Michael Vick named 'Most Disliked NFL Player' again: Report

It shouldn't come as a complete surprise that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick made the list of most disliked players in the NFL, according to a survey by E-Poll Market Research and released Monday by Forbes.com.  But, even four years removed from federal prison for animal cruelty, it's a little stunning that the rehabilitated Vick still topped the list.

Vick was followed by San Diego Chargers rookie Manti Te'o with Detroit defensive end Ndamukong Suh finishing third.

Ben Roethlisberger and Mark Sanchez rounded out the top five. Accused murderer Aaron Hernandez wasn't even included.

Forbes conducted the survey to see who the most hated player in the NFL. Vick has been at or near the top of the list for a while due to his dog fighting incident. 

The Te'o selection is strange. How in the world is the catfished Te'o the second most-hated player in the NFL over players that have done all kinds of stupid things. According to the survey,  Te'o was cited for "Not enough playing time as a rookie yet to erase memories of the bizarre fake girlfriend episode at Notre Dame last year."

Detroit Lions linemen Ndamukong Suh (43% dislike), known for the occasional cheap shot, might be more deserving of the second spot.

The scientific surveys are conducted as representative samples from people age 13 and up. They counted only currently active NFL players whose awareness registered a minimum of 10% with the public. Out of the 1,100 people asked, 53 percent of them said they disliked Vick the most. According to the E-Poll numbers, 48% disliked Te'o.

The Top Ten list is rounded out by Jay Cutler, Tony Romo, Tom Brady, Carson Palmer and Reggie Bush.

With Brady, E-Poll’s numbers show that woman love the guy, but a lot of men see him a metro-sexual pretty boy.

Manti Te'o has the top selling NFL rookie jersey

That whole fake girlfriend scandal with Manti Te'o last winter might have dropped the duped former Notre Dame linebacker's draft stock but it has spiked the San Diego Chargers' second-round pick's jersey sales.

ESPN is reporting that the Te'o's No. 50 jersey was flying off the shelves and was the top seller among all NFL rookies from April 1-June 30 on NFLShop.com.  It proves again that — with all of the sensationalist publicity that came with the bizarre situation — weird stuff sells.

Following the naive, but likable, Te'o in rookie sales were Rams receiver Tavon Austin, Bills quarterback EJ Manuel, Vikings receiver Cordarrelle Patterson and Packers running back Eddie Lacy. Notably, that top-five list does not include Jets quarterback Geno Smith.

As for the rest of the league, 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has taken his place at the top of the list. Not surprising, considering last year's midseason replacement led the 49ers to the NFC championship and nearly pulled off a Super Bowl win.

Joining the quarterback race in which San Francisco and Seattle have engaged this offseason, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson is No. 2 on the list. Following him were Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, Vikings running back Adrian Peterson and Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning.

Te'o's top-seller is a surprise considering the small market NFL city he plays for. It's gotta be the lightning bolts.

Manti Te'o shows up at Maxim's Hot 100 party as No. 69's date

San Diego Chargers second-round draft pick Manti Te'o isn't letting that whole fake girlfriend hoax get him down.  The catfished NFL rookie might even be using it to his advantage.

Maxim magazine took a humorous shot at the former Notre Dame linebacker last week, ranking Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend, Lennay Kekua,  No. 69 in their annual "Hot 100" list.

The other night the men's magazine took the joke one step further, inviting Te'o to the Los Angeles party celebrating the list. To Te'o's credit, he didn't pass up the opportunity and appeared to be a good sport about the whole thing.

Maxim's editor-in-chief, Dan Bova, said he was "pleasantly surprised" that Te'o made an appearance.

"It seems like he has a good sense of humor about the whole thing," said Bova, "which I think is the best way to handle a situation like that."

Te'o made the scene and was even spotted with a number of real beauties.

Te'o's cyberspace hottie probably wasn't the only fake thing floating around the Hollywood party.

Dr. Phil sues Gawker Media over Manti Te'o hoaxer interview

TV therapist Dr. Phil McGraw's production company has filed a lawsuit against Gawker Media and its sports website, Deadspin.com, for posting his interview with the man behind the Manti Te'o hoax before it hit west coast markets.

The cranky afternoon television self-helper claims the website posted video of his interview with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo immediately after the east time zone broadcast thus swiping viewers before it could be aired in a majority of "The Dr. Phil Show" markets.

