E60: Patrick Willis -- The Good Life
The weeks most important NFL column is back, folks.
We"re required to remind you that these strong takes are SATIRE. Sorry, not sorry. All spelling errors are intentional, we think. -Ed.
Wellcome to the Monday Morning BM,, just a word of warning your probably not prepared to handle the strong football takes and barrelfire NFL truths that you never knew your Mondays were missing. This column is written for and by a REAL fan of the NFL. Its designed to be read on your Monday Morning commode break after a long Sunday eating bad-for-you food and drinking beers. If you care more about SPELLING then you do about TELLING theres the door because this columns not for you.
Well I guess this is where the rubber meets the road. Patrick Willis is "retiring" which is ironic because instead of jacking people up hes been looking flat and hasnt had a Good Year in a while. Im frankly disgusted by him walking away from the game so early- I"ll call it what it is- he"s a coward. If your a Elite NFL player you shouldnt be aloud to decide when to retire. At some point your career becomes more about other people then about yourself and the fact that he cant understand that I want him to play football is selfish. What if every player retired at once, then what? Hes being a hypocrite.
Willis is essentially bullying himself out of the NFL and the league needs to come hard on him. You cant supsend Richie Incognito for making Jonathin Martin want to quit, and then turn around and just let Patrick Willis force himself into retirement- its the exact same thing. Do we need Ted Wells report into this process because if we dont then whose to stop other players from retiring before the fans want them to? Who knows why exactly hes retiring but I cant help anticipate maybe hes gonna start his own rap label in which case good riddants- I want a Mike Linebacker not a Mic Linebacker. Heres a rhyme for you- Roses are red/Violets are blue/ your a leader who quit/ just like you know who.
So hes been a rookie of the year, a all-pro, and he played in a superbowl,, folks this guy reached his 3 goals and called it a day I call him Hattrick Willis. Maybe the thing I will remember the most about Willis is when he played for a whole season with a broken hand. He had one arm wrapped up in such a big ugly cast Im suprised Rob Schneider didnt weasel his way into it.
Via the Bay Area Sports Guy, there are rumors swirling that Willis is retiring because he had "a religous awakening" which I can only assume means that he thinks hes Jesus Christ, but maybe someone should remind Patrick that even Christ himself wated until he was 33 years old to quit on his teammates. Think about it.
You think Ronny Lott would of retired because of a religious awakening? h**l no, if Ronny woke up one day thinking he was Jesus hed cut his own foreskin off and get back out there. Now Im not saying that Willis isnt Jesus because frankly it woudnt suprise me if the second coming was in the form of a NFL football player just so G*d could rack up a couple superbowl banners before armageddon, but I do know that he"ll be a coaches son and he will be adamentley against cross-fit. Willis just dosent fit that profile at all, and I really think hes going to regret being so hasty with his decision making.
Lets play devils advocate here and say that Patrick Willis is actually G*d. Fair enough, I"ll let you have that point. But woudnt G*d want to stick around and be a locker-room guy instead of a quitter like Judas? Its called being ReligioUS, not relig-ME.
The real problem here is that if we let athletes just start deciding when there ready to retire then whats next- having independent physicans determine if a players injured? Its a slipper slope. The NFL has done a wonderful job in making sure that NFL players can pretty much be cut at any time for any reason, but the CBA falls wofully short when it comes to making sure players cant quit just because they feel like it. Im not advocating slavery but I think we can come to a understanding where players should be forced to work untill there bodies break down or like a Fireman-Ed type fan in the stands gives a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to determine whether a longtime veteran should be aloud to live after a injury or a boneheaded play.
Now all this said I actually am a great admirer of Patrick Willis I just dont think he should be able to do things that I dont want him to do. Theres no denying that he was the best thing to ever come out of the state of Mississippi which is like choosing the best Woody Allen film, but nonetheless Willis is ranked number 2 on the states most valuable exports just behind the total retail value of all Brett Farves p***s-pump mail-in rebate certificates.
If theres one thing we can all acknowledge its that the 49ers went from perrenal contender to just a absolute clowncar of a football team in literally under 3 months. Thats Cleveland level effecency folks. Heres what San Francisco has done since January if your keeping score:
Losses: Mike Iupati, Patrick Willis, Justin Smith, Frank Gore, Jim Harbaugh, Michael Crabtree,
Gains: Jay Mariotti
Your move Fukushima.
SB Nation presents: An interview with the saddest 49ers fan
Now on to the weekly awards:
Road Grader of the Week: Chip KellyChip Kellys knows the old secret of the NFL: Get rid of all of your best players so you can have the highest addition by subtraction value. After two years hes gotten rid of Desean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, Trent Cole, LeSean McCoy, Mike Vick, and Cary Williams. His playbook has literally turned into a instructonal guide for Nick Foles and Riley Cooper to have a do-si-do which also gives me a good opportunity to post this picture of Riley Cyrus and Lobbin" Nick performing at last years MTV awards:
Also earlier today Steven A Smh alluded to the fact that Chip Kelly has made some decisions that "leave a few brothers feeling uncomfortable." Namley by resigning Riley Cooper while getting rid of Jackson and McCoy. Oh boy, now Ive heard it all. This isnt about race folks its about how to win football games and it just so happens that Chip Kelly thinks slower white players are better suited for his high speed offense. Plus, if Kelly was really racist wouldnt he ONLY have black players on his team? Kind of a keep your friends close enemys closer type deal?
