"I will smash your face into a car windshield, and then take your mother Dorothy Mantooth out for a nice seafood dinner and never call her back."

Tomorrow is the Lions first pre-season game. Last week, when they held a public practice at Ford Field, Joey Harrington was booed lustily by some of the fans. To be frank, I've never understood the large segment of Lions of Lions fans who so vehemently dislike Joey Harrington. There seems to be so much resentment, whether it’s about him playing the piano and the sometimes subtle and often not so subtle questions about his sexuality. The calls for Mike McMahon, I always felt were silly, because, let's be frank, all McMahon could really ever do is run around like a crazy person, he couldn't actually hit anyone throwing the ball to save his life. Harrington has struggled, but last year was, by far, his best year, and with the improved supporting cast, you would think there would be more support. Still, there seem to be a large number of fans hoping and praying Jeff Garcia is in by week four, essentially hoping Harrington fails. I am really hoping, frankly, for a Drew Brees type year from Harrington, just to shut those people up.

While at the gym today, I watched the PTI interview with Terrell Owens. Frankly, for a long time, I could understand and even sympathize somewhat, with Owens, because contracts aren't guaranteed in the NFL. But today with the PTI interview, and the petulance he exhibited really made no one happy (one other thing. The one thing that disappoints me about PTI is the fact that they rarely seem to really push athletes to answer questions. Today it was Wilbon and Ryan, but I've noticed Tony do it, along with others. Part of it, I think, comes from the way athletes deflect those questions, but still, I would have liked to have seen T.O. and Rosenhaus pushed a bit harder.) The Old School NFL Live type guys really seem to detest him at this point, as I'm sure many of the writers do. Also, Owens needs to realize that he can only live off of the Super Bowl for so long, especially since his team lost. Had they won, he would be a hero, but they lost, so he merely became an interesting footnote. There doesn’t seem to be any logical takers for Owens (though how about this, Mushin Muhammed and Thomas Jones to the Eagles, T.O. to the Bears?), so he won't be dealt. He won't be released. We probably have another Keyshawn situation on our hands. Last week in SI, Peter King made mention of the fact that this NFL season seemed to one of the most anticipated ever, and he's probably right. But the fact that the Owens saga has so dominated the headlines would have me worried if I was in the NFL offices. And isn't it funny, that with a lot of great stories in baseball, the summer has really only had three huge sports stories (Raffy, Owens, and LB)? And one more thing, when Owens talked about how he was a grown man, did anyone else want him to finish the sentence by saying "I'm the man who discovered the wheel, and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal...and brawn?"