What we learned from Sunday's NFL action

Did Sportscenter think they were going to gain a lot of fans by carrying Terrell Owens's press conference for 10 minutes last night? I honestly don't care what he thinks of Andy Reid's kids. Nor do I think most people.

On to what we learned.

1. Although the Colts didn't win on Sunday, they gave us a blueprint for how to slow down the Patriots offense. The key is a consistent pass rush with minimal blitzing. The Colts, for almost three and half quarters, consistently got pressure on Brady by only rushing 4 guys and not blitzing. This allowed there to frequently be as many as 7 guys in coverage for the Colts and it allowed their safeties to play deep so as not to give up big plays. Even better, because the Colts linemen were getting such pressure on Brady, they had to bring in Faulk to help block, since he's a better blocker than Maroney. That subsequently decreased the number of receivers Brady could throw too, since Faulk had to concentrate on blocking rather than dropping into the flat, and it left the Patriots with a less good running back in the game. New England has been able to abuse teams this year because the only way to beat them is to get pressure on Brady and other teams can't do that without blitzing. So when teams blitz New England, provided the Pats block it up right, that leaves guys like Moss, Welker, and Stallworth all with one-on-one coverage. Needless to say, those 3 receivers are going to win a lot of those battles. Indy's problem was that in the 4th quarter it seemed their pass rushers started to get tired or New England finally figured out how to block the rush, because Brady had more time to the throw in the 4th than he did the entire rest of the day. The key to being a non-blitzing team is that you have to have a great pass rush. Even 7 defenders in the secondary can't stop a QB if he has all day to throw. Problem is the Colts pass rush simply vanished in the second half of the 4th quarter, and that wound up killing them.

2. And just some other thoughts from the game. Wes Welker was an unreal steal from the Miami Dolphins. He was simply huge. A couple of great punt returns, a TD catch, and some critical catches, including the one that put the game out of reach for the Colts. On the flip side, Joseph Addai was awesome as well. By rushing for over 100 yards and turning a short pass into a long TD he did everything he could to help the Colts win, especially when you knew the Pats would be keying on him with Harrison out. Meanwhile, Manning didn't look so good, but I'd attribute that to not having Harrison and Gonzalez being out for most of the game. A rematch of these teams in the AFC Championship with both teams completely healthy would be epic.

3. It's impossible to ignore anymore, the Lions are for real. I thought this game against Denver would be a good litmus test to see how legit they are. And while I know Cutler got knocked out at the beginning of the second quarter, the Lions weren't going to be denied in this game. Plus Shaun Rogers is my hero for that 65-yard interception run back. 44-7 is a statement. And that statement is "We're legit."

4. The 49ers, our team, are officially done for this season. When you lose to the Falcons this season with Joey Harrington under center, you're done, period. You might as well just forfeit the rest of your games.

5. Speaking of teams that are done, the Bengals are as well. Except for them it's different. This team needs to be completely blown up. Marvin Lewis has lost this team, Chad Johnson is injured, their defense is awful - I mean it's a complete nightmare. Might as well just start over, because it sure as hell ain't working right now.

6. Green Bay seems to be a team destiny. How they're 7-1 is an absolute mystery. They have no running game and with the exception of a few amazingly clutch passes by Favre, he hasn't been playing all that well of late. But what they do have is a great defense. And right now, it's sure as hell carrying them. I can't see how this team could go 7-1 in the second half of the season. That lack of a running game is going to eventually catch up to them at some point soon, but hey, it's been a great ride so far. Except for all those announcers consistently slurping Favre. That's been horrible.

7. The Saints are back, and they're going to win their division. Even I thought I was crazy when I wrote a few weeks ago when the Saints were 1-4 that they could still win this division. But hey, here they are at 4-4, just a 1/2 game behind Tampa Bay. And their next three games are St. Louis, Houston and Carolina. Nice. Brees is on fire (last two games almost 800 yards passing with 7 TDs and no picks), Reggie Bush is looking good, and their offense is totally rejuvenated. It's amazing how bad they were at the start of the season and yet how good they've looked the past 2 weeks. Almost inexplicable. Of course, the fact that the Saints have a real shot at winning this division shows just how awful this division and the NFC is.

