Merriman, who missed all but one game last season with knee problems, was arrested in front of his own home about 3:45 a.m. this morning after Tequila (sigh) accused him of choking her and restraining her when she tried to leave the house. She went to the hospital, he went to jail. Both have apparently been released.

The possibly roid-raged linebacker recently expressed admiration for Oregon's LeGarrette Blount and his sucker punching ways, stating "I want to punch a bunch of guys but i would never risk getting suspended and fined i love my $." Apparently, Merriman has not read the NFL's collective bargaining agreement, because the strictures against guy punching also include women. If you think drunk driving, shooting yourself in the leg, and dog murder are frowned upon, I'm sure Roger Goodell has been itching to take a very strong stand against domestic violence. Maybe Shawne is trying to see just how many games he can miss and still make the Pro Bowl.

Because Tequila and Merriman are both lunatics who are obsessed with Twitter, you can probably find more updates there in the near future. (Update: He posted a link to his statement, hers has been set to private.)

Chargers Star Accused of Choking Tila "Tequila" [NBC San Diego]
Chargers' Merriman arrested; battery of girlfriend alleged [San Diego Union-Tribune]
Shawne Merriman Popped For Choking Tila Tequila [Brooks]
NFL Star Accused of Choking Tila Tequila [TMZ]

UPDATE: TMZ has some crappy photos of them taken at a bar earlier in the evening. So that proves they know each other!

UPDATE 2: Merriman released a statement late on Sunday night, denying the accusations and pointing out that he has not been charged with a crime. The gist of his statement is that she was drunk, he was trying to keep her from leaving until a cab could pick her up, he did not actually choke or hurt her, and he was only arrested because of her "citizen's complaint." The implication of last point being that cops would not have arrested him, if she hadn't insisted. We'll see how the criminal case develops (if it does at all), but Merriman will likely play in Week 1 either way.

Talib is probably best known for getting in a fight at the NFL Rookie Symposium—which is where you're supposed to learn not to fight your own teammates—and in a separate incident, swinging his helmet like a club and hitting another teammate in the head. This time, he may or may not have punched a cab driver, so perhaps he's stopped hurting people he knows. Improvement!

[TBO/PFT]

The Sentinel's Jeremy Fowler writes:

Huntley Johnson isn't on the University of Florida's payroll. He's not on the UF football program's payroll, either. But the Gainesville-based attorney might just be the Gators' most valuable player other than Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow.

Johnson is the go-to Gator for UF football players who find trouble with the law. He has handled 23 of the 24 football-related legal cases the Orlando Sentinel documented during Meyer's four years as Florida's head coach. The 24th case happened in Daytona Beach.

The arrests have Florida facing public scrutiny this summer as newspaper columnists, Internet bloggers and fans debate whether the UF football team is out of control.

(An aside about the sheer absurdity and disingenuousness of that last sentence. Go back and look at the Sentinel's "database," which breaks down Gator arrests since 2005. I count nine cases that rise above garden-variety youthful delinquency. Three of those were tossed. One involved a guy sneaking into an impound to retrieve his girlfriend's towed car, which is downright noble. Nine cases since 2005, if you're counting generously. This a team "out of control"?)

The story is a fairly standard bit of newspaper-style innuendo — surely there must be an NCAA violation somewhere under here, Fowler is saying, without really saying it. The profile makes no mention, however, of the lawsuit brought in 2000 by Johnson's secretary, Pamela Thigpen, in which she accused her boss of foul language, sexual innuendo and physical assault. Thigpen won a judgment of more than $1 million in a civil trial, and the verdict was upheld on appeal. Some of the juicy bits from the appellate court panel's opinion in 2001 (PDF):

• "For example, Johnson repeatedly told Thigpen: she just wanted to 'get down on his hog and honk it'; 'you want me to put my hog in your mouth'; '[c]ome in here and give me some head.' He also told her, at least once, to give his client a 'mercy fuck.'"

• "Johnson also dictated to Thigpen while urinating in the bathroom in his office and left a nude picture of himself for Thigpen to find in his office."

• "There was also evidence of inappropriate, unwelcomed physical contact, including repeated touching of Thigpen's breasts, running a pencil up Thigpen's thigh and an incident in which Johnson made sexually threatening remarks to Thigpen and forcibly placed her hand onto the crotch of his trousers."

