clay matthews mnf11 wide

Some guys have it and some guys don't, and by "it" I mean the ability to attract undue attention from wire photographers before, during and after the game.

Consider Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews. Seven pictures of him went out on the AP wire during Monday's night victory over the Minnesota Vikings. Aaron Rodgers was the subject of four.

Matthews is deserving of the attention, to be sure. And it's not like I blame photographers. Unless there's a championship belt around, Rodgers doesn't fill a frame like the linebacker. Witness him flipping his fair like Rita Hayworth:

clay matthews hair flip mnf11

{YSP:more}Wrestling with Visanthe Shiancoe:

clay matthews shiancoe mnf11

Showing off during warmups:

clay matthews one-hand catch

And fitting some football into all of that too:

clay matthews sack mnf11

federer wins paris 11

Roger Federer knows better than to go against the wishes of his sleepy 2-year-old daughter, even if it's at 4 a.m. on the night before a tournament final.

The tennis great told reporters following this last weekend's win in the Paris Masters that he and his wife were awoken the night before the match by one of their toddler twin daughters. Instead of pleading with her to go back to bed so he could rest before the match, Federer quickly cut his losses. He explains:

"It happened many times that she wakes me up in the night this year, but I was not in the finals 25 times. I was hoping that during the night it would go well, but suddenly I was running with Mirka in the room to see if everything was okay. And she said, 'Let's take her in our bed.'  I said, 'Okay, let's do that.' I didn't even question this. I just said okay. I can't have a fight at 4:00 in the morning with her."

He got enough rest to defeat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in straight sets and to lift the heavy tournament trophy over

This is just about perfect. Here's an advertisement for next year's Stockholm Open depicting tennis legends as young children.

My personal favorites: Young Novak Djokovic and young Arthur Ashe. And it was also interesting how young Roger Federer was unsuccessful with his Tweener. Must be that legendary Switzerland-Sweden beef.

Big racquet clap to Beyond The Baseline for the find.

gruden scowlFake Jon Gruden breaks down Monday night's National Football League matchup between the undefeated Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings.

Aaron Rodgers -- Let me tell ya, if there was a vote right now, this guy would be the u-nan-i-mous Most Valuable Player of the National Football League. He does it all! He's got the arm, he's got the legs, he's got the swag, like Charles Woodson says. And he does it while keeping a whole roster of receivers happy! He loves those guys, Mike. He's like the character on that HBO show with all the wives, keeping everybody satisfied by dishing out a little here and there. It's the sky's the limit here in Titletown U.S.A.

Adrian Peterson -- We know he's fast, but have you seen this guy jump? He'd leap right outta the gym! What an athlete.

Brett Favre -- This guy is ageless, Jaws! Not only is he playing like a kid out there, he's looking like one. Just like a fresh-faced rookie, Favre replaced Donovan McNabb three weeks ago and came in and almost beat the

decker troops

Legal in the NFL: Scoring a touchdown and then running 100 yards down the sideline to give the ball to your girlfriend who's a cheerleader for the opposing team.

Not legal in the NFL: Scoring a touchdown and saluting the troops on Veterans Day weekend.

Denver Broncos wide receiver Eric Decker was assessed with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Sunday after dropping to his knee and saluting in the end zone after a 56-yard touchdown reception from Tim Tebow. The flag was thrown because Decker went to a knee, a celebration which has been illegal in the NFL since 2009.

Later, Decker posted a tweet about the penalty:

Screen Shot 2011-11-14 at 12.57.07 PM

Ripping on the NFL is the reflexive move here. The league wouldn't let a player salute the troops! It's positively un-American! The troops fight for our freedoms while the NFL stifles that of their players!

To go that way would ignore the long history the league has of supporting our nation's armed forces. November has been a "Salute to Service" month in the NFL, a

We may have found a punter that can contain Devin Hester.

In a recent game, Chris Milo of the Saskatchewan Roughriders booted a CFL-record 108-yard punt. Sure, it came on a longer field on a windy day and with different rules but 108 yards? That's impressive no matter the league.

What's with these wacky Canadian rules that count the punt from the point of impact? In the states, we'd count Milo as having punted from the 22-yard line, where the ball was snapped. In the CFL, Milo's punt total starts from where he boots the ball, which was at the 12. That's an extra 10 yards. Sammy Baugh would have averaged 60 yards per punt if the NFL used a similar system!

So it's actually a 53-yard punt that got some great bounce. But with the extra 10 yards because of the rule difference, the extra 10 yards on a Canadian football field and all that roll, it was tallied at 108 yards. Even better, it counted for one point for the Roughriders because the kick wasn't fielded in the end zone.

You know what never gets old? (Besides Ray Lewis and that clip of Terrell Owens crying about Tony Romo.) Spanish announcers enthusiastically calling big plays in Arizona Cardinals games. Here are the two biggest ones from play-by-play announcer Gabriel Trujillo during the Cards' upset of the Philadelphia Eagles. You'll never refer to Larry Fitzgerald in the same way again.

Fact: Larry-Larry-Larry Fiiiiiiiiitzgerland sounds a lot better than Early-Early-Early Doucet.

More than half of NFL teams have Spanish language radio broadcasts for games. Trujillo has been calling Cardinals games for the past 12 seasons.

Some of the New England Patriots defensive starters were so unexpected on Sunday night, NBC didn't have video of them introducing their alma mater for the network's player introductions. Instead, NBC had to run a conspicuous still photograph with no accompanying audio.

It's as if Jeff Tarpinian and Sterling Moore are so mysterious, they're like a combination of Sasquatch and the international jewel thief who has only been photographed once in his life in a cafe on the Riviera. The real story is less exciting: Both players are relatively new to the team and neither were expected to start until late Sunday night.

Tarpinian, a fourth-year player from Iowa, was signed from the practice squad in late September and had played mainly on special teams until his surprise start on Sunday.

Moore signed as an undrafted free agent with the Oakland Raiders but was cut from the team's practice squad in late September. He joined the Pats practice squad later that month, was elevated to the 53-man