Colin Cowherd and Batman Share Similar Gritty Origin Stories

With all earned respect and with the device he wields most expertly, let's consider Colin Cowherd's gritty origin story, which he shared on his show this afternoon while discussing the Sean McVay uncertainty gripping the NFL world.

Most sports fans are Gotham City residents, blissfully going about their day content to accept whatever The Gotham Globe reports on the hometown Knights at face value. Cowherd, however, is Batman, determined to stare the dark and complicated forces in this world in the face to gain a deeper, yet weightier understanding.

"When I was a little kid, my dad took me to watch the Harlem Globetrotters," he recalled. "But I lived in a small town and we didn't really get the Harlem Globetrotters, we got like the B or C team. My dad had this big Buick Riviera and we showed up late and there was no parking, it was in a town called Hoquiam, Washington. We pulled into a weird parking spot and we had to walk through an alley. When we walked through the alley, there were the Harlem Globetrotters smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. And from that moment on in my broadcasting life, I wasn't interested in the story you saw, I was interested in the story behind the story. As we walked into that gym, it was full and everyone cheered the team. I'd just saw them knocking down a Miller Lite and smoking cancer rockets."

The visuals here are great. Has some shades of a smoking, aggravated Santa pouring five Tic-Tacs into Kevin McAllister's little paw before trying in vain to start his jalopy. But let's get not too distracted by that because there's a metaphor to land here.

Both Batman and Cowherd were forever changed by an alley incident in their youth that forced them to confront some hard real-world truths before their peers. One channeled that and leveraged a vast family fortune into caped vigilante justice. The other built his own empire speaking hard truths to those caping up for a certain player or team. When police needed help, Commissioner Gordon sent out the Bat signal. When Russell Westbrook goes 4-for-21, it's an urgent message to Cowherd that his services are similarly desperately needed. Batman had a worthy foil in The Joker. Cowherd is constantly doing battle with unserious quarterbacks who wear their hats backward.

How deep does this thing go?

Not deep at all? Okay.