Saturday’s preseason NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders involved fights in the stands, two parking lot shootings and a beaten and unconscious in a Candlestick Park bathroom. Philly sports fans took the opportunity to say “YOU GUYS ALWAYS TALK ABOUT PHILLY FANS BUT DERP” and everyone else approached it from a place somewhere between disappointment and disbelief. The beating of Bryan Stow outside Dodger Stadium on baseball’s Opening Day has cast a national spotlight on irrational fan behavior, with the question always boiling down to, “How does this kind of thing happen?”

49ers owner Jed York has decided to become the Biggest Dick You’ll Read About Today by answering that question — he believes there is not enough football, and is willing to use fan shootings as an excuse to push for a longer season. From a horrible interview with KNBR by way of the Sacramento Bee and Pro Football Talk:

“I think when you have a preseason game, when you don’t have your regular-season ticket holders coming to a game, I think that plays a big factor into it,” York said. “I think that’s another reason why the NFL is looking at, you know, trying to revamp the preseason schedule.”

PFT explains why this is horrid in the simplest terms.

The violence at Candlestick Park on Saturday is a time to have serious conversations across the league about how to keep fans safe, not a time to make specious arguments in favor of an 18-game season.

…leaving everyone else free to ask, “How f**king disconnected are you from real life that you think ‘letting poorer people attend the football games’ is the reason why people are shooting each other and beating each other to death in your parking lot?” Extending the season to limit the amount of people without season tickets in your stands is specious, sure, but it’s also a huge statement on class difference, the condescending attitude of owners claiming to be part of a system and only looking out for themselves, and just the biggest pile of sh*t-smelling ignorance ever.

So in meaner terms, do what Pro Football Talk suggested. Really think about how to protect and take care of these people, and don’t wait a tossed battery, a Mountain Dew bottle full of Big Dawg’s acid piss or a fan dying from gunshot wounds to show up and justify your agenda.

[h/t Jimmy Traina]

Welcome to Week 2 of my new weekly Random NFL Thoughts installment. Feel free to join in the conversation in the comments, even if to tell me how completely wrong I am.

If you have the pleasure of following Indianapolis Colts GM Jim Irsay on Twitter, then you know two things – 1) He’s a huge music fan, and 2) He’s possibly a lunatic. Irsay has a tendency of Tweeting random song lyrics in a way that the average person – and especially the average Twitter user – might not catch on to very well, if they even get him at all. In the case of the latter, he comes across as a complete psychopath.

But in between those lyrical Tweets, he openly talks about Colts football with fans, and since the lockout ended, the only topic regarding Indy football has been Peyton Manning’s neck. By all accounts, the guy who just signed a contract that guarantees him close to $100 million over the rest of his career will not be ready for Week 1. Manning hasn’t seen a snap in the preseason, but that should’t really be a problem for one of the game’s elite QBs if he’s actually going to start the season opener. He can just kick off the rust and run with it. Either way, Irsay wants to f*ck with us.

Read the rest of this entry »

"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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Hard Knocks with the New York Jets is quickly rising up the charts as my favorite sports documentary miniseries of all time, and Rex Ryan is 95% of the reason why. He’s the coach everyone wants to play for. He’s smart, loud, and awesome. HBO gave us another glimpse of Rex at his finest during last night’s episode of Hard Knocks, which featured a preseason game between the Jets and Redskins.

Rex had some choice words for Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall after he put a late hit on the Jets’ injury liability, LaDainian Tomlinson. Calling the insult a low blow is like asking if a bear sh*ts in the woods. Which it would, unless that bear was toilet-trained like the one in Dr. Dolittle 2. Then, that bear could fart excessively while Eddie Murphy was in the bathroom. Truly, comedic sophistication of the highest order.

Six seconds of Rex Ryan goodness after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

The Lions and Browns are generally awful, but every now and again they manage to awkwardly fumble around until they have an exciting game against each other. Jake Delhomme is plenty familiar with awkwardly fumbling, a language in which he’ll be fluent in after a season as the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. Unfortunately for Delhomme, the pain that comes with playing for Cleveland has already started. Detroit rookie Ndamukong Suh almost ripped his head off Saturday night, forcing many people who enjoy cocaine to politely ask him if he would ‘relax.’

You know what they say, there’s nothing fixes a case of the Mondays like watching someone’s neck nearly get broken. Video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Fluent spanglish speaker, Chad Ochocinco, has been randomly selected by the NFL to undergo a urinalysis. Initially, R. Kelly got excited, until he realized that no 14 year old girls would be involved. Ochocinco uploaded a picture of the notice to his Twitter account with this caption:

Ok , why does the NFL continue to test me, all I do is piss excellence for them each time, I love these random steroid -drug test –Twitter

Also in Chad’s piss: Vince Lombardi’s tears, and enough vodka cranberry to help the citizens of Cincinnati drink away their sadness. Terrell Owens is relieved to be on a team where you only need to give pee for testing. Jerry Jones makes all of his players give him a sperm sample. He clones them for his private army.