If I ever decide to change careers at this late stage, I want to be a pundit.

I certainly have the gray hair and the wisdom of age to do the job.

For those of you who don’t know what a pundit is (or think they do), Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines the word as “A learned person; a person who has or professes to have (key phrase that) great learning; actual or self-professed authority.”

I meet those requirements. I’m sure I do after watching years of political commentary and three days of so-called “sports experts/analysts” dissect why Alabama lost to Clemson in the College Football Playoff Championship game (the Tide lost because it was outplayed in the fourth half; it doesn’t take a million words to explain it). Becoming a pundit, I’ve come to believe, should be easy. You dress like you know what you’re talking about and you talk like you know what you’re talking about, even when you don’t.

John Brody, a former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, once did color commentary for the NFL broadcasts on CBS in the ’70s. He even appeared on an ad promoting the games, telling people, “I’m John Brody. Join me and the rest of us who think we know what we’re talking about for this week’s game on CBS.”

“The rest of us who think we know what we’re talking about.”

That pretty well sums up punditry, whether its sports or politics. All these guys are basically offering their opinion, based in part on their own prejudices, and there’s a saying about opinions that I’m prevented from repeating because we’re a family paper. But basically that’s all these talking heads do, give their opinion, and how they got where they are is beyond me.

I often wonder how they got discovered and how they developed their following, and I shake my head in disbelief when I hear some of the comments coming out of their mouths. It makes me wonder why they stay on the air.

And the first part of the week has been the worst since the presidential election, when the Republicans and Democrats and those not sure what they were tried to get into Donald Trump’s mind to determine what he was thinking and how and why his campaign would be ruined. That probably did more to get the guy elected than anything the Russians supposedly did.

But the mindless prattle of talking heads on ESPN after Monday’s CFP looked like they were coming up with all kinds of excuses why Alabama lost and how Nick Saban’s decision to change offensive coordinators was the crushing blow. It was like the three blind men feeling the elephant; each was right and each was wrong. They missed the obvious. Clemson mounted a comeback and the Tide couldn’t stop it — that’s why they lost pure and simple.

So now I’ve done my bit of punditry and can move on.

And I think I’ve got what it takes.
John Surratt is a staff writer at The Vicksburg Post. You may reach him at john.surratt@vicksburgpost.com.