Derrick Ward, a Super Bowl-winning former running back for the New York Giants and the Houston Texans, had a lot to say about the NFL draft last night, where Michael Sam reacted to his draft pick by joyfully kissing his boyfriend.

Michael Sam, the University of Missouri football player who came out as gay in February, three months in advance of the NFL draft, was drafted this evening by the St. Louis Rams. He reacted the way any athlete would: by kissing his significant other.

America's most-loved NFL player, Richard Sherman, on the moral panic over ex-Eagles star DeSean Jackson's rumored "gang ties": "Nobody suggested the Colts owner had 'ties' to drug trafficking, even though he was caught driving with controlled substances ... and $29,000 in cash to do who-knows-what with."

The NFL is trying to get M.I.A. to pay $16.6 million because she flipped the bird during her 2012 Super Bowl performance with Madonna. M.I.A. has some choice words in response, but the funniest is, "@madonna ummm ..... can i borrow 16 million ?"

Washington D.C.'s NFL team, with an All-Pro roster of PR scumbags defending its racist name, is now concern-trolling about Native Americans' "high unemployment, life threatening health problems, inadequate education and many other issues more pressing than the name of a football team."

Alternate headline: Straightsplaining: NFL Edition.

Michael Sam, a defensive linesman for the University of Missouri football team, publicly came out today. The 24-year-old, who will likely be selected in the early rounds of the NFL draft in May, would be the first publicly-out football player in NFL history.

In a press conference yesterday afternoon, Seattle Seahawks player Richard Sherman was asked if being called a "thug" bothered him. "The only reason it bothers me," he said, "is because it seems like it's the accepted way of calling somebody the N-word nowadays."

This account of an affair between two men who played together on the Washington Redskins in the late '60s/early '70s is heartbreaking. It comes from the NFL Network's episode of A Football Life profiling player Jerry Smith, who remained publicly closeted for his entire life (Smith died of AIDS in 1986).

On Saturday the New England Patriots huddled, bowed their heads, and prayed a moment of silence to raucous Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. A minute to remember Sam Berns, 17, who loved football first and foremost.

Last week, the young son of NFL star Adrian Peterson died after being beaten by the boyfriend of the child's mother. Today, a columnist from New York's most pungent gutter tabloid has figured out a way to insult Adrian Peterson.

Totally not homophobic website has posted more pics of totally not gay NFL player Kerry Rhodes with his "male friend."

ESPN recently polled its readers about gay people in professional sports and found out that, well, people are still kind of homophobic (surprise!). One poll found that 56 percent of its readers think a player coming out while still a pro athelete would be a "selfish act" that would divide the locker room.

Now this is a football highlight reel.

This morning's news that NFL lineman Jovan Belcher had murdered his girlfriend and then subsequently committed suicide was extremely tragic. Any compassionate human being would immediately would reflect on the fact that a talented athlete wasted his own life and unfairly ended his girlfriend's as well.

Kansas City police are currently investigating two shootings that took place this morning. They say a Chiefs player shot and killed his girlfriend at their home and then headed to a practice facility where he committed suicide.

It takes remarkably few complaints about the NFL referee lockout to provoke a chiding comment about "bread and circuses." It's a novel insight, assuming your conversation occurs nearly 2,000 years ago in imperial Rome. But all too often it represents misplaced disengagement. And now, of course, it's over, which makes it even easier to dismiss—a hiccup of labor history remembered only by people who paint themselves blue and stand nearly naked outside in January.

Last night, a bad call by the NFL's replacement referees cost the Green Bay Packers a win, and everyone's talking about it. Everyone except for you, hiding in your office, unable to understand 50 percent of the words in the previous sentence, faking a coughing fit every time one of your coworkers passes by. Well, non sports fan, we're here to save you. This is everything you need to know about the NFL's replacement referee fiasco and last night's crazy Green Bay-Seattle game — tailored for people who've never watched a minute of professional football.

Not everyone knows football, and that's okay—even if you're an American. Everyone, though, is perfectly capable of sounding as if they might know a thing or two about football should the need arise. Here's what to yell at your TV and friends in order to sound like you maybe-kinda-sorta know what's going on this Sunday evening.

The 46th Super Bowl in the history of the National Football League takes place on Sunday night. If you're saying "duh," then please feel free to move on to another corner of the Internet. If you're saying, "Is that the thing with the dogs?" then please keep reading.