On a day when sports news is dominated by child molestation, I’d like to lighten the mood a little by presenting two sports guys who can’t stop calling people names on the Internet.

The first, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders defensive tackle Warren Sapp, reacted to yesterday’s release of New England Patriots defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth by calling Albert a turd. Exhibit A:

When Belichick gave Haynesworth a chance this season, Sapp figured he might be the only coach left who could get Haynesworth to increase his level of play after two disastrous years with the Redskins.

“If anybody can, [Belichick] can,” Sapp told NESN.com. “The last thing you want to do is show up and be a turd that Belichick cuts. But that’s what he was.”

Exhibit number 2 (cough):

“So when Bill got him — I love Belichick, I love that defense, I love everything about the man — but you can’t make a turd out of something that he’s not. He’s a turd.

You can read the entire interview with Sapp over at NESN, but that’s the digested meat and potatoes of it. Warren Sapp, a guy who would never let money motivate him to do something like dance alongside Kim Kardashian and Jefferson from ‘Married … With Children’ on a gameshow, calling Albert Haynesworth, a man who would never do something for the wrong reasons (like slide his credit card down a woman’s cleavage), feces.

The second incident of the day comes from Stephon Marbury, a man who identifies himself openly as a PEACE STAR, ripping Michael Jordan in a way not too dissimilar from Tracy Morgan as Harry Belefonte on SNL calling Osama Bin Laden an Uncle Tom:

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While a 2-win record is hardly something to be proud of through Week 7, it has become the first actual dividing line between the pretenders and contenders for this “Suck for Luck” sweepstakes. At this point in the season, there are two clear cut contenders, one terrible team that isn’t in the hunt but may benefit well beyond just a first pick, one surprisingly bad team that we didn’t think would be looking for a QB, and one team that just sucks but will probably win a few more.

We’ll get to naming those teams is a moment, but I wanted to first discuss the latest hot topic surrounding our beloved hero, Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck. The question has been raised plenty – would Luck stay another year if he didn’t like the teams that would be drafting him at No. 1?

As we discussed last week, the answer is, of course, no. He graduates at the end of the spring and would be insane to stay another season for the sake of another degree and pass up $50 million. The new question beyond that is – would he pull an Eli Manning and force a trade if he doesn’t like the team that drafts him at No. 1? At first I’d say the answer is also no, because he doesn’t have a father like Archie Manning to be a d*ck on his behalf, but then Luck’s father, Oliver, is the athletic director at West Virginia, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he would be involved in his son’s professional future.

After all, Luck was influenced to stay at Stanford this season by none other than Peyton Manning. That fact should make Dolphins fans a little more depressed today, but I still don’t think Miami is a city or team that any rookie turns down.

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"And I was like, 'Die, 9ers fan!' It was great, you would have loved it."

When the Cincinnati Bengals selected TCU’s Andy Dalton in the second round of this year’s NFL Draft, it was a clear indication that the Carson Palmer era was over for them. Palmer demanded a trade but Bengals President Mike Brown refused to reward his franchise QB by sending him elsewhere to win. Thus, Palmer retired and Brown made it clear for the past six months that he was not going to trade the guy who took them to the playoffs a whopping 2 times.

And yesterday, of course, Brown traded Palmer to the Oakland Raiders. If his goal was to punish Palmer, Brown failed. Miami probably would have made a similar deal. Instead, Palmer winds up with the 4-2 Raiders, who are seemingly stocked with young talent on offense. Take that, crybaby!

“For the past six weeks I thought I was retired,” Palmer said after being introduced to media as a Raider on Tuesday. “Week 1 hit and I thought, I’ve got to look elsewhere and find what the next phase of my life might be. Then I got the text from Hue.

“I’m ready to go. I’m excited… I’m excited to be a part of this organization.”

