The Donovan McNabb Saga

29 03 2010

The relationship between Donovan McNabb and Philadelphia Eagles fans has always been an intriguing one. Which is to say that unless you are a Philadelphia Eagles fan, you’re not likely to ever fully understand it. Ever since Day One, I have witnessed what has perhaps become the most tumultuous relationship that a hugely popular “franchise player” has ever had with his franchise and his fan-base. From the day he was taken by the Eagles with the second overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft, up until the day he will inevitably be traded to the Raiders or the Vikings or the Bills, the plight of Donovan McNabb will likely remain an enigma to most.

When the Eagles drafted Donovan McNabb out of Syracuse in the 1999 NFL Draft, he was booed heavily. The first thing Donovan McNabb heard when he stood next to Paul Tagliabue and held up a Philadelphia Eagles jersey for the first time, was a barrage of boo’s from the Philly faithful. How nice of them to welcome him so warmly. Although the Eagles were mired in a period in which they went through numerous second-rate starting quarterbacks, including but not limited to the likes of Bobby Hoying and Ty Detmer, Eagles fans still believed that drafting Ricky Williams was the direction that the franchise needed to take. In hindsight, was taking McNabb over Williams the right choice? Yes, of course it was. However, this doesn’t change the way most Philly fans feel about their franchise quarterback. Needless to say, the 1999 NFL Draft would be a harbinger of things to come over the next decade.

If nothing else, Donovan McNabb is certainly a polarizing figure in Philadelphia. Over the last 10 years, he has alternated between hero, villain and complete enigma more times than John Locke in the last 6 seasons of LOST and sometimes those transformations can take place over the course of a few weeks, a few days or even one quarter of a game. For someone who is been the star player and undisputable leader of a winning football team over the course of an entire decade, he has to lead the league for the most times his team has threatened to cut him, trade him or bench him.

It’s no surprise that he and Head Coach Andy Reid have clashed over the years, and while we can watch countless puff pieces on FOX pregame shows that portray the two as being best buddies, we all know the truth: Andy Reid doesn’t trust Donovan McNabb. Benching him in the second half of a regular-season game against Baltimore a few seasons ago was a heavily criticized move at the time, but it served to light a fire under McNabb, as he eventually led the Eagles to the NFC Championship later that season where they would lose to the Arizona Cardinals.

Which brings me to my next point: Donovan McNabb knows how to win. Now, here is where the gallery chimes in, in unison, with a resounding, “What has he won?” And the answer is: nothing substantial — yet. No, he hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet, but he’s been to one. Stats are stats, and this one clearly speaks for itself: since McNabb was drafted in 1999, he has led the Eagles to the playoffs 8 times. In that same time span, only one team (and one quarterback) has been to the playoffs more than McNabb and Philadelphia. That team? The Indianapolis Colts. Peyton Manning has one Super Bowl ring, and he’s made two appearances, but it took him 8 years to even make his first Super Bowl, while McNabb reached the big game in his 6th season. Am I comparing Donovan McNabb to Peyton Manning? No, all I’m saying is that over the last decade, not many quarterbacks have been as consistent as Donovan McNabb. His 9 wins in the playoffs are the third best among active quarterbacks behind only Tom Brady and Brett Favre.

Now I can throw stats around all day, but they don’t really do much. Almost every off-season for the last five or six years, Donovan McNabb’s name has been floated through the rumor mills and it’s almost become expected to hear writers and analysts wonder whether he’ll lose his starting job after a bad game in Week 5. With my brother being a diehard Eagles fan, and having watched McNabb and the Eagles almost every Sunday for as long as I can remember, this is something I’m typically used to.

Not to this degree though. This time, it seems like the Eagles organization is going out of their way to dangle McNabb out there in the open, leaving him available for any team that shows interest or makes an offer. This year, they’re opening themselves up to the possibility that no team makes a trade for McNabb and he returns to the field in September as the starting quarterback knowing that his entire organization doesn’t really want him to the be the starting quarterback. Is that any way to treat your franchise quarterback? Maybe it was the Eagles early exit from the playoffs this season, or maybe it’s McNabb’s frequent injuries that make the front office unsure if they can leave the team in his hands, but whatever it is, I’m sure there are better ways to go about this.

