Salt Lake City Robbery

For my second post I am going to show that athletes are not the only ones who are overrated, coaches are not safe from getting more credit than they deserve.

In this post I'm focusing on a great travesty that occurred last summer when the Basketball Hall of Fame inducted Utah Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan into the hall of fame. What the hell did Sloan do to deserve to be part of the 2009 hall of fame class which included David Robinson, John Stockton, and oh yeah MICHAEL FREAKING JORDAN!

The hall of fame should be reserved for players and coaches who had remarkable success in the NBA including multiple championships and records. Jerry Sloan has been the head coach for the Utah Jazz since 1988 and has produced as many NBA championships as I have........ Zero!!!

Pat Riley has 6 rings!

The Zen Master's 11 rings should make Jerry Sloan cry.

How can a coach be in the hall of fame when he has never won the ultimate prize? In the words of Herm Edwards, "You play the game to win!". Winning is the only thing that should come into play with a coaching career because that's the job of the man in charge, not to score points, or get rebounds, his only job is to coach a team to a championship.

Sloan wasted Malone and Stockton.

Karl Malone and John Stockton are one of the best one-two punch combination the NBA has ever seen and Sloan had them on his team for their entire careers and still couldn't win a single ring! If Phil Jackson or Larry Brown or Pat Riley had these two players in their prime they would have coached them to a dynasty.

How can a sports fan think that Jerry Sloan deserves to be in the same hall of fame as Phil Jackson and Red Auerbach? I mean he did get close to winning a title twice and one could make the case that he was never going to win one as long as Jordan was playing, but I mean Jordan has been out of the league for almost a decade now and Sloan still has nothing to show for it!

Jerry Sloan sports a playoff record of 92 wins and 106 losses and yet we're suppose to believe he is one of the greatest coaches of all time? Sounds more like he is a Jockstrap not a star.  

The King of Overrated

When it comes to overrated athletes I decided to kick off my blog with the poster child for overrated players, Peyton Manning.

Now I know most of the people reading this are gasping right now saying, "What kind of an idiot thinks Manning isn't great?!" or, "This guy doesn't know anything about sports!". Before everybody loses their minds let me first clarify what this blog is all about.

I am discussing players that are over-hyped and overrated I am not necessarily saying that these athletes are no good at what they do, all I am saying is that they have become stars in American sports and are idolized more so than other athletes who deserve the attention.

Now, that being said back to Peyton Manning, this case falls under the category of obviously the guy can play football and obviously he is one of the best at his position. My problem with Peyton Manning is that frankly he is not this football god that EVERY football analyst makes him out to be.

In Football, or any sport for that matter, the goal of every season and every athlete is to win a championship. The regular season is nothing more than a stepping stone that launches you to playoff and championship glory. In the case of Peyton Manning his post- season stats are nothing short of average.

I could win a Super Bowl if this guy plays for the other team.

In the 20 playoff games that Manning has played in he is a less than stellar 10-10. This record shouldn't impress anybody and moreover it disproves the notion of Manning being a "great" quarterback. In the rare occasion that Manning actually made it all the way to the Super Bowl he does have one win against the Bears who apparently sold their soul to make it to the Super Bowl because they were terrible at everything except defense and special teams. Please excuse my lack of appreciation for a guy who BARELY outplayed Rex Grossman and was handed an MVP trophy despite the fact that the colts defense and running game were the reasons they won that game, in fact I would make the case that the Colts won that game despite of Manning's mediocre performance.

More recently lets look back to this past February where Manning was again in the Super Bowl and in the perfect situation to shut me up and prove his "greatness". Instead of making me look like a douche bag Manning made me look like a genius when I said I would choose a handful of quarterbacks over Manning when I need to win a big game. Manning went on to throw less than 70% for the game including one interception that put the game away and gave the colts no chance to win. Unfortunately this time around Rex Grossman wasn't there to make Manning look good, instead Drew Brees threw for over 80%, over 300 yards, 2 touchdowns, and zero interceptions.

The great quarterbacks of all time win more games than they lose in the post-season and are the reason why they win the big game. When you think of Montana, Favre, and Brady there are a handful of memorable plays that clinched big wins for there team, but with Manning there is not a single memory of him making that one jaw-dropping play to win a game.(handing off the ball to Dominic Rhodes or Joseph Addai doesn't count)

Manning Hiding his face after yet ANOTHER loss in the playoffs

Peyton Manning is by far the best REGULAR SEASON quarterback in the history of the NFL but in reality who cares about the regular season? The regular season means absolutely nothing, and just like you can always pencil in the Colts for 12 wins a season, you can also pencil in Manning folding in the most important time of the season. So the next time your watching Sportscenter and every analyst is raving about how "great" Manning is just remember that he is a jockstrap and not a star.