Mon Nov 23, 2009 12:18 am EST
NFL history is littered with nauseating injuries. Joe Theismann. Napoleon McCallum. Ed McCaffrey. Don't click any of those. They're all just nasty (and yet, perfectly preserved on YouTube forever).
Today, another such injury was added to the list. Eric Wood(notes), a promising rookie lineman for the Buffalo Bills, suffered an injury just as sickening as any of those listed above.
CBS, during the game, refused to show a replay of the injury. The internet being what it is, though, it is available for easy viewing online (unless the video gets pulled, which wouldn't shock me). It is, as promised, gross. You can click the play button, or you can not click the play button. Your eyeballs, your call.
Told you.
I do want to add, too, that I'm philosophically opposed to CBS refusing to replay an injury because they've deemed it too graphic for me. We're all watching football, we're all aware that it's a violent sport and we're all aware that things like this can happen. I'm not saying anyone wants to see it happen, but we know it's a possibility.
The fact of the matter is that an injury to Eric Wood is a major part of the game. Networks are supposed to show major parts of the game. They don't have to show it 50 times, and they don't have to celebrate it, but they should give people a warning that it's graphic and they should show it. It's newsworthy. It's as relevant to the game as any touchdown, field goal or interception.
Wood's leg, as you may have guessed, was broken, and he'll have surgery in Jacksonville. He's done for the season. We all with him the speediest and quickest recovery.
Gracias, SN's The Trenches.
Sun Nov 22, 2009 11:00 pm EST
In the span of just two minutes, Lakers star Kobe Bryant(notes): (a) hit a shot from behind the backboard after being forced baseline by Thunder rookie James Harden(notes), (b) nailed a pretty up-and-under reverse layup, and (c) banked home a difficult runner — with his left hand — to beat the first quarter buzzer.
He will accept the NBA H-O-R-S-E trophy from Kevin Durant(notes) post-game.
Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:17 pm EST

On Sunday night, Jimmie Johnson clinched his fourth straight Sprint Cup championship, and in so doing cemented his place among the greats of the sport. But he's done more than that; he's now propelled himself above and beyond NASCAR. He's the most successful athlete currently competing right now, and it's not even close.
Were this Tiger Woods snagging his fourth straight Masters, or Kobe Bryant clinching his fourth straight ring, or Tom Brady capturing his fourth straight Super Bowl, you'd be getting their greatness rammed down your throat 24/7. But this is NASCAR; the sports fan public knows they can't throw a pass 50 yards or hit a golf ball 300, but they figure they know how to drive fast and turn left. How hard could it be for Johnson to win some of those little races, huh?
Answer: plenty. Put aside the physical demands -- the intense heat of the car's interior, the physical strength needed to wheel a car for 500 miles. Even running a race -- to say nothing of winning one, or winning an entire season -- requires the mental discipline, ultrafast-twitch reflexes and utter, stone-cold fearlessness that only the best athletes possess. (And don't even start the whole "the car's the star, not the driver" nonsense. Equipment is a key element of every sport. When's the last time you saw a baseball player succeed without a bat, or a football player succeed without pads?)
So, with the playing field leveled, let's break down why Johnson is the top athlete at work today. For starters, you could argue that the level of competition in every single sport right now is the highest it's ever been. Kids train practically from birth to play one sport; sophisticated training techniques make today's marginal athletes the equivalent of yesterday's All-Stars.
Even so, Johnson has established a four-year gap between himself and his nearest competitors that's greater than any other athlete in any other sport. Nobody in any league is a prohibitive favorite; even Tiger is vulnerable these days.
Plenty of people both inside and outside NASCAR are dismissing Johnson's accomplishments, and that's too bad. They're missing out on history here. Nobody else is riding as high these days, in any sport, anywhere. And anybody who thinks it's certain to end in 2010 ... well, didn't we think that coming into 2007, 2008 and 2009?
Bandwagoners, here's a heads-up: push aside your Yankees caps, Patriots jerseys and Cowboys jackets and make room for some of Jimmie Johnson's gear. (He's the 48.) If you're the type of person who wants to jump on board a proven winning train, you've got one right here waiting for you, ready to roll.
For everyone else, take a moment -- just a moment, that's all -- to applaud what Johnson's doing here. You're not going to see anything like this again anytime soon.
Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:05 pm EST
Dana White's weigh-in day video blog takes you through the Friday before UFC 106. It's interesting to see the fighters standing in line to enter the Mandalay Bay weigh-in area. Josh Koscheck is standing with no Anthony Johnson present (3:40 mark). When asked where he is, Koscheck says he heard Johnson passed out trying to make the weight. When you finally see Johnson (4:45 mark), he does confirm that he had some issues and says he was "dehydrated."