McNabb is still only 33 years old. He has played 11 seasons in the National Football League already and has suffered his fair share of bad injuries, but 33 isn’t that old, especially when it comes to the quarterback position. Peyton Manning turned 33 last month, and no one is going to argue that he’s even remotely close to being washed up. Both Kurt Warner and Brett Favre won playoff games last season at the ages of 38 and 40 respectively. In fact, Brett Favre came within one bad pass of playing in the Super Bowl.

Donovan McNabb still has a lot left in his tank as a quarterback in the NFL, whether or not he starts the 2010 season with the Philadelphia Eagles. If they ship him away for a draft pick in the next month, I will assure you that whatever team he does end up with will be competitive. Maybe not immediately, but he will have a noticeable impact, even if he ends up in Oakland. Yes, you read that right, I believe that Donovan McNabb can turn the Oakland Raiders into a playoff team.

As a Giants fan and someone who has been tortured by Donovan McNabb year in and year out, I’ll be honest and say that I won’t miss him if he leaves the NFC East. I would much rather face Kevin Kolb’s Eagles twice a year than Donovan McNabb’s Eagles (although in Kolb’s defense, we haven’t really seen much of him yet). Will the Giants-Eagles rivalry be a little different without No. 5? Of course it will, because even though I hate him twice a year, I look forward to Giants-Eagles games because of him, because I respect him just as much as I dislike him. And, if he can get the respect of a New York Giants fan, he certainly deserves the respect of his organization and his fans.


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I Got an F in Bracketology 101

23 03 2010

Anybody who claims that there is a “science” to filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket is an idiot. There is no “science.” There isn’t even an acceptable method. In all honesty, it’s a crap-shoot. I’m not just saying that because I’m in 9th place right now out of 10 people in one pool and 90th out of 112 people in another one. After all, I’m not a sore loser. I’m just saying this because after a day and a half of Round 1, there was not a single perfect bracket to be found on ESPN’s Bracket Challenge out of 4.8 million participants. ALMOST 5 MILLION PEOPLE, and not one of them could even come within two rounds of picking a perfect bracket. So that’s why I’m whining.

Despite all of this though, I would never claim that the tournament is not fun. In fact, even though I took enough losses in the first round alone to render my bracket nearly unsalvageable, I still enjoyed the hell out of it. I mean, we had a double overtime thriller between BYU and Florida, Old Dominion thwarting Notre Dame and a near-colossal upset in Robert Morris-Villanova unfold before the tournament was even 3 hours old. To top it off, Murray State upset Vanderbilt and Ohio shocked Georgetown, and all of that happened in the just the first day.

This year’s first weekend was one of the most exciting I can ever remember watching, even as I sat in front of my TV tearing my bracket into tiny pieces with my teeth. As the first four days of non-stop college basketball frenzy neared its end on Sunday night, the feverish pace of March Madness didn’t slow down. We were ushered into our brief 3-day respite by yet another buzzer beater as Michigan State and seasoned tourney veteran Tom Izzo returned to the Sweet 16 for the second straight year, and yet another overtime game won by an increasingly scrappy and tough Purdue team that continues to march on despite having lost star player Robbie Hummel for the remainder of the season.

Heading into the Regional Semifinals beginning on Thursday night, we are looking at a Sweet 16 that features a 9-seed (Northern Iowa), a 10-seed (St. Mary’s), an 11-seed (Washington) and a 12-seed (Cornell), but yet is missing its number one overall seed (Kansas) for the first time since 2004. So where are they? Right about now, I’d imagine they’re in the same place I was a year ago at this time: sitting in a classroom.

