FanHouse Arlen Specter

To give you a sense of the different approaches the NFL and its players' union are taking to the coming collective bargaining negotiations, ponder these two facts: On Wednesday, union chief DeMaurice Smith took 20 players -- 17 active, three retired -- with him to Capitol Hill for a full day of meetings in an effort to rally congressional leaders to their side. The day before, when the players and owners met in Washington for their second negotiating session, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wasn't even there.

"I can't speak for anybody else, but you can draw your own conclusions," Baltimore Ravens cornerback and union executive committee member Domonique Foxworth told FanHouse in a Wednesday evening phone interview. "Obviously, we would prefer that the man who's in charge be there if it's a meeting where decisions could be made."

'HouseCast is FanHouse's audio podcast. Watch out. You might just get what you're after.

BDTH returns early in the week to chat it up with Dan Levy, proprietor of OnTheDLPodcast.com and the aptly named and very awesomely done podcast On the DL. Dan joins Will Brinson and Ryan Wilson to talk about all things Philly, including Brian Dawkins leaving, Donovan McNabb being a "phony," Terrell Owens (he still kind of counts, no?), and Ron Jaworski's preparedness. Additionally, Dan, Will and Ryan touch on Arlen Specter, how politics and sports mix, and how Dan plans to use On the DL to eventually rule the world. Kidding.

Hit the jump to download the various MP3 segments or listen to the whole thing in our embedded player.

A month ago today Barack Obama became the first African-American to win a presidential election. And this week, another glass ceiling has been broken: the NFL has its first female player. At least according to Matt Hasselbeck, who on Tuesday took part in the NFL's "Play 60" program, which encourages young folks to get at least 60 minutes of exercise each day.

The Seahawks quarterback showed up at Issaquah (WA) Middle School to spread the good word, and to also answer a few questions. This one was easily the best of the bunch.

I like to give Sports Illustrated's Peter King the business from time to time for his love love of all things Brett Favre and Tom Brady. In light of recent events, however, King may be a one-handsome-NFL-quarterback man going forward (congrats, Tom! Hurry back!).

But when Mr. PK isn't slurping his two BFFs, he occasionally has something interesting to say. Like this nugget on extending the NFL season to 18 games, buried in his Monday Morning Quarterback column:

Somewhere down on the list of the little headlines from the NFL's annual fall meetings last week was the one about an 18-game regular-season schedule roaring down the tracks and headed for the 2010 or 2011 season, presumably with a corresponding drop in preseason games from four to two. ...

Playing 18 regular-season games would not make the football product better, but it would make the owners richer.

Exactly. Two more regular-season games means 120 additional minutes for players to get hurt as some of them prepare for the playoffs. Anecdotally, I'd think the risk of injury increases as the season progresses; partly because almost every player is already nicked and bruised and more susceptible to getting hurt, and also because the laws of probability and physics suggest that sooner or later, bad things will happen when 300-pound dudes continually run full-speed into each other.

But the fans want it, right?

Tell me if this sounds familiar: U.S. senator crusades to end corruption, except nobody cares because: a) instead of targeting lobbyists or corporate negligence, it's a professional sports team, and b) this in no way helps his constituents.

Well, Arlen Specter, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, has decided that Spygate is, in fact, not over. Again. (He's the Brett Favre of Capitol Hill, but with fewer career interceptions.) Which means that after proclaiming the investigation dead on June 17, and then, three days later, leaving open the possibility that he wasn't necessarily finished wasting taxpayer dollars, Specter has decided that the Republican National Convention was the perfect time to get his name back in the paper.

"I don't do anything except with vigor," Specter told the Track yesterday ... "I think there will be more on the issue of irregularities with the NFL. I published a report in June that gave my position, but there will be more aspects of this that need to be examined."

Enjoy your heaping dose of vigor, Pennsylvania residents, because unless you work for Comcast, the guy you elected to represent you won't be doing his job. Apparently, the NFL needs saving and Specter's just the man to do it, although he readily admits he can't do anything for the Redskins offense.

via PFT

I read MJD's headline at Shutdown Corner and just figured some enterprising soul had uploaded a video of Bill Belichick actually operating a video camera on the sidelines last season, or maybe we finally had visual proof that the Unabomber was in the stands during the Rams Super Bowl walkthrough, or perhaps someone uncovered more evidence that William the Great really gets off on pushing photographers.

