I’m PFT Commenter and I’m counting down the 10 sharpest minds in the industry. Where will your favorite analyst or sports person land? (probably not high)
Ranked on: Infotainment value, being a pros pro and strength of takes
NEW NUMBER 1: JAY MARIOTTI (HE’S BACK)
Infotainment Value: 10
Jay Mariotti debuted a new website folks in the new Grantland, MMQB, Clownfister style of delivering takes and thank God he did. In other words the once and future king is back to pull the sword out of the stone except the sword is thumbtacks and the stone is a Cambodian escort’s thigh. He gets it going RIGHT OF THE BAT in a open letter to his reader which is the first letter hes written in years that doesnt include the phrase “kill that bitch,” when he says, “I’m not in this business to publicize sports or masturbate to my own prose”, I guess he’ll leave that up to his legions of female readers. They’re not the only ones who will be spending extra time with the electric toothbrush since the entire cast of First Take will have to get the taste of udder fear out of there mouths seeing his looming scowl on the horizon. Like many others, Jays a guy who honed his craft by commenting over at PFT, he’d stop by from time to time under the handle “HereCumsTheBoom” but got called up 2 the big leagues of ESPN and never looked back. My alltime thumbsup record at PFT is like Emmit Smiths rushing record and Jay is Barry Sanders if the guy had ever learned to throw a chopblock on a lineman or offduty stripper.
Being a Pros Pro: 1
Jays not in this business to hold your hand and pat you on the back, hes here to rub you the wrong way as any number of his aquantinces will testify. Its no coincidince Jays shiny lips are on the front of his face like a walking blinking warning sign that “FYI I’m going to be delivering the goods so if your too sensitive you can go back to candyland and let the grownups talk about which athletes are absolute disgraces.” Your not going to win any friends in the industry if you have the God-Given ability to out debate a young Tim Cowlishaw on his second fifth of Early Times or Woody Page whos literaly mainlining fix-a-flat during commercial breaks. It takes a special kind of crazy but you know want I want a little crazy in my analysts and middle-linebacker which is also what you can call his receding widows peak FYI.
Strength of Takes: Literally a million
Maybe the most promising part of his new lucrative website he runs (that doesnt have any advertisments or sponsors because Jays not a sellout) is Jays promise of “quick-cycle takes”. From what I gather thats like a speedball style combo of strongtakes with rapid reactions injected behind your eyeballs in a drug strong enough to kill a hundred Skip Baylesses, in other words buckle in folks because Mariottis in the driver-seat again and your just some skank he picked up at Margaritaville whose in need of a attitude adjustment.
This is going to be a breath of freshair for those of us who were sick of the kinder gentler California Marriotti who would sometimes literally go days between trying to get a manager fired or stalking a peer. Yep old Thunderlips is back and just a sampling of his new headlines feature stories about Hernandez, ARod, Trayvon Martin, things he likes, and ESPN. In other words “game on.” There are sure to be a bunch of haters who care more about spelling then telling, or would rather there analysts talk about subtle nuances rather then bold truths.
Peter King=coffee and beer, Mariotti= toilet-meth and habernero flavored MadDog folks. Which side are YOU on?
Total Points: 1,000,011
Jay if your excepting writer applications for your new site Id be honored if my resume made it to the top of the stack. Id be almost your Vice President, your attack dog, your Marcus Vick to take out the haters and let you create art.
