CrimeBeat!: Bat Country Edition

No time for love, Dr. Jones- let’s get right down to it.

BRING FORTH THE ACCUSED!

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

CHARGE: Indecent exposure

With apologies to WhyEaglesWhy.

Can you hear it? Can you hear the low, menacing rumble, like a thousand Peter Kings’ stomaches in an Acela™ Quiet Car? That’s the sound of the City of Philadelphia, waiting for the fresh meat that the 2017 NFL Draft will bring to town. Make no mistake, Philly is sharpening its collective claws and polishing up that well-worn chip on its shoulder to a mirror brightness. Or at least as bright as anything ever gets in that city. Philly clings to its NUHBADY RESPECS US mentality with a ferociousness that is simultaneously frightening and strangely impressive.

For example: the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series in 2008. Were you aware of this? During a trivia night, our team was asked to name the last ten winners of the World Series, and if Jeebus himself had descended from on high and offered every one of us his or her own pet unicorn, we still would not have been able to answer the damned question because not one of us remembered that. And when the organizers read the correct answers out, the room was about evenly split between “Oh yeaaaah…” and “Really?”

Because if you meet a Philadelphian in the street, you would swear that the city’s sports teams had won neither jack nor shit in living memory. You forget those borderline brilliant Eagles teams that Andy Reid coached deep into the playoffs year after year, because all you hear is about is poor clock management and Donovan McNabb throwing up. You forget about those Phillies because all you hear is how Cole Hamels regressed and how they don’t make ’em like Mike Schmidt no more, do dey? And for all the (deserved) shit Bears fans get for living in 1985, they do not hold a candle to the Philadelphia Flyers fans of my acquaintance, whose sole answer to any question about improving a team (in any sport) is that they should play tougher and meaner, like the Broad Street Bullies yousta.

This is not to say most Philly fans don’t have pride in their teams- far from it. It’s just that the rooting interest is always significantly defined by hating the other team, and feeling like your team (and your city) is constantly getting shafted. Let’s leave aside for a moment the cliche (but deserved and embraced) Meanest Fans In Sports reputation. Ask any Eagles fan from Philly about the team’s prospects this year. Within three to four sentences, there will be complaints. Within three minutes, you will notice that the conversation has shifted to center on Dallas or the Giants (or if you have a true optimist, “At least we’re not the Redskins”).

The civic mindset seems to travel along those same roads: pride, but anger that everything decent about the city got upstaged about two centuries ago. Cradle of the Revolution! Well, Boston pretty much usurped that legacy, and most of the cool documents were moved to DC when it was built. Major economic hub of the nation! Erie Canal, bitches. First stock exchange! Got bought out in 2007 for less than half the Forbes value of the Jacksonville jaguars. Put up a statue dedicated to a fictional movie character! Detroit did it better. Fuckin’ DETROIT, man….

Also: [EDITORIAL NOTE: The original draft of this contained a scalding-hot taek on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Although the CrimeBeat! Standards and Decency Department is always hesitant to exercise any sort of censorship, it has become painfully obvious that the otherwise sensible and upstanding Commentist Party is riddled with fans of the show. In the interests of public order, and to minimize the likelihood of Reverend Mayhem getting shivved at the next DFOCon, it has been expurgated.] I mean, otherwise it’s just shitting on a plate and repeatedly yelling “DOES THIS NOT AMUSE YOU?” at passersby. Fuck’s sake…

I’m sorry, I blacked there for a minute. Where was I?

RIGHT! Draft Fever hits the City of Brotherly Love, and it appears to be antibiotic-resistant. I’m assuming that every single draft pick will get booed lustily, either because the Eagles drafted…well, anyone, really… or because the crowd is angry that any other team was allowed to pick. It very well may be the first and last time anyone says “I miss the Jets fans.” Shades of Altamont, only with Roger Goodell in place of Mick Jagger…

Presuming we make it to 2020, I’m pushing for a Vegas Draft and contemporaneous DFOCon: Spring Edition. All those prostitutes aren’t gonna pee on themselves, you know. Unless your name is on the side of the hotel.

LINCOLN HAWK

CHARGE: Impersonating a Milkshake

Aaaaand we segue from Philly to Stallone (who is actually from New York) to Arm Wrestling.

In the first real test of the NFL’s “Just The Tip” approach to it’s new relationship with Las Vegas, upward of 30 current and former players allegedly took part in the “Pro Football Arm Wrestling Championship” at Hakkasan, a nightclub inside the MGM Grand Casino. According to ESPN, a “portion of the prize purses for both individual and team competition will be donated to charities chosen by the players.” Participants allegedly included:

-Brow-ridge enthusiast James Harrison

-Kenny Stills, who should probably be getting his own CrimeBeat! section for bilking the Dolphins out of $20 million guaranteed money

-Steelers center and “Free Hernandez” activist Maurkice Pouncey

-Raiders punter Marquette King, who apparently outdid Kenny Still is the larceny department by garnering $7.75 million in guaranteed money on his current contract

-Perpetual Hurt Person Mario Edwards

-NaVorro Bowman, who graduated from Penn State with a major of “Crime, Law, and Justice” despite Penn State knowing nothing about those last two.