Sun Nov 22, 2009 9:54 pm EST
One of the bigger surprises of the 2009 Chase came when Pat Tryson, crew chief for Kurt Busch, announced in October that he would be leaving the No. 2 Dodge team to go crew Martin Truex Jr.'s new team. Sure, it was an unfortunately-timed split, but the team looked like it was going to make the best of an awkward situation, and even managed to win the Dickies 500 in Texas. The split was looking almost amicable.
And then came Sunday night.
After a race in which he was leading but lost ground on the final pit -- a stop where he took two tires where everyone else took four -- Kurt took time to offer congratulations to Jimmie Johnson and tipped his cap to all his sponsors. And then he smiled, the kind of grin which has a name that we can't repeat or describe here but the word "eating" is in the name -- stared straight in the camera, and unloaded more dirty laundry than a college freshman home for Thanksgiving break.
"Maybe this is my best opportunity to throw my crew chief under the bus for giving me two tires at the end instead of four," he said. "We probably had a shot at winning, and I told him he had to keep an eye on the other guys ... Hey, I'm throwing him under the bus because we don't have him anymore and we're looking for a new crew chief."
Boy, with that guy in your ear every Sunday, the candidates have got to be just lining up out the door, right? Busch did throw some thanks Tryson's way -- "we worked great together" -- but finished by saying, "We'll find somebody great, somebody better, and we'll beat the 56 next year."
Between this and all the other little fights starting to break out around the track, it's almost a shame the season has to end, isn't it?
Sun Nov 22, 2009 9:30 pm EST

In a perfect world, the Doc would be given carte blanche to publicly torch the Bowl Championship Series in effigy and institute the elaborate, double-elimination battle royale of his dreams. But we live in the world we live in, so each Sunday the Doc looks at what the new BCS numbers mean for the rest of the season. Rooting interest: chaos. Always chaos.
• The more things change ... well, actually, we wouldn't know about that. We knew going into the weekend that there was infinitesimal chances of movement at the top, so to dispense with the formalities: The top seven is identical to last week's top seven, which was identical to the top seven the week before that. Florida, Alabama and Texas have occupied the top three slots in various orders in all six BCS polls this year and have no realistic expectation of relinquishing them, probably even after the Gators or Tide take a hit in the SEC Championship game. The only team that fell out of the top 10 was No. 9 LSU, which was probably overrated with no really quality wins, anyway (and remains so at No. 15 after its loss at Ole Miss, which somehow checks in 10 full spots below the Tigers, at No. 25, despite the head-to-head win, an identical record and a practically identical set of wins. But if we get into the injustices outside of the top 10 -- BYU is still in the top 20? For what? -- we'll be here all night).
The time is coming to roll out some moral outrage on behalf of undefeated TCU and Cincinnati for their pending snubs from the championship game, but by the system's logic, there's less and less point discussing their chances of crashing the Rose Bowl as the chances of any of the top three losing keep going down. (See below.)
The only relevant discussion left, then, is the jockeying for position for the last two at-large spots.
Sun Nov 22, 2009 8:33 pm EST
Schedule Breakdown
Four-game teams: DAL, DEN, LAC, MEM, MIL, MIN, NJN, NYK, ORL, PHI, POR, SAC, SAS, TOR
Three-game teams: ATL, BOS, CHA, CLE, DET, GSW, HOU, IND, LAL, MIA, OKC, PHO, UTH, WAS
Two-game teams: CHI, NOR
Also see: Basketball Monster's ease rankings and Rotowire's value meter
Pickups/Plug-ins
• Chris Andersen – For all the talk of how disappointing Andersen's production has been, he's still averaged 6.8 boards and 1.4 blocks in just 22 minutes while dealing with knee tendinitis. The knee is getting better and, from a matchup standpoint, you can't do any better than the Nuggets in Week 5 (NJN, @MIN, NYK, MIN).
