12:30 PM Gainesville Sun Columnist Pat Dooley: "Last week in Jax press box a bunch of national cfb writers -- none of them could name which teams were in which ACC division. Hilarious!"
12:15 PMBob Griese is back! He's presently doing Iowa-Northwestern game on ESPN. (No truth to rumor that he shot Blackjack Taco TV spots during his week off.)
12:02 PM Sounds like now-Casino Owner Dan Gilbert may have to start catering to a new Whale in New York City: C.C. Sabathia. The former Indian indicated to the New York Post that he plans to actively recruit Lebron James to the Knick.
11:52 AM There's a lot of 'obvious alert' conjecture as to why Jon Gruden won't return to coach the Raiders. But Jerry McDonald of the Contra Costa Times has actual intimate details of Gruden's relationship with Al Davis that point to why he won't return.
Because no battle is ever won, he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools. - William Faulker, “The Sound and the Fury”
That was written by Mississippi’s “greatest author,” who I also thought was kind of overrated. Which, it turns out, could easily apply on multiple levels to the Ole Miss football team. On a national stage and with a No. 4 ranking, the Rebels completely imploded, falling 16-10 at South Carolina last night. It may or may not be true that no battle is ever won, but for Ole Miss, this one was certainly lost.
Mainly it was lost for two reasons: QB Jevan Snead had a miserable game, going 7 for 21 for 107 yards while being pressured by the Gamecocks’ defense all night. And Houston Nutt’s game plan reminded you of why he was barely a .500 coach with a backfield of Felix Jones and Darren McFadden at Arkansas. Nutt seemed unable to accept that the passing game just wasn’t working, and waited until the fourth quarter to turn to running back Dexter McLuster. He ran for 68 yards in the final quarter, but by then it was too little, too late. Read more…
By now, you know our delight with the advent of Twitter; while 95% of athlete correspondence is stuff like “hey what’s up!!!” and “workin out lol,” there’s a small fraction of it in which everything that a player’s coached not to say to the media actually comes out. That, of course, is where the fun lies.
(It’s always a good day when the Fail Whale comes to play.)
But while the NFL is cracking down on its players’ Twitter usage, just as we always feared, discord has found a way to circumvent the rules, because discord always finds a way. If order beat disorder, there wouldn’t have been any crime in the last 3,500 years. Here, our agent of mischief is the family of NFL players; specifically, Larry Fitzgerald’s brother Marcus, a football player himself at Marshall, has a few choice words for Kurt Warner after Sunday’s Arizona game. Isn’t that right, “old ass man”?
Week One of his first full season as head coach of the 49ers has not slowed the growth of the legend of Mike Singletary. When he was handed the job on an interim basis to replace the embattled Mike Nolan, there was doubt in many corners as to whether he was ready for the job.
Sure he had great instincts as a player. But great players don’t always turn out to be great coaches — would Singletary have the instincts to coach at the highest level? On a weekend in which some big-time coaches proved that their instincts were suspect, Singletary came through looking pretty good against the Cardinals. Read more…
Being suspended from the first four games of your NFL season — especially when your team has just been to the Super Bowl — would be very hard on some players. Arizona Cardinals tight end Ben Patrick seems to be taking it pretty well, however.
Not only is Patrick taking some mandatory time off from football for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy, he also took time off from a raucous game of beer pong at this apparent Arizona State campus party to, well, you can see it in the photo. Tight ends have must have great hands, after all. More photos following the jump.
Do you want to put up with such sugary garbage that your teeth will fall out? We’d guess the answer’s no, but hey, some people have suicidal teeth. You never know. Anyway, you’ve got two options on that front. The first is to eat at IHOP.
(This is so necessary right now.)
The other option, which is closely related, is to read the press release that IHOP and the NFL just released to announce their partnership. It’s awful. It’s stupid. This is not a drill, Ironic Detachment Team; this is the real thing, and you’re going to have roll your eyes harder than you’ve ever rolled them before.
Being a backup quarterback for a small-market NFL team is somewhat of a thankless job, albeit a thankless job that pays millions of dollars. You practice just as hard as your more talented counterparts, but the only time you get in a game is when the outcome is already decided or someone better than you gets injured. Nobody really cares what brand of hot dogs you prefer, shoes you wear, or who you’re dating. There’s a reason they call it “buried” on the depth chart.
(Mark Sanchez, beware - this could be your future!)
