[Ed. note - In celebration of this week's theatrical release of The Muppets, here's our thing about Muppets. If you haven't seen it yet, you're in for a treat.]

We’re still a few months away from the release of The Muppets, starring and written by Jason Segel, but my excitement couldn’t be higher. Hold on, I’m receiving a breaking news message… *squirrel in a hot air balloon drops a note tied to an acorn on the table* … it appears that The Muppets also stars Rashida Jones and Mila Kunis, so I may have an awesome heart attack soon. In the meantime, it’s Friday and now I’m all Muppety, so what the hell can I do to resolve this?

Thankfully, while looking for something completely unrelated yesterday, I stumbled across the Muppets Wiki site and started perusing the history of the happiest shows of my childhood – The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. Eventually I realized that a lot of athletes have been told how to get to, how to get to Sesame Street over the past 42 years, and it all started with Jackie Robinson in 1969. From there, children and adults who are still children at heart watched with glee as their favorite athletes stopped by to teach us about the alphabet, sharing, numbers, living in garbage cans, depression, being a giant bird, same sex partnerships with bottle cap enthusiasts, and building motor skills, among others.

After the jump, I’ve compiled an extensive history of athletes making appearances on Sesame Street and with the Muppets. If you don’t enjoy this or smile the whole way through, then I’m afraid we’ll never be friends. And that would make Big Bird very sad.

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In an article that might as well be titled Peter King’s Conjecture, Sports Illustrated auteur Peter King says former NFL star Tiki Barber isn’t adjusting well to the reality that nobody wanted him, even though he really, really wanted back in. He “needed the game” and “needed to prove to [himself] that he could be successful at something”, but the NFL “needed” to have 53-man rosters without Tiki Barber on them, so here we are.

I tried to reach Barber on Sunday, but he wasn’t talking. I hear he’s devastated that no team gave him a chance. You might wonder if teams would bring him in after the first game of the season, so his contract wouldn’t be guaranteed, and that could still happen. But with no team calling Lepselter with even a hint of interest, it’s more likely teams would start with backs who’ve been in some football competition this summer.

Mark Lepselter, Barber’s agent, talked to King, but I’m pretty sure he only did it to work in the word “flabbergasted”.

Lepselter told me Sunday: “We are flabbergasted that Tiki has not had an opportunity with any team, especially when rosters were at 90 players this year. I certainly thought some team would be intrigued to see what he had left in the tank.”

The only team Tiki even got to work out for was the Miami Dolphins, and when the Dolphins can find nearly 60 people better than you it may be time to hug the 24-year old blonde you left your pregnant wife for, brush your beautiful, beautiful teeth and call it a career. Or, getting a job working somewhere and suddenly quit because you want to do something else, then define your entire life around getting back that first job. That’s what mentally healthy people usually do.

Everyone at With Leather wishes Tiki the best in his future endeavors, as long as they don’t involve trying to pay for teams we like.

[h/t Shutdown Corner]

Right before the NFL Lockout lifted, it seemed like the most exciting thing about the shortened and hyper-intensive free agency would be the rush to sign the quality running backs, which were basically DeAngelo Williams and Ahmad Bradshaw. Unfortunately, once the Carolina Panthers re-signed Williams, the demand for RBs became flaccid and Bradshaw was pretty much screwed. That’s mainly because everyone thought the Miami Dolphins would be hellbent on finding a talented scatback to pair with rookie Daniel Thomas. Everyone was kind of wrong.

The Dolphins, of course, ended up trading a 6th round pick to the New Orleans Saints for Reggie Bush, while Bradshaw tucked his tail and returned to the New York Giants for less than what he expected to earn in the so-called frenzy. Meanwhile, the Denver Broncos decided to keep faith in Knowshon Moreno, the Washington Redskins traded for Tim Hightower, the Cincinnati Bengals got Cedric Benson back at a criminal’s discount, and most of the other teams just filled their backup spots with Darren Sproles (NO), Jerious Norwood (STL), Cadillac Williams (STL) and Ronnie Brown (PHI).

