John B: 2013 and Beyond

John B is a legend around these parts. Starting out from an obscure blog on something called AOL (what the heck is an AOL?), John managed to claw his way up from his underprivileged website. After going undrafted not once but twice by SBN, John finally got the call as an UDFA, and he eagerly showed up at training camp with nothing more than a dream, a coonskin hat and a really weird name for a blog (WeWantedSapp.com). It wasn't long before he realized he wasn't in AOL anymore, Toto, and the really weird blog name had to be jettisoned. Undeterred, John set out making his lifelong dream a reality, deaf to the cries of the haters who said he'd never be a REAL blogger.

John B had an unparalleled work ethic and a fanaticism known only to those with the Calling ("John B! I am the Namath, the one and only deity of Jets fans. I have indeed seen the misery of my people, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I command you now, go, and createth an SBN blog, and bring my people out of the wilderness. Give birth to a mighty Gang Green Nation which shall never be oppressed by those abominations unto me, the Brady worshippers").

So it was ordered, and so it was done. John B had a terrific start to his career, leading all SBN bloggers in the advanced metric HVOA (Hat-adjusted Value Over Average) twice in his first three years and building a reputation for tough, incisive, hard hitting, but fair blogging unmatched among his peers. As so often happens in sports, other luminary talents began to notice and sought to join John's team. The obscure nobody built a team, and GGN began to dominate. Alas, in the intoxicating brew of success the seeds of decline were sown.

John began to make some highly questionable decisions. He appointed a (gasp!) Englishman as his Managing Editor, the first trickle in what would eventually become a flood of questionable decisions. As we all know, Englishmen don't even know which sport is actually football, inexplicably confusing some crazy game where they aren't even using their hands and arms, like some kind of River Dance gone mad, with the world's only real sport for real men. In addition, how could John possibly appoint somebody to be an editor who is an awful spellour of the Queen's American? It was the first inkling we had that John B's brilliant days might be drawing to an end. It would not be the last.

Not long after John's bizarre across the pond adventure, he doubled down on disaster by bringing a hermaphrodite with multiple personality disorder on board. I mean, was it bob dole? Was it the snapple lady? Was it both, or some weird kind of alternate side of the street moderating? Did our new moderator need to run out every night and switch personalities? Nobody knew, but it sure seemed like a bad omen that the only guys who were now joining our team were freakish chimeras with a penchant to moderate.

It soon grew worse. The multiple personality weirdo disappeared without a trace, seemingly slain by a giant fish, (bobdolethesnapplelady sleeps with the fishes) yet nobody seemed to want to talk about it. And in short order, that foul, murdering fish was raised up to another Managing Editor position, creating our own bizarre Fish and Chips show. It was official: the lunatics were running the asylum, on the watch of our erstwhile "leader", the formerly legendary John B.

From there John's career seemed to get caught in a permanent death spiral. He brought our own team deity aboard, who wrote like a dream, only to allow Bro Namath to be deposed in a boardroom coup by some dude named Jeff. He invited the D. Vill to daily take members down his dark path to links to parts unknown. I mean, who in their right mind calls on the demonic forces of the the D. Vill? He inexplicably permitted an obvious drug crazed hoodlum with the pseudo-cool name of Smackdad to gain a foothold in the organization, a trust repaid, or rather betrayed, with countless inane and incomprehensible ramblings best decoded by the guy with a permanent really bad hair day on Ancient Aliens.

It gets worse. This year John even failed to show up to his own tribute party, Johnny B Good. He followed that fiasco by (horrors!) killing off the coonskin hat. That's right, the John B we all grew up idolizing, the GGN immortal, knowingly and willfully threw it all away and allowed the legend to die. On October 13, 2013, John B officially sealed his fate. Sadly, it may be time to part ways.

The subsequent suggestion that the Jets trade Mo Wilkerson now, when put in the broader context of John's inexorable demise, suddenly becomes understandable. A once great blogger, staring into the abyss of his decline and fall, tried desperately to pull one last coonskin from the hat. Alas there was no magic left, and the Hail Mary pass of a Wilkerson trade fell upon deaf ears with the GGN faithful.

All that remains is the painful, ugly process of watching the great man self destruct. Should we invite John back for one final chance at GGN glory in 2014? I guess I fall on the side of seeing no harm in inviting him back as a camp body. If he somehow manages to reclaim his once proud level of undisputed greatness, so be it. We can keep him. But in the much more likely scenario where he shows up to camp in some pathetic Johnny Depp Pirate Hat and playing with his Joey Harrington action figure collection, making yet another questionable leadership decision, it will likely be time to say John B, thanks for the memories. We loved you while it lasted, but in the end, NikolaiC was right. Gang Green Nation was in fact filled with his impostors, right up to the former great, the fallen legend, the one, the only, John B. Take a well deserved vacation John; you've earned it.