Cheerleaders

It’s always a bad idea to generalize when speaking about a group of people.

If you’re a sports reporter it’s a really horrible idea to alienate half your readers or listeners by saying that women can’t think critically about football and are basically just cheerleaders.

It’s such a bad take that it can cost you your jobs, as Jerry Sullivan, a writer around Western New York found out.

When he was writing for the Buffalo News, Sully had a lot of readers. Probably more than half of them hated him because he was highly critical of the home team a lot of the time.

Many of the players aren’t fans either.

Just last week Sullivan told Josh Allen that the offense didn’t look like a super bowl capable offense.

“Okay,” Allen responded, not taking the bait.

I never disliked Sullivan - I got what he was doing - he was being anti-cheerleader for the home team.

He tried his best to stir up shit by not always praising the good guys.

He baited players and fans alike.

I always read his column.

This time, he went too far and in this world, it will cost him dearly.

About 20 years back, Sullivan (a known Red Sux cheerleader) was bitching that the Yankees spent more money.

I called in.

“The Yankees have Posada, Jeter, Rivera, Pettite and Bernie. They’re all homegrown,” I said.

“That’s only 5 guys,” he said.

“You put those five on any other team and they’d win,” I reasoned.

He hung up on me.

I like to think that he figured out that I was right.

Probably not.

Feels like the end of an era. He’s probably done around Western New York.

For such a critical thinker…

…he truly blew it.