William Gay’s new vanity

From now on, I’m losing Leitch’s “buzzsaw” moniker and going with THE DICK CHEESE THAT IS THE ARIZONA CARDINALS. [Via]

- Jim Irsay is all butthurt and pissy because RGIII didn’t accept the Colts invitation to hold a private workout for them, even though they had his Pro Day to watch him do his thing. This almost made me love RGIII more than I’m comfortable with, but then I found out it’s not an exclusive slight to the Colts and he’s not holding private workouts for anyone. Then again, RGIII joined Twitter today, so hopefully he will make it up by trolling Irsay there.

- Joe Flacco thinks he’s the best quarterback in football. Yes. The best. I – I just…

GODDAMMIT, FLACCO, AGAIN WITH THIS? YOU’RE NOT EVEN THE BEST QUARTERBACK IN YOUR DIVISION. THE MORE YOU BITCH ABOUT PERCEIVED DISRESPECT, THE MORE OF IT YOU’LL ACTUALLY GET! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

- Other than the Seahawks, there weren’t any dramatic changes to NFL uniforms, though the Panthers apparently added the message “KEEP POUNDING” to the inside collar of their jerseys. Goodell will make sure that Nike includes “YES, BUT ALSO NO HEAD SHOTS” midway down the inside of the back by the time play resumes in September.

- Jaleel White reportedly had a freakout on the set of “Dancing With the Stars” and Donald Driver had to intervene. What a perfect chance to live out Homer’s dream of punching that Urkel kid. There’s the built-in excuse of him being irrational and Driver didn’t take advantage. Seriously bummed about this, you guys.

- ESPN had Darelle Revis and Gronk in-studio this week. A host had the two of them do word association, which is always death. Small consolation: they also got to break stuff. This led to ample awkwardness and Revis saying “jerk” when Bill Belichick’s name came up, which is perfectly reasonable and probably even a descriptor that the Grumblelord would self-ascribe. Yet horrible people are trying to make a big deal of it because of course they are. Even in the best of offseasons, there exists a seemingly limitless expanse of time where nothing is going on. ESPN knows pointless, trumped-up scandal is the easiest filler, so tWWL will try its hardest to fan this ember into a full-on sh*t show conflagration. This is why I need a five-month Waitmate prescription.

- In a predictably quality Spencer Hall piece, he takes the long view in looking at football’s inexorable march to being something probably less violent, but more honest in its presentation of violence. Oh, and hopefully not totally marginalized. There are also Bob Costas putdowns, which are always appreciated.

- The Cowboys joined the Raiders and Browns as teams for which condemned felons have expressed their support before being lethally injected. Congrats! It’s no “I love my family. Potato, potato, potato” but generically phrased NFL fan cries are a very dignified way to shuffle off the coil of mortals.

Wait, it wasn’t this guy who was put down? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the system doesn’t work.

- Eric Winston still got a promotional flyer for luxury suite sales from the Texans, even though he was recently released by the team. This forced people to cry that the Texans sales office needs to update its mailing list, apparently unaware that sales teams never update mailing lists under any circumstance.

- Supposedly leaked photos of the Giants Super Bowl rings. Yep, they sure do look like rings.

- Donovan McNabb is a passive-aggressive dick, part 8 million.

The guy who brought you Factory of Sadness has another installment of Cleveland hangdoggery. This one is regrettably devoid of yelling and swearing. What gives? Obviously you’re just not depressed enough, Browns fans.

- The man who called in a bomb threat to the Superdome during the Lions-Saints playoff game is named Shawn Payton. HARF HARF, stadium bounties. This Payton hails from Michigan, so I can only assume it was the cruel idea of Louisiana authorities to put him in an Auburn hat in his file photo.

- As part of his sponsorship with Dunkin Donuts, Rob Gronkowski spent the morning working the drive-thru at one of their locations. Well, at least with the depressing work experience Gronk will be able to relate to the kids who show up at his University of Rhode Island lecture next month.

