Court records say that Herbert Simpson of Philadelphia sent the 63-year-old Coughlin letters threatening to "expose a fictitious sexual tryst with two women" and demanding $20,000 to $30,000 to keep quiet. Obviously, no one on Earth would ever believe that story so it wasn't the most impressive plan. Coughlin himself could hold a press conference tomorrow admitting that he had a threeway with two chicks and had the video to prove it and reporters would still laugh him off the stage.

Yeah, I'm going to go with "crazy person."

Man Pleads Guilty in Threats to Giants Coach [1010WINS]

"See the picture of a concrete column in the visitor locker room in the new Cowboys stadium," the NBCDFW.com user wrote. "I heard the locker room was spat on and had many used jock straps hanging from the mirrors and other places too. What class."

If the story is true don't judge Eli too harshly, he was probably just trying to fit in with the older boys. He's so impressionable.

This series will run on MONDAYS this year. Again, consult the initial post if you'd like to help us out with this.

ONE: No, This Man Was Not Put Down With An Elephant Gun

Since I saw a post about about the Harvard-Yale game at Yale, I wanted to provide a little photo exposé I did back in 2004 in Cambridge. I have no idea who these guys were, but they provided a glorious living lesson of the effects of alcohol on coordination, motor control and equilibrium, and why it is important to have lots of friends who care about you if you are going to consume handles of vodka, gin and a case of beer by yourself. I think my photos capture drunkenness and friendship at its best.

It started with a Cambridge police officer confiscating a funnel and giving me the stink eye as he was likely concerned I was the same guy that did the Rodney King video. Note that Stripe Shirt's leg positions which are impossible to mimic sober. I guess Stripe Shirt's friend convinced the officer that he was okay, and they both proceed to rejoice at averting an arrest or forcible hospitalization like obnoxious jerkoffs.

The rejoicing doesn't last for long as Stripe Shirt starts to keel over

, but fortunately Friend One is there to catch him.

Friend Two enters the situation and is a little less gentle with Stripe Shirt, holding him up by his face.

He keels over anyway.

Stripe Shirt's luck does not run out because nearby there is a lawn chair awaiting his fat drunk ass.

Note the grass stains on his knees, while Pea Coat (it is Yale after all) comes in to wish him well, exalt him for being a "model tailgater" and offer him some hard liquor. Stripe Shirt's friends were nice enough to put sunglasses on him so that he could keep his coolness factor as his liver completely shuts down.

It is nice to know that the group of jolly Ivy League fraternity alums who don't know their limit is still active, and very distinguished.

