When The Commissioner Was Traded to the Bert and Ernie Picks

October 22, 2019
The trade deadline is next Tuesday, October 29, but teams are already shuffling players. And your Commissioner, The Commissioner, is not immune, especially since I have an expiring contract at the end of the season. So, after all the years as Grover Picks Commissioner, I was traded last weekend to Bert and Ernie Picks for two houndstooth hats, a case of Dr. Pepper used on a Fansville commercial, and the remains of Lou Holtz.  

And I was not happy. Bert and Ernie Picks are a slipshod operation, underfunded for years while the operators, Bert and Ernie, are more concerned with pigeon racing and  an exotic rubber duck collection. 

I showed up for work and started columnizing the week’s picks with all the zeal and intent of George Costanza and Antonio Brown. This is America in 2019! If I want to ruin a career, then by George, it will be my own! 

OHIO STATE V WISCONSIN

Speaking of ruining careers… the Badgers went and lost to Illinois in the biggest upset in the Big 10 in 50 years, which seems impossible in a league that includes Rutgers and Northwestern, but OK.

TRADE PROPOSAL: Wisconsin can trade one week’s ignominy for next week’s glory. Just turn up the defense that allowed only 4 touchdowns through 6 games and find the running game that might win a Heisman and crush the Buckeyes and wreck the Big10s chance at the playoff. Or, just keep being Wisconsin, you bunch of lazy, toothless, yella bellied, sorry ole’ worthless pile of overheated cow dung. Your choice.

The first thing I did when I arrived at the Bert and Ernie Picks Office in New Smyrna Beach was complain about the chair. It didn’t fit and it kept sinking lower and lower. So I took it to Ernie’s office and swapped it for his $4,000 Vitra Grand Executive Lowback Chair. It was much easier to work in this chair, especially without pants.

NORTH DAKOTA STATE V SOUTH DAKOTA STATE

Bison versus Jackrabbits again for the supremacy of the irrelevant wasteland between Minneapolis and Montana and the Dakota Marker Trophy. NDSU is 7-0 and working on its 8th national championship in 9 seasons. South Dakota have just one loss and their mascot is a menacing jackrabbit.

TRADE PROPOSAL: Ole Miss needs a new mascot. Give them Jackrabbits. The Ole Miss Jackrabbits. That works. Then South Dakota State can adopt a more appropriate football mascot, like Sasquatch. And make it the singular plural as in “South Dakota State Sasquatch”.

Ernie didn’t notice that I took the chair, so I texted him an excuse to miss work. I told him I sunburned my fingertips drinking Guiness at the New Smyrna Hooter’s and couldn’t type. Ernie told the media he was supportive of my recovery process, but privately, he sent Bert to my office to make a point. Bert proceeded to slice the leather chair I ‘borrowed’ with a dull exacto knife. Somebody will be angry about that, but it won’t be The Commissioner.

TEXAS SOUTHERN V MISSISSIPPI VALLEY STATE

This is the kind of crap they make you do in the Bert and Ernie Picks. Two HBCUs without a single win between them. Both 0-6. Is there really even a valley anywhere in Mississippi?

Maybe you saw the story this week of Cardinal Ritter High School in Missouri. They had a very good player ejected from a playoff game last year who had to sit out the first game of this season. Instead, the coaches gave him a new number, a fake name, put him on the roster as a freshman, and played him in the first game. Then, he reappeared as his authentic self the next week. They got caught because the player has several distinctive tattoos and opposing coaches noticed very quickly. All of the coaches were fired and the team’s season was ended.

The Commissioner does not believe high school coaches at small faith-based schools would think up a plan like that on their own. That’s the kind of thinking you get at a place like Alabama.

I’m telling you now, watch the this Texas Southern v Mississippi Valley game this weekend. All of it. Then watch again in three weeks. I bet one of those teams will have a new quarterback, wearing, say, I don’t know, maybe 31. His name will be something like Tiga Tuavangiolona. He will appear in just one game, disappearing as mysteriously as he appeared. He’ll be rusty early, but by the end of the game, he’ll look like a Heisman candidate ready to take on LSU.

I’m just saying, you may want to watch this entire game so you have the proper reference point to catch possible skullduggery.

TRADE PROPOSAL: Instead of a transfer portal, D1 recruits can gain an extra year of eligibility by playing for and HBCU for one season without having to transfer from their current school. It strengthens HBCUs, minimizes roster instability, and helps players improve on the field. In return, the HBCU’s can send their school bands to perform at the Power 5 halftimes.

