HOSE WOES: Practice-squad scrubs around the NFL will most likely be keeping it in their pants this offseason, after two New Orleans Saints players were booted from the team for lewd conduct and obscenity.
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The Sports Genius of the Week Award is actually going to be shared by a pair of now-former New Orleans Saints fringe-roster players, wide receiver Biren Ealy and tight end Kolomona Kapanui. These two yahoos won themselves an all-expenses-paid ticket to a career bagging groceries after getting arrested for indecent exposure in a late-night fiasco this past week.
Both Kapanui and Ealy were picked up by New Orleans last year. Neither has ever had a whiff of real NFL playing time and both were at best long shots to make the Saints' 53-man roster. Let's be honest: a high draft pick may, while drunkenly urinating in public, turn around and accost female passers-by by flogging his member and reasonably expect to keep his job. But a practice-squad scrub? No chance.
Yet that is exactly what these two dummies did. Apparently, both were peeing in the bushes outside the Jefferson Parish apartment complex where they lived, when suddenly two women pulled up to the entrance. When they asked the men to stop pissing, Ealy allegedly turned around and started making lewd comments. According to reports, Kapanui one-upped him and began "fondling himself while making lewd comments."
The two women "yelled for help and dialed 911." Kapanui and Ealy were booked on charges of obscenity, disturbing the peace by being drunk in public, and lewd conduct, and quickly cut loose from the team. Give them 40 points apiece for the wiener wagging.
Just didn't say no
Yet another ex-NFL football player has circled the drain of drug addiction and dropped down the dank hole of the criminal-justice system. This time, the offending player is Sam Rayburn, who some of you might remember as an overachieving defensive tackle whose best seasons were probably with the Philadelphia Eagles a few years back. Rayburn's career was cut short by a rash of injuries. And the addiction is not for recreational drug use, but for painkillers. He racked up a Dana Plato–style felony prescription-forgery arrest in Chickasha, Oklahoma, where he's charged with faking scrip for painkillers like Oxycodone and Lortab at a series of local pharmacies.
"It gets to the point where you either have to say 'I've got to put it down,' or you make a stupid decision, which, unfortunately, is what I did," Rayburn said. "I still have pain. I did become addicted to it."
Meanwhile, another football player was being arrested a few miles north for a similar offense. Blaine Dalton, the third-string quarterback for the University of Missouri, was busted for possession of hydrocodone after a routine traffic stop. Showing his NFL-worthiness, Dalton pulled a Ty Law and said the drugs belonged to a former teammate who had accidentally left them in his glove box. Solid move. Dalton has been suspended from the team indefinitely.
As for Rayburn, the poor sap, he claims now to have been clean for 50 days — he says he completed rehab and is going to try to educate others about his experience. Amazingly, the guy is only 28 — he could still be playing. It's truly depressing that people have to get criminal records for painkiller addictions; give him six points for sacrificing his body in his playing days.
When he's not googling "big sleazy" and "scold that Tiger," Matt Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone. He can be reached at m_taibbi@yahoo.com.
