Friday, May 12, 2006

Jacksonville WR Jimmy Smith Retired Wednesday

I saw it on NFL Network and wish him well. It was a nice ceremony, and it's apparent that Smith was well liked. He got out the right way: not injured, healthy, and no coach forcing him to retire.

Nice.

Antowain Smith Is Now A Houston Texan - CBS Sportswire

Texans sign Smith to back up Davis at running back
May 8, 2006
CBS SportsLine.com wire reports

HOUSTON -- The Houston Texans agreed to terms with running back Antowain Smith on Monday, giving the team a backup for starter Domanick Davis.

Last season with the New Orleans Saints, Smith filled in for Deuce McAllister after he suffered a season-ending knee injury and ran for 659 yards and three touchdowns.

The 34-year-old unrestricted free agent, who attended the University of Houston, has 6,881 yards rushing and 54 touchdowns in nine NFL seasons. He has also played for Tennessee, New England and Buffalo.

After passing on Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush in favor of defensive end Mario Williams in the draft, the Texans were in need of another running back. Davis missed five games last season with knee inflammation.

Also on Monday, Houston re-signed offensive lineman Zach Wiegert.

Wiegert started five games at right guard and seven games at right tackle last season. The 6-foot-5, 296-pounder missed four games with an ankle injury. He has started 128 games in 11 NFL seasons and has been with the Texans since 2003.

Terms of the deals were not released.

AP NEWS
The Associated Press News Service

Not Again, Howard Dean! - Man, What's Up

I like Howard Dean. I really do. Of course, I don't know the man. I just read where he made a comment to a Christian Rights organization that the Democratic Party Platform says "marriage is between a man and a woman."

Well, I'm straight, it doesn't say that, and I don't care.

I think Howard is trying to be this liberal hipster guy, but in reality is a conservative WASP. I first came to that conclusion at a fund-raiser I went to in San Francisco two years ago.

Howard Dean was the focus and he started giving his speach. But when he mentioned African American's he looked at me directly, as if to "reach" me. He then made sure to mention Gays in the next sentence and so on. Afterward, as I shook his hand, he said "We need your support" but his expression communicated that he did't need me as a person, but me as a black person.

I came away with a kind of "yucky" feeling about Dean.

Then he became the head of the party; I wondered why.

I'm still wondering.

I hope Howard doens't blow our advantage. We'll see.

New York City - Upcoming Wireless Hearings Note!

This is an email I got on the upcoming wireless meetings in New York:

I just wanted to remind everyone of our upcoming hearing on wireless Internet access in New York City parks on Monday, May 15 at 1 PM in the Committee Room, City Hall. Apologies for the lateness of this reminder. If you have any questions, please contact Jeff Baker (jeffrey.baker@council.nyc.ny.us / 212-788-9193), Counsel to the Committee on Technology in Government, or Colleen Pagter (colleen.pagter@council.nyc.ny.us), Policy Analyst to the Committee on Technology in Government.

On Monday, May 15, 1:00 to 4:00 PM in the Committee Room, City Hall, the Committee on Technology in Government, chaired by Council Member Gale Brewer, will be holding a joint oversight hearing with the Committee on Parks, chaired by Council Member Helen Foster of the Bronx, on the topic of wireless Internet access in New York City parks. The Parks Department, the Central Park Conservancy and several private technology providers are expected to testify.

On Thursday, May 18, 1:00 to 2:00 PM, the Council Chambers, City Hall, the Committee on Land Use and the Committee on Technology in Government will hold the Executive Budget Hearing with the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.

As always, the public is welcome. No RSVP is necessary.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Matt Leinart Rags On The Media - ESPN.Com

Matt's a little upset with the media and bloggers like me. But what he doesn't understand is that he's public figure and that anything he does -- especially in an Internet world -- gets reported immediately and often.

What he also fails to mention are the perks he gets for being "Matt Leinart:" the free dinners, the killer table at Spago, the loaner cars, and so on.

When I headed the effort to bring the Super Bowl to Oakland, I worked a 14-day stretch with about four hours of sleep per night. Then, after a "Master Of The Universe" type day, I went out and had cocktails -- lots of them. The end result was that I fell asleep at the wheel of my car and almost ended up in an accident because I went the wrong way up a freeway ramp.

The story was in the Oakland Tribune. I offered to resign, but the City Manager, Robert Bobb, didn't take it, saying "I guess you understand that you're a public figure now."

Yep.

Here's Matt



Leinart feels image is blown out of proportion

By Matt Leinart
Special to ESPN.com

Editor's note: Former USC QB Matt Leinart gave ESPN.com an exclusive look into his life leading up to and following the NFL draft.

