** Copied from Texans game thread** I have been trying to figure out what he does for a living - I usually shut off the radio when he's on so I probably missed it somewhere along the line. It sounds like he's a writer, but he's always blathering on about how he goes to all these football games and goes golfing. How does he afford that? I just get this impression that he's related to some rich guy and is living off of him. And somehow his ability to be able to go to all these games and have lots of time makes his sports opinions matter.
Me too. He truly thinks he is Gods gift to football. He expects all players and coaches to bow down to him and if they don't, he trashes them (see Brian Billick). "I covered this game, and I covered this team, I voted that guy into the Hall of Fame, I didn't vote for that guy..." blah blah blah. Get over yourself, John.
Exactly, the guy is very opinionated, sometimes he's off, sometimes he's personal, but he is a hardworker when it comes to getting inside info, and I can say from listening to him and reading his column, as far as facts are concerned, he is usually very informative. He's not full of himself one bit. Believe me, there are people who come on as guests that you can tell are full of themselves and John's not one of them. Russell Baxter comes to mind. I've never heard him call someone a jerk that wasn't considered a jerk by everyone else in the media. Billik is bashed by almost everyone in the media, and it has nothing to do with not giving interviews. The one time McClain got on my nerves was with his non stop pubbing of Bo Eason's play, "Runt of the Litter". Other than that, he's one of the few guest I look forward to hearing.
And here's my post from the other thread: I wouldn't know. I stopped reading him after the whole expansion thing. He was just so defeatist in his writing and kept making predictions (phrased in such a way as to seem as if they were handed down from God) that gave Houston essentially no chance to get the team and which continually turned out to be wrong time and time again. He also managed to miss so much of what was happening and what was said during that stuff. Heck, I was at the same press conferences he was at in Chicago, and he came away with a completely different view of the situation than I did (it was at those meetings that I became fairly confident that Houston would get the team. McClain, despite not really talking to anyone other than T.J. Simers that I saw, was fairly sure Houston still had no chance.) I guess it is different covering what is essentially a business process vs. real football stuff, but I just wondered how the guy from Houston could be so down on the Houston bid. It's not that I require a homer, but his opinions didn't even seem objective to me. It seemed almost anti-Houston (at least in terms of their chances) no matter what transpired. It came to the point where if McClain had predicted that the sun would rise in the East, I'd be looking toward the West come morning.
I don't remember what he wrote during the expansion thing, but I always enjoyed his columns. And this year I started to listen to him on the radio- I'm amazed at how much info. he has. He doesn't hold back either, no BS or beating around the bush, he just comes out with the info. I think he has more inside info than any other sports writer in Houston. He does come off a little cocky sometimes, but it doesn't bother me yet. He's much less annoying than Blinebury's or John Lopez's attempts at creative writing.
when i lived in Nashville he was always a guest on their talk shows going on an on about the Titans...I'm sure he still comes on but I don't live there anymore.
That was the problem, that moron Simers, even after it became obvious to even the dumbest of the dumb that Houston had the inside track over LA, wrote column after column in the sporting news and LA times or whatever saying that everybody was wrong and guaran-damn-teeing that LA would receive the franchise. I don't believe he ever ate crow for it either, but I never read his crap again.
Oh, I agree with Simers being blind to the reality of the situation, but if McClain did let Simers influence his own coverage, that's McClain's fault. But, in McClain's defense, just because I didn't see him talk to anybody else doesn't mean he didn't. But McClain's coverage of the expansion process was far off the mark and was negative on Houston's chances til the very end. Simers is an interesting guy when it comes to the NFL. He seems very angry at the NFL for some reason and seems to want to do whatever possible to keep a team from coming to L.A. He trashes the Chargers, he trashes the Colts, he trashes the NFL, he trashes whatever stadium project is getting touted that particular week.
mrpaige -- probably because he looked like an ass when the franchise was awarded to Houston. what a great day that was! i remember it sooooo well!
He still comes on about every day on this sports talk radio show out of Nashville called the Zone. I haven't heard enough of him to really form an opinion one way or another, but I did ask him one day about the Broncos defense and he answered that by saying (essentially) it all had to do with Jake Plummer, lol. I was hoping he could tell me about the actual defensive players in the secondary and on the line, not about offensive players.
