Shutdown Corner

Tom Brady made an appearance on WEEI in New England yesterday, and the hosts of "The Big Show" asked him about the media's treatment of Spygate. Brady, in a smooth, not-at-all angry tone, sort of called out the Worldwide Leader in Sports. Here it is, via Awful Announcing.

Well, yes and no. I see where Tom's coming from, and if I was in his shoes, I'd be likely to see it the same way. Is ESPN guilty of overreporting the whole Spygate thing? Maybe. Probably.

But they're ESPN. That's what they do. Accusing ESPN of overreporting a story is like accusing popsicles of being too cold.

There's SportsCenter, NFL Live, Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn, Outside the Lines, the Sports Reporters ... they've all got time to fill, and obviously, it's a story of great public interest. There's a very decent argument to be made that ESPN overreports everything. It's a 24-hour sports network. It's kind of their job.

Barry Bonds thinks they're making too big a deal about his involvement with steroids. Michael Vick thinks they made too big a deal about dogfighting. O.J. Mayo thinks they're making too big a deal about his ownership of a plasma screen TV. O.J. Simpson thinks they made too a deal about that whole double-murder thing.

Brady's right when he says it's the environment. It is. And it's an environment that we've created by being ravenous sports fans who crave a ton of information, opinion, analysis, and columnists (and ex-columnists) and TV personalities yelling at each other. The market insists that it exist, and it does. It's the nature of the beast.

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As seemingly the whole football world was waiting for them to do, the Boston Herald has officially apologized for reporting that a tape of the Rams walkthrough prior to Super Bowl XXXVI ever existed. They even made a handsome little "Sorry, Pats" graphic to go along with it. It's only missing a text frowny face and a sad kitten. =(

The Herald even took it one step further and said they know that the report they got was false, "and that no tape of the walkthrough ever existed." As far as apologies go, it's pretty thorough.

Prior to the publication of its Feb. 2, 2008, article, the Boston Herald neither possessed nor viewed a tape of the Rams’ walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, nor did we speak to anyone who had. We should not have published the allegation in the absence of firmer verification.

Since the apology comes when it did, it certainly looks like Matt Walsh or someone close to him was the 'source' for the information about a Rams walkthrough, even though he was never mentioned in the apology or the original accusation. And since Walsh had his opportunity to provide the walkthrough information yesterday, and he didn't, that made it "uh-oh" time for the Herald.

The apology offers no specific mention of John Tomase, who originally issued the report. While a lot of Partiots fans and Herald readers still want his pants stolen, Wade Boggs-style, by the gang at Cheers, if Tomase's guilty, so are a lot of people at the Herald, including anyone who okayed the story.

The updated scorecard on the Spygate situation:

Walsh meets with Goodell: Check. No further damage done to the Pats.
Rumors of a Rams walkthrough tape: Buried. No further damage done to the Pats.
Walsh meets with Specter: Pending.
Walsh speaks with the press himself: Pending.

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Cowboy fans who blame Jessica Simpson for some of Tony Romo's poorer games may be losing that excuse.

According to TheseBootsAreMadeForStalking.com, Tony was partying in Chicago this weekend (before his debut as a crooner at Wrigley Field) to celebrate his status as a once-again eligible bachelor.

“They’re broken up,” according to a pal of the Dallas Cowboys quarterback. “He told us they broke up and that was that. We’re guys so we didn’t talk about it much.”

[...]

After spending hours at the reggae bar, Romo and his crew headed to Manor nightclub. Romo and his boys sat in a huge VIP table in a roped off VIP section and welcomed many girls to hang out with them.

“He was surrounded by girls,” according to an eyewitness. “We had to restrain some who forcibly tried to make their way to his table.” 

[...]

“He zeroed in on one blonde all night,” a source said. “That blonde wasn’t Jessica Simpson.”

If they are broken up (and I'm not saying I believe the story, or that I care, for that matter), I guess I'm happy that Romo was able to get over things so quickly. And if you're looking to somehow contort this into something that has an application to the actual game of football, you could choose to see this as a good sign for Romo.

One of the qualities a great quarterback needs to have is a short memory. You throw an interception, you put it behind you, and you make the most of the next play. You lose one blonde girl, you put her behind you, and you make the most of the next blonde girl. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but it may be the most NFL quarterback-ish thing to do.

