MMBM: Geno Smith's Lack Of Leadership Made It Ok For Bad Players To Punch Team Captains
Note: TL;DR.
Wellcome to the Monday Morning BM, just a word of warning your probably not prepared to handle the strong football takes and barrelfire NFL truths that you never knew your Mondays were missing. This column is written for and by a REAL fan of the NFL. Its designed to be read on your Monday Morning commode break after a long Sunday eating bad-for-you food and drinking beers. If you care more about SPELLING then you do about TELLING theres the door because this columns not for you.
Everyone’s talking about the big baseball brawl that went down yesterday. Peripheral player Roughned Odor essentially threw a sucker punch at Jose Bautista after Bautista slid in hard to second base on a double play ball. Everyone is pointing fingers at whether Odor is repsonsible, or if Bautista is the culprit for pimping a home run 8 months ago. My take on the matter is twofold- 1. Geno’s Smith’s lack of leadership in last years training camp made it socially acceptable to punch team captains in the face, and 2. I bet Roughned Odor wouldn’t of attacked him if he knew Bautista was carrying a firearm.
Baseball, in its rush to become politically correct and pussified have done things like outlawing late slides, moving the catcher out of the basepaths, and supsending players for cussing at umpires. But has there been any real effect on player safety? The answer is no. Players still get hurt and even injured all the time. I’m a big 2nd Amendment guy. The Bill of Rights was the modern worlds first and best attempt to ever codify unwritten rules. I have no doubt in my mind that Roughned Odor knew that as a Canadian, Jose Bautista would not be carrying a handgun when he decided to punch him in the face.
And even if Bautista had a secured weapon, Odor might of gone ahead and slugged him anyways. Ever since I.K. Enemkpali sucker punched Geno, its been open season on team captains in every sport. Only difference between Jose Bautista and Geno Smith is one stares down home runs and the other stares down receivers.
Advertisement
Its a slippery slope that we get on in todays society. First it’s ok to talk back to your teachers, next you can scream at your parents. Its a logical progression to then feel that its normal to punch a star player whenever you want. Smith had a opportunity to put a stop to all this when he was losing the locker room in New York. If the young man had stepped up and handeled his business then maybe other players in other sports wouldn’t be so empowered to do whatever they want to more talented players.
There used to be something called “respect” in this country. When Robin Ventura charged the mound he knew better than to even really try to make an attempt to punch a authority figure in the face.When Geno Smith got punched in the face by his own teammate it sent a strong message through the sports community: It was now socially acceptable to punch a team captain in the jaw. In hockey- a objectively better sport than baseball- you will never see a player punch an opposing star because they respect the game too much. In global politics its against the law to assassinate your opponet’s leader- like a gentleman’s agreement that the people who get countries into wars shouldn’t be held personally accountable. The same used to be true in Major League sports.
At the end of the day, Roughned is a sour goon but lets not overlook the fact that he is the product of being empowered through legislation and through Geno Smith not demonstrating enough leadership. Odor may stink but he came out of this one smelling like a rose, folks.
On to the awards:
Road Grader of the Week: Danny Amendola
Danny took a paycut last week in a effort to keep the Mt. Passmore of grit together up in New England.
Amendolas contract, like his groin, was going to get torn up this year no matter what, so it was a shrewd move to take a salary hit. At the end of the day he’ll be making less money but its also likely that the Patriots payroll guy will confuse him for Julian Edelman a couple times a year and get a nice little bonus. Dosen’t matter that the Offensive line and Running game are suspect- I call Edelman, Hogan, Amendola, and Gronk the “white-out” offense because they can cover up alot of mistakes when you spread them out.
10 Things I Know I Know
1. Happy to announce the creation of the “Blake Bortles Wikipedia Reading Club.” Its a more accessible version of the Andrew Luck Book Club for people who want to learn but just can’t find the time to sit down and read a actual book. The first months assignments are to read the Wikipedia pages for “Snow” and “The 1936 US Olympic Rowing Team” by June 15th and we’ll have Blake Bortles on Pardon My Take to asnwer your questions and give his opinions about the subject matter. If you’re the type person who can sit down and finish “Boys in the Boat” well then more power to you, but I’d frankly rather just read the 5 sentence summary about the Berlin Olympic regatta on wikipedia.
But don’t take my word for it:
2. Soccer may be objectiveley the worlds worst sport besides knife-licking but its fans are the best in terms of holding their team accountable. This Turkish footballs clubs fans were so livid that there team was being relegated that they just went ahead and burnt the entire stadium down:
I totally agree with these fans. If your team is so bad that you get kicked out of the league then you need to go ahead and go scorched earth on the whole operation. Mother Nature calls it survival of the fittest, but sometimes she needs a helping hand like form a few hundred flares or a river in Ohio filled with kerosene.
