Category: NFL (Page 697 of 1282)

Cowboys’ Bennett says ‘Black Olympics’ video not offensive

Cowboys’ tight end Martellus Bennett says the YouTube video he and his brother filmed about “Black Olympics” isn’t offensive and states that he and his sibling were “just having a little fun.”

Bennett drew scorn earlier this week from Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock for his video, in which he and his brother Michael, a rookie for the Seattle Seahawks, competed eating fried chicken and watermelon and drinking Kool-Aid.

Bennett told the Michael Irvin radio show on Monday that he didn’t intend to offend others, but doesn’t think the video was racially insensitive.

“I don’t really think it’s offensive,” Bennett told Irvin. “It depends on your sense of humor and how you look at things. We were just having fun and it was very funny for me and my brothers, when I look at it I just can’t stop laughing. If someone takes offense, I apologize. That wasn’t my intention. It was just us having fun.”

Bennett told Irvin he would not have a problem with a white person acting out something like the “Black Olympics.”

“There’s white comedians that do stuff like that all the time,” he said. “I think it’s funny to attack stereotypes. It’s funny how people just put people in a certain light and say that’s what all the people do of a certain race or particular person, so it’s fun to attack those stereotypes.”

Everyone has a different sense of humor and what Bennett should keep in mind is that we live in a day and age where people are hypersensitive about everything. He ran the risk of offending people when he shot this video and now he has to live with the attention and criticism it’s getting. That’s just the nature of the beast.

What he should be concerned with is how the video represents him as a person and how it makes the Cowboys and NFL look. Bennett isn’t Dave Chappelle, who makes a living off of offbeat sketches – he’s a football player. He should keep in mind that something like this brings negative attention to the Cowboys and to the NFL, and it could also set his career back because it shows immaturity on his part.

In the end, is doing a video like this (or any other video for that matter, seeing as how he also did a YouTube rap video before the “Black Olympics”) worth it?

Video released of Pacman Jones at nightclub

For the many of us who wanted to learn how to “make it rain” in a nightclub, Adam “Pacman” Jones shows us in this video shot of him before the shooting incident that occurred in Vegas during the NBA All-Star Game weekend:

Boy that Jermaine Dupri is one classy individual himself, isn’t he? How dare strippers go after money that’s thrown at them! The nerve! The NERVE!!!

A stripper was punched repeatedly in the face, a woman was shot in the ear and a man was left paralyzed from the waist down after this incident. But hey, at least Pacman and Dupri taught strippers a valuable lesson that night about not grabbing money until they’re allowed to.

Do Broncos players have trust issues with McDaniels?

According to NFL Network analyst Jamie Dukes, some Broncos players have trust issues with their new head coach Josh McDaniels.

Jay Cutler isn’t the only player who has developed trust issues with first-year Broncos coach Josh McDaniels. A few other players have privately expressed concern, and the media has joined the chorus in feeling that McDaniels has a problem with honesty.

Some would say this is no big deal, but trust is the cornerstone of this society. We need to be able to trust our government. Trust is essential to marriage and relationships. We need to be able to trust our children. We need to be able to trust our friends.

As a former NFL player, I can tell you that trust is the foundation between the player and the coach. When players trust their coach, they play at another level. Unfortunately, truthfulness seems to be a character trait that Bill Belichick didn’t pass down to young McDaniels.

Thanks for the life lesson Jamie – I’ll certainly store that information in my back pocket and break it out from time to time.

As part of his blog entry, Dukes uses the Brandon Marshall situation as another example of how some of the players don’t trust McDaniels. And maybe secretly they don’t trust their new head coach – after all, he didn’t handle the situation with Cutler appropriately and he does seem to have that Belichick air of secrecy in the way he goes about things.

But Dukes doesn’t tell us anything new here. He recaps the Cutler and Marshall situations and then uses the “I was a former player, so I should know” reasoning to state his opinion. And anyone that watches Dukes on the NFL Network knows that this guy brings nothing to the table as a journalist. So when he comes out with a story like this, it’s important to take it with a grain of salt.

Again, I’m not saying that he’s wrong, but I question the fact that he was so general when he said that, “a few other players have privately expressed concern,” and then goes on to mention only the names everyone else already knows about. If other players did express concern to Dukes about McDaniels, he could have printed what they said without using their names. But instead, he used a blanket statement and moved on without providing much detail.

