Last time I checked, Bettis isn’t overweight-having seen him in person, he’s just a BIG guy. He’s tall and I’d bet that’s muscle, not fat, padding him out.
Besides, no mention of Jake Plummer sucking the oxygen tube, either. Not that I’m knocking him for it-the guy was getting over the flu.
In response to Soylent Gene’s question, I should say that my assertion regarding his teammates is based largely on discussion I heard on the radio over the past week here in Pittsburgh. It may be a conflation of past reports regarding his teammates, and discussion by others outside of the team about his toughness vis a vis the recent incident in the playoffs.
http://cbs.sportsline.com/nfl/story/9158837/2
So, it may very well be that none of his teammates questioned his toughness about this recent event. I apologize for making the assertion without having the evidence. I do believe, however, that his relationship with the team is not entirely positive, and that Bettis, who is widely regarded as a team leader and inspiriation for his teammates, thus makes a more appealing focus.
See here, for instance, regarding Alexander’s personality:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011202371.html
I’n just seeing way too much analysis here. There’s a good reason for the hype. It’s an easy story for a reporter to write . It’s an easy story for an editor to run. To mix sparts metaphors, the Bus has thrown up a softball.
He doesn’t have lesbian sex in a public toilet, he doesn’t have stand up fights with his QB, he doesn’t do drugs, he doesn’t stamp on opposing player’s legs. There’s no downside.
He does give back to the community, it’s his last game ever, first Superbowl and it’s in his home town.
How could anyone who loves football, not love Jerome?
You did indeed express your opinion without acrimony. I enjoyed our TD counting smacktalk during the season in the Steelers thread, though I thought you might have gone a bit overboard in the Superbowl thread by smacktalking a poster instead of a team or player, but in this thread? Your posts look aces to me.
Of course, I happen to agree with every word you’ve typed in this thread, and further think your first post was perfection in addressing the OP. (Particularly your point labeled 1), which has oddly not received nearly as much media attention as I would have thought.)
Nothing to add, but I just couldn’t pass up the oppotunity to say “yay!” that Brandon Jacobs got a mention in the Sportsguy article, dubious mention or not.
Thanks for the feedback - it is very much appreciated. I have greatly appreciated our discussions as well. Clearly you know your football, and I came away with a greater interest in the Giants for more reasons than just seeing if Plaxico will be Plaxico no matter what color he is wearing.
I get that my comments were out of place in that thread regarding Omniscient. On the other hand, I never really thought of trash talking as a third-person activity, and I thought his predictions for the AFC Championship game were simply Bronco bias dressed up as impartial analysis. I mean, come on, Plummer better than Roethlisberger? The Broncos O line better than the Steelers? In truth, I haven’t read any other predictions from him to know how that one compared, but that one in particular suggested a lack of knowledge of the teams, or at least of the Steelers.
On the whole, however, the message to me is that IMHO is a place for the tender of spirit and skin, and a place where people’s HO’s shouldn’t be contradicted. Hell, you can’t even request that people not post false health information in IMHO! I promise I’ll steer clear of it from now on.
He played two years on LA and one in St. Louis before he went to Pittsburgh. I know because I was a Rams fan until that stupid bitch owner stabbed us in the back.
Or maybe you’re paranoid. 
Have you actually received any confirmation that your comments were what got the thread moved, instead of the fact that the OP is basically a giant complaint and the thread quickly showed signs of becoming a giant bitchfest about Super Bowl coverage and trashing the two featured RBs this year?
Not really - only the opinion of the OP. It may very well have nothing to do with me.
The oxygen mask wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the man’s an asthmatic who plays professional football and was in a thin air enviornment, would it?
Medication or not, asthma is a hell of a hurdle that he overcame.
The Jerome Bettis angle is being overplayed because it’s one of the only cards the media has to play.
The angles on this particular Superbowl are limited. The Seahawks and Steelers don’t have a long history of playing one another; there’s no grudge match; there’s no single massive TV market to play to (such as New York or LA or Chicago).
