I've never felt as terrible as a sports fan as I do tonight.  The worst part of this whole ordeal is that it has not only soiled NBA basketball in Seattle forever, in my eyes, but stripped this region of its pro-sports innocence.  This can never be undone.  You may think that is not possible for a city that has now had every major pro sports franchise uprooted from it, but it is.

The Seattle Pilots were moved to Milwaukee in 1969.  The region fought back and was awarded the expansion Mariners; a virgin franchise.  Seattle's hands were clean.
The Seattle Seahawks were moved to Los Angeles by Ken Behring in 1996.  The region fought back and was allowed to keep its original franchise.  Seattle's conscience remained clear.
This time around, it looks like any return of the NBA to Seattle will corrupt us in some way.  Relocation could cost us our soul, while expansion will certainly cost us our dignity.

After going through what this city has for the better part of two years, and feeling as I do about my team being stolen from me, how am I supposed to wake up this morning and cast predatory eyes toward other cities with struggling franchises?  What did they ever do to me?

If Steve Ballmer's ownership group manages to secure another franchise and relocate to Seattle, how am I supposed feel good about that, knowing how it feels to lose a team myself?  How would I tell fans in Memphis or New Orleans that our owner isn't Clayton Bennett with a different zip code?
After decrying Bennett & Company for so long, how would I put aside the monumental hypocrisy, don my Sonic jersey, and cheer for "my" team?  I don't care if the name and colors remain in Seattle; a stolen car with a new coat of paint is still stolen.

Expansion does hold the promise of rooting for a team with no guilt attached to it, but the cost will include Seattle's civic pride, in addition to money.

First, the money:

Seattle paid an expansion fee of $1.75 million for the Sonics back in 1966, but I doubt the league will accept that today.  Bob Johnson paid the NBA a $300 million expansion fee for the Bobcats in 2003, only a year after the Hornets left for New Orleans.  Inflation and David Stern being a commissioner who holds grudges will certainly drive the price higher.

As to the Dignity:

In Oklahoma, the NBA stumbled across a city on the rebound after its brief affair with the Hornets, and a public - private coalition that was more than willing to write a blank check for any team it could get.  David Stern saw all of that money on the table and used the Sonics to get it.  (NBA: 1  -  Seattle: 0)

Seattle's name will also be Stern's new hammer to silence any NBA city that begins to have similar ideas about franchises choosing success over excess.  (NBA: 2  -  Seattle: 0)

After savaging the region for the better part of two years, Stern was quick to call Seattle a "first class city" again now that the team is Oklahoma-bound.  He said we would have "another opportunity" for a franchise in the future if conditions were met.  I guarantee that franchise will not be the Boston Celtics or the Los Angeles Lakers.  It will be a team bleeding red-ink in another city; a glaring reminder of his league's status as the most financially broken of the three major sports, and one he will be more than happy to sweep into a far-off corner of the United States.  Seattle will be given the "opportunity" to bail the NBA out once again.  (NBA: 3  -  Seattle: 0)

And if that isn't enough, you can be sure that in the ultimate act of duplicity, Stern will invoke the city of Seattle when the NBA sits down to negotiate its next Collective Bargaining Agreement.   He will use us as an example of how spiraling player salaries are destroying the fabric of the league, despite his own inaction in the face of the problem, his owners eagerness to sign those checks, and the league scouting the country for cities willing to enable them.

The root of this entire issue is that the NBA believes it is a host city's duty to ensure its franchise is profitable, regardless of how poorly it is run or how badly it performs.

This week Seattle has become a free-agent like so many NBA players.

The question now is:  Do we want to be dealt back into this game?  In what way, and at what cost?

The bidding for pro sports absolution starts at $300 million...

While I’m incredibly excited to finally have my NFL back again for 2006, it’s also going to be a sad day.  At 4:30pm when I’m coming down off my football high, there’s going to be a severe crash when I flip over to ESPN and find out that NFL PrimeTime is no more.

By now, I’m sure everyone’s been soaked by the media deluge announcing Monday Night Football will be moving to ESPN this year, while NBC will take over the Sunday Night Football spot formerly manned by the World Wide Leader.  The poison pill in the fine print of that deal says that in addition to NBC owning the Sunday Night game, they also own the rights to all NFL highlights until midnight.  This pretty much puts all other highlight shows out of business.

