Women be crownin'.

The 2012 Miss America Pageant took place on Saturday night at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, and I don’t think that I need to tell you any more details because you were all undoubtedly watching, and perhaps betting heavily on your favorite ladies. Ultimately, Miss Wisconsin Laura Kaeppeler was crowned Miss America and as you can see above, she celebrated with the obligatory tears of shock while her peers congratulated her. I assume they all then left for the pillow fight.

But Kaeppeler stole the show early on when she invoked the name of the almighty Aaron Rodgers as she playfully flirted with the QB of the Green Bay Packers.

“If you’re watching, Aaron Rodgers, call me,” she said when introducing herself to the audience.

(Via USA Today)

Rodgers and the Packers saw their chances for a Super Bowl repeat shredded by the New York Giants yesterday, as they turned the ball over four times while Eli Manning and Hakeem Nicks tap danced to the tune of 37-20 on their fresh graves. I assume that Rodgers is pretty bummed about it, but it’s nice to know that he can always fall back into the waiting arms of just about any girl on the planet, including Miss America.

Obviously, we’ve discussed the awesomeness that is Rodgers plenty in the past, but I can’t help but wonder at what point his status as a Grade A Poon Hound switches from endearing to annoying.

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Elite-to-Joe-Flacco quarterback Joe Flacco spent his Wednesday afternoon feeling a little insecure, chatting with the media about how they love quarterbacks, but don’t seem to ever spread the love to Baltimore. “Baltimore has a quarterback”, he wonders aloud. The guy from the Baltimore Sun starts doodling in his notepad, then rolls his eyes when he remembers he should probably be writing this down.

“If you look at the teams that won, yeah you can look at the quarterbacks but that’s just because you guys, ESPN, everybody wants to pump them up as being the best quarterback that year. It’s really going to come down to what team is the best,” Flacco said. “I’m sure if we win, I’ll have nothing to do with why we won according to you guys.”

As MJD of Shutdown Corner points out, people don’t think Joe Flacco is an elite quarterback leading his team into war because he isn’t one, he’s Joe f**king Flacco. He’s fine, but he’s Joe Flacco.

The Ravens aren’t built like the Patriots or the Packers. They don’t succeed or fail based on whether or not they throw the ball seventy times a game, and here are their options: give the ball to Ray Rice, or give the ball to Joe Flacco. JOE FLACCO. Which would you do? Joe Flacco knows:

“You guys want everybody to be Aaron Rodgers and be Tom Brady, but you guys do realize, those guys’ [teams] don’t run the ball? If we try to do that, the criticism that we’d take around here would be ridiculous.”

I think he would behoove Joe Flacco to realize he’s the sort of guy you have to identify as “Joe Flacco” every time, because calling him “Joe” or “Flacco” doesn’t seem right. He’s doing well, and should try really hard not to be that girl in art class who draws a horse for every project and gets pissed when the kids with actual brains and hands for art get praised. Draw your horse, win your playoff games, and be okay being Joe Flacco. Because Joe Flacco is what the Ravens need.

Joe Flacco.

Man, time sure does fly. It seems like just yesterday I was praising Drew Brees. Actually, it was just yesterday, but I was referring to when I named Brees and the New Orleans Saints winning Super Bowl XLIV the top Sports Moment of 2010. And you know what? That was a boring, predictable pick and it left nothing to the imagination of you, our beloved readers. You deserve more than just the run-of-the-mill year end list, because With Leatherites are smarter than the average sports blog reader, and I know that because I was called an idiot by you guys plenty this year.

You also have a better sense of humor than the average sports blog reader, so when I was entering the qualifications for this year’s Best Sports Moments into my sophisticated super computer (read: old yellow notepad) I wanted to kick the sentimental crap to the curb and really focus on what makes us all tick – namely, poop jokes and hot models. But mostly fun sports moments. As always, I don’t expect everyone to agree, and I’m sure that I left out a few moments here and there (sorry hockey). So feel free to school us on your biggest moments of the year, and let’s all hope that 2012 is a little more sex scandal free…

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When this season’s awards are eventually given out, Aaron Rodgers is going to be the NFL’s Most Valuable Player. There will be compelling cases for his QB peers Tom Brady and Drew Brees, who will probably break Dan Marino’s passing record tonight. And many sports writers will cry foul that Ray Rice, who has been virtually silent about his contract situation with the Baltimore Ravens in the classiest way possible, deserves it for carrying the Baltimore Ravens to the playoffs. But having had more sleep in the past few days than I get in most months, my brain is firing off insane ideas today, including the argument that San Francisco 49ers kicker David Akers deserves to be NFL MVP. You read that right.

Trust me, I know how absurd this is and I deserve everyone calling me insane and throwing lit cigarettes at me, because in no universe should a kicker mean more to his team than a QB, RB or All-Pro linebacker. But the 49ers have had such an incredible season, seeing as most morons – *points to self* – figured this would be a cake walk year in the NFC West for the St. Louis Rams, who ended up being a bigger disappointment than Sucker Punch. Before you start lining up to give me atomic wedgies, though, let’s at least look at the numbers.

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"Think somebody will write a really sh*tty rap song about this?"

By icing his own kicker in the 4th quarter on what should have been an easy game-winning field goal, Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett basically took the door off the hinges and invited parody into his life. Of course the kick that Garrett iced was good, and Dan Bailey eventually missed his second effort, leading to a game-winning touchdown by the Arizona Cardinals in overtime. Now, I would make the point that Garrett deserves ridicule for not using his powerful running game properly against a terrible defense, and others will point out that Tony Romo completely blew an opportunity to use one of the team’s two timeouts, but in the end the kick is all people will talk about.

Take Cowboy Jeff, for instance, who has quite a history of parodying embarrassing moments in Cowboys history. He decided that Garrett icing his own kicker was indeed deserving of one of his patented parody songs. This one is entitled, “Don’t Ice Ice Bailey.” Brace yourself.

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If you had told me that someone was going to conduct a poll in Wisconsin about Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ popularity, I would have slapped you and told you to stop wasting money. Alas, Public Policy Poling (which deserves to be slapped just for that name) went ahead with a popularity poll recently that asked Wisconsinites their opinions on public and political figures, and, of course, Rodgers, who is believed to be able to simply snap his fingers to make a super model orgy appear.

When the poll results came in, Rodgers broke the state’s polling record with a favorable rating of 89%. I assume the other 11% is angry fathers with ugly daughters who can’t get knocked up with Rodgers’ seed. So of course the polling company decided to conduct another poll to see who could possibly beat Rodgers.

Lincoln, who freed the slaves while fighting to keep the United States together in the Civil War, was seen positively by 91% of Americans, compared to only 2% who had an unfavorable opinion. Jesus Christ came in with a 90% favorability rating, but 3% of voters saw him in a negative light.

Two other figures beat the 80% favorability mark: George Washington, the general who earned the title of “Father of his country,” at 86% and Mother Teresa, the late humanitarian who tended the sick and dying in India for more than four decades and who is on her way to becoming a Roman Catholic saint. She rated an 83% favorability score.

(Via the Los Angeles Times)

There you have it – Aaron Rodgers, 1% worse than Jesus.

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