LSU V AUBURN

A recent poll of the 170 scholarship football players at both schools revealed that 158 expect to be drafted into the NFL, two are going to medical school, one is Ed Orgeron’s son, 6 will be volunteer grad assistants at Alabama next season, and 3 will make a living from gambling on inside information. Half of them will continue to smell like corn dogs for the rest of their lives.

TRADE PROPOSAL: Auburn’s Tiger mascot is one of the best costumes in sports. It’s also not nearly as frightening as the actual Mike the Tiger. Auburn would win more if they had a real tiger mascot in the cage next to Jordan Hare Stadium instead of an aviary. LSU would benefit from more interesting alumni. So LSU should trade Mike the Tiger to Auburn for the rights to Charles Barkley and an eagle to be named later.

Fined! I was fined by Bert and freakin’ Ernie! Turns out pants are REQUIRED at the office, beer is forbidden at work, and Ernie planted that exacto knife in my top right desk drawer!

Was any of that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I’ve got to plead ignorance on this thing because if anyone had said anything at all to me when I first started here that this sort of thing was frowned upon, you know, because I’ve worked in a lot of offices, and I tell you, people do that all the time.

UNC V DUKE

Two schools fast becoming QB Universities! This is the rivalry that launched NFL superstars Mitch Trubisky and Daniel Jones! Those two have respective QB ratings of 82 and 75, making them better than Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold, but not as good as Case Keenum or Mason Rudolph. Still, they are in the top 30!

TRADE PROPOSAL: Swap the stadiums! Make the football teams play in the Dean Dome and Cameron and let the basketball teams fill Keenan and whatever Duke’s football place is called. That way it all matches the fan interest.

SOUTH CAROLINA V TENNESSEE

Let the students play football. Make the head coaches go outside the stadium and, in front of Pat Summit’s statue, they must argue with each other like, well Jeremey Pruitt and Will Muschamp, for the entire game. Last one with an eyeball left in his head wins the game.

TRADE PROPOSAL: UT should trade Jeremey Pruitt to Mount Vernon High School in Texas for their current head coach, Art Briles. UT could use someone with a bit of honor, character, and skill as head coach. Briles has experience and he’s still a great recruiter and remains respectful when authority slaps his hand again, and again, and again.

MICHIGAN V NOTRE DAME

At some point both of these schools must have been good at something besides pageantry, fight songs, cool uniforms, football and money-grubbing. Anyone have any ideas? I think it’s just the fight songs now.

TRADE PROPOSAL: Swap teams before kickoff. See if Brian Kelley can coach the Wolverines any better than Harbaugh or if Harbaugh really is a great coach and Kelly is underperforming. Everything about these schools- the stadium, the tradition, the tuition, the selectivity, the crappy weather- is a mirror image. Nobody will notice if we flip the rosters.

Monday was tough. I got into it with Bert over which was the better Kent State team. I say it was the 1958 squad that handled Waynesburg State. He was spitting about the ’76 team, but they lost to Ohio! Ernie had to step between us, but not before Bert poked me with his fat foam finger right in the kneecap. I’m telling you now, regardless what you read on Twitter, I did not call Bert a ’seat cushion’, but I wish I had. The rest of the Bert and Ernie Picks staff is getting tired of me. I started a rumor that I may be traded again. I hear something may open up with the Count.

ALABAMA V ARKANSAS

It’s OK Bama fans! Nick Saban has not one but TWO Tagovailoa QB’s on this team! The regular one, Tua, who is having his ankles macrame’d back together in time to play for the Dolphins next season, and the emergency backup Tagovailoa, Taulia, a freshman who is probably smarter and better looking, but not as good at football. Still, there are two. You can beat Arkansas. The Razorbacks don’t have 4 players who would crack the starting lineup of any team in Alabama, including Troy.

TRADE PROPOSAL: Bama should go ahead and trade Tua to the Dolphins before the deadline next week in return for Josh Rosen. Then, an improved Rosen gets another year of college and redrafted, hopefully to a team that will keep him for more than one season.

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE

I was really proud of this one. I don’t think Bert and Ernie did their homework before trading for me so I posted an old video on YouTube.

PATRIOTS V BROWNS

You can’t see this stat enough. The Patriots have outscored opponents by 175 points in seven games, scoring 223 themselves and holding opponents to 48! That is the largest margin of victory through seven games since the Buffalo All-Americans in 1920.

