WINNERS OF THE GAME OF LIFE

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“You win some and you lose some.” That’s a phrase that we often hear when someone is putting something that occurred in their life into perspective. I find that phrase interesting because it implies that life is a game that you can either win or lose. If that’s the case, we must all assess our life’s scoreboard and determine if we are currently ahead or behind in the game. Go ahead and take a minute to do that. If you feel like you are winning, please continue reading this entry and find out about life’s biggest winners. If by chance, you feel like you are behind right now, the rest of this entry will certainly give you hope for a second half comeback. I mean if these people are winning, I really don’t see any reason why you can’t also.

Personally I feel as though my life is pretty good, so I don’t have any complaints. I feel like I have a comfortable lead on the scoreboard and should be able to maintain it as long as I don’t put JR Smith (the modern day John Starks) in the game and let him shoot me out of contention. Although I feel good about my current position in the game, I know that there are some that have a more comfortable lead than I have. Those are the people that I will be talking about below. Since this is a sports themed blog, they will all come from the world of sports. Without further ado, I present to you the people that you should all hate because they are doing better than the rest of us, yet no one can explain why.

When I came up with the idea for this entry, I decided to enlist the help of my friends to come up with people who have basically kicked life’s a$$ and become the ultimate winners in the game of life. I must say, my friends are just as sarcastic and snarky as I am because they came through with some great ones. Some of which made the final cut. So shout out to all of you for your help with this entry!

Before I get into the individuals that made the list, I must first acknowledge an entire job classification. If you hold this job that pays from the mid-six figures to the low seven figures, you are truly winning. You get paid a princely sum to basically be a glorified office supplies manager. That job my friends, is the THIRD STRING NFL QUARTERBACK! The job description of the Third String NFL Quarterback is as follows:

Looking for an organized individual with some college football experience. Primary responsibilities include making photocopies of the starting quarterback’s playbook so that he will readily have a replacement available when he loses his, making sure that the quarterback meeting room is stocked with highlighters, dry erase markers, and note cards, and ensuring that the lunch order is successfully delivered to the intern. An applicant with a degree in psychology is desired because he will be able to listen to all of the whining and complaining that the starting quarterback does about the offensive coordinator. The candidate must also be self-motivated because he will receive 0 snaps in practice, because quite frankly no one cares about him being ready to play. Therefore he must be able to learn all of the running plays in the playbook on his own, so that he is prepared to hand the ball off as many times as necessary in the event that the two quarterbacks that we actually pay to throw the football are injured. A squeaky clean image and background is also required for this position, because the last thing we need is a scrub that never plays getting into trouble off the field and bringing negative press to our organization and the league. Finally, candidates with previous baseball experience at any level above little league will be given preference because they historically wear a baseball cap better than those with no baseball experience.

To be honest, this may be the best job in sports. If not it’s a close second to whatever is. Therefore all of the people fortunate enough to earn their living in this capacity, are truly winners in the game of life.

Now to the individuals that show us that our lives aren’t that good after all. Especially when compared to theirs.

Since I’ve lived my entire life in Atlanta, I think it’s only fair to start with people affiliated with my once beloved Atlanta Hawks. I know, I know, all of you think that I am about to talk about Joe Johnson here, and you are correct. I will get to Joe in a minute, but first we must discuss the ULTIMATE WINNER IN THE GAME OF LIFE, SHELDON WILLIAMS! Sheldon played his college basketball at Duke, which pretty much means that he was a system player with inflated numbers, as all Duke players not named Grant Hill were. For some reason in 2006, then Hawks general manager Billy Knight decided that Sheldon Williams should be the FIFTH PLAYER SELECTED IN THE NBA DRAFT! It was bad enough that the Hawks picked Sheldon, but the fact that there was no mystery around the pick made it worse. The fact that Williams would be the Hawks’ pick leaked days before the draft, so no one was surprised when it was finally announced on draft night, and even fewer people were surprised when he was a bust! To put in perspective how far back this decision set the Hawks franchise, we must remember two things. First there is the fact that the previous year, Knight chose Marvin Williams over Chris Paul and Derron Williams. Obviously that didn’t work out. Then Sheldon Williams was chosen over the likes of Rudy Gay and Rajon Rondo. And to think, Knight was shocked when he was fired as the Hawks’ GM.

Some people who aren’t familiar with Sheldon Williams are reading this and thinking, “He was a bust as a top five NBA pick, that must have been pretty tough to deal with. How does that make him a winner at the game of life?” Now I will answer that question. Most people who are as bad as Williams is at basketball (career numbers of 4.5 points and 4.3 rebounds per game) don’t last very long in the league. However, Williams has not only lasted, but he has managed to make over $12 million dollars in six short years. Oh, it gets better. He has certainly outkicked his coverage when it comes to the woman that he miraculously convinced to marry him. I’m not here to talk about how Williams looks (although he is definitely the starting power-forward on the All-Ugly NBA team), but it’s safe to say that a career as a Sean Jean model is not in his future. Yet somehow, he managed to get Candice Parker. Don’t get me wrong, Parker will never be confused for Paula Patton, but in her world of 6’4” WNBA players she is pretty much the equivalent of Beyonce. We must give props to Sheldon Williams because an over-drafted, terrible NBA player that may have been the inspiration for Shrek, has managed to hang around in the league for six seasons (so far), make more money than most people will ever see in their lifetime, and marry a women that is so far out of his league that even he must be surprised that she said yes. More power to you brother. You have definitely won the game of life.

