Tampa Bay's Chris Simms surprised some folks in the know by passing on the free agent market to sign a new two-year deal that could be worth up to $14.5 million if he meets several performance incentives. Simms signed the contract and even had a good attitude despite Coach Jon Gruden's constant criticism and public statements that Simms would have competition to win the starter's spot next year.

"Coach is going to make those contortions no matter who his quarterback is," [Simms] said. "If Peyton Manning was quarterback and he didn't complete a pass on third-and-10, I don't think Coach's reaction would be much different. He wants to win just as badly as we do, so he's going to continue to do that and be hard on the quarterback position. That's something that when you're playing quarterback for him you're going to have to deal with."

I'm almost impressed. Then you consider this:

Simms showed up at [practice] wearing the Christmas gift he got from the Bucs training staff. It's a black T-shirt with the phrase "Got Spleen?" written in white across the chest.

And that's pretty cool. It's kind of like my "Got Gigantic Balls?" t-shirt, only the opposite. Because I have gigantic balls, you see.

Allow me to get you up to speed on NFL AirPlay, a game you can play on Sprint phones:

NFL AirPlay Live is a real time competition you can join while watching the game on TV. Downloaded to your mobile phone, NFL AirPlay Live lets you predict every play before it happens. Run or Pass? Which player will get the ball?… It's the fastest, most interactive way to test your football IQ against your friends or a nation of football fans.

What kind of feckless loser would do this? I'll give you a hint: he doesn't have a spleen, and Bruce Gradkowski is starting in his place. In an interview with the AirPlay staff during halftime of the Giants-Jags Monday night game, Chris Simms discussed his unhappiness with himself at dipping down to fifth place in the AirPlay standings:

I got thrown off my game big time. I turned it to BET to watch a music video for 2 seconds, and I missed 2 plays.

I'm not writing anything else. That's the punchline: BET and interactive cell phone games. I'm going to go find something with a higher degree of difficulty. You can supply your own gay tattoo/douchebag brother jokes. If you need any help, just go to his Wikipedia page. His nickname in high school was "toolbag." 

Hey, Jon Gruden, can you tell us about Chris Simms and Bruce Gradkowski?

"They're totally opposite. One is left-handed, one's right-handed. One is 6-foot-5, one is 6 foot. One is handsome, one is ugly."

Somehow the rest of the quote must have been cut off from the news story: "One's missing a spleen, the other guy has his. One has his buddy's initials tattooed on his leg, the other has a firm handshake. One's a beautiful piece of blond man-meat, and the other guy is some Polish dago who hasn't done anything but revitalize the team just as our season was falling apart."

I love it when coaches open up. 

So Chris Simms no longer has a spleen. He played the entire 4th quarter of the Bucs' loss to the Panthers with his ruptured spleen bleeding all over his other organs. Nice work by the Tampa team doctors there: Aw, you just got your ribs banged up! Quit cryin' and get back out there! Chris Simms could have fucking died, and the doctors couldn't diagnose him. Maybe the Bucs should hire a physician who didn't get his M.D. from the Caribbean.

I don't want to take away from Chrissy's toughness — really, that was a, uh, gutsy performance — but let's not forget how much he was sucking before this happened. Two games, zero TDs, six interceptions. This potentially season-ending injury will be a nice distraction from how badly he was playing. Really, it's almost Culpepperesque. Chris should take this opportunity to force a trade, get a new contract, and singlehandedly sink the playoff hopes of some other team.