AOL's Network of NFL Team Blogs -- www.pigskinbloggers.com

3:52:29 PM EDT
Hearing the Postal Service and David Bowie

Thanks in part to the unexpected response to the original announcement of Pigskin Bloggers shutting down, well, Pigskin Bloggers is not shutting down. It is, however, moving to another site where it will be edited by some of the more ardent members of the PB community. Folks such as Geoge Coztanza, Monponsett, Big Blue Notes, Sportz Assassin and others will carry the torch under the same handle and url, pigskinbloggers.com. Note that once their site is up, the url will begin redirecting in that direction.

Now, allow me to address the previous comments for a moment. Some people were thankful for what we were able to accomplish. A lot questioned my loyalty for building FanHouse without most of them in tow. And many decided to take personal shots. I've been silent on all of that until now, so let me just say this: I'm glad people cared so much about this site and will continue to care about Pigskin Bloggers going forward. It's something I'm proud of and it's good to see that you are too.

PB is a good premise and is in good hands now, better hands than it was in before. I'll do my best to offer support whenever possible, and, like I said originally, thanks for everything. It's been fun.

Update: Pigskin Bloggers 2.0 is up and running.

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12:02:22 AM EDT
Hearing the Replacements

A little over two years ago, this site, Pigskin Bloggers, began with AOL asking its Sports Community members to blog about their favorite NFL team twice a week throughout the '04 season. Of course, back then, most of the people we talked to about it had no idea what blogging was. And, of course, that, in part, is what made them so good at it and set off this chain reaction over the next 25 months...

-- Pigskin Bloggers became a top-five AOL Journal in terms of traffic.

-- Pigskin Bloggers begat an Internet radio program, Pigskin Bloggers Live.

-- Pigskin Bloggers Live morphed into Sports Bloggers Live, which continues airing twice a week to this day.

-- AOL Sports looked at the success of SBL and created FanHouse, a professional sports blogging network.

And it's that which brings us here. FanHouse launched four weeks ago and it, in concert with SBL, demands too much of my time to keep Pigskin Bloggers going for the '06 season. Sure, the related sites may and should live on, but this page will no longer reflect their opinions and commentary.

Before moving on for good, though, please indulge me as I thank the Pigskin Blogger Hall of Famers, if you will. These folks made the site what it was, and I hope they keep putting their passion into words...

Pigskin Assassin

Belly Check

Coztanza's Jets Commentary

Big Blue Notes

Bolts Blog

Seahawks Fans Anonymous

East Bay Grease

Travlin' Bucs Fan

Year of the Bird

Minnesota Sports

Rocky Mountain Stampede

Lions Den

Detroit Sports Blog

Texans Blog

Black & Gold Blog

Black & Gold Tribune

Super Saints Weekly

Raiders Fan Ray

Raider Nation Reloaded

America's Team

Kings of NY Football Page

Dungy's Dungy

Out of the Brew

Rams All the Way

Browns Town

So thanks for everything, ladies and gentlemen. You helped make the past couple of years very fun, and you were and continue to be a part of something very special. See you down the road, and don't be a stranger...

      

     

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11:34:03 AM EDT
Hearing Top Indie on AOL Radio

Last week we touted the launch of NFL FanHouse and today AOL sports does more of the same by featuring their FanHouse-driven NFL team previews package on the main page, front and center. That's some nice promo right there...

The package features excerpts from and links to all 32 FanHouse team previews, which are highly relatable, always insightful and, for the most part, overly optimistic. But that's what you get from bloggers -- passion, information, irreverence and all-around entertainment -- and that's why I love them so.

Enjoy, and remember that NCAA Football FanHouse is coming next week. Those guys are already posting like crazy, we just have to pull back the curtain and shine a light. Should be fun.

Update: They've flipped the promo to focus on AFC rather than NFC. Carson Palmer approves...

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11:21:35 PM EDT
Hearing Florida State-Miami

It isn't just that Joey Porter is one of the most feared and finest players in today's NFL, it's also that he's one of the league's most intriguing personalities. It's with this in mind that I eagerly read Michael Silver's feature on Porter in SI's annual NFL preview issue. For the most part, the full issue is weak -- A quarter-page per team preview spent promoting "My SI?" Fifteen pages of bad fantasy info? -- but Silver continues to carve out a spot as one of my favorite football writers with a story full of A+ anecdotes such as this one about Porter and his wife, Christy...

"He showed up late for their wedding in 1999. According to Porter, his best man, Colorado State (and future Cincinnati Bengals) linebacker Adrian Ross, was being cited for parking illegally on an east Bakersfield street, and the groom-to-be bristled when the officers called for a search of Ross's tricked-out Chevy Impala. One cop ordered Porter to cross the street and keep quiet; predictably, he refused.

