Russell Wilson needs an intervention.
Well, perhaps intervention is too strong a word. What Wilson really needs is to diversify his corporate structure. Plainly, Wilson needs add a member to his brotastic posse with a simple but crucial task: Eliminate The Cheese.
You get $60K per year plus benefits and a partial Seahawks season-ticket plan and Wilson gets to shed the title of Corniest Player In The NFL. Those who saw the Entourage movie in theaters need not apply.
Wilson has been dropping cheddar crumbs for years, but things reached a crisis point this week. Wilson celebrated Women Crush Wednesday on Twitter (oof) with the latest public tribute to his great love, the pop star Ciara. You probably know what happened next. Internet detectives put together the grim truth: The mushy captions that accompanied Wilson's Ciara photos were lifted directly from a Web search for "how to describe a beautiful woman."
This, we imagine, had to be super embarrassing for Wilson. We bet Ciara thought it was deeply lame as well. The best move for Wilson probably would've been to go dark, let the internet fervor blow over, then throw nine touchdowns in the Pro Bowl. But ol' DangerRuss couldn't do it. Late Thursday afternoon, he delivered consecutive tweets that tripled down on the cheese.
No.
You stop that right now.
There you go. You just killed me. You're a murderer, Russell Wilson.
This can't happen again. Not the tweets, not the Google -- sorry -- Bing searches, the public declarations of love, the dubious endorsement pitches. We need a CPO -- Cheese Prevention Officer.
Russell Wilson can be saved. Are you the person to it?
Is this the man of your dreams?
That's Travis Kelce, dynamic Chiefs tight end, newly minted multi-millionaire and soon-to-be-star of the E! original series, Catching Kelce.
I like this move. Though Kelce was unable to link up with the Cadillac of reality dating shows, The Bachelor, working with E! is a step up from Flavor Of Love or the other dreck found on basic cable. His dating pool will still be filled with crazy people with questionable intentions, but he's highly unlikely to be stabbed. This is important.
Best of luck, Zeus.
CreedBombing has legs
Loved this video from Jonathan Jones of The Charlotte Observer, who caught Panthers linebacker Ben Jacobs in action during a CreedBomb. He really has that Scott Stapp death-rattle down:
Speaking of Stapp, he said this week that his bandmates have started to CreedBomb him on his tour bus. This is turning into one of those things where the TV is inside the TV inside the TV inside the TV.
"I've been cheering for these guys so hard," Stapp said Tuesday. "I had to move my tour bus like five different places so I could get reception and watch (the NFC Championship Game) the other night. I'm so fired up and pumped up for these guys. They are my team right now."
Too soon, Cardinals social team?
The social media handlers for the Cardinals sent out the above tweet during the second half of Sunday's' 49-15 loss to the Panthers. The tweet gained instant traction, but did make me think how I'd feel if my team used one of cutesy defeatist memes in the middle of a crushing playoff blowout.
I reached out to a good buddy, writer and Cardinals superfan Jason Zumwalt, to see if he was bothered by the tweet.
"No. That game was over at halftime. Even I checked out."
Fair enough. But let this be a warning to the Jets' social media guy. Don't you get cute with me. I will not react well.
Standstorm is the best and will live forever
Kudos to the FOX team for capturing an electric moment out of commercial break following Luke Kuechly's pick-six of Carson Palmer in the fourth quarter of Sunday's NFC title game. The blowout was on, a Super Bowl trip was on the way, and Panthers fans were going mad. Da Rude's 2000 club hit "Sandstorm" took things to the next level.
Yep, it was going off at Bank of America Stadium:
Serious fan envy, right there. Meanwhile, Sandstorm's sustained footing in popular culture is stunning, even if it is justly deserved.
DOH!
That sucks. Did you know that the AFC and NFC alternate home and away status in the Super Bowl? The home team -- the Broncos this year -- gets first pick on uniform color and the visiting team -- the Panthers, duh -- calls the coin toss.
THE MISSING PIECE
What the what?
Guys. We've been over this before. Getting the predicative tattoo is wildly overrated. It buys you bragging rights for a brief period of time, sure, but you leave yourself wide open for a lifetime of scorn if things don't work out. The move -- the only move -- is to get the tattoo after the team wins, then tell everyone you got it before the fact. This is a lie, yes, but it's a good lie.
Meanwhile, get a load of the quote Pats tattoo guy (Burke O'Connell) gave to Boston.com:
"They're champs anyway. We got four rings," he said. "We're the best anyway regardless if we win or lose."
And you Patriots fans wonder why we all root against your team ...
Tweet Of The Week
Quote of the Week
"I've seen some of the criticism, and I think some of it is very hurtful, quite frankly."
-- CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus on former NFL official Mike Carey, who serves as the network's rules analyst
McManus is defending his guy, I get that. But McManus also said "the vast majority" of Carey's calls have been correct. This we take issue with. Carey has been wrong -- a lot -- over the past two seasons. Mike Pereira, who basically invented the network rules analyst gig over at FOX, has a much, much higher rate of success. We don't have the data to back that up, but perception is everything. The viewing audience trusts what Pereira has to say.
Perhaps Carey will grow into the role if they give him another year of seasoning. But you also wonder if the horse is out of the barn on this one. Carey spent 19 seasons as an NFL official, but getting the CBS television audience in his corner now will be the biggest challenge of his career.
Until next time ...