TWO:The Big Sexy Italian Shit Show Haunts Mizzou

My friend Dominic is a short, stocky, proud Italian with a short temper. One might say he has a case of small-man syndrome (hates everyone because they are taller than him). Dominic also has the inability to control his drunk. This story happens the weekend of last years Mizzou-Illinois game in St. Louis. Right before we leave Columbia he proudly announces that he doesn't plan on drinking that much...which we all knew was a lie. We reach St. Louis and meet up with my other friend Mark's family at their hotel near the Edward Jones Dome. After pregaming in the hotel and all of us taking our fair share of shots we were ready to head to the tailgate. At this point Dominic was already in a great mood, yelling at any and every Illinois fan in sight, no women or children were spared. To one Illinois mother and child he bellowed "You were born into the wrong fucking family baby!" To an elderly Illinois man, in his best Macho Man Randy Savage voice he yells "Illinois is going DOWN!!, THE WHOLE FUCKING STATE". By the time we got to the tailgate the pregaming had kicked in (for everyone else anyway) and everyone was in full throttle drinking mode including parents and family friends. Shotgunning beers, Petron shots and boxing with MMA fighters in the gravel parking lot. After seeing Dominic posted up casually on the side of a truck, shitfaced, taking in the scenery with his penis hanging out of the crotch of his pants I knew it would be an eventful day.
It was time to go into the game and Dominic cannot walk. Luckily an ex-Mizzou alum Dominic had made friends with earlier (he was also Italian and Italians love talking about being Italian) was kind enough to throw him over his shoulder and slump his lifeless body to the stadium for us. After being refused at multiple gates, it was time for Plan B because we obviously weren't getting into the game. So we flagged a cab and threw Dominic in and took him back to Mark's car we left in a parking garage a few blocks away. There wasn't much life left in Dominic but he put up quite the fight and was determined get to the game that we had voluntarily abandoned for him already. We put him in the back of Mark's car hoping he would just pass out but to no avail. None of us wanted to babysit Dominic so we did the rational thing and stuck him in the back with the child locks on. Thinking that we had this problem taken care of we headed into the game. How naive we were.
Around half time our friend Bones(nick name from HS) gets a phone call, who else could it be but two Jamaican security guards, "Bones? Bones? Tis dis Bones? We found your friend Big Sexy, we have Big Sexy" (Dominic has a tattoo on his ass that says "Big Sexy" in the Italian colors of green, white, and red...I told you he is a very proud man). Bones leaves the game to go see what the hell was going on. He finds Dominic puking outside the parking garage with the two security guards. It turns out that Dominic had been found face down on the concrete in the middle of the parking garage (a floor down from the car at that), pants (and boxers) around his ankles, dick on the pavement, and had shat himself. Quite the mess. But Dominic still had one more trick up his sleeve. We walked back to the car and Mark erupts into anger "What the fuck?! What the fuck!!" There was glass all over the ground near Mark's car because his back seat window had been knocked out. Mark takes the empty plastic liquor handle he was holding and slings it directly into Dominic's forehead then slams him to the ground. Dominic was so fucked up he thought he had gone into the game with everyone else and took a lot of convincing before he finally believed us. Dominic was pissed off about being in the car and not being able to get out so he kicked out the side window, fell out of the car, crawled to his feet, wandered down a level only to fall down pass out face first in the middle of the garage driveway with his dick out and his pants covered in shit. We still aren't sure why his dick was out. Now that, is a true fan.

THREE: Please Don't Startle The Children

Here's my tale:

New Year's Day, 2007: Wisconsin is playing Arkansas in the Outback Bowl in Orlando, FL. About 15 guys from my fraternity at and me make the trip down for a long weekend of general debauchery and to watch the Badgers.

Whoever holds a bowl game on New Year's Day should realize what they're asking for. My friends and I woke up in the single hotel room we were all sharing still hammered from New Year's Eve the night before in order to prep for the noon kickoff. A few just powered through the whole night and didn't go to bed, amazingly. Before we left our hotel, we attempted to spell out some sort of message across our chests in paint (I believe we were going for "On Wisconsin" but the whole day is hazy). However, some were too drunk to properly write letters, so the whole idea was scrapped and a few of us headed out with big red blotches on their bodies and faces. We looked like a retarded version of one of the clans from Braveheart.

Having never been to Orlando before, we weren't sure where the best place to tailgate would be. The least-drunk among us took charge and commandeered a few taxis with the instructions to a) find the nearest liquor store so we could stock up and then b) drop us off by the stadium. Once we secured booze, we arrived at the Citrus Bowl and started looking for a good place to set up shop. Again, we were all still hammered from the night before, so instead of doing the sensible thing and joining up with other Badger fans, we spotted a children's playground directly across from the stadium. The swings and jungle gym and slides seemed like the ideal spot to set up a base. The best part about the location was that it was right in the middle of the path that everyone going to the game had to take in order to walk into the stadium. I will never forget the looks on some of the moms' and dads' faces as they walked by us: 15 young men who failed at body painting, swinging around on a children's playground while chugging openly from plastic handles of Fleischmann's vodka.

I believe the attached picture sums up the day nicely. Notice the confused/terrified expressions on the kids faces.

Let's go ahead and keep this anonymous if you run it.

FOUR: You're Never Too Old To Get Thrown Out Of The Rose Bowl

Let me preface this story by saying that all involved in "the incident" are over the age of 35. 4 of the six are PARENTS. The other two are pushing 40 and should have known better!

Cut to a lovely Saturday in October where the six friends thought it would be a good idea to catch a UCLA game at the Rose Bowl. Good weather, great friends, a few cocktails - what could be better?

