Posts Tagged ‘Pittsburgh Steelers’

Browns/Steelers: A Perspective

Thursday, November 21st, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

myles-garrett-helmet-fight

On August 22, 1965 the hated Los Angeles Dodgers were in San Francisco to play my Giants. As was often the case during this era, these were the two best teams in the National League. At that time, there was no wild card or even division winners to qualify for the playoffs. In fact, there were no playoffs. A team had to finish first in the league to advance to the World Series. It is against this backdrop and within the context of the heated rivalry between the two teams when it happened. According to the great Giants Hall of Fame pitcher, Juan Marichal, the Dodgers catcher John Roseboro was throwing close to his head when returning pitches, while Marichal was at bat.

JMHis reaction: he hit Roseboro in the head with his bat and thus what many consider the ugliest brawl in baseball history was ignited!

Marichal was suspended for 8 games, which in that era, meant he would miss 2 starts. My Giants would win 95 games that year, largely on the power of Marichal’s 22 wins and a league leading 10 complete game shutouts, and Willie May’s league-leading 52 homers and 2nd MVP season. And yet, a team with 6 future Hall of Famers would finish 2 games behind the Dodgers, in second place. The Dodgers would go on to win the World Series.

Juan Marichal was arguably the most stylish pitcher of all time. His elegant high-leg kick, reminiscent of a matador, and pinpoint control was legendary. He, not Bob Gibson and not Sandy Koufax, won the most games in baseball during the 1960s. I am a die-hard Giants fan and consider Marichal to be the most underappreciated Hall of Fame pitcher.

And yet he was dead wrong!

On June 28, 1997, Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson had a rematch for the heavyweight championship of the world. Less than a year earlier, in the first match, Holyfield upset Tyson, whom manyMT considered to be “the baddest man on the planet”. Holyfield also had a boxing-wide reputation for using head butts as a deliberate tactic. Intentional or not, he certainly used this against the shorter Tyson in the rematch.

Most of you know how Tyson reacted: he bit Holyfield’s ear to the point of drawing blood.

Tyson was banned from boxing for 15 months and was never the same as a fighter.

I always liked Mike Tyson.

And yet he was dead wrong!

Fast forward to last week, November 14, 2019. Everyone reading this knows by now what happened in the Browns/Steelers game and thus repeating it here is not necessary.  I do believe the backdrop of this “rivalry” can be useful for understanding. I say rivalry in quotations because to call it that over the past 30 years from a competitive standpoint is beyond a stretch. I could not remember the last time that the Browns were actually favored to beat the Steelers, as was the case last week. You literally may have to go back to the Bernie Kosar era, which is 30 years ago. The Browns had lost 8 straight to my Steelers since 2014.

Think of the Browns like the weak kid who has been bullied year after year. He finally goes into the gym to bulk up in the way of getting Odell Beckham Jr, Baker Mayfield, and of course, Myles Garrett.

Think of my Steelers like the bully who has been smacking the Browns around whenever bored and takes their lunch money.

Last week, the Browns had finally had enough. They became the bully, opening a can of whoop-ass on my Steelers.

But apparently that gym work the Brown’s engaged in included something that drove them over the edge.

What is interesting to me are those who are equating the provocation with the retaliation.

In all three of these incidents, one can cite and validate the provocation. Roseboro later in life in his biography admitted to intentionally throwing near Marichal’s head, which surprised no one. That is how the Giants and Dodgers roll.

But all provocation and retaliation is not created equal.

MGOnce Garrett had Steelers QB Mason Rudolph’s helmet, dispatching it and a simple Floyd Mayweather combination would have been sufficient to put the unwise charging QB down.

Garrett chose the nuclear option! As a result, an outstanding player drafted 1st overall in 2017, who had 10 sacks through 10 games, and was going to be a viable Defensive Player of the Year candidate is gone for the season, without pay.

There has been a significant focus on the fact that all of the players suspended from the Browns/Steelers brawl were Black, and Rudolph, who is white, was not suspended.

He too should have been suspended. But some want to point to this as an example to prove that there are racial disparities in how the NFL and America meets out discipline.

To them I say that water is wet and there are so many more relevant samples that have already confirmed this reality.

In addition, this assessment fosters a selective analysis of what actually happened. To say that Rudolph initiated the whole thing is subjective and assumes knowing what Garrett was thinking when he took Rudolph down. No one, including myself, has a clue what Garrett was thinking at any point in the melee. What we do know is that Rudolph escalated the situation beyond what he could handle.

But some are sounding too much like the child on the playground after the fight, declaring, “He started it”.

If one demands proportionate discipline, I’m with you.

If your demand in this situation is for equal discipline, I can only say to you: don’t be that guy.

That guy who defends the road-rager who runs a motorist off the highway in retaliation for getting the middle finger.

Don’t be that guy who defends an occupying military force that levels an entire city because a few teenagers, who actually have a right to be there, threw rocks at the soldiers.

And don’t be that guy who says “when you play with fire you get burned”. Fire does not have the capacity for self-constraint. People do…and the more we rationalize the failure to exercise that constraint, the more we invite others to bypass the capacity altogether.

Having said all of that, I can’t wait until December 1st when the Browns come to Pittsburgh!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Hope for the Hopeless…Even the Jets and Dolphins (9/21/2019)

Thursday, September 26th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Dolphins-Jets

(Originally Published on September 21, 2019)

As we enter the 3rd week of the NFL season, there are nine teams that have yet to win a game. As early as it is, this typically brings about what I call “panic analysis”. This is not always a bad thing. In 1993, an 0-2 start is what prompted Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to cave to the holdout of running back Emmitt Smith and sign him to a new deal. The “Boys” would go on to repeat as Super Bowl Champions and win again after the 1995 season. That was the exception. For the most part, it’s basically Chicken Little/the sky is falling type of talk. While it is true that starting 0-2 does not bode well for a team’s playoff hopes, some just get carried away with the doom and gloom. The fact is, if a team can figure out WHY it is winless, there is enough time and football remaining to correct the problems…provided you have a decent amount of talent and GREAT coaching.

Now, of the nine teams, the Dolphins and Jets are in especially dire straits. The Dolphins have lost their first two games by a combined score of 102-10. Both games were at home. Even with the addition of the great LeVeon Bell, the Jets were already offensively challenged. Now they are down to their 3rd QB. Las Vegas sees the futility of these two teams, making them both over 3 touchdown underdogs. It is extremely rare for any NFL team to be a 3 touchdown underdog. In my nearly 40 years of being an investor on some level or another, I cannot recall two teams being this big of underdogs in the same year, let alone the same week.

