Thoughts on Rush

"Sorry to say this, I don't think (McNabb) has been that good from the get-go; I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well, black coaches and quarterbacks doing well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

- Rush Limbaugh

Anybody hear about what Rush Limbaugh said on NFL Countdown last week? I heard it, I grimaced, the stomach got a little ripe, and I went back to trying figure out why I picked TO and Garcia on the same fantasy team. STOOPID! I knew what he said was over the top, as most statements about race on sports show are, and I actually thought it might blow over. He was hired by ESPN to be a controversial loudmouth. He proved them right by out-doing that loudmouth green-jacket wearin lookin-like-wrasslin's-Slick Michael "PLAYMAKER" Irvin. But what he did in this instance was bring race into the conversation where it wasn't really needed. McNabb is overrated, Rush is right. He looks like he has the potential to fall to the same muck that Kordell walked into (or out of). When a star QB who is in the Chunky commercials is outplayed by Jeff Blake, he might want to go on and find his life's work. But it appears the sports media isn't devoting all their energy trying to hype him up. They are too busy hyping up Jake "The Snake" Plummer as if he's the next Jim Plunkett, even though he's going to have a Donald Driver-like fall to earth pretty soon. My buddy Bud Carson and I were discussing prior to Rush�s comments how overrated McNabb was and how stupid it was for him to pick him up for his fantasy league but he bought into the �Donovan McNabb� hype the day of our draft.

I haven't heard anyone recently try to pump up Kordell, though. It's been awhile for Ron Cook even. Here's a good example of what Cook used to do.And here's the column where he determines fans root against Stewart because he�s black. Hold on, isn�t Cook doing exactly what Rush said the media does in this editorial? Be honest, the Pittsburgh media mavens Savran, Finder, Steigerwald did have a "thing" for Kordell. He got slobbered on by Steigerwald routinely. The racial aspect of Kordell�s starting at QB was always there, sometimes not explicit, but still there in the coverage he received. He got sympathetic coverage when he would crumble in the AFCC games and throw his helmet like a child. I think Steigy still thinks there�s a chance Kordell may come back to the team. But Rush did say something similar earlier about Kurt Warner, as white as Wonder bread, when Warner was walking around in a daze, that he's being pumped up by the media while playing poorly. Maybe white QBs will come out of this good; they are going to be pumped up by the media, just so they can say they do it. In Rush�s case it's possible he was trying to explain why McNabb gets any good press at all with his low performance this year. He's leading the league in rushing yds for a QB this year and that can't be a good sign, as well as that Kordell is right behind him on that bad Bears team. He�s down in the bottom in passer rating. Last year, he didn't have huge numbers either. The media hyped Daunte Culpepper like mad, but he was a monster and he's really come around. He�s almost worth the hype. Steve McNair, a guy who has to be respected for just his sheer effect he has on people that causes them to either blow chunks on the sofa or drink more swilly Pittsburgh beer, doesn�t get hyped at all and he's possibly been the best QB in the league for the last two to three years. Ryan Leaf got more hype than McNair until he started picking fights with 150 pound freshmen. Certainly Kordell got more hype and positive spin in the press than Steve McNair. Certainly Jason Gildon gets so much hype he thinks he doesn�t need to play the position of linebacker anymore because no one ever calls him on it. But right now it is impossible to differentiate this NFL hype by player, the league exists on hype and it seeps into everything, a giant cloud of hype, like a Daisy Cutter filled with hype.

Rush failed when he tried to dump race onto this argument at that time. What he actually did was blast the media itself, and there's no chance you can beat that machine, it'll mobilize to protect itself when it feels slighted, or maybe self-consciously guilty, and it did. A full week of pounding on the guy. It was like a thousand trailed seals squealing and burping for a week straight. I knew I was gonna hear some really stupid ideas on the local Detroit sports talk station and I wasn't disappointed. (Paraphrasing) "Philadelphia has always had a problem, remember Mike Mamula? There were more Mike Mamula jerseys in the parking lot when they had a star running back like Ricky Watters on the team." Yes, they actually thought this was a valid point. Ricky Watters, one of the biggest whiners in league history is just not a likable guy but it�s racist to not wear his jersey. On the other talk station, it was hour after hour of gleeful, energetic piling on. They played Donovan's entire press conference, but didn't play a second of what Rush said. And of course they called him a racist, and this was coming from a black sports journalist who grinds race into his column every single week. Does this same writer pump up black coaches? Sure he does, he does it all the time, so does the rest of the sports media. But Rush defended black coaches the week before. This didn't get brought up, it was too much fun too just go off and slam Rush. It seemed a bit too much, like they were just trying to evade the issue Rush brought up and turn the meaning of his words into something else. Rush knew, he better have known what he was diving into, a cadre of stupid asses with loud mouths and axes to grind. You read Michael Wilbon or Ralph Wiley or William Rhoden and you hear the kinds of things Rush was talking about. They run with the race issue frequently. Some are calling him a racist for something that he said the really is not racist, it may be racial but can't he discuss racial subjects without getting fired?

Look at this quote from the noted journalist Warren Sapp��I'm shocked that Tom Jackson and Michael Irvin just sat there and let this roll across their faces and didn't say anything. Do we not have anybody that understands that there's way more scrubs in this game that are Anglos than there are black ones that are being pumped up? Trust me, it's not even close. I don't know what Rush Limbaugh was thinking, but Michael Irvin and Tom Jackson didn't do us much justice, that's the one thing I was more teed off about than anything."

The more I think about this, the more Rush came off as a boor that day. He really should have waited to bring this subject up later in the year when things would have been more comfortable on the set. And the show is about talking about the game of football, not Meet the Press discussing the University of Michigan acceptance policy. Just not a bright thing for Limbaugh to have done. I maybe can see his point, certainly on black coaches and it's a debatable topic. But TJ has a legit gripe. Why should he have to sit there on a football analysis show and talk about affirmative action? Limbaugh should have kept it to football, then he could have a one shot show or Outside the Lines where race is discussed and never come back to it unless prompted by TJ or THA PLAYMAKA!!!

However, Rush got fired for speaking words. When Dusty Baker said white guys can't play in the cold, was that worse than what Rush said? Are there only white pitchers that are gonna pitch for the Cubbies this fall? You can�t say John Rocker without it evoking an image of a redneck racist. But Rocker said nothing about race, and Dusty did. Rocker got the full media steamroll in addition to having to go through the Clockwork Orange mental cleansing treatment. When Stuart Scott ran down Tim Dwight by pointing out a white guy shouldn't be able to run that fast, was he being a racist or was he injecting a racial viewpoint where maybe it didn't belong? He's still employed by ESPN. Who is allowed to comment on race? Only black men? That's ridiculous. When Bob Ryan, who is currently employed by ESPN said that Jason Kidd's wife should get beaten up, was he fired? Doesn't appear he was and he was straight forward about it. ESPN obviously has selective firing policies over what words an employee decides to use. Evidently getting canned depends on who angers the people with the loudest speaking voice and who can manipulate what is said or written to fit their bias. This can�t be good for dialogue. Donovan should be angry Limbaugh noticed his play and said that the media is covering for him. That may or may not be true. But when you are outclassed by Doug Johnson and just in front of Kordell in the stats column, you had better concern yourself with your play, you may be overrated at being labeled an average QB. But hey, he got the fatty contract, maybe he's doing what others have done, coasting. Maybe Jeff Lurie's pissed because Rush is speaking the truth about McNabb, he's overrated. And it seems the stats may bear this out. Go look at them and think about why Rush was fired for giving his opinion. It should be interesting to see what Berman and company say today.