"Four decades ago, I was trained at journalism school to value one thing above all others," writes WIP host Angelo Cataldi in his recent Metro.us invective against Andy Reid. "The truth." Well, clearly it wasn't detail, even-handedness, or general narrative coherence, since none of those qualities are even remotely on display in "Andy Reid, Master of Deception," Cataldi's sensationalistic and mostly non-sensical rant about the Eagles' former coach after his triumphant return visit with the Chiefs last Thursday.
"My job at WIP radio requires a daily analysis of what the coach says," relates Cataldi. "So I have heard every deception, absorbed every moment of disrespect, in Reid’s long tenure."
Woah, really? So what do those deceptions and moments of disrespect include? Well, Cataldi will never forgive "the grotesque way he abandoned his greatest player here, Brian Dawkins, or the inhumane departure of his finest kicker, David Akers."
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Wow, that sounds dramatic. Doesn't sound very specific, though, could you give us a little more inside info on how Reid "perpetuate[d] a fraud" with these players and others?
Nope, you're just gonna have to take those accusations as gospel, because the details are nowhere to be found in this article. The only specific "deception"s detailed by Cataldi in the bizarrely brief article are the ones carried out by Reid on the field in Thursday's Chiefs-Eagles game, where Reid "targeted safety Nate Allen — a second-round bust in Reid’s putrid 2010 draft — for the first down that secured the victory."
While it was of course very clever for Reid to draft a crappy safety in the second round of the '10 draft with the clear knowledge that someday soon he would be coaching for the opposing team and might need to take advantage of a subpar secondary defender to secure a crucial first down, it hardly backs up any of the claims made by Cataldi in the article. And that's it! From there, he's moved on to how Allen, Patrick Chung and Riley "If You're Gonna Be Real Racist, You Better Also Be Real Good" Cooper need to be cut, and how he wishes the Eagles could just move on from "awkward, strange" Donovan McNabb. No insights, no revelations, certainly no moments that would make you say "Wow, forget the five NFC championship games, that Andy Reid was one back-dealing, two-faced, fraud-perpetuatin' sonofagun!"
If you're gonna write a petty, personal, vindictive character-assassination piece, at least make sure your gun has a few bullets in it before you start shooting. Otherwise, your piece only exists to inspire further cheap shots like this in response, and ones where it's a whole lot easier to make a convincing case.
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(s/o to Derek Bodner on Twitter for the first complaint we saw about the story)