Some say the Patriots are not that good, their opponents are just that weak. Maybe, but the Buffalo Americans opponents weren’t very strong either. Their streak was against West Buffalo, All Buffalo, McKeesport, Toledo, Rochester, All Tonawanda, and Columbus.

In this story, Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns are probably similar to the All Tonawanda Lumberjacks with star QB LT Cassidy and All-Buffalo left end Spin Cassidy. The Lumberjacks folded in 1921 when the fee to stay in the NFL went from $50 to $1,000. Much was expected from Tonawanda, all the pieces were there on paper. It just never translated to the field.

Baker Mayfield is the 46th rated QB in the NFL right now with 5 TD passes and 11 interceptions. In this game, he’s what the old scouts would call “Meat”.

TRADE PROPOSAL: Trade the Ravens back to Cleveland for the Browns. Then, Belichick could get revenge on the Browns team he actually resigned from AND we could see Lamar Jackson play the Patriots, which would be way more fun.

This morning I planted a story with The Athletic about Urban Meyer’s interest in the Bert and Ernie Picks and it went viral. Those two foam-brained morons have been in the tub all day in ’secret meetings’. I know they are talking about me in that tub. That’s where most people talk about The Commissioner. I have high hopes for my demise.

STEELERS V DOLPHINS

Here’s the biggest roadblock for the Dolphins’ “Tank for Tua” campaign. Even if they lose enough games and get the first draft pick, there’s nowhere for Tua to go. He wears #13 and the Dolphins have already retired that number since it was worn by the Greatest Quarterback In The History Of Earth and the Other Eight Nearest Planets Plus Pluto. Without his lucky #13, Tua is just another weak-ankled version of Richard Todd, John David Phillips or Brodie Croyle. 

Meanwhile, the Steelers have a starting QB named Duck and that is the first factual thing in this entire text and also the thing that sounds the most made up! 

TRADE PROPOSAL: The Steelers need to trade head coach Mike Tomlin to Washington just to Tomlin can bust Dan Snyder upside the head. Who in America would vote him guilty at trial?

JAGUARS V JETS

Sam Darnold threw for 86 yards against the Patriots while playing in all four quarters! His passer rating was 3.7 on a 158.3 point scale! The Jaguars are going to rush 11 players at him on every down and let him complete passes to Jaguar defenders. Sam Darnold is about to get the David Carr treatment. His fault for getting himself drafted by the Jets.

Fun Note: Here are the top 7 NFL QB’s by completing percentage this season:
Robert Griffin III, 6-6, 100%
Taysom Hill, 1-1, 100%
Matt Schaub 6-6, 100%
Tyrod Taylor 1-1, 100%
Ryan Tannehill, 36-45, 80%
Duck Hodges 22-29, 76%

#44 on this list is Jets QB Sam Darnold. He is #44 in a league with only 32 starting QB jobs. Nice trick!

TRADE PROPOSAL: I will trade a 1985 VHS tape called “Bill Belichick Explains How To Beat Zero Coverage and Save Your Quarterback’s Life” to the New York Jets if they promise to have Joe Klecko deported. 

I finally walked into the tub room and demanded that Bert and Ernie release me. There were so many bubbles in the tub, I’m not even sure they were still in there to hear me. They may have been hiding. I did hear a duck squeak as I left the room.

TITANS V BUCS

See the future of XFL quarterbacks in action at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium. Jameis Winston! Ryan Tannehill! Maybe even Marcus Mariota! You can experience all the fun and action before these Bucs and Titans become Dragons, Vipers, Rage or Maniax!

TRADE PROPOSAL: You think Bucs coach Bruce Arians would trade one of his trademark ‘driver hats’ for an authentic Nashville made guitar? Maybe the swap could be made Honky Tonk Man Style. That is, smash the guitar over Arians pompous head?

Freedom! I’m Free! Bert and Ernie cut me loose and suddenly my sunburned fingertips are healed! I’m working on a deal to return to the Grover Picks as long as Urban Myer doesn’t get the job first.

I’m also waiting on a call from PARADE Magazine. I love being the Grover Picks Commissioner, but PARADE has always been a dream. Surely they will reach out. Unless…. you don’t think…. for the love of Keith Jackson does Urban Meyer get an invitation to every job in America!?

Happy Picking,
The Commissioner