Sports

It Almost Happened: Michael Jordan to the Clippers - I can’t hear “Jordan to the Clippers? It almost happened!” in anything but Phil Hartman’s Troy McClure voice. I wish this would’ve happened, just so I could’ve see the words GREAT CLIPS in big letters without having to get my hair cut. [Smoking Section]

Punte on The Wrestling Podcast - In case you think I’m turning With Leather into With Spandex (c’mon Uproxx, that’s a money idea), here’s the previous managing editor on TH’s wrestling podcast talking about wrestling. See? I’m not that weird. The best part is when they mention what a great job I’m doing! [The Wrestling Podcast]

Tony Dungy Picture Demands Captions - I was going to run this yesterday, but couldn’t come up with anything more clever than HE GAY. Obviously you want to go the Revenge of the Nerds route here, but I don’t even think Lamar would wear shorts like that. [Kissing Suzy Call-ber]

War Machine is Writing a Book - What’s next, a memoir from US Agent? [Cage Potato]

Cliff Lee’s Spit Capable of Extinguishing Forest Fires - Jon gets to the “super soaker where you had to wear a backpack” reference before I can. Cliff Lee is still my favorite baseball player, and the number three reason why I sort of root for the Phillies (numbers one and two being “Phillie Phanatic” and “my girlfriend” respectively). [SB Nation]

The Dugout: Meet the Daigles - People are telling me this is the “funniest Dugout in years”, and I’m flattered enough to #humblebrag about it here. I think the best names for boys is just nouns. [The Dugout]

Not Sports

Lindsay Lohan is Never Going to Jail For Real For Anything - Lohan escapes further arrest while technically being arrested, and I think she could reanimate and kill the body of Nicole Brown Simpson in front of everybody and still get away with it. And I’m in the minority, I don’t really care about foxy teen Lohan, but LOVE cracked-out, omnisexual, constantly smoking MILF version. [The Superficial]

Midnight in Paris is Bill and Ted for Liberal Arts Majors - Arguably Bill and Ted itself is Bill and Ted for liberal arts majors. Bogus Journey, definitely. Bogus Journey is the best, and if you haven’t watched it in 20 years, go back and do that now. The movie’s climax is FAKE BEARDS. [Film Drunk]

Winklevoss Twins Finally Give Up the Fight with Facebook - Brandon Stroud likes this. In an older joke, they should CGI two Tilas Tequila as the villains for the Myspace movie. [Uproxx]

Tom Hanks No Habla Espanol - His cries of “WILSON!” would’ve been less impactful if the’d been “wheel-SONE!” Tom Hanks is Woody AND Forrest Gump, he can speak whatever language he wants. Colin Hanks, however, should only speak Spanish. [Warming Glow]

Dungy hopes that NFL teams will take a chance on Burress. He feels that Burress will no longer take anything for granted and will make better decisions.

“I’ve been with Mike (Vick) and I’ve seen how kids flock to him, and I think we’ll see the same thing with Plaxico,” Dungy said.

That was the punchline of today’s Plaxico Burress press conference, wherein the National Urban League promised a “major announcement” and delivered Plaxico saying he was partnering with the National Urban League (cough) and the Brady Center to combat gun violence. I’m glad urban youths now have a strong role model to keep them from putting a gun in their sweatpants, going to a club and accidentally gun violencing themselves in the leg.

Plaxico’s announcement might as well have been labeled “Now That’s What I Call a Disgraced Athlete, Volume 1″, including chart topping hits like “I want to see every child succeed”, “I can make a difference”, and “Magic Johnson is going to mentor me and keep me from making any more bad decisions”. Well, okay, that last one wasn’t a hit (and didn’t really make sense if you listened to the lyrics), but Magic and NBC analyst (and nothing else) Tony Dungy were present to thumbs-up their mentorship. Dungy added, “Lol I ran after his car as he was leaving jail.”

So, will this make Plaxico look more appealing to NFL teams? Would you rather your kid learn not to shoot people from a guy who has never shot anyone, or has shot someone (“Himself” counts as someone) but is famous? We want to hear your opinion, so let us know what you think in our comments section. Or just lean out of your window and shout it at passersby, and I guess eventually I will hear about it.

