out just before the halftime concert yelling like they just won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes, even though the band isn't even on stage yet.

Let me give you some advice: Don't. Be. One.

No.real.football.fan.needed.to.be.told.this.

You know how sometimes you have an idea you think will be hilarious and clever, but it ends up worse than being trapped under Kevin James in a Finnish sauna?

Kevin James is fat! And he's in a successful movie that's out now! Double-Win!

"You'll be 10 feet from Bruce Springsteen!" I said to myself. "You'll find out who all those people are we see every year! The game's going to be a blowout anyway. What'll you miss?"

1. What sports journalist watches the Superbowl and walks away with the lingering question "But who were those people on the field during the concert!?"

2. Nothing says ESPNation like the assumption that the Steelers would steam roll the Cardinals.

3. If you spend time wondering about who the people at Superbowl concerts are, you don't have the right to complain about missing anything related to football.

Turns out these "fans" are real people—almost 2,000 of them.

Real people you say? Thank god someone cleared this up.

They're local teachers, nurses and students willing to rehearse for two 10-hour days and then show up at noon for a 6 p.m. football game, of which they'll get to see none of.

Once again, if you're willing to go through all this shit just to be near Bruce Springstein, then you really have no room to complain about missing any of the Superbowl.

Reilly goes on to complain about other shit, like how people further back could hear way better than the people up close. That's never happened before! Stop the presses!

Let me ask though, if you're ESPN's star reporter, and this is your first Superbowl with the company, what in the fucking hell are you doing writing your Superbowl story about the people involved in the one non-football event of the Superbowl? I know, Rick Reilly writes about human emotions blah blah, but for fuck's sake at least involve an athlete in the story in some way. Oh and did I mention he gets paid 7 figures to write one column a week? Unbelievable.

FMTMQR: Gregg Easterbrook is an Unfunny Lummox

Jack and CHart (say "see heart," not, "chart") covered the most egregiously stupid stuff he put in last Tuesday's column. But there's still plenty more where that came from. In fact, I bet I don't have to try particularly hard to pick out one morsel of dumbassery or tragic unfunnyness from each and every one of his 16 AFC team previews.

Baltimore: In the 2007 season finale, Baltimore, which at that point had lost nine straight, defeated a Pittsburgh team that had locked its best seed and was resting starters for the playoffs. In the postgame news conference, Billick called the game "an outstanding win." Coaches use any opportunity to praise themselves, but that statement crossed some kind of nuttiness line.

Yes, clearly he was praising himself and only himself with that comment. And certainly it would be much more appropriate for him to tell the media (while his job was on the line, no less) "Well, we really shouldn't give a shit about this win because the Steelers were resting all their good players." Makes sense. Brutal honesty when dealing with the press- always a great policy when you're in a management position.

Animal activist note: The Ravens hope to have two actual ravens trained to fly around their stadium this fall. Ravens are intelligent animals with some ability to mimic speech; according to The Associated Press, the trainer is trying to teach the birds to say "Go, Ravens." TMQ thinks the birds should be trained to squawk the word "nevermore."

OK. Like the poem. And then they could use it to taunt or intimidate the other team. We get it, you don't have to explain-

If the visiting team scores a touchdown, they could flutter around the end zone proclaiming, "Nevermore! Nevermore!"

WE GOT IT, THANKS.

Buffalo: The Ivies played well on special teams and on defense -- subtract two blowouts by New England, and Buffalo allowed 18 points per game, a strong figure. But the offense was cover-your-eyes awful: predictable (57 percent rushing on first down, despite opponents OBVIOUSLY stacking the box on first downs),

I'm sure that comment is based on Gregg reviewing hours and hours of Bills game footage from last year. Either that, or he pulled it directly out of his rectum and through his pretentiously clinched sphincter. (And I just won $20 off Dan-Bob by using "sphincter" in a post.)

Buffalo's Ivy League coach, Dick Jauron, is a fine man but low-voltage personified; he's like a car battery that won't turn the engine on a cold morning. Jauron has just one winning season in seven as a head coach. Losing does not seem to bother him; he's never animated on the sidelines or upset after a loss, and he wasn't upset even after the Bills allowed two scores in the final 20 seconds to lose 25-24 to Dallas before a national audience on "Monday Night Football."