8. Purple Jesus is pretty damn good. Despite the fact that this game was blacked out where I live in NorCal, which doesn't make any sense, I still managed to catch some of it. Even though everyone knew PJ was going to running the ball on every play, he still ran for an NFL record 296 yards. He also averaged almost 10 yards a carry. Truly amazing. The funny thing is I wasn't sure how good PJ was going to be. Considering there were issues about could he catch passes, combined with his broken collar bone, and how he runs pretty straight up, I was somewhat skeptical. Well, no longer. He's by far the best running back in the NFL so far this year. It'll be interesting to see if he can get 2,000 yards this season. After all, he's their entire offense, so it seems like it's a real possibility.

9. Kellen Clemens may not have gotten the win today for the Jets, but he's definitely the team's future. He also showed some running skills, rushing for 48 yards on 7 carries. The season's already over for the Jets, but that's ok. They'll be able to get Clemens plenty of reps so he'll be ready to go as the full-time starter next year. Maybe he can even save Mangini's job if he plays well the rest of the season.

10. It's great to see Cleveland finally doing well. They've really got an impressive offense and one could make an argument that aside from Randy Moss, Braylon Edwards is the best receiver in the league this season. Meanwhile, there's no question Kellen Winslow is one of the best tight ends in football at the moment. They also seem to have found a real quarterback in Derek Anderson. Each week he keeps producing and each week he looks less and less like a fluke, and he may save Romeo Crennel's job at the rate he's going. It may be a while before Brady Quinn gets any time.

11. Speaking of Anderson, it's apparent no one in the NFL knows how to draft quarterbacks. It's been a total crapshoot with the exception of Peyton Manning. Two of the three best QBs in the game barely made rosters. Tony Romo was an undrafted free agent, and Tom Brady was a sixth round choice. So was Anderson. And you know what, I'd take all three of those guys over Alex Smith.

12. And the quote of the day comes from John Madden: "You ever notice when Donovan McNabb makes a bad throw, it's really bad?"

-WCK

What we learned from Saturday's college football action

With the exception of BC losing, which wasn't all that surprising, not a real surprising Saturday. But we still learned some stuff.

1. Did ESPN mess something up on Saturday? I had to wait for the Michigan game to end before they went over to the Oregon game. How did this happen? Wasn't Oregon/ASU the College Game of the Week? I wasn't in any of the FSN areas either, that still had the rights to the game. And the game wasn't on FSN here in NorCal. What the hell happened?

2. That said, Oregon proved they should move up to #2 in the country. Although ASU was admittedly a shaky #4, they were #4 heading into today and Oregon beat them convincingly. The game wasn't even as close as the score indicated. And Dennis Dixon is now the clear Heisman frontrunner. Meanwhile, while LSU was on the road, they barely won their game against Alabama. And in all honesty, Alabama should have won that game. But to me, Oregon's comfortable win against the #4 team in the country at home is bigger than a close road win by LSU over the #17 team in country.

3. Maybe we should all start taking Kansas a lot more seriously. I haven't paid much attention to them all season, but they got my attention today. They basically scored 76 points in three quarters of play. I don't care that Nebraska sucks, hanging 76 on them is insane. And Kansas went 10 straight drives with a TD. Kansas seems to have all the makings of being this year's Boise State. A team that no one pays attention to that hammers people all year and winds up a in a BCS game - then shocks the world by beating some powerhouse. That seems to be their destiny this year. We should also pay attention to UCONN. They've beaten Louisville and USF, which no longer sounds quite as good as it used to. But they play West Virginia to end the season, so that'll tell us how legit they are.

4. All hail the Naval Academy. For the last 43 years there had been three givens in life: death, taxes, and Notre Dame beating Navy. No longer. What made it even sweeter was that it came at South Bend in triple OT. Even better is that if Notre Dame loses to Air Force, that would mean they'll lose to two service academy teams in a season for the first time since 1944. Man I hope that happens, and you know what, it probably will.

5. Boston College proved to be what we all thought they were, a joke #2 team. I can't remember when exactly, I think it was a week or two ago, someone posted a comment railing us for taking shots at BC. Something about how they had a real tough schedule or something and were the best team in the country. Well, so much for that. The truth is this team got by for so long because they play in a weak conference and didn't have to face V-Tech's starting QB last week. Now they'll be where they belong, somewhere in the middle of the top 25. And also like to thank Florida State for giving us a better national championship.

