When Senility Attacks

Disclaimer: I don't write this entry to make fun of anyone's mental state, but the mind-boggling nature of two articles I just read leaves me at a loss for any other explanation.

ESPN's John Clayton put forth two articles today -- one for the NFC, one for AFC -- giving a grade to every NFL team as we bid adieu to the 2011 regular season. Among a litany of curious grades, and reasonings for them, came the following two gems:

"Green Bay Packers: Grade: A+
The Packers almost had a perfect season, but there was no question they had the perfect quarterback in Aaron Rodgers. Even though he didn't throw for 5,000 yards, he still had 45 touchdown passes. (b)Rodgers' performances covered for a defense that gave up 411.6 yards a game.(b)"

"New England Patriots: Grade: B
The offense gets an A. Tom Brady threw for 5,235 yards and 39 touchdowns and tight end Rob Gronkowski developed into an offensive superstar. (b)The defense pulled down the grade because it gave up 411.1 yards a game and 26 touchdown passes.(b)"

Excuse me? Wow. A mind truly is a terrible thing to waste. I'm not sure what else to say here. Or if anything else needs to be said.

In case you were wondering, or holding out some hope that there might be some sort of justification for giving one team a pass on a horrific flaw, then knocking another team down a full grade for the exact same flaw......the Packers gave up *29* touchdown passes (to the Foxboronians' 26). And the two teams gave up an identical 39 TDs to opposing offenses.

Aside from the hilariously and perfectly contradictory entries, there really is no sound reasoning available in this universe to give a team with such a porous defense a perfect grade. A perfect grade implies, well, perfection; implies that there is nothing that can be improved upon for this team. Anyone who so much as thinks (much less writes) that there is nothing that can be improved upon for a team that ranked deal last in defense should spend the next two weeks in Lambeau Field as a tackling dummy for the Packers to (s)practice(s) learn on. If the Packers had a defense like the Ravens, Steelers, or 49ers, and awesome special teams to boot, the postseason would've been cancelled already; there'd be no point in playing the games. They'd be winning games 70-7. *That* would earn a team a perfect grade. Besides, if this team gets an A+, what about a team that has a upper-echelon defense to boot? A++? A+ squared? A+ times infinity? Pfff.

John Clayton: Grade: F.

I'll keep this one short and get into other happenings in sports in another entry; reasoning as patently ridiculous as his deserves space all to itself.