Hruby comes clean

SRAM has been berating Patrick Hruby's inane chatter on Snap Judgment all year long, particularly his ridiculous "let-me-get-this-jab-in" non-sequiters. Well, in this week's column, the man finally comes clean. When asked a dumb question about McNabb's play last Sunday, Hruby responds with this gem:

I don't care if McNabb promises to spread freedom, democracy and plum contracts for American oil companies across the globe, all while cutting taxes. Talk is cheap. Play's the thing. McNabb delivered. Nothing else matters. Or have we learned nothing from a certain presidential administration's quickly-forgotten feel-good vow to put a man on Mars?
Not that I'm bitter about the Inauguration or anything.

I am tempted to actually give the man props for finally being up-front about his problem of not being able to prevent his personal difficulties from spilling over into his work. I should applaud his progress: the first step is admitting you have a problem, etc. But in reality, his admission at the end to being bitter over Bush is simply a result of his realizing that he probably finally went a little too far with his Angry Left routine and so he'd better salvage a bit of dignity with a little joke at the end. This was a defensive play, not an admission of guilt.

In another section, the talk turned to Michael Vick "toria's Secret." Vick, of course, had a lousy passing day on Sunday. But since it was in a big game, and he didn't run well, either, suddenly everybody realized that, hey, come to think of it, he's been a lousy passer all year! And wait a minute, didn't the Falcons lead the league in rushing yards? Skip Bayless, to his credit, saw all this last week and simply repeats in Snap Judgment what he's been saying all along:

Vick's offense struggled to score all season and that what he and his running game did to a lousy, clueless Rams defense was terribly misleading. Yet the Eagles' defense deserved 50 per cent of the credit because it had the athletes, the quickness and the disciplined scheme to repeatedly turn Vick into what he struggles to be: a pocket passer.
When forced to stop and throw, Vick's mechanics are still some of the worst this side of a fly-by-night garage.