Things That Are Hot:

Scandals involving Scarlett Johansson.

Things that are not: Scandals involving pills and probably backne.

Merriman will appeal his suspension on the grounds that he believes a supplement that he took did not list a form of steroid on the bottle. He and his lawyer claim the company that makes the supplement was trying to give its product a boost in order to increase sales. Supposedly, there are other people who feel that this sort of thing goes down as well, but truthfully it doesn't matter because the NFL has an approved list of supplements to take and this one wasn't on it, apparently. Even if it were, there is no way Merriman wins this case. The NFL has said pretty much all along that it doesn't really care how the steroids get in your system, if you test positive you get a suspension. Still, this appeal is a genius move for two reasons right now:

One, this means that Merriman will likely be on the field for at least one and probably two more games. That makes it a good possibility that that by the time he is forced to sit out, we will have Shaun Phillips and/or Igor Olshansky back from injury. That's huge, cause it's likely we can handle filling two starting spots on defense, but it becomes much more difficult to cover three.

Two, it gives fans the opportunity to believe he didn't knowingly take steroids, al la Barry Bonds. Also, Terrell Owens didn't try to kill himself cause he totally denied that too. And Tom Cruise has never had sex with a man or been to another planet.

Here's one funny little take, though. Say that they actually go out and test this supplement and it shows up that it did indeed have traces of a form of steroids in it. What then? Merriman will surely still serve his suspension, but does the government finally step in and put the FDA in charge of supplements and herbal remedies and such? Would that be a good thing? Just a little food for thought. Go Bolts!!!