New England Patriots tight end slash adult film industry philanderer slash teenage dunk master Rob Gronkowski is harnessing the power of social media (and obnoxious-for-pay viral videos) to compel his fan base to rock the ESPN’s SportsNation vote and get him on the cover of ‘Madden 13′.

His plan includes:

- Doing bicep curls with a crutch
- Making aggressive animal noises into his friend’s stomach
- Tons and tons of Zubaz pants
- Just getting jacked at all times
- Going crazy
- Inviting you to check out his brothers, who cannot stop exercising on the floor of Gronk’s house even when he’s injured.
- Putting on sunglasses without using his hands
- Getting hyped
- Getting Gronked

Sounds solid, bro. I want to see a follow-up video where instead of asking fans to vote for him, Peyton Hillis tells his bros that he’s not feeling well, and he’s probably just gonna go take a nap.

[h/t NESN.com]

k, what do spies do?

From ESPN‘s Adam Schefter today come two revelations about Peyton Hillis, one surprising, one not so much. It turns out the Cleveland Browns give Peyton about as much of a sh*t as he gives them, and at the end of last season Hillis was considering retiring to take a job with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Do what now?

The Browns have made the decision not to use their franchise tag on running back Peyton Hillis, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Throughout the past season, Hillis has wavered about whether he wants to continue playing football, and even considered joining the CIA, according to team sources.

It is unclear if he actually pursued a career with the CIA.

I’ve heard some strange contract negotiations in my day, but “I’m prob’ly gonna just monitor world issues for a living and prob’ly shoot some dudes” has got to be the worst, and Peyton Hillis doesn’t even have the intestinal fortitude to follow through with his dumb pipe dreams. So where does that leave us? With a giant depressed Barney Rubble who can’t (or won’t) play at the level expected of him who may or may not decide in the middle of next season to ditch practice and enroll in clown college?

“If we can work something out with Peyton we will,” [Browns general manager Tom] Heckert told ESPN.

“But whatever.”

From a May 11 interview with ESPN:

“Actually, I don’t even believe in curses. It’s really sad how many people believe in curses. This is football; everyone gets hurt. If you run the ball 40 times a game, you’re going to get banged around and get nicks and bruises here and there, but I don’t pay too much attention to that. I’ll let it take care of itself.”

Then came an eight-touchdown, 600-yard decline in productivity, a hamstring injury, an exchange of tough guy back-and-forth with his team over a contract and that time he bailed on a charity gig with the Cleveland Boys And Girls Club. This deadly combination of bad PR, commonplace injury, personal assholery and “living in Cleveland” can only mean one thing.

From a December 19 interview with Cleveland.com:

“No doubt about it, things haven’t worked to my favor this year. There’s a few things that happened that made me believe in curses. Ain’t no doubt about it.”

There you have it. There ain not any doubt about it. Peyton Hillis is cursed, and the only way the Browns can get back on track is if Mike Holmgren tricks John Madden into walking over a cleverly disguised pit and rips off his face to reveal Old Man Jenkins from the abandoned amusement park.

I think they should find the worst player in the NFL and put him on the Madden 13 box just to see if he spontaneously combusts. Any takers?

[h/t to Shutdown Corner]

By way of Prep Rally comes the most inspirational thing you’re going to see today, and a great counterpoint to yesterday’s collarbone-breaking child abuse. What you need to know, via WPDE News (YouTube) Channel 15:

The Myrtle Beach Seahawks scored a convincing 64-16 win over Hilton Head in the first round of the class 3A playoffs. On the final play of the game, Hilton Head’s Chip Mullen, a senior with Down Syndrome, scored on a 75 yard touchdown run on the final play of his high school career. Myrtle Beach joined the Hilton Head players in the end zone to celebrate Mullen’s score.

It starts with a great “oh, oh no!” moment where you think the kid’s gonna run in the wrong direction, but once he starts booking you get that swelling in the heart, forget about how they’re losing by 48 points and just let the okay parts of your humanity take over. According to the Prep Rally report Mullen is the life of his school, leads the team’s pre-game huddles and had already scored once this season … and you know what? That’s more than what I got out of high school. I was just fat and mad at everything. Chip seems like an awesome guy, and at the risk of losing my snarky blogger card forever, I’m happy that the teams worked together to give him something like this. And hey, at no point did a grown-up in a tiny football helmet run in and shatter his bones, so that’s a plus.

Somewhere between a 1,100-yard, 11-scores season and a cursed Madden cover, Cleveland Browns running back Peyton Hillis turned into Steve Urkel and started f**king up everything about his life and the lives of those around him. As Shutdown Corner helpfully explains, he’s rushed for fewer yards this season (211) than Cowboys rookie DeMarco Muray did a single game (253) and has missed more games (three) than he’s been in and scored (two).

If that wasn’t bad enough, The Cleveland Plain Dealer is now reporting that Hillis’ brother and agent confirmed he’d attend an event hosted by the Cleveland Boys and Girls Club for the benefit of 50 children who had to be bussed around from everywhere to meet him … then never showed up.

Former Browns center LeCharles Bentley explains, via Twitter:

I’m guessing #ManPlease is the diplomatic, semi-professional equivalent to #areyouseriousbro. When a guy with both “Le” and “Bentley” in his name is condescending on you for being hoity-toity, something’s wrong.

And if we’ve learned nothing else from Cleveland-area sports public relations disasters it’s that no-showing a Halloween charity party for underprivileged children is one thing, but not swiftly explaining why you did it so people don’t think you’re an irreparable IR creep (Hillis’ people aren’t talking and Bentley won’t expound) is another. Another thing we’ve learned from Cleveland is to always assume the worst, and to know that it never gets any better.

[via CBS Sports]

"Haha, I'm toally gonna stay in school."

Now that “Suck For Luck” is a full blown ordeal – there’s even a Twitter account devoted to it – it’s very amusing to see the general NFL fan’s reaction to the idea that teams might tank some games to secure the guy every analyst this side of Mel Kiper’s phallic eagle swoop is calling the next John Elway.

It’s public knowledge now that both Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay and Miami Dolphins majority owner Stephen Ross have expressed interest in acquiring Luck in the draft. So the rational school of thought for the average fan – I’d probably estimate an I.Q. of 75 – is that two teams of professional athletes, who are boisterous, arrogant and proud, will waste an entire season of their professional careers so they can put their fates in the hands of a guy from Stanford.

There are two things about this, as a Miami Dolphins fan, that crack me up:

1) Why on Earth would Tony Sparano and his coaching staff kowtow to Ross, who openly courted Jim Harbaugh to replace him? Why would Sparano fill the cupboard with elite talent only to have it handed to Bill Cowher in the spring?

2) And do you really think that Brandon Marshall would keep his mouth shut if someone told him to flop on some plays? He’d be demanding trades and stomping his feet to the point that Terrell Owens would be like, “Dude, chill.” Besides, he looked just fine flopping on his own last night.

Now the Colts on the other hand, they seem like they would do it and not give a crap. After all, if any of their older guys complain, they can easily be traded for draft picks. I’m sure that thought is cemented firmly in Irsay’s mind. That’s why, as I was perusing Twitter during last night’s Monday Night Football game, there was a hilarious double standard at work.

If the Colts lose a game, they get to blame Peyton Manning’s injury and nobody thinks twice. But if the Dolphins lose, they’re just sucking on purpose to get Luck. I have some news for you all – Miami really is that terrible. It’s just funny that people seem more willing to allow the Colts to put Luck behind Manning, like they’re being dumped by Marisa Miller while preparing for their date with Kate Upton.

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