And I Can Make a Free Throw at 4:30 AM- So What?

Watching the NFL's RedZone channel, which is so worth the $50 it cost me for the season. So worth it. It's highly recommended. Anyways, at one point they cut to the Cardinals/Lions game, where the announcers had this to say about Daunte Culpepper:

I mean, the Cardinals have been saying all week that Culpepper is a guy who can make every throw. I mean, he can wake up at 3 AM and throw a spiral.

The fuck does that mean? Is it a figure of speech anyone uses to describe a talented QB? ("Talented" being used loosely in the case of Culpepper, of course.) I sure hope not.

WMTMQR: Somehow, Gregg Actually Understands Less about NCAA Football than NFL Football

And that's really saying something. Hooooooooooooooo BOY. This one is a DOOZY.

Charlie Weis and Bobby Bowden had to go -- Notre Dame and Florida State weren't winning every game! Get rid of the bums! All we heard from sports commentators, and from alums and boosters, was get rid of the bums, we gotta win, win, win.

Well yeah. When you have plenty of talent, as FSU and ND did, winning is certainly expected. Both teams went 6-6 this year. Notre Dame lost its last four games, and had embarrassing close call wins over a few bad teams. Florida State opened 2-4, and eked out wins over a couple terrible teams.

Sorry to interject,

You're not. You're writing this column.

but why? Why does Notre Dame or Florida State or any university need to win every game?

They don't need to win every game. They need to win more than 6 of their games. They need to beat Navy, UConn, and South Florida. They need to not almost lose to Maryland, NC State, and Purdue. It's not asking too much of teams that consistently have top 20 recruiting classes to do so.

Is it now official that big colleges care more about sports than education?

No. It might appear that way if your only analysis of big colleges came from a sports website. But to suggest that the firings of 105 year old Bobby Bowden and can't-coach-his-way-out-of-a-wet-paper-bag Charlie Weis are a result of that made up phenomenon would be dumb.

Don't get me wrong. I attend way too many college football games, and I always like it when the school I'm rooting for wins. But I am not so misguided as to think that a college's winning games means more than a college's educating students, including athletes.

Let's start by getting a good chuckle at the straw man TMQ has built here. Let's build up to a mild laugh by considering his assertion that schools can't care more about educating their students than winning games, and still want to win a lot of games. And then let's just go ahead and let all our inhibitions go, laughing at the idea that firing a bad coach means a school cares more about winning games than educating its students.

Maybe the sports artificial universe won't face the uncomfortable reality that the NCAA system uses football and men's basketball players to generate revenue and great games -- then tosses way too many of these players aside uneducated.

That's very true. That's a real problem; something worth writing about. Unlike, say, complaining about schools which fire their coaches are somehow betraying their students by doing so.

Perhaps you're thinking, first, football players at big colleges are not being taken advantage of because they are being prepped for the NFL; and second, academics-oriented "smart schools" don't do well in sports, so if a college wants to win, standards must be low.

No one with a brain is thinking either of those things. No one. In fact, Notre Dame is specifically not thinking the second one. They want something which is very difficult to obtain- winning a lot, while staying academics-oriented. It's going to be hard to get that, especially in the current era of college football. But should they be criticized for trying? Fuuuuuuuuuuck no. As for FSU, it's a little less serious about its academic standards. But whatever, you can tell TMQ is mostly attacking ND here.

This generated a recruiting disadvantage -- and a recruiting disadvantage caused by high standards, not Weis suddenly forgetting how to coach, is the reason for the recent records of Notre Dame football. Notre Dame alums and boosters should have been proud that high standards keep the school from going 12-0!

OK. Everyone take note of this claim- that ND's recent lack of success is not due to Charlie Weis's lack of coaching ability, but their recruiting disadvantage (which is only a disadvantage against big football schools like Texas, USC, Florida, etc.; ND still has a huge recruiting advantage over 95% of the rest of the FBS). Now, take a deep breath. And read this:

What about the other commonly heard claim -- that "smart schools" can't win in football and men's basketball? Cal, Georgia Tech, Navy, Nebraska, Northwestern, Stanford and TCU -- all academics-first colleges where football players are more likely to attend class -- are on their way to bowl games. Most of them have been in the top 20 nationally this season, and Georgia Tech and TCU even made BCS bowls.