I'm not going to say that the level of passion displayed by a coach isn't at all important. I'm just going to say that when you look at a team's record and try to list the reasons their season ended up like it did, the level of passion displayed by their coach should probably be really close to the bottom. Like... at the bottom.

Jauron's gift is lowering expectations; this is his third season in Buffalo, yet he's still talking only about "improvement," not winning. Much of the time, the objective seems to be to lose with dignity.

I'm really sure that this guy, who has worked his entire life to become a professional football coach, doesn't care whether or not his team wins. It's not like, you know, his future as a professional coach (which ostensibly is very important to him) depends on his ability to win or something. We've been over this with Gregg before. It's too bad he's too much of a clod to learn.

Cincinnati: Other teams have bed checks, the Bengals have ankle-bracelet checks.

Yes, their players get in trouble with the law to a disproportionate degree.

Along the sidelines are coaches, trainers, defense attorneys and bail bondsmen.

Right, the whole criminal thing.

Maybe a defense attorney should coach the defense, which finished 27th in 2007.

In this case, the third time unfortunately is not the charm.

Cleveland: Ohio has become the Hall of Fame state -- it has Canton, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and also the Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron. The latter's members ought to be a lot better known than the members of the first two Halls mentioned, since their contribution to society is greater.

Well, fuck it- why are you even writing this column? Shouldn't you be using your incredibly sophisticated and intelligent brain to educate readers about something a little more important than football? Let's just go ahead and disband professional sports as a whole. Unimportant. Useless. Mariottiesque.

Benched quarterback note: TMQ shook hands with Brady Quinn in LAX on the way back from the ESPYS.

I'm surprised the encounter didn't create a black hole of douche.

Denver: Drop a Fizzie into a glass of water; it bubbles madly, then disappears. That's the Denver Broncos since November 2006. At that point, the Broncos were 7-4 with the inside track to a wild-card berth, quarterbacked by Jake Plummer, a career 41-22 with Denver, and boasting one of the league's top defenses. Then The Ultimate Leader, Mike Shanahan, benched Plummer and sent in rookie signal-caller Jay Cutler. Since that moment, the Broncos are 9-12, their defense has gone Fizzie and even their vaunted rushing game has become mortal, slipping to ninth in 2007.

Gregg is apparently unfamiliar with the difference between correlation and causation. This is only about the 50th time he's brought up the QB switch in question during the last 20 months, and somehow, it's the sole reason the Broncos have not enjoyed success since. Poor defense? Cutler's/Shanahan's fault. Poor offensive line play? Cutler's/Shanahan's fault. In reality, although the last two years have been disappointing, the future couldn't be brighter as Cutler (who played well all last season despite having undiagnosed diabetes) establishes himself as a franchise player. Drop it, Easterbrook. Drop it.

Houston: Houston now has Alex Gibbs -- the guy who directed the blocking for the Denver rushing game which made [Insert Name Here] into star tailbacks. Gibbs is coaching the Texans' offensive line and bearing the title assistant head coach. Because most sportswriters don't understand how the Gibbs blocking system works, they call it "zone blocking." That's like calling all short passing attacks a West Coast offense. (TMQ has long believed most full-time football writers and sportscasters cannot diagram most standard football tactics.)

And yet, tragically, TMQ himself is unable to understand basic timing devices or why people are interested in Olympic medal counts. Really puts things into perspective.

Indianapolis: This team was ranked third on defense (in yards allowed per game) last season despite Dwight Freeney going on injured reserve at midseason, and was ranked fifth on offense (in yards per game) despite Marvin Harrison missing 11 games. The Colts lost close games to the Patriots and the Chargers; change a couple of plays in either of those contests, and Indianapolis might have repeated as Super Bowl champions.

Other teams who can make a similar claim: Patriots, Packers, Chargers, Steelers, Cowboys, and probably a couple others. Just saying. It's pretty useless to point out that changing a couple plays in a couple games could have resulted in a different end to a team's season.

