Sometimes, you just don't get to gloat, revisited again

Last year, I talked here and here about how the very nature of something slowly fading away, rather than ending with a singular win/loss type of event, robs us of that "gotcha" moment where you'd get to gloat about it to those whose prediction was incorrect.

Well, remember all that panic over how home runs were flying out of the new Yankee Stadium at an alarming pace...like after one week...and how much hand-wringing was done over it? How did that turn out?

Does the NFL know about this?

I'm sure most of you knew this before I did, so I hope I'm not going all Peter King on you here ("Hey, I just saw Saving Private Ryan, that's a pretty good movie"). But I just discovered this, and it's spectacular. The NFL section of Hulu.

Every "Super Bowl Highlights" show. An "America's Game" feature on every Super Bowl winner. Greatest Games. Hard Knocks. Game of the Week, going back to over 10 years ago. A section for each team. I feel like I'm stealing, or that the NFL will take all this down as soon as they find out I'm watching it.

I will no doubt spend countless hours between now and September watching these features, to the point where others who care about me will have to pry me away with a pretty good amount of force.

Bad sports logic strikes again

I have always felt the layperson has nothing to apologize for, or to be ashamed of, when giving genuine sports analysis the way he or she sees it. I often hear regular people bullied off their point by the supposed trump card, where the other person (usually a current or ex-jock but not always) says something like "What do you know, you never played in the NBA/NFL/MLB..."

We the commoners should never be shy to have a view, even if we've never played at a high level. If we watch enough games, and understand the sport, we can have valid and meaningful analysis. Especially if we can easily look at records and/or statistics to back up our arguments.

This sort of leads into another example of poor sports logic I grow weary of: The bitter old man. Even if he was legitimately great, he is not secure with his own legacy. As a result he'll take any opportunity to slight the players of today.

One recent sports dust-up combines elements from both example pools - from the New York Times, the Sayers/Butkus vs. Urlacher feud. In short, Gale Sayers says the Bears stink now, Brian Urlacher puts it in perspective by pointing out that Sayers never won anything, and Dick Butkus says Urlacher wasn't born yet, so what does he know?

True, Urlacher wasn't born yet, but he could use something called THE INTERNET, and see that indeed, the Bears with Sayers never made the playoffs. He could have even added that the Bears were under .500 during those years if he wanted to.

Mike Ditka then added in a radio interview, that had Sayers not gotten hurt, no one would ever be able to break his records. After another look at the Internet, (Pro Football Reference in this case), in Sayers' first 5 years before serious injury he rushed for these yardage totals (with rushing TDs):

867 (14)
1231 (8)
880 (7)
856 (2)
1032 (8)

I'm not sure I understand what kind of record pace Sayers was setting, but maybe Ditka thought Sayers was about to double these totals over the next 5 years had he stayed healthy. And Sayers only missed 5 games combined over those first 5 years. Could Ditka have been thinking of career yards per carry? 5.0 is damn good, but not a record, Jim Brown's 5.2 leads all running backs. (And that's not a volume stat anyway.) Maybe he meant a fumbles record, as Sayers coughed it up 34 times in 68 career games?

Ditka and Butkus came up in a time when there was no internet, so they probably feel they can make any claim and not be called on it. But come on fellas, times are different, people can actually check stuff now. No longer can you just say whatever you want and pass it off as a given.

The fun of saving draft day predictions

Mel Kiper Jr., on draft day 2007:

"JaMarcus Russell's going to immediately energize that Raider nation, that fan base, that football team, on the practice field, in that locker room. Three years from now, you could be looking at a guy who's certainly one of the elite top 5 quarterbacks in this league."

"And mobility's a little underrated."

"The skill level that he has is certainly John Elway-like."

That, or he's a lazy, bloated bust who's going to be cut in May of 2010...

(Photo courtesy of Kissing Suzy Kolber)

Are you sure about that?

I kid you not, I just heard these words come from Erin Andrews on Dancing With The Stars, and in fact I backed up the video just to make sure I heard her right.

On being in the "bottom two," facing elimination from the show: "That was the grossest feeling I've ever had."

Wow. (Blink. Stare. Blink.)