Hey, ESPN. It’s been 10 days now, and maybe you have a deal with Jed York, Trent Baalke, Eric Mangini or The Illuminati, but it’s been TEN STINKING DAYS. Surely you must have gotten the man hired by now.
Either that, or the kids in Quality Control are hitting the cider a little early, and a little hard.
[RELATED: Sources: 49ers' head coach search nearing its end]
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In other news, Antonio Brown has not yet announced that Pacman Jones found him out yet, as he is still listed on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ concussion protocol list. But I’m sure the apologies will fly come Sunday.
This, plus the Denver safety Darian Stewart announcing that he is going to “cut,” as in “cut-block,” as in try to damage the knee of Steeler center Cody Wallace, which leads me to believe that player safety is too important to leave to the players.
Evidently, the training camp health and safety seminars are working as well as the drug education ones.
News
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The Golden State Warriors and San Jose Sharks, who have nearly nothing in common except the 880/101 junction, are a brilliant 33-9-2 on the road, and that’s even after Draymond Green lost his first game as the team’s assistant coach Wednesday night.
[RELATED: Without Draymond, Warriors take third loss]
The kicker: They are only 24-12 at home, and that includes the 18-0 they are with Jarron Collins as coach (hey, make the NBA prove me wrong).
The good news: The Warriors return home tomorrow. The bad news: The Sharks return home tomorrow.
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Katia Aveiro, a seemingly normal Portuguese woman whose hobby is being the sister of Cristiano Ronaldo, got a little hinky after her brother’s statue in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, was vandalized as part of the misplaced celebration of Lionel Messi’s winning the Ballon D’Or as soccer’s player of the year. The highlights, via The Daily Mail:
“The people that are responsible for this and other negative things directed towards this person should know that our island was recently voted the world’s leading island destination not just for the beautiful sea that surrounds us, nor for the marvelous gastronomy we also have nor the warm Madeiran welcome. Most of us should thank and salute to this man, it’s thanks to him that a lot of Madeirenses still have their jobs.
“My beautiful island, regrettably, is still inhabited by some frustrated savages who deserve to live in Syria, between people that show no respect and hold no value for life in society. I apologize for the ones who live the sadness of war, but I believe some people don’t belong on the land they live in.”
Syria? Really?
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The next time you think you need a day to watch your favorite team, see if you can get it to cover you with the boss the way Toulouse of French Ligue 1 did for its League Cup match with Marseille.
To get fans in the building for the match that was scheduled for 5 p.m. local time, the team created a sick note on its web site that could be downloaded and presented to the manager on duty (if you read French, enjoy this). But the best choice of all was, “To see Marseille eliminated and to savour the moment like it should be.”
Any boss who rejected that should be fired. Or in the alternative, locked in a dumpster to plead for his or her freedom.
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And finally, Antonio Esfandiari, the noted poker star nicknamed “The Wizard,” is now known simply as “The Whizz” after being disqualified from a tournament and forced to forfeit his $110,000 stack because he tried to relieve himself at the table (into a container, to be fair). The reason he didn’t go to the bathroom like all people about the age of two, though, was perfectly gambler: Esfandiari could not get up because of a prop bet that he had going with friend Bill Perkins. Highlights from his statement:
“This happened because of a big prop bet I had with my buddy Bill Perkins that mandated I lunge everywhere for two days. I cannot explain the pain I felt in my legs. I did what I thought was the best play at the time. Looking back now I realize it was a terrible judgment call on my behalf.”
He won the $50K, making it a minus-$60K day, but he decided to donate the $50K to two charitable organizations, one of them being One Drop, “which provides drinking water to impoverished nations.”
If unintended irony was a poker hand, he would have filled an ace-high gutshot straight.