Why Running Up The Score Isn't Just Wrong, It's Stupid

In today's Bad Tooth moment for me, I read Simmons' latest mouth job for the Patriots. It turns out that running up the score and being irredeemable douchebags is OK, because people said mean thing about the Patriots about CheaterGate FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS.

I mean, really, people, what were we thinking? The marquee team of the league threatens the entire viability of the NFL by compromising its integrity in a particularly blatant way, right in front of the league's commissioner, and we went *on and on* about it. WE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER.

Ow. Impacted. Owwww. Yeah, I think it's cracked. Let me touch it with my tongue some more. OWWWW.... Hmm. Maybe some mouthwash would help. OWWWWWWWWW....

Anyway, after the self-loathing was over, it got me to thinking -- what, beyond the sense of reeking obnoxiousness, is really all that bad about running up the score? The opposing team are professionals, not little kids; it's not like we expect them to cry over it. The fans who are rooting against the Patriots aren't going to hate them any more or less from an extra score or six. You're either all in or all out with this team - they are the football equivalent of a Karl Rove campaign, only without the subtlety, and with ten times the competence.

And yet, here is the reason why it's a bad idea... I'm convinced, on some level, that it will eventually get the refs to turn on you. And it's also going to get the team that's taking it without lube to forget the Unwritten Rules of Football.

While it hasn't manifested itself enough to turn into action yet (or, for that matter, a workable labor union), the NFL is a fraternity. On any given play, at any given moment, your career can end. And it can happen at more or less the mercy of individual players on the opposing team.

A dive at the back of the knee. A roll into the pile, with a grab and yank that isn't about getting the ball. A flat out late hit on a high throw, or a quarterback, punter or kicker taking a shot with malice when they are vulnerable. If you want someone hurt badly enough in an NFL game, and have a small but actionable group that's willing to go beyond the pale to Make A Statement... well, we know it could happen, so at some point, maybe it will happen. We're talking about some of the biggest, fastest and most powerful athletes on the planet. And most of them are pretty good at violence.

It's still not terribly likely; if nothing else, no one wants to pay the fine, face the suspension, or deal with the resulting public fallout and possible revenge ploy from an unhinged Patriots fan. But you have to think that eventually, someone is going to Cross The Line.... and that line gets easier to cross when the team that's giving you the beatdown are being complete douchebags about it.

And that, by the way is why

1) You don't crown the title of Best Team Ever before Halloween, and

2) You don't run up the score, week in and week out, on large and violent men who have access to your extremities.

So... am I rooting for this blood lust?

When John Lennon sang the Beatles' song "Revolution," the lyric is

But when you talk about Destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out...

and then Lennon would say

in

Fairly quietly, so that most of the time, it was not noticed.

Eventually, an interviewer asked him about it, and Lennon said something to the effect that when violence and destruction went down, he hoped he'd have the strength and decency to keep out of it... but, well, he just wasn't sure. Maybe he gets caught up in it, he just didn't know.

And yes, that's increasingly where you are getting, if you are a football fan that is ambivalent or worse about the Pats. When the fall occurs, and it always does, there will be many enjoying the ride.

P.S. For another side on this, check out what the boys at My Brain Says Rage have to say. (They do use naughtier language than us, if such things offend your virgin eyes.)

Epic Drop: Top 10 Ways The Patriots Can Become Even More Hated

Your list is here, and it's a fairly involved thing, complete with YouTube goodness. The clip isn't nearly as funny if you haven't seen the original Britney Fan meltdown, but your mileage may vary. More on this soon.



H/t for the clip to Deadspin.

Epic Drop: Top 10 Bills That Congress Can Now Consider, Now That The Favre Motion Is Done

Your list is here, and the astute reader will notice that the whole thing is clearly inspired by the Earlier Cranky Pantsing, which is below.

The Return Of My Cranky Pants

(H/t for Cranky Pants as a concept to the SFGate's Tim Goodman.)

1) Clemens retirement speculation. Did you know that Roger's not sure whether or not he's going to come back next year, and his wife thinks he shouldn't because he's been such a baseball workaholic but he thinks he might and that he thinks that the Yankees should keep Joe Torre and that reading the last sentence just caused your functional IQ to drop by 20 points? (Don't worry, it's temporary. Like pot.)