6. Virginia is either the luckiest team ever or Al Groh is one damn good coach. 5 wins by 2 points. You almost get the sense that this team can't win unless they play in a close game. I'd probably be dead by now if I was a Virginia fan.

7. Ohio State may actually be the best team in the country after all. Although Wisconsin hung around for 3 quarters, Ohio State annihilated them in the 4th. That's two weeks in a row that they've stuck it to ranked teams. I kept wondering how they'd do once they finally started playing semi-legit competition. Well, they've answered the bell. I'm no longer sure they'd lose to LSU or Oregon. I got no problem if they make the national championship.

8. However, Michigan may get in the way. Sure they started the season off terribly, but they've definitely righted the ship. Their win over Michigan State may not have been impressive, but a win's a win. Plus, they get Ohio State at the Big House this year. And with a chance to ruin Ohio State's perfect season, bury the two early season losses, and go to the Rose Bowl, I think Michigan is going to give them a seriously tough time.

9. Darren McFadden seems intent on reminding Heisman voters that he's still alive. Arkansas hasn't had a great season, and that's definitely hurt him, but nothing says Heisman like an SEC-record 323 yards rushing. Of course, South Carolina gave up 541 rushing yards in total so I might have been able to run for 100 yards in that game, but whatever. Welcome back to the race Darren. And speaking of the Heisman and running backs, here's someone you should pay a lot of attention to - Knowshon Moreno of Georgia. All he's done this year is rush for the most yards in school history as a freshman since some guy named Herschel Walker played there. Moreno will be in the top 3 for the Heisman next year and could win it his junior year.

10. What happened to Colt McCoy this year? He's been pretty awful. He's lucky to have Jamaal Charles show up every 4th quarter to save his butt. I have a feeling he'll turn it around next year, but it for whatever reason, he ain't got it this year.

-WCK

Oregon/ASU Blackout???

UPDATE: For people wondering what's wrong with Dwyermaker and why he didn't just watch on FSN, well he couldn't, he doesn't get FSN. Here's the full answer from an email he sent me - So the game was on Fox Sports out here, which I actually do not get. What makes this more interesting and I'm surprised all the commenters did not note this is that in order to get the one FSN channel on DishNetwork in LA, it costs an extra $10 a month for just that one channel (which is complete BS). And I really don't watch FSN that often so I just never got it, and that's not a channel you expect to have to pay $10 a month for. So, I have to stand by the fact that ESPN should not be advertising that they will be showing a game in SoCal that a number of people do not receive without paying extra money for.

Okay,

I am not quite sure who is to blame for the Oregon/ASU blackout that was imposed on Oregon, Arizona, Southern California, and New Mexico. I do know that I spent about a half hour on the phone with Dish Network looking for someone to vent my rage against, but when I found out that ESPN/ABC Sports didn't even give them the signal I figured that this was a futile enterprise.

This tends to suggest that the blameworthy ones in this sad affair would be either ESPN/ABC Sports and/or the schools themselves. On ESPN's website they claim there are certain contracts in place involving ticket sales or other issues so that they are powerless to do anything about blacking out certain games. I feel certain that this is complete crap. I'm sure that in negotiating broadcasting contracts with different conferences and schools it is entirely possible to ensure that everyone who wants to can watch the game unless you are engaging in some BS negotiating tactics or by just being cheap.

The question for me is how anyone gains by blacking out a huge football game in three of the biggest markets for the game in the country. ESPN either is losing massive advertising revenue or pissing off their advertisers whose ads are not being seen by anywhere near as many people as would otherwise want to see it. Viewers such as myself are rightfully pissed because we can't watch a huge college football game that has been heavily advertised for the past week with no warning that the game would be blacked out. I would imagine that advertisers are mad too because the demographic that would be watching this game has strong purchasing power and they are not able to sell their products. Plus, ASU and Oregon are losing important exposure for potential recruits and lucrative television revenue in their markets.

So, what the $%@$!!!? I know there are bigger problems in the world, but when I'm kicking back on a Saturday i'm serious about my entertainment and don't like being misled by advertising. I did write a comment to ESPN expressing my displeasure and have to say I love the classy touch on ESPN's comment area that limits you to 500 characters. Nothing says that ESPN cares about their customers as much as making sure you don't tell them too much about what they are doing wrong or actually using their ridiculous budget and broadcasting power to ensure that people actually get the product they advertise. If this were a restaurant or a company making power tools and you just never got the food you paid for or the wrench you purchased never worked would that company stay in business for any length of time? Hell no. Somehow, I have a feeling that ESPN will not have much trouble bouncing back after alienating a significant percentage of their customer-base.

