Devotees to this website will quickly learn that we cast a skeptical eye to our fellow writers who seem to relish each and every opportunity to enhance their own celebrity and become yet another “personality” of the Trent-Dilfer-Mark-Schlereth cast. Thus, Profootballtalk’s evil dwarf and high school yearbook nerd Mike Florio, who I reluctantly admit has been right about a few things, (just as stopped watches go) is doing his damnedest to create a controversy out of Peyton Manning’s decision to pull rank with former Denver Broncos quarterback Frank Tripucka and wear his formerly retired number 18 when he begins the 2012 NFL season under the knife center for the Broncos.

No fewer then three posts appeared in a single day criticizing Manning for donning the retired number on PFT. It’s not that Florio doesn’t have a point, he does, but athletes are superstitious people (Michael Jordan abandoned number 45 by like the third quarter of his first game back) and Elway would have probably sold his first-born into the Sierra Leone diamond mining trade just to get rocket-lazer-arm in Denver for next season.

Most likely to annoy me into posting this article:

If it goes against everything Manning believes in, then he should have politely declined. I’m sure if Manning had been wearing No. 7 since 1998, John Elway would “really want” Manning to wear Elway’s number, too. That doesn’t make it right.

DON’T YOU DARE EXERCISE YOUR OWN FREE WILL!

Indeed, it flies in the face of the entire concept of retiring numbers. If a number is retired, it’s retired. The person for whom the number was retired should have no say in the matter; part of the honor is that the topic of unretiring the number should never be broached.

It’s the Catalina wine mixer! People have literally killed to be in this position!

In this case, the skids were greased last week, when reporters began contacting Tripucka and asking him about whether the number would be dusted off for Manning. What would anyone expect Tripucka to say? ”No, it’s mine . . . and while we’re on the topic get off my lawn”?

To his credit, Tripucka acted charitably. But he never should have been placed in that position.

Fair point. Then again, Tripucka probably saw the Patriots game.

In the end, the Broncos are the custodians of the team’s numbers.

So then why do you even care? As soon as Manning goes down he’ll go under the knife again, retire for good, and 18 in Denver will belong to Tripucka again. Does this really matter?

And to those of you who think that Tripucka has manipulated this situation merely to get his name back into circulation after nearly 50 years of obscurity, keep two things in mind. First, he’s 84. Second, he has Alzheimer’s.

Has anyone said that? Also, although it is truly unfortunate it’s not like he’s giving Manning power of attorney, or buying volcano insurance from Manning. Also, the insinuation that the Broncos or Manning are taking advantage of Tripucka in his current state is deeply misleading since Mrs. Tripucka says her husband would feel honored.

Manning is going to wear a number for the Broncos for a couple seasons (if he’s supremely lucky) and then it will come down again. If nobody seems to care, then why do you care so much?

It seems like every year the NCAA Tournament becomes a larger part of our popular culture. This year, it is a given that instead of working on Friday, everyone is calling in sick and heading to a bar (well, except for yours truly). The only problem with the mass consumption of the coolest four days in sports is that when “society” makes a big deal about it, is that well… everyone makes a big deal about it. For a long time, Days 1-4 of the tournament were a sports lover’s secret: we called out of work, hid our brackets, and used a stupid thing called a “Boss Button.” Now, it’s only a matter of time until CBS puts Justin Bieber on the selection show. Until then, let’s make the most of what we have left, shall we?

Much like last year, I haven’t spent a lot of time watching college basketball this season. I blame Randy Edsall. Yeah, I know he’s a football coach. In any case, if the geek from “Social Network” gets to put his lame bracket on the Internet, I feel like I should be able to post mine. If it’s not clear from my reasoning below, I know next to nothing. Let’s get to it: Read the rest of this entry

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers shelled out $56 million for a 5 year contract with $26 million of it is guaranteed for wide-receiver Vincent Jackson.  HUGE payday for the 29 year old wideout and thankfully for Washington Redskins fans, it was not their favorite team that shelled out that kind of money to just one player.

Most people thought it was surprising that the Washington Redskins didn’t make him their number one priority, as many were stating prior to 4pm on Tuesday, but once you realized what they were up to, their lack of interest in VJax made perfect sense.

If you might recall, starting just last season, the Redskins made a point of signing younger free agents when they have had to dip into the free agent pool.  Productive players last season such as Stephen Bowen, Chris Chester, Barry Cofield and Adam Carriker were examples of this. This year, the Redskins’ free agent approach appears to be no different. So far the ‘Skins have signed wide receivers Pierre Garcon, Josh Morgan and have made a strong offer to Eddie Royal out of the free agent pool for a combined $66.5 million, with at least $29 million guaranteed.  Just Garcon was signed to a deal that was longer than 2 years and none of the players are older than 27 years old.

If I was a wide receiver on the Redskins besides 2nd year player Leonard Hankerson, I might be worried about my job next season.

Despite the NFL taking away around half of the Redskins’ available cap space, they have gone out and put together a receiving corps that should be able to catch up to the deep balls that either Robert Griffin III or Andrew Luck will be launching.  (Oh, right, if you live under a rock you should know that the Redskins moved up to the number 2 spot in the draft (giving up three 1st round picks and one 2nd round pick in the process) to draft Robert Griffin III.)

If the Redskins can continue to make moves like these, with any luck to their fans, the team will win the title of “Off-season Champs” this year for their shrewd picks instead of for the foolish money they throw at the big name players they acquire who never live up to their price tag.

Note: If you want to buy that logo on a T-shirt, hit up 289 Designs, its yours for $20

This thing just came out but it is a sure thing to become a new sport in the future. It is called the “Subwing” and it allows you to essentially fly while underwater.  So this guy, Simon Sivertson, figured out that if he developed this wing to be used underwater, towed by a boat, he would be able to see the world under the sea in a whole new way…faster and with tremendous control. Looks like he succeeded.

Check out the video to watch it in action, its pretty impressive:

There is no way this doesn’t get co-opted for some sort of new watersport in the next few years. It could easily be a judged sport like surfing or wake-boarding with the body control one can have with that thing. If i lived near the water, or was at all athletic and/or acrobatic, I’d be on this like white on rice…but i’m not so i’ll continue to blog about things I cannot do.

/contemplates his life

/puts hands on face

/cries in hands.

If you want one, you can get it from the company site here. Just remember, if this blows up and becomes the next big watersport, you heard it here first.

From Neatorama via Dude Craft

I encourage our readers to click through to this article on The Atlantic which looks into what the NCAA Tournament can tell researchers about the economic geography of sports.  Check out the above map. This map was done by the Martin Prosperity Institute and it details the “distribution of sports occupations across metros, including both “athletes” and “coaches and scouts”. The key takeaway from the article is that it isnt the “major” sports markets like LA or NYC or DC that dominate the sports world, its the small and medium-sized communities that have much a higher economic concentration of jobs in the sporting world.

Super interesting article because the results of the study are quite simply surprising. Give it a looksee…then come back to the Deuce for videos of people getting hit in the crotch with things and stuff.  You know how we do it!  HOLLA!