Vera Gentry Sports Corner

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Justin Tuck gave out 80 bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue to celebrate Super Bowl

To celebrate the New York Giants' victory in Super Bowl XLVI, defensive end Justin Tuck gave every member of the team an engraved bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue.

The New York Post reports that Tuck handed out 80 bottles to teammates, coaches and staff on Tuesday morning before the team's victory parade. Each 750-milliliter bottle was engraved with "Super Bowl XLVI champions."�The total cost was $17,600, or $220 per bottle.

"Johnnie Walker is kind of a working man's drink," defensive end Dave Tollefson told the Post.�"Johnnie Walker and some Coke. It just speaks to the attitude of our team and the type of guy he is."

I suppose Johnnie Walker is a working man's drink, if that man works in a corner office on�Wall Street. And though giving the gifts is certainly an indication about the type of guy Tuck is, I don't know if the $220 bottles of booze speak to the Giants' attitude, unless that attitude is of affected Long Island accents and summering on Montauk. (And, I swear, Dave Tollefson, if you ruin the smooth, blended malt perfection that is Johnnie Blue with a splash of Coke, I'll -- well, I'll do nothing because you're 6-foot-4 and weigh 270 pounds. But I'll be greatly upset from a far distance.)

As proud as Tuck was to have won another Super Bowl with the Giants, part of me can't help but think he wouldn't have minded if the team's colors were closer to that of the Arizona Cardinals. Eighty bottles of Johnnie Walker Red would have retailed for around $1,500.

Related Super Bowl content from Yahoo! Sports:

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/justin-tuck-gave-80-bottles-johnnie-walker-blue-201540583.html

Ron Brace Alan Branch Josh Brent Tony Brown

Bill Belichick wore a hoodie to a golf tournament

Bill Belichick can dress up when he needs to. Despite his affinity for hooded sweatshirts, the New England Patriots coach looks spiffy when he shows up for a Super Bowl press conference or goes to the White House or is out for a night on the town with his special lady friend. One would think that fashion decorum would translate to the golf course. One would think.

Days after the Pats coach lost his second Super Bowl in New England, he was at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am wearing a gray sweatshirt on the links. Golf fashion is a bit of a redundancy, but there's a certain decorum one should have when he steps onto the first tee. Kangaroo pockets are not among them.

That's a Pebble Beach sweatshirt, in case you couldn't read the writing. It's like Belichick got to the course, realized it was colder than he thought, walked into the pro shop and asked the guy behind the counter what he could show him in an embroidered hoodie.

This got us thinking: When else does Belichick favor the hoodie? Our investigation, which spans back 25 years, is below.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/bill-belichick-wore-hoodie-golf-tournament-190644304.html

LaRod Stephens-Howling Jonathan Stewart Tyrell Sutton Naufahu Tahi

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The hidden play of Super Bowl XLVI: Justin Tuck?s third-quarter sack

Eli Manning's 38-yard pass to Mario Manningham on the New York Giants' game-winning drive late in the fourth quarter is rightly regarded as the play of the game in Super Bowl XLVI -- it was, quite simply, the single-greatest throw this writer has ever seen. But if there was a "1a" play for the Giants, it had to be Justin Tuck's sack of Tom Brady with 6:12 left in the third quarter.

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Not only did the third-down takedown stop the Pats from driving when they were still up, 17-12, but Brady re-aggravated his left (non-throwing) shoulder on the play, and backup Brian Hoyer was seen throwing on the sideline during the Giants' corresponding drive.

Before that sack, Brady was on an absolute tear -- he broke Joe Montana's record for consecutive completions in a Super Bowl, and he was 20 of 24 for 201 yards and two touchdowns. After that sack? Try 7 of 17 for 75 yards and the pick by Giants linebacker Chase Blackburn on a deep attempt to tight end Rob Gronkowski.

How much did it affect him? Hard to say -- Brady made a few more errant throws after the play, but the receiver drops were also killers. The famed drop by Wes Welker was a great touch pass that was high but in Welker's hands, and two plays in which Deion Branch ran across the middle and couldn't come up with the ball were also adjustment errors by the receiver.

