We sure hope we didn’t get Patrick Hruby in any trouble.

Hruby is an excellent writer and a friend of PFT (we actually have a few, surprisingly).  Hruby penned a profile of the site for the Washington Times in 2004, while we still looked like a fifth-rate Internet craphole.  (We’ve since graduated to fourth-rate.)

In a new feature for ESPN.com’s Page 2, Hruby has been tracking absurd quotes in power-ranking style.  Volume 2 of the Absurd Quote Power Rankings moved from No. 9 to No. 5 the following gem from ESPN’s own Emmitt Smith:  “What happened tonight, the strength of the Patriots team got debacled.”

So we posted a blurb on it, and went about our business.

But then something happened.  The list got changed.  Emmitt’s quote fell from No. 5 all the way to, as Hruby says with a jab at Mike Tyson, “Bolivian.”  This link goes to the revised version of the Absurd Quote Power Rankings, where Emmitt is off the list.  (Actually, Emmitt’s quote is still mentioned, but only as being dropped from the roster.)

And although the image on the cached version of the page with Emmitt perched at No. 5 disappears a split second after the page from the Google search loads, we found an older version of the Absurd Quote Power Rankings, Volume 2, right here.

Just in case that disappears as well, we lifted the image (and in so doing surely violated one or more copyrights).

absurdquotepowerrankings.JPG

Other revisions were made as well between 10:04 a.m. and 11:50 a.m. on Friday, but the reasons for those other changes aren’t apparent.  None of the others whose words exited the list work for ESPN.  Emmitt does, and the disappearance of the portion of the item poking fun at Emmitt’s struggles with the English language makes us (and presumably others) believe that ESPN doesn’t like its own online writers pointing a finger and laughing at the pimples on the butts of the network’s on-air talent.