A pre-season game, a holdout, an arrest, a fight, a selfish superstar or two...Football season must be back.  Well, just training camp which is good enough.  And if you are anti-Olympics, Football is the perfect place for you!

To kick start this post, I read another good article written by Mark Kriegel on Brett Favre.  Perhaps the real reason why I thought it was good is the fact that I have said over and over again that Favre is a "me-first" player, and Kriegel did a great job of exploiting that fact.  Face it, we've been going after Terrell Owens, Randy Moss and Chad Johnson pretty hard.  I am not the one that will say they did not deserve any ridicule they received from bloggers, but we have allowed Favre to skate under the selfish radar forever and that should have changed years ago, let alone today.  Though he is a better quarterback than Aaron Rodgers, the question is whether the team can accept a Hall of Fame quarterback who will have no trouble throwing any one of those players under the bus at any time.  Certainly not the kind of positive atmosphere you want from a team that was a QB choke-job away from getting to the Super Bowl.  To have that team crumble with the talent they have would be a disaster that would be much worse than the situation that team is in as we speak.

Here's a link to Kriegel's article: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/8410850/Never-t
hought-we'd-see-Favre-like-this

And speaking of Owens, he no-shows to a practice and already people are talking about it.  Let's overlook the fact that Dallas coach Wade Phillips also gave Jason Witten and Zach Thomas days off from practice as well.  But Owens is a headline grabber and I the only reason I can say it wasn't a mistake for me to read it is because I learned that Phillips is giving his veterans some rest.  Other than that, Owens missing practice is a non-issue.

But what is an issue is Steve Smith beating the #### out of Ken Lucas.  Every year we hear about teammates getting into a scuffle of some kind - it's football and it happens.  Although we haven't heard about Smith getting into fights with teammates in a while that does not mean he hasn't.  All this means is this fight and the one he had several years ago that got him in trouble the first time were worse than any minor scuffle he's had in between.  He and several other football players have issues, that is a given.  Odds are if you are a Carolina Panther player you better not cross Steve Smith unless you are absolutely 100% convinced that you can beat the #### out of him.  Otherwise, be kind and rewind for Smith.

Speaking of rewind, don't you think the biggest Super Bowl upset in history should allow the New York Giants to get more press than they have received?  I would think they would be getting more respect than they have gotten up to this point.  I would also think that Eli Manning would have received the benefit of the doubt by now and not have people question whether he's The Man or just Peyton's little brother.  I will bold this for all of you to see: YOU CANNOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!!!  Seriously, there's a big deal over quarterbacks winning championships to enhance their greatness.  People dog Dan Marino for not winning a title.  People use to dog John Elway, and then appointed him the best clutch quarterback in NFL history.  Eli now pulls into a tie for Super Bowl victories with Big Ben, Peyton, Brett Selfish-Favre and Kurt Warner, but he's apparently still horseshit.  What is really horseshit is Marino not getting the props he deserves for being a great quarterback, yet lesser quarterbacks get a pat on the back for winning a ring.  Winning the Super Bowl is a team thing and not a quarterback thing.

If you are currently frustrated with everything I have written, simply go to this website and forget everything: http://green.msn.com/galleries/photos/photos.aspx?
gid=220&page=1

Enjoy...

It was an interesting scene in Toronto tonight as I arrived to the Air Canada Centre just an hour after news broke of the big trade between the Los Angeles Lakers and Memphis Grizzlies.  Over the last couple seasons we have waited to see if the Lake-show could pull the trigger on a deal - or if they had the players to deal for an impact player.

With Kwame Brown's contract about to expire and Memphis's intent to rebuild it made sense to make a deal.  Memphis grabs a young kid, a relatively young guy in Brown and 2 draft picks that need lots of prayer to become impactful.  This allows the Grizz to start over amd they will have some cash to show for it.

The Lakers grab a guy who can make an immediate impact.  This move allows them some breathing room as Andrew Bynum recovers from injury, and it gives them a blanket if Bynum does not return to form.  If he does return to form it allows Lamar Odom to slide to the small forward position while Pau plays the 4.  And, it gives them a deeper bench when Luke Walton slides beside some of the other contributors like Ronny Turiaf and Jordan Farmar.

