Dr Z - Pwned

[WineBird]

Greetings Falcons fans.

I just wanted to take this time to highlight the guilt that Dr Z is feeling this week, provided by yours truly.

Here are his rankings from Weeks 6 and 7:

21Last Week: 25 Atlanta Falcons (3-2)I hate to admit it but this is one of the four teams I have yet to see in an entire game. Chicago at home on Sunday? Yeah, that's the one to see.

18Last Week: 21 Atlanta Falcons (4-2)They're one of the two teams I have yet to see for an entire game, Detroit being the other, but I swear to you that I will take careful note of their contest against Philly. Not everyone would admit something like this. I try to see everybody, but something just seems to come up each week. Please, Falcons fans, hold off on the ugly email. I will treat this team fairly, this I promise.

Here is the email I sent him last week, forgive me if its a bit too respectful, I find you get better results with a bit of flattery:

Dr. Z,

Please don't take this the wrong way, but as a Falcons fan, I am insulted that you have failed to watch even one full game this year. Specifically after you mentioned this fact LAST WEEK, before the Bears game.

There is no excuse in this, the DVR and Internet age, for a person as knowledgeable about the game of football as you are to not see a single game of a team you are supposed to be objectively ranking by week six.

Sorry, no excuse.

If you have seen the games, and decide that the Falcons are the 18th best team in the league, fine. I usually defer to your more informed opinion and reconsider my own positions. But please, if you refuse to record the game (or maybe check it out on NFL Network Replay), just abstain from ranking my team.

Thanks for the job that you do, and I look forward to reading more of your column in the future. Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but I respect your writing enough to call you out when you are wrong.

-Andrew

Birmingham, AL

PS - Why not just go back and watch the Week One destruction of the Lions and kill two birds with one stone?

And here's his mailbag this week:

The leadoff e-mail started, "Please don't take this the wrong way ..." I immediately fastened my seat belt. Things only could get worse. And they did. Basically I was told, among other things, that given my modus operandi, I was not fit to rank 32 NFL teams. The e-mailer was Andrew from Birmingham, the Alabama one. Which isn't all that far from Atlanta, and that's what he was upset about.

I ranked the Falcons 18th, sight unseen, although as I explained (was it really two weeks in a row that I explained it?) I will soon be highlighting them on my must-see list. You can imagine how this went over with the Big A, which is Andrew.

"I told you not to write that ... I told you that you'd only get in trouble with all that mea culpa stuff," said The Flaming Redhead, who grew up under the shadow of Catholic Guilt.

Right as usual (Isn't it tiresome to be right so often?). I reveal too much. I could never get a job with the CIA, even a menial one. But let me explain one thing. I don't watch pieces of games. I watch them in their entirety, because there are nuances you simply don't get if you hop around from game to game. I usually catch the local, New York area game live, and then comes the long, and I do mean long, TV vigil, after three VCRs have recorded half a dozen games. Sometimes, if a game finishes early, I'll get a piece of another one. Then there's the Sunday nighter, then the Monday nighter, then more tape viewing. Then dinner.

This schedule has gotten me through a breakdown of 30 NFL teams so far, most of them at least twice. I'm sorry that the Falcons are not among them, but they will be soon. This is the way I do things...have been doing them for as long as VCRs have been around. I think you'll find that many of your most prestigious rankers of clubs and selectors of all-star teams undergo a lot less exposure. I'm sorry if I have offended you.

While I will admit I am disappointed that he did not quote me... a journalist did apologize...

VICTORY IS MINE!!

[ltstorm1]

That's very cool.

[bossFALCON™]

IMO there is no reason why you should be watching some teamS TWICE before you watch another team once. especially when there have been SIX games played so far.

i'll be pissed if our ranking "magically" drops and the first game he sees is the one bad game we're bound to have.

[WineBird]

IMO there is no reason why you should be watching some teamS TWICE before you watch another team once. especially when there have been SIX games played so far.

i'll be pissed if our ranking "magically" drops and the first game he sees is the one bad game we're bound to have.

Seriously, that really ticked me off. If we lose to Philly he's going to drop us to 31.

[FalconWong88]

That's very cool.

he completely overlooked your DVR statement.

hence, I feel that most old people that are not tech literate can be phased out of the work environment.

I'm sorry if you are old and not tech literate.

Just a statement that needed to be said so you guys will start on it. It won't hurt you though to learn. It'll help in retirement i promise.

[WineBird]

he completely overlooked your DVR statement.

hence, I feel that most old people that are not tech literate can be phased out of the work environment.

I'm sorry if you are old and not tech literate.

Just a statement that needed to be said so you guys will start on it. It won't hurt you though to learn. It'll help in retirement i promise.

I didnt realize people still used VCRs.

