An Un-Inspired Re-Mix

You would think that someone whom enjoys blogging and writing (especially about sports) would have plenty to say after a five months of silence. You might also think that the given all that is currently going on in the world of sports (World Series, end of the PGA Tour season, the NFL season in full-swing, and the NBA season tipping off in less than a week), it would be easy to think of many topics to write about in an article. However, if you think that both of these things are true, you are mistaken – very mistaken.

Before I started typing this “article,” I was going to write about the top ten athletic achievements occurring in my lifetime. I thought it sounded like a great piece, and the idea stemmed from a question posed on my facebook profile wall by Owen Handy a few weeks ago. We were discussing the end of the Braves run of division titles, when I told him (rather off-handedly) that I felt it was one of the top three athletic accomplishments of my lifetime (yes, “3” was an arbitrary and random number I selected for no reason at all). Naturally for Owen (especially if you know him), he wanted to hear my thoughts. Here are his exact words (dated September 13th, 2006):

“What would you list as the ten most significant athletics accomplishments of your lifetime? As an aside, I feel obligated to say that when I was watching Agassi's final match as a professional I felt that I was watching one of the great sportsmen of my lifetime play for the last time, so I would also like to know the top 10 sportsmen of your lifetime. I realize that these may take some time.”

I have been completely stumped by this question. Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin. I have started cataloguing a few ideas (Tiger Woods will be prominently involved), but it is going to take me a lot longer to come up with a coherent list that I can truly say is my definitive Top Ten for either category. Sorry you are going to wait for a while longer for that one - the idea is just a bit too grandiose for me at the moment.

The next topic I thought about covering was the Sports Guy’s impending “retirement” from ESPN. He made a Tiki Barber reference in his NFL column today so that his fans won’t be completely surprised when he pulls a Barry Sanders in a few months. Here is his exact quote:

"By the way, in case you haven't heard, Tiki Barber has been plugging away for 10 years, and even though he has 2-3 solid years left in him, he's quitting this winter to pursue other ventures. Um, Tiki? That was gonna be my move! You stole my idea! I'm outraged! Now I'm going to look like a copycat if it happens. Great."

Now, Mark and I have discussed (quite often actually) his impending retirement. I found out a few months of ago as I was randomly searching on the internet and came across a very interesting and enlightening interview with him on Sports Illustrated’s website. He makes mention of the fact that he never wanted to just be the Sport’s Guy for his entire career and is ready to start pursuing other kinds of writing (ie, TV/movie scripts). Here’s a link to that Chris Ballard article (article), and I recommend it to any Bill Simmons fan out there (sidenote: I checked out the sons of the sports guy website mentioned in the article (SOTSG), and I thought it was the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Crap like this would make me seriously consider other options as well). However, I have decided that I would rather hold off comments on Simmons until his official retirement from ESPN at the end of winter.


Well, obviously you can see that I am struggling to come up with a topic to write about for this article. So, I started to think about what (in sports) have I devoted significant amounts of time towards in the past few months? Since I live in West Virginia and go to Medical School, I have not seen my Falcons play a single game this season. I haven’t watched any Braves games since the beginning of August, so I really can’t comment on the state of the team heading into next year. I have read every preview about my Atlanta Hawks this season, but I know that the franchise will never turn the corner until the ownership issue is settled (predicted to be settled before the playoffs by Scoop Jackson today in his NBA preview – thank God). Thus, there is no real point in really commenting (however, since I cannot resist commenting, here’s a quick summary – we will battle the Bobcats for the last spot in the Southeastern Division all year. Shocking, I know). So, I have decided to take the easy way out for this post. I am going to publish an unfinished response (that is going to be EXTREMELY dated) to Mark’s article back from October 25, 2005 (almost one year ago today) with new comments added in italics. I realize this kind of article is not the kind of high level work many of you have come to expect from the VT, but I do think it is still an enjoyable article. Also, I am finishing up another quality, unfinished article from that same time period. I am going to get both articles up this weekend, and hopefully two old (but new to you) columns can/will fulfill my quota for the month of October. Before you read what is below, check out Mark’s original VT article “Fantasy Football’s Most Robust Performers,” so that you can be familiar with the ideas I am responding to below. Here’s a link.

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Below is the article where I last left it almost a year to the day. There are unfinished thoughts and misspelling a plenty, but I am just going to add my comments to it as it currently stands. Remember, my new thoughts from today are in italics.

My ReBUTTal:
- Peyton Manning is not a bust. While he has been disappointing, I’m not sure how someone who is in the top 10 in the league in ANY category (unless it is a negative one) can be considered a bust. He’s in the top 10 in both passing yards and TD’s. He’s having a typical good year for a QB. Not meeting expectations means that you are disappointment. I reserve the BUST category for much more significant failures to produce. Also, one more side note, I predicted in the off-season that Peyton wouldn’t throw for 40 TD this season. No one believed me, but then again no one believes me on stuff like this. Finally, I don’t want to hear the counter-argument that because Peyton when #1 overall in some drafts that it makes him more of bust. People who take QB’s in the first round are fools in my opinion anyways. You are looking for consistency and quality in the first two rounds of a draft, which is why wise owners always go RB. I totally predicted a relative “decline” for Peyton last year. Of course, THIS year, fantasy Running Backs have been the BUSTS, so I guess I have no idea what players to take in the first round of a fantasy football draft.

