Archive for November, 2006

Man, the Giants are just overloaded with douchebags these days.It was the lead item on SportsCenter last night, Michael Strahan’s little media outburst. It was an entertaining, passionate, spirited … something or other. From what I can gather, Michael Strahan is angry about something that Michael Strahan said.

Strahan went on some radio show, and said some things about Plaxico Burress and how he quit on a play against the Titans. He had some nice things to say about Plax, too, I suppose … I don’t know. Here’s the quote:

“It’s a shame,” Strahan said on the radio Monday. “You can’t give up. You can’t quit, because you’re not quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on everybody. I don’t quite understand what his lack of motivation is in those types of situations. But I’m going to try to see what it is, and if I can talk to him about it. He’s too good for that.”

And that same quote was ready to Plaxico Burress by ESPN reporter Kelly Naqi. Burress hadn’t heard it before, and he was legitimately surprised by it. But he didn’t make a big deal about anything, he said he’d talk to Strahan privately, whatever. And then at the end of Giants media time today, Strahan went nuts on Naqi.

“Come here, I want to see your face when you ask me this question, the way you are going to ask it. I know you are going to ask it in a way there is more division and more of a negative way than it was, so come here, I want to see your face, please. You’re a responsible journalist, look me in the eye and ask this question the way you want to ask it. Look a man in the eye before you try to kill him or make up something. Look me in the eye.”

Well, yeah, but … you said it, jackass. Kelly Naqi quoted you. She didn’t make up any quotes, she didn’t take anything out of context … she just quoted what you said. Again, you said it.

The problem was that the way she asked it was too negative? What do you want her to do, put on a cheerleader outfit, and read Burress the quote like she was reading him Green Eggs and Ham? You want her to slip Burress a half a dozen Prozac before she reads the quote? It’s a quote, as in, that’s exactly what you said, dickweed.

So Strahan embarrassed this reporter, called her out in front of everyone … because he called Plaxico Burress a quitter and then didn’t want to take responsibility for it. For someone who made it a point yesterday to tell the world that he’s “a man” about forty-five times, that’s a pretty bitch thing to do.

You can see video of Plax hearing the comments for the first time, Strahan’s ridiculous outburst, and listen to a Dan Patrick interview with Kelly Naqi here.

This facial hair configuration needs to return immediately.  IMMEDIATELY.In a season that’s seen Randy Moss’s weekly passive-aggressive outbursts, the suspension of Jerry Porter for no real reason, and the mid-season firing of the offensive coordinating pillow-fluffer … this one might be the weirdest for the Raiders. Art Shell is accusing someone within the Raiders organization of trying to undermine the coaching staff and sabotage the team.

He won’t say who it is. It’s not a player or a coach and it’s not Al Davis. He believes someone in the organization is calling media members around the country and criticizing coaches.

“I’m a fighter,” Shell said. “I sit back and I watch things happen and then it gets to the point where you cross the line. That line has been crossed and I won’t sit back and allow it to happen anymore.”

Why would you allow it to happen at all, fighter? It’s Week 12, man. If this is true, and someone is doing that (and I’m not ruling out the possibility that Shell is just paranoid and senile), isn’t that the sort of thing you’d want to stop immediately? Why wait?

Then again … why wait twelve weeks to fire the coordinator of an offense that never really seemed to exist? Say this for him … Art Shell is a patient man. I think he’s probably waiting for just the right time before arguing with the officials about the Vincent Jackson/fumble/forward pass call.

Just a weird, weird story. Ultimately, it’s probably even a meaningless story … it’s just that I can’t envision any other organization in the NFL, and less than a handful in all of professional sports, where a story like this is even possible. Every organization employs a douchebag or two, I’m sure, but … to the point where the head coach is telling the media about the anonymous evil guy who’s trying to destroy the team from within? You don’t see that every day.

It amazes me that the Raiders are playing as well as they are … which, I’m aware, is not at a Super Bowl level or anything, but … they haven’t quit. Hell, this team should quit. They’re 2-9, the most talented player on the team has made himself worthless, the head coach is worried about bullshit like this, the return of Aaron Brooks was seen as a good thing, and this team, at least the defense, still goes out there and works their ass off on Sundays.

