Chris Mortensen Holds Grudges

Filed in archive NFL on May 19, 2008

© abardwell

Buffoonery at ESPN (see photo) is nothing new. The network is seemingly public enemy number one to sports bloggers, although Buzz Bissinger has probably stolen that title away, at least for the time being. To be fair, some of the criticism of the WWL is unfounded, though much is legitimate.

And so we come to the bastion of NFL knowledge, Chris Mortensen, and his four year grudge against one Mike Martz. To put this in context, just go back to 2004, when Mortensen reported it was possible Martz wouldn't be back with the team, as he might resign or be fired. This did not sit well with Martz, who publicly called out Mortensen. Mort then had to go on the air and explain why he threw out a rumor, and a big deal was made of it.

Since that time and even before, ESPN had not been kind to Martz because he won, but not the way the ESPN "experts" thought should be done, i.e. running the football and stopping the run (somehow, the Minnesota Vikings led the NFL in both of these categories last season and failed to make the playoffs). Nothing pleases ESPN analysts like running the football and stopping the run. If a team ran the football every play, but lost 21-0, ESPN would praise them for playing football the way "it oughta be played." And needless to say, Mike Martz teams throw the ball, and this annoys the Tom Jackson's and Mark Schlereth's of the world to no end.

So Martz has never been a popular guy at the WWL, and Mortensen went to another level to rip Martz some more. Mortensen seemingly does his best to excuse the Patriots, and instead focuses his wrath on the Rams and Martz, in a very odd way by saying if Matt Walsh was present at the walkthrough, it's Martz's fault. Mortensen goes on to call him "foolish," and claimed his coaching was an "outrage." He goes on to do his best to discredit Martz for having the audacity to hold a walkthrough, citing former coaches and players that undermined the need for them.

What Mortensen completely ignores is that maybe, just maybe, Walsh wasn't completely telling the truth about watching the Rams practice in full Pats gear and simply setting up video equipment. It's more than a little doubtful that Walsh was simply walking around, because Martz was comically paranoid about people watching his practices and walkthroughs from his earliest days as Rams head coach. This is a fact that Mortensen could have ascertained had he done even the most basic of research instead of concentrating his efforts to get back at Martz for calling him out and questioning his reporting.

For instance, this article in the NY Times, written by Mike Freeman in 2000, chronicles Martz's paranoia:

Last week, in the middle of a Rams practice, Martz saw two people on a hillside warehouse near the practice field. Martz sent the team's security director, Dan Linza, to chase them away. Then Martz ordered Linza to walk the length of the large warehouse - twice - to see if anyone else was watching.

''I'm paranoid, like all coaches are paranoid,'' Martz said. ''You have people watching with a notepad, or a camera, somehow it makes you paranoid.''

But the paranoia did not stop there. During that same practice, a newspaper photographer took several photos of safety Keith Lyle, something even the tense Vermeil allowed. This time, the team asked the photographer to stop. When the photographer later tried to make a call on his cell phone, a Rams official threatened to take away the phone.

Later on, Martz had a large tarp put up blocking any outside views of the practice field. He also lashed out at a reporter once after the scribe asked him about using running backs Marshall Faulk and Trung Candidate in the same formation.

So instead of holding a ridiculous grudge for four years, maybe next time Mortensen should do his homework instead of continuing to try to get even, or make the Patriots look a little less like cheats. Then again, this is the World Wide Leader we're talking about, whose new slogan should be, "ESPN: Compromising journalistic integrity since 1979!"