The Ex-'Burgher: Skewering the Sports Guy: 9/13/05

There was a time when I liked to read ESPN.com. Rob Neyer and Peter Gammons both wrote a few columns a week. The whole ESPN franchise hadn’t gone into full ass-kissing mode yet, so a lot of the other content was worthwhile.

Rob and Peter, along with every other baseball columnist besides that fool Joe Morgan, got bumped over to Insider. The general tone of the product--both ESPN the network and ESPN the website--switched from covering sports to hanging onto athlete’s nuts. And there were all of these new writers who loved the Red Sox. By the time Aaron Boone put the Sox out of their misery in 2003, ESPN.com might as well have been yankeehater.com.

The poster child for the new Boston love affair was - and still is - Bill Simmons, the self-proclaimed “Sports Guy.” The point of Bill’s column--I think--is to write about sports from a fan’s perspective. For him to give us the highs and lows of following a team. To write the sometimes irrational thoughts that we all entertain at one time or another. To verbally masturbate over Tom Brady and David Ortiz.

I like the big, smiling Dominican as much as the next guy, but is it really necessary to devote a column to the guy? Do we really need to have more people kiss Tom Brady’s ass? Well, the big wigs at ESPN think so, and now we get “The Sport’s Guy’s World” - a randomly posted collection of columns about Boston, crappy mailbags, and silly musings about pop culture, all from a guy who throws like a girl. I don’t want to read this shit. If I wanted biased and insipid, I would start watching the 700 Club or start counting how many players wear stirrups. I want REAL coverage: I want to know how badly Alex Smith gets mauled every time he steps onto the field and not how highly it ranks on the Unintentional Comedy scale.

And since this is America, I am going to respond in the only way I know how--by abusing my right to free speech. Welcome to the world of the anti-Simmons, where the author has a clue about sports and has enough coordination to actually throw a baseball. Every week, I’m going to put Bill up against the Manalyzer and see how much he really knows about being a sports guy.

Since this is the anti-BS, the scoring has to be objective - no platitudes to Dave Roberts and Johnny Damon here. I’m going to give Bill a score between -100 and 100. Some points of reference: Mr. T scores a 100. ALWAYS. This is a guy who knows his shit and can back it up. You buddy Mike (or Joe or John or whoever) sits at zero – he’s an average guy who notices when Alan Faneca pulls and pancakes a ‘backer or safety, and you can invite him to play basketball with your buddies without being embarrassed. The guy at -100? He doesn’t understand why people watch football. Think of him as Thurston Howell III. If Bill writes something intelligent, he gets a point. If he writes that the Red Sox should start Kevin Millar at short, he loses one.

An example: “When Dwight Gooden splashed down as a 19-year-old rookie in 1984, I was attending prep school in Connecticut, where my basketball coach, a guy named Wally Ramsey, doubled as the biggest Mets fan alive. With Gooden, he knew right away. This was it. This was the guy. You watch baseball for 50 years hoping a Dwight Gooden comes along.”

It’s only five sentences, but that’s all Bill needs to pick up some deductions. He loses one point for going to prep school, and he’s lucky that it’s not more. He loses another for lying about the basketball team. Bill, he’s not you coach if all you do is pick up the towels. Water boys don’t have coaches. At this rate, Bill will get to –100 fast, and God help us if he ever manages to get worse than that. But I’m willing to give credit when it’s due.

Another example: “I was thinking about him last week, after 19-year-old Mariners sensation Felix Hernandez threw eight scoreless in his first home start. Like Gooden, he throws a fastball that explodes as if there were a CO2 canister attached to it and a curve that crumples. Like Gooden, he obviously feeds off the energy of his fans. But luckily, unlike the Mets, the Mariners will diligently protect him with ironclad pitch counts. Heck, they didn't even let him throw a slider for a while. And without New York's distractions, Felix seems to be in a better place to thrive.”

He makes some good points here. Plus one for being able to compare King Felix to Doc (ok, being really generous here), one for knowing his pitches, and one more for the pitch count info.

Now that I got all of the clerical crap out of the way (and it only took 800 words!), I can move on to the task of reaming Bill’s most recent columns. I won’t show the full scoring, but every week I’ll throw you a few of the juicier tidbits before giving the final score. And this one's a doozy.

Last week, Bill presented his preseason awards and prognostications. He put his own spin on the upcoming NFL season, and towed the media line on a lot of subjects – the Pats will kick ass again, the Ravens will somehow win the AFC North, the Cards could realistically win the NFC West. He also became the latest sportswriter to jump on the strange ‘Bears as playoff contenders’ bandwagon.

All of that pales in comparison to the unspeakable crime he committed in this column. It’s so bad, I can barely mention it. (WARNING: Sit down. Take a deep breath. Grab an Iron or ten. Take your blood pressure meds if you’ve got’em. This just might send you over the edge.)

This is no joke. BS thinks that the Steelers will somehow lose 7 (SEVEN!) games and that the Baltimore Criminal Lewises will win 11. His rationale?