- Stephen Davis may have BUSTed out from a TD standpoint (7), but he still is averaging less than 3 yards per carry (2.7). If averaging less than 3 yards per carry makes Kevin Jones a BUST, the same argument should counter any notion that Davis is a breakout. Of course my opinion on this matter has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I traded all of Davis’ Touchdowns for the oft-injured Julius Jones. This trade went on to ruin my fantasy football season. Julius Jones missed a few more games with nagging injuries (pretty much the whole year he was injured) and put up horrible numbers even when he was playing. Eventually I became so fed up with Julius Jones that I benched him during Week 16 when I was playing Girden for 3rd place in our league. Julius exploded for 218 yards and 2 TDs. I wanted to kill him. I traded him to Noah before the start of this year to move up in the draft to take Willie Parker (who’s been inconsistent himself – horrible on the road but great at home). I guess I can’t win. The lesson is to always play your “studs” regardless of how inconsistent they maybe be because you never know what may happen (note: I had to relearn this lesson this year when I lost last week because I had Hines Ward on the bench for his 8 catch, 171 yard, 3 TD game).

- On a completely unrelated side note, anytime I hear the word comBUSTable, I am reminded of the Cosby Show. Apparently Bill was known as Heathcliff “The ComBUSTable” Huxtable. It was featured in the episode where his old 4 x 400 relay team challenged his old collegiate rivals. Not sure how this actually applies to this article, but I wanted to show my versatility as a writer based on my ability to reference many different cultural phenomena. Also, I realize that the Cosby Show reference in no way did that. Looking back on this comment, I still laugh (even if you didn’t). However, now when I think of the Cosby Show, the scene from High Fidelity where Jack Black makes fun of John Cusak’s horrible sweater by calling it a “Cosby sweater.” I still hate Jack Black and think he is highly overrated as a comedian, but that scene always makes me laugh.

- I also wanted to add Clinton Portis to the BUSTing the Seams Category. He’s on his way to a huge second half now that he’s gotten over his TD drought. Of course, this is probably wishful thinking on my part. In my opinion and regardless of the numbers, he’s still the 2nd best overall back in the league behind LDT. He always gets easily over 100 yards a week, and the TD’s will come like rain this second half. Also, stay tuned for an upcoming article on why CP is so sweet. Of course, I tease about upcoming articles a lot, so consider yourself warned. I guess I am still a tease. Oh well. Portis did go on a big TD run to close the season (and propel me to the fantasy football playoffs). Of course, he is still really inconsistent and his poor performance last week helped me lose to Seume in the aforementioned Hines Ward game.

- As far as Perennial BUSTs, I’ll admit that I bought the Michael Bennett hype this year. I’m pretty sure that I spent a 4th round pick on the man, which is way too high. Luckily, I was able to trade him away before he ever played a game for my storied fantasy football franchise. Of course, there is nothing storied or heroic about my franchise’s history, but nonetheless I will never again will I buy the Michael Bennett hype. I actually promise (with all two or our readers as my witnesses) to never have Bennett on my team again. I’m not wavering on this issue; it’s that serious. Michael Bennett is now on his 3rd team since this article was originally written (he was traded to the Saints before they drafted Reggie Bush and then the Chiefs acquired him to help back up Larry Johnson since Priest Holmes has still not recovered from his injuries). The Rams also signed the above mentioned Stephen Davis this year as well to help back-up LJ.

- As far as Brain Greise, I still think he’s a legitimate FF QB. Of course, he’s injured and out for the year, so you might want to think of other options for the rest of this season. Essentially my love of Greise stems from my ability to pick him up last year after he became the starter in Tampa Bay. He threw for 20 TDs over the last two-thirds of the season, which of course translates to 30 over a full season. Only Peyton Manning owners would complain about a season with these numbers from their starting QB. Of course, with the emergence of Cadillac Williams (how good are SEC RBs by the way), Greise probably wasn’t going to be able to duplicate his numbers from last season anyways. The SEC RB comment kills me. Cadillac has been an injury prone disappointment pretty much since this article was originally written. He’s played well the last few weeks since the QB change, but I am pretty sure Ekwall would trade him in a second if he received a decent offer). Greise went on to sign in the off-season with the Bears. Rex Grossman has played well enough this season (except for the Arizona game and he bounces back this weekend against the 49ers) that no one really ever expects Greise to play this season at all. He did carry me the year before this article was written as hilarious as it is to think of him as a legitimate fantasy QB now.

- Finally, my response to Mark’s inflammatory and controversial opening follows. First of all, to our one female reader out there who may have been offended, I apologize. I’m personally as face and smile guy, but Mark didn’t set up the debate that way. I think I was trying desperately to be funny and clever. Also, I have always played up being a sensitive guy to the girls (even though I am not – ask all two girls that have been in a relationship with me). The dichotomy exists, and I am squarely a BUTT man. Also, who was I kidding, no females read the VT.

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Well, thanks for taking the stroll down memory lane with me. Sorry it was so complicated, but I hope that it was still enjoyable and you had plenty of things to read and check out (Simmons’ interview, Sons of the Sports Guy website, and my previously unreleased article). I’ll see you with one more article in a few more days about my favorite commercial of all-time.