BRISTOL (AP) - Little Trey Huguley is an average guy.  He has an average job.  And like most average guys, he likes coming home after a long day of work on Monday to Monday Night Football.  This Monday was no different.  Trey settled into his La-Z-Boy recliner, popped open a beer and turned on the TV.

“What the @$#% is this?” Trey exclaimed when he saw what was on TV.  He checked his watch and his program guide.  It was the time and channel for Monday Night Football, but sadly there was no football on.

Only the Ravens vs. the Browns.

Trey proceeded to call up his local cable company.  After a long hold, Trey began to get antsy as it was coming up on time for the end of the first quarter and the last thing he wanted to do was miss some real football.  When the cable company representative came on, they mentioned that they were flooded with calls about the situation and they were looking into it.  They assured Trey that they had checked their connections and this was the proper ESPN feed.  The problem had to be on the ESPN end of things.

Rather than spend an evening without football, Trey spent the next hour on hold.  Finally he got through.

“Hi.  My name is Trey and I’m calling to ask why there’s not football on.  Its supposed to be time for Monday Night Football but when I turn it to ESPN all I see is…” But Trey is cut off.  He goes pale white and his jaw drops at their response.

“Sir… this IS Monday Night Football.” The representative informs Trey.  Trey turns to the TV.  It shows The Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens going in for half time with the score 0-0.  Trey begins to enter the seven stages of grief.  First denial.

“No.  No it isn’t.  You’re lying.  Switch it over to the real game!” Then the Pain and guilt.  Trey begins to shake.  Then comes the bargaining.

“Well… could you just replay the Pats-Colts game?  No?  Please?”  Trey hangs up the phone.  Then comes stage 4.  Loneliness.  Trey stares at the on screen program guide that reads Monday Night Football.  Trey clutches a pillow and tries to hold back the tears.

Now should come the upward turn.  Trey turns back on the TV.  On screen Cleveland blocks a Baltimore extra point.  Trey sobs and turns off the TV.  There will be no recovery tonight.  Trey is one of millions of fans who voiced their hurt and betrayal at ESPN for playing Baltimore vs. Cleveland in lieu of Monday Night Football.  One ESPN email server shut down after the wave of complaint emails hit.

ESPN Issued the Following Statement Tuesday Morning:

We here at ESPN constantly strive to bring you the highest level of sports entertainment.  The unfortunate events on Monday night that led to us broadcasting the Cleveland Browns versus Baltimore Ravens.  We are looking deep into our broadcast practices and standards to ensure that this never happens again.  Several things we are exploring:

• Contracting the Browns from the NFL
• Permanent ban of Brady Quin from television in general
• An Emergency override system that, at the push of a button, will switch the ESPN broadcast to something better than Browns-Ravens like Michael Jordan highlights, classic Super Bowl moments or even paint drying.
• Using Common Sense when Picking games for a National Broadcast

We offer our sincerest apologies and hope that you will continue to look to ESPN for your sports news and actions.

But that still doesn’t give Trey or the millions of other Americans their Monday night back.

Considering the Giants had the day off, a lot went their way. Not only did the team not lose, but the Eagles and Cowboys did… which is always nice.

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Every NFL team has a distinct identity.  Some are hopelessly lost, some have always been prosperous, some are on crack.  The same could be said for the female Pop Stars of the World.  Let’s try to figure out which Pop Stars are which NFL Team if for nothing else, than for the ability to make fun of a team by comparing them to Kelly Clarkson.

Washington Redskins Britney Spears

Remember back in the 90’s when they were good? Everyone liked them.  Then they went crazy.  Someone keeps irrationally throwing a LOT of money into producing them believing that they are going to turn the corner and have a hit soon.  Any real genuine problems that have can be fixed with money and band-aids.  She can’t sing?  Just put that I am T-Pain synthesizer on her voice.  Can’t play defense?  Just throw all of the money you have at Haynesworth.

New England Patriots Beyonce Knowles

Everything they do seems to come out right.  They have all sorts of records.  They’ve totally owned this decade.  There may be accusations of Diva-ness, but have totally earned the right to act like they’re hot shit.

