Photo credit: Ultimate Hoops Minnesota Facebook

Well here’s something you don’t see every day: A former NFL superstar playing basketball for a Twin Cities rec league. Not a hoax. Donovan McNabb suited up for Most Dominant Ever of Ultimate Hoops Minnesota. Like a fat, old Ricky Rubio, McNabb gave Most Dominant Ever a huge boost off the bench, scoring 14 points with 10 rebounds and 3 assists. As this description from the Ultimate Hoops Minnesota Facebook page shows, McNabb would ultimately be the game’s hero:

The MDE/Rockets rivalry has officially started! MDE wins a nail-bitter with free agent superstar Donavon McNabb hitting a “And 1″ with 13 seconds left to give MDE the go ahead bucket! Now the squads are 1-1 in head-to-head competition!

That’s probably more exclamation points than a description of Donovan McNabb scoring a bucket and a free throw to win a Twin Cities rec league game deserves, but what the hell. Let Donovan have his shining moment. God knows he didn’t have many with the Vikings. Check out more photos of McNabb’s scintillating Ultimate Hoops Minnesota debut. Last note: The game took place at Life Time Fitness in St. Louis Park. Donovan is a fixture down there now. So are a lot of other chubby dudes with no legs.

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Christian Ponder’s pretty face came out of Saturday’s game looking not so pretty. Most of the damage came courtesy of Reed Doughty who early in the first quarter flat-out smashed Ponder after the QB had given himself up by sliding. Doughty was flagged on the play, but everyone knew right away that would not be the end of the story. On Friday the rest of the bad news came for Doughty: the NFL has fined him $15,000 for the dirty hit.

A lot of these fines are silly and excessive but the one on Doughty is totally justified. QBs who slide have an expectation that no one is going to come flying in and try to crush their skull to a pulp. Ponder’s nose was bloodied by Doughty’s hit, but that was only a precursor to the damage he would later receive. In the second half Ponder took a helmet-to-helmet shot from London Fletcher. Ponder suffered a concussion on the play – which, incidentally, came right after the play that took out Adrian Peterson for 9 months – and left the game. Fletcher was not flagged for the hit and has not received a fine.

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Christian Ponder got his face busted up Saturday when the Redskins’ Reed Doughty hit him while he was on the ground (the play was flagged and Doughty will probably get a fine). And that wasn’t even the play that caused him to leave with a concussion. The concussion happened early in the third when London Fletcher hit him helmet-to-helmet. A pretty bad day for young Christian, to put it mildly.

The good news is, Ponder’s concussion symptoms have cleared up and he can play Sunday. So his head is fine. I wish I could say the same for his face which was looking pretty messed up at his Wednesday presser. My crappy screencap from the presser makes it hard to see but he has a big boo-boo on his nose and a cut on his lip. That only makes him hotter, right?

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