This brings us to Williams’ former teammate and current holder of the title of “The Most Overpaid Player in the NBA,” Joe Johnson. Joe Johnson has never taken the Hawks past the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Joe Johnson is a career 17 points per game playoff performer (which is lower than his career regular season average). Joe Johnson was paid over $18 million this season (actually he received a prorated amount of that total due to the lockout, but that’s not important in this context). That’s outrageous, right? On the surface it is, but once you look further into his contract you will see that he was a relative bargain this season. Over the next four years, Johnson will earn salaries of approximately $20 million, $21 million, $23 million, and $25 million. The fact that LeBron, Wade, and Bosh will all be making less over the same period of time makes it fair to say that Joe is definitely winning the game of life.

Before I leave the NBA, I must talk about my fellow Georgia native, Kwame Brown. Can you imagine the feeling of being chosen as the first pick in the draft by His Airness, Michael Jordan? That has to be like being an unsigned rapper and Dr. Dre decides to give you a free track and Jay Z goes ahead and gives you a sixteen on top of that. A co-sign by such legends would really validate all of your hard work leading up to that point. The fact that Michael Jordan made Kwame Brown the first pick of the 2001 NBA Draft had to make Brown feel as though he was on his way to a Hall of Fame career. I mean if MJ thinks, you can play, you must really be good (I’m sure Adam Morrison agrees with that). Kwame’s career has been abysmal up to this point, except for his stellar 2003-2004 season (I say that tongue in cheek) when he averaged a career best 11 points and 7 rebounds per game. Since that was his third year in the league, many saw that season as the beginning of his breakout. They were wrong. It was an aberration, That was as good as it got. However, Kwame must thank his parents daily for giving him the tall gene. Simply because he is 6’11” and is coordinated enough to run up and down a basketball court without routinely tripping over his own feet, Brown has made a whopping $58 million dollars in the NBA. This total includes the nearly $7 million that Golden State paid him this season after he had spent the previous 10 years of his life convincing the entire league that he absolutely sucked! I guess their scouts saw something that no one else saw. No scratch that last sentence, what I meant to say was, I GUESS THEY HAVE BAD SCOUTS! Kwame Brown may not have figured out how to be a great basketball player, but he has certainly found the cheat code to win at the game of life.

Everyone who knows me, is probably thinking, “I know Tim Tebow is going to be on this list.” They’re probably thinking this because they know how I feel about Tim Tebow. But to be quite honest, mentioning Tebow in this entry would really be too easy. Luckily for you, I don’t care. You had to know that I couldn’t pass up a chance to talk about the guy who has yet to master the art of the forward pass, yet somehow became a starting NFL quarterback. Not only has Tebow managed to become a NFL starter, he has had the most fortunate things happen to him when he is on the field that make it seem (to those that don’t really know football) that he is actually a good player. Last season Tim Tebow somehow managed to lead the Broncos to the playoffs. They even managed to win a game once they got there. In order for him and the Broncos to be successful last season all of the following things needed to take place, and did:

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• Chicago Bears running back Marion Barber stupidly ran out of bounds to stop the clock late in the fourth quarter of a game that the Bears would have won, had Barber simply allowed himself to be tackled in bounds and run out the clock.
• New York Jets safety Eric Smith over-pursued on a play where his assignment was to keep backside contain, and allowed Tebow to get outside and run for a touchdown.
• The Oakland Raiders lose to the San Diego Chargers in the final week of the season. A game that would have put them into the playoffs over the Broncos.
• Pittsburgh Safety Ryan Clark misses the playoff game in Denver because he cannot play at the high altitudes in Denver because of a medical condition. In his absence Demaryius Thomas was able to beat the Pittsburgh secondary like a drum on his way to a career   day.   

The fact is that all of these things happened and the Broncos did have a small amount of success with Tebow at the helm. Although Tebow was unceremoniously kicked out the door by the arrival of Peyton Manning, he found a soft landing spot. He was traded to the New York Jets, who currently have the equally terrible Mark Sanchez at quarterback. Therefore it’s a pretty good chance that he will beat out Sanchez at some point during this season and once again become a starting NFL quarterback. Yet, he still hasn’t learned to throw the forward pass. That’s basically the equivalent of someone becoming a doctor, yet they don’t know how to interpret a blood pressure reading. I wouldn’t want that person to be my doctor and I wouldn’t want Tebow quarterbacking my favorite NFL team. Yet, there he is defying all odds and winning the game of life. Good for him. Bad for Jets fans, but good for him.

