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Rumors have lingered for years about the state of Peyton Manning’s marriage to wife Ashley. But there aren’t many married persons at the level of Manning’s celebrity who haven’t been subject to scurrilous speculation about their private life.
And if Manning’s appearance at training camp this week is any indication, his nine-year marriage to wife Ashley is as strong as ever.
Read more…
Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino of the MTV reality show Jersey Shore reports that he’s doing a commercial with Peyton Manning in Miami this week:
(Spot for space age keyboard with non-stick caps lock?)
As you would expect, the ad is a closely guarded secret but I can confirm at least one detail of the spot.
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES sports media critic Tom Jones reports this week on the astonishing conflict of interest involving CBS announcer Jim Nantz for this Sunday’s AFC Championship game telecast:
(Not the commercial. I think. Wait, maybe it is. Help!)
How in the world can CBS let NFL announcer Jim Nantz do a television commercial with Colts quarterback Peyton Manning? The two are in an ad for Sony televisions. Nantz calls games in which Manning plays and will call next weekend’s AFC Championship Game in which Manning will play.
Why should we trust anything Nantz has to say about Manning ever again? Even if Nantz has every right to defend Manning after a play, why should we believe him after assuming the two hung out together and socialized during a commercial shoot? It’s a blatant conflict that CBS shouldn’t have allowed and Nantz shouldn’t have agreed to do.
Delusional fans are already conspiratorial enough when it comes to announcers without CBS allowing Nantz to yuk it up with the best player on the field during the telecast.
Richard Deitsch of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED followed up on Jones’ piece by getting reax from Nantz.
When I was serving time as a American Hockey League announcer in Greensboro, N.C., in the ’90s, I remember a certain coach running the Wake Forest football program into the ground in nearby Winston Salem: Jim Caldwell.
I’ve been skeptical of Caldwell ever since. Yes, the Colts 14-game streak to start the season was starting to cause cracks in my cynicism, but today we finally got to see the Caldwell I watched systematically dismantle the Demon Deacons.
I recognize that Caldwell’s Deacs are a long way from Caldwell’s Colts - in time, place and otherwise. So who am I to judge?
(Caldwell forgot tissues for Jeff Saturday)
Instead, I’ll let Indianapolis fans from today’s Colts-Jets live blog at IndyStar.com take it away …
In the wake of last night’s COACHFAIL in the Pats-Colts game, the universe and its mom have been leveling unvarnished invective at Bill Belichick. Rightly so, at first blush; with a few seconds before the 2 minute warning and protecting a dwindling 34-28 lead, Belichick opted to go for it on 4th and 2… from New England’s own 28 yard line. The try failed by a slim margin, the Colts took over, and Peyton Manning calmly guided his team to the winning touchdown with 13 seconds to play. Ballgame.
(Wanna get away?)
So, yeah. Going for it and failing from the hinterlands of Obvious Punt Territory - soon to become the USA’s 51st state - and watching the game slip away immediately afterwards is an unforgivably bad decision, yes? Well, not so much. Contrary to immediate intuition, it was, in fact, the Patriots’ best chance at winning the game.
• The Dolphins held the ball for more than 30 minutes longer than the Colts, but it was Peyton Manning & Co. who left Land Shark Stadium with a 27-23 win on Monday night.
• It’s a Twitter trifecta: First, Redskins rookie LB Robert Henson takes “dim wit” Washington fans to task for booing at FedEx Field.
• Then Marcus Fitzgerald bitches on behalf of brother Larry about the lack of catches the Cardinals WR is getting.
• And Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema admits that one of his scouting techniques is following the Tweets of opposing players.
• A South Carolina man is sentenced to life in prison without parole for the vicious stabbing death of a high school cheerleader.
Normally, you don’t see a broadcast booth spend a plurality of a football game raving about the “time of possession” statistic. Then again, normally, you don’t see a team win said battle by a full 30 minutes of game time, which is precisely what Miami did to Indianapolis last night. And then again, you don’t normally see a team control the ball for fewer than 15 minutes of the game… and win anyway.
(”Okay, so you just scored the go-ahead touchdown. Allow me to retort: BOOOO THUMBS DOWN TO YOU BOOOOOOO!”)
But lo and behold, thanks to the quickest of quick-strike offenses, the Colts did exactly that; thanks to touchdown drives of 1, 6, and 4 plays, Indianapolis prevailed in Miami, 27-23. Indeed, the Colts’ longest drive of the night was a 9-play drive that led to a 2nd quarter field goal; on the other side of the field, the Fins had exactly one shorter drive: an 8-play, 25-yard drive that ended in a punt. After that, literally every drive of theirs was 9 plays or longer. That’s the longest shortest drive since [ERROR WE ARE NOT ELIAS SPORTS BUREAU CLIENTS ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?].
Ah, but without turnovers, time of possession is effectively meaningless. Read more…
Hey, Broncos fans. Remember back when Jay Cutler was an unhappy Bronco, trying to force a trade out of town? Remember that, and how most fans and media in the Denver area acted like a bunch of jilted high school boyfriends when he asked for a trade? Oh, yes, Denver fans. You claimed you never liked the guy anyway, and he was a big baby jerkface, and you’d be better off without such a non-team player. Yeah, those days were fun, right? Right up to the point when you wound up with Kyle Orton. Oops.
Fast forward a few months. Cutler is turning heads all around Chicago with his brash style, confident demeanor, and football abilities. He’s the talk of the town today after blowing the Giants out of the water in yesterday’s preseason game, and has Bears fans excited about contending for a division championship and maybe even more. Denver, meanwhile, is being treated to…well, Kyle Orton, who does Kyle Orton things in his own Kyle Orton way.
(Warning: Video after the jump is not for the weak of stomach - for Broncos fans, anyway.)
Poor Clinton Portis — he had this schtick all ready to go for Week 3. Now he’ll have to scrap it, because Reggie Wayne showed up to Colts training camp on Sunday in construction worker’s gear, driving a dump truck. Wayne’s message? It’s time to get to work on construction of the road to the Super Bowl.
Of course, knowing state highway construction workers like I do, it could also mean “We’ve spent three years building this overpass and we’re still not done.” Will the Colts also take two hour lunch breaks, the second hour of which they’ll be charging double overtime? The answer is unclear. Read more…
I’m pretty sure that over the coming weeks, months and possibly even years we’re all going to learn a lot about the life of the late Steve McNair. Maybe more than any of us ever really wanted to know, but as the details of his murder become clearer it’s bound to happen.
Unfortunately there’s a possibility that during all this we may forget just how good of a football player the man was. There’s also a chance that his accomplishments on the football field may become exaggerated. So with that in mind the BALTIMORE SUN recently ran a poll with 24 NFL Hall of Fame voters to see whether or not McNair is bound for Canton once he’s eligible in 2013.
