After the game, Celek denied having any knowledge of the sweet, delicious rum that makes everyone a Captain™ of their own evening. But then a silly advertising exec blew the whole deal and admitted that Celek was indeed part of the stealth marketing plan organized to spread "brand awareness" of Captain Morgan. Even worse, they tried to wrap it up in a charity drive to guilt everyone into pretending that it wasn't just a terrible fake viral campaign for booze.

The campaign was set to be unveiled next week and was fairly simple: For every time a player was caught on camera striking the "Captain Morgan" during a regular season game, $10,000 would be donated to Gridiron Greats. For each instance in the playoffs, the donation would elevate to $25,000. And for instances in the Super Bowl, the bounty was slated to hit $100,000 per pose.

Oh, what an amazing corporate citizen! But the grouchy grouches at NFL put the kibosh on that right away. Players can't do advertisements, charity or otherwise, during games. Please leave the shilling to every single other person associated with the broadcasting of an NFL game.

"I don't want people to think our intention was to [upset] the NFL," [ad dude] Lehrman said. "We want to find a way to do it, but it's not going to work out as currently formulated. … It's at the point where we need to re-think how we can go about doing this and find a way that we can raise money for [Gridiron Greats] without getting people upset."

They could just write a check, but then how would anyone find out about the awesome sexy female-slaying powers that simply holding a glass of Captain Morgan bestows upon even the schlubbiest alcoholic? I'm not sure the four mind-numbing commercials an hour during every televised sporting event will keep them covered.

P.S. Please be a Captain responsibly.

League shipwrecks Captain Morgan campaign [Yahoo]
Brent Celek's "Captain" Pose Was Part of "Guerrilla-Style Advertising Campaign" [700 Level]

All I wanted to do was watch Jay Cutler throw four picks, see the Bears run an inexplicable fake punt (called automatically by the long snapper, who was apparently not coached to consider factors such as time, score, or field position), see Lovie Smith challenge that call in a futile attempt to reverse his own idiocy, and then hear Cris Collinsworth express shock at just how retarded Lovie Smith was for challenging that call.

That's all I wanted. I just wanted to watch a mistake-filled, hilariously played football game.

But YOU. You fucking people… you had to paint the broadcast from top to bottom with your annoying Jay Leno promos. Fuck you. No, I mean it. FUCK YOU. I'm really sorry that an entire football game had to interrupt your Jay Leno infomercial. Perhaps you could air the game on another network somewhere, one that isn't as cheaply run as your average fucking airline.

All goddamn night, I had to sit there and be bombarded with your fucking promos for a fucking show that no American under the age of 55 will ever deign to fucking watch. ZOMG! COMEDY AT 10PM?! UNHEARD OF! I've never watched comedy at that hour, ever! Unless I'm watching a movie that night. Or I'm watching South Park. Or I've recorded a comedy program that airs at another hour and decided to watch it at 10PM. Just to be a REBEL.

I've never done that, NBC. I've never known what it is like to laugh at that hour. I am not sure I'm biologically equipped to handle it. I'm so used to setting that hour aside to watch doctors fuck each other and then perform open-heart surgery at that hour. That hour is not meant for laughter. It is a dark, intense 60 minutes of each day. All I want to do at that hour is brood, and look over corpses for forensic traces of the Miniature Killer's calling card. Comedy? At 10PM? I DON'T KNOW IF I'M PREPARED FOR THE REVOLUTION.

It's not my fault you people decided to put all your eggs in one basket. It's not my fault you people are too goddamn cheap and uncreative to produce five hours of scripted programming. It's not my fault your business model revolves around a comedian who stopped being funny two decades ago and fat people losing weight to Nickelback songs. YOU made that decision all on your own. No one in America asked you to do that. No one in America asked to be eye-raped by promo after promo of Jay Leno walking out to a unrealistically enthusiastic crowd populated with unrealistically young and attractive people. I've seen Jay Leno'a real audience, NBC. They're the people who couldn't get tickets to The Price Is Right. Many are still wearing sweatshirts bearing the name of the small town in Indiana in which they were born, and in which they will die.

