Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, which is tremendous when coupled with the coinciding occurrence of Daylight Savings Time. That’s an extra hour to sleep off all the drinking de los muertes before preparing for a day of sports-related drinking. And we’re counting on Halloween to be good, knowing full well that Fox is preparing to unleash the goddamn Favre Cam on us the following day. Continuing what has become a yearlytradition for us, we’ve compiled a list of costumes for NFL figures. Do enjoy.
Over the weekend, we were flooded with emails, texts, telegrams, and letters sent via Pony Express that made us aware of Sunday’s New York Times crossword puzzle, which was built around Peter King’s request in his column — the one that is occasionally about football — that he be in a New York Times crossword puzzle. Sigh.
As it just so happens, your weekly King eviscerator Drew Magary is unavailable today, so this PK-themed crossword puzzle will have to satisfy you until Drew’s MMQB breakdown drops tomorrow. We’ll post the answers in a few hours.
ACROSS
3. Most humane train
5. You should respect it
10. Land baron
12. Johnny Damon lookalike
13. Criminally melted candy
16. Extraneous urban asset
17. The perfect save
18. Alarming new fashion trend
19. Disturbing trend on I-95
DOWN
1. No room at the Inn?
2. Led NFL in smiles during 2008 season
4. Unknowable science
6. Crime committed by film companies
7. Favre?
8. Chain restaurant with coffee-flavored water
9. Ohio home of Toone P. Wiggins
11. Two wonderful?
14. Moniker for SI scribe Banks
15. Pre-ferred prefix
16. Car part, defined
As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh is putting together a bid to purchase the St. Louis Rams in partnership Dave Checketts. Believe it or not, some people seem to think that this isn’t such a good thing. Countless writers have chimed in with their thoughts on why an overtly racist windbag might not be the best fit for the NFL, and now Reverend Al Sharpton is is on the case. The opinions at KSK are varied as to whether Limbaugh’s bid to become the NFL’s newest owner should be considered, so let’s break this down with a little point/counterpoint. (more…)
Welcome to the Friday Five, our unimaginatively-named Friday afternoon post where we provide you with five things the KSK staff is looking forward to this coming weekend….
Every now and again, we at KSK stumble across something outside the realm of professional football that we feel compelled to share, such as Beaker’s adventures in the nation’s capital. Yesterday, when Unsilent Majority requested a Photoshop of a Nazi-fied Mr. Peanut for the Meast/Least, Christmas Ape obliged with the cheerful anthropomorphized fascist legume you see above. Just look at Nazi Peanut (full name: Stabgsefreiter Johann Erdnuss of the Fuhrer’s Wehrmact) — so dashing, so full of the joie-de-vivre that comes from the extermination of Jews to purify the Fatherland. How can he wear those jackboots and not dance a little jig?
So charmed were we with Herr Peanut that we captured some images of him hangin’ out with his pals, making the Third Reich a happier, more delicious place.
Much has been made of the many eye-opening features at the new Cowboys Stadium, and rightly so. I thought we’d already seen everything the stadium had to offer, and then we were treated to the cage dancers. That development got us wondering what other features Jerry Jones tried to cram into the stadium. After a little bit of digging we managed to come up with a list of proposed stadium features that didn’t make the cut for a variety of reasons.
An arrest has been made in the shooting of Chargers running back Curtis Brinkley. The undrafted rookie was ambushed at an intersection last month in Philadelphia. It seems the jealous shooter has a child with Brinkley’s sister and mistook him for her new boyfriend. Brinkley is expected to make a full recovery, but his NFL future is in jeopardy. Of all the crappy reasons to get shot—because someone thinks you are banging your sister. I’m sure that sort of thing happens all the time in Morgantown, West Virginia, but Brinkley went to school at Syracuse.
Congrats to Tim and Elisabeth Hasselbeck on the birth of their son Isaiah Timothy yesterday. Mother and son are both doing fine. We’re sure the little guy will be under-throwing wide open receivers and screeching against socialized medicine in no time at all.
Drew Brees left training camp after his mother, Mina Brees, passed away Friday while visiting relatives in Denver. Brees and his mother, a successful lawyer in Austin, Texas, had a rocky relationship– which he attributed in part to his decision not to hire her as his agent. Last year, he requested that she quit using his name and image as part of her unsuccessful judicial campaign. Most recently, the elder Brees was under investigation by the Texas Attorney General’s Office for letters sent to numerous restaurant owners, demanding they pay $20,000 or lose their business’ names. I know one restaurant that should definitely have to change its name—the so-called Cheesecake “Factory”. I went there recently and was appalled by the lack of hardhats and eyewash stations. Someone should call OSHA.
Current Bronco and former Jet/Raider/Patriot LaMont Jordan is being sued by the Mirage Casino in Las Vegas for $200,000 in unpaid gambling debts. What did they expect, extending credit to a Terp? Moose, Rocco help LaMont find his checkbook.
Finally, this Bleacher Report post asserts that an active NFL player will come out of the closet this season or next because Twitter and the NFL’s marketing department will make them. Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense to us either.
UPDATE: Peyton, Eli and Fredo Cooper Manning will make a guest appearance on The Simpsons this December. Ape speculates that Cooper will portray a returning Hugo Simpson. Eli has been granted special permission to stay up late to watch the episode, but then it’s straight to bed, young man.
Now that Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian have parted ways (nobody cheated!…unless they did) the NFL needs a fresh celebrity relationship worthy of tabloid attention. That’s why we at KSK have taken it upon ourselves to create our own pairings out of thin air. Just like the publicists do it!
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.