With all of that said, there are historical examples that provide hope for all 9 teams to include the Dolphins and Jets to make the playoffs.

New Orleans Saints v Pittsburgh Steelers1989 Pittsburgh Steelers: This is the 30th anniversary of one such example. My Steelers had not made the playoff in 5 years and only had 1 winning season during that span. This was the longest drought in the tenure of Hall of Fame head coach Chuck Noll, whose teams won 4 Super Bowls in 6 years in the 1970s. He is still the only head coach of the Super Bowl era to repeat twice. They opened up the 1989 season getting trounced by the Cleveland Browns at home, 51-0. The team then went to Houston to lose to the Oilers 41-10. The spoiled fan base of Steeler Nation was calling for the legendary Noll’s head.

Then he turned it around.

The Steelers would go to Cleveland and beat the same Browns team that had throttled them in the season opener, 17-7. The team finished the season 9-7 and made it to the playoffs, earning another trip to Houston, where the Oilers awaited. Houston had swept the season series from the Steelers. The Steelers would win 26-23 in overtime. It would have been especially satisfying for Noll given that he absolutely detested Oilers coach Jerry Glanville.

The next week the Steelers would go to Denver and come up just short of John Elway and the Broncos, 24-23.

A team that had one of the worst starts in NFL history ended up winning 10 games, to include a road playoff victory. I considered it to be Noll’s single greatest coaching job, which is to say a lot. When the all-time greatest coaches are mentioned, Chuck Noll’s name is omitted too often.

SAN DIEGO, :  Coach Bobby Ross of the San Diego Chargers watches his team play the Arizona Cardinals 09 December in San Diego, California. Ross, who led the Chargers to their first Superbowl last year, is struggling to get his team in the playoffs this year, with a 6-8 record. The Chargers lead, 28-17, in third quarter.                            AFP PHOTO   Vince BUCCI (Photo credit should read Vince Bucci/AFP/Getty Images)

1992 San Diego Chargers: This team started the season 0-4. It had gotten so bad that head coach Bobby Ross was introduced by the team’s play-by-play announcer as the director of the Laurel and Hardy Show.

Then he turned it around.

The Chargers would go on to win 11 of the final 12 to make it to the playoffs, where they would beat the division rival Chiefs before bowing to Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins in the conference semi-finals. That Chargers team is the only team in NFL history to start a season 0-4 and still make the playoffs. NOTE: My Steelers would have pulled the trick in 2013 but for a bad call between the Chiefs and Chargers, even by the league’s admission.

This is just but one reason (in addition to his college record at both Maryland and Georgia Tech) why I consider Bobby Ross to be the most underappreciated coach in football over the past 50 years.

Of the nine teams, the one with the best chance to turn things around, in my mind, would be the Carolina Panthers. They have the best QB, when healthy, enough proven players on the defensive side from the 2015 conference champions, and are in a relatively speaking weaker division.

Does all of this mean that there is hope even for the Jets and Dolphins?

HELL TO THE NAW!  LMAO

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Five Things to Take Away from the Antonio Brown Drama

Thursday, September 12th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

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The latest news about Antonio Brown are sexual assault allegations. If true, and all data indicates that false allegations occur less than 10% of the time, this is more disturbing than any of the five items that I will list. While the emails certainly don’t make Brown look good, at the time of this writing I simply do not feel I have enough information to speak on this.

There are at least five things I do feel comfortable speaking on as take-aways from the Antonio Brown drama.

In no particular order, they are as follows:

 

  • THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS ARE IN THE HEAD OF THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS!

That has been clear for some time on the field, even before Sunday’s 30-3 thrashing. As great as Brown has been against the rest of the league, against the Patriots he has been “Ok”. The team is 2-5 against them since his arrival and he has averaged under 5 catches per game and has only had one 100-yard game. The fact that the Steelers may have actually passed up a better compensation package from the “Evil Empire in the Northeast” to keep Brown away from them speaks volumes. And yet he ends up there anyway, as did LaGarrett Blount and James Harrison before him;

 

  • HE LEFT $20 MILLION IN GUARANTEED SIGNING BONUS MONEY ON THE TABLE

Even if winning a ring is more important to Brown than money, is it really $20 million dollars more important? As a friend noted, this is generational wealth. The dude has 4 children. It wasn’t just about him… or at least it should not have been just about him. The thing about this on the money side is Brown could have gotten it without all this drama. Julio Jones just became the highest paid receiver in NFL history and I wouldn’t know his voice any more than Kawhi Leonard’s.

 

  • VALIDATION OF HIS NARCISSISM

The two finalists in America for Narcissist of the Decade are Donald Trump and Antonio Brown… and Brown has a chance to pull off the upset! Other than being rich, if you are on ANY list with Donald Trump, you need to take a good, long look in the mirror and not to admire yourself. If Brown, in fact, got what he wanted, this whole process has emboldened him as is. The thing to remember about the narcissistic personality type is that it is unfulfillable. Trying to satisfy and accommodate it is about as likely as filling up a black hole with dirt. For Brown’s sake, let’s hope an older and wiser Terrell Owens can connect with him about the long view and the price to be paid for one’s narcissism. The reality is that even the great Michael Jordan was humbled by the Wizards. Bill Gates is white…and was the richest man in the world when a court told him that he could not do whatever he wanted to do. Everyone must answer to someone.

 

  • THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE OF DRAMA PIMPING

The column that I was initially going to write was going to be called, “What the F%$#* is wrong with Antonio Brown?”

I reconsidered for two reasons: 1) It would be low hanging fruit, unlikely to bare any perspective not already commonly discussed and most importantly; 2) What if Brown really does have a personality disorder and isn’t just being a petulant clown?

The second is what concerns me most. I want no part of contributing to the already too neglected collateral damage from drama pimping. By drama pimping I mean the exploitation of human grief, struggles, and pain for profit.

Some will say I am embellishing the issue. If it’s just for entertainment, what’s the problem?

The problem is when manufactured drama for the exclusive purpose of entertaining is conflated with real life human struggles that are rooted in genuine mental health issues, the general public has a hard time telling the difference. Add to that the ignorance and stigma about mental health and such compounds the problem of getting those really suffering to seek treatment. Shows like Iyanla Vanzant’s Fix My Life are ground zero for this conflation.