Something definitely needs to be changed within sports broadcasting so that there is more accountability for networks advertising games and then blacking them out without warning. Hey, maybe everyone can just figure out how to make sure that everyone who wants to watch sports events can watch teams that want to be watched so that advertisers who want to pay for air time can do so and networks can make the money that I'm sure they and their shareholders want.

-Dwyermaker

Word of advice: Never do this

The Ohio Valley Wrestling organization serves as a training ground for future WWE wrestlers. And despite the name, it's actually based in Louisville, Kentucky. Anyway, photos have just started leaking out from last weekend when wrestler Justin LaRouche dressed up in full blackface makeup to mock Charles "The Hammer" Evans - who is African American. And to top it all off, LaRouche wore a fake afro as you can see. Yikes. Why Catherine Zeta-Jones was there is a mystery.

I'm unsure who won the actual match, but I'll go out on a limb and say Evans did, and I bet he wasn't fake wrestling either.

I know wrestling likes to push the envelope, but this is sort of more than just going over the line. It's like leaping well past the line, and continuing to run after you land. Apparently fans and other wrestlers were dumbstruck as well by LaRouche's performance.

Although I wonder if people would have been as mad at him had he been dressed up like Chief Wahoo. My guess would be no, and that's not a good thing.

-WCK

A look back at the roots of video game football

When you look at how insane the graphics are on current video games, you tend to forget just how crappy games were in the past. So for no real specific reason, let's take a look back, in terms of football video games, to see where we started and how we got on the right path. Because the road to Madden was a bit bumpier than I ever thought.


Believe it or not, this commercial is actually from 1971, even though it looks like it came from another dimension. I realize it's for electric football, but hey, this was THE game to have before video games existed. At least, that's what the commercial seems to suggest to me. By the way, how did that receiver catch that pass?



Ah, yes. The Coleco Head-to-Head football game. Truly a game that pushed video game football ahead. Actually, this game probably set video game football back 10 years. Watch this commercial closely to see the football players in it who happen to be, uh, rectangular blinking lights. This is real competition! No, no it's not.



Soon football graduated to the Atari, where finally the junk moving on the screen actually kind of looked like people, except for that invisible linebacker who sacks the quarterback. Too Tall Jones did the right thing by attaching his name to this game. Best decision ever.



Naturally Intellivision couldn't let Atari corner the crappy football video game market, so they came along with their own version, and had George Plimpton hawk it.



Nintendo followed all of this up with the epic 10-Yard Fight. A game so bad, it didn't even get its own commercial.



Finally a football game worthy of actually being played happened when Tecmo Bowl was released. And it of course begat one of the greatest video games of all time, Super Tecmo Bowl. The game that made Bo Jackson a legend in his own time.

It hasn't all been perfect since then. We've had games like Gerry Glanville's Pigskin Footbrawl, but at least Tecmo got us on track. So just remember, we've got it pretty good right now. And Madden sure as hell beats electric football.

-WCK

Baseball's only woman umpire gets dumped, under suspicious circumstances

Almost three months ago we did a post on Ria Cortesio, the only female umpire in pro baseball. Cortesio's been in A and AA ball for nine years, and has umped an MLB exhibition game, but never an official MLB game. And now she'll never get there. She was dumped by the Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation a few days ago in the rather unceremonious way that the PBUM fires people. By cell phone. Must be because of all those fired umpires that went on killing sprees back in the day.

Anyway, as some people have noted, Cortesio's long stint in the minors suggested she was never going to make the pros. Most minor league umpires either move up or get fired long before nine years have passed.

That may be true, but there's also something odd about how she was fired.

Cortesio started this past season as the top-ranked umpire in all of Double-A. If there had been an opening in Triple-A, it would've been hers. That would obviously suggest that she's good at what she does.

However, there were no vacancies and when the new ratings by minor league supervisors came out in midseason, her ranking substantially dropped. A move up to AAA would have greatly changed her status, since umpires in AAA are under the auspices of major league supervisors.

So what happened? Unfortunately, no one knows, except PBUM of course. Perhaps they just got tired of her hanging around for so long. Or maybe she had a bad year. But it seems odd that the best umpire in AA would drop so dramatically in the time span of half a season.

