Gregg Easterbrook's Cannons of Sanctimony

Easterbrook might be sitting on top of the long list of terrible sports writers.

I had never heard of Easterbrook previously, and kind of wish I still haven't.

This is the best idea Brian ever had. It could really help people who need the help. Legal questions. Can you do this for the football and no other teams? Since there is not a girls football team, a Title IX issue always lurks.

Chait-level beatdown, Brian. Good show.

Easterbrook used to be a must-read on Tuesdays 10 years ago. He was about the only one out there doing analysis that didn't depend on tired sportswriter cliches and conventional wisdom. As good sports blogs like this one came to my attention, his work became less important until I stopped reading him completely. That, and his 15,000 word-cheerleader-science fiction-ignorance of college football schtick got tiring.

Gregg: never talk about college football again. Your ignorance is appalling.

I agree that Easterbrook is an idiot, but I don't think his point about Kelly is entirely off base. Two players claimed Kelly told them he was staying, and Kelly even said so himself during a radio interview a week before he left. Some of his players publicly criticized him for the way he went about the whole thing, indicating that at least a few of them did indeed feel misled (not to be a homer, but contrast this with Rodriguez, whose former players at WVU spoke highly of him after he left).

I don't think leaving a job for a better one should automatically be regarded as blameworthy, but there is something to be said about coaches who unequivocally claim that they'll stay only to leave shortly thereafter. Coaches don't have to make "pine box" declarations to effectively handle media speculation, and the ones who don't often end up being both loyal and successful. Case in point: Billy Donovan never unequivocally stated he wasn't interested in the Kentucky job the last time it opened up, yet he ended up staying at Florida and won a championship. Pete Carroll has never ruled out the possibility of a return to the NFL when asked about the subject, and he's been at USC for 9 years and won two championships. And, as we all know too well, Les Miles never publicly said he was staying at LSU until he signed his infamous contract extension, and he's still at LSU and has won a championship.

What I don't understand is how a guy who writes this stuff also intersperses his column with accurate insight into how NFL coaches still don't grasp elementary risk/reward trade-offs. I read his column for the preposterous punt section and a few others, but am skipping through increasing large chunks now.

This guy is an idiot and, as Brian alluded to, totally unaccountable when he makes asinine statements.

I'll say this: when I've written e-mails explaining to Mike Florio on PFT why he's an idiot, he tends to respond. Easterbrook has not (though in his defense, I think I call him more offensive names).

I think this most recent Easterbrook rant shows that being reactionary and boisterous is replacing logical reasoning and neutral prose. I doubt he has forgotten how to write the past decade, but Easterbrook also realizes that to be heard above the din he needs to "call people out" and decry behavior inherent to college athletics. It is easy to say that ND holds its students to a higher standard than others because the average fan is not going to actually look into it and see that it is not true. It is easy to say that RR or Kelly lied to their players because that is the accepted story; to put forth a real analysis of the situation would simply be dismissed as missing the point.

In the past few years, I've come to realize that being a national sportswriter, writing about national stories, is really quite difficult. Sure, a few guys are able to do it for a time (Easterbrook was once like that), but ultimately information is too readily available and fanbases too well-informed to take these half-cooked ideas seriously.

I got over my depression from the season and came back to read at just the right time. It's easy to not be sad when you instead harbor a bizzare mix of humor and anger.

I've been advocating* longer scholarships for athletes for years. With a 6 year scholarship, athletes could spread their studies across a longer period and - yes - have more time for their sport. I see no good reason why athletes should be required to take more than 2-3 classes in-season. Those who claim to be purists about "student-athletes" will get their shorts in a know over this one, which to me is ridiculous. If a low income, non-athlete student works at McDonald's 20-30 hours per week to pay the bills, takes 2-3 classes per semester and graduates in 6 years, we applaud his or her effort. We should. If a student-athlete does the same, why do we have a problem with that?

The only objection I give any time to is that of cost. We are after all talking about increasing room and board expenses by 50%. Tuition costs are theoretically the same because the number of credits is the same, but spreading them out over a longer period of time will lead if nothing else to a bit more inflation on a per credit basis. At any rate, we are looking at increasing athletic scholarships to somewhere between 125% and 150% of current levels. Spread out over all of the sports, men's and women's, this is a lot of money. Now, I know MI would likely be able to absorb this over the long run, but most schools have troubled athletic department bottom lines as-is. Those schools would complain and allege the creation of a have and have-not system. While I do not necessarily have a problem with that -to hell with parity :)- enough people would. Now, it would get easier if we could restrict this to just football, but politically I just don't see that happening.

In the end, if we can get past people's holier-than-thou attitudes about what it means to be a "student-athlete" the only problem left is money.....

*By "advocating" I mean babbling about it with a friend over beers at a sports bar and/or posting a semi-coherent blog post a couple of times per year....

His NFL stuff is still interesting, but some of his views are so ridiculous, poorly thought out, and ill informed that I had to stop.

Sounds like this guy needs to get a life.

Gregg is a tool who is always trying to prove how smart he is. His brothers Frank and Neil got the real brains in the family and Gregg is left flailing around making nonsense arguments about the NFL, astronomy, and the environment. I used to read him when I was young and dumb but now avoid his columns like the plague.

When I read the column (yes, I did before this, no I don't know why) I immediately noticed that when he was mentioning teams which succeed while have good academics he conveniently (purposefully?) leaves out Michigan, which seems suspicious with all his Rich Rod bashing.

Yes, Lawrence Phillips exists and is one of the darkest (if not THE darkest) stains on the Nebraska football program. It was a terrible mistake to not ship him out of town the *second* it became clear what he had done, and when Osborne allowed him back on the team he opened himself up for a torrent of fair, justified criticism that I largely agree with. But I've got to stick up for my alma mater here: Lawrence Phillips does not invalidate the fact that UNL has has more Academic All-Americans in football (98) than any other school. That doesn't prove that Nebraska isn't a win-at-all-costs, academics-last school, but it's at least as valid an argument as throwing up a picture of Philips.

The LP saga was 14 years ago. Can we please finally drop the idea that he has anything to do with the current program, six head coaches and ADs later? Thanks - I'll sit over here and take all the negatives like a man....

We should applaud this monk among pundits. Indeed, the man's awareness is bereft of reality --- but is this necessarily a bad thing?

Perhaps Easterbrook has transcended reality. Perhaps it is merely our ignorance that makes his arguments appear insolvent. Were we not bound to this mortal coil -- this "reality" of which we speak -- then we would understand the inconceivable.