The Dumbest Guy on WEEI

A million thanks to whatever superior being is responsible for Michael Holley's presence on WEEI. He is represents the only semblance of reason before 2 p.m.

Unfortunately, before, during and after Holley's 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. slot, there's several concentrations of stupidity and a couple of big black holes.

For a long time, I've thought Fox 25's Butch Stearns was clearly the dumbest person on WEEI. My brother has speculated that Stearns got the Fox 25 sports anchor job because the newscast was about to go live, and Stearns happened to be standing there. How he ended up on WEEI, I'll never know. Maybe he just showed up in the parking lot one day, and someone thought he was homeless and brought him into the studio for hot coffee.

I don't think a day has gone by that Stearns has been on the radio that he hasn't said something indiscernible, inconsequential, incomprehensible, unconscionable or irresponsible. Start with the whole Curt Schilling "Butchslap" incident, and if you cared enough to pay much attention, you could go on endlessly. It hasn't been important enough for me to catalog his stream of ridiculous statements, so we'll move on.

As clueless and often wrong as Stearns is, at least he's spineless enough to back off when confronted with intelligence. It must happen everyday, so he has lots of practice.

However, WEEI is home to more than one idiot that refuses to back down even when confronted with overwhelming evidence and intelligence.

Case in point: Dale Arnold.

Dale Arnold is the kind of guy that makes Pete Sheppard look like Copernicus.

I wrote about Arnold in August when he was labeling callers "dummies" and such (Arnold's Band of Dummies). Read it. It's good. Plus I don't want to recount the whole episode here.

Arnold's most recent transgression involves the debate over whether current New England Patriots defensive coordinator Eric Mangini is as good as the last def coord, Romeo Crennel, who is now in Cleveland.

Arnold's contention is that he isn't because Crennel won 14 games last year when there were major injuries to defensive players. Holley, fortunately, didn't let him get away with it. Arnold stuck to his guns though. He refused to acknowledge the mountain of evidence Holley presented and categorically stated that Mangini is nowhere near as good a coordinator as Crennel.

Taking Sides

Arnold's argument: Crennel lost only 2 games when there were injuries to the defensive unit.

Here are the Patriots injuries from 2004: Ty Law, Tyrone Poole
Game 1 vs. Indy: No defensive players, 5 offensive players
Game 2 @ Arizona: No defensive players, 5 offensive players
Game 3 @ Buffalo: No defensive players, 5 offensive players
Game 4 vs. Miami: Tyrone Poole (Q), 6 offensive players
Game 5 vs. Seattle: Poole (Q), 6 offensive players
Game 6 vs. NY Jets: Poole (Q), 8 offensive players
Game 7 @ Pittsburgh: Poole (Q), Dan Klecko (O), 7 offensive players
Game 8 @ St. Louis: Poole (O), Ty Law (O), Larry Izzo (Q), 8 offensive players

To this point, we were all wondering how the Patriots were winning with all the offensive injuries. Things finally "caught up" to them when Dillon sat out of the Pittsburgh game on Halloween, remembered for ending the record 21-game winning streak. Yet the injuries mounted, and the Patriots kept winning. Klecko's and Izzo's injuries were shrugged off as "not affecting major personnel."

The Rams game was the first game Troy Brown played defense. Arnold talks like he played DB all season. In fact, Pittsburgh was the first game Brown played at all, and offense only, since he was injured early in the game against Buffalo four weeks earlier. You can also see that the Patriots schedule was much easier than this season's.

Second Half of 2004

Game 9 vs Buffalo: Law (O), Poole (O), Matt Chatham (Q), Mike Vrabel (Q), Larry Izzo (P), Asante Samuel (P), 3 offensive players
Game 10 @ KC: Law (O), Poole (O), Chatham (O), Keith Traylor (Q), 3 offensive players
Game 11 vs. Baltimore: Law (O), Poole (D), Chatham (Q), Samuel (Q), Randall Gay (Q), Roman Phifer (Q), 2 offensive players
Game 12 @ Cleveland: Law (O), Poole (D), Samuel (Q), Phifer (Q), Vrabel (Q), Gay (P), 2 offensive players
Game 13 vs. Cincinnati: Law (O), Poole (D), Samuel (Q), Phifer (Q), Chatham (Q), Gay (P), 4 offensive players
Game 14 @ Miami: Law (O), Poole (O-IR), Chatham (O), Dexter Reid (O), Gay (Q), Phifer (Q), Samuel (Q), Rodney Harrison (P), 5 offensive players
Game 15 @ NY Jets: Reid (O), Chatham (O), Gay (O), Law (Q), Samuel (Q), 5 offensive players
Game 16 vs. San Francisco: Reid (D), Richard Seymour (D), Chatham (Q), Gay (Q), Law (Q), Samuel (Q), Earthwind Moreland (Q), Eugene Wilson (Q), 7 offensive players

As we can see, the defensive injuries didn't pile up until the end of the season, and except for Poole and Law, you don't see a lot of big names on the list. And let's face it, that's not a terribly brutal schedule.

Keith Traylor missed a game with the flu. He's the only defensive lineman on the list until Seymour appears in Game 16. Phifer is the only major linebacker who missed any time, and he didn't miss much, and he wasn't even starting.

Game 16 has the most defensive players (8) listed, many of those could have played, and most of them weren't regular starters.

We're not even going to look at this season's injuries report, knowing that the numbers are inflated.

