A Brief And Obvious Point About Tony Stewart

Do Not Click

Driving into someone with any kind of intention is assault.

Regardless of context.

Assault that leads to injury is a criminal offense. And assault that leads to death is homicide.

Regardless of context.

People who appear to have committed homicide, whether or not they are famous, whether or not they are wealthy, whether or not they express remorse or have a good PR staff, and whether or not they have done good works in charity or anything else...

May escape incarceration in our remarkably inequitable system of justice.

But they will not, and can not, escape public scorn, shame, commercial leper status, and all of the other ways that justice is now dispensed, in an era where athletes need to be liked, along with successful.

I have no idea if Stewart will be charged or exonerated.

(I do know that if you willingly watch the video of the last few seconds of a man's life, knowing what you are going to watch in advance, and you don't have to for work or as a part of a jury situation, there may be something wrong with you. Or will be later.)

But I do know that his career is effectively over, and like OJ Simpson before him, it's only a matter of time before he finds himself in a jail cell.

It's not justice.

It's just what happens.

Top 10 things to love about the NFL preseason

Reason Number 11: No Confetti

There was a time, honest and for true, where not watching fake football games in August wasn't only defensible, it was expected. I remember, as a child, getting flack and scorn from the Shooter Brother, who had no use at all for those games, and wouldn't even watch them if nothing else was on. When I grew up and had friends with season tickets, they'd complain bitterly about having to pay for those two games as well in their package, and would more or less give the tickets away to anyone who wanted them. The idea of having a good time in summer heat while watching games that did not matter, let alone actually selling these tickets for any amount of money, was beyond the pale.

And to many folks out there, this is still the case, and the fake games are target number one in the eternal quest to make the season longer, and milk the money cow dry. But a funny thing is happening on the way to obsolescence; more and more people are watching these "games." And there is, of course, merits to these games, which include...

10) The scared stiff first quarter series with actual players. 

If your top guys struggle, it seems like rust and it's terrible and leave them in, because their confidence is shaken. If they do well, while you know it means nothing, you still want to watch them, because they are much more watchable than the scrubs. And then your guy takes any kind of hit, and you feel guilty for watching. Yay!

9) Obsessing about position battles that aren't really battles, and don't matter at all.

Veteran Punter is really getting pushed by Rookie Punter! Let's watch and pretend that an extra few yards under the lights is going to outrank work in practice, ability to schmooze in meetings, and how much each guy might make. Drama!

8) Half-baked rule change auditions.

The NFL has decided to make extra points from 20-odd yards farther away, which means that the kicker actually has to care and pay attention to make the kick. Let's stare hard at it, and think about how this is clearly going to change... um, nothing, nothing, really. But hey, we all get to look at extra points in the air for an extra second or two!

7) Human interest stories that are, well, not really that interesting.

My Eagles have a tall physical specimen, Ifeanyi Momah. He's 6 foot 7, fast, and in his second year with the team of trying to figure out how to be a WR. He played at Boston College, has been out of football for two years, and fascinates people who dream of getting utility out of the tallest and biggest WR in the NFL.

And, well, he's probably not making the team, and not making any other team, because, well, outliers are outliers for a reason, and he wasn't a good player in college, either.

But hey, look at the big tall WR! He must be fascinating!

6) All of the coaches are above average.

If there has ever been a criticism of a coach on a telecast in preseason... well, no, there has never been a criticism of a coach on a telecast in preseason. A coach can go for it on 4th and goal from the opponent's 30 yard line, while down 2 points, with 5 seconds left in the game... and hey, he clearly just wants to see something from his QB there. The most anyone will say is that a coach is on the hot seat, or under a lot of pressure, because, dammit, THAT'S JUST HOW MANLY THIS JOB IS.

5) Woo Hits still happen.

Let's face it; a big part of the fun of the NFL is watching total strangers try to end each other's consciousness. And for guys that are desperate to work this job because all other jobs available to them are so, so much worse, they are still going to want to run through another human being to impress Coach. Fines be damned!

4) Local ads and sponsorships.

During the regular season, you're going to see nothing but national advertisers and corporate asshattery, but during the fake games, there is still room for your local car dealership, cancer center, sportsbar, and so on, and so on. Extra points for stilted voice overs from hungover players cashing a check!

3) The fresh and clean taste of vanilla.

