Stop Shuler -- Keep Heath Shuler Out of Washington

Norv Turner can't handle the truth

After our landmark interview with Heath Shuler the other day, we figured it would be only fair if we asked Shuler's former coach, Norv Turner, to comment on what Heath had to say. Sure, he may be busy preparing the mighty 49ers offense for another ass-kicking, but we figured that he'd want to refute some things. Well, here's what happened:

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From: Stop Shuler
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 9:44 AM
To: [PR Guy #1, San Francisco 49ers]; [PR Guy #2, San Francisco 49ers]
Subject: Request for comment from Norv Turner

As you may be aware, one of Coach Turner's proteges, Heath Shuler, is running for Congress in North Carolina. We interviewed him this weekend,and asked him why he failed in the NFL. While he did not completely throw Turner under the bus, he at least got him hit by a mirror. Some quotes:

"Coach Turner was a rookie like a lot of us."
"I'm sure the coach looks back and feels there were things he would change."
"He asked me 'Are you ready?' -- What was I supposed to say?"

So, we would love to get Norv Turner's official opinion on why Shuler was a bust in the NFL. Considering that Gus Frerrote got in the Pro Bowl under Turner's tutelage in 1996 (while Shuler was still on the team) we think that maybe it wasn't all about the lack of surrounding talent and poor coaching.

Obviously, we understand that he is rather busy. All we would need is 10 minutes to ask him why Shuler wasn't successful and see if he would like to comment on Shuler's statements.

Thank you for your time, and would appreciate any help you can provide.

Sincerely,

Stop Shuler
www.stopshuler.com

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We only had to wait a few hours for the response:

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From: [PR Guy #1, San Francisco 49ers]
Date: Oct 30, 2006 1:27 PM
Subject: RE: Request for comment from Norv Turner
To: Stop Shuler, [PR Guy #2, San Francisco 49ers]

We will decline this request.

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Well, there you have it -- Norv Turner is obviously afraid to talk to us. Or, he's pissed about us calling him Norv (bleep)ing Turner in our TV ad. Either way, we have neither the time nor the inclination to explain ourselves to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom we provide, then questions the manner in which we provide it. But that's just us.

Heath Shuler Speaks!

So, a few weeks ago, we sent a playful email to Shuler’s press guy, asking for an interview. We didn’t think anything would come of it, to be honest. In fact, we were thinking of turning it into a part of the site like, "Why won’t Heath Shuler face the truth?" or "Day 12 of Shuler ignoring us" or something.

So, we were a bit surprised when he called us on Saturday.

The full interview is after the break, but here is the summary:

Like any good politician, he has his talking points down about why he failed in the NFL (here’s another interview where he said pretty much the same stuff). They are:

• The team wasn’t very good
• Washington wasn’t the right system
• Norv put him in before he was ready
• He was just getting on track in New Orleans when injuries finally derailed his career.

Talking to him, we believe he is sincere in believing that he was just a victim of bad luck. It’s not surprising -- there aren’t a whole lot of athletes that are going to come out and say, "you know what, I just wasn’t very talented." He’s a bit delusional, but not in a bitter or paranoid way -- he only threw Norv under one wheel of the bus.

He tried to twist around the idea that he would curse the Redskins if he came back to DC (or that he already is cursing them) by suggesting that if he got elected, perhaps he would reverse whatever curse he planted on the team the first time around. It was a nice effort.

He claims that he finds this site funny, entertaining, and a good thing. We don’t know if we completely believe that either -- if he had called us "ungrateful little pricks holding a grudge" or something, he wouldn’t have looked very Congressional. Nonetheless, he laughed at our jokes, and only really tightened up when we accused him of being stupid.

Oh, and he and his wife struggle to come up with baby names, which is how they ended up with "Navy" and "Island."

Getting philosophical...

One of the main points of the Stop Shuler Manifesto is that the Redskins are finally getting things right, and having Heath Shuler back in town could screw all that up. Yes, we know, it's not really deep stuff, like proposing to give the workers the control of the means of production or anything. Nonetheless, today, after watching the Redskins fall to 2-5 and not have any aspect of the team look good, we're starting to wonder if there is a slight flaw in our theory. Maybe the Redskins aren't any better off now than when Shuler was on the team. Except for two seasons (1999 & 2005), the team has pretty much looked bad for the last 14 years. Perhaps Shuler was just one of many things that went wrong, like Norv Turner, Steve Spurrier, Deion Sanders, Jeff George, Michael Westbrook, Tony Banks, and so on and so on.

A reporter once asked us if, we were Charlie Casserly back in 1994, what would we do? You could say "take Trent Dilfer" -- he at least was competent to win Super Bowl, even if he didn't contribute much. You could say "trade the pick" -- but who knows what you would get. We said, "draft Peyton Manning." Now, we're pretty sure you can't pick a guy and wait four years for him to graduate (we know that the Celtics did a similar thing with Larry Bird, drafting him his junior year and waiting a year until he was able to play), but it would have been the right move, with the benefit of hindsight. Watching Manning take apart the Redskins (and appear in about 96 commercials) today, it does make us wonder.

Or, we suppose, we could decide to believe that EVERYTHING that has gone wrong with the Redskins since 1994 is Heath Shuler's fault, and maybe even start talking about "The Shuler Curse."

We'll have to sleep on it.

"Every day but Sunday, I'm going to give 110%"

Finally, we have an explanation for why Shuler was such a failure in the NFL. Bad coaching? Foot injuries? Too dumb? Nope -- he just doesn't work on Sundays.

