That’s ‘Super Bowl champion Mr. Potato Head’ to you
If you think playing football is tough on the body, try living with its effects in retirement. Brad Benson, 61, an offensive lineman on the Giants’ first Super Bowl championship team 30 years ago, has undergone a 14-hour back surgery and three hip replacements. “I call him Mr. Potato Head,” ex-teammate Carl Banks told the New York Daily News. “Everything has been replaced.”
HEADLINES
At SportsPickle.com: “Ben Roethlisberger discloses he’s been given between 1 and 700 months to live.”
At TheKicker.com: “Fluridden Steph drains crumpled tissues in garbage can across room.”
LETTER OF CRIMINAL INTENT?
Defensive-end prospect Donovan Winter was unable to sign his letter of intent with Michigan State on Wednesday, the Orlando Sentinel reported, because he’d been jailed on burglary charges. Probably not the kind of “recruiting steal” that Spartans coaches had in mind.
PATRIOT NAMES DEPT.
The Patriots, who came so close to doing it nine seasons ago, have landed the trademark rights to the slogans “Perfect Season” and “19-0.” “We’ve got dibs on 0-16,” said the Detroit Lions.
NOT SO FAST, BOLT
Ex-NFL star Deion Sanders, 49, says not even Usain Bolt could have beaten him in a race when Sanders was in his prime. In Bolt’s defence, though, he would have been only 5 or 6 at the time.
25/7, ANYONE?
A report says that, 180 million years from now, the pull of the moon’s gravity will make days on Earth 25 hours long. And MLB games will be 6 ½ hours long.
CASHING OUT
Sheldon Adelson pulled his financial backing — $650 million — out of the Raiders’ proposed move to Las Vegas, and Goldman-Sachs quickly did likewise. A cynic might say the Raiders have two black holes now.
TALKING THE TALK
Janice Hough of LeftCoastSportsBabe.com, on a sure sign that American political turmoil is over the top: “That moment when you turn on sports-talk radio for comparatively calm and reasonable conversation.”
NBC’s Seth Meyers, after the Westminster Dog Show announced it has added three new breeds: “Said the dogs, ‘Yeah, last year’s after-party got pretty wild.’ ”
Brad Dickson of the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, on Super Bowl Sunday’s annual Puppy Bowl: “My, how the mighty have fallen. Rex Ryan is coaching the North team.”
Ex-Giants lineman Brad Benson, to the N.Y. Daily News, when asked if football was the cause of all his post-playing ailments: “I was on the badminton team at Penn State for a while. You can blame it on that if you’d like.”
NAME GAME
Among those signing college letters of intent with Illinois State on Wednesday: a sixfoot-seven, 280-pound lineman named Kobe Buffalomeat. Something tells us this guy might have an NFL future with the Bills.
GETTING THEIR HACKS
The St. Louis Cardinals will have to give up two draft picks and $2 million to the Astros after scouting director Chris Correa went rogue and repeatedly broke into Houston’s online player-information database. On the bright side, the Cards are odds-on favourites to win the inaugural Hack Wilson Award.
TOM TERRIFIC? NO KIDDING
What, you think it’s easy playing golf with Tom Brady? As Graeme McDowell told AP, recalling a round in the Bahamas: “I said, ‘Come on, mate. You’re married to Gisele, you’re Tom Brady the quarterback and you’re hitting it 20 yards by me. Stop it. Be bad at something.’ ”
DOG DAYS OF WINTER
Sure sign that it was finally time to play the Super Bowl, or else the apocalypse is near: Sunday’s Puppy Bowl XIII’s newest techie gizmo was something called the Lick Cam.
QUOTE MARKS
Jim Barach of WCHS-TV in Charleston, W.Va., after exNBA player Stephen Jackson said he sometimes smoked pot before games: “Which was evident in his career game stats, where he averaged 15.1 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 4.7 pizzas.”
Blogger Chad Picasner, not impressed that the NHL AllStar Game has been reduced to a 3-on-3 affair: “Why don’t they just schedule a series of fights on the ice? I understand that most fans prefer that anyway.”