Evidently we’re already bored, because there is always a grumping campaign building over the possibility that Houston might not draft Johnny Manziel. From the perky Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com:
“The Texans don't just need to take Manziel with the No. 1 overall pick. They have to take Manziel. They have no other choice, for reasons that are football and business and public relations. Having the No. 1 overall draft choice, in Houston, in the exact year that the south Texas supernova known as Johnny F---ing Football has entered the draft? That takes all the pressure off the Texans, because there is no other choice. In part, because there is no other choice . . . Manziel is a national phenomenon, but he's also a state legend. He's the Texas Tebow, only better, and the Texans need a quarterback. And to draft anyone but Manziel, and to watch Manziel become a star in some other market . . .”
“The Texas Tebow.” Yeah, J.F. Football is going to love that, at least as much as the rest of us do.
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Richard Sherman did not disappoint on his way to vacation; he told The MMQB that Peyton Manning was tipping his hand.
“All we did was play situational football,” Sherman said during one of the Seahawks' postgame victory parties. “We knew what route concepts they liked on different downs, so we jumped all the routes. Then we figured out the hand signals for a few of the route audibles in the first half. Me, Earl (Thomas), Kam (Chyancellor) . . . we're not just three All-Pro players. We're three All-Pro minds. Now, if Peyton had thrown in some double moves, if he had gone out of character, we could've been exposed.”
And in case you’re unclear or you think Sherman is a loathsome figure for those 30 seconds of madness, let us remind you that being an All-Pro mind beats being the Texas Tebow every time.
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Richie Incognito is apparently unsuspended by the Miami Dolphins, which means that when he is released in March, people can say that the story is over . . . until either he or Jonathan Martin (or both) get new contracts with different teams. And another American cautionary tale is stripped of its meaning.
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The Florida Panthers keep announcing attendances of five figures each time they play at home, which doubles the double-take (or quadruple-take) you will do at the news that they will give away tickets to Tuesday or Thursday games in exchange for used lottery tickets.
Not lottery tickets. USED lottery tickets – scratchers of ten bucks or more that have revealed that you lost ten bucks . . . or more. Or, as Harrison Mooney of Yahoo! Sports put it, “They don’t want your money. They want your trash.”
And since two of those games are against the Toronto Maple Leafs, we can also conclude that not even snowbirds from Canada go to Florida any more. At least not to see the Panthers.
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From AP, this delightful example of missing the point as well as burying the lede:
“NEW DELHI -- Tiger Woods made 10 birdies at Delhi Golf Club but failed to win a skins game, according to a golf website. Golfingindian.com reports Tuesday that Woods and Hero Motors chairman Pawan Munjal lost the charity skins game to Shiv Kapur and Anirban Lahiri. Kapur played college golf at Purdue and once competed at the Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone. Woods made his first visit to India as a guest of Munjal. India newspapers reported Woods received about $2 million for the appearance.”
That sounds like he won, skins or no skins.
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Joakim Noah F-bombed each of the three members of the officiating crew in Sacramento Monday night as he left the floor, and was fined accordingly on Tuesday. For you keeping score at home because your life is utterly bereft of human contact, that's $5,000 each for abusing David Guthrie, Eli Roe and Rodney Mott.
In other words, Adam Silver is off to a rip-roaring start. Yes, we know president of basketball operations Rod Thorn announces fines like this, but if he didn’t clear this with the new commissioner, the new commissioner’s second act would have been to promote the vice president of basketball operations, as per constitutional succession rules.
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