Are you surprised at his tears, sirs? Strong men also cry – strong, chubby, bird-flipping men capable of swearing a blue streak so over-the-top it could cause the guy who wrote the screenplay for Scarface (Oliver Stone, interestingly) to blush – also cry.

Okay, technically, it wasn’t actually reported that Jets head coach was openly weeping when he responded to Tony Dungy’s harsh criticisms from earlier this week that the former Colts coach and Good Christian Soldier thought Ryan was caught by the cameras cussing way too much during the taping of HBO’s Hard Knocks, but the fiery son of Buddy Ryan did become emotional when addressing Dungy’s stinging, meanie-weenie comments.

“I’m always going to be myself, and I’m a good person,” Ryan said, his voice cracking slightly. “Just because somebody cusses or whatever doesn’t make him a bad person, and just because a guy doesn’t cuss doesn’t make him a good person. I’ll stand by my merits.

“I’ve been a big admirer of Tony Dungy, and I’m sure a lot of people are,” Ryan said. “I felt that he unfairly judged me, and that was a disappointment to me.” via.

LEAVE REX RYAN ALONE, TONY DUNGY! He is an incredibly sensitive, complex man with incredible depth of emotion and feeling. It just so happens that he best articulates those emotions and feelings by dropping F-bomb after F-bomb after F-bomb. Big friggin’ whoop.

People tend to play less attention to you when you’re 0-6. Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher, who has held his job as head coach longer than any other in the league, recently appeared at Lipscomb’s Allen Arena to introduce former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy for some benefit thinger. So you can imagine everyone’s surprise when Fish pulled off his shirt to reveal a Peyton Manning jersey.

“I just wanted to feel like a winner,” Fisher joked as the crowd erupted in applause and laughter.

Asked about Fisher’s unorthodox introduction, Dungy said, “He made me feel right at home. Jeff is always the master of the unusual. That was quite a surprise but something only he would do. But just being here, and coming out and supporting this even with the team being 0-6, just to come out and be supportive, that’s who Jeff Fisher is. That’s why he is special.” –Nashville City Paper.

I’ve never thought of a Peyton Manning jersey as a pick-me-up, but I guess it’s better than putting on women’s lingerie with heels and wandering out to the Meatpacking District. I always thought that “meatpacking district” was a euphemism. Maybe it should be. Thanks, Mike [for the imgs] and Walker.

New NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith has asked Tony Dungy to serve as a liason between the players and the league, proving once again that you can always get a job if you have a strong work ethic and hate gays.

Dungy confirmed to ESPN senior NFL analyst Chris Mortensen that he has been approached by Smith and is interested in the position. Dungy said that Smith informed him that he would be in touch shortly to better define the job.

“It’s certainly something that’s close to my heart, having been associated with the NFL for so long,” Dungy said.

Dungy’s role would seem to be involved in dealing with “player issues,” which seems to be somewhere between Gabe Kaplan’s character in Welcome Back Kotter and Ice T’s role in Law & Order, Special Victims Unit. Tony Dungy will be the beacon of light that has all 1,600 or so NFL players abstaining from sex before marriage, going to church, and driving only moderately extravagant vehicles. But what about whores? Even a devout Christian like Dungy needs a juicy whore once in a while. Of course he probably refers to it as “Bowling Night.” Which is great, because actual bowling blows.

For those of you New Yorkers not going to the Steinberg-Magary-Bissinger toolfest tonight, I’d like to recommend a much nobler cause than getting drunk and hoping for angry outbursts from Pulitzer winners: the Doodle for Hunger charity auction benefiting Capuchin Food Pantries.

As you can see from the above selection of works by famous athletes, this may be your only chance to own a shitty drawing of a stick figure playing football.  Unless you know a five-year-old.  And, although it wasn’t unveiled at Capuchin’s website, there will also be a masterpiece from Eli Manning (see final item).

For next year’s show, I’d like to nominate Brady Quinn and Michael Strahan.  Just because there’s something really enjoyable about seeing pro athletes being absolutely terrible at something.  Well, terrible at something besides wearing condoms.