I Dislike Your Favorite Team

Falcons cornerback DeAngelo Hall was interviewed and ended up saying something along the lines of that he doesn't care about friendships, and he's looking to kill wide receivers this year, and Steve Smith running wild all over him last year was a fluke, and other various bullshit that NFL cornerbacks say. Now, Steve Smith considered Hall a friend, and apparently was actually shaken by what Hall said.

Was he so shaken that like Martin Lawrence in the classic "Black Knight" he was temporarily transported into medieval England?

Smith said in response:

"When you're the court jester and you're talking to the king, you got to do stuff like that."

And everyone seems to have nodded their collective heads and gone, "OK, fair enough."

But I find this metaphor troubling for any number of reasons:

1. It isn't very footbally, aside from the self-aggrandizement. Jesters? Kings? What the fuck?
Incidentally: Did Steve Smith have guys at his college who wore Jester Hats, and did he hate them? If so, I understand and like Steve a little more.

2. Is Steve Smith truly "The King of Wide Receivers"? I personally don't think so, though he's had a nice couple of years. I'd certainly put him high up in some sort of feudal WR Chart--perhaps an Earl. But clearly, Chad Johnson or Terrell Owens is King. And Jerry Rice is God. Art Monk is the Holy Spirit.

3. It was common for the fools of many of Shakespeare's plays to be the only one willing and able to speak truth to power, protected by their mask of idiocy. Smith is, perhaps unknowingly, saying that Hall had a valid point, and only Hall was brave enough to speak it. We'll have to leave up to nation's most insightful DeAngelo Hall scholars.

Fact is, this gives us an excellent chance to nerd out, and I'm all a-tingle. What if more players spoke in these kinds of metaphors, or more broadly, used terms from 400 years ago for their cliches?

Just imagine:

"Verily, that is indeed what I am declaiming about!"
"You dare enter my domain, and demand access to my wealth and glory? Varlet, this is my castle! You wield no power in my castle!"
"Forsooth, as there is Providence in the fall of a sparrow, certainly there was the Divine's Invisible Hand working in our victory this eve."
"Our effort shall be such that we are giving more than we possibly could. Mayhaps a tenth more effort of our most powerful effort!"

Hell, Bill Parcells could quote Marlowe directly, whilst discussing his troubled history with Terry Glenn:

"that was in another country;
And besides, the wench is dead"

I am completely, totally all for this soon to be exploding trend. Someone get Chad Johnson some Cliff Notes!