Bernard Berrian puts the Vikings on the board with a punt return for a touchdown. As long as AP doesn’t go off, I’ll be happy.

Randy Moss and Kevin Faulk have helped Matt Cassel get off to a good start, each scoring a touchdown to give the Pats a 14-0 lead early.

Someone must’ve told the Cardinals they’re the Cardinals. Tarvaris Jackson has two touchdown passes, one to the aforementioned Berrian, and the Vikes are up 21-0.

Johnnie Lee Higgins, most famously known for sounding more like a presidential assassin than catching passes in the NFL, catches a ball thrown by Jamarcus Russel in a painted area giving his team six points. A short kick immediately thereafter gives the Raiders another point, making the score 21-7.

This is followed by what appears to be (based on ESPN Gamecast) back to back kickoff returns for touchdowns. This is pretty irrelevant fantasy-wise, but interesting if you’re a fan of kickoff returners (Little Known Fact: My AOL SN is MelGray4Lyfe!!!).

…

Moving on. Still pretty much nothing going on in Baltimore, just field position and field goals. I’m waiting for the inevitable safety to spice things up and tilt this one way or the other.

Jerheme Urban owners, rejoice! He has angered his purple overlords by finding the end zone. 28-7 Vikes.

The 2nd half of these games have been as boring as I’d predicted the whole things would be, so I guess I was half right. I’m going to split now for a few minutes and be back at 8 for the liveblog of the Cowboys / Giants tilt on NBC. As always, thanks for reading.

Training camp is approaching, which means the NFL regular season will be here before we know it, fully prepared to dominate our Sundays through the end of January. It’s inescapable. However, we manage to build up an itch for a little gridiron news over the summer, so here’s a little bit of what you might have missed:

Perhaps RB Travis Henry isn’t the magnanimous personality we thought he was. He’s fathered 9 kids by 17 different women, but was able to get out of a positive marijuana test last year by claiming it was courtesy of second hand smoke. I don’t run drug tests, but he must’ve been hanging out with Snoop Dogg a lot prior to that test. Now this happens. Good work, Travis.

Apparently, Clay Travis tells us, throwing the phrase “no homo” on the end of ambiguously gay sentences is all the rage in NFL locker rooms. I can use the phrase “all the rage” without the 90s Police coming after me because friends of mine from areas that aren’t exactly centers for pop culture tell me the phrase “no homo” has been used since around the same time.

The New England Patriots might have the craziest NFL fan out there. This of course comes after the same man gained notoriety for getting the Patriots helmet logo tattooed on either side of his head. The interesting thing for me is that the space on his body is “starting at only $200 per square inch.” If he’s a good business man those are the spots that receive the least amount of…shall we say exposure. I’d be very interested in finding out what someone else wants to pay $200 per square inch for to have this man tattoo it on his ass, or worse. *shudders*

Briefly, on a more depressing note, Patriots lineman Nick Kaczur was caught buying OxyContin illegally , allegedly at a clip of $3,900 for 100 pills every few days. I don’t care if they’re Flintstones Chewables, if you’re taking 100 pills of anything every few days you’ve got problems.

In today’s NY Post, Peter Lauria reports
that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sent a letter yesterday to Time
Warner Cable chief Glenn Britt, proposing a baseball-style,
third-party, binding arbitration process to settle their differences.
(To recap: The NFL Network wants to be placed on a basic-cable tier,
offering a huge audience. But cable companies think it should go on a
digital tier, where a self-selecting audience would cover the
subscription fees.) TWC’s boss shot back, saying he’d happily air the
network on a digital tier for free, or offer the NFL a pay-per-view
channel to charge its own fans. Ouch.

So, maybe, they will be able to work out their problems, eventually… but, until they do, the average American football fan gets screwed, while corporate America bickers. 

However, they will have their one true test of the season next week against the Colts.  If they get past these guys, well, they are are going all the way… all the way to the AFC Championship – where the Pats will, yet again, meet the Colts.  Who knows what will happen at that point in the season.  Last year, I would have given the Pats the nod in that game – given the Colts’ tendency to blow such games in the past… but, as the reigning champion … who knows how that game will go down?  I just can’t wait to see how this drama will play out, this season.

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