SubscribeBen Roethlisberger is once again accused of sexual assault
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of sexually assaulting an unnamed 20-year old female Georgia college student at a dance club. For those counting at home, this is Roethlisberger’s second sexual assault accusation. He was accused of raping Andrea McNulty, a Nevada resort hostess in a hotel room during a July 2008 golf tournament at Lake Tahoe. Andrea McNulty never went to the police and instead chose to sue Roethlisberger in civil court. A lawsuit was filed July 17, 2009.
This case is different in that instead of happening in a hotel room, it is said to have happened in the ladies room of Capital City, a dance club in Milledgeville, Georgia near Ben Roethlisberger’s off-season home. Even Ben Roethlisberger doesn’t want to be in Pittsburgh any longer than he has to. Can anyone really blame him?
The woman also went to the police and filed a sexual assault report, something alleged victim #1 never bothered to do.
Not that it really matters, but how does a 20-year old woman gain access to a drinking establishment? Don’t they card people down in Georgia?
More people watched the Super Bowl than watched the final episode of M*A*S*H
Sunday’s Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts drew an astonishing 106.5 million viewers, breaking the 27-year-old record held by the final episode of M*A*S*H which only had 105.9 million viewers.
Who knew America was so interested in a Super Bowl between two relativity small-market teams?
I think there were a lot of factors that went into making this game so appealing to TV viewers. It was between the two best teams in the NFL. Both teams deserved to be in the Big Game. Both teams had high-scoring offenses that relied on throwing the ball to score points. Teams that rely on running the ball and controlling the clock may rely on an offensive scheme that has proved to be historically effective at winning Super Bowls, but it makes for really boring TV.
I also cannot help but wonder if the weather played a part in making this Super Bowl to watchable. Much of the East Coast and the Mid-Atlantic was covered with at least two feet of snow over the weekend. A good many schools and businesses were going to be closed on Monday because of the weather. When people don’t have to get up early Monday, they are able to stay up late Sunday night.
I don’t think anyone will be able to pin-point why exactly so many people watched the Super Bowl.
The New Orleans Saints are Super Bowl Roman numeral something something something champions
Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees celebrates with his wife and son.
Saints quarterback Drew Brees had a fantastic game, throwing 32-39 for 288 yards and 2 touchdowns. Also importantly, he had no picks. He went on to earn Super Bowl MVP for his performance.
The game looked to be going in the Colts’ favor until the opening play of the second half. The Saints began the 3rd quarter by kicking an onside kick that went off the hands of reality TV personality and Colts receiver Hank Baskett.
One of the most remarkable things about last night’s game was CBS analyst and former New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms. How does this man have a job? I lost count of just how many times he said something that was completely wrong. My favorite was when the Colts were driving and Simms said that the Saints should not blitz, but instead drop an extra defensive back into pass coverage. The ball was snapped and the Saints did the complete opposite of what Sims said. They blitzed. Colts’ quarterback Peyton Manning promptly threw the ball into the waiting arms of Saints’ cornerback Tracy Porter who ran the ball back 74 yards for a quick six.
Phil Simms could not have been more wrong.
All in all, it was a great Super Bowl. The only way it could have been better was if Phil Simms stayed home.
Jets head coach Rex Ryan fined $50,000 after Dolphins fans tattle on him
New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan was fined $50,000 by the team for shooting the bird to some Miami Dolphins fans at a MMA event in south Florida. Miami resident David Hildenbrand, 24, took a picture of the incident and promptly plastered it all over the Internets for the world to see.
Hildenbrand says that a couple of his friends shouted to Ryan that, “Dolphins rule, Jets suck. “ Ryan responded with, “Go fuck yourselves“, and shot them the bird.
I fail to see what the problem is. The Dolphins fans initiated the exchange with Ryan. Am I to believe the Dolphins fans were somehow offended with what Ryan said and what he did?
I doubt it.
My only problem, if I even have one, is with Hildenbrand posting the picture online. He should have known that Ryan was going to get some grief over this, grief he doesn’t deserve. He should have kept quiet about the incident. Hildenbrand and his friends evidently thought it would be fun to talk smack with the head couch of their football team’s biggest rival and the head coach decided to play along.
Big deal.
David Hildenbrand comes off looking like a tattletale. Nobody likes a snitch and that is what Hildenbrand is. He’s a snitch.
Former Maryland Colts fans confuse me
Today the Baltimore Ravens play the Indianapolis Colts in the playoffs and many local fans who used to follow the Colts when they played in Baltimore are now lifelong Raven fans and want nothing more than for the Ravens to destroy the Colts in today’s game.
I just don’t get that.
If they were truly Colts fans before the them moved to Indianapolis, I don’t understand why they would stop rooting for the Colts simply because they moved. I don’t remember any Redskins fans jumping ship when the team moved from Washington D.C. for Maryland. The Jets used to play football in Shea Stadium in Queens, New York. They moved to Giant’s Stadium located in East Rutherford, New Jersey. I don’t remember hearing about any Jets fans shunning the Jets after they moved.
