The sports media’s loudest Rodgers critique is that he’s getting in the way of their message; Cowherd’s main Rodgers critique is that he’s getting in the way of himself.
You should dive deeper into the changes wrought by "the cool kids at deadspin" and the like. Here's J.B. Bickerstaff after the Cavs suffocated the Bucks last night: “The beauty of it is, you can’t put numbers to it, you have to put time and care into it. That’s the human aspect of what we do. The computers want to take all that away from us. There’s so much more to be said about -- especially in teams -- togetherness, a genuine trust and care for one another. That support gives you an opportunity every night to be more than what you are as an individual.”
I think the Twitter dunking you talked about is more schadenfreude than anything else! At some level, watching sports nowadays is schadenfreude, we all like to see someone fail and dunking on them for what they did not do or how they failed - maybe that is now the communal experience of watching sports instead of enjoying the exploits.
Cowherd's aim was to explain Rodgers' failure as a football player. Twitter comments in this article are sarcasm.
The juxtaposition of the two is a bit confusing because their intent is so clearly different; so the wisdom of comparing their impacts is less clear. Earnest analysis is compelling differently than sharp sarcasm.
When I attempt a physics joke, I don't expect it to land me a Nobel prize. I agree that more Nobel-worthy research would be wonderful, but that doesn't imply that jokes have no place. (I am open to the argument that sarcasm is evil in principle; but it would require entirely different rationale, wouldn't it?) Conversely, a joke can be boring and shitty, but not because the humorist should have written a research paper instead.
I’m not sure if cowherd was correct at all but it was certainly more entertaining than reading the same vaccine joke 100 times. Not a very high bar though
I'm glad the Packers lost because I can't stand them as a Bears fan. But so, so many people were like "HURRRRRRRR He's immunized from winning" or whatever. Just the same copy/pasted bullshit they found on Twitter.
That plus the annoying, moralistic journalists you mention almost took the fun out of seeing Green Bay go down. Almost, but not quite.
I always repeat a mantra about the constant political output of sports media: my problem isn't with your position, my problem is with the banality of it. This was a great example of that.
Unfortunately, I part ways with the praise of Cowherd's position because it's just more insipid NFL content. I love the NFL but I'd rather listen to Bill Barnwell interview Mina Kimes and Jemele Hill about whether white men are a problem in America than consume NFL commentary. It's by far the stupidest of any sport and infinitely stupider than even a few years ago.
I recommend everyone try this: watch an NFL game and every time you see anything good or bad happen, audibly say "Great/bad [whatever it is, a throw, a catch, a block, a tackle] by [insert name of that team's QB]." Do that for an entire half and you'll have managed to recreate the idiocy of NFL commentary.
I wonder how this all plays out if Rodgers had simply emphasized a point he made with Pat McAfee- that he is allergic to a component of the mainstream vaccines, and needed to seek other treatments.
I think Cowherd's take is interesting and the way you jump off of it is really interesting. The part where you declare mainstream sports media boring is...boring.
"nothing quite left a mark like Cowherd’s monologues."
How do you measure this? In fact Rodgers came out today saying that he noticed people were piling on. Wouldn't you call that leaving a mark?
Also its bit misleading to compare a short tweet to a longer segment as part of a multi-hour radio show.
Furthermore, I listened to a lot of podcasts in the recent days and there are plenty of these same media members how probably don't like him due to vaxx issues who are also chiding Rodgers for the same reasons Cowherd is.
The Twitter stuff, as others have said, is just quick schaudenfreude, which is what twitter is for. You saying its boring is akin to your analogy about the vegan giving the steak restaurant a bad review.
I'm unmoved, Ethan. The Twitter dunking on Rodgers is understood to be just that. I don't see anyone making the connection between Rodgers views on vaccination (or the lying about it that actually got him in trouble) and his performance. What distinguishes widely held opinion from "hive mind?" Are people who don't like Rodgers entitled to feel that way, or are just parroting what's being fed to them by prestige media? As you know, media is pretty decentralized. It's not like everyone is tuning in to one of three networks and being told what to think.
Cowherd? Meh. Who is he to assess someone's character or makeup? He's not a reporter. He has no real insight. He's a talker. He watches the same games the rest of us do. When Rodgers won the super bowl, does Cowherd contend that he was just able to have just enough connective relationships that day? Cowherd asserted that John Wall would never win anything of substance because he grew up without a father (not because he had bad knees and took too bad shots). He said Mark Sanchez was destined for greatness due to his regal leadership qualities. On and on. He's just a talker who does a great and professional job of filling time in sufficiently entertaining (often because he's inflammatory) fashion to get ratings.
