Let's check in with our local teams while the rest of the world is searching for Ronaldo......

By Joe Kukura Football, people! Unless you live under the worst toupee in sports broadcasting, you know that the NFL Draft was this weekend. Endless hours of live intrigue and analysis, both Saturday and Sunday, nonstop on two different cable channels – with no actual sports of any sort being played at all. Just your NFL team’s future stars or GHB scofflaws being selected and introduced in front of the unpredictable rowdies assembled at......

Here's what we've missed in the world of Bay Area sports while trying to figure out who the Oceanic 6 are......

Here's todays sports news...

Just some random scribbling on a game that is still reverberating through our hungover, overstuffed brains.......

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/25/SPJPUM98P.DTL&tsp=1"> get into a nasty spitball spat with Lane Kiffin. Apparently, Al is a little upset that the Raiders once again didn't have a winning season and blames himself Lane. He is also pretty miffed that Lane talked him into trading Randy Moss. It's a little unclear as to what is going on as ESPN and the Chron have differing accounts but it appears that Al is trying to get Lane to quit so he doesn't have to fire him. ...

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So after all that, the Niners hired Mike Martz as offensive coordinator anyways. After just one interview and after not really talking to anybody else. ...

* Jacksonville vs Pittsburgh Saturday, January 5, 5:00 PM PST Wild Card 2008 The Purists' Battle This is the game that John Madden has been eeeagerly awaiting. A matchup of two classically built, smashmouth NFL franchises in a cold weather playoff game. Pound the rock. Control the line. Stick 'em on D. This is a football game for the NFL purist. Can't wait. Photo via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette......

The NFL's 2008 Wild Card Wknd has arrived at the same time as this rainstorm front......

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With the perpetual rebuilding process that is the San Francisco 49er franchise, every so often an old part of old successes will cycle back through SF. This Sunday, Gilroy’s second-most-favorite export returns to the Bay Area at the reigns of Chucky Gruden’s particular strain of West Coast Offense. You never should have been run out of town, Jeff....

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Reporting from the snow-dappled streets of Chicago, it's your American Football Spectacular preview for this Saturday night's battle at The Stick as The Queen City's feline football franchise comes to town....

Did you know that the "North of Market Holiday Celebration" is coming up? Neither did we! And neither did the rest of the internet, because there's no mention of the (possibly-fictitious) event anywhere else online. What could it possibly be? We simply couldn't find any information or imagery related to the damn thing; and that's why we decided to run this totally-unrelated picture from a few weeks ago. Anyway, Muni claims that they'll be closing......

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start: when Alex Smith got injured, there was some back-and-forth about whether or not he was healthy. While this was going on, Nolan made the occasional subtle and not-so-subtle dig at Smith for not being sufficiently tough. Cue speculation and rumormongering approaching Brangelina levels. The Merc apparently had heard some other Niners joining in on the Smith dog pile and asked Alex about it. Alex went a wee bit on the ballistic side and accused Nolan of trying to turn the team against him, making him play when he wasn't healthy, and for generally being a big poopy-head. This all hit the press sometime yesterday and, well, hello hullabaloo. Naturally, the two parties met and issued statements talking about how their relationship is all :) and not :( ...

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Oh, wait, that's parol, not parole. Apparently a parol is some kind of Xmas ornament. Cute. Well, anyway, as far as we can make out, there's going to be some ornament-making arts and crafts, and then a SOMA procession honoring them on Saturday. That doesn't sound too objectionable. Also: a football game, or whatever sport the 49ers are. Full details after the jump.......

Previously on "Project Runway" the models were forced to kowtow to the fashion whims of a celebrity. Thank god THAT'S over with! Heidi walked on to the runway wearing Uhura's "Star Trek" uniform--seriously--and told the designers they weren't going to need their models for this week's challenge. Ru-roh! She then sent them all to 10 Rockefeller Plaza where they met Tim Gunn who introduced them all to Tiki Barber. Wait. Who? Tim went on......

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Joe Frazier was once quoted as sayin' "Kill the body and the head will die." For an NFL offensive unit, the opposite is the case. And here comes the context: it's your American Football Spectacular preview for lucky Week 13 of the 2007 NFL season....

Saturday is what is known around these here parts as "the Big Game," a kinda cute nickname for a game usually not of any importance to anyone other to us NorCal folks. This game, in particular, doesn't have much going for it as Stanford, with the exception of the 'SC upset, hasn't been very good and Cal has been more disappointing than Fred Thompson's candidacy. Nevertheless, the game is always pretty exciting and full of tradition-- all the things that makes college football what it is. ...

"James Frey Is A 'Rockstar Vampire' On Facebook" Hee! Care of the kids over at Gawker, this hed brings up a good point: we haven't a clue as to how play this newfangled vampire game, and we're afraid to ask. Please, Facebook family, stop biting and baiting us. We feel like we're back in junior high, stuck on the football field, frightened by this touch football game all the other kids seem to play......

While the Bay Area struggles at keeping birds oil-free and alive, fisherman Hai Nguyen, 24, of Garden Grove tries to murder marine mammals. While fishing off the end of a Newport Beach pier, Nguyen used a steak knife to stab a sea lion who innocuously swiped his bait. According to AP, "the animal was taken to the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach, where staff found the knife had pierced the sea lion's heart... [i]t was later euthanized." Nguyen faces up to one year in prison and a fine of $20,000for violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act. And for being a cruel dick....

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Here's a roundup of today's sporting news...

Reporting from spa-side in Santa Ana, it's your American Football Spectacular preview of the next rung of pain on the agony ladder that is the 49ers' '07 season....

-With tonight's 108-82 win against the running joke that is the New York Knicks (seriously, what does it take to get fired in that organization?), the Warriors have now won three in a row and are one game from totaling the amount of wins our local football teams have. The Beard led the way with 31 points, seven assists and six rebounds and Stephen Jackson got 23 points. For the Knicks, Starbury played his first game of the season showing that blackmail does work ...

We'd like to thank the Golden State Warriors for winning twice this weekend and thus ending the month and a half long losing streak by the local teams. And now, onto the carnage... ...