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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Who knew the NFL had a problem with players getting drunk and killing people?
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has indefinitely suspended Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte’ Stallworth for getting his drink on, getting behind the wheel of this 2005 Bentley, and killing a man.
From the Miami-Herald:
“The conduct reflected in (Stallworth’s) guilty plea resulted in the tragic loss of life and was inexcusable,” said Goodell in a letter to Stallworth. “While the criminal justice system has determined the legal consequences of this incident, it is my responsibility as NFL Commissioner to determine appropriate league discipline for your actions, which have caused irreparable harm to the victim and his family, your club, your fellow players and the NFL.”
Stallworth received only a 30-day jail sentence after agreeing to plead guilty to DUI manslaughter. Like most people, I was surprised by the leniency of the plea agreement. I figured getting drunk and killing a man would earn Stallworth at least six weeks in jail, possibly even eight weeks.
Roger Goodell is a tough disciplinarian. Football players should try to avoid killing people on his watch.
The Detroit Lions need to be relegated to the CFL
The Detroit Lions lost again today making their record (so far) for the season 0-15. If they lose next week, they will be the first team to go without a win for the season since the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At least the 1976 Bucs were a new expansion team. The Lions are one of the NFL’s oldest teams.
The Lions are just an awful team. They have been an awful team for a very long time and they will continue being an awful team for years to come.
Unfortunately there is nothing really that can be done to encourage the Lions to get better. Every year they get one of the highest draft picks and they continuously waste in on wide receivers.
Because of the magic of NFL revenue sharing, William Clay Ford, the owner of the Detroit Lions, makes as much money as any other NFL owner. All NFL teams share TV revenue. All NFL teams share stadium revenue. All NFL teams also share merchandising revenue. That means if you were to go into Finish Line or Champs and buy a Steelers jersey the Lions get the same percentage of the profits as the Steelers.
The only thing that can be done at this point is to kick the team out of the NFL. Let them try to join the Canadian Football League (CFL), but honestly, I don’t think they are good enough even for that. It would actually be an easy transition since part of the Detroit metro area is in Windsor, Ontario. They would have to change their name though because the CFL already has a team named the Lions.
In the English Premiere League (EPL), at the end of every season the three worst teams in the league are relegated down to the lower league, the Coca-Cola League while the three best teams in the Coca-Cola League are promoted up to the EPL. They do this to ensure a team like the Lions doesn’t just get to hang around and dilute the quality of play in the league.
Superbowl XLII swag proclaiming Patriots the champions ends up in Nicaragua
A while back I hypothesized that NFL swag incorrectly identifying the New England Patriots as the XLII Superbowl champs would end up in a village in Africa. As it turns out, I was actually right — sort of. It turned out not to be a village in Africa, but in Nicaragua.
Shirts and caps proclaiming the victory of the New England Patriots — when the American football team actually lost the latest Super Bowl — have ended up in the hands of poor Nicaraguan children.
That’s not to say some of this swag won’t turn up in Africa. I’m sure there is enough wrong swag for most of the third world. The Patriots were more or less crowned the Superbowl champs before the game was even played.
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