Do you long for the days of football games that resemble those played by your local severely educationally challenged high school team? Then preseason, with its scaled down set of rush, draws, screens, slants and outs, opposed by an unending parade of zone defense, is so the game for you. Remember, if you put your 5-wide lineup or DL stunt on film, it destroys all of its power.

2) Games with cache.

Hey, anyone can -- and will -- watch the regular season and playoff games. Those are shared experiences that more or less define your local sports fandom, to the point that after a certain number of years, they seem almost impossible to *not* watch. But preseason? Those define the *real* fans, dammit, and you must be a *better* fan for watching them. Grow your hipster facial hair out and raise your nose high, Real Fan. You've earned it.

1) The unspeakable horror that is local TV broadcast teams.

Thanks to the NFL Network, we are now exposed to a wealth of absurd chuckleheads who are so bad at commenting on games, they make the regular season chuckleheads look... well, less war criminal-ish by comparison. Seriously, over the next few weeks, just turn on NFLN for the background noise of some old special teams ace that's three sheets to the wind, teamed up with the can't get out of town local station sportscaster who couldn't be more homerish. They will, I promise you, announce the game as if their lives depend on it, and the game actually matters. Good times!

Cary Williams Stands His Ground

The Truth, It Burns, It Burns

I'd like to talk tonight about the nature of being a pro athlete at the current time.

Thanks to the Internet, you have direct access to the public, but you probably don't want that, since that's a two-way street and really time-consuming. You are surrounded by an increasingly irresponsible and click-baitish media. Your coach and organization doesn't want you to show any personality, except for when it moves merch and builds your trade value, and then it's all good, until it comes to contract time.

People from all over the country are now interested in you when they weren't historically, thanks to nerdy nitty betting (aka, fantasy sports). And just in case you've figured out how to jump through all of those hoops, there are the watchful eyes of your teammates around you, judging you, and deciding on a subconscious level if they want to follow your example and cover for you in the lean moments.

If I were an athlete, I think I'd regard the entire experience as something like performance art. I think I'd answer all questions with non sequiturs, or the same sentence over and over again, or nothing, or tell them how many questions I was going to answer before any session begins, and so on, and so on. Because the exercise is meaningless and yet meaningful, since it can have a big impact on your livelihood, and yet means nothing at all.

In a better world, we wouldn't even interview them. And at some point, given what's happening to journalism in the Internet age, maybe no one will, or maybe it will all be crowd-sourced or on Skype. Lots of ways this can go, but what isn't going to change is this...

We're going to punish anyone who tells us their honest opinion and doesn't apologize for it, assuming that opinion is in any way noteworthy.

Cary Williams is the Eagles' CB1, and has, like just about every CB1 in the NFL who isn't in active jeopardy of losing his position, he's got an expanded opinion of his abilities. This leads to bombastic quotes about his skills (he thinks he's at the same level as Patrick Patterson and Richard Sherman, which has no basis in reality of the results to date) and his opponents (he doesn't much like the Patriots). It's the latter point that inspired this.

On the Patriots, Williams said, "I give them all the credit in the world, but one fact remains: They haven't won a Super Bowl since they got caught."

This caused a bit of a firestorm, because you can't say anything about the Patriots without people noticing. And today, Williams did something amazing. He didn't take it back.

"Did I say the wrong thing? No. I stand firm on what my beliefs are, and that's just that. I didn't tell a lie. At the end of the day, that did happen. It's in the history books. As far as I'm concerned, I made a comment about it and that's that."

Now, the fun part is that the Eagles, currently having a wonderfully boring training camp (in that no one has had a serious injury, and there's no real training camp battle to see who will start at a position they won't be experienced enough to play well at once the real games start), are about to go into the annual ritual that is the shared week of practice with the Pats. This mostly exists because Chip Kelly and Bill Belichick like each other, or at least, like to measure their clubs against each other, because they are both middle-aged guys who pride themselves on innovation, and aren't shy about where they get it.

So for the next week, once the Eagles are clear of the necessary distraction that is Friday night's fake game against the Bears, we'll sit back and wonder if the other shoe will drop, and someone in a Patriot uniform cheap shots Williams, or Williams feels like he's got to back up his words with deeds.

And the fan base will wish that he just be quiet, for heaven's sake, these athletes today, why say anything...

When, well, the only thing that's likely to happen is that no one will remember anything about this in a week and a half, tops.