3. According the the director of sports medicine at the Unversity of Georgia, cheerleaders suffered more concussions then football players over the 4 years between 2011-2015 although it should be noted that the Bulldogs were statsitically 1/12 less likely to get injured than players from Alabama due to never playing in the FCS playoffs. I’ve been saying for years that doing cheerleading is very clearly more dangerous then playing football simply because many cheerleaders wind up dating football players.
4. Love what Coach Zimmer is building up there in the Minnesota Desert. (A Tundra is a type of desert people look it up). And even more I love the message his shirt sends:
Advertisement
There’s no such thing as a C-section for success in life. The NFL is a episiotomy type league- you can push as hard as you want but sometimes you still get cut.
5. Finally, a penis transplant for men.
6. The NFL needs to look into the entire circumstances surrounding the Redskins pursuit of Josh Norman in free agency. First things first, the MMQB unearthed allegations of kdnapping as Norman was essentially held hostage by team officials. The cornerback tried to exit the team facility several times as numerous other teams were calling about his services but GM Scot McCloughan wouldn’t let him leave, probably by taking him to the team bar and then telling him drunken stories that had no end. Eventually Stockholm Sydrome kicked in and Norman signed a $75 Million dollar contract.
It’s concerning to me that NFL teams are starting to adopt the same techniques as terrorists when it comes to getting their way in Free Agency, but as if adopting ISIS techniques weren’t bad enough, Jay Gruden took a page out of the University of Missouri student handbook and forced his wife into a hunger strike in order to coerce Norman to sign:
Coach Jay Gruden’s wife, Sherry, was recovering from surgery, but even the coach wouldn’t leave to bring her home dinner until the deal was done.
So we have one count of the Skins GM abducting a player and one of Jay Gruden threatening to kill his own wife if Norman dosen’t sign immediately. On one its so predictable to see Washington wasting money on overated defense systems again, but on the other I love the sense of urgency coming out of DC for a change.
7. In the latest attack on internet commenter’s, Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard has subpeaonad the identities of two anonymous commenters on AL.com who go by the names of “NoOneWouldUseThis” and “ReaganWasBetter” in his ethics trial. At stake, and I am not making this up, is the right of whether the first amendment applys to anonymous internet comments. I say it undoubtedly does. Martin Luther nailing his thesis to a Church was a internet comment and the church door was nothing but the original message board. Boston Harbor was basically a comment section and every box of tea was a take. The world is a better place when people are free to write whatever they want about whoever they want at any given time without the possibilty of consequences.
8. The John Baron/Donald Trump PR-Gate story that just won’t go away has a connection to Trumps time owning the New Jersey Generals of the USFL. John Baron use to call reporters to give them information about upcoming games and players, and reporters in the mid-80s thought it was Donald. Kind of ridiculous that we’re shaming a guy just for taking on more responsibilty at work right? And if we’re going to make fun of a owner pretending to be a PR person how about all the Packers fans who are literaly owners pretending to be owners. Goes both ways.
9. Congratulations to Denver Broncos QB Mark Sanchez who found the only socially exceptable way for him to date high school girls. Where theres a will there’s a way.
10. Zach Mettenberger got waived by the Titans today after a couple years and a 0-10 record as a starter. But how come when a bad QB plays well within a good offense they dismiss him as a “system QB” but when a bad QB plays bad within a bad offense they dont dismiss his dismal record and statistics as being a product of his environment? Seems as if there’s a inherent bias against bad players when it comes to advanced metrics. WAR- what is it good for. Absoluteley nothing.
How much money should Cam Newton have made this week?
I broke this news a couple months ago but Cam Newton has been wasting his offseason trying to become a TV star. Now we finally have the trailer for his show called “All In” on Nickelodeon that is honestly such a bad 2-minutes I was shocked it wasn’t just listed from the Superbowl All-22.
Back in ancient Greece, Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth. What Cam is doing on this TV show is no better. Teaching children to follow their unrealistic dreams is a form of child abuse/molestation. What does more long-term damage to a kid- hitting them with a switch once in a blue moon, or telling them to pursue a career as a artist? If Cam really wanted to help children he would have a program where he shows up unannounced at various team parties and throws piles of participation trophies into a industrial strength trash compactor.
Also this commercal reveals that Cam is deathly afraid of snakes which demonstrates maybe why he’s so afriad to dive on to the ground, where snakes often times are found. Kind of ironic that he’s so afraid of snakes on the field but is often seen wearing a ridiculous boa off of it.
Advertisement
This weeks rating is: Not as much as our troops
69 of the week: While it may look like the Republicans are getting creamed, they’re actually only getting licked
BTW, shameful cultural appropriation of the New England Patriots trademarked hashtag here. While Obama certainly is feeling good with this number, he needs to realie that 69% is actually Americans very clear way of saying we’d like to seem him adopt more of a give-and-take position.