Roundup- Tuesday, January 27th

The Super teams have touched down in Tampa and all the fanfare that goes with it. One thing that always happens in these Super Bowls is the rise to fame of one obscure player America never knew about. The Tampa Tribune’s Martin Fennelly looks at one of those players.

One of the most important moments that I remember about last year’s Giants team is when the team walked out of the airplane and everyone had on black. You just knew they meant business and they were there for a unified purpose. Right then and there you had to feel confident as a Giant fan. As for this story, think of David Tyree, just 25 years ago and with a Raider jersey.


As for the storyline that just won’t go away: the Anquan Boldin/Todd Haley shouting match. Both are saying the right things. They both insist that it was nothing serious and that every football team goes through it. While media outlets were trying to initially peg Anquan Boldin, or “Q” as he’s called by teammates, as this selfish me first player, well, everyone has reversed course as this Christopher Gasper piece in the Boston Globe documents.

Honestly, the whole Terrell Owens and Chad Johnson era in football has totally skewed the perception of receivers and its too bad. Like I wrote about Larry Fitzgerald the other day, there are still receivers who consider it a privilege and just downright luck that they get to play a game for a living.
In Anquan’s situation, he didn’t help matters by leaving early and not staying around to celebrate even IF it was to avoid the media onslaught of questions over what the television cameras caught.
I totally understand competitive drive and him wanting to be in the game. I mean, this is the guy who has about 40 screws in his head and came back after facial reconstructive surgery in three weeks, so him being told that he can’t play because he’s not fast enough would understandably piss him off in one of the biggest drives of his professional and team’s postseason career.

In this morning’s edition Joe Posnanski writes about the Kansas City Royals finally signing one of their own.

I have been complaining that the Mets have been cheap and yet we as New York sports fans forget that there are other sports teams that count signing Zack Greinke to a 4 year $38 million deal as a huge victory. Its tough for most of the small market teams to keep their players as the Royals can attest to as it always seems like their prospects are auditioning for the Red Sox or the Yankees or the Mets or the LA teams and big money contracts.
Any time I start complaining about the Mets being cheap I will remember this article and remember to keep things in perspective.

An interesting story worth looking at is the story picking up steam out west. The NFL has longed for a franchise to secretly take their team and move to L.A. With the Chargers having problems with the city of San Diego, the NFL might have finally found that team.

Just when you think the NFL can’t possibly maximize its profit potential, it finds another way. The NFL won’t block any team from breaking its lease and working its way towards L.A. This is all in an attempt for the NFL to be able to host the Super Bowl, that super cash cow in a big market since they can’t host it in New York.

It appears as if the Cowboys work under the policy that any publicity is good publicity. Just when there was an announcement of a Michael Irvin reality show, there’s an announcement that Terrell Owens has joined him.

If I ever want to feel good about any of my sporting teams, I look at the Cowboys and what a mess that team has become. I can’t say that T.O. is totally at fault. He suffers from diarrhea of the mouth which causes him to say stuff that he shouldn’t be saying to a media outlet that no longer protects players and are more concerned with getting the more controversial and sexy headline. With this news that they have a new reality show I can only think one thing: so wait, last season wasn’t a reality show that I saw on VH1?