"I'm just a man, damn it!"

FACT: There’s not a thing to be learned by watching a preseason NFL game. However, and this is something that is often ignored by the casual fan – the media doesn’t give a crap. And neither do I, so I figured we could talk about this past weekend’s games to pass this slow, boring Monday along. As always, I would like to point out that I do not profess to be an expert, merely a conversationalist with a love for potty humour. So please, offer your retorts and counterpoints in the comments and I’ll throw some more Earl Gray on the stove.

1) Alex Smith looked like, well, Alex Smith

To be fair, the San Francisco 49ers have never really given Alex Smith much to work with. But this isn’t about being fair, as much as it’s about winning. So far, Smith still doesn’t look like he wants to be the franchise QB that the 49ers thought he could be when they drafted him 6 years ago.

New coach Jim Harbaugh still hasn’t named a starter for Week 1, but neither of his guys – Smith or rookie Colin Kaepernick – were impressive against the New Orleans Saints. Smith was 2/7 for 10 yards while Kaepernick was 9/19 for 117 yards and 2 INTs. So how bad is it for the 49ers? They’re kicking the tires on Daunte Culpepper. At first glance, it’s incredible desperation. But deeper down, it’s probably to mentor Kaepernick, who is very similar to Culpepper.

Either way, don’t count San Fran out of the Suck for Luck sweepstakes.

UPDATE: And it looks like Culpepper is officially back in the NFL. The 9ers intend for him to play 3rd string and mentor Kaepernick, but as a fellow UCF product, I’d like to see Pepp roll one more time.

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Now that we’ve all calmed down from last week’s controversial running back rankings, I figured it was time to start the week off on the wrong foot with an equally controversial and debatable fantasy football wide receivers ranking. However, I don’t think that it will be the receivers and where I have them ranked that will fire everyone up, as much as it will be the means in which I group them – 80s TV sitcom daughters. I know, we’re like Harvard and MIT had a big, stupid baby after a drunken weekend in Cancun.

After all, let’s look at what happened since I posted that RB feature:

- The Kansas City Chiefs signed LeRon McClain, which means that Jamaal Charles might get one touchdown this season. Meanwhile, Ray Rice is all by himself. I’ve never said that our readers aren’t smarter than me.
- Mikel Leshoure tore his ACL and will miss the entire season for the Detroit Lions.
- Ashley Tisdale showed up at a gym looking like this. It’s just baffling.

As for the football meat of this ranking, I always have a lot of fun picking my wide receivers, because this is where you can really find some hidden gems, especially if you’re in a standard format league and you start 3 WRs or 2 WRs and 1 RB/WR flex spot. But of course there are also always the standard studs, definitive duds, and those guys who are just good enough to keep that one guy in your league sending trade offers for your top RBs all season long.

Oh, and if you couldn’t already tell by that banner pic, it’s pretty obvious who the No. 1 choice is.

Bears 19, Lions 14. I think the point where everyone is getting tripped up over this Calvin Johnson touchdown debacle is that the referees applied a rule that written for catches made on the sideline. I’m in favor for more rigid criteria when a guy is diving out of bounds and trying to catch a ball when his body is parallel with the earth. But Megatron went straight up for a ball and managed to get two feet and the left side of his ass inbounds before idly leaving the game ball in the end zone. That’s a catch, right?

Rule 8, Section 1, Article 3, Item 1 of the NFL Rule Book (page 51) states that “if a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact with an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, the pass is complete.” –via NBC Chicago.

I’ve watched the damn video on this about 15 times, and I still can’t say definitively that it looked like a catch (why does Johnson decide to even put that ball on the ground at all?) It wasn’t the call that killed the touchdown so much as Calvin Johnson’s understanding of the rule. Granted, it’s a stupid rule, but all he had to do was hang onto the the ball. I’d say it was unfortunate, but all that came out of it was another Detroit Lions loss. Those come around like, once a week or so. Video is after the jump. Watch it and then tell me I’m crazy.

Three of the possible top ten picks in the NFL draft admitted to smoking pot during scouting combine interviews, according to Pro Football Weekly.

Georgia Tech WR Calvin Johnson, Clemson DE Gaines Adams and Louisville DT Amobi Okoye, according to multiple sources who have watched the interviews, all admitted to using marijuana.

Wow this is a gigantic scandal.  I'm totally shocked.  Can you even believe that star college athletes would do an illegal drug that's available to everyone all over the country?  I heard pot's a gateway drug to harder stuff, like cigarettes and alcohol.  Surely these players have no moral character.

On the other hand, character schmaracter. If Calvin Johnson played for my favorite team, he could punch my mother in my face and I'd give him a high five and say "Bitch had it coming. By the way, nice TD catch last week."  Then I'd invite him to my place for some old-fashioned hooker-killin'.  I'd even take care of the bodies for him.  I'm just that kind of guy.