I’d put Johnny Depp in the top-10 actors of his generation. The guy has come a long way from playing Officer Tom Hanson on 21 Jump Street (that dangling earring. regrettable for Depp, I’m sure), and has shown versatility and longevity on the silver screen. However, when it comes to playing crazy people, Depp is in a class unto himself. Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka, Ichabod Crane, Ed Wood, Ed Scissorhands - all certifiable. You give him a character with any sort of twitch, and Depp will give a smashing performance. Looking back, he’s been a rum swigging swashbuckler, a opium induced inspector (don’t see From Hell if you can help it), a slasher barber - it makes me wonder, why should sports star be the exception?

Hence, that is why I posed the question to sports blog intelligentsia: Which Athlete Should Johnny Depp Play in a Movie?

The creme appears below, with a poll daddy guy at the bottom for you to cast a vote. Anyone interested in participating in one of my weekly polling exercise, email me here.

My personal submission for this: McEnroe. The film will span Johnny Mac’s entire career, and then some - ending with that awkward hug he gave Federer after he lost Wimbledon last year. Federer will be played by the kid from that Twilight thing or somebody, BUT, more importantly Rafa will be played by Benicio, and the deleted scenes will include Depp and him driving through the desert in a ballbuster on the way to Vegas, hyped on mescaline.

…And just because they already made that movie, doesn’t mean we can’t do it again, because McEnroe actually did stuff like this. Now he just makes totally ridiculous commercials…

Here’s the best of the rest…

Barry Bremen

I am in awe of this submission. Tip of the hat to Adam Best from ArrowheadAddict.com, who calls Bremen, “possibly the only sports world figure with a story strange enough to do Depp justice.”

Bremen is better known as The Great Impostor, and his wikipedia rap sheet is scathing…

From the period 1979 to 1986, the 6′4″, lean Bremen posed as a Major League Baseball umpire in the World Series, a player in a Major League Baseball All-Star Game, a player in a National Basketball Association All-Star Game, a referee in the National Football League, a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, and a professional golfer. He also posed as an Emmy Award accepter.

And, no! We’re not cutting the sequence where Bremen poses as a cheerleader if Depp asks us too! According to wikipedia, to make this happen, Bremen lost 23 pounds, practiced drag queen dance routines with his wife, and had a replica Cowboys Cheerleader uniform (boots, and all!) made for him!

When he came out onto the field (complete with a blond wig) with the squad, he only got out a single “Go Cowboys!” cheer before security ushered him off the premises.

Spaceman Bill Lee

The nod to the honorable Simon from SimonOnSports. He’s cited a few Spaceman quotes for us

“I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won’t matter if I get this guy out.”

“The other day they asked me about mandatory drug testing. I said I believed in drug testing a long time ago. All through the sixties I tested everything.”

Not entirely sure how this would factor into Johnny Depp’s performance, but Simon also notes that Spaceman claimed his marijuana use made him impervious to bus fumes while jogging to work at Fenway Park.

Maybe we could get Depp to sign on for a movie based on Lee’s book, Have Glove, Will Travel: Adventures of a Baseball Vagabond.

Chris “Birdman” Anderson

Credit goes to TruthAboutIt.net for this…

Got a lot of NBA player suggestions for this poll, and there are obvious hurdles to get over.

Drew Gooden, Isaiah Thomas, Dennis Rodman were all thrown out there. Shockingly, Gilbert Arenas name never came up. But if we’re gonna get all animatronic with the 5′ 9” in Depp, we’re not going to push our luck and change his race too. And when contemplating the Adam Morrison movie (via Dan Adams, from the In Game Now Blog), I just couldn’t get a trainwreck of a film starring Kucher out of my brain.

Plus, Birdman’s eccentricity transcends all those guys, he might be the white Rick James.

A-Rod

Submitted by Andrea, my co-champion of the best semi-annual bar crawl in New York City. Here’s what she has to say…

This is a pretty easy one for me. Depp’s looney tunes range the sexual gamut of Don Juan (literally) to Jack Sparrow to Finding Neverland to Chocolat.

A-rod’s deviant past include a messy divorce paired with a questionable spiritual transformation with the Queen of Sex Madonna. This spectacle includes allegations of other adulterous affairs including a blonde skank from Boston. And of course, the highly debated relationship with teammate Derek Jeter, who remains New York’s most eligible bachelor at age 34.

Depp’s performance as Roux the Frenchy in Chocolat channeled into an A-Rod biopic. Sold.

Michael Phelps

Personally, I think we give Phelps a few years, and wait until he becomes a full caricature of his former self before we start talking about movies (it’s all way too feel good, right now). For example: Namath (as posed by Steve from NYHoosier).

But I do got to hand it to my man Kellex for this photoshop handywork.

He’s got his full take on Depp as Michael Phelps up on The Sports Dollar.

Bill Belichick or Al Davis

Last but not least - not athletes per say, but no arguments on either of these two being worthy characters for Depp.

Chris Illuminati (9 to Fried, Hugging Harold Reynolds) thinks Depp could nail Belichick as:

Just a cold manipulative terribly dressed home wrecking prick. No expression. No remorse. No hint of a human behind those cold eyes. But a great football mind. And very good with fondue.

I got to agree. You have Depp reengineer fat George Jung from Blow. Maimed sweatshirt and a clipboard… who are we kidding, I couldn’t in good conscience ask Johnny to give up his handsome coif for this…

And I would love to hear that Depp went and lived with Al Davis (nod to Isaac from The World of Isaac on that) for a year to study his character, and found out that Davis lives in Death Valley (where he’s city comptroller) and skins Raptors in his spare time. (Which is anytime he’s not calling Raider accounting, and telling them to withhold someone’s payroll.)

Thanks to to the slew of others who sent in their submissions. Hit the poll daddy below, and be on the lookout for next week’s poll!