Brandon Marshall is not worth it

Brandon Marshall is a very good wide receiver. He's the best that the Broncos have and maybe one of the top five or six in the NFL. With Jay Cutler gone, the Broncos are going to need their receivers to be highly competent and to adjust to Kyle Orton and/or Chris Simms for the team to have any chance (slight though it may be) of contending this year.

With all that said...hey Broncos: Get rid of Brandon Marshall. He's an immature, selfish, whining, violent jerk. Over the last three years, he has:

Aggravated the incident that led to Darrent Williams dying;
Beaten, choked, and shaken female companions more than once;
Allegedly slashed one woman with a knife;
Busted for a post-game DUI;
Been a team distraction from said involvement in above incidents;
BEATEN, CHOKED, AND SHAKEN WOMEN MORE THAN ONCE;

And now HE WANTS A RAISE?!?!?!?

We have friends who have stopped watching NBA basketball. When pressed for a reason, one of their gripes is "the league is full of thugs." Now, we love the NFL, but really? How many Brandon Marshalls are there in the NBA? Did Dwayne Wade get caught killing pit bulls recently? Did Steve Nash get busted for coke in a parking lot last year? Did Shaq shoot himself in a club last season? Did Kobe Bryant--well, okay, but he was acquitted, it was over five years ago, and the last thing anyone can call Kobe is "thuggish." He may be a dick, but not a thug.

The NFL has more thugs than the NBA--even going by percentage--and

Brandon Marshall is a THUG.

This is not someone the Broncos and their fans should want to be associated with. If Broncos fans stop blinding themselves (we aren't going to win it all this year, sorry) and really, REALLY look hard at everything Brandon Marshall has done over his career right up until Spring of 2009, we as a fanbase should be just as tired of B-Marsh as Falcons fans were of Mr. Vick--and the organization should feel the same way. Yet the Broncos are probably reconsidering his contract because of the fear of fan backlash. After all, they can't afford to lose an on-field presence that has contributed to such a "dominant" .500 team that's missed the playoffs three straight Jake "the Snake" Plummer-less years going on four. Hey, Brandon IS a really good ball-catching-guy.

Mr. Bowlen, you showed guts when you finally said "enough" and fired Shanahan. You showed guts backing Josh McDaniel even when his judgment seemed questionable regarding Jay Cutler. Show some guts now. Don't cave in to B-Marsh. If he wants to earn the money he agreed to be paid according to the contract he signed, let him play out the season. If he behaves and has a good year, franchise his ass and tell him if he so much as gets a parking ticket he can eat bench until his contract is up. But don't give in and reward Brandon Marshall for being cancerous. Cut him or keep him, but don't cave to him.

We want the Broncos to succeed, but not with an asshole like Marshall giving us second thoughts about the team's character. We'd actually like it if the team we liked was actually worth liking. C'mon last year Jay Cutler--JAY CUTLER--called B-Marsh immature. We all know Pumpkin Pie isn't exactly a paragon of maturity and restraint, so for him to call Brandon a whiny girly man should have set off a lot more alarms in Denver.

Also, if this was one of the New York teams or New England or DC, the media would be treating B-Marsh like a superstar criminal and the Broncos would be made to look like total douchebags for putting up with him. Thank goodness ESPN doesn't give a crap about anything that happens west of Philly except Lebron James and Manny Ramirez.

Anyway, that's our story and we're sticking to it.

CUT THE THUG!!!

How Manny Ramirez relates to football

Do you like HGH, Shawne?

So former Red Sox, former Indians, and current Dodgers star Manny Ramirez just got popped for using a banned substance by Major League Baseball.  He'll be out 50 games and lose $8 million dollars for (if you believe the story) a doctor-prescribed sex enhancer hormone (that can possibly double as a post-roid chaser.)  Once again steroids in baseball are on the top of the sports page, and once again sportswriters are foaming at the mouth about "oh no, ban them all, the sport is a disgrace, clean up baseball, what a blow to the sport."

Whatever.  Baseball has no more of a steroids presence than football.  What I (Pale Horseman...LPP himself largely hates baseball) don't understand is that how a sport that has been for better or worse officially passed by football as the national pastime is still treated as the holiest of holies by the same people who will admit to have abandoned it LONG before the strike of 1994 and the steroids fallout.  All we hear about in baseball is "Bonds' records should/shouldn't count," or "McGwire should/shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame," or "How can we trust anyone?"  Yet in football, you hear about a guy getting suspended for performance drugs, all you hear is "how will this affect the team?"  Not ONE  F***ING  WORD about "what a shame," "call in Congress," "think of the children."  Just "what an idiot, how will this affect the team?" 

Football is obviously America's sport of choice these days, yet it's baseball that evokes sentimentality.  What records or achievements can most people name quickly for baseball?  DiMaggio, 56-game hitting streak.  Bonds' 73 homers to top McGwire's 70 homers to top Maris' 61 homers to top Ruth's 60 homers.  755.  714.  59 consecutive scoreless innings.  Guys with 500 homers.  Guys with 3000 hits.  Ripken's Ironman streak.  

How many records or numbers like that can most people name from football that didn't happen in the past 2-3 years?  The Dolphins' perfect season.  Brett Favre's games-started streak.  18-1 (which because of the Dolphins and Giants DOESN'T MATTER, HAHAHAHA)  That's pretty much it, and ONLY because we hear about them from the TV announcers every time a team gets to 5-0 and every time Brett Favre ever stepped on a damn football field.  Maybe some bits and pieces about Emmitt Smith or Jerry Rice, but no one really remembers the numbers without Wikipedia.

What I'm trying to say is this:  there's a double standard here that I don't understand.  It's apparent that America has made its choice and picks football over baseball--the numbers back that statement up and then some.  So how come it's baseball that has a "steroid problem" when football players up and down the roster are anywhere from 40 to 80 pounds more massive on average than they used to be, get caught almost if not just as regularly, and have horrible health problems after retirement?  Do football fans really just not care?  Is it because football, like so many other things, feeds America's short attention span and love for sex and violence, and needs to be nothing else?  If baseball is so "boring" why do so many writers go insane when Rafael Palmeiro is considered for the Hall of Fame but Rodney Harrison gets banned and reinstated within one season and writers say "watch out, the Pats have their strength back."

Who knows?  Screw it.

LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!

Not surprising, but still...

Guess what? Oh, you already knew. Brett Favre is going to sit down and have a friendly little talk with the Vikings about taking off his real comfortable jeans and suiting up in purple.

Sweet Jesus on a moped. Enough is too much, Brett. We can't get 34-year-old Jake Plummer back, but Brett Favre won't go gently into that good night? This is what we get for eating California cheese instead of Wisconsin cheese. What's that? Brett's from Minnesota? Well, crap, what comes from Minnesota? Prince? We like Prince, Brett.

Anyway, if nothing else, this means Jake has at least a five-year return window. True, he probably won't come back, but at least we have something to bitch about for the next five years.