One More Thing

Oh yeah, since I didn't post yesterday, here's one more super awesome little anecdote for you. It's about someone who should not be working in the business of analyzing sports. I bet you saw that coming.

Earlier today I flip on ESPN. And lo and behold, what do I stumble into right off the bat? Why, it's Skip Bayless doing his argument show thingy! (First Take? Cold Pizza? The Place Where Sensible Ideas Go To Die?) Skip was trying to claim that LeBron James is hurting the Cavaliers, which is kind of like claiming that alcohol is hurting the world's reproductive rate. First he cited some essentially meaningless statistic like the Cavaliers being 5-2 when James isn't in the lineup the past two years, and then tried to claim that mediocre players like Larry Hughes and Daniel Gibson are actually really awesome. I don't remember the exact quote, but his conclusion was something like:

"LeBron is holding this Cavs team back!"

Fortunately, Skip's guest/opponent for the day was some dude who actually knows his butthole from his elbow. (I'm not sure who, and I'm sorry clarifying that he was smarter than Skip doesn't exactly narrow it down). He quickly pointed out that the Cavaliers averaged 55 losses a season during the four years before James arrived. Since then they've won 35, 42, 50, and 50 games. Skip, confronted by this fact, backed down but offered the following rebuttal. I'm not sure if he could have said anything stupider. (This one is an exact quote.)

"Well, he's holding them back from advancing in the playoffs."

Let's look at the 2007 NBA Playoff bracket. Where is Cleveland? How far did they adv- Oh, OK. There they are. Great.

And hey, don't forget to go two posts down and throw your hat in the ring for Reader Extra Participation Friday. If you don't, it'll hurt my feelings.

FMTMQR: You Can't Be Fucking Serious

(For anyone new who is confused by the above acronym: if Gregg Easterbrook, aka the Tuesday Morning Quarterback, writes something stupid in his column (Ha! If!), I usually complain about it the next day in what I call the Wednesday Morning Tuesday Morning Quarterback Review. If you can't figure out why this one is titled FMTMQR instead of WMTMQR, please navigate away from this site. Go to Google and search for "GED programs.")

Let's just get right to the action; it'll be brief, because I want to watch the Djokovic/Federer match. What? Tennis is for sissies, you say? Well, that may be true. But at least I'm not pulling a total nerd move like you and reading a blog. Go practice kissing the robot you built some more. Nerd.

Norv Turner's decision to punt in New England territory in the fourth quarter when trailing by two scores might go down as the single worst coaching decision of all time. Let us count the ways in which the decision was ludicrous. First, the Patriots have the best offense in football history, so the odds of getting the ball back quickly without New England scoring were very low. Second, you need a touchdown and a field goal and are in field goal range. Why aren't you at least attempting a field goal? Sure a long field goal try might not work, but punting is guaranteed not to work!

OK. I'll buy that. That punt was a bad decision (more on it later), and since the Chargers were down 9 points, a field goal would have drawn them within one score. That's fair analysis.

But then... IN THE VERY NEXT PANDAFUCKING PARAGRAPH:

Giants coaches, please note -- two straight playoff games have featured opponents playing the Patriots close through three quarters, then folding in the fourth quarter after going passive. (Trailing New England by 11 points late in the divisionals, Jacksonville passively kicked a field goal on fourth-and-goal.)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

If you are not wholly and completely insulted by those two paragraphs when read together, I don't know what to tell you. I don't care where the Jaguars were on the field. THEY KICKED THE FIELD GOAL TO GET WITHIN ONE SCORE. YOU JUST CRITICIZED THE CHARGERS FOR NOT DOING THE EXACT SAME THING. Fucking.... fuck. No. This is not happening.

Stat of the Week No. 10: Three days after appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Favre threw a killer overtime interception that cost the Packers the NFC Championship Game at home.

If he's referring to the always talked-about cover jinx, I guess I can't blame a guy who bases most of his analysis on "the football Gods" for also believing said jinx. Still, this isn't even a stat. It's a description of a play. That happened in a game. And is not "cleverly noteworthy" in any way, like the rest of the stats of the week are intended to be. So Favre threw a horrible interception. And? Why not just make the stats of the week a rundown of the most significant plays of the week? I vote yes. Everyone else who votes yes, raise your hand. OK, now raise your hand if you just don't give a shit. OK, put them down, I get it.