It's not my fault Jay's signature comedy bit is something he ripped off from Howard Stern, and you are now banking on it to save you from insolvency and irrelevance. It's not my fault you decided to treat Conan O'Brien like a deformed child chained in a fruit cellar. Again, you did all that yourself. It's not my fault your network must be secretly run by Lovie Smith. I didn't deserve any of this. All I wanted was to watch a football game in relative peace and quiet.

So no, NBC. I will not be watching at 10PM tonight when Jay Leno reinvents television… by doing the same boring fucking show he's done since 1993. Maybe I'm just not ready for comedy at 10PM. Or maybe it's because I've gone from being indifferent to your network to actively hoping you fail, and that Ben Silverman is forced to one day suck the marrow out of bones he found in a Popeye's dumpster for sustenance. I am not ready to laugh. I am ready to kill. Take Jay Leno and shove him up your peacockhole.

To be fair, Colonels fans are having trouble deciding if the new and improved school mascot looks more like a Nazi or a Communist. But it does seem clear that his aim is to smash liberty and put American slaves under the heel of his jackboot. I guess that does make him just a smidge more fearsome than a former governor of Louisiana who merely wanted blacks to know their place.

The school actually paid someone $30,000 to create this updated "Colonel Tillou" mascot and bring Nicholls State squarely into the 1930s. (Behold the power of focus groups.) They dropped the previous white-bearded, gray-suited Confederate in 2004 after the NAACP pointed out that slavery was wrong. Fortunately, there aren't many pro-Cossack organizations in Louisiana so the New Tillou might be here for awhile.

At least they didn't go with what many of the students wanted—the nutria, an invasive, semi-aquatic rodent. Unless maybe the rodent wanted to invade Poland?

New ‘Tillou' has detractors, supporters [Thibodaux Daily Comet]
New Nicholls mascot has many alumni up in arms [New Orleans Times-Picayune]

The event took place in 2006, but the pictures have just now begun circulating are now causing the police department a lot of very deserved grief. (The photos were mailed anonymously to the Philadelphia Daily News.) Not only is the event itself a questionable move—private citizens wasting police ammunition at a time when real officers were forced to ration—but the photos show players violating pretty much every imaginable rule of gun safety. They're firing weapons without ear or eye protection, handling rifles away from the firing line, and even pointing guns directly at their teammates' heads as they pose like "gangsters" for ridiculous photos.

Worst of all, sources familiar with the event say that some of the guns used were illegals assault weapons taken from the evidence room. In addition to being both against the law and highly unethical, use of such weapons could have compromised the cases they were a part of. Police critics are furious.

"It's a state police firing range used for state police to train. When we're there, it's downright military," said one state police official, who requested anonymity. "But at this event, it's chaos. Everybody's throwing contraband assault weapons around like they're toys; it's like they're having G.I. Joe tryouts. Not only is this totally unethical, but it's totally illegal."

A police spokeswoman said these types of "gun safety" events happen all time. Even Girl Scouts do it! She denied the more serious allegations of using illegal weapons and wasting police ammunition, but the pictures seems to indicate otherwise. An evidence tag can be seen on one of the guns and boxes of police-issued bullets are clearly visible in others. Police say the Steelers requested a gun safety course, but it appears they got the worst-supervised training session ever.

At the Daily News' request, a National Rifle Association-certified training counselor and firearms instructor examined the photographs and detected multiple "dumb and dangerous" safety violations.

"The photos show generally unsafe gun-handling techniques," said Paul Raynolds, a chief range-safety officer from North Jersey. "The players look to be poorly supervised. Basic firearm-safety rules are not being followed." ....

"Here," he added, referring to the group portrait, "you have [a player] pointing this straight at his [another player's] skull. [Other players] are pointing the gun directly at the other guy and the cameraman. That's just negligent beyond belief."

