EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY -- The Bounty On Bill Simmons' Hands Has Been Set at $20

Simmons' column has been up for approximately two hours and we've already received a bevy of e-mails attesting to its retardery. Rest assured that we've read it, punched our desks a few times, scoffed indignantly at a few choice excerpts and decided we could takes no more.

For those, unlike us, who don't have time in the middle of the day to commit an hour to read the 33,000 words that usually comprise his Friday picks column (in which this week he relegates the "picks" to a small box to the side of his rant, forgoing any additional commentary on his shitty recommendations).

Anyway, here's the quick rundown: He blubbers on about how the Pats totally got hosed in a game they won by referees working for the RAND CORPORATION, in conjunction with the saucer people, under the supervision of the reverse vampires, to totally screw the Pats over and have the gall to call Randy Moss for pushing off, like he's been doing all year. He compares the refs to the Nazi officials in "Victory!" Leaving aside that a lot of former Nazis probably reside in Indianapolis, this is completely ludicrous.

He does provide us this helpful, if obnoxious, tidbit:

"After the final three kneels and a delightfully icy handshake between Belichick and Dungy, I grabbed my dogs for a prolonged victory walk -- still wearing my good luck Wes Welker jersey -- and mulled a scenario in which the Pats finished 19-0, then picked first in the 2008 draft with the first-rounder acquired from San Francisco last spring."

So now we know Simmons likes to take victory strolls following Patriots games. All you need to do is find the douchebag in the Welker jersey walking a labradoodle and hack off his hands. He has a new kid, so perhaps he should be around for that. And nobody watches E-60, so no harm is done there. The Welker jersey probably narrows it down a bit in L.A. but if you happen to lop off the appendages of a few innocents of a similar description, who are we to judge? He is your quarry and upon successful termination you will receive a crisp new twenty.

With which you can get:

-- Copy of NBA2K8 for PS2 so you can beat the Celtics 300 times in a row
-- Butthash kit, deluxe edition
-- Three (3) 5 lb. bags of key lime mints
-- Wes Welker Dolphins jersey
-- a "Van Heflin"
-- Fudgie the Whale

Bill Simmons Has Graduated From Retard to the Urtard

Since early this season, I've tried valiantly to avoid Bill Simmons, he of the puffy jowls, the nasally voice and the inept game predictions. His work this season is an unremitting stream of recycled jokes and ramped up Patriots gloating that is devoid of reason or the faintest whiff of shame. Punter summed it up nicely in a recent e-mail thread, "He's gone from openly insightful (though somewhat dated) to a fact-bending homer."

This weekend, I had to spend Saturday night working the cops beat for the paper. This is okay because you get the occasional gem like this one: 6500 BLK, 12TH ST. MALE ATTACKED BY FAMILY DOG WHILE STABBING HIS WIFE. ANIMAL IS ON THE LOOSE IN THE AREA.

But it also involves long stretches of inactivity, with which I must fill with football-related reading. Running through enough of it (or churning up enough masochistic urges) I eventually got to Simmons' Friday picks column and came upon this stretch of mind-boggling retardery:

For instance, 0-6 Miami knows the '07 Pats could knock the '72 Dolphins out of the record books in three months. But what could they do to stop them? They're not beating them in a game. If they made a fishy trade to help out one of New England's rivals -- like, giving away Chris Chambers to San Diego for a late second-round pick, for example -- everyone would find it fishy and the league would crack down, because, after all, you're not supposed to cheat in the National Football League. They're helpless to stop it. In fantasy, fishy trades happen all the time and you can't stop them unless you have a commissioner who's stronger and more powerful than David Stern at his peak. Unfortunately, 98 percent of fantasy football leagues have a Gary Bettman type.

(Note: Thank God the NFL doesn't work like fantasy and San Diego couldn't steal Chambers away for a measly second-round pick simply because Miami wanted to take a dump on their fans, tank their season and preserve the legacy of the '72 Dolphins. Because that would suck.)

Put simply, this is the dumbest fucking thing I've read all year from any writer. Take a million supermikes writing on a million Etch-A-Sketches for a million years and you wouldn't come up with anything half as fucking asinine.

Really? We're supposed to believe a team like the Dolphins, a winless team obviously in need of unloading big money players for value while they still can in advance of overhauling their roster, is dumping their no. 1 receiver for no other reason than to fuck the Pats chances at an unbeaten season? Taking that logic, maybe they might have shipped him to a team that the Pats HAVEN'T ALREADY BEATEN! Why? To protect a 36-year-old record?

We're also to ignore the fact that Chris Chambers for a second-round pick isn't actually that lop-sided of a trade?

We may need another bounty.