Stop Shuler

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)

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.

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).

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…

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.

We don’t watch Fox News, we’ll admit. We usually keep to a strict diet of PTI, the Colbert Report, and Entourage (we’ve been Jeremy Piven fans since the Larry Sanders days).

Nonetheless, we were pleased to see that we could crack up a respected veteran news reporter. Or even Brit Hume.

Here’s the video link — fast forward until the last 30 seconds…

As you know, we have shown that the Resdkins and the District of Columbia are better off since Shuler left. But as a Saints fan pointed out in our comments, New Orleans got a much rawer deal:

"Heath Shuler wore #5. He was drafted #3 overall in the NFL draft. 5+3=8. Shuler started his first game for the Saints on August 31, 1997 (not surprisingly, a loss to the Rams), almost exactly eight (or rewritten, 5+3) years to the day before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. [The conclusion can only be that] Heath Shuler is also responsible for Katrina. The Shuler effect is more powerful than even enlightened ones such as you imagined. It wasn’t Michael Brown or George W. Bush or Kathleen Blanco or Ray Nagin’s fault; it was Heath Shuler’s. And maybe also Ditka’s."

Wow. We never looked at it that way. Maybe we should count our blessings that it isn’t worse …

We’re always surprised when we find out that there actually Heath Shuler supporters out there. It just seems so obvious that the Redskins are better off with him out of town (or with the team in Houston), we can’t figure out why anyone would want him to win. Well, the folks at the aptly-named Scrutiny Hooligans have created a whole TV "Network" dedicated to bashing Shuler’s opponent (Chuck Taylor, R-Leningrad) called WNCNN. We think it is supposed to be satire and/or parody, but we honestly haven’t been able to sit through a whole episode — the first one is almost 10 minutes, and the second one, being a whopping 14 minutes long, had to be split into two parts. We think these videos lasted longer than Shuler’s NFL career (bada-boom!).

The more interesting video is the interview they did with Shuler. Now, the only video clips we’ve ever seen of Heath talking involve him in front of a locker saying that he supports the coach’s decision to start Gus.  Here’s the first question and answer:

Q: How familiar are you with the whole "Net Roots" community?

A: Wow. It’s, uh, you know, it’s uh, been incredible – especially – you know different aspects of, uh, my career and things I’ve gone through, nothing more positive I’ve seen than the way that people get out the grass roots than through the Internet and the politics of how — and politics — it’s been incredible. I’ve gained so much support, a lot — a lot of our information we’ve been able to gather, has come from the Internet, and we can pick up online as quickly as we possibly can on almost everything, and we’ve — obviously having a blog site on our website has really helped — I’ve been very excited about it.

Yikes. We half expected to hear Shuler start talking about the Internet being a "series of tubes." It’s good to see he is proud of his "blog site" that has a grand total of 7 posts — none since July.

The thing that we were most excited about is that Heath says later that he is so committed to the environment that he bought an "electric car." We are dying to know what he bought. Something like this:

               
or this?

Please, residents of NC-11 — let us know what you see Heath tooling around in…

Things have been a little crazy at Stop Shuler HQ lately. We had just shut off the lights and left for a brief vacation, when our friends at Deadspin and the Associated Press ran stories on us. I’m sure our loyal reader(s) were wondering why we were suddenly getting so many comments.

So, based on the feedback we have gotten, we wanted to clarify a few things:

• This is not the place for a boring discussion of political policy.
  This is a place about football, and Heath Shuler’s lack of skill therein. If you want to complain about right-wing moonbats or liberal kooks, talk to Kos or Malkin. And for the record, the fact that Dubya failed at some businesses before becoming President is totally a non sequitur. However, it does give us an idea for our next ad –  "Heath Shuler is a miserable failure, just like George Bush." Hey, tying your opponent to Bush worked for Ned Lamont…
• Some of you people are nuts.
  We expected to get attacked. We expected to be called Republican hacks and/or traitors. What we did not expect that there would be people out there so blinded by their political beliefs that they would actually defend Shuler’s NFL "career."  Sure, Norv did not handle the situation well (but what did he handle well?), but come on — this point is not up for debate. He was a terrible NFL quarterback. His injuries just kept him from throwing more interceptions.
• We are seriously getting worried that we are right.
  Shuler came to Washington last week and the Redskins lost twice. Clinton Portis was unable to practice. And fire and brimstone came down from the sky, and dogs and cats laid down together… okay, we made that last part up. But it’s just got to be Shuler’s fault that the Redskins look so bad this year, right? Right?

Anyway, thanks for all the comments (except for the aforementioned whack jobs who think Shuler’s record is misunderstood). Keep up the fight!