FanHouse Kordell Stewart

Veteran play-by-play announcer Dave Sims will join color analyst and former NFL standout Doug Flutie (right) to broadcast United Football League games on VERSUS, the league announced Tuesday.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kordell Stewart and radio and television host Anita Marks will serve as sideline and features reporters when the league's inaugural season kicks off October 8. The California Redwoods will visit the Las Vegas Locomotives in the first contest.

One of the most intriguing prospects in this weekend's NFL draft is West Virginia quarterback Pat White. A sensational athlete, White dominated the Big East during his college career and enters this weekend as a man without a position. Can he overcome his lack of size and succeed as a quarterback in the NFL? Will he became the latest quarterback-to-wide receiver project and follow in the footsteps of players like Antwaan Randle-El? Or will he bring back the "Slash" position, combined with the recent fad that is the wildcat offense, and become a unique weapon that gives opposing defensive coordinators fits?

This season, FanHouse writers take their cameras to NFL stadiums to document what happens when you stop being polite and start getting real. Or something. We've cleverly titled it "FanHouse in the Stands."

Sunday was the type of day that makes you feel alive as a football fan. If it doesn't make you feel alive, then it probably makes you feel like you're absolutely out of your mind for sitting through the elements.

After watching two consecutive home games get flushed down the toilet, we had the feeling that, for a third straight game, we would be leaving disappointed. Fortunately, the Steelers were able to pull out an 11-10 win (the only 11-10 game in NFL history, if you haven't heard that fact the previous 4,000 times it's been mentioned) making me a very, very happy person. Even in the frigid cold and snow.

Was the win pretty? No. But they don't give you style points, and I think I speak for everyone when I say, thank God for that.

If you're ever going to be the toughest player in the NFL, you'll have to take that title from Ray Lewis and the Ravens defense. And Brandon Jacobs just did that.

The rabid running back has been pummeling defenses all season, and did more of the same against the Ravens defense. Jacobs had 73 yards and two touchdowns in the first half, and would have surely broke the Ravens' streak of 28 straight games without a 100-yard rusher if Tom Coughlin hadn't pulled him after two plays in the second half.

The guy gets a lot of praise, and while it seems a little over the top at times, he really can't be tackled when he's running at defenders; Lewis be damned, the guy is going to gain a large chunk of yardage.

In Jacobs' place for the second half, Ahmad Bradshaw almost did what Jacobs could not, running for 96 yards on just nine carries. The Giants rushed for 207 yards, the first time the Ravens have given up 200 yards or more rushing since October 5, 1997, when names like Jerome Bettis and Kordell Stewart owned the ground.

This season, FanHouse writers take their cameras to NFL stadiums to document what happens when you stop being polite and start getting real. Or something. We've cleverly titled it "FanHouse in the Stands."

Sitting in the stands on Sunday, muttering various expletives at the Steelers for losing a second consecutive home game that was right there for the taking, I began hearing a sound I hadn't heard since the days of Kordell Stewart, or, to a lesser degree, the days of, ugh, Tommy Maddox -- fans screaming for the backup quarterback.

Annoying as it may be, it's still somewhat impressive that Ben Roethlisberger went a good four-and-a-half years before he really started to hear it from the locals. Though, at this point, it's still limited to pockets of, I'm guessing, frustration. He's not yet to the point where he'll wake up some morning and find his front yard littered with garbage, or listen to local louts make up rumors about his personal life. Hopefully, we never go down those roads again. Not some of our finer moments as sports fans.

Anyway, there's not a bigger fan of Roethlisberger in the city of Pittsburgh than me, so, when an entire row of people ten rows up are chanting "WE WANT LEFTWICH," I tend to get a little frustrated.

New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress has a new book out in which he addresses the rumors that his former teammate with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Kordell Stewart, is gay.

