Drunken Omelette

Now with 30 more percent character and talent development than the former Alabama running back.

What could stir us from our hibernation, our sabbatical from sportsblogging to shakes us from our months of higher learning and deep thought?*

How about former running back turned linebacker Jimmy Johns getting booted from Alabama football of a series of early morning poor life decisions. See cocaine. See meth. See weed. See The Saban, the evil doll-man ground and carved from stone, smiting your underproductive ass off the team … with a bat.

Honestly, we’re not surprised. There was something about Jimmy Johns, particularly during that season when he was the best, underutilized offensive weapon on the team, that just seemed off.

There were a lot of rumors about attitude. And by rumors, we mean we read and heard he had a bad attitude and didn’t go to class — something that docked him a lot of playing time for the past three years.

But we were always bothered with the immediate bump to running back after being brought in as a highly-touted quarterback recruit. People we knew who watched him throw said something to the effect that he couldn’t hit the broad side of barn — and by barn we mean wide, gaping chasm — while others said he didn’t fit the offense and their might have been some thinkin’ issues as well.

We tend to side with latter — particularly the thinking issues. While the Shula is an unshakable source of bland, offensive suck, having seen him coach up David Garrard (who is likely much, much smarter) tells us he wouldn’t have too much trouble putting a running quarterback in charge of vaguely West Coast scheme.

But what Jimmy Johns was always missing seemed to be in attitude and thought. His role on the disappointing 2007 Tide team was to be a disturbing leftover of what was wrong with the later Shula teams. Bad attitude, dumb mistakes, incredibly wrong sense of entitlement.

If you want to know Jimmy Johns position the last time he played in a Crimson Tide uniform, it was the teeth-clenching, ill-timed special teams flag.

And he didn’t excel at it at all.

In Fulmer Cup land, this is probably worth a 15-point jump, possibly pushing our dear Crimson Tide into the stratosphere of offseason disciplinary hijinks in one fell swoop.**

Hope.

As far as Jimmy’s future, messing up this late before your last year eligibility can’t be good.** Not knowing the full extent of his charges, we’re not sure what future he has legally or penally, but we can only dream of the Ryan Perrilloux/Jimmy Johns backfield of underwhelming doom that Jackonsville State will (probably) never offer us.

Still, we can pray …

GO GAMECOCKS!

*We bought the fifth season of Angel last week. What the hell is wrong with America that this show was canceled when it was this good? The demon legal mumbo jumbo. The bad life decisions that turn into worse life decisions. The subtle mega-arcing that leads to big payoffs at season’s end. Where the hell was Boston Legal’s audience when this show was on? No matter The WB no longer exists. You deserve it.

**Of cocaine.

***As in fatal, permanent error not good.

Jake Long is expected to provide better protection for Marc Bulger if the Rams take him with the draft’s second pick.

That’s a big man, daddy. Don’t let him eat us.
While everyone is waiting for Deion Sanders II to take off on another amazing 40 run at this week’s NFL Draft combine, the sports nets are filling time by talking about how friggin’ huge (subscriber only) former Michigan OT Jake Long is.

How big is he? Well, 6′7, 313 pounds, arms that are 3-feet long, and a nearly 1-foot hand span.

He is expected to perform well in drills after spending the past practicing at his home in the woods around Hogwarts, occasionally stopping to swipe at deer and Centaurs that darted past his reach.

Sometimes he caught them. And if no one was around, then the feast would begin. (more…)

Oh, crap.
Richard Zednik of the Florida Hockey-Panthers is in stable condition after having his throat slashed open by a skate in his team’s 5-3 loss to the (really unfortunately named) Buffalo Sabres last night. Zednik reacted quickly, putting pressure on his apparently severed jugular vein while skating over to a team trainer.

We are not fans of the hockey, though this is not why. We’re glad to hear this fella is all right, but we have to wonder how something like this doesn’t happen more often, even if the folks on skates are (semi-)trained professionals.

This is why we prefer a support like football, where you only have an 80 percent chance of being killed on field:

Mmm. Safety.

JULIO! JULIO! JULIO!
We apologize for our prolonged absence, but we were distracted by issues caused by the massive, deadly tornado that ripped up much of the Mid-South early last week.

But while most of the blogosphere has put the recruiting to the bed, we will now give you our first of our delayed reactions: (more…)

The first half live blog is brought to you by Brett Favre. Because you wish he was really in Glendale, and in a few hours, Eli Manning will too.

5:54 p.m. CST (End-ish of the 1st Quarter) Lessons learned today:

• Don’t go work out on Super Bowl Sunday.
• Don’t buy groceries on Super Bowl Sunday.
• Don’t cook on Super Bowl Sunday.
• Do nothing on Super Bowl Sunday except swill beer and eat awful things while watching awful pregame that makes you cry for all the wrong reasons.

We barely made it to TV in time to watch kickoff and Eli Manning prove that his new nickname is “The Inexplicable Clutchdawg.”

The Patriots have held them to 3, though, and continue to work it down to the end zone. Third and 10. Let’s see how this works out.

5:58 p.m. (End of the 1st Quarter) Benjamin Watson gets interfered on and play continues. Honestly, I think it would’ve been more awesome if he had held onto the pass anyway.

Sort of early MVP prediction: Lawrence Maroney. I saw him and Marion Barber III destroy a good Alabama run defense at the Music City Bowl a few years back.

Maroney. Barber. How did Minnesota not make it to the BCS back then?

Oh… oh right.

6 p.m. I’M DA TERMIN8TOR. I’M N UR TELEVISION, BEETN UR FOOTBALL R0B0TS, KLLN’ UR SPECEEZZ

(more…)

Ahahahahahahahahaha…. HA!

According to The Birmingham News, Nick Saban and Mike Shula were about 10 feet apart yesterday at Senior Bowl practices, but didn’t quite acknowledge each other’s existence. Shula also “politely” declined to talk to the state sports press*.

I did enjoy the first post on the al.com talkbacks that roots for Shula to be tapped as Bama’s next OC. Within seconds of that comment’s posting, former Tide RB Ken Darby walked three steps directly ahead, jumped around to the left and the right, then fell forward in futility.

2nd down and 9.

*If he did, it would likely begin with “Well, I feel bad for our seniors … .” You know, just to be consistent. 

The news out of Kansas City this week is that Herm Edwards has hired Chan Gailey to fix the ugly war crime that was the Chiefs offense last season. Gailey, late of Georgia Tech, is apparently a decent OC despite that his GT teams played some of the ugliest O for a team with one or two potential first-round picks on his roster. He and Herm should pair for the kind of boring, run-oriented football that doesn’t really win championships, but churns out winning records and token postseason appearances*.

More interesting to note, though, was two of the runners-up for the job: former Alabama coach Mike Shula and UTEP OC Eric Price — both former mentors to former Bama QB and KC “starter” Brodie “Body of glass” Croyle. (more…)