New Orleans Finally Reach the Superbowl

The hopes of an entire state are riding on the New Orleans Saints. The A'ints as they used to be called have been pretty much a laughing stock throughout their whole history. Finally, at long last, they've made it to the big game and left the exclusive club of NFL franchises that have never been in the Superbowl. The only teams left that have never made an appearance are the Browns, Lions, Texans, and Jaguars. The final two can be excused, Cleveland and Detroit are just downright awful and it's hard to see that ever changing. They both have been around since before the inception of the Superbowl itself...

New Orleans fans are quite happy to be off the dubious list of underachieving NFL squads. They follow the Arizona Cardinals who managed to leave the bottom-dwellers squad last season when they played against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Saints will face off against the Indianapolis Colts on February 7th in Miami.

I actually like the Saints to win the Superbowl. The NFC has been the stronger conference all season with teams from the NFC North and East beating up on their AFC opponents. The Saints have a strong running game with Pierre Thomas and a Warner/Rams-eques passing attack run by Drew Brees. Brees has Marques Colston, Devery Henderson, Robert Meachem, and Lance Moore to choose from - all reliable receivers with a nack for catching anything that comes their way. Along with three solid TE's, New Orleans is looking good this year. While I can't call them "my team", I was born in New Orleans and so I'm taking them under my wing as the Sundayhop personal favorites to win the Superbowl. Go Saints!

NBC Bids Conan Adieu, Not Much Really Left To Watch on NBC

...Unless you like watching fat people in not-very-funny situations (I prefer funny fatties) on The Biggest Loser, NBC's only successful show currently. NBC lags behind every network in almost all timeslots in primetime except for during airings of Biggest Loser and recently, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Biggest Loser appeals to the people-who-like-watching-fat-people-in-agony segment of middle America, which also coincides with Jay Leno's demographic.

Conan reached a deal early on Thursday morning (around 4am EST) with NBC that will give him $32 million to walk away from the Tonight Show, not appear on or host another show for a year, and not degrade NBC in general. The deal also includes $12 million to be distributed amongst O'Brien's staff of writers, performers, and production staff.

The deal means that Jay Leno will retake the Tonight Show starting next week and Conan gets to go on a vacation until a year is up. At that point, it has been speculated that another network such as Fox will snap him up and give him back a 11:35 EST show. The initial divide of course started because Jay Leno's 10PM time slot variety show was cancelled due to poor ratings. NBC execs said they would give Jay's show another try at 11:30 for a half hour following the news and bumping the Tonight Show back to 12:05am afterwards.

O'Brien, who has hosted The Tonight Show for just seven months, objected to the change. He said in a Jan. 12 letter addressed to "People of Earth" that moving the show back would "seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting." NBC decided they could do without Conan (I somehow doubt it) and decided it would be a better course of action to lose Conan than Leno. Read more here.

Emmanuelle Chriqui Named 2010 Most Desireable Woman

Askmen.com's annual online poll has just named Emmanuelle Chriqui the most desireable woman of 2010. Chriqui, believe it or not, is Canadian, but I'm sensing something a little more exotic in the mix as well - plus the name Emmanuelle is just plain sexy because there's no way to shorten it other than 'Elle which is also a beautiful name. She plays Eric's girlfriend on HBO's Entourage and has also been in several films, though never really as a leading lady.

Girls in white T's and tanks kill me.

Emmanuelle beat American model Marisa Miller into second place, with British actress Kate Beckinsale, Brazilian model Alessandra Ambrosio and 'Fantastic Four' star Jessica Alba rounding off the top five. Chriqui took the title in stride saying, "Hearing what the vote is made of is the biggest compliment of all because it's about being a well-rounded woman. That's really empowering and is just a massive compliment to me." She's referring to the fact that Askmen.com isn't polling for the biggest hottie but rather aspects about having the woman as a girlfriend or wife.

It's interesting to note that only one blonde shows up in the top 5, Marissa Miller, and only two in the top ten. Chriqui's leap to the number one spot might be attributed to her increased roll on Entourage. She was 12th in the poll in 2009 but only showed up in a handful of episodes on HBO's hit show. I'm glad she made her way to first, among my friends she was always the hot Entourage topic. Now more pictures of Emmanuelle.

Avatar is Literally Taking Over the World

The Sun, a British daily newspaper, is reporting that the two most popular names for newborn girls at the moment are Ney'tiri and Pandora. Now, I enjoyed Avatar - seen it twice - but I'm not sure that I'm willing to dedicate a newborn's name to the flick! The Sun says that the names have gained huge popularity in both the US and UK baby-making arenas thanks to James Cameron; no word on the international black market baby trade, where I can only assume the most popular names are still CashMoney and Payday.Ney'tiri is the name of the main Navi character, played by Zoe Saldana. She is the princess of the local tribe and the main love interest of bicurious-interspecies Jake Sully. Zoe definitely makes a hot alien huntress, but I am a little bit weirded out that when i typed "Avatar Neytiri" into a Google search for this post, "Avatar Neytiri nipple" was the third suggested auto-fill... awkward! Pandora, on the other hand, is the name of the planet on which the action takes place. Pandora is a moon that seems to orbit a nearby gas giant, similar to Jupiter, and is one of its many moons. The "sun" of that system is Alpha Centari - the closest star to our own Sun.

