Attack of the “We” People: What Did McKelvin’s Lawn Do To You?

I created a post at Starr*Rated a few months back and sent it to Bleacher Report, and it got very little attention either place. With the vandalism of Buffalo Bills cornerback Leodis McKelvin’s lawn after his game-changing fumble Monday night, I need to revisit it.

I refer to people who identify a little too closely with their favorite teams as “we” people, after their annoying habit of lumping themselves in with the players as part of the organization. My personal philosophy states that if you use the terms “we,” “us,” or “our” when discussing your team, you need to be able to provide some video evidence that you were, in fact, on the field at some time. (As an active participant, not a streaker, you degenerates.)

Otherwise, you’re discounting your own opinion as hopelessly biased and made discussing sports with you completely worthless, since you’ve now made it personal. I am now afraid to tell you that your team sucks, for fear that you will turn and crack me in the teeth…or worse.

I have very little doubt that the people who painted the game’s final score on McKelvin’s lawn, along with what has been nebulously referred to as an “obscenity,” are the kind of people who take that kind of pathological interest in the results of the Bills’ games. Living and dying with your team’s wins and losses is much like fat, drunk, and stupid. Neither is much of a way to go through life, son.

And I use the term “living and dying” for a very good reason. I produced another piece a few weeks ago, attempting to illustrate why NFL players were in no hurry to challenge ye olde Seconde Amendmente. As far as these guys are concerned, they now need to be packing at all times. If people are going to start taking it to the next level and bringing it onto their front lawns while they’re on road trips, the players might just start having their wives packing, to boot.

Some have said that Bills linebacker Kawika Mitchell exacerbated the problem when he Tweeted this…

“Its def not a game to b playin. W/ all the safety issues n the NFL its not funny at all. We have Fam at our homes to protect. If u show ur face on my prop Ill make sure I do everythin to keep my Fam safe.”

…and this…

“So dont come around thinkin, oh we’ll just leave a message on his lawn or wall, b/c Im goin to take it as a threat. Its my job to protect my home as it is the job of all home owners.”

But I don’t view this as a threat so much as a reminder that paying your ticket price does not entitle you to complete dominion over these players and the rest of the team’s employees.

You want to show up to the stadium and boo McKelvin for putting the ball on the turf and costing “us” the game? Fine. Your ticket gives you that right.

You want to make a phone call the next morning and get bent with your local sports jock about how “we” had the Patriots on the ropes? No problem. The amendment right before #2 above grants you that privilege.

Showing up on another person’s property, however? That will get you shot, and justifiably so.

Visions of Sean Taylor still dance in players’ heads, and any unknown person on their property in the dead of night will be assumed to have bad intentions. The next step past vandalizing the lawn may be executing a player’s (or coach’s) dog.

I shouldn’t have to outline what would come after that.

I understand the frustration of watching a difficult loss. After all, I stayed up a little later than I should have just to watch the Bears forget how to cover Greg Jennings, then see Jay Cutler toss pick #4. The fan now has to take out mortgages at 18% to be able to afford a family trip to a game. Sometimes, it’s difficult to justify this loyalty, especially when the only reward teams offer in return is a ticket price increase (or a lawsuit, in the extreme cases).

Note that “game” is bolded above. When the columns are totaled, a game is what we’re talking about. Your team lost. Everyone’s team loses at some point. But it takes a special breed of jackhole to decide that he’s going to say it with Krylon all over a player’s lawn.

These are the people who make it personal. These are the people who make me sad to be a sports fan. And I’ll bet every damn one that overreacts this way refers to his team as “we.”

Read more NFL news on BleacherReport.com

It’s Attitude, Not Color: When Did “Prima Donna WR” Become a Racist Term?

I’ll be the first to tell you that listening to Jim Rome’s radio show is like watching some terrible comic who thinks that if he repeats the same crappy joke 12 times, it’ll magically become funny the 13th time. And then listening to a lot of the sounds of silence in between.

With that said, I still make a focused effort to try and catch his ESPN TV show in the afternoon, for reasons I think I’ll discuss in a future post.

On this particular afternoon, I heard an argument that was, to borrow a phrase, pants-on-head stupid. Not from Rome, as might be expected, but from one of his Forum guests.