Also participating as a “team captain” was Marshawn Lynch, retired-but-more-like-Brett-Favre-Retired-than-really-retired running back for the Seattle Seahawks. It is something of a surprise to see Lynch participating in an arm-wrestling tournament, as his most dangerous appendage is his heavy right foot. As a tangent, can someone tell me why in fuck Lynch would want to come back and play for the Raiders? Yes, he grew up in Oakland and went to school at Berkeley, but the team just gave the city a billion-dollar middle finger. “Playing for your hometown team” when that shitshow is leaving town makes no sense. Dude is 31, and I can’t imagine he’s going to play (effectively) much past the two years that the team will spend getting spit on at home games. Is the Grille Budget depleted already?

ANYWAY: the NFL is fining some or all of the active players under it’s “We Don’t Like Gambling, Honest” rules, under which “players and NFL personnel may not participate in promotional activities or other appearances in connection with events that are held at or sponsored by casinos.”

I get why the league doesn’t want players, coaches or anyone else who can affect the outcome of a game or season to be associated with casinos or gambling. First, you look at the sheer number of match-fixing scandals in soccer and you realize how deeply that can undermine a sport. Then you have Certain Fanbases who already think the league or the refs are Out To Get Them.

Can you imagine the ultradense shitholery that would result if gambling interests were an acknowledged part of the game? Every time a call even came close to affecting the outcome of a game relative to the line, the already-deafening howl of the degenerate gambler would rise to a level actively harmful to bats and the unborn.

So it will be interesting to see how the NFL manages to adjust its hard-line stance to account for having a team in a town where you can’t get a cup of coffee without going onto casino property. I’m putting my money (so to speak) on “reinterpret the meaning of ‘in connection with’ so that it is as subjective and inconsistent as ‘is this a catch?’”

LATE BREAKING NEWS! Allegedly Robert Kraft owns some part of a hedge fund that owns part of Caesars Entertainment which owns part of a whole hell of a lot of gambling establishments around the world, many of whom take bets on NFL games. Now listen, I am on record as despising Trump-bestie Bob Kraft, who may not have had his wife killed but certainly didn’t grieve for long before hooking up with a proud blonde alumna of Florida International University 39 years his junior.

Anyway, for as much as I want to burn his shit down, even I don’t think this is that big of a deal. If you’ve got a billion dollars, it’s probably hard to not invest in something improper, morally reprehensible or both. There is nothing Kraft can do to influence the outcome of games that Darth Hoodie hasn’t already implemented.

Foxboro delenda est, by the way.

WATER

CHARGE: Fish fuck in it.

I know I bagged on the NFL Combine last year for failing to produce much in the way of drama and I was ready to write this one off as producing little more than some hospital drama. But now, we have word  that not one but TWO giant first-rounder soon-to-be millionaires were busted for positive drug tests…sort of. Get out your pearls, boys and girls, cuz they’re gonna need clutching.

First, linebacker Reuben Foster allegedly disclosed to NFL.com in a telephone interview that he had failed his Combine drug test, which it ran under the headline “Alabama LB Reuben Foster Had Positive Drug Test at Combine”. However, it turns out that Foster in fact did not test positive for anything, but instead turned in a dilute urine sample. As this is a common technique for trying to mask illicit substances from drug tests, the league treats this as the equivalent of a positive test. No word as to whether this urine sample was collected during the hospital visit when he got stared down by a murse, but I like to think it was.

Just yesterday, That Darn Schefter reported that Heisman runner-up and fellow projected first-round draft pick Jabril Peppers also tested positive for…um…water in his Combine urine test. The linebacker/safety/nickel back/kick returner/long snapper/cabana boy from Michigan also had a dilute sample, meaning that he also is deemed to have failed the test.

Both Foster and Peppers blamed the dilute samples on having been sick the day before- Foster alleges that he had food poisoning and was trying to rehydrate, while Peppers cited a generalized sickness, history of cramping, and “having” to work out with both the linebackers and defensive backs as his justification for chugging 8-10 bottles of water. Neither is expected to drop out of the first round.  As a side note, do you think Jim Harbaugh intentionally stocked his team with Peppers, Taco Charlton and quarterback John O’Korn?

In any event, even my legalistic mind is a bit put off by this policy of equating a diluted sample with an actual positive drug test. First, I tend to adopt Joe Thomas’ solution to the problem: if the sample looks overly pale to the tester, make the dude wait and go again. I’m no expert, but I would think most banned substances are not going to wash out in a single bladderful. Second, the mixed messages here are horrifying. On the one hand, they don’t want dilute samples. On the other hand, college coaches have drummed it into these players’ heads that your level of hydration determines your worth as a person:

And I can see, in this silliest of Silly Seasons, some jackass team executive buying into the Longhorn Model and going “Well, we should move him down our board because his creatinine levels show he’s a me-first gloree boy.”

But seriously- urine testing just a cover for a Russian plot to steal our precious bodily fluids.

BONUS COVERAGE

MIKE BROWN

CHARGE: Involuntary Psychiatric Hold

Assuming one believes Russian sock puppet Ian Rapoport, the Bengals are allegedly willing to part with backup quarterback A.J. McCarron for “at least” a first round draft pick. A minimum first-round pick. For A.J. Fucking McCarron? AJ McCarron, whose sole legacy is that his now-wife was eyefucked in front of the entire nation by Brent Musburger?  For the love of God, somebody get Mike Brown medicated…