Hunter S. Thompson's advice on Leaf versus Manning.
 

Apparently he was a Colts fan, but not a very savvy one.

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/07/nfl...hompson-letter

This hurts me right in the feels...

I love Hunter S. Thompson

Way too many psychedelics to evaluate a qb.

Awesome. "When that freak Sapp comes crashing in."

I'm gonna need to hear Noam Chomsky's thoughts on Jeff George before I can evaluate.

Wayback machine when I actually used to peruse the ESPN website, some 15-20 years ago

Right or wrong, Hunters 'Hey, Rube' column was the cant miss item of the week back then... at least for me

For a guy whose waking meal aka "breakfast" (whether it be 6 am, 6pm, or any point in between) usually included (but never limited to only) :
4 fried eggs
A couple sirloin steaks
A 3-way tab of LSD
Bottomless screwdriver
Bottomless bloody Mary
A half pound of potatoes
4 or 5 grapefruits, which he would half with a giant Rambo-style hunting knife
Topped off with a salt shaker filled with cocaine, with he would take giant bumps of via the tip of the Rambo knife...

All while reading the Post and watching TV...

Dude had a perspective...but a rational one on football was not amongst his perspective.

I just re-read Fear & Loathing in America again...that one and Generation of Swine are two latter day "flawed gems"...some great rants and awesome indictments if everything from Washington and Hollywood to the local weatherman and sports with the occasional pepperings of liberal paranoia.

When he got his Rolling Stone press tickets to the Dolphins' 'perfect season' SB, he got RS to pay for a Betamax to record the game, then he sold the tickets for drugs, went back to the hotel and either wrote the story after the game while watching a replay getting high in the hotel room...or, as he proclaimed a few times, he wrote the story without watching the game at all...which, just because he doesn't remember watching it, may not mean he didn't (look at his 'breakfast', ffs)

I should have typed into a word processor in my 20s.

His 'Hey Rube' columns were must read, and the book that collects them is a fun trek through sports and pop culture history from a flawed genius.

Edit ebay has "Hey Rube" large paperback for $3.98 shipped.

major Q RM tisk tisk :D

Timothy Leary would know better. ROFL

I feel like Leary would be a Marinovich fan.

I categorically deny this baseless allegation.

I think HST might have been right. Maybe Leaf wouldn't have developed that brain tumor of his if he were in Indy instead of SD.

Yeah Indy had such a great draft track record around that time. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...memory#slide10

When I was 16 I did an oral book report on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This was in 97, so before the movie was released. I didn't even know a movie was being made, but it was probably nearly finished.

I asked the teacher 3 times, and she said I could choose ANY fictional book as long as it wasn't pornographic. So I searched for something wholly inappropriate for school. That's just how I am.

I got an A on the report. 3 girls asked me out and I legit banged my 10th grade english teacher shorty after (i've mentioned this in the teacher banging students thread).

I love Hunter S. Thompson. He earned a special place in my heart after that experience. Even if he was wrong about Leaf (as were about 50% of pundits)

Plenty of people suggested Leaf over Manning. Hindsight is 20/20. In fact, Manning went 1 and 15 his first year, and the book was still out on him. In basketball, Greg Oden was drafted over Kevin Durrant....most everyone agreed Oden had to go number one. Everyone would have picked Jamarcus Russell, as well.

My point is that nobody knows anything about anything. I mean, nobody knows a single thing that is actionable. Only in hindsight do people have the answers.

I always thought Leaf got a raw deal. The Chargers O-line couldn't block to save their lives. Anybody remember the Stan Humphries 1,000 Yard stare right after his eye balls rolled back into place?

Leaf needed a few years to mature and playing behind that line did not help. He could have used a guiding hand along the way. Unfortunately for him he screwed the pooch on developing a maturity and wrecked his life.

Yeah, when Humphries got blasted into CTE hell, it ended his career on the spot. I was just thinking about that hit the other day...that one and the Trent Green hit...still make me puke.

Leaf got screwed by getting picked by San Diego, same reason why Archie told SD not to pick Peyton if he was still available at #2, then 5 or 6 years later wouldn't allow them to draft Eli and basically forced NY and SD to swap places, and in essence, QBs. Or wasn't Eli technically drafted by SD and traded to NY in a pre-worked deal, ala Elway being drafted by the Colts and traded to Denver??

Leaf didn't have an old man with NFL pull. He started off 2-0, and that, in hindsight, may have been the worst thing to have happened to him...because he came to Arrowhead and we UNDRESSED that ****er. Ruined his career. Of course, we returned the favor in a couple years later when Drew Brees had his big coming out party...against the Chiefs.

Whatever.