Top Three Stories of the Day (Sept. 17, 2015)
Amari Cooper Isn't As Innocent As You Think
Earlier in the week everybody was talking about the video showing Adam "Pacman" Jones slamming Amari Cooper's head down onto a helmet. It looked bad and it was something that gave people who didn't like Jones a legitimate reason to criticize him.
Jones has a past amongst the worst in the history of the NFL (non Aaron Hernandez and Rae Caruth related) and this seemed like a relapse of sorts. Well, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, it seems as though Cooper punched Jones in the throat just before that.
It doesn't excuse what Jones did, but you can at least understand it. The NFL didn't punish Jones and maybe it was because they knew about what Cooper did. Either that or Goodell is so scared of punishing anyone he just assumed there was more evidence and he guessed right for once.
Assuming the Jones doesn't do something like this again most people can see this as a momentary release of anger and let it slide.
Jason Pierre-Paul's Photo of Mangled Right Hand Surface
So, what exactly did you expect? Honestly. Did you expect it to be one giant long con with Pierre-Paul? Did you think that his hand was going to be slightly damaged or something that still looked OK? Here's a link to the photo. It's bad. Take a look at it at your own risk.
Of course his hand looks like hell! He had a firework accident. From the looks of it he grabbed the firework and it ended very badly. Now we transition to how he plays with eight and a half fingers.
Now we'll see how Pierre-Paul plays up to his standards, if at all, with a bad hand. The hardest thing to believe is that it took this long for photos to emerge. This happened on the 4th of July. It's September 17th. He got a good two months of confusion out of this. Come on TMZ Sports. I thought this is what you do?
Geno Smith Talks... Again about KO Punch From IK Enemkpali
Why, Geno? Why would you continue to put yourself out there like this? I know you have a lot of free time on your hands but you have to know that if you ever talk about the punch that got your jaw broken then the media will laugh at you.
We tend to do these things to people that we don't like. If Tom Brady yells at his players on the sideline we call it being a leader. If Dez Bryant yells at his teammates on the sideline we say he's out of control. If Aaron Rodgers throws an ill-timed interception we call it a gamble that didn't pay off. If Tony Romo does it we call him a choker. Narratives matter in sports.
So, when IK Enemkpali knocked out Smith we laughed at both of them. Enemkpali made a dumb mistake but he was a fringe guy at best. We couldn't make fun of a guy after he gets cut (which he was, twice). That left Smith, an average quarterback at best, as the lone guy to mock. And the media becomes the bullies at school laughing at your misfortunes. The New York Post makes a living doing this. If this happened to Andrew Luck we'd have made Enemkpali worse than Ray Rice. Instead, we laughed about it and kept it moving.
Geno… buddy… you've gotta stop talking about this. Talking about it more only brings back the memes. You don't want the memes and vines to come back. It doesn't end well for you.
