Work Hard Play Hard

Ripping off jokes like he was doing the opening monologue on Saturday Night Live, Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning was feeling it Tuesday evening. He was back where he belongs, in front of his peers, here at the Pro Bowl, right in his element.

Yet as Manning stood in front of a ballroom full of the NFL's best players (30 of whom, as he pointed out, are at the game for the first time), Manning wasn't just being funny during this welcome meeting. He also had a very sharp message.

"The past two years, the play in this game has been unacceptable," Manning said. "If it was a walkthrough, your coach would say it was a bad walkthrough. And that's why (the league) could try to cancel this game."

When practices begin Wednesday, there is expected to be a very different tone, especially emanating from the AFC's team, in the wake of much public discourse about the future of the NFL's All-Star game.

Commissioner Roger Goodell has made it clear that the current quality of the game doesn't meet the league's standard, and a rewarding week enjoyed by the NFL's best players is in jeopardy. The players now recognize there's one way to fix this.

"It's simple," Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey told NFL.com. "Just play hard. Like you do on a Sunday. If you do that, the rest will take care of itself."

Whether that's enough to truly save this game (and, perhaps as importantly, this event) remains to be seen. But if ever there was a year in which the right formula to save the Pro Bowl was in place, this might very well be it.

Manning and Bailey are two of just 10 players in NFL history to make 12 or more Pro Bowls. Manning has the most Pro Bowl berths among quarterbacks, and Bailey has the most among defensive backs. And it just so happens that their current coach, John Fox, has been assigned to coach the AFC this week.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell reinstates Saints coach Sean Payton

With a still-angry city waiting to, uh, welcome him during Super Bowl XLVII week, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell pretty much played the only card he had to appease the masses.

He reinstated New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton.

"I am thankful today Commissioner Goodell has granted me reinstatement," Payton said in a statement Tuesday. "As I stated back in March. I, along with Mickey Loomis take full responsibility for all aspects of our football program. I clearly recognize that mistakes were made, which led to league violations. Furthermore, I have assured the Commissioner a more diligent protocol will be followed.

"Lastly, I feel we have learned from our mistakes and are ready to move forward. I want to thank our owner, Mr. Benson and all of our great fans for the overwhelming support throughout this past year. I am excited to be back as Head Coach of the New Orleans Saints!"

The league announced Tuesday morning Goodell had informed Payton his season-long suspension for his role in the bounty case had ended. Payton, whose suspension lasted 281 days, can attend practices in nearby Mobile, Ala., for this week's Senior Bowl and can take part in Super Bowl festivities next week.

The NFL's press release announcing Payton's reinstatement said the coach met with Goodell on Monday and "acknowledged in the meeting his responsibility for the actions of his coaching staff and players and pledged to uphold the highest standards of the NFL and ensure that his staff and players do so as well."

JaMarcus Russell says he'll make NFL return

Hundreds of jokes have been told about JaMarcus Russell. This is not one of them: He's planning a comeback to the NFL.

Yahoo! Sports reported Tuesday night that the 2007 No. 1 overall pick, one of the biggest draft bust in NFL history, is down from the 320 pounds he weighed last fall and is working out hard -- all in hopes that he could land an NFL gig.

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Jenifer Laurence

Continuing her week in the spotlight, Jennifer Lawrence tried her hand at hosting "Saturday Night Live," and the comedic odds were certainly in her favor.
The quirky "Silver Linings Playbook" starlet began her opening monologue addressing the Meryl Streep comment once again, but also playfully bashed all of the other Oscar contenders in her category.
"I would never trash-talk any of my fellow nominees at the Golden Globes," she said, "but the Oscars are another story."
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"Well, well, well. Look who it is," she said. "Jessica Chastain. More like, Jessica Chas-ain’t winning no Oscar on my watch!"
And on Naomi Watts, she added, "You were in 'The Impossible'. You know what else is impossible? You beating me on Oscar night.”
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Even little Quvenzhane Wallis wasn't spared.
"You think you can beat me?" she joked. "What you talkin' bout, Wallis? ... The alphabet called. They want their letters back."
Lawrence went on to participate in several hilarious skits, including a spoof of her own movie "The Hunger Games," reprising her role as Katniss Everdeen.