My draft party in Las Vegas last week was great. I had been looking forward to it since I was in New York City for the NFL draft. It wasn't meant to be a spectacle. It was meant to be a place where I could get away and enjoy myself one last time with my close family and friends. That's all it was. I had a great time. My family had a nice dinner. It was an intimate setting. It was a celebration.

People can make whatever they want about it. It amazes me what went on in the media in regard to Paris Hilton following my party.

There are people in the media who just want to see what they want to see and write what they want to write. "Oh he's linked with so and so." No, I'm hanging out with someone who's a friend.

It's all this media attention. I guess you could say it's my fault, but at the same time, I'm just being a normal dude. It's hard because people who are close to me know who I am and how I act. I'm hanging out and having a good time with friends. I have my circle of friends who I've known since I was younger and trust. Then there are people who I've built relationships with in the L.A. world. There are guys in my situation that would've been a hundred million times worse than me. I didn't take advantage of anything. I haven't done anything other than be a normal person.

Celebrities have no privacy. When I was growing up, I used to look at them differently because of their fame. They're always in the tabloids. When something is said about them and you don't know if it's true, you just choose to believe it's true because it's written. It's entertainment. They're stories. My life has almost become a part of that for whatever reason.

Celebrities are really just normal people. They're just as normal as any other human being. The media portrays them in a certain way. It constantly involves their private life and it sucks. It really does. I've gotten a taste of that. It's always: Who am I dating? I'm not dating anyone. I'm really not. There's no time for me to date anybody. I hang out with people. I have a good time. I turned 23 years old today. What people don't even realize is that I was in a relationship for a year that just ended a few months back. It's a joke.

Everywhere I go and everybody I talk to gets out in the media. It makes me look a certain way when in reality I'm just a normal guy. I'm having a good time. I realize I have to make good choices and I've done all the right things. It just sucks. I'm not going to sit in my house every night, play with my thumbs and not go out.

Some of these people in the media are just a joke. I realize people are doing their jobs, but there are some people who aren't doing a good job of it. They like getting involved in people's business. They like making people miserable and bending the truth just to make their stories look good. That's all the gossip magazines are. That's what the draft became. I was really disappointed in the process because it takes away from the football. It gets to all the other little technical stuff. I realize that's part of it, but what does me being too "Hollywood" or being from L.A. have to do with me playing football? It doesn't make sense. These people have nothing else to say. I had a great three years. There's really nothing bad to say, so of course they want to say something bad. They just want to find the negatives.

My No. 1 priority is football. It always has been football. Look at my résumé. Look at the last three years. I still had to deal with all the media and "Hollywood" stuff that's going on. It didn't affect my play. I can guarantee you there were thousands of football players out there doing worse things than me. No one even gave a crap about what they were doing. It's dumb, if you ask me.

I put all my time and effort into being a football player. I want to be the best quarterback I can possibly be. I want to win the Super Bowl. I want to be in the Pro Bowl. I have goals and expectations.

When my teammates in Arizona get to know me, they're going to see I'm just a normal dude that came from L.A., loves football, and is going to be a leader.

I'm not going to let the media and all these other people control my life. I'm better than that.

I've Never Heard Of A Divore Party Until Now

I was riding with my godmother and Mom while here visiting Atlanta, and my godmother mentioned something about a "Divorce Party." I'd never even knew that existed, so I did some research. Click on the link to this post for more information.

What's funny to me is the "Whom To Invite" section:


"Whom to invite

People who have been through divorce are usually the best guests to invite to your divorce party. Your divorce lawyer will probably appreciate being invited but probably won't come. Most women I know invite only other women, and most men I know (who are far less likely to throw divorce parties) invite both genders. Because of the probability you're going to get stupid, you probably should avoid inviting anyone from your workplace or others whose impression of you would change if they see you in a (ahem) state.

Unless you and your spouse are really cooperative, your divorce party is no place for your children, even if they're adult children. Your children need to maintain as good a relationship as possible with both their parents, and inviting them to your divorce party is unlikely to help.

I'm going to scare many of you when I say this, but you shouldn't think it heretical to invite your STBX. For many of you, the whole idea of this is to celebrate not being with your spouse, and if so, you shouldn't consider inviting your STBX. But knowing as I do that most couples who divorce don't hate their spouse, I understand that far more divorcing spouses get along with their STBX than the culture realizes. If you and your STBX still have friends and interests in common and would enjoy spending the evening together, by all means throw a party together."

..Interesting!

