Benchwarmer: Reggie Bush

Who he is: Reginald Alfred Bush is the 3rd down/backup running back for the Saints. His salary this year is $8 million (up from 2.6 million last year) with the opportunity for another three million in bonuses. This came after modifying his original six-year, $52.6 million dollar deal. His base salary goes up to $11.8 million next year. Saints starting running back Pierre Thomas, on the other hand, will make just under $1.7 million this year. In case you’re curious, Thomas has 20 touchdowns over the past two years to Bush’s 14. He also USED TO BE a Heisman winner.

Benchwarmers: Ben Roethlisberger, Roger Goodell, and the NFL

The big news in the NFL world this week is of course Ben Roethlisberger’s suspension for six games, which can be reduced to four if he complies with the rehabilitation program the NFL will lay out. If you haven’t been keeping up with this story, Dave Zirin does a good job going over the case, and the incredible sketchiness of the DA’s decision not to indict Ben. Zirin also implores NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to punish Roethlisberger with a similar punishment to what Michael Vick received: “[He] should have to donate a portion of his salary to rape crisis and battered women’s shelters. He should have to speak to young kids about the fact that ‘No means no.’ He should, in other words, have to do everything that Michael Vick has had to do to make amends.” In this writer’s opinion, Goodell’s punishment, and in particular his letter to Roethlisberger, fall far short of meting the justice Roethlisberger deserves.

Many have argued that the punishment was fair, given the lack of indictment, and given that Roethlisberger is the first player to have been suspended by Goodell without even being arrested; maybe they are right. But Roethlisberger’s constitutional rights don’t apply to his private employment, and it’s acceptable and in their best interests for the NFL to hold their players to a higher standard than the rest of the population, as they are so often in the public eye and any transgressions they make will reflect poorly on the entire league. Also, the NFL conducts its own investigation into any matter of player conduct, and I think it’s fair to assume they have access to the best private investigators in the country. Given that they decided to suspend him at all, and that the Rooneys and the rest of the Steelers management didn’t defend him, can we say they think he is guilty of at least some of the things he is alleged to have done? So then, why not a longer suspension? Assaulting women isn’t comparable to carrying an unlicensed handgun, nor dogfighting (though the latter is of course deplorable), so it should carry a harsher punishment if the league believes, or found evidence, that he did what is alleged.

Even if you set aside the length of the suspension, the part of Goodell’s response that bothers me even more is the letter that he wrote to Roethlisberger, explaining the suspension and urging him to essentially straighten up and fly right. The entire letter is vague (you can read excerpts here), which I suspect is purposeful. He doesn’t mention the allegations of assault, but mentions specifically that Roethlisberger made a big boo-boo when he purchased alcohol for underage girls. Goodell writes: “There is no question that the excessive consumption of alcohol that evening put the students and yourself at risk.”

I realize that every part of the commissioner’s response is carefully crafted between him and his lawyers to make sure he can’t get in any trouble and that the best PR is put out for the league, but the focus on alcohol, and in particular the last quoted sentence infuriates me. It wasn’t the alcohol that blocked off the back of the bar for Roethlisberger and ten girls, as detailed in the police report. It wasn’t the alcohol that blocked off the door to the bathroom so that the victim’s friends couldn’t come to her aid. It wasn’t alcohol that caused the bathroom where the incident allegedly took place not to be sealed post-incident, or that erased the film on the security tapes in the bar. And it wasn’t the alcohol that caused the victim to not want to go through the ordeal that would be a high-profile trial.

Most importantly, Roethlisberger wasn’t put at risk by alcohol; he put others at risk through his seemingly premeditated actions. The language of Goodell’s letter absolves him of blame, and even if the NFL’s lawyers wouldn’t allow him to write anything about the specifics of the incident for fear of libel, it would have been better to have not mentioned the underage alcohol consumption specifically and allow fans to draw their own conclusions about why the suspension was being handed out. Blaming it on a drunken mistake is an insult to thinking NFL fans everywhere.

Fortunately, it seems public opinion, and even the opinion of his peers, is not on Roethlisberger’s side. If he continues to be maligned, it is about as much justice as one can hope for.

Photo courtesy of @jesspgh via her blog, http://consumerconsumed.tumblr.com. 

