Stop Shuler -- Keep Heath Shuler Out of Washington

I know I could have done well in [Coach Gibbs's] offense

That's what Shuler says in this article in the Washington Post (from October) titled "Seeking a 2nd Term in Washington."

The highlights, outside that he thinks Gibbs is a better coach than Norv (well, duh):

• They let him visit Redskins Park. We would think that there would be an electrified Shuler Fence around the entire complex. Brunell & Campbell don't need the stench of Shuler's failure rubbing off on them.
• Clinton urged him to run for Congress. Our man Slick Willie should know better. Is it that he is blinded by partisan politics, or that he has been in NY so long? He even joked about Shuler getting more heat on the front of the Post than he did. Why would he want him to come back?
• He named his Children "Navy" and "Island." We try not to make fun of what people name their kids -- everybody is entitled to go their own way, we feel. But why the nautical theme? Were his alternatives "Starboard" and "Shiver Me Timbers"?

By the way, the Clinton reference does make us nostalgic a bit. Today's scandals -- lobbyists, press leaks, campaign contributions -- pale in comparison to L'Affaire Lewinksy. We can remember watching the helicopter footage of the vans with the Starr Report driving to the Capitol (in LA, the news choppers follow high-speed chases, in DC, they follow documents). Every time we thought it couldn't get raunchier or crazier, it did.

If we had to bring back one newsmaker from that era, we'd much rather it be Bill than Heath.

Is Heath Shuler against free speech?

As we mentioned earlier, we freaked out when Shuler's official site intimated that he was a great quarterback, and posted a comment on his blog. The comment was up for a few days, but now, it has been removed. It wasn't anything TOO obnoxious (just a little obnoxious), but apparently, they prefer the sucking up comments to the ones that provoke a real discussion. We also heard from Matt Seelinger, who said that he also had a comment deleted.

Shuler was always sensitive to criticism when he was on the Redskins, so maybe this is just his nature...

That sound you heard was our heads exploding

Well, Heath Shuler relaunched his campaign website today, and, objectively speaking, it is a big improvement (unless you liked white text on a red background). We think it's great that he has a blog, although we were a bit disappointed that the "Multimedia" section didn't have video clips of all 33 of his NFL interceptions.

But nothing could have prepared us for the flash animation on the home page. For those of you who don't have the patience to sit through it, this is what it says:

Great Character (pause)
Great Work Ethic (pause)
Great Vision (pause)
Great Leadership Skills (pause)
Am I Describing a Great Quarterback (pause)
Or a US Congressman?
  - Coach David Cutcliffe on Heath Shuler

WHAA??? The words "great quarterback" and "Heath Shuler" should never be used in close proximity, unless it is something like, "unlike great quarterbacks, Heath Shuler..." Here at Stop Shuler HQ, we were stunned. Dumbfounded even. We even went so far to post a comment on the Shuler blog expressing our shock and dismay. To their credit, they are not moderating comments, so it went right up (we'll see if it stays there).

As we said in our comment on his site, we're sure he has a lot of positives to run on (we, of course, know only of the 1994-1996 Heath Shuler, so can't think of any), but being a great quarterback isn't one of them. Maybe what they meant was, "Shuler's obviously not a great quarterback, so we must be describing a US Congressman." We just can't figure it out.

We think we are going to go watch the 1991 Redskins highlight film to calm down. We love watching Jim Kelly get knocked around...

Finally, someone we can vote for

We encourage all of you to sign the petition to elect Art Monk to the Hall of Fame -- visit www.electartmonk.com.

Shuler in the New York Times

Let’s start off by saying that we don’t like the New York Times. We don’t like it mostly because of the New Yorkers we know -- who love to talk about how great the Times is, how they can’t get any decent bagels in this town, and that Eli Manning is the second coming of Joe Montana. We’re Washington Post people -- screw the Times, they don’t even have a comics section.

Anyway, in November, the Times did a puff piece on Shuler’s campaign, which was when most people first heard that he was running. Some interesting tidbits:

• “He wears his N.F.L. alumni ring almost everywhere he goes.”
• How does he feel about his time in DC? "I wouldn't change it." Seriously. Apparently, sucking in the NFL helped him “deal with the negative.”
• In the “you’ve got to be kidding me” category, he refuses to drink carbonated beverages. This is because he pledged his dad in the fifth grade that he wouldn’t drink soda, apparently for health reasons. The kicker? Once, in middle school, he collapsed from dehydration, but refused a Coke.

So, the conclusion? He has no shame (wearing the ring), lies through his teeth (“no, seriously, I loved being hated by a whole town”), and won’t be getting any donations from his local Coca-Cola bottler.

Read the article (it now costs money, because the NY Times are punks)

Props to Deadspin

The popular sports blog Deadspin discovered StopShuler.com today, so a lot of you probably just discovered us as well. Welcome.

One thing we noticed from our referrers -- did the Hotline do something about the site? We're not important enough to have a subscription, so we would appreciate it if one of our Hill colleagues could drop us an email or a comment letting us know what they said.

One thing we want to reiterate -- this has nothing to do with politics. This is about football, and the city of Washington. If he was running for governor, we wouldn't care -- he wouldn't be coming back to DC. We dread the day we're pounding a few at the Hawk & Dove and we run into him. We'd really prefer he stays where he is.

Officially up and running

Like Heath Shuler and his bid for Congress, the StopShuler.com site is making it official. In the coming months, look for personal recollections on the Shuler Era in Washington, up to the moment news on Shuler's campaign, and maybe some generic whining about Norv Turner thrown in for good measure.

You can read the post about why we are doing this here.

Stay tuned, and enjoy.

Sugar Coating Shuler’s Career

It is interesting to see when people gloss over how awful Shuler was as an NFL quarterback. For example, this article makes the ridiculous statement that “his NFL days were short-lived because of a foot injury.” No, his NFL days were short-lived because he wasn’t any good. The foot injury just made it official.

His bio on the Progressive Patriots Fund site calls him a “successful businessman” and mentions that he was the #3 overall selection in the draft. In conveniently fails to mention how that turned out.

The AP used the phrase “Shuler’s pro career never took off,” which in our minds is being rather kind.

ESPN Calls Shuler The #17 Biggest Flop Of The Last 25 Years

ESPN places Heath below the Clippers, but above Jordan trying to play baseball. Fan voting moved him up to #15.

Please note that there are no people elected to Congress on this list.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/espn25/story?page=listranker/25biggestflops

Great College Career?

Many articles about Shuler talk about his great college career -- but was it really so great? Without spending a lot of time researching the issue (which is the way we prefer to do things), here are two points:

• The QB to follow him at Tennessee, Peyton Manning, was, um, slightly better.
• He was runner up to Charlie Ward for the 1993 Heisman trophy -- he couldn’t even beat a guy who ended up in the NBA.

So let’s not get too excited about his college career…