The NFL Countdown Crew Predicts the 2012 Super Bowl

Posted on March 28, 2007

Chris Berman: Welcome back to NFL Countdown everybody! As you know, it’s the off-season for the NFL, but we don’t get an off-season here.

Tom Jackson: That’s right, Boom!

Berman: Thanks, Tom.

Jackson: No problem, Boom!

Berman: I love this guy! Anyway, as you know, TJ, Steve, Mort, Mel Kiper, Bill Parcells, and I just started a new project for ESPN last week, in which we predict the outcomes of every Super Bowl for the rest of the century. Let’s get a recap from Steve “Only the Good Die” Young!

Steve Young: Well, in 2007, the Lombardi Trophy was returned to its rightful owners when the New England Patriots beat the Dallas Cowboys by a score of 23-16. Adalius Thomas would have won the MVP trophy if not for Tom Brady’s heroics, as he threw for nearly 200 yards and would have thrown at least 2 touchdown passes if they hadn’t been scored by other players. The game effectively ended when Terrell Owens dropped a pass, then fell to the turf in tears and was called for consecutive delay of game penalties while he pounded his fists against the turf. Then, in 2008, the Patriots dominated the regular season, only to struggle in the playoffs, where they barely won all of their games, but still won the Super Bowl, thanks to Bill Belichick’s superhuman intelligence—

Berman: You’re going too slow! Faster, faster!
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Coach Tim Krumrie Tittyfights Michigan Standout DT Alan Branch: The Real Story

Posted on March 21, 2007

From ProFootballTalk.com/rumormill.htm: KRUMRIE BEATS UP BRANCH

Word trickling out of the Michigan Pro Day is that Chiefs defensive line coach Tim Krumrie roughed up defensive tackle Alan Branch in one of Krumrie’s one-on-one slap fights.
Per a league source, Branch looked winded before he even got to the patented Krumrie spanking machine. At one point during his session with Krumrie, Branch appeared to be ready to quit.

Gil Brandt of NFL.com corroborates this in his Pro Day updates: “Tim Krumrie worked Branch hard during the position drills, and the scouts there said Branch did not look like he was in very good shape.”

Krumrie, better known to most fans as the guy who got Theismanned during Super Bowl XXIII, is a legend in league circles for the no-pads hand-fighting test, to which he subjects many of the linemen he is scouting.

“It’s Gladiator stuff,” said one league source.

For Branch, who is projected by many as a top-ten pick, the end result apparently was thumbs down.

Rumors may be trickling at the Rumor Mill, but here at Sportfiction there’s a virtual torrent of speculation at what actually happened. One extremely well placed source described the incident for us in intricate, immediate detail. His account follows.

Coach Tim Krumrie and top defensive tackle prospect Alan Branch stand alone in a gymnasium.

Coach Tim Krumrie: Slap me, big fella!
Alan Branch: Huh?
Coach Tim Krumrie: I said slap me!
Alan Branch: Why?
Coach Tim Krumrie: You want to get drafted, slap me!!
Alan Branch: Okay.
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A Transcript of the Press Conference Announcing David Beckham’s Decision to Play Football in America

Posted on March 16, 2007

(Begin transcript. For a proper understanding of the goings-on, imagine David Beckham talking like an “English” person.)

David Beckham: You there, the George Wendt-looking fellow.

Peter King: David, David, Peter King of SI here. As you know, I’ve covered the NFL beat for Sports Illustrated for quite some time, and am featured on HBO’s Inside the NFL. I have a regular column on SI.com called Mundane Morning Quarterback in which I assiduously detail my airport and coffee experiences and my daughters’ softball games. From what I am given to understand, it looks like I’m in denial that my daughter Mary Beth is a lesbian, a fate she in fact could never avoid because of a distressingly close resemblance to me.

David Beckham: And what’s your question?

Peter King: Oh. Right. Well, do you think you will be playing kicker, and for what team?
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Results

Posted on March 15, 2007

Dear Coach Tyrone,

Usually I don’t go in for letters. The whole idea of writing down my thoughts and feelings and then licking a stamp and waiting by the mailbox for a reply? I’ll be honest, it feels a tad womanish. But when I tried to get your attention at last week’s Mid-Season Awards Banquet and Fish Fry you pretty much had your hands full with that suck-ass Bud Gindry, who I can’t even be in the vicinity of without wanting to sock him right in the eye.

Unlike Bud Gindry, I’m not a man in favor of useless yammering. What I am in favor of, Coach T, is Results. Results like winning ballgames by double-digit margins and going deep into the playoffs and causing opposing ballcoaches to think about whether they should just fire up the team bus at halftime instead of sticking around for two more quarters of painful helmet-to-helmet tackles and pancake blocks and post-touchdown celebratory taunting.
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Who Will Be the NHL’s Pat Tillman?