I mean, I own one, but its not hooked up to a TV

[mrs falcon]

So he ranks teams for a major sports publication and he doesn't even watch the games?

Why not let a monkey pick?

[sporkdevil]

Good job. I would have asked Dr. Z if he still thinks the Vikings are going to win the Superbowl.

But I could understand not watching a Bengals game, or something like that, as they are right around the bottom of the rankings, because you are dealing with just one or two other failure teams. To not watch a single game of a team that is 4-2, and blowing away all expectations has no excuse. After 6 weeks, if you watched 16 games at random you would have seen a game (by watching about 2 and a half a week. I watch more than that).

But I'm glad he actually acknowledged his poor research. It is only his job.

[KeepItCrispy]

Haha, he acted like you tore him to shreads....and you weren't even mean... he apparently wouldn't know what to do if you were.

[WineBird]

Haha, he acted like you tore him to shreads....and you weren't even mean... he apparently wouldn't know what to do if you were.

He wouldn't have replied if I was actually mean. He's playing the victim. I'll bet the Flaming Redhead is on my side.

[chifalc]

Good job. I would have asked Dr. Z if he still thinks the Vikings are going to win the Superbowl.

But I could understand not watching a Bengals game, or something like that, as they are right around the bottom of the rankings, because you are dealing with just one or two other failure teams. To not watch a single game of a team that is 4-2, and blowing away all expectations has no excuse. After 6 weeks, if you watched 16 games at random you would have seen a game (by watching about 2 and a half a week. I watch more than that).

But I'm glad he actually acknowledged his poor research. It is only his job.

Especially since, in his job, I bet he coudl get footage of any game he wanted to, whever he wanted to, for the asking.

[Remarkable]

That's cool and all that he replied, but who cares where he ranks us? Why does it make you feel "insulted?"

[Shiney_McShine]

Pwned?

[Durrty]

Nice.

[sporkdevil]

Pwned?

I would have said uber pwnage.

[golden goose]

IMO there is no reason why you should be watching some teamS TWICE before you watch another team once. especially when there have been SIX games played so far.

i'll be pissed if our ranking "magically" drops and the first game he sees is the one bad game we're bound to have.

I'm surprised he was man enough (maybe read, "dumb enough") to admit not watching the games in the first place. I know it must be hard to watch that many games but is it not entailed in the job he has accepted? He's supposed to do a weekly power ranking (read, poll). Instead it looks more like he's just drawing on a few random games with teams that happened to impress him and filling in the blanks with the rest of the media hype for the other games. Yeah, that won't get you in trouble. I didn't put much validity in the media "rankings" anyway and I'm even LESS likely to read his columns now that I know he doesn't even bother to watch all, or even most, of the games. As was previously mentioned, I''m willing to bet that he could get copies of the games if he actually wanted them.

This same stuff goes on with the writers in college ball as well. In college they at least have the excuse that the number of games to watch is 4 times as much as the pros. Somehow though, the college football writers come up with a story every year about how their poll isn't biased like the coaches poll because they actually watch the games. BS! At least the pros actually have a playoff system to sort this mess out at the end of the year. One day, one day.

[schwarzenegger321]

Good job.

Dr Z is a douchbag. Over the last three weeks I have sent siwriters.com emails from both of my yahoo accounts, my work account and my hotmail account. I haven't been overly rude but I did mention that as a "professional" wasn't it his responsibility to watch all of the games. I mean how can you rank all of the teams if you don't watch them play. He basically admits to not watching teams and ranking them on god knows what basis.

Good job again. I think we all need to email mr. zimmerman.

[chifalc]

Its especially damning hen it comes against a team that he has personally in the past admitted to having a bias against, then he goes out and demonstrates it writ large.

[Shiney_McShine]

I would have said uber pwnage.

I still don't get it.

[sporkdevil]

I still don't get it.

It's internet jargon. I picked up on most of it from a South Park episode.

[golden goose]

I still don't get it.

it's "geek speak".

if you don't understand it, you might want to consider yourself lucky. go play any online role playing game and you'll figure it out fast. or enroll at Georgia Tech for a semester.

[Robb4242]

I called him out on his claiming the clock operator basically gave us the Chicago game. Too bad he didn't have the balls to own up to his lack of credibility in that instance.

[iloxygenil]

I would have said uber pwnage.

or

ROFLPWND

[VTCrunkler]

I still don't get it.

pwned= "owned"

[Jedi-Falcon]

Dr. Z. is the most irrelevant NFL analyst on this planet. He has no reliable contacts in the NFL anymore, no information other than what he reads and sees from the rest of the media. He is a complete hack these days. His credibility has been diminishing rapidly for the past 5 years. If I were Sports Illustrated I would be looking to hire his replacement very soon.

He is a complete tool with no real knowledge of the things he writes about.