The physical defensive back for the Indianapolis Colts was released today. Only twice did Sanders manage to play in more than six games in a season, as the greatest victim of his punishing hits from the secondary was arguably himself. Sanders managed to get halfway through his five-year, $37-million contract, making him perhaps the highest-paid-per-play NFLer in history.

Hopefully Sanders can clean out his locker without tearing a rotator cuff.

Finally, we have some football on this football podcast.

We talk to Ken Dilger, who played ten years in the NFL with the Colts and Bucs. Ken tells us what it’s like to get ready for a Super Bowl, and what it was like to play with Peyton Manning. Maybe I should have asked him how to pronounce his last name.

Also: News. Shovel-Ready Game Show. “Who Would Win In A Fight.” And more foolish drivel.

Taped 1/25/2011. Runs 76 minutes. With Josh Zerkle, Ryan Walsh, Shakey, Amber Jones and Aaron Merrill.

Ken’s appearance provided by Take It To The House, presented by P&G. Like them on Facebook.

Download the MP3 here, or go to the host site, or subscribe on iTunes. Please leave us a review, even if you think the show sucks, which it does. No, we’re not being self-effacing here. This thing blows. Don’t even listen to it.

UPDATE: If you can’t get enough PUNTE (and honestly, who can), check his appearance on On The DL’s podcast here.

PEYTON MANNING: Hey Reggie, look at this.

REGGIE WAYNE: Look at what?

PEYTON MANNING: This. Right here.

REGGIE WAYNE: Right where, man? I don’t see anything.

PEYTON MANNING: This. Right here. Right where my finger is on the page here.

REGGIE WAYNE: I’m lookin’ right at it, man! I don’t see anything!

PEYTON MANNING: Here! Right here! See my finger moving! Look! Right! Here!

REGGIE WAYNE: I see your goddamn finger, bitch! I don’t see nuthin! That’s a blank piece of paper!

PEYTON MANNING: LOOK RIGHT HERE YOU FUCKIN’…Oh wait, that is blank.

[flips page over]

REGGIE WAYNE: So what is that shit?

PEYTON MANNING: This is the Google Maps to my house. I don’t want you to get lost on the way to Thanksgiving dinner this weekend.

REGGIE WAYNE: Hold up now. Say what?

PEYTON MANNING: Mama’s made a big ol’ turkey for all of us, it’s gonna be real good. She said we could bring someone, so I’m bringin’ you.

REGGIE WAYNE: Hey that’s great and all, but I got my own thing going on for Thanksgiving, man.

PEYTON MANNING: And Archie knows a great fried chicken place up the road, so he’s gonna bring some fried chicken, just for you.

REGGIE WAYNE: Hey, I told you I can’t…What the fuck did you just say?

PEYTON MANNING: And Eli’s friends have this watermelon patch the next county over, so he’ll bring you a big juicy watermelon. You like watermelon, right?

REGGIE WAYNE: You better shut your honky mouth right now, sucka. I don’t gotta take this shit. I don’t care how many cell phones you gave everybody.

PEYTON MANNING: Aw, don’t get all fussy now. See here, you just drive down I-65 for about seven hours, and then you go–

REGGIE WAYNE: Hey Alfalfa! I ain’t going to your house!

PEYTON MANNING: Would it help if I got you a bus schedule?

REGGIE WAYNE: FUCK YOU! [walks off]

PEYTON MANNING: Jeez, what’s his problem? Oh, well. He’ll be in a better mood soon. It’s almost the first of the month.

[Fin.]

TONY DUNGY: So Rodney, what did you think of this post with Peyton Manning as a bumbling white guy trying to make friends with an African-American player on his team?

RODNEY HARRISON: I don’t get this post at all. What, are we really supposed to believe that Peyton has no idea how to talk to black people at all? Plus, it’s not really that funny. It’s just a list of tired black stereotypes, and it’s almost embarrassing to read. You can really tell this blog can’t operate at the same level without its star performer. These guys are really gonna have to get out of their funk if they want to get through the second half of the season.

TONY DUNGY: I couldn’t agree more, Rodney. As a matter of fact, I don’t even like fried chicken.

RODNEY HARRISON: Don’t like fried chicken? Bitch, what’s wrong witchu?

The epic Bill Belichick-Jim Caldwell blood feud is renewed in this, a contest bound to be sorely lacking in superlatives about the quarterbacks involved. But there are so many other intriguing storylines aside from the obvious QB comparison. Is it Laurence Maroney or is it Joseph Addai who is more generally useless? Can Austin Collie’s grittiness unseat Welkah’s on this grand primetime stage? Will Caldwell ever forgive Dwight Freeney for not employing his many spins as a running back at Wake Forest? Why won’t we ever give the Meast to Peyton?

These questions and more will be quickly brushed aside in favor of dick jokes, soft porn and making light of the reinforced stereotypes in that “Precious” movie.

This week we’re highlighting the very obscure, totally non-showcase match-up between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. I doubt any NFL-related TV shows will explore this particular angle of the Colts-Patriots game on Sunday, so it’s good that we are.

Pey-Pey and Dreamboat have met in a lot of big games this decade, so they have a “rivalry” even though I doubt there is any actual animosity between the two of them. Brady has won most of the contests, but Peyton has had the advantage the last few years. They’re both really good and shoo-in Hall of Famers.

Peyton is a robot who gesticulates too much at the line of scrimmage and, according to Peter King, is possessed of anal traits. Early in his career, it was fun to mock him for being without a championship and gay for Kenny Chesney. But then he went and won a title while the Chesney jokes got old. Now he’s just a really good quarterback who appears in a lot of commercials. The worst I can say about him is that Colts fans, even though Peyton has won multiple MVP awards and is generally thought to be the face of the league, act as though he’s somehow ignored and underappreciated. Because they’re all Midwestern diptards with nothing else in their lives, but that’s not really Peyton’s fault, is it?

