The New Orleans Saints were under investigation for running an alleged bounty program after they won the Super Bowl in 2009. The NFL was told by anonymous players that defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was urging players to injure opponents for money and the Saints knew, because they were being investigated. So maybe it was the relief of the NFL concluding its investigation with no penalty or maybe it was just extreme arrogance, but Williams kept running his bounty program, and he apparently did it while a camera was pointed at him the entire time.

According to Yahoo!, documentary filmmaker Sean Pamphilon (Run Ricky Run) was with the Saints at the team’s hotel the night before they played the San Francisco 49ers in their divisional playoff game. The Saints went on to lose that game 36-32, possibly because Williams wasn’t clear enough with his innuendos and hand signals.

Hold on, I think I have an artist’s rendering of Williams’ reaction to this…

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After taking a year off because none of the teams that he wanted to play for wanted to sign him, 35-year old wide receiver Randy Moss is back in the NFL thanks to a 1-year contract he signed with the San Francisco 49ers yesterday. Moss was immediately eager to speak about anything and everything, especially all of the things that the terrible, unfair media has blown up over his 13-season career, including… hey man, he’s just here to play this game that he loves and, good lord willing, help this team win.

More than anything, he looks forward to helping the 49ers young receivers get better, which Vernon Davis would probably appreciate so he can take a breather here and there.

“I think, not just Crabtree, but it’s a young group of guys. And there’s a saying I have: ‘I like what I can do for the NFL. I don’t like what the NFL can do for me.’ I’ve loved the game of football. For me to be able to start at a young age and play Pop Warner football and have my dreams come true to become a professional football player. I like what I’m able to give back to football and the NFL. If those guys are willing to accept me as a teammate, come here and make this thing happen, then I’m ready to give back anything I have: my knowledge, my work ethic and all of the above. I look forward to going out and working with these young guys, and coaches included.” (Via 49ers Talk)

I would have loved to see the chorus of eyebrows raising in the room when he mentioned work ethic, but I’m willing to give a guy a 4th chance, especially when he’s just so damned entertaining. But a lot of people don’t share that outlook on the man they call the Real Otis, so of course people are going to keep calling his reputation into question.

Harbaugh has made so much about the team concept and blue-collar mentality with the 49ers. How much did he talk to you about coming into the locker room and fit in and be another one of the guys?

Moss: “Well, the thing about me being here is they’ve done their research on me. And I think when it comes to the world-wide sports media, I’ve gotten a bad rap. They’ve done their homework on me or they wouldn’t have brought me in here.”

Why do you say you’ve gotten a bad rap?

Moss: “I’m just saying, more of not being a team player and things like that. I really don’t want to get into that because that’s not what I’m here for. I think that one thing I’d like the sports world to understand is the love and the passion I have for the game of football. I think every player wants to win and every organization wants to win.”

And maybe he’s right. After all, Jeff Fisher had nothing but high praises for Moss, even after he was completely worthless in the Tennessee Titans’ offense in 2010. Or maybe teams are just content with giving the guy a chance to come in and score touchdowns. Either way, it could be much worse for Moss.

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"Man, I can't wait to live in Kansas City."

On Friday, a very poor quality video of a guy in a white helmet throwing a football at Duke University showed up on YouTube and people were like, “Well Peyton Manning has a white helmet and he’s been hanging out at Duke, so it must be him!” And it makes sense that it’s Manning, because he has just a few days left before the Indianapolis Colts either owe him $28 million or have to cut him, and because of the new CBA the Colts can’t be at Duke to watch him throw the ball and prove that he’s healthy.

Instead, as the Internet’s greatest sports conspiracy theorists have noted, Manning could conveniently “leak” this video to show Colts owner Jim Irsay that all is good, as they say, in the hood, while also allowing the pack of rabid, quarterback-starved-teams drooling over a free agent Manning to witness his rehabilitation from a fourth neck surgery.

That Manning clan – full of the crafty ones, I tells ya.

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Brace yourself for shocking news: a rich, popular 22-year old went out partying and made an irresponsible life decision. Set judgment eyeballs to stunned — San Francisco 49ers linebacker Aldon Smith was charged Saturday with DUI in Miami Beach on Saturday.

The report, which may’ve been written by a scoop-getting robot, from the New York Daily News:

Miami-Dade County jail records show Smith was booked Saturday morning and held on $1,000 bond. Jail records did not show whether Smith was represented by an attorney. A Miami-Dade County Corrections spokeswoman said Smith was arrested by Miami Beach police. A police spokesman said he had no information immediately available about the arrest.