Publishing note: Over the winter, Tony Dungy wrote, or at least signed his name to, a children's book. It begins, "Once upon a time there was a good little boy named Peyton who had a bad, evil brother named Eli."

Did Carlos Mencia write that joke? Jesus, It's almost bad enough to have originally been heard on "American Dad."

Jacksonville: Head coach Jack Del Rio's name means "of the River," and he is living up to that. A Jacksonville local news station reported that during the Georgia-Florida water shortage, Del Rio's house was gulping through 3,512 gallons of water per day. The typical home in Jacksonville uses 230 gallons per day, so Del Rio was at 15 times the local water-consumption average. Does Del Rio have a wave tank in his backyard?

What the fuck is a "wave tank?" Is it like a wave pool, the kind of attraction you'd see at a waterpark? Because even then, it would just be cycling the same water through its system over and over. I mean, I get what he's trying to say. But it comes out like "I can't believe the Tampa Bay Rays are so good this year. Do they have a magical good baseball player creating machine down there or something?"

New York: I'm not going to pick on what Easterbrook had to say about them, because most of it consisted of him flagrantly shitting all over Brett Favre and obviously I fully approve of that.

Kansas City: Scripture note: The apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans notes at 14:2, "Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables." Obviously Paul never played flag football with Gonzalez, one of the NFL's few vegetarians. The translation is from the New Revised Standard Version, endorsed by most biblical scholars. The New International Version, favored by evangelicals, renders the passage as, "One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables." Evangelical translators want being a vegetarian to sound wimpy!

I want my eleven seconds back.

Miami: The Marine Mammals have been at sea (yuck, yuck) since Richmond Webb left the team in 2000.

Making fun of your own comedic incompetence doesn't make it any more tolerable.

Arguably, the departure of Webb hurt the Dolphins more than the departure of Dan Marino, because Miami had a decent new quarterback waiting in the wings in Jay Fiedler, while the left tackle position has been a disaster since.

If Jay Fiedler was a "decent" quarterback, I'd hate to have one Gregg would qualify as "terrible" leading my team.

New England: In terms of memory power, New England's accomplishments exceeded what the Giants did, even if Jersey/A got to stand in the confetti shower on the sliding tray in Arizona. All New England needed to do was stop a third-and-11 snap with 45 seconds showing, and the word "perfect" would have shimmered into view.

They'd also have to have stopped a fourth-and-11 snap with 40-odd seconds remaining. Just saying.

The snap was not stopped, because nobody's ever been 19-0 and most likely nobody ever will be.

This is like saying Russia defeated Nazi Germany in the Battle of Stalingrad because good always triumphs over evil. Can we get some weaker analysis, please?

The Patriots are one terrific football team. Tuesday Morning Quarterback thinks the Colts are the club to beat this year, because the football gods will exact vengeance on the Patriots for all the bad karma they created with poor sportsmanship in 2007.

More "football gods" garbage, a week after belittling anyone who resorted to a god/karmic explanation for other worldly events.

One reason the Flying Elvii got to 16-0 in the 2007 regular season was a schedule without any West Coast trips; the Super Bowl was the sole time the team had to kick off west of the Rockies last season.

Yeah, I really think their ability to win would have been significantly diminished if they had to spend an extra 12 hours on an airplane over the course of four months.

Oakland: Camp note: the Raiders train at Redland Middle School in Napa, heart of wine country, while staying at the Marriott Napa. Head coach Lane "Hey Mom, I Got My Learner's Permit" Kiffin must really feel like the big man on campus when he's striding the halls of a middle school! Plus the Raiders' wine-and-cheese reception regime is grueling.

Disaster. Train wreck. Abortion.

Pittsburgh: (Not much to see here, except...) The Steelers were the best 2007 team to draw little media notice.

Little media notice? Little media notice? Is he referring to the Canadian media? Tell this to Browns or Buccaneers fans. Turn on or log in to any major media outlet's coverage, and you'll find heaping doses of certain teams year in and year out. The 2007 Steelers received the same treatment any decent Steelers team receives, which is to say, the public heard plenty about them. I know I'm arguing about something subjective here, but this statement is pretty obviously false in my book.

