News and Notes

We're two weeks from the start of another NFL season, meaning another hot season of PPFFL is right around the corner. Here are some news, notes, and thoughts on the impending season....

• As can be expected, Ron Mexico's guilty plea to dog fighting charges is hogging all of the headlines. What is being underplayed a bit in this mess is the way his three co-defendants rolled over on him so quickly. It's almost like he was David Carr and his buddies were the Texans' O-line.

• Yours truly was a little miffed to see ESPN holding a live fantasy draft the other day. Not only was this colossally boring (why I only watched about 10 minutes of it), it was insulting that the PPFFL wasn't offered a chance to televise our draft. In true ESPN fashion, they beat this shaky idea into the ground by making their fake draft last nearly as long as the real NFL Draft. From what I saw, Sean Salisbury is either retarded, or he has taken his "angry guy" schtick to the ultimate level; Jerry O'Connell (of Jerry Maguire fame) is almost as nuts as his brother who was once the craziest version of "The Bachelor" ever; and Nick Bakay is either a football savant, or (more likely) the ESPN experts have little clue about the game they cover. Bakay has won the league that last 2 years (apparently I missed the telecasts of the previous 2 drafts - shame on me). This is the guy who made his fame providing the voice of the black cat on "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch" and he's kicking the tar out of Salisbury, Mark Schlereth, Trey Wingo, and all of the other chuckleheads ESPN pays to analyze the NFL.

• Watching the fake draft ticker, I noticed Salisbury took running backs with his 1st 3 picks. Now, their league probably isn't as skewed toward QBs as ours, but it will likely be safe to predict that Sean will be shouting about how he can't get any decent play out of the QB position on his fantasy team and how he can't seem to find anyone to take Rex Grossman off of his hands.

• Speaking of Rex, he was on Monday Night Football in a "rematch" of the Super Bowl, and he seems to have picked up right where he left off. Fumbled snaps, interceptions, crummy throws...Rex was in midseason form. The Bears beat writer for the Chicago Tribune even went out to a youth football practice to see if any of the 10 year olds had advice on how Rex could better handle the snaps from center. Seriously. The prevailing opinion was that taking the snap wasn't really that hard and that random drunken fans taken from the concourses of Soldier Field would be better at taking snaps and handing the ball off than ol' Rex is.

• Tiki Barber threw Eli Manning under the bus with regard to his lack of leadership, then proceeded to drive it over him a few times. The criticism makes Tiki look rather shallow, but, honestly, does anyone out there think Eli is a dynamic leader capable of taking his team to great heights? Well, Grant Napear did say after Eli's first preseason game during his rookie season that he would be a Hall of Famer and his arrival was the beginning of a Giants revival (good luck getting Peaches to remember that bold proclamation). I would bet the farm that the Giants all breathe a massive sigh of relief if Eli can remember what color jerseys and helmets they are wearing at the beginning of each possession. And what about his speaking voice, which Tiki brought into question? The guy has ridden Peyton's coattails into numeruos commercials and has actually spoken absolutely ZERO times. If he ever gets a speaking part, the director will probably have Cooper Manning's voice dubbed in.

• Speaking of Mannings in commercials and Eli's suckitude, do you think Archie really wishes Matt Leinart was his youngest son? Sure, Leinart's a dead beat dad and a total meathead who lives with his mom and makes her pay for meals when they are out together but, if you can get past that, he most definitely throws the bean better than Eli.

• On a non-football note, Terry Fador recently won the big prize on "America's Got Talent". As if he was reading my mind, he celebrated his victory by admitting, "All I really wanted to do is find a place in the mainstream for ventriloquism." Amen, my friend, amen. Now let's hope the greats from the past like Jay Johnson & Bob and Willie Tyler & Lester start to get the credit they deserve.

• Better than Fador's win was watching David Hasselhoff sing live right before the winner was announced. It was, to put it mildly, brutal. Wonderfully brutal. What in the world do Germans see in The Hoff? I swear, though, if I was doing something where I needed a theme song, I sure as heck would be using that atrocious, yet spectacular, stuff.

• Back to football, and our league, for a moment, the official odds from Vegas have been posted as to who will win the 2nd season of the PPFFL. They are:

Kellogg Krushers 5:2

The Maestro 6:1

The Dominator 8:1

The Dragons 10:1

The Outlaws 12:1

The Bouncers 15:1

That's about all I have for this week. More updates will be added in the next couple of weeks as things of interest happen in the NFL, or in the world in general. Now, excuse me while I go watch the Giants blow another masterful performance by Matt Cain.

The Commish