By sending in the punt team, Turner quit on the game. At that point, he no longer was trying to win -- rather, he appeared to be attempting to hold down the margin of defeat so people would hire him to do banquet-circuit speeches in the offseason and introduce him as a coach who gave the Patriots a good game.

Allegedly, this is the exact same thing Jack Del Rio of Jacksonville did two weekends ago. Actually, it is completely false, fabricated, made up, and many other things that synonymous with those words. I'll concede that coaches might do stuff like this during meaningless regular season games. But you're really telling me that in the playoffs, with all of the following on the line: a Super Bowl trip... a shot at eternal glory... a shot at extra eternal glory for knocking off a 17-0 team... a shot at a ring bigger than your head... a shot at silencing all the critics that continuously mock you for being a shitty coach and looking totally confused most of the time... all the hookers and cocaine you can buy (should you win the SB and decide to spend your bonus that way, hey, whatever, I mean it's your bonus, spend it however you want, if you just want to buy a house or something, that's fine too)... with all of that, a coach is going to stop trying to win? No, no, no, no, and no.

OK, sorry, that's all I've got for now. I'm off to pansyland to dance in a field full of lollipops and watch some tennis!

Reader Extra Participation Friday: That's Worth a Few Bonus Points, Right?

Who will dethrone JD after his win last week? If he wins again, does that make him a dynasty? (USC fans would definitely think so, even if he finishes second. OH! PWNED!!!1111!11) Will he remember to show up to defend his title? Come on now, everyone join in.

Jerry Crasnick serves as our template this week, as he writes about some MLB free agents who have yet to find a team to play for in 2008.

[Sean] Casey's lack of power clearly works against him. He's posted slugging percentages of .433, .388 and .393 in his past three stops. But he knows how to work a count, and he has a higher career batting average than Lance Berkman and Bobby Abreu. And when Sports Illustrated surveys 464 players and they overwhelmingly anoint you the "friendliest player in the game,'' that's worth a few bonus points, right?

I actually don't mind Crasnick most of the time. As long as he's not writing about players who hustle and "play the game the way it was meant to be played," he's tolerable. This isn't even a flagrantly bad passage; first, it's partially tongue-in-cheek, and second, clubhouse chemistry actually does matter a little. But I still think this makes for a good Reader Extra Participation Friday topic. What other traits can you assign to a struggling player that have little or nothing to do with their ability to play a sport well in an effort to make them sound more desirable? As always, please use Jerry's voice.

"Maybe Joey Harrington just blew his last chance at starting in the NFL by preforming poorly for Atlanta this past season. It's a real shame teams are hung up on his disastrous stats- they seem to forget that the guy knows how to do that thing where you raise only one eyebrow really high."

"After he screwed the pooch during the '06 Olympics, everyone was talking about how Bode Miller was washed up. But his recent return to the winner's circle is no surprise to me. It was pretty much inevitable, given how much he enjoys getting high and going to zoos."

"Sad to hear that no one wants to give former Diamondbacks and Braves pitcher Russ Ortiz a shot during spring training this year. Have you ever seen the guy water ski? He's a maniac out there."

"It's fair to say that former NBA center Oliver Miller has struggled with his weight. But should his career really be over already? Any playoff contender looking for big man help off the bench should give him a call. He's a huge Nickleback fan."

"Sure, Rae Carruth is in jail for conspiracy to commit murder. But if he somehow is paroled or escapes, teams should think about giving him a tryout. The guy can burp and fart on command."

Those five examples took me three and a half hours to develop. I'm sure you can all do better.

Time For Me To Re-Memorize How To Spell Wojciechowski

I can only refer to him as "Gene" so many times in a row in any given post. I need some variety, you know? On the whole, the following is far from his worst. But I'm picking on it because of its dangerously high concentration of cliches. I mean, there are lots. And lots. And lots. Of them. Read with caution.

This is ESPN's "Senior National Columnist." By my estimation his articles are linked on their front page more often than anyone's except TMQ's or Simmon's. I understand that most Super Bowl-related story lines have been pretty much beaten to death by this point in the season, because the Patriots have been at the center of a media firestorm since week 1 and the Giants play in New York. But really? You're a Senior National Columnist, and this is what you come up with? Basically one big article that can be summed up as: "the Patriots are great because of a bunch of shit that doesn't actually mean anything." Really? What the hell is wrong with you?

