Random

1. Starting Darren Sproles in place of Thomas Jones in fantasy football this week. With LT out, Sproles is going to have an even bigger workload than last week when he put up over 20 points against the Ravens defense. Jones's weakness is his incosistency, highlighted by a big week one and abysmal week two. Also hurting his value is Leon Washington getting the majority of the work near the goal line. This week the Jets play Tennessee, who have shut down the run so far but been weak against the pass. That could increase his value some, as he traditionally gets close to half or more of his points receiving out of the backfield. Sproles, meanwhile, is facing an improving Miami defense that nontheless likely won't be able to shut down the run as well as the Ravens did. That's why I'm going with Sproles, in my first big decision of the season.

2. I still can't tell if Quinton Jackson is seriously going to retire. Rampage certainly has been prone to rash statements and actions in the past, and this could be just the latest. On the other hand, Jackson has enough of a name and personality to sustain himself without ever stepping back into a cage or ring. From my angle, some of his gripes seem ill-founded and preposterous. Refusing to drop the fans booing him when he beat Liddell got old a long time ago. Rampage has to be one of the popular fighters in the organization now, but he seems to think everyone's against him. Equally hollow is his assertion that his fans saw him as being afraid of Machida. You don't have to be an MMA expert to know Rampage is not going to back down from anyone because he is afraid. For other reasons, like he talks about, sure, but not that. Him bringing up Dana White in particular as a reason is interesting, even though I think White had some ground to voice the opinions he did, even if he did so in his usual irritating, childish way. I'm assuming we won't know anything at least until the A-Team movie is done filming.

3. I love cooperative multiplayer video games. I think it's one of the best new trends emerging in development today. However, not having people you know and are halfway reliable is a huge crutch that needs to be overcome, even though don't ask me to figure it out. Constantly being at the mercy of the host in games where you progress through levels or waves, like in Gears of War 2's Horde Mode or presumably Halo: ODST's Firefight Mode, can get really frustrating when the game suddenly ends and you're back at square one. Like I said, a solution isn't something I can think of. Potentially the players who drop out could receive a penalty of some sorts in-game, but I don't know if that's really the answer because of all that it implies. So somebody else get on it, because I want to play Horde Mode.