I think the reason so many Maryland Colts fans stopped supporting the Colts after they moved to Indianapolis is because they never really were Colts fans to begin with. One might argue that if the Colts had more fans here in Maryland, they never would have had to move in the first place. I personally can’t blame the Colts for moving to Indianapolis in 1984. Colts owner Robert Irsay tried for years to work out a deal with the city of Baltimore and/or the state of Maryland to get a new stadium to play in.
The lease for the run down, dilapidated Memorial Stadium had expired. Public sentiment was against building a new stadium or even repairing Memorial Stadium. What exactly did they think Robert Irsay would do? Memorial Stadium was an armpit of a stadium. He did the right thing by moving to Indianapolis. The fact that so many of the supposed Colts fans dropped the team like a bad habit and are now rooting against the team, tells you all you really need to know about the level their fandom.
Tell me something I did not already know
The Wall Street Journal did a study that showed in the average NFL football game, the ball is actually only live for about 11 minutes. Most of the nearly three hours it takes to play a professional football game in the NFL is spent just standing around waiting for play to begin.
To be perfectly honest, I’m actually surprised it’s that much.
If you have ever watched a real football game (soccer) you will quickly realize just how much of American football is spent doing absolutely nothing. In soccer, the ball is constantly in play. Time does not stop, even for injury. The ball gets kicked out of bounds by either team and then the injured player is attended to. The officials decide how much time was spent attending to the injured player and that time is added to the end of the half or the end of the game.
In soccer, the only commercials are at halftime.
The first year I started watching the English Premiere League, I could not even watch the NFL. The thing that struck me the most was just how much time is spent in an NFL game where the coaches are shown standing on the sideline. When I watch a sporting event, I want to see competition between athletes. I don’t want to see a middle-aged white guy with a perturbed look on his face.
Pete Carroll leaves USC for the Seattle Seahawks
Like a rat leaving a sinking ship, USC football coach Pete Carroll is leaving USC for the glory of the NFL, specifically, to be the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. Not only will Carroll be making a boat load of money walking the sidelines of the NFL, he is able to leave USC before the NCAA comes in with flamethrowers and wreaks havoc on the program for violations stemming from a “relationship” between Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush and wannabe agent Lloyd Lake. Supposedly Lake put Bush’s family up in a swanky house free of charge.
The NCAA has rules against stuff like that.
Even though these violations, if true, happened during Carroll’s tenure, he will be spared any of the fallout that’s almost sure to come. The coach that replaces Carroll will be the one to pay for these transgressions, mainly in a decrease in scholarships. As if replacing Pete Carroll at USC and his two national championships and winning percentage of 85.6% isn’t hard enough, any coach dumb enough to take the gig will have one arm tied behind his back because of the foolery Pete Carroll allowed to happen under his watch.
Too bad Pete Carroll doesn’t have to worry about facing any type of retribution for NCAA violations. Then again, some might say that being the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks is punishment enough. The Seahawks are a pretty sorry franchise and Carroll has shown that he’s a pretty crummy NFL head coach.
John 11:35
Photo: Deadspin
Thanks Philadelphia Eagles for making these two bozos happy. Thanks a lot.
My hatred for JaMarcus Russell knows no bounds
The Oakland Raiders held a mandatory final team meeting Monday and 7th string quarterback JaMarcus Russell, the highest paid and coincidentally, worst player on the team, was excused by coach Tom Cable for “personal reasons”.
Whatever the personal reasons were, it didn’t stop Russell from living it up in Las Vegas. The San Fransisco Chronicle is reporting that Russell was checked into The Palms and living it up Vegas style only a day after the mandatory team meeting.
If there is anyone in the world that does not deserve a Las Vegas vacation, it’s JaMarcus Russell.
Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach picked a bad time to pretend concussions aren’t real
(AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)
Texas Tech head football coach Mike Leach has been suspended indefinitely. If he was a radio shock-jock, being suspended indefinitely would just be a fancy term for getting fired.
The thing that got coach Leach suspended was how he treated a player who suffered a concussion, and not just any player, the son of a former NFL player who had to retire early because of concussions. A former NFL player who is now an ESPN college football analyst who, coincidentally, feels very passionate about concussions and the proper treatment of concussions.
The Texas Tech player is wide receiver Adam James, son of Craig James.
A source close to the family said James sustained a concussion on Dec. 16, was examined on Dec. 17 and told not to practice because of the concussion and an elevated heart rate. The source said Leach called a trainer and directed him to move James “to the darkest place, to clean out the equipment and to make sure that he could not sit or lean. He was confined for three hours.”
A source told The Associated Press that James said Leach told him if he came out, he would be kicked off the team.
