NFL Nfl Real Talk

The nice thing about being anyone on the San Antonio Spurs is that, well, you can generally sling criticism around; it's not a characteristic trait of any particular player on that team, but after so many years of solid team play and, well, just winning, they've got some sturdier walls than most glass houses.

Hence Bruce Bowen's recent comments to the San Antonio Express about the Dallas Cowboys, his favorite football team. See, it appears that Bruce, like every single person in the free world except Jerry Jones and Wade Phillips, doesn't think the Cowboys really have good chemistry.

"It's very disappointing," Bowen said of Sunday's painful showing by his favorites, "but character wins out over talent any day, at least in my book. You can see how infectious certain characters can be down the end of the road."

Bowen declined to name which of the Cowboys characters he considered "infectious," but he made it clear he believed the Cowboys were doomed by self-centered players.

Well, Bowen might have declined, but allow me: Pacman Jones, Terrell Owens and Roy Williams (the receiver). Of course, Pacman was probably more of a distraction than a totally destructive locker room presence, but still, anyone who thought bringing him to the Cowboys would result in anything positive is running a fool's errand.

And while Bowen is getting a bit aggressive in calling out another sport's players, what are the Cowboys going to do? Tell him he's wrong? Because, um, he's not.

The 0-16 Lions have officially done it. This is 0for08, FanHouse's eye on the Detroit Lions and their quest for a winless season.

It had to end this way.

That is, to say, if this is actually the end.

The Lions are addicted to bad football. I've tried coming up with a justification for so many years of substandard play as well as faulty personnel moves on and off the field, and I've come to the conclusion that they're simply addicts. It doesn't make them bad people, it simply means that they've embraced what we deem destructive as suitable to their way of life. They are a gigantic failure of an organization comprised of hundreds of individual enablers.

This isn't to trivialize or poke fun at addictions of a much more serious nature -- addictions come in all shapes and sizes, from manageable to fatal, from heroin to Starbucks. This is a unique variety, and the Lions are deep in it. Those close to the team, as is always the case with addiction, have suffered the most, and they've tried all they could -- walkouts, websites, effigies -- to pull the Lions out of their hole. But the thing about addicts is that they have to recognize their problem, and that only usually comes when they've bottomed out, when they've fallen so far that they have to choose to embrace recovery.

As the first team to finish a season 0-16, it seems obvious that this Lions era has officially bottomed out. But do they think so?

Chris Johnson (and his wallet) have already met the wrath of Roger Goodell this year -- Johnson celebrated an early season touchdown by wailing on some bongos and got fined. It followed then, that he would get slapped with a similar monetary amount after pulling out a flag attached to his waist and waving it around during a touchdown celebration.

But he won't, and PFT found out why, after emailing NFL spokesman Greg Aiello:

"It was a towel that is legally part of his uniform," Aiello said. "There is not a violation of rules."

"Due to past inappropriate acts while on the ground," Aiello wrote, "the player demonstration guidelines were modified two years ago to prohibit celebratory actions while on the ground. So it's a blanket rule (not a snow-angel rule). You can't go the ground to celebrate a play."

Of course, this also explains why Wes Welker got stuck with a $10K fine for being creative. But more than that, it points out what a rigid, Spanish Inquisition style of discipline Goodell is taking with the NFL. The logical thing to do with touchdown celebrations is review them case by case -- although admittedly that leaves a lot more room to wiggle on the appeal process -- and just say "at your own risk of being fined."

Then, when something funny humorous, quick and original -- like bongo playing or snow angel making -- happens, it becomes a "no harm - no foul, let's move on" scenario. And when someone behaves stupidly, they get slapped with a fine. Hard to see how too many people would be upset by that.

Matt Lepsis is a fairly forgettable football name. He suited up as a Denver Bronco for 10 years before retiring last season. And his biggest claim to fame was probably winning a Super Bowl ring. At least until recently, when he told the Colorado Springs Gazette that he did a bunch of drugs while he was playing football, only to leave the sport and follow a higher calling.

"For the first six games of the year, I was high," Lepsis said of the 2007 season.

[...] "The first thing I did when I woke up in the morning was get high, and I would try to stay that way all day long," said Lepsis, who won't say what drugs he used.

"I look back on it, and it was really foolish of me," Lepsis said. "There were definitely times when I wasn't even really there. I was physically there, but I was in another place mentally."

The scary part is that the NFL's drug testing didn't uncover Lepsis' problems with illegal substances. Oddly enough, he doesn't discuss exactly what drugs he was doing -- presumably the notion of being "high" would indicate marijuana but, according to what science says pot does to your body and brain, repetitively getting groped, grabbed, knocked around and pushed on the ground sounds pretty miserable.

The story in the Gazette immediately smells like a memoir of some sort, which has already been done by Jason Peters, but the good news is that he is in seminary, seeking to become a preacher. That, hopefully, should keep his message from being any sort of awkward public relations-filled fiasco. But that doesn't mean the media won't be all over this. And Roger Goodell's testing policies.

Via PFT

So you know, the National Football League doesn't care what time of year it is. Okay? Got that? You do snow angels -- in the snow and on a football field of all places -- after a touchdown and you're going to get fined. Doesn't matter if Roger's supposed to be jolly for the season. And such is the case with Wes Welker, who just had to open up his purse for the NFL.

Welker said he wasn't sure if he would appeal, but he acknowledged his snow-angel-making days are over.

"It was a spur of the moment deal, and you can be sure that it won't happen again," Welker told Gasper.

