Here’s hoping that Tom Brady, currently passing the football for Tampa Bay, wins another Super Bowl on Sunday because of how it will play with some sportswriter hacks who have attempted to turn this past week into yet another political hit job on conservatives.
Instead of writing of Brady’s pursuit of a seventh Super Bowl win, or his 10th appearance in the big game, or the fact that at age 43 he is rewriting standards for longevity, some, such as USA Today keyboard torturer Nancy Armour, have turned their coverage into yet more attempts at left-wing retribution toward anyone associated in any way with former president Donald Trump.
Brady reeks of white privilege, according to the Armour Meathead, because he isn’t into discussing politics – specifically Donald Trump – as she and some others would command in the lead-up to this game.
So Armour skewered Brady in her column, then got more than a little bit of blowback on Twitter, calling her out for everything from lack of writing skill, to lack of football insight, to an overabundance of confused column ideas.
It would be unfair to question Armour’s competence to write sports simply based on her sex. But it is similarly unfair to suggest that all the women who show up in sports media, particularly on television, are there based entirely on their insight.
From personal experience, I worked at a newspaper that decided the sports department needed a female writer and so hired one. Early in the running, she wrote in a season preview that a football team would use the “Eye Formation” on offense.
Of course she should have written “I formation,” a description owing to the quarterback, fullback and halfback lined up behind center in a straight line that resembles the letter I.
But she didn’t know any better, so she wrote “eye.” You might guess that her insights into the nuances of sports were similarly lacking. This was understandable since her background was selling office equipment.
However, she was an attractive woman, which was not lost on the guy who hired her as a freelancer after I’d told her to check with him about changing careers. He noted her physical appearance in thanking me for sending her his way.
It’s not a coincidence that few, if any, female TV sports reporters are unattractive. After all, how tough is it to ask each coach before the game for the keys to victory? Might as well have some eye candy asking the questions.
And at halftime the stock question, requiring little in-depth knowledge, is to inquire of the coach behind on the scoreboard what his team will need to do better in the second half to change that? The coach who is ahead must be asked what his team will need to do to keep the lead?
Seldom will you hear a football coach asked, for example, about his cornerback getting beaten like a drum in man coverage and will he need to rotate a safety over the top to help, thereby clearing the middle of the field for opposing receivers?
At this point I likely will be accused of misogyny, the SAT-approved word to describe any man charged with hatred, prejudice and contempt toward women.
My wife of 40 years and counting, my three granddaughters, my 84-year-old mother, all would be mildly surprised to learn that I hate them all for their sex.
It’s not that Nancy Armour is a woman that makes her writing distasteful. It’s just that she’s a one-tune leftist who apparently hates Brady, white men in general, and this nation as evidenced by her periodic screeds.
Armour has written about the need to stop playing our national anthem at sporting events. In another column she labeled critics of black NFL quarterback Cam Newton as racists.
Armour didn’t seem interested in Newton’s political preferences.
What about Armour’s political leanings? Maybe that should be her next column, in the interest of full disclosure. Or is she utilizing white woman’s privilege?
And if Armour’s readership thought this past week’s column sounded familiar, it should have. Back in January 2017, in advance of another Super Bowl, Armour was dogging Brady again in a column with the lead paragraph “Tom Brady no longer gets a pass on his friendship with Donald Trump.”
Get some new material, Nancy,
Armour is just another facet in the multi-pronged spear that is Brady hatred. Our locals hate him for beating their beloved Steelers with such regularity when he was with New England.
Others hate him because they believe he’s a cheater who mandates underinflated footballs to enhance his performance. These people don’t follow the science – conducted by professors at places such as MIT and Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University — that indicated cold, wet weather conditions could have accounted for inflation variances in the New England-Indianapolis game in question.
Swept aside was the fact that 3 of 4 footballs checked that were used by Indianapolis were judged underinflated, too, after having been outside in miserable weather for a half of the game.
The haters also neglect to mention that once the footballs were pumped up to specs for the second half, the Patriots outscored the Colts by an even bigger margin.
The NFL suspended Brady for four games, which falls under the category of not allowing the facts to interfere with a good harangue.
I don’t expect Brady to win Sunday, and it would cost me a few bucks if he does since I’ve put my money on Kansas City.
But I never thought Brady could do what he has this season, moving to a new franchise and directing them to the Super Bowl even as his former New England organization wallowed in obscurity without him.
Here’s hoping you get it done again, Tom Brady, and extend a well-deserved middle finger to the Nancy Armours of this world.
Sam Ross Jr's site 