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• I believe this is the first time I've ever read about someone I used to have on my fantasy team being arrested for selling crack. Life has apparently taken a rough turn for Troy Hambrick.

• Speaking of sad stories, former Panthers center Chris Whitley, who had some drug issues of his own, is dead at the age of 39.

• A former 49ers and Cowboys beat writer shares some terrifying tales of encounters with Charles Haley (language, behavior and shaking of body parts might not be safe for work).

• Joe Horn would like to be traded from Atlanta. I love Joe Horn, but if you can't win a starting spot as a receiver for the Falcons, I don't know if your chances are better anywhere else.

• Ray Rice is bouncing around impressively with the Ravens as he tries to become Willis McGahee's backup.

• Arlen Specter's been talking with Matt Walsh for over two hours, and has announced that he won't be having a press conference today, nor will he be issuing any statements. Presumably, that's coming tomorrow, and I assume that since Matt Walsh said he wouldn't meet with the press until after he met with Specter, that he'd be speaking sometime tomorrow, too. Now, if you're the type who reads into things, you might say that the fact that the meeting is taking longer than expected is significant. But who knows? If all of this is going to result in Spygate being put to bed, it's going to take at least one more day.

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Via Hashmarks, KJR-AM 950 in Seattle is reporting the Seattle standout linebacker Lofa Tatupu has been picked up for a DUI. The legal limit in the state of Washington is .08, and the police report reportedly says that Lofa blew a .155 and a .158.

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Not a lot of NFL players get four-year contracts at the age of 34. If you can accurately snap the football over eight or 15 yards, though, you just might. You also just might have of the most charmed lives on planet earth.

That describes David Binn, the Chargers long snapper, who has played more games as a Charger than anyone else, made the Pro Bowl in 2007, and is the last player currently with the Chargers who played on the Chargers Super Bowl XXIX team.

He's also been Pamela Anderson's personal long snapper, partied with Kanye West, works out until about 9 a.m., and then leaves practice and gets to work on his golf game all day long.

From a 2006 profile of Binn in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

“I hate that guy,” Chargers center Nick Hardwick said. “It is hilarious and awesome, everyone in here is jealous of him. He's a cool dude. Everyone wants to be around Dave. He's got a great personality. He's smart. He's good in social situations, obviously. My hero.”

[...]

After an early-morning meeting and a workout with Kaeding that ends around 9, Binn is pretty much free to run errands, get lunch, surf the Internet, hit the range.

He has, teammates swear, walked into the locker room after noon with his golf glove hanging out of his back pocket.

“I have never wanted to harm somebody like I did David Binn at that time,” guard Mike Goff said of one such instance.

If you love your child, teach him or her to be a long snapper. Well, him, anyway. I doubt that NWFA long snappers enjoy life quite as much.

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• Here's the most important thing to note up front: the most newsworthy thing coming from the Walsh/Goodell meeting is that there's nothing terribly newsworthy coming.

• In regard to the alleged videotaping of the Rams' walkthrough prior to Super Bowl XXXVI, Walsh says he doesn't know anything about it. Walsh was present at the walkthrough (which seems strange to me), but he didn't videotape it and didn't know of anyone who did.

• Of the videotaping that Walsh did, he said he was informed by the Patriots organization that what he was doing was something to be kept private and secret. He carried out the orders, gave the videotapes to Bill Belichick confidant Ernie Adams, and rarely, if ever, had contact with Belichick.

• Walsh said he kept the tapes because he wanted to someday get into coaching, and wanted proof that he did work for the Patriots. It seems odd to me that anyone would need actual video evidence to prove that they worked for someone, but whatever. Why he kept the tapes is ultimately irrelevant.

• Walsh did have two new allegations, but nothing related to videotaping. He said that he helped Patriots players scalp Super Bowl tickets, and that one player practiced with the team while on the injured reserve, which is not legal under NFL rules. I care very little about either of these things.

• It's very unlikely that there will be any further significant punishment of the Patriots.

As of right now, it looks like the day is going to be a good one for both the Patriots and the NFL. As suspected, without a tape of the Rams walkthrough, Walsh had nothing new that anyone would care too much about.

