As the NFL season started last night, I couldn’t help but appreciate a great game as the Saints high powered offense knew how to move the ball when they had to but came up just short on a questionable run play from the one yardline on the game’s final play. At the same time, I couldn’t stand the thought of the ESPN football analysts taking up a 20 minute segment on the 10 AM Sportscenter dissecting every play of what was certainly a good game but, not worthy of such a long plug while baseball games relevant in the playoff races are assigned 25 seconds of airtime. The worst part? The ESPN football guys are total assholes. Excuse the language (we try to run a clean slate here at Off The Bench) but, these ex-NFL players with a sense of entitlement and a poor playing history have got to stop running their mouths on who can and who cannot play in the National Football League. These guys are very simply ignorant meatheads with the worst of whom being Merril Hoge. Merril has been far more successful at football than I ever was partially because I never played but, let me lay out some stats for you. In his 8 year career, Hoge gained 3,139 rushing yards and 2,133 receiving yards, along with 34 touchdowns. Explain to me how that guy is fully qualified to pass judgement on today’s top players? Hoge was a 10th round pick in 1987 out of Idaho State. 10th round pick! There are currently only 7 rounds in today’s overly analyzed draft. Also, out of Idaho State? Are we serious? That’s not a very good school or football school (they were 2-9 in studmuffin’s senior year).
But, leave it to this football player to develop the holier-than-thou attitude seemingly inherent in all these football personalities. Am I the only one who doesn’t understand where Merril gets the giant cojones to pass judgement on Tim Tebow among others? The quote form Mr. Hoge’s Twitter: “It’s embarrassing to think the Broncos could win with Tebow!!” Uhm, what? Merril the Broncos scored 23, 24, and 28 points in the three games that Tebow started and actually beat a Texans team that had 6 wins. Also, the grammar of the quote makes no sense. “It’s embarrassing to think the Broncos could win with Tebow!!” What does that mean? You should be embarrassed if you think the Broncos could win with Tebow? Evidently, studmuffin doesn’t know how to formulate a logical sentence either.
My main beef with studmuffin is his general unfounded arrogance. The man had a mediocre playing career and has since developed this persona which just screams “Hey, Everybody, I’m an asshole who doesn’t know what he’s talking about but because I say it boldly, it must be true! Suckers!” Compare this with the Baseball Tonight guys. John Kruk (lifetime .300 hitter) and Curt Schilling (216 career wins) both have an understanding of the game and while weren’t necessarily the best players ever, certainly don’t pretend to be. The difference is that these guys actually know what they’re talking about and remain humble as opposed to studmuffin who is both dumb and obnoxious.
Another point, when did SportsCenter turn into FootballCenter? The show became popular as it showed highlights with quirky remarks from the play by play guys. Now each show is filled with about 20 minutes of highlights, followed by about 20 minutes of analysis, followed by 20 minutes of the same highlights. If your a fan of a bad team, good luck seeing their highlights the next morning on SportsCenter as the show’s producers find it more important to put guys like studmuffin in front of us. They must know nobody cares.
I’ll leave my readers with this: I turn the TV off whenever Merril Hoge graces it’s screen, and I’d be embarrassed to be friends with someone who would listen to what he has to say.
Stat of the Day: It’s a mostly baseball blog.
-Sean Morash
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