Category Archives: Sports
Johnny Football
As his stock dropped, and the Cleveland’s second pick in the draft approached, a squirming Johnny Football texted Browns’ quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains.
Loggains told “SportsTalk with Bo Mattingly” on ESPN Arkansas 96.3 that Manziel sent him a text that read: “I wish you guys would come get me. Hurry up and draft me because I want to wreck this league together.”
And so the wreckage began. The Browns traded up two spots and took Manziel with the 22nd pick. Same place they picked Brandon Weeden and Brady Quinn in drafts of yesteryear.
Johnny Football after Midnight
The most action Manziel has seen since then was when an overly affectionate fan touched off a bench clearing brawl in his live-in hotel last week. The 2:30 a.m. workout didn’t sit well with the Browns’ brass.
All seems forgiven. Johnny played two series of downs in Sunday’s loss to Buffalo. He scored a touchdown and fumbled in his own end zone. Good enough for a possible start against the Colts this Sunday.
Update:
Not quite good enough. Hoyer will start on Sunday.
DEA NFL
Here’s a new headache for the NFL, and this time it’s not from concussions.
DEA agents raided traveling NFL team docs and trainers last Sunday. They snooped through their bags searching for painkillers. The idea being that since they were traveling from out of state, the docs might be prescribing drugs without a license.
Interestingly, being out of state doesn’t prevent the players from being hit with local taxes in the state where a game is played.
Where Have You Gone, Derek Jeter?
Got the idea for this one from a Daniel Henninger column of the same name. It’s not a coincidence. I stole it. But I did embellished it with a picture.
Henninger links Jeter to Joe DiMaggio, another Yankee class act of a different era. DiMaggio was an even better player, plus he married Marilyn Monroe. Henninger’s interest is in great players who shut up and play by the rules.
Jeter won the game with an RBI base hit in his last at-bat in Yankee Stadium. He won’t play shortstop again. But he will come to the plate as a DH at Fenway Park where Ted Williams hit a home run with the last swing of his career.
He got chop single today in a 10-4 loss.
NFL vs. NOW
The NFL is in a panic over angry women and angry sportswriters, sometimes one and the same. Commissioner Roger Goodell held a press conference yesterday to announce a crackdown on football players behaving badly. It played to very bad reviews. He apologized and promised a new and more sensitive NFL. But no number of pink ribbons will satisfy the National Organization for Women. President Terry O’Neill immediately renewed calls for Goodell’s head.
Never mind that the arrest rate for NFL players is lower than the rate for adult men in the general population. Here’s a chart from Deadspin.
NFL vs. NOW
So, why the uproar now? Ray Rice was seen last February dragging his unconscious fiancé Janay Palmer out of an Atlantic City casino elevator, caveman style. It was obvious something brutal had happened. Rice was charged with aggravated assault and placed in a one year pre-trial intervention program. The NFL suspended him for two games. With the unpleasantness behind them, Janay and Ray got married and lived happily ever after.
That is until an elevator video surfaced this month on TMZ showing Ray actually dropping Janay with a left hook. Then the NFL took action to punish the victim by taking away her husband’s of income. Rice was suspended indefinitely.
Video footage evidently concentrates the mind, whether it’s of a knockout punch or a beheading. That puts Commissioner Goodell and President Obama in the same boat. Well, not actually, NOW still likes Obama.
Ray Rice’s Knockout Game
The knockout game was played in Memphis last weekend. It’s a game in which random people get sucker punched by punks. The idea is to knock the victim senseless. The knockout game is senseless.
But after seeing Baltimore Raven Ray Rice cold-cock his fiancé in an elevator I think I get it. The knockout game is a new NFL fantasy league.
