Fisk Of Death: Gregg Doyel Edition

It's going to be a long, long offseason, and Gregg Doyel reminds us why.

Ya see, we're going to be subject to a number of simply nauseating articles about whom the Texans should take with the first overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft. It really doesn't matter if you think it should be Teddy Bridgewater or Jadeveon Clowney or Johnny Manziel - or even Garrett Gilbert! - as long as you can make a thoughtful, logical argument for your player of choice.

Doyel will have none of your logic. Let's step into this steaming pile of horse excrement together, shall we?

This is a smokescreen, what the Houston Texans are doing with Blake Bortles. It's a bluff, what owner Bob McNair has been saying about Jadeveon Clowney.

Do I need to review, in the least, that the Texans are the most message disciplined team in the league? No? Good. Also, too, grammar.

Either that, or it's stupid.

That's right: Doyel goes straight for the crystal ball, knowing precisely who's going to be great and who's not because...ummm...

Because it's absurd, the idea that the Texans are seriously considering taking anyone not named Johnny Manziel.

It's rare to see somebody write with a stutter. Also, these are, really, three separate, yet distinct, paragraphs, to start, the article.

The Texans don't just need to take Manziel with the No. 1 overall pick. They have to take Manziel. They have no other choice, for reasons that are football and business and public relations.

And here we go! As most of you know, a friend of mine still makes the argument Vince Young would've been the superior pick over Mario Williams because marketing! Doyel seems to take the same stance: It's not who actually helps the team win, but who would be the best player plastered on every bus in Houston? Why, it's JFF! He's from Texas and everything!

Having the No. 1 overall draft choice, in Houston, in the exact year that the south Texas supernova known as Johnny F---ing Football has entered the draft? That takes all the pressure off the Texans, because there is no other choice. In part, because there is no other choice.

Ya dig? Because JFF has entered the draft is why the Texans should take JFF because south Texas? And there is no other choice.

This is precisely the same logic that surrounded VY leading up the the 2006 NFL Draft. There hasn't been a single mention about why, on the field, JFF, should be the #1 pick. Uncle Bob and Rick Smith don't have a choice because south Texas, supernovas, and pressure. Got all this?

Seriously, Blake Bortles? Look, if there was a no-brainer choice out there for the first overall pick, someone like Andrew Luck or Cam Newton, then the Texans should draft that guy. But that guy doesn't exist in this draft. This one is a crapshoot, with the broad-shouldered Bortles drawing comparisons to Ben Roethlisberger ... and Tim Tebow. Jadeveon Clowney? Sure, he could be another Julius Peppers. But what if he's the next Courtney Brown?

There isn't a "no-brainer choice," but the Texans would be "stupid" to not take JFF. And every DE who might not pan out is Courtney Brown (get ready for this comparison about eleventy billion more times to justify not taking Clowney). And has anybody, anywhere, seen a comp of Bortles to Tebow? I haven't.

Teddy Bridgewater? Nobody has any idea what kind of pro quarterback he's going to be.

Do I...can I...how the f...I'm just dumbfounded at this point. We don't know what kind of pro ANY of these guys will be, Captain Obvious.

Since there isn't a no-brainer with that No. 1 overall pick, that leaves a no-brainer with the No. 1 overall pick: Johnny Manziel.

If you've been waiting your entire life to see a sentence that simultaneously explains that up is up, and up is also down, this is that sentence. "The sky is blue, but the sky is green" would be an intellectual equivalent.

This is one of those perfect-storm situations. Manziel wouldn't be the no-brainer No. 1 pick for just any team, even a team needing a quarterback. His ceiling is high, but the risk factor is high too. A safer quarterback for a team like, say, Cleveland to draft would be Bortles. I guess. Look, I'll be honest when I say I've not seen nearly as much of Bortles as I've seen of Manziel.

"Manziel wouldn't be the no-brainer No. 1 pick for just any team." Sic. But I guess he is for the Texans because south Texas? When you look up "specious" in the dictionary, Doyel doesn't understand what I mean. Manziel's ceiling is high? How? Tell me. State, in words, your expectations for Manziel. 5,000 yards passing and 1,200 rushing? He knows how to texture ceilings?

This is the kind of paragraph that represents ass-tastic reporting at its most elite--awful generalizations, poor conclusions, and an admittance of not knowing WTF you're even talking about. You, dearest reader, couldn't type a more reprehensible group of words than what Doyel wrote. You'll definitely need jumbo crayons to even come close.

The next three plus paragraphs highlight Doyel admitting he's the Brick Tamland of quarterback knowledge. Because, you know, he needed the extra credibility. We'll skip to this.

Like I said earlier, this is the perfect storm for the Texans. Manziel is a national phenomenon, but he's also a state legend. He's the Texas Tebow, only better, and the Texans need a quarterback. And to draft anyone but Manziel, and to watch Manziel become a star in some other market ...

After this paragraph, so empty of logic, thoughtful reasoning, full of hyperbole, I guaran-damn-tee Peter King favorited this trash.

I understand, BRB, that, as a group, we're used to considerably higher journalistic standards than Doyel's drivel. After all, how many times would you expect the words "Tebow" and "perfect storm" to exist in the same paragraph? This journalistic puke is precisely why I started blogging, and it's why blogging is so necessary today. Doyel spouts a bunch of empty crap, bereft of thought or meaning in clearly a link-whoring endeavor of stupidity. As bloggers, we try to bring more than superficial, Doyelinian skid marks to Texans reporting.

