Through Buckner's Legs

Early this morning, three University of Tennessee football players were arrested for attempted armed robbery.

Here’s an excerpt from Chris Low’s ESPN.com summary of the incident:

“According to the police report, the victims of the robbery were in their car outside a Pilot convenience store, parked next to a Toyota Prius, when a black male approached wearing a hooded sweatshirt, brandishing what appeared to be a handgun, opened the driver’s side door and said “Give me everything you have.” A second black male also wearing a hooded sweatshirt then came around to the passenger side of the victims’ car, opened it and said, “Give us everything you’ve got.”

But when the victims opened their wallets and showed they had no money, a third black male approached the other two and said “we’ve got to go,” and all three got into the Prius and drove away, according to the police report.”

Clearly these football players are not very bright. Lets review their errors in judgment.

Mistake #1: The football players approached a vehicle at a convenience store, which apparently is carefully concealed in the heart of UT’s campus. Certainly not an ideal location, unless of course they wanted to get caught.

Mistake #2: One of the alleged perpetrators was wearing Tennessee football apparel. For those of you who are unaware, Tennessee’s colors are bright orange. Orange might be the least camouflage color that exists. In fact, hunters actually wear orange so they can see other people in the woods. Probably a bad wardrobe choice for a robbery.

Mistake #3: Question: Why do college students primarily drink cheap beer and liquor? Answer: BECAUSE COLLEGE STUDENTS DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY. If you are going to try to steal money from someone, you should probably go to an area where people have it.

Mistake #4: I’d be lying if I said I’d ever committed a burglary. I’d also be lying if I said I think it would be a good idea to park a getaway car directly next to the targets I intended to rob.

Officer: “Did you see what the suspects looked like?”

Victim: “Well, not exactly, but they jumped right into a Black Prius with the license plate #________. And one of them was wearing a Tennessee football jersey too.”

I can’t believe they got nabbed!

I also thought it was hilarious that the getaway car was a Toyota Prius. It was the first instance in the history of burglaries where a Toya Prius was used to escape the scene of a crime. Usually criminals use a rusty mid-80’s Chevrolet Le Baron with trash bag windows and bullet holes in the exterior, but nope, not these guys. The UT Football players are saving the world one robbery at a time!

I have a proposition for new column: writing about the NFL player that most murders his respective fantasy football owners during the previous slate of games. Hopefully this goes over better than my “NFL Goat of the Week” idea. In my defense, there’s only so many jokes you can make about the poo-poo platter of JaMarcus Russell and Derek Anderson.

Back to the point, why is the ‘fantasy killer’ important? Well, in all reality, it’s not… but every man in the worlds plays fantasy football. There’s hundreds of dollars at stake in many of these leagues and men devote the majority of their Sundays glued to a computer screen, evaluating every move that a player makes.

More significantly, there are bragging rights on the line. Men are competitive by nature. Fantasy football provides an avenue where we can compete against our friends and talk smack about the results.

Unfortunately Clinton Portis owners aren’t boasting at all this week.

Portis’s numbers on Sunday: 4 rushes, 4 yards. In most fantasy football scoring systems that is zero points. Very disappointing, considering Portis is typically a #2 or #3 running back in many leagues.

On a personal level, however, Portis’s concussion may be a blessing in disguise. Due to the performance of the 2009 Redskins offensive line, Portis likely would have been decapitated before the end of the season. Lately it looks like there’s an invisible sled dog team running in the opposite direction, pulling Portis back while he’s struggling to inch forward.

Luckily a horrible repeat will not take place, at least anytime soon: Portis is out next weekend, physically and mentally.

Hopefully the basketball court again, pending that his fighting-related injury heals promptly.

In an interview with ESPN’s Chris Broussard, Big Baby said:

“When I become an All-Star in the NBA, when I become a great player in the NBA, then I’ll try football. One of my dreams has always been to play football.”

I’m not sure which of these statements is more of a stretch, since there are three of them that surprise me: “When I become an All-Star,” “When I become a great player in the NBA” and “I’ll play football.”

I think Big Baby may have experienced a series of blows to the head while MMA fighting with his boy.

Does he realize that he doesn’t even start for his own team yet? Until he’s higher than the 7th man on the Celtics roster, I don’t think he should be focusing on becoming an NBA all-star, let alone becoming one of the elite players in the league.

Davis is only about 6’6” and he’s fat. I routinely watch him get swatted into the stands by taller, more athletic players. He doesn’t have much, if any, potential to be great.

In other words, maybe the NFL would be a better option.

Unpredictability is one of the main reasons that professional sports are popular in society. Any particular team can beat another team on any given day (well, every team except the winless 2009 Tampa Bay Buccaneers).

However, there’s always that what if… What if professional sports aren’t so unpredictable in the first place. What if the refs are controlling the outcomes of games in order to ensure that certain teams win and others don’t, for their own self-interests or for the perceived benefit of the particular sport?

I’m not sure I believe the content of Tim Donaghy’s book, Blowing the Whistle, but it certainly makes you wonder.

Deadspin lists some excerpts from the book here

For example, here is an interesting paragraph:

“From my earliest involvement with Bavetta, I learned that he likes to keep games close, and that when a team gets down by double-digit points, he helps the players save face. He accomplishes this act of mercy by quietly, and frequently, blowing the whistle on the team that’s having the better night. Team fouls suddenly become one-sided between the contestants, and the score begins to tighten up. That’s the way Dick Bavetta referees a game — and everyone in the league knew it.”

It’s extremely easy in any sport for a referee to determine the outcome. Every call, even the ones that seem minor, can add or subtract the amount of points a team scores. If a game is decided by a point or two, the losing team could have been victorious if one call had gone in their favor.

Sure, there’s a chance that none of the information in Donaghy’s book is valid. He was caught gambling against the game of basketball and he’s a convicted criminal, so clearly he’s not the most credible source.

But if you remember correctly, when Jose Canseco released his book, Juiced, he wasn’t perceived to be a very reliable source either. Now it appears that there was a substantial amount of truth in his statements.

If Blowing the Whistle contains even a small amount of valid information, the NBA is going to have a significant problem on their hands…

… or maybe $1 million, so he can pay back the Vegas Casinos that received his bad checks.

The Boston.com article on Antoine Walker is just plain pathetic. Yes, its certainly depressing, but Walker brought this on himself.

This wouldn’t be all that surprising if Walker had been a role player that earned a minimum salary in the NBA. However, Walker earned over $110 million in contracts throughout the course of his career. Subtract half for taxes and that’s still $55 million that he’s blown through.

How is that possible?!? I’m not even mad.