Avatar has apparently inspired a bunch of mini-Mangini parents to bestow the children with movie names; Eric Mangini, former coach of the NY Jets, famously named his first-born son Brett in a successful attempt to lure Brett Favre out of retirement and play QB for him. Of course, the ruse worked for Mangini for most of the season before Favre bombed the Jets out of the playoffs and Mangini out of his job as head coach. Mangini landed another coaching position in Cleveland and Favre of course is steering the Vikings towards a Superbowl appearance as we speak, but Brett Mangini will forever rue the day his dad sold out to the Favre.

Outside of babies, Avatar is still dominating the box office and looks to pass James Cameron's other epic, Titanic, in a few short days. In the US, Avatar has grossed over $505.1 million at last official count, add that to the $1.2 billion it has gained internationally and you're over $1.7 bil. Titanic's record sits at around $1.842 billion depending on who you ask, but this amount shouldn't be too difficult to topple with upcoming weekend plus stats from MLK day yet to be tallied. After the new record is set you've still got the DVD market to come, so happy payday to Mr. Cameron - better get started on Avatar 2 and 3 ASAP!

Read more about babies named Neytiri here.

Jets Win, Insert Dirty Sanchez Joke Here

Then again, dirty is an apt way to describe Mark Sanchez's performance in last night's game against the San Diego Chargers. Sanchez and the Jets managed to eek out a victory in the second half of their game against the Philip Rivers-led Chargers, 17-14 at the final gun. Sanchez was only 12 of 23 passes for 100 yards with one TD and one interception. I would call that dirty at best. Yet, the Jets will be in the AFC championship game next weekend.

Fortunately for the J-E-T-S Jets, Jets, Jets, the Chargers were even sloppier with Nate Kaeding missing three field goals and Rivers getting picked off twice. Kaeding had not missed from inside 40 yards in 29-straight attempts; he missed twice inside 40 last night and once more from a bit further away. All three were makeable from the all-pro kicker, but it just wasn't his night. Rivers's two interceptions didn't help the cause and all of a sudden the NFL's hottest team found themselves down and out. The Chargers had won 11 straight games to end the season and looked to surely make it at least as far as the AFC championship game.

Newly hot road warriors, the Jets, will go from a close win at Qualcomm in San Diego to Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis next weekend. I wouldn't count on two picks from Peyton Manning next week though, so Sanchez better clean it up because it'll be on him to lead the Jets to paydirt.

Gilbert Arenas Takes Washington Wizards Throwback Day Literally

When Gilbert Arenas through heard the Wizards were doing a throwback/retro Washington Bullets day, he took it literally.






















Nobody realized that Arenas was stocking up on guns faster than Vin Diesel on a Saturday night. Thug life! Gilbert Arambo's locker:

Fall Out Boy Surprised By How Quickly Lane Kiffin Sells Out

Lane Kiffin bolted seemingly overnight from Rocky Top Tennessee to the sunny beaches of Southern California after only one season at the Volunteers' head coach. When reached for comment, Pete wentz said, "Holy shit that was a fast sell out, I've been around a lot of sellouts but have never seen anything like that. He moved with incredible speed, faster than that time Gary Coleman and I went to In-n-Out Burger."

Lane Kiffin left the Volunteers after a 7-6 season in which he belittled pretty much everyone in the SEC and called recruits that chose Florida over him 'future gas pumpers'. He did take Tennessee to a bowl game, but the season was pock marked with embarassing losses and NCAA violations. Kiffin coached a season and a half with the Raiders before coming to Old Rocky Top, but before Oakland had served 6 years under Pete Carroll at USC.

Lane started out as the wide receivers coach before graduating to the offensive coordinator role. He was there for both of USC's national championships and is a clear disciple of Carroll; so not the worst choice for a replacement. Don't tell that to the Volunteers though, they are outraged in Orange country - writing obscenities all over their campus and organizing marches and rallies pretty much to elaborate upon those written obscenities. Kiffin will bring his father and defensive coordinator, Monte Kiffin, and assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator Ed Orgeron to Southern California with him - kicking Tennessee even further while they are down.

I think the abandonment part of UofT is a pretty dick move by Kiffin, but for USC I believe it's a great hire. He's a Carroll student who is young and energetic and anxious to get wins. Of course being a unbiased onlooker, I don't feel the sting of betrail or the joy of victory for either side. In the end USC comes out on top and Tennessee is looking for a true coach to take them back to SEC glory - one who won't bail after less than a year this time around. ESPN article here.

Mark McGwire Did Steroids, In Other News, The Earth is Round, Sky is Blue

That's right folks - Mark McGwire did steroids and has publicly admitted it. He should've saved himself the paper and wireless minutes it took for him to release an Associated Press statement and hold a couple phone interviews to announce this "revelation". We all knew he was a total roider when he embarassingly went in front on Congress several years ago and pled the 5th amendment "right to remain silent" to every single question they asked.