Per NFL rules, players are not allowed to go to the ground for a touchdown celebration (unless it is a prayer). The official reason Welker was fined, the NFL confirmed today, was for "unsportsmanlike conduct for participation in an illegal demonstration by going to the ground."

Sadly, Welker's not insane "colorful" enough to do something stupid like change (or just create) to a religion that worships the Abominable Snowman and then try to appeal the suspension -- you best believe that Chad Javon would be all over that.

Of course, just because Welker complies wholeheartedly, well, that doesn't make the NFL fining people for doing snow angels or other colorful-yet-classy touchdown celebrations any less stupid.

There needs be no explanation of what a horrible person Brett Favre is simply for putting us through the torturous media coverage of last year when he couldn't make up his mind about retiring. Defend him all you want -- that was a total and utter nightmare to live through as a sports fan.

But if you thought it would be any easier this year, you were wrong. Dead wrong.

"There's some throws I personally think I can make, but at times I haven't," Favre said. "I attribute some of that to age. I think . . . the physical that every player goes through after the last game will shed some light on some things."

"This very well could be my last game," Favre said. "I'm aware of that. I'd like to make it a memorable one."

And this "could very well be" my last day at my job, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop everyone that walks by my desk to let them know that. Unfortunately, Favre is an attention junkie, so we all knew this was coming. He's already fashionably destroyed the entire Green Bay fanbase -- Aaron Rodgers' 5-10 season isn't helping matters -- and now it's New York's turn.

Unfortunately, they don't have the history with the gunslinger that the cheeseheads do, and there's a decent chance they just run him out of town when he tries to do the retirement shuffle. We can only hope anyway.

Clearly the pressure of January is a bit much for Eric Mangini. First of all, his job is on the line. Secondly, he just lost to the freaking Seahawks in the snow (your team is from New York, dude). And finally, Shaun Ellis lobbed a giant chunk of snow into the crowd, causing quite the stir amongst the NFL's lawdogs.

Fortunately, Mangenius is smart enough to divert all the attention to Seattle security and his irrational fear of snowballs and their ability to blind humans.

"There were a lot of people that were hit with snowballs," Mangini said. "All you need is someone to get hit in the eye. It's just not a safe situation. It was disappointing to see that, but that stuff, we couldn't control that. How we can control it is how we respond."

"I thought there could have been more done to prevent what was happening in terms of the safety issues from the snowballs coming down," Mangini said. "But that being said, it doesn't justify us getting involved in any context."

Now, aside the fact that everyone and their brother has taken a snowball to the domepiece at least once or twice in their lives (and yet ... can still see out of both eyes), how about we just focus on the Jets for a minute. Clearly this is a team that lacks discipline (Ellis) and that hasn't been "coached up" properly, considering the nature of the AFC East and the firm command they had on the division just a month or so ago.

There are issues with fans throwing snowballs onto the field, but as Mike Holmgren pointed out, it's a "novelty" in Seattle -- if the Jets had taken care of business and won the game, we wouldn't even be talking about this.

It's entirely arguable that the way the New York Giants played in Week 17 against the Patriots, despite losing, propelled them into the postseason and eventually to a Super Bowl win.

Of course, you could also argue that such a discussion is pointless. Whatever. My main point is that Tom Coughlin typically -- as he wrote in a book -- does not believe in resting players in the final week of the season if there's nothing at stake.

"It is a difficult decision," Coughlin wrote after noting that many NFL coaches bench their stars in similar situations. "It becomes clear that the media and fans care more about a playoff game and therefore don't want our first-teamers to play. But I feel differently."

Naturally, then, you would expect to see every single Giant -- including Justin Tuck and Brandon Jacobs, both recently banged up -- playing full games against the Vikings this Sunday. Or perhaps not; it appears, judging by the somewhat hemming nature of a recent statement to the media, that Coughlin might have changed his tune.

"My answer to all of your questions will be that in conjunction with the medical people and with the idea of improving our game, having individuals perform at a higher level than we did in the last game, which is always our theme, we will do the best thing for our football team," Coughlin said.

"What's best for the Giants" and "Play every game like it's win or go home" are two entirely different statements. And while Coughlin isn't the type of guy to go back on his word, I don't think, he would be doing exactly that if the Giants don't pull out all the stops to beat the Vikings on Sunday.

Jerry Jones -- if the rumors are true -- made a serious karmic error by petitioning the NFL to schedule the Baltimore Ravens as the final opponent for the Dallas Cowboys at Texas Stadium. Sure, at the time the Ravens had a rookie head coach and a rookie quarterback, were coming off a disappointing season, and looked totally ripe for the picking at the hands of the unstoppable Cowboy juggernaut.

Hindsight, of course, is 20/20. But, as it turns out, the Ravens did get a whiff of what Jerry was up to, as Willis McGahee explained to me in an interview yesterday, and Jim Harbaugh used it for motivation.

Yeah our coach told us about ... you know they find out about the schedules in January, and you know, they wanted to schedule us for the final game in Texas Stadium, and our coach gave us a speech right before our meeting was over on Friday night ... and we knew it wasn't going to be no easy walk through for us or for them either.

So, yeah. That's pretty freaking awkward. And it goes to show just how lacking in humility and tact the Cowboys' owner can be at times -- he literally told the NFL, "I want to whip these guys silly as the last big fireworks show in Texas Stadium" (presumably because they were the only team to never play there?)

Obviously it's was an action that backfired heavily on him, but then again, most bulletin board material ends up that way.