Colin Cowherd

[Ring 6]

I typically find him arrogant and annoying, but one thing he is is reasonable. His typical attitude is the 'conspiracy theorists' are morons, and everything is pretty much what it seems to be.
This morning I was listening to him talk about Donegy.
To paraphrase he said something like:

What do you expect. The guy had it made, and the league kicked him out. He is bitter and 'throwing a hand grenade into the room hoping some people get hit'. He said the guy had the life, now he has nothing, and he wants to strike back, so he creates some type of potentially believable story, and throws it out there hoping to damage the league, because of his problems. He is a disgruntled former employee who is vengeful. He used the analogy that if you worked in the White house for 20 years, were a loyal employee, then did something and got fired, what would you do? What until the eve of the election then drop some bombshell at exactly the point it will get themost attention. Truth doesnt matter, you want attention, and revenge.

As I listened to it Ithought, if you changed Tim Donegy to Matt Walsh it is exactly the same thing.

Why has no one really picked up on discrediting Matt walsh as a disgruntled employee who was fired from his job so he waited until the day there would be the most coverage, and took a potshot at his former employer, who fired him, for revenge?

I just found it funny how there is a mounting effort to say Donegy is just making things up because he pissed at the league, and the coverage about walsh has not come close to including comments about how he was FIRED, and FIRED employees have a habit of trashing the company that fired them and trying to exact revenge.

 

[jbb9s]

Bill Simmons made the same analogy in his piece today for that worldwide sports agency.

The difference is that people learned their lesson from Walsh and now are treating this x-ref with skepticism. If the two events occurred in reverse order, Walsh would have no traction and the Patriots would be in better public light.

 

[Pats Fanatic]

I think that problem is with the NBA. Their Refs are bad, period which is root of the conspiracy theories. The league better get a hold on it, they are destroying what can be a great game.
Look at the Finals now Phil Jackson complaining that they wee getting the call now last game presto they are getting the call. That looks bad it really does. Personally I liked it better when that only had two refs, the games ran much smoother.

 

[jmt57]

As annoying as Cowherd's style can be, he can make good points. He was one of the very few associated with espn that didn't take the easy path of trying to increase ratings by making spygate appear to be something more than what it was, and called out those that were making wild accusations.

 

[Rob0729]

There are several reasons why the media have not trashed Walsh in any way shape or form, but laid into Donegy:

1.) First and foremost, the media hates Belichick and visa versa. Belichick has had a contentious relationship with the media dating back to his days as a head coach with the Browns and it has only gotten worse. There are a lot of people in the media who want him to fail.
2.) The storyline sells better if Walsh is played as the poor innocent whistleblower rather than the disgruntled employee. Donegy's story sells better if he is the rouge ref who is caught up in this huge gamble sting. News is entertainment today and positioning the story to make it more interesting to the public.
3.) An off shoot of the last point, the media needs to put a face on their villian. Donegy and Belichick are better faces than Walsh and the entire NBA.
4.) The media knows that the NFL can survive the Spygate scandal. That can't be said of the NBA if they are exposed as rigging games. ESPN and other news outlets have too much of a financial investment in the NBA to have it turn into a fringe sport like boxing did when it went from a PPV giant to an afterthough after it was exposed for cherrypicking heavyweight contenders.

 

[PatsDeb]

I know I am probably in the minority (esp. since I am a woman), but I find most of Colin Cowherd's rants hysterical. I'd rather listen to him than almost any other sports talk show host.

 

[spacecrime]

To me, the difference is the way the media was led into their responses.

Stern: He is making stuff up.

Goodell: If this is true I will punish the Patriots further.

 

[Rob0729]

To me, the difference is the way the media was led into their responses.

Stern: He is making stuff up.

Goodell: If this is true I will punish the Patriots further.

Well, considering the whole new scandal with Donegey stems from Stern's decision to sue Donegey for a million dollars, I think Goodell may have handled the situation better than Stern.

