Rants From the Palouse: Stupid Narratives Are Stupid

The media has a tendency to create these narratives that don’t make a lot of sense, and it’s all in the name of getting clicks/selling page views. These narratives often inform public opinion and in such a way as that the public becomes ill-informed, and an ill-informed public is a bad situation for all involved.

For example, there is a portion of the Mariners fan base that think the ownership group is unwilling to spend money to bring in top-notch free agents. This narrative ignores the act that the team spent $118 million for 101-losses in 2008; or the fact that there are currently $49 million a year tied up in Felix Hernandez and Robinson Cano. Fans in Seattle are starting to not go to ball games, and that makes it harder for the team to make money; and attract free agents.

The other narrative regarding the M’s is that the management is run by meddling people who don’t understand baseball.

Examining What the Potential NHL Expansion Could Mean for ROOT Sports

ROOT Sports is a struggling regional sports network that covers sports stories around the Pacific Northwest. The network is currently home to the Seattle Mariners, West Coast Conference basketball, UFC fighting, and the Portland Timbers; in other words, the network has fallen on hard times since the launch of the Pac-12 Networks prior to the 2012 college football season. There is a major hole in the networks scheduling, and it could be mostly filled thanks to the rumored NHL expansion franchise.

The NHL franchise would bring the network 81 regular season games to the schedule — and pre-season and potential playoff games — that could bring thousands of viewers to the networks TV screens during what has become a dead period. Those viewers could make it easier for the network to acquire advertising money and would thus help the network with its financials.

Another great thing that ROOT Sports will get from is the programming opportunities that would be created by signing the NHL team to a contract. The network would have the pre-game show, post-game show, season preview and recap, and all-star game coverage. Add in the fact that the network would also give the network random games to show over, and over again — ever watch Mariners’ Mondays?

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SBM Exclusive – The Deep Six: Why the Richard Sherman Postgame Interview Is Being Blown Out of Proportion‏‏‏‏

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By now we’ve probably already seen all of the clips of Richard Sherman’s postgame interview with FOX sideline correspondent Erin Andrews after breaking up a pass and causing an interception in the final minutes of the NFC Championship game. If you’ve been living under a rock and you haven’t caught it, here’s the clip that everyone is talking about:

So there it is. You can make your own judgment on whether or not it was out of line, but the sporting media as well as all of the social networking sites have already told you how to feel based on how we expect athletes to act. I am going to use an unpopular take here and tell you that I don’t think any of this is a big deal. So I’m going Deep Six plus bonus points on this one and I am going to give you several reasons why this is not a big deal.

What We Know Now: SBM Explains the NFL’s Flex Scheduling Procedures

Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth discuss the next step in their plan to shit on our brains.

Flex scheduling will be here before you know it, and here at SBM we figured that we’d go ahead and break down what that really means.  For that, we go to the fine folks at NFL.com to help you the fan understand just how it works.  However, before you go any further, there are two things you need to know here:

1)  The rules are broken down into two sections – A summary of what the flex scheduling means to you, and another portion which is called “NFL Flexible Scheduling 101”

2)  The only reason for the second section is because the league assumes you (the fan) are stupid. 

Did Anybody Happen To Notice Jim Irsay Was Right? P.S. Tony Dungy Has His Head Up His Ass

For all the media-generated bluster that has happened today over Indianapolis Colts’ owner Jim Irsay’s comments about his former quarterback, one thing that has bee largely forgotten is that everything Irsay said is true.  In case you missed it, here’s what he said in an interview with USA Today Sports. The context is Irsay is lamenting the fact the Colts had only one title to show for all their success with Peyton Manning.

“[Tom] Brady never had consistent numbers, but he has three of these [Super Bowl rings],” Irsay told USA Today. Pittsburgh had two, the Giants had two, Baltimore had two and we had one. That leaves you frustrated. You make the playoffs 11 times, and you’re out in the first round seven out of 11 times. You love to have the ‘Star Wars’ numbers from Peyton and Marvin [Harrison] and Reggie [Wayne]. Mostly, you love this ring.”

So, what Irsay is saying is a) the NFL is all about winning Super Bowls, and b) Peyton Manning is a horse-shit “big-game” quarterback.

Don’t even try to tell me that the first one isn’t true. Winning a Super Bowl is like becoming a Yokozuna in Sumo Wrestling. Once you have teh ring, you are always a grand champion and no matter what, they can never take it away from you. The fact that Tony Dungy has one is the only reason anybody bothers to listen to the crap spewing from that little bat-faced, moralizing asswipe. I’ll come back to him in a minute.

You can try to deny the second point is untrue; doing so is to ignore a few crushing facts.