Northern Iowa’s monumental upset of Kansas on Saturday night was the kind of game that you watch the tournament hoping to see; unless you’re one of the millions of people who picked Kansas to win the whole thing, much like myself. But even then, when the clock starts to wind down and you realize that the big, bad, mighty number one seed isn’t making that run they’re supposed to make, a part of everyone starts to get a little excited. If watching a major upset doesn’t get you excited, then you either don’t have a pulse or you just don’t care about sports. The bottom line is, people LOVE upsets. We all do. I can explain why, but I’ll save that for another column because I feel like I’ve already gone far enough off topic.

What I came in here to say today is that I really dropped the ball this year. I don’t mean that I missed a few picks here and there, I mean that I really dropped the ball big-time. I dropped the ball so bad that even Braylon Edwards sent me a sympathy card. Do you want some numbers, will that help you to understand a little better? Okay, here: out of the 48 possible picks up to this point in the tournament I have gotten only 28 of them right. TWENTY-EIGHT. That’s only 4 picks better than 50%. I might as well have flipped a coin for every pick. Seriously.

Now, enough about my awful bracket, it’s time for some of my thoughts from the past weekend. Let’s start with the players that impressed me the most in the first two rounds:

1. Omar Samhan, St. Mary’s – I’m not really sure how to describe him without using words like “beast” and “monster” and without sounding like I’m narrating an And 1 Mixtape video. Honestly though, he completely destroyed Richmond and Villanova with a combined 61 points and 19 rebounds in the two games. He might not have the physical attributes of a Dwight Howard or the sheer size of a Shaquille O’Neal, but he dominated the paint against Richmond and Nova like he was playing on a 7-foot hoop against 11-year old’s. It was fascinating to watch him, and now you can follow him on Twitter too!

2. Ryan Wittman, Cornell – This kid can shoot the lights out. Plain and simple.

3. Jacob Pullen, Kansas State – The second round match-up on Saturday night between him and Jimmer Fredette of BYU (he gets an honorable mention in this list, even though BYU won’t be heading to the Sweet 16) was an all-out slugfest and without a doubt one of the most physical games I have ever seen played by two guards in a college basketball game. In the end, Pullen ended up with 34 points and Fredette ended up with a bloody nose (literally) and the Wildcats are going to be playing Xavier on Thursday night for a ticket to the Elite Eight.

Now, for my Sweet 16 predictions (and in no way am I doing this to try and reverse jinx my bracket for this weekend, absolutely not).

(1) Syracuse over (5) Butler

(2) West Virginia over (11) Washington

(2) Kansas State over (6) Xavier

(1) Kentucky over (12) Cornell

(2) Ohio State over (6) Tennessee (Seriously, not a reverse jinx at all)

(10) St. Mary’s over (3) Baylor (I’m not lying, I don’t do the reverse jinx thing anymore)

(5) Michigan State over (9) Northern Iowa

(1) Duke over (4) Purdue (Fine, don’t believe me, I don’t care.)

My favorite part of the post-first-round review column is the coveted Annoying Commercial Awards! In the past, we’ve had Annoying Commercial Awards handed out to Chili’s commercials, and FreeCreditReport.com commercials and even GEICO commercials, but this year the award goes to a very special commercial that managed to defy all Annoying Commercial precedence. This commercial started off alright, the first 5-10 times it was aired, but then made a sharp turn into the pantheon of annoying commercials.

And the Most Annoying Commercial of the First Round goes to….Southwest Airlines! (watch the commercial here)

Congratulations, Southwest Airlines, on taking an annoying concept (having to pay money to check your bags at the airport) and turning it into an equally annoying commercial!

My award for Funniest Commercial of the First Round isn’t as prestigious of an award as the Most Annoying Commercial, but this year it goes to the HP commercial with Dr. Dre and That Guy From Flight of the Conchords.

Lastly, I have to do some crow-eating because of what I said in my last column about tournament pools and always beating my dad. I said:

“I don’t ever remember him finishing ahead of me in a tournament pool. So, I guess I kind of know what I’m doing. Don’t tell him I said that.”

Of course, someone told him that I said that (I think he read the column) and now I must publicly concede this year’s victory. Of course, the tournament isn’t over yet and there are still plenty of games to be played and I still have a (very slight, nearly impossible) chance of winning, but the fact of the matter is that he is beating me pretty badly right now. This is what I get for opening my big mouth and expecting not to jinx myself.

