Results tagged “lewis,” from Robert Littal Presents The Infamous BlackSportsOnline

That has been the question seemingly talked about 24 hours a day on ESPN since Michael Vick left prison (well they did interrupt briefly to talk about Lebron vs. Kobe in the NBA finals). The main question that keeps being asked is does he deserve the right to play? Does a man who has repaid his debt to society really need to beg for a chance to get a job doing what he does best?

A number of commentators and fans have said playing in the NFL is a privilege not a right. And I ask them is their job at ESPN a privilege. Did someone just hand them their job at ESPN or did the everyday person working at an office just get handed their job. No, most people had to work and hone their skills to get to the job they have now. Of course there are some industries where nepotism and who you know may play a role in you getting a job, I'm thinking specifically of coaching. But no top athlete is just given their position in the pros. I know people don't like to think of playing sports as a job, but it is. They spend a couple hours a day working out, a couple hours a day practicing, a couple of hours watching film. Yes, it is something we all did when we were young and we constantly say we would do for free. But the reality is people don't play professional sports for free. They play for millions of dollars, and we all support that by going to games, watching on TV, by buying tickets, by buying jerseys and hats. So no playing sports isn't a privilege in itself. Anybody who has a great job or life or family can say they're privileged. But in reality in order to get to that point work had to be put in to get to that point.

Do you know Max Mosley? Most people don't. He happens to be the President of the FIA, which oversees many of the international racing leagues, including Formula 1. It's a pretty big job, since it is the richest association of all sporting leagues (billions of pounds-British currency-are spent within the association every year). So, its leader is fairly prominent internationally.

Except the world economy has forced the association into crisis. The same sport faced a crisis last March, due to Mosley.

More after the jump...

Before we get to what everyone else will be talking about tomorrow I will tell you the play that really won the game that everyone will forget. I make no secret that I don't like a lot of the mainstream sports writers, but one that I love is Gregg Easterbrook of ESPN and hisTuesday Morning Quarterback. One of the things Mr. Easterbrook preaches is that when you get for it on 4th and 1 you show your team that you have confidence in them and also the chances of success are much higher that you win the game.

The Titans were down 10-7 but had been moving the ball easily all day. Only their own turnovers and penalties had been slowing them down (more on that later). The Titans once again drove into Ravens territory in the 4th quarter and faced a 4th and 1. Dan Dierdorf who is absolutely is one of the worst color commentators in the NFL barked out that the only decision was to bring out the field goal team which is exactly what Jeff Fisher did. In the immortal words of Mr. Easterbrook I wrote in my notebook:

The Titans who blew chance after chance had an opportunity to win the game but decided to play it safe but the playoffs aren't for punks they are for risk takers. By playing safe they doomed themselves for failure. Get the yard, punch in the TD and break the spirits of the Ravens. What happened was the Ravens were energized by dodging another bullet and went on to win the game. The lesson here:

IF YOU SCARED GO TO CHURCH

With that being said the refs did help out the Ravens with a horrible blown call which should have been a delay of game penalty and turned into a critical completion from Joe Flacco to Todd Heap.

Say it isn't so Ocho? Tell me you didn't try to punch Marvin Lewis, as my old childhood friend Reggie Sykes used to say, "Straight Up In His Eye".

When you held your press conference two years ago saying it was untrue, to be honest I figured you were lying but not to the extent that you treated Marvin's eye like he was Mitch "Blood" Green.

Mike Florio at Profootballtalk.com had the video confirmation that it went down before YouTube took it down and you know we have defended you against PFT.com in the past. But we can't defend any player, no matter how cool, for punching his coach in the eye like Jason Kidd finding out his ex wife cheated on him with Avery Johnson. It is in the past so there isn't much that can be done now. But when you are begging for a trade, you might want to remember some of the sins of your past Chad.