Mauriece McIver (I'm spelling it like it's spelled on their 1998 era Geocities-esque website. May not be accurate.) does everything right on the punt return, wrapping up the receiver's legs to bring him down. Problem is, he's on the receiving team.

Though I will assign a fair amount of blame to the WWFL, which apparently ordered the same color uniforms for every team.

It's an annual tradition among Mattoon High students for the girls to play a friendly game of flag football for homecoming week. Well, according to the deputy chief of police (and it's never a good sign for a women's football game when the police are being quoted), "It was a flag football game that turned into tackle."

Tempers flared and you know how girls will be girls. A number of them got into it after the final whistle blew. That's when the crowd got involved.

One boy reportedly trying to separate two girls at about 8 p.m. was punched by Jason P. Hudson, 36. Officers investigating the incident determined Hudson's action had no legal justification and he is charged with battery, facing a court date in Coles County Circuit Court. Hudson posted bond after he was charged late last week.

However, many people that night seemed ready to attack Hudson after he threw his punch. He was followed by many individuals into the JFL parking lot.

An off-duty officer kept things from escalating, thereby keeping a lynching from becoming part of the annual tradition. But this being Mattoon, I'd keep away from the Glee Club's next bake sale; the gingerbread might be laced with cyanide.

UPDATE: Joe writes us,

I grew up in Ottawa Il, roughly 150 mi north of Mattoon. Apparently there is something about girls in Illinois playing flag football and beating the shit out of each other. My high school had the annual tradition of "powder puff" football during the homecoming festivities. The games were always rough but my senior year the girls really stepped up the insanity. At the start of the second quarter a girl broke her nose taking a nasty helmet to helmet hit minus the helmet. I was on the sideline about 15 feet from the whole thing. Holy shit. After the whole situation cooled the game resumed only to see another girl get kicked in the face as she was tackled. Took something like 11 stitches to her forehead...she was my date. So not only did I take Frankenstein to the Dance, they banned powder puff for life.

Cool Heads Kept Fight From Escalating After 'Powder Puff' Contest [Journal-Gazette Times-Courier]

We've been losing a lot of them lately: Marc Bulger, Donovan McNabb, Matt Hasselbeck, Daunte Culpepper. "The stars seem to be going out one by one," said Trent Dilfer at Pennington's press conference.

Everyone there knew we'd suddenly lost one of the great ones, the Elders, and there is lately a sense of a changing of the guard.

***

Who are the Elders? They set the standards. They hand down the lore. They're the oldest and wisest. By proceeding through the huddle each Sunday with dignity and humanity, they show the young what it is that should be emulated. They're the tribal chieftains. This role has probably existed since Shrovetide football days, because people need guidance and encouragement, they need to be heartened by examples of endurance. They need to be inspired.

We are in a generational shift in the NFL, and new Elders are rising. They're running the two-minute drills, they own the lines of scrimmage, they anchor the offenses. What is their job?

It's to do what the Elders have always done, but now more than ever.

***

Daunte Culpepper was at home late last August, hurriedly walking back and forth, worrying on the coming season, when he stubbed his toe on the carpet, necessitating six stitches.

This is why, I think, so many people-I include, literally, every person I know, from all walks of life, and all ages-are worried that our old quarterbacks are not safe, that this overheated era will end in some injurious play or plays.

Stop reading this and ask whoever's nearby, "Do you find yourself worrying about Kurt Warner's safety?" I do not think you are going to get, "No."

***

Some linebackers feel umbrage when this is said. "The offensive line equates pressure with violence in order to squelch defense." In some cases that of course will be true. But this isn't football, it's more like incitement. And it comes from both offense and defense.

Football cannot healthily endure without free and unfettered passing. It's our job to watch, critique and question, and, being us, to do it in colorful terms.

But knowing where the line is, matters. Seeing clearly the lay of the land, knowing the facts of the team and your teammates, matters.

