OMG! OMG! Chicago Tribune Notre Dame beat jockey faced Heisman conundrum!!!!!!!

Dick, let's not turn this thread into that thread. We're on the Journalism board.

 

Should ESPN writers write about the NFL or the NBA? Lots of corporate sisterhood going on there, as well. Should Sportsline writers write about the NFL and college hoops? Should NBC writers write about the NFL and Notre Dame?

 

OK. There is ****some**** system variance. But his teams were never very good. They had the 11-1 year but I think everyone knew that was a major major fluke.

The idea that a player couldn't have been the best college player because he wasn't going to be the best pro player is ridiculous. College and pro football are almost completely different sports in a lot of ways. Troy Smith, Tim Tebow, Colt McCoy -- those guys were dominant players in college regardless of what they were supposed to do and have done in the NFL. And Matthew Stafford and Tom Brady were not dominant college players regardless of what has transpired since then.

 

It's germane to the NFL worthiness issue.

Which you commented on.

 

It is ridiculous. Which is why I never made the argument that a player couldn't have been the best college player because he wasn't going to be the best pro player, and I never would.

 

Besides which, how dare someone limit the reach of capitalism. Next thing you know, Heisman winners will have to wait to buy a handgun.

 

I don't understand the notion of being afraid to be called a homer or a an anti-homer over a vote, especially for the Heisman, where the vote isn't likely going to be changed much by one vote. Part of the reason the Heisman is predictable most years is because so many of the people who vote (past winners, etc...) vote for the person who they perceive to be the frontrunner.

You make your decision and then you own it... Or you explain why it such a difficult decision. If you flipped a coin, tell you flipped a coin. If you voted for a small college guy, because major collegiate athletics are corrupt, explain that to the readers, If you think they all suck and decided to vote for an offensive linemen, tell them why... I use those as examples, because they're all columns I've read by voters who I respect explaining why they voted for...

My only issue with the guy from The Tribune is that he wasn't able to make a decision on his own. If he said, "I was unsure and I asked five people to help me make up my mind, that's different than what he did...

One of the years I had a vote, one of the guys I covered was a likely finalist. Another beat writer and I sat down over beers and argued back and forth for an hour whether he was deserving or not. In the end, we both voted for him.

 

There have only been a few times where I've felt like a network's vested interest in a sport has changed how a story was covered...

One was how ESPN covered the recent ref scandal. I thought it was widelyignored or at least not given the treatment that I felt it deserved.

A recent one was how CBS covered the Chiefs' muder/suicide... The NFL Network did a much more thorough job on the story than CBSSports did, and that really surprised me...

 

I listened to Mike & Mike a few days after the Chiefs story.

Greenberg was going on and on and on about how many good young guys there are in the NFL now, how it is an unprecedented number of good young guys, the NFL needs to be applauded, yada, yada, yada.

Could this have been his untainted opinion of the league right now?

Yes, it could have been.

Did his network's relationship with the NFL give me pause to wonder whether he was more or less spewing propaganda?

Yes, it did.

 

Essentially Manziel is playing in the same system as Harrel.

 

Right. And definitely worth considering that when voting.

 

If you know anything about the history, location, and financials of the Downtown Athletic Club, you'll understand why corporate sponsorship was necessary.

It wasn't about greed.