"Psych" boots its football episode

We've discussed the USA Network's nifty little gimmick of airing football-themed episodes of its scripted shows just before the Super Bowl with meditations on "Burn Notice" and "Monk" and conclude now with "Psych," which offers the goofiest of the football shows.

(Shawn's head hurts after thinking too hard about the plot to Friday's episode.)

Not to be too obvious about it, but the plot begins with the discovery of, yes, a human foot. After examining the foot, Shawn (James Roday) - who has a propensity for making really bad jokes, but kind of goes beyond the pale here - declares, "I feel like such a heel."

Guess what: The foot belongs to a professional football player. (Friday is not a good night to be a pro football player on the USA Network.) There are the usual array of suspects, and to investigate further, Shawn and Gus (Dulé Hill), they, uh, go undercover with the team at its training camp, Shawn as a prospective place kicker even though he's a complete wimp and Gus as a trainer/massage therapist, which is a bit of a problem since he's squeamish about touching other men.

And these guys actually manage to solve crimes with half-baked schemes like this?

(This is the sort of strenuous physical activity these guys are more accustomed to.)

Gus marvels at being at "an actual pro-football training camp," even though it basically just looks like an open field at the time. These paper lions get into all sorts of wacky situations, including sitting in a Jacuzzi and chatting up other players - while the Jacuzzi isn't actually on, mind you, which makes it a little creepy.

At least Shawn has something of a motivation for humiliating himself on the gridiron: Detective O'Hara (Maggie Lawson) reveals a heretofore unmentioned predilection for behemoths in lots of padding, so he's out to impress her by embarrassing himself. Shawn should hold out for something better: Lawson's not much of an actress - her every line reading sounds like she's reciting them. In a TV world full of unlikely cops, she may be the most unlikely. But if he must pursue O'Hara, maybe he should just cool it with the lame jokes. (Roday's so skilled a performer that you actually don't hate him even when he delivers one of his weak cracks.)

Anyway, there is one good inside joke: In discussing his weekend plans, Shawn suggests that he'll "maybe watch a couple of episodes of 'The Mentalist,'" the new hit CBS show that suspiciously seems a whole lot like "Psych."

- "Psych:" 10 p.m. Friday, USA.