Granted, some of the cliches aren't Wojciechowski's. They're quotes. But he's the one who chose to include them, so he's still responsible.

This is the greatest team of all time? This is the team that's going to have its team photo bronzed for posterity? The team that's supposed to make us forget about all those other great teams: the '72 Miami Dolphins, the '27 New York Yankees, the '01 Wilbon and Kornheiser?

The short answer is yes.

The correct answer is no. We're not supposed to forget about anyone else, much less a team in a different sport, if New England finishes out their season with a win. This reminds me of the time back in 2003 that Barry Bonds said he wanted to get to 715 home runs so he could "wipe out" Babe Ruth. "Don't talk about him no more." said Bonds at the time. Actually, I personally wouldn't mind if we never talked about those self-fellating asscocks on the '72 Dolphins again. That would be the one and only unshitty aspect of a New England victory. But it's not going to happen; they're not going anywhere, regardless of the game's outcome.

The longer answer is that the 2007 New England Patriots are one game and one victory from the kind of perfection that no team, including those undefeated Dolphins of 35 seasons ago, has ever experienced.

Which kind of perfection? The kind of perfection that happens when you win all your games? Cliche #1.

Win Super Bowl XLII -- and they will -- and the Patriots will have no peer, no point of comparison.

Same song, different verse. #1a.

One more win, said New England's football Yoda, linebacker Junior Seau, and they'll be "part of ever."

What does that even mean? I guess it's close enough to "part of forever," which is close enough to "part of history." We'll call it #2.

"Separating is key in history," said Seau, who has spent 18 seasons in this unforgiving league.

The amorphous concept of "separat[ion]" has basically nothing to do with comparing events that happen in different eras. They're already separated. I guess that's obscure so I can't count it as a cliche. That doesn't make it not painfully stupid.

And fuck you and your concerns about my double negatives, firelarryb.blogspot.com.

"We have a chance."

Thanks Junior. I hope you guys just go out there and play your game, try to make plays, and believe in yourselves. #3.

The Patriots have more than a chance. They almost have an obligation to finish what they've started.

The Giants, as far as I can tell, are also out there to finish what they started. Unless they're out there for some other reason. Maybe they just want to collect their roster bonuses and try not to get injured. But I doubt it. #4.

Anything less would be like forgetting to wear pants with your tux.

That is definitely not a cliche, for good reason. Are you sure it's really not more like forgetting to get rice in your sandwich? Thanks Gene.

Step No. 18 of their 19-step self-help program took place at Gillette Stadium on Sunday afternoon. This time, it was the San Diego Chargers who had the misfortune of being between the Patriots and another AFC championship. And for more than a little while, it looked as if the Chargers might somehow pull off a second consecutive playoff upset.

But the Patriots aren't like the Indianapolis Colts, the team that blew its home-field advantage a week ago against these same Chargers. The Patriots aren't like anybody else.

The Raiders aren't like anybody else, either. Nor are the Calgary Stampeders. Or the Philadelphia Soul. Or some sad sack team from that 2nd tier Arena League. Everyone is special. My mom told me so. #5.

NFL MVP Tom Brady threw three interceptions … and the Patriots won. Randy Moss caught exactly one pass for 14 yards … and the Patriots won. The Chargers had two first-and-goals and a first-and-10 from the New England 13 … and the Patriots won. In fact, they didn't give up a touchdown in the 21-12 victory.

"The Patriots of old," is how linebacker Mike Vrabel described it.

"This is what we consider Patriots football," linebacker Tedy Bruschi said.

None other than the man himself delivers #6! Bruschi! He's a golden goddess! A man made out of nothing but marble, steel, diamonds, and courage! Our only real chance at ever solving the D.B. Cooper mystery! You might not know, but Barbaro lived about 6 months longer than expected last spring because Bruschi was giving him blood transfusions! He's man who wants you to know that not allowing the other team to score is a style of football unique to his team!

Patriots football isn't the 52-7 air show of Oct. 28 against Washington or the 56-10 humiliation of Buffalo on Nov. 18. It's what happened here in the late January cold, when the Patriots were forced to revert to their past championship DNA, which is to grind, to adapt and to prevail.

In other words: beating the fuck out of inferior teams is not Patriots football. Beating a team that matches up with them pretty well by nine? THAT'S Patriots football.

Canton isn't going to request the game film, but that's not the point. The Patriots did what they had to do. "[J]ust kind of hang around," is the way Vrabel put it.

