"Yo Ocho, yo dude dressed like me... that's my chick. We're getting married and stuff."

The good news is that it appears that the NFL Lockout could end very soon. Not soon like today, but probably sometime next week. Regardless, the NFLPA* and the owners are ironing out the final details of rookie wages, which were a big obstacle, and the players could file to lift the lockout as early as Monday. The better news is that Jay Cutler’s doing fine. How fine? He was partying last night at the Diesel fashion show at the Raleigh Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida as part of the Merecedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim 2012 events this weekend.

J-Cutty took his sore knee to Miami to support his main babe, Kristin Cavallari, as she walked the runway for Diesel’s new swimsuit line. Joined by Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco, Cutler chilled and mingled with the peeps, probably downed a few brews. Nothing special, brah. Check it out for yourself after the jump, but don’t stare at J-Cutty’s babe, OK? He’s not down with that.

And yes, this was a very obvious and unapologetic way of posting photos of hot models. Happy Friday!

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According to Drew Brees, the NFL Lockout is almost over. According to Chad Ochocinco, it’s far from over. Either way, while the NFLPA* and team owners met into the late hours last night, James Harrison’s big mouth continues to be the top NFL news because that’s all we’ve got. Well, except for Hines Ward’s DUI, and he must be absolutely loving Harrison right now.

Harrison recently sat down for an interview with Paul Solotaroff of Men’s Journal, which I once read on an airplane, and he sounded off about everything from his hatred of Roger Goodell to his problems with his own teammates. And if you haven’t already read the article, Harrison really sounded off. Most notably, he called out Ben Roethlisberger for some mistakes in the Super Bowl and pointed out that he’s not Peyton Manning, he labeled Rashard Mendenhall as a “fumble machine”, he said that Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing is “juiced out of his mind”, and he called Roger Goodell many things, including (allegedly) a f*ggot. Harrison also defended his reputation, most notably as a thug, but… hey, did I mention that banner pic is the lead image from the article?

And with all of that on paper, published and available on magazine racks, Harrison claims he was misquoted and Solotaroff, the guy who says he has notebooks full of other quotes and hours of digital interviews, agrees.

“We talked about 11 o’clock yesterday morning,” Solotaroff said on Thursday. “Look, James is the guy who’s got to live with Ben for the next three years. . . . So as I told James, ‘Listen, whatever you’ve got to say to mend fences is perfectly fine with me.’” (Via Pro Football Talk)

That’s the quote that really should stop the story. Solotaroff is an admittedly big fan of Harrison, which moves this article from “insightful interview” to “sloppy knob polish” and renders it irrelevant, as far as journalistic integrity. Essentially, Solotaroff told Harrison that he can say whatever he wants and he’ll manipulate and fix it after the fact. As I learned in one of the few journalism classes I stayed awake during, that’s not kosher.

But what is relevant is that Harrison has a big mouth and he said a bunch of things that he can’t take back. Cushing has since said he would pray for Harrison, whatever that means, and it has been reported that Roethlisberger and Mendenhall will take Harrison at his word (translated: they’ll share some “What the f*ck”s in private). Goodell, though, is a different story. While he has his hands full trying to make sure that Harrison and the rest of the players have a job this season, I can’t imagine that he’s going to look to favorably upon a guy that he has never looked favorably upon.

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Cincinnati Bengals cornerback and former TNA World Tag Team Champion (seriously, if you’d forgotten) Adam “Pacman” Jones was arrested Sunday in Cincinnati on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct while intoxicated and resisting arrest, and if you’ve found a way to mimic that noise Pacman makes when he’s killed by a ghost, make it now. Cincinnati media outlets reported documents filed in court accuse Jones of “being disorderly and shouting profanities in a downtown bar and trying to pull away as officers arrested him”. He was jailed at around 3 AM and released later in the morning.

Jones put the Pacman Experience into words more eloquently than I could hope to:

Jones denied the allegations in an interview with WCPO-TV after leaving jail.

“I just had surgery, so why would I be resisting arrest?” said Jones, who was wearing a neck brace. He’s been recovering from a neck injury last fall that required surgery, but he was expecting to play this year.

He said he hadn’t been drinking and was out with his wife to celebrate her birthday.

“It’s ridiculous, man,” he told the TV station. “I keep on going through the same thing, and it don’t make no sense.”