According to the source, Leach told the trainer, two days later, to “put [James] in the darkest, tightest spot. It was in an electrical closet, again, with a guard posted outside.”
Coach Leach picked the wrong time to treat concussions as though they were things players pretend to have to get out of practice. If he is fired over this controversy, I’m not sure a team in the NFL will touch him. The NFL has been working very hard at changing the way teams treat concussions. If a team were to turn around and hire Leach, a guy who evidently believes the best way to treat concussions is to make the injured player stand in a dark room for hours, I don’t think the league would react very positively to the hiring.
Injured football players annoy Pam Ward
I guess ESPN college football play-by-play announcer Pam Ward didn’t know that the TV viewers were still watching when she started complaining about the injured Marshall football player on the field. That, or she didn’t know her mic was on.
Classy.
Did Chris Henry kill himself?
According to one of Chris Henry’s neighbors, the Cincinnati Bengals receiver told the mother of his three children that if she proceeded to drive away, he was going to kill himself.
From ESPN:
Neighbor Lee Hardy told WLWT-TV and The Cincinnati Enquirer that he was working in his yard when the truck left the driveway. Hardy said Henry was yelling that he needed to talk to the woman behind the wheel.
“He said, ‘If you take off, I’m going to jump off the truck and kill myself,’” Hardy told the newspaper.
The first 911 tape was from an unidentified woman who said she was following a yellow pickup truck.
“It’s got a black man on it with no shirt on, and he’s got his arm in a cast and black pants on,” she told a dispatcher. “He’s beating on the back of this truck window. … I don’t know if he’s trying to break in or something. It just looks crazy. It’s a girl driving it.”
So much for Henry turning his life around. Whatever that means. It sounds to me that he was still doing stupid things. Jumping into the back of a pickup truck, shirtless, beating on the back window. On Monday the high in Charlotte, North Carolina was only 48 degrees. I have to believe that’s not optimum weather for taking a ride in the back of a moving pickup truck, especially when you’re not wearing a shirt.
Chris Henry 1983 – 2009
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry is dead. At least that is what ESPN is saying. It’s been my experience when the four letter network says you’re dead, you’re dead. He was 26.
He was out for the season with a broken arm. Though you may not be able to catch a football with a broken arm, you can get into a domestic dispute with the mother of your three children.
Evidently the dispute began at the Charlotte area home Henry shares with his fiancee and the mother of his three children, Loleini Tonga. Police say Tongae was leaving in a pickup truck and Henry jumped into the bed of the truck and continued arguing with Tonga. About a half mile from the house, Henry somehow fell out of the truck. Tonga didn’t stop the truck, but continued driving.
Henry was found on the side of the road in life threatening condition. Henry was transported to Carolinas Medical Center, where he died early this morning.
Raiders sign J.P. Losman, will start Charlie Frye at quarterback
Just how awful is JaMarcus Russell? The Oakland Raiders have announced that Charlie Frye will start Sunday against the Denver Broncos. They have also signed former Buffalo Bills and Las Vegas Locomotives quarterback J.P. Losman.
Charlie Frye began the 2007 NFL season by starting for the Clevland Browns, only to be benched in the first quarter and then traded the following day to the Seattle Seahawks for a bag of packing peanuts and a 20% off coupon for Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The joke was on the Browns though because the coupon was expired.
Watching JaMarcus Russell fill in for Bruce Gradkowski against the Washington Redskins this past Sunday was a truly painful thing to watch. It looked to me that he had no clue what the plays were supposed to be. He looked like me trying to play Madden football on the Xbox 360 trying to figure out which buttons to mash.
Has there every been a team in professional football that’s had more bad quarterbacks play for them? For every Jim Plunkett or Rich Gannon, they’ve had ten Todd Marinovichs.
Lima beans, fat-free mayonnaise, the music of Jimmy Buffet, and JaMarcus Russell
What do the four subjects in the title all have in common? They are all things I hate.
Russell is the new Marc Wilson – San Francisco Chronicle
Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly quits to accept a ‘dream job’ at Notre Dame
Football coach Brian Kelly has been lured away from the undefeated, BCS ranked no. 3 Cincinnati Bearcats to coach the unranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Cincinnati will be playing in the Sugar Bowl without Kelly on the sidelines. Not only did Kelly quit on his school and his team, he did so before they had a chance to play in the biggest football game in school history.
This just makes no sense to me.
Granted, the job of college football coach is one of the most dishonest and corrupt professions a person can have. It’s right up there with used car salesman and military recruiter. I just don’t understand why the NCAA allows coaches to up and leave their program before the college football season is over to take another job at another school. Players cannot do that. If a player wants to leave and go to another school, he must sit out one complete season.
Brian Kelly is saying that coaching Notre Dame is his “dream job”. I wonder if he ever told the University of Cincinnati that. I don’t really quite understand the fascination so many of these white coaches have with Notre Dame. It’s just a Catholic college in Indiana that pretends to be better than every other college.