HOLY SHIT. YOU ARE FUCKING STUPID. YOU ARE THE STUPIDEST PERSON ALIVE. NO ONE ON EARTH, NOT EVEN RICKY DAVIS OR JEREMY SHOCKEY, IS STUPIDER THAN YOU. YES, TCU AND GATECH MADE BCS BOWLS. GREAT POINT. YOU THINK NOTRE DAME, ESPECIALLY WITH THE RECRUITING ADVANTAGE THEY HAVE OVER BOTH THOSE SCHOOLS (or at least TCU), MIGHT BE CAPABLE OF DOING THE SAME THING? YOU KNOW, MAYBE IF THEY HAD A COMPETENT HEAD COACH? YOU FUCKING DUNCE. NOTRE DAME WENT 6-6 THIS YEAR BECAUSE THEY HAD A BAD HEAD COACH. IF THEY HAD A GOOD HEAD COACH, THEY MIGHT HAVE GONE TO A BCS BOWL. LIKE TCU AND GEORGIA TECH, TWO OTHER SCHOOLS WITH HIGH ACADEMIC STANDARDS. HOLY SHIT, AGAIN. DOUBLE HOLY SHIT. DO YOU EVEN BOTHER TO READ WHAT YOU WRITE AFTER YOU WRITE IT?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Notre Dame would be headed for a bowl game too, if it weren't for athletic director Jack Swarbrick's bizarre notion that winning "only" six games is something to be embarrassed about.

Notre Dame would be heading to a bowl game, barely, if its own players hadn't voted to not attend one. And yeah, when you have arguably the best QB, two of the ten best WRs, one of the best TEs, an experienced OL filled with heralded recruits, a defense which returned six starters from 2008 and is also filled with heralded recruits, and a fairly soft schedule, winning six games is something to be embarrassed about. At least in an athletic context.

Smart schools dominate the Directors' Cup standings of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. For Division I sports, Stanford has won the Cup 14 times;

No one is arguing that it's hard to get athletes who play volleyball, water polo, cross country, tennis, field hockey, etc., and also want to go to class and get a good degree. No one.

A college can field winning football teams and still have strict academic standards for players;

YES. YES MOTHERFUCKING YES. YOU HORSE'S ASS. THAT'S WHY NOTRE DAME IS FIRING CHARLIE WEIS.

Why does the sports universe shy away from discussing these core points?

Because, right or wrong, the sports universe (and media) only really cares about sports on the field. The NCAA is a terrible organization; many schools exploit their athletes, no question; college sports has a large number of problems which should be addressed immediately before they spin even further out of control. Bringing these issues to the attention of the sports universe is an important pursuit. But it's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

We're supposed to believe that every year for 75 years, the best player in college has been a quarterback or running back -- that a lineman has never been the best player?

This is from a section complaining about the Heisman. And while his general point is correct, even casual NCAAF fans know that Charles Woodson won the award primarily as a CB and KR. (Note: this is something that even casual fans know, or would say "Hey, yeah, that's right!" if they didn't know offhand but were reminded of. Unlike which bowl Notre Dame attended in 1993. Dan-Bob, looking at you.)

And speaking of TV ratings records, what if 18-0 Indianapolis meets 18-0 New Orleans in the Super Bowl? A few people would watch. Tuesday Morning Quarterback continues to think both teams are better off losing a regular-season game -- getting the monkey off their backs, while renewing their competitive drive. A Colts loss could give the starters something to play for down the stretch -- otherwise it'll be a month before the next Indianapolis game that means anything to the Colts.

They have homefield advantage locked up for the AFC playoffs. How does a loss "give them something to play for?" It certainly gives them nothing tangible to play for, which would be the case if they hadn't clinched yet. And I think that they have a lot more to play for at 15-0 trying to go 16-0 than they would at 14-1 trying to go 15-1.

For the final Indianapolis touchdown, also from in close, the Colts had linebackers Glenn and Gary Brackett in as extra blockers. The result was a play-fake, and again no one covered Clark on a simple down-and-out.

When a talented, quick, tough-to-cover player like DeSean Jackson or Dallas Clark gets open, it doesn't mean no one tried to cover them. It means they got open. Which is what happened on this play. But don't tell Gregg that- he's busy trying to establish that everyone in the league (or THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, for all you Dilfer/Jaworski enthusiasts out there) except guys who were undrafted out of D-III schools are too dumb to play.

The CBS announcers gushed about the tackles made by San Diego linebacker Brandon Siler, a well-known player who went to Florida, a glamour college.

They did. Because on San Diego's goal line stand against Dallas, he made some great tackles right at the goal line.

The key to the three stops was that undrafted defensive tackle Jacques Cesaire of Southern Connecticut State perfectly "submarined" the Dallas offensive line, driving underneath to knock down blockers so the linebackers could move in.

That was one of the keys. The other key was the tackling of guys like Siler. It's not that hard to understand.

As for Dallas -- the same play was called four consecutive times.

No. It was not. There were four runs called for Marion Barber, but all four were different plays. All had some kind of misdirection (which Gregg has been claiming for weeks is the key to picking up 3rd and shorts or 4th and shorts), including the 4th and goal play where Barber lined up at fullback and was given a quick handoff as Tony Romo faked a pitch to the guy lined up at halfback. Why do I know so much about this sequence of plays? Because that useless piece of shit Barber is on my fantasy team, and hasn't done shit in about seven weeks. AND I'M UPSET ABOUT IT.

