Laughing in the face of a loss or why reporters get a bad rap

Well, Gruden's rant on national TV created the interest for it, too.

Yeah, old_tony, we can agree on that. I still don't see how your hypothetical scenario is relevant.

Without sarcasm, I'm interested in the point you were getting at there.

 

It was also a McGinnis team in 2002 that started 4-2 and went 1-9 over the last 10.

 

Well, first off, Anderson blew up because the guy asked the same question three times because he kept not liking the answer he was getting.

But my whole point is that the idea that Anderson doesn't care because he wasn't frowning on the sideline is ridiculous. By the standards apparently endorsed here, anyone playing on a team having a season as bad as the Cards are having should be committing suicide.

 

Good call. They were outscored 324-154 in that 10-game stretch. I'd hate to see how bad it would have been if they wouldn't have been playing so hard. :

And yet that was a team that fans were supposed to be proud of, while a team that gets blown out by New England in the snow in one game is humiliating enough to cause a diehard fan to refuse to even acknowledge them when they go on a run to their first Super Bowl appearance.

Makes perfect sense to me.

 

Mind you, we are talking about a team named after faded uniforms.

 

I call BS on this. Anyone who is even a casual football fan expects a win when up 23-3 that late in a game. To have thought otherwise is truly irrational. Therefore, this statement implies to me either someone out of touch with logic and statistical probability, or someone with one heck of an axe to grind who is saying something now that they didn't actually feel at the time. Now, if you want to say you hated Green and hoped he'd find a way to blow it, and were happy when he did, fine. But no one ever "knew" a team leading 23-3 that late in a game would lose, and that includes someone who paid to have a game fixed. That is a very difficult deficit to overcome even if key players on the leading team are fixing.

 

Anderson failed to address Somers' question. It obviously wasn't the answer Somers was looking for because it wasn't an answer at all. Hard to like that.

I see more people saying Somers did what he had to do as a reporter, but not endorsing the assumption that Anderson doesn't care. There are a few of those, but to say that's "the standards apparently endorsed here" is a leap in logic equivalent to saying a laugh means you're not concerned about the game.

 

It wasn't one game, it was four different times during that season. The Jets, Vikings, Eagles and Patriots games were all quit jobs from start to finish. One game, I could have lived with. Two is the most that are allowed by my standards in the NFL, 1/8 of the season. Any more than that, and you aren't worthy of being called champions and I want nothing to do with you after the regular season. Most years, it works out that way. In 2008, it didn't, which absolutely sucked.

I'll admit you're right on a few of those games. McGinnis' teams didn't always give their best effort, but it seemed like it more often than not to me. I think those quit jobs, when they did happen, were easier to take because I knew the Cardinals weren't going anywhere that season. I can live with a few quit games from a 4-12 team because hey, they got what they deserved.

I cannot live with winning the wrong way, though. The thought of a team that quit on a quarter of the season being immortalized just made me sick. That mindset is probably why it seemed like the Cardinals played hard to me with McGinnis coaching, and they did win a few games on pure heart under McGinnis. Lord knows it wasn't on talent.

And no, Whisenhunt gets no credit for getting them focused on the Super Bowl. Any idiot can play hard when there's a chance at football's biggest prize on the line. As far as I'm concerned, the season ended in the snow in Foxboro. I don't count any of the Cardinals' playoff games that year. The 2008 team was dead to me before the playoffs started. As soon as they lost to the Patriots, I told myself I didn't care what they did in the playoffs, I wanted no part of it. That team had made itself impossible for me to love.

OK, believe what you want. I can't take you back to that Monday night on my friend's couch and make you hear me asking him how the Cardinals were going to blow it. But I did know it was going to happen.

I was hoping I was wrong, but I knew I wasn't going to be. The Cardinals were already 1-4 and had just blown a sure win against the Chiefs the week prior. I didn't know how, but I knew the Bears would win the game. The only time victory even crossed my mind as a possibility was when Rackers lined up for the game-winning field goal in the final minute, but that was only for about a second. As soon as he missed, I just laughed because I knew it was going to happen.

If you don't want to believe that, fine. I can't make you see it for yourself.

 

I don't have a problem with him asking the question...he was very careful in how he phrased it. Anderson was the one out of line, going off the deep end. He could have replied in a much more professional tone that what goes on along the sidelines is team business or some such answer.

 

To each their own, but that is Effed up logic.

 

Speaking of going off the deep end ... wow.