But the Dolphins, despite passing on Bradshaw, still want one more RB. One more terrible, washed up, philandering, desperate RB.

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Tiki Barber’s life has been a crazy one. He’s gone from being the most successful hair stylist in Hawaii (cough) to being the star running back of the New York Giants, to being a correspondent for The Today Show and Football Night in America/Sunday Night Footbal, to being a veteran on the comeback trail. A crazy life, yes, but not necessarily one wherein he had to hide in an attic for two years to keep from being murdered in a holocaust. Of course, that didn’t stop Barber from comparing himself to Anne Frank in an interview with Sports Illustrated. Maybe he was trying to compare himself to Helen Keller?

A quote from L. Jon Wertheim’s SI piece:

Barber and Johnson went into hiding in the attic of Lepselter’s house in New Jersey. “Lep’s Jewish,” says Barber, “and it was like a reverse Anne Frank thing.” (Here is Barber writ small: He has the wit and smarts to make an Anne Frank allusion and the artlessness to liken himself—an adulterer trying to elude gossip columnists—to a Holocaust victim.)

“He has the wit and smarts to have read a book at some point in his lifetime and remember it.” I’m not sure “wit” or “smarts” are the words that come to mind when I read about Tiki Barber comparing himself to Anne f**king Frank, although Sports Illustrated could suddenly be adopting the biting wit of the New Yorker, I don’t know, I don’t really read it unless I’m waiting for the dentist.

I hate this guy. Wait, I take that back. Brandon, is it really you who mentioned hate, oh Brandon, how could you?

[H/T Off the Bench]

We haven’t had a good comeback story that didn’t involve Brett Favre or a cell phone lately, so here’s one for you: Tiki Barber, the NFL’s 12th leading rusher all-time, is plotting a return to the NFL.

That’s probably good, since Barber, 35, doesn’t seem to be all that great away from the gridiron. He didn’t amount to a hill of beans as an analyst on “Football Night In America.” And then dumped his pregnant wife for some intern last April and then got fired from the Today show. Why wouldn’t he try to come back?

Barber, who sources said has already filed the appropriate paperwork to the league, will become a free agent. The 35-year-old back, who turns 36 in April, retired in 2007. He played 10 seasons, all for the Giants, finishing his career as the franchise’s all-time leading rusher.

–SI.com

Yeah, all-time. He was so good that the Giants won the Super Bowl the first year he was gone. Come on, Tiki. Aren’t you really just doing this for the money?

In June 2010, the New York Post reported Barber was broke and couldn’t pay his divorce settlement with his ex-wife.

Thought so.

Apparently we never got around to mentioning that Tiki Barber is dumping his Asian wife for a white girl, partly because of my travel schedule, and partly because Tiki is the black Paris Hilton. Who gives a damn what this guy does anymore? He gets less camera time on NBC than Al Michaels’ scalp, he’s terrible on the Today show, he’s terrible on his NFL show, and he’s devoid of any sort of charisma that would make me want to watch him on TV. And considering that he had to invade the ranks of the nearly post-pubescent to find his own Lolita.

Anyway, I wanted to do something like this to compare Tiger’s high-volume philandering with Tiki’s one-shot, one-kill approach. But someone already did that. Whatever. At some point, we’ll have to stop comparing every guy that cheats on his wife to Tiger Woods. Might as well start now.

See, Tiger’s whoring was heroic, both in scope and range. Tiger banged strippers, he banged his neighbors, he probably banged 47 percent of all women he ever came into contact with. Just wrap your GD brain around that for a second. The guy couldn’t miss. And his marriage is still intact (for now, anyway). Tiki, meanwhile, blew up his whole life for some intern. Can Tiki re-enter his public universe with the same apparent ease as Tiger has? I doubt it. While Tiki might have sold his marriage down the river, as Tiger did, one has to wonder why he couldn’t insist on a better price. The end. Wasn’t that fun?

ASYLUM POLL: Is Tiki Barber a bigger scumbag than Tiger Woods?