His former players at Cincinnati are both upset and hurt by the move. Kelly didn’t inform the team that he was abandoning them until after news of the hiring went public. Some are saying that he is dishonest. One former Cincinnati player said that Kelly’s actions were “cowardly”.
I cannot help but agree.
How about those Raiders?
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
They’ve only beat four teams this season. It’s a shame Pennsylvania doesn’t have any more teams in the NFL for the Raiders to play.
I “watched” the game yesterday on the Raiders official website while I was really watching the Saints beat the Redskins on the TV. The Raiders game was actually exciting, waiting for the browser screen to update with the down and the field position. I was so focused on the actual field position that I didn’t even notice that the Raiders had scored with less than two minutes on the clock. I showed Sheri that they now had the ball on the 2 yard line and she had to point out that they had scored.
The ball was on the two yard line for the extra point.
Journeyman quarterback Bruce Gradkowski had a phenomenal game yesterday. He went 22 for 33 for 308 yards with no picks. He also threw 3 touchdowns. His quarterback rating yesterday was 121.8. I’d be lying if I really knew how that was formulated. All I know is that anything over 100 is pretty stinking good.
I grew up a Raiders fan, but my love for the Silver and Black has faded since I’ve been living in Maryland. At least I thought it did. I felt my fandom for the team rekindle while back home on vacation this past summer. I saw all the Raiders swag in the stores and it took me back to my youth.
Jamal Lewis calls it a career
NFL running back Jamal Lewis has been placed on the NFL’s Injured Reserve (IR) list by the Cleveland Browns due to post concussion symptoms. His brain is damaged from injuries he sustained while playing football. Being placed on the IR not only ends Lewis’ season, it also means the end of his football career. Lewis previously announced that this season would be his last in the NFL.
Before playing for the Browns, Lewis played for the Baltimore Ravens who drafted Lewis with the fifth pick overall pick in the 2000 NFL draft. He played in a Superbowl his rookie season, running for over 100 yards and scoring a touchdown in Super Bowl XXXV. In 2003, he rushed for 2,066 yards, 39 yards short of the all-time NFL record for rushing yards in a season, a record held by Eric Dickerson.
Lewis was a hard runner with quick feet. He could run a defender over or run right past them.
I came up with the name for this blog because of Jamal Lewis. More or less. I was the winning bidder on an eBay auction for a “mint” Jamal Lewis rookie card. I paid for the card and when it arrived in the mail, it wasn’t “mint” as advertised. It had a bent corner. I emailed the seller and tried to return the card for a refund, but he was not interested. After emailing the seller a couple of times complaining about my “mint” card with the bent corner, I gave up. This was around the time I was thinking of starting a blog. I decided that I would try to take my dissatisfying eBay experience and make something positive out of it.
It was then that Bent Corner was born.
Notre Dame fires Charlie Weis
The University of Notre Dame responded to back-to-back 6-6 records by firing it’s football coach, Charlie Weis. They will now go out and try to hire a new coach, but what coach would really want to go to Notre Dame to coach football? I think the days of it being a serious football program are long gone. Unlike every other major football program, Notre Dame is not in a conference. This is what allows them to play Navy or UConn. Teams in a conference have to play teams in their conference.
Any coach that leaves a major football program to go to Notre Dame is living in the past.
Even though Charlie Weis was fired, the university still has to pay him his salary. He has six years remaining on his contract. This makes him the winner in all this. Getting paid to do nothing is the true American dream.
Charlie Weis is my hero.
Hines Ward has lied to doctors about being straight
Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Hines Ward, voted the NFL’s dirtiest player, called out Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for missing last night’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens won the game in overtime, but Ward’s comments came before the game in a taped interview with NBC’s sports gnome Bob Costas:
“This game is almost like a playoff game. It’s almost a must-win. I could see some players or teammates questioning, like ‘It’s just a concussion. I’ve played with a concussion before,’” Ward told Costas in an interview taped Saturday at the team’s suburban-Baltimore hotel as a prelude to the Steelers-Ravens game.
“It’s almost like a 50-50 toss-up in the locker room: Should he play? Shouldn’t he play? It’s really hard to say. I’ve been out there dinged up; the following week, got right back out there. Ben practiced all week. He split time with Dennis Dixon. And then to find out that he’s still having some headaches and not playing and it came down to the doctors didn’t feel that they were going to clear him or not – it’s hard to say. Unless you’re the person [himself]. … I’ve lied to a couple of doctors saying I’m straight, I feel good when I know that I’m not really straight.”
Maybe Ward should not go around saying he’s lied about being straight. Someone might just take that comment the wrong way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I never thought I’d be doing this, but I feel the need to defend Ben Roethlisberger. He was right to sit out the game. A concussion is a brain injury. Unlike many of the human organs like the lung or the kidney, you only get one brain. You cannot mess around with brain injuries.
