Huddle Up : Ochocinco’s Bullride, The Pope and Tampa’s Hard Knocks

Gather up. It’s time to take a look at some of the news in the world of football.

Hail to the King, Baby!

With as much praying as the Saints teams and fans did to win the Super Bowl a couple of years back you’d think that team owner Tom Benson would automatically add the Pope to the list of people getting a Super Bowl Ring.

Turns out the Pope was left out and had to admire Benson’s ring when Tom Benson and wife, Gayle, attended a papal audience at St. Peter’s Square during Holy Week. As is custom, Benson kissed Pope Benedict XVI’s Fisherman’s Ring. Then Benson showed the pope a ring of his own.

Troy Polamalu Gets Him One Of Them Edumacations

The 30-year-old Troy Polamalu finally got his degree from the University of Southern California. With a little free time thanks to the lockout, Polamalu attended the graduation ceremony and talked about finishing his education on his website.

I’m thrilled to announce that on this cool, sunny Friday morning I donned a cap and gown, walked across the stage in the beautiful Alumni Park at University of Southern California, and was handed my diploma. I’m officially a USC graduate! While I feel excited and fulfilled, that’s not really what I want to focus on in this message — I want to talk about the reason behind my decision to go back and finish what I started.

The majority of top picks in the NFL get drafted before they complete their college education. I truly love football and it’s such an immense blessing and privilege as an athlete to be given the rare opportunity to use those talents at the highest professional level, but it’s certainly not a replacement for an education. So I decided to finish what I started and walked that stage today not only because it was very important to me personally, but because I want to emphasize the importance of education, and that nothing should supersede it.

D.C. media Debates McNabb’s Lack of Play-calling Wristband

It’s a slow news day in D.C. as the media picks up a rather crazy thing to pick on QB Donovan McNabb. Today, it’s the play-calling wristband. It started when news came out that Donovan McNabb refused to wear a wristband to help him remember plays, according to this report.  The debate about whether or not McNabb thought the wristband made him look stupid or not is now up for debate with the rest of the media.  Begin the fun and please, hurry up the lockout.

Raheem Morris, Bucs Say “No” to HBO’s “Hard Knocks” Television Show

Citing the need to focus on training for the upcoming season, the powers that be in Tampa gave HBO a nice “No Thank You” when offered to be the team of focus for this year’s “Hard Knocks,” a series that focuses on an NFL team getting ready for the season. The popular series followed the New York Jets last year to give us an insight into the dirty mouthed coaching staff and players.

But in the end, the Bucs said they would like to keep the cameras out of Tampa for now. The organization has been the focal point of several arrests in the offseason this year and stated they would be up to be on the show at a later date.

The Bucs, in announcing their decision, said they hoped to “keep the focus on the field and what we hope to accomplish in 2011.” That’s, perhaps, a suggestion that the show would be a distraction — one of the main concerns of any team weighing this option. Another concern for the Bucs is their growing list of off-the-field concerns with a number of recent arrests. That list is highlighting by the pending charge of aggravated assualt with a deadly weapon against cornerback Aqib Talib(notes), a case that could be playing out right about the time the show gets underway in August.

Don’t Blink! You’ll Miss Ochocinco’s Bull Riding Career

Chad Ochocinco is keeping busy during the NFL Lockout. First, he tried his hand at soccer. Now he’s trying professional bull riding. Next week I expect to see him at my local roller derby.

The cool thing is Ocho made the most of it as he usually does and donate the $10,000 prize for showing up and attempting the ride to charity. Soon other sponsors showed up to boost the prizes including a new Ford truck. Thankfully, it wasn’t a prize awarded for him staying the full 8 seconds because Ocho barely made it out of the gate and last just 1.5 seconds. “A” for effort though.

Top 10 NFL Draft Busts since 2000

I was introduced to the idea of a draft bust in 1998, that was the year Ryan Leaf entered the draft, along with Peyton Manning, Randy Moss and Charles Woodson. Before this time, I was a NFL fan, but I hadn’t yet blossomed into the full-time, diehard football dweeb I am today.

I can still vividly remember the pregame hype surround the Rose Bowl that year between Ryan Leaf’s Washington State Cougars and Charles Woodson’s Michigan Wolverines. Leaf, to his credit, led the Cougars back to the Rose Bowl for the first time in 67 years.

They had a great passing offense going into the teeth of one of most-hyped and best college cornerbacks of a generation in Heisman Memorial Trophy winner Charles Woodson.