Mark,

We all knew already! You're wasting my newspaper's frontpage with your meaningless confirmation of the obvious. I know it's the new hotness for manly man athletes to go on interviews and break down in sob-erific heap, but c'mon. Literally nobody is surprised... everyone who follows baseball knew; everyone who doesn't follow baseball cares too little to be surprised. You should've saved your rollover minutes to give you hot wife a call for some naughty time. Anybody who hadn't already drawn a line from your gigantic neck to your body-builder brother, Jay's roid-head was naive and in denial.

Sincerely,

Sundayhop

Pacquiao To Schedule New Fighter in Lieu of Mayweather

Pacquiao will still fight in March, it just won't be against Floyd Mayweather. And it won't be in Las Vegas either. Manny has instead opted to fight in Dallas at the new Cowboys Stadium that Jerry Jones had originally offered for the Pacquiao v Mayweather bout. The stadium will be setup to hold 40-50k seats beneath the mammoth display board. I somehow just don't think Manny's fight will be as awesome as if it had been against undefeated Mayweather... but I'll let you be the judge. Glass Joe is promoted by Punch-Out sports.

Read more here.

Pete Carroll Takes Off His Trojan... Affiliation

Reports from early Monday morning are that Pete Carroll has taken off his Trojan hat saying 'it just doesn't fit right anymore' and he 'just doesn't feel the passion with his Trojans anymore'. Carroll thinks it will just feel better to pull out now. In other news, I'm eight years old.

Carroll resigned his post as the head football coach at the University of Southern California to take a reportedly "done deal" with the Seattle Seahawks. Though nothing is yet signed, it is expected that Carroll will replace recently fired Jim Mora as the new Seahawks coach. Pete is expected to take at least a couple members of the Trojan staff with him including Jeremy Bates, Offensive Coordinator at USC. Bates had been schedules to interview for the OC position with the Chicago Bears before he cancelled at the last minute to follow Pete to the Pacific Northwest.

Seahawks chief executive officer Tod Leiweke was in Los Angeles on Sunday to finalize the deal, the Los Angeles Times reported. Though nothing is signed yet, the parties have agreed to all terms in principle and the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Carroll's USC resignation is officially submitted to the school.

Pete Carroll and USC dominated the Pac-10 during his tenure there. He started in 2001 and managed seven straight Pac-10 titles which was ended this year with the Trojans' four-loss season. This will be Carroll's third head-coaching gig in the NFL after 1997-99 with the Patriots and 1994 with the Jets.

Let's face it though, USC is a sinking ship and Carroll is getting out while the getting's good. With the scandals involving Reggie Bush, OJ Mayo, and now Joe McKnight, you know the NCAA is going to come down hard on USC. I'm sure more stuff will be revealed about players getting paid in one way or another, high school coaches getting kickbacks, and various other violations. I think it's going to be tough sledding for the Trojans without Carroll and members of his staff - combine that with what's sure to be lost scholarships and inelegibilities around USC's football program and you've got a pretty tough job to fill. I hear Charlie Weis and Mike Leach are hunting for jobs, in other news, Mark Mangino is thinking Arby's.

Poor Old Michael Shanahan Began Again

There was an old man named Michael Shanahan.

He drove from Denver in a VW Vanagon.

To be the Redskins head main manahan.

Poor old Michael Shanahan began again.

(For those of you who don't know the children's song Michael Finnegan, you're completely lost...

There was an old man named Michael Finnegan, He had whiskers on his chinnegan, They fell out and then grew in again, Poor old Michael Finnegan, Begin again. Nevermind...)

Anyway, I digress. Michael Shanahan has been unveiled as the Washington Redskins' new head coach with a shiny, new $35 million 5-year contract. The Redskins have a habit of trying to replace head coaches like Liz Taylor replaces husbands or Larry King replaces wives. They've done it more in the past decade than I can count. The 'Skins can count Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer, Steve Spurrier, Joe Gibbs, and Jim Zorn as the coaches that have come and gone in the 2000's.

Mike Shanahan is coming off a short hiatus following his firing in Denver. Mike had been struggling in his recent seasons with the Broncos, but did lead them to two superbowls in the 90s with the all-star cast that included John Elway, Shannon Sharp, Rod Smith, and Terrell Davis. His new contract from Redskins owner, Dan Snyder, gives him final authority over football decisions as head coach and executive vice president of the Washington Redskins.

After being introduced by new General Manager, Bruce Allen, Shanahan said, "I've got very high standards, just like everybody in this organization. I can't tell you how long it's going to take. But I can guarantee you: We'll get better every day and hopefully it won't take long to get back to where this organization has been." Previous coach, Jim Zorn, had just turned in a 4-12 season and was ousted two days before Mike was announced as his replacement. Shanahan and Bruce Allen represent a change in tone from a previously Snyder-dominated franchise.

Dan has long been a controlling factor in the Redskins operational decisions, micro-managing and installing yes-men to do his bidding. Allen and Shanahan are both strong-willed football minds who have Snyder's blessing and ultimately, complete control of personel decisions. I'm cautiously optimistic that Shanahan can do some good for the Skins. I just hope he hasn't lost the edge in his old age - and that Snyder gives him enough time to get results...