Mike Florio's levels of magnitude

Mike Florio is the head honcho over at Profootballtalk, a site that has been pretty big over the past few years before blowing up recently and moving under the NBC umbrella. Well, while I do follow his site for the rumors which, regardless of what people say, seem to me to be correct more often than not (empirical observation, of course). That being said, however, Florio seems to have a penchant for posting absolutely asinine comparisons and observations for whatever reason...ratings, slow news days, just feels like he has to get things up because he's all NBC and shizz...and, as today's example was Stillers-related, I found myself taking extra umbrage at it's ridiculousness.

Will the Steelers put Jeff Reed on a short leash?

Uhhh...I don't think so. It was one game. He's been awesome for them for a few years now. What are we going to do if Reed is on a short leash? Go for it more? Have Sepulveda punt it through the uprights?




The Steelers have demonstrated a clear double standard of late as to players who get in trouble off the field.

They absolutely have. I'm not going to deny that. In fact, I've been on record as saying that the "Steeler Way" is nothing but a myth that we yinzers buy into just to pretend that we are above the fray when it comes to signing players of questionable chara....wait. HOLD ON ONE MINUTE. You aren't going where I think you are going with this, are you, Florio?








When receiver Cedrick Wilson allegedly roughed up his girlfriend, he was cut.  When linebacker James Harrison allegedly did the same thing, excuses were made on Harrison's behalf.

Right. That's absolutely true and it should pretty much shatter the "Steeler Player" myth that has been propagated about in the past. Both of these guys are wife-beaters, one just happens to be awesome (Harrison) while the other, for whatever reason, was never really embraced by the city (Wilson). I'm not going to get into this issue, though, because I don't see what it has to do with Jeff Reed missing field goals. Continue, Florio.




It's a common dynamic in sports.  Teams make examples out of guys they deem replaceable.  A separate set of rules applies to the stars.

I've gone into this before. It's not just sports. Listen, if you are a superstar accountant and you can fucking debit and credit like a maestro, you are going to get special treatment by your company when you go out and beat your wife (in most cases, at least). If you are a huge benefit to your company with your accounting, you will get a lot of leeway. However, if you always show up drunk, credit your debits and like, jizz all over your company's general ledger weekly, and then you go out and get arrested for indecent exposure at a local Taco Bell, you are probably going to get fired. It has nothing to do with sports. Whatever. Tell me how this would place Reed on the business end of a short leash, PFT.




And there's where kicker Jeff Reed comes in.  He arguably blew the game for the Steelers in Soldier Field on Sunday, missing twice in the fourth quarter.  In the offseason, he was arrested for beating up a paper towel dispenser.

Holy mother of fucking Christ, Florio. Holy. F-ing. Lord.

Are you legitimately comparing beating your fucking wife to getting drunk and breaking a PAPER FUCKING TOWEL DISPENSER???? Are you? Aren't you supposed to be a lawyer by trade? This is one of the dumbest comparisons I've ever heard in my life, and that's saying something because I've read Romeo Crennel's "Comparing Land Wars in Asia to Breeds of English Hunting Dogs" from cover to cover. One is a misdemeanor, punishable by like, a $600 fine. The other is BEATING YOUR FUCKING WIFE.

Let me amend my earlier comparison of accountants. Say you are the good accountant, and you don't hit your wife, but instead you get arrested for breaking a light in the street. You don't do any jail time, don't miss any time at work, your work isn't even affected. You pay a $600 fine and it goes away. You aren't getting fired. But then say you have a bad week at work three months later. You still probably wouldn't get fired...I mean, that happens to everybody. Now, the bad accountant, the guy who jizzes on your company's books, let's say he goes out and fucks the boss's 14 year old daughter in the company parking lot. Would he get fired? I don't know. Let's ask Florio.




At the time, the Steelers gave him a pass.  If he keeps missing key kicks, the incident could resurface as partial justification for giving him boot.

I'm sorry, I wasn't really paying attention because the part of my brain that processes information was busy declaring a jihad on my eyes. Are you now saying that if Jeff Reed keeps missing kicks, they are going to cut him not because he's, well, missing kicks, but because he's missing kicks AND punched a paper towel dispenser four months ago.




"Of course this is uncharacteristic of him," coach Mike Tomlin said. "He just kicked the game-winner in overtime last week, and that's what we're used to.  We aren't used to what happened with him today."

It was very characteristic of him, however, when he DIDN'T BEAT HIS WIFE.




Though it's highly unlikely that the Steelers will dump Reed after only one bad game, we'll be interested to see whether they fire a shot across the bow by bringing a couple of free agents to the practice facility on Tuesday to see how they swing their legs.

Would have as much to do with a Sheetz towel dispenser as John Holmes' AIDS had to do with the Michelson-Morley experiment, which showed that the Earth's atmosphere was not made out of "ether".




And if Reed doesn't turn it around quickly, he likely won't be around for his seven-year anniversary with the team in November, when he got a chance in 2002 due in part to the fact that the guy who had the job at the time wasn't very good at it.

Right. Because he'd be a field goal kicker who was missing a bunch of field goals. Not because he got drunk and beat on a wall-mounted piece of plastic.

I have a feeling there will be many more of these to come.