Shut up, Sports Guy

Even as Bill Simmons continues to gain in visibility, he seems to be losing popularity with certain portions of the online fanbase that originally propelled him to the lofty perch he currently enjoys. Many sports bloggers enjoy taking potshots at him, and while you might be able to chalk some of this up to veiled jealousy, it's difficult to deny that we're reaching the point where Simmons is repeating himself a lot of the time - it's all pop culture references and dropping hints about watching football games at Jimmy Kimmel's house, kind of like an episode of Family Guy that was all about Boston sports. And I mean, I can live with that for the most part, or at least I could. But in the last week, Simmons has written two of the most obnoxious columns he's turned in during his tenure at ESPN.com. And he's starting to really piss me off.

Perhaps you've heard, but Greg Oden had microfracture surgery. He may yet be fine, but it's going to put him out of commission for a year. Perhaps you've also heard that Simmons thought the Blazers should have picked Kevin Durant instead of Oden. You didn't? Well, let him remind you:

It's one of the saddest stories in recent NBA history, regardless of how it turns out down the road: Not just that Portland took the wrong guy last June, but that the same city may have been screwed over twice. There was Bowie-over-MJ, and now, there might be Oden-over-Durant.

Okay, not a bad start. He calls it a sad story and seems to empathize with Portland...

On a larger scale, the double whammy of Bowie/Oden brings back memories of the day Reggie Lewis dropped dead seven summers after Lenny Bias' coke overdose. Obviously it's not as tragic because nobody died, but there was that same "Oh God, not again ..." feeling upon hearing the news. I know that feeling all too well. As a sports fan, there's nothing worse.

"On a larger scale"? You mean on the scale of Boston sports, the only comparison you apparently know how to make? Whatever. Moving on...

It's not like this story came out of the blue. Heading into the draft, there were concerns about Oden's long-term physical health and the fact his legs were different sizes. After his predraft physical with Portland, rumors spread that the Blazers were concerned about his knees, followed by a round of stories that they weren't concerned at all.

The most visible person doing any mentioning of Oden's leg-size issue that a quick Google search found was, you guessed it, Simmons himself, which makes this at least the third time in the last few months that he's used himself as a reference during a column. Good start. But I think what we really all want to know about Greg Oden's injury is... did Bill Simmons call it or did Bill Simmons fucking call it????

I believed at the time the Oden-Durant thing was so close, ANY potential physical concerns should have swung the choice to Durant; that's one of the reasons I kept writing last June that Durant should be Portland's pick. ... I probably wrote more words arguing Durant's case than anything I've ever written for ESPN.com.

More GMs should really make decisions for their franchise's future based on the number of words Bill Simmons writes on ESPN.com. Don't you think?

Just don't tell me Greg Oden was the safe pick of the 2007 NBA draft. Two months ago, I wrote Durant was "the surest thing to come into the league since Jordan. Barring injury, he's going to be the league's next dominant forward."

Hindsight is 20/20. It's not like Simmons called the microfracture surgery - although even if he had, this all-but-gloating about being "right" about what Portland should have done would be even more distasteful. What happens to this argument if Durant doesn't materialize as promised, though? The only true advantage Simmons has right now is that his guy is going to be playing this year - but remember, this is a guy who was once fired up because the Celtics drafted Joe Forte.

That's what the Portland Trail Blazers passed up June 28, 2007. I thought it would haunt them some day. ... I just didn't know it would haunt them so soon.

You are a real son of a bitch. "Nailed the haunting! Totally nailed it!"

As annoyed as the Oden column made me, though, it was nothing next to this week's "Boston Blog," the most unapologetic piece of homer whining ever posted on any professional website in history.

Thanks to CameraGate, the Jets were handed a free pass for getting creamed in Week 1. On Sunday night, the Chargers were given a similar free pass by NBC. Since the network already had its story line in place -- "San Diego seeks revenge against the lying and cheating Patriots!!!" -- it couldn't deviate from that story for three hours, even as the Pats were slapping together one of the most dominating performances in a ballyhooed regular-season game in recent memory.

On the one hand, I kind of agree: the fact that the Patriots manhandled San Diego is a pretty big story, "CameraGate" or no. On the other hand, the fact remains that the Patriots broke league rules, and I'm not sure why you think that there was any reason this could or should have gone unmentioned. Did they stick to it too long? I don't know, maybe. What's that? You've got something crazy you want to say?

Is there a chance -- just a chance -- Belichick has gotten a little paranoid in his old age, and since an undermanned Jets team played them closely in all three Pats-Jets games last season, he spent the spring and summer wondering if Mangini had figured out a way to steal their signals, so he decided to tape their coaches in Week 1 to see if that was true? And then he got caught?

Uh. What? What the fuck are you talking about? First of all, there was that thing with the Packers, and while that looks from the story like it may have been more innocent, who knows? Also, the implication behind Simmons' story here is that this was the first and only time the Patriots had ever taped the other team. If that's true, how could Mangini have known to tip off league officials as so many are suggesting he did? This is possibly the lamest homering we've ever seen. Simmons loves piling on Boston teams when they aren't doing well, but anything that has even the glimmer of tainting his beloved Patriots dynasty and he's foaming at the mouth, coming up with wild conspiracy theories to lessen the blow. Pathetic. But wait! There's more!

Watching football at a buddy's house on Sunday in Southern California, my friend Hench and I endured roughly 2,675 cheater-related jokes over seven hours. We can't fight back. There's no way to fight back. If the roles were reversed, I'd be cracking the same jokes. Believe me.

But since they've already paid a steep penalty for a one-time indiscretion, can we move on with the 2007 NFL season, please?

First of all, "one-time indiscretion." But whatever. I call total bullshit on the idea that you would let this go if it were anyone else - say, if the Colts had been caught taping the Pats? It would get mentioned next to the Colts' name in every column he wrote on the NFL between now and the end of time. Guaranteed.

So save me the moral indignation about CameraGate. The whole world is screwed up.

This is part of a long rant, the point of which appears to be that we shouldn't care that the Patriots cheated in a sporting event because there are things in the world more important than sporting events. Yes, there are, Bill. But - and I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news here - you don't write about them. You, and most of the people you watch on television, are sports journalists (though I use the word loosely in your case). You and they are paid to watch and comment on sports. And the Patriots story was the biggest sports story of the week. Sorry. It was. I didn't see it leading CNN's evening newscast, though maybe I just wasn't looking. But I don't think anyone was making the mistake you seem to be accusing us of. It's a lame, gutless excuse to try and foist this whole thing off by changing the subject. Stick with "How much help could it have been anyway?" or something like that - it's still lame, but at least it's not disingenuous.

Speaking of disingenuous, here's Simmons and Aaron Schatz on the topic of cheating in football:

Simmons: Merriman had a positive steroids test last year? Whaaaaaaaat??? I thought LaDainian "I stole Lawrence Taylor's nickname" Tomlinson just told us the Patriots were the cheaters. I'm so confused. The next thing you're going to tell me is that Luis Castillo failed a steroids test right before the 2005 draft or something.

Schatz: I loved how Tomlinson told reporters today that the Patriots' motto is "if you're not cheating, you're not trying." What's Shawne Merriman's motto?

I'm not a fan of Merriman either. And Tomlinson does come off a bit whiny. But I enjoy how the start of the column in question paid lip service to the idea that Patriots fans are just as upset as anyone else, and then immediately launched into excuses and deflection. God. Enough. You like the Patriots. We allllll get it. I'm just glad that we managed to get a little break in this season as an alternative to the 17 straight weeks of Patriots fawning we'd have received otherwise. At least the CameraGate columns were annoying enough to get me interested.