NFL Espn

According to Seth Wickersham of ESPN, Texans DT Amobi Okoye celebrated his 21st birthday on June 10th in big style but responsibly:

Okoye, who last year was the youngest NFL player in 30 years, was sober and happy and wasn't photographed doing anything stupid. Bloggers might be bummed, but kids who look up to him aren't.

I can't speak for all bloggers because we aren't a collective who thinks in lockstep (duh). Personally I would be ecstatic if Amobi Okoye and other talented athletes didn't risk everything getting stupid drunk. It would also make me happier if Wickersham hadn't promoted a wildly dangerous drinking practice in the structure of his article.

Wickersham organized his article by saying "let's do 21 shots" to discuss Okoye's birthday plans, and how he no longer wants to be defined by his age. It's an allusion to how some 21 year olds celebrate their birthday by trying to drink 21 shots.

I'm not your mom, but I think it is worth mentioning that this newish binge drinking fad kills people. Being deaded or put into a alcohol-poisoned coma isn't the best way to spend a birthday. You would think people would know that drinking 21 shots in short succession is dangerous, but apparently not. Education is the only way found to reduce the number of people doing this, and it's not a good idea to normalize this behavior in a sports article.

Oh, and belated birthday greetings to Okoye. Sorry, I didn't get you anything but I'm guessing with 400 people at your birthday party, you are doing okay in the gift department. Check out this link if you have interest in seeing Okoye photographed doing non-stupid things on his birthday. He is wearing a sweet suit. A bit heavy for June in Houston, but it can get cold in those overly air conditioned ballrooms.

Previously at FanHouse:
You Won't Want to Read This: NFL Players Doing Good in the World
Texans Defensive Line Coach Talks About Mario and More

It's the Fourth of July, which for many Americans, is a wonderful excuse to get drunk and stuff your face, all under the guise of celebrating freedom.

And if you're a competitive eater, you can actually make a few bucks in the process. It's not exactly glamorous, but, hey, everybody's good at something, and for Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi, it's all about chugging hot dogs (video proof here).

Ah, yes, the ol' "cannonball technique." (Actually, what I know about competitive eating consists of the few seconds each year I tune into the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, before puking and changing the channel. Maybe the cannonball technique is banned in many states.)

By the way, I love how ESPN has an on-scene reporter quizzing the contestants after the Chestnut pulls out the overtime victory (this seems like an event tailor-made for Heidi Watney; I'm guessing Jerry Remy agrees), and even better, Kobayashi has his own interpreter.

In case you're wondering, Kobayashi says he wasn't quick enough in the five-dog overtime eat-off, but he plans on being back in '09. Oh, and with the victory, Chestnut is still the No. 1 ranked eater. Don King would be proud.

Previously on FanHouse
Joey Chestnut Beats Takeru Kobayashi at Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest
Kobayashi vs. Chestnut Hot Dog Live Blog

The fourth of July is all about freedom, democracy, almost blowing your hand off while illegally setting off fireworks, Nathan's, and, this year, whether Brett Favre will un-retire after three months. Good times. Yesterday, ESPN's Chris Mortensen "reported" that Favre is mulling a return. Favre later responded by saying, "it's all rumor," and now the conversation has turned to what happens should he come back for one more season.

One scenario, courtesy of PFT, has Favre wanting to play for the Panthers. As Mike Florio writes, there isn't any clear ties between Carolina and the Hall of Fame quarterback, other than the relative proximity of Charlotte to Mississippi.

Well, apparently, there's a better chance Mittens wins the NFL MVP award than Favre taking one snap for the Panthers, at least according to Darin Gantt of the Rock Hill Herald:

That's not happening, and it's not because Favre doesn't want to come here. For starters, the Panthers have a starter they like just fine in Jake Delhomme. And while the world seems to think his arm's going to fly off like a scene from Monty Python, he's actually ahead of schedule coming back from last year's elbow surgery.

Also, the Panthers think far more highly of Matt Moore than most, which should have been obvious when they didn't sign a veteran free agent or draft one.

Gantt adds that the Panthers aren't going to comment on the rumor because there's absolutely nothing to it. Plus, if Delhomme's arm does fly off, Vinny Testaverde has been promised first dibs on the job.

Earlier MDS noted that the Sports Bog's Dan Steinberg caught up with Stuart Scott at the Earl Woods Memorial Pro-Am yesterday, and like most people at pro-am events, they talked about sports blogs.

Near the end of Steinberg's post on the festivities, he notes that Scott's answer of the day came in an interview with Sports Groove's Mark Gray, "who asked about the criticism Tiger receives for not being outspoken enough." Scott's response:

"All the people who say Tiger doesn't do enough, stop," Scott said. "Shut up. Shut up....He's got about as much money as Oprah, but it's important for him to do something tangible for kids. Tangible."

As much as it pains me, I agree with Scott on this one. For some reason, certain segments of the population think high-profile athletes should have an opinion on every social issue under the sun.

During the "hey, I got an idea: let's lynch Tiger!" fiasco, Jim Brown said Woods "waited until it was politically correct to come out and he should have come out right away." Maybe. Or perhaps Tiger just wanted the whole thing to blow over. Frankly, I have no idea why he didn't hold a press conference denouncing Kelly Tilghman as the next coming of Hitler (or worse, the Celtics), but I can't begrudge the guy for how he ultimately chose to deal with it the matter.

Mike Sando of ESPN recently wrote about a survey of the league's dirtiest players and analyzed which teams received the most personal fouls. The Patriots' Rodney Harrison got the most votes for dirty play, and the Raiders received the most personal fouls.