Benchwarmer: Joe West

Joe West is an umpire for Major League Baseball. MLB has an umpiring problem (remember the 2009 Twins/Yankees ALDS?). West is part of the problem.

Yesterday he “spoke out” on how long it took to play the Red Sox/Yankees games that opened the season.

“They’re the two clubs that don’t try to pick up the pace,” said West, chief of the umpiring crew that worked the three-game series in Boston. He was the home plate umpire Sunday. “They’re two of the best teams in baseball. Why are they playing the slowest? It’s pathetic and embarrassing. They take too long to play.”

West’s comments are extraordinarily unprofessional and show a lack of understanding about how the game works as well as a lack of understanding about what fans want. The umpiring union is a fraternity of men who are arrogant, resistant to positive change, and as comments like West’s show, often seem to want the game to be about them instead of the players.

Here’s a rough list of things that slow down the game:
-Commercials between innings.
-Pitching changes.
-Batters who see a lot of pitches.
-Hits and walks, since the only clock in the game is the 27 outs allotted to each team.
-Mound conferences between the pitcher and catcher, pitcher and pitching coach, pitcher and infielders, pitcher and that guy who heckles everyone at Tampa games, etc.
-Batters calling timeout.
-Pitchers taking a long time between pitches.
-Streakers running across the field.

As I see it, all the things besides the first and last items on this list are related to higher offense levels. From what I can tell, the casual fan likes more exciting games with a lot of scoring—call this “chicks dig the long ball” syndrome. Or at least that’s what Bud Selig wants us to believe, as personally, I find a tight pitchers’ duel to be much more exciting than an 8-5 slugfest. But if you have more scoring, you’re going to have more hits and walks. You’re going to have guys who see a lot of pitches, so they can either walk or get the right pitch to drive. You’re going to have lots of pitching changes as managers run through their bullpen trying to play match-ups or find the guy who can get anyone out on that day. You’re going to have pitchers walking around the mound trying to calm themselves down, and you’re going to have batters calling timeout to try to throw off the pitchers’ timing. And you’re going to have myriad mound meetings as teams discuss things they should have discussed before the game (isn’t that why they have signs?). You may even have more streakers as the fans will have longer and longer to get drunk…well maybe that’s a stretch.

The point is that all these things are related to offense and generally to winning baseball. The Red Sox and Yankees have long games not because they are slow or waste any more time than any other team. They have long games because everyone in each lineup is a great hitter who can work a count and isn’t going to get themselves out. Both teams understand that the only clock in baseball is the 27 outs they’re given, and they don’t want the game to ever end when they are hitting. That’s why West’s comment about the Red Sox and Yankees being the “best” teams—and that this somehow means they should play a faster game—is completely misguided.

Here are some things that could speed up the game:
-Fewer commercials. Just one fewer commercial per break would shave ten minutes off the game, and provide a better experience for pretty much everyone. Obviously this won’t happen since we need to see the same W.B. Mason or Foxwoods ad 18 times a game.
-Umps calling the strike zone as it is in the rulebook. If you’re not familiar with this site (run by username “Jnai” on sonsofsamhorn.net), check it out. Particularly interesting are the plots of all called strikes and balls and how they compare to the rulebook strike zone. In West’s case on Sunday night, the answer is “not well.” Had he called a more consistent and larger zone, there would be fewer walks and probably fewer foul balls as the players would know that a pitch out of the strike zone, you know, wouldn’t be called a strike.
-Fewer mound conferences. Again, this is a product of more offense, but it’s unnecessary. Particularly annoying is the sequence when a manager will essentially delay the game to try to get his pitcher warming (as happened Sunday night when Girardi wanted Marte to be ready). If the manager doesn’t have the foresight to get a guy ready for an upcoming hitter, he should have to stick with the pitcher in the game.

Finally, even if West has a point, he really could have done without the hyperbole and calling the two most popular teams in the league a “disgrace.” If he were an NBA or NFL player, he would have gotten a hefty fine, and it would be deserved. He is paid to help MLB create the best product they can, and when he decries the best two teams in MLB because he doesn’t want to work for four hours instead of three, well, that’s “pathetic and embarrassing.”

Benchwarmer: Jay Cutler

Who is he? Jay Cutler is the starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears. This year is his fourth year in the NFL after playing at Vanderbilt. In the off-season, rookie head coach Josh McDaniels arrived in Denver and promptly shipped Cutler to the Bears for Kyle Orton, presumably because he saw what good coaches see: Cutler is a terrible quarterback!

