Years ago, we were assured that some of Gregg Easterbrook’s best friends are Jews, though it is a very fair bet he’s not close pals with “Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America” author Matt Taibbi, who uses his mailbag at Rolling Stone.com to play the role of Lawrence Taylor to the Tuesday Morning Quarterback’s Joe Theisman.

“Matt,
Have you read the latest Unwanted All Pro column by Gregg Easterbrook? I know you are taking a break from pointing out how big of a dipshit Thomas Freidman is but can you please write a few words about Easterbrook?”
Jake
Minneapolis

Jake,
I had a fantasy once about Easterbrook getting an NFL head coaching job in Philadelphia and being beaten to death by Eagles fans after he went for it on 4th and 1 on his own 10 yard line, up 6 with two minutes left in the Super Bowl. (The AP account: “TMQ repeats: punting on 4th and short is chicken!” Easterbrook cried, shortly before he was engulfed by the mass of stampeding fans…). I’d say more, but sportswriting is trickier than it looks — it’s pretty hard to avoid sounding like an ass writing, for money, about a kid’s game. If you do it and you take yourself even the slightest bit seriously, you’re automatically an asshole. Plus, it’s all in fun anyway; whaling on sportswriters reminds me of that Kurt Vonnegut line about dressing up in a suit of armor to attack a hot fudge sundae. But Easterbrook, Jesus, he’s been writing like 7,000 words a week about the same three ideas for like ten fucking years, and they’re not even good ideas. (TMQ hates blitzes!) Plus he’s serially on both sides of every single fence. If a coach calls a pass play that doesn’t work, there are 97,000 words worth of TMQ essays on the net for you to read about the NFL’s recent overuse of the forward pass. On the other hand, if a coach calls a run in the wrong situation and blows a game, here come 100,000 TMQ words about how running on second down is gay and boring and — TMQ says, fortune favors the bold, throw the pass!