- Should you be interested in Peter King’s blow-by-blow account of the Peyton Manning free agency courtship, you can find it here. Sure, it sells the happy but dubious narrative that Peyton didn’t care about money as long as his new team had lofty meshology, but more than anything else, it’s noteworthy because of the cloak-and-dagger tactics that Pey-Pey underwent to duck the media. For example, the Broncos used seven cars in one instance to transport Manning so as to divert the tailing media horde. Oh, there’s also this:

Manning talked to another confidant, Bill Parcells, who he knew wouldn’t b.s. him. He told Parcells his arm wasn’t 100% yet. “You know who Jamie Moyer is?” Parcells asked, referring to the veteran lefthander who’s been pitching in the majors since 1986. Manning said he did.

“He’s 49 years old,” Parcells said. “He’s not 26 anymore, but he’s still getting ‘em out. Can you still throw well enough to get ‘em out?’

“I think I can,” Manning said.

“Then don’t worry about it.”

Congrats on getting the Jamie Moyer of the NFL, Denver. No way opposing defensive backs are gonna touch his offspeed stuff.

- In case you missed it, Ufford made this video for SB Nation introducing Tebow to the wholesome side of New York City. We were skeptical of Ufford’s on-screen exploits at first, but then we’d never have known what a good clean-cut Christian boy it would make of him. Awww, Uffy cleans up nice.

- In that vein, NYC’s Carnegie Deli has already come up with a sandwich for Tebow. Owner Sandy Levine notes it’s the deli’s first celebrity dedicated sandwich that is topped by white bread and mayonnaise. AND SHAMEFUL JUDGMENT!!!!

The University of Rhode Island is selling $7 tickets to an on-campus event on April 12 called “An Evening With ‘Gronk’”. Whatever Rob Gronkowski intends to do with his time regaling students is at this point unclear, though if the off-season high jinx that Busted Coverage has spent the last month and a half breathlessly detailing, the wearing of Zubaz, the crushing of beers, the double-teaming of chicks and the use of a beer scooter as a crutch should be prominent themes of the evening.

- A critical Favre documentary titled “Last Day at Lambeau” is set to debut at the Wisconsin Film Festival in April. With a little luck, it will one day join the dozen of others docs I’ll never get to on my Netflix streaming queue.

- Sean Payton has asked Bill Parcells to coach the Saints for a year while Payton serves his suspension for making lies at Roger Goodell. The number of prison taunts that Parcells has already come up with with Mark Ingram is already reportedly in the dozens.

- Buzzfeed Sports put together a supercut of all the times Tim Tebow said “excited” during his introductory press conference with the Jets today. It marks the most Buzzfeed thing since their post about 25 Twitter users who had never heard of Tim Tebow.

- In addition to losing out on the trade for the second pick, the Browns were also outbid by the Redskins for Pierre Garcon and Josh Morgan. It’s okay, Browns, when you’re trying to make the same off-season moves as Washington, you’re better off letting them have what they want anyway.

- Brett Favre’s Twitter was hacked earlier this week, prompting a statement from Favre’s representatives to ESPN explaining that the last actual message Favre sent out was on Sunday and that anything posted since then has been written by an imposter who gained access to the account probably because Favre set his password as havingfunoutthere.

5Chan: Haxored! LULZ U SOUR BRO?
Kunty2012: OWNDD! Now send dick pix 2 peter king
AnthonyShadead: send monster black cock pix from brett to pk
5Chan: Dunno. pk knows favre dick when he sees it
Kunty2012: ok. send 2 all justin bieber’s followers

- Rob Gronkowski made a YouTube video promoting himself for the cover of this year’s Madden game, because that always turns out well for those who get it. Nevertheless, the video touches on all the Gronk signatures: a Zubazkkake, high-level bro behavior featuring Gronk’s literal bros, bicep curls with a crutch, Ric Flair WOOOOOs and an apartment furnished by the Tommy Bahama catalog.

- Ndamukong Suh was ticketed for speeding in Portland yesterday, his second traffic incident in the last few months, which will do nothing to dispel the media narrative that Suh is a remorseless and uncontrollable menace out to slaughter the innocents and not send timely voicemails to Peter King when he should.