I don’t know if it’s admirable or sad.

Eh, not really. But I made new Power Rankings, and I think you’ll enjoy them as much as you’ll enjoy these photographs of the world’s greatest mother.

Courtesy of Pulled My Groin comes this video of a legendary hockey fight. Warning: the violence is graphic, and it may not be for the squeamish. Especially when the one kid scurries frantically away from the other kid at the end.

If this doesn’t stop soon … someone’s going to have to tell mommy.

Cutest little bastards I’ve ever seen.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have approved the use of their team name and logo in an upcoming film (or TV show, I’ve heard both) about a “fictional” retired Maple Leaf (probably Tie Domi) who happens to be gay, and who happens to want to raise “a budding queen of an 11-year-old boy.”

SLAM! Sports tries to get some reaction to it … they talked to Anson Carter, a Columbus Blue Jacket, and a guy who understands a little something about being a minority in the NHL, seeing that he’s black.

“You’re talking about a lifestyle—homosexuality and heterosexuality—it’s a choice…but people are people from my personal standpoint.”

“We have 700 players (in the NHL) and if we have one gay player in the league, I wouldn’t be that surprised.”

Carter went on to say that it wouldn’t bother him if a teammate was openly homosexual, “as long as you’re a good teammate and a good person…that’s all that matters to me.”

“If that’s what the (NHL) wants fine…the world’s changing now…maybe people will be more open now.”

There’s probably more than one gay player in the league … but all in all, I’ll take it, Anson Carter. Another guy, though, who opted to remain nameless, had a different take.

At least one former NHL player (who preferred to remain anonymous) commented that the film “tarnished the sacred icon of Canada and the Maple Leafs’ organisation.”

“What do you expect when you have a fomer basketball guy running the league,” the player stated, in reference to Commissioner Gary Bettman’s previous tenure in the National Basketball Association.

And we have found an asshole … that didn’t take long.

I don’t understand, chief. Are you suggesting that the NBA is some sort of haven for gay sexual activity? Listen, I’m like the rest of you … I would love to believe that Mike Sweetney blows Jordan Farmar every other Thursday, but I just don’t think that’s true. I mean, the NBA has a ton of image problems, but I didn’t think rampant deviant gay sex was one of them. I thought the LPGA had the market monopolized on that particular stereotype.

And by the way, if you were looking for the sport with the most hot man-on-man action … hockey might be a pretty good bet, as long as you like your hot man-on-man action to involve a teenager and be of the “forced” variety. Canadian junior hockey has a history of sexual abuse of young boys, most notably this Graham James character, and then the extremely weird Mike Danton story, in which sexual abuse was strongly suspected.

Yeah, you wouldn’t want to tarnish hockey’s image with something like a movie about a gay, retired, hockey player.

…is here.

Can be found here at The FanHouse.

The system we’re currently using is so contrived and unconvincing, why not just fudge things a little bit more and bend the rules to allow us to crown a national champion right now? That way, we could just abandon this mountain of BCS horseshit, and get on to the business of setting bowl matchups that would actually be fun, if pointless.

There’s no one that deserves to play Ohio State for the national championship. In my mind, Ohio State has proved that they are the national champions, and if there’s one more game out there for them, it’ll either be against a team that doesn’t deserve the chance to play them because they didn’t go undefeated, or a team they’ve already beaten. Who gives a monkey’s nutsac?

You may have guessed this, but I don’t want a rematch. And it happened just like I thought it would… the two teams played a close game (though I’d argue it wasn’t a classic, that Ohio State was clearly better, and the game wasn’t quite as close as the final score would indicate, though it was certainly very competitive), and now people who didn’t want a rematch beforehand (Kirk Herbstreit and Jim Rome, off the top of my head) now want one. I remain unmoved.

Say Michigan plays them again, and beats them. Can you say then that Michigan State is clearly better and deserves a national title? I wouldn’t. If they win, they get a split, and we’re right back were we started. Unless they’d consider making it a best two-out-of-three situation, I will remain against a rematch.

And what if Ohio State wins the rematch? Well, then, congratulations, Buckeyes, you did something we already knew you could do, and we just wasted about a month of everyone’s time.

