I'm sick and tired

I'm sick and tired. Mostly in thanks to my body clock still running on Pacific time, and managing to catch a cold while in Vegas. But that's not the only reason I'm sick and tired. I'm sick and tired of a lot of things.

I'm especially sick and tired of certain memes and stereotypes that continually pop up when I read about the Detroit sports scene. Such as...

1. Jokes about Matt Millen drafting wide receivers.

They were once funny...4 years ago. Now it's just an uncreative, lazy, cheap shot. I'm not saying that Millen doesn't deserve every possible cheap shot you can throw at him, as he does, but let's move the fuck on, OK?

There's plenty of other material to rip Millen about, from the awful Dre' Bly trade, to the drafting of Drew Stanton at the expense of strengthening the defense, to his 70's porn 'stache, to his horrific W-L record as GM. I'm calling for a moratorium on Millen/wide receiver jokes.* I'm begging you, this is one horse that is truly beat to death.

*Unless he drafts another wide out in the 2008 NFL draft, then all bets are off.

2. Drew Sharp's Big 10 bashing.

I know that the Big 10 is down. Has been for a couple of seasons. I have nothing against calling out the Big 10 when it's deserved, and believe me, it's often deserved. But Sharp's ludicrous Big 10 hatred is has become absolutely irrational, to the point of stupidity. His asinine column in today's Freep pushed me over the edge.

They could have removed the schools' names and just put the score "Big Ten 41, Mid-American Conference 41" up there because that's what everybody really saw.

As much as the Big Ten loves getting another bowl payday to fatten its already bloated coffers, the conference has always understood the potential risk of embarrassment should it lose to a non-BCS conference opponent in a bowl game.

And hasn't the conference's reputation suffered enough this season?

The Big Ten can only breathe a small sigh of relief.

The Boilermakers barely won the game as time expired, but it was the little MAC that ultimately proved victorious.

First off, in the big scheme of things, the Motor City Bowl is a meaningless game, especially for the Boilermakers. Think they were fired up to play in Detroit? In late December? Against a team they had already beaten earlier this season? Me neither. And just how were the MAC and Chips victorious? They lost the game. A game most folks will forget ever happened a month from now. In fact, I don't believe CMU thought taking Purdue to the final gun was a moral victory, if that is what Sharp was implying. That's giving CMU too little credit.

Sharp shouldn't be surprised that the 7th place Big 10 team, in what was the worst Big 10 season in recent memory, struggled to beat the CHAMPIONS of the Mid-American Conference. Metro Detroit is dead center in MAC country, and we've seen enough of those teams to know that elite MAC squads can play with many BCS conference schools. Especially mid to lower level ones. It's fair to say that Purdue is exactly that, for this season anyway, a mid to lower level BCS team.

Sharp's claim that the Big 10 and the Boilermakers should be embarrassed is actually an huge insult to the Mid-American Conference and the Chippewas. Purdue beat a solid team, not some bottom feeder. It was one Hell of a game, and why not leave it at that?

All I can say about Sharp's irrational need to trash the Big 10 at EVERY opportunity is this...Put a God damn sock in it, Sharp! He's bitched so often, for so long, his Big 10 commentary has become nothing more than white fucking noise.

3. Using old Detroit stereotypes in lame attempts at humor.

I highly respect Every Day Should Be Saturday. I read it every day. It may be is the best and funniest college sports blog around. But we all know that humor is hard, and Orson Swindle took the easy way out writing about the Motor City Bowl yesterday. In posting the infamous picture of the late Bubba Helms holding up a Tigers pennant front of a burning cop car from the 1984 World Series, EDSBS went for the obvious joke, the easy joke, the unfunny joke. You know the one...



What bothered me is that I expect better from EDSBS. Something more creative than dissing the Motor City Bowl because...Well, because it's in Detroit.

We Michiganders can joke about Detroit stereotypes because we know the vast majority are no longer true.

Hell, I lived within Detroit city limits for a decade, and I never saw anything burn...Nearby. //rimshot// I didn't hear gunshots every day...Only every other day. //rimshot//

Truthfully, I love the city of Detroit. It's far from perfect, but it does not deserve near the amount of shit it gets from outsiders.

I've said it before, falling back on easy stereotypes are the refuge of a hack. Anyone that's not from here, when going for the easy, cheap laugh, will always go for the "Detroit will burn" joke. I'm not sure if it was ever funny, but it sure as Hell isn't anymore. Just ask Jimmy Kimmel.