More On The Houston Texans / Profootballtalk.com War - A Motherload Of Rumors Of "Backstabbing" Fears In The Texans Organization

Forio at Profootballtalk.com knows how to stoke the fires of ire. This time, he's obviously got the hairs of Houston Texans representatives standing on end with a constant flow of rumors about Charley Casserly. Forio's good at communicating what he's told, but should note it as rumor until confirmed. Writing "a league source tells us" can only work for so long.

But with this post it's apparent that Profootballtalk.com's launching a kind of nasty attempt to throw all of the possible Texans-related heresay rumors out in one shot. This could backfire. I do agree with Forio regarding how the Houston Chronicle covered the Casserly story, but there's also a fine line of access to the team they have to protect. Forio -- it seems -- doesn't have such concerns.

I mean it's not a CIA-level issue, so some level of care should be excercized. But that written, I love Forio's work.

Here's the latest:


McCLAIN MOPS UP

Renowned and respected NFL journalist John McClain of the Houston Chronicle, who has drawn our ire of late with his decidedly un-journalistic approach to the dissolution of the relationship between Texans owner Bob McNair and G.M. Charley Casserly, finished the job in grand fashion in the paper's Thursday edition with a headline proclaiming that "McNair Rejects Reports That Casserly Was Fired."

Since we're the only quasi-publication that ever reported that Casserly was getting the heave-ho -- and since we received multiple communications from the team's front office disputing our report -- it's clear that McClain was referring to us.

McClain says that McNair "emphatically" denied that Charley got the pointy-toed boot. "No, he has not been fired, so you can forget that," McNair said during the press conference announcing Casserly's departure.

McClain also writes that Casserly is not happy with reports that his exit wasn't voluntary. "Yeah, I am upset about that," Casserly said. "I'm glad that question was asked and Bob answered it. I have not been fired. There's absolutely no truth to it. I could have stayed on but chose not to."

Apparently, however, NO ONE has asked McNair or Casserly whether there will be a buyout of the final year of Charley's deal. As we've recently explained, G.M.'s and coaches who get fired are entitled to continue to be paid. G.M.'s and coaches who quit on their own with no input or pressure from the organization are not. If (as we've heard from multiple sources) Casserly received a buyout, the implication is that the move wasn't truly a resignation.

There's more objective evidence to suggest that this wasn't Charley's decision. He wants to become the NFL's vice president of football operations, a position that was vacated earlier this year by Art Shell. But Charley hasn't applied for the job yet.

So who in his right mind quits the job he now has before finding out whether he'll get the job that he desires?

With the NFL currently in the very early stages of a search for the next Commissioner, don't you think that the folks at Park Avenue might decide to wait on permanently filling that position until, you know, the guy who'll be running the place after Paul Tagliabue steps down has a chance to provide his input? So it would have made sense for Casserly to stay put for another year, see how the Commissioner selection process plays out, work subtly behind the scenes to figure out who will likely be the next Commish, throw support and effort behind that person, and let nature take its course.

Unless, of course, Casserly was pushed.

And we firmly believe, based on everything we've heard, that he was.

An industry source informed us on Wednesday that Broncos coach Mike Shanahan warned new Texans coach Gary Kubiak that Casserly would try to claim credit if/when Kubiak turns the team around. Thus, the thinking is that Kubiak concluded that Casserly needed to go. The source also told us that Casserly still wanted the team to select Reggie Bush with the first overall pick in the draft, and that it was McNair and Kubiak who came together and decided that Mario Williams was the right call -- especially since Kubiak's offenses in Denver churned up plenty of yards with no-name tailbacks.

Why do we care about any of this? Because we've got a low tolerance for bullsh-t. And we think that's precisely what the Texans have cooked up -- and what McClain has been serving with a side of home fries.

Finally, some might wonder why McNair would be so adamant that Casserly wasn't fired. Here's our theory. McNair feels genuine gratitude for Casserly's efforts, and McNair wants him to be able to leave on a positive note -- regardless of anything that was said or done behind closed doors. Besides, successful sports franchises don't fire key employees, because successful sports franchises don't hire employees who later should be fired. We've actually heard this week that McNair didn't want to fire coach Dom Capers, and we believe that the "firing everyone will make us look stupid for hiring them in the first place" dynamic played a role in McNair's thinking. In McNair's mind, poop-canning the team's original head coach and original G.M. after a 2-14 effort in the franchise's fourth season of play could be seen as an implicit admission that, to date, the Texans have failed.

Of course, they have failed on the field. (In the bank accounts, it's a different story.) Regardless, the last guy who should be declaring defeat at a time the team is launching a new era with Reggie, er, Mario Williams is the dude who owns the joint.