On the San Francisco side, the Squared Sevens tried an interesting defensive trick -- barely rushing the passer.

They also rushed the passer pretty intensely on several downs, bringing five or six guys. But blitzing is always bad (except when it works, and then Gregg doesn't write about it), so Gregg didn't write about it.

many of the NFL's officials, who unlike MLB and NBA officials are not full-time, haven't memorized the rulebook.

They may interpret the rulebook oddly at times, but on the whole they're miles ahead of MLB and NBA officials in terms of quality. The favoritism shown by both those groups to star players is flat out embarrassing at times. Oh yeah, and isn't there some kind of gambling problem swirling around the NBA officials these days? I feel like I've heard something about that.

Shameless Self-Promotion: My next book, "Sonic Boom," about the pluses and minuses of the evolving global economy, is in stores on Dec. 29.

Buy it any of your friends who happen to be both braindead and huge elitists.

Robert Goetz of Bend, Ore., notes Major League Baseball's annual winter meetings ended on Dec. 10 -- 11 days before the solstice that marks the beginning of winter in the northern hemisphere.

CREEP! SUCH CREEP! They should be called the late fall meetings! That's so much more accurate, we should totally change it. Actually- better yet- let's call them the Christmas meetings.

Football snobs may look down their noses at the Wildcat -- it's not "real" offense like constant passing!

No one looks down their nose at the Wildcat. No one. No one on TV, no one on local sports radio, no one in the blogosphere, no one I've talked football with in the last year. No one. It seems Gregg's stupidity is in part fueled by his vivid imagination.

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk: Trailing Baltimore 10-0, and coming into the contest on a 2-26 stretch, Detroit faced fourth-and-goal on the Ravens' 3. Detroit coach Jim Schwartz sent in the field goal unit, and TMQ wrote the words "game over" in his notebook -- even though it was the second quarter.

Ah, interesting. Trailing San Diego 10-3 late in the second quarter, Dallas went for it on 4th and goal from the 1. As described above, they failed (BECAUSE OF A GUY FROM SOUTHEAST RHODE ISLAND STATE! ONLY BECAUSE OF THAT ONE GUY! NOT BECAUSE OF ANYONE ELSE ON THE DEFENSE!), and went on to lose by 3. Hmmmmmm. Innnnnnteresting.

Trailing 19-0 in the third quarter, City of Tampa punted from the Jersey/B 42. Still trailing 19-0 in the third quarter, City of Tampa kicked a field goal on fourth-and-5 from the Jersey/B 25. The Bucs went on to lose 26-3 -- but kept a shutout off the résumé of Raheem Morris.

It's back! Yes! He must've noticed I complained about this a couple weeks ago! The accusation that coaches kick field goals when they're being shut out stictly to "keep shutouts off their resume"- as if anyone cares how many times their team has been shut out vs. how many times they've been held to three points- is back! Finally! I may be wrong but I don't think he's used it this season until now.

I derided LaRon Landry for wearing a wristwatch on the field -- the zebras should make him take it off, and how can the Redskins' countless assistant coaches not have noticed that he wears a watch on the field? John Martin of Dallas reports that the Redskins' many assistant coaches not only know Landry wears a watch, they encourage this. Supposedly the watch reminds him that "it's time to shine." After the New Orleans game, he should wear a wristband that says in bright letters, "It's time to cover the deep man."

No sarcasm- probably the best line I've ever seen from Gregg. Just wanted to give some credit where credit is due.

There can be fantastically well-played, hard-hitting football games in which no harm occurs to any player. Boxing is about causing harm. The sport is barbaric, and the sooner it's banned the better.

Hooray for paternalism! Also to be banned when Gregg takes over as Supreme Commander- rugby, cigarettes, alcohol, fast food, staying up late, and watching TV.

The Lakers (a Division II NCAA football team, not the NBA team) exchanged a roughly 50 percent chance of a touchdown (at the fourth-and-2 point) for a roughly 10 percent chance of recovering an expected onside kick. Football coaches at all levels typically make the wrong decision in this situation, kicking from point-blank range and then facing a length-of-the-field problem at the end. TMQ thinks coaches do this -- even in championship games! -- because they are more concerned about being able to say the final score was close than going all-out to win.

Right. Coaches in championship games, with their legacies and pride on the line, not to mention potential contract extensions or more lucrative jobs, are more concerned with the potential margin of defeat than winning. Winning a championship game. Welcome to the mind of TMQ. It's like smoking peyote while eating asbestos.

Brian Kelly Aside - Is this Laziness or Stupidity?

ESPN.com's front page article about the biggest move in sports today:

With Kelly coming off a 12-win season, it bears mentioning that the last time Notre Dame won 11 games in a season was in 1993 when it went 11-1 and won the Independence Bowl.

