Prana is a sort of life force referenced in ancient Hindu texts, so that's not particularly weird on its own. Reiki, acupuncture, or even massage is based on similar principles. But Williams's pranic healer treats him even during games - from his home in Orange County, California. That's right: telepathic treatment.

Ricky will send me a text message saying, for example, to work on his ankle," [Daniel] O'Hara said. O'Hara, in Orange County, Calif., will then "visualize Ricky's ankle as if he's standing in front of me. I visualize him glowing. I make a sweeping motion over my ankle to remove the dirty energy from his ankle that's creating an abnormality and give his body fresh, revitalizing energy.''

"Ricky could be doing anything when I'm doing this — watching TV, sleeping,'' O'Hara said. "It's like a voodoo doll. I know it sounds strange.''

O'Hara said Williams then text messages him indicating how the body part feels. "He says it's a four, and I'll try to get it to a 10. It takes me four minutes with Ricky because he meditates and has positive energy. It could take 25 minutes with somebody else. He's special.''

You laugh, but O'Hara claims Ricky sprained an ankle last month, but his technique healed him completely by the time he got to the sideline. So considering the 7-second delay on live TV, pranic healing not only works a distance, but backwards through time.

Alternative Healing Helps Miami Dolphins' Ricky Williams Stay Fit [Miami Herald]

The Dolphins took down the Jets last night, 31-27, in a contest that was less about the result than it was about which fresh-faced quarterback, Chad Henne or Mark Sanchez, could be heaped with more meaningless compliments both before and after the game. This one, too, went down to the wire.

On Henne's side of the ledger:

Chris Joseph, Miami New Times:

Henne's poise will be key.

PhinPhanatic:

... poise in the pocket

Tom D'Angelo, Palm Beach Post:

... showed he has some pocket poise

Ray McNulty, Palm Beach Post:

... kept his poise in the pocket

Chris Burke, FanHouse, quoting Braylon Edwards:

Chad took it to a new level with his poise.

For Sanchez:

Vinnie Iyer, Sporting News:

... displayed great poise

Chet Gresham, SB Nation:

... has guts and poise and all the intangibles

Daniel Rathman, NESN:

... exhibited ... poise in the face of adversity

Edgar Thompson, Palm Beach Post:

... the poise of a veteran

And, now, on both sides of the ledger:

J.P. Pelzman and Jeff Darlington, Sporting News:

... which quarterback — Sanchez or Henne — can keep his poise about him.

Chris Joseph, Miami New Times:

And while all the pre-game talk was about how much poise Mark Sanchez had to go along with that pretty face of his, in the end, it was Henne who not only displayed poise, but also a laser-rocket arm to go with that poise.

Ray McNulty, Palm Beach Post:

"That was a heck of an education for the guy tonight," Dolphins coach Tony Sparano said of Henne. "He had a couple of opportunities at the end to bring this team back, and he handled it with poise."

Both quarterbacks did.

Rex Ryan, Jets coach, on Henne:

He seems to have poise just like our quarterback does

I count 11 "poise"s or implied "poise"s for Henne to just eight for Sanchez, who could've used some help this week from the usual "poise" junkies, Steve Serby and Greg Bishop, both of whose prose was noticeably "poise"-free. This "poise" rivalry between Sanchez and Henne certainly bears watching. They are the NFL's two great ambassadors of "poise," Poise Marino and Poise Montana, and maybe somewhere in the NFL there's another young, relatively unformed quarterback, perhaps running the taxi squad now, but who will one day play efficiently in a winning effort and thereby complete the triad. Where are you, Poise Elway?

Some people are fans of the Miami Dolphins. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Miami Dolphins. This 2009 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group.

