And Finally The Season Is About to Begin…

The Packers Literary Corner is dedicated to recognizing excellence in print and broadcast football journalism.

After conducting exhaustive, statistically sound research for more than 20 years, involving sampling the opinions of countless hundreds of football fans in various states of intoxication in sports bars throughout the US, and spending thousands of hours reading and listening to everything I could find about the sport of pro football, I reached a startling--but inescapable--conclusion:

THE BRIGHTEST, MOST TALENTED FOOTBALL WRITERS AND BROADCASTERS ARE THOSE WHO SAY NICE THINGS ABOUT THE GREEN BAY PACKERS.

Unfortunately, a corollary conclusion from my research revealed that the people who are the most negative about the Packers tend to have seriously enfeebled minds.

Today we will present both kinds of writing to you:

KUDOS and CONGRATULATIONS GO TO a citizen/journalist named Felipe from New Canaan, Connecticut, as quoted in Peter King’s Internet column of Tuesday, September 5:


"I know the Packers did horribly last year and so expectations should be much lower. But I don't understand why we are counted out by every expert. We had the No. 7 defense last year and it improved during the offseason. We have our top two running backs back, which should lead to Brett Favre throwing less and making fewer interceptions.”

You can see the letter to Mr. King in full at:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/peter_king/09/05/mailbag/1.html

This was fine, fine literary work.
--Thoughtful
--Reasonable
--Clear
--Positive
--Polite. The writer could have begun with a personal attack such as, "Your predictions for the Packers suck." But, of course, Packer People don't behave that way. Instead, he graciously conferred the status of "expert" on Mr. King, to whom he sent the letter.

Now let’s turn our attention to a benighted lad named Adam Schein at FOXSports.com, who attempted to write a column about predictions for the upcoming season. The attempt failed.

You can read it in its dismal entirety at: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/5934082

Here’s what he predicted for the NFC North teams:

“NFC North
1. Bears 10-6
2. Lions 7-9
3. Vikings 7-9
4. Packers 3-13

Packers: I toyed with 2-14 for the Packers.
But I just like Greg Jennings and Abdul Hodge too much.
Or something like that.”

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WOW. This is breathtaking in its absurdity. Packers Literary Corner has difficulty understanding how a sentient being could bring himself to publish something this foolish.

Then I noticed the picture of Mr. Schein at the top of the column. He appears to be about 12 years old. So this again shows why it can be dangerous to turn children loose on word processors.

He might take note that discerning readers generally demand more rigorous analysis than, “Or something like that,” to back up outlandish conclusions.

Luckily, writers generally gain wisdom and maturity as the years go by. To be fair, in 15 years or so we my take a look at Adam’s work again, to see if he has made progress toward lucidity. Based on his work quoted here, noticeable progress may take the full 15.