Perhaps Michael Vick was inspired by T.I.’s “Road to Redemption” series: the incarcerated football star is now shopping around his own reality show in which cameras would follow him around after he gets out of prison for dogfighting charges.
Hollywood Reporter “said eager producers even visited the suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback in prison in the hope of signing him. As a result, there’s a few different parties claiming to have his rights, which is confusing the industry playing field.”
Vick could use the money. He owes millions to creditors.
So Vick kills a bunch of dogs and then gets to reap the rewards by selling his “story” to reality television producers? Yeah, that sounds about right.
I’d rather watch a Rams-Lions Week 17 regular season game from start to finish than just 10 minutes of Michael Vick picking his nose and trying to act remorseful on some reality TV show.
The Red Sox placed starter Daisuke Matsuzaka on the 15-day disabled list on Wednesday due to arm fatigue. Dice-K was brutal in his first two starts, yielding 14 total hits and nine runs in just 6.1 innings of work. He still struck out five, but he gave up three dingers and posted an ERA of 12.79.
Dice-K competed for Japan in the World Baseball Classic and while he only through 14.2 innings, it was obviously enough for him to suffer some arm fatigue. I know the WBC has rules so that pitchers don’t get overworked playing in the tournament, but clearly that isn’t enough because now the Red Sox will be without one of their best pitchers for two weeks.
The WBC is a fun tournament and it’s interesting to watch MLB players compete against each other for their countries. But it isn’t supposed to get in the way of the MLB regular season and clearly it has considering it had some affect on Matsuzaka’s arm.
Bud Selig has to figure out a better format if he wants to continue this tournament going forward. One idea is to put it at the end of the MLB season, since all of the games are being played indoors anyway. It makes no sense for some of these pro ballplayers to be playing in a competitive tournament when they should be getting ready for spring training.
Jaguars’ running back Maurice Jones-Drew signed a new four-year, $32.8 million contract to become one of the heist paid backs in the NFL.
The contract is believed to top the six-year, $49.1 million deal signed by Clinton Portis of the Redskins in 2006. Steven Jackson of the Rams is the highest paid running back. He signed a five-year, 48.5 million deal last season. Larry Johnson of the Chiefs is next. He has five-year, $43.14 million contract.
Jones-Drew was entering the final year of his contract and was scheduled to make $535,000. With the release of Fred Taylor, Jones-Drew, who averaged 4.8 yards a carry during his career, becomes the team’s feature back. He had 941 yards as a rookie and last season gained 824 yards on 197 carries and rushed for 12 touchdowns.
Jones-Drew has 34 touchdowns during his three-year career.
Jones-Drew totaled 1,389 yards from scrimmage last year and added 14 touchdowns. With Fred Taylor now in New England, if Jones-Drew can stay healthy he could approach 1,700 to 1,800 total yards and another 15-20 scores. That’s certainly worth what the Jags just paid him.
The NFL released the 2009 NFL Schedule today, so I’ll do what the 4,000 other websites do and list some of the more juicier matchups of the year. (Although in the sake of being at least a little creative, I’ll list one interesting matchup for each of the 17 weeks on the schedule.)
Before we get to the matchups though, let me state for the record that it’s a complete farce that the Cowboys get six nationally televised games next year despite not making the playoffs last season. I guess “America’s Team” opening a brand new stadium is worth major national exposure…six times a year.
Week 1: Bears at Packers, 8:20PM ET Jay Cutler’s first game in a Bears uniform will be at Lambeau against the rival Packers on Sunday Night Football. How much will John Madden overplay the, “The Bears finally have a quarterback” angle after every pass Cutler completes?
Week 2: Giants at Cowboys, 8:20PM ET One of the ‘Boys six nationally televised games, Dallas will open up their new stadium against division rival New York on Sunday Night Football. How much will John Madden overplay the, “Tony Romo and Wade Phillips must win now because Jerry Jones built this brand new stadium and he wants a contender” angle?
Week 3: Falcons at Patriots, 1:00PM ET The over/under on the number of times Matt Ryan is compared to Tom Brady in this game has officially been set at 800,994,990.
Week 4: Chargers at Steelers, 8:20PM ET AFC Divisional Round rematch in Pittsburgh – let’s see if the Chargers can hold onto the ball for more than 17 seconds in the third quarter unlike the last time these two teams met.
Week 5: Patriots at Broncos, 4:15PM ET If Bill Belichick shakes Josh McDaniels’ hand at midfield after this game, I’m calling shenanigans on the behalf of Eric Mangini.
Week 6: Bears at Falcons, 8:20PM ET Here’s hoping the Bears’ secondary figured out that they have to cover the out pattern when that’s the only route Matt Ryan can look for when there’s 11 seconds on the clock and he needs to get his team into field goal range.
In their latest ‘toon, the guys from Bang! Cartoon illustrate the mass confusion that ensued when Jay Cutler arrived on the Bears’ doorsteps and what was really behind Josh McDaniels and Pat Bowlen’s decision to trade the “snot-nosed” quarterback.