So that’s that. Four games on Thursday night and four games on Friday night before the Elite Eight begins on Saturday. I’m feeling like I want to put out a live running diary of one of those days, but I don’t know if that will be possible yet. We’ll see how it goes.


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So It Begins…

16 03 2010

It's almost here. Finally.

I love college basketball. However, my embarrassing admission is that I don’t watch nearly enough of it as I would like to. I blame it mostly on when the college basketball regular season takes place: from November through February. For three out of those four months, I eat, sleep and breathe football. Is it right for me to ignore basketball just so I can have all of my focus on football? No, I’ll admit that it’s a little unfair. I should have enough time to focus enough on both, because let’s face it, what else do I do?

Here’s the thing though, when March starts to roll around, I get Tournament Fever just like everybody else. I print out five or six different brackets and attack each one differently until I end up with a Final Four that makes me feel comfortable (or smart). So how do I dive head first into the postseason tournament of a league that I barely watch during the regular season? I do some studying. A lot of it. So much studying that I was forced to question myself while I was in college and spending twice as much time figuring out the tournament bracket every year than I spent studying for midterms.

I cram in every semi-useful piece of knowledge that I can about the entire college basketball season. I’m talking about strength of schedules, API’s, non-conference API’s, head-to-head records, conference records, past tournament experience, conference rankings, conference tournament finishes, possible injuries to key players, important match-ups. ANYTHING that I feel can give me an edge when the opening tip-off of that first game finally rolls around.

It helps for the most part, and I actually prefer this method over following the regular season from beginning to end. At least for the purpose of being able to figure out the bracket come March. For example, my dad follows college basketball a lot more thoroughly than I do during the regular season. He’ll watch games every weekend and let’s just say that he tends to know a significant amount more than I do when the tournament begins. However, I don’t ever remember him finishing ahead of me in a tournament pool. So, I guess I kind of know what I’m doing. Don’t tell him I said that.

So, with all of that said, we fast forward to last night. I’m sitting in bed at 1 a.m. squinting at the computer screen and trying to read every article on ESPN.com with both of my brackets open in separate windows while I switched back and forth between them. I must have run through about 12 different Final Four teams before settling (maybe) on what I have right now. I must have also flipped between Purdue and Siena close to 30 times before I decided it was too much stress for an opening round game. I will most likely spend the rest of today researching my picks on Yahoo! Sports before I make another hundred changes to my bracket and I want to say that I should have a final version sometime around midnight on Wednesday.

As far as tournament pools go, I am safely squared away in one and it feels good to get that out of the way. There may be a second one, but I started that one, so I’m not banking on it to be very good. When I said in No Cure For March Madness that it has been six years since the last time I watched the NCAA Tournament without having any money on it, I had remarkably overlooked last year. Last year was the first year that I tried to start a pool by myself. I got a good amount of people to join it, but of course I was too lazy to collect the money from everybody (this is why you always let other people start tournament pools, too much work).

Needless to say (and I’m sure you could see this coming from miles away, but I swear it’s true), I won last year’s pool. Of course. The one year where I decide to start my own pool and not collect money from anyone, is the year that I win. The moral of this story is basically that I’m now a defending champion, and as a defending champion of something, I am expected to shed some light on it for the rest of the world and to share my wisdom. And any wisdom that includes why I think Baylor will make the Final Four is worth hearing (sorry, I don’t really have a reason for that pick).

If you’ve read any of my football picks columns, you obviously know better. DON’T LISTEN TO ME. But if you do decide to take my advice, remember that I won last year, and that means I’ll probably win again this year because that’s how dynasties work. So, without further adieu, here are my (slightly educated) thoughts on this year’s tournament bracket.

"I swear, this is not what it looks like."