Cowherd's critique doesn't sting any more or less because he avoided Rodgers' lying about his vax status.
This is one of your best stinger endings. Sometimes they feel a little overwrought in an effort to end on a soundbite (though it's probably just me being overly critical). But this one landed perfectly.
One big takeaway I've had from cancelation debates is that talent (in the arts) and winning in sports cuts through it all. Rodgers didn't win, that's Cowherd's main crit. Cowherd is crit is that Rodger's behaviors harm his ability to win. Conor McGregor's insane trash talk becomes a little less interesting with each loss. More of a side note to the arts, but I've noticed that Michael Jackson is acceptable grocery store music again and I even see teens/early 20s (can't tell anymore) at wal mart or the gym rocking MJ shirts. Talent won out.
If you look at ESPN this week, there are so many stories about where Rodgers will play next year and if Brady will play again. These are not stories with any new information yet they dominate ESPN with everyone offering endless takes. I want sports stories about the games being played and those players.
This seems to me an incredibly interesting take from Colin Cowherd (his bombastic, click-bait approach has blinded me to what Ethan finds interesting about him in the past). Ethan, I wonder if you think this approach from the beehive is new since the pandemic and its issues became such divisive flashpoints, simply exaggerated by that, or just another honeypot for the bees to buzz around. Also, I'm brand new to all substack and specifically yours (heard about it from the Good Faith Effort podcast you did). Now I'm gonna need a lot more hours!
Good column from Ethan, though I would disagree with Cowherd to this extent-- if Rodgers' main goal is not to throw interceptions he sure manages to sneak a bunch of touchdowns into the bargain. Give me a cautious player like that any day.
To me, the Cowherd celebration falls apart when you realize how flimsy the argument he's making is.
Like, this was the defining failing play of Rodgers' game: 4th quarter, 3 min left, 3rd and 11, wide open guy coming across the field... and he throws "DOWNFIELD" to double coverage. It's not Rodgers as meek, it's Rodgers playing hero ball.
For Cowherd to take a shot at Rodgers and for it to be effective, it has to fit what actually happens. But that's Cowherd's weakness: he just says a whole lotta BS about these guys. The John Wall incident was particularly egregious.
While he's making a different kind of argument, being wrong and different isn't more powerful than being snarky and right — it's just even more irrelevant.
You should dive deeper into the changes wrought by "the cool kids at deadspin" and the like. Here's J.B. Bickerstaff after the Cavs suffocated the Bucks last night: “The beauty of it is, you can’t put numbers to it, you have to put time and care into it. That’s the human aspect of what we do. The computers want to take all that away from us. There’s so much more to be said about -- especially in teams -- togetherness, a genuine trust and care for one another. That support gives you an opportunity every night to be more than what you are as an individual.”
I think the Twitter dunking you talked about is more schadenfreude than anything else! At some level, watching sports nowadays is schadenfreude, we all like to see someone fail and dunking on them for what they did not do or how they failed - maybe that is now the communal experience of watching sports instead of enjoying the exploits.
Cowherd's aim was to explain Rodgers' failure as a football player. Twitter comments in this article are sarcasm.
The juxtaposition of the two is a bit confusing because their intent is so clearly different; so the wisdom of comparing their impacts is less clear. Earnest analysis is compelling differently than sharp sarcasm.
When I attempt a physics joke, I don't expect it to land me a Nobel prize. I agree that more Nobel-worthy research would be wonderful, but that doesn't imply that jokes have no place. (I am open to the argument that sarcasm is evil in principle; but it would require entirely different rationale, wouldn't it?) Conversely, a joke can be boring and shitty, but not because the humorist should have written a research paper instead.
I’m not sure if cowherd was correct at all but it was certainly more entertaining than reading the same vaccine joke 100 times. Not a very high bar though
I'm glad the Packers lost because I can't stand them as a Bears fan. But so, so many people were like "HURRRRRRRR He's immunized from winning" or whatever. Just the same copy/pasted bullshit they found on Twitter.
That plus the annoying, moralistic journalists you mention almost took the fun out of seeing Green Bay go down. Almost, but not quite.
I always repeat a mantra about the constant political output of sports media: my problem isn't with your position, my problem is with the banality of it. This was a great example of that.
Unfortunately, I part ways with the praise of Cowherd's position because it's just more insipid NFL content. I love the NFL but I'd rather listen to Bill Barnwell interview Mina Kimes and Jemele Hill about whether white men are a problem in America than consume NFL commentary. It's by far the stupidest of any sport and infinitely stupider than even a few years ago.
