TMQ Watch: December 12, 2017.

Two weeks in a row, we have a column title that tells you everything you need to know. In this case, it tells you that Gregg Easterbrook is a low, mean, and contemptible person.

After the jump, this week’s TMQ

Roger Goodell Is Not the Man His Father Was

And there’s 1425 words you can have back. But we’ll elaborate a little. TMQ sees Goodell’s contract renewal as having two implications. One, that Jerry Jones got “smacked down by the league’s other owners”. Quite possibly so, at least temporarily. But if ratings keep declining and the league has more very public embarrassments, Jerry Jones (and Robert Kraft) may just be proven right.

The big implication of the new contract is that Goodell’s mega-payday should draw attention to the very subsidies the owners don’t want talked about.

See Gregg Easterbrook confuse a tax exemption with a subsidy again! (Ding!) Plus:

If the ability to copyright games played in publicly financed facilities were viewed as a subsidy to the NFL’s landed-aristocracy class—and it should be—as much as 90 percent of the league’s revenues would be seen as gifts from the working class to the aristocratic class.

“as it should be”? Does this also imply that if, say, Bruce Springsteen gives a concert in one of those stadiums and copyrights his performance, that’s a subsidy to Bruce Springsteen? If a large opera company performs in a tax-exempt venue, records that performance and holds the copyright to it, is that a subsidy to opera?

TMQ suspects that average people adding $30 million to Roger Goodell’s private portfolio would disgust Charles Goodell, Roger’s father.

And here we get into what makes us angry about this week’s column. Easterbrook devotes about 800 words to a worshipful screed about Charles Goodell, a Republican member of the House and Senate. He doesn’t cite a substantive legislative accomplishment of the senior Goodell during his 11 years in office (though he does mention that Mr. Goodell was pro-environment and anti-Vietnam) yet spends a sizeable portion of the column using his idealized image of the late Mr. Goodell to beat his son over the head about supposed failings: mostly that Roger Goodell is “fleecing the taxpayers” by accepting TMQ’s vaguely defined “subsidies”.

We have problems with the NFL, and with Roger Goodell. We agree with TMQ that violence and late hits are out of control. We agree that the league needs to get better about concussions.

But personally insulting the man by saying he’s “not the man his father was”? And:

Roger Goodell makes 100 times as much as Charles Goodell made, and does 1/100th the good.

Invoking the memory of someone’s deceased father to bash them because you disagree with them politically? This is personal insult camouflaged as sports writing. Gregg Easterbrook, your own father would be ashamed of you.

Stats. Sweet: Carolina. Sour: Indianapolis. Mixed: Philadelphia-Rams.

Alexa-controlled holiday lighting combines all that is of the moment: high tech, automation, and fake companionship.

We haven’t bought into this whole Alexa/Echo/lady in a tube ecosystem yet ourselves. But we’ve had to deal with setting Christmas light timers, unplugging and plugging light strings into hard to reach outlets, and all the other stuff that goes along with holiday lighting. Alexa-controlled holiday lights are nowhere near as silly to us as Gregg Easterbrook thinks they are.

Bowl games are bad for players. Well, except, maybe those who are noted by NFL scouts? But are NFL scouts going to the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl?

TMQ is seeking venture funding to found Reverse Stub Hub, in which people holding tix to bad NFL games pay others to take said tix off their hands.

This is a) an old joke and II) completely ridiculous. But why doesn’t TMQ try Kickstarter or IndieGoGo for funding? Hell, IndieGoGo will allow anything, including outright scams. Gregg Easterbrook should fit right in.

Planning to do something versus actually doing something: for example, resigning from the Senate. Yawn. But buried within this item is about 500 words of worshipful praise for the Trans Pacific Partnership:

…working-class Americans are shafted so the political and media elites can pretend to care about working-class Americans.

Except the case for TPP is a lot less straightforward than Easterbrook lays out. We don’t want to get into a detailed analysis of TPP, as we’re not trade experts and it would make this column nearly as long as one of Easterbrook’s. But for some good examples of arguments against TPP, mostly from the copyright/digital goods angle, try TechDirt’s coverage.

“Authentic Games”: here’s Easterbrook’s flimsy excuse, as promised, for removing the Chiefs:

…a road loss to a crummy team reduces an Authentic Games win total by one, and a home loss to a crummy team reduces an Authentic Games win total by two.

What defines a “crummy team”? And does this change in methodology impact any other teams?

What’s the definition of a crummy team? I can’t disclose my methodology because I don’t have one.

“All economic news is always bad.” Jacksonville allowed Seattle to gain 401 yards, but it feels like “the Jaguars very tough young defense is taking over from Seattle’s aging, injured defense”. What?

Having a franchise quarterback matters.

Not only did the perpetually woeful Browns, desperate for a quarterback, pass on the chance to select Wentz…

Yeah, he might have been a good choice. But the Browns have traded for or drafted “franchise quarterbacks” before and we all know how that’s worked out. Would Wentz be as good with the current Cleveland offensive line?

Having a franchise quarterback might be a necessary, but not sufficient condition. And we’d really like to see a proof of this.

Pass-whacky: Baltimore. The football gods need to get a damn job.

“Adventures in Officiating”: Indianapolis-Buffalo, Jacksonville-Seattle.

Sam Houston State 34, Kennesaw State 27. You’re welcome.

And that’s a wrap for this week, folks. Tune in next week and we’ll see if Gregg Easterbrook mounts any more vicious personal attacks on people he disagrees with.

Comments are closed.