This is a win-win for both teams without a doubt.  The need to crash the boards is imperative in the West and Los Angeles has more weapons than they know what to do with.  I should know; I watched a depleted Laker team roll over the Toronto Raptors.  Kobe Bryant was on tonight and unlike last night he got some help offensively.  Tonight's game proved that Toronto may be able to score but can't hold it together defensively on a consistent basis.  But with L.A. playing their 2nd game in as many nights they should have been stronger out of the gate.  Lakers got momentum and never looked back.

Last point on the Lakers: Prior to this deal I was still not on-board with putting them into the serious contender category despite their strong record.  Now, my view has changed.  They are absolutely a team that should be a factor in April.  This is a team built to go past round 1.  If they don't there is a problem.  They now have a great starting 5 (with Bynum back) and the forward position was a bigger need than point guard.  Derek Fisher can run the show because he won't try to do too much.  He knows the offense, he knows his limitations, he can still hit shots and knows how to play in big games.  Specifically speaking, Paul Gasol is a better acquisition than Jason Kidd.

Other stuff....

- I just realized Fox used the "Pau-er" line.  I'm pissed.

- After his 13.5 million is up in 2008, Johan Santana will pull in 137.5 million over 6 years.  That is phenomenal.  Hope the kid can hit.

All seriousness, the guy is one of the best pitchers in baseball and barring any setback or injury he should contend for a Cy Young.  Being able to avoid a big bopping DH and getting the opportunity to face pitchers with 1 or 2 out and runners on base will pay off for Johan.  It is a different ballgame with different scenarios when you play in the National League in comparison to the American League.

As for the contract itself, a lot of bad pitchers get paid a ton, so this is not a surprise and not out of this world in comparison to the #3 pitchers who make 8 figures per year.

- When Bill Belichick says his team is "ready to roll", I tend to believe him.  Some may feel the New York Giants can beat New England and they may be right, but I don't see it.  Yes, they played the Pats tight IN New York IN the cold IN front of their hometown.  In Arizona it will be warm and it is a neutral site.  The way I see it, the conditions favour the New England passing attack.  Passes that went through the hands of receivers will be easier to catch, and nobody is as accurate or precise as Tom Brady - even if he is disrupted in the pocket.

The real question should be if Eli Manning can continue his excellent play.  In my mind, he's grown as a player over the last month or so.  And he should be proud of the way he has battled throughout the playoffs.  He has beaten two teams he wasn't suppose to beat, outplay both quarterbacks and has defied expectations, which brings me to this...

- Tiki Barber is trying to protect himself now that his former team has made it to the Super Bowl the year after he reitres.  Tiki came with baggage and now that the baggage is gone the team can re-focus.  He had his quarrels with Eli Manning, Tom Coughlin and Michael Strahan.  This isn't a coincidence.  Somewhere down the line we have to look and say that maybe New York really IS better off without him.  I think they are.

- Who are we kidding when Pat Riley says Shaquille O'Neal should be in the All-Star game?  Should Magic be playing as well?

- Again, I realize nobody really cares about hockey but I will say it again: Alexander Ovechkin is THE best hockey player on the planet.  He is one of the very few players who has to single-handedly carry his team to victories.  I wonder how long he can keep this up.  Eventually he will need a stud playing alongside him.

Time to unwind.  And get ready for the Super Bowl.  I hope to witness history this Sunday.  It will be nice to explain how I got to watch a Football team go undefeated in one season.  Doesn't come around often folks.

Supposedly the evening NFC Championship was a ratings success.  Apparently a lot of people tuned in to watch the New York Giants seal the victory over the Green Bay Packers in their 1700th attempt to end the game victorious. 

Problem is, I bet people just had their TV set on and was doing something else, because few people, if any, showed any guts to tell us how things went down in that game.

Brett Favre choked again.  The legend and Two-Time MVP (his co-MVP is fraudulent and a slap in the face to Barry Sanders' amazing season), proved he couldn't carry the load the way he use to back in the 1990's.  Don't take that as a sign that he should retire.  Not once have I ever said he should retire.  But, as usual, nobody call him out for that interception that ended Green Bay's season.  Nobody called him out for allowing New York to have numerous chances to win the game.  Nobody said he was outplayed by Eli Manning - because he was.

Did you watch the game? 

