"Where's Ben Wallace, String?"

HBO’s ‘The Wire’ is the best TV show ever made. There, I said it.

In 5 seasons over 60 episodes, David Simon’s law and streets epic was literature on television, an experience so dense and rewarding that it somehow managed to simultaneously depict life in Baltimore as realistic and hyper-romanticized. It’s one of those things you’ve either seen and worship, or have resisted all your friends screaming OH MY GOD YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE WIRE NO SERIOUSLY BORROW MY DVDS AND WATCH IT for like ten years.

This week’s Sports On TV column is in reverence to this masterwork of Orioles jokes and cereal references, and my only real disclaimer is that there are tons and tons of spoilers inside, so it’ll work best if you’ve seen the entire run of the show. If you haven’t, you should still click through … out-of-context Wire quotes are like gold, glittery paint on the Internet and should be experienced.

And yes, I took notes on a criminal f**king conspiracy.

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Last week, Carolina Panthers center Ryan Kalil (pictured above at Comic Con 2011 because it’s important) took out a full page ad in the Charlotte Observer, promising fans of his team that the Panthers were going to win Super Bowl XLVII. Obviously, with the season still a month away, and the Panthers coming off a 6-10 season, some people responded to that ad with a hearty, “LOLwut?”

On Saturday, though, Kalil backed his words up with some reassurance.

“I knew I’d take some heat for it, and rightfully so. It’s a bold thing to say, especially in such a tough game,” Kalil said. “But what I care about is who I wrote it for and who it was intended for, and that was the fans and my teammates. So in that regard it’s been very positive.” (Via the Sacramento Bee)

My immediate response to this was, “Oh sh*t, the Twitters are going to eat this dude alive.” However, aside from fans of the other NFC South teams and the typical major market loudmouths, most people seem to dig that Kalil did this. It’s probably because it was a gesture to his fan base, which is rare and refreshing, especially when done with the over-the-top aplomb and bravado replaced by passion and respect.

Kalil’s ad inspired me to ask the question, “What would it look like if more players, coaches, and owners reached out to their fans by guaranteeing Super Bowl victories?” So I went ahead and made some newspaper ads for some players and one special owner to use if they so desire.

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Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis is best known for watching a dude murder someone his leadership abilities and unstoppable determination.  His pre-game pep-talks (read: screaming a bunch) are the stuff of legend and always entertaining. On Tuesday, Lewis paid a surprise visit to the Stanford men’s basketball team, who were preparing for their semifinal game against UMass in the 2012 NIT Tournament at Madison Square Garden.

Tom FitzGerald at SFGate was kind enough to share the video of Lewis giving his pep talk. Have a look for yourself:

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Links

One Way Ticket To Snubtown! Breaking Down The Pro Bowl Rosters - When did Ray Lewis get the “you can be in the Pro Bowl forever no matter what” Derek Jeter card, and how do we get it away from him? [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

…And Then Rajon Rondo Airballed A Lay-up - Mhoops! This has got to be the most Brandon Stroud Playing Horse shot in the history of the NBA. [Smoking Section]

The Greatest Sportscasting Moments Of 2011 - Jon Bois, WITH NO REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE! [SB Nation]

Video: In Nate Diaz’s Defense, Donald Cerrone Shouldn’t Have ‘Put His Stupid-Ass Cowboy Hat All Up On’ Him - Stuff like this is way worse than wrestling, I don’t care how real it is. I do not want to see someone get into a shoving match because another guy’s cowboy hat was “all up on him”. [Cage Potato]

Humpday Mashup Dump: Skyrim Edition - I wanted to make an arrow in the knee joke, but I bought the game like two weeks too late and people have microscopic attention spans and a comedic expiration date of “the second time I’ve seen something”. Same thing happened to me with Portal. F**k you, the cake is still funny. [Gamma Squad]

The Weeping At Kim Jong Il’s Funeral Was Predictably Ridiculous - North Korea is more or less the “tough biker guy crying in fear when he sees a puppy” of people in real life. Like, I want to make fun of them, but Jesus, how f**ked up are they? Someone introduce Miley Cyrus to that country, stat. [UPROXX]

‘Modern Family’ Recut As A Horror Movie - Great, now it’s going to win all the SCREAM awards meant for the horror recut of Parks and Rec. [UPROXX]

Ben Affleck Plays Serious Harry Ellis - The best idea for a Die Hard prequel ever. Seriously, I would pay to watch two hours of Harry Ellis being a non-satirical American Psycho. [Film Drunk]

2011′s Most Popular Torrent Searches Prove Something We’ve Known All Along - I love that you have to have a qualifier to include WWE as TV. Hey, I’m a pussy vegan and I’m the one searching ‘WWE’. How else am I supposed to get the right pictures for the Best And Worst Of Raw? [Warming Glow]

Michele Bachmann Saying Literally Anything She Can On Fox News To Feign Iowa Momentum - As bad as things get, at least we can count on never having a lady who acts like this as our President. Terrifying. [Buzzfeed]

Funny or Die has a knack for cramming as many celebrities as possible into three minute video, and today they’ve outdone themselves — watch in amazement has Ray Liotta, Kevin Costner, Dennis Haysbert, the Were-llama from Twilight and half of professional football bring you a Lockout-flavored sequel to the greatest baseball movie of all time, Field of Dreams. I’m guessing Haysbert is here because when the Funny or Die guys showed up at James Earl Jones’ apartment he attacked them with an insecticide sprayer and told them to go back to the sixties.

Watch the video below, but I have to warn you: the football players are all better actors than Taylor Lautner.

It’s weird, I know this is supposed to be a joke, but it still looks like a better movie than that remake of Footloose.

I love Kevin Costner at the end. He gives as little a sh** as possible, and he’s a good sport, but his voice and the look on his face say “I can’t believe you guys are making fun of this”. Lautner just stands there smirking, thinking about how awesome of a Crash Davis Robert Pattinson would be.

Until now, the hardest part about this NFL lockout ordeal for most of us was worrying about planning our fantasy football draft parties, but it turns out that people out there actually depend on the NFL for their income and supporting their families. Who knew? But according to Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, this whole lockout thing goes way beyond franchise employees, stadium vendors, parking attendants and posse and entourage members.

“Do this research if we don’t have a season — watch how much evil, which we call crime, watch how much crime picks up, if you take away our game,” Ray Lewis told ESPN.

“There’s too many people that live through us, people live through us,” he said. “Yeah, walk in the streets, the way I walk the streets, and I’m not talking about the people you see all the time.” (New York Daily News)

Of course we all know that Lewis was charged with obstruction of justice in 2000, after he lied to the police about the stabbing of two men after a Super Bowl party in Atlanta. Lewis was originally charged with the murder of the men, but his lawyer had the murder charges dismissed if he agreed to testify against his friends, and because Lewis’ white suit, presumably covered with blood, was never found. Meanwhile, Lewis settled privately with the families of the men that his friends killed, because that’s what most innocent men do. I just wanted to refresh our memories and bask in the irony.

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