Indianapolis Colts Christina Aguilera

You always think “OK, this is the year they take a Britney like nosedive into obscurity or irrelevance”, but they never do.  They always keep coming back with hits/good seasons and despite the similar formula, always seems to have good success.  Somehow they avoided the dreaded young pop star curse/1st QB drafted curse to become really successful.  Remember how many people thought Britney would totally have a better career than Christina?  Remember how many people thought Ryan Leaf was so much better than Peyton Manning?  Stupid call.

Detroit Lions Celine Dion

I’m sorry to all of my Michigan/Detroit friends, but Lions football is the Celine Dion of the NFL.  Its just painful.  You can blame Matt Millen.  You can blame Titanic.  What ever.  I don’t care whose fault it is, I just don’t want to be around it.

(Read the rest of the 32 teams’ Pop Stars after the jump):

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The New York football Giants continued their shameless self-destruction in dramatic fashion by giving their Week 9 game to the San Diego Chargers. It’s not that the Giants don’t know how to win anymore, it’s that losing is just so much easier.

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As of today, 22 teams have looked either, good, solid or decent.  They play well enough to think “Yeah, I could see them making a run and getting into the playoffs.”  The Colts, Saints, Broncos and Vikings are undefeated and playing really stellar football.  They’ve all been tested and won tough contest against quality opponents.  The other 18 have all shown flashes of promise and are entertaining to watch week in and week out.

The remaining 10 teams are an embarrassment to football, the NFL and sports in general.  Those teams are:

• Oakland
• Detroit
• Carolina
• Buffalo
• Cleveland
• Kansas City
• Tampa Bay
• Tennessee
• St. Louis
• Washington

They don’t deserve to play the rest of the season.  Of those 10 teams, they have won a combined 11 times.  Only 2 of those times have against teams in the top 22 (Oakland vs. Philly & Buffalo vs the Jets).  Cleveland’s lone win was a 6-3 thrill fest against Buffalo. There are three winless teams.  Tennessee suffered the worst NFL loss in 30 years.  Half of the games every week are decided before kickoff or are Washington-Detroit-esque slapfights.

It would be easy to just 86 the lot of them.  There would be no more “Oh God, do I have to watch Oakland-Detroit this week?”  (The Gods were merciful in blacking out that game regionally in Detroit.)  But there’s a lot of players on those teams who really deserve to be on a winner and it wouldn’t be fair to just dump them out of the league because the management of their respective teams shouldn’t be allowed to control a Madden 2010 team, much less a real NFL team.

Well maybe not a LOT of players, but maybe enough to field a team.  So, here’s what I propose:

• Remove the above teams.
• Take the best players from those teams and combine them into a new team.  The Las Vegas Zoo.

Bill Simmons has been pleading for a pro team in Vegas for some time now and we all win when he’s happy.  Why name them “The Zoo”?  Other than the fact that its awesome?  We need to offer some concession to those teams being dismissed.  We need to honor their history and mascots.  You have 5 teams with animal mascots (if you count Cleveland Dog Pound instead of the bland “Browns”), you have 2 teams represented by pirates (Buccaneers & Raiders), 2 teams represented by Indians (Chiefs & Redskins) and the ironically named Titans.  You can has a logo of all of the mascots of the redacted teams in cages on a pirate ship being watched by the indigenous people of America.  And we just ignore the Titan part of it.  They lost their right to be represented after letting Brian Hoyer score a rushing touchdown against them.  Yeah, there’s a reason you don’t know who Hoyer is.  Everyone is happy.  But now for the fun part:  Fielding the team (after the jump):

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A friend of mine asked me how it was that some tri-state area people are Giants fans and others Jets fans. I broke the question down the best way I could by explaining that there were many factors: it matters if you went to any games growing up, who your parents were fans of, where you grew up, if you constantly show off how proud you are that you know how to spell a four-letter word, if you have manners, if you have a criminal record, or if you are a masochist.

The Giants do have four times as many hall of famers, have been around for 35 more seasons then the Jets and there are actually Giants fans in parts of New England.

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