Say what you want about the hire (blah), it bears mentioning that Notre Dame won the Cotton Bowl in 1993.

I think it's just laziness.

TMTMQR: Same Shit, Different Week

He's really getting lazy. Same outrageous claims, time after time after time. How many of the complaints I make in response could pretty much have been copied and pasted from previous TMQRs? In fact, for all you know, I did copy and paste them. Because I'm that calculating.

New Orleans' players are saying they are psyched to go for 16-0; coach Sean Payton seems psyched, too. But would you really want to enter the Super Bowl at 18-0? Only one team ever did, and the weight of those undefeated expectations helped defeat the Patriots.

Classic TMQ. Quick, focus as much as possible on the intangibles! Fuck the performance of the players- let's dial in on purely conceptual things which can't be disproved! I'm not saying the pressure of going undefeated didn't play ANY factor in the game. I am saying it probably played almost no factor. But again, this is Easterbrook we're talking about here. He's fairly certain that the outcomes of many games are determined by football deities.

Tony Romo and Miles Austin -- who jetted to Las Vegas for a midnight party after their Thanksgiving Day game rather than keep their minds on football -- had good numbers Sunday, but compiled some of them in garbage time after the game was pretty much lost. When the game was still close, Romo badly missed on an easy throw for six points to Roy Williams, whose man had fallen down; when the game was still close, Austin was chased down in the flat and stopped short of a critical first down by backup defensive end Dave Tollefson. Star wide receivers are not supposed to be caught from behind by backup defensive ends! Austin seems to be such an appealing story, undrafted out of Monmouth University -- if he keeps hanging with Romo on the party scene, how long will it be until he is yet another underachieving Cowboys malcontent?

Even when Gregg's undrafted heroes from no-name universities fail, he's got a clever way to pin the blame on something other than their credentials. He's smart like that. Also I like the chain of logic that goes Miles Austin got tackled by a DE this one time (I'm guessing it was on a bubble screen covered by a zone blitz or something) => therefore, this was caused by the fact that Austin went to a party 8 days earlier.

PS- NO ONE WHO PLAYS FOR THE COLTS OR SAINTS HAS PARTIED AT ANY TIME DURING THIS SEASON!

In Christmas-is-coming news, man of the worldly mind, do you believe in the Crabtree Curse?

No. And neither should anyone with a brain.

As snow begins to fall, TMQ's immutable law, Cold Coach = Victory, comes into play.

The actual law, in full, reads: "If the team with the less warmly dressed coach wins, then cold coach = victory. If the team with the less warmly dressed coach loses, do not mention in column."

The previous Seattle drive had ended when mega-bucks, underachieving wide receiver Deion Branch dropped a perfect pass in field-goal range. Now Branch was out, and the unknown Deon Butler -- who had seven career receptions entering the game -- was in. And what did we see? A deep pass to Butler! TMQ loves the ploy of sending in a guy who rarely plays, then giving him the ball in a pressure situation.

Good for the Seahawks for making it work here. In general, that's a horrible way to call plays in crunch time. The difference between Deion Branch and Deon Butler probably isn't very big, because Branch is aging and overrated. But the difference between, for example, Hines Ward or Santonio Holmes and Pittsburgh's 5th WR, Shitty McNoHands, is probably really large. The Steelers are going to go to Ward and Holmes when the game is on the line. As they should. As should every other team with c#1 and #2 receivers who are clearly better than everyone else on the team. (Actual reason the tactic succeeded in this game- Seattle was playing the 49ers! Hello Crabtree Curse!)

With the Saints having the ball at midfield with one minute to go, you know they're going to throw deep. There is no mystery. Robert Meachem ran a deep route -- that's what they would do, every ankle-biter-league player knew this! Yet the Redskins acted surprised. Megabucks Washington cornerback Fred Smoot let Meachem run right past him -- Smoot basically covered no one at all on the play.

That's called zone coverage, Gregg. I'm sure Wikipedia has a very informative page on it which might be able to help you better understand its intricacies.

Megabucks Washington safety LaRon Landry bit badly on a Drew Brees pump-fake to the flat, then let Meachem run right past him.

Well, Landry sucks. But pinning that play on Smoot is ridiculous.

TMQ suggests this sign should hang in every football locker room:

PLAYING THROUGH PAIN MEANS YOU'RE TOUGH
PLAYING WITH A CONCUSSION MEANS YOU'RE STUPID
BE SMART -- IF YOU HAVE CONCUSSION SYMPTOMS, SAY SO

Really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Ad agencies of America- HIRE THIS MAN!

Yes, Baltimore has injuries, but in the NFL every team has injuries -- you don't hear the Indianapolis Colts cryin' about injuries.