"Typical Bakersfield cops, doing what they do -- harassing and intimidating," Porter says. "They threw me in handcuffs for asking questions and left me in the back of the police car in 110° heat with the engine turned off. I'd pissed them off so much, they drove me all the way downtown and then let me go. We were so damn mad, we all went back to my house and started drinking." When he finally arrived at his wedding, he says, "we were drunk and almost three hours late. My wife probably thought I wasn't coming."

Now that takes guts. I mean, playing pro football is one thing, but knowingly standing up your lady on her wedding day is on a different level altogether. Move over Ronnie Lott's amputated finger, because Joey Porter's scorned woman is the new highwater mark for NFL toughness.

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7:32:19 PM EDT
Hearing Wu Orleans (Google it)

While the question around DC remains, "Will Portis play against Minnesota this week?," I'm, as usual, more concerned with the man's social life. Besides, ESPN "Medicine Man" Will Carroll leads us to believe he'll be fine. So it's with that in mind that we turn our eyes to Esquire's profile on Coach Janky Spanky. The whole thing is certainly worth your time, but at least two key excerpts need to be highlighted...

"The most elaborate of his current [fishtank] collection has been reserved for his bedroom, where the magic happens. More specifically, it's reserved for his bed, the headboard of which consists of an aquarium that nearly reaches the ceiling, a square-shouldered arch filled with salt water, coral, fish, and a freakishly large sea anemone that looks an awful lot like a gaping vagina.

"You gonna fool yourself, too?" Portis says. "I know what this looks like, but I got a woman down in Miami. We been together seven years."

"You know what, man, honestly? Yeah, I have my share. I have fun with it. I'm twenty-four, bro! You love to think that the woman you with, that's the woman you want for the rest of your life. And I done felt that way. But I'm twenty-four! I don't do [stuff] to disrespect her. I try to keep it outta her face. But we have an understanding.

"Let's just call it an understanding that I'm not perfect."

That's just about the most honest and hilarious thing I've ever read. If there's another athlete who's consistently as open and entertaining as Portis, I hope he comes and plays for my team too. Oh, and here's that other excerpt...

"Portis says today that he wanted to retire the charade several times, but when¬ever he had convinced himself he was done with it, he was presented with some divine reason to come up with another disguise. For instance: "Once I heard Rod Woodson and Lincoln Kennedy [of the NFL Network] say that I wasn't focused, that I should quit it, I knew I had to keep rolling with it. Don't tell me what to do. They can kiss my ass."

Get well, C-Po. The league isn't nearly as fun without you. Nor do I trust Ladell Betts and T.J. Duckett. So, yeah, get well.

Portis Has an Interesting Bed, and an Understanding [The Big Lead]
Deadspin HOF Nominee: Clinton Portis [Deadspin]
'Let's Get Rid of These Games' [Saved by the Blog]

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5:27:27 PM EDT
Hearing new Rapture tracks

Now this is just good fun. Courtesy of the good fellas at Kissing Suzy Kolber comes a three minute highlight reel of "measty" NFL hits as scored by the overly aggro and incessantly annoying musical stylings of Prodigy. There's too many great shots to mention, but Earl Campbell spearing a linebacker in the chest, Steve Atwater crushing Christian Okoye and Don Beebe doing the upside-down Pogo hop all stand out. Of course, Ronnie Lott is prominently involved as well.

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5:11:25 PM EDT
Hearing U.S. Open (Roddick vs. Verdasco)
This is old, but Football Outsiders Mike Tanier and Michael David Smith weigh in on HOF debates and lump Monk in with other great 80s-90s receivers: Tim Brown, Cris Carter, Michael Irvin and Andre Reed. They both rank Monk third among thoe five, with Smith going 1. Brown 2. Carter 3. Monk and Tanier going 1. Carter 2. Irvin 3. Monk. It's an interesting piece all around, especially these couple of points...

"Smith: At this point, if Art Monk gets in I think it sets an awfully bad message, implying that Hall of Fame voters are subject to lobbying.

Tanier: Voters subject to lobbying? Two words: Elvin Bethea.

Smith: Nothing about Monk’s career has changed, and if he didn’t belong before, he doesn’t belong now. I just can’t get over the fact that through most of his career, Monk wasn’t even the first option in his team’s passing game."

That last bit sticks in my craw a bit as HOF voter Peter King has expressed the same sentiment, but it wasn't Monk's fault that guys like Gary Clark, Ricky Sanders and Charlie Brown were able to have big years opposite him. In fact, it was in some ways Monk's presence that enabled them to put up such big numbers. Regardless, long live the Posse and long live the Fun Bunch, both of which were undeniably awesome.

