Elaine, could you just not talk for one minute?

The Peyton Manning “future endeavors” press conference is full of all the awkward man-hugging and loaded questions you’d expect (“what’s your favorite memory?” might as well have been followed by the guy handing Peyton a box of Kleenex), so let’s choose to remember Peyton in Indy the way he’d want us to — with a fan song set to “Desperado” by the Eagles.

Fan songs are a bit of an institution here at With Leather, and while the songs we normally carry are viral pandering or an indescribable kind of awful, this one gets pretty wistful, so don’t be surprised if you catch yourself staring off into the distance.

The only way this could be better is if it cut to a clip of Andrew Luck getting distracted by “Witchy Woman”.

"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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According to his wedding website, free agent quarterback Jason Campbell was quite excited to marry his longtime, on-again/off-again girlfriend, Jenny Montes, at the Paradisus Palma Real in the Dominican Republic. Campbell’s massive wedding party included other NFL players like Ronnie Brown, Carlos Rogers, Jacoby Ford and Louis Murphy. Somewhere, Cadillac Williams shed a single tear.

But apparently it all fell apart during the day leading up to the Super Bowl of Campbell’s heart. Reports are mostly vague as to why the couple called it off, so I chose to go with the most ridiculous source I could find, from a site that watermarked the NFL logo.

Take it away, Media Take Out:

Jason’s fiance Jenny is a beautiful woman, and an MTOer. She had been pursued by TONS of ballers, but she chose to date Jason, when he was a rookie and his NFL career was uncertain.

The two met and started dating 5 years ago, and after a long separation found each other again. Jenny and her family were excited to fly down to the DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, to celebrate their nuptials. But that was not to be, Jason INEXPLICABLE BROKE IT OFF just hours before the ceremony was set to begin, stunning guests.

How hard is it to create a sensationalized gossip story that doesn’t have Swiss cheese logic? First of all, the two met and started dating in 2005, but if the wedding was in the Dominican Republic on Saturday, why wasn’t the family already there? Probably because they mutually called off the wedding on Friday and he definitely did not stand her up at the altar, according to CNN’s Kate Longworth.

But I like to think that Campbell and Brown decided to run away together. Unfortunately, they only made it 2 yards.

In a pro football world where wearing high-top cleats to honor the passing of Johnny Unitas can earn you a $25,000 fine, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that players hoping to wear red, white and blue gear on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 is a punishable offense. Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs tweeted about his new patriotic Reebok gear and how he expects to be fined for wearing it. So did Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles. So did Washington Redskins tight end Chris Cooley and Tennssee Titans quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and most of the San Diego Chargers. So whether or not the league approves, they can’t fine everybody for supporting their country … can they?

Briggs:

Reebok great job on these gloves and shoes..looks like I’m getting fined this week. Lol! By far the best fine I will ever have to pay. Thanks…Fines for gloves could be as much as 5k..the shoes 8-10k I think. not 100% on the shoe fine.

Is wearing 9/11 commemorative gear “showboating”? Is it being done to draw attention to the players who choose to break the rules? To give them more media coverage? I’m blogging about them. I think it’s a valid consideration, but when your talking point is “do I or do I not want to show respect and reverence to my country’s worst tragedy in my lifetime” I’d hope the simple gesture of fellowship and patriotism would not go hand-in-hand with the Lambeau Leap. At the same time, what are Never Forget gloves accomplishing, and isn’t there probably a better way for rich people to show their support to the victims of the attacks?

Regardless, don’t assume the league is totally heartless: the NFL and NFLPA will donate $1 million to related charities and memorials. Of course, the average NFL team is worth about $1.04 billion and ESPN just completed an eight-year extension worth as much as $1.9 billion annually with the NFL for the rights to Monday Night Football, so the issues of “how much can we give” and “how much can we take away from you” sort of go hand in hand.

[h/t Shutdown Corner]

Rex Grossman has been named the Washington Redskins’ starter for Sunday’s opener against the New York Giants.

“Throughout this whole thing I wanted to play well and have no regrets about my play,” Grossman said. “My confidence maybe would waver a little bit every once in a while just not sure what they’re going to do. So I signed up for this fantasy football thing on With Leather and won $250. I got back my confidence, and now that picture of me getting buttf**ked by the Packers is the second best thing I’ve ever done.”

I didn’t doctor that quote at all, copy and pasted it right over from HuffPo. Take it as you will.

Anyway, in case you’re wondering what Charles Atlas-quality device could turn Rex Grossman from a zero into a hero, look no further — our friends at DraftStreet have decided to stop punishing me with fantasy baseball failures and offer up money from a $250 cash pool to the top finishers in a With Leather Free Fantasy Football game. It’s free, it takes about a quarter of a second to prepare, and it can win you guaranteed cash money. Most pro football players aren’t even promised that. Click any of the hyperlinks in this post to sign up.

The game happens this weekend, and it’s going to work a lot like our baseball games; you’ll sign up (for free, again, I’m not going to make you pay for anything) and pick your team, and the team with the best performance in this Sunday’s games wins money. So do the next five top teams. In fact, you’d have to be almost as terrible at this as me or Rex Grossman to not win money. So what’re you waiting for? Sign up for this right now, or at least tomorrow, when I remind you!

Unless you’re still locked away in your fallout shelter, you already know that yesterday’s 5.9 earthquake in Virginia wasn’t very much to worry about. Sure, us hurricane-loving, proper-time-zone-having East Coast simple folk only know tremors as a delightful Kevin Bacon film about giant worms. So you left coasters will have to forgive us when an earthquake actually strikes our neck of the States and we act a little shocked. And laugh all you want, but just wait until I send some Floridians out your way to register as California voters. Who will be laughing then?

As usual, some professional athletes took to their Twitter accounts to express their hysteria and/or indifference at yesterday’s earthquake, which reportedly reached New York and Pennsylvania. Sadly, our favorite usual suspects like Chad Ochocinco, Jose Canseco, and the Iron Sheik were mum on the quake. But some new faces – mostly athletes from the Washington D.C. area – stepped up and added their own interesting commentary on the matters. Thankfully, none of them blamed it on gay marriage.

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