Cut to the six proceeding to get drunk as skunks on vodka and sodas. There was food present, but seemed to have no effect on diminishing the incredible drunk we all were on.

Heading to the game (continuing to drink, of course) - one of the principals thought it would be fun to sneak a beer into the game. (no drinking inside - as this is a college game, of course). The girls proceeded to bum cigarettes from college kids and smoked like $10 hookers while heading to our seats.

Once seated - about 2 minutes into the game, no kidding - we see Security personnel headed to our section. Thinking that a fight had broken out, we laughed and hooted, awaiting the show to begin. Big mistake, as security headed DIRECTLY to us and proceeded to bust the married father of one who bootlegged the beer inside and kicked him out of the game!

Not to be undone, another friend decided that it would be a good idea at this time to instigate a fight. He tapped a USC-tee shirt wearing dude on the back with his foot (this wasn't even the UCLA-USC game!! Just some dumb jerk who thought it was funny to wear an SC shirt to a UCLA game). As you can imagine - USC man didn't appreciate this when Drunk #2 did it AGAIN, and the fighting words and postures began.

When we were finally able to drag drunk #2 out of our section. People actually cheered. Drunk #2's wife proceeded to get hysterical and cried the whole way home.

We didn't even see one minute of the game. Needless to say, we're rethinking our vodka in the a.m. strategy for this year's adventure.

FIVE: This is What Happens When You Get Too Drunk At Giants Stadium

So, I managed to get tickets to the divisional round of the playoffs last year, to the giants-eagles game. I decide to go instead of selling them (first mistake). I bring three of my friends who are huge boozebags (second mistake). I offer to drive instead of making the tickets conditional on one of them being the DD (third, and largest mistake). So, we go, we had a few other friends from college who had tickets through their own sources, so we were back and forth between two large family tailgates.

Obviously, there are copious amounts of shots for those who weren't driving, and all of my friends get wasted. One of them, however, gets far drunker than the rest somehow. Normally, this kid can hold his liquor, but for whatever reason, he's shitfaced. And, the worst part was that it hit him fairly late. Not to say that he was sober throughout, but he was under control until we started walking towards the actual stadium. That's when the last however many shots hit him, and he goes from walking on his own, but not straight, to walking while leaning on me, to pretty much being carried by me, to being carried by two of us, to being complete dead weight such that he can't be moved at all. In the mean time, we're obviously being heckled by people, and being told we're embarrassing the giants (which actually pissed me off, as much as he was a mess, fuck those people; maybe they were embarassing the giants by being sober). We finally decide to try to get him back to the car, but that doesn't even work, he starts using the 2% of his consciousness he has to fight against it, so we finally have to flag down a cop, who calls over an ambulance. One of my other friends tries unsuccessfully to guilt me into getting into the ambulance with him, and I say fuck that, so my friend goes instead.

The ambulance brings him into the medical center in the stadium (which, by the way, requires scanning his ticket for him to get to), where they tell us "he's reacting in a way that it can't just be alcohol." To which we assure them that, it really has just been booze. I think they were just trying to scare us into saying he did something he didn't, but whatever. They hold him for like half an hour, he still doesn't come to, they'd take him to the local hospital. My friend leaves the medical center at that point, and goes to his seats, they call him half an hour later, saying they're taking him to the hospital. We obviously wait until the game gets out of hand (because, fuck him, it wasn't our fault he got that drunk), then go over to the hospital. He's still passed the fuck out, the nurses laugh at us for awhile, and tell us he can't be released until his BAC is "below toxic levels." We all need to get back into the city, and couldn't wait the 5
additional hours that they estimated it would take for his BAC to drop sufficiently, so we ended up having to call his brother to come out to Jersey from Long Island to pick him up, and waiting for him to get there. We have some pictures from him in the hospital, so enjoy this one.

