November 23, 2011

Dear Doug:

When I heard you say that you’re willing to give the 5-year vet, Kevin Kolb, until the middle of next season to turn things around I immediately had one thought: How I wish you were my boss! What a luxury it would be to know that I could underperform for a year and a half and not have to worry about losing my job.

Rod

I don’t blame Kolb for his struggles. Too much of the off ense was thrown at him. I’m sure you know more about football than Kurt Warner but he said it takes a year to really understand this offense and that’s with OTAs and a full training camp. I think Kolb deserves an off-season to learn this offense and then I’m giving him 8 games next year.

If I thought I had made a mistake and put you in a bad spot, I would give you extra time to reach the expectations placed on you.

Hi Doug,

I was reading through the mailbag and saw a bunch of emails regarding your comments about Milwaukee fans being more passionate then Dbacks fans.

There are a bunch more emails about attendance and how you “bashed” us local fans for not attending and how Milwaukee filled the stadium for an afternoon game. I know I’m late in chiming in but you really do need to remember something about the valley.

First, we are not “bad fans”. We just are small in numbers. The majority of folks who live here support a team from somewhere else. The valley is a great place to live but the problem is everyone who is moving here is bringing their past teams loyalty with them. So, Milwaukee doesn’t have more passionate fans, they just don’t have to compete with any other fans. Nobody is moving to Milwaukee so all you have there is Milwaukee fans.

I don’t want to rattle on too much but I have a point. I am a season ticket holder for the Cards and also love the Dbacks. But I can’t go to Dbacks games because I chose Cards tickets instead. But I do support the Dbacks with shirts and hats purchases. I even have a Dbacks tattoo. So attendance doesn’t equal passion.

My advice to you would be not to tell us fans that we are not as passionate as other teams fans. I think we are (again, we are just small in numbers). You should plea for fans who still support teams from their old address to show some passion for the local team, or in a perfect world, go back to where they came from. This will forever haunt the valley until old loyalty’s can fade, at least fade to their children. I know guys who are fans of other teams simply because their dad was a fan of that other team. Time to cut the strings, especially if you’ve never even been to that city! You get my point.

Bobby

Let’s get a major point straight, Bobby. When I say “bad” fans, I’m not addressing you. Anyone who is a season ticket holder in this city is a great fan. Here’s how I judge. When I was a kid, I lived an hour from Cincinnati. My blue-collar dad would take us to about six games a year. I set that as the bar. If you (and I mean “you” in the generic sense and not an attack on you, Bobby) claim to be a passionate D-Backs fan, do you really think I’m asking too expect that person to go to about three games a year?

In Milwaukee, they draw three million every year. This past season, they were seventh in overall attendance. The town is half the size of the Phoenix metro. The Diamondbacks were 18th in MLB at 2.1 million. Oh, and before you throw the economy of the valley at me, the D-Backs were 29th in average ticket price.

Brewer fans go to more games during the season. Brewer fans sell-out every playoff game. Brewer fans are louder throughout the game than D-Backs fans. I don’t know what standard you set for passion but I think those are three pretty good barometers.

Ok… so how is LSU winning 45-10 over Boise St any different than 4 out of the last 5 BCS championship games? You make it sound like the other big conferences have fared so well against SEC opponents. Oregon came the closest last year. You may not think it is a game, but the last thing the BCS would want to have happen is for a rematch to occur, have LSU lose to Bama and now the lone unbeaten team at the end of the year is Boise St.

I personally think we need a playoff. I have a hard time saying the regular season is the playoff and then promptly putting a team who lost ahead of a team who didn’t. The little guys have beat enough big guys to get their shot. Boise beat Oklahoma. Utah beat Alabama. TCU beat Wisconsin. If every other team loses, the BCS has had it gift wrapped to put an end to the small guy argument. Put them in there and, in your mind, have them get killed and put it to rest.

Steve

Great comeback to my point. I don’t think it’s fair to LSU to have to beat Alabama again in a Championship game. However, if it’s the BCS’s job to put No. 1 v No. 2, then those are the two best teams.

The BCS is a failure and it’s a concoction to make the big schools richer. Until the rest of the schools pull out nothing will change.

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