• Anthony Morrow – Morrow has been up and down since joining the Warriors' starting five, but overall he's been solid in November (13.2 points on 56/56/90, 2.3 threes, 4 boards, and 1.1 steals in 32 minutes) and the playing time isn't going anywhere. Week 5: @DAL, @SAS, LAL
• Mike Dunleavy – Dunleavy could be back on the Pacers' active roster as soon as Wednesday, and now is the time to grab him if he's on the wire in your league. Be prepared for minimal production in the early-going, but the payoff down the line is what we're after here. Week 5: @TOR, LAC, DAL
• Randy Foye – Foye should get plenty of run while Mike Miller is sidelined (four to five weeks), even if it's DeShawn Stevenson who gets the call as the starter. There's only so much usage available after the team's big three get their share, but his playing time should be largely unchallenged. Week 5: PHI, @MIA, CHA
• Beno Udrih – Different week, same story here. In seven games as a starter, he's averaged 17.1 points on 52-percent shooting, 1.3 threes, and 5 assists in 37 minutes, and Kevin Martin still has a ways to go before he'll return. Week 5: @MEM, NYK, NJN, NOR
Sun Nov 22, 2009 8:29 pm EST
"Cry, Whine and Moan" is a weekly Sunday evening feature where fans of victory-challenged teams can gather to commiserate. Feel free to vent your frustration with your team's players, coaches or management in the comments below. And please, fans of teams who aren't on the list: Leave those less fortunate alone. This post is a taunting-free zone. The losers deserve that much.
Washington
Redskins. It wouldn't feel right to make fun of the Redskins this week, because the guys on the defensive side of the ball all did their jobs, and then some. As for the offense and the coaching staff ...
The following quotes are passed along from Dan Steinberg's DC Sports Bog, your online home for postgame quotes that somehow find a way to further humiliate the Redskins. The Redskins needlessly burned two timeouts in the second half. Here's Jim Zorn explaining the first one:
"Well, shoot," he said. "Yeah. We got caught on a clock, and I really don't know how it happened, because I felt like we got the play in, I felt like we were out of the huddle, and we were down to :01 [on the clock] before we knew it. Absolutely have no idea how that happened. Because we were moving in and out of the huddle pretty well then.
And here's Jim Zorn explaining the second one.
"And then on the second timeout, that use of timeout, that was just so frustrating to me. We hurt Jason on that play. I hurt him, because I didn't have the needed call, and we got caught on time again, where we had a shift and a motion and I had to call timeout because it wasn't gonna be [snapped in time]. It was just totally mine, totally on me. I screwed us out of that timeout. I did everything I could just to maintain my composure, and then it absolutely had an issue at the end of this football game, so it's just on me."
I think we're about two Redskins losses away from Jim Zorn sitting in front of the mic at postgame press conferences, pulling out an acoustic guitar and singing a song he wrote called, "If You Had Any Shred of Mercy in Your Soul, You'd Fire Me Right Now."
Cleveland Browns. You've got absolutely nothing to be ashamed about this week, Browns. Any bad team can be boring. But you and the Lions went out there and made a hell of a football game out of something that should've only drained our collective will to live. That is a contribution. I'm absolutely serious about that. Thank you, Cleveland Browns, for what you did today.
Buffalo Bills. I have no Bills or Jaguars on my fantasy team, I had nothing else riding on the game, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even have noticed if CBS decided not to send a camera crew down to Jacksonville for this one. I realize that that's unfair since the Jags are 6-4 and a playoff contender, but I think on a subconscious level I see that no one in Jacksonville even cares, so that makes me not care myself.
Seattle Seahawks. Brett Favre(notes) completed 22-of-25 passes for an 89% completion rate to go with his four touchdowns. Is that it, Seattle? You're going to let him leave town with just that? What about his hot oil rubdown, or the personal one-on-one concert from Sir Mix-a-Lot?
Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Josh Freeman(notes) is playing, learning, making mistakes and hopefully learning from these mistakes. That's the good news, slight as it may be.
St. Louis Rams. Way to hang around in the second half and threaten to make a comeback, Rams. Late in that game, you didn't like look like a 1-9 team to me. Somewhere around 3-7, maybe.
Denver Broncos. That makes four losses in a row, and if Kyle Orton's(notes) ankle doesn't get healthy soon, I feel pretty confident that it'll become five on Thanksgiving night. Chris Simms(notes) is a loooooong way away from his 2005 "prime," which wasn't that great to begin with. Orton wasn't himself, either, with the bum ankle. If that doesn't get fixed, a 6-0 start is going to be wasted.
Pittsburgh Steelers. I think Mike Tomlin called Marvin Lewis after last week's game and said, "Listen, that game was tough on both of us. We can keep fighting it out for the division after Thanksgiving, but what do you say we both just take this weekend off?" An agreement was made, and there was joy in Kansas City and Oakland.
Cincinnati Bengals. Honest question: When Bruce Gradkowski(notes) stepped in and won his first game as a starter, do you think JaMarcus Russell(notes) said to himself, "Wow, I've really got a lot to learn" or, "If it had been me in there, we'd have won by 30"?