Further, the two teams have been mostly keeping their mouths shut, rather than throw taunts back and forth — the media invented most of that Jeramy Stevens “guarantee” that the Seahaws would win, because the media desperately needs a story right now — and the two teams look, as nearly as anybody can guess, pretty evenly matched.
The media is trying to christen the Steelers as “America’s New Team” in place of the Dallas Cowboys, and that angle really isn’t taking off.
The storylines the media was hoping for didn’t pan out. No Manning-Manning Super Bowl, no Tom Brady and the three-peat, no undefeated Colts, no Mike Shanahan trying to win the big one without John Elway, no nothing.
There’s
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It’s okay, Hentor. As you post more in IMHO over the years and come to understand it a bit better, you’ll be able to provide more insightful posts.
I’m glad we agree that its really annoying to see someone pontificate on a topic when they clearly have limited experience with it?
But, no, that’s okay. I’ll leave IMHO to folks like you. I wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings by making a mean comment about someone’s opinion about football, or asking you to cite your bullshit claims about the effects, particularly health risks, from artificial sweeteners.
And since we’re here, I’ll take the opportunity to tell you you are a dumbass fuck. Anyone who cites “Google” as their reference for anything, particularly claims such as Splenda precipitating an insulin release, is just a stupid cunt.
Annoying? Nah. Amusing. But that’s neither here nor there.
As in that thread you again overlook the parts of the posts that blatantly say I was merely mentioning something I’d read, of whose veracity I wasn’t sure of; not reporting fact or even attempting to persuade people’s opinions.
And since you’re such an abrasive ass, I’ll take this opportunity to tell you that you are a pompous prick. Anyone who cannot simply disagree with someone’s opinion without making an ad hominem attack, is a social moron.
If you’ve a problem with me, feel free to Pit me. There’s no sense in hijacking this thread. Do your worst, my skin’s thick enough to handle whatever vitriol you can drool out between your pustulant lips.
I freely admit that if this Superbowl were being played in any city other than Detroit or if it were being pl.ayed five years ago, Jerome Bettis would be treated as just another player. The fact that it’s his final year, one he was talked into sticking around for, and that the Superbowl’s being held in his hometown makes it an easy story and an easy angle for the media to play up. To make it even easier, he’s got a couple of visible, pleasant parents who’ve attended every game he’s play and who are happy to talk to the media. I think half the radio and television stations in Pittsburgh have interviewed “Jerome Bettis’ Mom.” This is not a story which requires intensive investigation and analysis; it is to reporting what getting a hamburger from the drive thru is to cooking.
Larry Foote is the other player from Detroit, and unlike Jerome Bettis, he stayed there to go to college at the University of Michigan (excuse me while I stick in an obligatory “Go Blue!”). This article indicates you could probably spin as good a story around him as you could about Bettis. He, however, is a linebacker in mid-career. He’s good – he got a nice interception against Denver, but he’s not an acknowledged team leader like Bettis is and we don’t have the whole “playing the final game of his career at home” angle to play off of.
I freely admit Pittsburghers are a breed apart when it comes to football; I can see how the hype could get annoying to someone rooting for the other team. On the other hand, this is all I know when it comes to NFL football. To me, it’s perfectly natural to see even the CEO of our company sporting a Steelers t-shirt the Friday before a play-off game or hear home-grown Steelers fight songs which are actually pretty good. I gather they don’t do that in Seattle? It’s February. It’s cold; it’s either raining or snowing, and normally we’d be cursing that, on a completely overcast morning, that #@*@&@# groundhog still managed to see his shadow and predict six more years of slush, cold, and misery. Instead, people are happy, laughing, and enjoying themselves. Yes, the hype is overdone, and I’ve reason to believe there is at least one flaw in St. Bettis of Detroit. Yes, I suspect the city, no, make that the area, is completely insane. You see, they’re now renaming the county seat of a neighboring county, Greensburg, “Black and Goldsburg”. Seattle fans, please tell me how this sounds to you – is there a chance you’re as crazy as we are? On the other hand, it’s a joyous form of madness and at work today, instead of thinking about how much we have to do and how little time there is to do it, for an hour or so at midday, we’ll be having a Superbowl party instead before returning to the chaos.