San Diego: Seven months later I still can't fathom it. San Diego has reached the AFC Championship Game and trails host New England 21-12 with 9:21 left, facing fourth-and-10 at the Pats' 36. Norv Turner sends in the punting unit. Trailing by two scores late against the highest-scoring team of all time, Turner punts in opposition territory. At least let your Pro Bowl kicker attempt a field goal! Boom goes the fraidiest fraidy-cat punt in football annals and the Chargers never touched the ball again. Not only was the punt an incredible case of chicken feathers, three times Turner ordered field-goal attempts inside the New England 9. To beat the highest-scoring team of all time on its own field, you need touchdowns! Instead, Turner used hyperconservative strategy, seeming to think he would just wait for the Patriots to make some killer mistake -- the Patriots, who had the NFL's fewest giveaways in 2007.

Hmmmmm. Well, it didn't happen on the Patriots' home field, but a game was played last February in which someone beat the Patriots despite 1) attempting a field goal from the New England 14, 2) punting on separate occasions from the New England 39 and the New England 41, and 3) taking advantage of several sizable New England mistakes.

But oh, how it helps to look good: Surely the sharp appearance of the Chargers' unis, and beauty of their powder-blue throwbacks, is a factor in the love San Diego gets.

If you're referring to any love they might get from teenaged female fans, maybe. If you're referring to the love they get from intelligent members of the sports media, no.

Tennessee: Vince Young continues to improve, but needs a star wide receiver;

Second part, yes. First part, not really. His QB rating climbed from 2006 to 2007, but his TD/INT ratio plummeted to a miserable 9:17 and his ability to pick up yards on the ground was greatly diminished as teams began to scheme against that aspect of his game. What can I say, I'm a hater; I don't think Young will ever be an above average NFL quarterback.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand... I'm spent. Goodnight, parents' basement dwellers. See you next week.

Who Did You Miss More: Me For the Last Week, or Gregg Easterbrook For the Last Several Months?

I'm sure the answer is "neither," but please read on anyways. You've come this far already- why not waste the next six minutes or so? To his credit, I will acknowledge that TMQ leads his first column of the 2008 season with a fantastic excoriation of Brett Favre. I couldn't agree more with his opinions on the matter. Of course, everything grabs the express train to Shitstown shortly thereafter.

The Book of Revelation Warns, "Verily, Ye Shall Know the End of Days Approaches When All Bow Before the Airheaded One." The Atlantic Monthly had Britney Spears on the cover.

You are a snob.

Buyers Received a Free Copy of Madden 2010: The 2009 Toyota Corolla went on sale in March 2008.

Nobody cares.

Excuse Me, Could You Move That Cargo Ship? I'm Trying to Tan: The MV Artemis was grounded by a storm off France and ended up sitting on a beach.

That's the whole item. There is no other text anywhere else in the article that relates to it or further clarifies why it's here. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Belgium's InBev brewing company bought Anheuser Busch, ending Budweiser's association with the American flag. "The Great American Lager" is now La Grande Bière Blonde Américaine. Days after becoming Belgian, Anheuser Busch signed a deal to sponsor the U.S. Olympic team through 2012. They will tell us not to worry when the training table menu for the U.S. Olympic team mysteriously becomes chocolates and burgers with bordelaise -- cheeseburgers with bordelaise being an actual fast-food item at Quick, Belgium's answer to McDonald's. They will tell us not to worry while Budweiser brewery workers in St. Louis are ordered to attend mandatory classes in snobbery and surrender, the Scylla and Charybdis of Belgian culture.

Oh, the irony. Those Belgians are such pompous asshats. Get over yourself, Belgium! (Actually, I've been to Belgium once, no joke. Spent one night in Brussels. The people seemed friendly enough, but really blew at giving directions. Anyways-)

Globalization Strips to Two-Piece: The Redskins cheerleaders were hired to promote a cricket team in India, and caused a local sensation by being "too sexy." TMQ does not recognize that there is any such concept as "too" sexy. Though you can understand why scantily clad cheer-babes did not mesh with cricket. Excitement and cricket do not go together!

