Tuesday, September 26, 2006
(1:23 PM) | Brad:
Another Sports Post: Self-Destruction Edition
It is often pointed out to me by friends that I have a peculiar disdain for most successful NFL quarterbacks. Ben Roesthelsbergyerehgher of the Pittsburgh Steelers -- hate him. Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts -- disdain him. And even though Carson Palmer is QBing for the Cincinnati Bengals, and I am ambivalently cheering for them (I'm working on a post [don't worry, Adam, for another blog] explaining this), he kind of bores me.A really good quarterback is clinical in his approach to the game. This is what makes him good. He does not let his emotions get the better of him. He is confident, but not so confident that the rest of his teammates cannot approach him. He cannot allow defeat wear him down, or victory make him lazy. Success, for the most part, unless you're the Baltimore Ravens, rests on his shoulders, and he must bear it like a solid rock.
And like most rocks, he is painfully dull.
Now, I'm a big fan of the "old school" when it comes to football. But what most people don't realize is that "old school" does not mean boring. Sure, it often ends up in boring games w/ scores like 9-6 -- I love these; but old school is also idiosyncracies run wild. It is hard-drinking, bar-brawling, and violently vulgar. It is intentionally hurting people on and off the field. It is wanton disregard for one's health & well-being. It is, basically, criminal activity decontextualized, and thus made, in a word, entertaining.
Perhaps the reason I so rarely get too uptight about the salaries athletes make, or when somebody like Terrell Owens or Randy Moss ends up being a complete douchebag, is that to me they are not real people. Apropos my focus on sports only for "the moment," I do not think of their actions as having any "real" consequences. When I hear about another Cincinnati Bengal getting arrested, say, for drinking enough to fill his 230-lb. body with enough booze to give him a .17 blood-alcohol level, he is endeared to me all the more. (Even more so if accompanying him & vomitting out the window during the stop, is a teammate who has already been arrested for a variety of things, ranging from discharging a weapon [while wearing his own jersey], possession of marijuana, and propositioning a 17-year-old girl, all of which make me think he should be the star of his very own reality show, which I would definitely watch.) Of course, I know that driving drunk is (a) wrong, (b) irresponsible, and (c) dangerous, and I would be sad as anybody if he'd wrecked and killed somebody else (interestingly, it'd be just as entertaining if he'd only killed himself in said wreck -- the sadness would be all the video of his kids and family, etc., the return of the Real, blah blah blah). But ... taken as it is, when the full context of an athlete's stupidity is not really an issue or in my view, or at the very least something I can successfully avoid, I revel in it & ask only for more. Which is why I typically only read the headline & the first three paragraphs of any story detailing a new athletic scandal.
Sadly, though, this kind of stupidity rarely extends to successful quarterbacks. Again, they're too level-headed. W/ the most blatant contemporary exception being Brett Favre, who I liken to the Johnny Cash of American athletes (painkiller addiction and all). Even more sad is that I cannot remedy this simply by rooting for the unsuccessful quarterbacks -- e.g., Aaron Brooks, Jeff Blake, Chris Simms, etc. -- because even though they're not a solid rock upon which a good team might be built, they are expected to act like one! Being boring of your own accord, that's one thing. But acting boring -- oh, the humanity!
Apologies for Kotsko for not getting this posted yesterday as promised.