 

  • THE PATRIOTS ARE VULTURE CAPITALISTS

The Canadian writer Naomi Klein wrote a book called the “Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”. The book basically describes the process of how vulture capitalist takes advantage of disaster victims in desperate situations. They swoop in and devour the last bits of flesh off the carcass of the victims. They did it in Haiti, New Orleans, and are hovering over the Bahamas as we speak. The Patriots are the sports version of vulture capitalist. They rummage through the dysfunction of other organizations and when the time is right, swoop in and secure an asset for pennies on the dollar of its actual value. It’s actually a great tactic when limited to the sports world. Beyond the sports world, it’s predatory and inhumane.

The Patriots were already one of the favorites to win yet another Super Bowl. Now they are the favorites to win. It’s not as if some of the reclamation projects that the Patriots have attempted have all worked out. Chad Johnson and Albert Haynesworth come to mind. But Brown is the first of such to still be in the prime of his career and could very well push them over the top.

Like I said, none of the take-aways are good…unless you are a Patriots fan.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

The Myth of Drama-Free Steelers Nation

Thursday, March 14th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Former Pittsburgh Steelers WR Antonio Brown purchases billboards thanking Steelers fans.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers WR Antonio Brown purchases billboards thanking Steelers fans.

If you ask most football fans to give you one word to describe my Pittsburgh Steelers over the past 50 years, the most appropriate and likely would be STABILITY!

Over the course of this time, the team has had a grand total of three coaches and the same family ownership since its founding inception. By contrast, the Cleveland Brown have had 19 coaches over the same period. The Steelers are among the tops in Super Bowl and playoff wins, as well as Hall of Fame players. The team just completed its 15th consecutive season with at least eight wins…the 5th longest streak in NFL history.

The history and facts are without dispute.

So, why are so many implying that the drama that has surrounded running back Le’Veon Bell and now former Steelers receiver Antonio Brown is at odds with this stability? The implication is that the presence of stability equals the absence of drama.

Nonsense!

There is not a workplace in America that does not have drama, in varying degrees, regardless of how stable its management is. The authoritative management makes it a point to suppress the drama from external examination, much in the same way that some countries suppress descent. Surely, you would never consider this to be the absence of descent?

There are four factors at play here:

  1. The Steelers have been able to draft and develop players remarkably well and as a result, allow free agents to leave before the disgruntlement boils over, without skipping a competitive beat;
  2. Pittsburgh is a mid-sized market. Can you imagine the attention a franchise this successful would have gotten if it were in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles?;
  3. Social Media makes it near impossible to suppress unrest. One might call it the commodification of drama. Surely, no one believes the messy dynamics of marriage started with the real housewives? Furthermore, this speaks to a larger media literacy deficit that afflicts the society well beyond sports. That deficit is reflected in the notion that if you did not see it in corporate media, it must not have happened. I can assure you that corporate media has been missing in action on a number of issues. The fact that they pay little to no attention to the remarkable academic achievements of African/Black women in America or the oppressive treatment of Palestinians largely underwritten by US taxpayers in the Occupied Territories, does not mean that neither is happening;
  4. And most importantly, the Steelers have not won to the level one would expect for their talent. There is a phrase in sports that says “winning is the great deodorizer”. My Steelers went 9-6-1 this past year, to include five one-possession losses. Turn one of those games and they are in the playoffs, and if they win one game, Antonio Brown is still in the fold.
Former Steelers RB, Le'Veon Bell is now a New York Jet.

Former Steelers RB, Le’Veon Bell is now a New York Jet.

To be clear, drama in Steeler Nation did not start with Le’Veon Bell or Antonio Brown.

In the middle of the 1974 season, Hall of Fame defensive tackle “Mean” Joe Green came very close to quitting the team. He would go on to win his second Defensive Player of the Year award in 3 years and the Steelers won the Super Bowl that year. Few outside of the inner Steelers circle knew about this until his feature on “A Football Life”. QB Terry Bradshaw and the late great Coach Chuck Noll never got along. Noll’s response when asked about his relationship with Bradshaw was as follows, “Terry and I had a business relationship. I’d say it was pretty successful!”

Bam! Drop the mic.

Winning hides drama. Joe Montana and Steve Young were hardly friends in San Francisco. Belichick and Brady have their degree of drama. It is the nature of the beast.

None of this is to say that losing Brown and Bell will not hurt. Brown has put together, statistically, the best 6 years of any receiver in NFL history. He and Bell were as productive of a WR/RB tandem as the league has seen since, perhaps Falk/Holt or Bruce in St Louis, or Rice/Craig in San Francisco.

As a card-carrying member of #SteelerNation since 1972, I am pissed!

As a fan of labor sticking it to management, I absolutely love what Brown did.

Regardless of his tactics, the bottom line is that the man had the leverage to leave where he no longer wanted to be and secured an additional $30 Million guaranteed in the process. For those who call him spoiled and selfish for doing so, I ask: what do you think America is all about? It is very rare when an individual has the capacity to determine his/her own destiny. Why on Earth would the rest of labor vilify him/her and side with management?

His power play is not new. Both John Elway and Eli Manning pulled similar power plays before either had done anything in the league.

Therefore, at the end of the day, I am at peace with the current state of my Steelers. I do not like it but I am at peace. After all, if any franchise can survive such upheaval and remain competitive, it is Pittsburgh. Of that, I am STEEL CERTAIN!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

 

Giving Credit…Even if Grudgingly…Where Credit is Due

Wednesday, February 6th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Photo courtesy of DesigningSports.com

Photo courtesy of DesigningSports.com

Let us cut right to the chase: I hate the New England Patriots with a passion impossible to describe in words.

I am sure that I speak for most folks in America outside of the Northeastern part of the country.

It is a team on my short list of most hated, along with Notre Dame Football, Duke Basketball, the Celtics, and the Dodgers.

Contrary to popular belief, there is a method to the madness of hate. For me, within the larger American sports media culture, any team portrayed as the “good guys”, I hate. It is similar to the epiphany the great James Baldwin had when reflecting on how he grew up rooting for the cowboys in their conflicts with Native Americans. Either gradually or via a light bulb moment, he came to realize that there was no significant difference in how the cowboys, portrayed as the “good guys”, were treating Native Americans, and how America treated Black folks.

Simply put, any Black folks who root for the Cowboys are confused. I will allow you to determine of which Cowboys I speak.

It is within that context that I typically root for the “Villains”.

Having said all of that, if you are still one of the holdouts that cannot bring him or herself to acknowledge the greatness of the Belichik/Brady era New England Patriots, there is something seriously wrong with you.

With Sunday’s win, albeit boring, the Patriots have now tied my Pittsburgh Steelers for the most Super Bowl titles with six.  Their 3 postseason wins this year give them 37, which allowed them to pass the Dallas Cowboys, who have 35, and my Steelers, with 36, for most of all time.

