Where's the Hate for Merril Hoge?

Merril Hoge just plain sucks. As the incessant coverage of the NFL 2008 Draft kicks off, we'll see Hoge's redneck face and faux pimp wardrobe plastered all over the ESPNs, making me vomit in my mouth time and time again. I hate M-Ho for various reasons:

1) I hate the way he dresses. It's not close to matching. No way. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I don't even think Andre 3000 could pull off the ridiculous ensembles that Hoge sports. Hoge is a dimwit. He knows football, concussions and group-think comments. I'm not sure why he feels that entitles him to wear pinstriped pumpkin-orange suits, striped shirts and loud ties. Maybe he's going for "a look." If that look is "I shop at Michael Irvin's garage sale," I guess he's pulling off that look just fine.

2) I hate that M-Ho's presence diminishes the time Ron Jaworski is on the air. G:TB is a big fan of Jaws. It may be because Jaws is slowly morphing into Martin Mull, the most under-appreciated 1980's comedic movie performer this side of Dabney Coleman. We're not quite sure. But we know we love to see Jaws break down plays and relay prescient insight from league executives. M-Ho brings none of that. It's all redneck sizzle and no country-fried steak with the bum. And Jaws hates M-Ho as well, as evidenced by the photo below where he shows how he will shoot himself in the head if he has to keep working with M-Ho.
3) I hate that a man from Idaho who played ball in Pittsburgh has an accent like that. I can't figure it out. It confuses my feeble mind. Damn him for that.

4) I hate that he is the poster child of a league with more has-beens with diarrhea-of-the-mouth posing as "experts" than any other sport. Why do we need to see M-Ho, Mark Schlereth and Sean Salisbury talking about teams' draft needs? They're not going to combines. They don't talk to scouts or managers. They don't intimately know any team well. They feebly borrow the thoughts hidden under Kiper's rug and Clayton's balloon-head and regurgitate them as their own thoughts. We have no interest in seeing Tommy Herr, Garth Iorg and Cecil Cooper talk baseball*, so why are we stuck with watching three dull ex-footballers talk football? Wouldn't it be about a million times more interesting to get a trio of beat reporters to talk?

(*That said, G:TB would pay an inordinate amount of money to see Dave Stewart, Oscar Gamble and Amos Otis talk about baseball. Or talk about pretty much anything.)

5) I hate M-Ho because he offers zero insight into the game. Here he is babbling about the 2006 Draft. I believe these comments were the start of the anti-Vince Young vendetta he fights to this day. His comments are not memorable, but his suit is. I think John Wallace wore this 4-button creme special when the Knicks drafted him in 1996.

And, to close, here's another fine clip of M-Ho in an interesting ensemble he seemed to willingly choose. He must've been concussed more than Eric Lindros and Pat LaFontaine combined to think this looks good.