Dave’s Football Blog

So Gene Upshaw says no to blood testing for HGH, but he has no problem with the NFL testing players for amphetamines, thus keeping the precarious balance that is labor peace stable for just a little while longer. Huzzah.

Listen, if you’re in the NFL and you only play one game a week for 6 months or less, you ought to be professional enough to know that going out on a Jim Leyritz-style bender the night before is probably a bad idea. There’s plenty of time to party during the week and the offseason. Just ask Kyle Orton. There’s no reason to be so out of it on Sunday morning that you have to pop greenies just to get yourself ready to play. Drink a couple bottles of Bawls and an extra 20 of Gatorade if you have to. It’s the same thing, and last I checked, guarana-derived caffeine isn’t illegal in the NFL.

Of course, here’s the comedy in all this — as soon as a certain drug becomes a problem in Major League Baseball, it’s the National Football League that acts on it. I wonder why that is…

It only ends in heartbreak and lawsuits.

ATLANTA (AP) — A hedge fund manager accused of disappearing with millions of dollars belonging to at least 500 investors — including current and former NFL players — now faces 24 additional counts in his federal fraud case.

Kirk Wright of Marietta was arrested May 17 in Miami after three months as a fugitive, and was indicted on May 25 on one count of mail fraud by a federal grand jury in the Northern District Court of Georgia…

Last week, seven current and former NFL players sued the league and its union in U.S. District Court to recover $20 million, claiming the union endorsed Wright’s services even though its manager had liens against him.

Seahawks wideout Darrell Jackson is convinced the Seahawks will break the Super Bowl loser curse. Swine figures prominently…

Look — here’s the deal. Nobody is happy. Nobody is happy just getting to the Super Bowl. We lost. And look at how we lost. We are so focused and detailed in every way to win the Super Bowl. That’s the only reason we play.

Our defense is going to be better with J.P. (Julian Peterson). I mean, this guy is a freak. He can play every position. And, yes, it was a loss with Steve (Hutchinson) going to Minnesota. But my man Pork Chop (Floyd Womack) looks good. I mean, how can you be bad with a name like Pork Chop?

The only reason someone gets named “Pork Chop” is because he eats too many of them. Cholesterol is good for plugging up arteries, but holes in the offensive line? Yeah, get back to me on that one.

Understand this right now: These are wrong. By the end of September, nobody’s NFL power rankings will look anything like this. That is how the NFL works in the 21st century.

The most wrong item up there? The Seattle Seahawks at #1. Name the last Super Bowl loser that made the playoffs the following year. It’s been a little while. Clayton, Pasquarelli & Co. seem to have conveniently forgotten that. Sure, the NFC West still sucks, but there is a history of hangovers at work here, and Eddie George isn’t walking through that door anytime soon. (Considering Shaun Alexander is on the cover of Madden 07, the Seahawks may end up with Eddie George before it’s over.)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Don’t show me power rankings until after Week 1. Then we’ll talk. In the meantime, how about another fascinating Ricky Williams round-up, ESPN?

Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed, who was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2004, has agreed to a six-year, $40 million contract extension. We can begin counting the days until he gets frustrated with losing and demands a trade… now.

Then again, in the six games Reed missed with an ankle injury last season, the Ravens went 1-5, beating only a Tommy Maddox-led Steelers team in a game that made me very sad. Reed’s presence may actually help the Ravens’ defense. Not that I would ever hope for such a thing…

Anheiser-Busch has reaffirmed its position as the exclusive alcohol sponsor of the Super Bowl, and it will pay to keep that position through Super Bowl XLVI.

Hey, it takes a hell of a lot of money from sales of really crappy beer to put on a spectacle as grand as the Super Bowl. Besides, where would we be without all those zany Bud Light commercials? If no one is there to convince dumb guys that hiding bottles of horse piss around the office is a good idea, Monster.com has fewer job openings to display and less money to spend on Super Bowl ads themselves. The football economy has to keep moving, people…

…like a good joke jersey.

That’s okay, Bengals fans. You still have to live with Chris Henry.

(Thanks, MJD. I think…)

Few ever make the jump from Arena Football to the NFL, but the first guy to do it in 2006 just signed with the Kansas City Chiefs. Jerald Brown was a defensive specialist for the Columbus Destroyers and the AFL’s defensive player of the year. He was also second in the AFL in interceptions with 11, so he might help the Chiefs’ secondary fairly cheaply.