Yes, Bettis is overhyped and we’ve reached almost total media saturation in Pittsburgh. As I said, it’s an easy story to write and one people like to read. I wish the Seahawks fans out there well and I hope it’s a good game. I also, of course, hope we win, though.
CJ
Go Steelers!
My mom’s from Greensburg and my gramma still lives there, Siege. They’re just as hardcore, if not more so, than those of us here in Pittsburgh.
The Jerome Bettis thing also has one other advantage: it’s a made-for-TV story with an ending, no matter if the ending is happy or sad.
If reporting on Bettis is the equivalent of ordering a fast-food burger, the other stories are the equivalent of a “Will Report For Food” sign. Just hang around the final press conference and your story is complete: Bill Cowher won a Super Bowl, maybe someday he’ll be in the Hall of Fame. Mike Holmgren won a Super Bowl, he’s the first coach to blah blah blah.
I don’t hear a lot about antics of individual Steelers fans in the city of Pittsburgh. Most of it seems no different than what fans did here when the Mariners were on their hot streak: bosses wearing sports merchandise to work, signs on lawns, banners and team logo everywhere, naming streets after players, local guys writing (or spoofing) songs about their team for local airplay, etc. The fact that I see a lot of Steelers coverage just shows it’s easier to drive to Pittsburgh than to Seattle from WABC and WCBS, and that nobody on the East Coast cares enough to stay up late to watch a West Coast game.
The media coverage seems pretty balanced, though it’s annoying that while everybody says the teams are evenly matched, seemingly everyone is nevertheless picking Pittsburgh.
Speaking for myself, I think our relationship with the national media is always the same: we can safely assume nobody gives a damn about anything that happens up here, nobody follows our teams but us, and the press guys only make the trek out to Seattle to report on the juiciest, stupidest, or most aberrant stories possible. “Hey look, the Seahawks are good for once! Let’s show how stupid Seahawks fans are. Hey look, another serial killer! Boy, Seattle sure drinks a lot of coffee. And what about those child-molesting teachers? And I think there was a volcano. Well, that’s enough reporting in Seattle. Let’s tell our Seattle viewers all about some local New York story, like the transit strike.”
And then the media packs it up and goes back to New York or LA or Chicago. No follow-up, no tracking of stories, no nothing. Sometimes I feel as if I can’t wait for them to go away. Seattle is a story that the national media doesn’t know how to tell. Computer geeks who own football teams? That would require depth. Let’s do a story about coffee instead.
Nothing against Pittsburgh or the Steelers, mind you; I just have stopped expecting any national news to care about anything up here.
There isn’t any Joe Montana, Bart Starr or Joe Namath to write about in this game. Sportswriters need a player to write about, not an amorphous thing like a “team.” Bettis is a veteran player from Detroit with a good career (almost) behind him. Why not him?
What’s interesting is how what the media focus on for one city they ignore for Seattle. They’ll go on and on about how long-suffering the Red Sox’s fans were or the Cubs’ fans are, but ignore the fact this is Seattle’s first SB in 30 years of trying. You’d think Seattle fans would merit a story about the long-suffering angle (the Mariners losing A-Rod and Big Unit, losing in the AL Playoffs despite having the most regular season wins, last Seattle champion was Lenny Wilkens’ 1979 Sonics.)
That quote was NOT mine!
And Bill Simmons’ personal defense of the oxygen mask comment:
Physical shape and asthma aside, I thought it was pretty standard for everyone not used to playing at that altitude to suck an oxygen mask during games in Denver.