Keith Olbermann Triumphantly Returns to ESPN

F. Scott Fitzgerald once declared "There are no second acts in American lives." The well-read Keith Olbermann--who infamously "napalmed" bridges at ESPN instead of just burning them--is no doubt familiar with that quote and he is attempting to disprove it. Olbermann returned to the self-proclaimed "Worldwide Leader" on Monday as the host of Olbermann, a one hour nightly show featuring Olbermann's perspectives on a variety of sports-related subjects plus interviews with media members and sports figures. Intelligent sportswriting is hard to find and should always be savored; Olbermann's writing is superb and he is also excellent at delivering those words on air (which is a completely different skill).

Olbermann is smart, funny and edgy. He does not suffer fools gladly--or at all, for that matter--which is the major reason he always seems to be at war with his bosses, his colleagues and the world in general. I can do without hearing his political views--which are not nearly as smart, funny or edgy as his take on the sports world--but after watching the premiere episode of his new show I realized just how much I missed listening to Olbermann dispense wisdom and wit about both how the games are played and how the games are covered.

Olbermann's blistering but accurate take on the latter subject will not win him many friends in the media world, not that Olbermann cares about that at all; Olbermann spent the entire first segment pointing out how one incompetent New York writer manufactured out of thin air the idea that New York Jets' Coach Rex Ryan's job is at stake because of how Ryan used quarterback Mark Sanchez in a preseason game. That writer, having no source other than his own feverish Twitter rant, then published a story acting as if his groundless speculations have some basis in fact. Olbermann notes that the responsible thing for that writer--and for the other media members working the Jets' beat--to do would be to ask Ryan and/or Ryan's employer about this directly but instead Ryan's postgame press conference turned into a bizarre Kabuki theater performance during which the media members belligerently repeated insipid questions and an exasperated Ryan issued increasingly sarcastic replies. Olbermann lamented that actual, legitimate reporting is dead and that, instead of investigating and covering news, media members now create fake controversies in order to sell newspapers, increase TV ratings and/or generate website hits. Olbermann's critique was savage, hilarious and sad: he put the incompetent writer on blast, he made some very funny (and biting) jokes and he exposed the deplorable state of modern media coverage.

It will be interesting to see the blowback from Olbermann's debut. Incompetent people do not like it one bit when their incompetence is exposed to the world, so Olbermann will catch a lot of flak, but I applaud his willingness and ability to call out people who are not doing their jobs properly; the incompetent media members give all media members a bad name--and they are stealing money as surely as the PED cheaters are stealing money from the fans. The sooner that the sports world rids itself of charlatans, cheaters and fools the better off we all will be.

Of course, Olbermann's new/old employer is as guilty as anyone else of the crimes against journalism that Olbermann so eloquently cited. It is interesting that Olbermann's show is based not at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut but rather in New York City. His show is not being aired on the flagship channel but rather on ESPN2, the network that Olbermann helped launch more than two decades ago when he said, with gallows humor, "Welcome to the end of our careers." ESPN is keeping Olbermann at arm's distance from where the sausage is made, so to speak; don't look for ESPN's ubiquitous blowhard Skip Bayless as a guest on Olbermann's show anytime soon.

Catch Olbermann while you can, because I am not sure that his marriage with ESPN will last very long. Olbermann is intelligent and fearless, two characteristics that are not well appreciated in a monolithic bureaucracy. It seems inevitable that Olbermann will say the "wrong" thing and/or offend the "wrong" person but it will be fun seeing how many apple carts he can overturn before he is sent back into exile.

Thoughts About Patriots-Jets

1) New York Coach Rex Ryan said a lot of things prior to New England's 45-3 demolition of his Jets but only two of them made any sense: New England does indeed have both the better coach and the better quarterback.

2) While the "experts" focused their preseason talk on Brett Favre/Minnesota, the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Jets, Bill Belichick quietly continued the process of overturning New England's roster and molding the Patriots into a Super Bowl contender.

