Welcome to another installment of Wild Card Wednesday, as I try to cram together all of the awesome, random things that we’ve been missing out on in favor of the big stories and half-naked Marisa Miller…

At some point on Sunday, Houston Texans quarterback Matt Schaub hurt his foot and now it looks like his season is over. I’m sure that the Texans won’t completely give up on Schaub until a doctor does something cool and drastic like slam his glasses down and yell, “Damn it, I’m not God!” In the meantime, the second coming of Matt Leinart is upon us, and somewhere there’s a Jacuzzi not being boned in.

Last night, Houston tight end James Casey Tweeted the above image of a local Hooters showing support for the new QB. Unfortunately, after calling the Hooters, I learned that they ran out of space and it should have read: “Hey Leinart, we believe you gave us all gonorrhea.” OK, I may have made that up. But would you bet against it?

I’ve got my fingers crossed for you, Texans fans. God knows this would be my response to losing Schaub…

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, the time comes when the lights need to be turned on and the party must end. We had a good run of 10 weeks, as we watched the league’s worst teams flop around like wounded ducks as a few of them tried to convince us they weren’t losing on purpose for the 2012 NFL Draft’s top prize – Stanford QB Andrew Luck. Unfortunately, our party is pretty much over and we can stick a fork in this Suck for Luck campaign. Barring a miracle – and by that I mean the sudden desire to win – the Indianapolis Colts will have the first pick in the next draft.

And that’s fine, because that’s what their fans and ownership openly pined for to very little criticism. Apparently the Colts are allowed to lose on purpose, so let’s all tip our caps to the eventual team that will make Luck the No. 1 pick. In the meantime, we’ll take one last rundown of the power(less) rankings – and don’t worry, we’ll still review each game in our own fun way in the coming weeks – while I try to decide if I want the Miami Dolphins Whiffin’ for Robert Griffin III or Playing Lames for LaMichael James. Maybe Losing Whack, Son for Justin Blackmon?

Decisions, decisions.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Arizona Cardinals cut Matt Leinart today. Leinart, who enjoyed a celebrated college career at Southern Cal under Pete Carroll, never found his footing in the NFL after being drafted by the Denny Green regime in Arizona with the 10th overall pick in 2006.

Leinart made headlines after impregnating his college basketball star ex-girlfriend (and clubbing it up in New York City after winning the Heisman), being spotted with Paris Hilton and being seen in photographs at some hottub party. On the field, however, Leinart didn’t do jack; he played in 29 games in four years with the Cardinals. He was injured in 2007 and recovered while Kurt Warner basically stole the job that was set aside for him. And now, after being outplayed by Derek Anderson in training camp (and then whining about it), the organization seems to realize that Leinart is not their guy.

It’s worth noting that Leinart was projected to go No. 1 in the 2005 draft, but decided to return to school for his senior year, and one gets the feeling that if he could have stayed at USC for another three or four years that he would have done so. Some guys in the NFL have the talent to party professionally and play football as a hobby while simply not apply themselves. Leinart was not one of those guys.

It’ll be curious to see if Leinart–who still had two years left on his 6-year, $51 million draft deal–will get picked up by another team not named the Buffalo Bills. Frankly, Leinart is way too sexy for Buffalo. He probably wouldn’t recognize the feel of natural breasts if he had his head buried in them.

The word coming out of Arizona is that Derek Anderson will start over Matt Leinart in the Cardinals’ third preseason game against the Chicago Bears tomorrow night. Wait, I thought Derek Anderson sucked. That stuff him about competing for the starting job when he signed with the team in May…that was serious?

“I don’t think we performed the way we want to perform on offense this preseason and we’re going to look at a number of different players in different spots,” said coach Ken Whisenhunt who, when asked what he was looking for Saturday, said “first downs.”

Leinart will play in the second quarter and into the second half, and Whisenhunt said Anderson is not necessarily the starter going forward, only that he wanted to see how the team and players responded to the move. –The Huddle/USA Today.

Their numbers have been about even in the preseason (maybe Leinart has a little bit of an edge) but this might speak more to the fact that Leinart is just not into playing football as much as being a football player. Just think if Roethlisberger had Leinart’s good looks; the line to the Milledgeville ladies’ room would be even longer.

With strong indications that Arizona Cardinals quarterback might be announcing his retirement earlier today, all eyes will be turning to Matt Leinart. Some people forget that Warner was brought to Arizona in 2005 to be Leinart’s backup, but the Southern Cal product was too busy banging Paris Hilton (allegedly) and allowed Warner to eventually play him out of a job.

With that in mind, it’s interesting that many people wonder if Leinart, entering his fifth season as a pro, is ready to get behind the wheel of the Cardinals offense. His coaches don’t trust him, nor do his receivers. In six appearances this season, Leinart threw three picks. That’s hardly an adequate sampling, but it does nothing to alleviate the Cardinals’ concerns.

Personally, as a blogger, I’m ready for Leinart’s sexual exploits to become front-page tabloid fodder again. Kurt Warner and his Jesus love are pretty boring, plus Warner’s wife is looking a lot better now, so ripping on her is out. Here’s hoping that Leinart can just hang onto the job long enough to crash and burn over the balance of a full season. I’m just rooting for chaos. And maybe syphilis. Syphilis and chaos.

The ESPYs were last night, and the event holds little value to me since it’s ESPN and there’s still no award for “Transgender Athlete Of The Year,” the award for which should be a 3-night stay at Eddie Murphy’s house. Get it? Because…that one time…ah, forget it.

Anyhoo, we need to have a little conversation about Matt Leinart, who’s already been his own boy band for some time. It’s an image he’s been trying to fight, literally, for a while now, and then he goes and does this. And I get that the ESPYs is not exactly black-tie, but you’re telling me that you couldn’t do any better than some baby blue sweater that your mom bought for you? You look like a third grader on picture day. Buy a jacket. Put it on. Buy pants that fit. I know life is hard for a pro quarterback in July, but you can do it. This is a lot easier than pretending to be a leader in an NFL locker room.

Here are more images of peeps at the ESPYs. I think the woman in the black dress looks pretty good. Really, how hard is it to get dressed up for one of these things? They rolled out a red carpet for you people. A RED CARPET! No one mockingly throws on any old thing in the face of such prestigious floor covering! Although I should talk: I don’t even wear pants to work. But, to be fair, my carpet is more like a light beige number. I like beige. I like to roll around on it in my underwear after I get irritated for people’s poor wardrobe choices. UPDATE: I’ve been told this pic is from last year’s ESPYs, but it’s hard to confirm because 1) the image is undated and 2) I don’t really care. via via
Read the rest of this entry »