So hypocritical how players are allways talking about how the NFL is a tightly knit fraternity but they get there panties in a bunch when Coach Kelly decides to start a new chapter of the Philadelphia SAEagles.
Fan of the Week:Bar Rescue"s Jon Taffer
Bar Rescue has allways been my favorite Sunday program during non-NFL season, and the main reason why is Jon Taffer. Watching Taffer walk into a bar like he owns the place and start dismantling some guys life work and humilating him in front of all his peers is as close as you can get to replicating when Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys. Hes a fullback dive of a human being who knows so much about draft systems Im shocked the Patriots havent brought him in as a consultant folks. He is a agressive male who gets in your face if your not providing your customers with good beer to drink in a fun enviroment.
But what most folks dont know is that Jon Taffer is the most importent person in the history of the NFL. Jon Taffer literally invented the NFL Sunday Ticket folks.
I got this informaton from a SEC filing from Taffers old company "Midwest Venture Holdings":
In addition to his hospitality career, Mr. Taffer has participated in the successful development of numerous other businesses including the launch of a satellite pay-per-view movie service, a publishing company and resort development. Mr. Taffer is known as the inventor of the NFL"s Sunday Ticket pay programming package. Because of his important work in Sunday Ticket"s design, marketing, distribution and sales programs, he was nominated to the Board of NFL Enterprises where he served for three years.
Thats right, Jon Taffer literaly changed the future of sports in america. Your welcome. Without this man, sports bars would be limited to showing bowling and the Raiders/Cheifs games twice a year. And therefore if sportsbars did not exist, many of my children would not exist. So while its amazing that Taffer was able to come up with the best idea in all of world history- he is also technically liable for the child support many of the dumbest babys in America whose parents had one night stands because they bonded over watching Donovan McNabb fake a sports hernia.
Thanks to hero@SonarJose for alerting me to Taffers wikipedia page.
Joe Flacco Elite-O-Meter:It has been my contenton that Joe Flacco is whats known as Baldingers Cat- both Elite and Not Elite at the same time. Each week MMBM will track Joe Flaccos performence in order to determine once and for all the answer to the unanserable NFL debate: Is Joe Flacco a Elite NFL quarterback?
One thing to keep a eye on in Baltimore this offseason is the Ravens new Offensive Coordinator Marc Trestman. The Former Bears coach did what anyone does when they cant get a job in Chicago and moved to Baltimore to replace Gary Kubiak. This week he was asked about his impressons of Joe Flacco:
"I think what you see is a guy that can play very quietly what I call a quiet mind. He really has a great understanding of the game," Trestman said.
Two things here.
1. "A Quiet Mind" tells you all you need to know about Flacco. He dosent have alot of this brain-noise that can get in the way of thinking. Overthinking= overthrows. Ryan Fitzpatrick went to Harvard and he hasnt won anything besdies of course the undying respect of every TV analyst who mentions his name. If your starting a NFL team you want a idiot QB and a dumbass kicker so they dont spend all there time in the head-zone instead of the red-zone.
2. "Play very quietly" tells me that he has the it factor. I beleve it was Mitt Romney who said "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing", and Id much rather have a leader who is a Quiet Riot type guy who feels the noise rather then makes it.
This weeks rating is: Elite
10 Things I Know I Know:
1. You cant keep a good man down folks. Guess whose back.
As I mentioned before, Jay Mariotti was just named the sports director for the San Francisco Examner. So we can all look forward to more columns like this to be delivered to a large audeince:
The world was a much different place without Jay Mariotti around to make us hate it. Welcome back Jay I truly missed you if anyone out there works for the SF Examiner please fill up the PFTCommenter inbox with tips and storys about how Jay is acting around the office thanks and G*d bless.
2. Best wishes to Chris Johnson who was tragicaly shot in the shoulder in Orlando over the weekend. Good news is it looks like hes going to be ok in the long term. Doctors expect his recovery to be "quite speedy" as long as Vince Young gets to stand next to him the entire time.
3. Looks like NDomino Suh is the first piece to fall of the major free agents. Hes bringing his Alpha Phi Alpha step team act down to south beach were he will be able to stomp the yard on Tom Brady twice a year. Miamis looking like there going to be the Dolfines with bad boy Suh telling the Bills, Pats, and Jets to bite the curb. Some are speculating that this is to much money to give to someone with Suhs history, but lets get real- when was the last time a free agent all-pro 4-3 DT with multiple incidents of stepping on opponets commanded a $100 million open market contract and turned out to be a bust?
