Expert Opinion

Now that the football season has concluded (congratulations to the New Orleans Saints) I would like to take a minute to address the so-called 'experts'.

I understand that sports are a tricky business and that assessing talent and the outcome of games can be very challenging.  It is for this reason that professional scouts are highly paid and face tremendous issues in job security.  It is for this reason that gambling on sporting events is possible - if outcomes were guaranteed there would be no vegas odds.

With that said, the so-called media experts (from this point on I'll refer to them as simply as 'experts' - for the sake of ease, despite the misnomer) should be held responsible for their words.  How often has an expert predicted the outcome of a game wrong?  Can we take the superbowl for example where the Indianapolis Colts were the heavy favorite of 'experts' everywhere? 

My issue of course is not with 'experts' predicting the outcome of singular games wrong.  No, my issue is much greater.  It's in the way they talk about players and teams and games and hold no responsibility for what they say. 

In the corporate world, if someone is off on their yearly forecast they have to answer to someone.  Why don't sports 'experts'?  Why are they not accountable? 

When the Houston Texans drafted Mario Williams over Reggie Bush and Vince Young in the 2006 NFL Draft, the team was lamb-basted by the media.  The scouts, the coaches and the ownership were harshly ripped for not taking the flashy Reggie Bush or hometown favorite Vince Young, but instead taking a nobody named Mario Williams.  Yet, while Reggie Bush has failed to live up to his hype (he won a Super Bowl Championship last night, but I didn't see him do much), and Vince Young has already had a stint on suicide watch, Mario Williams has done nothing but been elected to the Pro Bowl twice and help sure up a previously abyssmal defense.

Still has anyone heard one of these 'experts' stand-up and admit they were wrong?  Apologize to the scouts of the Texans, to the ownership, to the fans who had to endure the mass ridicule? 

Do I expect 'experts' to really know everything?  Of course not.  Do I expect them to be right all of the time?  No.  But, I think when they are wrong they should be held accountable.  Maybe we should stop calling them 'experts' and start calling them what they are - 'highly paid commentators whose guesses are no better than the rest of us'.