On September 14, 2009, the great Patrick Swayze lost his battle with pancreatic cancer and passed away too young at the age of 57. Swayze had a prolific acting career, one that inspired his devoted fan base to believe that if anyone could beat this disease it was him (Swayze played a bank robbing surf ninja and villainous sky diving enthusiast in Point Break. Cancer? No problem, compadre). He was diagnosed in January of 2008 with a sickness that most people will succumb to in under a year – he held on for 20+ months. During that time period, his 1989 film Road House was the most broadcast movie on American television in the past year according to Rolling Stone – airing 45 times on AMC, A&E and CMT. Maybe you were lucky enough to flip it on and catch a riveting scene like this…

In lieu of burying Swayze with Dalton’s medical dossier, each week during football season I’ll be awarding one player the “Pain Don’t Hurt” Award to honor Swayze’s memory. This week’s recipient…

If you haven’t figured it out yet, the PDH committee is heavily influenced by the fantasy implications of a player’s performance. So, save your defensive nominees, and anyone on the St. Louis Rams, for the comments.

Specifically, I’m influenced by it. And it’s primarily the players who’ve negatively impacted my 2009-10 fantasy campaign that I’m paying attention to. This week, enter Rashard Mendenhall, who one week ago was an underachieving second year running back, not to mention newly benched.

After Gore went down and I need to sure-up at RB, I made a deal to get Tim Hightower that included Mendenhall. Two weeks go by, and Mendenhall goes from sleeper pick to trade afterthought in my mind. Then, as I’m thinking that acquiring Trent Edwards was the most unfortunate occurrence of inking that deal, what does Mendenhall do? Run’s like the wind personified against the Chargers.

165 yards, 2 TDs. That’s more rushing yards than anyone else in the league this past Sunday.

Not like I could have used that to off-set the 36 points that San Francisco’s DEFENSE put up against my team or anything. If they’re at all aware of Fantasy, I bet Gore and Mike Singletary are both laughing their ass off about that. I take back every nice thing I said about your lobster bisque and Del Taco fast food eatery, San Francisco.

Here’s a link to a few nice things that were said about Mendenhall this week.

The 2010 “Pain Don’t Hurt” Awards:

Week One: Brandon Meriweather

Week Two: Frank Gore

Week Three: Mark Sanchez