In case you were out living a life of leisure, here’s what you missed in sports on Thursday.

• Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul said that his team’s pass-rushers are in Tom Brady’s head. And at least one of them — the insanely creepy Justin Tuck — has also been in his underwear drawer.

• Bill Belichick’s preparations for the Super Bowl now include taking a 31-minute break during practice to simulate the lengthy halftime intermission. He also tried to hire Janet Jackson so he could rip off her shirt in front of the team to teach them discipline in the face of distractions. She was too expensive, though, and he had to settle for an awkward cup check on kicker Stephen Gostkowski.

• Multiple sources reported that Peyton Manning has been medically cleared to play football. Meanwhile, Andrew Luck told reporters that he would like to play immediately upon joining the NFL. Sorry, but did either of these guys actually watch the Indianapolis Colts this year? Can someone show them some film? If Manning and Luck were in a Civil War battle, they’d be the ones marching in the front line playing a fife.

• The starters for the NBA All-Star game were announced yesterday, and the list included four players from the two Los Angeles teams — Andrew Bynum, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, and Blake Griffin. No word yet on whether Griffin will participate in this year’s Emphatic Lay-Up Contest.

• The Knicks suffered another gut-wrenching loss at home, falling to Derrick Rose (32 points, 13 assists) and the Bulls 105-102. In fact, their guts have been wrenched so completely that this latest wrenching has actually started to un-wrench them, a rare anatomical phenomenon first encountered in several members of the 1993 Buffalo Bills.

• Austin Rivers scored 18 points as no. 5 Duke avenged last year’s road loss at Virginia Tech with a 75-60 win. “Anytime you win here, it’s a huge bonus,” said Coach K. “But our main goal is always to make it home without being sodomized by genetically-deficient freaks in the hills outside Blacksburg.”

• A New York woman has been charged with attempting to blackmail Yankees GM Brian Cashman to the tune of at least $21,000. Louise Neathway, whose relationship with Cashman is still unclear, was arraigned when Cashman lured her into a police dragnet Thursday night. The other members of Neathway’s extortion gang — Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa — remain at large.

• Speaking at a national signing day party, LSU head coach Les Miles criticized the leadership ability of former recruit Gunner Kiel. Kiel, a quarterback, had originally committed to LSU before reversing his decision last month and choosing Notre Dame. When he finished his impassioned speech, Miles sagged down onto the podium and stared wistfully into the distance. “It is a pretty cool name, though,” he said. “My God. It’s glorious.”

• The NHL is looking into a clock error that may have cost the Blue Jackets a loss to the Kings. The Kings scored a game-winning goal with less than a second remaining, but it appeared that the clock may have stopped briefly before the goal, allowing them extra time to earn a 3-2 victory. And instead of making a joke about this, I’m going to copy and paste an actual excerpt from the story, because it’s so bizarre and hilarious that it deserves the attention:

When reached by ESPN.com, Kings general manager Dean Lombardi responded with a curious e-mail:

“Those clocks are sophisticated instruments that calculate time by measuring electrical charges called coulombs — given the rapidity and volume of electrons that move through the measuring device the calibrator must adjust at certain points which was the delay you see — the delay is just recalibrating for the clock moving too quickly during the 10-0ths of a second before the delay — this insures that the actual playing time during a period is exactly 20 minutes That is not an opinion — that is science — amazing devise quite frankly.”

Curious indeed, Mr. Lombardi. In light of this revelation, the so-called error is no more than a trifling peccadillo! Congratulations on sounding the most like a crazy Jules Verne-era scientist of any NHL GM. We respect and fear you.

And with that, it’s now time for the best moment of everyone’s week: PARTICIPATION FRIDAY! *Celebratory machine gun fire*

Every week, I ask you, the reader, to throw your hat in the Grantland ring. You’ve delivered in style over the past month on a variety of topics:

• Best/Worst Excuses
• Heckling stories
• Weird laws
• Animal facts

This week, I’m asking for the coldest break-up you’ve ever experienced. Did you get dumped by a heartless scoundrel? Were you the heartless scoundrel? Does your friend or relative have a great/horrible story? Do you feel like Googling an urban legend and fooling me like some dude managed last week?

As always, you can be as anonymous as you like. Let’s hear the gruesome details. Send your stories to tobaccordblues@gmail.com and you could become a local celebrity by making the top ten list on Monday. Enjoy your weekend!