You Get What You Pay For?

The Texans revealed that their new safety Ed Reed (formerly of the Baltimore Ravens) recently "underwent arthroscopic surgery last week to repair a labral tear in his hip," according to the Houston Chronicle and briefly reported by ESPN. In talking with Shawn, these were my immediate reactions:

a) TOTALLY thought the article said he had a "labial" tear, which is VERY different than a "labral" tear.
b) Ed COULD just be faking this to get out of OTAs and work-outs because he HATES doing those.
c) Ed's old for a safety (35), and his body is that of a much older person (90).
d) The Texans are probably regretting their choice right about now... (Speaking of: "This was not in the Texans' plan when they signed Reed.")

Shawn's take on the news:

"All I can do is laugh. Picking up high priced, old free agents is always a bad idea. Always. I hope his labia comes out alright though."

"I Don't Think that Word Means What He Thinks It Means."

My lovely fiance Steve passed along this little gem of an article with the caption I used in this entry's title.

Apparently Mark Sanchez is "thrilled" to have competition for his job. He'll be "fighting" against the other 40,000 quarterbacks the Jets picked up/drafted because OH GOD NOT MARK SANCHEZ AGAIN they seem to be saying.

As always the commenters and trolls on Pro-Football Talk have come out of the woodwork to ban "Hotdog." Here are some of my favorite posts:

The Openly-Gay NBA Player & the Incomprehension of Mike Wallace

In a ground-breaking announcement today, NBA free agent Jason Collins has become the first non-retired professional athlete (baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer) to come out as a gay  man. As you can imagine, the internet exploded...until Tim Tebow got shit-canned, and then everyone moved on. Sorta.

I'm an active ally in the LGBT movement, so I'm incredibly proud of Mr. Collins for taking the brave step of coming out and being true to himself. As he says in his Sports Illustrated article, "I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, "I'm different." If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand."

Mike Wallace, formerly of the Steelers and currently of the Dolphins, was apparently the first person to "say something dumb" about Collins' revelation:

(Source)

Honestly, as far as athletes' reactions to LGBT news, this is really, really mild. Wallace isn't hating on Collins specifically, or even gay men in general; he just said that the idea of someone being with a person of the same sex was a foreign concept to him. Now, I'm not trying to excuse Wallace's comments entirely; they WERE dumb and fairly insensitive to the gay community. But really? Admitting ignorance on a subject rather than just Twitter-blasting hate speech isn't, in my opinion, something to get that worked up over. Chances are good my comrades in the LGBT community disagree, but that's the lovely thing about being a human; we can all be a part of a supportive, collective movement and still disagree with one another.

Give Mike Wallace a break. I'm sure he got mad schooled by hundreds of people (on Twitter and on blogs) for every several dozen of fans supporting his statements. He took the tweets down and immediately apologized. Hopefully in the future he'll think twice before tweeting and maybe do some research as to why "guys wanna mess with other guys" to purge the ignorance from his mind.

Whomp Goes the Tebow

So in news that shocked NO ONE, Tim Tebow has been released by the New York Jets. Of course, ESPN, your leader in All-Things-Tebow-News, has been having rage-induced orgasms over the story all day, despite the fact that there are several other important things going on in the world of sports. (More on that in another blog entry to be posted later today.)

When the Jets first purchased (for lack of a better word) the divisive player, many of the saner NFL fans asked, "Why?" The Jets kept talking about how Mark Sanchez had their undying loyalty, yet they brought on a quarterback who, even though he wasn't really that great at all, had spent his rookie year going to a playoff game and turning around a floundering team that didn't think they'd see the light of day, much less a post-season. I figured it was just another way for Coach Fatty to keep the spotlight on him and keep the Jets relevant. Tim obviously wanted to go to Florida to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars so he could be closer to his family and probably so he wouldn't have to deal with the batshittery that the team in New Jersey would bring to his life. But no. No one likes Tim Tebow, so off to New York he went.

So far, it doesn't seem that any teams have expressed interest in him. I wonder if he'll continue in the NFL as an overpaid back-up, or if he'll "retire" and move on to do motivation speaking gigs about The Lord across the country?

Gettin' Slammed by the Author of Dragons

Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is a HUGE Jets fan for some unknown reason. As a man with a powerful voice and throngs of adoring fans, he took to the internet to express his disgust with the recent Jets decision to release "Revis Island" for two draft picks.

“It is hard to be a fan of the New York Jets,” Martin wrote. “They have hardly done anything right since Joe Willie Namath won SuperBowl III, and every time you think maybe they are finally turning the corner, they find some new way to screw things up."

OH, SNAP!

Good Thing He Didn't Get Any Guaranteed Money!

The Ravens recently-signed linebacker Rolando McClain, formerly of the Oakland Raiders, was arrested ELEVEN DAYS after joining a team that was willing to give him a (risky, IMO) second fourth chance. Reports out of Decatur, Alabama said that Rolando was at a park with 700 other people, there was some kind of fight, the cops tried to break it up, our boy got all N.W.A. on the situation and started screaming, "F*CK THE PO-LICE!" then resisted arrest, because that's OBVIOUSLY a good idea. According to the above (second) link, the 23-year-old was already out on bond because of some shenanigans earlier. I'm seriously beginning to wonder if this guy has ANY common sense...

Obviously I discussed the situation with Shawn, who laughed as much as one would expect a Steelers fan to laugh. (Probably because for once, it wasn't one of HIS players committing a crime.) While this isn't a verbatim quote (he refused to type one up for me, claiming he was "busy doing his job), this was the basic gist of why he thinks the Ravens drafted such a high-risk player in the first place:

"Rolando McClain seemed to be a reasonable option for the Ravens before the draft to fill the holes in their defense that they created when many of their players left or were cut. It's not that McClain is a bad player; he's just a personnel risk from a legal standpoint. Ravens' management wanted to go into the draft [which starts this Thursday] with the ability to draft players that they want, that will be the best option and NOT the players that they need to fill empty spaces on their roster."

JP Starkey of SBNation agrees with Shawn: it was a risk to hire McClain, and he's now put the Ravens in an awkward position only two days before the draft. The team is still deciding what to do, and it's hard to think that they'll make a decision in the next couple of days. Then again, I don't know anything about the draft, so we'll just wait and see.

I Don't Think That's What Troy Meant, Mr. Lewis...

Transcript:

Troy: "Mr. Lewis and Mrs. uhm..RaNikki? What do you think the Ravens are going to do in the first round?"
Ray: "DRAFT?! I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S ON TAP! LOL!"
RaNikki: "I think we're going to draft a sassy Italian girl from Baltimore!"

It appears that Ray has no more fucks to give about anything football related. It also appears that I'm going to be a lineback for the Ravens (if they're smart!).

NOTE: I'm not yet a "Mrs." I'm getting married in August. <3