The scene at Academy Sports in Lafayette, Louisiana on Sunday night was not pretty, as hundreds (thousands?) descended on the parking lot waiting their turn to get in to purchase Super Bowl championship gear. The store closed at 8 p.m., but reopened at 9:30 when the game ended and multitudes gathered in search of brains souvenir clothing. Friends of the Program has a photo, plus frightening zombie video, of the mayhem.

This is amazing, not so much for the sheer number of people there, but more so that that many people would wear the typically awful looking first versions of Championship gear that gets put out there on the heels of a championship. Pace yourselves Saints fans, quality craftsmanship takes time.

Video following the jump.

This week we asked Jelisa Castrodale to choose a team to root for in the Super Bowl. This of course served to do nothing but dredge up memories of unfortunate haircuts, general drunkeness and regret. Sad, really.

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By Jelisa Castrodale

So I'm eagerly awaiting this Sunday night, a three-hour block of Coors Light commercials that will be periodically interrupted by a football game. Since my Arizona Cardinals will all be watching from their own couches, I'll be more concerned with how to get salsa and Cool Ranch stains out of the throw pillows than by which team just ran a reverse. "But who are you pulling for?" everyone asks and -- for the first time ever -- I'm not sure.

I don't want to take New Orleans since they left their cleat marks all over the Cardinals, but I'm terrified that if Indianapolis wins, we'll be subjected to another round of Peyton Manning commercials, sixty second increments I'll continue to ignore until they involve him slowly speaking the phrase "Ask your doctor about once daily Valtrex."

Great piece today in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about how everyone pretends the NFL wasn't around before the first Super Bowl. Indeed, listening to the annual Super Bowl hype machine, one would think the NFL was born in 1967, when the Packers won the first "NFL-AFL Championship Game," later to be known as the Super Bowl. But the league is actually 90 years old, and staged 33 NFL Championship Games before the first Super Bowl. Yes, when they played the first NFL title game, players tied onions to their belts, and nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Other fun facts:

* The first NFL title game was played in 1933, as the Chicago Bears beat the New York Giants 23-21. Bill Hewitt, who played without a helmet, caught a pass and lateraled to end Billy Karr, who scored the winning 36-yard touchdown.

* In 1940, the Bears beat the Washington Redskins 73-0, and were asked not to attempt an extra point after their final touchdown because officials didn't want the ball going into the stands, as there was only one spare ball remaining.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Chicago Cardinals 7-0 in a blizzard to win the 1948 title game. The Eagles' star player, Steve Van Buren, didn't think there would be a game due to all the snow. When someone called him at home to tell him the game was on, he had to walk and then take a series of buses and commuter trains to get to the stadium.

* The NFL Championship Game was televised coast-to-coast for the first time in 1951, the DuMont Network paying $75,000 for the rights to the game between the Los Angeles Rams and Cleveland Browns.

Top NFL franchise of all time? Stop your Steelers, 49ers and Cowboys talk; the Packers have won nine titles (eight NFL championships, one Super Bowl). Best all-time quarterback? I sneeze in the general direction of your Joe Montana and Peyton Manning. Otto Graham led the Browns to 10 title games in 10 years; four straight championships in the All-America Football Conference (1946-'49) and then three of the six championship games they played after moving to the NFL.

Even the Detroit Lions were once good. They've won four NFL titles; 1935, '52, '53 and '57. The '50s were dominated by the Browns and Lions, if you can imagine that. So isn't it time to integrate the pre-'67 NFL championships into the Super Bowl conversation? How about a toast to helmetless Bill Hewitt with one of the 14 or so beers you'll be downing on Sunday?

I've poured some sand around Thursday so the smoke monster doesn't get him. Hope it works.

Right now I'm looking for a news link to the story of the Packers fan who allegedly grabbed a baseball bat and went to town on two flat-screen TVs at a Wisconsin department store on Sunday. This quote is hilarious if true: "If the Cards can get away with face masking I should get away with bashing these TVs in." Meanwhile, here's something that's verified: A Packers fan in North Lancaster Township, Wisc., has told sheriff's deputies that he grabbed his wife around the neck after the team lost to the Cardinals.

Grant County Sheriff's deputies arrested 45-year old Jeffrey Leffler "because he was ornery" after the Cardinals won on a turnover in overtime. Mathew Kowald was unavailable for comment.