I’m the old man of this league, so I’ve been around for pretty much all of PrimeTime’s 19 year run.  I’m one of the people who never really got tired of the Chris Berman act, but even if the shtick wore on you, the format of one host, one analyst, and no filler made it the best NFL recap show on television.  The full hour of coverage gave you more than just quick clips of TD passes; it actually gave time to explain each team’s strategy and how well it worked.

ESPN will attempt to keep the PrimeTime flame burning by allowing Berman and Jackson to call the NFL recap segments on the Sunday night SportsCenter, but it can’t be the same.  PrimeTime was wall-to-wall football and made Boomer and TJ become a Sunday institution.  I’ll miss the fun of “It’s a FUMBLLLLE!!”, “rumblin’bumblin’stumblin”, “NO ONE circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills”, and “THAT’S…why they play the games.”

NBC will be hosting their own highlight show leading up to the Sunday night game, but I have this sinking feeling that they’ll find a way to screw it up.

I’m sure in the name of “putting their own spin on it”; they’ll change what has been a perfect format, if for no other reason than they won’t want to be seen as copying PrimeTime.  I have to say I’m dreading the day when my NFL highlight show has a musical guest, and I don’t need them inviting the star of the next lame sitcom they try to put on Thursday night into the studio and handing him a microphone.  I may have to come to you for my NFL fix now, NBC, but you’re on a short leash.

I’m hoping ESPN gets the idea to resurrect NFL PrimeTime at 12:01am Monday morning at some point, but until then, I’m tipping a 40 oz for Boomer and TJ.

As I look around the NFL this season, I have to ask myself “Is there anyone in the league having a happier holiday than Shaun Alexander and Edgerrin James?
Both carry the ball for the leading teams in their conferences. Both are MVP candidates.  Both will be sleeping in their own bed until the Super Bowl rolls around.
But most of all, I don’t believe any two players in the league have made themselves more money in the past fifteen weeks than Alexander and James.
It seems so long ago that no one would even deal a 2nd rounder for these guys, and now they’ll be regarded as the premier impact players in free-agency this off-season.

Indy will have the problems dominant teams have; too many good players and not enough money to pay them all.  Welcome to the age of Parity.  Dwight Freeney is the catalyst for their defensive improvement, but Edgerrin James has proven this season that he is the engine that makes the Colt offense run.  His hard running and ability to break big plays keeps pressure off of Peyton Manning as much as any 300lb lineman.
James will be a free-agent, but after seeing to the needs of Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison, it’s unclear whether the money remains to take care of both James and Freeney.

The Colts have a quality stable of running backs, but entrusting the future of the franchise to injury-prone Dominic Rhodes would seem foolhardy.  The reason so many people know who the name James Mungro is that when James goes down with an injury, Rhodes seems to join him on the trainers table a couple of weeks later.

Seattle is in a similar situation with Alexander.  He signed a one year deal that prohibits the Seahawks from tagging him their franchise player this off-season; placing them on virtually the same footing as the other thirty-one teams the league for his services.

It would seem that the somewhat rocky relationship Mike Holmgren and Alexander have had in their time together has taken a turn for the better this season.  After Alexander’s “stabbed in the back” comments at the end of the ’04 season, it was assumed he had written his ticket out of town.  The depressed market for running backs last year may have ultimately saved Holmgren’s job.

Some of the issues resided with Alexander, who has been known as a stat-watcher; tracking his carries, yards, and touchdowns more carefully than wins and losses.  Even though he’s playing for a contract, he’s allowing the Seahawks goals and his own to co-exist.  The mocking tantrum he gave to Holmgren on the sidelines after being pulled from the Monday Night blowout in Philadelphia shows he’s maturing.  The most important improvement he’s made, and the one that will echo throughout the league this off-season, is his hard running over the entire field.  In the past, his intensity outside of the red zone has been a recurring question.

The other issues to keep Shaun in Seattle lay with Holmgren. 
Holmgren has been very protective of his West Coast offense; finding players to fit his needs instead of tailoring it to the players he’s had.
I believe he’s still stung by the fact that he traded away Ahman Green too soon, only to watch him bloom in Green Bay; becoming the best West Coast RB since Ricky Watters.
Like a father who regrets his successful son didn’t turn out exactly the way he’d hoped, Holmgren needs to get over his desire to have a 1,000 yard rushing and 800 yard receiving back instead of an 1800 yard rusher.

He’s embraced Alexander’s ability this season.  Fading is the su####ion that Holmgren the GM would, in his heart of hearts, trade Alexander for Brian Westbrook or Tiki Barber if he could.