The Houston Texans received the least personal fouls, but Sando got it completely wrong as it related to Texans defensive tackle Travis Johnson:

Former Patriots receiver Deion Branch drew a line between Harrison's hard-nosed play and the approach Houston Texans defensive lineman Travis Johnson took after knocking out then-Miami Dolphins quarterback Trent Green with a legal hit last season. Johnson stood over the fallen Green and taunted him.

"[Harrison] is not that type of dude, I promise you," Branch said. "He's not going to go into a game and try to hurt someone.

Uh, I'm guessing that Sando didn't actually see that play or maybe he just got his actives and passive mixed up writing about it. It was Trent Green who knocked himself out after Green intentionally blocked Johnson with a low but legal hit. If anyone was dirty in that play, it was Green who admitted he dove low, smashing Johnson's knee with his helmet, causing Johnson to somersault into the air and land on his head.

I'd put up some real speed video of this, but it no longer exists because the NFL pulled it. This slo-mo YouTube version above is all that exists.

So it looks like Brett Favre isn't planning a 2008 comeback despite ESPN's Chris Mortensen declaring otherwise. According to the Sun Herald's Larry Holder, Favre responded to the ESPN report by saying, "it's all rumor," and suggesting there was "no reason for" the media firestorm that followed.

Now we can all get on with our lives, Aaron Rodgers can prepare for the NFL season by acting crazy, and Mortensen can get to work on his next unsubstantiated rumor.

Not sure where "Favre's coming back!" ranks, but it only seems fitting for the same guy who told us:

• Michael Vick was unlikely to get indicted
• Eli Manning would be out 4-6 weeks
• Matt Leinart would be the Cardinals' starting quarterback

And then there's this hilarious paragraph from Gregg Easterbrook's February 15, 2008 column (yes, evidently, Easterbrook can still be funny):

I Knew All Along -- I Just Forgot to Say So: "While Norv Turner remains the leading candidate to be the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, ESPN's Chris Mortensen reported Wednesday that another candidate has emerged: Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera." So read ESPN.com on Feb. 1, 2007. A few days later, after Wade Phillips got the Boys post, Mort said on the air that he had always known the job would go to Phillips.

Knowing ESPN, I fully expect Mortensen to make an on-air apology for being wrong (again) and then he'll be promptly suspended for his incompetence. Or, the World Wide Leader will just pretend like nothing happened, Mortensen will get a raise, and everybody will have a good laugh about it at the company 4th of July bash.

And now for the geekiest thing you'll read on FanHouse all day.

The NFL and ESPN have told FCC that they would like to test "white space" devices during live NFL games. The goal is to see if and how the wireless internet devices might interfere with wireless microphones and local TV signals in a real-world environment.

If you're not familiar with white space devices, here's some background for you. When the FCC handed broadcasters free analog TV spectrum back in the day, they required that there be "buffers," or white spaces, in between spectrum allocations, so as to avoid interference between channels. Now that analog TV signals are set to be switched off and replaced with all-digital TV signals next February, a few tech companies see an opportunity to use those white spaces to deliver wireless internet on the cheap -- the theory being that digital signal is much less susceptible to interference.

The hitch is that broadcasters are terrified that white space internet signals will interfere with TV signals. The National Association of Broadcasters wants to ban the devices, while White Spaces Coalition members are accusing the NAB of engaging in empty rhetoric. Unfortunately, NAB has the upper hand right now, as several white space devices tested by the FCC haven't worked very well.

ESPN and NFL Network may be heading for a merger.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Worldwide Leader and the National Football League's house network are engaging in high-level talks about developing a partnership. The discussions go all the way up to Disney CEO Robert Iger and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

At first glance, it looks like a win-win: For the NFL, the deal would help get NFL Network into tens of millions of cable TV households that currently don't carry it. For ESPN, it would strengthen ties with America's most popular sports league, and it would ensure that the NFL won't develop a similar partnership with a cable TV competitor.

But the deal could be a loser for NFL fans. Competition between ESPN and NFL Network -- especially at NFL Draft time -- has made both networks improve their coverage. If they start working together, what little competition currently exists in cable TV coverage of the NFL disappears.

Brett Favre is done playing for the Green Bay Packers, but he will make one last appearance at Lambeau Field, during the Packers' regular-season opener, to have his number retired.

And since that opener is on Monday Night Football, you can bet that ESPN is going to be a wall-to-wall Favre fest that day. Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:

ESPN plans to send the entire crew of "Monday Night Countdown" to Lambeau for the game. ...

So in addition to the crew there covering the Packers-Vikings game, with Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and TonyKornheiser in the booth, the "Countdown" collection of Chris Berman, Stuart Scott, Tom Jackson, Keyshawn Johnson, Steve Young, Emmitt Smith and Chris Mortensen is scheduled to be on site as well.

Favre's wife, Deanna, was described by ESPN's ombudsman as the first Monday Night Football booth guest whom the viewers approved of. I have a feeling Brett will be the second.

After ESPN's day-long coverage of Matt Walsh's Spygate revelations last month, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady criticized the Worldwide Leader for spending an inordinate amount of time on the issue -- an opinion that Brady arrived at without having watched ESPN's coverage.

But now someone who did watch that coverage is weighing in with a similar opinion to Brady's. Le Anne Schreiber, ESPN's ombudsman, writes today that the network went overboard in covering the Spygate story, and she especially singles out NFL analysts Cris Carter and Mark Schlereth:

Schlereth imagined how such tapes might affect the outcome if film was shot, edited and utilized "during the course of a game" ...

"To think that a Super Bowl might be slanted in a team's favor!" Carter fumed.

Schreiber is right that Carter and Schlereth wrongly suggested that Walsh's tapes were used during games. In reality, the tapes were used between games. But for the most part, what I've found from fans is that those who like the Patriots think ESPN and the rest of the media have been too hard on them, while those who dislike the Patriots think ESPN and the rest of the media have been too easy on them.