From an organizational consistency standpoint, a case can still be made for my Steelers, given that their level of greatness stretches back to the 70’s, over the span of multiple coaches and QB’s. From a sustained standpoint, the Niners still have a case, going from Montana/Walsh to Young/Siefert 1981-1994, and hardly skipping a beat. Those Niner teams missed the playoffs twice, had only one losing season, and a flawless 5-0 Super Bowl record.

However, for longevity of a single defining QB/Coach core, it is the New England Patriots and then everyone else. Over 18 years they have NEVER had a losing season and have missed the playoffs only twice. One of those missed playoffs seasons occurred when Brady went down with an injury for the season in the opening game. The team still won 11 games.

Still yet, their haters cling to three primary suggested asterisks: they cheat, they have had a weak division, and the owner, Bob Kraft, is a Trump supporter.

Even if all of this were true, the cumulative effect would not account for nine Super Bowl appearances and six wins in an 18-year span.

Let’s look at the cheating with so called “Spygate”. There is definitely an advantage in football if you know what your opponent is going to do. However, that was exposed before the 2007 season. They went 18-1 that year and have won three more Super Bowls since. To suggest that this has been the primary reason for their success is like saying steroids were the primary reason for Roger Clemons and Barry Bonds’ success. Both suppositions are ludicrous.

The “Deflategate” nonsense does not even warrant the space or time to dismiss.

Then there is “they have been in a weak division”. Has anyone ever considered that the 9-7 Bills, Jets, or Dolphins team would have been 10-6 and a likely playoff team if they just could manage a split with the Patriots? Furthermore, while the Broncos have held their own overall, as well as the Ravens in the playoffs, the Patriots have been as dominant over the best AFC teams over that era as they have been within their own division. During the past 18 years, against the other 4 AFC teams to win Super Bowls, which are the Broncos, Ravens, Steelers, and Colts, the Patriots are 44-20, which is a .687 winning percentage.

DTThe last one is not even football based: The owner, Robert Kraft, is a Trump supporter. This is likely true of most of the other owners as well. They are “Made Men”, even among the 1%, and with that makeup, the single demographic that can cite a tangible reason to have supported Trump: HE PROTECTS THEIR LOOT!

One of the more amazing things about the Patriots is that there has only been one year when one can say that they were clearly the most talented team and that was the 2007/18-1 team.

That team DID NOT win the Super Bowl.

One of the signs of emotional maturity is the capacity to lay aside one’s passions to engage in a reality-based assessment of a situation. Anyone who does this and looks at the Patriots’ body of work over the past 18 years can only come to one conclusion: they are some bad MF’s.

If you cannot do this, it says much more about you than it does them. My suggestion: GROW UP, and give credit where credit is due!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Sports’ 4 Most Overhyped Rivalries

Friday, November 23rd, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of The Purple Quill

Image courtesy of The Purple Quill

As college football goes, this is rivalry week. Alabama vs. Auburn is among many that rarely disappoint.

However, some of these matchups that folks have been convinced are rivalries are overhyped frauds. I am going to list the biggest four, but to get where I am coming from, you have to know what makes up a rivalry. There are six primary elements: history; familiarity; regional proximity; greatness of the players; fan passion; and competitive balance.  Now a good rivalry need not necessarily have all of these elements. For example, the Steelers and Raiders, 49ers and Cowboys have history, but familiarity has dropped because they do not necessarily play every year, as opposed to Dallas and Washington. Regional proximity makes them compelling, but USC and Notre Dame, as well as the Celtics and Lakers have proven that regional proximity is not a necessity. In fact, it can be overplayed, as was the case in Northern Cal when I was growing up. Cal-Berkeley vs. Stanford was considered “the big game”. I could never understand what was so big about a game between two teams with a combined record of 4-14.

The one of these six elements that is necessary for a full-fledge, hype-deserving rivalry is competitive balance.

That is the factor missing from the four biggest frauds on the rivalry Mt. Rushmore.

FRAUD RIVALRY 1) Tiger Woods vs. Phil Mickelson:

Photo Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Photo Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

I know they have the $9 million match play on Friday and the $200K side bet that “Phil Appeal” would birdie the first hole. Far be it for me to deny an interest in an ill action, so I may tune in for that alone. However, to call it a rivalry is an insult to rivalries. It has been reasonably close when they have been paired, with Woods holding an 18-15-2 edge. That is the end of the statistical balance. Though they have both played in nearly all four majors since 1997, they have finished first and second in only one major (the 2002 U.S. Open, won by Woods, by three strokes over Michelson). Their careers for wins has Tiger with 14 majors to Phil’s 5, and 80 tour wins to Phil’s 43.

What rivalry?

When Tiger and Phil are paired together atop the leader board on a Sunday of a major, then give me a call.

 

FRAUD RIVALRY 2) Serena vs. Maria:

Photo courtesy of The Telegraph

Photo courtesy of The Telegraph

It should have been great. When 17-year-old Maria Sharapova took two of her first three matches from the undisputed number 1 Serena Williams in 2004, it included an absolute beat down of the Queen at the Wimbledon finals. There was every reason to believe that it would be a great rivalry for years to come. Since that year, Serena has beaten Maria like a drum, to the tune of 18 matches in a row, 15 of them in straight sets. The only reason Maria broke the streak is that Serena retired due to injury in this year’s French Open. Serena has twice as many tour wins (72-36) and over four times as many majors (23-5).  Rivalry? GTFOOHWTBS.

 

 

 

FRAUD RIVALRY 3) Patriots and the Steelers:

Photo courtesy of Inside the Pylon

Photo courtesy of Inside the Pylon

It pains me to point this out, and I may be risking sedition charges at the hands of the council of Steeler Nation. But the record is what the record is. During the Belichick/Brady era, my Steelers are 3-10 against the Patriots, including 0-3 in playoffs. Their only win in New England was when Brady was hurt. Five of the losses have been in Pittsburgh. Stevie Wonder could see that this is not much of a rivalry.

 

 

 

 

FRAUD RIVALRY 4) LeBron vs MJ:

Photo courtesy of Type One

Photo courtesy of Type One

I suppose if we include social media and/or a bar to be qualifiers, this would be a real rivalry. We cannot. Cyberspace is no more of a venue for a rivalry than porn is for one’s Walter Mitty sexual exploits; NEITHER IS REAL! How on Earth could there be a rivalry when the two never competed against one another? Their careers have literally never even overlapped. Jordan’s last year was the year before LeBron’s debut.  They do not even play the same position.

