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”?

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Over the past year or so, Twitter has emerged as a great way for athletes and celebrities to build a connection to and communicate with their fans. It’s easy, it’s free, it breaks down the middleman of the media - with all their pesky tough questions and biases - and it can be as much of a one-way or two-way street as one pleases. Even as a business tool, it can help athletes build brand awareness and loyalty amongst fans, helping at the negotiating table with potential sponsorship opportunities and perhaps even with contracts.

(Standard NFL punishment for Twitter infractions.)

Unless, of course, you do it wrong. The thing about Twitter is that everything you say on it goes out for the entire world to see, and stays there.  And undoubtedly, such things tend to be found at the worst possible times - for the average Joe, that means when potential employers are doing due diligence or when an ex’s friend happens across something unflattering you drunkenly, angrily Tweeted on a Saturday night at 3AM (uh, oops). Of course, with an athlete the stakes are higher. Especially when you’re a Washington Redskins scrub who hasn’t even played a game, who called out his team’s fans as “dimwits.” Who’s the dimwit here, exactly?

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Roger Clemens must have been disappointed to learn this week that his defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee was thrown out. But Brian can be assured that this isn’t the last he’s heard from the Rocket. Clemens’ lawyer Rusty Hardin is already appealing to revive Roger’s lawsuit.

More importantly, Clemens has found a new outlet for his frustrations with his former trainer - the one & only Twitter. Welcome to the 21st century, Rog!

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The NFL and social media have been on a collision course for months. In one corner, you’ve got players like Chad Ochocinco that have spent the offseason connecting with and entertaining their fans, hoping to shed some light on their lives and perhaps add a little cachet to their marketability.

In the other corner, you have Roger Goodell, who has decreed that Tweeting from games is an evil sin that may help gamblers, even though gambling on sports doesn’t exist nope no way never (even if he didn’t say that, that’s what it comes down to). Today, the battle of fun vs. authority begins. Who’s winning?

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• Threesomes, nudity, threatening to have sex with others - this Shawne Merriman-Tila Tequila story just keeps getting better & better!

• But sleeping around isn’t always so much fun - especially when it’s leading to the divorce of Melanie Oudin’s parents.

• The Dallas Cowboys are the hottest ticket in the NFL this year. It’s so hot, it’ll burn a $800-per-game hole in your wallet.

• Bode Miller wants to start his very own winery. Bottoms up!

• Ex-NFL lineman Orlando Brown breaks into his ex-wife’s house & trashes the place - but not before leaving a little present in her toilet.

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Well, Ochocinco’s self-imposed Twitter ban lasted about five days, which is four-and-a-half days longer than I thought it would. What fresh mischief is he planning, and more importantly, will we care? Read more…

If all you know is that Chargers’ linebacker Shawne Merriman was arrested for choking buoyant reality diva Tila Tequila on Sunday, then you don’t know the elongated, PENTHOUSE FORUM version which just surfaced last night. This story gets quite a lot more naked, as it turns out.

Because frankly all of this was boring me until I found out it included Merriman’s attempt to have a threesome; a drunk Tequila walking in on it; Tequila then threatening to have sex with one of Merriman’s friends; Tequila getting naked as she made this threat and attempting to run out of the house; Merriman choking her to keep her from leaving. Am I leaving anything out? Read more…

As we mentioned a couple weeks ago, Allen Iverson was formally offered a contract by the Memphis Grizzlies, a miserable, moribund franchise that would have left the city long ago if it weren’t for the ironclad lease agreement the FedEx Forum has with the team.

(”Alley-I! I command you, go to the saddest place on Earth!”)

Well, Iverson went ahead and signed with the Grizz today, according to the MSM and their “sources.” And by “sources,” they must mean Iverson’s Twitter page, since he just Tweeted about it himself. But this notion that God “chose” Memphis for Iverson means he clearly hates Iverson. Or Memphis. Or both.

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We knew there had to be a reason for ESPN to ban its employees from Tweeting about stuff that might affect the Mother Ship. A case in point came on Monday, when ESPN THE MAGAZINE senior writer Bruce Feldman took a shot at NEW YORK DAILY NEWS hobbit Mike Lupica via the Twitter Machine.

Feldman had taken exception to something Lupica said on ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters,” and did what few in the sports media have the backbone to do these days — take Lupica to the virtual woodshed. That he did it via Twitter is both unfortunate and hilarious. Let’s take a closer look. Read more…

We always knew it would end; we just didn’t think it’d be like this.

Strange news from TWITTER today; if he’s to be taken at his word (and, um, that’s always a risky proposition), Chad Ochocinco announced that he would be deleting his account. Naturally, he points the finger at rules set by the No Fun League.

(Do you see what you’ve done, Roger Goodell? DO YOU SEE?!)

If he’s gone, though, the announcement is sudden and curiously without a concurrent statement from the NFL. You’d think there’d be more surrounding something like this than a couple Tweets. At the very least, we’d like to know this: what rules?

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