The players pictured include Ike Taylor, James Harrison, Max Starks, James Farrior, Brett Keisel, as well as former Steelers Najeh Davenport and Joey Porter. The NFL has a policy against anyone carrying guns when representing the team or league, but it's not clear if this would qualify. What is clear is that Joey Porter should really not let untrained goofballs points gun at his head. Even Tony Montana knows better than that.

Targets of criticism [Philadelphia Daily News]

UPDATE: The good folks at PSAMP have jogged our memory and pointed out that these photos have actually been on the internet for months. (Including Deadspin. Oops.) But it does appear that the News was the first to report on the connection between the photos and the State Police, who are the real target of their story.

The author of the piece, Dana Difillipo, spoke to Deadspin and says there was some internal debate about running the photos since they were so old, but sports editors at the paper suggested that it was still news, saying "look at all the steroid stories coming out." Also, the source was definitely someone with an axe-to-grind against the state police, but "just because someone has a shady motive doesn't mean it's not news."

As for her use of the phrase "gangster poses," she says, "Well, what would you call them?" Well ... um ... I'm stumped on that one, actually.

What Is Philly.com Trying To Prove? [PSAMP]

Sports Business Journal takes a look at some of the other new shows in the pipeline, like "Shaq Vs.", and wonders why they're being made in the first place. The T.O. Show got more buzz than just about any mid-summer replacement could get and it wound up tied with a re-run of "Fresh Prince" for the 798th-highest-rated cable show of the week. Man, I would hate to see what 799 was.

These shows get some of the worst ratings imaginable and critics won't even be bothered to tell you how terrible they are. (The only one that seems to get any traction at all is "Hard Knocks.") Yet, networks executives can't wait to make more, because they are incredibly cheap to produce and don't require turning no-talent hairdos like Spencer and Heidi into celebrities. At least Warren Sapp used to be able to tackle people.

In other words, you get what you pay for and ... say it with me ... "in this economy" what else can you expect? But why do sports reality shows do so poorly in the first place. They appear to have a ready-made audience of devoted, talkative, spend-happy observers? (i.e., you guys.) Maybe it's because sports fans already have a huge slate of reality shows on their TV watching schedule. It's called "sports."

Low cost, not ratings power, keeps sports reality pipeline full [Sports Business Journal]

A sports writer from the Manchester (N.H.) Union-Leader, Kevin Provencher, was arrested for turning out a woman at a Marriott hotel in Andover. (Turning out for sex!) That's illegal, in case you didn't know. And his own newspaper had to cover it. There aren't many other details at this time, but officials are pretty sure that he has an uncomfortable conversation waiting for him when he gets home.

A woman who answered the phone at Provencher's home said she'd "like to talk to him about that" when asked about the charges.

Oh boy. I guess it really is hard out there for a ... damn.

Union Leader reporter arrested on prostitution-related charges [Union Leader]
N.H. sports writer arrested on pimp charges [Boston Herald]

Mandarich, as you may be aware, knows his way around the internet. In addition to his growing photography career and alleged smearing of naked women, his main line of work is search engine optimization and general internet ass kicking. Self-promotion is the name of the game on the web, so even if you think it might be out of line use the unexpected death of Billy Mays to promote a client, well ... you just don't understand marketing.

Here's the press release that separates winners from losers and was forwarded to us by the sportswriter who received it from Big Tony himself:

The sudden and tragic death of television pitchman Billy Mays has not only shaken his family, friends and colleagues, but the entire nation. Mays has been a part of American households since the mid-1990's and will remain a legend for years to come.

For The Earth Corp , headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, had the esteemed privilege of working with Mays on several projects promoting their flagship product, What Odor?®.

What Odor ?® is an eco-friendly, 100% biodegradable odor eliminator developed by For The Earth Corporation.

The first project was in March 2009; Mays signed on with For The Earth Corp to produce a What Odor?® infomercial, officially launching the product with a national television advertising campaign.

"Working with Billy was a great experience," recalled Nelson Grist, For The Earth Corp's president. "It was amazing to see him in action. He had such vitality and a down-to-earth nature."

