With Super Bowl XLI on the horizon, one issue remains at the forefront of my mind. No, it isn’t the fact that Peyton Manning exorcised the devil known as Tom Brady en route to his first AFC Championship trophy, or that, for the first time, two black coaches will meet in the Super Bowl. In fact, the game for me only siginfies the end of the season and, by extension, the logical end of the Sports Gal’s career as a columnist on ESPN.com.

Don’t get me wrong, this post isn’t meant to bash on Bill Simmons. I’ve always though of him as a pretty big part of the reason why I read ESPN.com on a regular basis, and I am in the process of reading his book, which, even though it’s full of recycled material, is quite enjoyable. In fact, the guy usually makes me laugh out loud right before he starts talking about the Patriots or Red Sox or Larry Bird or The Godfather or 90210 for the umpteen millionth time. Therein lies the problem with Bill: too often, he reverts back to being the Boston Sports Guy instead of the Sports Guy. There are legions of fans out there that care not for the Red Sox and would like to see you make fun of their teams for a change.

The Sports Gal’s mini-columns were breaths of fresh air: unbiased, hip observations from someone who, like us, both loves Bill and is annoyed at him from time to time. Here’s hoping that the Sports Guy finds more excuses to include sidebars from his wife and fewer opportunities to blab about yet another season of Real World/Road Rules Challenge that we don’t care about.

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed