What exactly is Marcus Ray’s problem?

I don't know what it is but it just seems sad that a guy who was a key member of one of our greatest teams has sunk to this.  

He's trying to follow the Skip Bayless/cowherd playbook.  Say stupid shit that is so stupid even the people who know you're full of it can't resist reading the article.  Look, here we are talking about him. 

He’s a black hole of attention seeking.  He’s a troll that can’t and doesn’t offer enough to be interesting by giving logical, educated and measured opinions so he’s decided to spew a bunch of nonsense because it ends up on message boards and rival fan bases love it.  He’s pissing on M and his legacy for attention and what he thinks is expanding his profile.  Have fun with that, Marcus.  Oh, and we don’t give a shit if you send your kids to OSU.  Stop dropping that idea like it’s a threat or something. 

I liken it to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who feel the need to diminish other NFL teams who achieve greatness in order to make their own team seem greater.

Marcus Ray only cares about his own legacy and by diminishing the great Michigan teams that come along (especially the defenses), it makes him seem more important.

I love me some 1997 Michigan defense, but Ray is a prick.

Marcus Ray must be sad that the only attention he gets from the Michigan faithful is immediately after bashing the Wolverines on a rival team’s media platform, even though he was part of the university’s last national championship team.

It has to be tough to see your college teammates go on to have illustrious NFL careers and be praised by UofM fans, while all you do is just gain a ton of weight and sweat profusely during your TV broadcast of a Michigan spring game.

Sad, really.

Reference: https://youtu.be/casSM5WaxZo  -  1:15 into the broadcast

Marcus is bitter than no one has realized how great of a coach and analyst he is and that he hasn't been hired at Michigan yet to fix their defense.

What's amazing about that sentence is that there is no sarcasm, judgment, or criticism there.  It's just the truth.  Last year on Sam's show Marcus repeatedly bashed Don Brown for not having "sound" defenses, stating that Brown did not properly deploy the correct number of players to play the run or the pass.  He said, "People just can't read defenses like I can" and strongly implied that he knew more about defense and could coach Michigan more effectively than Don Brown.  

His pathetic brand of jealousy has turned to rage as Michigan continues to ignore him, and no one legitimizes his ridiculous takes about Michigan's poor defensive coaching except for the Spartan beat writers--collectively the most biased and deplorable members of the media.  And that's saying something.

Marcus has lost his way due to his stubborn pride, and I'm afraid that he can't see just how awful he's become in his quest to be recognized as a great football mind.  He's also proven that he would be a terrible coach by bashing one of the top minds in defense and demonstrating that when he doesn't get his way he becomes a whiny, divisive bitch instead of providing constructive criticism.

He's burned all his useful bridges at this point and now is talking to the only people who will listen, which feeds his ego.  He has become little brother, and is no more deserving of respect than his Sparty brethren in the media.

Hey Marcus, how's it going?

He enjoys playing the contrarian and he gets lots of attention doing so (e.g., this post). He said Purdue was best team in the B1G after Saturday's games...

Ripping Michigan last year is being an asshole. Ripping Michigan this year is being a complete moron and an asshole. 

He's really just taking his cheap shots while he can. If you think about it, what's the drawback from his perspective? He can talk shit to remain in some sort of weird relevancy and if UM comes up short on the field, he'll just point to the '97 team as the pinnacle of UM football.

It also leads me to believe that the direction of this program heading in the right way exponentially and people are really taking notice.

As with most former players with an axe to grind, it's best to let them fade away on their own. 

he likes the spotlight...and the hotter the hot take, the more spotlight he gets.  round and round it goes.

...a pic from the studio

Do you really need another example of someone who so desperately needs attention that they will say any outrageous thing just for publicity?

Michigan could win the national title and upset one of the best teams in Alabama and Marcus would be on every OSU and MSU radio/TV show saying how Michigan played a weak schedule, still lost to ND and didn't have the same "swagger" as the 1997 team.

Two requests of the fanbase:

1.  Do not degrade what Ray accomplished as a player because of what he's saying now.  He was a great player and now is a bad analyst.  The two are not contradictory.  That he's saying dumb things now does not mean that he secretly sucked as a player.  

2.  Don't go on an all-out assault on "Carr players" as though they all think like Ray.  The ones I've had the chance to meet are all supportive of the program.  A couple of blowhards are making the huge group (13 years of players) look bad in peoples' eyes.

Weekly Marcus Ray thread - Hooray!

I'll just put something positive out there:

Here's a metaphor I liken it to:

Remember when the Freep was just the Freep? Some of you go back that far, others maybe don't. There was a time when the Detroit Free Press covered Michigan athletics just like the Ann Arbor News, just like the Detroit News and nobody cared to read it. I think at the time people bought the Freep out of habit/tradition or because they liked reading Mitch.

There came a time about 10/12/15 years ago when the Freep did a few editorial hot takes, and some "investigative" stories negatively about Michigan... and boom readership went through the roof. Clicks as far as the eye could see. Anti-Michigan fans reveled in the coverage. Michigan fans grew to love to hate Drew Sharp. But there was a time when Drew Sharp was just working a beat, wasn't too controversial, nobody gave a shit about him. News is news, but it's also business and sports news is entertainment. And this was big for them, they were relevant. It's easy for an editorial board to back this kind of play when it means they have a share of the market in a dying industry.

On an individual level, it's addicting for the personalities. Valenti, Sharp, Parker, Whitlock, Travis, etc. There was a time when nobody cared about what they say. Jason Whitlock was just some morbidly obese writer in St Louis. Clay Travis was a boring afternoon drivetime radio host in Nashville doing schtick. But then, they said something "takey" and it got heat. Then they said something else, they wrote another contrarian view and the heat came again. They liked it. And in the biz any heat is good heat.

Marcus Ray realized he could say inflammatory things about Michigan and people cared. People paid attention. Theyd respond. They're angry. They fire off mean tweets. He goes on a show and people ask him about the controversial thing he said before. Marcus Ray went from being a guy who's segment you'd skip on WTKA, to being someone you had an opinion about. Honestly, I came along late to this dance. I didn't know people cared about Marcus Ray until I kept seeing his name mentioned, being from the "older-time" and not woke to Marcus, I just wondered why people were talking about Marcus Ray. Then I saw. It's not surprising after that.

So, remember responders.... you are the oxygen that causes the Marcus Rays of the world to burn bright. If you truly don't care, then don't respond, don't click, don't call in, don't tweet. Suffocate him of the attention he desperately craves.

Might be in a bad relationship......

with food

He wants to make sure no other team is ever spoken in as high regard as the ‘97 team or another Woodson.  Those are the two things that apparently define his life. Without those two things he feels like a failure?

I have no idea who Rico Beards is.

Seems like each successive place Marcus pops up to give his hot takes is even more obscure than the last.  How long until Marcus is in a Winnipeg basement telling some teenage vlogger how OSU is all about getting stops?

Insecurity