Unverified Voracity: Simmons Is A Donkey Edition

Hopefully this annual rite -- Michigan defender is undrafted due to mediocre-at-best college career, then impresses NFL team enough to make team -- will cease with Ron English in charge. This year's frustrating NFL candidate is Pierre Woods, who you may vaguely remember had a hell of a 2003 before disappearing into Carr's doghouse.

Also: Braylon article. Has mention of the Browns signing LeSueur.

Tom Brady has a phone, news at 11. Deadspin skewers the New York Daily news for running a story with the headline "Brady Liked To Balco," as the link was one phone call about a future workout that never transpired. Also, Brady does not need steroids since he's a freaking quarterback. And he operates on dreaminess alone.

There's not a whole lot of meat in this Washington Post article on Michigan, but it does have this amazing lead:

As he spoke about last year's mess at Michigan, Coach Lloyd Carr's eyes drifted over toward his star running back, who was busy answering questions about his favorite foods and what song was playing on his iPod.

Way to use precious questioning time, media guys!

File under "questions that answer themselves." WSJ shows us this copy of RJYH signed by Tyrone Willingham:



He then poses a series of questions about the cryptic inscription:

Thanks for letting me bring the Huskies to the Southeast. Go Dawgs! Ty Willingham.

One ("How did Broadway Mylosh welcome the University of Washington to the Southeast?") I cannot answer. One ("What dawgs, specifically?") I can: the Washington Huskies, often nicknamed the "Dawgs," are supposed to go. And one answers itself:

why, why is Ty Willingham trying to pass himself as a writer of narrative nonfiction when EVERYONE knows he's a football coach??

MGoBlog: Carty's attack on Amaker "nonsensical." The Diag transcribes some of Jim Carty's latest appearance on WTKA:

"I've got a little complaint and it goes to the heart of what's wrong with Tommy Amaker. I had breakfast with Tommy a few weeks ago ... but of course we talked about his staff. I said, "I just can't understand why you won't shake up your staff" ... He said, "I'm not doing anything with my staff, I have total confidence". So what does he do?

Not only does he shake up his staff, but he announces it while he's en route to Australia so he doesn't have to face any questions. It's gutless. Calculated, gutless, reverse of course, totally ignore what I said before, I'm going to do something else.

For the record, the "staff shakeup" consisted of swapping the duties of two coaches and passed without mention on this blog because of its obvious lack of newsy qualities like "impact" or "interest." Carty's weird.

Update: M'n'B has more.

Simmons roulette lands on "bash." Ok. One last tiny poker diversion, but only to give Simmons a good rubbishing. Good God. Simmons managed to crash out of the World Series of Poker without thoroughly embarrassing himself -- when the chips went in he had his opponent down 6-1 -- but that went out the window when he published his column on his experience, a 1200 word bad-beat story worthy of Hellmuth or Matusow. Here's the lead:

I believed Mike McD for eight years. "People insist on calling it luck," he kept saying sarcastically. Sure. We all knew better.

I find it hard to believe that Simmons did anything but luck his way into a dominating position since he clearly knows zero about actual poker. Exhibit A:

Holding K-10 suited, I called his $550 bet along with two others. The flop? K-10-6. First guy called. Jeff came barreling in for another $1,200. Third guy folded

"Checked."

Exhibit B:

I had the best hand (nobody had trips, I could tell from the body language).

Ha ha ha ha. Ha. Ha.

Exhibit C:

At the final table, no famous pros were left sitting.

Perhaps you can debate the fame of Alan Cunningham -- he has appeared in no movies with Matt Damon -- but he is one of the world's best players and certainly a pro.

Exhibit D:

Second, I needed to steal that $3,400 in the middle. Third, having played one big hand in two hours, everyone would know I meant business with an all-in wager. And fourth, with 20 grand in chips, Jeff George might be dumb enough to call me. Which he was. And you know what this nitwit had? [AK -ed]

This is the same hand with the top two pair and one super aggressive nut betting into you. You're not trying to steal the pot and you're not particularly worried about the one other player in the hand. And for God's sake, you got your stack in as a huge favorite. That, at least in my world, constitutes skill.

You know that guy online who gets sucked out on by some donkey and fills the chatbox with "OMG LOL U SUX FISH"? Yeah. Probably Bill Simmons.

Etc.: Phil Kessel is gone (confirmed -- not broken -- by EJ Hradek, via Bruce Ciskie); Debord says the bootleg may be back.