Reilly used to have a lighter touch when he wrote stuff like this -- and he was a much better columnist for it.

This has a few moments, but it comes across as a bit heavy handed at times.

The response was much better. It had the lighter touch Reilly has lost.

killer_ewok;837478 wrote:Agreed. But it did come off a bit venomous in some spots.

Writerbuckeye;837491 wrote:Reilly used to have a lighter touch when he wrote stuff like this -- and he was a much better columnist for it.

This has a few moments, but it comes across as a bit heavy handed at times.

The response was much better. It had the lighter touch Reilly has lost.

That's probably true, but I don't feel like it was personal against the Big Ten. I feel like if Nebraska were joining the Big East, Pac-12, ACC, etc. and he wrote a similar article it would have had a similar tone.

When some [likely] unpaid writer for a local sports blog takes you to task and completely destroys you, it might be time to call it a career.

Some of the best Bill Simmons columns were right after ESPN signed Reilly for more than he was making, and he'd slip in a half dozen thinly-veiled insults about it, i.e. "anytime in sports you're paying your young superstar less than a has-been who's still living off his reputation from half a decade ago, you know your GM sucks."

Writerbuckeye;837491 wrote:Reilly used to have a lighter touch when he wrote stuff like this -- and he was a much better columnist for it.

This has a few moments, but it comes across as a bit heavy handed at times.

The response was much better. It had the lighter touch Reilly has lost.

I agree, but the response was an easy column. Taking some bad forced humor and skewering it is about as easy as it gets. Still, it did help me with Reilly's last few Big 10 team comments and the conclusion, since his column was so dull that I stopped reading about at Michigan State. Like you, I remember when Reilly was worth writing. This (as well as about anything I've read by him in recent years) just sucks.

As a Colorado fan shouldn't he be worried about the starting QB porking the Head coaches daughter. Not what Nebraska or any other Big Ten team is doing.

letting rick reilly (or any other columnist for that matter) get your blood boiling is dumb and unhealthy. read it and move on

Back when he wrote for SI, his articles were my favorite part of the whole magazine. I'm actually surprised he wrote a non-Tiger Woods article. It seems like the only thing he does is find some petty and insignificant detail to criticize Tiger Woods' about.

You have to remember this is a guy who had weekly aneurisms about steroids in baseball, then made the statement that Lance Armstrong is "the greatest athlete to ever live." He's not knowledgeable about sport, and is kind of a tool. All he ever did was write mildly amusing/sappy fluff that middle age people ate up. The act has worn old and ESPN is kicking themselves for giving him a huge contract while he was on the downswing.

2kool4skool;837881 wrote:When some [likely] unpaid writer for a local sports blog takes you to task and completely destroys you, it might be time to call it a career.

Some of the best Bill Simmons columns were right after ESPN signed Reilly for more than he was making, and he'd slip in a half dozen thinly-veiled insults about it, i.e. "anytime in sports you're paying your young superstar less than a has-been who's still living off his reputation from half a decade ago, you know your GM sucks."

Bill Simmons is miles ahead of Rick Reilly