 

 

 

 

It is easy to understand how these four have come to be presented as something their records clearly show that they are not; ratings! All are marquee within their sports and even beyond, and all move the marketing meter. I get it. But let’s not get carried away, least we take away from real rivalries such as Duke and North Carolina, or my Giants and the Dodgers, etc. The good news is that an overhyped rivalry can get an upgrade. Until 1985, the Lakers and Celtics was overhyped. Then the mighty Purple and Gold put that work in on the lil green bas##@$&. Until 2004 the Yankees and Red Sox was overhyped, until the Red Sox gave the pin stripes the business and have been doing so ever since. Until last year, the Penguins and Capitals was overhyped. You know it is not a real rivalry when only one side of fans is obsessed with it, while the other side just takes winning for granted. That is how Penguins fans felt when they met the Caps in the playoffs……….until last year.  Now it is a good rivalry. Nothing gets the attention of an arrogant fan base more than when your team unexpectedly beats them. So none of the above is eternally locked into fraud rivalry purgatory. However, one must change the narrative and the only way to do that is to start winning.

So, here’s to hoping that the Michigan Wolverines read this and finally beats the Ohio State Buckeyes this weekend. Otherwise, that rivalry may be soon on this list.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Le’Veon, Dez, and Mr. Eric Reid

Saturday, November 17th, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

(Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

(Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

The sagas of Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell, former Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant, and Panthers safety Eric Reid are all different and yet the same in a very important way: they all represent NFL players attempting to exert their considerable leverage against the company line narrative that most go along with like sheep.

Even as a Steelers fan, I initially supported Bell’s holdout on the basis of one indisputable fact: why should the best running back in the league settle for the average salary of the top 5 paid running backs in the league? That is what a second franchise tag would have paid Bell, or 120% of his 2017 salary…whichever would be highest.

But as current Steelers feature back James Connor continues to be close to, if not as productive, as Bell would have been, and the Steelers “righted the ship” from an early-season stumble, it just seemed to me that Bell’s holdout was more about winning a pissing contest and personal ego, and thus pointless. Then I recently learned something I did not know that might explain Bell’s tactic. Even though Bell has not reported and is being docked pay, he will get credit for having been franchised-tagged a second year. Why is that important? Because tagging him a 3rd year would oblige the Steeler’s to pay him the average of the top 5 highest paid quarterbacks in the league, or 140% of his 2017 salary (which would have been about $14 million)…whichever is highest.

What does Bell get out of all this? A healthy year and he is certain to either be traded or allowed to hit the free agent market, where he can negotiate that any team add his 2017 lost salary into his signing bonus. Todd Gurley got just under $22 million as a signing bonus. Is it out of the realm of possibility that a team would give Bell the same $22 million plus the $14 million in lost salary as a signing bonus, IF he surrenders some back-end and annual salary? We will see.

Dez Bryant is another story.

DBThe receiver was let go by a Cowboys team with hardly an elite receiving corps. My guess is that he could have come back had he been willing to redo his contract, or in other words, take a pay cut. He was not, and so essentially bet on himself in the free agent market. He was reportedly offered a 4-year deal from the Ravens at $7 million per, just before the draft.

I will stop right here to point out an example for media literacy. There is perhaps nothing in sports journalism that is more misleading than the headlines of NFL contract values. Very few players actually see that back-end of a contract, which is often where much of the money is back-loaded to allow the team salary cap flexibility.

With that said, Dez Bryant once again bet on himself and turned the deal down, instead preferring a 1-year deal, after which he could hit the market, hopefully on the momentum of a comeback year and cash in long term.

Bryant expected another call from a team after the draft. Other than the Browns, the phone never rang. He had been sitting at home waiting ever since, until the red-hot Saints called to add to their receiving depth down the stretch. Tragically, Bryant tore an Achilles tendon in his second practice with the team and is now not only done for the year, but has yet another red flag attached to him when and if he returns to try the free agent market.

His is a cautionary tale of how important it is to accurately assess one’s value. The fact is from a pure football standpoint, Bryant was never a speed burner and his capacity to get separation had decreased over the years. Add to that a reputation, true or not, for being disruptive, and Dez simply never had the advantage that he thought he had.

The third saga is by far for me the most intriguing, and that is of Mr. Eric Reid. I call him “Mr.” because the value of his narrative is far larger than football, and instructive in our everyday lives, particularly for those of us who believe in speaking truth to power.

ER

Reid, you may recall knelt alongside Colin Kaepernick, when both were with the 49ers. Both were clearly blackballed from the league as a result. Since the Panthers signed Reid earlier this year, he has been drug-tested 5 times in 6 weeks. He has been ejected from a game and had what was clearly a game-winning turnover overturned. Why? Because he continues to kneel and the league would just as soon wish that Reid go away, along with his collusion suit that he filed against it, along with Kaepernick. As much of an offense it was, Reid breaking away from a group of NFL players who “negotiated” an $89 million payoff to the group of money supposedly aimed at addressing the issues that have led to the protest in the first place. Upon closer exam, a significant portion of those funds is going to local police departments.

Why would you pay the people who are doing the killing?

The most instructive piece of the Reid saga is why he called Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins a NEO-ER2COLONIALIST. Unlike some who use terminology that they may have heard others use but really do not understand the concept themselves, Reid understood exactly what he was saying and explained as much when question by reporters.

According to Reid, the group had decided before meeting with league officials that giving up the right to kneel during the anthem was not a negotiable point. It seemed to be the league’s primary objective. After the meetings took place, Jenkins calls Reid and asks, “How much would it take for you to stop kneeling?”

In simple terms, a Neo-Colonialist is someone from the oppressed group that does the bidding of the oppressor, while promoting the notion of post Colonialism. It aptly describes a pitiful number of African, Central, and South American governments upon post-formal Colonialism. It goes on all around us today from most members of the Congressional Black Caucus, to the activist industrial complex, to the Black police chief hired in response to yet another unjust killing of a Black man or woman. Their fundamental role is to keep the “natives” in line. If we calculate 30 pieces of silver in today’s money, sadly, it would not even take that amount for some to turn.

When a well-paid professional athlete that could just as easily take the money and keep his mouth shut continues to speak truth to power as well as call out those who have willingly collaborated with the enemy, he is entitled to be addressed as MISTER!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

The Crap Shoot Called the NFL Draft

Tuesday, May 1st, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

2011 NFL Draft

That annual rite of sports passage is mercifully over.