Career years and a trip to the Super Bowl should seal the deal for both of these backs to stay at home this off-season.  I just hope all parties involved realize just how good things are.

The San Diego Chargers are still in the heat of a playoff race, so the only thing they want to know about their quarterbacks is how many touchdowns Drew Brees will throw this Sunday.  I live in Arizona, the Land that Parity Forgot.  An NFL city where thoughts turn to next season before the sunburn from the home opener has cooled.

A popular topic around Phoenix and many other also-ran municipalities is who “will start under center in 2006?”  One of the names circulating is Philip Rivers, former first-rounder and current clipboard-holder, now working on his tan and his penmanship on the San Diego sideline.

When Rivers’ holdout allowed Drew Brees to take the starters job and run with it in 2004, the thought was that the Chargers had been granted a windfall.  After all, not many NFL teams have hyped, first-round quarterback lying around as trade-bait.  When a deal did not materialize in the off-season, the Chargers elected to keep Rivers around as insurance for Brees, just in case his breakout season was a fluke.

Now that Brees is firmly entrenched as a starter and contending for another playoff berth, Rivers can be safely moved out of town for a king’s ransom of players and draft picks.

…Or so you’d think.

While I’m sure that Rivers will find a new home, and the Chargers will be compensated for him, I’m not sure it will be the Powerball jackpot originally thought.

The entire world knew last year that the Chargers did not want to keep two starter-salaried quarterbacks on their payroll, but their uncertainty about Drew Brees made Rivers a good insurance investment.  Now that Brees has solidified his hold on the team, there is no doubt that San Diego will not carry both contracts next season.  This knowledge will open them up to lowball offers.

This off-season will also show Rivers why rookie holdouts never make good on their threats to re-enter the draft.  You’re never as popular as you are on draft day, and his is a distant memory.  America has just spent the last twelve weeks watching Matt Leinart and Vince Young lay waste to the NCAA, and their championship matchup in the Rose Bowl has their hype-machine in overdrive.

Leinart is expected to be the first or second pick in the upcoming draft, and if Young comes out (as expected), he’ll be a top five selection as well.  Herein lays the Chargers problem.  The cost in players and picks to move up to select one of these two quarterbacks will essentially be a hard-cap on Rivers value.  If the Chargers demands rise too close to the cost of moving up, NFL General Managers will turn away from them and take their offer to the Texans or 49ers.

There are plenty of teams who will be searching for a new quarterback this off-season, but in an era where even MVP candidates like Edgerrin James and Shaun Alexander can’t fetch a first-rounder in trade, Rivers may end up being the bargain-priced consolation prize for the teams that aren’t able to make the big move for the Big Two.

Being from Seattle, you may think that I'm growing tired of hearing every week about how the Seahawks are "good, but not that good".  Frustrated with how they get only begrudging respect from the national media despite win after win.

You'd be wrong. 

In fact, I must admit that I've been more reluctant to throw my heart behind this team than any analyst I've seen or heard. Growing up in Seattle and watching this Seahawks team over the years, I've built up more angst than any grunge band this city has produced.  I've seen 7-2 starts before. I've watched the Hawks rain touchdown passes on opposing defenses; watched their own defense vacuum up turnovers week after week.

But the road to the Super bowl is littered with the charred wreckage of Seahawk bandwagons. The faster and more crowded the wagon gets the more spectacular the inevitable crash becomes. 

Whether it's Vinny Testaverde's phantom touchdown costing them a playoff spot in 1998, or the Week 4 loss to the St. Louis Rams that completely derailed their 2004 season; the Seahawks are invariably dragged toward 8-8, as if by some black hole of mediocrity.

But this is different.  The bad habits that have characterized the "Same Old Seahawks" in the past have been addressed one after another this season.  I have a mental checklist of what I expect from Seattle football, and I've been forced revise it almost weekly this year.  I'm seeing things like road victories, wins against tough opponents, or coming out on top in close games, that I've never seen from Seattle team before.

After his disastrous overtime interception against Green Bay in last year's playoffs, Matt Hasselbeck has matured into a quarterback who is not making the fatal mistake.  He's also realized that this team is good enough to absorb a mistake or two, whereas any mishap in prior years would drown them in sel####oubt, often compounding their errors and costing them a game, or more.

I believe it took the Seahawks casting off their own angst to allow me to set mine aside.

So I've crawled back into the bandwagon and have strapped myself in.  It's been a great ride so far, and don't worry Hawk fans; this wagon's got a Five-Star crash safety rating.