Falcons will be
tougher, according to the Falcons: On the season premiere of HBO's Hard Knocks, Atlanta Falcons coach Mike
Smith had one resounding message to preach to his players: toughness. It was the quality the team was perceived to
lack most in their 2013 tumble from NFC Championship game runners up to 4-12
washouts. The solution proposed by
Smith: Talk about toughness enough and the players will gain it. Now, Smith has earned plenty of credibility
as an NFL coach through the great start to his Atlanta tenure (missed the
playoffs only twice in six seasons; two 13-3 seasons; the aforementioned NFC
Championship game appearance) so perhaps there will end up being more to his
plan than words. But watching him give
the introductory speech at training camp was almost painful. There were enough football clichés to make
Phil Simms blush and nothing of real substance.
The players seemed to respond by getting into a bunch of fights during
practice, believing that this was the path to the toughness being demanded of
them. But all they got was a chiding
from a coaching staff that seems unable to communicate what they really want
out of the team. Again, I have faith in
Mike Smith, but it's hard to see where this particular initiative is going.
Enough about McIlroy
already: Despite respecting his talent and accomplishments as a player,
I've long been sick of the media's fetishistic approach to praising Rory
McIlroy's golf. But on Sunday during CBS's coverage of the
final round of the WGC Bridgestone Invitational, I took note of one
particularly obnoxious comment by normally on-the-level commentator Jim Nantz
on the subject of the World Number 1 ranking.
To paraphrase: Adam Scott(the then World Number 1) has had a fine year,
but I think we all know who the real top player is, whatever the computer
rankings say(end paraphrase). McIlroy
did in fact gain the Number 1 rank back that weekend by virtue of winning the
tournament, but I found Nantz's comment somewhat dumbfounding in its
shortsightedness. McIlroy has been on a
tear recently, winning the Open Championship, the Bridgestone, and as of this
writing leads the PGA Championship by a stroke.
That's great, and was enough to earn him back the top ranking, which he
will hold on to for quite some time if he keeps this up. But think about Nantz's comment. Adam Scott became Number 1 through over two
years of consistently exceptional play.
He won the 2013 Masters, he seriously contended in at least three other
Majors and has been generally excellent on tour events throughout all that
time. McIlroy's most notable achievement
over that period was trolling Caroline Wozniacki into a doomed engagement while
he pouted and stumbled his way through a mediocre two year period as a golf
pariah. Now he plays well for two weeks
and we act like Adam Scott having the Number 1 ranking was some kind of great injustice? I'm not buying it Nantz. It's fine to praise McIlroy for his current
accomplishments, but let's not belittle other players in doing so.
Good on You LeBron: Going
back to Cleveland was definitely a good PR move for Mr. James. He had already slowly won most of his haters
back by winning championships and toning down the petulant douchiness that
comes with being a young star professional athlete. But in particular I found the pep rally he held
for his return in his hometown of Akron to be touching. In a lot of ways, it was still about his ego,
celebrating him as an athlete before accomplishing anything real yet. But it felt like such a nice counterpoint to
the pep rally which announced his arrival in Miami four years ago. The one with the goofy pyrotechnics, the
"I want to strangle him" Heat PA announcer, and the infamous promise
of eight championships(not held up). In
some ways this was more insulting to our society than The Decision itself
was. The new pep rally was overdone too,
but it seemed more significant to me that LeBron had come full circle since
that infamous move. It marked the
beginning of an era where a neutral fan can root for him without being a
bandwagoning hack. It's a good thing for
the NBA when their most marketable player is no longer Public Enemy Number 1 in
the eyes of most of America. The media
didn't cover this pep rally for whatever reason, which is a shame. Although, I suppose the man doesn't need any
more hype now. It's time to win some
games.
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