Tag Archives: Cincinnati Bengals

The Mainstream Media Strikes Again. Mike Judge was Right, it IS an Idiocracy.

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Scott Taylor| 2 Comments

LAKE BUENA VISTA,  Fla. – There was a wonderfully funny Mike Judge movie called Idiocracy released in 2007 starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph. It was about an average guy who awakes from a 500-year sleep/coma only to find that the United States had been dumbed-down to such an extent that he was now, clearly, the most intelligent person on the planet.

If our North American mainstream media continues to dumb us all down the way it has in recent years, Idiocracy won’t be a far-fetched cult-comedy. Soon, it will be North America.

Let’s take a look at another week in the wonderful world of mainstream media lies, lunacy and lethargy.

1) Isn’t it great when the media runs a guy out of town? Just ask Winnipeg football fans who allowed their own local mainstream media knuckleheads to run Bomber quarterback Kevin Glenn out of town, only to listen to that listen to that same media mob lament Glenn’s departure when he came back to beat the Bombers in the final game of the 2009 season.

In Kansas City, the local media didn’t like Larry Johnson, didn’t like what he (allegedly) said to them and they certainly didn’t want him around. So they joined forces, created a media mob and convinced everyone in the Chiefs organization that Johnson called them all an offensive name and demanded that the Chiefs release him.

The Chiefs did, of course, bowing to the same local media pressure that has helped make the Winnipeg Blue Bombers a team that has had four coaches and hundreds of players (many of them quarterbacks) in just six years.

So what did Johnson do last Sunday? He rushed for 107 yards for the playoff bound Cincinnati Bengals. If the Chiefs never make the playoffs again, it will be too soon. When the media — people who have never played a down of actual real football — runs your team, you’re finished.

2) The mainstream media in Winnipeg has found a new method to help the board of directors of the football club make a decision to fire head coach Mike Kelly. The latest is to suggest that corporate sponsors will cancel their financial commitments to the club if Kelly is back as head coach next season.

As a person who works seven days a week in the corporate sponsorship field, I can assure the board and the local mainstream media story tellers that no corporate sponsor is leaving the football club because Kelly is or isn’t the head coach.

A sponsor might leave because there is a recession and money is tight. He might leave because he doesn’t feel a sponsorship with the club will give him the advertising bang he requires. He might not even want his brand associated with a dumpy stadium and a football club that hasn’t won a title in 19 years. But there is not one sponsor who, honestly, will pull his support because of the coach.

I’ve asked countess corporate sponsors if they plan to pull their financial support from the football club because Kelly is the head coach and not one has said anything of the sort. I’ve also asked more than one board member which sponsors might be leaving and they have no idea.

So let’s bury another mainstream media myth (lie?). There might be reasons why some corporate sponsors would pull their support from the Winnipeg Football Club, but it is NOT because Mike Kelly is or isn’t the head coach.

3) Why would any sports fan spend a dollar on a newspaper? By the time a newspaper gets a story, it’s not just 24 hours old, it’s often multiple-weeks old.

Friday’s official re-signing of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith by the Chicago Blackhawks was first announced in Winnipeg on 92-CITI-FM 18 days ago — on the same day the pending deals were announced by a couple of Chicago-area sports blogs. The Chicago Tribune had the rumours the next morning.

The pending contract signings were discovered as a response to a Sun Media “report,” out of Ottawa that claimed Toews, Kane and Keith were all on the trade block in Chicago because the Hawks had “salary cap issues.” As usual, that newspaper report turned out to be false.

Thursday at 92-CITI, we had the story on the contracts’ details and Saturday, the stories finally reached the local newspapers after the Hawks officially announced the deals (Toews and Kane each agreed to five-year. $31.5 million deals while Duncan Keith signed a cap-busting 13-year, $72 million contract).

And people actually pay money for old news? A lot of people are dumber than we thought.

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The Great Thing About Sport: The Idiots Guarantee That There is Never A Dull Moment.

Posted on November 22, 2009 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

It’s been another wonderful week in the world of sports. A fake World Cup soccer game, a big story that wasn’t and a fine that sends a message — the wrong one.

1) Last weekend, just before the Cincinnati Bengals improved to 7-2, the National Football League fined the uproariously funny Chad Ochocinco (Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ochoNFLcinco85) $20,000 for waving a dollar at a referee.

Now, the incident that got Ochocinco fined was meaningless — and, of course, funny. During a review of an Ochocinco completion, the receiver waved the bill in the official’s direction, obviously attempting to buy the “right” call.

The NFL didn’t like it much and levied the fine, but it’s not what Ochocinco did as much as what the NFL did that’s scary. If waving a dollar bill near a referee gets a player a $20,000 fine, the the NFL is more worried about the integrity of the officials than putting its stamp on the handle, the No Fun League.

If that kind of thing gets a player a fine, I’d be worried that the NFL is so nervous about its officials that it fears the same thing I do — many of the games are pre-determined in the officials’ locker room.