- D.C. Sports Bog points out that NFL Shop is selling “Rav Socca” jerseys.

I hope for the same with Matt Forte, so foreigners might assume the Bears have a dead running back.

- Aaron Rodgers said that thinks Matt Flynn is capable of being a top-15 quarterback, a statement that people have jumped all over because it implies that Rodgers thinks Flynn’s absolute peak is slightly above the middle of the pack. Only time will tell whether dueling talk radio blowhards were right about this being HEINOUS DISRESPECT or TOADYING OVEREVALUATION. I’ll be rooting Flynn to be exactly the 15th best quarterback, so the result can be EERILY PRESCIENT.

- Didn’t get around to doing a Kill! Kill! Kill! post for this week, but I was going to use this clip of lions killing an elephant. Sure, I used a lion clip in last week’s kill post, but then a lion did pee on Ochocinco last week, so I feel the jungle king has earned an extended stay.

- As a marginal NFL receiver, Sam Hurd never once had a single rap call-out dedicated to him. Yet as soon as his double life as a drug kingpin was discovered, it was only a matter of time before Hurd’s name was shoehorned into a really bad hook. Eh, Pacman didn’t have to go to all that trouble and he got an “Archer” mention. It’s all about creativity, not scale.

- Plaxico Burress described the prospect of his return to the Giants as “a great possibility”. I’m sure Giants fans would sooner take another half dozen Gilbrides.

- “Sorry, Tim Tebow won’t be on ‘The Bachelor’” – my heartfelt condolences to no one

- Jerry Rice isn’t knocking Alex Smith or anything. He just thinks the 49ers would be better off with the 36-year-old weakened arm of Battleship Manning or possibly a rolled-up carpet wearing a helmet.

- The Washington Post‘s Mike Wise shared this unfit-for-family-newspaper Redskins-era Gregg Williams anecdote with Dan Steinberg over Twitter, giving the world even more bad things to call Gregg as he’s run out of the league in disgrace. In addition to complex defensive schemes, the man had complex homophobia. Lemme get this straight: you miss your hole, which means you land in a gay man’s hole, which means AIDS. Gonna have to diagram that one for me, coach.

“Blown coverage, Smoot! This ain’t no scrotum chewing festival!”

“Well well well, if it ain’t Mister Bookbanger!”

- As Bountygate (or KillShotGate or SlayForPayGate) continues to work its way through the media cycle, we see more and more self-righteous pearl-clutching from veteran sportswriters who wonder aloud how we as a society could have condoned the barbarism that is the NFL as long as we have. After smelling Joe Posnanski’s and Charles Pierce’s farts, it’s scary how reasonable Buzz Bissinger can seem.

-In other non-Gregg Redskins-related terrible quote hilarity, Mike Shanahan said in an interview that the ‘Skins already had “a playoff-caliber offense” last season. In his defense, the Broncos did make the playoffs last year.

- The Packers opted not to franchise back-up quarterback Matt Flynn, so Green Bay won’t receive any compensation when he gets a huge contract elsewhere. Worse still, people are starting to describe his free agency as “Flynnsanity”. Why do we do these things to each other?

- Chad Ochocinco was peed on by a lion at a Voice for Children charity event on Saturday night in Miami. He then made a “I got peed on by a real lion and I ain’t lying” joke on Twitter, so safe to say he retroactively had it coming.

-Holley Mangold made the U.S. Olympic weightlifting team. We’re happy for her, but not as happy as we are to revisit original Deadspin memes.

It’s probably a sad commentary on the combine that a lot of people view Rich Eisen running the 40 as the highlight of the entire event. Then again, it’s hard to deny America’s love affair with lumbering, middle-aged white guys. Gotta hand it to Eisen – he’s steadily improved his time over the eight years he’s subjected us to his stunt. At this rate, Rich will have RGIII’s 40 time in, oh [pulls out abacus] 15 years. Save your draft picks, Washington, trading up for Eisen won’t come cheap.

That’s a decent effort, MJD. Next time, stuck to your A-material.

