Don’t blame Taylor Swift
My list of the stupidest hot takes in sports starts with blaming celebrity girlfriends
We knew this was coming. It’s a surprise it took this long.
Travis Kelce had a bad game on Christmas against the Raiders and Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs, after years of domination, look mortal. So it must be, has to be, definitely should be, the fault of Taylor Swift.
This is stupid. Obnoxiously stupid.
Blaming an athlete’s dip in performance, or his team’s struggles, on a celebrity girlfriend is the “hot take” that media and fans just can’t resist.
This got me thinking. What are the stupidest ongoing sports takes?
1. Blaming a female celebrity for a male athlete’s poor performance
Dwyane Wade’s career didn’t get worse after he met Gabrielle Union. Wade won two more NBA titles and continued to play an elite level en route to the Hall of Fame. Justin Verlander didn’t lose his fastball because he met Kate Upton. If anything, Verlander resurrected his career because of Upton’s support. Tony Romo was the same quarterback whether he was dating Jessica Simpson or someone previously not famous.
Blaming a celebrity female is the lowest of low-hanging fruit by carnival barking media members who are desperate for attention. The two biggest to blame T-Swift lately? You won’t be surprised. It’s Skip Bayless and Clay Travis.**
**I’d normally link to their stupid posts, but it’s obvious they only did this to get more traffic, and they got plenty from all the Swifties defending their girl, so they don’t need any extra boost from my tiny little corner of the internet.
Bayless and Travis have big megaphones, but they are hardly alone. Casual fans and hardcore fans do it. Men do it and other women do it (which really makes me scratch my head).
When I co-hosted Post Game Dodger Talk, blaming Rihanna was a frequent theme when outfielder Matt Kemp was in a slump.
The double standard for male/female athletes and their celebrity significant others isn’t lost either. If Steffi Graf didn’t win a Grand Slam tournament title in tennis, it wasn’t Andre Agassi’s fault. But if Agassi didn’t win a Major, it was Brooke Shields’ fault.
If Swift has a bad concert performance, or even just slightly below her usual standards, Kelce is not getting blamed.
Caveat: If an athlete is frequently seen out late at night at clubs, partying with a new partner during the season, and was previously the type who stayed home to get rest, then it’s fair to question changing priorities. But that can happen whether the new relationship is with someone extremely famous, kinda famous, or not-at-all famous.
And that’s not happening with the Swelce’s.
2. Doing commercials is a “distraction”
While we’re at it, claiming that Travis Kelce is “distracted” by filming TV commercials is also stupid. Almost all of those are filmed before a season even begins. Can we please stop using “distractions” as a catch-all phrase for anything that goes wrong?
Michael Jordan was not “distracted” when he was hawking Gatorade, Nike, Wheaties, Hanes and any other product on TV. Filming dozens of commercials didn’t distract Peyton Manning when he was on the field either.
Reasons why an athlete might not perform up to his/her ability: injury, illness, drugs, alcohol, bad coaching in general, poor game planning that game, forgetting the game plan, teammates not doing their job, failure to sleep because stayed out too late, failure to sleep because a sick child kept you up all night, the weather, traffic on the way to the game messed up routine, pregame meal upset stomach, bad luck … or the other team was just better that day.
All of us, athletes and non-athletes, live in a world with potential distractions every second of our lives. Filming commercials is not one of them. If anything, endorsement money allows you to defer money to help your team sign better players (see: Shohei Ohtani), or sharing the commercial spotlight with teammates helps you bond even more (see: Patrick Mahomes with Kelce and coach Andy Reid).
3. Team didn’t sign a free agent because of Homelessness, Crime, Politics or Taxes
Here are the main reasons why a free agent signs with a new team: money and a chance to win.
Lately, the narrative of why baseball’s Giants can’t sign a top free agent is because … a homeless problem in San Francisco? Every major city has good parts of town and bad parts. Millionaire athletes can easily avoid these bad parts of town.
Here’s a list of the marquee free agents the Giants have signed in the nearly 50 years since free agency began:
Barry Bonds
Barry Zito (and he was barely marquee by then)
That’s it. That’s the list. Bonds wanted to sign with the Giants because he grew up at Candlestick Park when his dad played for the Giants and his Godfather was Willie Mays. And also, the Giants made him the highest-paid player in the sport. Zito signed because the Giants gave him the most money and he was moving across the Bay from Oakland.
The Giants signed Carlos Correa, until they didn’t, and they’ve probably been used as leverage by other free agents. Correa and other free agents might have an opinion about a Mayor’s plans for a needle exchange programs, but it’s not influencing their decision.
Players might get creative with their residence to avoid some taxes. They might increase their commute to avoid the sketchy areas and live higher up the hill. But give them the most money and the best chance to win, and I’m positive they’ll survive driving by some homeless tents on their way to work.
4. Wins in bowl games are momentum going into next season
This was always a dumb argument. Roughly one-fourth of a roster changes each season in college football with graduation. Nowadays, with the transfer portal, it’s closer to 40% on some teams and over half on a few teams.
