Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, the most electrifying ceremony in sports media. Following up on the hotly contested 2021 IDIOT OF THE YEAR awards, we have for you today, well, many of the same ninnies and twits who appeared on that vaunted list. The calendar year, it turns out, is not some sort of magical device that makes people stop saying dumb things. Trust us, we know.
Ugh. Does “idiot” really do justice to Grayson Allen? We can think of some more fitting words here: asshole, dirty player, dickhead. In a classic Grayson Allen move that goes back to his tripping days at Duke, the Bucks guard completely took down the Bulls’ Alex Caruso, putting Caruso out for six weeks with a fractured wrist. Allen got a one-game suspension, but people were calling for him to be out of the league entirely.
This has become a pattern and comes as no surprise to anyone who has been paying the slightest attention to him — famous for his flagrant fouls and attempts to injure opponents, Allen is bringing one of the most lovable teams in the league down with his very presence on the court. Since we unfortunately don’t do an asshole of the month slideshow, we’ll have to be content with placing him on our Idiots list. Somebody has to tell this guy to get it together.
Aaron Rodgers was No. 2 in our 2021 IDIOT OF THE YEAR voting, and just like the NFL season, the Green Bay quarterback’s follies continued into 2022. And, as it turns out, he is going to boycott the Super Bowl.
Call him Throw Rogan, Rush Lambeau, Brett Favremectin, Marques Q-iasosopo, or whatever other nickname you want to come up with, just don’t call Rodgers a jerk, or you might find yourself put on blast for it and issuing an apology… at least if you’re Hub Arkush, who really shouldn’t have apologized, because he was right.
After being cancelled by a woke mob of San Francisco 49ers, sent packing early from the playoffs once again, Rodgers still refused to go away without further proof of idiocy, the only proof he carries around as proof of vaccination isn’t his thing.
“There were a ton of people tuning in, rooting against us for one reason and one reason only,” Rodgers, who claims to have been silenced, said on The Pat McAfee Show, one of his many times speaking unfiltered to the press in the past month. “It’s because of my vaccination status and them wanting to see us lose so they could pile on.”
No, idiot. It’s not because of your vaccination status. There are other unvaccinated players in the league. The difference, and the reason that they were rooting against you, and don’t really even know who they are, is that you first lied about it, then spent months refusing to shut up about it. Being a jerk is the reason that your vaccination status is what it is, but it’s the overall jerkiness, not the vaccination status alone, that makes everyone want to pile on.
Rodgers left this year’s playoffs with as many touchdown passes thrown as COVID shots received.
In January, John Stockton added his name to this list once he refused to wear a mask indoors for a Gonzaga Bulldogs game. The zags took a stand and gave Mr. Stockton a choice of wearing a mask to games or having his season tickets suspended by the school. This was a big move seeing how Stockton is one of the more prominent NBA names to come out of the school. He, of course, chose the latter like a dumb ass. Stockton’s statue outside of Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City even wears a mask, but he won’t. Yep, that makes sense. Hey, Johnny, it’s for the good of yourself and everyone around you. Just put the mask on and stop being a nitwit.
Heading into Week 17 of the NFL season, Antonio Brown was out of sight, out of mind for most NFL fans. Then, near the end of the third quarter of the Bucs’ game against the New York Jets, Brown pulled a Vontae Davis — stripping down to his jammies and quitting his team in the middle of a game. Brown threw his gear into the stands, did some jumping jacks while he took a stroll through one of the endzones, and then hailed a cab out of New Jersey.
It all happened so fast that NFL fans were left scratching their heads in disbelief, muttering “Did that really just happen?” The craziest part of it all though? It wasn’t really unexpected. It was just the latest idiotic move in a long line of idiotic moves from the former All-Pro receiver, and what followed Brown’s outburst was a series of questionable tweets and quotes that made Brown’s actions all the more reprehensible.
