Your All Turd Team

Profootballtalk has released their all-time turd team, and there's no shortage of Redskins. Jeff George, Michael Westbrook, Albert Connell, Kenyatta Jones, Daryl Gardener, the late Darrell Russell, Sean Taylor, and Dexter Manley made the squad. All of these miscreants except for Manley played for the Skins since Daniel Snyder bought the team, and all of those except for Westbrook and Connell were acquired under Snyder. Now Snyder seems to have learned his lesson since Taylor is the only one left, and the Gardener and Russell signings did work out, but that's a lot of assholes that were signed in a relatively short amount of time.

Everybody Loves Gilbert

If you haven't kept up with Agent Zero's blog over the last week you are missing out. To inaugurate Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, he posted that he doesn't believe that there is any such thing as shark attacks, because the people who get bit are invading the sharks' space, so the sharks are defending their space.

"So if you’re swimming in the water and a shark bites you, that’s called trespassing. That is called trespassing. That is not a shark attack.

A shark attack is if you’re chilling at home, sitting on your couch, and a shark comes in and bites you; now that’s a shark attack. Now, if you’re chilling in the water, that is called invasion of space. So I have never heard of a shark attack."

Apparently this was similar to a comedy routine by Ian Edwards, and he was very mildly criticized on PTI for stealing the bit for his blog. So Arenas shot back.

"Listen, nobody even heard of Ian Edwards before me. He’s no Chris Rock. I helped him become famous. Now everybody is going to YouTube and looking him up.

The joke was worth about $7 when I heard it, now that I’ve used it’s probably worth a little bit more. I’ll sell it back to him for $7.78. Seventy-eight cents, Ian, you can put that in a royalties check made out to me.

Puffy and Ashanti made careers out of stealing other people’s beats. This is America, the land of the reused."

Mad props to Arenas for having a personality and providing such frequent updates to his blog. I steal all kinds of stuff for my blog; I typically give credit but not always. Oden seems to be a pleasant guy and Schilling is as opinionated as they get, but their blogs are nowhere near as entertaining as peaking into Hibachi's mind.

WTF is this mascot's problem?

The Mariners Moose made headlines before when he broke his ankle in 1995 while being towed on roller blades, and a mascot has injured an athlete while driving a vehicle on the field before, last year when the Titans mascot hit Saints QB Adrian McPherson with a golf cart in a preseason game, (which unfortunately was not captured by video) so how the hell does this happen again?

Come back soon D Pizzle

Counting today, there are only ten episodes left of the Dan Patrick Show. Since he announced, well, that he was going to make an announcement, he's only hosted his show once, to make the announcement that August 17th would be his last show. As was speculated by Profootballtalk, he will next appear on a national syndicated radio show, much like Jim Rome. But Content Factory will also try to distribute the new "Big Show" via "television, internet, podcasts, infopods, mobil devices and beyond."

He can't come back on the air fast enough, this lack of quality sportstalk radio is killing me. Colin Cowherd, John Seibel, Steve Czaban, and Doug Gottlieb lack Patrick's sense of humor and ability to transition. Patrick recently sat down to do an interview where he revealed his final guest, "a man who I think provided the template of how to be a broadcaster in my opinion. I have great admiration for his command of the English language, other languages and his on-camera presence... Ron Burgundy."

Are you ready for some football?

In a busy weekend in sports, one event stood out as the big story, the one that got my readers and I excited, must see TV, the one event that moved the dial: I am of course referring to the meaningless Hall of Fame game, the start of the NFL preseason. The NFL is back.

I have been relegated to watching baseball games and stale sitcoms since David Stern took any chance the Suns had of maintaining home court against the Spurs, and right now I would watch a professional football game between the residents of two retirement communities right now over watching another San Francisco Giants game or Family Guy. But I did learn one lesson about baseball this summer: the difference in production value of broadcasts varies greatly from team to team. Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers games are broadcast in HD, feature sideline reporters who can report on injuries, and bring legitimate stars into the booth: in the last month new Celtics Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett have sat in the NESN booth for an inning or two a piece.

Watching the Redskins/Ravens scrimmage Saturday on MASN, I wasn't blown away in terms of production value, but I wasn't disappointed either. I've watched intrasquad scrimmages of Green Bay Packers, the NFL team in the smallest market with the poorest ownership, and it was similarly produced. NFL preseason games are normally shown on the NFL network with the broadcast team of one side in the first half, and the opposing team's broadcast in the second. I defy viewers to notice a difference in production value.

In MLB, if you're a fan of the Royals, or Marlins, or Pirates, all of whom have won the World Series, in terms of television and radio coverage it feels like the minor leagues when compared to the Yankees or Red Sox. Of course, those teams' payrolls are between 10%-25% of the payrolls of the Yankees and Red Sox. In the NFL, Saints or Packers broadcasts are as professional as Giants or Jets broadcasts. For the most part, every NFL teams' payroll is approximately the same. This is a big reason why fans of teams in every market can be excited about the regular season (because their teams have a legitimate chance to win the Super Bowl) and the offseason. (because their teams have a chance to sign marquee free agents)

Over eight grand a pitch

You can't blame the Rocket for doing it for the money. The Yankees offered $28 million prorated, the Red Sox came in second with $18 million. And you can't blame the Yankees, who have bottomless resources and wretched pitching that was at it's nadir at the time. But the Clemens comeback sure looks like a train wreck now. After yesterday's shellacking Clemens' ERA stands at 4.23, Honda results for Hummer prices. And just how high are those prices? Clemens was added to the active roster June 9th, and since then the Yankees have played 49 games. (The salary didn't kick in until Clemens was added to the major league roster) During that time Clemens has earned $8,469,135.80. (49/162 * $28,000,000) That works out to $2,823,045.27 per win, $705,761.32 per start, $128,320.24 per inning, and $8,096.69 per pitch.

Strahan to DC? Ex-wife offers to pack for him

Adam Schefter mentioned the Redskins as a possible landing spot for Giants DE Michael Strahan if he is able to force a trade. It's a perfect fit: Strahan is a star way past his prime who loves to talk to the media and needs money, and Daniel Snyder loves to pay stars way past their prime who love to talk to the media.