The Top 5 Characters in the NFL:
The NFL is full of lunatics. Year in year out, we’re bombarded enough scandal, intrigue and mystery and sex to make us think we’ve wandered into an Elmore Leonard novel, lest we forget that pro football is rarely about actual football-playing. Here are the men who keep the season as close to a three-ring circus as possible. God bless you all.
Ray Lewis, LB – Baltimore Ravens
---Maybe it’s just me, but that interview Lewis gave after the New England game was the most terrifying thing I’ve seen on TV all year. Without exaggeration, he looked like he was about to stab everyone in that locker room when discussing the penalty calls on his fellow defensemen. He gave off every crazy signal in the book short of spouting Ezekiel 25:17. If he had barged into Tom Brady’s press conference and beaten him to a pulp, I doubt anyone would have been remotely surprised.
Ice in his veins, malice in his heart: Ray “the Hitman” Lewis.
Rex Ryan, Head Coach – NY Jets
---First off: Dude. Put. The Twinkie. DOWN. That said, it’s hard not to love the guy who barged into the Meadowlands like he owned the place, talked smack right out of the gate and then put a team together that could back it up. Mark Sanchez has a tendency to play hot potato with the football, and that Saints loss was an overall failure on Gang Green’s part. But you’ve got to admire that fake punt call against Miami. That stuff is only supposed to happen in “Madden.” It takes a special kind of coach to actually try it out on national television.
Brett Favre, QB – Minnesota Vikings
---No. 4 has been a hot topic in the NFL for the last few years now; this year it’s for jumping ship to his archrivals of 16 years. Obviously, this isn’t the first time this has happened in sports. But after Favre unceremoniously dispatched the Packers, he unwittingly turned himself into one of the league’s most polarizing players. Even at 40, Favre will have success with the Vikings and he could damn well reach the Super Bowl with them. But unless Green Bay gets in an F-You game where Favre gets thumped at Lambeau, the Cheeseheads will never be able to forgive him and Favre may well be left without a home city when he finally does hang up his pads. Forget interesting, this story is becoming more of a Greek tragedy with every passing week.
TIE: Jerry Jones/Al Davis, Owners – Dallas Cowboys/Oakland Raiders
---These two are like the Batman and Joker of NFL owners: always in constant competition for who’s the bigger eccentric. It’s still too close to call.
I’m pretty sure Jerry “What Recession?” Jones only has the better public image because he channels his crazy through the piles and piles of money he accumulates and not outlandish personnel machinations, which is why Dallas ended up with Cowboys Stadium and not a bizarre, eleventh-hour trade for Richard Seymour. Davis, meanwhile, is becoming more and more like Citizen Kane every day; he lords over his empire even as it crumbles around him, his “Just Win Baby” motto is no longer applicable or even appropriate given Oakland’s sorry state. Plus, his quarterback is an ungodly mess and his head coach beats up his own staff. Somebody stop him!Brandon Jacobs, RB – NY Giants
---He should have more yards than he does, but that’s only because he prefers to slam into defenders like Optimus Prime instead of skirting them with quick cuts. The Jacobs Way is an entertaining but predictable game plan, and it’s admittedly worked better in the past than it is right now. But still, it’s been a while since a runningback seemed to base his play solely on “number of 300-pounders I’ve knocked into next week with a full-body charge.” Even big boy Albert Haynesworth looked like George of the Jungle hitting the tree when Jacobs cracked him in week 1. Now that's football, baby.
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