FanHouse BillRomanowski

Imagine you're mingling at a party, you meet someone, you ask him what he does for a living, and he says, "I mix protein shakes for the Denver Broncos."

Is that really a full-time job? If Bill Romanowski gets his wish, it will be.

Romanowski, the former player for the Broncos (as well as the 49ers, Eagles and Raiders), is lobbying to succeed Mike Shanahan as Denver's next head coach. And in a detailed PowerPoint presentation to Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, Romo explained that if Bowlen hires him, he should be prepared to pay the salary and benefits of a protein shake mixer:

"I'd have literally a full-time person mixing up protein shakes every day," said Romanowski, who is president and CEO of a nutritional company called Nutrition53. "The business is football, which is having fast, strong, explosive players."

I actually agree with Romanowski that NFL teams should focus more on proper nutrition for the players. But I'm not sure that mixing protein shakes needs to be a full-time job, and more importantly, I'm not sure that a guy who was involved in BALCO is really someone the NFL wants to be talking about which supplements players ought to be taking.

Romanowski has no chance of getting the Broncos' coaching job, but he said, "I truly believe that I'd be the best person in the country for the job." Fortunately for Broncos fans, Bowlen won't agree.

We've all heard about the SI Cover Jinx. It's slightly less evil and demonic (and real) than the dreaded "Madden Curse". But it turns out that individual athletes are not the only ones affected by the evil powers that inhabit the artificially produced covers of Sports Illustrated.

Who else is affected, you might ask? Let's just say if you are a professional athlete, you do not want to appear in the SI Swimsuit Issue anytime soon with your ladyfriend.

Somebody get Leonard Nimoy on the case, because this is spooky.

Take a quick look at this list, focusing only on the couples featured. A frightening pattern develops.

Quite a few have had what can be described as, depending on your definition, issues.

Now, it would appear that the Swimsuit Couples Jinx takes a little longer to affect those photographed than the normal SI Cover Jinx. But it still gets the job done. Listed on SI's page are a slew of athletes, most of whom have taken a nose dive from grace recently.

Roger Clemens (slightly less popular than Dubya), Mark McGwire (um, yeah), Shaun Alexander (pleading the Bengals for a job), Richard Jefferson (apparent choker), Jason Kidd (downfall of Dallas), Glen Rice (violence), Bill Romanowski (supplements/violence and gay cowboy movies, not that there's anything wrong with the latter), Annika Sorenstam (retired), Ricky Williams (weed), Cobi Jones (soccer), Allan Houston (inherited Chris Webber's knees), Alex Rodriguez (too much to name) ... whew ... and there are more!

Eddie George and Tom Gugliotta come to mind, although most of their downturns were pre-photo shoot, which can only be attributed to some Lostian foreshadowing evil, or something. Really, the only person not affected was Keyshawn Johnson, who, as we all know, is the best dressed man in America.

If you watch this video of former Broncos and Raiders and 49ers and Eagles linebacker Bill Romanowski all the way to the end, you'll see that it's actually just a commercial for his supplement line, with a little bit of mildly unsafe for work language along the way. But the process of getting there is an interesting experience:

Yes, that was Romanowski advocating, among other things, strangling Randy Moss. Classy as always.