Remembering 21

It’s been one year since Sean Taylor died from the injuries he sustained in the shooting in his Miami home. On this thanksgiving, I want to reflect on the career of my favorite player. (I know I’m a little late – let’s just say I’m on West Coast time).

“Finally, the most anticipated moment in racing”

Since it turns out that my fellow bloggers don’t know much about 1998 Daytona 500 (possibly my favorite moment in sports), here’s the final few laps. Basically, Earnhardt already had his 7 championships and had won nearly everything both in NASCAR and at Daytona except the Daytona 500 itself. Despite being the favorite several times in his career, something always seem to go wrong – most famously in 1990 a blown tire on the final lap while leading. “20 years of trying, 20 years of frustration.”

The most famous part of the whole thing is what happens as Earnhardt is driving to victory lane: “Every man on every crew has come out to the edge of pit lane to congratulate the man who has dominated everything there is to win in this sport except this race, ’til today.”

Pro Bowl Voting Update

Last year, Cowboys fans proved the Pro Bowl is a joke by voting in 13 players – many of whom suck. See Andre Gurode, famous for consistently snapping the ball over Romo’s head. How about Flozell Adams, always a league leader in penalties. Marion Barber, a guy who neither started for his own team nor even surpassed 1,000 yards. You can never forget Roy “burnt like tinfoil in a microwave” Williams, who’s terrible play speaks for itself.

However, that debacle didn’t spark any change to the Pro Bowl selection process. Naturally, the Redskins and their fans weren’t going to allow the Cowboys to be overrepresented again, so they took advantage of the situation with the Vote the Redskins Ticket promotion. As voting currently stands, 20 Redskins (!!!!!) would be voted into the Pro Bowl this year, with ‘Skins players being the leading vote-getters at 16 of the 19 positions. The other positions are QB where Campbell is 3rd, DE where Andre Carter is 2nd, and OLB where Jason Taylor, Marcus Washington, and Rocky McIntosh are 2nd-4th. To add to the hilarity of the situation, many of the players have only played a portion of the season: Stephon Heyer is the backup behind Jansen at RT, Ryan Plackemeier was picked up as a free-agent punter around week 6, and Jason Taylor and Shawn Springs both have missed the majority of the season due to injuries.

Memo to the NFL: Never underestimate Redskins fans, especially when the Cowboys are involved. Even though it’s safe to say the other voters will now give the Redskins the shaft to weed out some players selected, can we please change the fan vote? I’d rather see the best players play, and rather not see a bunch or Redskins get injured.

3 of the 4 Redskins selected to last year's Pro Bowl.

I didn’t even know the rules maaaan

Apparently “McNabb, Westbrook, and several Eagles” didn’t know ties exist. If one of those people turns out to be Andy Reid, he won’t make it to the next Eagles game alive. Punting with just over 1 minute left in OT sure was a strange call…

The Redskins Rule

Really, Big Ben? I don’t really see the big deal myself.

“I’m not a big fan of playing there because it is loud, they’re really good at home and they try to make their cheerleaders stretch in our tunnel before we come out of the locker room. That’s just not good,” Roethlisberger said yesterday.

Actually, 99% of males agree that it is good. Here’s some more info.

“I was like, ‘Wow,’” the player said. “Of course you’re going to look. You got beautiful women standing in front of you, half dressed. But you look, laugh and go about your business.”

Between “laugh” and “go about your business”, the unnamed player forgot to mention “exchange phone numbers for the night after the game.” I’m sure these guys are players before playas, but that doesn’t mean they can’t go hand-in-hand:

The number of virgin NFL players is probably in the single digits, if one even exists, and I have known players that prowl for women before and after games.

That’s all pretty much expected, but then the guy writing the article said this:

Personally, I’m not sure what value cheerleaders actually add to the overall football experience. Anyone who has been to an NFL game knows there are plenty of built-in diversions during timeouts and breaks (my personal favorite is the kick a field goal to win a million bucks!).

I dunno man… they’re basically essential. Looks like we need a poll!

I feel like this is a “useless without pics” post, but I’m out of time. Maybe I’ll add one later.