When in doubt, sit it out.
Not only is the potential for re-injury much greater with a quarterback than a receiver, a quarterback has to do a lot more in a game than a receiver. Roethlisberger has to orchestrate the entire offense while Ware only has to catch balls that get thrown his way (by Roethlisberger) and dive at the knees of defensive players on running plays.
Hines Ward should just keep his mouth shut.
Raiders finally invite JaMarcus Russell to take a seat
The Oakland Raiders have announced that they are benching former number one draft pick quarterback JaMarcus Russell and will be starting journeyman quarterback Bruce Gradkowski for the foreseeable future.
It’s about time.
Russell has been an awful NFL quarterback. If the Raiders didn’t use an overall number one draft pick on him and paid him over $30 million in guaranteed money, I have to believe they would have benched him a lot sooner. Not that benching him is even the correct move. They need to release him. He has no business being in the NFL. Though he is a talented athlete, I don’t think he really wants to play football. I don’t think his heart is in it. Someone with his raw talent shouldn’t be as bad as he is. His passer rating this season is only 47.7. He’s thrown nine interceptions and fumbled the ball five times.
And to think the Raiders cut Jeff Garcia before the season started, supposedly to give Russell a shot of confidence going into the season. Also, one of the reason’s Raiders owner Al Davis gave for firing former head coach Lane Kiffin was that Kiffin never believed in JaMarcus Russell and was against drafting him.
Imagine that.
Terrell Suggs may miss the rest of the season
Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn’s wallet is a bit lighter thanks to the illegal chop-block on Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs. Quinn refuses to say how much the fine from the NFL is, but a league source tells ESPN that it’s $10,000.
An MRI exam showed that Suggs suffered a severe MCL sprain in his right knee resulting from Quinn’s chop-block on Monday night. Suggs’ agent, Gary Wichard, said that his client might miss the rest of the season.
Though I’ve never been a Brady Quinn fan and I think he’s a punk, Terrell Suggs is a thug who brags about hurting opposing players. No matter how hard I try, I can’t feel sorry for him. If there is such a thing as karma, it would stand to reason that a player like Suggs would suffer a season ending injury.
Once again, Navy beats Notre Dame
For the second time in three years, Navy beat Notre Dame. Like the victory from two years ago, it took place in South Bend in front of the Notre Dame faithful.
How Charlie Weis is able to keep his job as the head coach is a mystery.
Oakland Raiders head coach Tom Cable tries to defend himself
Oakland Raiders head coach Tom Cable released a statement in an attempt to defend himself against the allegations presented by ESPN’s Outside the Lines that he physically abuses women.
Make no mistake, Cable is a piece of garbage. In his statement concerning the incident with his former wife Sandy Cable, he paints her as an adulterous whore.
From Tom Cable’s statement:
During my first marriage, I became aware that my wife, Sandy, had committed adultery. I became very angry and slapped her with an open hand. What I did was wrong and I have regretted and felt sorrow about that moment ever since.
Sandy Cable denies that she ever committed adultery. She responded to Tom Cable’s accusation with her own statement:
He constantly made accusations throughout the relationship. There was never any infidelity on my part. And he did not slap me, he punched me.
If what Cable is now saying is true, why in a hand written letter to his first wife Sandy Cable did he refer to the incident as “that day I hit you“? If he had slapped her with an open hand, why didn’t he refer it the incident as that in his letter? If he had slapped her with an open hand — and I’m in no way trying to defend that or trivialize even slapping a woman — I have to think he would have said that, not that he hit her. Describing a slap as a hit makes it sound more severe. I would think the only reason he would have described what happened as “that day I hit you” is if he had in fact actually punched her.
My guess is that if this letter from Cable had not been made public by ESPN, he wouldn’t even be admitting to slapping her with an open hand. Then again, as I pointed out in another post, I don’t know a lot about men that hit women.
I think the NFL has a huge problem on their hands. They can get behind Breast Cancer Awareness month by allowing their players to wear pink gloves and shoes, but if they have a head coach that not only abuses women with physical violence, but then tries to defend himself by calling into question his victim’s sexual fidelity, they have a huge problem on their hands. A huge, misogynistic problem that wont go away until Cable is out of the league.
Oakland Raiders head coach Tom Cable hits ladies, but at least he doesn’t kill dogs
As if fans of the Silver and Black didn’t already have enough to be ashamed of this year, it appears that the Oakland Raiders have a head coach who likes to hit the ladies. At least that is what ESPN’s Outside the Lines will have you believe.
This past August, Oakland Raiders head coach Tom Cable made news after an altercation with assistant coach Randy Hanson that left Hanson with a broken jaw. Normally when you have a disagreement with someone and their jaw happens to get broken in the process, you are going to see the inside of a jail cell. That didn’t happen to Cable. On October 23, the Napa County district attorney announced that Cable would not be charged.
