In February 2007, Josh Bacott wrote of the most notable athletes walking around with monkeys on their backs, in a column that served as an immediate response to Peyton Manning's Super Bowl XLI victory. Now we revisit the list of monkeyed athletes to see how they're doing and how they've done in their quest to rid themselves of their most hated primates. We now join Bacott's column in progress, equipped with bonus monkey updates. Anything written in blue is from me, Imig. Non-italicized, non-blue is the original work of Bacott.
He finally did it.
Peyton Manning’s MVP-winning performance in Super Bowl XLI this weekend finally enabled him to escape his most feared and unshakeable enemy. Even as he piled up yardage and touchdown records through the years, it latched onto him, following him around with an animal-like determination to prove that he could never win the big game.
It was the vaunted monkey on his back. And now it’s gone.
The prevailing theme from over the weekend is that, with a Super Bowl championship to his name, Manning can officially be dropped off of the list of athletes, coaches and organizations that continue to wrestle with the proverbial primate stuck on their lumbar region. I’ll allow Sean Salisbury to describe as he does with such eloquence…
“Well the monkey fell down to his waist after (the conference championship)… still hanging on a little bit. But now it’s completely gone.”
Congrats, Peyton. While I’m sure there were some potentially disturbing moments while the monkey was hanging out around your waist these last two weeks, we’re happy you’ve shaken loose from it.
But don’t make the mistake of thinking that simply because one large-foreheaded QB is free, that there aren’t plenty of other people still battling their own seemingly unshakeable legacies. On one end of the spectrum players are dealing with individual accomplishments or controversy, and on the other end are entire franchises creeping up on 100 years since their last title. Monkeys are attacking all over the sports world.
Eli Manning
Monkey on his back: His brother
Now that his brother is a Super Bowl champ, Eli will be toting around the burden of being the only Manning brother picked first in the draft who has not won a title. After this past Sunday, Peyton Manning officially went from having a monkey on his back to being the monkey on someone else’s back. Frankly, with all of the home videos we’ve been forced to watch of the Manning tribe as kids, I’m surprised we haven’t seen footage of that.
Seriously, when this column was written in February 2007, if anyone honestly felt Eli would have the monkey off his back 12 months later, they would have been stamped with STUPID on their forehead. Now that there aren't any monkeys hanging on Eli and Peyton, I wonder if it jumped to poor ole Coop. But if I have my wish, it's going on father Archie's vertebrae. I don't see Daddy shaking that one loose in my lifetime.
Marty Schottenheimer
Monkey on his back: Winning
Going into this season, the rightful owner of the title “most likely to choke in the playoffs” would probably have been a toss up between Marty Schottenheimer and Peyton Manning. Fair or unfair, they both carried the stigma of being unable to perform when it mattered most. With Peyton now out of the way, the NFL fans and media can focus all of their vitriol at Marty. As we saw after the Chargers loss to the Patriots in this year’s playoffs, regardless of what happens on the field, any failure in San Diego will be deemed Marty’s fault, nothing short of a Super Bowl will change that.
It was five days after this column was written that Marty was fired. Safe to say, the monkey is not only on his back, she's procreating with a male monkey. Pretty soon, a family of monkeys will be hanging on every move of Schottenheimer. Poor bastard.
Alex Rodriguez
Monkey on his back: Derek Jeter
It’s not so much Derek Jeter himself that serves as a constant burden on A-Rod, it’s more what Jeter stands for. The name Derek Jeter is synonymous with two things 1.) winning 2.) having sex with any female that he wants to. Meanwhile, despite superior statistics, the name Alex Rodriguez has become synonymous with 1.) frosted hair and 2.) shrinking at the moments his team needs him most.
Make no mistake about it, the monkey is still dry humping A-Rod's vertebral column, but at least for his sake Derek Jeter has gotten another dose of "reality". Just this past week, SI.com revealed a players' poll that named Jeter the most overrated player in the game. It's not a championship, and it doesn't rid Rodriguez of the monkey, but at least it puts a hose on the smoldering fire.
And yea, it's not a coincidence that for this specific retort, the monkey is dry-humping and the hose is being used on A-Rod.
JD Drew
Monkey on his back: Injuries
Drew, who just finalized a monstrous contract to play in Boston, may be the only player in the league who has a legitimate chance at hitting the 60 day DL due to an actual monkey jumping on his back. Nothing would surprise me.
He hasn't shook the injury monkey off his back, given that he was on the DL this year and missed time last season due to injuries, but he has made strides in becoming worthy of his contract... or at least closer to it. Even though he hit just .270 with 11 homers in '07, he atoned for all things wrong with an ALCS Game 6 grand slam.
This season, he's caught fire while David Ortiz has been nursing Drew's monkey on the bench; JD has one less homer in the month of June than he had all of last season. All told, he's hitting .318 with 14 homers and 44 RBI. Of course, the flipside to that argument is that without the month of June, Drew has just four bombs on the season. Plus, he'll hit the DL in the second half of the season for sore eyeballs or something minor.