Or do you have to be Chad Johnson, Randy Moss, or Terrell Owens to draw attention to themselves and be ridiculed for it.  So much for throwing snowballs and "having a great time".  We watched Favre do what he has done several times in playoff games and that's crumble down the stretch.  Excessive celebrating with officials is "having fun" yet anyone else gets fined for that. 

At least Tom Brady clutched up when he had to.

We talked about Green Bay's defense and running game being the reason why they could get to the Super Bowl.  The running game stopped and their team became pass-oriented in the second half.  Big mistake - but they had to do it since the running game was shut down, right?  So they had to start gunslinging.  And they lost because of it.  Had Peyton Manning did what Favre did in overtime you'd be crushing him right now.  But Favre slides under the radar again.  Total hypocrisy. 

OTHER BULLCRAP

- If I haven't done enough to ruffle a few feathers (not that I'm trying to), this might do the trick.  A writer on Fox Sports decided to be cute with a blog post and certainly got some attention:

"I believe there should be rules for booing. One, you never boo amateur athletes on the team you support. Two, you boo professionals on the team you support only for a visible lack of effort. Booing because they screw up is for sub-morons"

- If I find out an amateur had beat his girlfriend, played while academically ineligible or started a fight on the playing surface would you like me to applaud?  You didn't think of all the angles, which makes me wonder who the real sub-#### really is.  You get your ticket punched and as long as you obey the stadium rules you can boo whoever you want.  You can boo an amateur athlete who has 3 kids with 3 different women.  Or I can just ask him politely to wrap up.  An amateur athlete will be ragged on if they absolutely deserve it.

"I don’t believe all Patriots fans are worthless cobags; I believe most Patriots fans are worthless cobags"

- This coming from a guy who wanted Green Bay to badly make the Super Bowl?  For what?  So that New England could slap them around with their junk?  I've been to Buffalo games and find New England fans to be a LOT better than other fans I have encountered over the years.  Whatever, I shouldn't bother critiquing this ####.  I will move on.

- The Miami Heat find ways to lose and they are suddenly doing it with flare.  It's as if they script this.  Put them on the clock for a nice draft position.

- Sidney Crosby is out 6-8 weeks and nobody noticed.  I guess they are the same people who watch Packer games.

- Roger Clemens gets an invite to Houston's pitching camp.  Maybe he can get back into pitching shape on Houston's clock so he can bolt for New York like he did last year.  Very smooth.

- Golf season begins this week.  Different year, same old storyline.  Let's see what Tiger does this season.

- The New England Patriots will complete the perfect season.  The venting is over, and so is this incredible post. 

Fact: society is not color-blind.  We aren't.  Regardless of how open-minded we are or far from racist we may be, we aren't color-blind.  

However, I find the recent comments from Donovan McNabb to be very bitter and inaccurate.  The most criticized quarterback in the NFL today happens to be Rex Grossman, who is very white.

McNabb plays in Philadelphia where criticism comes from everyone in and out of the football stadium.  Grossman plays in Chicago - one of the biggest cities in the United States.

The second most criticized quarterback, in my opinion, comes from the city that never sleeps: Eli Manning.  Not only does he face the tough media and fans, he also has a name to live up to.  Makes sense since he plays in a large city.

This is not me trying to prove a point - this is just the way I see things.  Maybe you see it different.

But I'm not going to sit here and tell you McNabb does not get criticized.  He does.  But instead of looking at the situation as him being a black man who's prone to criticism because of his skin or the way he plays the quarterback position, look at other reasons such as completion percentage or wins/losses.  If he wasn't pathetic the first two weeks we'd be looking at a man who's led his team to a 2-0 record and we'd be loving him the way we always have.

Oh wait, could we love him so much that we could call him, "overrated"?

Ponder that for a second while I imagine Jeff Garcia in an Eagles uniform as the starter and wonder what could be going on this season.  

Ok back to the overrated comment.  The one way someone can be considered overrated is when we lift a player's status above what the player has earned.  More than just Rush Limbaugh has believed that notion about McNabb.  Therefore, he has been treated well for his play at one time or another.

What also struck me were some of his quotes:

In regards to Peyton Manning and Carson Palmer: "Let me start by saying, I love those guys. But they don't get criticized as much as we do. They don't." (1)

- Yes, except they have performed - regardless of the weapons they have and Donovan does not.

