Hey Coach, maybe if you spent more time teaching your team defense instead of flipping the bird, you wouldnt be getting your ass kicked.
Last Sunday, America was present for a public massacre: a completely defenseless party was at the mercy of their oppressors, and was forcibly beaten like a red headed step child for 3 consecutive hours until the last breath of life escaped them. I, of course, refer to the snooze fest blow out that was the NFL “Game of the Week” with the Colts playing the Saints in the Superdome. The Saints, with their explosive offensive firepower, and the Colts with….well their incredible level of ineptitude as well as a quarterback who creepily looks like Kurt Cobain, was a combination for a 62-7 final score. The score doesn’t even really do justice to how badly the Colts got their ass kicked. The Saints ended up with 557 net yards, 305 more than their hapless opponents. The Saints punted the ball ONCE the entire game. The sorry excuse of a team called the Colts had a time of possession almost HALF of what the Saints did. So yeah, in every respect this was a complete and utter ass kicking.
However, the point I am trying to bring to light is that not a single member of the media even muttered a whisper of “lack of sportsmanship” or criticize the Saints for running up the score. For once, I am absolutely overjoyed that nobody (or at least a large majority of journalists) did not even give this angle of a story a sideways glance. As a Patriots fan, it drove me absolutely crazy in 2007-2008 for all the jealous little shits and sanctimonious football gurus to shove their arbitrary notions of “sportsmanship” down our throats when the Pats were mercilessly tearing through opposing defenses like Rob Gronkowski tears through porn stars. The nerdy corpse some call John Clayton emphatically stated that the Patriots kicked Hall of Fame Coach Joe Gibbs “when he was down” by crushing his Redskins 52-7. Forget the fact that the pass/running play ratio was almost identical for the Patriots in that game, no, they were being assholes by continuing to play and do their job until the 60 minutes was up.
My opinion at the time (and as it still stands today) is that there is no such thing as “running up the score” in professional/Division 1 collegiate sports (which is essentially pro sports these days anyways with the number of scandals and level of competitive nature, only difference is these kids don’t make millions to play their respective game.) You should not have to be reviled, decried, criticized, and demonized because you happen to be much better at what you do than your opponent is. Just because you take a big lead (like the Saints 2011/Patriots 2007) does not mean you have to fold it in and just half ass the rest of the way because you are scared you’ll hurt someone’s feelings. If you want to go out and sling the ball for a second half because you want to work on “in game” repetitions, do it. If you want to stomp on your opponent’s ego and crush it into a fine powder by winning by 40+, power to you. Not many teams can perform at that high a level very often. Imagine if competitive businesses were going head to head, and the 2nd place entity filed a complaint with the SEC about the other company “running up the score” (making more money, having a bigger market share, whatever) They would get laughed out the building faster than it takes Daniel Tosh to do something flamboyantly homosexual.
Look, I get the notion of sportsmanship and when it is appropriate, like in youth sports and handling yourself like a professional before and after competitive events (*cough JIM SCHWARTZ cough*). But when you take the court, field, or rink in a professional setting, you damn well better make sure you come to play, because if you’re looking for any sympathy when/if you are getting your ass kicked all over the play, you won’t find any from me. All you will get is a smirk and a comment to the effect of, “You don’t want the score run up on you? Play better.”