For those of you with better things to do than to follow this campaign (which, quite frankly, we hope is all of you), you have missed a lot of back and forth posturing about a potential debate between Shuler and his opponent, incumbent Charles Taylor (R - Mountain Values). It seems pretty obvious that neither side wants a debate, probably because neither of them would fare very well. They have, however, spent a lot of energy blaming the other guy for the lack of a debate.

Now, Heath Shuler has come up with a GREAT reason for why he backed out of (or never agreed to, depending who you ask) a proposed debate on October 29 -- it's a Sunday, and that is a day he spends with his family. In this clip (fast forward to about a minute in when he starts to speak), he actually says -- and we swear we are not making this up:

"When it comes to the week, every day but Sunday, I'm going to give you 110%. I'll give you all I have. And I'm going to rest on Sunday."

We sure wish the Redskins knew that he was going to take Sundays off when they drafted him. Although, like we said, his miserable performances on Sundays all make sense now.

(Thanks to the reader who pointed us to this Scrutiny Hooligans post, where you can also see the video)

Wait a minute -- does this mean we're jinxed?

Finally, someone in the media is doing their job. From the esteemed pages of Sports Illustrated:

Heath Shuler fizzled as a top Redskins draft pick. Now he wants to return to D.C. as a congressman

In the 19 games Heath Shuler spent taking snaps for the Washington Redskins in the mid-1990s, the team went 4-15. His quarterback rating during that time was a subterranean 58.3. Routinely, the fans at RFK Stadium booed Shuler, the third pick in the 1994 NFL draft, more lustily than they did any opposing player. With a track record like that, you'd think the guy would never want to work in D.C. again. Yet Shuler has designs on returning to town when the 110th U.S. Congress convenes in January.

Hmmm... now where did the get those stats?

Anyway, our favorite part, outside of the goofy picture of Shuler, was the photo credits on the side of the page:

Almost makes us legit.

(click on the image to see a larger version)

A Titanic concern

There is no conceivable way that the Redskins could lose at home to the 0-5 Titans, right? I mean, the team has the talent, the coaching, the fans, the resources, everything -- there's just no way.

So how did it happen? Could it be that the "stench of failure" that we have been concerned that Shuler could bring back to DC is already spreading? Could the number of media references to "former Redskins quarterback Heath Shuler" be causing the forces of fate to think that Shuler actually IS the Redskins QB? Is it some sort of Freaky Friday thing where Brunell and Shuler have switched places, and Brunell is taking his history of success to the Congressional campaign while Shuler has taken his offensive skills to DC?

I mean, this can be the only explanation, right? We honestly can't come up with anything else.

Heath Shuler: Hot or Not?

In another example of how the Mainstream Media is ignoring the important issues at hand, the Washington Post wrote an article about how, well, just plum attractive the Democratic candidates are this year. Instead of writing an expose on how bad an QB Heath was for their hometown NFL team, they chose to talk about how "strapping" he is.

Then they wrote:

The looks factor can be maddening for the opposition. One writer on an anti-Shuler blog expressed annoyance at the candidate's wife, "with all her quips about how cute Shuler is. What a way to decide how to vote!!"

We saw that and immediately said, "Wait! There's another anti-Shuler blog?" Then thought, "Hmmmm... we should look through our comments." The final thought, "Maybe we should order some ribs to watch the Redskins-Titans game," was irrelevant. So we did look through our comments, and found this one, from "Steve."

Havn't had time to check your site lately. My bad!
Good to see you back at it!
Gooooooooo Taylor.
My wife is really pissing me off w/ all her quips about how cute Shuler is. What a way to decide how to vote!! (But PS: she would vote for Clay-freaking-Aiken if he were running)
Time for a drink or twelve.
Your fan,
Steve

So, not only did they not mention the site name, but they misquoted us! Of course, the funniest part is that we have come to know "Steve" over the last few months, and "Steve" is, in fact, a woman, who we would imagine doesn't actually have a wife that thinks Shuler is cute. In fact, "Steve" is pretty actively hanging out with only people who support Charles Taylor (R-Land of the Dead).

 

Heath Shuler is cooler than we thought

As you may have heard, Heath Shuler is sponsoring a race car with Ken Coleman Racing in the Busch Series. We're going to ignore the ridiculous quote from the driver for now ("I remember watching him play in the NFL" -- we're sorry to hear that), and take a look at who usually sponsors the #23 car -- LoveFifi.com (probably not safe for work, depending on your HR department).

Yes, we have an actual excuse to post the picture on the left. It is called "Talladega Tootsie," and is one of the many naughty outfits you can buy at the site (we had to go check it out for research purposes). According to Fifi, "Keith’s cars purr like a kitten on the track, just like our lingerie makes his fans purr off the track!"

This car has an interesting history -- for one race, it was the "Wet-Line / Seman Baker #23 car," and was sponsored by two Mexican companies, one that "manufactures and rents large scale tents and temporary shelters," and one that "is part a premiere product line of male grooming products." (We'll let you guess which one's which) So maybe Taylor was right about Shuler supporting giving every illegal immigrant $500 and keys to your house when they cross the border.

Nonetheless, we have newfound respect for Mr. Shuler. If he can sponsor a car that usually markets things like the "Top Brass Babe" (see below), maybe he ain't all that bad...

Introducing... The Stop Shuler Store!

The holidays will be here before you know it -- so show that special someone you care with Official Stop Shuler Merchandise.

We have stickers, hats, and T-Shirts, all with that special logo that tells people "I think Heath Shuler was a terrible NFL Quarterback, and I would like him stopped, thank you very much."

We're hoping to make enough off the merchandise sales to buy a faux leather Redskins helmet or even, if you guys are really generous, a customized Redskins jersey that says "Stop Shuler" on it.

We appreciate your support.