Clearing things up for the weekend

Just a few things I wanted to touch on before the upcoming weekend.

Two big controversies this week in football, both involving race. First, Michael Irvin makes a joke that Tony Romo runs so well he must be part African American. I've actually cleaned it up a lot, the quote involved his great great grandmother seeking out some stud during the 19th century, but anyway you get the point. I don't think anyone was really offended by this statement, but there was still a public outcry, why? Because a lot of white guys know that they would have been fired for the same comment. So a bunch of people on TV and Radio complained about a double standard and a few feigned outrage over the comment itself. My opinion is simple, fire Michael Irvin because he sucks at his job, not because he got caught making a racist joke one time. It's like all these people are still angry over Jimmy The Greek or Rush Limbaugh being fired and feel like this is a chance where the shoe is on the other foot, but then they didn't get their supposed justice, or more properly, payback. This too shall pass, like everything else, and Michael Irvin will make hundreds more stupid statements and you probably won't hear about them because they'll just be about football

The other racially charged story of the week was Larry Johnson's claim that only a black coach could properly yell at black players. There's probably a nugget of truth in there with many black players, but as always it's probably incorrect to say it's true for all black players. The most important thing to realize is that it's just a fact of life that your boss probably will have a different background than you and you just have to deal with it. At one of my first jobs my boss was a former military man, but never once did i complain that he couldn't relate to me because he didn't grow up in a cushy suburb playing Sega Genesis all the time.

So that's enough of that, onto normal sports stuff. The New York Football Giants have been especially childish this week. My least favorite thing in sports is when a player calls out his teammate but then in an effort to make it seem like he's innocent attacks the media. enter Michael Strahan, one of the biggest frauds in sports. Strahan called out Plaxico Burress for a lack of effort on two interceptions last week against the Titans, a game by the way that they had no business losing. This week a reporter asked him if he and Plax had spoken about the plays or Strahan's reaction to the plays, and Strahan tried to intimidate the reporter claiming that the press was trying to stir something up. No dumbass, you stirred things up by calling him out in the first place! Long story short, the Giants need a roster overhaul, as much as people seem to like Strahan, Tiki and Jeremy Shockey, guys like that don't win titles, they lack character and are more interested in their own self-preservation. Every year the media claims that the Giants are a Super Bowl contender but if they're counting on those guys, they'll never make it. Winners don't take every chance to undermine their coach when they lose, they don;t complain that practices are too hard and they certainly don;t spend all their time calling out other people instead of looking in the mirror. The best thing that could happen to the Giants is to trade Shockey and Strahan, hire a good GM and start to build with a team full of real football players instead of show ponies. On a side note, I don;t find Tiki's strange smile when he talks to be nearly as charming as most media members do, perhaps it's because they have to deal with the likes of Corey Dillon who many Patriots beat writers will admit to being legitimitely afraid of.

One last football note, I wanted to give my theory on the SEC. I don't think any of the teams int hat conference are on the elite level. They all play really weak out of conference schedules, so it's almost inevitable that one of them would come to the end of the season with only one loss. It's almost the law of averages. BTW I wanted to congratualte the BCS on rewarding LSU for their tough schedule, must be hard to go 10-2 when you play eight frickin home games, this team is only .500 on the road, but of course they belong in the Rose Bowl. The whole conference is overrated. They have one out of conference road win against a ranked opponent, South Carolina's big upset at Clemson last week. Aside from that they had three decent out of conference wins, UF won at FSU, Tenn beat Cal at home, and Georgia beat Georgia Tech, and one embaressing loss against an elite team. USC's trouncing of Arkansas, in Arkansas.

Football has worn me out, maybe I'll be back soon hopefully with more wide ranging critiques.

-Bender Out