Except for the four teams competing for a national title, bowl games are exhibitions. For host cities, bowls exist to increase tourism. For players, it’s a reward after a long year. For the university, it’s a fundraising opportunity (although because they’re forced to buy a certain allotment of ticket for their fans, invite large chunks of the athletic department, and throw expensive parties for themselves, they sometimes just hope to break even).
The idea that a win in December is going to “carry over” nine months later to another season with a new roster is absurd.
5. NFL teams hold it against players who opt-out of bowl games
Again, we repeat, bowl games are exhibition games. If a player doesn’t want to risk injury in an exhibition game, that’s his business decision to make.
NFL teams make business decisions all the time. They don’t play most of their starters during the exhibition season. They’ll rest, or limit the minutes, of their stars the final week of the season if their playoff spot is clinched. They’ll shut down a player who’s been trying to play through an injury once they are mathematically eliminated.
If an NFL team is stupid enough to not draft a college player because he made the same business decision they routinely make, they are fools.
Also, fans, please stop getting upset when a player skips an exhibition game to focus on his future.
6. (Insert name of legend) was overrated and would suck nowadays
7. (Insert current player) is soft and wouldn’t make it back in the day
You know an argument is dumb when you hear both versions of this on a regular basis. Depending on your age, mood, environment, and platform, you’ll hear each of these arguments plenty.
If you put 1927 Babe Ruth in a time machine, sure, he might initially struggle in 2024. You give him access to modern training techniques, equipment, knowledge about nutrition and hydration, he’s still going to be dominant. The most dominant? Okay, we can debate how good he’d be. But he’s an all-star.
Likewise, the theory that a current player is soft, and they’d be intimidated after Don Drysdale or Bob Gibson brushed them back with a fastball is laughable.
The biggest difference in sports these days, especially baseball and basketball, are the quantity of players from other countries. This would eliminate some of the fringe pros from a long time ago of making a roster nowadays. But the best of the best always adapt.
8. Using championship rings as the main argument for who’s better
This argument is used in every sport and it’s always dumb. Football is the most popular sport, which means it gets discussed the most, and using Super Bowl rings to ranks quarterbacks is the dumb argument that refuses to go away.
Trent Dilfer is not better than Dan Marino. I love Jim Plunkett, but he’s not better than Steve Young.
In baseball, the argument is even more ridiculous because the playoffs are so much longer nowadays. Joe DiMaggio won nine World Series, and only had to win one series (four games) to do it each year. Reggie Jackson won five World Series and needed to win two series (seven total games) each year. Buster Posey won three World Series and had to win three series, at least 11 games (12 games when they were a wild card team). This year, the Texas Rangers had to win four series and 13 total playoff games to be crowned champions.
9. A baseball player’s increase in home runs is because he’s on steroids
One of the most miserable days I’ve ever spent at a ballpark, when I was extremely stoked to be there, was Game Three of the 2018 Division Series at Coors Field. It was freezing cold, off-and-on rain, the Rockies were held to four hits, and the Brewers completed a sweep in a 6-0 shutout. It sucked. But at least I was there. I was thrilled.
Except … the bozo sitting next to me screamed at Christian Yelich that he was on steroids every time he came to the plate. We were at the top of the ballpark. Fans couldn’t hear this dude 10 rows below, but he thought Yelich could hear him at the plate. Worse yet, the bozo made it a point to tell his kid, about age 10, that Yelich was obviously using the same steroids that teammate Ryan Braun was caught using [checks notes] … umm … five years prior!
To be fair, this was a legit argument until roughly a decades ago. Baseball can only blame a skeptical public on itself. A lot of baseball players were absolutely on steroids for about three decades. Questioning a sudden increase in home runs, especially when a player became dramatically bigger in one offseason, was understandable.
As much scorn as baseball deserves for letting steroids run rampant, the sport deserves credit for ridding PED’s from the sport with its thorough testing. I’m sure some player has found a way to cheat the system, but this is overwhelmingly the cleanest baseball has ever been.
The knee-jerk response of yelling “steroids” when a player improves his performance is just a tired argument.
Honorable mentions
Analysts who say, “you can’t teach that.” Actually, you absolutely can. It’s a coach’s job to teach that and a player’s job to teach himself that.
The fans will never return after this strike/lockout. Hilarious. They always return.
Big market teams buy all the championships in baseball because they have no salary cap. We covered this a few weeks ago. This century, baseball has more different champions than the NFL, NBA or NHL.
Blaming “analytics” for … well, anything that doesn’t work. Numbers have always driven decisions in sports. They’re just using different numbers now. Some numbers are better. Some lack context. And sometimes numbers lie. That’s always been true.
“We must get off to a good start.” Is there any team that ever wanted to get off to a slow start and come-from-behind to win?
That’s my list. What are the stupid sports arguments that annoy you the most?