Yeah! Nevermind that every team's injury situation varies, and that a team missing several important starters has a little more to complain about than a team which is only missing one or two! I'm not aware of the disparity between these two teams- I know Bob Sanders is hurt again, but I also know that Ed Reed didn't play on Monday night against the Packers, that Terrell Suggs has been hurt ever since Brady Quinn hit him dirty and low (innuendo intended), and that the Ravens have had OL problems all year. My sense is that the Ravens do have significant injury problems while the Colts do not. In any case, saying "Don't complain about your injuries- EVERYONE has injuries!" to any team with a disproportionate number of them is like telling the GM of the Florida Marlins "Don't complain to me about payroll restrictions- EVERYONE has payroll restrictions!" Yes, it's technically true. No, it does not have analytical value of any kind. It's something a coach should say to an injury-ravaged team behind closed doors. Not something that should be written in a column written by a guy who presents himself as a smart, deep thinking fan. Speaking of shit that shouldn't be in this column-

Your Christmas List: My next book, "Sonic Boom," will be published the week after Christmas. It has nothing to do with sports or space aliens -- it's a nonfiction work about the good and bad of global economic trends. I have my fingers crossed, because the pre-publication notices so far are very good. Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, said "Sonic Boom" is "the business book you must read," while Gary Becker of the University of Chicago, a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, has said, "I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants deep insights into the future."

Listen, you fucking hack, I come here to read your football-related mindfarts and make fun of you. You're not Bill Simmons, or at least shouldn't be. Pimp your stupid book somewhere else.

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk: Washington leading undefeated New Orleans 27-20 in the fourth quarter, the Redskins faced fourth-and-1 on the Saints' 3. Touchdown! You need a touchdown! A 10-point lead is not safe against football's highest-scoring team.

Going for it there would be the dumbest thing Jim Zorn has done all year. Which, of course, is really saying something. I don't care if you're playing the 2007 Patriots, a two score lead in the 4th quarter is always very desirable. The difference between 10 and 14 points there is not nearly as big as the difference between 7 and 14 points. It's not like a TD in that situation ices away the game or something. But a turnover on downs is crippling.

Christmas 2010 Creep: Mike Kowalski of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., writes, "Went to Disneyland on November 24, in search of, among other things, Disney-themed Christmas ornaments for 2009. Alas, none could be found. But there were plenty of Christmas ornaments with the date 2010."

Probably intended to be given as gifts during Christmas 2009. Creep alert! I'd like to point out an interesting trend of reverse creep- I used to write TMQR posts no later than Wednesday night. Recently I've done them as late as the following Monday night. This proves that Gregg is wrong about everything, ever.

It seems unlikely the Falcons will record their first back-to-back winning seasons. On Sunday, Atlanta had linebacker Curtis Lofton covering Philadelphia speed receiver Jeremy Maclin deep, and you can imagine how well that worked out.

NEVER BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL HAS A SUCCESSFUL TEAM CALLED A DEFENSIVE PACKAGE WHICH RESULTED IN A LINEBACKER COVERING A WIDE RECEIVER. STOP THE PRESSES AND DISBAND THE FALCONS FRANCHISE.

Minnesota boasts about its defensive line, but against Arizona, the front four were getting little pressure on Kurt Warner, so defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier started calling blitzes. The result: Touchdown passes to Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald against the blitz, with safeties nowhere to be seen.

The unsurprisingly omitted story from this game: the Cardinals consistently blitzed throughout the game, on every down, with many different looks. And Favre responded with a terrible game and 2 INTs. (He was just having fun out there! Just throwing the ball around! Didn't even know what the score was!) So, like with the Cold Coach = Victory thing, we need to write out the full version of Gregg's anti-blitz catchphrase thing. "Stop me before I blitz again, unless it works, in which case don't mention it in the column!"

Halfway through his first season as Notre Dame coach, Charlie Weis had a 5-2 record and immediately was offered a 10-year contract extension containing guaranteed payments that the school and its athletic donors now regret. Less than halfway through the 2008 NFL season, Dick "Cheerio, Chaps" Jauron had a 5-1 record and immediately was offered a three-year contract extension containing guaranteed payments that Bills owner Ralph Wilson now regrets. What's going on here? Why grant coaches extensions when they are already under contract, only to fire them later and be stuck with paying off the rest of the deal?

What's going on is that the general manager or athletic director, by offering an extension when the team is winning, essentially says to the world, "I am a genius for picking this guy." Later, when the same coach becomes a flop, the same front office spins things as, "We gave him everything he wanted and he still failed -- this guy is a failure." The extensions are all about the athletic director's, or general manager's, ego.

You're a fucking idiot. There's no way anyone who comes up with this ridiculous explanation for the described phenomenon could ever write a coherent book about economics. But hey, he got positive quotes about it from not one but TWO different people! BUY BUY BUY BUY! And just to spite Gregg, buy it with the intent of giving it to someone for Christmas 2010. Now that's Christmas creep.

What?