What happened to the Pats in the last 20 minutes of the game was just as much about the Giants' brilliant defensive adjustments. With full knowledge that New England had no deep threat (they played their safeties shallow through most of the game), the Giants did something they also did in Week 9 when they beat the Pats, 24-20 -- they kept linebackers in the middle of the defense as zone spies to counter Brady's seemingly endless slants, crosses and posts. On Branch's first drop, linebacker Michael Boley was waiting for him just off the middle to Brady's left, and Branch didn't slow up to find the pocket where Brady was throwing.

As our buddy Greg Cosell wrote on the NFL Films blog, Giants defensive coordinator Perry Fewell called this game about as well as any coach possibly could.

So, while it's not clear that correlation equaled causation on the Tuck sack, we do know one thing -- Brady's stats did a total 180 after that play. That's one reason I thought Tuck should have been named the Most Valuable Player of the game ... until Eli Manning uncorked the best throw I've ever seen.

Related Super Bowl content from Yahoo! Sports:

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/hidden-play-super-bowl-xlvi-justin-tuck-third-212201952.html

Anthony Dixon Jonathan Dwyer Heath Evans Jerome Felton

Eagles reportedly will franchise DeSean Jackson, but should they?

Right now, DeSean Jackson is a wide receiver, a Philadelphia Eagle, and a young, exciting player with a history of making questionable decisions. A few months from now, he will still be all those things, except maybe a Philadelphia Eagle.

According to Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer, it's likely that the Eagles will hit Jackson with the franchise tag (they can't officially do this until Feb. 20), which would pay Jackson a little over $10 million for one season. It would keep Jackson in an Eagles uniform right now, but leaves his long-term Philly future up in the air. The franchise tag, in this case, is really just an indication that the Eagles aren't ready to commit to Jackson long-term.

So why would the Eagles, who were wide receiver deficient for so long, want to part ways with a 25-year-old speed merchant who has led the team in receiving for the last four years?

Well, Jackson has made things complicated. He's not coming off a great year. For the first time since his rookie season, he came up short of 1,000 yards and had only four touchdowns. It's not as simple as just a lack of production, either ? it's the maybe not-so-great decisions Jackson has made that led to that substandard production.

He held out last season, hoping for a contract extension that wasn't coming. He got himself deactivated for a game by missing a team meeting. He drew a huge penalty by tossing a football at a Giants assistant coach. He dropped his share of balls in 2011, which again landed him on the bench.

There's also a history of concussions, including this nasty one in 2010 sustained at the hands of Dunta Robinson.

The Eagles are in a tight spot, and it's decisions like these that shape a franchise for years to come. Jackson wants to be paid like one of the best receivers in the league, but is he that? Is he worth that much of a financial commitment? If you're going to bank on this guy for years to come, you're pretty much taking his word that he can be a model citizen, because he hasn't demonstrated that.

But on the other hand, life might be difficult without him, too. When he's at his best, he changes games. He singlehandedly adds a big-play element to an offense. Would Jeremy Maclin be as effective if he was facing the opposition's top corner every week? Would LeSean McCoy have the same running lanes? Doesn't it behoove an offense to have such a downfield threat with Michael Vick's cannon arm under center?

There's a lot riding on this decision for the Eagles.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/eagles-reportedly-franchise-desean-jackson-181730416.html

BenJarvus Green-Ellis Shonn Greene Chris Gronkowski Ahmard Hall

Whitney Houston performed the greatest national anthem in sports history (video)

Ten days after the United States went to war in the Persian Gulf, Whitney Houston performed the greatest rendition of the Star Spangled Banner in sports history.

On Jan. 27, 1991, Houston took the field at Tampa Stadium prior to Super Bowl XXV to sing the national anthem. The US was at war in Iraq and the game between the New York Giants and Buffalo Bills was serving as a welcome respite from the televised reports of scud bombs and cease fires.

The pop star had recorded the vocal weeks before in a Los Angeles studio and lip-synched the song at the Super Bowl, but few in the crowd of 73,000 or the 110 million watching at home seemed to notice. Houston's gospel-infused performance and her soaring vocals, all set to the patriotic backdrop of flags and flyovers, are the standard against which all anthems are compared. It's as close to perfect as a human voice can get.

