Henry started all 16 games last year and we think this is a good trade for both sides. On one hand, the Lions probably weren’t keeping Kitna anyway. Now, Dallas has a pretty good backup to Tony Romo and the Lions get some defensive help, which they need terribly.

This will come as a complete surprise to many NFL fans who recognize an amazing quarterback when they see one.  And Tyler Thigpen is just that.  Don’t be too sure Matt Cassel will take over the starting role right away.  I’m serious, Tyler Thigpen is an amazing quarterback.  Seriously, he is.

PHOTO CAPTION:  Tyler Thigpen understands when people are being sarcastic.

Once the trade goes through, the Pats will immediately clear $14.65 million from their 2009 cap space.  Per Schefter, the trade is occurring without a new deal, which means that the Chiefs will have Cassel under contract for only one year at $14.65 million until a new deal is reached.

We think the Vikings just traded for more crap that won’t get them over the hump. Tarvaris Jackson is garbage, that we know. And Rosenfels is just good enough for two-week periods that make you think he can be the guy to get it done. Well, it’s that third week that you realize that he actually can’t. If he was so awesome, they would have gotten more than a fourth rounder for him.

Hughes was in the doghouse with the Bulls and they agreed to seek a trade a few weeks ago. Hughes and Thomas have now played for a total of 53 teams.

PHOTO CAPTION: “Look at those titties!”

The source told the AP on condition of anonymity because the NBA has yet to finalize the deal, which also includes Marcus Banks and cash considerations going to Toronto and Jamario Moon and a conditional draft pick to Miami.

Adam Morrison will be inserted into the Lakers’ starting lineup right away and Phil Jackson will have Kobe Bryant come off the bench.

PHOTO CAPTION:  The only way to defend Adam Morrison is to triple team him and just hope one of those defenders is Brian Scalabrine.

This blockbuster trade is being compared to the 2006 deal when the Orlando Magic dealt Israeli forward Lior Eliyahu, their 44th overall pick, to the Houston Rockets for cash considerations.

In other news, no one cares.

We’d rather just shut it down than to run a boring, poorly updated blog, which is what OTR is starting to become.

We can’t thank all of our readers enough. You guys have all been great and we had a ton of fun playing with everyone. Maybe we’ll do it again some day. We could have just let the blog die slowly and not update it, but that’s not fair to anyone. We thought we would give OTR a proper burial by at least letting everyone know that we are calling it quits.

Memorial services will be held Sunday, December 21st at 2 PM at the Lodi, NJ YMCA.

You can send thoughts and regards to MPerry_77@hotmail.com and MicahW@feverpitchmedia.com.

Happy Holidays to all of those in OTR land!!

An NBA source told Newsday that the Knicks haven’t announced the deal yet because they might not be finished trading. Another rumor has the Knicks shipping Zack Randolph to the Clippers for Tim Thomas and Cutino Mobley.

Photo Caption: Jamal Crawford has perfected his “I’m not even paying attention” brand of defense.

Something else will almost have to happen or the Knicks just serious weakened their back court. This is assuming they still plan to ban Stephon Marbury, which seems likely.

Reliever Huston Street, lefty starter Greg Smith and outfielder Carlos Gonzalez are names that have come up in recent days, but it’s not known at this time what the final deal is.

Perry likes to root for the Sixers and Pistons. Perry hates Allen Iverson. Perry was excited when Iverson was traded. Perry just took his shirt off, poured a bottle of Early Times Whiskey on his face and yelled “thuuuuug liiiifffe!!!” for reasons known only to him.

The Cowboys give the Lions a first-round pick, a third and sixth.

This is a great move for a Lions team that stinks and needs to rebuild through the draft.

And from the Press-Democrat, here is exactly what happened. We copied and pasted their work:

This is getting better all the time. Better in the sense of more ridiculous – but these are the Raiders and anything goes.

I’m saying there was almost a fistfight in the Raiders press room after Lane Kiffin’s Monday press conference, a fistfight between a Raiders official and a columnist (not me).

Yee-haw!!

The tension had started a few minutes earlier during the Q&A with Kiffin. My friend Tim Kawakami from the San Jose Mercury asked Kiffin if he feels isolated on the Raiders. Kawakami mentioned an article he said the Raiders passed out to the media critical of Kiffin. From back in the room, Raiders official John Herrera – the one who allegedly passed out the article – interrupted the press conference. This act of interrupting was totally unheard of. Herrera yelled, “That’s not true. That’s not true, Kawakami.”

Kawakami ignored him and so did Kiffin, who seemed mildly amused, and the press conference proceeded in an awkward way. I mean, how could it be the same? It’s like you’re invited to dinner at your boss’s house and your boss has white carpets and you spill a glass of red wine on the carpet. The boss’s wife says “Don’t worry, it’ll clean up,” but you know the evening is ruined.

Well, the afternoon over here got ruined – or maybe it got better. You couldn’t make up this stuff, and in a weird way, it’s fascinating.

When the press conference ended, Herrera started shouting at Kawakami.

“You’re a liar,” Herrera shouted. “You built a whole column on a lie. So did Lowell Cohn.” (Hey, that hurts my feelings, John.)