Now the new Elders must do the job they once did. Some of them will think they can't, that the old ones were too big. But it always looks that way. Who thought Thomas Brady of Michigan would become Dan Fouts, only maybe more influential? Who would have thought Marc Bulger, refugee from the New Orleans Saints, could fill the shoes of Vince Ferragamo? But he did, and more.

Everything has changed since the old ones came up-new penalties, new ways of managing the clock. Everyone takes snaps now, from the rookie running back to the anonymous drunk on the practice squad.

But it's still possible to set an example, encourage the helpful, stand for the good, pass on the lore, take responsibility.

***

At Brett Favre's retirement memorial service in 2007, I worked on President Reagan's speech. And this is what Ronald Reagan said of Brett Favre, on a warm dark night on the floodlit field of Lambeau

"It always seemed to me that he was a man of the most interesting contradictions, very American contradictions. We know from his many friends and teammates, we know in part from the Wrangler commercials available on YouTube, that he was both self-deprecating and proud, a kid out there and a gunslinger, highly aware of all the fun to be had yet utterly at home with running thirty yards down the field to throw a meaningless illegal block, once again like a kid out there.

"Everything we saw him do seemed to show a huge enjoyment of life; he seemed to grasp from the beginning that life is one fast-moving train, and you have to jump aboard and hold on to your hat and relish the sweep of the wind as it rushes by. You have to enjoy the journey, it's unthankful not to. I think that's how his team remembers him, in his joy.

"And when he retired, when that comet disappeared over the state of Wisconsin, a whole nation grieved and would not forget. A tailor in New York put a sign on the door: 'Closed due to a retirement in the family.' The sadness was not confined to us. 'They cried the rain down that night,' said a journalist in Europe. They put his picture up in huts in Brazil and tents in the Congo, in offices in Dublin and Danzig. That was one of the things he did for his country, for when they honored him they were honoring someone essentially, quintessentially, completely American."

Garcia was cut from the Eagles last month, weeks after he asked to be released by the Raiders, and while he waits for Tampa Bay to call him again, he is just out giving interviews about how promising young Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell sucks and none of the Raiders wanted to win as much as Jeff Garcia did.

"It was to a point where I felt like guys who walked through those doors that just were there to collect a check and not really interested in putting everything that they had within themselves on to the football field," he said. "And that was the frustrating thing for me to see.

"There were a lot of good young guys in that locker room who really want to do whatever it takes to win, but unfortunately it's not everybody," Garcia added. "In order to compete at this level in this game, everybody needs to be on board."

"Maybe it's because how things have been for a number of years now out there and they just don't see the hope," he said.

Garcia said the idea of spending an entire season in Oakland backing up Russell "broke my heart." After his release from the Buccaneers, Seahawks, Redskins, and the Los Angeles Vikings, Garcia is expected to lead the Calgary Stampeders to the 2013 division semifinals.

News of poor morale in the Raiders locker room should stun observers of that storied franchise. Reached for comment, owner Al Davis said "up, up, and away, in my wicked doom balloon!"

There are stars and then there are STARS.

And then there are —==SSSTTTAAARRRSSS==—(TM)!!! And then there is also that channel Starz.

And trying to put a player into one category or the other is a subjective thing.

True. Hard to be objective about a distinction that you just made up.

For instance, Carson Palmer … star. Tony Romo … STAR. Agree?

I guess.

Wait, no. I changed my mind. I'm gonna go with:

I GUESS.

If you asked a dozen GMs, more than half would lean toward starting their team with Palmer. But if Tony Romo and Carson Palmer walked side-by-side through, say, O'Hare International Airport, who would be more widely recognized?

Romo. No question. Playing for the Cowboys, dating Jessica Simpson, smirking and grinning and trying to keep T.O. from melting down - all of it has helped make Romo a celebrity as well as a quarterback.

