There are only so many sports ideas, but when one is floated by a highly-prominent columnist, used repeatedly by him, repeatedly attributed to him by others, and then over a decade later, floated as a completely new and original idea by a former colleague of that columnist, it raises questions.
The two people in this case are Bill Simmons and Colin Cowherd, both formerly of ESPN and now of HBO/The Ringer and Fox Sports, respectively. The idea is sports teams having a “Vice President Of Common Sense,” which Simmons appears to have first mentioned in a May 19, 2006 mailbag column for ESPN.com. Here’s his original usage of it, in response to a reader who wrote in annoyed that the Houston Texans drafted Mario Williams instead of Reggie Bush:
And that’s why the Texans had to take Reggie Bush — it’s one thing to make a shaky personnel decision, it’s another thing to kick your fans in the teeth. I’m becoming more and more convinced that every professional sports team needs to hire a Vice President of Common Sense, someone who cracks the inner circle of the decision-making process along with the GM, assistant GM, head scout, head coach, owner and whomever else. One catch: the VP of CS doesn’t attend meetings, scout prospects, watch any film or listen to any inside information or opinions; he lives the life of a common fan. They just bring him in when they’re ready to make a big decision, lay everything out and wait for his unbiased reaction.
I mention this only because the Texans would have called in their VP of CS on the night before the draft, explained their Mario Williams plan, and then the VP would have scratched his forehead and said, “Wait, why would we pass on Reggie Bush? Our fans will be devastated — we can’t do that to them. Plus, what if he’s fantastic on another team? What if he takes the league by storm? Our fans will be catatonic. Can we even risk it? Why would we risk it? Can’t we just take Bush? What’s wrong with taking Reggie Bush?”
And then everyone in the room would have gone, “Hmmmmmmmm.”
Simmons returned to this device many times, and even wrote an entire NBA Draft column themed around it in 2007. He’s tweeted about it regularly too, including this one from 2009. This idea is not something that went unnoticed, either. It’s been repeatedly credited to Simmons, by everyone from Craig Calcaterra (in 2012, when the Houston Astros hired Sig Mejdal for pretty much this position) to Joe Boland (in 2013, when he borrowed the premise to talk about Chip Kelly and Jason Garrett) to volleyball blogger Mark Lebedew (in a 2013 post) to a Medium writer who took “@VPofcommonsense” as his posting name and credited Simmons for it.
The internet knows that Bill Simmons created this. The sports world knows that Bill Simmons created this. And yet, on Tuesday, Colin Cowherd managed to spend almost 10 minutes talking about the exact thing Simmons described as if it was a new and original idea:
Even Cowherd’s comments sound almost exactly like what Simmons wrote over 10 years earlier:
“I’m going to create a new position in America. It will not be the president, it won’t be the CEO, it will be the vice president, one of like 10 vice presidents, in charge of common sense.” [He then goes on an interlude about DeMarcus Cousins, and says a VP of common sense would have stopped that trade.] “…Desperate people and desperate teams do desperate things.” [He provides further examples of this.] “…Let me go back to this position I have created in sports. It’s not the CEO, but if you know any company of any size, they have the president, and then there’s like eight vice-presidents. They’re in charge of marketing, there’s a vice president in charge of finance, there’s a vice president in charge of human resources, I’ve worked at companies that have a lot of vice presidents. The new one is common sense.
Just think of things that have happened in the NBA, in pro sports recently. And the reason I love the vice president of common sense is I wouldn’t have him in the building. He would not work in the building. He would not work at the movie studio. He would not work with the franchise. He would not be compromised by relationships. In Hollywood, if I worked at Universal, if I worked at 20th Century Fox, I’d have a vice-president in Ohio. He wouldn’t go to dinner with agents and actors and casting directors and producers and money people. He would be a guy living in the Midwest that goes ‘God, that makes no sense!'”
Cowherd spends the whole 10 minutes of this segment going through various scenarios this VP supposedly would prevent, and he’s not wrong (although it’s funny that his dream VP of common sense comes from the Midwest, and specifically Ohio, areas he’s mocked extensively before).
Yes, sometimes any industry could use an outside perspective. But for anyone who follows sports media, it’s amazing that Cowherd either has no idea Simmons came up with this 10 years earlier and repeatedly referenced and promoted it, or does know that Simmons wrote this and decided to take the concept himself anyway.
It’s perhaps believable that Cowherd thought this up independently, as he doesn’t seem to be a particular fan of Simmons, but has he never followed anything on the sports internet that referenced Simmons or referenced this idea? This VP of Common Sense idea, and many of Simmons’ other recurring tropes, became so popular that many who never read Simmons would still joke about it.
So either Cowherd directly copied Simmons, or he doesn’t really read or interact with the sports side of the internet and thought this was his own original idea. The latter’s probably the more likely, but it’s hilarious to see this, especially with the pride Cowherd’s obviously taking in his original invention. Sorry, Colin, Bill beat you to the punch on this one by over a decade.
[The Herd on YouTube]