2) We’ve all seen or heard of Thierry Henry’s hand ball by now. The great French striker grabbed a ball near the goal, dropped it to his feet and set up William Gallas with the goal that sent France to the World Cup and Ireland to the sidelines.

Henry, one of the classiest athletes in sport, admitted his foul and agreed the game should be replayed, but FIFA said, ‘No,” because it had to uphold the integrity of the games played and the officials’ decisions.

That’s a crock of course, but it’s typical. Sport organizations go to the wall for their officials even though nothing lets sports organizations down more than bad officiating.

The no-call call on the obvious hand ball was frighteningly bad (everyone in the stadium saw it except the officials) and it called for only one solution: replays.

To be fair, officials make mistakes. But when they make mistakes at absolutely crucial moments, they need help. And when they’re too stubborn to change their minds on the field, they’d better get all the help they can muster.

It’s time for replays in all sports. Period.

3) The Globe and Mail reported this week that the Phoenix Coyotes could lose $50 million this year. That was supposed to be a story that illustrated how bad things have become in the desert. Only one problem. A loss of $50 million would be a good year for the Coyotes.

As court documents showed last summer, the Coyotes have lost $389 million in the last five years. That’s an average of $77.8 million per season.

A loss of only $50 million would be a fabulous year for that franchise and a feather in the cap of Coyotes president Doug Moss.

4) And in closing, the Chicago Bears refused to talk to the media this week.

Naturally, the media had a collective cry-fest. It’s fun watching grown men act like children.

In the fractured media world of today, to demand that someone speak to you is ridiculous. To think one media outlet is more valuable or more important than any other, is simple arrogance.

For years, we’ve heard the misguided suggestion that without the media no one would care about these teams and back in the day that might have a small ring of truth to it. But the world is much, much different now. If teams aren’t going to allow bloggers and on-line news services into the inner sanctum, why should they give newspapers with circulations that are plummeting, special treatment?

It’s probably in the Bears best interest to just shut up for the rest of the season. The media, meanwhile, should have enough ability to fend for itself.

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Usain Bolt in the NFL? If nothing else, it makes for a great conversation.

Posted on August 27, 2008 by Scott Taylor| 2 Comments

He was the star of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The fastest man on the planet. And Usain Bolt’s record-setting times in the 100- and 200-metre sprints were eye-popping.

 

Michael Phelps might have won eight gold medals, but Bolt won three and every one was in a glamour event. The title “Fastest Man on Earth,” is bestowed only once or twice — legitimately — in a generation and the 22-year-old Jamaican sprinter, who ran a remarkable 9.72 seconds in the 100, is clearly the fastest man on the planet.

 

Which makes him a pretty good candidate to be the NFL’s next game-breaking wideout.

 

On Aug. 23, the former vice-president in charge of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys, Gil Brandt, wrote a column on nfl.com. In it he said, “If Hall of Fame general manager Tex Schramm and I were still running the Cowboys, we’d be in Jamaica right now waiting for Bolt’s plane to land.”

 

Brandt went on to say that under his watch, a contract would be offered, and Bolt would be given every opportunity to play for the Cowboys. Brandt did not say that he believed Bolt would make a great NFL player. He simply said that Bolt had speed that couldn’t be taught while, at the same time, football skills could be taught, and from the days — way back — when the Cowboys signed the world’s fastest human of the moment, Bob Hayes, the team has put a lot of its eggs in the speed basket.

 

Granted Cincinnati Bengals wideout Chad Johnson says he’d like to race Bolt, but Bolt has run a timed 4.2 40-yard dash while Johnson’s best is, evidently, 4.54 at the NFL combine. Advantage: Bolt.

 

And that makes a move by Bolt to football quite intriguing. He’s big — 6-foot-5, about 215 — has a strong upper body and is, YES, the fastest human on the planet.

 

So why not? Hayes was great. But then again, Skeets Nehemiah was a bust.

 

“Skeets is one of those track guys who didn’t like to get hit,” said Winnipeg Blue Bombers wideout Derick Armstrong, a former star at Arkansas-Monticello.

 

“Bolt has the size and speed, no question, but can he take a hit? That’s the question.”

 

This past Tuesday night, Armstrong was part of Hot Stove panel of current and former Bombers speaking at the Hearts of Blue and Gold for Variety dinner at Earl’s St. Vital Restaurant in Winnipeg. As the host for the evening, I asked him on behalf of the crowd, if he thought Bolt could be a pro receiver. 

 

“I guess, if you stuck him outside and just let him run and threw it as far as you could, he’d probably outrun the corner and the safety,” Armstrong said. “But can he catch a football? Maybe.

 

“The real question is, can he take a hit? If he’s going to be a receiver, he’s gotta run a route and take the occasional shot from a linebacker. I can tell you, that hurts. If he can do that — and do it more than once — I guess he can play. I’d like to see it, though.”

 

A lot of us would like to see it. Usain Bolt in the NFL is an intriguing prospect. Wonder if the league has any Gil Brandts left?

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