Bud Selig has failed at many things during his time as commissioner of MLB. (His response to steroids being the most obvious example; I'm also not happy with his handling of parity-related issues.) He has also succeeded at many things, but the article I'm about to highlight is supposedly about his failures so I just wanted to establish up front that I'm not a Selig apologist. I'm generally on board with this guy's premise. However: what?

The thought of major league baseball without Bud Selig as commissioner? I'm absolutely giddy.

Sure. I wouldn't say I'm giddy, but I do think it's time for a change.

Replacing Selig is the only way that major league baseball can really get their house in order.

OK... fine. I think it's hyperbolic to say that MLB's "house" is "out of order," or whatever, but fine.

Yes, Selig has done a number of positive things during his reign; having said that, he's missed the boat on other opportunities.

Hear hear! Such as...

Perhaps a new commissioner will embrace the concept of two 15-team leagues, and schedule one interleague game every day, rather than 2 dedicated interleague periods, leaving a lone NL game on the schedule.

What?

Maybe he'll recongize the necessity to go back to the balanced schedule, if for no other reason than to help the have-nots in the AL East have a fighting chance.

What?

The travesty of the whole "contraction" issue - a total red herring - and the "this time it counts" nonsense surrounding the All- Star Game are just two of the strikes against Selig.

Two of the least significant ones. People need to shut the fuck up about the All Star Game. Immediately.

Avoiding a work stoppage for 15-plus years is a genuine accomplishment.

What? Weren't we just talking about...

(pause)

What?

"Missed the boat" on the "opportunity" to fuck around with scheduling? Is this clown seriously bothered by the idea that two NL teams have to play each other during weeks when everyone else is involved in interleague? Is anyone out there- anyone at all- clamoring for fewer intradivisional games?

You know what, fuck it. Let's just keep Selig. I'd hate to have him replaced by a guy who has the same shortcomings, but also thinks it's a great idea to have at least one interleague series happening at all times.

Bill Simmons - Fibber

Bill Simmons is currently in a bit of a tiff with Sports by Brooks over whether he stole an SBNation Blogger's idea about how Chris Johnson needed a better name in order to become an iconic player. The answer: it doesn't matter; KSK beat them both to the punch by a couple days.

What I (and perhaps the rest of the sports blogging world should) take umbrage with is this tweet from Simmons on the matter:

I don't read sports blogs. Sorry. Swear on my daughter's life - not true. RT @utep4321 SBB reporting your a thief! http://bit.ly/5MsX7o

This is a rather bold claim, coming from Simmons, who a few months ago had this to tweet:

"AJ, the emails are coming from inside the house. GET OUT, NOW!" is my single favorite sports message board comment ever.

However, that's not actually a "sports message board" comment, that's a comment on this Deadspin post. So, in fact, Bill Simmons does read sports blogs because Deadspin is most certainly sports blog. I don't think Bill Simmons is ripping off bloggers ideas (or at least any of the good ones, ZING), and maybe his ESPN overlords don't want him acknowledging Deadspin, but still...c'mon, Bill.

Hey want to see an example of terrible logic? Reader participation Friday edition!

This will be brief. In Jeff Pearlman's article about Hofstra canceling their football program because they can't afford it anymore (an event Pearlman associates not with Hofstra's football program's failure to be profitable but rather with what he perceives to be their shifting of priority from sports to academics) he closes with this fucking gem:

At Notre Dame last week, Jack Swarbrick, the overwhelmed athletic director, said in a statement that, "We have great expectations for our football program, and we have not been able to meet those expectations." Hence, he was firing his coach.

At Hofstra yesterday, Rabinowitz said in a statement that, "If we are to continue our momentum and strive to become one of the nation's best institutions of higher education, standing for excellence in every way, we must invest in academics and programs in which we can compete at the highest level." Hence, he was ending his program.

Now ask yourself this: Which school would you pick?

Reader participation alert! Best snarky answer wins a hallmark e-card from me!

This is one of the worst articles I've ever read

Christine Brennan is her name

We've learned an awful lot about Tiger Woods in the past six days, perhaps much more than we ever really wanted to know.

We've learned, for instance, that the image Tiger has so carefully presented to us on his website, that of the ultimate family man with those beautiful photos of his wife and two children, is a charade. We know this because he has now admitted that he has cheated on his wife and those young children.

Fine.

We also know that Tiger is furious that the world now knows what he had hoped to keep secret. We can tell that from the carefully crafted statement he put on his website Wednesday morning.

No. We don't fucking know that. Not from his "carefully crafted statement" we don't. We know from that statement that Tiger's upset that his privacy has been violated w/r/t to he and his wife's domestic disturbance--one that at the end of the day really isn't any of our business. He has said nothing about that he is upset that his infidelity has been leaked to the public.

You can infer that if you want, but we certainly don't "know" it. Jesus fuck.