Sun Nov 22, 2009 8:17 pm EST
All four teams in the AFC North lost today in as gut-wrenching a fashion as you could imagine. It'd be bad enough for an entire division to go winless (especially when said division is arguably the best in the NFL), but for each of the four teams to lose games in which they held fourth-quarter leads, well that's a whole new level of disappointment.
Shutdown Corner recounts the carnage, listing the games in order of least to most crushing:
Baltimore Ravens 15, Indianapolis Colts 17 – The box score doesn't look too bad: A two-point loss to the undefeated Colts is nothing to hang your head at. But when you consider that the eventual game-winner for Indy was kicked by Matt Stover(notes), the long-time Ravens vet who was cut in the offseason and that the Ravens replacement for Stover's replacement missed a 30-yarder in the third quarter, then it hurts a bit. Throw in a first-and-goal from the 1-yard line that resulted in a field goal and, ouch.
Pittsburgh Steelers 27, Kansas City Chiefs 30 (OT) – Losing while giving up two touchdown returns of 95+ yards, dropping an interception before the play that put the Chiefs in overtime field-goal range, having another possible concussion suffered by Ben Roethlisberger(notes), outgaining their opponent by 257 yards and holding the ball for 19 more minutes than their opponent would all be bad enough. But when it comes against the woeful Chiefs, that's a whole other level.
Cleveland Browns 37, Detroit Lions 38 – We already recapped this one earlier today on Shutdown Corner. The Browns have the distinction of being the only NFL team to lose this year after the clock hit zero while they had the lead. But a pass interference penalty gave the Lions another untimed down and the rest is another chapter of Cleveland infamy. For any other team this would have rated as the biggest stomach punch of the day. But, for Browns fans, it's just another regular Sunday.
Cincinnati Bengals 17, Oakland Raiders 20 – This game was done. The division-leading Bengals held a seven-point lead with under one minute to go and the hapless Raiders, led by a quarterback (Bruce Gradkowski(notes)) who hadn't thrown a touchdown pass since 2006, were facing fourth-and-10 from near midfield. But, just like that, Chaz Schilens(notes) hauled in a first-down reception and then, on the next throw, Gradkowski hit Louis Murphy(notes) for the game-tying score. So it was going to overtime. Except that Andre Caldwell(notes) fumbled the kick return with 27 seconds remaining and the Raiders recovered and kicked a game-winning field goal 11 seconds later. From one play from victory to one return from overtime to another crushing loss, all in a span of 43 seconds. On the bright side, at least Cincy knows how to deal with late-game disappointment.
Sun Nov 22, 2009 7:56 pm EST
In three of the New Orleans Saints' 10 wins this year, franchise quarterback Drew Brees(notes) threw a total of one touchdown and three interceptions. That's the key to making it through an entire season without losing a game -- when the Saints beat the Bills, Jets, and Dolphins in those games, they proved that they could win games in other ways. And now that Brees is back on track, the Saints have continued to roll despite injuries to their secondary. That's a lesson the Indianapolis Colts learned today, when they went to 10-0 on the season despite a sub-par performance from Peyton Manning(notes). Manning threw two interceptions and was held under 300 yards passing (admittedly, by only one yard) for only the second time this season.
Manning also got away with several other throws which were either bad reads or plays in which his receivers were not in the right place. Bottom line is that Manning struggled and the Colts didn't fall apart against a very game Ravens team. In their 17-15 victory, Indy relied on their defense to keep Baltimore out of the end zone, which they did by holding the Ravens to 0-for-4 in red one efficiency. That included a stand when Baltimore had the ball at the Colts' one-yard line and couldn't punch it in with three tries. When Ed Reed(notes) lost a desperation lateral on a punt return with 28 seconds left in the game, the Colts breathed a sigh of relief.
As for the Saints, they kept the "L" column clean in a more typical way -- a productive but conservative day from Brees (who threw for 187 yards and three touchdowns) and great gains from their newly effective running game. Mike bell(notes) scored twice and Pierre Thomas(notes) gained 92 yards on only 11 carries in the Saints' 38-7 walloping of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After the Bucs and first-year quarterback Josh Freeman(notes) impressed with an opening-drive touchdown, New Orleans shut things down and took advantage of Freeman's rookie mistakes. Freeman threw three picks, while Brees didn't have an interception for the first time in five games.
Next, the Saints will welcome the New England Patriots to the Superdome on Monday Night Football, a barn-burner that should leave even Jon Gruden unable to give nicknames to all the primary characters. Meanwhile, the Colts play the Texans in Houston next Sunday. You may remember the Texans as the team that gave the Colts a fairly tough battle with a 20-17 squeaker on November 8. If these two teams are still undefeated after their next games, they'll certainly have earned it.
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