Obviously it would seem Cable has a problem controlling his anger. When was the last time you heard of an NFL coach breaking someone’s jaw or any other body part? If a man has problems controlling his anger against one of his assistant coaches without resorting to violence, it stands to reason he probably has the same problem when it comes to dealing with the women in his life.
Not that I have a lot of knowledge or experience with men that beat women.
Tacos are from Mexico, not Colombia
From the AP (via the Huffington Post):
During ESPN’s broadcast of the Minnesota-Ohio State game Saturday, a graphic was shown listing the top five drivers in NASCAR’s points race. Fellow analyst Chris Spielman asked where was Montoya, who is Colombian.
Griese replied he was “out having a taco.”
Not only was the comment racist, worse, it was ignorant. A taco is a delicious dish from Mexico. NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya is from Colombia, not Mexico. Colombia and Mexico are different countries. Granted, Montoya has brown skin and Spanish is his first language, but that doesn’t mean he’s Mexican.
Not all brown skinned, Spanish speaking people are taco eating Mexicans.
Ignorant racism is the worst kind of racism. It’s bad enough to judge someone not because of the content of their character, but the color of their skin or their ethnic origins. What’s even worse is when you are too stupid to get the ethnicity right.
Is it too much to ask for a person who speaks on TV for a living to know the difference between a Mexican and a Colombian when they are going to insult them?
Bob Griese is an idiot. He’s not just some 64-year old ignoramus sitting at the bar at his local VFW cracking racial jokes. He’s a college football analyst. He’s supposed to be smarter than you. The networks think you are too stupid to watch a football game and understand what you are seeing without someone like him telling you what you are seeing. It’s bad enough that Griese and every other TV annalist have to run their mouths, talking incessantly during a football game. It’s even worse when they say stupid, idiotic things that have nothing to do with the football game they are being paid to analyze.
Things like saying someone from Colombia is “out having a taco.”
Chad Ochocinco gets fined $10,000 for wearing the wrong colored chin strap
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco was fined ten grand by the NFL on Friday for a uniform violation. It seems last week when the Bengals played the Houston Texans, Ochocinco wore a chin strap on his helmet that was the wrong color. Instead of the regular white chin strap like all the other Bengal players were wearing, Ochocinco was sporting a black one.
Oh no. The horror.
In his defense, his illegal black chin strap did match his black facemask. Also, a quick Google image search shows that Ochocinco routinely wears a different colored chinstrap. Sometimes he even wears an orange one. If the NFL really cares what color chin straps it’s players wear, it seems they’ve been doing a really bad job at paying attention to such things.
I think fines like this are stupid. All it does is points out to everyone that NFL players make so much money that if they happen to wear the wrong colored chin strap, they are fined more money than the average family of four would spend on a fancy European vacation. What’s even worse is that when a player such as Ochocinco receives a fine like this, he acts like he doesn’t even care.
He acts this way because he really truly doesn’t care. Why would he? Ten grand is nothing to him.
If the NFL really wanted to stop players from wearing the wrong chin straps or the wrong kind of socks, they should get more creative. Simple $10,000 fines don’t work with millionaires.
Ray Lewis is not talking about no fine
The NFL announced yesterday that Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis has been fined $25,000 for two separate dirty plays in the fourth quarter of Baltimore’s 17-14 loss on Sunday. In one of the plays, Lewis evidently thought he was the Karate Kid and kicked an opponent. In another, Lewis executed a viscous helmet-to-helmet hit on Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco after the receiver failed to make a catch. Lewis was penalized for the hit and as a result, the Bengals were awarded 15 yards and another first down. The penalty helped set up the game winning touchdown with only seconds remaining.
All because Ray Lewis couldn’t control himself.
It’s not his fault though. He could not help it. It’s because he’s like a missile:
“But the bottom line is, when I turn to go, I’m like a missile. When I’m locked in, I’m locked in. Whatever’s there is there. Worrying about fines and all that, I’ll let that take care of itself. The NFL does a great job with that. You call them and discuss it with them.”
On Friday, Lewis said, “I’m not talking about no fine.”
It’s important to note that Ray Lewis was “locked on” to a receiver who did not even have the ball. Not that the hit would have been clean if Chad Ochocinco had in fact caught the ball. It was still a dirty helmet-to-helmet hit.
Thanks to my time spent in the Air Force as an electronic warfare systems technician, missiles is one of those rare things that I happen to actually know something about. If Ray Lewis is in fact “like a missile”, he’s a defective one.
Missiles that lock on to false targets are defective.
Fining players like Ray Lewis is a waste of time. He still believes that he didn’t so anything wrong, and that’s really too bad since he will be allowed to take the field Sunday when the Baltimore Ravens take on the Minnesota Vikings. Will he once again “lock on” to the wrong target and because of this, drive his helmet into the helmet of an opposing player while traveling at a high rate of speed?