In it, Woods starts off with a paragraph talking about his "personal failings," saying he let his family down and that he regrets "those transgressions with all of my heart."

Coming from one of the world's most intensely private public men, a guy who almost never lets anyone know what he's truly feeling, those words are quite remarkable — and totally necessary, of course, considering he's trapped in the midst of a scandal of his own making.

Then, however, Tiger spends the next two paragraphs basically attacking everyone and anyone who he somehow thinks is responsible for his do-it-yourself fall from grace — everyone except the one truly guilty party, which would be Tiger himself. He lambastes the tabloids and news media for having the audacity to invade his privacy, as if to say, How dare you do this to me?

No. That is not what happened in Woods's statement. This article is accusing him of attacking "everyone and anyone who he somehow thinks is responsible for his fall from grace" and "blaming them for his misfortune." Here is who Tiger Woods attacks: The paparazzi and celebrity journalism circles. Here is what he attacks them for: Invading his home life with relentless "scoop please!" conjecture involving a private incident between him and his wife.

Christine Brennan wants to take Tiger to task for refusing to accept responsibility for his actions. Read his "apology". That's not what he's doing at all. You can take issue for him using the platform of his apology to shift focus away from his indiscretion. You can take issue with his refusal to pay the price of the vast wealth and prestige his fame allows by complaining about the celebrity scrutiny that accompanies it. But if you read that apology you will see the one thing he does not do is blame anyone but himself for his indiscretions.

He doesn't "attack everyone and anyone he thinks is to blame for his problems." He attacks a very specific aspect of celebrity culture. One most anyone with any sense of reason would recognize as at least partially problematic. Even if you are unable to resist trying to pry into the details of celebrities' personal life by reading things like TMZ and Perez Hilton or whatever the fuck, if you're a halfway worthwhile human being you recognize that there is something partially flawed about being obsessed with the private details of the life of the famous.

The question of whether Tiger is within his rights to complain about this set-in-its-way aspect of our culture is a worthwhile one. There are strong arguments to be made on either side. But that's not a question Christine Brennan wants to make. She's more interested in this sort of wastewater:

When you've been exhibited on national TV at the age of 2 and told by your beloved father that you're going to be the next Gandhi or Mandela, as the late Earl Woods said of his son, this is the way you think. If you're on top of your game, that can work wonders, creating an air of invincibility that can lead to 14 major golf titles before you turn 34.

What is the way you think? That just because you're famous, an early morning accident shouldn't explode in a frenzy of conjecture, rumors, hearsay, and scandal? And this is somehow because of how his father raised him?

What an odd axe this writer has to grind.

But today, with Tiger at the nadir of his life, it makes him sound like a man who is more sorry about being caught than he is about cheating on his wife.

Gee, you think? This is different from every celebrity scandal how?

Let's hope that isn't true, but make no mistake, the word choices that were made in that statement provide a revealing window into the way this man thinks.

Sure they will, so long as you distort their meaning and invest your own significance into a mildly innocuous invective against a parasitic tabloid industry. But go ahead, Brennan. Show us what words exactly are so revealing. I'm excited to see how you show us the actual words in his statement in order to show us what's so disturbing about the way Tiger thinks*

*spoiler alert: She's not going to do this

My, what we've come to find out about Tiger Woods since we sat down to Thanksgiving dinner just a week ago.

We've learned that his brilliance on the golf course is exceeded only by his recklessness off it. Reasonable people might have wanted to avoid the tabloid and Internet speculation about Woods the past few days, but there was no ignoring the tape of his damning voice-mail message when it played on the news Wednesday morning. That was Tiger's voice, all right, and he was busted.

"Tiger's brilliance on the golf course is exceeded only by his recklessness off it."

Are you fucking motherfucking kidding me? I'm not going to even dignify this with a response. A guy has one infidelity scandal and all of a sudden he's playing bongos in strangers' houses with Matthew MacConaughey

I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore. This article disgusts me. I'm tired and I'm fucking fed up with this situation and the fucking people soapboxing as if infidelity--a terrible thing to be sure--is the most horrible thing in the world.

This Tiger Woods incident is a great episode because it shows us many important things about ourselves, our culture, and our heroes. It is an opportunity for great debate and discourse over the fallibility of those who seem most infallible. About what we as a public can, should, and will expect for our celebrities. About the potential perils, tenuous ethics, and value of celebrity journalism, tabloids and paparazzi.

I am no Tiger Woods apologist and I don't think he's necessarily entitled to any semblance of privacy. Really I don't. And I think his statement shows a certain measure of misdirected frustration since a man in his position should damn well know better than to expect any semblance of privacy or freedom from an intrusive press.

I think there's a plethora of things of value to say about this situation. That it's a complex, layered issue that resists easy classification and seems to demand intelligent discourse and thought.