“Pittsburgh should be worse -- tougher schedule, some injuries, no Plax to stretch the field.”

I’m staring at the 2004 and 2005 scheds right now, and I don’t see how this year is any tougher than last. Last season the Steelers played 6 division games, the AFC East (Pats, Jets, Bills, Fins), the NFC East (Eagles, ‘Pokes, Giants, ‘Skins), the Jax Jags, and the Raiders. For those scoring at home, that’s three playoff teams, including both Super Bowl participants, plus four games against legitimate playoff contenders. (And don’t discount those two games against everyone’s favorite 8-8 team from Ohio!) And the games against New England and Philly came in back-to-back weeks.

This season the Steelers play the division, the AFC South (Colts, Jags, Texans, Flaming Thumbtacks), the NFC North (Lions, Fighting Favres, Da Bears, Vikes), the Pats, and the Chargers. Last week we saw first-hand how bad Tennessee is, and Houston didn’t look any better against the Bills. Three of the games against the NFC come in December and January, when the Lions and Bears will be out of it and the Vikes will be in full free-fall again. It adds up to playing two definite contenders (Pats and Colts), four games against teams with legitimate playoff aspirations (Ravens x2, Jags, Chargers), and a game against a “playoff” team from the NFC.

All told, the schedule really isn’t any worse this season. The Steelers have tougher games relative to some of their divisional foes--for example, the Ravens play the Jets instead of the Pats--but that is more than balanced by playing some bottom heavy divisions. They won’t win 15, but seven losses is a huge stretch.

I think by “some injuries” Bill is referring to Duce and Bus. Fast Willie (who really should change his nickname to Jacked Willie or Strong Willie) registered that a moot point. Willie’s big opener notwithstanding, any good Steelers fan learned in 2003 that the key to a good offense has less to do with who is running, catching, or throwing the ball and more to do with who is blocking. The ’03 Steelers had a lot of the same skill players as the ’01, ’02, and ’04 teams – Plex, Hines, Bus. So why did the ’03 version lay an egg in the running game and turn the ball over like it was going out of style?

That’s right: injuries to the line. The revolving door on the offensive line kept the unit from ever developing any continuity or chemistry, and the result was a 6-10 season. This year, the Steelers actually regained an o-line starter (Kendall Simmons) and replaced a so-so tackle with a budding man-mountain. The results were evident last weekend when Titan defenders were strewn all over the Heinz Field turf.

On the defensive side, it’s all about the d-line (kind of figured that was coming, huh?). I don’t think this needs much explanation: Casey Hampton is back.

That’s right. Plex is built like Moss – he’s tall and has big hands and can jump over defenders. Too bad he never does it. Remember the first play of the 4th quarter in the AFC title game? Let me remind you: The Steelers had the ball inside the 5, and Ben threw a perfect fade to Plex, who had boxed out 5’11” Randall Gay. All Plex needed to do was reach up and catch the ball and. . .clang! Plex realized that he was almost covered, dropped the ball, and turtled on the field.

The Steelers are probably better off without Plex. He’s not nearly as good as he believes, he’s not a go-to receiver (see above), and he’s not all that good at running routes. Let the Giants have him. I’ll take Antwaan and Ced Wilson any day.

“Every season, six playoff teams make it back, six playoff teams drop out, and six other teams fill those spots. This is how it works. This is how it always works. After examining everyone 20 times over, I managed to whittle the season down to these three groups:

Returning playoff teams: New England, San Diego, Indy, Philly, Minnesota, Atlanta (wild card).

New playoff teams: Jacksonville, Kansas City, Baltimore, Chicago, Arizona, Carolina.

I agree that Denver, Green Bay, St. Louis, and Seattle are in trouble. The Jets might have some serious issues if Pennington’s arm is really that bad. But KC? Sure, they will score a ton of points, but who are they going to shut down on D? I’m not sold after one game against the Jets. The Chiefs might have added some nice players in Ken Bell, Derrick Johnson, and Patrick Surtain, but they still have the same awful D-line that they featured in ’03 and ’04. Bell and Johnson won’t have much room to make plays when the other team’s linemen get out to the second level and steamroll them.

I also agree on the concept – the NFL is not MLB, and there is significant turnover of playoff teams from year to year. But if you’re going to pick a team to fall from grace, it’s safer to go with a team that suddenly jumped from 3-4 win territory than to pick on a team with a good track record. For example: in 2001 the Bears jumped from last to 13-3, only to fall back to last in 2002, but the 1999-2000 Titans (8-8 in 1998) and the 2000-01 Ravens (8-8 in 1999) managed to pull off back-to-back playoff seasons after a mediocre season. So who will fall this season? My bet is on the Chargers, who went something like ‘suck-suck-suck-GOOD’ and could very well suck again. The Steelers, on the other hand, had playoffs (’01), playoffs (’02), injury-plagued (’03), and playoffs (’04).

I’ll even go out on a limb: If the Steelers miss the playoffs, I will eat my couch.

This week: -75. Being a Patriots sycophant and being grossly uninformed about the rest of the league does not make for good sports commentary.