So the University of Alabama Birmingham has fired its athletic director and closed its football program.
Is there a lesson in this for the Oakland Raiders, or is this just a ruse to start the bidding war for Jim Harbaugh?
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Speaking of coaching changes, can we please have Sean Payton and Rob Ryan when New Orleans is done with them, please? Either team will do, but we need them both. Harbaugh without an ownership to tilt won’t work, and Tony Sparano’s sunglasses-for-every-occasion thing just doesn’t play.
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And speaking of speaking of coaching changes, this will be the eighth time since the two franchises have existed together that both of them have changed their head coaches in the same off-season. No wonder they couldn’t figure out to share a stadium -– or as we like to call it, The Place Where People Go To Sit Somewhere Else.
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Oh, and the early line on 49ers-Raiders this coming Sunday is, “Seriously? You’re betting this game? Where’s your dignity? Where’s your sense of duty to your loved ones? Haven’t you finally reached your level of shame?”
And the over/under? It opened at 27½, but soon moved to “Get your worthless degenerate self to a meeting right now.”
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In other NFL news, Johnny Manziel (10-yard touchdown run, fumble to lead to Buffalo touchdown) we hardly knew ye, but we tweeted our fingers to the elbow for thee.
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Back to college athletic directors, where Nebraska’s Shawn Eichorst fired football coach Bo Pelini for chronically and persistently being Bo Pelini, and then sent an E-mail to the players informing them of the firing which began, “Dear Football Student-Athlete.”
In the rough draft, he addressed it to “Powerless Drayhorses Serving Me, My Staff and All Our Associated Financial Institutions In Any Way We See Fit, Whatever Your Names Are:”
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Why don’t we ever see cold weather records for Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers? Laziness?
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In case you think your team has bad fans (and it does, trust me), consider that a fan at the Valencia-Barcelona match yesterday clocked Lionel Messi with an object, with the logical result.
Messi was yellow-carded for complaining. Maybe next time he can get hit by a table and be suspended.
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If you’re wondering how DeMarco Murray got his speed and ability to avoid obstacles, perhaps the accusation from his former Oklahoma teammate Brennan Clay that Murray had an affair with his wife while they were both at school in 2010. Clay has tweeted about the dalliance, and . . . well, the game’s running back is also its latest figure of fun.
So so perfect.
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Oh, and hats off to Kevin Garnett for trying (he says playfully) to bite Joakim Noah’s hand during an inbound play in Chicago’s 102-84 win over Brooklyn. He missed, of course, or you’d have heard more about it, but as you know, with most athletes, the mandible is the first thing to go.
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And now, two observations about the Grey Cup, which Calgary won, 20-16, over Hamilton.
One, There must be room on some NFL team for a quarterback named Bo Levi Mitchell. There simply must.
And two, Katy Perry, who is playing the Super Bowl halftime (which I will deliberately avoid), should be backed by Imagine Dragons (which played what I suspect is their hit at the Grey Cup halftime). I still won’t watch it, but I feel confident it will torque off lots of American viewers, and I completely endorse that idea every single time.
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Now, a scary thing. Stephen Curry tweaked his ankle in Detroit Sunday, and though he cleared the MRI police, it is good to remember as you plot out your spot on Broadway for the parade in June that your dreams hang by a single ligament. No, I don’t care if that makes me Lord Admiral Buzzkill, it just needs to be told so that you’ll have a fuller appreciation how fragile these 14-2 starts really are.
Almost as fragile as those 0-16 starts.
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And finally, those wacky bastards with the Bakersfield Condors, who typically take themed uniforms and make them spectacular, went mundane and had a Seinfeld-themed uniform auction to help a local charity, with Seinfeld characters’ names plastered where the players’ surnames would normally be. Not to go through all of them, but Assman (worn by Chase Schaber) went for $1,800.
We are finished as a culture.
