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For anyone who was paying attention to the Associated Press' revote on the NFL's Rookie Defensive Player of the Year award after Houston's Brian Cushing received a four-game suspension for using an illegal substance last year, here's a column of outrage from my guy Ralph at the Daily News.
I decided not to follow the story because I could care less about most awards, whether they're voted on by the press or anyone else. But if I did care, I'd have done one of two things. Either let the first vote stand, and simply chalk it up to a cheater hoodwinking the 39 of 50 balloters who voted for him, or do a re-vote with Cushing ineligible. Either way, writers would have had expansive openings to rip the daylights out of Cushing and make some valid, strong points about the evils of performance enhancing drugs.
But the AP did it the worst way possible and wound up embarrassing itself by leaving Cushing eligible in the re-vote and, ultimately, a repeat winner.
Like I said, I don't consider this any earth-shattering thing. It's an honorary award with no money attached. The 18 guys who voted for Cushing, one actually changing his vote from second-place finisher Jarius Byrd, can defend their decisions on their own. I didn't have a vote, and I've always been a reluctant participant in the few votes I've been asked to cast over my career. I'm firmly against PEDs, but I also know that the locker room chemists are always one step ahead of the testing process, so I'm under no illusions that football is a totally clean sport no matter what the league claims.
With that, I'll leave the rest of the commenting to you guys.
EP
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Ernie - I think it's ridiculous that sportswriters even get votes. There are so many of you that have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. I was a season ticket holder for the Knicks for years when they were watchable. I used to look at the press table and 80% of the writers would be MIA from tipoff until the last five minutes of the game. I would read their "expert" analysis the next day and it was painfully obvious which guys watched the WHOLE game and which guys just caught the end. The reality is your peers are a sloppy group and a large percentage of them wear their biases on their sleeves like a badge of honor. You're a solid writer, but no one can take anything you write on LT seriously. You hate the guy's guts. So, your bias will either creep in or you, being aware of your bias, will go too far the other way to try to compensate for your bias. No one knows what these guys do on the field and the value they add (or don't) to their team more than the other players. Are they biased, as well? Sure. But they understand the game on a level no sportswriter can. Let the players vote. I would trust their results far more than I trust the results sportswriters have been giving us for decades. We both know there are players that deserve to be in the HOF and aren't and that the opposite is true as well. As long as the media rewards "preachers" like Peter King more than they respect journalists, writers should not vote. All it means for most of your peers is another excuse for a boring, hot air lecture disguised as a column or article.
ReplyDeleteIt's couldn't care less...not could care less. If you could care less, you would. Cushing has had needles in has arse since his days at Bergen Catholic...how he didn't get caught until now is beyond me. GO BOSCO!
ReplyDeleteLOL.
ReplyDeleteThey don't seem to catch 'em in the parochials in NJ.
Jack Cust, RF for the Oakland As went to Immaculata HS in Somerville. At least he got caught when he showed up on the Mitchel report.