1. Nothing beats a weak undefeated team with a convicted cocaine trafficker as its spokesman. Ugh. Mercury Morris. This has all been rehashed before, but let's just get it out of the way up top. The 1972 Miami Dolphins are the saddest, douchiest collection of Grey Ghosts ever assembled. During their "dominant" regular season run that year, the Dolphins beat a grand total of two teams with winning records (and both of those team were a mere one game over .500). The winning percentage of the Dolphins opponents that year was .365. This year, the team with the NFL's easiest schedule is Chicago, with a .414 winning percentage for its opponents, which includes playing the 0-16 Lions twice). Texas Tech's nonconference schedule is harder than the supposed gauntlet those Dolphins had to run. I don't even know how you end up with a schedule that easy. We should note 1972 as a strike year or something.

If that exact same team played in today's NFL, they wouldn't win a single game. Not one. They'd be outweighed by fifty pounds along either line, and the average defensive end now can run faster than Mercury Morris ever did. They'd be crushed into nothing. They'd be a fucking joke. So when Mercury Morris (who, again, went to jail for three years for trafficking cocaine) pipes up after Super Bowl XLII and says, "When this (Burress) kid scored, a tear came to my eye because I'm emotional. You guys know you never see me like this. I'm very humbled at what the Giants were able to do as underdogs, realizing that on any given Sunday anyone can beat anyone else — except in 1972," I don't think there's a football fan out there who wouldn't like to see him fall into a vat of boiling whale blubber. Seriously, Mercury, get fucked. No one cares about your oldass team. I assume you keep rehashing games from thirty-seven years ago because you have nothing resembling a useful life now and would turn back to trafficking cocaine the second you realized that fact. So do us all a favor and die getting caught in a boat propeller.

2. Finkle is Einhorn! Einhorn is Finkle! It's fun to watch Miami fans suffer because they're still waiting for a quarterback to come along who will act as spiritual successor to a guy who never won a Super Bowl and was arguably the biggest cocksucker to ever play the position. In the entirety of Dan Marino's playing career, was there ever an interception that was HIS fault? No. Did Marino ever throw a ball poorly? Heavens, no. Of course not. No one was better at glaring at his own teammates than Marino. Before Kobe Bryant came along, Dan Marino stood as the best example of a self-appointed team leader no one else could fucking stand. Go to a pickup basketball game at your local YMCA sometime and you will see BOATLOADS of assholes like this. Guys who take it upon themselves to be both player and Bear Bryant, chewing out teammates in the guise of making them better, but really just because they get their rocks off on yelling at people. That's Dan Marino's true legacy. It's not the TD records (since eclipsed) or the lightning quick release. It's him staring down some poor wideout who probably would have caught that ball if ol' Dan had just decided to put a little more touch on it.

Oh, and the line was moving on that spike play against the Jets.

3. Fucking Hootie. Any time I think about the Dolphins, that fucking song gets stuck in my head against my will. I am prisoner to its tunelessness. I ONLY WANNA BE WITH YOOOOOOOOOOOO. Jesus Christ. Do you realize that album sold 16 million copies? SIXTEEN FUCKING MILLION. Right when I was in college. THEY PLAYED IT IN THE COLBY LOCKER ROOM. Bullshit. I could have been born earlier and gone to college during the hair metal era. I could have born later gone to college during the slutty 2000's. But noooo, I got the Hootie and Alanis shitpie. Life is shit, and songs like that are the reason why.

4. Come on back to the pack, fellas. Does anyone expect this team to top their 11 wins from last year? No, they do not. The Dolphins don't get the hilariously awful West divisions to play against again this year. The schedule is twice as hard, which means all the cute little Wildcat plays they ran last year will probably get stuffed time and time again. The team has yet to sell out any of their home games this year. Why, even Dolphin fans don't have much faith. Who knew fans in South Florida could be so flaky?

5. The readers have their say. From our own Matt Sussman:

I had a friend in college who was watching his Dolphins play on Sunday night. His Fins scored a touchdown. For whatever reason, he was going shit-crazy ballistic with joy. His girlfriend he had met a couple weeks before tried to calm him down, but instead he picked her up and threw her on the bed, at which point she bounced up and hit her head on the wall. From what I hear, he must've watched five, maybe 10 more minutes of the game before he realized his girlfriend had a freaking concussion.

