Idiots Write About Sports

It may not have been the most awkward moment of the draft involving Matt Leinart — Suzy Kolber’s got you covered there, chief — but it was certainly the most daft and logic-free when every ESPN personality took great pains to mention what a positive it was that, by getting drafted by the Arizona Cardinals, Leinart would play in a Pac-10 city.

Ignoring the semantic hair-splitting that Arizona ain’t a city, let me sum up the ESPN argument as best I can: because the Cardinals play in the greater Phoenix metroplex, as do the Arizona State Sun Devils, the transition for Leinart from Big Man on Campus to Promising Rookie will be much more smoother. Presumably, since it won’t take as long for him to learn the street names or where the particularly hot groupies hang out, I guess.

After all, of the 39 games Leinart started for USC, a whopping two of them were played in the greater Phoenix area. And wouldn’t you know… Leinart won them both. He’s undefeated at Sun Devil Stadium! Of course, the Cardinals are moving to a new stadium in the fall, but it was a great theory while it lasted.

Just in case there was something to this theory that was escaping my ape-like mind, I asked Jason and my pal and co-worker Curt what they thought of the “Pac-10 city is a great fit for Leinart” school of thought. Both expressed general puzzlement.

Then again, we aren’t highly paid football commentators, and Chris Berman is. So if he thinks it’s relevant that Cardinals coach Denny Green once coached in the Pac-10, who am I to say that he’s wrong? Even if Green left 1991 when Leinart was 8 years old and, presumably, not really on the radar screen of Pac 10 coaches. He’s Chris Berman, damnit, and he knows all — even who the draft picks will be before they’re actually announced.

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