It’s hard to miss. Almost daily, the evidence is dumped, like toxic landfill, right at our feet, up to our knees. And all of it points to the same thing: Our sports world is devouring itself, from the inside out.
Saturday, at halftime of the Nevada-Arizona New Mexico Bowl, a talking topic from the studio was whether the SEC made the correct call by not suspending Alabama defensive end Quinton Dial for the Notre-Dame-Alabama BCS Championship.
During an interception return in the Alabama-Georgia SEC championship on Dec. 1, Dial, 6-foot-6, 305 pounds, clearly targeted unsuspecting Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Murray, knocking him flat with a high, excessively brutal — and just plain unnecessary — shot. A simple block — a nudge — would’ve done it.
Although this “play” went un-flagged — and likely undetected — Dial’s “block” clearly was designed to have Murray removed from both the game — perhaps by gurney — and his senses.
From ESPN’s studio on Saturday, ESPN analyst David Pollack, a former star Georgia linebacker, smiled as he explained why he supported the SEC’s decision:
“When there’s an interception, there is one guy we look up — that’s the quarterback. And your objective is to absolutely kill him, because there are so many rules, now, where they put skirts on these guys.”
Ugh. But Pollack wasn’t through.
“So when you get an opportunity, when the quarterback’s the defender, now, you absolutely try to destroy him. You love that opportunity, and that’s your No. 1 goal. You’re coached that way.”
No doubt, Pollack, remorselessly bloodthirsty and blissfully unconcerned with the worst consequences — for both victim and perpetrator — had spoken the truth.
So how does organized, big-bucks football, be it NCAA or NFL, differ from any criminal enterprise in which employees — goons, thugs — are ordered to do physical harm as a means to deplete or eliminate the competition? Why is what Pollack described any different from organized crime?
* Akbar Gbajabiamila is a former NFL defensive end, now an NFL Network studio analyst. Last week, he wrote an important piece for NFL.com. It was about how Friday nights are the most dangerous nights for NFL players.
Gbajabiamila explained Fridays before Sunday games have the lightest and shortest practices, thus that night’s partying — ending with early-morning clubbing — is standard.
It’s no coincidence, Gbajabiamila wrote, that both the Javon Belcher murder-homicide and, a week later, the manslaughter charges against Josh Brent in the vehicular death of teammate Jerry Brown, began with excessive drinking on a Friday night.
Nonsense on court & gridiron
This is a fun TV time of year because football announcers compete with basketball announcers to speak conditioned, slick-sounding nonsense.
On Saturday, with 3:43 left in Indiana-Butler, CBS’s Clark Kellogg notified us that if Indiana sank a free-throw, “It’s a one-possession game.” With 3:43 left, why not instead give us the five-day weather forecast for greater Indianapolis?
On Thursday, after the Eagles fumbled — less than a minute into the game — NFL Network’s Mike Mayock put it in long-form: “When you’re 4-9, you don’t put it on the ground.”
Later, Bengals defensive back Leon Hall jumped to intercept an underthrown pass, then returned it 44 yards — as self-evident as any play in the game.
Still, Mayock explained it in Mayockian: “A good job by the former first-round pick, high-pointing the football, then becoming a running back.”
High-pointing the football? Sure, why not? Mayock, unable to say, “jumped,” now uses “high-pointing” in addition to “elevating.”
After Danny Kanell, an analyst on ESPN’s New Mexico Bowl, noted Arizona was behind, he added, “Somebody has to step up in a situation like this and make a play.”
And, of course, throughout the week, shooters didn’t “make” or “hit” an outside shot or free throw, they “knocked it down.” If you don’t speak long-form silly, how can we tell you’re an expert?
* CBS’ Broncos-Ravens yesterday was stricken by a high/wide primary camera that repeatedly allowed QBs Peyton Manning and Joe Flacco, when they faked a handoff or dropped back to pass, to disappear from view.
CBS got so close it missed a lot. Once, before taking the snap from the shotgun, Flacco was only in half-view. Manning’s passes — presumably; there was no live view of him throwing — appeared out of nowhere. Same with running backs who took handoffs: They were out of frame during the snap.
Dopes believed in Williams’ hoops turnaround
Shawne Williams, first-round NBA pick (Pacers, 2006) and a John
Calipari recruit to Memphis, last week was busted for drugs (codeine, marijuana) — again. As a Knick then a Net, some media decided Williams was all cleaned up, “a changed man.” Their evidence? He told them so.
* A studio insert during Fox’s Giants-Falcons yesterday showed Adrian Peterson running 82 yards for a TD. Curt Menefee noted Peterson had eight carries for eight yards, but was now nine for 90. Somewhere in that Vikes-Rams telecast, a graphic must have told that Peterson was averaging 10 yards per carry!
Another whistle-to-snap gab job by Fox’s Moose Johnston, throughout Giants-Falcons. Fox must approve, given that Johnston — for Fox’s, the audience’s or his own good — apparently, and for years, has never been told to stop.
After Atlanta’s Sean Weatherspoon made a tackle, Fox made sure to show him doing a spoon-mime, I-love-me thing a second time — this one in slow motion. Got that, kids? Remember: In team sports, it’s all about you!
* An ESPN graphic last week noted the Lakers were 1-11 this season when Kobe Bryant scores 30 or more. “Why then,” asks reader Ron Goydic, “don’t they take him out when he reaches 29?”
Reader Dave Hachadorian writes that he watched ESPN Classic’s “Bowl Blitz” — games from the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s — and noticed two oddities: games in which neither team wore black and no one “put the ball on the ground.”
During Steelers-Cowboys yesterday, CBS aired a promo for the show, “Vegas” — set to “Jingle Bells” — showing a man ripping open a woman’s blouse.
Former MSG Network executive producer then St. Louis Blues CEO Mike McCarthy has joined Manhattan Place Entertainment, a multi-media production company that leans toward sports.
* On Friday, after the Nets’ Joe Johnson hit a buzzer-beater to beat the Pistons in double OT, YES took a quick sideline shot of Jerry Seinfeld. Ian Eagle was just as quick to borrow from a “Seinfeld” episode. “That,” he said of Johnson’s shot, “was real, and that was spectacular.”