The Awful New World In Which You Live In

So in prepping for the NFL season, I keep coming back to the situation in Arizona, where the Perpetual Cardinals Could Surprise Story is being undermined by Anquan Boldin demanding a trade, and coach Ken Whisenhunt starting Kurt Warner in a preseason game ahead of the supposed future of the franchise, Matt Leinart.

In case you don't follow the more off-field sports blogs, Leinart was photographed at an underaged keg party in the off-season, helping some fine young things like a helpful freshman pledge, rather than like a guy making tens of millions of dollars to play in the NFL. He also found time for the absolutely necessary hot tub trip, which shows that his ideas of debauchery aren't exactly original.

This lead to many athletes (as well as a celebrated Buzz Bissinger meltdown on the HBO Costas show) to decry the sudden paparazzi-like influence of One Nation With A Cell Phone Camera, and the Evil, Evil Blogs That Publish Those Pictures.

You see, we in Blogfrica had crossed a line that should not have been crossed. Leinart was perpetuating no crime, said the glibertarians, and it didn't seem right to splash his face all over the Internets for some harmless fun. We're very, very bad people to show you images like this one, and to make money from the ad impressions that they generate. He's not a celebrity; he just plays football for a living.

Never mind the fact that underaged drinking isn't harmless, especially if you were the parents of one of the sweet young things. Or the fact that Leinart has fathered a kid out of wedlock before. (While one might suspects that it would have happened from an experience similar to the one photographed, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say the relationship just went wrong. Oh, and that he was forced to engage in unsafe sex.)

Or that at the time of Beer Bong Gate, he was supposed to be in rehab from a season-ending collarbone injury, and hence, you know, working.

Um, people? It's not coming to come as any great surprise to you where I'm going with this, right? Yup... I Cry Bullshit. (Or, at the very least, Shenanigans.)

You see, it *does* matter what these guys do off the field, and here's why -- coaches have this thing about trusting guys with bad judgment. If Leinart had kept his nose clean and stayed under the radar, he'd have been showing good judgment -- the same good judgment that he's generally lacked in not leading the Cardinals to a winning record in his time there, despite a piss-poor division, a steadily improving talent base (especially at the skill positions), and the bump that the new home stadium should have given that team.

The same good judgment that would have his quarterback rating up above the Detmer level. He's not that much far above it now, other than some good moments in games against pretty weak defenses.

While we're talking about judgment, maybe it would have been better for him to declare early, especially since he was all of one class short for his last year in sunny California. So instead of going first overall, he went lower the next year, as scouts started to whisper about his commitment to the game and the fact that USC QBs tend to be system washouts in the pros (Rob Johnson, anyone?).

It might have also helped if he not had a lengthy holdout that opened the door for Warner, who for all of his fumbling and holding on to the ball flaws, does know the system and prepares for an opponent..

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?

It matters because all of this has led Whisenhunt, correctly in my opinion, to dally with Warner as his quarterback instead of The Franchise. In your roto league, Warner, despite no assurance that he's going to get the majority of the snaps, is going ahead of Leinart. (Not that either is going very high, mind you... and if Arizona had a clear #1, he'd be a top 10 pick.) That's because roto guys remember numbers, and when Warner gets the snaps, he produces. Leinart, not so much.

In the world we used to live in, we as fans (and fantasy players, which, admittedly, is a big reason why anyone cares who about the quarterback situation in) would have much less information on what's leading Whisenhunt to mess around with The Future like this.

We'd be pillorying the coach for his stubborn refusal to live with the necessary growing pains are breaking in a young quarterback.

We'd be convinced that, just like always, the Cardinals were succumbing to their franchise DNA and squandering young talent.

We'd also be wrong. The problem with Matt Leinart is Matt Leinart. Blogfrica just exposed the truth, which is what journalism should do, and made everyone aware of the depths of Leinart's commitment to being a winning player.

And that, my friends, is not awful, though it may very well be new.

The Bullshit Factory

Welcome to the Four Day Dead Zone, the annual time in the sports year when smarter people than me just close up shop and move on. The dumber among us complain about the All Star Game (especially the annual abomination that is the Chris Berman Home Run Derby Stab Out Your Ears And Make Your Contemplate Funding An Assassination), crank out What It All Means Pieces about the first half of the regular season in MLB, chew over any second tier free agent signing in the NBA, and read the tea leaves of NFL summer camps.

And yet, for the past several years, something has always lurched into huge prominence at this time, whether it be a self-immolation (the Michael Vick Affair), a trade drive (Kobe Bryant being a freaking loon), an MLB dust-up (there's Hall of Fame voting sometime soon, isn't there?), or that old favorite, violent crime (some athlete is due to be relieved of their valuables at gunpoint).

There will also be the usual second-tier sports trying to clamor for attention. This year, that'll be the Olympics, the presidential election, whatever the Lemur invents to fill the void -- remember Who's Now? I do, mostly at night, when the shakes come.

In short, there *is* no dead time in sports now, because the eco-system is self-propelling, like any bullshit factory. Some athlete with a taste for attention (Brett Favre is on lines 1 through 8) will push for the pub. Another will do something dubious, or have a court appearance. There are more than enough people with past prominence that a notable death will create pundit gruel. Sabermetric stuff will take the fore and tell us something -- anything -- that we didn't know. The presence of camera phones will generate cheap heat and a story (and, to be candid, I still think it's meaningful that Matt Leinart was drinking with the underaged -- and if you disagree with that, feel free to draft him too early in those upcoming roto leagues, as he will be there).