The first part of the two-part February interview left viewers with a tease, to watch the next day if Tuiasosopo would speak in the female voice he used to create the fake “Lennay Kekua.”

Tuiasosopo did speak in Kekua's voice in the second part of the interview, but the suit alleges that Deadspin stole the copyrighted material and made it available to viewers online "hours before the ‘Dr. Phil Show’ aired to over 98% of its viewers," resulting in lower ratings for the second episode.

In an eight-page complaint filed Monday in federal court in Texas, McGraw claims Deadspin posted the interview before it could get to other profiable nationwide markets.

McGraw's suit essentially says Deadspin siphoned away viewers who would have otherwise watched it on TV.

Deadspin broke the story about the "catfished" Notre Dame football player and his fake girlfriend back in January.  The story brought in numbers the snarky sports website had never seen before.

Maybe Dr. Phil should just thank the site for giving him the lead and a story line.

NFL to hang anti-discrimination posters in all 32 teams' locker rooms

It looks like rumors that an NFL player(s) publicly coming out as gay has already prepped players for the possibility that they could be sharing a locker room together but, if they didn't get the implied message of tolerance from the league, the NFL announced that it will be putting their anti-discrimination policies in writing and on the walls of every one of those locker rooms.

At the urging of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the NFL has written a new game plan to fight discrimination against gays.  The league said it will hang posters in the locker rooms of all 32 teams detailing the by-laws of its anti-discriminatory policies.

The groundbreaking blitz to step up awareness against discrimination will be reinforced by special training sessions with rookies and with team staffers involved with recruiting and signing players.

Schneiderman got involved in March after at least three college football players said they had reportedly been asked about their sexual orientation during recruitment interviews at the NFL Scouting Combines earlier in the year.

The questions came after Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te’o was revealed to have had an online relationship with a man pretending to be a woman. Te'o claims he was not questioned about his own sexual orientation.

The attorney general warned NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in a letter that New York State laws make it illegal for an employer to base a hiring decision on sexual orientation. And as a business based on New York, the NFL must comply with the law, he said.

This led to the two parties getting together and coming to a resolution.

Goodell said he believes the NFL proved to Schneiderman that it has had a longstanding anti-discrimination policy and is taking the issue seriously.

“I think they felt that we were doing the right things,” he said.

The NFL said it soon will “reiterate and reinforce” its policy in writing to the players, teams and staff.

“This is something that is very important to us and we have the right policies in place to support it,” Goodell said.

Te'o scores with some real ladies in Atlantic City

Manti Te'o's 40-yard dash time may need some work but the Notre Dame linebacker showed he still has some moves.

Te'o ran a dismal 4.82 at last week's NFL Scouting Combine, but it didn't take long for half-a-dozen 10's to put a smile back on his face.

The NFL prospect was in Atlantic City Friday night to accept the Maxwell Football's Club's Collegiate Player of the Year and Chuck Bednarik Collegiate Defensive Player of the Year awards at Harrah's Casino.

Te'o managed to avoid questions about being catfished in his fake online girlfriend hoax and even found a squad of pretty cheerleaders to help put the whole thing behind him.

By the way, Manti — these girls are real.

Manti Te'o says no teams asked if he was gay at NFL Combine

Manti Te'o was in Atlantic City Friday to pick up a pair of awards from the Maxwell Football Club after he was named the organization's College Player of the Year and Chuck Bednarik Defensive Player of the Year — two awards that haven't been swept by one player for 75 years until the Notre Dame linebacker pulled the historic double-down today.

Te'o was surrounded by four security guards from Harrah's Casino and a couple of Maxwell officials intent on keeping reporters from asking any questions that didn't pertain to the awards, but that didn't stop Te'o from talking about the NFL Scouting Combine where the catfished player floundered in front of NFL coaches.

Te'o claims he was not asked any personally probing questions by NFL officials — at least not that he was saying publicly.

Questioned whether any teams might have flouted Federal or State hiring laws by prying into his personal life and sexual orientation, Te'o was vague.

"No, I don't think that's a question they asked," he said.  "Anything they asked me I answered and answered honestly."

The projected first rounder has seen his stock plummet after the fake girlfriend hoax and running a lumbering 4.8 in the 40-yard dash and hoped to make up for it at Notre Dame's Pro Day on March 26.