4. Mike Florio dropped a nugget for us this morning before the Patrick Willis news broke. He made us all salvate for hours over the fact that the 49ers were about to lose a mystery player, but he woudnt tell us who so in the meantime I came up with these Power Rankings of who and what the suspensions would be:
1. Call-in Kaper-Sick
2. All done Smith
3. The Rugby guy they just signed did his Zulu run down Castro street , ended up popping molly til 4 AM then got confused and tried to 69 with Kapernicks snapping turtle.
4. Blaine Gabbert for apparently taking the worst steroids of all time
5. Reason magazine ran a intresting column called"In Defense of Drunk s*x" which featured this little bit:
But the fact isand please don"t hate mesex isn"t always 100 percent consensual. Especially after booze. Sometimes it"s instinctual, thoughtless, animalistic. Sometimes it just happens.
Im not a math wizzer but Im pretty sure that consent is like being pregnant- either you"re or you"re"nt. Theres no such thing as NoMeansNo-dingers Cat s*x cant be both consensual and nonconsensual at the same time thats a fact.
"Sometimes it just happens" is a great defense except if your trying to win any type of logical, or criminal argurment in which case it will fail immedately and you will get laughed at at thrown in the worst prison. Can you imagine if Pete Carrol accepted the "sometimes it just happens" excuse from the 9/11 commission? A good rule of thumb is that if two people are going to bang, they should both want to bang each other. Just my take.
7. The McCourty twins share a twitter account which is wierd as h**l. It makes it impossible for journlists to do our jobs and see who there new follows are in a attempt to predict where their going to sign. Im calling on twitter support to put a stop to this Terms Of Service Violation- there both impersonating each other. You should be more focused on sharing tips on how to cover WRs then sharing your twitter password and treating it like its a bangbros account SMH.
8. Reader Ben points us toFox Conneticut whose reporting that Indonesian Sportswear company SALVO is under fire. Apparetly they just made a innocent joke and there sorry if anyone is offended by the washing instructions on their jerseys:
How is this offensive at all? I guess womens right "advocates" will complain til the cows come home about the pay gap, but then when a company about giving jobs like laundry exclusivley to women they lose there minds? Goes both ways. By the way if women are so good at laundry how come its allways guys that I see washing hundreds of pounds of dirty clothes at a time at the laundromat? Seems to me that the Tide has turned.
8. Its the Brownsiest time of the year when there signing McCowns and benching Manziels and are looking like a lost childin a supermarket in general. I predict that 2015 will be the Brownsiest year of all time. How is that possible? Well I"ll tell you:
March: Johnny Manzell debuts his new app at SXSW which is basicaly Tinder, but for guys who want to use cocane and women who have cocane and want to have s*x with men who want cocane.
April: Browns get there pick in late so instead of selecting Marcus Mariota they end up drafting Dorial Green Beckham and assigning him to be bunkmates during OTAs with Johnny Manziel, Josh Gordon, and i dont know lets just say they bring back Braylon Edwards too.
May: They volunteer to be on "Hard Knocks" but HBO declines because there cameramen dont want to have to deal with the distracton and circus of working in the Browns lockeroom. Producers are afraid there will be to much drama turning the show into basicaly a football version of "Lost" where instead of having to push a button every 108 minutes theres someone who has to draft another QB.
June: Johnny Manzell takes a picture of himself on a beach smh will this guy ever Get It?
July: After flirting with Charlie Weiss they decide to mend fences with Kyle Shanahan and team him up with Brian Schottenheimer to form a two-headed monster of nepotism calling plays that were designed for a Simms brother.
August: They go 4-0 in the preseason
September: Bryan Hoyer leads the Texans into Cleveland and throws for 478 yds, 5 TDs and no INTs
October: Jimmy Haslam slams his players in the media "for not providing fair value to workingclass clients who expect a certan standard to be met when there paying money for a product." Fires Pettine and rehires Chud for like a day but fires him again.
November: Johnny Manzell is finally benched after going 1-7. McCown is out with a broken hip and the shingles so they turn to Connor Shaw.
December: Donald Trump pretends that hes interested in buying the Browns and moving them to Scotland but backs out at the last second because frankly he doesnt have any money. Connor Shaw wins 4 games in a row to end the season but tears his Achilles in the 4th quater of week 17 and Manziel is romanticaly linked to Lindsay Lohan.
January: Per tradition, the Browns dont really have any plans.
9. Pete Prisco has a very specific taste in sandwiches on twitter. This is his @kins diet IMO
(via@OhHolyButt)
10. Bryan Hoyer is signing with the Texans in order to continue there unbreakable streak of coming in a distant second in the AFC South. Competing for the starting job will be Hoyer, Savage, and Mallet which sounds like a lawfirm specalizing in having attorneys whose names could also be names of 80s hair metal bands.
This Week In Darren Rovell: Another "well actually" disaster
Btw, can someone please invent a Rovell twitter bot that just adds "I know no body cares but" to the start of every tweet?
Reader MailPail:Source: http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2015/3/9/8174613/mmbm-patrick-willis-is-a-quitter-not-a-hitter-good-riddance