In a discussion about whether or not Terrell Owens fit into Buffalo, Buffalo native Vincent Thomas of SLAM Magazine had an interesting theory. For one thing, Thomas essentially put his hometown on blast for being racist, or at least “a place where there’s still an undercurrent of racial tension.”

Okay, fair enough. But he didn’t stop there.

Thomas then proceeded to shoot on the entire NFL-covering media and fan base for the very same condition. Vince has apparently decided that because most of the NFL’s wide receivers are black, and many of them are seen as being “prima donnas” or “divas,” that these terms are now veiled racist slurs.

Guh?

Did I miss a memo?

Here I’d always thought that diva is as diva does. T.O. being a perfect candidate for this conversation has nothing to do with his skin, any more than Chad “Future H.O.F.er” Johnson Ochocinco or Randy “Yeah, I Take Plays Off” Moss or Plaxico “OW, MY F@#$@#$ LEG!!!!!!” Burress catch grief over their race.

These guys get blasted for being goofballs because (news flash) THEY ARE GOOFBALLS. T.O.’s Sharpie, Chad putting the pylon, Joe Horn making a phone call from behind the goalpost…hell, let’s go even older-school and bring up this literary classic.

All of these are goofball actions. In terms of obnoxiousness, they fall somewhere between Matt Leinart’s hot tub club and Jeremy Shockey passing out poolside.

Shockey’s a fine example of a white player whose act generates even more annoyance than T.O. or Chad Machogrande could ever muster. The big difference between Shockey and a guy like T.O. is that we only hear Shockey’s line of BS in post-game interviews and ambulance-chasing pictures on TMZ. He’s not begging people to watch a reality show of his life…although the producers of “Celebrity Rehab” are probably on line two right now.

These players act in the most “look at me” ways they can possibly muster, and when they’re not showing up on the SportsCenter highlight reels, they’re trying to take over other media. Ochocinco’s been waging a Twitter war with Mark Schlereth. T.O.’s moaning at Rome (yes, over Twitter) for justly pointing out that “The T.O. Show” is D.O.A. in the ratings.

Who are the great white hopes at WR these days, anyway? There’s Wes Welker, the king of the seven-yard slant (and the occasional car-wreck hit). When he scores (which doesn’t happen nearly enough for his fantasy owners, myself included), he knows how to act like he’s been there before.

Same with guys like Kevin Walter, Greg Camarillo, and Dallas Clark (Yeah, I know Dallas is still listed as a TE, but he’s as much of a TE these days as I am a nose tackle).

As a Buffalo native, Thomas of all people should know that not all black wide receivers are considered nut jobs, since his team employed one of the best and classiest wide receivers ever. Maybe you heard of him.

Andre Reed didn’t have to turn every touchdown into a sub-Carrot Top prop comedy show.

Jerry Rice scored more touchdowns than anyone, and he just tossed the ball to the ref and said, “Okay, now I’ma get another one.”

Cris Carter never had tearful news conferences where he said, “That’s my quarterback, man,” then turning around and eviscerating said QB weeks later for being BFF’s with the tight end.

Celebrating scores is all well and good, and I’m one who thinks the “No Fun League” needs to loosen the noose a bit in that regard. But I’m there to watch football on Sundays, not a Saturday Night Live skit or a Greek tragedy in three acts.

Even Vince Thomas’s fellow forum guest, longtime columnist, Terence Moore, laughed off Thomas’s attempt at calling down the thunder Whitlock-style. Terence even got off the line of the day when he scolded Thomas with, “You know, I’ve been black for a long time.” He then proceeded to, in not so many words, politely tell Thomas that he was full of it.

Terence gets it. Just like Forrest Gump got it.

Trying to make every NFL fan or media member who pokes fun at or is tired of T.O. or Chad Quesotampico into a racist is a blatant play for attention by someone who’s obviously not gotten enough through his writing. Well, congrats, Vince, here’s a little attention for you. Enjoy it.

AFC West Preview 2009: Does Any Team Want This Division?

Last year, 8-8 was good enough to tie for the AFC West title.

This year, it may very well be good enough to win it outright…by three games.

The San Diego Chargers’ biggest off-season acquisition was Dallas Cowboys reserve linebacker Kevin Burnett. Running back LaDainian Tomlinson is facing durability questions, and his backup is about the size (and speed, it must be said) of an animated Mexican mouse. (And not this one, either.)

