Matt4rockytop was hitting F5 on his keyboard with the weary patience of a pet owner standing nearby with a rolled-up Athlon preview magazine. He knew somebody was eventually going to shit on this Ethan Davis thread like a dog shitting on the carpet.
As luck would have it, he would not have to wait long.
Tennessee had just lost tight end Ethan Davis for the season with a knee injury, according to reporting from Austin Price and Brent Hubbs on a popular Tennessee message board.
That injury hurt.
Davis wasn’t some fourth-string special-teams guy whose mother was the only person who knew his number. Tennessee lost an experienced tight end from an offense already being examined every week like a suspicious mole.
For approximately eleven seconds, the board discussed this development like adults.
Then Beefe arrived.
Beefe: “Whole team is made of glass and the dude from Indiana isn’t helping **** waste of money on his ***.”
Matt4rockytop had his magazine.
matt4rockytop: “Beefe, unless the guy from Indiana hit Davis in the knee with a fucking tire iron, I’m not sure what your point is.”
Beefe had shit on the carpet. Matt rubbed his nose in it.
There it was.
A season-ending knee injury had somehow become an employee performance review.
Kabvol responded with the sort of detailed rebuttal normally reserved for Oxford debating societies.
Kabvol: “Wow you’re an idiot.”
And we were underway.
What started with one injured tight end was on its way to becoming a four-to-five-page message board banger.
The Injury Was No Longer the Main Problem
This is what the message board does.
It receives bad news, considers the football implications, discusses the available replacements and options, and then begins investigating whether another poster has a miserable personal life.
sinoo_been took that assignment.
sinoo_been: “All you do is complain and say every player or coach sucks. Sorry your life is apparently miserable.”
We had moved from Tennessee’s tight-end depth to Beefe’s personal life remarkably quickly.
Beefe wasn’t exactly an unknown defendant, either. Other posters remembered him from previous game threads. His body of work was introduced into evidence.
Just_the_Tip offered a medical assessment.
Just_the_Tip: “That guy literally does nothing but crash out. Can’t imagine his blood pressure.”
This is why message boards remain important American institutions.
You can begin the morning wondering who Tennessee’s second tight end will be and, before breakfast, receive an unsolicited cardiovascular evaluation of a stranger.
Matt Gets His Turn
Eventually somebody attempted to return the discussion to football.
Could Carson Gentle move back to tight end?
Matt4rockytop had apparently been waiting for this.
matt4rockytop: “absolutely not.”
There was the rolled-up E-mag.
Then somebody floated Gentle on the defensive line.
matt4rockytop: “Lmao, do what?”
And there it was again.
Six words. Two corrections.
Matt4rockytop is becoming one of the board’s more dependable rising enforcers because he appears unwilling to waste keystrokes pretending every idea deserves consideration.
There is a nasty little efficiency developing there.
Credentials, Please
Meanwhile, another ancient message-board law had been invoked:
If you disagree with my football opinion, I am allowed to demand your playing résumé.
Rifleman69: “You never played competitive football.”
This remains one of the great football message-board trump cards.
Nobody knows what level of competitive football is required before discussing Tennessee’s tight-end room.
High school? College? Arena League? Does eight-man count?
Until the board publishes the licensing requirements, LWS recommends keeping an old Hudl account handy.
memphisvol901, apparently exhausted by something several pages into this thing, offered the more economical:
memphisvol901: “On what planet?”
A reasonable question.
Unfortunately, by then nobody could remember what planet the thread had started on.
About Ethan Davis
Lost somewhere underneath the wreckage was the actual story.
Tennessee lost Ethan Davis for the season. That’s bad.
The Vols have to replace snaps, experience and production at a position where depth suddenly matters a hell of a lot more than it did yesterday.
The board managed to discuss that occasionally.
But by Page 4, Davis’s knee had become almost incidental. Posters were reviewing other posters. Old game-thread behavior had been retrieved. Personal dispositions were being evaluated. Playing credentials were challenged. Carson Gentle had been reassigned twice.
Matt4rockytop could finally put down the Athlon magazine.
A Tennessee player had been lost for the season.
The message board immediately began trying to lose several members with him.
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