Instead we get this:

We've learned that Tiger and his management team, the sports world's ultimate control freaks the past dozen years, have turned into stumbling, bumbling amateurs when trying to stare down the scary tabloids. That said, Tiger's endorsements are not believed to be in any jeopardy at the moment; he is likely to keep most if not all of his sponsors, Madison Avenue never having been known for having much of a moral compass.

What's more, everyone loves a tale of redemption, which is exactly how 2010 will be branded by Team Tiger. His return to the golf course, whenever that will be, will create huge TV ratings. If some are turned off by Tiger's philandering, others will be drawn to him because of it.

We might never look at Tiger in the same way again, but we'll certainly still look at him.

We've also learned that for all of the hype about Tiger's love of the personally demanding game of golf, a sport in which the athletes call penalties on themselves, and for all of his praise of those in positions of authority — his Washington, D.C., tournament honors the military — he certainly didn't have much use for the Florida Highway Patrol, did he? Three times he snubbed them when they just wanted to do their job and talk to him about his bizarre car accident. As a role model, Tiger completely failed the kids who look up to him on this one.

We've learned much about Tiger in the past week, little of it good. We've learned he wants all of your attention when he's playing golf, or trying to sell you something, but then gets angry when you want to know any more about him. We've learned that in many ways, he's just another outrageously rich, self-centered jock.

The past six days definitely have been illuminating for millions of Tiger's fans.

Let's hope they've been eye-opening for him, too.

Ugh, Jeter

So apparently Jeter won the SI "Sportsman of the Year Award. It could be worse. I mean, he did have an excellent year playing baseball. But the worst part of it is the rationales given by SI Group Editor Terry McDonnell. Here are a few of the highlights:

"This verifies my idea that he is on the level of Ruth and Gehrig," McDonell said. "He's the greatest shortstop in the history of the game."

No, the greatest shortstop in the history of the game currently plays third base for the Yankees.

Jeter is not on the level of Ruth and Gehrig. He's just not. You can't just SAY that.

"He's so classy," McDonell said. "He brings a dignity and elegance to the game."

Ugh.

"It's about the manner of the striving and the quality of the effort, too," McDonell said. "Off the field he has grown so much as a member of the community."

If this award was really about the manner of the striving and the quality of the effort, they'd have to give it to Eckstein every year.

McDonell was impressed by Jeter's leadership, how he "stepped in and molded a team" this spring with the arrival of three expensive free agents, and Alex Rodriguez's admission to using steroids from 2001-03 and then having hip surgery that kept him out until May.

Jeter molded the team! Why didn't he mold any of the 2002-2008 Yankees into World Series Champs?

I like how A-Rod's hip surgery somehow becomes a reason for Jeter winning an award.

No.

Let the Weis-bashing commence! But my goodness, please, if you say anything like this in the process, you will, and I do mean will, sound like an inconceivable jackass. You know, kind of like David Haugh.

Notre Dame lost Charlie Weis's final game to Stanford, for those who haven't seen. Stanford was driving with little time left in a tie game, 38-38. They were down at ND's 4 yard line with just over a minute to play. First and goal.

The first came with 1 minute, 3 seconds left and the game tied 38-38 with Stanford at the Notre Dame 4. During a timeout, Weis told his players to let the Cardinal score to get the ball back with enough time to drive. On the next play, Toby Gerhart walked in untouched as one Irish defender didn't even move his hands off his knees.

Even if the call could be defended strategically, any time a coach of a bunch of 18- to 22-year-olds tells his team to lie down -- to quit -- it offends the sportsman in all of us. Weis first quit on his players last Sunday when he publicly acknowledged athletic director Jack Swarbrick had reason to fire him and again Saturday night with the game on the line.

What happened to the fight in Fighting Irish?

I'm near speechless, but I'm sure I can work up a tirade for this.

Stanford could have downed the ball three times and kicked a last-second field goal to win the game. Instead, they offer a GIFT, and try to score 7 points, which would give ND's offense a chance to retaliate in the final minute. And you are criticizing Charlie Weis for not vomiting the gift back in Stanford's face for some misconstrued sense of horseshit pride and "the sportsman in all of us". You literally just said that Weis told his players to "quit" in TAKING THE ONLY FUCKING CONCEIVABLE CHANCE THAT ND HAD TO WIN THE GAME.

I love this qualifier: Even if the call could be defended strategically

You are a football coach. As long as you are following the rules, that is THE ONLY THING THAT FUCKING MATTERS.

In reality, the only real mistake was that Weis didn't "quit" one play earlier. Why tackle them on the 4 yard line? That costed a timeout and about 10 seconds (because for whatever reason, Weis wasn't feeling the need to call timeouts as fast as possible yesterday).

I am not a Weis supporter. But as for writing crap like this in one of the nation's major newspapers: It is ignorant, it is lazy, it is stupid. Get a new job, you suck at yours.