Leaf lost that game. Woodson validated his winning of the Heisman. Those who preferred Manning over Leaf were nodding their head in agreement. That day, not the draft, was the beginning of the end for Leaf. And somewhere, Randy Moss was being Randy Moss.

Every year, the NFL Draft provides immense fame, glory and potential riches to a new group of young men. Yet year after year, NFL talent evaluators crash and burn by selecting a bust. Some guys pan out and others don’t.

With the 2011 NFL Draft recently over, I thought I’d revisit some of the biggest draft busts since 2000 since if you’re 21 years old right now, you were maybe 8 years old in 1998. You were too busy listening to “Closing Time” and “Bitter Sweet Symphony” to care about football. Or if you’re closer to my age, watching “The Big Lebowski” and “American History X.”

In this list, I’ll cite one bust from 2000 to 2009 and give some honorable mentions. One final note, some “classic” draft bust selections aren’t quite as bad as others.

Click on the image below to begin the gallery.

Former Buckeye, Cowboy RB Ron Springs dies at 54

Former Ohio State and Dallas Cowboy running back Ron Springs died Thursday at the age of 54. For the younger generation who might recognize that name a bit you will know Ron as the father of Shawn Springs, the NFL star who played with Seattle and Washington as well as attending Ohio State.

Springs passed away from heart failure Thursday. He suffered from diabetes and had undergone a kidney transplant, when he went into a Dallas hospital for a routine procedure to have a cyst removed from his arm in October of 2007. He slipped into a coma and never regained consciousness.

“My father was a proud man obviously being a Buckeye and a professional football player,” Shawn Springs told WTVN radio Friday. “He prided himself on being a strong physical man and to see my dad in that situation, where he couldn’t do anything for himself and he was hooked up to machines was tough for my family.”
[via WTAM.com]

Ron Springs had been in declining health over the years. Ron Springs received a kidney transplant from a former teammate, Everson Walls, in 2007. Sadly Ron fell into a coma after an operation to remove a cyst from an elbow when he went into cardiac arrest and lapsed into a coma. He never regained consciousness.

Ron Springs died on Thursday in Dallas. He was 54.

Boxer Bernard Hopkins Thinks Donovan McNabb Isn’t Black Enough

Piling on the Donovan McNabb hate train with Redskins coach Mike Shanahan is boxer Bernard Hopkins. Why the boxer decided to pop out his opinions on McNabb is odd but here you go.

Hopkins believes that McNabb has let down his race. Yikes. We’re not just talking about throwing too many INT’s here. Hopkins goes full racial here and states that McNabb may have watched “Roots” but he just don’t understand it.

JUST DAYS before a title bout that could eclipse the miracles of George Foreman, ageless phenomenon Bernard Hopkins addressed what really matters:

Questioning former Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb’s blackness and mettle.

According to Hopkins, McNabb had a privileged childhood in suburban Chicago and, as a result, is not black enough or tough enough, at least compared with, say, himself, Michael Vick and Terrell Owens.

“Forget this,” Hopkins said, pointing to his own dark skin. “He’s got a suntan. That’s all.”

Hopkins also implied that, while Vick and Owens remained true to their roots, McNabb did not, and that McNabb was rudely awakened when the Eagles traded him to the Redskins last year.
[via Philly.com]

Kinda reminds me of couple of months back with Jalen Rose and Grant Hill when Rose pulled out the Uncle Tom references as well. Hill, to his credit, fired back with an awesome response basically telling Rose to stop being ignorant.

 

Great White Flight, Vikings Move To Suburbs

Hey y’all! Who wants to head out to see the new Vikings home in the suburbs?

It’s awful sweet. Got a white picket fence, two-thousand car garage and …. OK…it is on a cul-de-sac but that’s alright. It’s easy to get to. Just head out of town northly and you’ll end up in Arden Hills. It’s a nice little town full of nice people. You’ll have a good time. Be sure to step into J.J.’s Diner for some grub. You’ll thank me later!

The Minnesota Vikings said Tuesday their team’s future is in the suburbs, just like the Detroit Lions did in 1975 when they moved to Pontiac, Michigan. You remember that Silverdome thingy, don’t you? Well, forget that the Lions moved back into Detroit a few years back. This move is for good.

The deal would help keep the Vikings in Minnesota although not in Minneapolis. The Vikings and Ramsey County announced they are working on a $1.1 billion retractable-roof football stadium in the Arden Hills area which is about 10 miles north of their current home at the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis.