Howard Cosell
Monkey on his back: Use of the word “monkey”
In an ironic twist, the monkey that remains on Howard Cosell’s back - even post mortem - is calling people monkeys. In 1983, Cosell infamously referred to Redskins wide receiver Alvin Garrett as such when he blurted out “that little monkey gets loose doesn’t he?” That brings me to another point - it’s my personal opinion that the word “monkey” should be stripped of any racial overtones and given a fresh start; it has so much untapped potential as an insult. I want to live in a world where we can all be called monkeys.
Not only does Cosell still have the monkey on his back, society does as well. In an age where Johnny Miller is forced to apologize to Italian-American groups for stating that Rocco Mediate looked like Tiger Woods' pool-guy - a statement only meant to suggest that Woods is awesome and Mediate is Mediate - we're not any closer to the day where we can call each other monkeys when the situation dictates such. Bummer.
Monkeys
Monkey on their back: Humans
Imagine being the go-to species for a metaphor about something that is a constant burden or continually nags at people. And that’s not even taking into account what Matthew Broderick’s company did to them in Project X. If monkeys could have a monkey on their backs, it would be humans.
Still there.
Kobe Bryant
Monkey on his back: Shaquille O’Neil
When he and Shaq split up the dynasty they helped create in LA, Shaq promptly went down to Miami, teamed up with Dwayne Wade and nabbed himself another ring. In the meantime, Kobe has racked up numerous individual accolades including the second highest single game point total in NBA history, but he’s got no jewelry to show for it. Unless he can lead the Lakers to another championship, Kobe will be lugging Shaq’s presence around throughout his career, and not even his worst enemies would wish that on him. Even figuratively speaking, carrying Shaquille O’Neil on your back is a compound fracture waiting to happen.
Kobe came closer than ever to killing the monkey and downing it in the Pacific this past season, but in his quest, he may have done more damage. To a certain extent, Kobe's performance in the NBA Finals only fed to the monkey and helped him grow. He averaged 33.5 ppg against the Nuggets in the first round, 33.2 ppg in the Conference Semi-Finals against Utah and 29.2 ppg in the Conference Finals against San Antonio. But in the NBA Finals, the Celtics held him to 25 ppg. Certainly nothing to frown upon, but doing such on a national stage and coming out on the losing end may have done more for the monkey's growth than had the Lakers lost in the first or second round of the playoffs.
Rex Grossman
Monkey on his back: Holidays
How in the hell is a quarterback supposed to be able to concentrate when there are all of these God forsaken holidays during the season? Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Eve, New Years Day - they’re all just excuses to get bombed and lay siege to the female population of Chicago. And you expect him to focus on studying film, learning plays and understanding coverages while all of that is going on? F that, man.
Rex Grossman sucks.
Barry Bonds
Monkey on his back: Acne
As Bonds chases Hank Aaron’s record, it’s safe to say he’ll have no shortage of monkeys on his back. That other stuff you’ll see on his back will be acne.
The homer monkey left last season, but the acne monkey, the 'public hates me monkey' and the 'because i'm a di*khead' monkey are still grasping Bonds' back. The only positive note beyond breaking the all time home run record is that Roger Clemens has surpassed Bonds in the category of biggest "steroid abusing baseball star-a-hole".
See there, Barry? It pays to leave quietly.
Chicago Cubs
Monkey on their back: 100 years of futility
One sure fire way to avoid serious criticism for your continual failure is to suck so bad that no one ever expects you to be good. The Cubs have been getting away with it for close to a century. When it really gets down to it, the only monkeys around Wrigley are the ones who keep paying hard earned money to watch a team that blows year in and year out (see calling people monkeys is fun, especially Cubs fans). All that said, with the money they’ve spent on new players, this might be the year that heads roll if expectations aren’t met. That means you Jim Hendry.
Add a "+1" to the above synopsis. The good news, though, is that the Cubbies appear to be closer than ever to once and for all disposing of the elderly monkey. Saturday's game was a prime example of their offensive firepower; lacing four homers and nine runs in the 4th inning. Jim Edmonds is hitting above .300 as a Cubby, proving that this season might indeed be the season.
Of course, the bad news is that 2008 is playing out perfectly for "another Cubby collapse". Bartman might finally get off the hook thanks to '08.
John Amaeche
Monkey on his back: Secret Gayness
Okay, so maybe Peyton Manning isn’t the only one to get the monkey off his back this week.
It's still off, people - though we can't confirm that because we wouldn't truly know.
Other conclusions: Donovan McNabb is candidate #1 for having a monkey on his back who doesn't appear in this column. If I worked for ESPN and said that, I'd have been fired or suspended.
JSF Weekly is written by Josh Bacott. If he had a monkey on his back, he'd name it Ralph. E-mail him at josh@joesportsfan.com