One can't help but feel a little sorry for Jim Zorn. They way I understand it, he was at first hired to be offensive coordinator for the Redskins when Joe Gibbs left as head coach, then was promoted to the top spot when Daniel Snyder couldn't find anyone else. Well, now he's toast, sadly. His 695-day reign in our nation's capital lasted longer than three presidents -- William Henry Harrison (31 days), James Garfield (199) and Zachary Taylor (491). All three died in office, and the best that can be said of them I think is that they never came up with this.

So as we await Mike Shanahan -- or whomever -- to ride in and take over this mess, here are the many faces of Jim Zorn. We will miss them all.

Let's go Monday, the week isn't going to start itself.

Brett Favre's nephew would like to buy a ticket to a big-time college football career, but he's a little short. Sorry, but it's college scouts who are knocking Dylan Favre for his lack of height, not me. The senior from Bay St. Louis, Miss., has broken all kinds of passing records, including the state career record for touchdown passes, but still won't get a look from the big programs because he's only 5-foot-11. That's not exactly Hobbit-like, but I'll bet if someone needed a ring disposed of, Dylan would organize a group of friends and take care of it for you.

With gossip sites taking aim at pro athletes more and more these days (see: Tiger Woods), it's only natural that there would be some backlash. But we didn't expect one of the first volleys to be from the Cincinnati Ben-Gals, did we? One member of that intrepid group, known only as Sarah J., is suing The Dirty.com over a story the site ran which claimed, among other things, that Sarah's boyfriend gave her STDs. (She's not pictured here ... at least I don't think she is).

Not nice, The Dirty.com! Bad form!

As we know from our reading, the care and feeding of Randy Moss is not an exact science. The Patriots' superstar receiver can go off for 100 yards and three TDs in any given game, but like all volatile mixtures, can be dangerously unstable. Witness: One catch for 16 yards and no scores vs. Carolina the week before last, in which he was accused in some corners of tanking it.

But on Sunday against the Jaguars we had explosive, three-TD Randy; the version of the receiver the Patriots are going to need if they want to make it to the Super Bowl. Not only was he effective, but he seemed to be having fun again; due in no small part to a fan in a Randy Moss mask who engaged in a bit of comical interplay with Moss during an officials' time out. The full story from WEEI in Boston, plus link to video, following the jump.

Anyone out there have the Cowboys defense in their fantasy league? If so, congratulations. But of course, you had help; if ever there was a team more disinterested in scoring than the Redskins on Sunday, I didn't see them. Oh wait ... yes I did: The Colts in the second half against the Jets. Poor Osama bin Laden ... Peyton Manning was his quarterback in Al-Qaeda's fantasy pool Super Bowl week, and the decision to pull him absolutely killed his chances. Details here.

Another short week, so Monday here at Out of Bounds is actually Wednesday. Adjust your calendars and underwear rotation accordingly.

Lost in the excitement of the Panthers' win over the Vikings on Sunday night -- and the Brett Favre drama therein -- was the mystifying post-game interview with Carolina's Steve Smith. Smith's answers to Andrea Kremer's questions were a riddle more baffling than the DNA molecule; the Gordian Knot of interviews.

Favorite quote: "This is why I feed my family."

Even better, though, is the commenter controversy over at Football Outsiders, where I found the transcript of the interview. Many jumped in defending Smith, saying that the series of nonsensical responses were due to "game exhaustion." It really gets quite heated. Let's watch the fun.

Yes, I have Mark Knopfler's name permanently entered in my Twitter search function, because I'm such an obsessive fan I must know what people are saying about him at all times. Everything I know I learned from Dire Straits, and I have his Sailing to Philadelphia playing on an endless loop in my head (which explains the typos). And speaking of that Knopfler CD, the Jacksonville Jaguars' theme song this morning is Baloney Again.

Peyton Manning has now led the Colts to seven fourth-quarter comebacks this season, prompting one of the Twitterati today to opine that he should be advising Pres. Obama on economic matters. At any rate, those '72 Dolphins are getting a little nervous right about now, eh? May I suggest a smoke and a little Knopfler Local Hero?

You're a long way from home, don't push your luck too far, it's Friday again ...

If your young son is a Washington Redskins fan, I don't know how you're going to break the news to him that V.P. of football operations Vinny Cerrato has resigned. Poor kid. Now he must solemnly remove the Vinny Cerrato fathead from his bedroom wall, and take his Cerrato bobblehead down from the shelf. A sad day. What are Redskins fans going to do with all those Fire Vinny signs now?