#7 (what Gene said, not what Vrabel said).

Instead of giving up TDs, they gave up field goals. Instead of relaxing when Chargers star running back LaDainian Tomlinson and his injured knee became permanently attached to the bench, the Patriots played harder.

Let's throw some anecdotal bullshit in there for good measure. Personally, I don't think they played any harder. It's just that the Chargers played softer, so the Patriots looked relatively harder. Go ahead- try to prove that wrong.

Patriots football is what coach Bill Belichick said to Bruschi when they hugged just moments after the game.

You can only hope Bruschi was able to understand the indecipherable mumblings coming out of Belichick's mouth while he was trying to make his point. As an avid Patriots hater, here's my favorite example of what Bill sometimes sounds like after a game.

"Great job in the red area," Belichick said.

Not, "We're going to the Super Bowl!" Not, "18-0, baby!" But, "Great job in the red area."

It's the red zone, you hoodie-wearing wife stealer. But wait, didn't Gene just say Belichick said "Patriots football?" Whatever. If he actually said something meaningful, then that's awesome and more power to him. Thanks for the non-cliche you asshead. Even if it contained a horribly mangled football term.

This is Belichick in a nutshell. This is the Patriots' celebrated culture in a nutshell. There is no "I" in New England.

Wow. #8.

The Pats somehow have conditioned themselves to suppress their feelings about their football legacy.

Sure, it bubbles to the surface on occasion. Bruschi felt the pressure of an unbeaten season before the Patriots played the New York Giants in the final regular-season game.

"I think you could see it on our faces a little bit before the game," he said. "We knew [it] was a huge game and history was on the line," he said.

Bruschi with two more humdingers! That's #9 and #10! "Huge game!" "History!" Fortunately, he has actually turned an old DeLorean he fixed up into a time machine! So if the Patriots had lost, he could have gone back and found a zany and bizarre way to change the outcome! Not that they were going to lose... because he's Tedy Fucking Bruschi! (But I mean, if they had, he could have fixed it.)

Do you have any idea how many times he's already used that DeLorean to change world history for the better? Let's just say that if it weren't for him, we'd all be speaking German and Japanese!

Also, Gene, basic journalism- don't place two sentences which both have a quote followed by "he said" back to back. It reads like something out of a high school yearbook's rundown of a club no one cares about.

History remains on the line. Once again it is the Giants' turn to try to avert what seems to be inevitable. They got last crack at the Patriots in the regular season. Now they get last crack at them in the postseason.

Good luck. That's because the Patriots are the ultimate ant colony. Everybody works. Everybody has a role.

Really? Everybody has a role? Go figure. That must be why the Lions have been wallowing in crap for the last decade. If only Shaun Rogers and Boss Bailey had roles! And what is John Kitna going to do next year? Play quarterback again? Who knows! Also, what's this about everybody "working?" Hey, Earth to you, 49ers. Maybe if you all got together every once in a while and did some sort of "working" together, you wouldn't be such a joke. That's #11.

Christ, if you're going to bounce all over New England's knob, at least do it for the right reasons. They have a fantastic coaching staff. They make brilliant salary cap, draft, and trade decisions year in and year out. Consequently their team is full of great players who are well coached. It has nothing to do with everyone having roles and working. That describes every professional sports franchise ever, except whoever happens to be employing Zach Randolph, Ricky Davis, or Bartolo Colon at any given point in time.

Belichick is the droll football savant. Brady is the extension of that genius. Seau is the emotional center. Bruschi and Vrabel are the cornerstones. Moss is the suddenly selfless receiver who knocked Chargers defensive end Luis Castillo out of the game on a clean block. Kevin Faulk is the third-down specialist.

"That's the money down," Seau reminded everyone in his postgame comments.

"That's the money down," Seau reminded everyone who has never watched football before or has suffered a major head trauma injury recently. #12.

Faulk wore a long-sleeve blue T-shirt in the locker room after the game. On the front, in white lettering, was: We're All Just A Brotha From Another Motha.

Translation: "The family," said Faulk. "The Patriot family, that's all."

"Brother from a different mother?" Ha! I can't wait to tell all my suburban friends that one! It rhymes! We're going to sound so hard and tough. Our parents are going to be soooo mad! And wait... you mean this team considers themselves some kind of variation on a "family?" Never heard that one before. Someone fill the Houston Texans about that concept. There's their problem. Not enough famililityness. #13.

