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Meet the Trolls
What’s Wrong With These People?
The “pundits” get some things right. Here’s what they say about the Cold, Hard Football Facts:
“Brilliant sports journalism” – Ben Maller, Fox Sports Radio Network 
"A potty-mouthed new media trailblazer" – David Scott, Boston Sports Review
"We get a lot of ideas from CHFF" – Steve Sabol, NFL Films
“The most amusing thing I’ve read about sports … in the 21st century” – King Kaufman, Salon.com
“A must-read website for pigskin folk” – Bob Ryan, The Boston Globe
"I'm a CHFF-oholic" – Bill Livingston, Cleveland Plain-Dealer
"The Cold, Hard Football Facts is an addiction" – Gerry V., WRNO, New Orleans
"Stout-hearted geniuses" – Dan Shanoff of "Daily Quickie" fame and DanShanoff.com
“Cutting-edge analysis” – Allen Barra, The Wall Street Journal
"(The CHFF are) hard-working and harder-drinking" – Rich Garven, Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette
“Refreshingly intelligent football analysis” – John Gonzalez, Boston Magazine
"An awesome site" – Chick Ludwig, Dayton Daily News
“Whack jobs!” – Tom Curran, NBC Sports.com
“The best NFL site in the world" – DarkPartyReview.com
“An awesome website!" – Homer True, ESPN Milwaukee
See the CHFF-Esquire magazine tailgate here
See our beloved Bonzo the Idiot Monkey in the Wall Street Journal and our most recent Wall Street Journal interview (April 26, 2008) here.
Also read some nifty interviews with Potentate of Pigskin Kerry J. Byrne here and here for some behind-the-scenes info on the evolution of CHFF.
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The Cold, Hard Football Facts are an omniscient, all-powerful gridiron guru and emotionless arbiter of all things pigskin. We planted our flag on Planet Pigskin in September 2004 and since then we have rumbled over hacks, "pundits" and opinions with reckless, unrelenting and fact-filled impunity in our M1A1 Abrams Tank of Truth.
Cold, Hard Football Facts writers have no shame. We make up for it by having no pride, either.
YOUR CHFF TROLLS:
KERRY J. BYRNE – Our Potentate of Pigskin created the revolutionary Cold, Hard Football Facts concept and is the nation's foremost authority on the "gridiron lifestyle" of beer, food & football. He's also food and drinks writer for The Boston Herald and has spent much of his "career" traveling around the beer-making capitals of the U.S. and Europe while writing for Esquire, Yankee Magazine, Penthouse (yes, that Penthouse), Cargo, America Online, Epicurious.com, Boston Magazine, All About Beer and many other newspapers and magazines, most of them highly disreputable.
He's also a two-time winner of the Quincy Hi Sckool Spelin' B (1986 and 1987).
When he's not ruthlessly crushing misguided gridiron opinions, he marches around the ColdHardFootballFacts.com cardboard-box world headquarters singing the Notre Dame fight song, creates exciting new tailgate recipes and cleans his Ruger 30.06. His hobbies include crying at the end of "Rudy," playing himself in Strat-O-Matic football and driving around Harvard Square blasting Toby Keith CDs from the speakers of the PIGSKIN Ford pick-up.
JONATHAN COMEY – This small-town scribe squandered his shot at the NFL by watching the game endlessly from his couch, wasting his intriguing mix of size and speed in the process. Comey made another stellar career choice when he dropped out of college to start a band. He then worked his way up the newspaper ladder in his spare time, rising from backup high school volleyball writer to sports editor for the Standard-Times of New Bedford, Mass. After completing that challenge, he made another smart career move when he left the paper to take a shot at freelance writing. The road beckoned, as did the lure of the legalized gambling circuit. The result is his book, "The Poker Trip," available on his aptly named website www.jonathancomey.com. Jonathan pledges to amuse and inform you, with the Cold, Hard Football Facts as his only weapon.
