Oh god. The nightmares. The craving. The soul-crushing emptiness for those of us who do not Sully Ourselves with thoughts of Lesser Sports. The Bleakness walks among us, fellow pilgrims.

It’s another month until the draft. Another goddamned month. There is precious little relief in sight. Unless Will Fuller does the world a favor and beats Todd McShay to death at the ND pro day for nattering on and on about his tiny, tiny hands hands. You are our only hope, Will Fuller.

BRING FORTH THE ACCUSED!

JAMES IRSAY

CHARGE: Bringing disrepute to the NFL, as difficult as that is these days.

World-renowned neurologist and public health researcher Jim Irsay decided that he needed to chime in on this whole “does violently crashing against gigantic men moving incredibly fast cause concussion-related problems” question.

And I, for one, am glad he did.

There is an incredible amount of murkiness on this issue, with all the questions about whether the NFL used questionable research in denying a link to CTE and whether the league’s own vice president for health and safety really acknowledged that link in front of God, man and Congress. And sometimes, to cut through that fog and uncertainty, you need a really tremendously asinine statement to provide clarity as to who you should hate and why.

In case you missed it (or in case you actually played football and no longer have a functional long-term memory) Irsay allegedly likened the risks of concussive and sub-concussive hits in football to the risks of taking aspirin. Not the actual risks of taking aspirin, like potential for GI bleeds and ulcers, but more like “what if you were allergic to aspirin” risks. He then played a card that no one else has pulled out of the deck yet: the concussion-discussers are the Real Villians, because they are distracting people from real issues like the ones he has. In his own words:

To try to tie football, like I said, to suicides or murders or what have you, I believe that is just so absurd as well and it is harmful to other diseases, harmful to things like … when you get into the use of steroids, when you get into substance abuse, you get into the illness of alcohol and addiction. It’s a shame that gets missed, because there [are] very deadly diseases there, for instance, like alcoholism and addiction. That gets pushed to the side and [a person] says, ‘Oh, no. Football.’ To me, that’s really absurd.

Ladies and gentlemen: Jim Irsay. A man so far up his own asshole that he qualifies as a one-man human centipede. He’s the real victim here– a man with a documented history of substance abuse and a physique which suggests he’s got a steroid problem as well. He has taken the classic narcissist route: forced to confront his issues after years of denial, he flips the script and becomes a Survivor Who Bravely Overcame the Odds. It’s only by the grace of God that he didn’t suggest that Our Vanishing Classic Rock Legacy was also a more important issue than the profits he reaps off the shattered lives of these men, because then I’d have had a cerebral hemorrhage and wouldn’t be here to type at you lovely people.

I really don’t have a pitchfork to wave in this fight- I was pleased when the NFL finally admitted what everyone else knew, and it suggested the potential to move forward on minimizing future issues so I could enjoy the game without feeling Ancient Roman about it. Then we started with the back-and-forth crap, and I would be outraged if there weren’t a thousand other More Important Things to be outraged about just now. Thankfully, Jim Irsay has provided us all with a simple focus for our anger. They also serve, those who troll from their gigantic mansions.

BOB QUINN

CHARGE: Perjury

Bob Quinn is the essence of “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” tag. The newly-sentenced General Manager of the Detroit Lions allegedly told the Detroit Free Press that convincing free agents to sign with the team hasn’t really been an issue because the team “is an attractive place to go…as a franchise, with the ownership, the head coach, the hierarchy that we have, in terms of the structure of the organization. The position coaches. The coordinators.”

To be clear: the Fords still own the team, the head coach is…well…less than charismatic, and the offensive coordinator is named Jim Bob. Jim Bob Cooter. Your quarterback is plateaued Fat Elvis. Ndamukong would rather exile himself to the Dolphins than play here, and Calvin Johnson would rather not play at all.  You are not an attractive team. Your only arguable upgrade in free agency was Marvin Jones, and that’s only an upgrade compared to the Megatron-shaped hole that was there before. No one wants to come to Detroit. Stop trying to pedal that shit and admit that overpaying and good drafting are the only ways this is ever going to get better.

I suppose we should expect no better from a guy who spent the first fifteen years of his career as a scout and exec with the Greatriots.

Shit, the only thing less honest that Quinn’s comments was PFT’s headline for the story, which blared “New Lions G.M. declares Detroit ‘an attractive place to go’”. Which is so plainly bullshit, so transparently false that it does not even qualify as a “lie” because there can be no intent to deceive. It is an anti-lie, but it is not the truth. Which is nifty.

JASON HEYWARD

CHARGE: BEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!!

Jason Heyward did nothing wrong leaving St. Louis for the greener river of Chicago. However, this has not stopped many of my fellow BFIB from gleefully posting videos of Heyward allegedly being attacked by a swarm of maddened bees in the outfield during a Spring Training game with captions like “Divine Punishment”. Because they are half-wits.

No, Heyward did nothing wrong, and this only deserves a place in CrimeBeat! because 1. I needed a third item in this desperately slow off-season, and 2. I get to repost these:

Seriously though: fuck bees. Yes, you pollinate shit and some of you vomit honey, which is cool. But you fuckers only seem to have two possible responses to being disturbed: die off in droves, or sting. Stop being such drama drones and grow the fuck up.