With all this, they still stand head and shoulders above the rest of the division. The other teams in the West seem to be actively ramming their heads against a brick wall, wondering why it doesn’t open.

The Kansas City Chiefs traded for a potential quarterback of the future, then proceeded to make another trade that makes a talented young QB that much better. Unfortunately, it’s not Matt Cassel, it’s Matt Ryan of Atlanta who gets to throw to Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez.

The second-worst defense in the NFL gets a pair of inside linebackers to bolster the new 3-4…unfortunately, Zach Thomas and Mike Vrabel are a collective 119 years old. God love ’em, they’re trying, but it’s like a guy with no ears wondering why his glasses keep falling off.

The Oakland Raiders miss a prime opportunity to trade down in the draft and still get a chance at the guy they want. Instead, they choose instead to draft said player 15 spots too high, just so Al Davis can try once more to prove he’s the smartest guy in the room.

Keeping Nnamdi Asomugha and adding defensive end Greg Ellis makes their Top-10 pass defense even scarier for now. However, if the rumors of Ellis being a replacement rather than a complement for Derrick Burgess are true, it’s another case of one step up and at least one step back.

And all this brings us to the Denver Broncos, the team that only needed to give up 40 fewer points to the Chargers in Week 17 to win this sad, God-forsaken division. (Gee, is that all?)

To pull the franchise out of its rut, longtime owner Pat Bowlen decides it’s time to move on from his team’s all-time winningest coach and bring in a Patriots assistant who was born the same year that Mike Shanahan got his first coaching gig.

Josh McDaniels came into town from a winning organization and was hoping to bring a piece of it with him—that piece being the aforementioned quarterback, Matt Cassel.

The partnership may have continued to bring high dividends, as Cassel thrived under McDaniels’ guidance and managed not to wilt in the spotlight of his first starting job since high school.

McDaniels’ desire to coach Cassel again was perfectly understandable, but it showed that he possessed very little understanding of the combustible elements that make up the average (read: not New England) NFL locker room.

Jay Cutler reacted like a wife who’s just caught her husband with his hand up another woman’s skirt and immediately called the lawyers—or agents, in this case. A few weeks and hours of ESPN footage later, Cutler was off to Chicago in exchange for one of my people, Purdue alumnus Kyle Orton, and three draft picks.

With this domino falling, it stood to reason that the other high-profile drama queen on the Denver offense would soon have something to say, and now, Brandon Marshall has decided to say it.

Marshall wants out because he’s not being given a new contract a year before his current deal expires. Reading between the lines tells us that Brandon is scared to death that Orton won’t be able to get him the ball as frequently as Cutler did, and knows that a dip in production will cost him a lot of money next year.

It’s a perfectly sound strategy, but him demanding a trade now is hardly the way to go about it. The NFL is in a climate where owners are scared to death of signing long-term contracts, especially fat ones, for fear of being caught short when the salary cap disappears after next season.

Anquan Boldin can’t get one in Arizona, mainly because they already re-upped Larry Fitzgerald. Subsequently, he also wanted a trade, but couldn’t get one of those, either.

Understand that Boldin is a guy who comes with none of the off-field drama of Brandon Marshall. He doesn’t get DUI’s, doesn’t beat up his lady friends, and doesn’t beat up his television.

In a league where a solid citizen and productive player like Anquan Boldin can’t get a deal made, why exactly is Brandon Marshall convinced he’ll be highly demanded?

The offense was supposed to be the saving grace for the Broncos this season, but Kyle Orton and Eddie Royal—solid players they may be—do represent a bit of a step down from Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall.

The defense isn’t scaring anyone anymore, not even Champ Bailey.

If the Chiefs and Raiders are stubbing their toes, the Broncos appear to be in the midst of a double-leg amputation.

Not since that iceberg got a little too friendly with the Titanic has such a seemingly stable craft taken on so much water so quickly.

Owner Pat Bowlen would be forgiven for walking around with the shell-shocked expression of a man who just wanted a cigarette, only to watch his house explode from a gas leak.

San Diego’s not a team that looks like a world-beater in the upcoming NFL season. Even so, in this year’s AFC West, it appears that just being able to not beat themselves will very easily get them to the playoffs.