What does this have to do with me? For whatever reason, at midnight on a Sunday, I had to drive my ass to the hospital to pick the guy up. Needless to say, I lost my primo parking space, and suddenly had a 15-minute walk to get to my car that week. This is a perfectly good reason that they suck. Every time they do something good, I lose a highly coveted parking spot. Fortunately that hasn't happened for years.

And Adam S.

I fucking hate this team more than anything in life. I despise the Dolphins more than Brussels sprouts, CT from Real World: Paris, and sex with the lights off.

And Evan:

I've hated the Dolphins since I was a child, a western New York boy forced to live in Pittsburgh. It wasn't all bad - as a Bills fan it was pretty cool to know that Jim Kelly, my football idol, was from the same area I was living. But you know who else was from there, and was a local hero? Fucking Dan Fucking Marino.

So being so young, my dad and mom would bring me to this bar near our house (yes, we were that kind of family) that was owned by Kelly family friends, and they would give me various Jim Kelly autographed paraphernalia. Two of these "friends" were neighbors - one a Steelers fan, the other a Dolphins fan. The year was 1991, following the Norwood Super Bowl, and the Dolphins asshole, who was about 2 years older than me, thought it would be funny to take my Jim Kelly autographed football and drop kick it into a large drainage pond, screaming "Wide Right," a taunt his father taught him. Fortunately, my father had taught me the effect of throwing nine-volt batteries at professional football players (a skill later used when Bryan Cox played for the Dolphins), and thus I went Good Son-era Macaulay Culkin on that bitch ass Elijah Wood. Being that I was 8 years old, any record of assault has been expunged from my record.

Ah, youth.

Wanna be part of the Deadspin NFL previews? It's simple. Just email me here and give me some reasons why the team you hate most sucks. If it's because you dated a fan of the team and she turned out to be some crazy bitch who keyed your car, all the better. I'll throw any good material into the post and give you proper credit. We've got the Bills, Chargers, Chiefs, and AFC North to go.

This confused fan can't seem to decide if he would rather be rooting for the Dolphins, the Raiders, or more beads on Bourbon Street. So why not just throw it all together in one fantastic outfit and see what sticks. Jester hats are always fun, right?

This is the kind of dedication that only preseason football—the most pointless exercise in sport—can inspire. Imagine what he'll be bringing to the table by November.

* * * * *

You know what's fun? Waking up to high 70s and 80% humidity. Welcome to Swampy Wednesday.

The Dolphins already had a corny earworm of a fight song that they actually stole from the Houston Oilers. But the Oilers don't exist anymore, except during Hall of Fame Games, so it'sall good. Anyway, to get the kids' toes tapping, the team decided to update the music to the fight song. This would be a perfect job for team co-owners Jimmy Buffett, Marc Anthony and Gloria Estefan, if they weren't all so bad at making music. So they hired the guy who auto-tunes T-Pain's songs instead.

What you hear above is the result. It's not quite as good as "I'm On A Boat", but it's slightly better than "Rocky Top." Go Fish!

T-Pain is recording a new anthem for the Dolphins [Shutdown Corner]

Williams is spending his offseason studying at an acupuncture and massage college, conveniently located in a Kendall, Florida, strip mall. It's all part of his larger goal to find spiritual balance through holistic healing. He's studied yoga and meditation in India and is making plans to become an osteopathic doctor after football. Oh, and he's off the dope now so let it go, you jackals!

The main purpose of this New York Times profile is to show that Williams may still be a hippy-dippy man, but that he doesn't have to toke up on the skunk weed to find a little peace. (OK, the Times didn't use the words "skunk weed." That was mine.)

"Since I've become famous for it, I'm amazed at how many people ask me to smoke," Williams said. "For me to move on with my career, this has to be behind me. I don't want to keep being reminded of it on a daily basis."

