The Sports Guy on the Great Steve Smith:
The Bad Idea Jeans Award for Worst Move Before a Playoff Game
To the Bears D-backs who trash-talked Steve Smith in the pregame warmups before the Carolina game. Why wasn’t this in the scouting report? If you were Lovie Smith, wouldn’t this have been your only ironclad instructions all week? Don’t talk to him, don’t look at him, don’t even make eye contact with him. If he approaches you in the warm ups, act the same way you would if you were hiking in the wilderness and a grizzly bear approached you — don’t move, don’t react, don’t do anything until it walks away.
I’ll admit it, I harbor a deep and abiding affection for Steve Smith. He not only led my fantasy team to a second-place regular season finish but was the key figure in my two Super Bowl wins, and although the Vikings managed to make it back to the Super Bowl in 2012 after his retirement, they just couldn’t get it done and lost to the Dolphins on a last-minute touchdown plunge by Clinton Portis last night.
Sure, he’s a little bit psycho – this is the guy who once beat the tar out of his own teammate for no particular reason – but that’s why you A) don’t ever trash talk him, and, B) keep two men on him at all times. I will never, ever understand why NFL defensive coordinators insist on sticking to their “schemes” even when it means leaving a third-string CB on Smith, or, (like I once saw Green Bay do), leaving a linebacker to cover Randy Moss one-on-one in the slot.
And speaking of travesties, how did Steve Smith not get a single MVP vote? Brady, I would have been okay with, or Manning since the vote is about the regular season, but Sean Alexander? Fantasy MVP, definitely. The real NFL? No way.