While the deal is not good for the Twin Cities and Hennepin County, it is good for the Vikings who are without a home and rumors are swirling that the team will be sold and moved out of state.

Besides, change is good.  The Vikings had a horrible season last year and seemed to be cursed.  The team got injured, the coach got fired, Randy Moss returned for a few days, Brett Favre got a scandal and the Metrodome collapsed from the Will of God who was just having fun at that point.

Seriously.  They had to put the stadium down with a shotgun! It was that sad.

The Vikings and Ramsey County proposed a stadium at the site of a former Army ammunition plant in the suburban city of Arden Hills. They said they want to build an $884 million stadium, with an additional $173 million for onsite infrastructure, parking and environmental cleanup, for a stadium that would open in spring 2015.

The Vikings would pay $407 million of construction costs, or 39 percent, while Ramsey County would pay $350 million, which is 33 percent. But the necessary third leg of the funding, a proposed $300 million from the state of Minnesota plus an additional $100 million in transportation improvements to the area, was in question after a key state lawmaker called that total tab a “non-starter.”

Sweet! Seahawks Players Crank calling Roger Goodell

Chester Pitts and Raheem Brock are a couple of Seattle Seahawk players who have teamed up with atom.com for a funny spoof in pranking Commissioner Roger Goodell about the lockout. They get in a few laughs in the video but I’m willing to bet they won’t be laughing later in the season when the two are constantly getting fined $10,000 for uniform violations.

Jared Allen vs The Rookie Bling

Minnesota Vikings defender Jared Allen enjoyed watching the NFL Draft last week but there is one thing on his mind. And if you know about Allen you know he’s not shy about speaking his mind.

Allen recently joined a sports radio show in Arizona to talk football and expressed his unhappiness about the owners causing the lockout.  Also, it turns out that Allen was a tad taken back by the fact that so many players showed up decked out in expensive jewelry and clothing.

The ‘bling‘ did not sit well with the mighty hunter!  The only ‘bling’ Allen owns is his sterling silver and elk bone mullet brush.  Check out the excerpt below or hit up the full interview here.

Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jared Allen has a message for NFL fans. Don’t blame the players, blame the owners.

As a guest of Sports 620 KTAR’s Doug and Wolf Thursday morning Allen vented some frustration on the current predicament he and other players find themselves in currently.

“I’ll be curious to see what happens with free agency,” he told the hosts. “First of all we have to get to this stuff. So if the owners can kind of quit locking us out every time we win to get football back. It seems there’s another road block put in front of us to say ‘we don’t want to play’.

Allen talks about his frustration with the NFL lockout.

“To all of our fans. Us as players, we’re trying to play football. I know people are getting pissed off saying it’s just millionaires and billionaires arguing over money, but there are some other issues to be discussed. The bottom line is players want to play football.”

When they’ll get their chance to play football is anyone’s guess. What is becoming abundantly clear though is that it’s not just the fans who are frustrated with the entire situation, the players are too.
[via Arizona Sports.com]

Monday Pigskin Links with Lakers Choking

Armless, Legless Man Throws Out First Pitch!

Lamar Odom Pushes Nowitzki, Ejected from (Embarassing) Game 4 [Video]

While 26 points behind the Mavs, Lamar Odom thought it best to send off Phil Jackson into retirement by embarrassing the Lakers with a purely classless hit, sending Nowitzki to the floor with a couple of elbows and a few unkind words. Props to Dirk for remaining calm as he looks towards the Western Conference finals.

Alison Brie Running: Animated GIFs

It started a few minutes after 8 p.m. last night when I received a text. Two minutes later, I got pinged on Twitter. Throughout the course of the evening, people also contacted me over email, Facebook, the Warming Glow comments, singing telegram, and passenger pigeon, and they all had one emphatic request: animated GIFs of Annie (Alison Brie) running down the hallway in part 1 of “Community’s” season finale, “A Fistful of Paintballs.” In the future, I’m just going to make one person responsible for operating the Tit Signal. It’s like the Bat Signal, but sexier.

Rondo’s Dislocated Elbow

So after that happened, Rajon Rondo went into the locker room and they popped his elbow back into place. FUUUUCK THAT! I would have told the doctors to just leave my shit alone, I’ll live.

