Reporting from the Jock-o-Sphere

Darren McFadden is excited to watch football and blog on his own.

Early in his blogging career (he threw down his first in April 2008), Darren wrote like a champ. He stuck to standard spelling, devised compound sentences and the like. Now? Not so much. It seems Darren has eschewed the blog lackey he was afforded in an effort to go it alone. Either that, or Marshawn Lynch is ghost writing. The Jock-o-sphere did a story a few months back on writing clarity, The Blogger Clarity Contest, and it seems as though Darren is now taking a page from the lower end of the spectrum. But don't take my word for it, as LeVar Burton always said You be the judge.

"I try to watch other teams play when I can because I enjoy watching tha game of football," he writes. "I have a lot of friends n guys that I've met who play on other teams so I jus try to check them out n see how they're doing out there. Then I like to see how other teams use tha style of offense that Felix Jones and I ran when we were at Arkansas. I try to keep in touch with Fee as much as I can. It's always good to talk to one of your people to jus see how they doin. Everytime I see him out there do his thing it jus make me smile cuz that's my boy."

US Swimmer Megan Jendrick is heading back into the water with just the slightest bit of trepidation.

"Tomorrow is my first day back in the pool for training since I've been home from Beijing," she writes. "I've been in the water off and on for fun—doing clinics and also when on vacation—but haven't done anything even close to resembling a real set since August. I have to admit, I'm a little nervous, but I'm excited."

"I'm changing things up a little bit getting back into working out again. I'm doing a couple more things on my own terms than before and am going to focus more on recovery than I ever have before. I'm almost 25, which is still relatively young, but when you've been training as long as I have, the body slowly starts to fight back when it comes to healing up.

"One main thing for me is that I'll be training six days a week now instead of seven. Even mentally, heading to the pool each and every day, all year long, gets very exhausting. I'm going to work it out with my coach and rotate one day of the week—probably a weekend—devoted to just taking it easy and staying out of the water."

Mike Hart is post-op. And it hurts.

"I had my surgery on my knee about 8 days ago and man alive, does that not feel good," he writes. "The pain has subsided and I am feeling a lot better and I am already able to get a lot of movement out of it. Once you tear your ACL, you basically know that it is going to take 6-8 months to get back to one hundred percent. If you see me on the street in 3 weeks, you shouldn't be able to tell that I am injured but right now I am definitely limping around. I haven't been down at all because I know this injury happens to a lot of players and I will be back next year. I have been frustrated though. I was just getting some time out on the field and continuing to prove myself when this injury occurred."

Hang in there, Mike. Joseph Addai and Dominic Rhodes can't beat the injury bug either.

Mike Conley Jr. reports from the video game front.

"On the video game front I picked up Guitar Hero World Tour, the game is solid but the red drum pad doesn't seem to be as sensitive as the others causing me to miss notes," he writes. "When I get back from our long roadtrip I will pick up Resistance 2 and Gears of War 2. I'm also part of a Grizzlies clan on SOCOM with Hakim, Kyle, and Darrell."

Sounds like you guys should take on Curt Schilling and his gaming entourage.

Vernon Davis mixed it up with the family on his bye week.

"My bye week was interesting," he writes. "I went home for a little bit, just to see the family back in DC. I tried to use that opportunity to just go back home and get away from football and focus on coming back fresh…I also watched my little brother Vontae play on television when Illinois played Iowa. It was good. I try to watch every last one of my little brother's games. If I can't catch it then I'll just TiVo it. He did well. He had a pick. He played well, made a lot of tackles."

I wonder if the 49ers will ever throw to you, Vernon, or just continue to utilize your extreme blocking talents.

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