Media isn’t a fan of Bruce

Been hearing a lot of negative reaction from some of the Buffalo media personalities about their opinion on Bruce Smith. It has nothing to do with his on the field play, but his personality off it. Adam Benigni of WGRZ, was on the Howard Simon show on Friday, and he talked about being turned off by Smith always touting himself as the greatest defensive player of all time. Someone needs to tell Adam, how a lot of players in professional sports aren’t to humble when it comes to describing themselves. Smith has a legit beef. If you were to compare him to Lawrence Taylor and Reggie White, his numbers surpass theirs, but because he played in a small market like Buffalo, he doesn’t get the same recognition.

Mike Schopp said earlier this week, he felt Bills fans didn’t care as much about Bruce Smith’s enshrinement as previous Bills players from the 90’s. He brought up how it may of been because of Smith not living in the community after his playing days. Jerry Sullivan, has been the least friendliest of all of the above listed, by stating that Bruce Smith was the biggest egomaniac he has ever covered. Sully did say, a tear was brought to his eye, when Smith was talking about the importance of his parents in his life. Even Ed Kilgore, who doesn’t say anything bad about anyone in Buffalo sports, wrote in his blog how Smith didn’t talk to him for over a year, because he criticised the sack master for doing a sack dance when the Bills were trailing in a football game.

I always hate when the media puts their problems with an athlete on the front burner. It should be all about what the player did on the field. Just because Smith had a huge ego and doesn’t live in Buffalo like Kelly and Thomas do, shouldn’t take away anything he has done. Bruce had a very up and down relationship with the local media during his playing days. Jerry Sullivan said, that Smith was the type who wouldn’t get along with the locals but when the national media came to do a story on him, he was all ears. I feel some of the criticism and jabs Smith has gotten from some of the media types has to do with his relationship with them during his playing days. There has always been rumblings how certain players don’t get in HOF right away, because of their relationship with the media (Jim Rice, Michael Irvin, Chris Carter) during their playing days.

I’d like for the media in Buffalo to lay off of Smith’s ego and just talk about how his performance on the field. Fans and the media put way too much into what a player is like off the field, you think they were doing a back ground check on the player. Like I said yesterday, Smith is the greatest Buffalo player in my lifetime. 200 sacks, 4 defensive player of the year rewards, 14 years with 10 sacks or more. The numbers don’t lie. I just sometimes wish the media would look at the numbers more, then their pen and paper.

-Joe-

-Be sure to check out my live Blog of both speeches-