The proliferation of the sports media over the past 10 years or so has led to a proliferation of unqualified douche-tards posing as "pundits" and a proliferation of opinions so vast, varied and grandly miscast that one can only pause in gape-eyed wonder at their incalculable, cosmic and infinite stupidity.
The spread of baseless opinion as the dominant source of sports information is so infuriating to the knowledgeable fan that a certain collection of incredulous and angry trolls created an entire Web site to counter it – and an entire section within that site dedicated to highlighting just how miscast these opinions are when held under the 10,000-watt interrogation light of truth called the Cold, Hard Football Facts.
The downward spiraling vortex of bombast and ignorance that is the modern sports media – a physical phenomenon that we were put on Planet Pigskin to bring to an end – officially bottomed out this week with the feeding frenzy of opinion that has surrounded the Big Story of the 2005 season: The Tedy Bruschi is Back! Story.
The return of the popular football player, a linchpin in a three-time champion New England defense, has led every single national football broadcast over the past three-plus days, pushing Indy's 6-0 start and Saturday's USC-Notre Dame classic to the nether regions of the future kitty-litter liner that is the daily sports pages.
If ever a story was prone to misguided opinion, ignorant windbag bombast and a gross abuse of the pigskin "pundits" license to commit gross hackery, well, this was it.
From the very moment it chugged out of the station back in February, The Tedy Bruschi is Back! Story had all the markings of a "pundit" train wreck written all over it. The "pundits" have commented freely and recklessly on topics they know nothing about (heart conditions and strokes), in a field (medicine) of which they have the same grasp that Cro-Magnon man had of nuclear fission, and from a point of view (inside the Bruschi family) as foreign to them as the concept of vegetarianism is to the 225 Club.
In other words, common sense dictates that the "pundits" should shut the f*ck up and report the story – not sit there and give the Bruschi family lectures on heart conditions, strokes and their most intensely personal thoughts, hopes and conversations. (For the record, we have the same thorough lack of knowledge about these topics as your average "pundit." Therefore, like good little trolls, we're not pretending to be experts on these topics.)
But a bow to common sense and decency is not what we've witnessed. Instead, every "pundit" from Presque Isle to La Jolla has told Bruschi exactly what kind of problems he has and what he should be doing about them – even when their opinions conflict with every single report about Bruschi's condition coming to us from the medical community.
It's either a joke or a sad commentary on the sports media. In many instances, it has stooped to the level of character assassination, as "pundits" have essentially accused Bruschi of neglecting his family and/or being a slave to ego, money or glory. All of these suddenly hostile accusations stand in sharp contrast to the image the football world has had of the New England linebacker up until this week, or the image he displayed Monday when he officially announced at a press conference that he was returning to football.
But the opinions of the finest doctors in the land, and a well-deserved image of hard work and decency cultivated by Bruschi since he joined the league in 1996, are not enough to stop the onslaught of accusastions from people who should know better.
Here are just some of the lowlights:
On ESPN's Sunday pregame show, every ex-player on the panel (Tom Jackson, Steve Young and Michael Irvin) called out Bruschi, telling him that it's time to hang 'em up, with absolutely no background on the story at their disposal – at least none that they offered on the air.
In each case, they brought up their own personal experiences, perhaps assuming that a concussion suffered on the football field is somehow similar to the hole in the heart, since fixed, that caused Bruschi's stroke. Jackson even brought up the dreaded "experience" his family has with strokes, as if the isolated example of 70-year-old Aunt Mildred's medical condition has something to do with Bruschi's situation.
In each instance, ESPN's hosts told Bruschi to do something that they each refused to do: call it quits at the top of his game. It was the NFL equivalent of the skid-row alcoholic telling the social tippler that he drinks too much.
In the Boston area, popular morning hosts "Dennis and Callahan" on sports radio WEEI engendered the wrath of virtually every football fan within their listening reach (if e-mails to Cold, Hard Football Facts.com are any indication). They did so not by saying Bruschi should call it quits, but by purporting to speak on behalf of the Bruschi family, by telling them what's in their best interest and what they would do in his situation. It crossed well over the boundaries of sports commentary.
However, none of these tragicomic opinions could hold a candle to the filth spouted on the NFL Network Tuesday night, during its "Playbook" program. If you haven't seen the show before, it's essentially an attempt to break down various plays and teams, more or less using the film-study method perfected among broadcasters by ESPN's Ron Jaworski. It's normally a great take for hardcore football fans.
Despite the mission of the show, hosts and former NFL journeymen Brian Baldinger and Solomon Wilcots could not resist the urge to throw in their two kronas' worth on The Tedy Bruschi is Back! Story. After it had been dragged through the mud for three straight days, these guys spit all over the story and dumped it in the trash, with the most irresponsible commentary yet on the whole affair.
Why is Bruschi coming back, Brian Baldinger?
"It's ego. He wants to be the first to say he came back from this kind of injury."
Did Baldinger have some sort of inside source, one of Bruschi's friends, family members or teammates who could verify this? Someone who has come out with some juicy little tidbit he heard from Bruschi in those quiet times when he contemplated his future?
No. Or, if Baldinger did have this information, he did not let us know. He just threw this shit out there, where it hit the NFL Network's airwaves and splattered on viewers all over the United States.
Wilcots, for his part, was not so slanderous in his opinion. He simply stated that coming back from this "injury" (as he called it) "is beyond what we know and beyond what he (Bruschi) knows." Really? Wilcots knows what Bruschi knows? Remarkable, isn't it?
Just to give you some insight into the wisdom that Wilcots and Baldinger usually offer, they followed up their Bruschi commentary with a look at New England's on-field problems, which include the 30th-ranked scoring defense in the NFL.
Said Wilcots: "Giving up a lot of points is hurting this team." And we pay Comcast to get this kind of insight.
Just remember, folks, these are the very same people who have been offering us their opinions on The Tedy Bruschi is Back! Story for the past three days – the same geniuses who tell us that "giving up a lot of points" will hurt your team.
And now they're medical experts, too, sitting in with the Bruschi family as they plot their future.