There have been six female umpires in the affiliated minor leagues, and none have made the majors. Pam Postema spent several years in Triple-A during the 1980s; after being fired, she filed a sex discrimination suit against baseball and settled out of court almost 6 years later.

Cortesio said she had not decided whether to pursue legal action.

-WCK

Friday links

Thank God the Raiders game is blacked out on Sunday so we can watch the Patriots/Colts. Right now, I'm leaning Patriots barely by double digits - say 10. But the best part is there's at least one excellent game before Sunday. Oregon/ASU at Eugene. Let me say this right now. ASU is going to get killed in this game. They've benefited from the fact that they haven't played the cream of the Pac-10 crop, and they caught Cal last weekend with a gimpy Longshore who had to heave passes sidearms because he still couldn't put any pressure on that ankle he injured in the Oregon game. ASU IS smoke and mirrors, and nothing more. Oregon beats them by more than two touchdowns and overtakes LSU at the #3 spot.

On to the links.

In honor of Saturday's big Pac-10 tilt, the Pac-10 Porn Name All-Stars. [The Extrapolator]

Nothing like Va-Tech players wearing their opponents' jerseys during last night's game. [SPORTSbyBROOKS]

Interesting way to show off your Super Bowl ring. [Mondesi's House]

There's definitely a conspiracy going on against USC. [Rumors and Rants]

Jared Allen has awesome hair. [Arrowhead Addict]

Mike Cameron is starting off his free agency campaign well. [5 on five]

Oh, and he's played drunk before. Who hasn't! [Larry Brown Sports]

Soulja Boy by white unathletic kids. Always awesome. [Construda]

-WCK

Burning More Bridges than A-Rod

In an attempt to broaden our horizons, we're adding some more soccer news. Well, I'm not. But a friend of ours who is obviously a communist because he likes soccer, is. So here's your soccer fix, you wankers. -WCK

In the world of futbol, Chelsea soccer star Andriy Shevchenko is a true villain. His notorious ego collides with every manager he has ever played for, opposing fans despise him, and even his own fans get tired of his nonsense. The latest and greatest with Andriy is his ongoing contract disputes with Chelsea’s front office. The guy was paid £31m to produce and the striker has scored less than that autistic kid who went to your high school. How have Chelsea fans responded to such shenanigans? Not well, however here’s the kicker: even toddlers hate Shevchenko. A British web site snagged an interesting story off of a Chelsea fan forum page. Here it is, misspellings and all:

"Fella I work with takes his ten year old down the bridge as much as he can afford, the boy is absolutely obssessed by his heros. His Dad's mate who works in lighting has been working at the bridge, tells my work pal to bring something down hand it over and get the squad to sign it. The Dad sneaks the boys Chelsea annual out, some kind of book with a bio a page on each player. His mate returned it to him yesterday. Told him EVERY squad member in the book that was there signed it on their bio page except for Schevchenko. My work pal says miserable cunt why didn't he sign it? The geezer opens the book and his son had writen WANKER in large letters across his photo, Scheva was not amused when he went to sign it."

Moral of the story….Working class Chelsea fans may be dumb (and horrible spellers), but they know a wanker when they see one.

-ACE

California high school football, now more corrupt than its Texas counterpart

I've gone after Texas high school football pretty hard for years. Primarily because it's corrupt and it's about the only way people can forget for a few hours that they live in Texas. But now the tables have turned.

The football team at Stockton's Franklin High School in California was banned Tuesday from playing any games until the 2010 season.

That's a somewhat harsh penalty. In fact, it's the harshest penalty The California Interscholastic Federation Sac-Joaquin Section's board of managers has ever handed out - and they have control over 182 schools.

So what exactly happened?

Franklin administrators and coaches allowed three ineligible football players from American Samoa to play in a game Friday against Tracy High. And let me make this clear - this was no mistake. The school KNEW these three players were ineligible before the game but let them play anyway. It takes balls to do something like that...and stupidity, sheer stupidity.

And it's not like this is the first time Franklin has done something sketchy. Not at all.

A section investigation found Franklin had committed 54 violations. The Sac-Joaquin section has accused Franklin coaches of using undue influence, improperly recruiting at least 10 teenagers from American Samoa since 2004 to play football. Among the accusations were that Franklin coaches paid for parents from American Samoa to fly to Stockton with their sons, and were put up in Stockton hotels just long enough to register their sons at the school.