Favre From the Truth

Brad Childress is playing a dangerous game these days. His assertion that there was never any discussion of setting a deadline in front of Brett Favre runs counter to everything that he’s stood for in his first three seasons as an NFL head coach.

Childress has a rep for wanting everyone in OTA’s, let alone training camp. But, if he’s really intent on dragging Favre’s 40-year-old bones out of mothballs, it’s going to entail him making a separate set of rules for one player.

What makes it so essential that Favre be the savior of this team? For that matter, who seriously thinks it’s even possible for Favre to be the one to lead this team to the Super Bowl?

The longer all this purple panting goes on, the less I like Minnesota’s chances of playing in Miami next February. Sounds loopy, doesn’t it?

The NFC doesn’t appear to have a clear-cut powerhouse heading into this season, with Dallas trying to restructure the passing game, Philly trying to keep everyone walking, New Orleans needing the defense to step back up, Arizona needing to contain the teapot-tempest that is Anquan Boldin’s contract demands, Carolina wondering how many seasons Jake Delhomme really has left, and the Bears facing twelve-men-on-the-field penalties every play by adding both Jay Cutler and Jay Cutler’s Bruised Ego to the huddle.

The Vikings’ stingy defense and Adrian Peterson’s powerful running seem like a recipe to pummel the rest of this conference into submission if they can find a Trent Dilfer/Brad Johnson-type QB to adhere to a one-line job description: Don’t screw up too much.

In case anyone forgot, Brett Favre holds the all-time NFL record for QB screw-ups. So, how is he a good fit into a Peterson-powered offense?

No one’s going to mistake Sage Rosenfels for Joe Montana anytime soon, to be sure. At one time, though, he was worth a fourth-round pick to take a look at, and now before anyone’s even really gotten to take a look at him, the coach is too busy reassuring the media that, yes, in fact, he is still slurping Brett Favre and will continue to do so until Brett’s arm officially falls off.

Rosenfels, though, had his moments in Houston. There, he was throwing to Andre Johnson and Owen Daniels. Here, he’s throwing to Bernard Berrian, Visanthe Shiancoe, and potentially Percy Harvin.

Out of his 20 Texan appearances, I’ll grant you that he managed not to get picked off just six times—two in which he didn’t throw a pass. For now, I’ll write that off to playing behind a Texans line that has yet to be decent at any point since the franchise’s inception and still is sought for questioning in the murder of David Carr’s career.

I may be the only one, but I sort of feel for Rosenfels, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel he’s worn in the turf shuffling back and forth to the bench, only to find out that said light is attached to the No. 4 train coming in from Mississippi.

If Favre’s making a concerted effort to avoid training camp and intends to come riding in on his white horse with one preseason game left, consider it an enormous boot up the behinds of both Rosenfels and Tarvaris Jackson, both of whom may be fully aware that this is the last and best chance either one will ever get to become a full-time NFL starting quarterback.

If it happens that way, Favre completely deserves to lose the huddle, and Childress completely deserves to lose the locker room.

Favre made no effort to ingratiate himself with Laveranues Coles, Thomas Jones, and the rest of the Jets offense last season. All this frenzied pursuit does is reinforce Favre’s ESPN-fed notion that he’s bigger than the rest of the team, if not the rest of the league.

Substitute Peterson for Jones and Berrian for Coles and the results may still be the same: A team ignoring the better half of its offense while its quarterback tries to polish his John-Wayne-in-cleats reputation by trying to throw passes through the hole in a Cheerio.

And it’ll be a sad result, too, for a franchise that seemed to be doing the right things, especially building around a real-deal young superstar. Them getting mixed up in Favre’s vendetta against Green Bay will only end with the Packers having the last laugh, unless Favre sets aside his own ego and allows Peterson to continue to shine.

Of course, Brett may have gotten quite used to having The Worldwide Leader saying his name 8,459 times per day. Giving up that fix may be more painful than that bicep injury.

When Do You Go “We”?

It’s a common enough situation. Fans call into their local sports radio/TV show or send an e-mail or whatever, and the question/opinion usually goes something like this:

“Yeah, Jim Bob, long-time listener, first-time caller. Hey, do you think Overhyped Recruit/Free Agent #22716 can get US into a bowl game/the Tournament/the playoffs this year?”

