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Nashville Post Politics, AC Kleinheider, yesterday posted a decent post (well, he's been known to do that on occasion. This was one.) that shrugged the pigskin from the local Steve McNair hero worship we've heard from Coaches and teammates (where was your Michael Jackson post, ACK? I know, some things are just too big to buck). ACK's point...

But let’s not get carried away with the hero worship here.

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Let’s get real. Kazemi’s background screams vulnerability and emotional immaturity. No, McNair did nothing legally wrong by bedding this woman, other than violating the terms of his marriage contract, but, my God, were these the actions of an upstanding member of the community?

For McNair to shower this young woman, essentially a child, with gifts, affection and attention, all the while allowing her to operate under the delusion, according to reports, that he would marry her, is the height of emotional cruelty.

Seems the NFL Hall of Fame voters are tending to agree...

Jamison Hensley of the Baltimore Sun polled 24 of the 44 Hall of Fame voters regarding the question of whether quarterback Steve McNair's career merits a bronze bust in Canton.

Of the 24, 17 said no.

"I didn't consider McNair a Hall of Fame candidate before he died and don't consider him one now," Paul Domowitch of the Philadelphia Daily News told Hensley. "His numbers are nowhere close to being Hall of Fame-worthy.

Florio, author of PFT (the same guy who keeps an updated-daily counter, a "Turd Watch" consisting of NFL baddies in legal trouble) thinks differently...

There's a chance that, when McNair is first eligible for discussion, the stew of emotions and considerations could prompt the humans who'll decide the matter to regard McNair based on a blend of very good statistics, a high degree of likeability, and a tragic end to his life that more than outweighs any flaws he had. (That stuff at the end isn't supposed to count, and we'd believe that it doesn't if robots and computers did the voting.)

Keep it between the lines, right, Florio? Is that why your turd-counter-meter runs all year long? Oh, active NFL participants only, right? Their lives put up on a screen for just a few hours a week, for less than half a year, so when they are retired to pasture, that's gotta be kept out of their "Hall of Fame" considerations? I hope those humans with HOF voting privileges would be more considerate to integrity issues outside both the chalk- and time-lines.

I'd be remiss if I didn't give some thoughts to the circumstances of Steve's death. Otherwise, why blog?

I'm not going to bring in a 'third party' to speculation, even if there is a killer Rap ditty out there.

We have a very young 20 y.o. girl, Sahel (Jenny) Kazemi, who's been treated to the time of her life for the past few months; an Escalade, lavish trips, expensive who-knows-what-all; she's been publicly paraded around on the arm of a Local-National Hero. Does she even know or care about football? I dunno, but I'll bet those stats didn't matter to her. Then, Thursday night, things start to fly apart. A major DUI arrest in downtown Nashville.

Sahel goes to Metro Jail, and spends the night, likely for the first time. That had to be some scary times: Thursday Night in Nashville’s Drunk Tank for $5, please. Steve (having left her to go on to jail by herself; him leaving in a nice taxi) picks her up at 8:00 AM Friday morning.

By then, Steve’s probably remembering his own two sessions in jail (this time, featuring the same arresting officer as busted him in ‘03, and don’t I recall reading that someone reported they heard this officer stating he was ‘gonna get’ McNair, before that first bust? but that’s a different angle, but OH! the fondness of Steve's memories at this point!) AND the copious amounts of negative publicity he received. Oh, and the wife and kids are gonna find out because this is gonna be in the freakin' newspapers... thoughts that just might've (belatedly) put his mind to thinking, ruh roh, this is gotta stop ri cheer.

Steve might have told the young and super-freaked-out 'Jenny' that he's pulling the plug on their relationship, the goose is gonna stop shitting gold eggs; he’s turning (another) new leaf, yadda, yo. Go. Home. He takes her home.

Jenny gets a new (used) gun, later that day. First evah! gun purchase? Probably. (The individual who sold that nice trinket to Jenny is gonna be in deep doo-doo, and rightly so. I'd hate to be him.)

Something happened in the Condo, when Steve arrived early Saturday morning. All's we know for sure is that there were 4 shots, two to Steve's body and one each to a temple. Then a fifth shot. That's all we've been told.

I really hope the Nashville Police don't blow this one. If there is a third party, we must know. They are taking a lot of time to cover all their bases, processing evidence. CSI Nashville; if they find out something significant, different from the mountain of unofficial 'evidence' presented to the media, such would be beyond spectacular. They will get it right, right?

If there is a third party, I don't think that turd party should hold out hope that this will be a 'perfect murder' scenario. There's too much at stake for Nasvhille to have a grassy knoll.

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