"Social Media" Archive

This might be the funniest headline I’ve ever written.

According to National Football Post, Carolina Panthers Tight End Jeremy Shockey saved fellow tight end Ben Harstock’s life when he almost choked on a piece of pork tenderloin in the team cafeteria.

It’s more of a story with a good ending than it is a funny one. Hartsock tried drinking some water to clear his throat and when that didn’t work it became evident to others in the room he could not breathe.

“He started to go to the bathroom and I don’t know if he collapsed, but he couldn’t breathe,” McCartney said. “Some new guy came and tried to give him the Heimlich. It didn’t work. Then, Shockey hit him in the back pretty hard and out came the meat. The Panthers told me it was really scary.

“Ben told me Shockey came over and gave me the Heimlich Maneuver and saved my life. He was in good spirits and he’s real thankful for Shockey.”

This has been a week full of heroics by NFL players.

If you didn’t hear, Baltimore Ravens rookie Wide Receiver Tandon Doss broke up a knife fight in Baltimore at Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

Doss said he was not worried about his personal safety when he intervened.

“I mean, it was two dudes on one,” he said with a shrug. “I was trying to help the situation out. I broke it up.”

Ravens coach John Harbaugh said he was not aware of Doss’ role in the fight.

“I’m not on Twitter,” he said. “I’ll be looking into that.”

Doss downplayed any description of his involvement as being heroic.

“I saw the guy on the ground bleeding, and I saw a guy on top hitting him,” he said. “So I stopped it.”

WELCOME TO BALTIMORE TANDON!!! As aggressive as the Ravens play, it’s good that Doss is already showing he isn’t afraid of a fight. I expect big things from him against the Steelers. That’s the real test.

And finally, some positive news about Bryant McKinnie. Not only did he sign with the Ravens after being cut from the Vikings for being out of shape, he also donated all the contents of his Minnesota home to charity rather than taking everything with him to Baltimore.

Former Vikings left tackle Bryant McKinnie has decided to donate the furniture and appliances from his Eden Prairie home to a local chartity, his publicist said today.

“All of my furniture in my old home is practically new and in decent condition, I look at this as a positive way to move to my new location, while still providing families in need of appliances and household goods,”

 

It took the NBA less than 24 hours to pull down all footage of current NBA players from NBA.com once their lockout began. Apparently, the NBA cannot profit from players during their lockout. The NFL obviously has no such rule because every other day there’s a top 10 list of this or that not to mention this top 100 list that has had everyone, except me, talking for the past couple weeks. And more than that, NFL players are still appearing all across NFL network and NFL.com

First of all, I think the list is stupid. YES I SAID STUPID. Just like every other asine head-to-head conversation. It kills me that people never get tired of “comparing” and discussing who’s best. Yeah I get that sports is all about competition but having the same debates over and over isn’t for me. And that’s generally what it all boils down to.

Personally, I’d rather jab myself in the eye than hear people compare Ed Reed to Troy Polamalu or Adrian Peterson to Chris Johnson again. And God forbid there’s another Jerry Rice vs. Randy Moss debate. I even saw a Revis vs. Sanders debate. Count.me.out.  I guess I’m just no fun too sensitive to the variables.

Now you know why I haven’t and will not be blogging about the list. Well, except for this post.

Anywayyyyyy, in the midst of ignoring this top 100 player list, I noticed that several players questioned whether players had actually voted in the list, or at least made a point of saying they didn’t know anyone who did. Those players include Troy Polamalu (Safety, Pittsburgh Steelers), Kerry Rhodes (Safety, Arizona Cardinals), Jerraud Powers (Cornerback, Indianapolis Colts), Jay Feely (Kicker, Arizona Cardinals), Brent Grimes, (Cornerback, Atlanta Falcons), Jimmy Kennedy (Defensive Tackle, Minnesota Vikings), Chester Pitts (Offensive Lineman, Seattle Seahawks), Tom Crabtree (Tight End, Green Bay Packers), and Ryan Clark (Safety, Pittsburgh Steelers)-who went so far as to call the list a “sham.”

Apparently, some players have been asking around and can’t find any friends who were chosen to vote on the list. Now, of course that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, it just called into question, for me, what the NFL means by “current players.” It could have been 10 out of 1700. If so, they are being indirectly misleading, but would that surprise anyone?

Even though no one cares, I was curious and I contacted the NFL to find out how many players voted and how the voting was carried out, and I will let you know if they respond and if so what they say. In the meantime, if you have the answer to this question (maybe they mentioned it on NFL network and I missed it?) and can take time away from debating the list to let me know I’d appreciate it.

Overall, this top 100 list was a genius idea by the NFL. Kudos to them for knowing how to draw people in and keep them talking about football as the owners seem to continue to conspire to destroy the game.

I will admit that one of my biggest pet peeves is reporting on what took place on twitter. I try not to do that because it makes me feel like a troll. But I thought this was interesting.

I followed Arizona Cardinals LB Darnell Dockett on twitter for a little while and this man can really drive you nuts with his commentary. But to his credit, he is rarely, if ever, boring. Today he didn’t disappoint. Dockett was stopped driving his Escalade by two police officers who asked him if they could search his car. According to the tweets, when the policed requested the search, Dockett said some version of neaux, neaux, and HELL NEAUX.

I’m glad Dockett knows his rights. It’s not uncommon for black men in fancy vehicles to be pulled over. Unlike a lot of young black men, Dockett is better positioned to take a stand without fear of recourse.

Read his string of tweets below.

So last week beleaguered Redskins QB Donovan McNabb was interviewed on ESPN radio and said, among other things, that athletes shouldn’t tweet. This became a sort of big story over the weekend. And usually I don’t like to post things that everyone else has already posted but I had a few thoughts on this.

In the interview, the subject of twitter came up because so many athletes publicly criticized Jay Cutler in their tweets for not returning to the  NFC championship game last season-before there was any report on the extent of his injury. McNabb said that the players who tweeted about Cutler during the game did so out of jealousy. I’ve said before I thought that the criticism of Cutler by both athletes and the general public was dumb and uncouth. My solution to this is to encourage people not to be dumb and uncouth and to make fun of them when they are. McNabb’s solution, however, is to get athletes off of social media.

Athletes, especially football players, need social media in order to maintain relevance. There’s over 1700 players in the NFL and most won’t ever make an amount of money that remotely approaches what McNabb has made in his career. Other players need every ad dollar  and fan connection they can muster up. Social media doesn’t prevent players from commenting out of hand, nor should it. I mean, I personally enjoy the off the field entertainment.

This past month we’ve seen quite a few players spar with words. Namely, New York Giants’ Defensive End Osi Umenyiora and Philadelphia Eagles Running  Back LeSean McCoy as well as Chicago Bears Linebacker Brian Urlacher and Cincinnati Bengals Linebacker Dhani Jones. In these exchanges, Umenyiora refused to acknowledge that he’d ever heard of McCoy choosing to refer to him as a woman and Urlacher stated that he hadn’t heard anything about Jones since the year they were both drafted.

I think McNabb’s position just further shows why his PR is so stinking bad. And he really could stand to lighten up.