The Sports Curmudgeon

Jim Ringo was the center on the offensive line for Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers. He is in the Hall of Fame. Jim Ringo died yesterday. His passing gives me the opportunity to explain to some of the younger readers here how things were “in the olden days”. Jim Ringo didn’t finish his career with the Packers; Lombardi traded him to the Philadelphia Eagles in the mid-60s. At that time in the NFL, Ringo really did go from the penthouse to the outhouse.

Why did Lombardi rid the Packers of a Hall of Fame player? Well, back then there was no such thing as free agency or anything of the sort. If Jim Ringo was to play in the NFL, he would play for the Packers because they owned his rights. Ringo went to see Lombardi about his contract for the new year and made a big mistake; Jim Ringo took an agent with him to the meeting. The story goes that Lombardi met the agent and shook his hand and then excused himself from the room for a moment. When he returned, he supposedly told the agent that they were talking to the wrong person about a contract because Jim Ringo had just been traded to Philadelphia. Those were very different times. Rest in peace, Jim Ringo.

Sticking with the NFL for a moment, Rex Grossman had this to say after the Bears lost last weekend:

“No doubt we’re still competing for the championship. I’m not sure what you’re talking about. We have six losses, which is bad at this point, but by no means are we out of it. We have a couple of home games coming up. We play one game at a time. We’re not out of it until someone tells us we’re out of it.”

OK, I guess someone has to do it:

Rex, you’re out of it. The two operative words in the English language that apply to you appearing in the Super Bowl next February are: Not … Happening.

It’s painful to watch an athlete who used to be very good at what he did try to do it after the skills have eroded. I remember Shaun Kemp when he could jump out of the building; after he got fat and could barely dunk the ball, it was something you wanted to turn your eyes away from. That was true in the final days of Willie Mays’ career when he was stumbling around the bases and not flying. In a similar sense, that seems to be happening to Joe Gibbs. When you watch a Redskins’ game, you almost want to avert your eyes when the cameras go to the sidelines for tight shots of a coach who is already in the Hall of Fame.

First of all, let’s get one thing straight. On game day, Joe Gibbs doesn’t coach the Washington Redskins any more. Maybe he coaches during the week, but I’d need to see that for myself to be completely sure. The team has an associate head coach for offense and an assistant head coach for offense and an offensive coordinator; Joe Gibbs does not call the plays. On defense he has an assistant head coach for defense and a defensive coordinator; Joe Gibbs never called plays on defense. He does not coach the special teams and there are myriad folks on the sidelines and in the booth to handle “details”. Here’s what Joe Gibbs does; he throws the red flag on the field when someone on the sideline or up in the booth tells him to get a play reviewed. And most of the time, the review results in the play standing as called with the Skins losing a timeout.

But Joe Gibbs does lead the NFL coaches in one category. Spitting. Watch him on the sidelines and in half the shots he’s spitting. Other NFL coaches may spit once a game; Gibbs is in danger of dehydrating based on the number of times he spits. Maybe he’s auditioning to become a baseball manager?

I am not – repeat not – suggesting that Danny Boy Snyder should fire Joe Gibbs. That would be a dangerous thing to do in Washington where there are Redskins’ fans who continue to bask in the reflected glory of his teams of 25 years ago. If you think I’m kidding, watch a Redskins’ game and you’ll continue to see the guys dressed in drag with pig snouts on. They’re D-list celebrities in town; they are still relevant here even though “The Hogs” all stopped playing football about 15 years ago. So, let me be clear, Joe Gibbs should not be fired.

And for that minority of Redskin fans who might wish that he would “step down”, let me say that’s not likely to happen. He has another year to go on a contract that will pay him something like $5M next year. To collect that, all he has to do is to let the 20 or so assistant head coaches/coordinators/whatevers do their thing and he can show up on 16 game days to spit and then hold about two “news conferences” a week. Would you “step down” if you had a job like that? I didn’t think so.

A lot has been written about the model of dysfunctionality that is the New York Knickerbockers. Perhaps lost in the nonsense that is going on in New York is a remembrance that Stephon Marbury once played in Phoenix and was traded to the Knicks in a big trade involving about a half-dozen players and draft picks. That trade allowed Phoenix the cap room – and the opening at the point guard position – to sign Steve Nash as a free agent at the end of that season. Talk about an upgrade; Stephon Marbury out and Steve Nash in…

With all the focus on the hot start by the Boston Celtics this season, people seem to have lost sight of how mediocre the NBA Eastern Conference is. At the moment, only four teams have records above .500. In the Western Conference, nine teams are over .500. But as we all know – painfully – the NBA is a LONG season and there are still about a million games to go until the playoffs begin and run for three months.

Lloyd Carr decided to retire as the head coach at Michigan and did so in a very low key press conference. So now the folks in Ann Arbor are out looking for a “new Carr” and they have their eyes on one that has “Les Miles” on it… [Ducking quickly to avoid veggies thrown from the audience…]

Finally, I began this piece telling you about how things were in times past when there were no free agents or guaranteed contracts. Now here’s a comment from Brad Rock in the Deseret Morning News about how things are today:

“Guaranteed contracts are an amazing thing.

George Carlin once said, ‘Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and paid just enough money not to quit.’

If they’re NBA players, the rules are just a little different: They don’t get fired no matter how little they work, and get paid far too much to quit.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…