That's all? That's everything. It's why Seau left retirement, his surfboard and his San Diego beach two years ago when Belichick himself called and said, "Listen, I got a position for you." It's why Moss doesn't say a peep after a one-catch day. It's why Brady would run through two brick walls for these guys.

These guys would do anything for each other. Anything. Even things that are impossible unless you're a superhero, or wearing a robot suit that hasn't been invented yet. Now that's dedication. At least Wojciechowski didn't say "he'd go to war" for his teammates. Still. #14.

The expectations and pressure will grow exponentially in the next two weeks. If ever there was a team capable of handling them, this is the one.

Expectations... pressure... yawn. Take those two sentences and apply them to basically any team that's ever prepared for a championship game/series. Besides the fact that whether or not any given team can actually deal with pressure is pretty subjective, it works, right? Guess what that's a sign of: an article that didn't need to be written. And #15.

After all, the Patriots have the most practice.

Granted, this characteristic is pretty unique to the Patriots (assuming he's referring to their three Super Bowls in the last 6 years), so it somewhat validates the previous two sentences. But the general subject of "the pressure is mounting but [team] is ready!" still induces about the same response in me as the Hallmark channel.

Like I said in the intro, I understand that it's going to be hard for sportswriters to put out much of anything interesting about this game during the next two weeks. Basically every story has been beaten to death. But Gene isn't just some regular hack at ESPN; he's their Senior National Super Duper Pooper Columnist. Is this really the best he could do? Point out the fact that New England considers themselves a family, and that they like to play "Patriot football?" Pop off 15 cliches in a 750 word article?

Christ, I'm ready to go back to Simmons after this. At least it looks like he's trying most of the time.

An Old Favorite!

Dayn Perry picks his surprising contenders next year

Bad news is: he picked the Reds. Now, according to the Colin Cowherd school of media, other teams in the Central will be gunning for them.

It's pretty much all just Dayn rambling about a few players on each team who are "solid" or "poised to break out" or "could be contributors". Honestly, I'm not even going to break it down, since it's just a bunch of wishy-washy statements about a few names.

OMG JARROD SALTALAMACCHIA the Rangers are a dark horse!

Also, here's the weirdest part - he picks the Rays, then adds this doozy:

As for the bullpen, Troy Percival was an excellent addition, and he'll greatly improve how the Rays fare in late, high-leverage innings.

What the hell is a high leverage inning? Does he mean the ninth? The eighth? The sixth? I have no idea which innings have more leverage than others.

But Will It Play in Peoria?

I'm in beautiful Nashville, Tennessee right now and after witnessing last night's Blues/Predators game in person, I wanted to post with local flare. So here is Jessica Hopp of Nashville's The Tennessean.

Experience and youth worked in perfect harmony on Monday night, and the tune that was produced certainly showed no hint of the Blues.

GET IT? Because the Predators beat the Blues, you see. And what Ms. Hopp has done here is take the team name - in this case "Blues" - and used it in another commonly found application of the word. What will it take for people to stop doing this? I'm rooting for a Chris Hansen/Nashville Predators line about molestation, but we all know that won't happen.

After losing the first three games of the season against St. Louis, Nashville snagged its second win in three days against the Central Division rival with a 6-3 victory in front of 13,642 fans at Sommet Center.

Under 14,000 fans and new ownership gets to move the team out of Nashville. I have to say that I enjoy being able to drive to another city and watch their classless fans carry on the legacy of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's greatest hits from the late 90's. Nashville moved right behind the Red Wings in the division and nobody is coming to the games because almost all the seats are the expensive ones.

And now I point you to the end of the article where a Tennessean reader vents frustration.

Deafmike wrote: Great game for a Monday afternoon.......

Because yesterday was a holiday, puck dropped at 5pm. Somebody in our row joined the game right before the second period ended at 6:40pm. Maybe it's a pet peeve, but how hard is it to get to a game somewhere around when it starts?

Journalism 101

Not every observation that technically makes sense is clever enough to become a lead-in. This is a lesson CBSSportsline's Scott Miller has yet to learn.

Look, I don't want to be overly presumptuous here and tell Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain or Mike Huckabee their business.

But you want a real way out of this slumping housing market and looming recession?

Easy. Attach the prime interest rate to the homes of National League third basemen. That'll fire up the real estate market and get things moving again.

