FanHouse Bob Kraft

The New England Patriots are exporting the all-American art of cheerleading to China, where 200,000 people have volunteered to learn how to cheer at the Summer Olympics.

Cheerleading is foreign to China, so very few of those 200,000 volunteers have any experience. But the Chinese wanted to institute cheerleading as part of the Games, and Patriots owner Bob Kraft is a longtime proponent of exporting American football to China, so he spearheaded the effort to send the women who work as Patriots cheerleaders to Beijing to give cheerleading lessons.

Of those 200,000 volunteer cheerleaders, Olympics organizers have chosen 400 to be part of an elite group that will put on special performances. Patriots cheerleader Carrie Binette, who is working with those 400, told the Christian Science Monitor that the Patriots cheerleaders are teaching "how to entertain a wide crowd," and that the most important things are not dancing ability but "spirit" and "poisemanship."

Says a Chinese cheerleader named He He, "Everyone knows cheerleading is a Western activity, but we hope we can find a Chinese way to do it [and] show the world."

Mention Bill Parcells' name and you'll get any number of responses, from reverence to disgust, depending on the audience. The Dolphins, his latest reclamation project, are undoubtedly glad to have Parcells; Patriots owner Bob Kraft probably wasn't all that jazzed at how Parcells abruptly ended things in New England.

And when Jerry Jones hired Parcells in 2003, the fans were no doubt ecstatic at the thought of the Cowboys again being relevant. The team made the playoffs in that first season, but, ultimately, never got close to the success (or a postseason victory), that many people envisioned.

Now, two years after Parcells "retired," DallasCowboys.com's Nick Eatman writes that much of the team's recent success is attributable to some very savvy personnel moves made early in Parcells' tenure. And it all started inauspiciously enough.

This is cool: Patriots owner Bob Kraft took defensive end Richard Seymour and tight end Benjamin Watson to Israel. Every year, Kraft brings players with him when he visits Israel with the Combined Jewish Philanthropists of the greater Boston area, but this time is different: 2007-08 marks the "premiere season of tackle football in Israel."

Kraft, Seymour and Watson attended the last game of the regular season in the Israel Football League.

Big Blue Jerusalem Lions ran out as easy winners over Mike's Place Tel Aviv Sabres squad for a 38-0 shutout victory, heading into the first round of the first-year league's playoffs next week.

Speaking in Hebrew and English before the teams took the field for the regular season finale match-up, Kraft welcomed Seymour and Watson to the Holy Land, and expressed his happiness at "watching American football in Israel, the best sport in the world."

The Jerusalem Post reports that both players offered pre-game pep talks to the teams, with Watson consulting the Big Book of Cliches before going all Knute Rockne on the Sabres: "Play as hard as you can, and put in a great effort," Watson encouraged the Sabres prior to kick-off. "Whatever happened last time doesn't matter. It's just about how well you play tonight."

Imagine what the score would've been without Watson's insights. Next year, instead of pep talks, how about Kraft bring Rodney Harrison with him and let him do his talking on the field. Then we'll see just good the Big Blue Jerusalem Lions are. The IFL doesn't drug test, does it?

Hat tip: Reiss's Pieces

On Saturday, February 2, the day before the Super Bowl, the Boston Herald ran a story by John Tomase headlined, "Source: Pats employee filmed Rams."

As every football fan knows, that story set off a firestorm in the NFL world, with allegations about a Patriots employee taping the Rams' final walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI. There's talk of lawsuits, Senate hearings and NFL sanctions, all emanating from that one Boston Herald story. But was the story accurate?

In his Monday Morning Quarterback column, Peter King of Sports Illustrated suggests today that the story wasn't accurate. King thinks that former Patriots employee Matt Walsh probably doesn't have any evidence at all to show that the Patriots taped the Rams, and King writes, "All we can do is speculate on that right now, but I, for one, believe that tape does not exist." And then King goes further than that:

Donald Trump appeared on Late Show With David Letterman Friday night, and a discussion of football that was actually somewhat interesting broke out:

Letterman got things started by saying off-handedly to Trump, "How 'bout those Patriots?" That led Trump to profess his love for Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and owner Bob Kraft.

Letterman, however, is an Indiana native, and he predicted that the Patriots would lose in the playoffs and that the Colts will repeat as champs.

The conversation then turned to Trump's experiences as the owner of the New Jersey Generals in the defunct United States Football League. Trump's money helped persuade college stars like Herschel Walker and Jim Kelly to play in the USFL, and all these years later he still seems proud of that accomplishment.

The conversation then turned to rules changes, with Letterman advocating the elimination of punts while Trump countered that overtime should be changed to guarantee each team a possession. It was a conversation worthy of NFL Network.

With the Patriots on the threshold of greatness*, media bobbleheads are quick to point out how Bob Kraft/Scott Pioli/Bill Belichick created the blueprint for building a championship roster. Here's the thing: the Pats aren't the only team with smart personnel guys.

Look around the league: the Steelers, Eagles, and hell, even the Chargers, have shown the ability to find talent and build a competitive team. And the Cowboys have also earned the right to be mentioned in that conversation.

Owner Jerry Jones is often characterized as a meddling busybody -- and maybe he is -- but he's also got people around him who know how to put together a football team. That explains how Dallas found wideout Patrick Crayton four years ago, and also why the team just gave him a shiny new four-year, $14 million deal ($6 million in guaranteed loot).

The former Northwester Oklahoma St. star replaced the injured Terry Glenn this season and with a game to go in '07, has 48 catches for 689 yards, and seven touchdowns. Crayton's been a nice complement to Terrell Owens and Jason Witten, and now he'll be around for four more years.