HOW ‘BOUT THEM SAINTS???

We all knew it was going to happen, but it still had to be seen to be believed. The New Orleans Saints walked into Soldier Field and proceeded to walk all over the helpless Chicago Bears. For a franchise that had never even made it to the Super Bowl, this coronation was long overdue. Still grappling with the after effects of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana needed these Saints, hell, the whole country outside of Chicago needed this team. The imaginative play calling of rookie, and coach of the year, head coach Sean Payton was inspired, and matched only by the unparrelled offensive talent of Drew Brees, Reggie Bush, Deuce McCallister and the bevy of talented wide recievers. Brees proved why he is the best quarterback in the league, and Reggie Bush solidified why he should have been the number one overall pick as he proved the Bears defense to be slow and unathletic. But after all, this is what the experts all predicted from the start.

WAIT A SECOND. . . .That’s not what happened at all. God dammit, I know I shouldn’t write these damn things beforehand.

I know the man liked his crack rock…

But, I like Mike Irvin the ESPN analyst. He and Steve Young are probably the two former players on ESPN, along with Jaworski, that I mind the least. This morning I tuned into ESPN and saw the guys go through the motions with their Top 5 teams in the AFC. When Mike Irvin gave his, he put the Ravens at #5 and didn’t put the Broncos anywhere. Irvin then went on about how if you get a lead on the Broncos, they’re done. That he did not think Jake Plummer was a Super Bowl quarterback.

For this assessment of the teams, Irvin got mocked by Steve Young and Tom Jackson, obviously, but also by STUART SCOTT. Deadspin also has link to video where Steve Young tells Irvin he could keep talking for five minutes but he still wouldn’t make any sense. ESPN decided to cut this part out, I have no idea why. First he gets called retarded and now this.

The best thing about it? They’re ripping Irvin because the Broncos beat the Ravens, yet Irvin ranks them ahead of the Broncos…meanwhile…Steve Young has the Chargers ranked ahead of the Ravens. The Ravens, yeah, beat the Chargers a week ago.

Cris Carter got hit in the head a lot, but what is Jason Whitlock’s excuse?

    One of the running trends here on Joboo has been calling ESPN and their “personalities” out for stupid decisions.  Well, when you are the worldwide leader in sports television and part of the evil empire that is Disney you’re going to take your lumps.  I’m not going to apologize for ripping on them, but in the interest of fairness I have to give ESPN some credit for canning Jason Whitlock’s fat ass.  I’m not even sure what the real reason ESPN offered for firing Whitlock, but he claims that it was merely because he was exercising his constitutional right of free speech.  I would like to believe he was fired for merely being a moron, or in the alternative not knowing a god damned thing about sports but judging by ESPN’s other personal decisions there had to be something else here.  Well AOL decided to give Jason a shot to reach out to the masses, and boy did he reach out.  Click the read more link to see the “highlights” of Whitlock’s first weekly column on AOL.

I didn’t realize Boston made the playoffs this year

I want to start off by saying that while I’m about to rip on Bill Simmons, I actually really like his work. I’m a fan of his writing style, and I like how he molds pop culture and sports together which I don’t find being done a lot of other places. That being said, I was really excited to see that he was going to keep a running diary of all the first games of the 4 divisional playoff match-ups. As any of you have to know if you have read really any of Bill Simmons’ work, he’s from Boston and an unabashed Red Sox fan. I certainly don’t have a problem with that in and of itself, but last time I checked the Red Sox didn’t make the playoffs this year. In fact I believe they finished behind the TORONTO BLUE JAYS. Well if you read Simmons’ playoff diaries you just might think the Red Sox are primed for a playoff run.

Skip Bayless prompted this post…

I’m not so sure why Skip Bayless saying something dumb/lame in order to prompt a post would be a shocking thing, but I’m just laying the foundation. Skip was on his show with Woody Paige. Shocking that a show on ESPN would make lameass comments, but Skip decided that now, with the arrest of South Carolina QB Blake Mitchell and a punter stabbin’ a fool, that college coaches should ban their players from going to bars.

The hell with that.

Now, this isn’t a “HOORAY…BEER” type of post. Just the fact that someone boozes alone does not make that person COOL or BADASS. Anyone CAN go to a bar and get drunk off their ass. If you want that, read Champ’s bold predictions because for some reason he is talking about the East Lansing bar specials for tonight, as if anyone gives a damn.

So, no, this post is not coming from the angle that college football players should go to the bar because drinking is badass. It’s coming from the angle that part of being a college student is learning responsibility, even if it is something as small as picking what night to go to a bar and what night to walk away from a jackass telling you not to bring underage girls into the bar.

Monday Night Footballs

Last night was an unprecedented night for MNF as most of you probably realize, but hey for those that got here through some of our more colorful search terms let me recap.  MNF has transitioned away from its only other home, ABC, for ESPN and maybe more importantly for the continued success of the program, Cable.  Also unprecedented was the Monday Night double header.  If you’re interested in a little more discussion about MNF with little discussion of either actual game, which I completely understand if you’re not, click the read more link.

Don’t Sleep on the Gamecocks

For the second week in a row South Carolina has a primetime SEC match-up televised on ESPN (7:45 Eastern on the mothership). This is just another sign that South Carolina is a team on the rise. This is going to be a much tougher test for than last week for the Gamecocks but don’t let the 15 points scored against Mississippi State scare anyone of the Gamecocks’ bandwagon. Don’t think for a second that Spurrier was saving a few things for this week. He is that type of sneaky bastard that would sandbag against an inferior team like Mississippi State just to surprise the Bulldogs.

Here come the Gamecocks

After much deliberation and research I’ve decided on a College Football team to pour my heart and soul behind. Well maybe it’s not that serious but I’m at least going to root for them. I even reconsidered becoming a Michigan State Spartan fan, but after hearing that an MSU fan had the audacity to claim that Michigan had better potatoes than Idaho that door has closed for good. But for better or worse, in sickness and in health and for richer or poorer I’m attaching myself to the Gamecocks of South Carolina . . . at least for the confines of the college football season.

Chris Sheridan wants the terrorists to win.

USA basketball is in China, doing their thing in some mock Olympics with just basketball. World Championships or something of that ilk. Chris Sheridan is a writer for ESPN.com, now I can’t tell you whether he is a GOOD writer, because his name usually resides next to a little ESPN Insider logo, but I can say a couple things on what he has written about this USA Basketball team…

Why the world won’t be dominated

Haywood to Team USA: Be humble

Where Sheridan has a player from the 1960s, who was still in college for the Olympics, give advice based on his experience.

Sheridan: Team USA impressive vs. Lithuania … or was it?
Sheridan: Words of caution for Team USA

Sheridan: Team USA off to an encouraging start
“Team USA needs to get proper rest, writes Chris Sheridan, because the road to redemption will be a grueling one.”

The Latest column from Chris Sheridan…

“Ten reasons Team USA won’t win the gold”

He did have one encouraging column in there for his month+ covering this team…

Sheridan: Team USA impressive after shaking off early jitters

Seriously, I might be taking things out of context, in that maybe the articles aren’t that negative themselves, but this is a bit ridiculous. I know Andy Katz is going to praise the hell out of the team and I’m sure Dick Vitale wrote something about how this is the best coached USA Basketball team ever, but this isn’t exactly balance.

Unfortunately, this kind of crap is par for the course with ESPN these days.