Stupid is as ...

Editor's note: It was a hectic week, and so we sort of fell behind on Blogs. We'll pick up our defense blogs soon (I head for River Falls and Chiefs camp tomorrow, so there should be time for some blogging). In the meantime, I want to thank everyone who showed up at the Happy Endings Lounge in New York (and everyone who couldn't find the place -- heck, I had trouble with that) for some book talk. And I could not let this unbelievable Matt Morris trade pass by.

One thing that has always surprised me is, every now and again, and you really do come across pure, unadulterated, unfiltered stupidity in sports. This happens most often, I think, in the final, frantic minutes of any NFL game (or half). Nobody in the entire league seems to know how to save the clock. Nobody. Little kids who have been watching football for only a couple of years seem to understand the basics of clock management better than most NFL coaches. And I’m talking across the board here. I’ve watched genius Bill Belichick teams screw up the clock, I’ve watched hard-nosed Pittsburgh Steelers teams screw up the clock. I watched mastermind Mike Shanahan teams screw up the clock. And so on.

I’ll give you a local example: A few years ago, the Chiefs under the intense and watchful eye of then head coach Gunther Cunningham, faced a situation. I should preface this by saying that I have great admiration for Gunther. He has dedicated his life to football. He has studied the game with the same intensity and purpose that Charlie Parker spent studying the saxophone. He’s a very smart man and (I believe) a terrific defensive coordinator. If he was dumb, this story wouldn’t mean anything.

The Chiefs had one timeout left, they were trailing and the other team (I can’t remember which team it was – it doesn’t matter) had the ball and was trying to run out the clock. The other team ran a first-down play that ended with, if I recall correctly, 2:43 remaining. It might have been 2:44. The Chiefs then called a panicked and entirely worthless timeout. It is, in fact, the quintessential worthless timeout. I’m sure you as a football fan understand exactly why, but to spell it out: The NFL has a 40-second clock.

That means that:

1. If the Chiefs call their last timeout there with 2:43 left, the other team will run one play (which will last more then three seconds) and then let the clock drain right down to the two-minute warning.

2. If the Chiefs DON’T call a timeout there with 2:43 left, the other team still has to run one play before the two-minute warning.
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This is a pretty simple calculation, right? One play equal one play. You get absolutely no benefit from calling a timeout there. None. You would think that a coaching staff that studies hundreds of hours of film, a team that practices every single scenario dozens of times, veteran players who have played thousands of hours of football would understand this instinctively. But they didn’t, someone called timeout, and later when asked about it, Gunther (rather than saying: “Yeah, that was a major screw-up”) tried to defend the timeout and uttered one of the dumbest coaches’ statements on record.

He said that the Chiefs had to call timeout there because otherwise the opposing team would have “used up the whole 45-second clock.”

That’s right. To try and cover up his team’s brain-clog, he actually changed the NFL game clock from 40 seconds to 45. He turned a dumb mistake made in the heat of the moment into a gargantuan blunder which left fans, media and management wondering if the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs actually knew basic NFL rules. He was fired as coach just a couple of weeks later, and while the firing may not have been directly tied to 45-second-meltdown, it was at least an indirect free kick.

Two years later, Dick Vermeil as head coach of the Chiefs made exactly the same clock mistake (Coaches really do this all the time; I’m telling you it’s shocking). Vermeil, though, had enough sense to say: “Yeah, we blew it there.” And the mistake – if not exactly forgiven – was at least forgotten.

I thought about all that this week when reading various quotes from Dead-GM-Walking Dave Littlefield as he tried to explain why his Pittsburgh Pirates, a horrendous baseball team, possibly the worst team in baseball, would trade for (and pick up the entire monstrous contract of) pitcher Matt Morris, who is almost 33, who has been an average-to-below-average pitcher for four years, and who is in a major slump (the last six weeks, he has gone 0-4 with a 7.94 ERA).

Now, to be fair, I’m not really sure there’s much Dave Littlefield can say. I would deduce that this was the panicked move of a general manager who knows that he’s about to be fired . He is willing to try anything that might shake up his team and get them to win a few games before it’s too late for him. And that wouldn’t really sound too good at a press conference (“Well, I’d like to say to the members of the press that I’m really in full fledged panic mode. I’m trying to save my job. Really. I don’t want to get fired. I really don’t. How would you like to get fired from your job? You wouldn’t, right? I mean, if you knew you were about to be fired, wouldn’t you at least try to give 15 to 20 million to Matt Morris too? Am I right or am I right? Who’s with me here?”)

Instead, he talked about how he sees Matt Morris as sort of a finishing piece for the Pirates rotation, the veteran who will inspire the kids, the seven of clubs that will complete the inside straight. Now, of course, this is ridiculous. But it’s not impossible. Let’s say this is true. Let’s say that Matt Morris really does spark a chemical reaction that gets Ian Snell and other kids to get going (bad early signs, I’m afraid, considering that Friday Snell gave up 10 hits and six runs in five innings – he’s now 0-5 with an 8.31 ERA in his last five starts).

Even if this convoluted plan did have some basis in reality, it still doesn’t explain anything. If he wanted Matt Morris, he could have gotten him for half the price. One third the price. There is absolutely no reason that the Pirates needed to trade two players (I don’t care if they are prospects or not) and pick up the entire salary (which includes $9.5 million next year and an impressive $2 million buyout) to get a struggling veteran pitcher that San Francisco Giants GM Brian Sabean was DYING to get rid of. I mean, this wasn’t a trade. This was an Oprah-like donation to the Save Brian Sabean’s Job Fund (Sabean is the curator of the National Museum for Obscene Contracts). Even Sabean afterward seemed entirely shocked and grateful; he looked like one of the numb people who open the door and find they have won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.

(Somebody in New York asked me, “How in the hell are the Yankees going to get out from under that death-defyingly bad Johnny Damon contract?” I said, “Well, first of all, they need Dave Littlefield to keep his job in Pittsburgh.” You could call it the “Littlefield Escape Clause”).

I like the Pittsburgh Pirates. I feel a strange kinship to Pittsburgh because I grew up in Cleveland and was raised to hate the town (and, especially, the Steelers). I guess I see Pittsburgh and Cleveland as two brothers who despise each other because they are so much alike … so they tear at each others throat. But they are still, in the end, brothers. In addition to that, I think the Pirates and the Royals have a connection as two teams that were 1970s icons, still seemed to be part of the game going into the Clinton years and then quickly faded into oblivion. The Pirates have not had a winning record since 1992. The Royals have had one winning record since 1993, but have lost 100 four times (the Pirates have lost 100 just once). It’s pretty bad on both sides.

So I would like to see the Pirates bounce back. I do think they have some pretty decent young pitching. I think they are in absolutely the right division to turn things around. And Pittsburgh is a terrific sports town. Right now, though, the key might be to get some new blood in there before Dave Littlefield strikes again. I mean no offense to Littlefield, who I’m sure if a fine man. But you would think that trading Chris Young for Matt Herges (and then releasing Herges months later), having five players taken in the Rule V draft one year, drafting Bryan Bullington with the first pick in the draft and then this year passing on Matt Wieters in the draft to save money and less than two months taking on the entirety of Matt Morris’ contract would be enough for any man.