Turn Off The Radio

After 9 months of solid sportsblogging mediocrity, Roughing the Reader is headed for... more mediocrity. I kid, I kid. As I'm sure the 11 of you reading this will agree, I'm damn good at this. But writing a blog by yourself is hard, especially when you're as lazy as I am. So I've enlisted some talented, equally bitter help to take this blog to the next level. His name is Zwill, and he was recently voted Hater of the Year by a tribunal of his peers. He deserved it. (I'm not going to say which of our friends is the brother of that girl, but let's just say he wasn't pleased.) But I digress. He will add dimensions to this blog that otherwise would not be there. He will curse, maybe even more than I do. And he will write about New York sports, soccer, and anything else he damn well feels like. And so, without further ado, ladies (yeah, right) and gentleman, I give you Zwill. Take it away buddy:

In his 12^th year as an NFL head coach, Tom Coughlin has changed. Lightened up as a coach. Matured as a man. A new leaf hath turned. There he was, the ultimate megalomaniacal micromanager, taking his team bowling. Bowling! And ten-pin at that!

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Stop me if you’ve heard this before. If this sounds like a familiar refrain, that’s because it is. You may have heard a talking head from the Worldwide Poetry Slam Leader say this last November when the Giants were 6-2. Or perhaps it was the previous January before the Giants hosted a playoff game against the Carolina Panthers that ended in a 23-0 loss. Coughlin entered that game as a coach revered for turning a 4-12 cellar dweller in 2003 into a 12-4 division champ in just two years. It didn’t take long – oh, about three hours – for all the positive goodwill to turn into vitriol, much of which came from his players.

One day you’re up and the next you’re down – that’s nothing new in the NFL. But to buy into it all takes some serious short-term memory loss. More than ever, the MSM deals in hyperbole. Genius is the new up and pathetic the new down. It’s no longer a “game of inches” where the best teams “go the extra mile.” Now the Patriots win because their coach is the Rembrandt of the NFL and the Falcons lose because they are ill prepared for battle.

At times likes these, it’s important to remember what Dead Prez says: “Believe in none of what you hear and half of what you see.” The margin for error in the NFL is so slim –so microscopic – that almost nothing is a given. So please channel your inner William Goldman and say it with me: Nobody knows anything.

Yes, the Patriots, Colts and Cowboys are good. Yes, the Dolphins, Rams and Falcons are bad. Beyond that, it’s all a crapshoot. And yes, we say this every year but does it ever really stick? Why are we still listening to Sean Salisbury and John Clayton bicker back and forth? They don’t know shit. Cris Carter and Dan Marino are both era-defining players at their respective positions … and their opinions are worthless. Are they ever held accountable for their wrong predictions? Beyond the “awwwww shucks” ribbing that they get from their colleagues, not a bit. When’s the last time you heard ESPN or Fox or CBS terminate a pundit’s employment for poor analysis?

So the next time you’re listening to The Fan or The Team or The Ticket, I want you to take another piece of advice from Dead Prez: “Turn off the radio! Turn off that bullshit!”