February 18, 2017
I'm told Ron Borges of the Boston Herald is a well-respected, outstanding journalist who has been at this far longer than I have. But as Ron Burgundy once suggested, Borges should probably sit out a few plays, maybe "Take it easy, Champ" in regard to his combative defense of Terrell Owens' Hall of Fame snub.
In a piece published on Friday, Borges went on the attack, hammering critics who believe Terrell Owens was snubbed for Hall of Fame induction.
Go ahead and read it, but here were a few of my favorite snippets:
This is the time of year when people with too little to say and too much time to say it talk the loudest. It is also the time when those with minimal knowledge but access to a microphone or pen make clear that Abe Lincoln was right many years ago when he said: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”
Which brings me to Terrell Owens and the faux “outrage” of some surrounding his failure to gain entry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his second year as a candidate.
To them I say: LaVern Dilweg.
To them I say: Billy Wilson.
To them I say: Billy Howton.
To them I say: Sterling Sharpe.
To them I say: Michael Irvin.
To them I say: Cris Carter.
To them I say: Art Monk.
I could go on, but I’ll leave it at that.
Yeah, you probably shouldn't go on naming receivers who weren't as good as Owens. I mean...
| Player | Rec | Yards | YPC | TD |
| Terrell Owens | 1078 | 15934 | 14.8 | 153 |
| Cris Carter | 1101 | 13899 | 12.6 | 130 |
| Art Monk | 940 | 12721 | 13.5 | 68 |
| Michael Irvin | 750 | 11904 | 15.9 | 65 |
| Billy Howton | 503 | 8459 | 16.8 | 61 |
| Sterling Sharpe | 595 | 8134 | 13.7 | 65 |
| Billy Wilson | 407 | 5902 | 14.5 | 49 |
At one point, Borges focused his wrath on New York Daily News writer Manish Mehta:
New York Daily News writer Manish Mehta couldn’t tell you one thing about Billy Howton and wouldn’t know Warfield if he ran into him in an elevator, yet he’s loudly concluded, as others do every year, that “the system is flawed” and must be changed. The best change, of course, would be putting those folks doing the faux kvetching on the committee. Who are they really trying to get in? T.O. or themselves?
Mehta claimed those who voted against Owens did so because they were either old, out of touch or suffered from “lazy thinking.” He cited Owens’ stats but conveniently left one big one out: Owens not only led the NFL in drops once, he finished in the top four in drops seven other seasons during his 15-year career.
To help those suffering from “lazy thinking,” let me help you. That means for more than half the years he played, Terrell Owens was annually among the top four receivers in drops. Sorry, but that’s not my definition of “first-ballot Hall of Famer.”
Drops? Seriously? That's it? Owens was one of the most targeted receivers in NFL history. He's second all time in receiving yards, eighth all time in receptions, and third all time in receiving touchdowns. Of course he had drops.
And then there was this about Morten Andersen, who amazingly got inducted over Owens and Brian Dawkins:
I’ve heard some critics say, “How could they put in a kicker ahead of T.O.?” Here’s another way to look at it. How could they not put in one of the handful of players in NFL history named first-team All-Decade in two different decades ahead of someone who was first-team All-Decade in no decades?
Never mind that Borges "conveniently" (as he would say) omitted the fact that Andersen missed 144 field goals over the course of his career, among the most in NFL history. Over his career, playing 22 seasons in a dome, Andersen connected on 79.7 percent of his field goal attempts. In fact, if Andersen played in 2016 and maintained his career average, he would have been the 23rd most accurate kicker in the league last season.
After the Hall of Fame inductees were announced, I figured that when the voters began to defend their decisions, their logic would be dumb. This didn't disappoint.
But hey, Ron would recognize Morten Andersen in an elevator, so he's more qualified than morons like you and me.
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