Brown probably won’t be the last AFL player to make a jump before training camp, but he may be the only one that gets a 2-year deal. I’d wish him luck, but the Chiefs face the Steelers in Week 6. So I’ll just wish him luck against the Bengals, Browns and Ravens.

ESPN reports:

Former NFL wide receiver and return specialist Theo Bell, whose 10-year career in the league included a pair of Super Bowl victories with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died Wednesday at age 52 after a long battle with kidney disease…

Bell, the Steelers’ fourth-round choice from Arizona in the 1976 draft, played five seasons in Pittsburgh (1976-80), then signed with Tampa Bay as a free agent in 1981, and played five seasons with the Bucs (1981-85). With the Steelers, he won Super Bowl rings for victories in Super Bowl XIII and Super Bowl XIV, playing as the team’s No. 4 wide receiver and as a punt returner and on special teams coverage units.

In 10 seasons, Bell appeared in 127 games. He caught 136 passes for 2,375 yards and eight touchdowns and returned 189 punts for an 8.0-yard average.

After his career, Bell, who had been raised in a series of foster homes in California, became involved in a number of charitable endeavors in the Tampa community. The most prominent was the GEARUP program, which originated at the University of South Florida, in which a mentor counsels a group of children from middle school and follows their progress through high school. Bell was particularly involved with Blake High School in Tampa.

While the entire city of Raleigh is still celebrating the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup Finals victory — which reminds me, I have to put those photos of the big victory party up on Flickr — pretty much nobody in this town noticed that the Raleigh Rebels advanced to the American Indoor Football League Southern Division finals on Monday. Of course, how they advanced is quite a commentary on the sad, sad state of indoor football.

Follow me on this one:

Back in April, the Rebels were supposed to send game tapes to the juggernaut that is Richmond Bandits in preparation for their next matchup with each other. Those tapes didn’t arrive until a month later. This came just a week or two after the team was purchased from the league by the same ownership group that controls the Rome Renegades. It’s unclear how the Rebels were punished by the AIFL for this infraction, but clearly it wasn’t to the Bandits’ liking.

So the Bandits decided to get childish and withheld game tapes from the Rebels for a few days. In response, the Rebels waited even longer to deliver their game tapes to the Bandits. Then the AIFL league office called the Bandits on the day of the game and told them that they violated league rules and had to pay $3,000 in fines. Before kickoff. Or they would forfeit. Richmond complained that the Rebels were even later with tapes and should be fined as well. The AIFL didn’t see it that way.

All full of righteous indignation, the Bandits chose not to pay the fine, forfeited the playoff game, gave refunds to the 1,000 or so disappointed fans who bought tickets in advance, and decided to leave the AIFL.

Can you imagine an NFL team pulling a stunt like that? Can you picture the Seattle Seahawks complaining so much about the refs and “selective enforcement of the rules” that they would decide that principle was worth more than a playoff game? Even Mark “Ask me a real fucking question” Cuban would never go that far.

Granted, the economics of this situation are a lot different at this level. It could be possible that the Bandits ownership determined that paying the fine and playing the game would make them less money than forfeiting and giving 1,000 refunds. Still, giving up a shot at a title — any title — because you think the league is being unfair? I bet nobody who went to this party saw that coming.

The Way Things Are writes that the Bandits probably did the right thing in response to the league, but in the end, nobody really comes out of this situation a winner. AIFL president Andrew Haines is, in the opinion of many people on the Our Sports Central messageboards, a level 40 douchebag who may or may not be playing favorites with his tiny league’s team owners. The Bandits’ front office, however, acted like petulant brats by deliberately delaying game tape shipments, then cancelling a home playoff game when the league went after them, unfairly or not. A little professionalism on both sides could have prevented this mess.

What happens next is anybody’s guess. There’s talk of a new league is being formed for all the teams pissed off at both the AIFL and NIFL. That’s how United Indoor Football was born, and it’s been pretty stable this year compared to the AIFL and NIFL. In fact, UIF has the right idea. It’s a regional minor league that tries hard to keep costs low and keep fan interest high. Maybe there’s still a chance that some of these southern AIFL and NIFL teams will create the same kind of league and build a little interest in this area. Having teams from Raleigh, Richmond, Fayetteville and Greensboro together in the same league might intrigue a few football fans around here.

Then again, maybe Raleigh, still drunk from the champaign it’s drinking from the Stanley Cup, would be better off bringing Arena Football back to town. That would be a lot more fun to watch than the last Raleigh Rebels game I attended.