Comparing white players to white players
I just read an article about Tebow that had the phrase "think Chris Cooley" in it.
Everyone knows that white players are only ever compared to other white players. Does anyone know of some particularly egregious examples (i want to write a longer post about this)?
They must be out there, especially around draft time.
I like this one a lot: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/02/27/gerhart-jokes-about-onl…
Well, Wes Welker had to be compared to somebody before everyone started to compare every white wide receiver to him.
Tim Dwight
Brandon Stokley?
Reminds me of chicken. What did everything taste like before we started eating chicken.
Dinosaur
Is Jordan Shipley the next Wes Welker?
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/330857-is-texas-jordan-shipley-the-n…
Ed McCaffrey?
Kevin Curtis?
Tom Waddle
wayne cherbet
Every white RB is the next John Riggins.
he's a huge power back that is extremely physical and breaks a ton of tackles but runs upright with so-so lateral quickness and no breakaway speed.
who would make a better comparison?
also i don't think toby minds being compared to a hall of famer...
Jerome Bettis
Bam Morris
Leroy Hoard
Ironhead Heyward
Ernest Byner
Those are big running backs with power moves and so so speed tho bettis could move in a straight line
The only tackles Bam Morris broke were those of his probation officers.
but he was pretty good during the Steelers Super Bowl run in 1995-96
but c'mon you'd think the mainstream audience would understand those comparisons, except bettis?
also you're reaching with jerome bettis considering he was much bigger than gerhart and he was a more shiftier back earlier in his career
How about Christian Okoye?
One of my favorites was when I heard an announcer call Anthony Gonzalez from OSU "deceptively fast" during his college career.
It obviously had to be due to his light skin, because he wasn't deceptively fast. He was just plain fast -- he ran a 4.44 40 in workouts before the draft when he was taken by the Colts.
See also: all white players called "gamers", "grinders", "gym rats", or "you know he's tough because he was a punter at Nebraska".
People do it because the white guys are all so gritty.
This is especially true for white wide receivers:
gritty
tough
great hands
runs precision routes
Does a lot of charity work
student of the game
great character guy
moxie
Like a coach on the field
Hard worker
Procession type receiver
Jack Kennedy is the next "C.O.N.E.R." ... totally unfair. I think he's more of a Tony Parker in the making...
i think in chris cooley's case they were merely comparing tebow to the best H-back in the league since both are undersized to play tight end.
yea there definitely is some truth to white players mostly being compared to other white players. but in many cases i actually think they are fair comparisons.
take this year's draft - you can compare an eric decker to any receiver, but a lot of the welker comparisons that come up for jordan shipley are fair since he's suited for the slot (great quickness but lack of top speed, ups, size)
also the white on white comparisons mostly only apply to skill position players
i'd be willing listen though if you can come up with an example of an unfair comparison (i'm sure there are some)
Is Welker considered to not have top end speed? Whenever I see him return punts or break bubble screens, flares, etc. into big gains it seems as though he's one of the fastest guys on the field.
he is EXTREMELY quick and shifty, and those punts and screens that go for plenty of YAC are a result of that, but when have you ever seen him catch a deep ball?
also he ran a 4.65 at his pre-draft pro day but im sure he had amazing shuttle, etc. times
I suppose that's true, it just seems like on those plays he's pulling away from a lot of people. Must have a lot to do with who's chasing him, I guess.
Welker has very good acceleration and quickness. He's not that fast, though. He pulls away from people because he gets to top speed before they do.
If you ever played F-Zero, you know that sometimes acceleration trumps speed.
The pink car was the one to pick. Fun game.
Whoever's playing in the video is making a mistake not going over the ramps. IIRC, you could increase your speed above the maximum if you did that.
(I forgot about that awful elevator music they played between races. Ugh.)
When Samardzija and Brady Quinn were all the rage in 2006-07, I remember Musburger comparing to Samardizija to Ricky Proehl. Samardizjia is 6'5 and about 215 pounds while Proehl is hovering right around 6 feet even and 190 lbs. Needless to say, the way these two played the receiver position differed greatly, and yet, the classic white to white guy comparison saw them as the same type of player.
Is the gold (white gold?) standard for gritty white dudes playing sports.
Here are a couple great Fire Joe Morgan posts on the topic:
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2006/10/david-eckstein-memorial-eckstein-o…
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/02/hi-everybody.html
I remember Keith Van Horn was always regarded as a Larry Bird-type guy because he was apparently a non-center white guy who could score off the dribble a bit. Their games were somewhat similar, but I always thought Van Horn was more like an Antoine Walker or other long-distance small forwards, not an overall playmaker like Bird. Expect Jon Scheryer (?) from Duke getting a similar treatment when he gets drafted this year.
All 6'8" white guys who can shoot 3 pointers and have bad haircuts automatically get compared to Larry Bird.
See: Morrison, Adam
I think if Larry Bird had to read/hear a comparison of Keith Van Horn to himself, he would jump off the TD Banknorth Garden.
White basketball players are assumed to be liabilities on defense. If a black player is being guarded by a white guy, there's a good chance the announcers will say (no matter how untrue), "He can take him off the dribble."
...nevermind.
I seem to recall one of the players mentioned that they had given Sam McG... a nickname. Don't remember the specific nickname, but it was akin to calling him a white black guy.
I only remember this, because at the time I thought, man if that had gone the other way it would have been called out for racism.
To be fair, I compared Tebow to Tommy Frazier and Tony Rice not too long ago. (System QBs who were wildly successful in college but who would be poor NFL QBS)
I'm trying to remember who Rex Chapman was compared to when he came out of UK in 1988. He was fast, had a huge vertical leap, and played with a lot of panache.
Dan Majerle would be another interesting one. He was just a terrific all-around athlete.
Chris Mullins got a lot of comparisons to Bird.
If you guys remember Mark Cline (kudos to you if you do), he was compared A LOT to Bird...but he had the same stupid haircut and moustache.
French for "grit"
..compared Tim Tebow's 40 to Michael Vick's yesterday. Wale was amused.
Pistol Pete...compared to who?
What about Steve Nash. He is white and Canadian.
John Lynch is the safeties version of Wes Welker, at least he was in his prime.
Every White player reminds me of Powder
athletic always gets thrown in to describe white athletes...
fast white WR in the NFL = athletic
white NBA player that can jump = athletic(please see rex chapman, brent barry, and jeff shepard when he was at UK)
or commentators will say a white player is a great athlete and list off all of the sports they played in high school...
I disagree. "Athletic" is applied much more often to black players in my experience. (Ditto for "talented" and "speedy".) If someone says this about a white guy, they'll often add preface it with "deceptive." ("You wouldn't think so looking at him, but he's deceptively athletic...")
The "number of sports in high school" thing is true, though. It's like they feel that they have to offer proof to back up their claim that a white guy can be athletic.
heard it applied to black athletes and i'm not saying that it isn't... but commentators are more prone to say that a black athlete is fast or he can jump out of the gym... if the athlete was white those same commentators wouldn't use those words to describe him... they would just simply say he is a great "athlete" and leave it at that...
I loved how he was compared to so many other black quarterbacks, but prior to the start of his NFL career, Peter King made the best comparison - Drew Brees. Neither tall nor big, played primarily out of pass oriented spread offenses, played in the Big Ten, neither had a cannon for an arm, etc.
And why doesn't anyone compare Colt McCoy to his predecessor at Texas, Vince Young? McCoy runs extremely well and has decent wheels for a QB (even though I was surprised at his 40 time at the combine).
Anyone remember Jason Sehorn?
The orignal, the HOF.
Apparently he "could leap like a deer", had a "beautiful set of hands"