The Sentinel doesn't see fit to mention any of this, which is odd considering its pained efforts at depicting Florida as some sort of football-playing House of the Rising Sun. The paper does at least hold out some hope that the program will return to the path of righteousness. And, hey, guess what? It has something to do with Tim Tebow. Jesus. Get off the dude's hog.

UF athletes have a friend in attorney Huntley Johnson [Orlando Sentinel]
Will Tim Tebow help prevent future arrests? [Orlando Sentinel]
Huntley Johnson v. Pamela Thigpen (PDF) [FindLaw]
EARLIER: A Lesson In How Not To Spin, Courtesy Of The Florida Gators

First of all, this database: It's a list of arrests, not convictions, which isn't really a fair barometer of anything. (Seven of those 24 cases were dropped. Yes, Andrea Adelson, that actually matters.) Florida rightly took offense and decided to offer some context to the Sentinel's Jeremy Fowler. Way too much context.

On his blog, Fowler writes:

Not trying to harp on this arrest issue too much, but considering we've documented Florida's legal troubles, it's only fair to provide a couple of facts for background. Most of these facts were provided by the University of Florida.

● Only three arrests from the last three recruiting classes (including 2009)
● At least 14 of the charges were dropped in the 24 cases
● 14 of the 24 player arrests have been from players he did not
recruit or were in his first recruiting class
● The 24 arrests represents 19 different players
● Arrests by recruiting class
Six did not recruit
Eight in first class
Seven in second class
Two in third class
One in fourth class
None in fifth class

Translation: Blame those 19 guys and Ron Zook! And as College Football Talk puts it: "It's never good when you've got your media relations department breaking down your recruiting classes by arrest, and touting that the 24 arrests are only spread among 19 different players."

Isn't this sort of PR realpolitik beneath a program whose quarterback cites Philippians on his eyeblack?

Couple of facts, couple of pats on the back — and a word from Urban Meyer [Orlando Sentinel, via Dr. Saturday]

BetUS explains that they're acting because of all the interest from fans:

"The NFL is part of the fabric of the lives of fans in America and their interest in their teams and players goes far beyond the field," said BetUS.com spokesman Reed Richards. "This is illustrated by the number of fans who come to us looking for analysis and predictive information regarding which star or team will be in hot water next."

Unfortunately, you can't bet on individual players.

Bet on NFL Arrests [Bet on Sports]
Kellen Winslow: First Player Arrested? [Waiting for Next Year]

You could totally see this coming. The Georgia summer semester ends on the same weekend that Georgia gets the number one ranking in the Coaches' Poll. And you expect college football players to behave themselves? Son, when were you born? Two Georgia players were treated at a hospital after being struck by beer bottles in a bar fight. Then their former teammate, who was already kicked off the team, was arrested outside the hospital for public intox and knocking over trash cans. At the same time another teammate, the long snapper, was arrested for public urination. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

Athens-Online has our details on the bar fight:

Bulldogs Donavon Baldwin and Marcus Dowtin apparently were hit in the head with bottles in the early-morning dust-up, which broke out of a crowded scene inside the Clayton Street bar The Library, Athens-Clarke police said.

This happened at the library? Wow. Oh, okay, The Library—where hot girls wear skirts and dance on the bar and the alcohol flows like a river and no drink costs more than $2.50. The better question might be, why weren't we all there?

Meanwhile, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has your details on the public urination from long snapper, Jeff Henson.

Henson was arrested after an Athens-Clarke county police officer saw a "very intoxicated" Henson urinating on the wall of a bank building. Reached by telephone Saturday evening, Henson was contrite: "There's no excuse for being out the weekend before camp."

Public urination? Please. This was merely Henson's artistic statement on the value of mortgages held by Athens' banks.

This is the 8th Georgia football team arrest since the start of 2008. UGa fans just want the damn season to get here before the entire team is ineligible. Trust me, every college football football fan has been there. Somewhere UGA VI is crying.
Police investigating bar brawl; ex-Dog arrested at hospital [Online-Athens]
Two Bulldogs hospitalized after brawl [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]