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* Special Friday edition! Jerrott Willard, 1995 Superior Pix Hey, Jerrott Willard…seriously, put some clothes on. And is that a regulation football you’re playing with, or are you just happy to see me? Ha, ha! I kid with Jerrott Willard, of course, but this story has serious roots. Back in 1995, the Cal football program was going through some tough times, mainly due to an NCAA violation involving a potential recruit, a goat, three pints of Johnnie Walker, and a transvestite. Long story. Anyhoo, the program lost some scholarships, and also some other privileges, like full-length uniforms. (You cannot tell from this card, but theses guys are barefoot as well.) Cal tried to compensate for this loss by hiring a pro-bono abdominal trainer for the 1995 season, because, as then head coach Tom Holmoe put it, “If we gotta play half-naked football, we’re gonna look good while doing it, gosh darn it!” This idea seemed to work out well for Jerrott Willard, who could often stuff a third-and-short j...

Bruce Smith, 1991 Score The montage NFL portrait was revolutionized by Pablo Picasso, who, before his death in 1973, created the first known montage football portrait of Mean Joe Greene, which many critics described as his best work. Some even marveled at the humanity of the project, which featured Greene in three parts – one making a tackle, one smiling, and one making another tackle (Mean Joe Greene was a tackling machine – Picasso accentuated that fact like no other before him). Many of Greene’s harshest critics were amazed at how Picasso was able to make the fierce lineman appear less mean than his name would indicate. But by the 1980’s, the montage portrait had become somewhat stale. That is, until 1991, when new-age artist Christo decided to try his hand at it. What happened next was only the most culturally relevant football card ever. The subject was the manly Bruce Smith, and Christo was able to capture at least three of the attributes of Smith’s game that made him a future NF...

This is a warning to all married males. Do NOT – I repeat – do NOT let your wife go food shopping alone! This is a state of emergency! Consider yourself warned! There is a predator on the loose, and I have seen him in action. His main purpose is to seduce your wife at the supermarket, take her home, make her dinner, and then have sex with her! Yeah, sex! Plus, he is Australian! He is not to be trusted! How do I know this? Well, I have been watching a new show on TLC called “Take Home Chef,” which is always on when I get home from work. (Yeah, sometimes I watch TLC when I get home – it’s a helluva lot better than “Around the Horn,” so shut the hell up!) The premise of the show is this: metrosexual Australian dude stalks woman at supermarket, asks her “who she is cooking for,” coerces her into letting him make dinner, which culminates in a shocked, distraught husband arriving home from work only to discover his wife rolling around in batter with some tall, spiky-haired bloke! Seriously, ...

It’s difficult enough to get an interview with Giants’ head coach Tom Coughlin in the offseason, so you can imagine my surprise when he agreed to sit down with me during the chaos of the regular season! And while the perception of Coughlin is that he has the personality of a mouse pad, you will see – he’s actually pretty lively. It should also be noted that while this interview is 100 percent accurate, it is also equally fake. Anyway, on with the interview… Me : Welcome, Mr. Coughlin! Have a seat… Coughlin : Thank you. Me : Can I tell you something? Coughlin : Go ahead. Me : I’ve been sitting here for the past four hours, because last night I was having nightmares that I’d be late for your interview, and that you’d berate me in front of everybody. Coughlin : Wow…Well, that’s real nice of you, but I try not to berate anyone except my own players. Plus, there’s nobody here to berate you in front of. Me : Yeah, I know, but it was a dream, and dreams are freakin’ weird sometimes, ya’ know?...

Carlos Baerga, 1992 Leaf, “Studio” series Carlos Baerga only wears his sunglasses on three occasions: at night, during the day, and when he’s in the studio posing for an alarmingly metrosexual baseball card photo. In fact, this very card is often credited with the turn-of-the-century boom of metrosexuality, but back in 1992, this card was only considered to be one thing: totally gay. But if you really think about it, all you have to do is remove the mustache and the clothes, and you’re left with a picture of A-Rod laying out on the rocks in Central Park. And it wasn’t easy for Baerga to become the godfather of metro. It was so cold in the studio that day that Baerga had to cover up his nipples, which were actually poking through his baseball jacket. It took five interns, eight bottles of Paul Mitchell hair gel, and two cases of wine coolers to even get through this photo shoot, which lasted four hours. (Ultimately, when billing MLB, the Leaf Co. chose “uncooperative nipples” as an expl...

*Special Friday edition Todd Philcox, 1992 NFL Pro Set Sure, the easy joke here, as Todd Philcox lays his hands underneath the crotch area of a miscellaneous 300 lb man, is, “Hey – they didn’t call him Philcox for nothin’.” But Todd Philcox was more than an easy joke – he was a very complicated, drawn-out joke, who, in his two seasons leading up to 1992, had a quarterback rating of 16.3, making him the Brett Favre of his day. Of course, the biggest mystery surrounding Todd Philcox relates directly to this card, and the question that has plagued the minds of football fans for over a decade: Is he posing ? Some have speculated that Cleveland wideout Michael Jackson was experimenting with the first “wide receiver cam,” which would have been, obviously, well ahead of its time. However, Philcox does not appear to be calling out any sort of play. Instead, he stares into the camera with a look that says, “I’m Todd Philcox, bitches. Now watch me fumble this snap.” Then again, if one were to po...

Ryan Leaf, 1999 Donruss Not to defend the career of Ryan Leaf here, but it’s probably pretty difficult to play football when one of the spikes from the Statue of Liberty’s head is shooting up your ass. I’m just saying. Let’s cut him a little slack. Anyway, I cannot recall how this particular play ended, but it was definitely either a) a sack, b) an interception, c) an interception returned for a touchdown, d) a fumble, e) a fumble returned for a touchdown, f) an injured scrotum, g) both a and d, h) both a and e, I) a, e, and f, j) someone in the Chargers’ front office getting immediately fired, k) c and j, l) an incomplete pass that landed 30 yards out-of-bounds, m) f and l, or n) an ill-advised pass that hit an offensive lineman in the back of the helmet, careened into the air, only to be caught by Leaf again, at which point he threw an interception and then injured his scrotum trying to tackle the opposing cornerback on his way to the endzone. Yeah, it was definitely one of those thi...