Man’s Loses His Penis When Drunk Friend Shows Off Samurai Sword Skills

Sixty-one-year-old Bulgarian Zaprian Lozanov and his friend, 43-year old Lyubomir Todorov, were at Lozanov’s flat tossing back some bevs, just getting absolutely hammer-time, and enjoying their day. You know, as Bros do. Then something unexpected happens; Todorov, a self-proclaimed martial arts expert (he and Steven Seagal have something in common), catches eyes with a samurai sword and the rest, as they say, is history. By “rest” I mean, Lozanov’s penis… because Johnny Martial Artist got a bit loose with his technique.

Green Men Back Harassing Predators and Carrie Underwood

On Saturday night the Nashville Predators avoided elimination with a strong win in Vancouver thanks to Joel Ward’s 2 goals and an assist. The Canucks seemed to run out of gas in the third period and allowed Nashville to go up 4-2 before snapping out of the funk and grabbing a goal with just a few minutes to go to make it 4-3.

Despite the loss, the Green Men proved they can still have fun. They even made a point to hold up a cutout of the Green Man who was guilty of doing a handstand against the glass which got them in trouble with the NHL head office. And just by luck, Predators center Mike Fisher, the husband of country music star Carrie Underwood, got a penalty which means the Green Men were able to dust off their cardboard cutout once again.

Osama Bin Laden Is Dead. How Various People Saw The News

Ding Dong, the douche is dead….

The POTUS announced Sunday night that he paused his DVR marathon of “Parks and Recreation” to tape the news that the U.S. has finally caught up and plugged Bin Laden in the head. A team of highly trained Navy S.E.A.L.S. stormed the compound of Bin Laden and took down the thug.  Here’s how various people saw the news of Bin Laden’s death.

LeBron calls a reporter’s question ‘retarded’

LeBron James isn’t a moron. He’s just incredibly, unbelievably immature. It comes off in how he carries himself, from throwing away his warm-ups to “The Decision” to his rampant flubs in the media. I say this not as one of the scribes who has habitually and constantly crushed James for his ego, but as a writer who doesn’t think wanting to change job locations or positions is a terrible thing, even if you do it in an impolite way, and who has defended James’ game from attacks on his basketball character.

The Future Careers For Favre

The NFL Lockout is back in gear but I’m still holding out hope that there will be a football season this fall. Brett Favre indicated this week that he might return to football. Before you strain your eyes by rolling them over and over know that he’s talking about coaching. Favre says he would like to become a coach or perhaps go work as a television analyst.

The 41-year-old Favre ended a 20-year playing career after an injury-plagued 2010 season with the Minnesota Vikings. The former Southern Mississippi star has famously wavered on retirement over the last few offseasons. But the three-time NFL Most Valuable Player has told WDAM-TV in Hattiesburg on Thursday that he was “starting a new career.”
[via Yahoo! Sports]

Favre is about on cue for his spring gossip about returning to the game. Thankfully, he’s eying the sideline or press box. Either way it looks like the dude is still interested in staying in the public eye which, I think, is not the best thing.   I’d like to see him lay low for awhile so I can forgot the attention-whore gimpy pervert and try to remember the studly general with the goofy grin that he used to be.

Texas High School $60 Million Stadium Update

One of the biggest posts we have had on the Pigskin Doctors was the story about the Allen Texas High School that was going to start building a $60 million stadium. In a time when most schools can barely afford to pay their salary or get new books we have this football-hungry sector of Texas going crazy on spending for a sports complex and the post generated a lot of contrasting feedback.

The situation revolved around the decision to spend the money on the sports.  The community is football crazy and supported the stadium with an easy win in the voting booths and bonds to help fund the outrageous price tag.

So, what will $60 million get you? It’s not just football here. Golf, wrestling and even music are getting facilities in the bundle. And the revenue stream is expected to pour into the whole funding for teachers and not back directly into the athletic department.

“It’s hard when people are losing their jobs and you’re building a $60 million dollar stadium and an auditorium and things like that,” school athletic director Steve Williams told CNN. “But…those are two separate things. You can’t take that money for buildings and hire teachers with it.”

If the stadium works and helps support the school in the long run, namely the teachers and students as a whole, than the process is worth it. However, I don’t see too many schools able to pony up that amount of money to support their sports in hopes of supporting their school. Besides, you’re talking about an 18,000 seat stadium for a school with only 5,000 students.

Allen, Texas is the exception. Not the rule.

The stadium is currently being constructed and on track to open up for football next year. The Allen Eagles High School Stadium isn’t the largest one in Texas. There are at least four larger high school stadiums in Texas, but they are typically used by more than one team. Here’s some updated video on how the stadium is progressing.

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