1. I have one rule and one rule only when it comes to the NCAA Tournament, and it’s this: STAY FAR AWAY FROM WEST VIRGINIA. This rule mostly dates back to the John Beilein Era and the many, many times which they succeeded in chopping my bracket up into little pieces. However, I’m talking myself into the 2009-2010 Mountaineers because I like Bob Huggins and they made a gritty run in the Big East tourney to emerge as champs. Basically, I picked them to play Kansas in the National Championship and I’m just trying to convince myself that it’s okay for me to break my only rule.

2. Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans are like my anti-Mountaineers. They carry my bracket almost every year, and they are proven tournament contenders. Don’t ever bet against Izzo in a tournament game. Unfortunately, I have MSU falling to Kansas in the Sweet 16, proving that the Midwest is going to be an absolute killer region this year, and also proving that I will probably change that pick another 20 times before Thursday even though I picked Kansas to win it all.

3. My first round upset specials look like this: 11-seed San Diego State over 6-seed Tennessee; 10-seed Georgia Tech over 7-seed Oklahoma State (watch out for Gani Lawal of GT to have a huge game); 12-seed UTEP over 5-seed Butler (two notes about this game in my next point); 11-seed Minnesota over 6-seed Xavier (Minnesota, the Big Ten tournament champions can be sneaky, just ask Purdue); 11-seed Old Dominion over 6-seed Notre Dame. Feel free to copy those. They are subject to change of course, because I only have one lower seed advancing in the first round in both the East and South regions and that seems fishy to me. Hence my internal struggle between Purdue and Siena.

4. UTEP is perhaps the most intriguing 12-seed in the tournament. Some reasons are explainable and others simply aren’t. For example, when picking a bracket, you NEED to have at least one 12-seed advancing in the first round and should have one even advancing to the Sweet 16. It’s become pretty much science at this point, that a 12-seed WILL upset a 5-seed in the first round. I’m disappointed that I could only talk myself into one of those 12-seeds in this year’s bracket because I legitimately like the 5-seeds Michigan State, Temple and Texas A&M. That leaves UTEP. Why do I like UTEP so much? According to a few sources I’ve found so far, “they have the pieces to make a run.” That sounds pretty. Also, they have a player on their team by the name of Derrick Character. If you don’t know who Derrick Character is, he is from Fanwood, NJ. He started his collegiate career at Louisville, but then was suspended for academic reasons and soon transferred to UTEP. I played against him in travel when I was 15. Is that a good enough reason to pick a 12-seed to beat Butler and Vanderbilt to advance to the Sweet 16? Yes.

5. I have not read too many flattering things about Kansas State, the number 2-seed in the West. Then again, Syracuse, the 1-seed in that region, lost its final regular season game to Louisville and then was ushered out of the Big East tourney rather early for my liking. So it’s only fitting that I end up with both KSU and ‘Cuse as the final two teams coming out of the West Region. I’ve seen a lot more of Syracuse this season than I have of the Wildcats, so I went with Syracuse to head to Indianapolis. I hope Jim Boeheim doesn’t let me down.

6.  An interesting note at this point in my bracket adventures: I have a 1-seed facing a 2-seed in three out of four of the regional finals. The one region where I don’t: the South, where I have 5-seed Texas A&M going against 3-seed Baylor in a Big 12 showdown. This makes me somewhat uncomfortable, until I remember that in 2008 all four number 1-seeds made it to the Final Four.

7.  Evan Turner. That’s all you need to know. He plays for Ohio State, he will likely be voted Player of the Year and I believe that he’s even better than John Wall of Kentucky. He’s that good, and he’s making me reconsider possibly pushing OSU past Kansas in the Midwest regional final. Maybe.

8.  However, John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins do still scare me a little bit. I hope I don’t end up regretting leaving them out of the Final Four in favor of West Virginia, although I have a good feeling that I will.

9.  Cornell is the “trendy” 12-seed upset pick over Temple. Don’t fall for it. I hate falling for those “trendy” upset picks, they rarely work out. I like Temple, they’re the Atlantic-10 champs and they’re playing good basketball right now.

10.  BAYLOR IN THE FINAL FOUR??!! In a region that was practically tailor-made for Duke? I know. What am I thinking, right? We’ll see.