There is nothing...

> not the tendency of announcers to stop reporting the game they are covering

> not the production of rumors as fact

> not the cheerleading for athletes who are good interviews

> not even the cross-pollination of sports with entertainment or politics (hey, you got your chocolate in my axle grease! you got your rancid cotton candy in my chocolate! wait... they taste like crap together!)

No, not all of these things put together that sticks in the craw like the Retirement Speculation Story. It is the living embodiment of a media-athlete circle jerk, and that it's even the subject of freaking cell phone commercials right now is a sign that Something Is Very Wrong With Our World.

If I were the vengeful all-powerful deity to whom all human events were a puppet show that required simple, swift and wildly escalating justice... any athlete that engaged in such foolishness would have their tendons snap like kindling. Writers, something else.

GO DO YOUR JOB. OR NOT. IF YOU DECIDE NOT TO DO YOUR JOB ANY MORE, I DO NOT CARE. SOMEONE ELSE, HONEST, WILL DO IT.

2) Congressional resolutions about sports. I am not, for the record, anti-political; I do not spend my days fuming about what Those Bastards are doing with My Tax Dollars. I assume that, just like in the private sector with its CEO scandals and Enron-esque shenanigans, there will be some good, some bad, and a cottage industry made from pointing out the latter. (Though it is kind of remarkable how quickly complaints about corporations go away, really. Find me a radio station windbag who goes on about the S&L bailout, or the Iraq contractor thefts, the same way they go on about government waste. Perhaps there is a reason for this that involves six media conglomerates controlling over 95% of everything we read, see, and hear. Anyway, moving on.)

And then there's this:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) commends Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre for establishing a National Football League record for most career touchdown passes;

(2) recognizes Brett Favre for his outstanding community service in Wisconsin and Mississippi and his 16 consecutive years of dedicated service with the Green Bay Packers, a community-owned organization; and

(3) directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to transmit a copy of this resolution to Brett Favre, to the Green Bay Packers organization, and to the Commissioner of the National Football League.

Is it a small thing, really, in the course of the Republic? Yes. It probably took a junior staffer an hour to write, it got the Rep who read it (D-Steve Kagen, Appleton, WI) a little time on C-Span, and it made the reps from Wisconsin and Mississippi happy. It even made Republicans and Democrats agree on something, and after all Favre's done charitable things and hasn't gotten doped up on pain meds, as far as we know, in months.

But does it continue to cheapen the political discourse to resolve the equivalent of Puppies Are Fuzzy, Puppies Don't Hate, Puppies Are Cute, Puppies Are Great! into the public record?

Believe it or not, we actually pay these people to do things for us. Things that are more important than the all-important Favre Resolution or the all important Puppy Addendum. (For the record, FTT Just Says No To Puppy Burning, but we are soft on Gay Puppy Marriage.)

3) Jerry Buss says that, contrary to popular belief, Kobe Bryant plays for the Lakers and as such, is subject to the same realities (i.e., He Might Be Traded) as lesser mortals.

Really, what is stupider here -- the reporting of a bland pronouncement of How Sports Works as News, or the idea that it might actually *be* news? Trade speculation is a close second to Athlete

Retiring on the Insufferable Meter. Deal the loon or not. Otherwise, these cranky pants are getting matching shoes and jacket.

Burn, Naysayers, Burn

We came to Dallas and shut all the naysayers up. - New England Patriots WR Randy Moss, after the team's win in Dallas yesterday

Nation,

I am offering a bright shiny US quarter, complete with postage, to anyone who can identify the naysayers in Randy Moss's world.

After all, we are six weeks into The Greatest Season Ever Performed By An NFL Team; we need to find whoever may be disparaging this achievement and violently assault them. As FTT's Bad Tooth Writer Bill Simmons has said in picking them before, YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER. Remember that, Nation -- if you pick against the Patriots at any point this year, you are not only stupid but also have deep character flaws.

And if there is no one out there naysaying a team that was a 5.5 point favorite on the road against an undefeated team... then RANDY MOSS IS HEARING VOICES IN HIS HEAD, and should be relieved of football duties now, before his mental condition becomes worse.

Finally, a personal aside: short of a barnyard animal, have you ever actually met a Naysayer? Seems like an odd lifestyle choice to me, but hey, whatever floats your boat...