And if any other team, like USC, Florida, Arkansas, or God forbid, Notre Dame, plays and beats Ohio State in the championship game, then both of those will be one-loss teams, and Ohio State’s loss likely would have come against a much better team than whoever beat the team that just beat Ohio State. During the season, the BCS would reward Ohio State for that, but after the season, we’d just give the title to the other guy? Poppycock, I tell you. Poppycock.

I hate the idea of a rematch. I see no point to it… but, if we give Ohio State the title now, and can have Michigan and Ohio State play again, just for the sake of amusement… then hey, why not, let’s have some fun. I’d prefer going back to the old system, where any bowl could have any team, as opposed to what we have now, which never works. Let’s just ram our collective wangs into the earhole of the BCS, and set some fun matchups. Such as…

Fiesta Bowl: Notre Dame vs. Rutgers.
Orange Bowl: Louisville vs. Arkansas.
Sugar Bowl: West Virginia vs. Florida.
Rose Bowl: Boise State vs. USC.
The Bo Schembechler’s Wake Bowl: Ohio State vs. Michigan.

Borat probably doesn't like Igor.Towards the end of the Sunday night Chargers/Broncos game, the Broncos set up to spike the ball, and they did. For some reason, though, Broncos center Tom Nalen took a dive at Igor Olshansky’s knees. On a spike play. As you can see below.

Olshanky then clubbed him with his giant Russian forearm, and was flagged for 15 yards and ejected from the game. The flag and the ejection were perfectly justified, of course… I wouldn’t argue against them. What Nalen did was technically legal… it was a play from scrimmage, he does technically have the right to block a guy, and the cut block is a legal maneuver.

The word “justified,” though, doesn’t really apply to Olshansky. The right thing to do, as difficult and against your instincts as it may be… is to not punch the guy. For the sake of your team, you’ve just gotta suck that one up and take it. If you want to find Tom Nalen in the parking lot after the game, though, I’d say that beating him to death with a tire iron would be perfectly justified. If Tom Nalen wants to take a shot at ending a guy’s season and/or career on a spike play, then I don’t think it would be completely out of line for someone to ram a knife into Tom Nalen’s stomach, park their car on his face, and play “Our Country” on that car’s stereo system until he bleeds to death.

Alright, that might be a bit much. But I do believe that the NFL should do something about cut-blocking in general. I’d argue that a cut like the one Nalen attempted there is easily as dangerous, and probably more so, than what Albert Haynesworth did to Andre Gurode. But the league’s more concerned with protecting their image than protecting their players, so Haynesworth sits for five games, and nothing at all will happen to Nalen.

It’s not just Nalen, of course, and it’s not just the Broncos… a lot of teams do this. Donovan Darius was cut last night about 30 yards away from the play, and was carted off with what looked like a pretty serious ankle injury. It’s such a dangerous thing to do, and honestly, I don’t know how any offensive lineman that routinely does it, or any coach that teaches and demands that his players use it, can sleep at night.

With all the rules they have for protecting quarterbacks, they won’t make one to protect the extremely vulnerable knees of defensive linemen and linebackers. That common denominator there is that the league likes offense… and they will never do anything about cut blocking.

UPDATE: The NFL fined Tom Nalen $25,000 and Igor Olshansky $5,000. I guess I’m eating my words a little bit there. I really didn’t think it would go down like that. Well done, NFL.

If you’re looking for reasons as to why Ronnie Brown only gained 2 yards on 12 carries against the Vikings this weekend… pop Rocky in the DVD player and listen as Mick warns Rock: “Women weaken legs.”

And Ronnie Brown has picked a hell of a leg-weakener. From BenMaller.com (via the Miami Herald, where the article isn’t working at the moment), comes this little note than Ronnie Brown and Serena Williams have been spotted about town together. Brown says they’re just friends, but I think we should be completely immature and irresponsible with this, and assume that they are, at the very least, exchanging bodily fluids on a regular basis.

So yeah, if Mick’s theory is true, and Ronnie Brown is putting his serve in her box, then he probably spent Sunday being grateful that her herculean thighs didn’t just rip his cock off. The guy probably barely had the strength to get up in the morning, let alone try to run against an NFL defense.

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