11.  And that brings me to this point: Duke will disappoint. Mark my words. I wholeheartedly agree that they are one of the best teams in the nation this season and that this is perhaps their strongest squad in years…but — and this is an important but — Duke is notorious for choking in the tournament. Their early exits in recent years have started to look like somewhat of a trend and I don’t feel like getting hoodwinked again this year into picking Duke to reach the Final Four only to see them get booted in the Sweet 16 by Purdue, or Texas A&M (hopefully), or even Siena (it can happen, remember VCU in 2007? I do.). This is why I just can’t bring myself to trust this Duke team. Maybe they will prove me wrong.

12.  If I had access to the Elias Sports Bureau at my fingertips, I would probably be able to tell you when the last time was that I picked a bracket that featured neither the Connecticut Huskies nor the North Carolina Tar Heels, and I suppose I might also be able to tell you the last time that a defending National Champion (UNC in this case) did not make the field of 64 the following season. Unfortunately I can’t, although I suppose with the proper amount of Googling I could find it. Let’s just put it into more easily relatable terms and say that seeing a tournament bracket without UNC or UConn is like reading an issue of Us Weekly without seeing any pictures of Angelina Jolie or Britney Spears. There you go.

I think 2,000 words on a bracket I’m not even 100% sure of yet, is enough for now. I’ll probably be back with another column on Friday night after the first-round is over, although I won’t make any promises. It depends on whether or not my bracket is in the trash at that point.


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Simmons vs. Olbermann: Battle Royale!

12 03 2010

The Bill Simmons-Keith Olbermann beef started the way most good beefs tend to start – with a veiled insult hidden beneath a few sharply-worded phrases. And just like famous squabbles of the past,  like Jay-Z/Nas and 50 Cent/Ja Rule, the irony of the situation lies in the fact that both parties involved have a few more similarities between each other than they would admit. It’s funny, and a little bit intriguing at the same time. But for now, let’s focus on the funny part, for the sake of this column.

The internet-driven drama began when Bill Simmons now infamously compared Tiger Woods’ imminent transition back into golf to Muhammad Ali’s return to boxing after his 2-year exile following his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War. Upon first glance, this argument looks baseless and also rather amateur. I mean, he’s comparing a self-proclaimed sex addict who couldn’t keep his you-know-what in his pants to a man who was vilified by the national media for standing up for his religious beliefs, and oh yeah also for being black. Stupid, right?

Well, that’s where most of the criticism (including that of the almighty and wise Keith Olbermann) strays. You see, if a certain Keith Olbermann were to perhaps take a 10-15 minute break from being an “unlikable blowhard” (Simmon’s words, not mine) to actually read the article and understand the point Simmons was trying to make, maybe he would have realized that Simmons was in no way trying to compare Woods’ predicament to that of Muhammad Ali. It would be silly to assume that the situation that Tiger Woods put himself in could ever be placed alongside the one that Ali was simply trying to avoid. Furthermore, their reception in the national media vastly differs as well. Whereas Woods has been an extremely likable and highly-marketable commodity in the sports world for most of his career, Ali was received quite differently by most of America for the majority of his career, due to the color of his skin and bolstered by the fact that he refused to be referred to by his “slave name”.

The legends of these two athletes then diverged in two opposite directions. Woods, following his multiple affairs, has now turned into somewhat of a villain as far as most of Americans are concerned, whereas Ali returned to boxing as a hero of sorts, amidst the protest and civil unrest that surrounded the quagmire in Vietnam.

So, shame on Bill Simmons for ever choosing to juxtapose the plight of these two men. One, a self-made heel and the other, a hero and a symbol of hope for a nation in turmoil. Shame on him for taking a topic that was been unrelentingly beaten into the ground by the media for the last three months and giving it a new spin, a fresh take, a unique perspective. Shame on him for ever touching the oh-so-sensitive topics of Muhammad Ali and the Vietnam War and civil rights lest he not recycle every stale stock story that exists on the subjects.