Hey, and what's the deal with that airplane food? How come men always leave the toilet seat up? Black people and white people suuuuuuuuuuuure are different. Tip your wait staff, everyone.

New York Times Correction of the Year: The New York Times recently published a correction of a correction: "An article on Saturday about Representative Charles B. Rangel's defense of his use of four rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem, and a correction in this space on Wednesday, omitted the source of an assertion …"

Who edits this column? Seriously, I don't want to be a hypocrite and make a hacky joke, but this thing is long enough as it is. I really don't think this piece of crap or the part about the beached ship are 100% necessary.

Tracy, Hepburn to Star in "Wall-E II": Hollywood's best love story of the season -- the best old-fashioned romance a major studio has produced in years -- took place eight centuries in the future and involved mute robots. But then again, compared to most of today's megabucks Hollywood stars, mute robots have broad acting range.

I'm imagining Gregg delivering this in front of a gritty brick wall with a spotlight shining down on him. I'm also imagining a distinct and deafening silence ensuing shortly thereafter.

"Michelangelo's 'Pieta & Robin' Left Me Staggering!" -- Orvieto Daily Etruscan: An Associated Press critic called "The Dark Knight," a movie of recycled comic-book clichés, "an epic that will leave you staggering."

I didn't think it was the best movie of all time, but I can't disagree that the presentation very well may have left me (figuratively) staggering.

The Arizona Daily Star compared the film favorably to Michelangelo's "David."

I'm sure that comment wasn't meant to be intentionally over the top.

Gives New Meaning to "Cheat Keys": If the NFL won't suspend Bill Belichick for his sins in Spygate, how about this punishment: Put him on the cover of the next "Madden" game!

I can't think of any other ways to point out how unfunny this guy is.

Though it is Possible God Sent Erwin Lutzer and Sharon Stone to Punish Humanity: Erwin Lutzer, pastor of the ultra-fundamentalist Moody Church of Chicago, said on Fox News that God sent the China earthquake to punish the Chinese government for persecuting Christians. The Chinese government does persecute Christians, but Lutzer's claim was too much even for Fox News -- the host countered that the dead were poor people who do not make government policy. The same month, Sharon Stone suggested the earthquake was "karmic" retribution for Beijing's repression of Tibet. This cost Stone her role as endorser for Dior, which is selling well in China, and inspired the official Xinhua News Agency to dub Stone "the public enemy of all mankind."

Please -- it was an earthquake, a spontaneous movement of the Earth's crust. It was not sent by God, by the karmic wheel or by any larger agency. It just happened. Some Christians insist on believing God controls daily events; there's no indication of this in history, and this is never claimed in scripture. (The notion of divine control of daily life comes from preaching and from hymnals, not the Bible.) As for karma, many forms of evidence, for instance the world's corrupt wealthy people living in luxury, run against the contention that misdeeds are repaid by fate. Like all natural disasters, the earthquake was just something awful that happened. Don't insult the dead by saying a cosmic force actually wanted them to die.

I've got two words for you: Football. Gods. And if you think Easterbrook doesn't actually believe in them, just go back and read (among others) the piece he put out after the Patriots lost the Super Bowl. Hilarious, yes- but also thoroughly insistent upon the existence of karmic/cosmic forces.

Warning: Read Thriller Under Water: Ads for the latest from genre-thriller writer David Baldacci contain the statement, "When Balducci is on fire, no one can touch him!" If he was on fire, no one would want to touch him.

Taking everything really literally- always a great comedic tactic.