Just a few days after his tantrum, Brown called out Tom Brady and Brady’s trainer Alex Guerrero for money he owed to Guerrero, claiming that Brady was working with his trainer in order to steal $100,000 from Brown.
If that’s not crazy, I don’t know what is. To make matters worse, this came less than 72 hours after Brady defended Brown’s decision to quit the Bucs mid-game on the Let’s Go Podcast.
“I’ve known Antonio for a couple years now, you know, pretty closely,” said Brady. “We’ve obviously been teammates and I would just say I love him, I care about him, and I have a lot of compassion. I have a lot of empathy for the things that are happening in his life. So, it’s a lot of challenges we all face from time to time. I think the best thing is to have a support system, even outside of football, because again, yeah, we are football players. We’re athletes. We give everything we can on the field, but we also have off-field lives, too. And I’m gonna continue to do everything I can to try to be a great friend and supportive to Antonio and the things he’s going through.”
In all fairness, Brown would later delete the tweets and explain that his grievances were with the Bucs’ organization, not his former teammates.
According to reports, Brown was incredibly close to receiving several performance bonuses which would’ve granted him an extra $999,999. Brown was not receiving many targets against the Jets. Several people believe Brown took that lack of involvement as an attack against him, assuming that Bruce Arians and the rest of the Bucs’ coaching staff was intentionally leaving him out of the game plan so that he couldn’t earn that money. Although, those rumors are not confirmed.
Most recently, Brown has expressed interest in playing alongside his cousin, Marquise Brown, and Lamar Jackson on the Baltimore Ravens. Although, I think we’d be hard pressed to find any team willing to take a risk on AB given what we saw transpire just a few weeks ago.
Interest in the non-major-four sports in American piques at certain times during the year. For tennis, it skyrockets with each of its major four tournaments. First on the calendar every year is the Australian Open, which drew the attention of sports fans for all the wrong reasons.
Enter awfully talented three-time-defending champion and somehow-equally-ignorant Novak Djokovic, who’s unwillingness to take the COVID-19 vaccine and circumvent Australia’s coronavirus rules got his visa canceled, twice, and his shot at a four-peat in a tournament he was likely to cruise through taken away.
The unvaccinated Djokovic is one of the best athletes in the world. Period. Being more concerned about a jab in your arm than swinging a tennis racket shows 20 Grand Slam titles doesn’t mean you have your priorities straight. Remember when Wimbledon was canceled in 2020? And the French Open was moved to September and played after the US Open due to the pandemic? Or am I to believe the sport’s premier player is “too good” to remember those details?
Djokovic’s lack of presence, instead of him actually hitting backhands, is still a major talking point around Rod Laver Arena, as the world’s No. 1 player put himself before the sport he apparently loves so much. His potential to grow the sport is unmatched with more eyes on him than anyone else. And he’d rather put others at risk of a deadly disease that’s killed more than 5.5 million people worldwide in a foreign country for his own benefit, instead of being a good human.
Maybe he can learn something from those two visa cancellations, additional unsuccessful two court challenges and five nights inside an immigration detention hotel. Djokovic was placed inside the barracks to keep those unvaccinated, like him, away from the general population, which did the right thing and built immunity to COVID-19 by getting a vaccine and booster shot.
His ranking as the world’s No. 1 player is also in massive jeopardy if he doesn’t get vaccinated. Why wouldn’t the French or English hold similar standards to the Aussies? Being a famous athlete gets you no such pass. How about the career Grand Slam record? It would’ve likely been Djokovic’s to start running away with in Melbourne. Now he’s locked into a tie with rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
The next time Djokovic plays in a major tournament is to be determined. Not because of injury, age or form. It’s because off the court, he’s lazy, ignorant and unwilling to help his sport by getting the readily available and safe coronavirus vaccine. Holding out from that simple task may permanently taint his legacy and keep plenty of money out of his pockets. Not that he needs more moolah, which makes his sit-out that much more loathsome. Do better Novak.