‘Dirty Bird’ drops off his perch

Maybe he was getting an early start on Sunday's tailgate party for the lowly Atlanta Falcons, who open the season at home against those perennial losers, the Detroit Lions.

Or, more likely, he could have been drowning his sorrows in anticipation of another sorry NFL season down South.

Either way, former Falcons running back Jamal Anderson was falling-down drunk the other night at an Atlanta bar, as revealed in photos at drunkathlete.com. Yes, it's an actual Web site.

The anonymous photographer who submitted the pics said he and his friends ran into Anderson -- who led the Falcons to Super Bowl XXXIII -- and "he ended up buying us eight rounds of shots and then passing out at the bar."

Despite the generosity of Anderson, who made the "Dirty Bird" dance famous, the apparent college-aged kids couldn't resist ridiculing him.

"The last photo is of my friends doing the 'Dirty Bird' over his body right before he fell onto the bar floor and had to be escorted out," the photographer said.

• BOXERS OR THIEFS? -- If there are some Perry Ellis boxers for sale on eBay -- used ones -- there's a good chance the seller is former Lions running back Tatum Bell, who was seen stealing Detroit running back Rudi Johnson's duffel bags this week.

"So he got a bunch of my underclothes. What he's going to do with that, I don't know," Johnson told the Detroit News. "If anybody's got some Perry Ellis boxers for sale, you know where they came from."

Despite surveillance tapes showing him taking Johnson's bags, Bell denied stealing money, underwear or anything else from them.

"I ain't no thief," Bell told the Detroit Free Press. "I ain't never been one, and I ain't never going to be one. It was all a misunderstanding."

Maybe Bell can trade the boxers for "Hooked on Phonics." Ain't it a shame he apparently didn't learn better grammar at Oklahoma State, where he played college football.

• THE TRUTH COMES OUT -- Kevin Hart, the former Fernley High School lineman who made national headlines when he lied about his recruitment to California and Oregon, is going to play football in the Golden State after all -- at Feather River (Junior) College in Quincy, Calif.

Hart had told an assembly at Fernley that he picked Cal over Oregon and later claimed he had been the victim of a scam artist who posed as a recruiter. Hart eventually admitted to concocting the entire story.

The 6-foot-3-inch, 315-pounder said he told Feather River coach Tom Simi the truth about his past when he arrived on campus.

"It's come up, but everyone's been real cool," Hart told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "They've said the past is the past, and that's why I came here. I realize what I did, and I'm not trying to shy away from it. I'm just here to move on and continue my career."

Simi said Hart "did something wrong, but not something that should keep him out of the game forever."

COMPILED BY TODD DEWEY REVIEW-JOURNAL