Oh, okay. I get it — this is going to be a list of NFL players who are most likely to date someone famous so they become celebrities. I heard Antonio Bryant was spotted at P.F. Chang's with one of the girls from "90210." He's gotta be on the list!

Also, I saw Chris Cooley's dick on this very website once. Does that count for something?

For Palmer, playing in Cincinnati for a moribund franchise that has a steady kickoff time of 1 p.m. EDT throughout the fall hasn't helped him become more recognizable.

Well that makes sense. I guess we won't be seeing any players on this list from teams with a history of losing, like the Lions or the Texans. (Spoiler alert: A Lion and a Texan are on the list!)

And yet at this time three years ago, Romo was known by nobody outside of NFL personnel and the people who follow the league closely.

So we wondered: Who's going to blow up in 2009?

Three years ago, Romo was backing up Drew Bledsoe, and not having the whitest sex ever with Jessica Simpson. He didn't take a snap in a regular season game until October. Then he became a STAR, which may or may not be a thing. So — if I understand this correctly — we're looking for guys who you've never heard of, but are likely to become superstars really quick.

Let's see what ya got.

We came up with five: quarterbacks Matt Ryan and Philip Rivers of the Falcons and Chargers;

Um, I'm sorry. I seem to have jumped into the middle of an article about some of the most famous players in the league.

Philip Rivers isn't a STAR yet? Can't we all agree he's at least a StaR or something? Didn't Matt Ryan lead his team to the playoffs last year?

receivers Andre Johnson and Calvin Johnson from the Texans and Lions,

I have no idea what this list is supposed to be. Seriously, raise your hand if you haven't heard of Andre and Calvin Johnson. You can raise it in all caps if you want to.

and running back Adrian Peterson from the Vikings.

Everything above this was written four days ago. Here's what happened.

I had written some stuff, whatever, going through the article line by line and trying my best to make some decent smartass comments or food metaphors or whatever. Then I read this line about Adrian Peterson — that this might be the year that he becomes a superstar.

I think I reacted properly: I took my MacBook that I was writing this on, twirled around like a discus thrower, and hurled my laptop out the window. Then I blacked out, for I don't know how long, and woke up on my bed. My girlfriend was sitting next to me.

I was like "what happened?"

"I don't know. It was like you were in some sort of fever dream, but you kept saying the same thing out loud over and over again."

"What did I say?"

"Hold on, I wrote it down. Okay, yeah. You kept saying 'For crying out fuck, first of all he's the consensus #1 fantasy football pick, which literally tens of millions of Americans play. Also he's in about 60% of the commercials these days — the dude is one "Cut That Meat!" away from hosting SNL. And! He led the fucking league in rushing last year!'"

"Huh. Sounds about right."

"Also the neighbors came by to drop off your computer. It's gonna take like four days to fix."

Adrian Peterson. Is not a superstar. Yet. That's what we're going with?

All are known. None are known so well they'd be mobbed in an airport, recognized in New York City or be readily identifiable by a nickname.

Adrian Peterson has two nicknames that I can think of, and again, I barely follow football ("All Day" or "A.D.", and "Purple Jesus"). Everyone calls Calvin Johnson "Megatron," but, I guess in a way this guy's right. He doesn't have that mobbable quality because he never dated a dumb reality show star.

Yet. But wait until after this season.

Well, I guess we know what that means. At some point this fall, Andre Johnson is going to tittyfuck Audrina Partridge.

L'chaim!

The best part of this picture of Holy Cross's linemen is the coach taking it as seriously as anyone.

This is current NFLer Thomas DeCoud, confirming all our suspicions that Berkeley is pushing a certain "agenda."

Can we do the pros? Sure, let's do the pros. Oh Terrell Suggs, you make it slightly less easy to hate the Ravens.

The only thing more laughable than the Duke football poster is the Duke football program.

No one told this high school that shirtless team photos are meant to show off muscle definition. All Both the choppers in the world won't hide that. Except for fourth-from-the-right kid, who's going to give himself a hernia if he flexes any harder.

