I get email
Aug 5, 2008 2007 Season, 2008 Season, 2008 Training Camp, Rebuttals, Super Mario
This arrived in my inbox this afternoon:
Subject: Mario Williams maybe [sic] overhyped
Message: I understand that Mario Williams is having a good camp, but look at what he is going against. With the zone blocking system, during practice, he is going one-on-one against quicker, but SMALLER offensive lineman [sic]. This allows Mario to use his strength - power rush against the smaller offensive lineman. Against other teams, most of whom don’t have zone blocking system, and have bigger offensive lineman, Mario Williams won’t have a size advantage and won’t be able to use his strength - power rush ; he will have to use his weakness against them : the finess [sic] rush techniques.
Quick, spot the main flaw in this argument! (Note: While glaring, “punctuation and grammatical errors” is not the correct answer.)
Hint: To the best of my knowledge, Mario did not play any regular season games against the Texans last year.
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August 5th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Ooh! Ooh! I got it!
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Um… Mario rocked the world in a full 16 game schedule last year against those pesky “other teams”.
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August 5th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Also, the ability to eat someone’s soul negates the size disadvantage.
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August 5th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
@Vega: 3 tackles awarded to Mr. Vega.
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August 5th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
So…..”using his weakness” against other teams is good for 14 sacks and an infinite number of run stuffs per year? Guess we’ll just have to settle for that.
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August 5th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
This weak little zone blocking scheme that’s had little to no success in the past, too. Surely, big, freakish DE’s will be able to exploit it at every possible encounter. We should just give up, I rectum.
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August 5th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
what kills me is that if Mario’s sack numbers go down this year to a more pedestrian total…say 9….people will immediately start the one year fluke thing. He could be much more of a force this year, but if he doesn’t get the “sacks” then some people will be too dumb to realize he still had a good year. Towards the end of his rookie year you could see that he had improved a lot over the course of the season and there was no reason to think that he wouldn’t get better….you know if you actually watched the games and had at least a little bit of a clue. Instead we got to see the replay of Reggie’s one or two plays that went for more than 4 yards over and over again.
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August 5th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
In a world where Reggie Bush is on TV all the time and VY was named to the Pro Bowl (alternate) after his rookie season…
how the hell could Mario be overhyped. EVAR?
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August 5th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
@grungedave: Blasphemer! And I suddenly have the urge for a Subway.
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August 5th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
@bigfatdrunk: No, wait, I suddenly have the urge to shove a Subway up Cumpidgeon’s ass. That’s it.
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August 5th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
@Papabear: That’s so true. People keep having flashbacks to the Fresno State game or to the 2004 Rose Bowl when thinking about those guys instead of looking at the facts on the ground. They were outstanding college players, no doubt, but only Mario has proven to be elite at his position.
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August 5th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
@bigfatdrunk - “facts on the ground” - been watching too many White House press room videos on youtube, methinks!
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People measure DL performance by sacks, which is pretty stupid. Somehow they understand that DTs aren’t supposed to get tons of sacks, but they never transfer that logic to DEs. In a Cover-2, their job is much more pass-rush oriented. In a 3-4, you’re awesome if you have 8 or 9 sacks as a defensive end. In a standard 4-3, it’s somewhere in between. But sacks aren’t the whole story or even half the story. A sack against Peyton Manning is way harder than one against Byron Leftwich, even behind the same line: some QBs get rid of the ball quicker than others (ahemDavidCarrahem). And hurries have value too, as well as tackles-for-loss. Sacks are awesome, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a difference between Elvis Dumervil’s sacks and Aaron Kampmann’s sacks.
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Oh, almost forgot… EMAILER IS SO DUMB AND SO IS MATT “Mario did not play a regular season games”… games? heh…
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August 5th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
@socctty: Turd.
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Heh, it went from “a regular season game” to “any regular season games” in my head as I was typing.
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August 5th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
@socctty: I can neither confirm nor deny that rumor. But just you wait until I come out with my tell-all on Matt. Oh the horror!
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August 5th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
@bigfatdrunk: Mario Williams actually worked at Subway. I think he is going to be fixin some sandwiches, and by “fixin” I mean destroying, and by “sandwiches” I mean quarterbacks.
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I love your Fun With Trolls segment.
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August 5th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Aye. For that same reason, people seem to think that the Denver game was Mario’s best performance by far. I suppose you could make a case for it, but I still think the best game of his career was vs. New Orleans last year. He only came away with one sack, but he stuffed the run on 3rd and short all day long and he was in Brees’ face on pretty much every throw. Box scores just don’t do defensive linemen justice.
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August 6th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
@nash: I saved four games from last season: Carolina (although I stop watching before AJ goes down), New Orleans, Denver, and Tampa (which was extra fun since I live in FL an most of my friends are Bucs fans). Without question, our best game was New Orleans and that was Mario’s best. I’ve watched that game no less than 10 times, and he just dominated.
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“But he only had one sack,” says the ESPN guy
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“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” says Vega
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Mario single handedly stuffed Reggie’s Bush on a number of plays and blew up a lot more. The latter were plays where he gets no stat credit (although he would have picked up like 6 tackles if he were on the colts), but you don’t even have to be a football junkie to understand that he was the reason these other plays fell apart.
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August 6th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
@Vega: Is it possible to download those games from the DVR and email them to me? (Especially New Orleans)
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August 6th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
@nash: Agree wholeheartedly with you, nash and Vega. Bust had to hit the bench because Mario scared him too much. He was unstoppable. Well, according to everybody but Pancakes, that is.
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August 6th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
@Matt: I don’t know how to but I’ll check it out. If anyone has an idea, let me know.
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August 6th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
@Vega: See if you can download to a USB jump-drive. Then burn to CD and snail mail? I would imagine the file is pretty large though, so I’m not really sure about this.