Thursday, October 04, 2007

DMN Blog: Cowboys cheerleaders huge distraction

Ex-Giants QB Jesse Palmer claims that his teammates were more interested in ogling Cowboy cheerleaders to listening to the play in the huddle.

Can't exactly blame the Giants. It's not like The Bachelor was good enough to execute plays even if his teammates knew what they were. Maybe he's just looking for an excuse after failing to get the Giants into the end zone.

I'm not sure how former Giants quarterback Jesse "The Bachelor" Palmer's weekly column slipped under the Hashmarks radar.

In the delightful "Third Down" portion of Palmer's column, he gives his take on the league's recent crackdown on cheerleaders stretching in plain sight of players as they prepare for games.

He then tells one of best stories I've heard in a while (thanks to Ralph Vacchiano):

"While starting for the New York Giants in Week 16 versus the Dallas Cowboys in 2005 (actually 2003), I found out just how distracting cheerleaders can be. In that game we started several drives inside our own 20-yard line, with each drive following a TV timeout. With my back to the end zone in the huddle, I became frustrated because I couldn't make eye contact with any of my 10 teammates as I was trying to call our plays; they were all staring right at the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders who were performing in the end zone.

I remember our offensive linemen shaking their heads in utter amazement, but the classic line came from our tight end, Visanthe Shiancoe, who interrupted me in the middle of a play call and said, "Jesse you really need to turn around and see this..."

Strong work, Jesse.

Posted by Tim MacMahon at 5:11 PM (E-mail this entry) | Comments (0)