Here's who didn't play against Denver: Tedy Bruschi (PUP), Ted Johnson (ret.), Tyrone Poole (O), Richard Seymour (Out), Rodney Harrison (IR), Chad Scott (O-IR), Guss Scott (O), and Marquise Hill (O).

Bruschi, Johnson, Poole, Harrison and Seymour. Five major starters that Crennel had that Mangini doesn't. Crennel lost Law, who was debatable the defensive secondary leader, easily replaced by Harrison. Mangini lost d-line leader Seymour, DB leader Harrison, and linebacker leader and overall defensive general Bruschi.

Yet, Arnold says Crennel was just as disadvantaged as Mangini. Nothing Holley or anyone else said could convince him different. This is one stupid person. Of course, that's "just my opinion," right, Dale? I can have an opinion, can't I?

And Down the Stretch They Come!

Just when you thought it was settled, here comes the dark horse.

John Dennis not only proved himself to be the dumbest person on WEEI, he proved himself to be quite possibly one of the dumbest people on the planet.

The same guy who lambastes doctors and lawyers when they call in to question coaching decisions because doctors and lawyers don't have expertise in coaching and don't have information the coaches have is the same guy who lambastes doctors for saying "Bruschi categorically cannot have the same kind of stroke he has had; football cannot cause it," despite the fact that they have years of expertise in the field, have far more evidence and information, and have probably forgotten more about cardiology than John Dennis will ever know about anything. If there's any true definition of moron, it's John Dennis.

A cardiologist called and hand-held Dennis and Callahan through how Bruschi's stroke occurred, what caused it, what was done to fix the cause, how it is virtually impossible for the same thing to reoccur, and how it is absolutely impossible for football to cause the same event. Impossible. The doctor said Bruschi was no more at risk of a head injury than any other football player, and that was at no more risk of complications due to injury than any other football player. The doctor answered every question John Dennis had, detailed and in terms that even the thickest skull could absorb it. And when it was all said and done, Dennis -- knowing more and having much deeper and wider experience -- dismissed the doctor.

Quite obviously, John Dennis knows more than anyone on the planet.

"Am I allowed to have an opinion?" he asks when someone disagrees with him. I don't know, John. Is anyone else? You never allow anyone to have an opinion that differs from yours.

Now, he'll probably deny all of this (because he's a moron), but the recordings don't lie.

Not the First Time

I'd let him off the hook, if this were an isolated incident, blatant as it is; but there are so many occasions he will recount something that happened and just have all the facts wrong. I had a great example a couple weeks ago, but I let him slide on that one. I should have written it down. He was describing a sequence of events -- for the life of me, I can't remember the topic -- and he had about half the details wrong. It doesn't matter that I can't pinpoint it, Dennis deals with conjecture instead of facts all the time anyway.

Callahan sounded like he knew Dennis was wrong but probably kept quiet figuring maybe he was mistaken himself. Even John Meterparel, who seems to have a better memory than either of the two hosts, kept silent. It was embarrassing. Caller after caller corrected him, but he refused to believe. And it was something that was on television all the previous night and that morning. All Dennis had to do was turn on a monitor, which I know they have in the studio. But far be it from him to check the facts.

He keeps saying that the Krafts and Belichick are uneasy with this decision, but I haven't seen, read or heard anywhere (outside of "Dennis & Callahan") to support that.

He asks callers, "What evidence do you have?" And -- those who weren't doctors -- had none. What evidence do you have, John? The callers that were doctors documented plenty of evidence, which the idiot John Dennis roundly ignored. I guess his years and years of sitting around on his ass and playing golf has given him a more valid opinion than cardiologists and neurologists.

He made some other ludicrous statement, which I will paraphrase, because the original statement is so nonsensical: Something to the effect that never before has a 32-year-old linebacker come back from such a condition, and therefore no one can say with any certainty that Bruschi would be safe. That because football is a contact sport, it's different from any other situation.

No, it's not. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. Once again, John Dennis is unable to obtain a strangle hold on the simplest of facts.

Using his logic, Columbus never would have sailed to the New World, Magellan never could have circumnavigated the globe, man could never have set foot on the moon. There would be no evidence that it could happen since it never happened previously.

You know what, John? The next time a 32-year-old linebacker wants to return to the NFL after suffering something close to what Bruschi encountered, there will be evidence that it's possible. But for you, such information will never be available.

Practicing What You Preach

John, have you ever heard people talk about how living near power lines, using cell phones and being exposed to excessive radio waves cause cancer in the brain? There's plenty of evidence. Yet, you continue to work at a radio station and wear a headset. What person in their right mind would ignore all this evidence and put themselves at risk? Have you discussed it with your doctor? Your family? Does Mrs. John Dennis worry every time you don a headset?

I always thought John Dennis was an idiot when he was on the local TV news. Then he disappeared. I figured someone finally wised up. Then he shows up on the morning show on WEEI. At the time, I couldn't believe it. But I guess they need at least one complete idiot during every time slot.

I've been around the block a few times. I've met some dumb people. There are some, like Butch Stearns, who are just ignorant of the world around them, and they tend to make stupid statements based on their misinformation. There are people like Dale Arnold, who twist facts and use half-truths to form arguments to draw their ridiculous conclusions. But, it's people who refuse to alter their thinking, should they be the last person on earth to hold such conviction when confronted with all the available facts, figures, evidence, documentation and expert analysis, who are simply the dumbest.

Congratulations, John Dennis, you are the dumbest guy on WEEI.