The 49ers said in a statement Saturday that they were aware of the arrest.

“We take these issues very seriously, but will reserve further comment at this time, as this is an ongoing legal matter,” the team said. “The 49ers will continue to gather the facts and monitor the developments closely.”

You’ve got to love that the report is “Smith was arrested. He was arrested by police. Uh, police are people who do arrests. We don’t know anything else. Please visit our website”. They should’ve just said f**k it and ended their post with “in conclusion, Aldon Smith can be compared and contrasted”.

The link to the mugshot provided on Fark Sports reads “49ers linebacker Aldon Smith can’t be bothered to give a fark in his DUI arrest mugshot”, but I don’t think that’s the case. Sure, he might look a little U the I, but I think that’s just the way he takes pictures. I mean, look:

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I liked football better back when I thought it was real.

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Links

5 Reasons The New DC Logo Is Awful, Awful, Awful - Is comics the only industry where the only way to succeed is to systematically ruin and re-ruin and re-ruin everything halfway decent the people who had the job before you did? Marvel’s new logo should just be Walmart’s. [Gamma Squad]

10 Reasons To Shop At Wal-Mart - Reason 11: those 25 dollar WWE DVDs get dropped down to 5 bucks and tossed in the discount bin whenever they retire or get released. Oh hai Edge DVD! [Buzzfeed]

Hazel Jones’s Two Vaginas Are Freely Available On YouTube - Thank goodness! If they aren’t going to release seasons of Hazels Jones’s Two Vaginas on DVD, at least I get to watch it somewhere. [Film Drunk]

Cable TV Is Full of Liars - As if those infomercials where the people try to grab bread or whatever in black and white and get hurt and get a big red X over their faces weren’t enough of a clue. [Warming Glow]

Kevin Love’s Game Winning Three Breaks The Clippers 101-98 - More importantly, which celebrities watched it happen? [Smoking Section]

A Premature Tribute To Paul Rudd’s Bobby Newport - Bobby Newport. Bobby Newport. Bobby, Newport. Bobby. Bobby. [UPROXX]

9 Funny Tourist Photobombs - HuffPost Comedy, for when you want to read Cracked.com but wish it was written by job-stealing robots. [HuffPost Comedy]

Man Sues Rupert Murdoch For Defaming Him Through ‘Donnie Darko’ and ‘The X-Files’ - I should sue him for defaming me through ‘Bob’s Burgers’. [The FW]

The 10 Least Plausible Movie Stunts Ever. Complete With SOPA-unfriendly Videos - That horse powersliding under a truck had better be on here somewhere. Also, Jessica Alba hurting someone with a punch ever. [FARK]

Five Movies where One Actor has Five or More Roles - It’s pretty sad when these lists go up, and Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers get lumped into the talent pool with post-Crisis Eddie Murphy. Yes, Kind Hearts And Coronets is just like The Klumps. [Unreality]

Redesigns of Classic Hip-Hop Album Covers - Someone should redesign every album Nas has made since Illmatic so he can be as cool and good as he’s supposed to be. Also, redesign Nicki Minaj by turning her into a giant pink blur, plz. [High Definite]

Two things about this:

1. If Kanye West and Jay-Z name a song “Niggas In Paris” and release it as a single for top 40 radio, I am not going to feel weird about typing “Niggas In Paris” on this blog. That’s the name of the song. Also, for like two months I thought people were talking about Joni Mitchell.

2. Fan songs are supposed to be bad. They’re supposed to be what you upload when you’ve downed too many Coors Lights and think it’d be funny to say “Fister” instead of “sister”. They’re for bragging about how your team is going to win the Super Bowl three games into the season and nothing bad could possibly happen.

Those things being said, this San Francisco 49ers fan song set to “Niggas In Paris” is really freaking good and manages to be both cleverly written AND time appropriate. They could’ve just done ‘Red And Yellow’ or whatever and been fine, but they put in an effort, and I appreciate it. An example, courtesy of Shutdown Corner‘s expert transcription skills:

Ball so hard, let’s stop Cruz. Manningham’ll be locked up, too.
If you was hit like Pierre was hit, you probably gon’ cough the ball up, too.

And hopefully you don’t need me to explain why “that Smith cray” is great. Drunk Texas Train Lady needs to step up her game. Suggestion: a Baltimore Ravens song called “Murder to Excellence”.