Former 49er Jeff Garcia goes after ESPN's Mina Kimes in rant straight out of 1995

[Steve Timko]

https://deadspin.com/jeff-garcia-goes-after-mina-kimes-in-rant-straight-out-1848435683 

Molly Qerim, who was parodied recently on SNL, blasts Garcia as well.

https://www.instagram.com/mollyqerim/tv/CZR9bkgBzK3/

Both sides have a point. But just because you played pro football doesn't mean you can be a decent sports commentator.

[PGage]

What valid point to you think the Jeff Garcia side of this debate has?  Suppose if you are a 49er fan (I am not) you might consider the criticism of Garappalo to be overly harsh or mean spirited, but that does not seem to be Garcia’s point. Garcia seems to think that Terry Bradshaw could have said the same thing Kime did and it would not have been a problem. 

I have never thrown a pass in the NFL but I have had to sift through a lot of bullshit from a lot of assholes, so I feel more than qualified to dismiss Jeff Garcia.

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[Steve Timko]

I am not referring to the Kimes incident specifically but to non-athletes commenting on athletic performances. Too much emphasis is placed on stats and not things like leadership and teamwork. Johnny Unitas was maybe just an above average passer who could hit the long ball but everyone seems to agree he was one of the great leaders. And that qualifies him as one of the great quarterbacks.

So Garoplo's contributions may not show up in the stats but show up in the wins.

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[PGage]

I am not seeing the connection. Clearly not all athletic performance can be reduced to numbers, and the evaluation of athletes will always be partly subjective. But that has nothing to do with whether the evaluator has played the game themselves. As has been noted by many opining on this incident, lots of male sports broadcasters never played, and lots of former jocks are idiots whose judgements are worthless, or worse - I remember reading Howard Cosell’s book “I Never Played The Game” when I was a kid, who argued that his lack of playing experience made him a better sports broadcaster.

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[Steve Timko]

Garcia said what disqualifies her is that she never played, not that she is female. He is not giving a pass to male sports commentators who have not played. 

Why does he criticize her? Is he being sexist? Or was that the criticism he saw that triggered him?

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[David Bruggeman]

All of this is based on my non-scientific sampling of sports analysis.  (That this analysis is increasingly filled with trolling and contrarianism is a separate conversation).  While I am now Bay-adjacent, I have been sufficiently disgusted with the Washington Football Team to avoid following any of the California teams).

I think the non-athletes commenting on athletes' performances debate (which I doubt is going away any time soon) is distinct from the battle over how much analytics matter in sports analysis.  I feel if people do their research and can communicate it effectively, whether they played the game at a professional level doesn't contribute as much.

While I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's mostly non-athletes relying on analytics much more than athletes, there are many non-athlete commenters who have either resisted analytics entirely or don't consider it the be-all and end-all tool that many do.  (This argument seems to break by age, with the older commenters less enamored of analytics than the younger set.)

It's tough to see how Garcia has a meaningful argument here.  If he had a point to singling out Kimes' criticism of Garoppalo beyond Kimes' lack of playing experience, he didn't make it.  You could make a stretch and suggest bias, as Kimes' has done local Rams preseason broadcasts (for those blissfully unaware, the 49ers are playing the Rams on Sunday).  But it opens Garcia up to the same criticism, given he played for the 49ers.

I've only heard Kimes do football analysis, which I think she's very capable at.  Had Garcia made a general complaint about people piling on Garoppalo, I'd have understood where he was coming from, but respectfully disagreed.  It's not clear to me that Garoppalo has the kind of intangibles that help explain the teams success.

David

[JW]

> I am not referring to the Kimes incident specifically but to non-athletes
> commenting on athletic performances. Too much emphasis is placed on stats
> and not things like leadership and teamwork

We've all heard ex-jocks provide analysis (with and without stats) that's less insightful than what you or I mumble at the TV while watching a game. Some ex-players are able to use their experience to explain what happened on the field, and some non-players are able to enlighten us as well.

If you want to claim that there's way too much time on sports networks being filled by talking heads with uninteresting opinions, I won't argue.

One columnist's view of Garcia and Kimes:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2022/espns-mina-kimes-targeted-with-dumb-jock-take/

[PGage]

I am saying: 1) the claim that non former players can not make observations about the game is invalid and 2) since there are lots of male non former players who have criticized the 49er current QB, the fact that Garcia went off on Kimes is a pretty good prima facie case that he is being sexist.

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