If the suits at ESPN are really up in arms over Simmons’ column like Olbermann claims they are, then clearly there is a severe lack of understanding present. John Mayer says the n-word in Playboy and gets discussed for a few minutes on The View, but Bill Simmons (God forbid) compares Tiger Woods to Muhammad Ali and gets lambasted by every pompous sports anchor-turned-political analyst there is. Give me a break. In fact, give us all a break, please.

Among many other things he’s missing (like a sense of humor, for example), Mr. Olbermann is also missing the point here. Actually reading the article would have revealed that Simmons was not comparing Woods’ plight to that of Ali. He was simply stating that the pressure Woods will face in returning to his highest level of competition on the golf course will be more difficult than the pressure that Ali faced in regaining the Heavyweight title. In fact, here is Simmons’ original thesis, as quoted from his March 3rd column:

“When Tiger Woods returns to golf, he will face a level of pressure that well surpasses anything any other transcendent athlete has faced in my lifetime.”

His argument was not referring to the pressure of whether or not Woods will ever be accepted by sports fans as the Tiger Woods we knew before his “incident”. His argument was instead referring to the pressure that will surround him as he attempts to retain his status as the world’s best golfer. The argument, as I understand it, refers only to the pressure Woods will face in trying to return to the top of the golf world and not to whether or not he can win back the hearts of America. That’s not the issue at question.

Of course, I don’t need to summarize the original column, you can read it yourself, but the point is this: upon Ali’s return to boxing, he entered with the support of most of a nation and was handed a few cotton-candy opponents to help him work his way back to the title. In Woods’ case, he will most likely dive head first right into the Masters and be expected to perform at the highest level with the eyes of an entire nation watching and criticizing his every move and his every word. If he comes out and falls 6 strokes out of the lead, he gets hammered with doubt and we get hammered with “Is Tiger Finished?” stories.

One final thing that bothered me about Olbermann’s misguided missive was his assertion that Simmons is “infallible” and apparently incapable of admitting when he is wrong. Once again, this is coming from someone who clearly has not had his ridiculously inflated head out of his own behind for long enough to actually read Bill Simmons work, because from what I see in his columns, he is perfectly capable of calling out his own mistakes and admitting he is wrong. He does it quite often actually, and his self-deprecating humor is what endears him as the “everyman sports writer” that his fans love.

So, Keith Olbermann, the next time you attempt to start a childish internet war by making snide comments about a writer you clearly know nothing about, you should try to see past your $600 designer glasses and your awful “trying-too-hard-to-sound-intelligent” jokes and actually take a moment to understand the article you so openly criticize. Bill Simmons is one of the most widely read sports writers in the world and his recent 700-page Book of Basketball was #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. Stick with what you’re good at doing, which is forcing uncomfortable laughter out of Bob Costas on “Football Night in America” and being full of yourself.


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No Cure For March Madness

11 03 2010

Really guys? Come on....

I know I haven’t written in more than a month and that’s pretty irresponsible of me, but I do have a fairly valid excuse. I’ve been working on my first novel during the past few weeks, and so I haven’t had much time to balance both things. Okay, that’s a complete lie. I have nothing but time. Actually, time is about the only thing I’ve had a lot of lately. Either way, the novel is coming along pretty nicely. It’s funny because it’s like I’m having a competition with myself to see what I can make less money doing: blogging or writing a novel. Right now, they’re both tied at $0 a piece. We’ll see how that turns out.

A lot has happened during the past month, and so here’s a quick Cliffs Notes recap of what I think are the most important sports stories of the last month:

- The New Orleans Saints stunned the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in Miami on Feb. 7th to win their first Super Bowl in franchise history. Drew Brees was named the game’s MVP and showed the world that not only does he have what it takes to be mentioned among the top QB’s of his generation, but also that he has a really, ridiculously adorable son.

- Tiger Woods entered rehab for his “sex addiction”. Upon hearing this, men all over the country immediately deleted their internet history out of fear of also being placed in rehab. He then held a 15-minute “news conference” in which he fielded zero questions and spoke with about as much sincerity and emotion as HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

- The Nets kept losing.