But Walsh is still meeting right now with Senator Arlen Specter, and the Senator's got his own press conference coming at 3:30. I doubt much will be coming from that, as it looks like Commissioner Goodell was pretty thorough with Walsh, but we'll wait and see. It looks like we're pretty close to closing the book on this Spygate deal.

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NFL fans will do a lot of things to satisfy their football jones in the offseason. We'll spend hours poring over draft materials, and many of us will be moved to write angry letters to Mel Kiper if he doesn't like the player our team picked. We'll watch the life-draining fourth quarters of preseason games, and perhaps even the occasional scrimmage on the NFL Network. We might even give a glance to some Arena Football.

But what about leagues like the NWFA, or the IWFL? Do they get a look? It's professional, it's tackle football, there's a team near you, and it's happening right now, in the dead of the NFL offseason. It just happens to be played by people who don't require jockstraps.

The New York Times ran a piece on women's professional football today, telling the story of women who have always wanted and felt they deserved the chance to run, throw, tackle, hold and cut block each other. And of course, they do deserve that chance as much as anyone else, even if circumstances dictate that they pay about $1,000 a season to play, instead of receiving multimillion dollar contracts.

“We were never given the arena to play in,” said the Sharks’ president, Andra Douglas, who used $20,000 of her savings to buy the team in 2000 and played for it until 2004.

“What we’d like is to earn a living at this,” she said. “Boys and men have no idea how lucky they are to have this just handed to them. It breaks my heart.”

It's hard to know what to say here, because we're in the land of the free and the home of the brave, and anyone deserves the right to participate in any sport they like. Women have the right to be every bit as dim-witted and oafish as us men, and I support them in that journey.

But on the other hand, I've attempted to watch women's professional football, and, well, I'm really sorry, but it's not going to be sweeping the nation anytime soon. I respect what you're doing, DC Divas, Las Vegas Showgirls, Carolina Queens, Oakland Banshees, Gulf Coast Herricanes, and KY Karma, but I've seen Spanish-language public television telethons that I've enjoyed more. And I don't speak Spanish.

I don't know what to tell you, ladies. I admire you, and I'm glad you're getting to what you want to do. But I can't watch. I can't watch for the same reason that I don't watch Terrell Owens and Flava Flav once I've seen The Wire. Once I've seen Bob Ross paint happy little trees all over a delicate mountain sunset, I don't want to watch a toddler randomly fling fingerpaint at the kitchen wall. If I've seen Major League, then I don't want to watch Major League III: Back to the Minors (no disrespect intended, Scott Bakula).

I tried to watch the Pittsburgh Passion play Boston a few weeks ago, and I didn't last very long. I don't want to criticize female football players for not being as good as male football players, and the reason I didn't last wasn't because the players had girl parts and not boy parts. It's just that at the end of the day, I think if you're going to watch people do something, you want to see it done at the highest level possible. You want to see it done well.

Basic human fairness dictates that women be allowed to play football, but it'll be the free market that determines if they can ever make a living doing it. I wish them the best, but I don't see that happening.

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Buffalo's second round draft pick, 6'6" wide receiver James Hardy, allegedly pulled a gun on his father Sunday. No charges have been filed and police aren't investigating it further, because, according to police, "his father showed no signs of injury."

Details are vague.

According to the police report, the female witness told police she yelled at the younger Hardy to stop fighting when he pulled out a black gun. The woman said Hardy then left.

The younger Hardy has a handgun permit that was issued in 2007 and that expires in 2011, said Sgt. Steve Stone, spokesman for the Allen County Sheriff’s Department.

[...]

“I don’t know anything about it, and I can’t comment,” said Eugene Parker, James Hardy’s agent.

When officers spoke to the elder Hardy, he acknowledged that he and his son were in an argument, but said his son did not do anything. The father said the younger Hardy was always angry with him because he was in prison while his son was a boy, the report said.

With his father in prison because of a drug conviction, Hardy spent a portion of his childhood sleeping on an air mattress in his uncle's living room.

I wouldn't guess that this would affect his status with the Bills any, as again, there are no charges and there is no investigation. But it's not a happy situation, and you'd have to hope there was some healing in the future for the Hardy family.

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