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One of the things we miss most about the end of the football season is that we no longer get to be entertained by the butcherings of the English language from ESPN’s Emmitt Smith.
But, lo and behold, our old pal Patrick Hruby of ESPN.com’s Page 2, who once wrote a feature on PFT for the Washington Times, has kept Emmitt’s memory alive via Hruby’s “Absurd Quote Power Rankings.”
Emmitt currently is No. 5 (with a bullet) for this post-Super Bowl gem: “What happened tonight, the strength of the Patriots team got debacled.”
Fear not, football fans. Given that Emmitt has yet to get the heave-ho from Bristol, we can count on him to break things down for us later this year, when the leaves start to turn and the teams start to get blowed out.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:48 am
I’d probably watch if ESPN televised a Scrabble match between Emmit and Mike Tyson.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 4th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Someone needs to carouse this guy already.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
April 4th, 2008 at 10:57 am
I’m blowed away by how being a good athlete gets one a free pass through high school and college,and after a pro career a media job said athlete is “Emmittly” unqualified for.
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 4th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Really? Emmitt fails miserably. ESPN should pay me for listening to him.
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 4th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Y’know, an enterprising (and bored) person could use him as inspiration to start a “Grammar Watch” site for sports personalities, kind of like “Turd Watch.” Life just wouldn’t be as much fun without Emmitt to kick around.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 4th, 2008 at 11:39 am
What is sad is that one of the “Greats” of the most recent generation of football players is taking what was a phenomenal and respectable career and diminishing all that he has accomplished though “Dancing with the Stars” and absolutely horrible “journalism”/commentary work.
Doesn’t he have anyone to help guide him through career decisions after his dazzling years in Arizona? He obviously can’t make any quality decisions himself and I, for one, am not looking to seeing Emmit eventually signing autographs for beer money on the has-been celebrity sports-card tour.
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 4th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
If Emmitt would embrace his shortcomings, he could become the modern day Phil Rizzuto!
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 4th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Hey Florio! Did you have your coffee this morning?
1. The “Absurd Quote Power Rankings” link goes to an April 4th article where Emmitt Smith is no longer ranked.
2. There is a link on said page to an earlier, February 28th article, where Emmitt Smith is ranked. But he’s not ranked 5th. He’s ranked 9th.
So basically you’ve misquoted a five week old story. Hope your day didn’t get debacled!
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Rating: 4.5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 4th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
At least on PFT, he is indeed the escape goat.
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 4th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
You just can’t get more stoopider than that, what an idyott.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 4th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Der,
In fairness to Florio, the ratings have changed since he posted this story. For some reason, Emmitt was dropped off and Jamie Lynn Spears was put back on.
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Rating: Not yet rated
April 4th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
garyhogeboom, it’s actually funny that Emmitt Smith doesn’t acknowledge his shortcomings. But I think the reason no one is calling for his head now and just laughing and going along with it, unlike before, is because … he seems like a genuinely good guy? Does this make any sense? I’ve been thinkin about that. Emmitt just smiles and continues to speak — and apparently will continue to do so. Woohoo! ..
And BTW, per Florio’s entry, Emmitt Smith is not anywhere on that top ten list after the ESPN “update.” It has “dropped out.” Hmmmmmmmmm.
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Rating: Not yet rated
April 4th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Thanks for the info porksoda.
It looks like someone at ESPN had to alter it then. As of the time of this posting, the “Quote rankings, Volume 1″ link (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=quotes/080226) is broken. I’m getting the ESPN error message “FILE NOT FOUND”. Definitely looks like something fishy is going on.
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April 5th, 2008 at 8:13 am
I’ve gotta say that although Hruby’s rankings are funny, in my view, there are some things which you just don’t make fun of. His Bush quote at no. 2 is out-of-line, I think. The soldiers are putting their lives on the line to protect us and they need support and validation for their deeds from us and especially from the commander in chief.
I know the words Bush use sound incongruous to what we hear happening over there but, it is very likely that many of the soldiers have a sense of romanticism for what they are doing. How many of you visualize writing that pulitzer prize winning story or finding out who will be picked first in the draft and how great that could be for your career as a journalist. All of that is romanticism. You are visualizing and in many cases attempting to concretize, in a positive and powerful way, achievements and/or experiences that you consider great.
Some things are just too sacred to poke fun at.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)