And if you are of the opinion that Williams should just stay quiet and not say anything, two things and I'll let you be...

Point the first -- He's not wrong.

Point the second -- Don't you hate it more when athletes seem to care less about the game, and who wins or loses, than the fans?

Brief And Obvious Points That Dan Snyder Will Continue To Ignore

When you define what a racial term means for a group that you are not a member of, it will not, and can never, go well for you.

No one gives a flying f*** at a rolling doughnut what you think it means.

No one will have their opinion changed by the go-along stance of PR geishas or your cowed and corrupted partners.

No one will remember you for anything beyond your willful ignorance, and your overwhelming stubbornness and commitment to being the southbound end of a northbound dinosaur.

No one will believe you when you say you respect differing opinions, and no one will, in time, respect your ridiculous and self-serving opinion.

And no one has to use your slur name, or should.

That Paul George Moment

Life, Changing

By now, I hope you've somehow missed the brutal leg injury that Pacers star Paul George suffered during the USMNT tryouts for the upcoming international championships. It's going to cost George and the Pacers at least a year of his NBA career, fundamentally changes the balance of power in the East to make things even easier on the Bulls and Cavs, and has seemingly taken years off the lives of everyone who has seen the footage. Finally, it's led to the inevitable Whack A Mole moment from Mark Cuban, who has never liked the notion of NBA players playing for their country, because there is no country in Mark Cuban's life that can ever hope to compete with Mark Cuban. (Before we throw him in too deep of a hole, it's more or less the same attitude that any wildly rich man who lives here shares. Something from "Tale of Two Cities" goes here.)

Anyhoo... let's leave aside the idea that NBA guys shouldn't get hurt unless it's in an NBA game, because, um, they are grown men and they'd be playing anyway, because, um, you don't get to the NBA without playing a lot of hoop outside of the regular season and playoff games. Let's also leave aside the idea of who should own these country v. country games, because, um, I don't care and no one else should, either. FIBA or the NBA or the IOC or whatevs, it doesn't really matter unless you really need to buy the merch or go to the games, and, well, no one really needs to do that.

Rather, I want to talk about the actual public reaction to George getting hurt. Pacer Fan is, of course, devastated, because George is their favorite player for cause, and their only hope to actually get to, or win, a Finals. It's not much of a hope, really, but he's the only guy on the roster that's ever seemed like he could be the best player in the Association. And sure, he'd need multiple tragedies and a quantum leap in his game, but he was 90% of the way there, and that last 10% seems close even though it really isn't.

There are people praying for George's recovery, and, well, that's their choice. There are other people saying that since George makes a lot of money, those prayers aren't valid, or justified, and that this is indicative of a greater sickness in America, that we assume a commonality with the rich and famous that just isn't there. These latter folk, who you mostly run into looking for clickbait or occupying the Provocative part of your Idiot Sports Radio dial, seem all kinds of uncharitable to me, but again, not what I want to discuss.

Rather, I want to point out the nature of this injury, and the impact involved. When a football player goes sideways with an injury, it's awful and you cringe, but it also happens, um, just about every damn game. When a pitcher goes down, especially in mid-game, there's almost an inevitability about it, because the act of throwing a baseball is so rending, it just seems like every arm has got a finite number of pitches in it. When a boxer goes down, that's what you paid to see. And so on, and so on.

But basketball? The players don't wear any helmets or pads. We feel like we know them, because the court is so compacted and the cameras so omnipresent. They play the vast majority of their team's plays, unlike the other major American sports. They don't take big hits, and many can go their entire career without suffering a significant on-court injury. Many of them have been around for a downright unseemly amount of time. Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki and Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett have all been playing basketball longer than my eldest child has been alive, and she's starting high school in the fall. And so on, and so on. They wear out, they get banged up, they get old, but they don't just go bang in the noonday sun and disappear. For the most part.

So when a player in the prime of his career just suddenly goes away, potentially never to return? It startles. It seems wrong. It makes faithful people pray.

And it reminds everyone that while life seems long, and predictable, and that teams will rise and fall over a course of years...

It's all illusion, and can all change at any time.

And if that makes you act emotionally, or feel bad for a man who makes more money (in a year, compared to your whole damned life) and has won all kinds of lotteries before this setback...

You aren't wrong. You're just humane.

Unlike, well, some other people.