The Disagreeal

OK, I'll bite.

Sean Taylor -- Your whole point here seems to be, "I was wrong about Sean Taylor, but I'm not going to retract, because I could have been right." Which is fine, except that you were still wrong. And so were most of our commenters with their half-assed theories about his "bad life decisions." Turns out he just got robbed because he was rich.

I'm not even going to talk about race, for once. But, all due, your take on Occam's Razor seems off. First of all, I think you extend Occam's Razor well beyond its actual jurisdiction, which is scientific, and I think it loses a lot of its sharpness when used metaphorically to discuss a sports-related murder. But even beyond that, you're wrong that the simplest explanation is that his past led to the attack. The simplest explanation, logically, is that it was a robbery gone awry, because that doesn't rely on some overblown and mostly speculative beef stemming from a gun-brandishing incident that happened years ago. The simplest explanation is exactly what happened.

Forgive me if I don't care what a backup cornerback who was in Phoenix at the time thinks. I'll take the word of the experienced people who are paid to investigate these kinds of things, who all seem to say that it was a robbery. And it also doesn't matter to me that you and Anonymous #2 could have been right -- you weren't.

The Pats -- This whole greatest ever talk is retarded, and I'm sorry I was the one to instigate it on this blog. (Although, to be fair, I was far from the first person to bring it up in the sporting world at large.) I don't care if the Pats win the rest of their games by 50 points apiece -- they're not the greatest ever.

They're playing in the most mediocre NFL in memory, a league that has three -- I'll give you four if you really want to debate it -- legitimately good teams. Their division, against whom six of those wins will come, might be the worst NFL division I've ever seen. They should have lost the last two weeks, to teams that are currently 5-7 and 4-8, respectively. Both made the NE defense look terrible, despite starting backup QBs. They couldn't run the ball against either. They won because of suspect playcalls and extremely suspect -- I mean conspiracy theory iffy -- penalties.

It's asinine that we're even talking about this as a possibility, and it's just another sign of the inanity of contemporary sports culture, which rushes to beknight every good team or player as the best ever, even before they've actually accomplished anything. It's utter stupidity. It's like we've all joined the cast of the Best Damn Sports Show Period for their nightly list feature, "Top 20 All-Time Greatest NFL Teams Who Went 12-0."

Thankfully, I think the whole discussion will end soon, because if they play anything like they have the last two weeks, they won't beat the Steelers.

Instant Replay and Peavy -- I'm with you on both.

Wolf, Milledge, and Dukes -- Too early on all three counts. You're mistaking potential for results yet again.

Wolf -- Overall, yes, I agree that it's a shrewd move by a great GM. But let's not forget that this is a guy who's missed most of the last three seasons with various arm injuries, and wasn't that good to begin with. The reason it's a shrewd move has much less to do with the player Randy Wolf is and a lot more to do with how cheap he came.

Milledge -- So the Mets traded their second-best outfield prospect for a guy (Church) who will contribute almost exactly what Milledge would have next year (check their respective stats), as well as a defensive catcher they needed. (I know the value of a good defensive catcher is anathema to the stattys of the world, but it exists.) The only reason it strikes me as odd is because of Estrada. You're also neglecting the fact that Milledge is a notorious headcase who may never put it all together.

Dukes -- Speaking of notorious headcases, let's take a look at your rationalization of Dukes' character. He's "done some bad stuff"? His actions are "reprehensible for sure"? Excuse me -- dude didn't throw a rock through a window, or even take the Clear: HE THREATENED TO KILL HIS GIRLFRIEND AND HER CHILDREN! Then he sent a picture of the gun he was going to use! And that's just the latest in his string of sociopathic behavior. He's a horrible human being, and I don't care if he throws 150-mph fastballs or has a VORP of 872: he doesn't deserve a second chance. Sure, he'll get one. Of course he will, because he hasn't made the mistake of doing steroids and outlasting his welcome. But he doesn't deserve it. I'm actually just fine with saying that people who terrorize women and children don't deserve second chances, thank you very much.

Sure, maybe he'll be the MVP in four years. But that's far from a foregone conclusion. In fact, given the potential that he's actually shown in both arenas, it's a lot more likely that he'll be in jail by then. So let's hold off a bit before we say how much of a steal he is.

A note on comments: You'll notice that comments are disabled for this post. They will be for the rest of my posts from here on out. It's the only way I'm willing to continue doing this. Some of you offer some real and much-appreciated insight in our comments section, and to you I sincerely apologize. But I'm not willing to deal with the rest anymore.

The fact is that comment sections are almost invariably full of stupidity, snark, ad hominem, or worse. Look at any newspaper's website, or any prominent sports blog. What you'll find is a bunch of work-avoiding slackers trying to out-quip each other, readers getting into stupid arguments with each other, and just plain bad writing and thinking.

For instance, our own comments have recently hosted: ad hoc Sean Taylor conspiracy theories, implications that he was to blame for his own murder, people I hardly know taking shots at me, me taking shots at people I hardly know, and our resident Seahawks fan's continuing juvenile-hall smack about Donovan McNabb being fat and/or gay. Since our very first posts, it's served mostly to further arguments between friends that invariably get personal and create real-life tension. The semi-public forum only exacerbates this. There's just no point.

I'm sick of it. You want to disagree, maybe offer an opposing view? Fine. Start your own blog. Shit, ask to join this one -- I'd love to have more viewpoints to keep it fresh and make posts more frequent, and I'm sure Diesel would agree. We'll be happy to have blog-offs. Or you can e-mail us at our newly created blog address -- tgwnablog@gmail.com -- and we'll do mailbag columns. But either way, you're going to have to provide more than a few lines of facile smartaleckyness.