Attention tailgaters. It's a long season so please help us with this project and send along any and all shady stories, ridiculous videos, and photos from your tailgating experiences from this season. Or last season. Or 1952. Just make it funny/sad/gross/shocking. Email to tips@deadspin.com. Subject: FAILgate

1. Cry, Fatty, Cry!. Will this video ever stop being enjoyable? To paraphrase Brian Regan, I submit that it will NOT. Look at him, blubbering away like a real-life Chunk.

"Everything. OK! I'll talk! In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max's toupee and I glued it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew School play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and I blamed it on the dog... When my mom sent me to the summer camp for fat kids and then they served lunch I got nuts and I pigged out and they kicked me out... But the worst thing I ever done - I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa - and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life."

Oh, Rob. You're so banging.

2. Enough with the whole New York FOOTBALL Giants thing. Yet another Berman phrase taken way too fucking far. Every goddamn radio show host and game analyst out there now says New York Football Giants, thanks to Berman's retardery. Goddamn cocksucking fuckfaced asshole. It wasn't even funny the first time, people. Now it's a pandemic. THERE'S NO FUCKING NEW YORK GIANTS BASEBALL TEAM ANYMORE. STOP TRYING TO BE CUTE OR I WILL STICK YOUR BALLS IN A WAFFLE IRON.

3. There's no racism quite like New Jersey racism. It's always fun to see Giants fans dismiss any complaints about their behavior by simply indicating that said behavior is strictly the domain of Jets fans, and seeing Jets fan turn around and doing the exact same thing. You assholes are ALL dipshit B&T trash. It was Giant fans who knocked out Chargers equipment manager Sid Brooks with ice balls back in '95. It was Giants fans that taunted Saints players right after Hurricane Katrina (and right after the League forced the Saints to play a "home game" in Giants Stadium in one of the worst acts of blatant team favoritism in league history) with clever bon mots such as "Where's your swimmies? I hope you have your swimmies!" and "You deserve what you got. New Orleans people are stupid." Only Deadspin commenters are able to make such delicate material fly. Oh where have you gone, Pot Roast and Gravy?

Here's a New Jersey story for you. Now, we all know people from Jersey are horribly racist. What's fun about Jersey racism is just how unapologetic Jersey racists are. For example, one time at school, I helped drive a teammate from Jersey home for Thanksgiving break. I took him in my car down to Hartford, where his mom was due to pick him up and take him the rest of the way. As we were nearing the Holiday Inn for dropoff, the guy turned to me and said:

Guy: Does East Hartford have lots of niggers?

Me: Uh… I'm not sure.

Then there was a five-minute pause. Then he said:

Guy: God, I hate niggers.

That guy's a lawyer now. Dunno what kind. Probably a prosecutor. Oh, and to answer the question, East Hartford has 9,335 black people in it. Dunno if that's too many for your average Jersey resident to tolerate.

4. Let's play How To Waste A Brilliant O-Line. God damn, the Giants have a great line. There's Chris Snee, and Shaun O'Hara, and… all those other guys. Anyway, they're quite good. Last year, the Giants led the league in rushing with 157 yards per game. They were the only team in the league to average 5 yards a rush or more. Yet none of that mattered when they shit the bed against the Eagles. Eli Manning's arm was too weak to be accurate in his own stadium, and the Giants never found a credible deep threat replacement for Plaxico Burress. And if rookie wideouts Hakeem Nicks or Ramses Barden (or second year man Mario Manningham) fail to be productive, it's the same story all over again. Also, you people are fucking RACIST.

5. The worst part of any Parcells legacy. Here's the worst part of any team is coached by or ever was coached by Bill Parcells. Parcells' old Giant teams prided themselves on extreme toughness. They hit hard, they got after the QB, LT, etc. They were super tough. They were none more tough. They played ToughBall. Or whatever the fuck. There is a bizarre fan mindset that occurs with good defensive teams where the fans assume that, because the defense of their favorite team is tough, THEY are also tough. You see this all over the place, but it's especially bad in New York, across all sports in the history of the town. "Look! Jetuh backhanded that ball! He's tough! Like me! Look at the way Anthony Mason fights for dat rebound! He's tough too! WE'RE SO FUCKING TOUUUUGH!!" Fuck you, New York. Your town is just as full of pansies and dipshits as any other town. If it isn't asshole steakheads rooting for your team, then it's some privileged Upper East Side private school twat. So take your toughness and cram it in your sloppy, gaping vagina. Get fucked.

