Tuesday Football Rundown

Time is money, so we're jumping right in:

1. This is hilarious. For people to suggest that he did this because he's betting on the games is even funnier. It seems there are better ways to alter the outcome than taking out the QB. I've watched it a few times and I just don't see how what the ref did can be seen as anything other than a ref losing his mind momentarily. Where's the fine??



2. Kellen Winslow may be coming out of his pocket for his mouth. Winslow is not happy about how the Cleveland Brown treated him following his three day hospitalization with a staph infection, a problem the Browns have been trying to sweep under the locker room floor. They should have known they were going to have an issue if this guy got it. He's a "freakin'" soldier, after all. Maybe now they'll try to figure out why it's happening instead of trying to hide it. Staph infections? Seriously, that's just gross . . . and Winslow's entirely too pretty for all that.

3. Let's call this one "more like 'sucking' Broncos." Monday Night Football featured a blowout courtesy of the New England Patriots, who whooped up on the Denver Broncos 41-7. Were the Pats looking to prove on the premier stage that they still got it even without their golden boy? I think so.

4. Adam "Pacman" Jones has entered alcohol rehab. I believe that means one of two things: a) he (or his people) reads the blog, and/or b) he's coming back to the NFL. "Both a) and b)" is also an acceptable answer.

5. Looks like we're going all football, all the time today. The morning-after death knell tolled again, and this time its victim is San Francisco 49ers coach Mike Nolan. Apparently, he wasn't going to be fired:

Earlier Monday, [49ers VP Jed York] had said Nolan's job was safe for the time being."What changed," he said later, "was there were numerous reports (that Nolan would be fired) that were a distraction."

That may be one of the weakest excuses I've ever heard for firing someone. So Nolan's job was safe until people started saying his job wasn't safe, at which point his job became not safe and was in fact in extreme danger. Nice.

6. Try to catch the ESPN commercial with Dwight Howard and Tracy McGrady (and some others you probably wouldn't know) featuring new additions to the team RV. If I can find it online, I will post it. Good stuff.

Jemele Hill . . . Miss Bojangles?

Whoever said being a writer or even a blogger was easy . . . well, I've never heard that, so hopefully that means no one is saying it. When you put your opinion in the public sphere, where it can never be erased, you are basically putting a sign on your back that says "Kick Me in the Buttlocks*." Because you're going to get abused.

Check out this blog called The Starting Five, a site that's quite well done as far as blogs or even websites go. It contains a post about a TV appearance today by ESPN Page 2 writer and sometime sports analyst Jemele Hill. For those of you who are not familiar with Hill, I think it's safe to say that she's the only African American, female sportswriter currently employed by a "major" sports outlet.

To my dismay, she does not have a Wikipedia page so I was forced to do more searching than I wanted to find out about her. According to a Michigan State University website, which indicates that Hill won a 2007 Outstanding Alumni Award, she graduated from Michigan State in 1997, receiving a BA in journalism. Apparently, she covered a variety of major sporting events while working in Detroit for several years with the the Detroit Free Press. Some of the other facts on this page (such as her age and the length of time she has been with ESPN - see here) seem off, but this part of her bio was interesting:

According to a recent study prompted by the Associated Press Sports Editors, she is the only African-American female sports columnist to be found at the 305 newspapers surveyed.

See, I knew it was safe to say.

Now, the site gives picture credit to the Orlando Sentinel, but doesn't mention that she was a sports columnist with Sentinel for two years prior to upgrading to ESPN. According to The Starting Five's previous interview with her, she went to ESPN because it afforded her the opportunity to write and do television. (As if anyone needs to explain why they went with ESPN!) Say what you want about her often controversial opinions (see her open letter to young black men - and her video response here - or this, or this blogger's dissatisfaction with her), but she's starting to show up everywhere. Although I don't always agree with her views, I can appreciate that she does not shy away from saying what's on her mind. And, she balances her more controversial pieces with stories like this.

Well, Starting Five didn't quite pin her to the mat, but it did take her to task for apparently stating during her appearance on Outside the Lines that racial bias is to be expected in the court system. The blog thoroughly analyzes the implications of her statement, concluding that Hill went further than she needed to go to make her point.

While I was intrigued by the analysis in the blog, the comments to the post came right at her neck, accusing her of everything from "selling out" to "bojangling."

I think I found my new tag line: "Pleats 'n Cleats - selling in since 2007."

* No this is not a typo. This is the actual response given by a client when asked "Sir, where were you shot?"