[QUOTE=denquixote]
As to the guy who doesn’t like it, I agree there is much to criticize, but at least there is some creativity and novel strategy suggested.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, it was creative and novel the first time he wrote it, which was, by my count, nine hundred million columns ago. Hey, Greg? You think more teams should go for it on fourth and short-ish in opposing territory when outside realistic field goal range. Duly noted. But this “novel strategy” will appear in every column, probably three times, with exactly the same wording used each time. Ooh! And did you know, that when a player signs a long-term contract for X dollars, he probably won’t ever see all X? Did you? Because if you didn’t, has Easterbrook got half a dozen columns a year, just to lay it out for you, with identically worded examples aplenty.
And what’s worse, and as I mentioned, he absolutely butchers the science of statistics in providing support for his theories. This is problematic because you can make all the novel suggestions in the world, but if the evidence you use to support them is fundamentally dishonest, then the experience of reading about those theories is frustrating. And he refuses to acknowledge facts or circumstances that might mean that his pet theory doesn’t actually apply to a given situation, which makes it all the more irritating.
And those team names? Sorry, cognomens (bite me, Easterbrook; I own a thesaurus, too)? Annoying.
Not to mention the incredibly sophomoric and pointless crap, like relating a team’s success to the amount of skin shown by its cheerleaders (this would be funny and diverting, if he didn’t actually devote several inches of column to it every week, like, OK, Greg, we understand: you were a nerd in high school and the cheerleaders wouldn’t date you. I get it; I’ve been there. But you’re a grown man now with a real job and it’s hard to read your writing through the creepy haze of your slobber).
I don’t know why I hate it as much as I do, but boy do I.