As the Countdown team prepared for Sunday’s games, someone (Mike Ditka, I think) was asked what some team (Arizona, maybe) needed to do to win a game with a rookie QB (Max Hall, most likely). Hell, it doesn’t matter the context. Here was the analysis (near verbatim):
- “They need to establish the running game.”
- “They need to protect their quarterback.”
- “Someone is going to need to make a play on special teams.”
Well, thank GOD, they cleared that up.
ESPN isn’t the only one that does this, but they like to hire ex-jocks because, somehow, they think it allows people like Trent Dilfer to say something like “Well, I played in the league for 14 years and have been watching it for a long time and….” before saying something that makes him look like an ass-hat.
Back when I taught Philosophy, one of the first topics to cover was the most typically committed logical fallacies and how to avoid them. What Dilfer was committing was the “I’m about to sound like an ass-hat, but I played in the league and you didn’t, and even won a Super Bowl, though only because of Ray Lewis, but you didn’t, so ‘neener, neener, neener’” fallacy.