I'm sorry, but I think Stern's response is going to hurt the game of the NBA for far longer than people think. If there is one sport that needs an investigation it is the NBA because the refs are horrible and biased towards home teams and superstars.

Spygate is over except for a fringe few in the media. The shadow of whether the refs fix games will hang over the NBA for a long time. People are already asking how in game 2 of the finals the Celtics didn't get many penalties at all and the Lakers got a ton and then in game three the exact opposite happened. People already assume the fix is in with the NBA.

 

[Eugene Chung]

I think one of the critical differences between Donaghy and Walsh is that an NBA ref has a much larger impact on the game than some guy who cuts video footage. Having the higher-ups tell the "impartial" referees to fix a game is just as bad as point shaving. It completely mitigates all of the NBA's statements regarding the legitimacy of the game. While Spygate was bad, I think people were more concerned with the legitimacy of the Pats; not the NFL.

Also of importance is the fact that Donaghy was doing this because of legal troubles; you can't randomly say things to attorneys to bring down a former employer. Walsh was doing his thing because of some axe to grind.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of troubling parallels between the two men and their claims.

 

[Sean Pa Patriot]

Not to reahash old crap, but Tomosee and Spinctor ,were the chosen ones who brought up spy gate, Walsh was just the focus part of it.. Wow its been a month since we heard that name matt walsh.. That thud you heard was him falling off the face of the earth..


I do like Colin Cowheard, the most reasonable personality on espn radio..

 

[Patjew]

I do like Colin Cowheard, the most reasonable personality on espn radio..

I agree w/that. Eminently listenable, especially on all of those long RI to Montreal drives I used to do.

 

[DarrylS]

To me, the difference is the way the media was led into their responses.

Stern: He is making stuff up.

Goodell: If this is true I will punish the Patriots further.

Excellent point, Stern exhudes confidence in the NBA while Goodell minimized his own organization and left a lot of room for skepticism. Personally would have preferred Stern's method and found all that Goodell did in this situation was to fan the flames.

 

[borg]

Face it...the NBA is fixed. Any sport that has different rules for its stars than its role players is not legitimate. The Jordan era convinced me that the league had evolved into entertainment verses sport. The league had become so watered down through expansion that the rosters were full of one skill players and big bodies with the exception of the one to two skilled "stars". Think about the talent the Lakers had on their roster in the 80's verses today's Laker team. There is no question that refs protect their Stars while the Big Baby Davis' of the league are the refs whipping posts.

 

[Leave No Doubt]

Excellent point, Stern exhudes confidence in the NBA while Goodell minimized his own organization and left a lot of room for skepticism. Personally would have preferred Stern's method and found all that Goodell did in this situation was to fan the flames.

Bingo:singing: While I may not agree with Stern's overall take (the NBA DOES have it's issues too), at least he publicly stands behind his organization and avoids the lynch-mob mentality that GODell fed into. His dismissal also indicates a respect for the fact we're in the middle of a much-awaited Championship series between 2 legendary teams, and that the BS can just wait on the back burner. If he does decide to investigate furthur, we probably won't hear about it until after the trophy's awarded, which is exactly how it should be.

Take a lesson, Rog.

 

[dhamz]

Face it...the NBA is fixed. Any sport that has different rules for its stars than its role players is not legitimate.

Hate to break it to you, every sport has different rules for its stars versus its role players. It is more human nature than anything below board. The plate is 6 inches wider for the Greg Maddox/Tom Glavines/Curt Schillings types and the strike zone smaller for stars. Frank Thomas career actually fell off the table when he angered umpires and they started calling balls/strikes for him like everyone else. The NFL has had embarassing season long situations like Joe Montana's Chiefs not getting a single holding penalty all year and the Colts not getting a single pass interference or illegal contact in the regular season - 2 penalties that everyone admits can be called on every play.

