Friday, August 21, 2009

Oh Matt, you so funny 12

Asked for a reaction to former Packers teammate Brett Favre signing with the Vikings, Matt Hasselbeck:

"Oh, he did? I didn't hear that. Seriously? Wow. I was watching ESPN all day and never saw that. Didn't even know. Tell him congratulations."

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Tweet Links

The addiction to Twitter continues to grow as we enter football season. Be sure to check out a bunch of great links on the right side of the blog, or follow me @Vishal620.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Uniform

Washington Redskins tight end and blogger Chris Cooley writes about some of the NFL's ridiculous fines for uniform infractions including:

$5000 fines
- High/Low whites on socks
- Pants not covering knees (no skin should show below the waist)
- Bandana
- Wrong nasal strip
- Hand towel alterations - towel must be 7 to 8 inches and have no tape on it
- Tape not the same color of the shoe.
- Jersey untucked (usually there is a warning for this one)
- Jersey cut too short
- Sleeves coming out of jersey - only QB can have this and only a certain amount can come out
- Chinstrap undone ($7500)

$10,000 fines
- Personal messages
- Any second offense fine
- Wrong attire 90 minutes previous and after a game - clothes must be Reebok apparel
- Tinted visor - must have a doctors note for a tinted visor

There is also a special fine schedule for the post season. The minimum fine in playoff games will be between 10 and 20 thousand dollars. The minimum in the NFC Championship is between 50 and 75 thousand and for the Super Bowl the minimum is 100 grand. It's been made very obvious the NFL and it's sponsors want the players to dress accordingly.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Adam on Peter

Adam Schefter pens a tribute piece to Peter King.

These are two of the best NFL columnists, and I cannot possibly imagine following football without them.

Is it football season yet?

Monday, August 10, 2009

Meetings

After another enjoyable and exhausting weekend in Vegas, I had to wake up early this morning in order to make an 8:30am meeting. Of course, I beat the Los Angeles traffic and am one of the first people to arrive at work only to find out that the meeting has been postponed to 10:00am. Alas, I now have some time to learn how other "meetings" go (via Rumors and Rants):

Pete Carroll’s meetings with his USC Trojans have become the stuff of internet legend over the past few seasons. From having players fake-arrested, to impromptu visits from Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell, the coach Carroll tends to keep the teams meetings, like the rest of his program, on the light side of things.

Last night was no exception.

According to Ben Malcolmson’s USCRipsIt blog:

It was American Idol night at the start of USC's team meeting Sunday.

In a scene made for a movie, freshman linebacker Marquis Simmons wowed the Trojans with a rendition of "Lean on Me" that had the roomful of players, coaches and staffers standing, singing along, locking arms and swaying to the tune.

What started off as an impromptu sing-off between Simmons and fullbacks Stanley Havili and D.J. Shoemate at the onset of the meeting turned into a runaway for Simmons, who easily won thanks to never-before-seen audience participation that brought laughter, smiles and joy to all crammed in Heritage Auditorium on this Sunday night. And to top it all off, Coach Carroll played piano during the song, making it quite a festive environment.

An impromptu sing-off developed between fullbacks Stanley Havili, D.J. Shoemate and freshman linebacker Marquis Simmons. It culminated when Simmons’ rendition of “Lean on Me” was aided by audience participation. The result was the whole team chipping in to help the freshman - even Carroll, who accompanied him on the piano.

Congrats to Simmons for blowing away the competition and winning the contest.

In case you were wondering, my work meetings are nothing like this. Gotta love Corporate America.

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Hall of Fame Bonding

It has become the ultimate cliche, a swollen self-parody of itself. But it's still the ultimate Hall of Fame male bonding place. That's why we went in June. And in July. And now in August. And we'll be back again.

And maybe in a few years we'll be sitting at that Saturday buffet talking about our wives, kids, and mortgages, but at least we'll still be laughing and busting each other's chops like always.

Vegas, baby.

Vegas.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Oh Shaq, you so funny

Shaquille O'Neal on Mason & Ireland in Los Angeles (via sportsradiointerview.com):

We heard you in an interview and your response to the worst player you ever saw was a tie between Kurt Rambis and Mychal Thompson. What didn’t you like about Thompson’s game?

“I never even really seen his game, they just told me to name some horrible players. Those were the guys that came to mind, never really waste your time and saying things as a youngster, ‘Oh, I wanna be like Mychal Thompson. Oooh, look at his baseline fadeaway. Wow. Daddy, can you teach me the Mychal Thompson fadeaway? Sure, son. Forget Kareem, let’s work on Mike’s moves. If I could be like Mike.”

What do you think of Kurt Rambis as a coach?

(Shaq makes distortion noises over the phone, hangs up and calls back). “That’s what I like about him, and if you ask me the same question again, I’ll lose another connection.”

You’ve played in all warm cities, do you have enough clothes for Cleveland?

“I have a lot of clothes, I just hope PETA doesn’t get upset when I bring out some of my old stuff. (Host: You gonna break out the old fur?) I didn’t use that word! I just said old stuff. I just said stuff.”

Rashard Lewis was suspended for taking testosterone, do you think a lot of NBA players are taking performance enhancing steroids?

“I don’t think, I’m gonna go with no. However, I can say, a lot of guys including myself, we do go in to these GNC stores and for example, we look at a bottle and it says, ‘Fan Man Buster Plus’ and it has a nice little picture on the thing, we’ll buy it without even doing the research or looking at it. But, I think now guys really have to look and see what’s on the back so we’re not taking anything. But, again, most people when they read the labels they just buy it, ‘Fat Booty Buster Plus - lose your fat booty in 10 days.’ But, I don’t think the guy was like, ‘Let me use a steroid.’ I’ve known Rashard a long time and he’s not that type of guy.”