The Yahoo Sports news bit summarizes Pacman’s off-screen troubles as “at least six other arrests and a dozen instances that involved police intervention”, but for some reason it seems more like that. It feels like Pacman just goes to prison, gets out, immediately drives to a club and throws money in the air until somebody walks up and arrests him again. I didn’t realize he was only 27-years old, I thought he was like 48. I barely remembered that he played football.

Also fun,

A Bengals spokesman said the team had no comment on the most recent arrest. The team is prohibited from having contact with Jones because of the NFL lockout.

Maybe that’s for the best. Do everything you don’t want people fining you for or talking about now, football players!

Dear NFL Owners and Players,

It has been long enough. It is time for you to end this lockout and resume the NFL’s standard offseason workouts, practices, free agency signings, and begin preparations for the preseason. Players, you have a 50-50 offer on the table, yet you won’t accept it because you don’t want the owners-imposed retirement fund to count against the salary cap, or in basic terms – come out of your pockets. As someone who doesn’t have more than a few cobwebs and a coupon for a free taco in his 401K, I am begging you guys to remember that old saying “Not For Long” and understand that this is meant to help you. And owners, quit letting the lawyers run the show. All they’re trying to do is drag this out as long as they can to hike up their hours and milk you for every possible penny.

But this is mostly about the fans, and we’ve suffered enough. We can’t take any more pain, and that’s why we’re not going to put up with a new batch of Brett Favre rumors. This is bullsh*t already.

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While the NFL Lockout continues, players are still forced to look elsewhere for around-the-clock attention, so it was no surprise that Miami Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder returned to his South Florida radio show the other day. Once a week, Crowder and his guests offer their opinions and insight into the day’s hot topic NFL and Dolphins issues, and this week’s big subject was Terrelle Pryor’s admission of selling autographs and jerseys to Ohio businessmen. Crowder said that he supports Pryor because he “hypothetically” gets where he’s coming from.

“I’ll say hypothetically I don’t have any more of my Florida jerseys,” Crowder said Sunday. “There were some Jacksonville businessmen that really hypothetically liked my play.”

(CBS Sports)

And hypothetically speaking, it’s funny when Crowder talks about his college days, because he was hypothetically very promising and he hypothetically shot himself in his hypothetical ass when he blamed Mel Kiper’s first round projection as the reason he spent too much money before the Dolphins even chose him in the third round. Hypothetically, his one career interception, 2.5 sacks and 3 fumbles suck. It’s too bad those Jacksonville businessmen weren’t working for the Jaguars, amiright fellow Dolphins fans?

Look, I’m not going to be the eleventy-billionth sports-words-typing-guy to shake my ham fist in rage that a college athlete is trying to profit off of his own skills and services. Nothing is going to change until college players learn how to strike, but then that would affect their educations and we can’t have that. I just find it so ironic that a guy like Crowder could command a high price for his college jerseys and autographs when I can pick up his Dolphins jersey at Marshalls.

Josh Cribbs is living through this lockout the best he can. He’s working out, training hard, and doing what he can to be completely screwed over by the new kickoff rules, but he’s done it all while keeping a low profile. Until now. What started out as a simple trip to get a haircut has turned into one of the biggest athlete scandals in the history of professional sports. Josh Cribbs… got a parking ticket.

But this isn’t just any ordinary $15 parking ticket. Cribbs says that this ticket is undeserved and is a clear, shining example of a corrupt Cleveland police department that he must now wage war against to save the people of Cleveland, lest they forever be subject to unfair parking fines.

“I was at the barber and I went outside to put a quarter in the meter. I saw I had a parking ticket. But there was eight minutes left on the meter, I was highly upset,” said Cribbs.

“I wrote, ‘not guilty!’ I made sure to take pictures with time stamps,” laughs Cribbs. “I got a lot of response. People saying the Cleveland Heights Police Department is notorious for writing out tickets, people who have been wronged.”

“Well, since this is a lockout, I have the time to fight for Cleveland, fight for the blue collar workers here, and I think it’s wrong and I am trying to stand up for those who can’t,” said Cribbs. (Fox 8 Cleveland)

As Cribbs points out, it costs $50 to fight a $15 parking ticket in Cleveland, so he’s taking it upon himself to save thousands of his neighbors $35 each. But this isn’t simply a case of a hero taking down the corrupt law. Not if the police have anything to say about it.

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