The Destruction of Bill Simmons

quote:

---

Simmons is the Editor of Grantland, not the writer of Grantland

So deconstructing Simmons like he did is like deconstructing Chicken's posts in an effort to diminish the content of tigerdroppings.com

---

quote:

---

Finally, there's the name, which honors Rice, the man who kicked off the so-called Golden Age of sportswriting and who's remembered today for the heroic portraits and demi-deifications he crafted for players like Babe Ruth and sports programs like Notre Dame. Not a single person Simmons has allegedly buttonholed for his site writes anything like Grantland Rice (few are even sports journalists), and many of his contributors would likely ridicule anyone who did. In fact, the current sports journalist most prone to balancing spectacle and poesy, to unselfconsciously championing the rigors of sport and the triumph of the human spirit, is Rick Reilly, a man Simmons has probably spent half his career obliquely verbally shitting on.

---

quote:

---

No one can deny his success or his canniness in adopting an everyman stance about sports while peppering his analogies and descriptions with mainstream pop-cultural references aimed at the coveted 18-35 demographic that (at the time) was steeped in late-1970s and 1980s nostalgia. The problem Simmons makes is forgetting that he was one of hundreds or even thousands who could have taken the same ball and run with it.

---

quote:

---

You'd think for a fan of Malcolm Gladwell's (also a Grantland writer) glib and unscientific trash that Simmons might have read Outliers and felt a glimmer of recognition. In Gladwell's mind, Bill Gates became a programming titan because he got to practice writing code and lived in a neighborhood prosperous enough to provide him with the machinery to run programs. Taking advantage of AOL's internal advertising structure, being an intern at the Herald, being able to practice there and then having its networking machinery (and mavens!—think Gladwell's The Tipping Point!), as well as a local population ready to be targeted for links about local sports was nothing short of wonderfully serendipitous.

---

quote:

---

Allegedly it's a serious sports website maintained by a man whose critical rigorousness about sports can often be measured by going to the IMDB "memorable quotes" page for a movie and trying to apply it to some random category like "interceptions made by New England Patriots, 2001-2010."

---

quote:

---

Bill Simmons is to Grantland Rice what Tucker Max is to Hunter Thompson.

---

quote:

---

I just meant he tries to act like he's the only one who thinks sports are fun and cool and hip and all these other sports guys, especially guys who really like advanced stats, are just soul sucking drainos.

---

quote:

---

His entire MO is that he's the outsider.

---

quote:

---

Mainly, he's not nearly as knowledgable as he thinks.

---

quote:

---

I just wish he was more curious about things. He's got a schtick and he just sticks with it.

---

quote:

---

I think he tries to pass himself off as an insightful gambler when really he's just a guy who plays wild hunches. Which is fine, but he invites guys like the FO guys, and then only takes the surface lessons and doesn't seem real interested in learning anything. He looks for support, not illumination.

---