• FACT: In three years at Tennessee, Peyton Manning never beat main rival Florida.
• FACT: Peyton Manning owns a 9-11 playoff record as a starting quarterback.
• FACT: In 8 of Manning’s 12 career playoff appearances, his team has failed to win a single game.
• FACT: Manning is tied with Brett Favre for the most playoff losses by a starting quarterback in NFL history

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10 Stages of an NFL Meltdown

Team meltdowns— we’ve all seen them happen. It happened to the Jets last year. The Buccaneers are in the middle of a meltdown as we speak. If you’re a Raiders or Browns fan, you get to experience a meltdown every year! But how does it happen? How does a perfectly decent NFL team go from a preseason favorite, to an unmitigated deteriorating sack of suck in the matter of a season? Actually, the process is quite simple. Here are the ten stages of an NFL team meltdown.

1. High Expectations

In order for it to be considered a meltdown, people actually need to think your team is talented. By people, I mean any sports writer or commentator not named Skip Bayless. I believe it was Mike Florio, Editor of Pro Football Talk—and a man whose opinion I respect— who picked the Kansas City Chiefs to win the AFC West last year. Instead, the Chiefs were the worst team in the NFL at 2-14. When a respected analyst makes that big of a gaffe, only then can it be considered a meltdown.

2. The Losses

At stage two, the team will begin to lose. Badly. Okay, so maybe the first couple games were close. Then comes the blowout. The QB throws five interceptions and the defensive gives up 40+ points. “It’s a long season,” coaches will tell the media. “We’ve dug ourselves a hole but I have confidence in our guys.”

BOB COSTAS, THE WASHINGTON REDSKINS, AND SUNDAY NIGHT ETHICS COURSES DISGUISED AS FOOTBALL BROADCASTS

by Ryan Meehan

During Sunday Night’s presentation of the Cowboys/Redskins game, Bob Costas did a piece during halftime about the Washington Redskins and the debate that is going on about whether their name should be changed.  The piece was relatively impartial and informative.  He was actually doing a decent job of staying neutral for a while there, but you just knew there was some bullshit coming and here it was:

“Still, the NFL franchise that represents the nation’s capital has maintained its name.  But think for a moment about the term “Redskins,” and how it truly differs from all the others.  Ask yourself what the equivalent would be, if directed toward African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, or members of any other ethnic group…” 

Okay, first of all…no.  I can prove to you that is not the case. 

Is 2014 Washington States’ Best Chance to Host College Gameday Since 2011?

A College Gameday tradition was born during the 2003 college football season. That year marked the first time a WSU flag appeared in the back ground; that year was also the last of Washington State’s 10-win seasons. The apperance of the flag on Gameday was designed to draw attention to the recent-and recent success- of Cougar football, and to get the show out to Pullman. As you all know, Game Day didn’t make it to the Palouse in 2003.

And as any Coug fan can tell you, Cougar football fell of the face of the earth after 2003. Despite that, Gameday was still looking for an excuse to come to Pullman, and in 2011 Paul Wulff’s squad almost gave them a reason too. Against UCLA that year, the Cougs had a lead before allowing the Bruins to score and take the lead late in the fourth quarter; and then Lobbestael threw on the ensuing Cougar drive, sealing the Bruins victory. WSU fell to 3-2 heading into its homecoming match-up against an Andrew Luck lead Stanford. A couple of days after  that loss, Chris Fowler tweeted out that if the Cougs had held on to their lead over the Bruins, College Gameday would have headed to Pullman for the Stanford game…ouch.

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SBM Exclusive Feature: Sports Doppelgangers, Volume 44 – The “Know Your Foreheads” Edition

Fans of the Dan Patrick Show know a popular segment is “Know Your Romo,” in which Dan is forced to guess whether a Tony Romo sound clip is from a presser following a win or a loss; they are virtually indistinguishable. On that note, here’s another set of DP Show related look-alikes. One of these foreheads belongs to a Danette, and one belongs to a future NFL Hall-of-Famer. Can you identify them?

What We Know Now: Bo Pelini Must Be a Big Lee Elia Fan

 

Flash the clock forward to 2011. The Nebrasks Cornhuskers have just scored a huge comeback win against Ohio State. The problem was that a big chunk of the fans had left before the comeback, which led head coach Bo Pelini having a very Elia-esque moment which was brought to  light this week by the good people at Deadspin.

This is fun. Here we have an audiotape of Nebraska football coach Bo Pelini flipping his shit about both the media and the Cornhuskers’ fans after a 2011 game. Why are we getting this now? Well, our tipster was particularly exercised by Nebraska’s flameout against UCLA on Saturday, which has led to some awkwardness in Huskerdom. In the 2011 audio, Pelini says the word “fuck” a lot. He seems to have no idea he was being recorded.

Our tipster says the recording was made on Oct. 8, 2011, just after Nebraska had come back from three touchdowns down to beat Ohio State in Lincoln. He or she only recently had come into possession of this audio before sending it our way. It was recorded moments before Pelini did his postgame radio interview with Greg Sharpe of the Husker Sports Network. Pelini sounded anything but relieved by the big victory.

In the recording, Pelini is talking to Sharpe and to a woman whose identity we’ve been unable to determine. Pelini initially seems upset with an unknown person who works at the Omaha World-Herald, whom he calls “a piece of shit.”

So, after you take in all that has happened, it is time for us to boil all the media bullshit off this story and get us back to the hard facts we all know are present here.

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