There is no off-season anymore, and that goes for everything. I work in online advertising, and even though the creative community in most advertising circles packs it in and tries to take time off in the summer, there's still loads to do -- prep work for back to school and winter seasonal creatives, sudden fire drills to help an advertiser spend a budget, businesses that move to re-do failing art or a re-work for a new brand, etc., etc. It's even more telling in a bad economy, as people try to look busy at all costs (and frankly, I suspect the economy is a lot worse than the media is telling you, if only because that industry is still flush, thanks to the infusion of political dollars, oil company PR, and Olympics hype).

There's also this... people blog for money. (Not me, of course, or I'd have loads more titty images.) The desire to make a buck doesn't go away when the weather gets warm; hell, it probably increases, especially when new blood, in the form of college grads and high school folks with time on their hands, hits the market. The sports blogosphere is just a low-rent section of the same Bullshit Factory that the Lemur is. We are just as guilty as inventing things for your time and interest as anyone else. (Speaking of which... where's my pointy hat for winning Iron Ref? I demand a pointy hat.)

So welcome, my friends, to the Dead Zone. I promise it'll be lively. And then, the NFL will come again to save us all...

Epic Drop: Top 10 Tips For Spreading BS NBA Rumors

Your list is here, and yes, it was sprung by Yet Another Story of how the Nets have to trade Jason Kidd (Britney Rant Defender Voice on) RIGHT NOW (off). They don't, He Ain't, and you can all go back to your candlelight vigils for the other trades that Just Have To Happen (those would be Jermaine O'Neal, Andrei Kirilenko, Shawn Marion, Kobe Bryant...)

Top Ten Reasons Why Blacks Aren't Playing Baseball

Inspired, of course, by the fearless truth to power work of Gary Sheffield...

10. NFL just much more open to brothers being brothers

9. NBA gives blacks more opportunities to elbow foreigners

8. NHL has better and cheaper seat opportunities for friends and family

7. Jesus is ready for a new PGA favorite

6. NASCAR fans are clamoring for more black drivers

5. WWE gives you the chance to hang out with strippers in public without anyone making a big deal about it

4. Bud Selig tries to talk "jive" with black players, causing even more discomfort than usual

3. Arena Ball gives blacks their innermost, yet forbidden, joy -- the opportunity to listen to Jon Bon Jovi

2. Still pissed off about the whole Buck O'Neill thing

1. Barry Bonds

Crying Bullshit

In which FTT puts to rest the following bits of Accepted Sports Wisdom.

Ex-Athletes Have A Unique And Superior Perspective On The Game.

This is kind of like shooting astronauts into space and expecting them to write great and moving works of poetry about their experience. Rather than, saying, going after their romantic rivals in deranged murder plots while wearing diapers.

If athletes had such an unbeatable life experience, there would only be ex-athlete Owners and General Managers, and guys like Joe Dumars and Larry Bird would never have drafted Darko and suffered through Ron Artest. Joe Morgan would not be insufferable. Joe Theismann would not be someone you would pay good money to punch in the face (Joe, email us me -- $50 is the opening bid). And so on.

What ex-athletes have is brand recognition, goodwill from past exploits (hello, Smoke!), and if they were sociable during their playing days, a good network of contacts. These are all formidable points in their favor, and in most industries, they would be more than enough to get you a corner office and a steady paycheck. But if you are looking for a unique perspective, you would be better off talking to the peanut vendor.

Booing never helps the home team win.

My first hometown, Philadelphia, is notorious for this one, where the responsibility for the 25 year drought of any kind of meaningful championship is frequently dumped on the fans. Clearly, we are the people that did not clap for Tinkerbell, and now she’s dead from blunt force trauma to the head, probably from something one of us threw, or maybe a flare gun. It’s no more than what Us Animals deserve.

(You know what? Screw Tinkerbell. She’s a murderously jealous little bitch who can’t accept that Peter will never be hers, and wants him to spend the rest of his existence as an infantile man-child, cuckolded to her bullshit wings. Plus, she’s probably two-timing him with Jiminy Cricket or maybe the dragon from Mulan – let’s face it, Eddie Murphy is everywhere -- and she was definitely faking that whole near-death experience. Total hatefuck. Anyway...)

Booing is, at is purest level, the ability to express an opinion that does not conform with The Authorities – nothing more, nothing less. That opinion may be wrong, ill considered, badly timed, unfair. It also might not. Philadelphia fans have booed Mike Schmidt, Allen Iverson, Donovan McNabb and just about every other superstar of note. We have also booed David Bell, Shawn Bradley, and Bobby Hoying. In those latter cases, we helped grease the skids for their exit. Tell me how that did not help the home team win.

These Teams Hate Each Other.

Sure, and you can really see why. After all, they are entirely composed of players from the region of their team, people with a firm sense of pride in the place that they live. They also have the majority of their salaries determined by who wins and who loses, and they never fraternize together off the field, or have the same agents.

Oh, wait. Crap. Yeah, so much for the hate.

There are players who truly, truly hate the other team. They are able to do this through a short-term force of will that helps them focus more on the contest. When the final whistle blows, they toss that hate aside like a used jersey, only to bring back when they need it. And if they do not, they are borderline psychopaths who you should steer a very wide berth from, especially when they are driving.

But as for true hate? That’s just for fans. And why do we hate? Maybe, just maybe, because it is what the media wants us to do to drive up the ratings, since a game without hate is also a game without compelling drama. In Philadelphia, we have always been at war with Oceania, the Dallas Cowboys, the Boston Celtics, and the New York Mets. (Especially since Terrell Owens defected to Oceania.)