The NBA is no worse than anyone else - it just has the most subjective sport. Nearly every foul call in basketball can go either way - the equivalent of the judgement call NFL refs make when calling pass interference. We all know how horrendous NFL refs are at that call.

 

[castlelong1]

You listen to Colin Cowherd on ESPN radio. Um, do you like having bamboo driven under your fingernails too?

 

[Rob0729]

Excellent point, Stern exhudes confidence in the NBA while Goodell minimized his own organization and left a lot of room for skepticism. Personally would have preferred Stern's method and found all that Goodell did in this situation was to fan the flames.

I still don't see how Stern sticking his head in the sand and ignore a problem that has been much discussed even without the accusations of fixing games. Stern taking a strong stance and saying games aren't fix and not fix the problem of refs actually fixing games by pandering to the hometown crowd by calling calls against the home team and letting stars like Kobe, LeBran, Garnett, Pierce, etc. get all the favorable calls will keep the allegations hanging over him.

For any many people I heard attacking Donaghy on radio in the last 24 hours, I heard 3-4 questioning the integrity of the refs this entire playoffs. The NBA has a serious problem with their referees that is hurting the sport with or without Donaghy. It is driving fans away from the sport.

Stern to say there is no problem when everyone in the world knows there is a problem is no better than what Goodell did. It is the equivalent of the captain of the Titanic telling people not to go to the lifeboats because there is absolutely no way the Titanic can sink. Then again the captain of the Titanic was very successful in squashing that bogus rumor that the Titanic hit an iceberg and was sinking based on how few people actually got in the lifeboats.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Historically Stern has certainly managed the media more effectively than our rookie commissioner. He has also established and cultivated influence (ala Tagliabue) with political powers who would then have his back - something MLB's commissioner failed to do. But the lesson he may learn is despite his power and influence, paying minimal lip service to growing concerns about the legitimacy of his sport may place him in the congressional crosshairs. Everyone who is anyone mocked Canseco as the disgruntled former player looking to make a buck off a league he claimed had blackballed him - and look where that led...

The Walsh situation was much different given the limited nature of the allegations coupled with the fact that no one including Walsh was able or willing to go on record even alleging the incident in fact ever happened. What was similar though was a related incident had been proven to have happened...taping defensive signals - ref calling games he was gambling on. The media chose to pile on the first, but are tiptoeing around the latter. And it's hard not to arrive at the conclusion that is the case because the former involved just one team with a HC they were not fond of while the latter involves an entire professional league's integrity and that league is led by a powerful man with a history of not tolerating critics.

Stern needs to look at the NFL model when it comes to officiating. Subjectivity and human nature being what they are, there will always be questionable calls in sports. Coaches and players should be heavily fined for complaining, and if that doesn't shut the whiny excuse makers up, suspensions. But he also needs to make the process more transparent with evaluations and explanations or at the end of the day all his power and influence may end up netting him is the unenviable decision to take one for his league. I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist but that this league caters to it's stars and but more significantly may have manipulated series or skewed outcomes to bolster images or spreadsheets does has a ring of truth to it.

 

[NEPatriot]

He is the only one who doesn't trash Pats or BB. His show is OK. He doesn't have a lot of respected guests on the show and he doesn't talk about 'sport' all the time.

He talks about sport for X seconds and his car, kid, restaurant, or whatever for Y seconds. I don't find his show interesting any more.

 

[Kontradiction]

I think that problem is with the NBA. Their Refs are bad, period which is root of the conspiracy theories. The league better get a hold on it, they are destroying what can be a great game.
Look at the Finals now Phil Jackson complaining that they wee getting the call now last game presto they are getting the call. That looks bad it really does. Personally I liked it better when that only had two refs, the games ran much smoother.

This was particularly evident in Game 3 of the Finals. My God, those calls were horrible. Apparently, I could see the game and what the players were doing from my television set over 1,000 miles away than the refs could that were right on the court with them. How can you not be a conspiracy theorist with calls like that?