I recommend everyone try this: watch an NFL game and every time you see anything good or bad happen, audibly say "Great/bad [whatever it is, a throw, a catch, a block, a tackle] by [insert name of that team's QB]." Do that for an entire half and you'll have managed to recreate the idiocy of NFL commentary.
I wonder how this all plays out if Rodgers had simply emphasized a point he made with Pat McAfee- that he is allergic to a component of the mainstream vaccines, and needed to seek other treatments.
I think Cowherd's take is interesting and the way you jump off of it is really interesting. The part where you declare mainstream sports media boring is...boring.
"nothing quite left a mark like Cowherd’s monologues."
How do you measure this? In fact Rodgers came out today saying that he noticed people were piling on. Wouldn't you call that leaving a mark?
Also its bit misleading to compare a short tweet to a longer segment as part of a multi-hour radio show.
Furthermore, I listened to a lot of podcasts in the recent days and there are plenty of these same media members how probably don't like him due to vaxx issues who are also chiding Rodgers for the same reasons Cowherd is.
The Twitter stuff, as others have said, is just quick schaudenfreude, which is what twitter is for. You saying its boring is akin to your analogy about the vegan giving the steak restaurant a bad review.
I'm unmoved, Ethan. The Twitter dunking on Rodgers is understood to be just that. I don't see anyone making the connection between Rodgers views on vaccination (or the lying about it that actually got him in trouble) and his performance. What distinguishes widely held opinion from "hive mind?" Are people who don't like Rodgers entitled to feel that way, or are just parroting what's being fed to them by prestige media? As you know, media is pretty decentralized. It's not like everyone is tuning in to one of three networks and being told what to think.
Cowherd? Meh. Who is he to assess someone's character or makeup? He's not a reporter. He has no real insight. He's a talker. He watches the same games the rest of us do. When Rodgers won the super bowl, does Cowherd contend that he was just able to have just enough connective relationships that day? Cowherd asserted that John Wall would never win anything of substance because he grew up without a father (not because he had bad knees and took too bad shots). He said Mark Sanchez was destined for greatness due to his regal leadership qualities. On and on. He's just a talker who does a great and professional job of filling time in sufficiently entertaining (often because he's inflammatory) fashion to get ratings.
Cowherd's critique doesn't sting any more or less because he avoided Rodgers' lying about his vax status.
This is one of your best stinger endings. Sometimes they feel a little overwrought in an effort to end on a soundbite (though it's probably just me being overly critical). But this one landed perfectly.
One big takeaway I've had from cancelation debates is that talent (in the arts) and winning in sports cuts through it all. Rodgers didn't win, that's Cowherd's main crit. Cowherd is crit is that Rodger's behaviors harm his ability to win. Conor McGregor's insane trash talk becomes a little less interesting with each loss. More of a side note to the arts, but I've noticed that Michael Jackson is acceptable grocery store music again and I even see teens/early 20s (can't tell anymore) at wal mart or the gym rocking MJ shirts. Talent won out.
If you look at ESPN this week, there are so many stories about where Rodgers will play next year and if Brady will play again. These are not stories with any new information yet they dominate ESPN with everyone offering endless takes. I want sports stories about the games being played and those players.
This seems to me an incredibly interesting take from Colin Cowherd (his bombastic, click-bait approach has blinded me to what Ethan finds interesting about him in the past). Ethan, I wonder if you think this approach from the beehive is new since the pandemic and its issues became such divisive flashpoints, simply exaggerated by that, or just another honeypot for the bees to buzz around. Also, I'm brand new to all substack and specifically yours (heard about it from the Good Faith Effort podcast you did). Now I'm gonna need a lot more hours!
Good column from Ethan, though I would disagree with Cowherd to this extent-- if Rodgers' main goal is not to throw interceptions he sure manages to sneak a bunch of touchdowns into the bargain. Give me a cautious player like that any day.
To me, the Cowherd celebration falls apart when you realize how flimsy the argument he's making is.
Like, this was the defining failing play of Rodgers' game: 4th quarter, 3 min left, 3rd and 11, wide open guy coming across the field... and he throws "DOWNFIELD" to double coverage. It's not Rodgers as meek, it's Rodgers playing hero ball.
https://twitter.com/RyanMSampson/status/1485250029334011912
For Cowherd to take a shot at Rodgers and for it to be effective, it has to fit what actually happens. But that's Cowherd's weakness: he just says a whole lotta BS about these guys. The John Wall incident was particularly egregious.
While he's making a different kind of argument, being wrong and different isn't more powerful than being snarky and right — it's just even more irrelevant.