Super Bowl 2013

Now that the two teams for Super Bowl 2013 are known,  fans of the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens who don’t have tickets are off to the secondary market, where the average price of a ticket is about $3,195.14.
As of Monday morning, the lowest price for resale tickets was $2,168, according to ticket tracker TiqIQ.
Last year, the average price on Jan. 21 was $3,678.12, with the lowest price, $2,037.
Even before Sunday’s playoff games that determined who would compete in Super Bowl 2013, marketers and others in the industry were watching with anticipation who would be competing in one of the most-watched sporting events of the year.
Chris Matcovich, director of data and communications at TiqIQ, said the National Football Conference’s San Francisco 49ers and American Football Conference’s Baltimore Ravens going head to head would be the “golden game” for ticket sales for two reasons.
First, advertisers and the media have already become excited about the match-up between coaching brothers Jim Harbaugh, 49, of the 49ers, and John Harbaugh, 50, of the Ravens.
Second, the 49ers have a large market in San Francisco, meaning a large fan base that might  be willing to travel to New Orleans. Plus, the 49ers  haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1994.

“At the end of the day, marketers and ticket sellers are hoping for a good game and praying for the right teams,” Matcovich said.
Tim Nelson, president of Chicago-based advertising agency Trisect, said a match between the 49ers and Patriots may have been a favorite among other advertisers.
“I think some of the appeal in the games is the quality of the franchises, plus their heritage and history in the game,” said Nelson, who  grew up in New England and admitted he was  a Pats fan.
For any fan, getting a ticket to Super Bowl XLVII will cost a pretty penny.
The National Football League held a fan drawing of about 1,000 tickets last year.
In the past two weeks, the NFL began distributing tickets to its teams to sell to fans through drawings, or to distribute to sponsors. The NFL give out  17.5 percent of tickets to the AFC team and 17.5 percent go to the NFC team. The host of the 2013 Super Bowl game on Feb. 3, the New Orleans Saints, received 5 percent of tickets. Each of the remaining 29 NFL teams receives 1.2 percent of the tickets.
The official list prices for the Super Bowl’s upper bowl, lower bowl and club seats are $850, $950 and $1,250 for 2013, according to Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman.
McCarthy cautioned that the only guaranteed secondary ticket seller of the NFL is the NFL Ticketmaster Ticket Exchange.
“Buyer beware beyond that,” McCarthy said.

Lone Star College

But in an untimely triumph of ideology over common sense, Texas state legislators and conservative colleagues in Arkansas are pushing again for new laws that would allow handguns to be carried on college campuses.

Did any of these legislators ever go to college? It is hard to think of a worse idea than arming students who are—as the midday Lone Star College shooting reminds us—prone to feuds and fights that can easily escalate. Adding guns to that often alcohol-fueled mix exponentially increases the potential for avoidable tragedy.

NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre clarified the contrasts Tuesday night, in a surreal self-incriminating rebuttal to the president’s second inaugural address, arguing that “Obama wants to turn the idea of absolutism into a dirty word … Just another word for extremism.” It is.

But the disconnect between fantasy and reality is a hallmark of the hyper-partisan debates we have today. When confronted with the Sandy Hook Elementary School slaughter, only those embedded deep in the echo chamber could emerge with more guns in schools as the “solution” to the epidemic of gun violence in our schools.

Consider this: there have been four school shootings in the United States since Newtown: Taft Union High School in California; Hazard Community and Technical College in Kentucky; and the Stevens Institute of Business & Arts in St. Louis. That measurement is separate from the cops and firefighters killed or the more than 1,150 individuals murdered by guns across the country since Newtown, according to a tally by Slate and @GunDeaths. What more will it take to admit that we have a problem?


The reactionary impulse to look at school shootings and say the solution is more guns on campuses across America is a monument to idiotic group-think.
How about this reality check: American kids from kindergarten to eighth grade are 13 times more likely to be murdered with guns than children in other wealthy democracies, according to a study by the director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the School of Public Health.