Us. We. Our. They’re possessive and inclusive words, putting the user in as part of the sentence.

In our context, the speaker is such a passionate fan that he or she (usually he, to be fair) must place himself in the expression right next to the coach, the star linebacker, and the rest of the team. But why?

Is it productive? Is the speaker that starved for success in his own life that he must live vicariously through his chosen team and associate himself that closely with them? Or do they buy into the marketing of “The 12th/6th/howeverth Man” and really feel part of the action when surrounded by ten-to-eighty thousand other screamers?

This last thought actually holds quite a bit of merit, especially as it relates to college sports. Pro sports fans never seem to approach the same level of frenzy as what you’ll find at a Duke basketball game or a Florida football game.

Maybe it has something to do with the ennui of knowing that a small-market team won’t be able to afford that star rookie in three years, so why bother? But, in college, especially at your top programs, you know that you are where thousands of players want to be. And part of the reason players want to be there is because of the ear-splitting, raucous atmosphere generated by 80,000 beered-up athletic supporters. (Ahem.)

I hadn’t really observed this phenomenon up close until moving to Gainesville, Florida in 2006. For those of you who haven’t observed people in a town with an elite college football program, let me tell you…people are nucking futs about their team.

The Casual Friday before a game, especially one at home, you get dirty looks if you’re not wearing the team colors. Walking through the grocery store, you hear housewives doing the family’s shopping, and even THIS conversation invariably turns to the game.

In a town like Gainesville or South Bend, the players are treated like rock stars and love every minute of it. Fans are very conscious of their role in this arrangement, are perfectly content with being used as recruiting tool and psychological weapon, and in return, ask only to be able to identify themselves as part of the team.

And for that day, maybe they are.

But what about when you’re not at the game? What about when you live, say, on the other side of the world? On EWBattleground.com (or EWB for short), we have a few passionate fans of various American sports, but the vast majority of discussion is centered around soccer, as many of the members are English. Fair enough, but soccer discussion is absolutely saturated with we’s, our’s, and us’s. Club supporters live and die with their clubs, usually as expressions of civic pride. And again, if you’ve been to the game and are contributing to an atmosphere that throws the other team off their game, fair play to you. You’re part of the action…for that day. But I associate with many Englishmen on said board who will use the plural possessive about American teams, which I completely don’t get. If the closest you’ve gotten to contributing to the team is ordering a $50 jersey online, does that rate you as part of “us”? Are you then a part of the team from 3500 miles away? Is this like the club opening an international office?

In “The Roar of the Crowd,” Princeton psychology professor David Barash essentially calls sports fans lazy, mindless sheep. But there are points to be had there about the group mentality and man’s desire to be part of something bigger than himself. At the same time, it’s been well-established that sports tell us a lot about ourselves. Chuck Klosterman told us that most of life can be boiled down to a Lakers-Celtics dichotomy, our chosen team giving some insight into who we are as people. But, the length and breadth of that support can also be quite telling.

To use an example, did more people use “we” and “us” to describe the 5-11 Baltimore Ravens of 2007 than used them to describe the 11-5 team of 2008? I’d be quite surprised if the counts were even close.

It’s the “sing when you’re winning” principle. We’d all rather be associated with the team on top than the team getting rolled 38 to 7, but disassociating yourself in a hurry when the team has a bad game or a bad season can also tell a lot.

I’m hoping for a discussion on this, because it is a phenomenon that quite honestly amuses me. I grew up in Lafayette, Indiana, halfway between Indianapolis and Chicago, the son of a mother who was and still is a fervent Bears fan. When the Colts moved from Baltimore to Indy, we adopted them as well.

But I have never heard my mother use “us” or “we” about either team, not when the Bears stampeded the rest of the league in 1985, and not when the Colts scraped out a trip to Super Bowl XLI, or as I like to call it, The Perfect Game (My two favorite teams and my favorite musician playing at halftime? You betcha, it was perfect). I myself have never used the possessives, and I’m interested in knowing why others do.

I am not an employee of a club (yet), and Lord knows my own athletic resume could be written on the back of a napkin, so I’m far from being an alumnus of any particular team. And in this writer’s view, those are acceptable circumstances for using “we.”

Otherwise, you’re on the outside looking in, no matter how big a part you think you are.

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