Tom Brady is a smug asshole, but then he leads an almost cartoonishly perfect life. Would you or I be unbearable were we lavished with such gifts? Probably. I’m already kind of a dick and I don’t have anything on Brady. As quietly as one can do something on the overexposed Patriots, Brady has “quietly” returned to his dominating pre-injury form in the last few weeks, regaining the timing with Randy Moss that was clearly missing in the Pats first few games. That doesn’t make him or his fans, many of whom wanted Brady traded last year then complained that he wasn’t traded when he struggled some out of the gate this year, any less obnoxious. He cheated on Bridget Moynahan, he wears Yankees hats in public while he plays for a Boston (er, sorry, “New England”) team, earlier this year he blew off the Matron Saint when she tried to get a post-game quote from him. He’s a dick. You can nail him and Pats fans for the Spygate and 18-1 stuff, but then the amount of irrational hate the Steelers have received in the last year has actually made me identify with the Massholes some. Did I actually write that? Oh well.

I think the first time Peyton and Brady ever met kind of captures their respective personalities perfectly.

Already a two-time Pro Bowler, Manning nevertheless introduced himself: “I’m Peyton Manning.”

“And I said, ‘No (expletive),’ ” Brady said yesterday, laughing. “We were both getting warmed up and he was probably on his 100th throw of the day, two hours before the game. It was a pretty quick meeting.”

Robot, meet dickhead.

Those dastardly heavy-breathing sneakabouts in Indianapolis are at it again! First, they steal the Colts from Baltimore. Now, because of an injury to Adam Nougatieri (injuries don’t make chompions, Adam) they have signed Greatest Raven Ever Matt Stover. Is there nothing they won’t take from Baltimore? I mean, other than black people. Those Indy can do without.

This afternoon we have another edition of the sporadic “Inside a Tailgate” series. It’s a feature that gives you insight into some of the goings-on with fans around the league. And it gives us a chance to count a YouTube video as a post. Nice.

00:01 – Chubs tells “Reggie Wane” that he will handle the introduction duties. I’ve just seen this guy, but I have always been able to make snap judgments about people. I predict this guy will open his introduction with some Proust before making a dry self-deprecating observation on the human condition. That, or quoting Stone Cold Steve Austin. It could go either way.

0:03 – Hitch up you sweatpants, Bulbous Fett.

0:08 – Waiting for his cue… Biscuits ‘n’ Gravy here is used to working with professionals. Give his ass a countdown, you clod.

0:10 – “HEY! WE’RE COLTS FANS!” This is your brilliant introduction? This is the least expository introduction in the history of introducing stuff. Christ, this thing is already going downhill.

0:16 – Now he introduces Shawne Merriman, “defensive player for the Chargers”. Dude, if we don’t already know who he is, your impression is kind of pointless.

0:20 – This guy seems to shortchanging Merriman’s surname by a full syllable– pronouncing it ‘Merman’. It seems they fear this Mer-Man and thinks he intends to drag them before King Poseidon and his briny palace in Atlantis.

0:24 – Two days later, he moaned and flopped in precisely the same manner when the EMT administered the defibrillator.

0:31 – “RETARD….OUT!” He says it like that’s his end communication signal.

0:36 – At first I thought it was a novelty helmet, merely festooning his head whimsically before the big game. I know realize he is living with a serious head injury and that thing is a medical necessity under doctor’s orders.

Tard helmet, now in team colors.

It’s that time of year again, when we’re so devoid of content that, rather than spending time covering Romo dumping Jessica Simpson the night before her birthday, we run through our predictably inaccurate prognostications for the upcoming year, division by division. Up first, it’s the AFC South, where you’re either winning, you’re mourning Steve McNair or you’re getting busy freebasing.

HOUSTON TEXANS

Five Fast Facts About the Texans:

Fullback Boomer Grisby clearly missed his true calling as an acclaimed writer of Laura Ingalls Wilder slash fiction.

Vegas Over/Under For 2009: 8 Wins

VERDICT: Push.

Despite every year, by virtue of a promising finish, duping suckers (like me) into thinking they can eclipse their 8-8 record from the year before (and the year before that), the Texans inevitably stumble out of the gate, eliminate themselves midway through the season, then pad out their record over soft teams at the end of the year. I’VE FINALLY WISED UP COCKSLOTS!

/Texans go 12-4 just to spite me

LAND OF SHIT INDIANAPOLIS COLTS

Five Fast Facts About the Colts:

Uh oh, Jim Sorgi has some competition at the cushiest job in sports. That clipboard hand better be strong come camp time!

Vegas Over/Under For 2009: 10 wins

Verdict: PUSH

Conventional wisdom will tell you that Peyton alone could coach this team to 10 wins, and he’s going to have to because Jim Caldwell doesn’t look like he could inspire shit out of a goose.

She really should’ve had a bigger part in the Star Wars prequels.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS

Five Fast Facts About the Jaguars:

With time freed up by Fred Taylor’s departure to New England, the Jags training staff creates a fake Jack Del Rio Twitter feed that perfectly lampoons that sneering jackass. But then Tra Thomas’ back goes out in Week 9 and it goes to shit.

Vegas Over/Under for 2009: 8 wins

Verdict: OVER

The Jags caught the brunt of a spate of injuries early last year (if you ask me, it was also karmic retribution for tossing huge contracts at Jerry Porter and Troy Williamson) and so long as they can avoid that, they should cobble together an improved result over last year’s disaster. I don’t think it would be a huge shock to see this team rebound to 9-7, but then I’m almost always fantastically wrong.

TENNESSEE TITANS

Five Fast Facts About the Titans: