FifG Game of the Week: New Orleans Saints vs. New England Patriots

New Orleans Saints [10-0] vs. New England Patriotst [7-3] (Monday 8:30 p.m., ESPN)

Why it’s good football: This is easily the game of the week. A potential Super Bowl match-up. Two high-scoring offenses. Great coaching. Top QBs in Drew Brees (NO) and Tom Brady (NE). It’s going to be a shoot out, and it’s going to be fun!

Why you might care: I know you have an opinion on Tom Brady. So if you are all about the hot dude who’s expecting a baby with his supermodel wife, this is your chance to cheer on the Pats. And if you think Brady is an overrated pansy, or have issues with the fact that he dumped his pregnant girlfriend and then started dating a supermodel, who claimed to mother his ex-girlfriend’s baby, well, then it’s your big chance to root against the Pats.

Love? Hate?

Football is just like Pop Culture!

If this game is Tough Love on VH1, then the Patriots are Taylor, who had success in previous seasons and was down at first this season but is making a big comeback and is a real contender for winning the heart of a man at the end of the season. (Which would be the Super Bowl in this semi-metaphor.)

Of course, that’s if she can get past Rocky, the fierce “rocker” with a heart of gold. Or maybe silicon. And probably it’s not her heart, actually. So Rocky would be the Saints. Playing hard. Rocking out. Ready to face off with Taylor in her quest to find a good man.

Um, ok, so once again this connection totally sucks, BUT who else loves Tough Love? Best. Show. On. Television. Seriously, what is it about this show that sucks me in every time? Who is everyone’s favorite? I think I like the reeeeeeally old and washed up bartender (who’s 31). Or maybe the stripper who doesn’t pay attention to her dates.

I really don’t like the fat-girl-gone-thin. It’s like, boo hoo, I have no self-esteem. Boo hoo, keep telling me how beautiful I am so I can feel better about myself. Need-y. (Ok, that’s mean, but I firmly believe that low self-image is best kept to oneself and sometimes close friends and family, but NOT the viewing public. Because then it comes across as fishing.)

And, also, has anyone else noticed that the adorable blonde Southern belles always ends up in a serious relationship within 2 days of arriving at the house? How does that happen? I mean, do they really need this show? I think  not.

Steve is all about Tough Love. And sculpted eyebrows.

Oh, and what does everyone think about the host being all like, hey, don’t hurt guys’ feelings because they won’t like you anymore. But don’t give them a hard time if they hurt yours, because it happens. 

Ok, that is all.

Boyfriend/Husband/Dad/Other will be so impressed!

Conversation Starters:

-Who do you like for MVP this year? Drew Brees? (Brees has a 105.8 QB rating in 2009, 22 touchdowns, and only 9 interceptions.)
-What was up with that 4th down play Belichick called against the Colts 2 weeks ago? Is he getting senile, or is the defense really that untrustworthy?

Fun Facts:

-The Saints are now 10-0, and only 6 games away from a perfect 16-0 season. The only team to ever accomplish that feat? The New England Patriots, of course. (The 2007 Patriots won all but 1 game that season/post-season: the Super Bowl. Oops.)
-This week’s NE Cute Football Player of the Week, Wes Welker, had a career game against the Jets last week, catching 15 passes for 192 yards. Opposing defenses have to find ways to cover both Welker and Randy Moss.

Player Pronunciation:

Junior Seau (NE): joon-yer say-ow
Jabari Greer (NO): juh-bah-ree greer

Cute football player(s) of the week:

Wes Welker, New England Patriots

 

Ha.

Darren Sharper, New Orleans Saints

 

With Melanie Fiona. Whoever that is.

FifG drops the ball. Ha. That’s like a pun.

I had such a good plan for this week’s game of the week. I had my pop culture analogy ready to go. I knew which players I would be helping you pronounce. Things were looking good!

And then I got sick. Seriously, folks, I felt so bad that I actually went to the emergency room so that they could diagnose my swine flu. Of course, I didn’t have swine flu, but I was sick. And so I didn’t write the Game of the Week. BUT, the analogy will work this week, too, so I’m saving it.

That said, here are a couple of updates on our FifG faves:

• The beautiful Bradys are indeed expecting a wee supermodthlete.

New one coming soon.

• When Jessica Simpson was dumped by Tony Romo, FifG totally pitied her. Now? Even more reasons for pity.
  Her dog got eaten by a coyote!
  Also, her sister is megabitchy!
  Something tells me this is going to be one of those years that Jess is going to want to forget.

Poor Daisy.

• UPDATE (9/17): Looks like Kendrank is/are moving to Indy!
  E! star Kendra is, as we know, married to Philadelphia Eagle Hank Baskett. And with a baby due in December, rumor was that the Eagles were shopping Baskett around to other teams to make room for Jeff Garcia, aka Donovan McNabb’s broken rib insurance.
  Sadly, the Eagles announced this afternoon that Baskett was released. Eeps! Maybe he’ll be picked up by the Chargers? And then Kendra will be really happy? Fingers crossed that Hank finds a new team soon!

The Kendranks. The Baskendras. Still working on it.

FifG Favorites Get Married

Rough week in the general celebrity world, with the passing of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and infomercial favorite Billy Mays.

But, there is joy in football world, at least. Girls Next Door‘s Kenda and her Eagles-playing fiance Hank Baskett are now officially married. Kendra also happens to be pregnant. And, as anyone who watched the first episode of their new reality show knows, Hank is so not pleased about Kendra’s allegiance to her hometown team, the San Diego Chargers. So methinks she’s going to be giving birth to a baby Eagle this winter.

Kendra is wisely trading in the powder blue for green.

In other news:

• Remember how Tom Brady denied that is wife Gisele was pregnant? Well, that wasn’t what you might call “true.”
• Their child will be pretty.
  

  Gisele looking ever-so-slightly pregnant.

• Chad Ochocinco of the Cincinnati Bengals thinks he’s going to be living with QB Carson Palmer during training camp. Carson and his wife disagree. It’s going to be awkward when ol’ 85 rings their doorbell in July.
  Because you know that he’s not taking no for an answer.
• FifG is going to be the Bucs contributor for another girl-powered football site, Chicks in the Huddle. Check out the weekly Bucs posts from FifG as well as the awesome daily posts from all of the football chicks representing your favorite NFL teams.
• Another exciting cupcake project this weekend: Lost cupcakes.
  This batch was sadly made sans-Friend Cupcake. But don’t worry, she gave them the seal of approval.
  

  The gray one is the Smoke Monster.

Kendra and Hank, and the Fabulous Love Lives of Footballers.

Tonight is the premiere of former Girl Next Door Kendra Wilkinson’s new show on E!. It’s called, fittingly enough, Kendra.

We’ve talked about on FifG about Kendra before, because her engagement to Philadelphia Eagle Hank Baskett will likely test her devotion to her long-professed favorite San Diego Chargers. Luckily the two teams play in different conferences (Eagles=NFC, Chargers=AFC), so her loyalties likely won’t be tested unless the teams meet in a Super Bowl.

I have to say that Girls Next Door was an oddly compelling show, but I think the appeal was mostly due to the strange lives that Hef’s “girlfriends” led–luxuriously wealthy and free from work, anything they wanted a phone call away and yet oddly restricted and boring. So we’ll see how fun this new show is to watch.

Celebrity nickname anyone? Kaskett seems like a bad idea... Kankle?

Football Love in the News:

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the love lives of football players. How do I know? Sports Illustrated has been reporting on it. You know relationship gossip is important when…
So without further ado:

• Tom and Giselle: Giselle is not pregnant. But it’s ok, because she already has a kid with Tom.

This is not what pregnancy looks like.

• Derek and Minka: Ok, so Derek Jeter plays baseball and Minka Kelly is an actress. But she’s on Friday Night Lights, and since it’s the awesomest football show ever, it counts. Anyway, Derek and Minka? Not engaged.

I'm sorry, but Derek who?

• Tony and Jessica: Jessica Simpson bought Tony Romo a boat for his birthday. According to news reports, she decided to splurge on his birthday so that he will splurge on a ring. Is that what it takes, ladies? If so, do toy boats count? Maybe a nice drawing of a boat?

Maybe a Lyle Lovett song would get your man to pop the question?

An Even Brady-er Wedding

We knew that Patriots QB Tom Brady and Supermodel Gisele Bundchen were married a few weeks ago, and I guess they had so much fun that they decided to do it again.

This time, there are some pictures of the dress. Or, ok, so far the pictures are limited, but here is a picture of Gisele, from The Insider:

Can you see it? Sorta?

According to People magazine, it’s a John Galliano.

Since that picture is something of a bust, here are some more celebrity brides dressed by Mr. Galliano.

Perhaps you can try a sort of optical illusion wherein you squint your eyes until they’re barely open and then move the blog page up and down really fast so it looks like Gisele is wearing one of the other dresses? Just a thought.

Gwen Stefani in Galliano pink.

Elizabeth Hurley (though I am not sure she was actually married in this dress)

Donald Trump's wife Melania in John Galliano for Dior.

Granted, all of these dresses look way more fussy than Gisele’s, but they might provide some clues about how she looked on her big day (during these the 5-7 minutes before official wedding photos are released).

A Very Brady Wedding

Hey! It’s a girl-centric football post! And in the off-season no less. Fab.

So it seems that Patriots’ QB Tom Brady and model Giselle Bundchen really were engaged, because guess what? They’re married now!

You know what they say. The couple who eats ice cream together gets fat together. Except for Tom and Gisele, because they're all perfect and stuff.

Congrats to the happy couple, and let’s hope the Power of Love helps heal Tom’s knee.

Take it away, Huey Lewis and the News and your rockin’ mullets :