It’s March, what are you mad about? This week’s grouse is related to my freaking phone. There are a select few of you who read the previous sentence and felt a twinge of excitement wondering if this is a rare moment of weakness and a chance to attempt to convert me from android to Apple. It is not. I am not grumbling about my chosen device, but the mobile smart phone in general. I will almost certainly never get rid of my smartphone, though I have toyed with the idea on numerous occasions. My gripe, my qualm if you will, is purely the entertainment and distractibility offered to me by my phone. Niki and I have been watching through Game of Thrones for the first time and there are so many scenes where we begin by cutting to someone staring out a window or walking aimlessly down a path or sitting in a room and just thinking. Do you remember pondering? I honestly believe I sit and ponder more than the average person, yet my ponders per day average has plummeted with each passing year. There is a generation just a few years younger than me who will not understand the following anecdote. Anyone younger than them will never understand what I am about to say, but I remember a time my freshman year of high school where my buddy Zack and I got into an argument over who sang a particular song. I believe it was In The Air Tonight. I said Phil Collins, he said The Police. Neither of us had smartphones. We had to go home, look it up on our computers, and come back the next day to settle the debate. There is something beautiful about that moment to me. The implied requirement to consider and reconsider your stance or thought for more than a single moment. Anyways, that’s my grievance this week. It’s March and I’m mad.
Dak Prescott. This is how the idea for this week’s issue came to mind. For my sports inclined readers who know my fandom for Philly, you’re probably thinking, “Ok, here we gooo. This guy is going to be anti-Dallas…” for my non-sports inclined, I promise the sports references will be at a minimum. For those who don’t know, Dak Prescott is the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. He is very good, but he is not one of the 5 or so best quarterbacks in the NFL. There is nothing wrong with that. Where the idea sprang from was a conversation with my buddy Jayson who is one of the only level headed Dallas Cowboys fans I have ever met in my entire life. We were discussing NFL free agency and teams’ new chances at making a deep run. When we got to Dallas and their lack of free agency moves, Jayson said he wants to believe the team can still make a run, but he has trust issues. There had been some ongoing discussion about other QBs in the league and in my pondering, I offered this thought, “I think the problem is Dak is very good but not elite (by NFL standards). Yet, because it’s Dallas, the media gasses him up like he’s fringe top 5 and I imagine Jerry (Jones) being Jerry eats that up. They rely on him as if he is actually top 5 and actually clutch which he has shown not to be more often than not. If they treated him more like San Fran treats QBs (“don’t screw up”) then I think they’d be playing for Super Bowls with the talent they have.”
For my non-sports inclined readers, you are probably thinking, “You said you’d keep the sports talk to a minimum. What gives?” We’re almost done, I promise. We just have to make a quick trip to the aforementioned “San Fran” to finalize the seed that led to this week’s idea. The San Francisco 49ers played for their second Super Bowl in five years this past season. The quarterback they played in the Super Bowl with five years ago is now a backup. The quarterback they played with this year was the last pick in the 2022 draft. For those who don’t know how many players are drafted each year, Brock Purdy, the 49ers quarterback, was the 262nd pick in that draft. He is truly an amazing story. He went from being someone that should have been buried on his team’s depth chart and out of the league in a few seasons to starting for a team that went to the daggum Super Bowl. Some who discussed football with me last season and are now reading this might think to yourselves, “I thought you were a Brock Purdy hater?” which leads me directly to this week’s main idea. I was marked as a hater of Brock Purdy because during his run to the Super Bowl, I argued that he should not be considered for the NFL Most Valuable Player award. So many people I spoke with were saying Brock Purdy was one of the best quarterbacks in the league and saying he was elite in so many ways that he is just not. Those same people were saying the same things about the previous 49ers quarterback who led them to a Super Bowl 5 years ago but wouldn’t be caught dead saying that now. They were caught up in the moment. My stance of, ‘Brock Purdy is clearly a very good athlete and his story is truly remarkable going from the last pick in the draft to a good starting quarterback in the league whose team is about to play in the Super Bowl, was seen as being a hater because I wasn’t willing to give in and say he is one of the best quarterbacks in the league.
Where does all of this lead? I will now, nearly 1,000 words in, type the titular line and lay out the thesis: Not everything is 5 stars. Essentially, not everything good is great, and not every great story needs to be sensationalized. Brock Purdy is a good quarterback, better than probably anyone expected, with a great story. He is not one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and probably never will be. Those two statements are not mutually exclusive and settle perfectly into place next to each other in my mind. Yet, when I said that last year, I was deemed a hater by the NFL community at large. I think, had you given everyone some truth serum, had you given all the true Brock Purdy believers a moment to sit back and let the emotion settle, they would agree. However, in our current times, I have found good things and great stories are not good enough. We are no longer content with good and it is insulting to say something is merely acceptable.
Think about it this way, if you go to a restaurant and get good but nothing special food with good but nothing special service in a good but nothing special atmosphere, what star rating would you give it if you had to give it a review? Most people I know would just hit 5 stars because there was nothing wrong. Upon reading countless Google reviews over the years, multiple amazon reviews, and articles written comparing and contrasting products, it seems 5 stars are given if something is good enough. 3 stars are given if something was bad. Honestly, we have been so distracted by the inflation we see around us in the financial markets that we have been blind to the more damaging inflation in the reviewing community.
Longtime readers might push back on me here. They will remember a variety of five star reviews written by me in my quest to become a certified Google local guide (which I accomplished). That said, those reviews were clearly comedic in nature and needed the safety net of five stars to remain posted. There is always a method to my madness. I know I know I sound like the reviewer version of people who were offering thousands over asking on houses sight unseen saying, “It’s just the way it is right now.” At this point, what does it even mean to receive a perfect review? Nothing. How do I, a consumer, know the difference between good enough (five stars) and exceptional (five stars)?
It is easier said than done at this point though. Go to a restaurant that is good not great and leave a 3 star review. Tell me you don’t feel a little bad about that. In all reality, you’re being fair and honest. You should never feel bad about being fair and honest. That said, we have reached a point in society where being level headed, fair, and honest seems radical. It will take all of us being brave. We must be the change we want to see. Some of you will not survive. Think I’m being dramatic? What happened to the last guy with the nickname “honest”?
I have a buddy who will often say things like, “best ever”, “worst of all time”, and other absolutes. If someone, typically in sports, does something good, they are “the best of all time” for like 24 hours before he eventually settles into the land of the reasonable. Recently, the New England Patriots made a coaching hire that had been in the works for years. Nothing special about it. Not a homerun hire, but nothing to be upset about. The following morning he described it as, “the worst coaching hire of all time.” Fully drinking his own Kool-Aid and believing the hyperbole in earnest. His sports takes, I think, sum up pretty well the problem I’m describing.
When we all watched the news, there was a big, sensational story every once in a while. When the internet began growing in popularity, we began seeing clickbait; headlines so wild they had to be interacted with. Now, with the internet being many people’s main source of information, clickbait is the standard and good stories get lost in the noise so many feel the need to make more of them than there is to be made. If everything is highlighted, nothing is highlighted, ya know?
I used to believe, and this is the God’s honest truth, that my life would be a failure if I was not written about in history books one day. A good life was not good enough. Now, I want, more than anything, to be a good husband and, one day, a good father. I want to be remembered for the impact I leave on people near to me. I want a strong 3 star life by the world’s standards but be a five star kinda guy.
