Jan 10th 2009 11:04PM by Will Brinson (author feed)

I’ve had some great birthdays in my 27 years on this planet. And I’ve had some bad ones. And I’ve had some bad ones (which I won’t discuss you with you, sorry). But I’m pretty sure that none of them will compare with how Jake Delhomme spent his 34th birthday.

Because, yes, Delhomme’s birthday is in fact January 10, 1975. Meaning that on his birthday, with the Panthers seeking a berth in the NFC Championship Game, he threw five interceptions (the NFL playoff record is six) and coughed up a fumble, leaving him as the biggest goat in the 2008 Carolina Panthers season.

I’ve always been a Delhomme apologist, and while I think that he’s still a good quarterback, it’s pretty tough at this point to justify what on Earth he was doing on the field tonight. Happy birthday, Jake.

Jan 10th 2009 11:20PM by Will Brinson (author feed)

Keyshawn Johnson said, as the Panthers were closing out their season, that he didn’t trust Jake Delhomme as a quarterback. Well, after Delhomme’s performance tonight against the Cardinals, it’s pretty hard to argue that he’s wrong.

Delhomme threw five interceptions and fumbled once — ALL ON HIS FREAKING BIRTHDAY, NO LESS — and generally stunk up the joint in Carolina. With three minutes remaining (and very few fans left), he’s actually being forced to take the field again with the possibility of matching an NFL playoff-record six interceptions 34 years to the day after he was born.
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Jan 11th 2009 12:30AM by Will Brinson (author feed)
Julius Peppers is one of the most well-known and popular players on the Carolina Panthers. There are many reasons for this, his 2007 season aside.

First of all, he’s a former North Carolina Tar Heel star. Secondly, he’s repped the Panthers in the Pro Bowl four times. And finally, because — and this is true even if you refuse to pull for Tar Heels — he just feels like a significant part of the Carolina Panthers franchise.

However, it’s pretty odd that the Panthers made no effort to re-sign Julius at any point this year, considering his improved play (it’s no shock at all that they wanted to make sure he wasn’t totally fading before giving him a huge contract). And that makes Peppers’ statement to the media after the game about his future in Carolina:
Q: Do you want to be [in Carolina], Julius?
A: Do I want to be here? I want to be in the best situation possible for me.
Peppers also mentioned that he had no interest in discussing the upcoming offseason.
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Jan 11th 2009 12:45AM by Will Brinson (author feed)

Darnell Dockett’s had a pretty pricey week; you most likely recall the $20,000 fine the NFL stuck him with after his celebratory actions against the Atlanta Falcons. Surely, he would come into this Panthers game a with a little more humility this week, right?

Um, wrong. Dockett not only decided the post-game presser was a perfect time to call out Warren Sapp (as well as everyone at FanHouse except Shane Bacon, technically), but he also decided to “give Carolina all the credit” for the Cardinals win today.
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Jan 11th 2009 1:10AM by Will Brinson (author feed)

Jake Delhomme just had a pretty rough birthday. You would excuse him if he didn’t want to talk to the media after the game and just decided to take off for whatever the hell he’s planning on doing for the next week, simply in order to try and forget that the past 60 minutes of football just happened.

But he didn’t do that, of course, because, as bad as Jake was tonight, he’s still the type of guy to own up for his mistakes.
I’m at a loss for words. For one reason or another, I didn’t give us a chance tonight.

[…] We’d get something going, we ran the bootleg and I throw a pick there. It just started snowballing.
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Jan 11th 2009 1:30AM by Adam Gretz (author feed)
Nikita Filatov, the No. 5 overall pick in this year’s Entry Draft, entered play on Saturday night for Columbus with one goal in his first five NHL games. During the Blue Jackets win over Minnesota, the 18-year-old rookie notched his first career hat trick — and recorded an assist — helping lead Columbus to its second straight win and sixth in its past eight games.

Steve Mason continued his strong play in net for the Blue Jackets, turning aside 21-of-23 shots to pick up his 15th win of the season. It’s a big win for Columbus, as it entered the game trailing the Wild by one point in the Western Conference standings.

Mason is still leading the league in goals against average and save percentage, and he is still not an all-star. Crazy.Continue Reading

Jan 11th 2009 1:45AM by Will Brinson (author feed)

It’s an easily arguable point that Larry Fitzgerald was the main reason why the Arizona Cardinals are headed to their first NFC Championship game in franchise history. (You could also say “Jake Delhomme is the real answer, but there’s no need to be a jerkstore.) Fitzy put on a masterful first-half show, compiling a franchise record for receiving yards before the Panthers even had time to make adjustments.

Usually he compiles these stats quietly. But the word from he and his teammates is that Larry changed his normal behavior on the sidelines and amped up his attitude.
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Jan 11th 2009 3:25AM by Will Brinson (author feed)

It’s pretty rare when a sports montage doesn’t result in some sort of superhuman level of energy and performance boosting. (See: Darch, Stan.) But there’s somehow already a montage relating to Jake Delhomme’s performance against the Cardinals on Saturday night. And it’s awkwardly set to Beck’s “Loser”.

I suppose “thanks” goes to Black Sports Online for putting this together, although I reckon Jake might have a different reaction. Like, say, “Soy un perdador”?

Jan 11th 2009 8:00AM by B (author feed)
As former President Andrew Johnson reported earlier this week, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are not, in fact, the same team. I’ve never thought of them as an autonomous unit, but rather a set of bookends. Between them lies history, science, geography.. all of the important stuff, everything you need to know. Everything outside of them is just crap on your shelves.

As Andrew pointed out, the teams are run very differently. The Yankees have unzipped their, uh, coin purse and put their dense, cylindrical wrapped coins on the table, scooping up the available big names in a grand fashion that leaves nothing but a cloud of smoke and gold-laced footprints in the faces of the competition. The Sox have responded by holding up a picture of Dustin Pedroia and trying to find every free agent who looks remotely like him. It’s been a running gag in our strip for a while now, but the Red Sox need to sign Delmon and Dmitri Young to keep me from going snowblind next season.

The whitest Dugout u’know is after the jump.Continue Reading

Jan 11th 2009 8:25AM by Michael David Smith (author feed)
During the fourth quarter of Saturday’s Ravens-Titans game, Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco dropped back to pass in his own end zone and nearly stepped on the end line:

It was very, very close to a safety, and stunningly, the CBS producers didn’t bother to show a replay, while the CBS announcers didn’t say a word about it. Only much later, after the game, were viewers able to see another replay angle (the second one shown above) that appears to show green grass between Flacco’s foot and the end line.

Titans coach Jeff Fisher grumbled after the game that because CBS didn’t show a replay, he had no way of knowing if he should have challenged Referee Terry McAulay said, “In my opinion, he did not step on the line. There was green or whatever the color was between the end line and his foot.”

Flacco himself had the best reaction. He said, “I almost pulled a Dan Orlovsky.” How great that the Lions’ 0-16 season provided a new phrase in the football lexicon, “pulling a Dan Orlovsky.”

The Orlovsky video, which is still hilarious even if you’ve seen it 100 times, is below.Continue Reading