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Cheated on your wife? Fine, just don’t ruin my football team.

Ben Roethlisberger was accused not once, but twice of sexually assaulting two separate females, while Tiger Woods admitted to cheating on his wife with multiple women, including at least one porn star.

But neither of them hold a candle to Michael Vick in the category of most disliked athlete. The same goes for Al Davis apparently, seeing as how he was found to be the second most disliked sports personality among voters in a recent Forbes survey.

From FOX Sports:

For the second year in a row, Michael Vick topped a fan poll taken by Forbes as the most disliked national sports figure, myFOXphilly.com reported Sunday.

The Forbes survey sampled sports fans and filtered out lesser-known figures like disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis and sports agent Scott Boras, who weren’t known by a lot of fans but really disliked by those who knew them.

In the end, Vick was still held in a lower opinion than Ben Roethlisberger, Tiger Woods and Oakland Raiders’ owner Al Davis, with 69 percent of those polled disliking Vick.

Davis was a surprising second with 66 percent, given the amount of bad PR that Woods (53 percent) and Roethlisberger (57 percent) had in the past year.

Wait, Al Davis was second? So let me get this straight: you can commit adultery or be accused of sexual assault and still be more liked than if you ruined an NFL franchise. That’s kind of disturbing. I know I’m drawing a rather incomplete conclusion based on this unscientific poll, but I wouldn’t think that Al Davis would be ahead of Tiger and Big Ben on the most disliked scale.

I guess it goes to show you how much Americans love their football.

2010 NBA Consensus Mock Draft (6/21)

With the draft just a few days away, it’s a good time to zip through another consensus mock draft. I’ve pulled in the first 14 picks from ESPN, DraftExpres, NBADraft.net, SI, Yahoo and FanHouse to see if we could come to some sort of consensus as to how the first half of the draft might go. If a player was taken by a certain team in three-plus mock drafts, he is listed in bold with the number of drafts in parenthesis. If there was no consensus, or if he was drafted by a team in two mocks, then he is listed in italics.

(I know the font is a little small, but you can click on the table for a larger version.)

A few random thoughts:

– The top four appear to be set, with Wall, Turner, Favors and Wesley Johnson going to the Wizards, Sixers, Nets and T-Wolves, respectively. These picks intuitively make a lot of sense, which probably means they won’t go this way on Thursday night.

– I listed Cousins at #6 because I don’t think there’s any chance that he falls further than that. But with his “character issues,” who knows. He had a great workout in Sacramento, so I’d bet that he goes #5 at the latest. Besides, Monroe seems like a great fit in Golden State with his basketball IQ and willingness to pass the ball.

– After the #6 pick, this draft seems like a free for all. There are a number of forwards — Aminu, Hayward, Babbitt, Davis and Patterson — all jockeying for position.

– Even though he wasn’t the consensus — there was no conensus — Babbitt seems destined to land in Utah. Aldrich is a possibility there as well.


Photo from fOTOGLIF

The implosion of Dustin Johnson

When Dustin Johnson rested his head on his pillow Saturday night, he had a three-stroke lead over Graeme McDowell heading into the fourth and final round at the U.S. Open.

When he went to rest his head on his pillow last night, he wanted to punt it off the roof of his home, along with his golf clubs, his golf shoes and maybe even his caddy. That’s because Johnson completely imploded during the final round on Sunday, giving way for his playing partner McDowell to earn his first professional win in the United States. McDowell also became the first European to win the U.S. Open since England’s Tony Jacklin won at Hazeltine in 1970.

But back to Johnson. He dominated Pebble Beach on Saturday while shooting a 5-under par. He converted a par-4 on the 4th hole when he hit the green with an iron off the tee, then buried an eagle putt. He also birdied the 6th, 7th, 11th, 17th and 18th holes to take a three-stoke lead heading into the final round.

Then he woke up on Sunday and completely forgot how to play. He kicked things off with a triple-bogey and double-bogey on the 2nd and 3rd holes. By the time he reached the back nine, he had completely fallen off the leaderboard and wound up shooting an 82.

Granted, I would set a course on fire and tip over golf carts for an 82. But for a professional golfer, an 82 is a day to forget. In fact, this was one of the greatest collapses in major championship history, akin to Greg Norman’s disastrous performance in the 1996 Masters when he shot a 78 to erase a 6-shot lead. Even the announcers couldn’t believe how poorly Johnson was playing.

Nevertheless, give credit to McDowell for not imploding himself and taking advantage of Johnson’s demise. Unfortunately for McDowell, people might remember Johnson’s epic collapse more than they remember the day the 30-year-old from Northern Ireland become the first European in 40 years to capture America’s national championship.

As direct as a quote can get

ESPN’s coverage of the World Cup has so far been incredible. Instead of just using unknown (to rest of the world) American soccer pundits, the Worldwide Leader has brought in a slew of international journalists to add expert insight.

Following the incident where Nicolas Anelka berated his coach during France’s loss to Mexico, French sports journalist Erik Bielderman told ESPN’s Bob Ley exactly what was said. And I mean exactly.

Ley’s reaction is classic.

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