Finally we have everyone’s favorite football executive, Matt Millen. As an NFL player, Matt Millen won four Super Bowls. After his playing career, Millen went into broadcasting. He was successful in that realm and was widely considered as a rising star. For some strange reason, Millen thought that he would be a good front office decision maker for an NFL franchise. Boy was he wrong! In 2001 Millen became the CEO of the Detroit Lions. This job also included the football decision making duties that are usually held by a general manager. Upon taking the job in 2001, Millen’s Lions went 2-14. No sweat this was just his first year in charge. The fact that they were 9-7 the year before he took the job isn’t important. He was going to tear this thing down and build it back up the right way. In the 2002 season, the Lions made significant improvement and finished with a record of 3-13. Alright, so now Millen has had two seasons to get everything in place for the Lions to regularly compete for playoff spots. Of course 2003 was going to be their year. They finished 5-11. Guess what, Millen still has a job because he is pointing to steady improvement (from 2 to 5 wins) as evidence that he has the franchise pointed in the right direction. It didn’t get much better over the remaining four years of his tenure. Over the course of his seven years with the team, the Lions amassed a record of 31 wins and 81 losses. While with the Lions, Matt was responsible for the drafting of such stud players as Joey Harrington, Charles Rogers, and Mike Williams. With first round draft choices like those, is anyone surprised that the Lions were terrible during Millen’s tenure. Although he got out in time, Millen’s spectacular draft acumen laid the groundwork for Detroit’s historical 0-16 season in 2008. Looking at how bad he was as an executive you would think that it would suck to be Matt Millen. If you feel that way, you are sadly mistaken because not only was Millen able to keep the position in which he was historically bad, but the Lions paid him $50 million to run their franchise into the ground. You may want to take a pause and get a drink of water to let that sink in for a minute.

Thanks to the Lions’ ownership, Matt Millen is indeed a winner at the game of life.

I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY:

Instead of the usual lighthearted “Baller & Scrub of the Week” section that I usually close out each blog entry with, I would like to use this space to talk about what has been going on lately in my beloved NFL. As you all know by now, future hall of fame linebacker Junior Seau, recently took his own life. It has been widely speculated that brain trauma that occurred during his 20 year NFL career led to his decision to commit suicide. At this point, that is only speculation, because no one has studied his brain as of yet. Upon hearing of his death many NFL players have been thinking about their own mortality and the quality of life that they will be able to enjoy once the cheering stops and they are forced to join the real world with the rest of us.

Over the past two weeks, three players have decided to quit the game over concerns of suffering concussions and the lasting affect that they can have on the rest of their lives. Granted, none of these players are household names (two were undrafted rookies and one was an offensive lineman earning the veteran’s minimum), and no team will be holding a ceremony to retire their jerseys, but they are the first sign that players are starting to really ask themselves if it’s really worth it. For stars such as Michael Vick, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Calvin Johnson, and Larry Fitzgerald, the financial rewards for playing the game are so astronomical that they will have to be knocked out of the game before they decide to walk away by their own free will. Unfortunately for football players, the majority of them will never earn that type of contract, so they have to really think long and hard about the ramifications of their chosen profession.

I am the biggest NFL fan that I know, and I have long admitted to being the ultimate football hypocrite. As much as I love the game, I have never played it and I would NEVER let my child play it. I have always played a variety of sports throughout my life, so I understand the bumps and bruises that come with athletic competition. However, the types of injuries that you can get playing a game as violent as football simply aren’t natural. Football is one of the few remaining gladiator sports. It isn’t a contact sport, it’s a COLLISION sport. Every Sunday when a player fastens his chin strap, he is willingly going on the field to experience the equivalent of a car accident as many times as necessary to get the job done.

I freely admit that I would rather do what I do for a living for the money that I make, than play in the NFL for the money that they make. Unfortunately for the future of the NFL more and more people are beginning to think like me. First we have professional athletes quitting the sport. This will have both a trickle down and trickle up affect. The trickle down affect will be caused by the fact that parents are simply finding that the sport is unsafe and are starting to prevent their kids from playing it. This will undoubtedly affect the talent pool of people that the NFL draws upon. Granted, that affect won’t be felt for twenty years or more, but the talent drain has begun. The trickle up affect is caused by the fact that some players are going to start voluntarily ending their careers earlier than usual in order to minimize the number of collisions they put their bodies through. Take Keyshawn Johnson for instance. He played 11 seasons and remained relatively healthy throughout. Although he was still extremely productive in his 11^th season, he decided to count his blessings for his good health and move on with his life.

Like it or not the NFL has to change. The change has already begun with the new rules changes that are aimed at reducing the number of headshots that players take over the course of a game, and the force with which defensive players can tackle. Many people see this as making the game soft. I whole-heartedly agree with them. However, we as fans have two options. We can either embrace the kinder, gentler NFL or we can simply stop watching. The NFL has no choice in the matter because the lawsuits that they are facing from retired players are getting big enough to financially cripple the league if successful.

The NFL as we know it is about to change. The sport is simply too dangerous. The question facing Commissioner Goodell and the league’s owners is, will anyone watch?   

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