Thanks, But No Thanks

When Deion Sanders played defensive back in the NFL, he made life miserable for wide receivers. He's keeping that streak alive today.

Sanders has become a mentor to many young football players coming out. He holds a Deion camp to prepare players for the NFL Draft and he invites different players in college and the pros to his home for convivial activities. In this process, players have grown to trust Deion's counsel as that which is in their best interest. They might want to rethink that.

Two different players, both wide receivers, have made the news recently for their involvement with Sanders and is wasn't good news in either instance.

Well, it was good news for 49er first round pick Michael Crabtree in that he finally signed his contract to end the longest holdout of this year's NFL draft picks. The bad news for Crabtree is the he got about the same amount of money he would have gotten if he had just signed back before the season like every other draft pick did.

Now Crabtree comes to a 49ers team that has been successful without him, he's never played in an NFL style offense before, and he's over a month behind in learning the San Francisco playbook. He's essentially destroyed his rookie season and burned any number of advertising opportunities, plus he has to rebuild his soiled reputation with the fans. All because Sanders (amongst others in his group) told Crabtree he was worth more money than what he was slotted to get as the tenth pick of the draft.

Gee, thanks for the advice Deion.

Now we find out that Deion may have inadvertently ruined another player's year when Oklahoma State star receiver Dez Bryant lost his college eligibility due to involvement with Sanders. Bryant was the top offensive threat at Oklahoma State and a top ten draft pick. Now he leaves the Cowboys in a ditch for the rest of this season and may have injured his draft stock since NFL teams pay so much attention to character issues these days.

Sanders doesn't take the full blame on this because Bryant is the one who lied to NCAA investigators who asked if he had dinner with Deion. Bryant thought it was a violation of some sort, so he lied and said he hadn't. Deion confirmed they did. It was a panic move by Bryant and a stupid move too.

But does a player really lose an entire year of eligibility because he said he was somewhere else? Is Bryant really the only player that has ever lied about stuff to avoid getting into trouble? And if Deion is such a mentor to these guys, wouldn't that little tidbit have been brought up?

If Bryant only had dinner with Sanders and got ruled ineligible for simply lying about it, that is truly an unfortunate occurrence. But it's possible that there were other people in the room aside from Bryant (like agents who are barred from speaking to college players).

It may never be proven if Deion was simply mentoring a young kid who is eventually going to be in the NFL, or if he had something more selfish in mind. Either way, two young players have had involvement with Sanders and both of them have to clean up a mess.

A Now For Something A Little Lighter

It's called SportsPants, but it's not always about sports talk.

If you haven't seen it before, Zach Galifianakis (bearded guy from The Hangover) has his own little internet talk show called Between Two Ferns. It's just Zach and a guest sitting on a set titivated by, what else, two ferns. Wonderful interviews:

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis from Between Two Ferns

Stone Hands Finds A New Home

What's the deal with the Cleveland Browns and New York Jets? I know Browns coach Eric Mangini came from the Jets, but New York head coach Rex Ryan wasn't working with him there.

Yet here we go with another big trade between the two organizations. First, the Jets trade with Cleveland on draft day in order to grab quarterback Mark Sanchez. Now the Browns send ole Braylon "Stone Hands" Edwards to the Big Apple in exchange for Chansi Stuckey, Jason Trusnik, and a few draft picks.

Edwards has All-Pro talent, but in Cleveland he has valued foofaraw over production. Browns fans probably aren't too sad to see Edwards take his pass dropping skills away from Ohio. In New York he gets a fresh start and a last chance to prove that he's worth his hype.

Meanwhile, Mangini is apparently obsessed with his former players on the Jets because he's now traded for five of them. The result is a wonderful winless record as the Browns are possibly the worst team in the league.

If Edwards becomes realizes even part of his potential, the Jets get themselves a big time playmaker in exchange for an average reciever, a special teams player, and a couple of mid-round draft choices. That's well worth the price.

Cleveland fans should hope that the New York Jets stop coming to the Brown's front door for a trade. New York already got the team's quarterback of the future while Cleveland fumbles around with Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson. Now the Jets may have a top flight wideout to make plays (if he can learn to catch a ball.)

Meanwhile, Cleveland gets more average players who might fit Mangini's system, but don't change a game. I know that Mangini is following the Bill Parcells blueprint of gathering players that believe in your system in order to change the culture of the locker room, but Mangini has no playmakers, so he's going to have to wait until next year's draft to find some. Time to go back to the drawing board....again.

Be Careful What I Wish For

Human 1: Did you know Texans owe their lives to Oklahoma?

Human 2: They do? Why?

Human 1: Because Texas would have fallen into the ocean long ago if Oklahoma didn't suck so much.

As most of you know, I'm a big Texas Longhorns fan. This inherently means that I hate the Oklahoma Sooners. I wish nothing but failure on the team and often wonder aloud why Sooner fans are spread throughout Texas like a flu virus if they love Oklahoma so much. I can't help it, I was brainwashed by my family at an early age to become a burgeoning Texas fan/Sooner hater.

This is why I'm so happy these days. Oklahoma is officially out of the national title hunt. Even if they go undefeated the rest of the season, there will be no national title in Norman...again. Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy

But wait, there is a downside to this wonderful turn of events.