So Ricky's moved on from the pot, discovering things like Hindu medicine and craniosacral therapy. (Which is no joke, by the way. I've had that done on me and it cleared up a lifetime of sinus problems.) He's a believer in the "healing power of touch" and his dream is to someday be an NFL "shaman" curing players—mind, body, soul—with his beautiful hands. Good for him. I just hope the players he's taking care of don't ask for a little mary jane to the cut the edge off, man.

Ricky Williams Is Hoping to Heal Others, and His Image [NY Times]

Okay, it's actually not that unseemly, but the handheld device called "Dolphins Mobile Vision" offers premium ticket holders 11 different camera angles to watch the game from their swanky seats. And one of those angles is the "cheerleader cam." 5,000 of these devices will be available for an "unprecedented multi-media experience" including fantasy sports updates, concession stand menus, and the aforementioned boob view.

Still, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross was recently told by Roger Goodell and other NFL owners that the Fins' stadium is "behind the times" and that they are in jeopardy of not hosting as many Super Bowls based on increased competition from the likes of Dallas and New Orleans. The next logical step for Land Shark Stadium to become Yankee Stadium South is to provide a see-through option on its "Dolphins Mobile Vision" for the fans who want a XXX football experience. Who wouldn't want to see Tony Sporano naked?

Handheld Devices For Stadium New Boob Tube [NBC Miami]

It's Charm City vs. Ol' Sweaty Town in this first-round playoff massacre. Will the Ravens throw Chad Pennington in "the box" and get him to confess to his lack of arm strength? Or will Joe Flacco be seduced by a wily Emily Proctor Joey Porter while a bespectacled Tony Sparano shouts zingers and quips from the sidelines? Only the sexy female medical examiner knows for sure.

More non-NFL posts to come, but enjoy the game for now. And don't give me any crap about The Wire. Pay cable can't even hold Yaphet Kotto.

The Dolphins fan who sent this in assures us that this is for "tobacco use only", but given the miraculous turnaround the Fins have had this year, I think adding a little something from the spice rack is completely justified. One question: is this a vaporizer or a hookah? And if you smoke too much of this do you suddenly find yourself trapped in some deranged, hallucinatory state sword fighting with Reggie Roby? Because that would rule.

Maybe it's Williams way of legitimizing his own "addiction" and altering the perception that his previous NFL suspensions, sabbaticals, and reefer madness were just symptoms of his immaturity and flakiness. Either way, Williiams told the Herald that the bye week is a tough time for him and he definitely thinks more about smoking because (duh, dude) there's no football to think about. But Williams assures the interviewer that it's not a big deal and he'll just go stand on his head or rub rocks or watch "Smiley Face" for the tenth time or whatever it is he does when he "meditates" to keep from toking up.

Williams also told the reporter that he looks forward to the NFL's drug tester showing up to his house, which happens 9 times per month, and that's a sign of how far he's come:

``For the first couple of years I was more worried about how I could beat the test. Now that I'm dealing with the issue, I'm almost thankful for it. I like the testing guy and I'm used to it. It's just part of my life.''

Hooray, Ricky. And how about after your career? You going to continue walking the straight and narrow after all of this silly NFL stuff is over?

''I don't know,'' he said. ``I'd be lying if I said I'm never going to do it again after I'm done. I don't know. I don't spend much time thinking about it.''

You know why he doesn't spend much time thinking about it? Because he's stoned.

Miami Dolphins' Williams Avoids Temptation During Bye Week [Miami Herald]

“It doesn’t hurt,” Hobbs said. “It amazes me how people react. You would think that this organization hasn’t won as much as they have and been successful in the years that they have, and it’s a testament to how spoiled they are where expectations are that high that we’re not allowed a bad game. How many times has somebody had a bad day at the office? How many times has somebody missed a deadline and not gotten in the paper? Missing whatever, forgetting to fix their kids' lunch?

