11/23/24
September 21, 2003
Gregg Easterbrook at his best is one of the most insightful and funny NFL writers on the planet. Gregg Easterbrook at his worst is Salon columnist King Kaufman.
There is only one NFL columnist that matters.
posted by yerfatma at 11:50 AM on September 21, 2003
Tuesday lunch hour is one of my favorite times of the week, because I can read through TMQ and be both entertained and learn... he has excellent insight into the games as well as quick wit. I do wonder how on earth he manages to see all that he does... does he get tapes of each game or something? He gets so much done in just one day between the games and his column. I was especially impressed after week 1 since he was at the MNF game in Philly.
posted by Bernreuther at 06:28 PM on September 21, 2003
I find the TMQ columns entertaining even though I'd never read them before this year and don't really watch NFL and don't follow it too closely off screen. They seem to be a read in an of themself which attests to the entertainment value of his writing. But he made an error last week: It is impossible to calculate how many points Arizona scored per customer, because in mathematics, you cannot divide by zero. Uhh, 0 points / 23,127 Arizona customers = 0 points per customer. I think he was stretching to far to be clever and in making a "can't divide by zero and I mentioned that in my column about football and it makes it look like I'm so funny/smart" type comment he stretched it too far. Oops. Someone will probably write in to point that out to him. In haiku.
posted by gspm at 01:13 AM on September 22, 2003
Easterbrook need some new schtick, I think. He's great at first, but after four years of haikus, funny renamings for the NFL teams, "The average NFL completed pass play gains six yards, but...It's a blitz!", well, it's getting a bit old. And his fixation on the byline on Hillary Clinton's books is just weird. Oh, and he also needs to check the color on his TV, because on mine, the Bills' uniforms still feature red, white and blue.
posted by Jaquandor at 10:20 PM on September 23, 2003
Kaufman doesn't bring a whole lot to the table, but he can be good when he's going on certain topics (like the corruption of the NCAA). Easterbrook is a great football writer and a very intelligent person, but his politics do get into the way of his columns a bit too much (the Hillary Clinton thing has already been noted, and it's just the most recent example). Some of the non-football stuff he injects is a little odd (I'm in a hurry so I'm not going into more detail right now). My personal favorite football writer has been, and remains, Dr. Z.
posted by nath at 06:53 AM on September 25, 2003
Some Dr got the credit for calling him on his "can't divide by zero" misuse in the column this week.... ... but our good doc suggests that zero divided by anything is infinity?? huh? last I checked it was zero. my calculator says so and I believe a good chunk of math relies on the fact that zero divided by anything is zero. sigh. Well, it was Dr. Pete Watson of the University of Colorado. So he can see me pointing out his error if he googles himself. get it wrong once, boo. but to run a non-correction selected from the objections of "many math-minded readers" then I'll admit that his haikus and team renaming schtick is running a little thin with me already - and I have only been reading his column starting this season with his two part season preview.
posted by gspm at 12:24 PM on September 25, 2003
Perhaps this is one of those you-had-to-be-there moments, but I can't believe how closely Kaufman is trying to ape Easterbrook's tone -- and how bad it reads without an attempt to offer serious analysis. Some of these paragraphs are so light they should float off the monitor: TAMPA BAY (1-1) at Atlanta (1-1): Have you ever heard of that theory that good teams come back strong after embarrassing losses? Poor Atlanta. First Mike Vick gets hurt and now this.