Did you notice a link up top? No? Now you know why.

"That would be the apocalyptic scenario for the Texans," says Nick Wright of CBS Radio 610 AM in Houston.

I called Wright for the perspective from Houston on the No. 1 overall pick, and Wright says the city is as divided now as it was in 2006 when Texas junior Vince Young was available and the Texans needed a quarterback and they passed up Young -- a Houston native, no less -- to draft defensive end Mario Williams.

Apocalyptic? Apocalyptic. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together. MASS HYSTERIA!

I'm personally allergic to sports talk radio as it's, oddly enough, prone to hyperbole (I know, not often), so I don't know who this Nick Wright is. I do know, however, he's in the wrong profession.

Young was a bust in Tennessee, but even so that pick has left a bad taste around town.

"To this day we still get calls about the 2006 draft," Wright says. "People wanted Vince Young then, and people want Johnny Manziel now, and if they draft someone else -- if they draft anyone else -- and he does fine but Manziel becomes a franchise quarterback somewhere else, that's as close to a fatal blow as this franchise could have."

"As close to a fatal blow as this franchise could have." Read that. Let it sink in. Dream about it tonight. Wallow in its crapulence.

Not that the Texans' future hangs in the balance.

Though, to be fair, you've spent the entire post telling us that there will be FIRE AND BRIMSTONE if we don't draft Manziel. Not even a good kick-save there, Doyel.

This is not Jacksonville, using banners to hide entire sections of empty seats, sitting there with a shrinking fan base and a chance to draft the immensely popular Tebow. Wright points out that the Texans sell out every game and are a talk-radio obsession in a town with NBA and Major League Baseball franchises. But letting Manziel go somewhere else, and watching him become a star there, while the Texans try to dig out of their 2-14 crater from this past season ...

Every fan base has its limits. Texans fans returned after the David Carr drama. They returned after Mario Williams was drafted instead of Vince Young. They'll probably return after last season's 2-14 embarrassment.

But would they return if Manziel is a star somewhere else? Especially if Bortles or Clowney or Bridgewater is a bust in Houston?

As a reminder, sic.

Do you know what puts fannies in seats? Marketability of a team's players? Pretty faces?

No, it's all about winning. 700,000 people didn't cheer on the Seahawks because Russell Wilson looks great on a cereal box. When someone like Mr. Doyel comes around - and it's going to happen often this offseason - and tells us to draft JFF because marketing, he's a fool.

The Texans didn't draft Vince Young in 2006 because, at the time, they didn't believe he was the best player for the team. If the Texans draft anybody other than the player they feel is the best available in 2014, the entire staff should be systematically fired. Now, if they decide that player is JFF, great. I've no problem with this. But this decision should be about winning and nothing else. Leave the perfect storm hyperboles somewhere else, please.

Let's finish reviewing this junk.

To be clear, there are reasons not to draft Manziel. He has had maturity issues, though he came a long way -- a long, long way -- as the 2013 season unfolded. He is small, though he's slightly bigger than the quarterback who just won the Super Bowl, Russell Wilson of the Seahawks. Granted, Wilson is 25 going on 35 while Manziel has been a 20-year-old acting 16. Manziel turned 21 in December, but there's no denying his maturity issues of not so long ago. He's a risk. Obviously. You're not reading an assertion that he's a can't-miss prospect, because he could miss. He could miss big.

Note that we're almost at the end of Doyel's post, and this is the first mention of a JFF strength or weakness as a football player. First time. Truly, Doyel is talented at player analysis. In addition, we don't actually know if JFF is slightly bigger than Wilson if he hasn't been measured at the Combine. Hard measurables sure have a tendency to fluctuate at the NFL's version of a meat market.

Size, unfortunately, is important here. When running QBs take too many hits, like a Robert Griffin III, they have an unusual tendency to get hurt. Odd, I know. NFL QBs need to be pass first, not run first.

But he could be a star, too. The NFL is trending in his direction, with athletic quarterbacks who can run and throw, and nobody in college has ever run and thrown it like Manziel. He's not big, no, but like Wilson he has enormous hands that will allow him to throw the ball in cold weather.

No, Doyel. The NFL has trended that direction. Past tense. This alone does not make JFF's scrambling skill unique in the league. There are 8 to 10 starters with similar talents who start in today's NFL. In addition, when facing a real defense like LSU (the only true defensive standout in the overrated SEC), JFF was whipped. Twice. Ron Dayne wants to remind you that college stats are meaningless.

Best-case scenario for the Texans? Johnny Manziel is a more dynamic Russell Wilson.

Worst-case scenario for the Texans? Johnny Manziel is a more dynamic Russell Wilson ... for Cleveland.

Understanding risk is an important aspect of the draft, one Doyel plainly fails to grasp with his conclusion. The best case scenario? Doyel gets it right, though I'm not exactly sure what "a more dynamic Russell Wilson" looks like. The worst case scenario is drafting JFF with the 1.1 overall of the 2014 NFL Draft, and he makes VY look like a Hall of Famer. If you draft him 1.1 because he's the perfect storm from Texas, and the team will just literally die if we don't, you're making the wrong decision.

Yet this is Doyel's entire argument.

We'll see Doyel's reasoning many times over the next three months, and it'll be wrong-er every time. It was just as poor an argument in 2006 as it is in 2014. If the Texans draft JFF, I'll welcome him with open arms and wallet because I sincerely hope they did it for football reasons.