ow Page 1006 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Tim Tebow Messiah Watch: Ascension Edition
With apologies to Slate, the Tim Tebow Messiah Watch is our occasional look at the growing body of evidence — quotes, signs and wonders, excessively fawning prose — that the Florida quarterback is the Lamb of God....

Favre's Success Tears NFC North Apart
The Sun-Times says: "Go New Orleans, save us from Brett Favre!" The Tribune says: "Leave Brett Favre alone!" The Green Bay Press-Gazette could not be reached for comment, presumably having drank itself to death in the woods. [Sun-Times, Trib]...

Tebows' Super Bowl Ad Will Be Carried To Term, Apparently
CBS has approved a script for that 30-second spot Tim Tebow and his mom are doing for spanky Jim Dobson's Focus on the Family. It will not have an "overt" pro-life message, MediaDailyNews reports. Get out those decoder pins! [MediaDailyNews]...

ESPN Ombudsman Ohlmeyer Blasts Alamo Bowl Coverage After Adam James Saga
"Was the telecast balanced? ESPN thinks it was — and for me, that is the most troubling aspect of this whole affair." [ESPN]...

Today's Phrase That Pays: "Hockey Taliban"
Comparing overly loyal hockey fans to vile religious dictators should probably not cause any problems for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Bob Smizik. Seriously, those people are capable of anything! (Hockey fans, I mean.) [Post-Gazette; guy who is not Taliban via]...

Taiwan CGI'ers Take On Leno vs. Conan
Fresh off interpreting the Tiger Woods follies, Taiwan's considerable technological might comes to bear on the late night wars. Except Jay, Conan and Zucker are superheroes here, for some reason. This medium is the future of journalism, by the way....

Mike Greenberg Is Not The First Man To Accidentally Say "Martin Luther Koon"
It turns out the former mayor of Selma, Ala., Joseph Smitherman, also accidentally slurred his words but he probably didn't get half the grief poor Greeny received yesterday....

Mike Greenberg Would Like To Clarify Something
"I would never say anything like that," Greeny says of today's little slip-up, "not in public, or in private, or in the silence of my own mind ..." The silence of my own mind. Beautiful....

Cum On Feel The Poise
Mark Sanchez threw for 100 yards and a pick yesterday, but he also managed not to light himself on fire or dance the hoochie coochie at midfield, so once again everyone has termed his performance — sigh — poised....

Peter King Gets To The Core Of The Gaines Adams Tragedy
"[O]ne of the sad football things about the death of Gaines Adams, the Tampa Bay-turned-Chicago defensive end who died Sunday of cardiac arrest at 26, is that he was about to be coached into his potential by Rod Marinelli..."...

Mike Greenberg Celebrates MLK Day With Just About The Worst Slip Of The Tongue Imaginable
Video below. Um, whoops. [BlackSportsOnline, video by Ryan Fields]...

Today In Euphemizing Johnny Weir's Gayness: <em>Chicago Tribune</em>, ESPN, And Many More
An occasional series in which we document — and evaluate — the sports media's pained efforts to call the sexually undeclared figure skater gay without quite calling him gay....

Don't. Look. Behind You.
On the same day that everyone reports Wade Phillips will get his extension, the Cowpokes go and lay an egg. A huge, missed-field-goal, turnover, overmatched-secondary-shaped egg.(Via: Kurtenblog)...

NFC Playoff Open Thread: Romo. Favre. Ad Nauseam. Go.
On the plus side, you'll stop hearing about one of these QBs after today. On the minus side, you'll definitely continue hearing about the other. Choose your preferred natural disaster in the comments. [NFL.com]...

Ex-NBC Sports Employee: Dick Ebersol Is The Biggest Failure Of Them All
We were fortunate enough to receive a scalding take down of Dick Ebersol from a former NBC Sports employee who took "great offense" when his ex-boss called Conan O'Brien an "astounding failure." Here's his (anonymous) counter-argument....

Get Ready For Tebow's First And Only Super Bowl Appearance
A Christian right group has tapped the QB and his mother for a 30-second spot to air on the Super Bowl. The group's track record and the Tebows' story tell us that this ad will not be without controversy....

Poise To Men
Mark Sanchez went 12-for-15 and threw for 182 yards in his first playoff victory, and because at no point during the game did he chuck the ball into the Ohio or crap himself, he was deemed a model of poise....

Mediocre Daytime Host And Mediocre-QB-Turned-Mediocre-Analyst Switch Jobs
Tim Hasselbeck and his infinitely-more-famous wife will swap places on Tuesday, meaning he'll host The View while Elisabeth fills in on NFL Live. Though their respective performances will be necessarily uninformed, you might not notice a difference. [AP]...

Five Offensively Stupid Reactions To Mark McGwire's Steroid Admission
Would the following people kindly shut the hell up about Mark McGwire?...

Tebow The Cat Survives Miraculous Journey, Won't Shut Up About It
A Hawkeye fan on the way back from the Orange Bowl finds a stray cat stowed away underneath his pickup truck. "We named her Tebow, because she's a crier." [Cedar Rapids Gazette]...