Why don’t we like him? In my book, Cutler was doomed before his career even started because he replaced Jake “The Snake” Plummer. I really liked Plummer; he was a winner in my book, and that’s not just because he cultivated one of the best mustaches in history into one of the best beards. He’s got a rocket arm and a quick release that makes him a scout’s wet dream, but he makes such poor decisions that I’ve named a fake QB-disease after him: whenever a quarterback has a terrible game (think Mark Sanchez’s five-interception game), I’ve started to say he has symptoms off Cutler-itis. (This is different from diabetes, which Cutler also has.) Cutler had his own five-pick game against the 49ers last night. Admittedly, the only part of the game I was able to see was the final drive. That didn’t stop me from immediately saying, “he’s going to throw a pick.” After he led the Bears down the field despite a number of stupid penalties, I almost thought he might win the game, launching the broadcasters into tirades of “You brought Cutler to Chicago for game-winning drives like this!” Then he went back to being Jay Cutler and threw his fifth pick into a crowd of 49ers defenders. In Cutler’s defense, he did throw it really hard.


*Photo courtesy of Jauerback via Creative Commons License

Benchwarmer: Brett Favre and His Man Tears

Who is he? Most of us know who we’re dealing with at this point—Favre, a second round pick by the Falcons out of Southern Mississippi back in 1991, was traded to the Packers and went on to be the only back-to-back-to-back MVP in league history (‘95-‘97), won two Super Bowls, including one against my beloved Pats in ‘96 (rather, he watched Desmond Howard win it for him), and set the career passing records for touchdowns, yards, completions, attempts, starts, and interceptions. He is also known for his affinity for Wrangler jeans.

Why have we grown to despise him? Imagine you dated the same girl through high school and college. You’ve had some of the greatest memories in your life attached to this women, basically the only woman you’ve ever known in the biblical sense. As college draws to a close, you both start to grow apart and you realize that maybe it’s time to separate for a bit, to pursue different things, and you never know for the future. The breakup is amicable, because you expect that she’s felt as strongly about you as you do about her. You imagine she’ll be on her own for quite some time, and then maybe you guys will hook up again down the road. Then you hear that she’s “kinda seeing” some guy far away, but it’s not that serious, just a fling, and it’s like, “Okay, I can deal with that. We’re not together anymore, and I’ve started dating around myself.”

But then you walk in on her passionately getting the business on a quilt sewn by your grandmother from the dude who gave you a swirly in high school while Brad Childress sits in an arm chair in the corner nodding sternly and trimming his mustache. Wouldn’t you absolutely despise this girl?

To clarify in this scenario: You are a Packers Fan, she is Brett Favre, the swirly dude is Adrian Peterson, your new girlfriend is Aaron Rodgers, and Brad Childress plays himself. Shannon Sharpe and his “insight” purposefully not included.
*Photo courtesy of Blueag9 via Wikimedia Commons

Benchwarmer: Jeremiah Masoli

Who is he? Jeremiah Masoli is the starting Oregon Ducks quarterback and a sleeper Heisman candidate. Though he won’t win it, he’ll be in the conversation. If he stays healthy (the Ducks have a terrible injury history at the QB position) he might help the Ducks finally take down USC, since USC has to come into Autzen Stadium this year. Last year he put up 1,744 yards and 13 TDs passing, and 718 yards and 10 TDs rushing. In a few hours, he and the Ducks kick off the college football season with what is likely to be the most significant Week One game; Boise State has to win against the higher ranked University of Oregon if they want to even be considered for a BCS game at the end of the season. If you haven’t heard of him and are wondering why he’s so good, watch the video posted below, and while you’re watching him run over that dude, remember he has the arm to match his running speed and strength.

Why don’t we like him? Even though he’s scary good, I don’t like him because I’m an Oregon State Beaver all the way. As much as I’d like to see USC taken down, I can’t root for a Duck. (I would be more optimistic about OSU’s chances of winning the Pac-10 if they didn’t have to play USC, Cal, and Oregon on the road). Sure, he might run UO’s offense with amazing efficiency, but he runs the UO offense. I hate “option” offenses. No team beyond high school should run an offense based solely on the option. Plus, he wears cute fairy wings.