The second project was an episode of Discovery Channel's Pitchmen, featuring Billy Mays and Anthony "Sully" Sullivan. What Odor?® was featured during the May 6th show, titled "Smelling Gold".

"We were thrilled to be a part of the Pitchmen series," said Grist. "Both Billy and Sully have an innate talent for grabbing an audience's attention and have created a trusted following for the products they endorse."

Nelson and his team at For The Earth Corp extend their warmest condolences to the Mays family. Billy Mays was a one-of-a-kind pitchman and will be missed tremendously.

If interested in interviewing Nelson Grist, contact Mandarich LLC via email.

I'm now sure how well this odor product works, but something sure smells funny.

Previously: Tony Mandarich's Possible Porno Revenge Web Site

Aaron Smith, of (I assume) Las Vegas, put down two bets totaling $21,750 on last Thursday's matchup between the Royals and Indians, What would possess someone to do such a thing? Well, Zack Greinke was pitching and that guy like ... never loses.

Even if you hadn't read this story from last week, you could probably guess how this one ends. Greinke and his bullpen blow a 3-1 lead and the game-winning RBI in the tenth bounces off a seagull that had parked himself in the outfield. Royals lose! Now Smith—a man who willingly wagered over $20,000 on the Royals— somehow thinks he has the worst bad beat story of all-time and will give $1,000 to anyone who can top it. That shouldn't be too hard. (Especially since the Indians had two on and nobody out against Kyle Farnsworth. The bird was the least of your issues. Of course, this contest make no sense unless the guy is trying to sell something—or he's an even worse gambler than we imagine.)

But walk into any poker room in the country and say, "Boy, did I have some rotten luck today," and you'll have 50 degenerate gamblers swarming you with sob stories that would make the hardest leg-breaking mob enforcer weep.

And to think all this guy lost was money!

When birds attack: a terrible gambling story, and $1,000 offer if you can top it [Ball Star]
Cleveland's Flock Of Seagulls Scores Another Hit [Deadspin]

Jonathan Weaver of Las Vegas chose ... poorly. His girlfriend, Amy, had something stupid to do, like "school", but he wanted to watch Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Tuesday. (Actually, his original plan was a minor league baseball game, but the ball and chain vetoed that.) Left with two kids (ages 1 and 2) and desperate for sports action, Weaver tied the kids up in their car seats, bound their hands—so they would touch his tools; safety first!—tied rope around their necks, stuffed cloth in their mouth, and left the young boys in the garage. Then he went down to PT's Pub to watch the game—even though he's under 21 and shouldn't have been allowed in.

Police said Weaver didn't think leaving the children was a big deal "because they have had campouts inside" the garage.

Sure. That makes sense. Did I forget to mention that mom—who was not charged with attempted murder like SuperNanny was—is pregnant with Weaver's kid? Happy Father's Day!

Police: Child Abuse Suspect Didn't Want To Miss Game - Las Vegas News Story [KVVU]
Via: Bad Boyfriend Ties up Kids to Watch Game 3 of Finals [You Been Blinded]

Chicago mayor Richard Daley is resurrecting his belief that his city has big enough shoulders to deserve a second NFL franchise, because the Cardinals used to belong to Chicago like 100 years ago and they are now playing in the Super Bowl so that proves that the city can support two winning teams.

The idea is ludicrous on its face—are there a lot of football-mad Chicago residents who just haven't quite warmed up to the Bears yet?—but I think it's this logic puzzle that baffles me most:

"We should have a second NFL team in Chicago. If San Francisco has two, New York has two, Florida has three teams … and when you take Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia, they have three teams there in that region, we could easily support a second pro football team," Daley recently reiterated.

Interesting theory. OR! Perhaps Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia can support three football teams because they are actually three distinct cities. Shocking, but true! At last I checked, the Chicagoland area is just slightly smaller than the state of Florida. Plus, East St. Louis is in your state, so it's practically like you own the Rams anyway.

Man, you put one Senator in the White House and suddenly you think geography doesn't apply to you.

Another football team in town? [Chicago Tribune]
[Image via Flickr]