(Via USA Today)

Palmer is clearly excited, as the 31-year old gets a fresh start to show that he’s more than just a guy who once won a Pro Bowl MVP. But Raiders coach Hue Jackson is beyond excited, as he grabbed the hyperbole gun and started firing bullets of awesome into our faces.

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If somebody tried to pull off this trade in a fantasy league, the other team owners would veto it so hard. The Oakland Raiders and the Cincinnati Bengals are close to a deal that would send Carson Palmer to Oakland for a first round pick in 2012 and a conditional pick in 2013.

It makes a lot of sense. Jason Campbell broke his collarbone and Andy Dalton has been better than Cam Newton, whether you’ve noticed it or not. Cincinnati is giving a new starting QB to a team it could be competing against for a playoff spot or in the postseason. The Raiders are giving up two high picks for a guy who’s been holding out, hasn’t been great for a while and has an arm that can go from John Elway to Steve Urkel in a heartbeat. ESPN notes that “both sides believed it to be a gamble worth taking”, which is funny, because I was hoping they’d made the trade ironically.

Palmer was willing to restructure his contract, which would pay him $6.9 million for the balance of this season, sources said. The Raiders have about $6 million left under the cap.

The next step for the Bengals should be for owner Mike Brown to hire a General Manager to make the picks for him. The next step for the Raiders should be printing up a few black and silver “quitter” jerseys. You know, just in case.

Yeah, that’s more or less my reaction, too.

New York City policeman turned NFL reporter for the Houston Chronicle John McClain reports that the injury that caused Houston Texans linebacker Mario Williams to leave Sunday’s game against the Oakland Raiders is a torn pectoral muscle that will require surgery and keep him out of action for the remainder of the 2011 season. The torn muscle happened while Williams was sacking Oakland QB Jason Campbell, and almost every report says Williams walked to the locker room under his own power like the pectoral muscle is in his leg.

The Texans are suffering an almost San Francisco Giants-like string of injuries to star players like Andre Johnson and Arian Foster this season, one Sports Illustrated attempts to put into context:

Big picture, the significant injury to Williams could change the landscape of an already-reeling AFC South. The Colts (0-5) and the Jaguars (1-4) have fallen off the pace to start the season, with Houston and Tennessee tied at 3-2. However, with Peyton Manning on the shelf, this looked like by far the Texans’ best opportunity to claim a division title and their first-ever playoff berth.

That’s a depressing blurb, isn’t it? “This looked like …” The silver lining here, depending on how you look at it, is that the Texans drafted University of Arizona Wildcat Brooks Reed and get to remove his training wheels and ride him around the NFL. McClaine chimes in, via Twitter:

Like Mario, Reed is learning a new position: 3-4 OLB who drops down in passing situations. Texans look smart drafting Reed.

Hopefully next Monday’s day of posting won’t include a big “BROOKS REED INJURED BY RAVENS, OUT FOREVER WITH SEVERED LOWER BODY”.

If you’re an Oakland Raiders fan, you’re probably pretty excited about this year’s team, despite their loss on Sunday. Then again, if you’re a Raiders fan, you may have not even known that the Raiders lost on Sunday, since the Los Angeles TV station showing the game cut it off in the final minute, as the Raiders were holding onto a 4-point lead. With 27 seconds left, Buffalo quickly found the red zone and…

Before the shotgun snap even took place with Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick calling signals, the swirling CBS logo came up, followed by a commercial for McDonald’s sausage McMuffins, one for a cell phone company, another for Nissan, one more for McDonald’s extra-value menu, a station promo the “CSI” season premiere, and then an aerial shot of with Jim Nantz proclaiming: “Looking down at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass. – Chargers, Patriots … hello friends.”

(Via Los Angeles Daily News)

I guess being on the East Coast, I have no clue when stuff like this happens, because I watched the end of this game on three TVs as CBS was cutting to it on every feed we had on at the time. Of course, it doesn’t affect me one way or another to miss the end of that game, but I can’t even imagine the rage that Raiders fans must have been feeling.

At least the NFL understands their pain.

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