No, no and ... no. This footage goes back to the '90s, when Belichick was coaching the Browns. And after an otherwise totally predictable throttling at the hands of division rival Pittsburgh, the Cleveland head coach, apparently fed up with it all, makes his way to the locker room after the game. But before he gets there, the Steelers' Greg Lloyd offers to shake his hand (as humans often do -- you know, as a common courtesy) and awkwardness ensues:



Shocking, I know. I mean, this is the same guy who LaDainain Tomlinson accused of "having no class", and who also left the field before Super Bowl XLII had ended, but well after the Patriots' fate had been decided.

Somebody get Senator Arlen Specter on the horn. I think we just found a reason to reopen the Spygate investigation.

[Shutdown Corner]
[KSK]

Willie Andrews will now have all kinds of time to pretend-shoot his fiancé. After being arrested for pointing a gun to the head of the future Ms. Andrews, the Patriots took the totally predictable step of releasing him. Obviously, buying illegal drugs is a much smarter career move. Or being something more than an easily replaceable fringe player.

On Tuesday, Josh Alper made the point that in the NFL, talent is always weighed against criminal activity, and yesterday, the Boston Globe's Bob Ryan wrote an entire column on the subject.

It's hardly surprising to learn that, despite the Al Saunders-playbook-length rap sheet, Dig Dug Jones can get another shot at redemption, but the NFL is all about winning and sometimes criminal activity takes a backseat to talent.

There's nothing new in all this. Seldom does honor trump pragmatism in the world of professional sports. Did I say "professional"? Make that sports, period. The late and truly great Abe Lemons was once asked why he didn't have a curfew for his Oklahoma City University basketball team. " 'Cause you always catch the wrong guys," he explained.

Dear Lord, thank you for Clinton Portis and blog wars, but mostly for Clinton Portis because he doesn't take himself quite so seriously.

Dan Steinberg writes that the artist also known as "Southeast Jerome", "Coach Janky Spanky", "Bro Sweets", "Choo-Choo", "Sheriff Gonnagetcha", and "Dolemite Jenkins", unveiled four new characters this week, and he's looking for YOUR help on which one to debut to the Washington-area media this fall.

You can see all four characters and vote here, but if Dr. Do Itch Big doesn't win, the whole thing is rigged. Just like Spygate, which means we can expect Senator Arlen Specter to get involved, and, really, nobody wants that.

According to his bio, Do Itch Big is a dentist who does his own work (of course he does), and goes by the motto, "Cleaning up the NFL one mouth at a time." And then there's this fun fact: "The good doctor started his bicuspid crusade by enhancing the grills of former Giants DE Michael Strahan and Bills RB Marshawn Lynch." Nice.

Arlen Specter is vigilant, I'll give him that. He may not be particularly well spoken -- just a few days ago the Pennsylvania senator told the Philadelphia Daily News' editorial board that "I've gone as far as I can" with Spygate, and suggested that he'd drop the matter some four months after the rest of us.

Yeah, forget that. As it turns out, his comments to the Daily News people "didn't really come out with the proper flavor." Translation: I'm nailing Bill Belichick's ass to the wall, no matter what it takes. Constituents be damned!

"My view on the overall situation is that we may well see the other shoe drop somewhere," Specter said. "We went about as far as we could go, given the public attitude today about the economy and gas prices and Iraq. We're always very careful about initiating a Congressional investigation.

"But that isn't to say, by any means, it's over."

Fantastic. My advice: Specter should hire Kenneth Starr to head up the investigation, and that way, in addition to occasionally unearthing a Spygate-related nugget, we'll get the gratuitous erotic tidbit tangentially having to do with football. Good times.

Despite a lack of support from, well, everyone, Specter trudges on. He admits to being "a little surprised more people weren't concerned" about Spygate, but because NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is trying to "minimize the impact" of the cheating allegations, the good senator will continue to fight the good fight. All by himself.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter said today that an independent investigation is needed of the New England Patriots' practice of spying on their opponents.

"There ought to be an impartial investigation, an outside investigation, like the investigation that baseball had with Senator George Mitchell," Specter said.

Specter said he first became interested in the Patriotgate story in November, when he first heard that the NFL had destroyed the tapes the Patriots turned in to the league. He said the NFL was not responsive to his requests for more information, and he suggested that the league is trying to sweep the issue under the rug.

Whether Specter gets his Mitchell Commission or not, there's no question that despite the talk this morning that the Spygate story is over, Specter doesn't think it should be -- and U.S. senators have a way of keeping stories alive.