2010 Superbowl & NFL Football Betting

A week or so after stripping Matt Leinart of his starting quarterback job, the Arizona Cardinals are openly shopping the former first round pick. Three teams have been mentioned as possible trading partners — the Oakland Raiders, Buffalo Bills, and New York Giants — but all three have publicly said they’re not interested. The Cardinals are also considering simply cutting Leinart before Saturday’s roster deadline.

There’s a few reasons nobody’s thrilled about picking up Leinart, who’s entering his fifth season in the pros.  He not only seems to be an underachieving malcontent who doesn’t think he should be anybody’s backup, he’s also slated to make over $7 million next year. Plus, why give up anything to the Cardinals in a trade when they may cut him?

The NFL is investigating a sex tape recently released on the internet that probably stars Patriots rookie linebacker Brandon Spikes, a former Florida Gator and second-round pick in this year’s draft. “We are looking into it,” wrote league spokesman Greg Aiello in an email to ESPN. The explicit video reportedly shows Spikes receiving oral sex while lying on a bed.

So does the NFL investigation make the NFL not just the No Fun League but the No Fellatio League?

Spikes agent was immediately on the defensive:

It was something that occurred before he became an NFL draftee and a New England Patriot. I think for anyone it would be an embarrassing situation. Brandon has shown to many people the kind of person he is before and after being drafted in the second round. He’s hoping to put this behind him and looks forward to having a great football season.

In a bizarre publicity stunt, Procter & Gamble has gotten Lloyd’s of London to insure the hair of Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu for $1 million.  Procter & Gamble owns Head & Shoulders, America’s most beloved dandruff shampoo, which employs Polamalu as a spokesman, mainly because his hair is nearly three feet long.  The company told Reuters that Lloyd’s “created the first ever insurance policy to protect his iconic mane for the entire NFL season.”

If I was a stockholder in P&G, I would be pissed.  I highly doubt anyone in Pittsburgh knows what shampoo is, much less purchases it, much less purchases it based on which long-haired Steeler endorses it.  Do they really think people in Pittsburgh are really going to hear this news and think, wow, Troy Polamalu has a lot of hair, the product he endorses could probably get the coal mine stink out of my hair at night while I sleep a few hours before returning once again the next morning to the miserable depths of the earth where I dig out my meager existence.

I get the feeling that NFL Films likes the New Orleans Saints a lot more than the Pittsburgh Steelers. When the Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII, NFL Films got “Mad Men” star Jon Hamm to narrate their highlight film. For “America’s Game: 2009 New Orleans Saints,” the movie film of the Saints triumph in Super Boxl XLIV, NFL Films went for a slightly bigger star — Brad Pitt, huge movie star.

The documentary debuts on NFL Network on Wednesday, September 8 — the night before the 2010 regular season opens with the much ballyhooed NFC Championship rematch between the Saints and Brett Favre’s Vikings.

Pitt and Angelina Jolie own a home in New Orleans, and in 2006 created the Make It Right Foundation with the goal of building 150 sustainable, affordable new houses in the city’s devastated Ninth Ward.  So far, nearly 50 homes have been built.