"It’s difficult to balance things and stay focused on what you’ve got to do," he said in response to a question about his poor 40 time. "For me, I’m glad that the Combine is done, that it’s finished. Now I’m focused on more specific things, like my 40. I don’t have to worry about other things.

"But definitely it’s difficult. I’m not going to say it’s easy. It’s hard."

Still, he hopes land with a NFL team despite the setbacks and doesn't care what club.

"To be honest with you I really don’t know (where he'll end up),"Te'o said. "I hope to get drafted. I think that’s everybody’s hope at this point and you prepare and work hard and do your best and hope for the best.

"I don’t know specifically where I’m going to go. I just hope one of those 32 places may be my home."

Suggs has no problem with Te'o joining Ravens team

Never mind being catfished, at least one NFL star doesn't even care if Manti Te'o floundered at the NFL Scouting Combine this week and would welcome the former Notre Dame star into his team's locker room.

Terrell Suggs of the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens was in New York City when TMZ asked the former-Defensive Player of the Year if it would be alright if the Ravens drafted the linebacker — who ran a lumbering 4.80 40-yard dash at the NFL showcase.

Suggs had nothing but praise for Te'o and said, "Manti? Most definitely."

"He's got a future, man," he added. "He'll be alright."

Suggs wasn't so keen on the NFL Combine itself and claims he didn't exactly impress the coaches when he was showing off his skills.

"It's built for small school guys who don't get a look," said the man who hoisted the Lombardi Trophy earlier this month.

It looks like Te'o's — the guy with the fake girlfriend— draft stock might have dropped during his highly scrutinized trip to Indianapolis, but it sounds like Suggs' vote of confidence is the real deal.

Dr. Phil offers proof Tuiasosopo was the voice of Te'o fake girlfriend

The 22-year-old man who fooled Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o into falling for a fake girlfriend via email and phone messages said he was repeatedly molested as a 12-year-old child and was only creating the phony persona as an escape from what he later called rape.

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo spoke publicly for the first time Thursday, in a taped interview with with Dr. Phil McGraw, on the "Dr. Phil Show" and said, " I felt the need to create this.  It has everything to do with what I went through as a child."

After Thursday's show, McGraw expressed some skepticism that Tuiasosopo was actually the voice of the girlfriend, Lennay Kekua — a virtual woman he invented and introduced to Te'o via the Internet before killing her off in December.

When Tuiasosopo didn't pass three voice tests (taped in the Dr. Phil studio for Thursday's show), evaluated by three audio technicians — which could have matched his disguised voice to the previously recorded tapes of the phony Kekua — the soft-spoken Tuiasosopo blamed it on the unfamiliar and uncomfortable setting in the television studio.  So McGraw had him go to more familiar surroundings to recreate Kekua's voice— and the same place for years he made the original calls to Te'o — his California home.

Tuiasosopo needed to score a 60% chance of certainty from the trifecta of audio analysts to confirm that he could have really been the voice of the fake Kekua.

All three audio tests came back with high scores of 87.94%, 70.54% and even a perfect 100%  authentication from one lab.

"They all say with scientific certainty Ronaiah Tuiasosopo is the female voice in those recordings," said McGraw when the results came back.

Dr. Phil: Hoax mastermind fell 'romantically in love' with Te'o

As if the Manti Te'o story couldn't get even any weirder, now Dr. Phil McGraw — who questioned Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the mastermind behind the Te'o fake girlfriend prank, in his first public interview which will air Thursday and Friday on the "Dr. Phil" show — tells NBC that he believes Tuiasosopo genuinely fell in love with the Notre Dame football star during the course of the two-year deception. "Here we have a young man that fell deeply, romantically in love," McGraw told NBC's Mike Tiabbi. "I asked him straight up, 'Was this a romantic relationship with you?' And he says yes. I said, 'Are you then therefore gay?' And he said, 'When you put it that way, yes.' And then he caught himself and said, 'I am confused.'"

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In the two-part interview with Dr. Phil, Tuiasosopo said Te'o was nothing more than an innocent victim in the Catfish hoax. "I wanted to end it because after everything I had gone through , I finally realized that I just had to move on with my life," Tuiasosopo told McGraw in the interview. McGraw told Taibbi that, after speaking with Tuaisosopo, he believes that Te'o "absolutely, unequivocally" was not involved in the hoax in any way.