Ray Lewis probably spends $25,000 a year on his obnoxious looking gold clothing. If the NFL really wanted to penalize players like Ray Lewis for using their helmets as a weapon, they ought to make him spend a few days working with paraplegics or people with severe spine injuries. Maybe then Ray Lewis and players like him would realize just how serious this issue is.
Rush Limbaugh will not be an NFL owner
Right wing conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been dropped from the group of investors that want to purchase the St. Louis Rams. Evidently this is some kind of victory for civil rights activists because some of them balked at the idea of someone like Rush Limbaugh, who’s made several racially insensitive comments over the years on his popular radio show, owning a football team.
The difference with Limbaugh and every other rich white guy in his late 50’s is that Limbaugh says what he says in public.
Even though I’m a tree hugging liberal, I’ve always admired Rush Limbaugh. Not because I agree with his politics, because I don’t, but because he’s very good at what he does. If you are a fan of talk radio, you cannot help but notice that he is the best at what he does. There are many other right wing radio talk show hosts on the air, but none are as good at what they do as Limbaugh.
Does Limbaugh say some outrageous stuff that borders on racism? Perhaps, but that’s his job. He’s a conservative talk radio host that talks for a living. He has a massive audience and he knows what they want to hear. Is he a racist? Maybe, but why would a racist want to own a team that plays in a league where most of the players are black? If Limbaugh is a racist, maybe the thing he needs to do is to interact with more black people, something he would easily be able to do if he was a part owner of an NFL team.
Act like a thug, get treated like a thug
Jamison Hensley from the Baltimore Sun wrote an article asking the question if perhaps the Baltimore Ravens are being “overscrutinized” by the NFL and it’s officials.
From the Baltimore Sun:
The questionable roughing-the-passer penalties in the Ravens’ 27-21 loss Sunday to the New England Patriots have spurred a national debate on whether Tom Brady is being overprotected by officials.
But there is another issue: Are the Ravens being overscrutinized?
I don’t think it’s possible to “overscrutinize” (is that even a word?) the Baltimore Ravens defense, especially linebackers Terrell Suggs or Ray Lewis.
They try to hurt people.
Terrell Suggs once went on a Baltimore radio show and spoke about how the defense puts “bounties” on opposing players. They aren’t content with merely making sound tackles and good football plays, they want to hurt people.
Ray Lewis is a thug, on and off the field. Before games he attempts to pump up his teammates by leading them in ridiculous chants about knocking people out. These Lewis led spectacles are routinely televised for the viewing public, which I’m guessing is one of the reasons they happen in the first place. Personally speaking, I don’t want to see anyone get “knocked out”. I think it’s a bad thing when a player gets hurt and lays motionless on the field. I for one don’t want to see it. The goal should be to make these type of events far less common than they currently are.
Even once is too much.
Football is entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t want someone to get paralyzed (or worse) for the sake of my entertainment. It’s the main reason I don’t watch professional wrestling anymore. Too many guys were getting paralyzed or even killed fake-fighting for the sake of entertainment.
I don’t think the officials calling the game should ever give these two players, Suggs or Lewis, the benefit of the doubt when it comes to late hits or unnecessary roughness. When it comes to either Suggs or Lewis, when in doubt, throw the flag.
It will be the right thing to do far more than not.
I watched the Cincinnati Bengals play the Baltimore Ravens yesterday afternoon. Living in Maryland, my choices in watching football are extremely limited. How ironic it was that a dirty, helmet-to-helmet hit by Ray Lewis on a defenseless Bengals player who did not even have the ball gave the Bengals 15 yards and even more importantly, another first down. The Bengals were able to continue marching down the field and they eventually scored a game winning touchdown.
Made possible because Ray Lewis couldn’t control himself. He wanted to knock someone out and his team lost the game because of it.
Plaxico Burress goes to prison
The New York State Department of Correctional Services have released the official mugshot of one of their newest inmates, ex-New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress. Not only did they take away his freedom for the next two years for accidentally shooting himself in the leg, they made him get rid of this chin hair.
Who knew they didn’t allow facial hair in prison? At least they don’t in New York prisons. Terrorist masterminds held down in Guantanamo Bay are allowed to look like they are members of ZZ Top. I guess that’s different because they hate America and they grow beards because it’s part of their religion, the same religion that inspired them to send airliners packed with innocent people into buildings also packed with innocent people on a September morning.
I feel bad for Plaxico Burress and that says a lot because I’ve never liked him all that much. Not when he played at Michigan State, not when he played with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and not when he played with the New York Giants. I feel bad for him because he has to sit in prison for the next two years simply because he accidentally shot himself in the leg. Prisons should be for criminals. How does shooting yourself in the leg make you a criminal?
