Pat's Daily Reading Guide

By Pat McCarthy

Editors Note: Pat McCarthy is a former AH! contributor who has decided to create his own blog, Arbitration Cogitation. For your enjoyment, we're going to cross post this helpful guide to sports reading.

Working forty plus hours a week in front of a computer lends itself to extensive surfing and reading. As does the Office Space-like workload. Anyhow, in the following I'll give a somewhat brief synopsis of my semi-fortnightly online and literary choices...

Monday-

-Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback (MMQB) on si.com. Usually very insightful, covers a lot of games and more of the story angles than actual strategy, although there is a healthy amount. My only pet peeve is his two to three name drops per column. i.e. I texted so-and-so after the game... Other than that good, lengthy as well, so that kills a large portion of time. I have never really read his column before this year, so I can't compare this to his previous efforts. Quirky part I enjoy: his coffee nerd update. I enjoy fantasizing over good coffee while drinking the hot garbage at work.

Tuesday-

-Tuesday Morning Quarterback (TMQ, and don't worry, they won't be all follow the day of the week morning quarterback naming equation, I promise) on espn.com. Gregg Easterbrook, an editor for The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Monthly and The New Republic. A smart guy who incorporates a lot of current events and strategy and stats into the column. A lot of his maxims I agree with, but there are times when it gets a bit repetitive from week to week, but all-in-all a great column.

Also, I usually catch Peter King's MMQB Tuesday edition. I don't know how two well know writers can have such similarly named pieces for competing sports news entities. If I thought about it too long it would get me too upset, so I won't - I suggest that you don't either.

Wednesday-

Wednesday is kind of a no man's land, so I'll throw in Stuart Mandel (si.com), Ivan Maisel and Pat Forde (espn.com) and the blog Everday Should Be Saturday (edsbs.com) for the as of yet underrepresented college football portion. I don't know if they have a set schedule, but I usually read them when I can. EDSBS I typically check daily - I don't exactly know how it gets through the work censors what with the rampant profanity and all, but it typically makes me laugh - sometimes aloud. As in using 'lip lazer' to refer to the winner of the Moustache of the Week.

Thursday-

Footballoutsiders.com is another site with extensive pro football dominated coverage, although they do delve into the college realm. Another site I typically check daily, although I make sure to hit it on Thursday for the quotes of the week. I've lagged on reading every day because it delves a bit too deeply into the minutiae of the games - and to be real honest, I don't need to get a blow by blow of Forty-Niner v. Falcon All-Natural sleep aid.

Friday-

The Sports Guy's picks on espn.com, although they were sorely missed last week due to the birth of his second child, first boy. C'mon Bill, get your priorities straight.

Other daily reads that I typically save for home:

joeposnanski.com - Columnist for the KC Star, great author who writes obsessively about baseball, makes me want to be a stat freak, but luckily it lasts only for the duration of the column so I can sort of lead a productive life. Or not, because I spent one night catching up on everything he had written because I was unaware of the blog.

Jason Whitten on foxsports.com - I don't really read this religiously, but I like it, although some times it just seems like he's writing stuff to piss people off, which I'm all for, but it does cause some painful lapses in logic.

I have been getting incredibly good making it seem like I am reading something important. It's all in the furrowed brow...