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.

I feel like we're all burned out on the news angles already, when it's barely 36 hours after the signing was announced and Jen Utley is a perfectly legitimate interview for this. She likes animals, you see, and is married to someone involved in Philadelphia sports, so what does she think about this mean man who will be playing games right across the street from where her husband plays his?

Well, mainly she's mad that the Eagles didn't check with the SPCA first. No, really.

I think if you're planning on being conscious of a very sensitive issue it might be positive to do that. Anybody who knows me personally knows I'm an extreme dog lover."

Look, Jen, Andy Reid committed to Vick without even seeing him work out, so no one would be aware of an imminent signing. If he doesn't run things by his team trainers, he's not running it by the animal shelter.

And on a football note, Vick has claimed his first victim. Giants rookie RB Andre Brown is done for the year after injuring himself in a let's-learn-to-defend-against-the-Wildcat drill.

Jen Utley Speaks About Michael Vick [The 700 Level]
Dungy: Reid Picked Vick "Sight Unseen" [PFT]
NY Giants Rookie Running Back Andre Brown Lost For Season With Ruptured Achilles' Tendon [Newark Star-Ledger]
Coincidence? Giants Install Wildcat Defense Friday [AP]

The Nets have changed their road uniforms for the upcoming season to just say "Nets" instead of "New Jersey", which means thousands of NBA fans in other cities will be watching a visiting team and have no idea where they came from. This prompted Senate Minority Whip Kevin O'Toole (R-Cedar Grove) to look around at the big NY signs on Giants and Jets paraphernalia and say, "Heyyyy, wait a second...."

"New Jersey's professional sports teams, the Nets, Jets and Giants, have no problem feeding at the taxpayer funded trough, yet seem to forget who their benefactors are when they order the teams' uniforms," O'Toole said. "The taxpayers of this state have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into infrastructure upgrades in the Meadowlands where all the teams play their home games. Is it too much to ask that professional sports teams that benefit from the support of the New Jersey taxpayer recognize the state on their uniforms?

No, I suppose it isn't, sir. Of course, one could also make the argument that pro sports teams don't deserve taxpayer-funded anything because they are filthy rich corporations that don't need government largesse to stay in business. Instead, you would rather insist that the Nets continue to embarrass your entire state by admitting that they belong to you.

At least the Devils don't hate you! (Yet.)

O'Toole slams Nets for dropping 'NJ' from uniforms, suggests withholding state subsidies for teams that don't show Jersey pride [Politicker NJ, via Hugging Harold Reynolds]

When there's not a SICKO in need of shaming, Peyser skulks around courthouses watching the trials of minor celebrities.

Today she is OUTRAGED that Antonio Pierce TWEETED after testifying before a grand jury. He didn't Tweet about the Plaxico Burress incident, but, you know. He TWEETED! Instead of confessing to all the various crimes that Andrew Peyser knows he is guilty of! The nerve of this guy!

MINUTES after he told a grand jury he did nothing in the Plaxico Burress mess, Giants linebacker and fellow twit Antonio Pierce couldn't wait to post this cocky tweet on Twitter:

"Which way to ALBANY? someone just told me."

Yes, right. Very cocky. And "arrogant." And "wacky" and "ornery." And: "This idiot athlete clearly thinks a lot of himself." Because he is Tweeting, about how he is excited to play football, and how he hopes to play it very well, this fall.

We hope Andrea Peyser stays on the sports beat, because we would love to read her thoughts on Mutton Bustin'.

According to the New York Daily News, Barber's porcelain presence and cocky attitude hasn't impressed NBC Sports execs who have decided to add a couple more talking heads to the "Football Night In America" mix (Rodney Harrison, Tony Dungy), bringing the total to 78 analysts for the upcoming 2009 season. This will mean even less time for Tiki, who has also seen his smiling crotch-painting and omelet-making appearances on the Today Show dwindle in recent months. One anonymous NBC exec tells the Daily News that Tiki "made some improvement last season, but he still came over as somewhat buttoned-down and elite, as opposed to (Jerome) Bettis, who was an everyman kind of guy." So the easiest way for Tiki to earn more airtime this season? Get fatter and less articulate.