Kawakami put his hand on Herrera’s arm in a peacekeeping soothing way and said, “Calm down.” Herrera violently shook it off. “Get your hand off me,” he shouted. “Get your (bleeping) hand off me.”

To which Kawakami replied, “Do you want to take a punch at me?”

“Yeah, I’d love to.”

And then I heard Kawakami say, “I’d love to own part of this franchise,” meaning if a Raider official slugged him he could sue.

Hey, kids, they don’t teach you this stuff in Journalism 101. I may have missed the exact words in all the hub bub – things were kind of crazy – but I was very close.

Herrera continued to make his point. “Nothing was distributed in this room,” he shouted. “Nothing. Nothing.”

Herrera meant he didn’t actually make the critical Kiffin article available, although according to sources, he directly handed it to one beat writer. According to my sources he let other beat writers know the article existed. So, technically he didn’t hand it out, but he encouraged writers to know about it and read it.

The last thing I heard, Kawakami – bravely to my way of thinking — told Herrera, “You’re welcome to sue me.”

Just fyi, Colbert hasn’t scored a TD since 2005.

Coincidentally, the Boston Red Sox have a 30-year old catcher named Kevin Cash on their roster.

PHOTO CAPTION: Paul Byrd heats his hands above the fire and stares at a blond crossing the street.

Moreover, all players in major league baseball have already been named by their parents; therefore, none of them can be named later, so I’m thinking Kevin Cash is the other half of this trade.  Actually, Chad Johnson might be named later.  He’s thinking of changing his legal name to Chad Ocho Cinco, seriously.

However, Kevin Cash sucks, so why would Cleveland want him? This is turning into one of the most controversial trades ever made on planet earth.

Early Times Whiskey did not hinder the effectiveness of this post.

The July 31st trade deadline is the non waiver deadline.

Between August 1 and August 31 trades can still be made. If a player is put on waivers and is not claimed by one of the other 29 teams, that player can be traded anywhere. If he is claimed he can only be traded to the team who claimed him or not at all; they have 48 hours to do so. If they can’t work out a deal the original team can either pull him back off waivers, or simply let him go to the team that claimed him.

PHOTO CAPTION: Jackass star Ryan Dunn has the same last name as Adam Dunn

Dunn was put on waivers. The Arizona Diamondbacks claimed him. They offered the Reds three minor-league players and they accepted. There you go. Both teams happy.

Dunn was hitting .233 with 32 homeruns and 74 RBIs.

We’d like to hear it from a more reputable source, but who knows? No one thought we were capable of breaking the Asante Samuel signing.

Ok, so ignore our other report of someone else’s report, because the deal sends Jason Bay to the Red Sox and the Pirates get four minor leaguers.

The $20 million club options on Manny for 2009 and 2010 were dropped.

The Rays have not confirmed this as of this posting.

NBA front-office sources confirmed to ESPN.com “that the Kings also will receive approximately $1 million in cash considerations. But the deal can’t be completed and announced before Aug. 14 because Greene is not eligible to be traded until then, per league rules, since he signed with the Rockets on July 14.”

I did report this yesterday, but do to site maintenance the article got deleted.  To sum it up for you, I love this deal for the Rockets.  Moving along…

According to the Houston Chronicle, Houston Rocket center Yao Ming had this to say about Ron Ron, “Hopefully, he’s not fighting anymore and going after a guy in the stands.”

Artest responsed, “I understand what Yao said, but I’m still ghetto.  That’s not going to change. I’m never going to change my culture. Yao has played with a lot of black players, but I don’t think he’s ever played with a black player that really represents his culture as much as I represent my culture. Once Yao Ming gets to know me, he’ll understand what I’m about.”

PHOTO CAPTION:  Don’t forget to pick up Ron Ron’s album, “My World” at an album store near you.

Artest continued, “If you go back to the brawl, that’s a culture issue right there.  Somebody was disrespecting me, so he’s got to understand where I’m coming from. People that know me know that Ron Artest never changed.”

I don’t really know how to respond to those comments, but I will attempt in hopes I don’t offend anyone.  I highly doubt that ‘black players’ or maybe black people in general believe that Ron Artest is representing his culture by acting ‘ghetto.’  There is something mentally wrong with Artest to think that his past actions are acceptable in his community or any community.  And when I say ‘actions’ I mean going completely nuts.

However, I’ve never lived in the ghetto, so it’s quite possible I am completely wrong with my opinion.

Anyway, Houston got a very good player in Artest and hopefully everything will work out and the Rockets can deal with him when he ‘represents his culture.’

“Randy is an experienced starter and a great competitor,” Wade said in a statement. “We tried to sign him as a free agent during the offseason, but the chance for him to pitch close to home prevailed. I’ve known Randy since the day he signed his first professional contract, and I can say without hesitation that he brings every quality that you’d want in a member of your team, both on and off the field.”

If you’ve known about him for that long then you should know about what you are going to get. Didn’t see his beat-red face in the fourth inning enough in Philly? Wolfie is ok and had a good start this year, but he’s now 6-10 with a 4.74 ERA. He hasn’t had an ERA under four in about six years.

Overall, it’s not the fact that I’m so much down on Wolf, I just think Ed Wade is a dolt who will never get a team to the promised land.