Gregg Rosenthal Targets Lowest Common Denominator. Bullseye.

Anyone know a good news compiler? Like, even a bot or splog or anything? I get my news links from Pro Football Talk, but it's a bad habit and one I am ashamed of.

William S. Burroughs played William Tell and shot his wife's head off. Gregg Rosenthall played Mike Florio and couldn't muster something so respectable.

In advance of this week's game against the Bears, Housmandzadeh was asked if he had any serious talks with Bears G.M. Jerry Angelo.

"Man, the Bears ain't holler at me,'' he said.  "Jerry Angelo probably didn't even think I could play. So I'm going to show him Sunday."

. . .

Also uncertain is whether Houshmandzadeh is enough of a difference-maker to be worth all the money Seattle is paying him.  Angelo clearly didn't think so. 

On Sunday, Houshmandzadeh gets to prove him wrong.

If Seattle wasn't playing a team from a major metropolis, we would be spared this kind of controversy mongering, but the Chicago Bears are coming to town and so we get warped quotes and ignorant speculation. This is the so-called East Coast bias everyone clamors for. Seahawks fans want a circus atmosphere and tabloid reporting for their team, damnit. They want the provincialism of New York and pissy arrogance of Boston. They want to know their players not as players, but as scandals and scandals yet to happen.

T.J Houshmandzadeh has 10 receptions and six first downs. He has been integral to Seattle's passing offense and is clearly Matt Hasselbeck's favorite and most trusted receiver. After two games, I don't think a single Seahawks fan regrets the signing.

Housh plays with a chip on his shoulder. That is what most good players do. He was a juco transfer that wasn't selected until the seventh round of the NFL Draft. If he didn't play like he had something to prove, he wouldn't still be in the NFL. And, get this, he speaks in slang sometimes. The literate readers of Pro Football Talk bristled at his vernacular, gasping "my word!" To quote Fifty Cent, "It's idiomatic, bitch."

This is an ongoing, one-sided campaign by PFT. Houshmandzadeh says something bold or arrogant, PFT links to it and talks trash. It's a pretty thin shtick, but about all Florio has proven capable of. It's sort of sad to see Rosenthal sucked into the tempest, but where there's success, be it the Cubs scalping their own tickets or the rise of the first plague, there's less talented imitators.