Thursday Water Cooler – June 17th, 2010
Here we go with today’s sports water cooler talk. Here, you won’t just find the straight news; you’ll find the stuff everyone is talking about – the ice breakers, the Twitter Sports Picks and topics…well, basically all the stuff you discuss at the water cooler.
Enjoy!
Are the winds of change blowing in the NFL? We’ll check in with the pigskin to start today’s news.
NFL news: League, union discuss lengthening regular season; Redskins want $21 Million from Haynesworth
Meeting for their first negotiations since February, the NFL and the players’ union didn’t just discuss the collective bargaining agreement, which expires in March 2011. They also discussed lengthening the regular season. The proposed idea wouldn’t make the season any longer in terms of number of days or weeks, as it would involve simply turning two exhibition games into regular-season games. 
So the ratio would be two-to-18 instead of four-to-16.
After Albert Haynesworth failed to report for a mandatory two-day minicamp, the Washington Redskins are trying to recoup the $21-million bonus they gave him.
I don’t blame them but you have to think their working relationship will be damaged beyond repair if they take that much money away from their star defensive tackle.
Quick Brett Favre update: No. 4 is healing well from his ankle surgery and will decide after a few more weeks of rehab if he’ll play in the 2010 season.
Quick Chris Johnson update: the 2,000-yard rusher has stated he wants to be the NFL’s highest-paid offensive player. He also Tweeted about Darrelle Revis, saying “at least dey offering him something dey not offering me nothing.”
Speaking of Revis, Johnson is right; the Jets are back at the table with Revis and trying to clear the air after he sat out some practices earlier this offseason.
NBA news: Big Baby guarantees victory in Game 7
Glen “Big Baby” Davis is about to become a legend – but for the right reason or the wrong one? He guaranteed victory for tonight’s Game 7, saying “You guys are going to remember Thursday forever” and that “I can’t wait to step up on the floor and win here in L.A.”
To Davis’ credit – the “guarantee a victory” concept is an overblown one in sports. What else could he say – “Um, well, I’m not sure if we’ll win”?
Then again, that strategy worked for Kobe after Game 5.
World Cup soccer news: Man killed by family for watching soccer
For anyone who tries to argue that a sport like the American football generates the same passion and insanity as soccer around the world, read on.
A 61-year-old South African man, David Makoeya, grabbed the TV remote in his home, eager to watch Germany play Australia in Sunday’s World Cup action. But his family members wanted to watch a religious program.
They argued and, in the end, his own immediate family – his wife and two children – beat him to death.
General news: Did ESPN create a culture of sexual harassment?
Brooke Hundley, the woman implicated in the Steve Phillips harassment scandal, is now suing the baseball analyst’s former network ESPN.
Hundley claims that she confided in female supervisors at ESPN when the harassment began but that they responded by sharing stories of their own harassment. An incensed Hundley explained that “It was almost as if, ‘You have been officially initiated.
We all have a story to tell. This is just the culture.”
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