Burress says that while he doesn't personally know or care if Stewart is gay, he does think that the rumors affected Stewart. From Pro Football Talk:

"People were talking about [Kordell] being gay," Burress writes in Chapter 5. "The players heard that, but we never talked about it. I don't know if Kordell is gay or not. It was none of our business. If ever we would have talked about it, it would have made everybody uncomfortable. If some player was gay, I don't think he could come out while he was still playing. It would be real hard. It would mess a team up mentally and it wouldn't be good for that person."

If Burress is right that a player couldn't come out while he was active in the NFL, that's a sad commentary on the NFL. I'd like to think that we're enlightened enough as a society that in most workplaces, coming out to a co-worker wouldn't be a big deal. Burress seems to think NFL locker rooms are among our society's least-enlightened workplaces, and I fear he's right.

As we wade through the third version of PatriotGate, now that Arlen Specter has learned that the Patriots taped four Steelers games, it's worth remembering that Hines Ward had spoken out about the Patriots' cheating back in September.

At the time Ward said:

"Oh, they knew ... They were calling our stuff out. They knew, especially that first championship game here at Heinz Field. They knew a lot of our calls. There's no question some of their players were calling out some of our stuff."

Kordell Stewart should be joining Willie Gary in that lawsuit. His career effectively was destroyed by that three INT AFC Championship game. A Pro Bowler in 2001, Stewart lost his starting job early the next season to Tommy Maddox. He got one more chance at a starting job in Chicago, but was out of the league by the 2005 season--if Stewart had led the Steelers to the 2001 Super Bowl, it's hard to imagine he wouldn't have had a longer career.

The Steelers' front office may say it's no big deal, but some the players know better. If the Patriots were cheating, they weren't doing it if they didn't think it was going to help in some way. And why did Roger Goodell not mention these other games when he was announcing the Patriots' punishment back in September?

I'm guessing if NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had it to do over, he wouldn't have destroyed all the evidence related to Patriotgate. Now, five months later, the story is back in the news, the Patriots' three Super Bowl championships are under scrutiny, and the league's credibility is in question.

All thanks to Senator Arlen Specter, who spent Wednesday quizzing Goodell about the scandal and the league's role in covering it up promptly putting the incident in the rearview. Amazingly, Specter chose not to pimp Comcast during the meet-and-greet, but instead actually managed to unearth some before-now-unknown nuggets.

And there's more, courtesy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Ed Bouchette:

"I think Steelers fans have a lot to be concerned about this and I'm one of them,'' Mr. Specter told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in an interview yesterday, adding that "maybe Steelers ownership should think about it a little."

Two days ago, I wrote that following his meeting with Goodell, Specter indicated that the Patriots had videotaped two Steelers games during the 2004 season. Well, now it's four games, including the 2001 AFC Championship and the 2002 season opener. Finally, we can all stop blaming Kordell Stewart and his two costly end-of-game interceptions for that 2001 loss. Okay, maybe not.

The headline in Friday's Chicago Tribune: "Bears Could Get New Blood at QB in '08."

Now there's an idea that makes you think: Hey, this would've been great, say, LAST YEAR. But as everyone remotely affiliated with professional sports is seemingly fond of saying these days: it is what it is. Rex Grossman is in the last year of his rookie deal, and if things continue on this southward trajectory (and why wouldn't they?), it's fair to think that the Bears won't re-sign him, and even if they offered, Grossman might decline.

Anyway, Dan Pompei lists the top candidates for Bears' job in 2008:

* Derek Anderson
* Brian Brohm
* Daunte Culpepper
* Josh McCown
* Donovan McNabb
* Chad Pennington
* Jake Plummer
* Tony Romo
* Chris Simms
* Billy Volek

Jeebus, I'd love to see the guys who didn't make the cut. A couple of thoughts: you know the current quarterback situation is dire when Anderson (will lose Browns job before the season's out) McCown (about to lose Raiders job), Plummer (retired, really into handball), Simms (recovering from spleen surgery) and Volek (red-headed backup) all make the list.

Second, Brohm, McNabb and Romo are such long shots, it makes you wonder what, exactly, Chicago's front office has planned. Or, more importantly, what they've been doing the past few drafts. Good news, though: I hear Kordell Stewart and Erik Kramer are available.