Leftover Draft Point No. 1: Every football pundit comments on who the teams took -- what about who they didn't take? Below are the results of trade-downs in the first round of the 2008 draft, noting who passed on whom and what the team gained by trading down; the list takes into account players you'd have thought the teams would have been interested in. New England passed on Sedrick Ellis, Derrick Harvey and Keith Rivers, in order to take Jerod Mayo and gain third-round linebacker Shawn Crable. Baltimore passed on Rivers, Mayo, Leodis McKelvin and Ryan Clady in order to take Joe Flacco and gain third- and fourth-round picks minus a sixth-round pick. Detroit passed on Branden Albert in order to take Gosder Cherilus and gain fifth-round wide receiver Kenny Moore. Houston passed on offensive tackles Jeff Otah and Sam Baker in order to take offensive tackle Duane Brown and gain running back Steve Slaton, plus add a sixth-round choice. Philadelphia passed on Otah and Baker in the first round, then high in the second round passed on Jordon Dizon, Malcolm Kelly and Limas Sweed, in order to take Trevor Laws and Quintin Demps, plus bank Carolina's 2009 first-round pick. Green Bay passed on Dustin Keller, Kenny Phillips and Devin Thomas in order to take Jordy Nelson and gain Dwight Lowery.

This is extremely relevant right now, before any of these guys have played a down or established themselves as useful or crappy. Thank you so much. I'll be sure to come back and re-read this list one to three years from now, when it actually means anything.

Phase One of Rupert Murdoch's Master Plan for the Wall Street Journal: From the Wall Street Journal's "Fiscally Fit" column by Terri Cullen: "The recent rise in gasoline prices has prompted my husband and me to change a few habits to save money -- to cut back on unnecessary car trips ... and switch to a gas station that consistently offers lower prices." Wait a minute, why were you taking "unnecessary car trips" in the first place? Why merely cut back, why not eliminate "unnecessary" driving? And if you know of a gas station that "consistently offers lower prices," why weren't you already patronizing it? Remember, the speaker is a financial advice columnist!

*Larry B stares blankly at his computer screen*

TMQ Disclaimer: Linebacker Violence, English Language, Cheerleader Sensuality: TMQ dislikes movie disclaimers that warn of "action violence" or "sci-fi violence," suggesting these are, somehow, not "violence."

It sure is hard to get anything done around here with all these bulky straw men filling up the room. Listen, pud- those disclaimers aren't there to suggest to viewers that the movies aren't violent. They're there to clarify the type of violence involved, because to many viewers, certain types of violence are "worse" than others. Case in point-

In this summer's euphemisms, ads for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" warned of "adventure violence" -- it's not really violence if you're having an adventure!

You know why the ads say that? Because "adventure violence," e.g., an exciting car chase, isn't really on the same level as "intense wartime violence" or "graphic rape violence." It's not too hard to figure out. Yes, the movie companies are attempting to downplay the violent nature of their movies a little bit. But it's not like they're denying the existence of the violence.

Ads for "Prince Caspian" cautioned of "epic battle action and violence," ads for "The Incredible Hulk" warned of "intense action violence." How is "intense action violence" different from "violence"?

It's a subset of the general category. Not hard to figure out. They're clarifying, not eliminating.

Ads for "Wanted" cautioned of "strong bloody violence" -- is there meek, lighthearted violence?

Yeah, I'd say there definitely is. Someone stomping on a flowerbed might fit the bill. How about a car crashing into a lamppost at 5 mph? Just saying.

Ads for "Speed Racer" -- a children's movie! -- cautioned of "some violence." In what sense is "some violence" different from violence?

It means that parts of the movie have violence, but it's not a thoroughly violent movie from start to finish. Fucking fuck- you have to explain everything to this guy.

Department Store Promotes Beefcake; This Really Must Be the Third Millennium: The San Francisco Chronicle ran a full-page ad showing a nearly naked David Beckham wearing Emporio Armani undershorts, the photo angled to emphasize the bulge of his crotch. It was a Macy's ad! The Macy's Beckham near-nude photo also ran as a billboard in San Francisco's Union Square. Maybe there's something about David that Posh doesn't know?

Because obviously he has control over where Macy's posts his picture. (Oops. I just tried to be funny by taking something too literally. FireJay- where hypocrisy comes to live!)

Amazingly, the Aston Martin Did Not Suddenly Convert into a Submarine: James Bond was attacked by an irate Chilean mayor. Carlos Lopez was angry that though the new Bond movie was filming in the rustic Chilean town of Baquedano, the scene depicts Bolivia. Later, the formulaic-action-movie gods punished the Bond producers by causing an Aston Martin being driven to a set in Italy to plunge off a road into Lake Garda.