I am referring to the National Football League draft, which is quite possibly the single most over-analyzed, unscientific spectacle in American society.
Without even going into the aspect that has an undeniable slave auction feel and optics, can you think of any other event in America that has produced more self-appointed experts with less reliable outcomes than the NFL draft?

It’s not that the Mel Kipers of the world don’t do their homework. Most of them do. It’s not that the information provided is useless. Some of it is valuable.

The reason why the draft is largely a crap shoot is because no matter how sound the information gathered about a player, it is impossible to predict, with any degree of certainty how a 21-22 year old man will react to the NFL cultural environment. It’s bigger than just the football itself. First round picks become instant millionaires. In college, none have an abundance of expendable cash. In college, he must study subject matter he may not care about for the sake of staying eligible. In college, he did not have a multitude of parasitic people around him, some of whom are his own family. He will have that in addition to opportunistic women in the NFL. Lottery winners twice their age do not have a good track record of handling such a situation and we actually believe that we can forecast how a 20-something who has not even reached full brain maturity will?

Human behavior and performance is actually relatively predictable based on past behavior and performance. The wildcard caveat to such forecasts is that one must be able to replicate the environment and circumstances under which that past behavior and performance occurred. The best college football programs cannot replicate the NFL culture for their players.

This is why so few teams have a long track record of quality drafting. As a matter of fact, only one team comes to mind that has mastered this process over multiple generations and it is not the New England Patriots. The Patriots’ success is almost exclusively a function of the Tom Brady/ Bill Belichick era and let’s be honest, they got lucky with Brady. How else can you describe it when they waited until the 6th round to pick him? Do you really believe they would have waited that long had they had any inkling he would be what he has been? The other side draft benefit to having this sustained greatness for nearly 20 years at OB is that they have not had to take a QB in the first round. First round QBs are the most expensive picks and therefore the Patriots have had more cap space to pursue other players.

Call it “homerism” if you’d like, but the team that has had the most sustained draft success since the 1970 merger has been my own PITTSBURGH STEELERS!

That year was the last time the Steelers had the overall number 1 pick, which the team used on Terry Bradshaw. He is now in the Hall of Fame! Since then:

  • The Steelers have been the only team that has won at least 5 games every year. The Cowboys have hit rock bottom (4-28 in 1988-89). The 49ers have hit rock bottom (4-28 in 1978-79) and recently. The Patriots hit rock bottom on multiple occasions (9-39 from 1990-92 and 2-14 in 1981) prior to their current run. The Steelers have never hit rock bottom;
    • Four of their first 5 picks in 1974 (Swann, Lambert, Stallworth and Webster) are all in the Hall of Fame. Safety Donnie Shell was a free agent from that same class, signed out of HBCU South Carolina State and went on to become a perennial Pro-Bowler and may have his Hall of Fame name called soon;
    • The entire 1979 Super Bowl Champions roster were made up completely of their own draft picks. That had not happened before or since; and
    • The Steelers have won the most post season games (36), games overall, and of course Super Bowls (6) since the merger in 1970.

The term we card-carrying members of Steeler Nation use to describe our draft acumen is “STEEL CERTAIN!” And still yet, even with our great history and success, in 1983 we took Gabe Rivera out of Texas Tech instead of homegrown Dan Marino. It took the organization about 10 years to become a consistent playoff team again and about 20 before Big Ben’s arrival put us back on the top. No team is above blowing it in the draft.

So the next time you find yourself watching the draft “analysts” pontificating about the grades of each team’s draft before any of the picks have put on the team pads and uniform, take it with a grain of salt. Enjoy it for the entertainment it may be and nothing else.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

 

Dear Steeler Nation Mike Tomlin Ingrates: Take a Seat and Shut the F#%& up!!!!

Sunday, January 15th, 2017

Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

MT

The divisional round of the NFL playoffs are underway this weekend.  If your team is still alive with the hope of reaching and winning a super bowl, be grateful.

 

After all, you could be a Bills, Vikings, or Browns fan.

 

This brings me to the baffling criticism more than a few of my fellow members of Steeler Nation have for head coach Mike Tomlin. Yes, that Mike Tomlin.  The Super Bowl winning coach with a 64% lifetime winning percentage; the same one who has not had a losing season in his first ten.

 

A summary of the critique is that he was a token fast-track hire due to the Rooney Rule, which is the NFL rule that mandates a minority coach be interviewed for all head-coaching jobs; 2) he inherited a great team, and situation with an upper echelon QB in Ben Roethlisberger; and 3) that he has lost to a lot of bad teams.

 

Let’s address them all from the last forward:

 

Under Tomlin the Pittsburgh Steelers have absolutely loss to a lot of bad teams.  There is no way around this.  Even if we overlook losses in 2012 and 2013 when the team was only 8-8 itself, there is still more than enough of a sample of mind boggling losses to include 3 in 2009 as defending champs to the likes of a 4-12 Chiefs team, and 5-11 Raiders and Browns teams.  (The Raiders loss was especially appalling, given it was at home to a career backup journeyman QB.  Tomlin has gone 1-3 to very bad Raider teams).  In 2014 there was the home loss to the 2-14 Buccaneers and another loss to a 4-12 Jets team.  And who can forget the playoff loss to a Denver team in 2011 as defending AFC champs?   Yes, by definition that Denver team was not a bad team, by virtue of making it to the playoffs.  But you still can’t lose to a team led by Tim Tebow.

 

So that criticism is valid and is on Tomlin.

 

The other two are crap!

 

Was Tomlin handed a great situation, team, and upper echelon QB?  The answer to that is mixed:  yes, great situation for the stability the Steelers management provides but Ben was hardly an upper echelon QB at the time.  As matter of fact, he was coming off his worst year as a pro, throwing 23 picks in 2006.  Upon Tomlin’s arrival in 2007 he had one of his best two years of his career.  Has it ever occurred to any of Tomlin’s haters that just maybe he has had as much of a hand in Ben’s success as the other way around?

 

Sure, the team was a year removed from winning it all in 2005, but went 8-8 and missed the playoffs in Bill Cowher’s last year of 2006.  I would not call that great.

 

Has it occurred to you that Tomlin might know something about coaching, even without Ben?  After all, in the 17 games Ben did not start under Tomlin, the Steelers actually have a winning record (9-8), including a 3-1 start in 2010, when Ben was suspended.  When Bill Belichick started this year at 3-1 without Tom Brady, it was lauded as evidence of his coaching brilliance.  Why not the same for Tomlin?