“Even the kids . . they’ve got the kids out there, where I’m hearing they’re even crying over this and that’s a direct relationship from the parents down. Is it that bad? You’ve got people dying every day. This is a sport. And you’ve got kids out there crying over a loss in the regular season? It makes me look at it like, ‘Am I supposed to be crying?’ ”

Pats' Pulpit had this to say:

I was at the game and was embarrassed when our guys, the guys who gave us 3 rings and many trips to the playoffs, were booed at halftime. If your voice wasn't horse from screaming in support during defensive plays, then SHUT THE HELL UP!! Sure, they paid their money and wanted to see a win, but it's a sporting event, my friends. Any given Sunday. Mad props to Miami for an awesome game on their part. If I couldn't enjoy my Patriots, I certainly got an eyeful of some good football.

Thank goodness the Patriots still have the calm, steadying demeanor of Randy Moss to carry then through:

When asked whether he's had to adjust his play in going from Brady to Cassel, Moss batted away the question. "You like starting trouble, man," he said. "I'm not going to answer that. Put it in your own column. Next question."

The wheels may be coming off this bandwagon, folks. That didn't take long. Now if you'll excuse me, I have lunches to fix ... shit! It's 1:30!

New England Patriots Lose A Regular Season Game — Don't Jump Yet [Pats Pulpit]
Reading Receiver's Moves [The Boston Globe]
Patriots Try To Rally From Blowout, And Boos [NBCSports]

Today: The Miami Dolphins.

Chris Joseph writes about South Florida sports for the Miami New Times and is editor of FinsNation, a Miami Dolphins blog.

It used to be that the Miami Dolphins were hailed as one of the proudest franchises in the NFL with a long rich history of greatness (in case you didn’t know, the Miami Dolphins are the only team to win all their games and the Super Bowl in a single season. True story). Yet for the last decade or so, the Dolphins have played football like old people fuck, and the only way to watch any of their games was to do so with an opium suppository shoved up your ass.

But now there’s suddenly reason to believe that Miami’s never-ending adventures in the land of utter sucktitude will soon be a thing of the past. And, as is our custom every year, Dolphins fans are getting jacked up and excited to the point that we’re just setting ourselves up for another colossal letdown of epic proportions. That’s just how we roll.

Dolphins fans have been waiting since last December to get the taste of an appalling one-win 2007 season out of our mouths. And now that Bill Parcells is in charge of things, the cockpunching has commenced. And it’s been quite awesome. Parcells comes into town with his love of racehorses, tits to rival Rich Garces, and a rep for turning crappy teams into great ones. The Tuna has already gutted the roster of some its more popular talents, like Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor. Bill Parcells cares not for our sentimental hang-ups. He’s filling the roster with his kind of players – big, strong and fast. It’s simply not a Bill Parcells team unless there’s a good possibility his players can dislodge their opponents’ brain stems from their respective spinal chords. Bill Parcells is The Cockpuncher.

We’re also quite excited about the return of Ricky Williams, which is a far cry from just three and a half seasons ago when we all wanted to collectively shit in his mouth. Football fans a fickle lot. We were all very excited last season when Ricky was reinstated into the NFL and came back from his Great White North exile. He was all set to make his triumphant return on Monday Night Football against the Pittsburgh Steelers. But in keeping with the Dolphins' 2007 team motto, We Have Shit For Luck And It Shows!, exactly one minute into the game, some asshole dickbrained douchebag Steeler stepped on his shoulder and ended his season. I mean, c’mon. Of all the fucking things. This only happens to us.

But this off-season, Ricky has looked healthy and focused. While Ronnie Brown has been nursing a sundry of negligible injuries on the sidelines during the preseason, Williams has been busy running over and through linebackers while getting fantasy football dorks all horny in the process. Ricky should have himself a good season running behind a new and improved offensive line. And that can only mean that opposing defenses are about to get Rickyed every Sunday afternoon. Used to be a time when “getting Rickyed” meant something entirely different for Williams. But those days are behind him now. We hope.