Ex-Giant Tiki Barber Is Forgotten Man [NYDN] (Via Truth and Rumors)

New York Giants' David Diehl pokes fun at Brett Favre in comedy club debut [Star-Ledger]

Coach Tom Coughlin signed his name to a polite press release:

"Plaxico's contribution to our championship season in 2007 can never be underestimated or undervalue. He displayed tremendous determination throughout that season. Having said that, I have always been as concerned about Plaxico as a man as I have been about him as a player, and my hope is that everything that has happened over the past several months represents a turning point. He is a young man with a family who has a whole lifetime ahead of him, and I personally wish him and his family well."

So there's a receiver with a hole in his leg (and his heart) on the market now for those teams that need them. Perhaps there will be interest from an NFC team with a brand new quarterback who also comes with considerable baggage.

Giants Cut Plaxico Burress [The Blue Screen]

The former Giants running back, who retired from football the year before his team won a Super Bowl, is plumbing new depths of personal humiliation for the sake of his "journalism" career. Just think that it was only close to two years ago that Barber, fed up with the direction of the New York Giants under coach Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning's "comical" leadership, prematurely retired from football because he had better things to do in his life.

Best Week Ever's Dan Hopper says this is clearly a man who's dying inside:

If you look into Tiki Barber’s eyes while this group of blue-smocked children douse his entire body with colored paint to the soundtrack of tribal Blue Man Group beats, there is a soft, subtle, yet deeply truthful twinge of “why in the name of all that is holy did I choose to retire for this?”

But at least he's not at Super Bowl Media Day. That would be just too demeaning.

Tiki Barber Has Crotch Painted By Children And Blue Man Group, Finally Regrets Retiring Probably [Best Week Ever]

Boldin was off the field before anyone following the Cardinals victory over the Eagles that put them in the Super Bowl, and was also tje first one out the back door. But not before he talked to the San Francisco Chronicle:

Wearing a lime-green shirt, Boldin tried to bolt for the stadium exit before a small group of media caught him. Someone asked if reaching the Super Bowl eases what has happened between him and the franchise. "That's not an issue," Boldin said. "Like I told you guys at the beginning of the season, my main goal was to do this. I've come through with all of my promises. I fought. I gave my heart to this organization. It's paying off." Does he want to stay in Arizona? "Next question."

A sight even stranger than Arizona threatening to win an NFC Championship game was Boldin sulking during the final four minutes, when the Cardinals were making their do-or-die drive. Arizona was using only one receiver on the possession, and Boldin wasn't in the game. He was not amused.

At one point he began arguing with offensive coordinator Todd Haley, and a teammate had to step between them. Boldin hasn't been happy this year with the Cardinals, and reportedly asked to be traded in August< he claims that he and head coach Ken Whisenhunt aren't on speaking terms. And it didn't take long for the Giants to notice the situation and begin drooling over Boldin, naturally. I see no way Boldin's attitude would hurt their team chemistry.

Boldin has three years left on the four-year, $22.75 million extension he signed after the 2005 season. He's making an average of $4 million a year.

Boldin Bolis; Hear That, Giants? [New York Post]
Angry Boldin Doesn't Celebrate With Cardinals [NBCSports]
Anquan Boldin Is A Jackass [CBSSports]
Boldin Bolts While Cardinals Celebrate [San Francisco Chronicle]

The other, actually important thing was that he was the shiniest pony in the NFL's coaching carousel this year. Well, the music has finally stopped playing, and it looks like Spags is heading to the St. Louis Rams. The NFL Network cited Adam Schefter as reporting that Spagnuolo has signed a 4-year deal worth 11.5 (pinky to lip) MILLLLLION DOLLARS!

How many donuts can you buy with that kind of money? A lot.