Don’t get me wrong, I think Plaxico Burress did an incredibly stupid thing. I think taking a loaded handgun into New York City to go clubbing in an asinine thing to do, especially when you simply stuff it into the waist of your pants and don’t engage the handgun’s safety. It was truly a boneheaded thing to do. That doesn’t mean I think he should go to prison for it.
Putting a bullet in his own leg should have been his punishment, not prison.
Richard Seymour must not like the way he looks in silver and black
The New England Patriots traded defensive end Richard Seymour to the Oakland Raiders for the Raider’s 2011 first round draft pick. Seymour only has one year left on his contract and the Raiders being the Raiders, the draft pick the Patriots will be getting should be extremely high.
It very well may be the first pick of the 2011 draft.
The problem is not that the Raiders gave way too much to the Patriots (they did), it’s that Seymour has not even seen fit to grace the Raiders with his presence. So far, he’s been a big no-show at the Raiders’ training camp.
From the San Jose Mercury News
Defensive end Richard Seymour missed practice Tuesday for the second straight day, and he still hasn’t given any public indication on whether he intends to honor the trade by the New England Patriots.
Raiders coach Tom Cable said he remains hopeful that Seymour will show up as soon as he gets his affairs in order.
“I don’t want to comment on (Seymour’s status) until we have something that’s done and concrete,” Cable said.
The deal was done Sunday, as far as the league and the Patriots are concerned. The league approved the trade Sunday afternoon, and Patriots coach Bill Belichick already has filled Seymour’s roster spot.
“We don’t have the rights to Richard, so I can’t really speak to that,” Belichick said in his first public comment since the trade. “There isn’t really anything I can say about him or his situation. I’ll pass on that.”
It’s up to the Raiders to set a time frame for Seymour to report. The Collective Bargaining Agreement doesn’t require a traded player to report to his new team by a certain time.
Even if this trade lacked the complication of Seymour refusing to report, the Raiders are getting hosed in this trade. What team other than the Silver and Black would trade away a future top first round draft pick for a player with only one year on his contract?
None, that’s who.
Tila Tequila is allergic to alcohol?
Tila Tequila is disputing the claim of San Diego Chargers linebacker and steroid abuser Shawne Merriman that she was drunk the night he and she had their physical altercation and that he was only trying to restrain her from getting behind the wheel and possibly killing you and your children. Tila Tequila says that she was not drunk. In fact, she claims that it’s a well known fact that she is allergic to alcohol. She said it on Twitter so it must be true:
I am allergic to alcohol. It has been publicly known for years. That is how I got the name Tila ‘Tequila’ cuz the irony. I can’t drink.
So she has the last name of Tequila not because she likes to throw the Mexican liqueur back like a rich kid on spring break, but because she is physically incapable of consuming alcohol.
How does one know they are allergic to alcohol? Do the symptoms include getting stupid looking tattoos you wish afterwords you didn’t get and waking up the next day with an extremely bad headache? If so, I may be allergic to alcohol too.
Shawne Merriman chokes reality star girlfriend
San Diego Chargers star linebacker and Maryland alumni Shawne Merriman was arrested on Sunday for allegedly choking and throwing girlfriend Tila Tequila, a woman that somehow got famous on MySpace and then parlayed that fame into a gig on an MTV reality show.
Being that Merriman is a San Diego Charger, I thought the only choking he did was in the post season.
It also goes to show what I know about the California legal system. I didn’t know it was illegal to choke Tila Tequila.
Brett Favre is a dirty player
Last night’s pre-season game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Houston Texans featured Vikings quarterback Brett Favre lining up wide left as a receiver in the “wildcat” package. Vikings receiver Percy Harvin takes the direct snap and runs with the ball towards the left. Texans safety Eugene Wilson is then taken out of the play by Farve who delivers an illegal crack block directly at Harvin’s knees.
A flag is thrown and Wilson is on the ground in obvious pain. Does Farve go over to Wilson to say anything or to see if just how hurt he is? No, he just walks on by like the pill popping, cheap shot artist that he obviously is.
Maybe Brett Favre just hates living in Mississippi
Once again, Brett Favre has decided to come out of retirement and return to the NFL. This time the former Green Bay Packers star quarterback is returning to the NFC and will be playing for the Minnesota Vikings. Last year he came out of retirement to play for the New York Jets.
The Vikings reportedly signed Favre to a two-year contract, paying him $12 million this year and another $13 million next year if he remains with the team that long.
Will Favre ever stayed retired? He’s 39 years old. That’s 104 in professional football player years.
Maybe the reason Favre is constantly changing his mind about retirement is because he just doesn’t want to live in Mississippi. It seems like he retires, goes back home to Mississippi, and then decides that he wants to play some more football. Maybe he just hates living in Mississippi.
Can anyone really blame him?
Maybe next time he retires, he ought to pack up the family and move somewhere else. Someplace that’s not Mississippi. If I had his money and could live anywhere in the world, I’d move to Santa Barbara, California.
I certainly wouldn’t live in Mississippi.
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