Rick Reilly = that annoying ”friend”

Rick Reilly puts together a top 10 list of the best sporting events to see live and I couldn’t disagree more with his top 5.

5. Tour de France — Like trying to get to 20 Super Bowls in 23 days, but worth it. Pick a climbing stage, bring friends and a bike, ride the course in the morning before the race (you’re allowed), have lunch in a hamlet atop some exquisite Alp, watch the heart-skipping finish, have a bottle of Bordeaux, spend the night, bike down in the morning. Rinse and repeat.

4. North Carolina vs. Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium — Fans pulling the hair of Tar Heels players as they inbound the ball; students camping out for months in K-Ville for tix; the hilarious chants from the Crazies, who once yelled at Grant Hill’s parents, “One more kid!”; public school vs. private; an electricity that makes the Final Four and its corporate crowd seem like a three-day seminar on bunions.

3. Wimbledon — There’s nothing in America within a par-5 of it. It’s a Windsor Castle garden party with grunting. It’s queens and cobblers, cheek to cheek, over grounds so huge it would take you and your Toro a month to mow. It’s a phantasmagoria of color — greens and purples and yellows — and that’s just Bud Collins’ pants.

2. Kentucky Derby — My life’s aspiration was to be Damon Runyon, and the Derby is as close as I’ll get. With its wooden stands, elegant barns, men in seersucker suits and women in hats you could land an F-14 on, it’s 1927 everywhere you look. Don’t miss the fillies the day before in the Kentucky Oaks or the Barnstable Brown Gala or the awful race-day breakfast at Wagner’s Pharmacy, across from Gate 3. If you hear a tip there, book it, because everyone around you is a trainer, an owner or a groom.

1. Masters — Sneak into the clubhouse for the peach cobbler and steal into the Eisenhower Cabin, where some paintings are actually by Eisenhower. Do the par-3 tourney Wednesday and Arnie’s first tee shot Thursday; see the droop-shouldered cut players driving out Magnolia Lane Friday, Amen Corner Saturday and golf history Sunday. Because Augusta already has most of the money printed in America, it has not sold out an inch. There are no ads, just flowers. No luxury boxes, just $1.50 egg salad sandwiches. Timeless.

You know that friend that we all have? You know the one – the guy/girl that only likes things that are not in the mainstream? All of his or her favorite bands are underground and all the movies that he or she likes are ones that nobody else enjoyed because they, “just didn’t get it.” We’re okay with these friends, but we know damn well that the only reason they like certain things is because they’re not in the mainstream.

Yeah, that’s Reilly in this piece.

I’ve never been to the Masters, Kentucky Derby, Wimlbedon or Tour de France, so as far as I know they’re the most thrilling events of all-time to see live. But I’m more focused on Reilly here. Was he just trying to be different with this list? Is he trying to separate himself from other top 10 lists? Because I find it incredibly odd that he left out the main four (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL) out of his top 5.

If he did so just to be different, I find him more annoying than every before.

Will Jeremy Jarmon be worth a supplemental draft pick?

The NFL supplemental draft takes place today and eight players will stand by and hope that one of the 32 teams is willing to give up a pick in 2010 to acquire their services.

One of those players is Kentucky defensive end Jeremy Jarmon, who was ineligible for his senior season after testing positive for a banned diuretic supplement. He was a force on the Wildcats’ defensive line during his sophomore season, but opponents started paying giving him more attention during his junior year in ’08 and his production dropped.

That said, he certainly has the size (6’3”, 278 pounds) and physical ability to make it at the next level. While he’s not an explosive pass rusher by any means, he’s competitive and doesn’t give up on plays no matter how far away from the ball he is. And although his ineligibly last year looks bad on his football resume, that one situation doesn’t mean he has character flaws that pro teams should be overly concerned about.

It’ll be interesting to see if one of the 32 teams parts with a draft pick in 2010 to take Jarmon today. He might be worth a fourth or fifth round pick for defensive linemen-starved teams.

Here’s a list of the eight players available in this year’s supplemental draft:

Blake Boyd, LB, Western Kentucky
Jeremy Jarmon, DE, Kentucky
Torris Magee, WR, Southern Miss
Dixon McKinner, DE, Texas Tech
Joe McMahon, G, Central Michigan
Demetrice Morley, S, Tennessee
Deon Murphy, WR, Kansas State
Corey Surrency, WR, Florida State

Update: The Redskins used a third round pick on Jarmon in the supplemental draft.

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