- The Knicks also kept losing. Then they dumped even more salary by unloading the contracts of Darko Milicic, Nate Robinson, and the corpse of Jared Jeffries and acquiring Tracy McGrady’s expiring $22 million contract from Houston. In the process, the Knicks created almost $30 million in salary cap space heading into this summer’s free agent free-for-all and now apparently have enough money to sign two superstars. It is likely that neither of these superstars will be LeBron James, despite the collective prayers of the Knickerbocker faithful.

- Spring Training started. The Yankees went to an arcade to show us how much they like each other and how well they all get along. We were all supposed to feel happy for them, despite the fact that they….are a baseball team….and that’s kind of the point.

Tell me this doesn't make you wet your pants a little.

And that was about it. Nothing happens in February, so even the most mundane of stories turn into front-page headlines in the sports world. Thankfully though, the cold, uneventful winter months are behind us and we’re staring right in the face of arguably the most exciting one-month stretch of the year, at least when it comes to sports.

If you look at the next month/month and a half, we get treated to the following:

1) The NCAA Tournament starts next Thursday, which is no doubt, hands-down my absolute favorite sporting event of the year. Why? Because it gives me a reason to really get behind teams that I normally couldn’t care less about. Can you think of anything better than almost having an aneurysm on a Thursday night in March because Syracuse edged out Portland State by 2 points and you came within seconds of tearing up your bracket that had Syracuse in the Final Four? No, there is nothing more exciting than that, I’m sorry. I’ve tried the NCAA Tournament without putting any money on it. I think the last time I did that was 6 years ago. It wasn’t fun. I found my interest drifting away in the early rounds. When you’re in a pool with a $400 pot and you absolutely need West Virginia to beat Texas to have a shot at winning, tell me that it doesn’t make that game about 100,000 times more exciting. That is, if gambling was legal. My favorite thing about the tournament? When we start to get down to the Sweet Sixteen and I’m spending upwards of 8 hours a day playing around with all of the different possible combinations of teams in the Yahoo! Scenario Generator. As the number of teams left in the tournament decreases, the number of hours I spend on the Scenario Generator increases, exponentially.

2) The start of the baseball season on April 5th. With the start of a new season just around the corner, I have realized that the only way to forgot about the unrelenting nightmare that was the 2009 baseball season is to start a new one. What’s worse than the Mets losing two-thirds of their starting lineup to injuries halfway through the season and then having to endure a postseason that ranked somewhere between The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and all 40 Saw movies on the horror scale? Having to go through that for a second year in a row. What’s worse than watching a Yankees-Phillies World Series that made me want to pull out my own tongue? Watching the Yankees win another World Series. So things can only get better from here, right?

3) The NFL free-agent free-for-all. The Giants already got off to a pretty decent start with their signing of safety Antrel Rolle from the Arizona Cardinals. The thought of him and a healthy Kenny Phillips in the secondary next year makes me a little excited. There’s still a ton of questions to be answered though before free-agent season wraps up. For example, where will LaDainian Tomlinson end up, and will anybody care? How about the question of whether or not Donovan McNabb will be wearing a Eagles uniform next season? What team will Terrell Owens destroy next? Gripping storylines will unfold in the coming weeks and months and as usual, everyone will drool over the Chicago Bears until they start the season 1-4 and we remember that they still have no wide receivers. Oops!

4) The NFL Draft in late April. I don’t really have anything to say about this other than these quick points:

- Sam Bradford will be drafted wayyyyy higher than he should be.

-Tim Tebow will be drafted wayyyy lower than he should be.

-Suh should be and probably will be the #1 overall pick.

-The Giants need to draft some linebackers, maybe.

-The Jets finally can’t screw up a top-10 pick because they won’t have one.

So, as you can see, I’m pretty excited about the coming month(s) and I won’t let anyone bring me down from this cloud of sports bliss that I will be floating on until May when the Mets are 7 1/2 games out of first and LeBron is leading the Cavs to an NBA title that will all but guarantee he stays in Cleveland.

See you next week, sports fans and loyal readers.


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