February 11, 2019: Fuck It, I'll Defend Stephen A. Smith
ESPN's Urban Meyer graphic suddenly makes sense, Scumbag Dabo Swinney, and more.
None of you ingrates have paid a cent for my searing insights, so I won’t apologize for taking last week off. I may take this one off too if Tom Brady wins another Super Bowl and my brain continues feeling like a running trash compactor during my ongoing effort to not drink between four and seven IPAs every night before bed.
Not expecting the universe to cooperate, but let’s see how it plays out. Just hoping my day goes better than this guy’s:
At least the times I tried to be that cool didn’t end with my friend taping the disaster and uploading it to the internet for everyone to laugh at.
I’d say I hope that guy has good health insurance, but nobody without insurance would ever attempt something that asinine.
Buckeye fans got angry at Stephen A. Smith last Friday when one of the four people still watching First Take outed Smith for spewing nonsense about Dwayne Haskins being a running quarterback—a notion that could have been dispelled with one glance at Haskins’ 2018 stat line.
Smith makes over $1,000,000 a year, so it’s illegal for him to simply say “I was wrong.”
He chose this route instead:
I tilt my cap in deference to Mr. Smith. He can’t interrupt the gravy train with an honest take like, “My bosses pay me handsomely to pontificate on more sports issues than any reasonable person could ever hold an informed opinion on. It leads to regrettable moments like this.” He doubled down because fuck you that paycheck already hit my bank account this morning. Make of it what you will.
This episode showcases why I think most national reporters/analysts are full of shit unless they’re an automaton like Adam Schefter who only feels joy when reporting scoops fed to him by NFL overlords. You think middle-aged AP writers with families are staying up until 2 a.m. to watch Washington host Utah so they can have a proper handle on their 20th through 25th rankings? Hell no. They’re just not on TV every day showcasing their selective ignorance.
Don’t blame Smith. Blame America’s insatiable desire for sports debate that led to ESPN bankrolling this nonsense. And yes, of course I’m jealous because I’d do Smith’s job for a third of the price (maybe less); yet no suit from ESPN has called me despite my prolific blogging career.
Curious to say the least.
Speaking of ESPN, its infamous CFP graphic choice of Urban Meyer never made sense to me until now.
It’s what Meyer will look like this fall in a Horseshoe suite after new Buckeye QB Justin Fields throws an 80-yard bomb with the flick of his wrist and a booster turns to Urban and interrupts his daydreams of running Fields up the middle 25 times a game by asking the old ball coach how he’s enjoying his new job hanging in the janitor’s closet at the WHAC and teaching business major nerds about the many benefits of nepotism in leadership.
People who don’t follow the day-to-day of college football recruiting (read: well-adjusted adults with normal hobbies) ask me, “How good is this Fields guy?” Well, he made former five-star QB Tate Martell fold his hand without throwing a pass. Best case scenario is Dwayne Haskins’ arm with Terrelle Pryor’s athleticism. The worst case is he’s 250-times better than Joe Bauserman, who damn near beat Nebraska that one time.
Either way, I haven’t been this excited for an Ohio State season since 2015. Just a damn shame Billy Davis won’t be on the sidelines doing whatever it was Billy Davis got paid $500,000(!) a year to do.
Three Clemson Tigers got popped this past season for consuming “performance-enhancing drugs.” According to Dabo Swinney, the strength trainers may have “accidentally” given them the wrong stuff.
From Grace Raynor and Gene Sapakoff of postandcourier.com:
Swinney told The Post and Courier that the process is out of his hands and that the university’s legal team is still looking into all possibilities, which includes the chance that Clemson gave the players something the athletic department thought was cleared by the NCAA.
“Oh yeah, I mean, there’s a chance that it could come from anything,” Swinney said when asked if it’s possible the players ingested ostarine in a Clemson-issued supplement or were exposed to it in some other way at the school. “They’re going to test everything and look at everything. And that’s the problem. As you really look at this stuff, it could be a contaminant that came from anything, that was something that was cleared and not a problem, and all of a sudden, it becomes there was something.”
Lord knows I put more dangerous chemicals than HGH in my body during college, and it wasn’t in pursuit of professional glory. So to each their own on that front.
Still, Swinney’s spiel only makes sense if you’re dumb enough to think steroid abuse isn’t rampant in every championship program at every level.
You might think I’m bitter because Dabo clown-suited the Buckeyes twice when actually I’m content with judging him from the moral high ground afforded to me by cheering for the only FBS team not on the juice.
Please, Millennial Ryan Day, beat this scumbag!
Chris Columbus was a racist murdering pedophile rapist who enslaved indigenous people, so it makes sense America, the Land of the Free, granted him a federal holiday despite him not even coming close to “discovering” the continent.
Cheers to Sandusky, Ohio, for doing something about it.
From Kristine Phillips of washingtonpost.com:
Sandusky, Ohio, is ditching Columbus Day in favor of Election Day as a paid holiday in a decision that officials hope sends a message that the city values voting rights and diversity over a contentious holiday that many Americans already don’t celebrate.
“Ultimately, we knew that Columbus Day was a day that all of our citizens couldn’t necessarily be proud of celebrating. One of the things we’re doing is to begin to celebrate and build on the strength that is our diversity,” Eric Wobser, Sandusky’s city manager, told The Washington Post, adding that the city has passed anti-discrimination legislation. “Columbus Day was not a way for us to show that we value our diversity.”
Sandusky’s population of almost 25,000 is nearly 70 percent white, 23 percent black and 7 percent Hispanic. The city is more Democratic than the rest of Erie County, which voted for President Trump in 2016. But it swung to blue last year and helped reelect Sen. Sherrod Brown (D).
Look for the Ohio Republican leadership to make this illegal as soon as possible because they only agree with home rule when city leaders align with their 18th century worldview.
THOSE WMDs. Russian-style kleptocracy infiltrates the United States… I’m a Stryker-X Assault Backpack, and this airport lounge is an insult… How to soak the rich… How hackers and scammers break into iCloud-locked iPhones… The parking lot suicides.