Deadspin: mike vanderjagt

Free Mikey

rickchand — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:45:54 EST

The sea was angry that day, my friends. Like an old man returning soup at a deli.

A trainer was injured during a show Wednesday at SeaWorld Adventure Park after Shamu the killer whale grabbed his foot and pulled him underwater twice, authorities said.

OK, the thing that really caught our eye about this story is the photo. Does anyone find it ironic that Shamu has a high-paying job kicking footballs, and Mike Vanderjagt doesn't? No? We withdraw the question.

Cowboys receiver/shrinking violet Terrell Owens does not, however.

"I don't see what he did wrong to warrant him being cut," Owens said Wednesday. "I hope it doesn't come back to haunt us. ... Going into the Colts game, the guy was 12-of-15. That's still a high kicking percentage. He didn't lose any games for us. If I had to put myself in the mix, I feel like I lost some games and I'm still here, so it's just unfortunate."

Owens was then grabbed by the foot and held underwater by Flozell Adams.

T.O. Questions Cowboys' Release of Vanderjagt [MSNBC]
Killer Whale Shamu Attacks SeaWorld Trainer [MSNBC]

The Special Edition That Wasn't There

Leitch — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 15:45:11 EST

We've always been curious about what happens to those pre-made shirts that say things like "Houston Astros 2005 World Series Champions" — it turns out this is what happens — but now we have a new question: What about those "special editions" newspapers put together weeks in advance that end up being moot?

For example: The editors of the Indianapolis Star had been planning a big blowout issue on the Colts' trip to the Super Bowl that now, of course, is nothing but virtual scrap metal. They put a lot of work into it too.

"My mindset was that they were going all the way and we had to be ready," Tim Wheatley, assistant managing editor/sports, told Editor & Publisher. Although the Colts had been major playoff contenders during the previous two seasons, even reaching the AFC championship game in 2004, Wheatley says "we never got this far along [in planning]."

They had even commissioned a book about the season, with 16 chapters already written by beat reporter Phil Wilson. You think that guy who had had the heart attack was stressed out by last weekend's game? Try watching 30,000 words evaporate into nothing. If Mike Vanderjagt ends up found in a Dutch gutter, bleeding out both ears and missing a right foot, we have a suspect.

Colts' Upset Loss Forces 'Indy Star' To Shelve Super Bowl Plans [Editor & Publisher]

NFL Playoff Roundup: One Big Idiot Kicker

Leitch — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 10:01:15 EST

• Ordinarily, we come down on the side of kickers, if just because we have much more of a physical resemblance to them than 350-pound ogre lineman. But it's pretty much impossible to feel much sympathy for Colts gakker Mike Vanderjagt, whose missed field goal yesterday was somehow the perfect ending to one of the strangest games we've ever seen. We're not sure why we hate him so; maybe it's the earring. But his status as Supreme Goat seems like it's about two years overdue. Never before have we agreed so much with the label "idiot kicker."
• Ben Roethlisberger had more big tackles than Brian Urlacher yesterday, if you're counting.
• We watched that Bears-Panthers game with a bunch of Ditka-ites yesterday in a suburban Chicago bar. We actually saw someone wearing a Jim Miller jersey, which somehow makes us think they deserved to lose.
• Not to nitpick here, but we have a feeling the Colts offensive lineman would like to stuff "good teammate" Peyton Manning in a closet somewhere right now. (And as we know, he'd be in there with Kenny Chesney and not come out.)
• What was with Jimmy Johnson's hair in the FOX studio yesterday? It looked like he'd just had a quickie offset just minutes before going on.
• Honestly, every sideline shot of Tony Dungy yesterday made us look like the last thing on his mind was football.
• As lifelong fans of The Buzzsaw That Is The Arizona Cardinals, we can't quite get our heads around the fact that Jake Plummer is one home game away from the Super Bowl. We'll get into this more in the next week or so, but nobody knows the ups-and-downs of this guy better than Buzzsaw fans. Plummer is like a dog you had to get rid of because he wouldn't stop biting the neighbor, three years later, ending up becoming a bomb-sniffing hero dog who somehow sniffs out a terrorist plot. It's very upsetting.