There are a few truths about wide receivers. One, they always think they’re open. Two, they’re easy to take out of games, no matter how good they are. And three, their success is directly correlated to the quarterback’s ability to get them the ball meaning they never will have the impact on a game that they want to have. In summation, they’re very difficult to please and as Hall of Famer Warren Moon said on Sporting News Radio, they’ve always been this way the only difference is now they have twitter to voice their displeasures:

Wide receivers have been doing this forever it’s just there’s this new technology now that allows these guys to do it in different ways. Wide receivers have always been very selfish type players, I won’t say that for all wide receivers, but a lot of the good ones are. It’s just that a lot of them never came out publicly and talked about it the way they are today. Every great wide receiver wants the football and wants it every time. I have no problem with that, but when you start taking it outside the locker room, I have a problem with that.

It was the T.O./Rodney Harrison twitter war that prompted Moon’s comments, but between T.O. and Ochocinco, that’s plenty of twitter-wide receiver-diva to go around. Larry Fitzgerald isn’t even on twitter but he’s had some diva-brushes with the service too. And when asked, Warren jokingly said he could picture guys like Webster Slaughter and Cris Carter on there.

Tuesday news conferences for college football coaches are just what the name suggests — there for newspaper reporters. They use the Q&A session to ask the coach about information from either the previous game or the upcoming game, depending on what kind of story they’re working on. Often times you get the usual suspects which include the beat reporters who are familiar with the coach’s tendencies and habits and who know the routine. But you also get random reporters from the opponent’s city, and they’re often looking for a more local story angle. That’s exactly what happened on Tuesday in Joe Paterno’s news conference when he was asked by a local Deerfield, Illinois reporter about fullback Joe Suhey. Keep in mind that the Suhey’s are considered the first family of Penn State football, having family members from several generations play at the school. Joe Pa then gets off this classic quote:

You think the Illinois fans are going to be holding up tooth brushes on the sidelines? That’s what I would be doing. Classic Joe Pa. At least he’s still good for something.

Or if you judge by the amount of ink on his face, he’s two steps ahead. What went from being a trend in sports has become somewhat of an epidemeic — tattoos are popping up on nearly every player in every sport and guys are running out of ways to out-do each other. Not DeShawn Stevenson, however. The Wizards guard elected to remain a step ahead of the curve getting some fresh ink in the offseason, Stephon Marbury style. Check out these pics of DeShawn Stevenson’s new face tattoos. He’s got three on his face and a giant one on the front of his neck. Thanks to Wizards Insider for the heads up on the story and the Washington Times for all the pictures.

It really looks like he and Gilbert Arenas are having a competition — Stevenson gets Abe Lincoln, Arenas gets the Black Mount Rushmore on his leg. I’ll just leave it as saying it’s not my cup of tea. Also, there’s been debate about Stevenson’s Pirates “P” logo which is considered to be a gang sign. Nice DeShawn. The other tats are his son’s name (Londyn), and a Frankenstein looking crack on his forward because he doesn’t crack. Yikes.

While surfing through Getty Images’ photos from the Seahawks/Bears game to use for my Jim Mora/Olindo Mare story, I came across a picture I didn’t recognize. I clicked on the thumbnail to see what I was missing. At that point I realized I wasn’t the one who was missing something — it was Getty’s photographer, Otto Greule Jr., who got his black coaches mixed up. Check out this photo and then read the caption:

SEATTLE – SEPTEMBER 27: Head coach Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears looks on during the game against the Seattle Seahawks on September 27, 2009 at Qwest Field in Seattle, Washington. The Bears defeated the Seahawks 25-19. (Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the person pictured above is not Lovie Smith. The picture actually appears to be one of Chicago’s running back coach, Tim Spencer. Naaaa, all black coaches look the same, what’s the difference, right?

The Seahawks lost to the Bears on Sunday by six points, 25-19. They were able to drive down the field to the 29 in their final possession but that’s when things stalled out. The Seahawks with Seneca Wallace as their quarterback were good enough to get field goals but they struggled to put it into the end zone. In fact, after scoring a touchdown on their first possession, Seattle wound up settling for six field goal attempts. Kicker Olindo Mare missed two in a row, one right before halftime and another at the beginning of the third quarter. You figure that missing one is understandable because of the wind, but then you make the adjustment after that. Had Mare made the second missed field goal, then the Seahawks conceivably would have been kicking to tie the game in the final minute. Instead they were forced to try and score a touchdown. As you could imagine, coach Jim Mora was pretty peeved after the game and he didn’t hide his feelings:

“There’ s no excuses for those,” Mora said through gritted teeth. “If you’re a kicker in the National Football League, you should make those kicks. Bottom line. End of story. Period. No excuses. No wind. Doesn’t matter.

“You’ve got to make those kicks, especially in a game like this when you’re kicking and scratching and fighting and playing your tail off and you miss those kicks? Not acceptable. Not acceptable. Absolutely not acceptable.”

Jim Mora was understandably pissed because he knows that the little things like failing to make an adjustment on a field goal can be the difference from a winning season and a losing season. He knows it’s the little things like that which get a coach fired. The thing is Mora is not exactly endearing himself to the players (the kicker at least) by going on a rant like this. He deflects the blame from himself to Mare and it makes everyone else feel the same way. Now why would that be a bad thing? Is there another kicker available who would be better than Olindo Mare? He better hope so because Mare’s not exactly going to be comfortable in Seattle the rest of the year. And how about the Bears winning two weeks in a row thanks to a pair of missed field goals by the opponent? Unreal.

Photo Credit

So right now I’m looking pretty bad for saying Favre had nothing left and that he was absolutely useless. I was expecting to see the Favre that stunk up the joint down the stretch with the Jets, preventing the team from making the playoffs, show up for the Vikings this year. Right now he’s looking like the Favre who started the season with the Jets and had them at 8-3 before tanking big time. I will now begrudgingly post the video of Brett Favre’s miracle game-winning touchdown to beat the 49ers:

OK, OK, I must hedge my praise and stay true to my roots by saying the guy was an inch away from throwing a pick on Minnesota’s second-to-last possession and that he struggled to move the ball against the first good defense he’s faced. And at best, he’s just setting Vikings fans up for some serious disappointment in the end. Man, how much must that have sucked for Minnesota fans to go crazy over a game-winner thrown by Favre??