It’s Twitter Official: Peyton Manning is about to become a Denver Bronco. In a related story, Tim Tebow is up Sh*t Creek and accidentally tossed his oar into the wilderness.

When God closes a door, he opens a window — now that the “WHERE WILL PEYTON MANNING GO? I BET IT’S HERE” story every city with a football team’s newspaper has been writing for the last month is dead, it will be replaced by “COULD TIM TEBOW END UP IN OUR CITY WITH A FOOTBALL TEAM?” Boston.com is already on it, projecting that Tebow will be traded to the Patriots, for some reason. He’s also being traded to Arizona, Miami, Jacksonville and any other regional website that needs page views.

More on the story as it develops, especially if it involves Tebow singing in the garden of Gethsemane.

For the fourth consecutive year, ESPN sent its bracket guru Andy Katz to the White House to get President Obama’s pick for the NCAA TournamWHY’S HE PICKIN BASKETBALL GAMES WHEN WURR AT WAR?! After picking Kansas for the past two years, Obama picked North Carolina to win it alBUT THE ‘CONOMY IS IN THE DUMPS WHY DON’T HE FIX THAT?1 He also picked the Tar Heels in 2009, when they won the tournament with strong play from point guard Ty Lawson and All-American power forward Tyler HansbroWHY CAN’T HE LIKE A AMURRRICAN SPORT LIKE BASEBALL OR FOOTBALL AND NOT ONE FULLA SHOWBOATIN’ THUGS WHO DONN EVEN STAY IN SCHOOL?! His analysis was pretty sound, pointing out that North Carolina has more veteran leadership than the other heavy favorite, Kentucky, who is relying on a roster full of freshman and sophomores, including top NBA prospect Anthony DavOH I BET HE PICKED NORTH CAROLINA BECAUSE SOME OF HIS ***HOMEBOYS*** ARE ON THE TEAM. HE SHUDDA PICKED A GOOD HARD-WORKIN’ SCHOOL LIKE INDIANA OR WISCONSIN!

He also got to give a shout out to Harvard, the Ivy League’s representative in the tournament, and where he went to to law schWHY AREN’T THERE ANY MILITARY SCHOOLS IN THE TOURNAMENT? SUPPORT OUR TROOPS! I think we can all agree this is a fun little exercise, and certainly not anything to get upset ovAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH SOSHALISM!

I hate politics.

In case you missed it last night, Dwight Howard had one of the more remarkable games in his career as the Orlando Magic had their most remarkable win of the season. The Magic overcame a 14-point halftime deficit that was the result of a 20-0 Miami Heat run in the second quarter to defeat their in-state rivals 104-98 in overtime. Howard posted 24 points and 25 rebounds to lead his band of merry just-not-good-enoughers to their third straight win. And that’s where the fun ends.

During last night’s game, a Dwight Howard New Jersey Nets shirt (above) was briefly available on NBA.com, and after the game, ESPN had a very peculiar description for Howard’s effort and the importance of that game.

Howard is currently with the Magic in San Antonio, so if it was his Orlando finale, the Magic are getting as much mileage out of him as possible. Leading up to last night’s game, the Twitters were alive with the sounds of rumors that the Magic were part of a threeway deal with the Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors that would land them Monta Ellis, one of Howard’s preferred additions, but that was shot to poop when the Bucks and Warriors kicked the Magic out of bed and just had themselves a two-way.

Meanwhile, Howard was asked after his team’s win if he wants to be traded before tomorrow’s deadline and his response was: “I told the team I want to stay and finish the season.” He also said that the Magic could then roll the dice on him in the offseason, to which LeBron James responded, “Yo Cleveland, check out this assh*le!”

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Take a wild guess.

In case you weren’t aware, ESPN loves Jeremy Lin. The New York Knicks point guard was mentioned something like once a minute on SportsCenter every day last week. So of course if someone at the Worldwide Leader f*cks up a story or report about Lin, that person will pay the price. For instance, Anthony Federico wrote a questionable headline regarding Lin and the Knicks losing last week and it cost him his job.

Of course, that headline was just a teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy offensive:

But dammit, you guys, Federico said he didn’t mean it. He’s really sorry about this and he totally didn’t mean “Chink” to be taken as an innuendo, even though it’s one of the most common and laziest forms of racism in the world. How sorry is he? He wrote a letter, man.

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If you refer to a Chinese and Taiwanese basketball player as a “chink” in your ESPN headline — or worse, use “chink in the armor” to describe the performance of the Chinese and Taiwanese guy’s team on the air — what do you do?

“I’m sorry” is a good start, because hey, sometimes unfortunate homonyms like “chink” or phrases with racist undertones like “shucking and jiving” become commonplace and get used harmlessly in harmful situations. It happens. What you should not do next is say “I am a great Christian!” or “my wife is Asian” as an excuse, because you are the dumb guy who forgot he couldn’t use “chink” when talking about a f**king Chinese guy.

First up is ESPN editor Anthony Federico, the man who started this all with his CHINK IN THE ARMOR headline and who isn’t afraid to whip out a meme in his apology:

He said he has used the phrase “at least 100 times” in headlines over the years and thought nothing of it when he slapped it on the Lin story.

Federico called Lin one of his heroes – not just because he’s a big Knicks fan, but because he feels a kinship with a fellow “outspoken Christian.”

“My faith is my life,” he said. “I’d love to tell Jeremy what happened and explain that this was an honest mistake.”

“It’s unfortunate that I said Kareem Abdul-Jabbar n**ger-lipped that cigar, but we’re both Sunni Muslims so I think he’d understand.” Sounds kinda stupid when you type it like that, doesn’t it?

Even worse is what I like to call the Judd Winick Defense, courtesy of anchor Max Bretos:

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Candlestick Park went blackout dark twice during last night’s Monday Night Football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and depending on your level of inner demons your brain should go to one of two jokes: “pretty funny that a place called ‘candlestick’ would burn out like that” or “did anybody get shot?” The second one isn’t a joke as much as a concern, but don’t worry, you weren’t the only one thinking it.

From the Associated Press:

Two power outages delayed the Niners’ 20-3 Monday night win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, first just before kickoff and again early in the second quarter after the stadium moved to a backup power source.

NFL security chief Jeff Miller said he witnessed a transformer blow up while he was monitoring a gate outside the stadium, where a shooting during the preseason already put a negative light on this venue.

Eventually the lights came back on and stayed that way, and San Fran rolled to a 20-3 victory. Nobody was injured or murdered (that we know of) and nothing had to be postponed, so the game’s legacy lies in a gallery of videos and images depicting sudden darkness, dogs being led around the stadium by policemen and a sad line of cheerladies who just wanted to put on their Santa Claus dresses and shake a pom pom for our enjoyment. Those are the real victims.

Anyway, please enjoy said gallery, and yes, the Santa dresses are in there.

[pics credit to Getty Images, AP Photo and Reuters Images]

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