For Arizona Cardinals backup QB Matt Leinart, who signed $5 million worth of endorsement deals back in the days when people thought he might be good at football, that presents a problem. The former Next Big Thing is stuck in Phoenix carrying 75-year-old Kurt Warner’s jock, and it seems he’s finally realized that the way to get back in the spotlight is to toughen up and stop being a “pretty boy”. His new training regimen? Getting his ass kicked by mixed martial arts fighters.
Somehow LeBron James ended another game against the Orlando Magic in their Eastern Conference Finals with the ball in his hand and a chance to win the game. But unlike Game 2, he couldn’t find the miracle the Cavaliers needed, as his desperation heave from 35 feet was off the mark, wrapping up the Magic’s 116-114 OT victory. Orlando now holds a commanding 3-1 series lead, as the Cavaliers are threatening to take a page from the Ohio State football team and choke at the worst possible moment.
And perhaps it was fitting, since the game only went to overtime on two James free throws on a questionable foul committed by Mickael Pietrus with six seconds left - with James needing a friendly roll to get the second. (And honestly, how can the best player on the planet be so average and unreliable from the free throw line? Do you ever remember feeling nervous when Michael Jordan stepped to the line at the end of a game?)
It’s hard to blame James for Game 4: after all, he did have 44 points and 12 rebounds. Even the eight turnovers in the box score are more a reflection of him trying to do everything because he had to than any faults. No, the big problem for Cleveland is that they’ve pretty much turned back into King James and His Inept Court of Jokers this series, with his supporting cast basically providing nothing (Delonte West and Mo Williams combined to go 12-for-30 in Game 4, including 0-for-6 from behind the arc.)
Meanwhile, the Magic were unconscious from three-point range, going 17-for-38, with Rafer Alston leading the way with six threes on the way to a 26 point night. And Dwight Howard played angry in overtime - perhaps over picking up his sixth technical foul of the season, or because he thought he was fouled at the end of regulation. No matter what the reason, he took it out on the Cavaliers, scored on three straight dunks en route to 10 points in the extra session. So a dominant big man plus great outside shooting is a good thing, I guess.
Also a good thing: having your league’s best player and leading scorer on the same team. That’s exactly what the Pittsburgh Penguins have, and why they are heading back to the Stanley Cup after a 4-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes to sweep the Eastern Conference Finals. And even though they didn’t score in the series-clincher, Penguins stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin had done more than enough, proving to be way too much for a game but overmatched Carolina side. So while the NBA is wincing at losing their dream match-up, the NHL has to be thrilled with a likely Penguins vs. Red Wings rematch.
Finally, to update a tragic story we told you about earlier today, KPHO-TV in Phoenix reports that Mike Tyson’s daughter Exodus, 4, has died from injuries she sustained in a freak accident at her family home in Arizona. No matter what you think about Mike Tyson as a person, monster or character in a classic Greek tragedy, your heart has to go out to him and his family. For anyone with a child, reading about this gets your stomach all tied up in knots.
So after what PRO FOOTBALL TALK had reported was a tug-of-war to sign John Lynch as an NFL analyst, NEWSDAY says that the winner is Fox, snatching the former Buccaneers and Broncos standout from ESPN. Lynch will likely be replacing Brian Baldinger, which means that he’ll need to have his finger run over with a steamroller to match the “analyst with the gross digit” quota at the network.
Is this a sign that the Anquan Boldin contract mess is about to come to an end?: ESPN.COM says that the disgruntled Cardinals wide receiver has fired Drew Rosenhaus as his agent. Stepping in? This guy.
Ready for a career switch to the exciting and fast-paced world of sports business? Fat chance, says the NEW YORK TIMES, as tough economic times have made jobs in the industry tougher to get than ever. In fact, it’s so bad that people actually want to work for the Cincinnati Bengals.
Top Orioles prospect Matt Wieters is getting his call-up to the big leagues, and is expected to make his big-league debut as a catcher on Friday against the Tigers. CAN’T STOP THE BLEEDING wonders if the Baltimore sports media is making too big of a deal about this. (i.e. could Peter Schmuck please remove his tongue from Wieters’ mouth?)
The NEW YORK TIMES has the latest from Roland Garros (English translation: Ron Garrett) Stadium and the French Open: Serena Williams serves a “horrendous” performance, while James Blake is bounced yet again.
Just how dominant has Zack Greinke been this season for the Royals? As the KANSAS CITY STAR reports, he gave up one earned run in his fifth complete game of the season, a 6-1 win over the Tigers…and his ERA actually went up slightly, “ballooning” to 0.84.
Probably not what Marshall wanted to hear about their prized football recruit A.J. Graham: the TALLAHASSE DEMOCRAT says that Florida’s “Mr. Football” was arrested on robbery charges - just hours before his scheduled high school graduation.