 

I am not suggesting that he is as good a coach as Belichick.  He is not!  I only insist that our critiques have a semblance of consistency.  The fact is that over his career, Belichick is 50-53 in games not started by Tom Brady.  Green Bay’s Mike McCarthy is 3-5-1 when Aaron Rogers does not start. Sean Peyton is 0-2 without Drew Brees for the Saints.  Winning consistently with or without an upper echelon QB is nowhere near as easy as this faction of Steeler Nation would have you believe.

 

How have others done who have inherited even better situations?  Let’s look at when George Seifert took over the reins from Bill Walsh for the 49ers, and when Barry Switzer took over for Jimmy Johnson and the Cowboys.  Both inherited SB champs and HOF QBs in Montana and Aikman, much further along in their development than was Ben when Tomlin took over the Steelers.  Seifert would repeat in ’89 and win yet again in ’94.  After 8 years, he won over 70% of his games.

 

A cautionary tale for Steeler nation is that it wasn’t enough for the 49er faithful and they ran him out of town.

 

They have not won a SB since.

 

Switzer won in his second year in 1995, then presided over the gradual decline of the Cowboys to become an afterthought by the late 1990s.  Only now are they beginning to emerge from the wilderness.

 

I ask you Steeler Nation: would you rather have had Barry Switzer?

 

Winning consistently in the NFL is never a sure thing.

 

Winning Super Bowls, even with a HOF caliber coach and QB is even less of a sure thing.

 

There have been a total of 5 such combinations over this era to include Shula/Unitas, Allen/Juergensen, Grant/Tarkenton, Shula/Marino and Levy/Kelly that NEVER won a Super Bowl.  This group of 5 has a cumulative record in the super bowl of 0-10!!!!!!

 

Sure, Shula won when paired with Griese, but the point remains that they don’t grow Super Bowl winning coaches on trees, nor are they bottled and sold.

 

The last suggestion (which is that Tomlin’s hire was tokenism) is as insulting to the Rooneys as it is to Tomlin.

 

If any organization in sports deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to which coach to hire, it is the Pittsburgh Steelers.  When they picked Tomlin to be their coach, they had only two for the better part of the previous 40 years.  Both won Super Bowls.  Tomlin has won a Super Bowl.  They got this!

 

If those of the football world were only as outraged by the reasons for the Rooney Rule as they are about the Rooney Rule, we may not need a Rooney Rule!

 

On an even larger level, the snipes at Tomlin reflect a larger, uglier American reality reaffirmed by the recent presidential election.  The simmering narrative that anyone Black who ascends to a position of prestige and or privilege did so without merit and at the expense of “hard-working Americans”, which is dog-whistle-code for “White folks.”

 

When Ronald Reagan employed his brand of the “Southern Strategy” to lure what would become known as “Reagan Democrats,” ground zero for this demographic was the greater Pittsburgh, PA region. As the steel mills of the area closed, Steeler fans spread all over the country, which is what in part makes up Steeler Nation today, but that mindset is as prevalent today as it was when Reagan won the White House in 1980.   Donald Trump used the same formula, only on steroids, to win the same office in November.

 

As for solutions, within football alone, there aren’t any.  If Tomlin continues to win, it’s what he is supposed to do with all that was “given” to him.  If he does not, it’s validation that he is not a good coach and should have never gotten the job.  He could walk on water and his critics will complain that his feet got wet.

 

This solution is above and beyond football and requires the critics to look at themselves in the mirror and reassess their expectations. This requires rational self-assessment…..a quality that fanatics (fans) have very little history of displaying.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

NFL Preseason Mash Ups: AFC North Personas

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

by WingFan

Wingfan

 

 

 

 

Teams have personality. Between the owner, the coach, the players, and the fans, a team develops certain behaviors. As we approach the official beginning of the NFL season, WingFan would like to continue the countdown to kickoff by walking you through each AFC North team and our assessment of their persona. Let’s take a look at what each team brings to the table:

Team: Pittsburgh Steelers

Persona: Robert DeNiro

DeNiroThere can only be one Godfather and the Pittsburgh Steelers take that title.  They have six Super Bowl wins (’74, ’75, ’78, ’79, ’05, ’07) – the most in NFL history.  The 1970’s Steelers dynasty was nicknamed “The Steel Curtain” and the way they played was brutal, hard-nosed, and downright gangster.  Robert DeNiro is as gangster as they get:  young Vito Corleone in Godfather II, Al Capone in The Untouchables, Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas, Lorenzo in Bronx Tale, and Sam Rothstein in Casino.  The Steelers weren’t just a great team but their defenses are full of legendary athletes who toe the line between genius and psycho – “Mean” Joe Green, Jack Hamm, Jack Lambert, Melvin Blount, Kevin Green, and Jerome Harrison.  DeNiro’s got a psycho side too:  Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Max Cady in Cape Fear, and Gil Renard in The Fan.

JL

You can’t become a legendary actor by being a “one trick pony” and DeNiro is more than capable of being versatile.  You can’t become the most decorated team in the Super Bowl era without having a versatile offense either.  The Steelers believe in running with power, passing with grace, and digging down deep when it counts. DeNiro believes in method acting, physically pushing his body’s limits to pull off the role, and digging deep
within himself to find his character’s true being.  Players like Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, Franco Harris, Jerome Bettis, Hines Ward, and Ben Roethlisberger are great Steelers because they do more than one thing.  They are receivers who make blocks down field.  They are quarterbacks that shake off a big hit and throw the winning pass.  They are running backs who run for the touchdown even if they have to make a hole for themselves.

Franco Harris after the "Immaculate Reception".

Franco Harris after the “Immaculate Reception”.

The Steelers have a “miracle” play called the “Immaculate Reception”.  One of the best “miracle” roles DeNiro ever had was as Lenard Lowe in Awakenings.  The late Robin Williams played a doctor in a mental hospital that discovers a “miracle drug” which brings Lenard Lowe back from his catatonic state.  Quarterback Terry Bradshaw made a desperation throw in the closing seconds of a 1972 playoff game against the Oakland Raiders.  The receiver was immediately hit by a defender and the ball popped high up in the air. Just as the ball was falling to the turf to assure a Raiders’ victory, good ole Franco scoops the ball up just before it touches the ground.  The crowd went bananas as Franco raced to the end zone for the game winning touchdown. Roles like Lenard Lowe and plays like the “Immaculate Reception” are the reason that fans fall over themselves whenever the steel curtain calls.