Because Scott Rolen and Troy Glaus got traded for each other. And Miguel Cabrera got sent to Detroit, and Ryan Braun is moving to left field. So yeah. They're all changing real estate in one way or another. I get it!

You can kind of see Scott's thought process here. Hey, politics are on the minds of many Americans because it's a presidential election year! So if there's any way I can make a really loose tie-in between a political issue and something happening in sports, I should, right?

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno.

Been Quiet Recently, Eh?

But Scott Merkin is still a dumbass. He's the mlb.com mailbag dude for the White Sox.

Where is Scotty Pods going to end up?
-- Bob, Homewood, Ill.

There are two correct answers to this question.

1) The minor leagues.
2) Out of work, but lucky Scotty, he's still married to a Playboy playmate!

I was talking about this exact topic with a few higher-ups in the White Sox organization recently, and there really doesn't seem to be any current buzz surrounding Podsednik. It could come down to a Minor League deal for Podsednik, although for those of you who asked, it won't be with the White Sox. When healthy, Podsednik still is one of the few elite leadoff hitters in the game.

I'm trying to think of contexts in which "Podsednik" and "elite" should be used in the same sentence. Sadly my puny brain can't bend itself to find something. Let's rank these "leadoff hitters" or something.

1-16, whatever order: DeJesus, Granderson, Sizemore, Pedroia, Roberts, Ichiro, Willits, Lofton, Soriano (if he even counts), Weeks, Rollins, H. Ramirez, K. Johnson, Reyes, B. Giles, Furcal (and plenty of other guys like Kaz Matsui, Scott Hatteberg, and Alex Rios who lead off sometimes for brief stints)

17: Healthy Scott Podsednik

18 - crap: People similar to Juan Pierre (like Podsednik).

Merkin, the guy was damn good in 2003 (thanks to him having SOME power and probably a sick BABIP or something), and hasn't shown a sign of being even above-average since. Can we please stop deceiving Bob from Homewood, IL? I'm sure he doesn't appreciate it. As soon as he goes to Podsednik's stat page, followed by that of an actual elite leadoff hitter, he's going to figure out that you're a lying sack of shit.

I Promise, I'll Write About Someone Other Than Simmons After This Post

First, let me quickly declare Reader Extra Participation Fridays a huge success. Thanks a lot to everyone who participated! I'm declaring JD this week's winner (yes, it's a contest now, because I just decided it should be) for this:

"On 4th and 31 from the Jersey/A 44-yard line with 12:31 to go in the second quarter, down 14-7, Dallas decided to punt. I then proceeded to pick up my pink fountain pen and write 'Game Over, I love the taste of my own ball hair,' into my Care Bears notebook. How can you punt in your opponents territory down by a touchdown this late in the game!?!? The football gods then spoke these words to me: 'I shall punish these dim-witted fools that call themselves professionals!"

Honorable mention to Shimmering for this, which wasn't quite what I asked for but was pretty awesome anyways:

"Stat of the Week No. 2: Since I began writing this column for ESPN, thirteen people have taken a toaster-bath as a direct result."

And similar thanks to Richard for the haiku. Very tasteful. Anyways, all this Simmons stuff is getting repetitive, I know. But reader Daniil tipped me off about something that I definitely have to post. In his words:

"I don’t know whether you guys read sportspickle.com or even know about it and I don’t know if you caught this from his handicapper column. Did DJ Gallo just compare Philip Rivers to his coworker Bill Simmons??? I know I’m reaching, but that would be fucking great if Bill got offended by this and started spewing and they insulted each other in their articles on ESPN. My respect for DJ Gallo would grow greatly if he did this intentionally."

Well, let's take a look at the passage in question.

Here is San Diego’s one chance of winning: if Bill Belichick trades Tom Brady for Philip Rivers before kickoff. And don’t laugh – “Um, I never have on this site, so why would I start now?” – it could happen. I think Bill Belichick secretly wishes Philip Rivers was his quarterback. Rivers just has that certain Boston sports “je ne c'est douche” that would make him a more fitting figurehead for the city’s best team. I mean, sure, Tom Brady can be a total cockhead when he wants to, but Philip Rivers exudes Boston douche. He is Boston douche. If Red Sox Nation beats with one heart, that heart is inside the body of Philip Rivers. Rivers’ bio says he was born in Alabama, but I wouldn’t be shocked at all to learn that he grew up outside of Boston. Or that he went to a prep school and then on to some overrated New England private college. Then, no doubt, he spent a few years living off of his daddy’s trust fund money, dabbled a bit in date rape and bartending, and then settled down with some pink-hat skank because he thought he got her pregnant. Yes, it’s clear to me: Philip Rivers is from Boston. He is Boston. But unless he makes it on to Boston’s beloved Pats before kickoff, this is going to be a total beatdown.