Importing ringers all the way from American Samoa for a public high school football team? I never knew what a football hotbed American Samoa was. But anyway, let me just put this into perspective. American Samoa is closer to Australia than it is to the states. And the distance between American Samoa and Stockton is over 5,000 miles. Usually you just go a town or two over and steal some players from the rival high school.

Color me impressed Franklin High. You have officially put corrupt Texas high school football to shame.

-WCK

Backup linebackers are expendable, backup QBs less so

Some of you are probably already familiar with the commotion that happened down at LSU this past Friday. Since the Tigers had the week off, that meant Friday night was all right to go out and party.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, three LSU football players, Derrick Odom, Jeremy Benton and Ryan Perrilloux were all involved in a brawl at the Varsity nightclub.

Odom is also accused of smashing a car window. And Perrilloux, well there's a real a question about what else he did. From the official police report:

Much later, on the night of the 26th, nearly 24 hours after the original fight, an employee of The Varsity reported for the first time, to an off-duty officer, that he was leaving the Varsity when the original fight was going on, when a man he believed to be Ryan Perrilloux ran up and pointed a gun at him and his girlfriend.

The employee, however, couldn't identify Perrilloux in a photo line up. Perrilloux also supposedly passed a lie-detector test in which he said he never had a gun.

Regardless of the gun issue, reports say Odom and Perrilloux were the primary people keeping the fight going. Both have some past scrapes with the law to say the least.

Perrilloux was cited by Baton Rouge police last spring for attempting to enter a downtown gambling casino with false identification that said he was 21. He was also questioned by federal authorities late last year for his tertiary role in a counterfeiting ring in his hometown of LaPlace.

Odom was arrested twice in recent months on misdemeanor charges — one for damaging an automobile of a woman and the other for damaging an automobile and threatening the owner and his father.

Yesterday Odom was charged with a misdemeanor for smashing a car window after the brawl. He was soon kicked off the team by Les Miles. Benton was also kicked off the team.

Perrilloux, however, will remain on the team but Miles says he will not play Saturday when LSU faces Alabama.

Odom getting kicked off the team is understandable. He's been charged with yet another misdemeanor. It also helps that he's a redshirt freshman linebacker who's seen no action this year.

But Benton is harder to understand. He hasn't been charged with anything, just like Perrilloux. Yet now he's been kicked off of the team.

So what's the difference between Benton and Perrilloux? Benton's a backup junior linebacker who's only seen action in 4 games this year. Perrilloux's going to be the starting QB next year.

I know this isn't surprising, but it sure speaks volumes. It continues to hammer home the point that if you're an important component of a team (and play a real critical position), you can get away with quite a lot. If you're not that important and do basically the same stuff, well, expect to get the door.

It also says that a lot of football teams - and coaches - put winning above everything else, including character and academics. I'm looking at you, Les Miles.

But in the end, this seems to be the norm rather than the exception. Which when you truly stop and think about it, is rather depressing.

-WCK

Thursday links

Hopefully you all survived Halloween. I know I did, thanks to 17 bags of Skittles. And HGH.

On to the links.

A look back at some of the coolest hockey masks ever. [Going Five Hole]

Luther Campbell as a radio host? What could go wrong? Well, for starters he said Kobe was gay. [SPORTSbyBROOKS]

Manny apparently had a block party to celebrate the World Series victory. [Larry Brown Sports]

ESPN still having trouble with that Yankees conference call thing. [Awful Announcing]

So I'm not the only one who finds the ESPN Deportes minute rather forced. [My Brain Says Rage]

If this team doesn't make the playoffs, you get your money back. [Lion in Oil]

The trail of college basketball coaches, in Bible form. [Storming the Floor]

Big Ten Poon brings you Halloween goodness. [Big Ten Poon]

-WCK

Blaxploitation is alive and well in Minnesota

It's likely going to be a long season for the Timberwolves. They're young and not very good right now. But they have one of the better tv ad campaigns in recent memory. They managed to get 3'11" Archibald "Sweetwater" Jones, who was an ABA and NBA journeyman during the 1970s, to do some awesome blaxploitation style ads. Even better is that Mark Madsen is in them. Right on.

-WCK