You know, if Eisen wants to make a spectacle of himself, the least we could do is put him through the rectal depth measurements that actual draftees have to go through. Who knows? Eisen could grade out as a first-round talent as pegboy for ol’ Double J.

Elsewhere:

- Barry Sanders filed for divorce from his wife. That’s a shame. Most believe he could have had at least four or five years of happy marriage before he would have had to hang it up.

- In his regular Tuesday follow-up to MMQB, Peter King examines the likely destinations for Peyton Manning. Among them, he lists Seattle, a city he describes as pleasingly “remote” where Manning could enjoy “relative privacy”. Yeah, I can imagine after playing in a media epicenter like Indianapolis for over a decade, Pey-Pey could use a deserted outpost like Seattle, where the Seahawks play on the expansive lawn of some guy’s cabin in the woods.

- Marcus Vick is in hot water with John Law yet again. Best case scenario: he goes to Mike for help, they high tail it for the border but trip themselves up by holding up a McDonalds just before crossing into Mexico.

- SportsGrid posted this Cleveland Browns fan’s license plate. Like most Browns things, it is sad. Like all sad Browns things, I enjoy it immensely.

- It appears that the bitchy comments that Brady Quinn made in Michael Silver’s GQ piece, while technically accurate, don’t represent the full picture of what Quinn had to say about the Runslinger in his interview, to which I say “I don’t geeeve a sheeet” in a bad French accent. Meanwhile, Busted Coverage compiled a list of 21 butthurtastic tweets from Tebow fans irate that one of the gays decided to get uppity and speak his mind.

- Speaking of Timmah, we already did something gagging on his reading “Green Eggs and Ham” to the non-home-schooled children, but we didn’t put together a bizarre animated autotune video of his reading, and that’s an important thing.

- Warren Moon’s ex-wife was charged for public lewdness for allegedly getting it on at a rodeo trail ride camp. We applaud Felicia Moon for her choice in setting, but the real hero of the story is super chill trail veteran Nannie Francies.

“Well, they were out on the field, so whatever,” said Nannie Francies. “I don’t see it as big deal. When people go out on the trial, people tend to do what they want to do.”

- Clinton Portis, remember him? With the wacky aliases and tough pass blocking leading to constant injury? Well, he wants to make a comeback. Except some other NFL players thought Portis died over the weekend, which might hamper his return bid. Thankfully, it turns out Sheriff Gonna Getcha was only Twitter dead, not real life dead. So the comeback will go on as scheduled [checks NFL's schedule] wait, no it won’t. Sorry.

Read the rest of this entry »

- The Chiefs signed former Raiders cornerback Stanford Routt to a three-year, $19.6 million deal. The arrival of Routt, seen above getting beaten by new and possibly temporary teammate Dwayne Bowe, likely spells the end of Brandon Carr’s tenure in Kansas City. Will that ratchet up Peter King’s dreams of free agency mayhem? Hard to say, but I’m thankful to see even the most marginally exciting of player transactions. It’s a helpful reminder that the next season is only six and a half months away, as opposed to seven. [Has 20-minute crying jag only ended by the sight of Reese's Peanut Butter Cake]

- Vince Wilfork, Kevin Faulk and Randy Moss recently went snorkeling in the Bahamas. It’s the most football players wearing snorkels spotted in one place since the Vikings sex boat. As a helpful service to the people of the Bahamas who are concerned over Wilfork’s presence on the beach, I enclose this helpful graphic.

- Sticking with the theme of Patriots-related goings-on in exotic locales, Dreamboat is continuing his hard target search for Gisele’s ass in Costa Rica.

We’ll let you know if he finds anything. Or if Barstool gleefully posts any more naked pictures of their children.

- Our off-puttingly nice friends up in Canadia are now free to waste their money on shares of Packers stock. It’s a fair trade. We got universal health care. Now they get to get in on doin’ it the right way.

- One woman endeavors to rank NFL starting quarterbacks by their marriageability. Before you read further, I’ll go ahead and warn you that the author is of the belief that “Matty Ice” is a “super-cool nickname”.

[top pic via Getty]