Is that a description of Bill? Well, let's break it down. Obviously he's from Boston or somewhere just outside of it. According to his Wikipedia page (always a reliable source, I know), he went to this prep school. He then attended College of the Holy Cross, which may or may not be overrated but is definitely private and definitely located in New England. Bill himself alludes to his bartending exploits in his columns. Date rape? Wouldn't put it past him. Trust fund? Well, that prep school he went to costs $37,000 a year if you board and $27,000 if you're just there to learn. And he's constantly talking about how his dad has been a Celtics season ticket holder for decades, which can't be cheap. That's not ironclad proof that he's a trust fund baby but it certainly indicates there's money in the family. I have no idea whether or not The Sports Gal is a "pink-hat skank," but I really can't see anyone wanting to get married to Bill unless there were some extenuating circumstances like a pregnancy.

So all in all... yeah... it might be a coincidence. But it might not be. I'm sure Gallo has met Simmons and is familiar with his work. They're both successful professional journalists in the same field and with roughly similar styles. Who's to say they can't have beef? You can make your own judgment. If something more comes of this, you'll definitely read about it here. Thanks again to Daniil.

New Blog Feature Thing: Reader Extra Participation Fridays

I was facing two big problems earlier tonight.

1) I am tired
2) Gregg Easterbrook released a TMQ column this week that contains some absolutely wretched analysis

I mean, how was I supposed to reconcile these two with each other? If I go to bed, Easterbrook's turd of an article goes unchecked, probably forever. If I take a bunch of time to complain about the article, I go to bed late. Then I'll just be tired again tomorrow. And maybe Saturday too. What kind of bullshit life is that? How am I supposed to break that vicious cycle if I don't start tonight? But just as I was starting to panic, I had an idea. Let me lay it out for you slowly, so that by the end of the explanation you're so bored with what I'm saying that you have no interest in being a part of the idea.

Yesterday saw FireJay set another direct traffic record. Very exciting stuff. We also shattered our old record for being looked for on search engines; Google was overflowing with lovejuice for us. And the 34 comments (granted, like ten of them are from me, Chris W, and pnoles, but don't burst my bubble) on the Simmons piece has to be close to an all time record for the blog as well. So there's definitely a lot of you out there reading this drivel. I mean, shit, look at you right now. You could be doing anything on the internet. But you've chosen to be here.

Therefore, here's my idea: every Friday, we do a sort of play on those "You Write the Caption" competition magazines and blogs are always having. It used to be one of my favorite features in Sports Illustrated For Kids, even though most or all of the winning selections were probably written by kids' parents. But whatever. Anyways, for our little thingy I'm describing here, instead of a picture, we'll just present you with a handful of quotes from a terrible article and a theme for you to follow in your responses. Then you all just go buck wild making up jokes from the perspective of the author, which is sort of caption-ish in a way. Pow. Instant comedy. I mean, what better way to celebrate this windfall of new readers than by asking you to show us and each other how witty and snarky you can be? I hate the word snark, but I think its made-up definition applies nicely to what FireJay and blogs like it are all about. You wouldn't be here if you didn't like snark, and weren't pretty damn good at being snarky yourself. Hell, most of you are probably better at being snarky than I am. I'm really more angry/angsty. Snark snark snark. Fuck that word. See? I'm pissed now.

But seriously, you can see what I'm getting at here. I want you all to use your rapist's wits to help make the blog a funnier place. Some of you already do that in the comments section on a daily basis, but I want Friday to become a special day where you really focus and bring your A games. And on top of that, maybe some of you that read but don't comment will be inspired by this feature to make the plunge into commenting every once in a while.

This week will be the trial run. If it flops, we'll pretend it never happened. If it's even a mild success, which I define by having at least two commenters participate without making fun of me for thinking this would work, then we'll keep it going.

Easterbrook went like ten steps further than he usually does this week in terms of making shit up and passing it off as the truth. Here, he speculates as to why some of the NFL's divisional playoff games turned out the way they did.

