“First!” is essentially the same as “team A beat team B by X points”, everyone sees it but it is of zero value.

Absolutely baffles me that people do the “FIRST!” crap, even still today.

yet another reason why Lisk was hired. Thoughtful, articulate, smart.

Nice job.

Don’t think anyone would argue that he’s the best writer in these parts.

I wonder for example how many of today’s 20-somethings will look at your work or J-Mac’s work as fondly when we get to the year 2032. Or will they say “that was good, but I really like this new stuff”?

who looks back on what was written in the 80s/90s? People who read that growing up. Which is why I love guys like Wilbon, Kornheiser, Norman Chad, etc.

Will I have people who read my work now actively looking for my work in 2032? who knows. Site’s only been going 6+ years; i think i was ready Wilbon/Kornheiser for like a decade.

Nice job.

Hopefully right now, and by that I mean before game time. I’ll try not to hit publish before ready.

I generally feel the same way, I think you got it exactly right. There is a potentiality for a well written piece to give you insight on that but it isn’t a common occurrence.

Even within the comments there is an incentive to be first, much higher click through rate. The irony in all this is although rushing gets you more page views you sacrifice nuance or insight mostly to jot down what everyone’s already thinking. So the majority of clicks lead to the bland. “First!” is essentially the same as “team A beat team B by X points”, everyone sees it but it is of zero value.

Wilbon is attempting to collect long form sports pieces for an anthology. Through that prism, he makes some fair points. Overall, though, he’s wrong. Great sportswriting reaches higher highs than ever before. There’s less of it, buried underneath attention-grabbing turds like this Whitney column, but the good stuff is very, very good.

Really tempted to pick up the CAR defense in a brutal waiver ploy.

I had CAR D/ST and dropped them. I figured that if there would be one game where KC could pull their heads out of their collective asses, it would be this one.

I replaced them with ARI D/ST because, well, the Jets suck. That being said, this will be week that Sanchez throws 3 TDs and 320 yards.

/Bring back the Top Five
/Bring back the PM Roundup
/Bring back Friday Flashbacks
/Let Ballin go the way of Onion Bag and Yardwok
/War Johnny in LoCal
/Rack’em

He needed the extra 2 days to come up with that Dickens pun.

Really tempted to pick up the CAR defense in a brutal waiver ploy.

I gotta decide whether to stick with Jamal Charles or go with either Matthews or Bryce Brown.

I think his point about everyone chasing the same story is actually a sound point. The prevalence of highlights have really made fragrant recaps of games less and less relevant, there’s so little logical reason to wait until the next day to read about an event anymore (what’s up newspapers, you dying waste of trees!). But a part of that is because I think he’s right, the writing isn’t as good because it has largely shifted from “writing” to “reporting.” I love long form pieces. The increase in them at SBN and by guest writers (thank god) at Deadspin has been fantastic, and of course the equivalent here of Rocket Ronny’s “hey, basketball players have athletic dads” post. I’m glad that something like Sports on Earth exists for talented writers, and Grantland for talent fedora wearers, but I think within the media Wilbon is probably talking about, there are a lot fewer talented writers than there used to be.

The joke was that I hit publish on this one before done, while meaning to hit publish on another piece.

That clears it up. I expect that from your inferiors here, but never from you.