Mike Freeman Is Delusional

Just who is Mike Freeman you ask? Yeah, I did not know who he was either until I read this article in this morning's Inquirer.

So I visited the CBSSportsline website and in this week alone he has managed three articles on how bad the Eagles, Cardinals, and this year's Super Bowl will be. I won't necessarily go with block quotes here, but rather I'll rip him apart paragraph by paragraph.

"Who's playing defensive back for the Eagles, anyway? Pam Oliver? Philadelphia got beat by a flea flicker, the oldest trick in the book, first run by a Roman centurion, and mastered by 8-year-olds in backyards across America."

A defense is not aware of when a flea-flicker is going to be run, so unless they have some sort of supernatural powers, you can be caught off-guard by it. Do you expect that the defense will just dilly dally around as Edge (or whomever Warner originally tossed it to) bounces it to the outside on what appears to be a pitch. And also, Fitzgetrald was not wide open. The Eagles had the coverage in place except the defensive back slipped and fell right as Fitzgerald was making the catch, thus securing the easy touchdown. Nice collective memory, Mike! But wait, there's more.

"This one? This was the worst loss of them all because the Cardinals aren't very good, and the Eagles played the entire first half in a coma."

The fact that Larry Fitzgerald is having one of the greatest post-seasons anyone has ever had in NFL history and that they are led by a soon-to-be Hall of Fame quarterback, does not strike you as "oh, this is a really good team?" The Cardinals are a good team and they have proven it by advancing to the Super Bowl without any controversial calls. Even as an Eagles fan that just saw his team lose an NFC title game, I would never say that a team that has advanced to a Super Bowl was not very good. How idiotic can you get? Oh wait, there's more...


"Oh, many of us in the mainstream media (including me) will do our best to manufacture interest in this Super Bowl, but the media tried the same exact tactic with the World Series and that didn't work. Few watched. Here's what we're going to hear repeatedly for the next two weeks: Cinderella ... blah, blah ... Cinderella ... blah ... Cinderella ... blapity, blapity."

Okay, obviously Mr. Freeman does not remember the World Series, for if he did, he would know that a certain Game 3 did not start until a little after 10:00 at night and it did not end until 2 AM! That's not the fault of the teams, that's the fault of the commissioner for starting a game (that would prove to be a very long game) so effing late that of course people are not going to watch, they are tired! Had that game been rescheduled and started at 8 PM (with the first pitch being thrown, not the start of the pregame), then that game may have ended up getting higher ratings than the exciting Game 5 Version 2.0 did. Why, because having re-watched that game, it was a classic. In every sense of the word. And as far as Cinderella goes, the Cinderella story is how they got there, not in the actual game itself. This is not a game of lucky underdog vs. overwhelming favorite. It's a battle of the Cardinals' great offense vs. the Steelers great defense. And that is something that is always very interesting to watch. You think I'm done, I've saved the best 2 for last."

"The NFL itself helped to kill the Cinderella concept. Paul Tagliabue, the former commissioner of the league who should be in the Hall of Fame, was the champion of salary cap-generated parity. Well, here you go, Paul. The ultimate act of parity: The Cardinals are in the Super Bowl."

So you think that every Super Bowl should feature big-market teams such as New England and New York? Are you crazy? There's no doubt it was a great game last year, but this is what's great about the NFL. You get teams like the Arizona Cardinals who hobble into the playoffs, and yet, they finally discover their potential and get hot at the right time and make it into the Super Bowl. This is something that you rarely see in just about any other sport. And guess what? It's a thing of beauty.

And lastly...

"Maybe next year we'll get a real Super Bowl."

Do us a favor and shut the fuck up.

Mike Freeman Demonstrates His Idiocy Part 1 (CBS Sports)
Mike Freeman Demonstrates His Idiocy Part 2 (CBS Sports)