FRANKIE C. – CHFF bon vivant Frankie C. is a former U.S. Marine turned cubicle-bound corporate worker ant who re-captures the thrill of amphivious invasions of Third-World sh*thholes through the thrill of competitive karaoke. His greatest accomplishments include an honorable mention in the 1981 Quincy Public Schools art show and a victory in the 2002 Red Parrot pub karaoke championship. Frankie wants everyone to like him not for his achievements, but for his marginal looks and borderline song and dance skills. His "Frankie Five" feature was recently named one of the 10 million most influential internet colums of the past 25 years. And, for the record, Frankie C. has never participated in an amphibious invasion of anything more daunting than his bathtub.
JOHN DUDLEY – John enjoys thoughtful analysis, passionate expression and long post patterns on the beach. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire, he previously worked as a writer/producer and co-host for various sports-radio programs. When not contributing content to Cold, Hard Football Facts, he tries to make a legitimate living as a freelance writer and editor. John is also available for parties, especially those with an open bar.
MARK SANDRITTER – Our boy-wonder intern became a folk hero among truth-loving football fans everywhere when, as a Washington State undergrad, he walked into the Pigskin Playground and beat down the Broadsheet Bully in a first-round knockout. He reminded us so much of CHFF hero Dalton, the bare-knuckled brawler/philosopher of “Road House” fame, that we had to give him a gig. The magnificent plumage of Mark's circa 1974 mullet was just a bonus. Mark grew up in Washington state and graduated from Wazzu in December 2007. He hopes to get work at a real sports publication some day, not just a crappy one like CHFF. He has some sort of job at ESPN in Bristol, Conn. But we believe this "job" entails a mop and spooge bucket. In his spare time, Mark enjoys sports, recliners and long, slow, deep, soft sub sandwiches that last for three days.
TONY COCCO – One of the oldest and fattest of the Trolls, Cocco's claim to fame is that he lived in South Florida in the 1990s, where he survived Hurricane Andrew. But he lived only because he fled his Coral Gables home like a coward and headed for the nearest shelter he could find: a cardboard box under the local Metro Rail station. He liked the cardboard-box experience so much that a gig with the Cold, Hard Football Facts was a natural career regression. Tony has a journalism degree from the State University of New York and has written for several publications, covering both sports and politics. Like most Trolls, he remains unmarried and unappealing to women, but someday he hopes to have enough money to purchase a lovely young Russian bride and bring her to live with him in his cardboard-box kingdom.
WILL KANTROWITZ
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This precocious blogster and newcomer to Cold, Hard Football Facts is so young that he gets carded for shaving cream. This Villanova student has been running his own sports card business since 2000, when he was just two years old. Nicknamed "Ace" because he's one of the 100 worst poker players this side of a convent, he flashes his temper on the golf course. He's broken a full set of clubs over the years, only once over the head of a geriatric patron who was "looking at me funny." In addition to tracking down bad-ass CHFF links for the ADD crowd, he pines painfully for the company of beautiful women.
WILLIAM BERRY – Better castlelong1 to the CHFF Forum crowd, Berry occasionally shoots us the wonderful videos and links to other sites you see here on our crappy little site. Often accused of being racist because he’s such a douche, Berry wants you all to know that he’s not a racist and that he hates everyone equally regardless of race, color, or creed. He hopes you are f’in happy. He’s also our token ADA contributor. He suffers from a rare degenerative disease, which explains his sometimes misspelled rants in the CHFF Forum. He says, “ If an idiot like you cares, I live in New Bedford, Massachusetts. I'm 42. Now go and be a good little moron and bother somebody else.”
MIKE CARLSON – Mike was born in the States where he attended Wesleyan College and was a lacrosse teammate of Bill Belichick. Today, he lords over football in the U.K. like inbred gridiron royalty. On the theory that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, Mike presents the NFL coverage on Britain's Five network and has broadcast the NFL and NFL Europa for Screensport and Sky Sports. He also covered NFL Europa for NFL.com and Pro Football Weekly and writes regularly for nfluk.com and First Down. He has written books about Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood and Oliver Stone, and for newspapers and magazines like The Guardian, The Spectator, Financial Times and International Herald Tribune. He lives outside London with his wife, the author Kirsten Ellis, and their two-year-old son, Nate. He is slowly working his way toward that coveted membership in the 225 Club.
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