This isn’t subtle. It is urgent. And dealing with the problem is not inconsistent with respecting the Second Amendment. But it does require confronting facts. After all, as my former boss Rudy Giuliani used to say, “You’re always safest when you have the courage to confront reality.”

But the “Party of Stupid”—as Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has described as his Republican Party—seems unwilling or unable to confront the problem. According to one congressman who attended the GOP’s Williamsburg retreat, the issue of gun control did not even come up at the party conclave. “It might as well have been a trip to Mars,” he said. Except that we are actually exploring Mars right now.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry—who made the word “oops” immortal—is a vocal advocate of arming students and teachers on campuses, despite the strong objections of Francisco Cigarroa, chancellor of the University of Texas system, who said guns “will make a campus a less safe environment.” It’s a statement that would shock only the Flat-Earth Society.

In the late 1990s, interestingly, the NRA was a vocal proponent of the gun-free school zones it now decries as big-government liberalism run amok. Here’s what the organization said at the time: “First, we believe in absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools. That means no guns in America’s schools, period … with the rare exception of law enforcement officers or trained security personnel.” But sometimes politics changes principles.

I have no problem with increasing the number of concealed-carry permits, especially if the gun owners are trained to use their weapons responsibly. But the reactionary impulse to look at school shootings and say the solution is more guns on campuses across America is a monument to idiotic group-think, especially when confronted with the escalating body count.

Even in the romanticized days of the Old West, folks were often required to check their guns with the sheriff. And even Justice Scalia wrote in the Heller decision that “the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” And the sainted Ronald Reagan backed the assault weapons ban in 1994.

But advocates of the Party of Stupid keep intruding on responsible civic conversation. The NRA’s solution—to post armed guards at every school—collided with reality at Lone Star College, which, like Columbine, had armed guards on duty. Likewise, when Perry looks at Newtown and finds blame in the “liberal media” for publicizing the Sandy Hook slaughter, and sees active attempts at solving the problem illegitimate. Instead he counsels only prayer.
By contrast, the Obama administration at least has started to enact some overdue executive orders. And there might even be hope for the Senate to pass a universal background check for gun purchases—something that 89 percent of Republicans even support, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll.  But the professional activist class will pressure members of Congress to ignore their constituents.

The contrast on policy keeps being underscored by tragedies like Lone Star College. The alternative to sober, constructive constitutional action is denial, deflection, and death.

Anna Burns Welker

Last year, Tom Brady's wife had harsh words following the conclusion of the New England Patriots' season.

This year, it's the wife of receiver Wes Welker making news.

Welker's wife, Anna Burns Welker, used social-media site Facebook to take a few shots at Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis on Sunday night after the Patriots' 28-13 loss to the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game.

"Proud of my husband and the Pats. By the way, if anyone is bored, please go to Ray Lewis' Wikipedia page. 6 kids 4 wives. Acquitted for murder. Paid a family off. Yay. What a hall of fame player! A true role model!" Burns Welker said in a since-deleted post on her personal Facebook page.

Burns Welker released a statement to sports blog Larry Brown Sports apologizing for her remarks.

"I'm deeply sorry for my recent post on Facebook," she said. "I let the competitiveness of the game and the comments people were making about a team I dearly love get the best of me. My actions were emotional and irrational and I sincerely apologize to Ray Lewis and anyone affected by my comment after yesterday's game.

"It is such an accomplishment for any team to make it to the NFL playoffs, and the momentary frustration I felt should not overshadow the accomplishments of both of these amazing teams."

Welker led the Patriots in receiving Sunday with 117 yards and a touchdown on eight catches in the loss, but could have played his last game for New England as he is set to become a free agent this offseason.

Lewis, who announced weeks ago that he would retire at the conclusion of Baltimore's season, led all players with 14 tackles.

After last year's Super Bowl, Brady's wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, while waiting for an elevator at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, lashed out at the Patriots' receiving corps for failing to haul in her husband's passes as she spoke to people in her group.

Welker had dropped a crucial pass late in the fourth quarter of the 21-17 loss to the New York Giants, while Patriots receiver Deion Branch and tight end Aaron Hernandez dropped passes on New England's final drive.

"My husband can not f------ throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can't believe they dropped the ball so many times," Bundchen said, in a sequence captured on video.