Dallas took its regular-season finale off, then had the bye week, then honked at home. As you just might possibly have heard, certain Cowboys not only lost focus during the bye but treated the week as a vacation! Receiving millions of dollars per year for a part-time job, some Dallas players nevertheless felt they had to award themselves a vacation to get their minds off the playoffs -- and as we saw Sunday, the Cowboys' minds surely were off the playoffs!

Really? How did we see that? They piled up 11 penalties, but that alone isn't going to convince me. I'm going to need a little bit more explanation than "as we saw Sunday, [X], and that is that because I said so and I like science fiction a lot."

Romo kept trying to throw deep, rather than throwing slants, which are the standard counter to the big blitz. You sensed Romo wanted to hit a deep pass so everyone would credit him for winning the game.

Did I? I'm pretty sure I didn't. I mean, Romo's usually a spotlight hogging asshole, but- oh wait, no, that's someone else on his team. Nevermind.

Garrett never straightened Romo out in the fourth quarter -- perhaps because Garrett's head wasn't really in the game, either.

So I guess Gregg was either at the game, or has a magical TV feed that allows him to watch what's happening on the sidelines at all times.

In the fourth quarter, Dallas' offensive line play broke down. Could this have something to do with offensive line coach Tony Sparano not having his head in the game because he spent the bye week interviewing for head-coaching jobs?

Great theory. Totally unprovable and probably no more than 10% true. But it's cute. You know what will often cause offensive line play to break down? Being lined up opposite Osi Umenyiora and Michael Strahan all damn game.

Jacksonville trailed the highest-scoring team in football history by 11 points in the fourth quarter; reaching first-and-goal, the Jags absolutely had to score a touchdown. So why didn't the coaches assume they'd use all four downs and power-rush three times? Jacksonville had to get a touchdown. The mouselike field goal was all but running up a white flag. You could see at that point that Jack of the River had quit on the game. He wasn't going all-out to try to win, he was trying to hold down the margin of defeat so that on the banquet circuit in the offseason, people would say, "You gave the Patriots a good game."

Yep, I bet that's it. Why make decisions that you think give you the best chance at beating them, like kicking a field goal to get a one-score deficit? What's the glory in that? If you end up winning, no one's going to praise you for that on the offseason banquet circuit. Those banquet people are a tough to please crowd- they really only gravitate towards close losses.

Whoever coaches Indianapolis next season, if the Colts win a bye again, please, don't give the starters the season finale game off! Dungy has done this four times, and four times the result has been first-round home-field defeat for Indianapolis. Was the problem that the Colts defenders relaxed when LaDainian Tomlinson and Philip Rivers went out?

I'm glad this one is phrased as a rhetorical question rather than an outright true statement, but it's still stupid and wrong.

OK, so here's the theme for this week's Reader Participation Friday: given all these assessments Easterbrook makes about last weekend's games that range anywhere from "completely unprovable and unresearchable" to "batshit insane," please come up with some other explanations Gregg might formulate to explain occurrences in the world of sports. Write your response in the first person, as though you were him. Here, I'll do a couple examples to start things off.

"Maybe if Ohio State was more worried about preparing for LSU and less worried about visiting as many locations as possible in New Orleans that were portrayed in the movie JFK, they wouldn't have been blown out so badly in the National Championship Game."

"Jimmy Johnson just won his second straight NASCAR season championship. And it's no wonder, considering how much better he is at never letting any of the parts in his car break than the other drivers on the circuit."

"It's clear that the Colorado Rockies were swept in the 2007 World Series by the Boston Red Sox because the Rockies were too busy worrying about Drew Carey taking over hosting duties on 'The Price Is Right' to focus on the games."

"The secret to Tiger Woods's success lies in the fact that he never thinks about whether or not spectators are staring at his ass. John Daly, on the other hand, is particularly afflicted by this problem."

"Kobe Bryant is a dominant scorer in the NBA year in and year out for one reason: defenders refuse to guard him close due to his cripplingly bad breath."

Is this a good idea? It's a good idea, right? No? Well screw it, we're trying it this week anyways. I guess I'll find out when I wake up and check the comments in the morning. Come on, people. It's Friday. Nothing says "the weekend's almost here" like imitating Gregg Easterbrook.

(And of course, keep in mind that future installments of the feature will be much shorter because I won't have to laboriously explain my stupid thought process or anything.)