You can take our lives, but you'll never take our Thursday!

More ring news today; this time concerning Dallas' own Tony Romo and the lovely Candice Crawford, shown here working the Missouri state motto very hard. To my knowledge the two have never been successfully photographed together in the wild, but it's rumored that they're seeing each other, and quite successfully, it appears. According to a couple of sources, Romo and Crawford have just become engaged. Good news for the Cowboys? Evidently not.

Behold this glorious tweet I found waiting for me this morning: The first time this exact sentence had been typed in the English language, no doubt. What would Daniel Boone or George Washington think of this particular predicament? Little did our rugged ancestors know when they forged our great nation that things would come to this.

Mr. Iracane is one of the men behind the greatness of the sports blog Walkoff Walk, and a former colleague of mine at Deadspin. His tweet is sad and hilarious all at once, which reminds me of a certain NFL team's effort last night in a certain far west American city. I'm not naming any names, but they're current non-clinchers of the NFC West who have a fierce, robin-sized bird on their helmets. What a debacle ... it was the only Monday Night Football game I can recall that included a laugh track.

Well, onward. It's Tuesday, the stuff that dreams are made of.

I've always said that Chad Ochocinco is one whack in the head and a couple of tattoos from being Dennis Rodman, and I don't mean that in a good way. In ten years he'll be appearing at local card shows with a table adjacent to Pete Rose, signing copies of his latest straight-to-video action movie and leaving early to get to Florida Tuskers practice. As you may have heard by now, the former Chad Javon Johnson is considering yet another name change. And because it was done on a whim -- like everything in his life -- there may be a couple of problems with it.

All right, simmer down ... here's your Jelisa Castrodale for the week. (I refer to her growing fan base as Castrophiles). The other day she finally attended The Blind Side, and since I paid for the ticket, she was required to do a report. Here it is.

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By Jelisa Castrodale

Last weekend, the top of the box office wasn't occupied by unwashed teen vampires or the last shards of John Travolta's credibility. Instead, the $20M number one spot went to The Blind Side, a family movie wrapped up in the oversized football jersey and improbable true story of Michael Oher.

The flick is based on Michael Lewis' The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, but lops off the latter half of the title -- and every other chapter in the paperback -- to cover Oher's transition from rags to Baltimore Raven. For a football movie, there's very little, you know, football, since most of the screen time is spent on the parts of Oher's life that don't involve shoulder pads or sweat-wicking fabrics.

This video was sent in by several people, and I can't decide what is best about it. All I know is that drunken Louisianans with rifles attempting to shoot a large flat-screen TV while yelling "Who Dat!" is what America is all about. Also I think I heard a machine gun. Be sure to hold on until the end, when the guy wearing the plastic Saints helmet attempts to ram the shattered television. Includes gratuitous 12-pack of Bud.

Video following the jump.

Of course the chances of this actually happening are about equal to that of Carrot Top winning an Oscar, but those plucky Oakland Raiders fans are nothing if not eternal optimists. Look, Al just recently agreed to give up on his JaMarcus Russell fixation; be thankful for small favors.

Anyway, this is the billboard that went up on Tuesday in Alameda, near Oakland's McAfee Coliseum overlooking the Nimitz Freeway. It's the handiwork of MessageToAl.com, a group of Raiders fans who are staging a Pollyanna-like NFL coup by circulating an online petition. They're hoping to pay the $5,500 billboard fee by soliciting donations on the site as well. How are they doing so far?

A few people noted with surprise the way that Bill Belichick removed Tom Brady and Randy Moss against the Saints with 5:26 to go in the game last night, not the least of which being the folks at Sports Pickle, who this morning grace us with the headline: 'Ruthless Patriots Run Down The Score.' Indeed, Steve Young was wondering about that bit of strategy right after the game. Note the following rather amusing observation:

It was in the film Zorro, the Gay Blade in which Bernardo, dressed as an aquatic animal, tries to sneak into to a costume party without an invitation, prompting the immortal line: "May I see your invitation, senor beaver?" Apparently it's much easier to sneak into official White House functions, as seen pictured to the right.

That's Michaele Salahi meeting the President, who got in without an invitation along with husband Tareq Salahi, causing all sorts of consternation with the Secret Service. But that's not the only thing she's crashed, according to TMZ.