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A week ago, I solicited your help to select the AFC East’s best players at every position for 2009.



Your votes have been counted and your comments read at ESPN.com and on my Facebook page. I believe we’ve come up with a rock-solid All-AFC East team.



In almost every case, the player who received the most votes made the squad. So consider this the team you selected. The only time I had to make a call was to break a tie or for a position that generated scant attention.



I also exercised my right as AFC East blog czar to revoke a ballot for stupidity and only considered the votes of people who made an honest effort to field an entire ballot — not just throw out a name or two of a player from their team. Anybody who submitted an idiotic selection — Buffalo Bills rookie Andy Levitre at left guard over two Pro Bowlers? — got their entire ballot killed on account of credibility.



The biggest debate involved fullbacks Tony Richardson and Lousaka Polite, for whom passionate Dolfans made a convincing case. The vote was close enough that my influence would have allowed me to pick Richardson for the All-AFC East team, but you Polite zealots wore me down.



The biggest surprises from my perspective:

• Dolphins running backs Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown received a combined four votes and finished third and fourth behind Thomas Jones and Fred Jackson. Based on the crush of support for Polite, you would think Williams and Brown would receive more votes through mere homerism. That’s a credit to Dolfans and actually played a factor in my being won over on Polite. You voted with your heads.
• Response for Bills inside linebacker Paul Posluszny. New York Jets leading tackler David Harris had one of the spots locked up. I thought New England Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo, the NFL’s top defensive rookie in 2008, would be the other. But Posluszny received almost twice as many votes as Mayo.

The close votes I made the final call:

• New England strong safety Brandon Meriweather over Miami’s Yeremiah Bell in a tie vote.
• New England’s Wes Welker, the only player to make the team at two positions, at punt returner over Jackson in a vote that had three players within two votes.
• Buffalo special-teamer John Wendling in a three-way tie with Miami’s Jason Allen and New York’s Larry Izzo.

ESPN.com’s NFL bloggers and reporters will talk about the Super Bowl at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday.



ESPN.com’s NFL Nation Live — Super Bowl 44

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A dude from Disney was working the room at the Colts hotel this morning during their media hour.



It takes a lot to get that “I’m going to Disneyworld” deal in place with the potential Super Bowl MVP.



Tight end Colin Cloherty, who is likely to be inactive on game day, got the talk and signed up. If he’s our MVP, he’s meeting Mickey Mouse.



He won’t be practicing the line.



“I think it’s going to have to be a spur of the moment thing,” he said, laughing. “I don’t think it’s worth rehearsing for. I don’t have a good enough of a shot.”



Clint Session’s got a more realistic shot, but I asked him what it would take, given the expected competition wearing No. 18 over on offense.



“You pretty much know what the deal is,” he cracked. “They’re only getting offensive players, man. For me it would probably take like three or four interceptions, two of them to the crib, 15 tackles, eight sacks. Then maybe.”



What are Session’s odds for a Peyton Manning MVP in the game if the Colts win?



“Maybe 99.6,” he said.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Just when you thought Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had chased off the troublemakers at Valley Ranch, starting fullback Deon Anderson has been charged with misdemeanor deadly conduct for allegedly pulling a gun during a dispute at a Dallas area restaurant early Tuesday morning.

Anderson

Anderson was actually arrested at the scene over traffic warrants issued by the city of Irving, Texas, but the gun charge obviously takes this situation to a different level. A restaurant employee who filed a criminal complaint said Anderson retrieved a handgun from his car and threatened him with it, according to the police report. Police who were called to the scene of the disturbance retrieved a gun from some nearby shrubs and discovered it was loaded with a round chambered.



Anderson told ESPNDallas.com on Tuesday that his car wouldn’t start after using the restauraunt’s valet service and he wanted to know why. He said he did not put his hands on anyone and did not use profanity. But from the sound of these allegations, whether or not Anderson used foul language is the least of his worries.



I think the Cowboys should move quickly to cut Anderson. No matter how this ends up in the judicial system, it appears that Anderson used extremely poor judgment. He faces up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $4,000.

MIAMI — The part of Super Bowl week that’s all about talk and hype is coming to an end. I’m heading over to the Saints’ hotel for what’s the last scheduled media session for the entire team.



Coach Sean Payton still has to do a Friday morning news conference, but this is the final session for the players. I’ll bring you the highlights of Thursday’s session a bit later, and I’ve got a column written on New Orleans defensive end Will Smith that will pop up this afternoon.



I’m also hoping to meet up with Atlanta coach Mike Smith and general manager Thomas Dimitroff, who are in town, later this afternoon and talk a little about their plans for the offseason.

All had been quiet on the Osi Umenyiora front — until he appeared on New York’s WFAN radio Wednesday. Umenyiora told Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts that he was enduring the worst offseason of his life and that he vowed to take extreme measures if he’s not back in the starting lineup in 2010.

“I’m not going to be a backup player, I can promise you that,” Umenyiora said. “I’ll stop playing football before I do that ever again. This has been just the worst offseason of my entire life. I can’t even think of a time when things were this bad during the offseason. You’re supposed to be relaxing, but I can’t relax because all I can think of is the things that took place last season. So for me, it’s not something that I’m going to do. And if I’m asked to come back there and do that then I’ll just stop playing football.”

For the record, I don’t think Umenyiora’s posturing is helping his cause. Like several Giants defenders, Umenyiora wasn’t playing up to his potential in ’09 and coach Tom Coughlin decided to bench him. It’s pretty obvious that the coach was attempting to send the rest of the team a message with his willingness to take a star player off the field. Umenyiora’s pride was injured in the process and he continues to nurse his wounds in a very public manner.



I don’t think the Giants have any intention of trading Umenyiora. New defensive coordinator Perry Fewell will sit down with him at some point and let him know how important he is to the defense. Jeremy Shockey was willing to pretty much make a nuisance of himself on the way out of town a couple years ago.



That’s not in Umenyiora’s nature to make a spectacle of himself. In fact, I think you’ll see him back off these comments pretty quickly. Here’s what he said when the guys from WFAN asked if his time with the Giants might be coming to an end:

“Did it go through my mind? Obviously, yes,” said Umenyiora. “Obviously, you come through a situation where you’ve been here for a long time and you’ve won a Super Bowl, you’ve been to the Pro Bowl a couple of times and then things like that start happening, you start being benched and they say you’re coming in on the third-down rush. It almost seemed as if the writing was on the wall at that particular time. I felt like I had worn out my welcome, because once teams start doing things like that, it seems like you’ve obviously worn out your welcome. For certain people, no matter what happens, they’ll never take them out of the lineup. … But you never know, man. I hope it’s not. I hope things can be rectified and things can be resolved. But we’ll see.”

Pompei: The numbers make the argument that Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith were the greatest to play their positions ever. Rice had more receiving yards than any player in history, and Smith had more rushing yards. The numbers, however, don’t tell the whole story.

Pompei: The numbers make the argument that Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith were the greatest to play their positions ever. Rice had more receiving yards than any player in history, and Smith had more rushing yards. The numbers, however, don’t tell the whole story.

Each NFL team has a different priority entering this offseason, and Sporting News correspondents uncover just what each franchise is focusing on — for the draft and for the 2010 regular season and beyond.