One thing Oklahoma did this season was actually play a difficult non-conference schedule. The fans got to see the Sooners play big games against BYU and at Miami. It was a rare treat considering most big college programs rarely take the chance at an upset during the early part of the season.

The problem is that Oklahoma lost both games.

While the Sooners were playing those big time games, the Longhorns were playing such juggernauts as Louisiana Monroe, Wyoming, and Texas/El-Paso. Texas won those three games by a combined score of 164-37. Wow, way to test yourself Longhorns.

In a slight defense of Texas, Arkansas backed out of a game against the Longhorns this year, but that still doesn't get close to the Sooners strength of schedule.

And here we are now, the Longhorns coasting as an undefeated national title contender while Oklahoma had it's nationl title dreams dashed before confernece plays even began.

Gee, what do you think teams will do in the future, schedule tough (aka interesting) games or throw a bunch of patsies in there? It's sad because I love watching college football, but there's only so many 66-7 blowouts I can take. Fans deserve more, but they'll never get it after what has transpired this season.

The one way this could help the fans out is for Oklahoma to beat Texas in a close game next week. That way, people could argue that the Sooners difficult early schedule better prepared them for the Red River Rivalry than the Longhorns row of weak sisters.

But that would mean that I'd have to root for Oklahoma and we know that will never happen.

Sportsmanship? Try Disgrace

Another game ruined by the refs.

You'd think the esurient NCAA executives would want as much entertainment value for their gazillion dollar college football enterprise as possible. Instead, they harp on the issue of sportsmanship and use that word to suck all of the fun out of games.

College football referees are told not to allow excessive celebrations when touchdowns are scored. This rule is intended to cut down on the "look at me" attitude displayed by players and the taunting that used to go on. Basically, the sportsmanship rule was put in place to counteract the gong show that took place at the University of Miami. Those Miami teams of the late 80's and early 90's looked like a who's who of police reports with assaults, guns, rapes, drugs, and all sorts of neat stuff.

But the excessive celebration rules have gone too far the other direction. The Georgia/LSU game this weekend proved that. Georgia scores a potential winning touchdown with one minute left and the receiver who scored runs and jumps into the arms of his teammates in pure ecstasy.

Flag. 15 yard penalty for excessive celebration to be assessed on the kickoff.

Excuse me? He just possibly won the game and you're going to flag him for celebrating with his team?

The call quite possibly changed the outcome of the game as LSU suddenly needed only a few extra yards to kick a game winning field goal (the Tigers actually won on a break away run against a stunned Georgia defense.) The call became the talking point of the post game show:



When a post game wrap up is centered around a referee call, that's not a good sign, especially when it's a call that doesn't occur during a play. Let it go, refs. Let the players decide the games.

Hard Feelings

Well, that was fun. For a fleeting moment, we all thought Chicago had a great chance to host the 2016 Olympics. The city was the odds on favorite to win the bid because of the well built infrastructure and a certain president who calls it home.

Yet even Barack Obama's impassioned speech couldn't save the Windy City from being the first city eliminated from the running in a stunning turn of events. Rio will be the host city for the 2016 games, the first time the games have gone to South America. Good luck keeping order in that beautiful, but crime infested city. My over/under on kidnapped tourists is four.

Looking back, maybe we shouldn't be so stunned that Chicago was quickly dispensed by the Olympic committee. After all, they don't like American venues too much.

The last summer games held in America didn't go over too well with those Olympic types. The 1996 Atlanta games were widely criticized for a bevy of things including the power play of Atlanta based Coca Cola to make itself the sole soft drink served at the Olympics, the incredible number of vendors who attempted to compete with the licensed Olympic shops, and the general over-commercialization of the entire Olympic Games.

Oh, and a bomb went off in the Olympic village. That kind of sucked too.

Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch famously stood at his podium (probably with an incarnadine face) after the games ended in Atlanta and said that the 1996 games had been "most exceptional." At all the prior Olympics he oversaw, he would proclaim that the games were "the best ever." He resumed saying that at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Point taken.

Chicago would have been a great host for the Olypmics even without the prescence of Obama. It's just a swell city and the Olympics would have at least given Cubs fans something else to do in the summer besides bitch about their team. Alas, America apparently has a sullied reuptation among the Olympic committee members. Some day though. Some day the summer games will visit the American heartland.

Deal Or No Deal?

Things just aren't ever easy when you're a noted dog killer. Mike Vick swears that he's now a adjuvant to society these days, but for some reason people don't believe him. Maybe it's because he lied through his teeth the first time he was questioned about his involvement with dog fighting.

Now Vick is back in the NFL playing for the Eagles and today we learned that he signed a new endorsement deal with Nike. Finally, things are looking up for him!

Apparently no one informed Nike of this because the shoe giant has denied actually signing Vick to a contract. The company only lent some of the products to him.

Time for Vick's agent to do some tap dancing because this might get a little embarrassing. Lots of news sources have already announced the endorsement deal and aren't going to be happy with a simple amendment of "well, he sort of did." Or maybe the newspapers will be happy. Another story for tomorrow!