Dude. You're killing me.

I think this has been sufficiently long, anyone disagree? Feel free to leave a comment. And if it's a negative comment, feel free to shit in a hat and then put it on and wear it around all day.

At the End of My Rope

Sorry, Dan-Bob. I don't mean to bury your excellent NCAA-related post. I just have a complaint to register. I know there's a 0% chance it reaches its intended audience, but I'm going to make it anyways.

HEY ESPN- STOP IT WITH THE BRETT FAVRE CRAP. PLEASE. JUST STOP. IT'S FUCKING INTOLERABLE.

That is all. For a real post, read below. (And I promise I'll do something substantial tomorrow afternoon/evening.)

Pat Forde + Logic = Train Wreck

See if you can find the problem with this sequence of ideas. (Re: 41 year old American Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, who just finished an amazing Olympic trials in which she set several personal records and even one American record even though she's coming off of multiple surgeries.)

Torres has never tested positive for any performance enhancers to my knowledge. She's requested random blood and urine testing from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and said she wants to be "an open book."

Torres met with USADA CEO Travis T. Tygart last year and, according to a report in The New York Times, decided to volunteer for a pilot program under the agency that "tests more broadly" for doping through blood and urine samples.

"Can USADA give Dara or some other athlete the stamp of cleanliness?" Tygart asked the newspaper. "No, the science isn't there yet." But he added, "I think a dirty athlete would be crazy to volunteer for this program."

According to the report, Tygart has yet to release any of Torres' results, but she told reporters here at the trials this week that she has been randomly tested "probably about 12 to 15 times since March."

But locking up a stunning fifth Olympic appearance on the Fourth of July by winning the 100-meter freestyle makes me wonder whether too good to be true is the same thing as too good to be clean.

It's true. I'll address it in detail at the end of the post, but it's fine to feel like that about something like this. It's only natural. However, don't justify those feelings like this:

Baseball and other sports have poisoned the well to the point that Torres' late-career renaissance reminds me of too many fraudulent fairy tales that have been foisted off on the gullible American public.

We were supposed to believe Roger Clemens was a dominant pitcher in his 40s because he trained harder and smarter than everyone else. We were supposed to believe Barry Bonds was capable of hitting 73 home runs at age 37 because he was simply that good and had worked tirelessly to build his body naturally. We were supposed to believe these miracles of human preservation, but we've since been given reason to believe they really were lying cheaters instead.

Hey, DUMMY- there's a key difference between the drug testing Olympic athletes go through and the drug testing MLB players went through prior to 2005. (Actually, there are still a lot of differences between the programs, but let's just say the gap has been narrowed at least a little.) Google it and see if you can sort the situation out.

Listen, I'm all for skepticism when it comes to extraordinary athletic accomplishments in this day and age. There's no way around it- the proliferation of PEDs means that anyone who does something incredible is bound to come under some degree of scrutiny. That's fair. I have no problem with it. So in that sense, I have no fundamental problem with Pat's article. What she's done is pretty unbelievable... maybe too unbelievable to be clean. As Chad himself says, no one has ever swum like she just did at this age. But here's the problem- if you're going to write an article about this kind of sports-related skepticism, comparing an Olympic athlete's allegedly clean accomplishments to the allegedly clean accomplishments of MLB players in the late 90s/early 00s is fucking preposterous. Really? Being Barry Bonds, and just saying you're clean, is the same thing as Dara Torres and volunteering for an extremely rigorous pilot testing program? At least compare her accomplishments to Floyd Landis's, or something.

And yes, I know that there is no testing routine that's anywhere close to perfect or comprehensive. A very decent sized chunk of the athletes competing in Beijing this summer will be dirty, and almost all will get away with it. I'm just saying... it's fucking ridiculous to say that it's hard to enjoy Torres's accomplishments specifically because of untested cases like Bonds and Clemens. Go jump in a lake, Pat Forde.

Special thanks to last Friday's anonymous commenter for tipping me off about this article.