ESPN NY – [Santonio] Holmes has demonstrated an uncanny ability to draw penalty flags — a total of eight in three games. Frankly, he’d rather have the receptions and the TDs, saying, “You don’t want that running back to be on the one-yard line and steal your touchdown.” He was laughing. But he added: “It’s really messing with my catches, I can honestly say that. It’s keeping them down by having the penalties drawn. If we can keep stats on penalties per game, per player, I think those yards would add up. We can add them to our receiving yards … They hurt the receivers’ average and how they play and their performance. When you’re drawing so many penalties, you don’t get opportunities to get any catches.”

A couple of weeks ago I was the guest at a seminar on online sports journalism at BU where they asked me if I had any favorite villains I loved to rip on more than others.  I mentioned the usual suspects: the old Boston media, Michael Vick, Ben Rapelisberger, and a handful of others.  But, I told them, if the New York Jets didn’t exist, I would have had to invent them.  This is the year when they made it their major organizational goal not to say or do anything to draw attention to what a collection of asshats they are.  And still, they can’t go two days without someone shoving his cleat in his mouth.  And I’m not even counting yesterday when Rex Ryan said Vernon Davis is a better tight end than Gronk because he runs a 4.3.  I’ll give Shrex a pass on that one because as convoluted as his logic is, I think the big dirigible was just trying to say something nice about an opponent, no matter how idiotic is sounded.  But now Holmes admits not just that he’d rather catch a pass than draw a penalty, which is understandable, he worries that the penalties take away from his individual numbers.  Like his coaches can’t do the math and know that he got his offense the ball 1st & goal at the 1.  On most teams, a guy who thinks like that and is dumb enough to say it in public would be called selfish, stupid, self-centered and a touch-counting, me-first, team-killing dildo.  On the Patriots he’d be called “out of here.”  On the Jets, they call him Captain.  Thank God for them.  @JerryThornton1