When keyboard warriors on Twitter (not calling it “X”, deal with it) are the sensible people in a debate about sports, you know you’re kicking off the New Year in hell.
Fox Sports’ Monse Bolaños is either going to parlay her infamous “quarterbacky” quote into an explosion of exposure and redeem herself for an awful take, or she’ll keep living in denial, play heel, and double down on Christian McCaffrey winning MVP over Lamar Jackson.
In case you need context, leading up to Week 17, and after Lamar blew out CMC’s 49ers 33-19 in a potential Super Bowl preview that wasn’t even that close, Bolaños felt like anyone campaigning for Lamar to win his second MVP award was being a prisoner of the moment.
Couldn’t you argue that the 49ers defense (No. 2 in points allowed), San Francisco’s many other pass-catchers, and quarterback Brock Purdy, with his NFL-leading 113.0 passer rating, carry McCaffrey? Purdy has thrown for the most yards in a single season in 49ers franchise history. More than Joe Montana or Steve Young managed with Jerry Rice. I know it’s a different era, but still. A system QB he is not.
Meanwhile, maybe the reason Lamar doesn’t throw the ball as often, or have as many TD passes as most other quarterback MVP contenders is because he’s too f*cking busy leading the Ravens in rushing, too, with 821 yards and another five TDs. He is the system perhaps more than anyone else has ever been. Not the MVP, though?
IDK. Just food for thought. Wins aren’t a QB stat, but with his 13-3 record this year, Lamar is now 58-19 in the regular season. That’s a winning percentage of 75.3%.
Almost as if he heard all the nonsense prior to Sunday, all Lamar did was go out and throw for five TDs with only three incompletions (18-for-21 passing) in a 56-19 dismantling of a Miami Dolphins defense who was playing like one of the best units in the league coming in.
OOOOOOOF. Getting called out by team, with the graphic treatment!? Damn.
Maybe Lamar did hear about it beforehand. He certainly did the prior week.
Hey, if Bolaños can weather the storm, rally from her Freezing Cold Take, and find a way to spin this catastrophe the right way, she can reach an even wider audience in a shorter time than she could’ve previously imagined. That’s what tends to get rewarded these days, right? Doesn’t matter if you’re aggressively, laughably wrong. As long as you’re loud enough, you will be successful. Or at least that’s how it goes a lot of the time.
In fact, look at Fox Sports’ own Skip Bayless. Dude has made a career of being hilariously wrong on so many sports-related opinions, boldfaced lying about them or making up the most ridiculous excuses, inciting hate across the globe, and building a villainous brand that allows him to rake in millions of dollars per year. The American Dream if I’ve ever seen it.
So for now, let’s celebrate Bolaños’ ineptitude as a sports analyst. Not because she’s a woman. Preemptively going to implore you to miss me with that nonsense. It’s because she’s ten-toes-down so wrong about Lamar Jackson. With the Ravens and 49ers both clinching the No. 1 seed, the MVP race is over. O-V-E-R. Over.
It makes me sad since I have future bets on Purdy and CMC to win MVP. Looked pretty good for a while there! Nevertheless, setting my emotions aside, I can acknowledge: it’s over.
Prayers up for Monse Bolaños that she has the self-effacing levity to take this one on the chin and continue to advance her career. OK. On to the best of the reactions, beginning with none other than newly-39-year-old NBA GOAT LeBron James, and thankfully, we have current Ravens players weighing in as a bonus.
Yeah, everyone’s talking about sleeper teams and “oh I wouldn’t want to face THEM” in the playoffs. How about not wanting to face Lamar and the Ravens? They’re downright scary. Seemingly unstoppable.
They destroyed the clear best team in the NFC and it wasn’t close. The top seed in the AFC was on the line on Sunday, and the Dolphins stood no chance. Baltimore is coming for the Bowl of Supremacy.