This 1997 Tennessee photo is a veritable Where's Waldo of wasted talent. Can you find oft-injured Al Wilson, unlikely Super Bowl champ (really, look it up) Cedrick Wilson, and convicted manslaughterer Leonard Little? Also, some guy named Peyton Manning.

The good old boys from Oaks Christian go fishing. You'd think the sons of Joe Montana, Wayne Gretzky and Will Smith could afford a boat.

Chainsaws, power drills, bulldozers. This fairly innocuous construction-themed team photo cracks me up for one reason; they apparently ran out of power tools, because that kid at top left is holding an umbrella.

This isn't gay, because the guy on the right is wearing socks.

Looks like the 2000 Purdue offensive line is owed some royalties for that GQ Bruno photoshoot.

The whitest state in the union eagerly defends its title.

"Hey! Look over there! Our dignity!"

Somebody misinterpreted the hook and ladder play.

(UPDATE:) "I never thought I'd see something local on your site. In case you wanted to know, the high school is the Homer-Center Wildcats in Homer City, PA and they are going to be just awful this year. They lost anyone and everyone who did anything on offense last year."

If synchronized, effeminate leaping was an ACC sport, Virginia Tech would...well, Duke would still dominate.

At BYU, this irreverent shot is about as rebellious as the players get.

Photographer: "Taller guys stand in the rear...That's not what I meant!"

Georgia Tech poses with two Transformers, hoping to duplicate the success of Calvin "Megatron" Johnson.

The photo that started it all. Tennessee. Chains. Bare, oiled chests. A puke-orange Lamborghini. This is what college football is all about.

Don't scurry away from your computers just yet. I'm sure most of the young bucks in this photo are over 18 or possibly even older than that. I mean, you can see pubic hair on some of them. They could be 30-year-old men dressed as naked teenage high school football players with helmets positioned over their crotches. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. I'm sure my boss is happy, though.

And we're off.

Good evening, late night viewers. Grab your adderall and spend the next few hours vampiring with me. It'll be fun. Promise.

And, now, I'm playing another song because I can't believe Dash actually went with Elton John before this. Those Michigan people must have really rattled him.

And that's a glorious feeling, isn't it? Other sports are well and good, but few — with the exception of major golf tournaments, which barely count as it is — are as regimented and, thus, as convenient as football. Wake up, eat breakfast, watch football. All Saturday, all Sunday. There are interludes, of course, but there is always football to be watched on the weekend, and, moreover, there is always good football to be watched on the weekend.

With football come the fringe benefits — tailgates and Tailgates, depending on where you're from; frat boys in Oxfords and sorority girls in summer dresses, depending on your preference; Lou Holtz and Joe Theismann, depending on your taste in sadism — but the autumn and early winter are paced by football itself, the sport at its bone-shaking and helmet-thudding purest. None of these slices of Americana exist without football, the biggest piece of all, the one that seems strangely missing in the spring and summer and every day that's not Saturday or Sunday.

"If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead," Erma Bombeck once mistakenly quipped, forgetting or just not knowing that sometimes, those afternoons-turned-into-nights can make anyone feel as alive as ever. Meanwhile, I'm going to go play some wiffleball, or something, knowing that next week, at this time, I'll be busy and booked straight through February.

Of all the cases of wasted talent in football—and there are many—Phillips may have had the most talent to waste. I vividly remember the night It All Changed for him back in 1995, because earlier that day I had watched Phillips torch Michigan State in the home opener in East Lansing. He looked like the best football player on Earth that day, and he might have been, but later that evening he was arrested after throwing his girlfriend down a flight of stairs. Tom Osbourne did not kick him off the team, the Cornhuskers still won the National Championship, and Phillips was a top 10 NFL Draft pick, but that was just the start of the slippery slide of legal trouble that would follow him the rest of his life.