 

Team:  Baltimore Ravens
Persona:  Mike Tyson

MTMike Tyson definitely deserves a place on football’s “The Grid Iron” and Baltimore is an historic iron city that perfectly fits “Iron” Mike.  Iron Mike had a signature way of entering the ring where he never wore a traditional boxing robe; instead he wore a towel shirt. He basically used to cut through the center of a regular white towel so he could fit his head through, and then he draped it over his shoulders.  The Ravens had a signature way of entering their stadium too.  The team captain and inspirational leader, linebacker Ray Lewis, would do a little dance nicknamed the “Squirrel Dance” (see pic below).  Just like a towel shirt, Lewis’ dance was unlike anything you’d ever seen before.

Ray Lewis & The Squirrel Dance

Ray Lewis & The Squirrel Dance

Baltimore won two Super Bowls with that Squirrel Dance, and Mike won multiple championship titles with that towel shirt because these guys are not only ballers – they’re brawlers.  Sometimes the Ravens’ games look like street fights and sometimes the score ends up looking as ugly as Mitch Green after a street fight with Tyson (see pic).  Take the Ravens first Super Bowl victory in 2001, for example, when they pulverized the New York Giants 34-7 – that’s one ugly score!  The Ravens and Tyson also had a mean knockout punch.  While Tyson literally punched his opponents’ lights out, the Ravens turned out the lights in the 2013 Super Bowl in another way.  After the Ravens ran back the 2nd half kickoff to take a dominating 28-6 lead over the 49ers, the Super Dome experienced a power outage and the lights went out for about a half hour.  Commentators used the outage as an opportunity to say that the Ravens just knocked the 49ers lights out.

Mitch Green

Mitch Green

While Ray Lewis and Ed Reed were the defensive leaders known for packing a Tyson-like punch, running back Ray Rice might be the hardest hitting player on the team.  The Ravens star ran into some trouble with his lady when cameras caught him knocking her lights out in a Las Vegas casino (see “The Dark Side” post for details).  Tyson had some trouble with the ladies, too.  Tyson’s issues with domestic disputes with his ex-wife Robin Givens are well documented, and of course, there was that whole beauty pageant episode that sent Tyson to jail for a couple of years.  The seriousness of these issues should not be discounted but Rice’s fiancee still decided to marry him after he knocked her out.  Deciding to marry Rice after such an incident might be as crazy as Robin Givens deciding to marry Tyson in the first place – I guess the NFL’s version of “Iron Mike” found his “Iron wife”.

 

Team: Cincinnati Bengals
Persona:  Charlie Sheen

CSCharlie Sheen’s Hollywood shuffle is kind of like the Bengals Ickey Woods Shuffle – success that eventually turns into a spectacle.  Back in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s Woods was a popular running back who created a touchdown dance called “The Ickey Shuffle.”  After every successful touchdown you could count on Ickey to take the ball and hop a little left and hop a little right – the dance was pretty funny and slightly endearing.  Sheen had a feature role in the movie Wall Street and the Bengals were featured in two Super Bowls. (’82 &’87) but they never won either game.  Ever since then, the Bengals and Sheen have mostly followed up their big time appearances with comedic performances like a bunch of Hot Shots.

Ickey Woods & The Ickey Shuffle

Ickey Woods & The Ickey Shuffle

It’s not that the Bengals don’t have talent, they just seem to underachieve instead of succeed.  In the early 2000’s the team got another chance like Charlie got “Two and a Half Men”.   They picked Heisman Trophy winning, Carson Palmer.  Palmer’s performance in his first couple of seasons was about as impressive as Sheen’s first couple seasons on Two and a Half Men – but then the shuffle showed up.  Sheen’s success brought about an ego that destroyed the show’s chemistry and the Bengals success brought about Chad Ocho Cinco, who basically destroyed the team’s chemistry.  In both cases, the executives didn’t know how to corral the wild personalities so a spectacle ensued.  Sheen, like Ocho Cinco, found other ways to express himself – mostly on YouTube.  Every time Ocho Cinco scored a touchdown, he did the River Dance or acted like Tiger Woods putting the football with a pile-on, it was sophomoric at best.

Tiger Ocho

Tiger Ocho

After a couple of good seasons, the whole show blew up.  The next thing you know, Charlie and Ocho Cinco are on TV with their “goddesses” trying to see who can go broke faster – Ocho Cinco won.  By 2012, the Bengals fired the Ocho show and CBS fired Sheen.  In 2013, TMZ reported that Ocho Cinco was losing approximately $46,000 per month and starting to look desperate.  Here’s the moral of the story kids:  instead of being a respectable team that shows appreciation for the resources given to them, the Bengals seem to go “Charlie Sheen” every year and shuffle their way into obscurity.

 

Team: Cleveland Browns
Persona:  Kathy Griffin

KGSure Kathy’s burnt orange hair matches The Cleveland Browns uniforms perfectly, but their lives on the D-List are what make this combination really click.  While Griffin made the D-List popular, it’s rumored that the Browns were her true inspiration.  The Cleveland Browns have only made the playoffs once in the past twenty years and they have not won a championship in the Super Bowl era.  To their credit and the credit of Kathy, they do have four NFL championships from the 1950’s and early 1960’s.  Those are valid wins, but it’s like Kathy getting a Grammy for her reality show – we’re quietly clapping.

Kathy Griffin worked hard to achieve her D-List status.  Cleveland is the kind of hardworking middle-American city that appreciates effort and no one epitomizes effort like Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown.  At the time of his retirement, Brown had the NFL record for most rushing yards with 12,312 total yards.  Kathy Griffin actually holds the record for most stand-up specials produced for one network (Bravo), with 16 specials. Kathy also speaks out for causes she believes in like Jim.  Jim was very outspoken about Civil Rights in the early 60’s and Kathy goes out of her way to speak out for LGBT-related causes.  She hosts New Year’s Eve with Anderson Cooper, she makes cameos in movies, and she puts out stand-up routines like it’s breakfast – she’s a hard worker and so was Jim Brown.

Manziel & The Money Team

Manziel & The Money Team

The hardworking nature of the Browns is why this year might be a very interesting social experiment in Cleveland.  In this year’s draft, The Browns chose quarterback Johnny “Football” Manziel.  His celebrity preceded him to the NFL.  His college games were ultra exciting.  He’s friends with Justin Bieber (pop icon), Floyd Mayweather (boxing icon), and Tyrese (YouTube Video Ranter).  The question is: Will Manziel’s A-List celebrity status fit-in with the Cleveland D-List persona?  Johnny Football better hope so because unlike “The View” kicking Kathy Griffin off their show, The Browns run this show and they just named Brian Hoyer the starting quarterback.  Looks like Manziel might find it hard to get face time in the near future – except on Tyrese’s next YouTube video.

 

WingFan, for War Room Sports