Te'o tells Couric: I'm 'faaaaaaar' from being gay

There were a lot of unanswered questions leading up to Manti Te'o's exclusive sit down with talk-host Katie Couric on Thursday — like whether or not the Notre Dame football star had anything to do with his phony online girlfriend or he was "catfished" — truly the victim of an elaborate hoax.

Another question circling around in the minds of conspiracy buffs was the possibility the whole deal was a sensational way for Te'o to cover up speculation that he was gay.

Couric asked the 22-year-old point blank about that possibility.

"One of the theories, many theories, Manti, making the rounds is somehow you created this whole scenario to cover up your sexual orientation," Couric said.  "Are you gay?"

"No. Far from it.  Faaaaaaaaar from it," said a smiling Te'o.

During the interview, Te'o went on to vehemently deny having any involvement in creating the virtual social media co-ed, Lennay Kekua.

Te'o claimed his biggest regrets were lying to his parents about once meeting Kekua and briefly perpetuating the charade that Kekua actually existed even after he found out she didn't on Dec. 6.

Kekua's phone messages were reportedly made by hoax mastermind, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who disguised his voice as the fake hottie.

"It didn't sound like a man. It sounded like a woman," Te'o told Couric. "But if he somehow made that voice, that's incredible."

Te'o tells Katie Couric he briefly lied about girlfriend

Manti Te'o opened up and told Katie Couric that he briefly lied about his online girlfriend after discovering she didn't exist, while maintaining that he had no part in creating the bizarre hoax.

After Couric pressed the Notre Dame linebacker to admit he was in on the deception, Te'o said he believed that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua had died of cancer and didn't lie about it until December.

Te'o revealed this information in a taped interview to air Thursday on Couric's syndicated talk show, "Katie."  A segment of the interview with Te'o and his parents, Brian and Ottilia, was broadcast on "Good Morning America."

"You stuck to the script. And you knew that something was amiss, Manti," said Couric.

Te'o replied:

"Katie, put yourself in my situation.  I, my whole world told me that she died on Sept. 12.  Everybody knew that.  This girl, who I committed myself to, died on Sept. 12.

"Now I get a phone call on Dec. 6, saying that she's alive and then I'm going to be put on national TV two days later.  And to ask me about the same question. You know, what would you do?"

The Heisman Trophy runner-up said he only learned of the hoax when he received a phone call on Dec. 6 from a woman saying she was Kekua, but on Dec. 8 he again publicly mentioned his girlfriend. The remark came as Te'o was a finalist for the Heisman — the award given to the best college football player in the country.

Te'o continued being in the spotlight until he played in the BCS Championship Game against Alabama on January 7 without mentioning the scam until this taping.

Brooklyn Cyclones capitalize on Manti Te'o fake girlfriend hoax with 'Fictitious Friday' promo

The New York Mets' Class-A minor league affiliate, the Brooklyn Cyclones, announced a "Fictitious Friday" promotion to capitalize on the Manti Te'o fake girlfriend hoax.

A mocking press release from the New York-Penn League team said that they are talks with the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Leave it to an arm of the Mets organization to somehow cash in on the duping of the public — since they've catfished their fans for years by pretending to be contenders.

They should be calling it "Facetious Friday."

The Cyclones are just another team with some lame attempt at cashing in at the beleaguered Notre Dame star's expense.  In the Mets case, it's also five months down the road when people will probably be asking, "Manti who?"

The big day will be on June 21 at MCU Park on Coney Island.

Friday's press release also hyped a petting zoo which will have a unicorn, a minotaur (Alex Rodriguez perhaps?) and a mermaid.  What?  No R.A. Dickey?

Just not to confuse the ever-believing Mets crowd, the release made it clear to Cyclones fans that "Just like Manti Te'o's girlfriend everything will be made up."

That includes the Mets playoff chances.

A.J. McCarron tweets support for Manti Te'o

Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron — maybe now better known as Katherine Webb's boyfriend — is asking critics to give the beleaguered Notre Dame player some space and hold back passing judgement until all of the facts of the bizarre story are in. Via twitter, McCarron — who led his Crimson Tide team to a 42-14 rout over Te'o's team in the BCS Championship Game — showed compassion towards the troubled linebacker.

I think we should give manti sum respect & don't judge bc we don't know what all is going on. It could be deeper than told. Praying for him!
— AJ McCarron (@10AJMcCarron) January 17, 2013

McCarron's simple tweet just goes to show that football connections go beyond teammates and he has lot of respect for his on-the-field rival.