Last week, I wrote that anonymous NFL draft slander had reached “a bizarre new low” in the form of an article in which five sources dumped on Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook for allegedly being unlikable without naming a single unlikable thing he’s ever done.
It took only four days for the bar to be lowered once again: In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece published on Tuesday, an anonymous scout attacked prospect Eli Apple because the Ohio State cornerback allegedly can’t cook. I’m serious:
I worry about him because of off-the-field issues. The kid has no life skills. At all. Can’t cook. Just a baby. He’s not first round for me. He scares me to death.
There are two great things about this scout’s foray into food criticism. One is that the last NFL season ended with Peyton Manning winning a Super Bowl and retiring. Peyton Manning, in addition to being a guaranteed Hall of Famer and one of the best football players ever, was once publicly described by members of his own family as not being able to open a can of soup. From a 1999 Sports Illustrated profile:
Cooper calls his brother “somewhat of a domestic idiot. … A couple of weeks ago he called my wife and asked her how to heat up soup.” Amazingly, that’s not even Manning’s worst soup-related display of cluelessness. Once, when he was sick, he called [his future wife Ashley] Thompson to ask her how to open a can of soup. “He didn’t know what a can opener looked like,” she says. Another time Manning placed a long-distance call to Thompson from his dorm room and expressed a desire to have Chinese food delivered. Flustered by the process, he persuaded Thompson to call a Knoxville restaurant from her apartment in Charlottesville and make the order for him.
Peyton Manning’s experience indicates that being able to cook may not be a prerequisite for NFL success.
But it gets even better: PEOPLE WHO KNOW ELI APPLE REPORT THAT HE’S ACTUALLY AN EXCELLENT COOK WHOSE FATHER WAS A CHEF. This is his Ohio State teammate Ezekiel Elliott:
This is Apple’s mother, Annie:
It seems that this anonymous scout, if one had to draft a team of individuals to compete in the sport of Not Being Completely Full of Crap, might not be first-round material.