3) Attention sports editors: the next time a writer pitches you a story about how the New England Patriots will not be the same football team because of the departure of a "key" assistant coach--don't listen! Romeo Crennel, Charlie Weis, Josh McDaniels and Eric "Mangenius" Mangini all left New England and found much less success elsewhere than they did while working for Bill Belichick; meanwhile, the Patriots are still top contenders, posting their eighth straight 10-plus win season. Belichick is now serving as the team's defensive coordinator and the Monday Night Football commentators noted that this extra responsibility had limited the time he spent watching film with Tom Brady this season--but the Patriots had an extra few days to prepare for the Jets game and Belichick used some of that time to break down film with Brady. The results of that film study were very evident on the scoreboard and should leave little doubt about who really is the schematic mastermind of New England's offense.

4) I have a great story pitch for any sports editor who is really interested in publishing a story about a prominent head coach whose success is indeed linked to the greatness of a particular assistant: the story describes the career of a two-time Super Bowl champion who posted an 11-5 postseason record (including 2-1 in Super Bowls) with a certain assistant coach but an 0-3 postseason record without that assistant coach, including a head to head loss to that assistant coach when he served as another team's head coach. Of course, I am talking about Bill Parcells, who never won a single playoff game without Bill Belichick on his staff and whose Patriots lost 20-13 to Belichick's Cleveland Browns in the 1994 playoffs (the last time the Browns won a playoff game). Many members of the media used to love to derisively call Belichick "Little Bill," as if he were some inadequate baby brother trying to fill his big brother's shoes. Looking at things in historical perspective, who looks "little" now?

5) After the Patriots finished routing the Jets, Brady said that the Patriots all heed the motto of their coach: "When you win say little and when you lose say less."

Were the Patriots Lucky to Beat the Ravens?

Today on ESPN's "First Take," former NBA guard Greg Anthony and Skip Bayless debated whether or not the Patriots were lucky to beat the Ravens last night. Bayless' take is that the Ravens would have won were it not for Baltimore defensive coordinator Rex Ryan calling timeout on one fourth down play where the Ravens appeared to have stuffed the Patriots and then the Patriots committing a false start on the next fourth down play that also seemed to be going nowhere; of course, New England converted a fourth and six after that penalty en route to scoring the game-winning touchdown. Anthony argued that players ease up after they hear an official's whistle, so it is impossible to say whether or not the Ravens really would have stopped the Patriots' initial fourth down play; as for the penalty being lucky, Anthony logically pointed out that in most cases when a team converts fourth and six against a good defense on the road that we praise that team for its execution. Listening to the two of them argue back and forth sounded very much like eavesdropping on someone who has actually competed at a high level and understands what that is all about trying in vain to explain those experiences to someone who has no idea what he is talking about.

Later on the show, former New York Giants Coach (and former Baltimore Ravens assistant coach) Jim Fassel offered his perspective on the timeout that Rex Ryan called. Fassel said that he had no problem with one of his assistant coaches calling a timeout provided it was a critical situation in the game and it was apparent that the team was not lined up correctly or had the wrong personnel on the field; there is not always time for the assistant to ask permission to call timeout or to have a whole discussion about it. As for the specific sequence in yesterday's game, Fassel said that he spoke with Ryan and what happened was the Ravens only had one defensive lineman on the field prior to the first fourth down play. The Patriots love to run a quarterback sneak right up the middle in such cases, so Ryan called the timeout to get the right personnel on the field; if he had not done so and then the Patriots successfully ran the sneak then Ryan would have been rightly criticized for having the wrong personnel group on the field. Fassel said that the smaller players that the Ravens had on the field went after the play so aggressively that it looked like maybe they would have stopped it anyway but that calling the timeout was the right thing to do strategically.

The bottom line is that, as Anthony correctly said, we will never know if the Ravens would have stopped the first fourth and one play if it had gone all the way through and we also will never know what would have happened without the false start penalty on the next play--but good teams find ways to win and bad teams find ways to lose. This year, the Ravens are a bad team and the Patriots are a very good team; the Ravens had an opportunity to stop the Patriots on a fourth and six play and did not do it. That--and other blown chances on both sides of the ball--is why the Ravens lost. Bayless always seems to look for ways to blame the losing team instead of praising the winning team for its poise and execution. Next time, Bayless should do what Fassel did: pick up the phone, talk to someone who was actually involved in what happened and apply that information to his analysis.