NFL Announces This Year's Lame Musical Act for Opening Week

Diddy to headline kickoff concert. Great. Whenever an article refers to the headlining act as a mogul rather than an artist, you know you're in for trouble. But that wasn't even the most disconcerting fact concerning this years Kickoff celebrations. If you want to spend the next couple minutes questioning your sanity and the collective well-being of mankind, by all means, read on.

5. The Show will also air a performance by Rascall Flatts from Heinz Field.

4. Diddy will be joined by Cassie, Tego Calderon and DJ Riz for the South Beach performance. At the risk of sounding like an old man, I have no idea who these people are and I'm sure their music is too loud. Now get off my lawn.

3. The NFL's marketing campaign this year is called "One Game. One Dream." The only way this can be rectified is if Don Cheadle is prominently involved.

2. The Opening Kickoff special will air on NBC, the same network that ruined the Olympics.

1. Diddy is a three-time grammy winner.

Someone Hired Millen?

Sweet fancy Moses! What was the NFL thinking? Matt Millen is now a part of the NFL's Competition Committee.

Millen has a few rule changes he plans on introducing over the next couple of years:

All players will be eligible to receive passes. This will allow Millen to draft wide receivers for years to come. Mike Williams makes more sense as an offensive guard anyways.


Yardage from the 90s will count as tiebreakers in the current standings. There has to be some way to take advantage of Barry Sanders.

The Lions will play only on Federal Holidays. Presenting the Lions 2007 Schedule:
Monday, Sept. 3 - Labor Day - @ Packers, vs. Vikings, vs. Texans
Monday, Oct. 8 - Columbus Day - vs. Bears, @ Colts, @ Giants
Sunday, Nov. 11 - Veterans Day - vs. Eagles, @ Vikings, vs. 49ers
Thursday, Nov. 22 - Thanksgiving Day - vs. Packers, @ Redskins, @Titans, vs. Colts
Tuesday, Dec. 25 - Christmas Day - @ Bears, vs. Buccaneers, @ Patriots

Some will question the logic of playing a minimum of three professional football games in one day, but the Lions are 33-30-2 when playing on Federal Holidays. You can't argue with success.

All General Managers and Team Presidents cannot be fired. He's working on a bylaw censoring fan-made signs calling for said firing.


A league-wide ban on gay marriage. Possible ramifications with lesbian cheerleaders be damned, Millen wants to destroy Steve Mariucci and his partner, Tom Izzo.

We're going to need a bigger blog, pt. 2

A serendipitous announcement has forced a sequel to my previous shark post. I certainly hope it doesn't suck as hard as Jaws: The Revenge. Anyways, here's the news:

Yao Ming will no longer eat sharks.

Specifically, Yao has given up shark fin soup, a popular Chinese dish. This announcement came as part of Yao's involvement with WildAid, a wildlife conservation group. Yao, a former Shanghai Shark, stated in his press conference that "endangered species are our friends. Despite the fact that Yao's pledge is essentially lifted straight from Finding Nemo -- "Fish are friends, not food" -- he seems pretty dedicated to the cause. So dedicated he stars in a WildAid PSA that unfortunately doesn't have any sharks, but is pretty awesome anyways.

We're going to need a bigger blog

Shark week may be the greatest event in television today. It appeals to one of the most basic notions of human existense: Sharks are terrifying. And awesome. They are alternately awesomely terrifying and terrifyingly awesome. I'm going to have sharks on the mind all week, so it became unavoidable that I would do a little piece on the sharks of the sports world.

San Jose Sharks - The winner of the original naming contest was the "Blades," but the name was deemed too violent. Naturally, "Sharks" was the non-violent alternative. You know, because Sharks doesn't convey violence at all. Any sort of fear the name might have inspired was negated by the team color, teal. All in all, I never understood the logic of naming a hockey team after aquatic animals. The water is frozen. It just seems incongruous.

Greg Norman - Poor Greg Norman. Although his logo is pretty cool. Nice hat too. I really don't want to say anything mean about the guy.

Jeff Samardzija - Nicknamed not for his athletic prowess or killer instinct, Samardzija is simply called "Shark" because he looks like a shark. Although one can assume he is as personable as those killers of the deep because he goes to Notre Dame, collegiate center of jackasses.

Ron Jaworski -One of my favorite ESPN personalities, Jaws mostly breaks down tape for NFL Matchup. No one does more with less. He only really talks about one play per week.

Drew Rosenhaus - Essentially nicknamed himself in his book A Shark Never Sleeps. Another chapter in his long story of douchebaggery. (And some sharks do sleep...in their own sharky way.)

EA Tiburon - The wonderful people who make Madden. They are why when you create a franchise, the default name is Tiburon and the default logo is a shark. Easily the greatest sharks of the sports world.

Update: Miami Sharks - Per Matt's suggestion, the fictional team of Any Given Sunday. The decision making process for that team name can be summed by Lenny Leonard: "Uh-oh! Sharks! The assassins of the sea!... Oooh. You're not sharks. You're dolphins. The clowns of the sea."


Thats all for now. If I missed anything--and I'm sure I did--leave it in the comments or e-mail me. I'll leave you with these words of wisdom from Quint, one of the greatest characters in cinematic history:

"Here's to swimming with bowlegged women."

Charles Barkley considering contemplating possibly running for Governor of Alabama...maybe

But he won't. This man complains about the hours at TNT.

Donovan McNabb more of a pussy than MTV reality show contestant

Those of you who aren't following the latest installment of MTV's Real World/Road Rules Challenge (or claim you aren't, you liars) are missing quite the heroic performance by one Evan.

You see, Evan has been struggling through a sports hernia. He injured himself a few episodes ago and since then, has valiantly climbed over a river on a rope, swam with sharks, and drug hay among other strenous events. All this with a sports hernia that is so serious that Australian doctors say he should stop participating in the Challenge. Evan heroically refuses to give in or even let his competitors know of the intense pain he is experiencing. Even his partner, Coral is unaware of the nature of his injury.

All this leads me to one simple conclusion. Donovan McNabb, NFL quarterback, is not nearly as tough as Evan, a college student on a reality show. Evan is toughing it out to win wonderful prizes from STA Travel and T-Mobile, Donovan couldn't even tough it out to win NFL games for which he was being compensated generously. Goddamn pussy. Rush was right.

The Chick on Monk Pulls a Bobby Valentine

First, I will not apologize for watching Monk. I'm an old soul. I have been described as Grandpa-ish. I enjoy Monk. So sue me. Monk is consistently entertaining television. Get off my back.

Monk airs on Friday night, so I usually TiVo it and watch on Saturday afternoon. But I had an early Saturday, so there was significantly less boozing on Friday night. As boozing decreases, television viewing increases. So, I watched Monk. Once again, lay off.

Well, without explaining the entire episode, Monk and his lovely assistant are coaching a girls basketball game. Monk's assistant gets two technicals and is ejected. She solves the case while brooding in the locker room and returns to the court in the mascot costume. But after reporting her discovery to the Chief, she remains on the bench with the mascot head removed. The ref clearly sees her. The opposing team should be shooting free throws that instant. The opposing coach should be throwing a fit. None of that happened.


The game was pretty well choreographed up to that point. (It was girl's basketball, it's hard to screw that up.) The re-creation lost all credibility with the poor officiating. Damn cable television and their unrealistic sports scenes ruining my Friday nights. (Note: That was the most pathetic sentence written in the history of time.)