Posted on March 12, 2007

March 11, 2007
From: Commissioner Gary Bettman
To: NHL Player’s Association
Subject: Recent Negative Press

Good afternoon, everyone! I write today with news of an exciting new plan to improve our public image and to boost our ratings. As you know—or maybe you don’t know, but now you do—our ratings lately have been less than stellar. They’ve been not great, even. But they will be better, thanks to my leadership and your cooperation, which I’m assuming I have, because I know how much you all want to work with me to make this league great again.

As you probably know, the United States is at war right now. We—the NHL—do not have a stand on the war and don’t plan to take a stand on the war. People in America are very sensitive about people taking stands on things and they would rather us not say anything at all, so we’re keeping our mouths shut about the rights and wrongs of the situation and letting the government do what governments do. It’s not our place and it shouldn’t be our place, so we won’t say anything, because, as we’ve said, it’s best not to say anything.
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DRAFT STATUS

Posted on March 9, 2007

Name: Barry M. Hanson
Age: 21
Education: Eastern Middle Appalachian State Technical College
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 164 lbs.
Hands: 8 1/2”
IQ: 118
Words Per Minute: 80
Filing Challenge (100 documents): 20 min.
40-yard Sack Race: 8.26 sec.
Bend n’ Sniff (per minute): 28

Analysis: Scouts have questioned Hanson’s natural abilities and instincts for the game, as evidenced by a barely above-average I.Q. and a mediocre showing in the Filing Challenge (a scout for Citigroup noted Hanson’s problematic need to repeat, under his breath, the “alphabet song,” particularly for files in the R to W range). But a good showing in the typing test really increased his stock, and that impressive Bend n’ Sniff marks him as an employee sure to be a boss’s favorite.

Draft Projection: Early 2nd round — “Yes man” to corporate C.E.O.; personal assistant to Nicole Ritchie.
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What it Feels Like To Hug a Cloud

Posted on March 9, 2007

I saw my Dad for the first time in four years today. I stood in the supermarket in front of the frozen meats and he was at the end of the snack aisle, penned in behind a fleshy, red-faced woman and her cart full of sugar water and canned death. I waved to him, but he looked straight through me, as if he were trying to read the expiration date on the pork chops behind me. I rushed toward him to give him a hug and tell him I’m sorry I never hugged him enough before, and he’d better come back right away and see my new house with the dogs, and the little cave where I do my work, and the quarter-sized hole in the middle of the living room floor, and the big TV in the big living room where we can watch football together.

And if he didn’t come I would be so mad; last time he disappeared on us I wasn’t ready for it and I’m still not ready for it, no matter how many times I act like it doesn’t bother me. You promised us you were done scaring us, I said, and still he stared past me. You promised you would come home.
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This is The Redskins’ Year…

Posted on March 5, 2007

By: Ronald Otis

I just got off the phone with Steve. He’s pretty psyched about the Skins’ off-season so far, although he said he kinda hoped we would have done more. Maybe Adalius Thomas or Stallworth. I told him it’s only been a week, and he says we had Randle El, Archuleta, and Saunders by this point last year, so why should we get hyped about Smoot coming home?

Good point, I said. Maybe we’ll pull off a trade for Lance Briggs. We don’t have a ton of draft picks this year, but we can always send some from next year. That’s the thing other people don’t understand when they rag on us for giving up all these draft picks—we get new ones every year. For free. Why not trade them? It’s like finding oil in your backyard and then not selling it. If we hadn’t traded our picks last year, we never could have signed TJ Duckett, then, you know, who would have run when Portis went down?

Anyway, we’re off to a good start, I think. The Eagles are cheaping out as usual; they’re such a joke. The only time they ever did anything was ’04 when they spent a bunch of money, and still they don’t get it. We get it, though. We know.
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Thank God for AJ Feeley

Posted on March 4, 2007

Gus pushed through the door to The Lucky Shamrock, and was surprised to see that his old stool was free. In the adjacent stool, a tired woman sat, nursing her drink and wasting the seconds before she had to go home. He’d never seen a lonelier woman in his life, but there was aggressiveness about her loneliness that told him she wouldn’t bother him. It was too dark to tell if she was pretty, but she looking worn-out, and he already could smell her—she smelled like cigarettes and lemons.

As he sat down, he felt a strange warmth envelop him, the kind he’d felt as a child being tucked into bed. Sean stood behind the bar, just like he always had; it was like Gus had never left. The only difference was that Sean was bald now, and his nose looked like it had been dipped in bleach.

“Hey, Gus,” Sean said. “I thought you’d got cleaned up?

“I did.”

“Kitchen’s closed. You want a soda or something?”

“Michelob,” he said, slapping a twenty on the bar. “And a Jameson.”
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