Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Stick to club soda next time, Jerry

Jerry Jones is a chatty guy when he's had a few beverages. The Dallas Cowboys owner mouthing off about Jimmy Johnson under those circumstances is what led to the breakup of their partnership. Recently, someone caught Jones in a similar state and had their cel phone camera rolling. They sent the video in to Deadspin, which means everyone now knows that Jones doesn't think much of Tim Tebow's NFL chances. Judging by his demonstrated ineptitude when it comes to personnel issues, that's actually a positive sign for Tebow. While the Tebow stuff is the immediate hot button topic, the fact Jones blurts out that he only hired Bill Parcells to help secure the Cowboys stadium is the part that fascinates me. I can't stand Parcells on a personal level for a number of reasons (his total lack of loyalty and money hungry behavior among them) but I would never describe him as "not worth a shit". It's mindblowing that the guy with Wade Phillips as his coach and a history of hiring people like Dave Campo, Chan Gailey and Barry Switzer for the job drank enough to say that about Parcells without giving himself alcohol poisoning.

The NCAA has been looking into Rich Rodriguez's West Virginia football coaching tenure, presumably as part of their investigation into the allegations about Michigan exceeding the acceptable practice time limit. If there is evidence similar behavior went on in Morgantown, that would certainly merit extra NCAA heat. I'm still extremely skeptical of the idea Michigan will get hammered once this process concludea. If Rodriguez doesn't fare much better this year than his first two, the chances that will be it for him in Ann Arbor just went up again.

One of the curious movie stories of the past few years resurfaced yesterday, with word coming down that the movie version of Michael Lewis's Moneyball is once again scheduled to be made. Brad Pitt has now taken a pay cut to play Oakland GM Billy Beane. Apparently this must be something he really wants to do. If Pitt as Beane is a stretch, how's Jonah Hill as Paul DePodesta grab you? Clearly a bitter Dodgers fan is in charge of the casting on that one. The one possible saving grace for this is that Aaron Sorkin wrote the latest version of the script. If anyone can make this book into a 100 minute movie with a plot and human sounding dialogue, he's probably the guy. Knowing Hollywood, they'll probably try to change the ending and have Oakland win three World Series because that "tested better with the focus group".

Coaching searches always lead to curious names being floated, and most rumors that seem silly actually are. The idea of Bob Knight becoming new head coach at Rutgers almost certainly falls into this category. What if it was true, though? Imagine a 69 year old Knight, who has never had to deal with critical local media, suddenly finding himself in the cross hairs of the New York tabloids. While some of Knight's language might fit in well at Tony Soprano's alma mater, I think Rutgers actually hiring him would be a recipe for disaster.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gators this, Gators that... it never ends

Heath Cline said...

Out of curiosity, how do you get never ending Gators out of a blog entry that doesn't mention Florida as the lead item in any portion?