Thursday, July 10, 2008

stripper insurance just went up in dallas


Det. Jimmy McNulty: Well, if every time, Snot Boogie stole the money, why'd you let him play?
Kid: Got to. It's America, man.
-The Wire


America is about winning. Sports are about winning. We live in a country where our Founding Fathers, undoubtedly winners, were drunkards, slave owners, and adulterers, yet they are tops amongst the most revered people in this country. In fact, would it bother anybody if Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, drunkenly, while getting head from one of his slave mistresses? In other words, we are able to look past their moral shortcomings because their results were so profound. Morality in the sports world is exactly the same. Rings are given to the players on the winning teams of championship games. There are no Lombardi trophies for the team with the highest moral character because sports are not about moral character. They are about winning championships. The important distinction here is the difference between moral character, one’s off the field character, and locker room character; for example, Ray Lewis has questionable moral character yet great locker room character. It’s this distinction that I think that most GM’s in the sports world fail to comprehend, a failure which can cost teams championships and should cost GM’s their jobs.

The fact that some people see a correlation between Adam Jones making it rain in a strip club and his ability to intercept passes or return punts for six is ridiculous. Consequently, any GM who would not want the services of a player like Adam Jones needs to quit his job, get a sex organ transplant, a boob job, and a commy card because they are ball-less and un-American. They do not have the best interest of their respective teams in mind and their faulty reasons for doing so are negligent. With the growing propensity for 4 and 5 wide sets, corners are like pitchers in baseball, you can never have enough talent or depth at the position. Due to this fact, there is not a team in the league that would not benefit tremendously from the addition of an Adam Jones, a young, budding super star who also has tremendous value on special teams. Even a player like Brett Favre would only have a few suitors, barring a return, because many teams already have their quarterback situation established. In this sense, adding a pro bowl caliber player at cb would be more advantageous to most teams than adding the best qb, statistically, in NFL history, especially if you consider salary (Pacman will make $700,000 in 2008, while Favre will make $12.5 million, nearly 18 times as much). Honestly, those numbers are a JOKE!! The opportunity to add a rare talent for next to nothing is a situation that simply does not present itself to the league very often, if ever (FAULK YOU RAIDERS. Hope you spent that 4th rounder wisely). Further, consider the mind-boggling price it’s costing to sign unproven rookies and the insane contracts that not as talented veterans are receiving (Deangelo Hall’s 7 year 70 million dollar contract comes to mind here), and this deal seems like even more of a steal. To use an analogy that Adam would appreciate: this is like lucking into a strip club and finding the girl of your dreams willing to suck you off for a ten spot, while the girl with the cast and the black eye is charging 10 times that to give you a hand job. Do you care that girl-of-your-dreams is allegedly involved in a shooting in Las Vegas? Not unless you’re one of the worthless, ball-less GM’s that did not even consider signing Adam to their probably just as worthless team.

More...
The fact of the matter is that the downside is NEGLIGIBLE compared to the astronomical upside. Let’s think about a worse-case scenario: week 7 Jones gets arrested for shaking a bottle of Cristal and shoving it up a stripper’s ass. He gets released from a team that already has Pro-Bowler Terrence Newman, the solid Anthony Henry, 1st rounder Mike Jenkins, and the fastest corner at the combine, Orlando Scandrick (who’s going to be sick). His absence here would obviously be no different than if the team hadn’t signed him in the first place. Also, those that would argue that the likelihood of another suspension is reason enough not to sign him are crazy because what’s the difference between someone being suspended for the last 10 games of the season and someone suffering a season-ending injury? In each case one is without the services of the player for X amount of games. On any given play, any player on the field can suffer an injury, does this mean that only the most durable players should play, while injury prone stars like Brian Westbrook sit out? Players with exceptional talent and skill should be given the opportunity to play until that they are no longer able, regardless of whether or not it’s due to injury, suspension, or retirement. The distraction argument is also waaay overrated. How distracting was Moss or T.O. last year, as these two problem children dominated their positions, while keeping their mouths shut. Now, lets take a look at not even the best possible scenario, but simply a fairly feasible one: Jones automatically becoming, AT LEAST, the second best corner on any team he would have joined, being only 24 years old, and steadily becoming one of the best corners and punt returners in the league, all of this for pennies on the dollar.

To make this situation even more laughable is that Jones was considered in Tennessee to be a good teammate. The players there were happy that the distraction was gone, certainly not the player and not even the teammate. I could understand a team being wary of adding a T.O. because of the potential to destroy a locker room (I’m harkening back to the moral character vs. locker room character distinction here). Ray Lewis allegedly killed someone, yet is one of the most respected players in the NFL, regardless, because of his domination on the field and his passion in the locker room. Jones has the potential to become nearly that good.

I could go on forever, but the point has been made and the bottom line is this: it doesn’t matter if you’re Melo, Kobe, Kidd, Ray, T.O., Randy, Jones or [insert controversial superstar here], the fact that you have exceptional talent is the reason that you have the opportunity to play and the reason that you should have the opportunity to play, as long as the goal in sports is to win. GM’s of the world, stop trying to take some bullshit moral stance because the teams that don’t won’t be able to hear you due to the sound of their championship parades going by. If you need any further proof on this matter, just ask old Thomas Jefferson (fresh from some adulterous head) whether or not he’d agree, and he’d say, “got to. It’s America, man.”

6 comments:

Alon said...

:-)

Sam said...

The only reason to get rid of a player with talent is if everybody on his team hates him like Sidney Ponson.

Anonymous said...

GENIUS post i love it. The only problem here is that the media goes crazy over controversial shit like this. A sports team is like a corporation in some way and owners don't want neagtive media attention. Also, if you had this mindset then you would do everything you could to gather up these "steals" and you would eventually become the next bengals or blazers. The press ripped these teams to shreds and ruined people's perspectives on them. However, neither were winning teams at the time. I do agree that the point of sports is to win, but winning really isn't everything. Money is everything. If you can sign a problem child and win then you're a genius but if you lose then analysts will make it rain on your career.

walsh said...

gir, stop being bitter giants fan and try and rip the pacman signing for the boys. yes boys are worst thing in the entire world and the defending superbowl champion new york football giants are most likely the best thing. BUT, pacman is fucking good, kill for him to be in a giants uniform and so would you.

and

LOOOOOOOOOOOK at TREATER BAUMAN right now.

lets go

Anonymous said...

I love this post.

The only thing I would disagree with is that while players like Pacman may fill the seats of a stadium, they don't do as well in merchandise sales. Moral character may not have a correlation to on field play, but it does to merchandising money. No father with half a brain will let their child look up to anyone with as little character as Pacman Jones, or Ron artest for that matter (check out the horrified & crying child towards the end, he's not buying an artest jersey). No father wants to answer their son when they ask “How do I make ‘em rain on dem hos?” No moral character = less jersey sales for the team. At $75 - $100 a pop, teams could be losing out on big bucks. To reiterate Josh, profits are the bottom line in pro sports.

Anonymous said...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3491580