No matter how much you try to forget, the past has a way of making you remember. Nobody knows this better than fans of the St. Louis Rams, who have recently had to suffer through some pretty awful football before finally getting the ship pointed toward competency last year. In the fall, fans will see a reminder from the team's past on national television: former GM Billy Devaney.
Devaney will be a regular contributor on ESPN's newest entry into NFL-focused television shows, NFL Insiders. You can read all about the new show that will be just like the other shows in the network's official press release.
The former Rams GM will join such illustrious past front office rogues as Bill Polian and Phil Savage. And because television, particularly when it comes to the NFL, is a celebration of the absurd, Devaney will be on hand providing expertise on the draft and free agents.
Of course he will.
Matt Millen wasn't available?
And networks will never stop letting failed general managers tell audiences what the others are doing wrong.
I guess you can applaud ESPN for forging new programming, when they could easily just stand on the NFL lineup they have. They are losing market share to the NFL Network, which really is no better. On the other hand, I'm not really sure how this show is markedly different from their current offerings.
This also brings us full circle to where we started on Monday when Spencer Hall wrote this scathing piece about the NFL media. Fealty. Access. INSIDER.
ESPN's new show is just another reminder that most of the professional football media world values those things more than storytelling or actual analysis of the game, which football really is in case you forgot with all the INSIDER bullshit.
There is one way to really make this new ESPN show and the age old concept of using failed GMs to make this work. I want to hear Devaney explain the long list of draft busts and poor free agent signings the Rams made while he was at the helm. I want to know more about his relationship with Spagnuolo, who reportedly made Rams Park a hellish place to work.
I'll watch this show when Devaney, or any other failed GM, starts telling us how his three years leading a team to 10-38 can offer a lesson for INSIDERs.
It will never happen.