Rams coach Dick Vermeil called him the best running back he ever had—as he was kicking Phillips off his team after multiple arrests. He had numerous assault charges. He played for seven teams in four different leagues. He ran over three kids with a car in 2005. (Earning him the 10-year sentence.) Everywhere he went, he showed flashes of the amazing once-in-a-lifetime running back everyone knew he could be—he won a Grey Cup!—but everywhere he went he got in trouble, burned bridges and was sent packing. On two occasions in 2005, he choked his girlfriend leading to this latest conviction. He is beyond "three strikes" now and could easily get the full 25 years in prison at his sentencing next month.

The good news is that the latest choking victim says they're still dating. Also this, which is priceless. Theisman vs. Kiper on character issues. The whole thing would be funny if it wasn't so depressing.

Ex-NFL Player Phillips Convicted Of Choking Girlfriend [KGTV San Diego]
Related: Lawrence Phillips Hits Bottom, Is Sure He Can Go Lower

And then he showed some of those Matthew Stafford partying pictures, with the bikinis and the boobs and such! "The entire room burst into laughter," which is the first time that sentence has been written about a room in Detroit since 1993.

Before anyone knew quite what was happening, according to a source familiar with the Lions organization, the laughter quickly transformed into uncontrollable, hysterical weeping. At press time everyone reported feeling much better, but they were secretly filled with mounting, uncontrollable dread.

AJ will sheep up the place when nobody sends anything wakeup-worthy. Acting as my bad self, I post pictures that my mom took. Yeah!

She was the photographer for a wedding a few weeks ago in Toledo, and between the ceremony and the reception, the wedding party just had to stop at their old high school stadium and play a game of pick-up football. I'm being told that after the day was over, the bride and groom cared only about the pictures from this typical jock matrimony tradition. I guess this means at my wedding, there's going to be a Super Smash Brothers Melee marathon, commemorating the last time in my life I will get to make a decision for myself.

* * * * *

How are you doing today? I'm a girl that loves sports.

Phillipsburg won, 27-12, in a rematch of the 1993 game that ended in a 7-7 tie. As we can see by the photo, the game had Gatorade's corporate fingerprints all over it — which kind of detracted from the charm — but it was a success nonetheless. The game drew 13,350 at Lafayette College's Fisher Stadium in Pennsylvania, with your honorary coaches Peyton and Eli Manning, whose actual functions were not clear. But the players and fans seemed to have a good time.

"It feels like you're back in high school again," Courtney Samra said. "The guys have been so pumped up for this. They can't sleep. ... They're acting 16 again, all of them."

Peyton Manning was impressed.

"You can tell how important football is around here," he said. "There's no question about that. To have this kind of crowd for a reunion game 15 years later, it tells you that football is important year-round. That's the kind of town you want to play in."

Among the players were two cancer survivors, a guy who lost 57 pounds and another who discovered a serious leg disorder during a physical to get cleared for the game. His leg is now on the road to being healed. Gatorade is planning to make the game an annual event, searching the nation for other old high school rivals who want to settle old scores. This will not really pique my interest until they replay a game from the 1950s. You think you're better than me?

Here we go.

Unfinished Business: Phillipsburg-Easton Replay 1993 Football Clash That Ended In A Tie [The Star Legder]
Easton Vs. Phillipsburg [OnTheScene]

Over the weekend, the New England Euphoria of the Lingerie Football league held open tryouts to presumably find the next Vince Papale to strap-on shoulder pads and garter belts for this season's LFL. 7 teams from all across the country will field ladies of varying football skill and bra size to for the full-contact sport. What will last longer — this or the World Football League? I wonder if Jim Fassell applied for a coaching job in the LFL first.

The Euphoria will open their first game against the Atlanta Steam on Sept. 18th.

*****

Good morning. It's Tuesday. Getcha self a box of Newports. And Puma sweats.

As Sexy As It Gets In New England [With Leather]
Lingerie Football Tryouts [My Fox Boston]
Panty Raiders [Boston Herald]