*2018 Super Bowl Winning Speech of the Year, as voted on by The Coggin Toboggan
Oh Mike Francesa, did somebody not get their nappy earlier this week? The sleepy, longtime radio personality (who is doing radio now more than ever after his retirement) decided his virgin ears were BESMIRCHED by Jason Kelce’s epic Super Bowl speech on the step’s of the Art Museum during last Thursday’s Super Bowl parade and called on Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie to cut the Pro-Bowl center for his lewdness.
Francesa dropped his own, far-less entertaining rant on the WOR Sports Zone, and was most likely heard by dozens upon dozens of fans listening on their HAM radios.
NBC Sports Philadelphia transcribed Francesa’s “old-man yells at cloud” moment for all of us to enjoy and mock forever:
Should have stayed home, the jerk,” Francesa begins on Kelce. “Why is that I have to be in my car when these guys win championships, and they decide that they are going to grace the audience with this profanity-laced stupidity. You gotta turn it off, your kids can’t even listen it. He sounded like a total moron. How about going up there and acting like a champion and not acting like a total moron? I turn that stuff off. I’ve seen LeBron James do that, now I’ve seen him do that. You know what? It’s not the time or place. You ever heard of winning like a champion? Somebody should have taken a hook and pulled him off.”
I would have preferred Kelce been tap-danced off the stage by the Apollo Theater’s “Executioner,” but that’s just me.
Mike, I’m going to play devil’s advocate. If there is ONE “time or place” for a fired up speech where a few F-bombs are dropped, it’s a Super Bowl victory speech. You can’t do it in church, you can’t do it at work, you can’t do it at a funeral (well, maybe a funeral) and you can’t do it at home, so where the fuck can you do it? A Super Bowl speech, that’s where.
It’s the only perfectly acceptable time to do it…it’s considered bad form to NOT cuss at least once or twice. Points are deducted by the judges if you keep it clean.
“I was in the car when I heard it and people were replaying it like it was the greatest thing in the world. How dumb are you to replay that? I wouldn’t give that one second airtime. That’s embarrassing. That’s not the place or the time to do that. You got kids who take off from school, you got people who this is a life experience for them to be at a parade for a Super Bowl for a city, and you go up there and go into a 15-minute, profanity-laced tirade? It’s ridiculous. If I were the owner of the team, I’d cut him.”
Think of the children, Jason! Maybe you should have reviewed the Periodic Table for the assembled children’s benefit instead of 15-mintues of profanity-laced awesomeness, ever think of that tough guy?
Only Mike Francesa, one of the most boring men to ever walk the face of the earth and fall face-first into two successful sports radio gigs, would qualify Kelce’s speech as not being a “life experience” for people at the parade.
What do you think people will remember 50 years from now, Mike, when you’re long dead and buried (god willing)? It won’t be a cookie-cutter speech about hard work and resiliency. You hear that garbage after every NFL preseason game.
You won’t remember that. It will disappear into the ether. But what you will remember is Jason Kelce losing his voice as he pounded on a podium in front of 4 million riled up Philadelphians who had been STARVED for a moment like this.
I’ll be telling my grandkid’s about the day I got blackout drunk and listened to a shit-kicking, epic tirade that summarized the feelings of millions of frustrated Philadelphia sports fans. I’ll tell them about his passion, his energy, and yes, even the F-bombs he scattered gracefully throughout one of the best championship speeches I’ve ever heard.
Fuck off, Francessa. Go spill a diet coke all over yourself and leave us alone. We won’t remember you, but we will remember Kelce and his speech for the ages.
Fuck off. We have a championship to celebrate.