But at the end of the day, it still comes down to the quarterback position for the Dolphins. There have been a total of eleven quarterbacks who have started for Miami since Dan Marino retired in 1999. Among them: Daunte Culpepper, who recently turned down the Steelers because he wanted to have a legitimate chance to compete for the starting job (Daunte Culpepper needs to be locked into a portable toilet that’s been set on fire already); Ray Lucas, who lost his pinky toe in a street sweeper accident; Trent Green, who sadly died last season; Jay Fiedler, who was last seen playing Dr. Zira in an off-Broadway production of Escape From the Planet of the Apes; Joey Harrington, who is still somehow employed in the NFL; and A.J. Feeley, whom the Dolphins gave up a second-round draft pick to the Eagles to get. He’s now with the Eagles.

This off-season has been a battle between four new quarterbacks. Because four mediocre quarterbacks is better than one shitty one. There’s second-year man, BYU standout and all around terrific Mormon, John Beck. Many Dolphins fans thought Beck would be the hero they’d been waiting for after he was taken in the second round of the 2007 NFL Draft. At first, fans were upset when Miami passed on Brady Quinn. But after watching game film on Beck, these same fans were soon convinced that they could fool others into thinking they were football experts because they knew how to type ‘John Beck’ into the YouTube search engine, and thus declared Beck a draft-day steal. But Beck has shown nothing but the uncanny ability to fumble the football every single time he touches it while not ever uttering a single curse word in the process. Not a “fuck!” Not a “shit!” Not a “motherfucker!” Not a “cuntsicles!” Not even a “Dang it!” It’s really quite fascinating.

So in an attempt to offset this, the Dolphins brought in equally shitty QB and equally devout religious person, Josh McCown, to compete for the starting job this off-season. It appeared early in camp that Jesus seemed to owe Joseph Smith a favor and thus smote McCown with a chainsaw, but it turns out McCown is just a fucking moron. The Fins also drafted Chad Henne out of Michigan. Henne's big, immobile and stiff in the pocket. And his throwing mechanics are very, well .... mechanical. Henne also seems to be devoid of any emotion — whether it's in games or during interviews. This evidence suggests that Chad Henne is, in fact, a robot from the 50's. And he could very well be our savior. Or he could have arrived from outer space to warn us of our impending doom.

But just as we were about to hinge our hopes on a robot, a Mormon and a moron, the New York Jets traded for some aging hillbilly from Green Bay and released Chad Pennington. Bill Parcells' Pavlovian dog-like reflex whenever one of his former quarterbacks suddenly becomes available kicked up a few notches that afternoon. And Pennington was a Dolphin in no time. So far, Pennington’s been pretty good. It could be that he’s just the ultimate Dolphin fan’s slump-buster quarterback, which means if he can throw a football without completely shitting his pants, we’ll take him! Or it could be that he’s actually not a bad QB. Either way, he’s got the fan base excited and dreaming of that elusive 5 or 6 win season! Josh McCown and John Beck should give their hearts to Chad Pennington. Because he could very well be Jesus. Jesus was fair-haired, had a noodle arm and spoke with an irritating southern twang, right?

The 2008 Miami Dolphins will be all about Bill Parcells, Ricky Williams and hoping Chad Pennington can complete an entire 16-game season without hurting himself. Meh, we’re probably fucked anyway. What say we go and get Rickyed?

• Chad Pennington has landed in Miami after being ousted from the Jets in favor of whats-his-face. If he can stay healthy, he'll be the 13th quarterback since Dan Marino left to start for the Dolphins. Tough situation...the bar has been set pretty high by guys like AJ Feeley and Trent Green.

• Oakland's Johnnie Lee Higgins took a punt to the endzone in their 18-6 win over San Francisco, followed by his audition for Cirque du Soleil. It's great to see that kind of enthusiasm from guys trying to win starting positions. That is until they tear an ACL doing something stupid, like backflips.

There are seven games on the schedule for today. Those of you with regional coverage, enjoy the games. The rest of you underprivileged, stay tuned here. I'll keep you posted as the day wears on.