The beauty of Houston's version is in her restraint. Other vocalists try to make "The Star-Spangled Banner" their own with unnecessary flourishes and self-indulgent arrangements. Whitney let the song stand on its own. She just sang the heck out of it.

Houston had agreed to sing the song a year earlier, long before most Americans had heard of Kuwait. She�arranged the song with her musical director Ricky Minor, who later became well known for his same role on "American Idol." It went on to become the fastest-selling single in her record label's history and raised over $500,000 for the American Red Cross.

[ Obituary: Whitney Houston dies at the age of 48 ]

"I think it was a time when Americans needed to believe in our country." Houston said later that year. "I remember standing there and looking at all those people, and it was like I could see in their faces the hopes and prayers and fears of the entire country."

The famed singer died Saturday at a Beverly Hills hotel. She was 48.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/whitney-houston-performed-greatest-national-anthem-sports-history-020851426.html

Tank Johnson Arthur Jones Jason Jones Linval Joseph

Washington mayor says Redskins shouldn?t go after Peyton Manning

Given a quarterback battery that features John Beck and Rex Grossman, it's understandable that fans of the Washington Redskins would be looking with a sharp eye at the Peyton Manning situation in Indianapolis -- a drama that looks more and more like one in which the hero leaves at the end.

Manning wouldn't necessarily be a lead-pipe lock fit for whatever offense Mike and Kyle Shanahan seem to be running these days (we're still not sure what it might be), but the healthy version of the future Hall of Famer would orbit the team's current quarterback class several times over.

[Dan Wetzel: Feud between Peyton Manning and Colts owner gets uglier]

That said, some in the nation's capital aren't convinced that Manning would be the best fit for a team that seems to be in Permanent Rebuilding Mode. Among those opposed are Washington Mayor Vince Gray, who recently told TBD.com that the 'Skins should probably go a different way.

"You know, I think it depends on what role he would play. But I really think the Redskins need a quarterback that they can build with for the future. You know, Andrew Luck is probably going to go to the Colts, but there's Robert Griffin III, and there's a couple other promising quarterbacks that are out there. We've kind of been down this pathway with quarterbacks who've been great but maybe are in the back end of their career, and even if he comes in and plays a year or two, where do we go from there?"

NewsChannel 8's Bruce DuPuyt then asked the mayor if it would be worth a few more bad seasons if the rebuild was done intelligently, around that ideal young quarterback.

"That's exactly the direction I would go. You look at some of the teams that are up-and-coming, I mean, you look at Atlanta, you look at what San Diego did with Philip Rivers ... the 49ers. Every team now that is really moving forward has done it by building with a quarterback of the future."

And with that, Mayor Gray showed more football moxie than most of the people occupying the Redskins' front office over the last decade. We wouldn't worry about it, though -- given their modus operandi, the Shanahans seem more likely to overpay Matt Flynn than to take a flyer on Manning, a quarterback who would demand a certain amount of organizational control.

H/T: DC Sports Bog

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/washington-d-c-mayor-says-redskins-shouldn-t-153831709.html

Carnell Williams DeAngelo Williams Keiland Williams Ricky Williams

We?ll see how Brandon Jacobs? football skills translate to the squared circle

Following in the legendary footsteps of Adam "Pacman" Jones, New York Giants running back Brandon Jacobs will be in a TNA wrestling ring Monday night.

It won't air until Thursday night, but the television taping takes place Monday night in Orlando. Here's more from Alex Marvez at Fox Sports:

The 6-foot-4, 264-pound Jacobs is expected to have a confrontation with TNA star and 1996 U.S. Olympic gold-medalist wrestler Kurt Angle. Jacobs won't work an actual match but there may be some degree of physicality that wouldn't violate his NFL contract.

If you'll recall, last year after winning the Super Bowl, Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews did something similar with the WWE. He was a special guest referee as Edge retained his World Heavyweight Championship over Dolph Ziggler.

Originally, the plan was for Jason Pierre-Paul to do the TNA appearance, but Marvez says he backed out due to "exhaustion." Which is a wise move. Because when you're in the ring with a force like Kurt Angle, you better be on your toes and keep your head on a swivel.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/ll-see-brandon-jacobs-football-skills-translate-squared-192919630.html

Trevor Laws Damione Lewis