Poppy
McGrath is who I thought he was; he's who I thought he was. I played him in Point-Counter Point preseason … McGrath is who I thought he was! That's why I took the damn field. Now if you want to crown him, then crown his ass! But he is who I thought he was, and I let him off the hook!
After leading by more than 20 points through the first three quarters of last week, my Point-Counter Point argument choked on the last day. To make matters worse, McGrath didn't even have one offensive vote; he scored all his points on defense — that is, stuffing the ballot at the last minute. Kevin Federline, are you kidding me?
Anyway … enough of the Denny Green references, because I can't afford a hangover like his Cardinals did against the Raiders last week. Even though he fits into this week's Best Sports Tirade argument, he doesn't deserve the honor. Only one crybaby is deserving of this prestigious award.
Living up to the hype of being the No. 2 overall pick in the draft is no easy chore, let alone being the guy picked behind Peyton Manning. Having a quarterback rating of 39 doesn't help, either. It was only a matter of time before Ryan Leaf blew up — everyone was just waiting for it.
Simply put, Leaf sucked. The fans knew it, his teammates knew it — heck, even he probably knew it. But what really ticked him off was once the media knew it — which didn't take very long.
Leaf was never a media darling so once he was caught in the locker room, shouting at a camera man, "Don't talk to me, alright!? KNOCK IT OFF!" all anyone could do was laugh. Better yet, teammates had to hold him back as he was livid following a simple question.
Best. Sports Tirade. Ever.
McGrath
I hear Poppy is complaining about his choking and me going against my high-ethical principles and voting for myself. I've only got one thing to say about his whining:
He needs to practice.
If Poppy can't practice, Poppy can't practice. It is as simple as that. He isn't about that at all. It's easy to sum it up if you're just talking about practice. We're sitting here, and he's supposed to be the franchise player, and we're talking about practice. I mean listen, we're sitting here talking about practice, not a column, not a column, not a column, but we're talking about practice. Not the column that he goes out there and dies for and types every key like it's his last, but we're talking about practice man. How silly is that?
The kid just doesn't want to practice, and that's why he's always getting taken down in the PCP.
Now I know that I'm supposed to lead by example and all that but I'm not shoving that aside like it doesn't mean anything. I know it's important, I honestly do but we're talking about Poppy's practice. We're talking about Poppy's practice man. We're talking about Poppy's practice. We're talking about Poppy's practice. We're not talking about my winning columns. We're talking about practice. When you come to Herald Sports, and you see me type, you've seen me type right, you've seen me give everything I've got, but we're talking about Poppy practicing right now.
Some people might think that the 'Answer' is my answer for my best sports tirade. Some people might be very wrong.
As great as Allen Iverson is, nobody can touch the greatness that is Jim Mora who has two candidates.
There's the world famous playoff rant where Mora responds to a question about his team's playoff chances as if he had been asked if he was planning to pose for a bikini calendar spread.
Then there is the lesser-known tirade where Mora uses the word "diddly-poo" before using much more common expletives. Classic.
And for bonus points, I'll even use my favorite Mora quote of all time to summarize Poppy's argument:
"In my opinion, that sucked."
Point: Mora.
