One of the biggest lessons that we learned as fans during last year’s NFL and NBA lockouts, as well as this year’s NFL referee lockout and now the NHL lockout, is that we don’t matter worth a squat. Sure, we’re the people who provide the money, but the owners, players, agents, players’ reps, and everyone else involved in labor negotiations know that we’re never going to realize the power that we have and just walk away from sports to prove a point. After all, if we gave up on sports, we’d have to deal with reality and not one of us wants to do that.

Take the Seattle Seahawks-Green Bay Packers “Fail Mary” game, for instance. It wasn’t just Packers fans, as NFL fans in general were calling for boycotts of the following week’s games if Roger Goodell and the owners didn’t get their sh*t together and reach a deal with the regular refs. If the NFL hadn’t come to terms on a new 8-year deal with the refs’ union that same week, would people have tuned out? Absolutely not. It wouldn’t have made a difference, because we’re moths drawn to the bright light.

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Saturday’s college football action presumably left very few people wanting more, because I can’t remember a day that was filled with so many exciting games and delightful upsets. For starters, I assume that everyone was on the edge of their seats for the incredible UCF win over FIU, because I was at that game, which immediately made it the most star-studded game in college football history. And I yelled things at Mario Cristobal, because he’s a moron who should have taken the Rutgers job and I guarantee you that he’s kicking himself every morning over his decision to turn that job down because he was allegedly insulted at the Scarlet Knights’ lowball offer. But I digress.

My favorite game of the day was the Florida Gators 37-20 victory over the Tennessee Volunteers, which leads us to this new feature – “Faces of Misery”. Now, before the hate mail and mean comments start pouring in, please know that I have nothing against Tennessee. Well, that’s not entirely true. I do hold a grudge against the Volunteers because they gave Lane Kiffin money to be a head coach, even though he has never done anything to deserve it, unless you count being conceived by a great NFL defensive coordinator. I hate Kiffin a lot, so this is worth noting. In fact, if USC had lost at home, we’d be having a completely different kind of conversation right now.

But I say this was my favorite game, because it provided us with a ton of great Faces of Misery, and as a fan of a perpetually underachieving college football team, I’ve made plenty of miserable faces myself. I also don’t like basking in a Gators victory, but it’s a jorts world and I’m just living in it. So enjoy the misery of Tennessee fans this week, and feel free to suggest upcoming games that you’d like to see us make fun of, because I plan on doing this as much as possible, because laughing at other people’s misfortunes is what makes America so great.

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This is basically what I look like when I’m watching ‘The Wire’. Somebody draw this guy a warm bath for Christ’s sake. (via Awful Announcing)

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Potentially the 11 Most Crowd-Pleasing TV Deaths of 2012 |Warming Glow|

The 20 Best Ozzie Guillen Misquotes |With Leather|

Memes Do Come True: ‘Texts From Hillary’ Bros Meet With Hillary Clinton |UPROXX|

Donald Glover Talks About His ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ Easter Egg |Gamma Squad|

The Most Obnoxious Generation: An American Reunion Review |Film Drunk|

On Urban Meyer, Amateurism & Winning |Smoking Section|

The James Van Der Beek 6 Stages Of Fame |UPROXX|

The Incredible Portrait In Portrait Art Of Kim Dong Yoo |UPROXX|

The Start Of Your Ending: Mobb Deep Breaks Up On Twitter? Hav Calls Prodigy Gay? |Smoking Section|

Your Mid-Week Guide To DVD And Streaming |Film Drunk|

The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw 4/9/12: The One With The Three Stooges |With Leather|

Five “Science Reports” We’re Tired Of Seeing |Gamma Squad|

Chevy Chase on ‘Community’: It’s a ‘F*cking Mediocre Sitcom’ |Warming Glow|

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Yesterday had its fair share of fantastic NBA action, but the spotlight belongs only to the day’s big market matchups between the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers (meh, Lakers won, but I expected more) and especially the slugfest between the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics. With both teams struggling around the .500 mark, the Celtics received an absurd performance from trade-bait Rajon Rondo (18 pts, 17 reb, 20 ast) en route to a 115-111 overtime win.

And while I could go in a few different directions from here, like:

- Will the Celtics actually trade Rondo?
- Are the Knicks getting desperate enough to entertain trading Carmelo Anthony for Dwight Howard?
- The Celtics should totally be able to trade Ray Allen to the Clippers and rip them off, right?
- Seriously, Knicks, trade Carmelo for Dwight.

I just can’t get past that Knicks fan above. Sunglasses indoors… backwards tilted cap… jersey with no undershirt… mad tats… neatly-trimmed facial hair… there should be a word for that.

Sadly, this Knicks fan didn’t stick around long enough for anyone to talk to him, but I did get a shot of him driving away…

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With Chris Paul now semi-happily shipped out to Los Angeles, the pressure is on for the Lakers to make a big splash and keep up with their fundamentally disabled little brother, the Clippers, who just received the equivalent of a miraculous stem cell therapy. Of course that means that everyone – my Orlando Magic-loving ass included – believes that the Lakers will regress on their stance that they will not give up both Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol in a trade for Dwight Howard. And of course that stance was just a negotiating tactic in the first place, but now we know that it’s 100% BS.

Meanwhile, Magic GM Otis Smith announced yesterday that he is no longer taking trade offers for Howard while the league’s 29 other GMs all dismissively wanked. Smith’s announcement is also believed to be a negotiating tactic as if he and Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak are mouthing, “You wanna f*ck” at each other from across a night club, waiting for the other to finally drop his pants and take it.

Lost in the mix are poor, little Magic fans, who simply don’t want to see their superstar leave. Take this young Magic fan for instance, as he gives us his best “David after the dentist” impression while he discusses his desire for Howard to stay. I imagine it’s pretty much like Bob Vander Weide’s phone call.

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