Note that this post originally ran over on my side piece electartmonk.com and you should probably take this opportunity to sign the petition to elect Monk if you haven't already.

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12:50:37 PM EDT
Hearing T. Rex
In 2004 I began blogging here, at Mr. Irrelevant, and there, at Pigskin Bloggers. In 2005 we began podcasting a blog-driven radio show, Sports Bloggers Live. And now, in 2006, we've launched what will become the largest, finest sports blogging network, the AOL FanHouse. There's even a press release and everything.

FanHouse began humbly earlier this week with an NFL network consisting of at least one blogger for all 32 teams as well as a few lead bloggers overseeing the whole league. The front page gets updated maybe 20 times per day with the most high-interest content and the individual team pages (case in point, Redskins FanHouse) get updated once, twice and sometimes even thrice per day. The content covers everything from Leinart having a baby to the Bachelor getting cut to Javon needling Favre and beyond.

The writers, one of whom I am not, were by and large recruited from the existing football blogging community and are exactly why this thing is so good so soon. And we've only just begun. The NCAA Football FanHouse launches this month and NBA, NCAA Hoops, MLB, NHL, NASCAR, Golf, Tennis, etc., etc. are to follow. So check out what we've got up so far and drop comments with any feedback you may have. It's very much a work in-progress, but we're extremely proud of it nonetheless.

Also, I'd like to take a moment to thank all of the folks at AOL who pulled this off. It was an ambitious project with a tight timeline and limited resources, so much respect and gratitude to Neal Scarbrough, Kevin Lockland, Shawn Schrager, Emil Morrow, Robert Lepore, Elliott Thompson, Mike Diamond, Nicole Cosby, Felicia Perez and others for bringing it home. I'd also like to mention that this idea, this vision was something my old friend Bob Wooldridge and Idiscussed at length before he was gone, and I know he'd be proud to see it become a reality.

Here's what some folks are saying about FanHouse out there on the internets:

AOL Enters the Sports Blog "Game" [Deadspin]
AOL Beefs Up Sports With Blogs [MediaPost]
AOL Blogfest [TheStreet]
AOL Launches Sports Blog Network [Bloggers Blog]
More Sports 2.0 Sites [Earthling]
AOL Launches NFL FanHouse [Too Much Pete]
AOL Launches FanHouse Blogs for Football Enthusiasts [Trading Markets]

Finally, I couldn't think of an image that would represent the FanHouse (although Deadspin chose to use an old AOL disc, which is funny), but, to me, this is all about having a passion for sports and sharing it with others in a unique, entertaining way. So what better to depict that than the Fun Bunch? Indeed...



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3:37:42 PM EDT
Hearing final round of the PGA Championship

We conducted the first round of Sports Bloggers Live's fantasy football draft last week, and with the fifth pick I gladly selected Clinton Portis with all the conviction of Col. Jessep ordering a Code Red. For right or wrong, there was no way I was passing up my favorite player for a guy like Tiki Barber or Peyton Manning (who I just can't root for). Of course, I'll be handcuffing my man with Ladell Betts well early whenever it is that we actually complete the rest of the draft.

 Hear the 1st round of SBL's draft.

Get well soon, Coach Janky Spanky. My real and fantasy teams depend on it.

The league, which Lush won last season thanks in large part to Shaun Alexander, includes the cast and crew of SBL, a couple AOL Sports editors and long-time fave Sportz Assassin and is broken out into two divisions: Talent (hosts and co-hosts) vs. No Talent. Here's how the rest of the first round went down...

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8:31:20 AM EDT
Hearing indie rock on AOL Radio

We finally made it to Redskins practice for the first time, which is odd considering Chris and I are lifelong fans who work five minutes from the facility. Be that as it may, we weren't missing much but it was cool and semi-voyeuristic gawking at players and coaches from close distance as they ran through drills and non-tackle 11-on-11 action. A bunch of pics are posted above and here are a few general observations from the afternoon that was...

· I'm an immediate Al Saunders fan. His intensity and enthusiasm are infectious and I can't wait to see what his presence does for the careers of two of my favorite players and people, Clinton Portis and Chris Cooley.

· Jason Campbell looks like a Hall of Famer. Very tall, well-built and strong-armed, I'm almost looking forward to when Mark Brunell inevitably gets carted off the field. Of course, I bet Seattle fans said the same thing about Dan McGwire and Dave Kreig back in '91.

· Cooley's hair was the star of the show. I can't wait until he cuts it into a "mole-ett."

· The fact that Portis, in street clothes and an arm sling, was wearing his own t-shirt is phenomenal. Get well soon, Janky Spanky!

Update: Chris has posted much better versions of these pics along with much funnier words over on Saved by the Blog.

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