In an interview on HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" to be broadcast Tuesday, McNabb said black quarterbacks "have to do a little bit extra" because there are relatively few of them, adding "people didn't want us to play this position." (2)

- Well, I want the best quarterback to play the position regardless if he is black, white or another color.  With the stakes so high in the NFL, I bet all the coaches want to see the best player at that position as well, regardless of skin color.  And, just to clarify things here are a list of other starting black quarterbacks:

Steve McNair - Past his prime, still effective at times

David Garrard - Not that good, but decent start to the season

Vince Young - So far so good, but not quite established just yet

Jason Campbell - Not that good either

Tarvaris Jackson - Even worse

So there will be criticism and its not about skin color. 

Just a final question as we get set for Week 3 in a few days: does Bryant Gumbel need to turn some of his interviews into a race issue?   This isn't the first time Gumbel has been around race issues on his programs.  Wonder if he thinks we hate his terrible play by play skills because of the color of his skin.  Absurd.

I'm not here to say there isn't a race/color issue in sports because someone probably has a problem, but ultimately sports is all about winning and the majority of people feel that way.  McNabb is a good quarterback who didn't get blindsided during the interview, he just got a little shortsighted. 

This post was not inspired by any other blogger. This was all thanks to Lindsay Lohan, who just got hospitalized and has confessed to doing drugs and bulimia. My first thought was 'No way! What next? Is Kerry Wood going to say his arm is sore? Unbelieveable!'.

We all saw something wrong with this young lady a while back. Whether it was her look, her reduced weight, or brief hookup with Eli Manning, there was something wrong (Eli's probably a good lay, but Lohan and Manning?).

But throughout time we've watched teens just grow up out of control. Child stars from our favourite T.V. shows of the past have lost their minds (Todd Bridges). Young athletes have spiraled out of control as well. What is wrong? Too much pressure? Lack of confidence? Being naive? What?

I started reflecting on my personal experiences in sports to try to come up with an answer. I played varsity baseball every year of high school and played on club teams. There were some phenomenal athletes that played the game, and in high school there were tremendous athletes in other sports. What went wrong? Why did they not go further?

One case comes to mind: One boy was a top notch baseball player who could do everything. He was on his way to accomplishing some big things at the collegiate level. Certain things went wrong: injury, growth and confidence. He hurt his arm which meant he could not pitch. That was fine, he could hit. He stopped growing at 15 when he reached about 5 foot 10. And he had parents that were just plain stupid. There's one thing to yell at a kid, its another to make the kid feel worthless. There is a difference between saying 'You have to swing at strikes' and 'You're terrible! Don't swing at bad pitches you ####'. The first sentence was an action statement. Didn't you picture a kid hitting a ball in the strike zone? I sure did. The second line was a picture of a parent berading his/her kid with insults and questioned his/her intelligence. I also pictured a kid swinging at a pitch above his eyes. Difference? The first sentence was more positive. Once you use 'don't' or 'no', everything goes out the window. Read this line: Don't slam your car into a pole. What did you do? You pictured yourself wrapping your car around a pole, even though I said don't. No wonder kids never listen.

To sum it up, a big percentage of a teen being ok is up to the parents. A reflection of these teens that we see on the news and the one's we don't need to have the right people and the right influences around them. If not, then flip a coin because it's 50/50 if they turn out ok. The small percentage are the intangibles a kid has. They might have the worst parents ever but make it out ok as a model citizen, not to mention successful. Certain intangibles can be seen on the playing field when the chips are down and the game is on the line, and that athlete comes up with the most clutch play to secure a victory for that team. That athlete might have those intangibles.

But really, I am not a doctor. Hell, I'm not even The_Doc. But there is one thing I can claim about why teens may or may not turn out ok: There is no way your horiscope will decide if you'll be ok or some brat. Sorry, some girl I once knew claimed that your 'sign' was more important than it really is (ie. my sign meant her and I weren't compatible. When she told me that, I knew her and I were NOT freaking compatible with that bullcrap she told me!). But if people believe in that, then go ask Ms Cleo how Lindsay Lohan and Maurice Clarett will do in the future.

The excuse I often hear when it comes to picking all star teams is, 'it's never an easy choice when you're picking an all star team'. Naturally I would agree. How hard is it to pick another quarterback over the overrated Michael Vick, who was absolutely man-handled by the Chicago Bears last Sunday? He got in on his name and the recognition he gets. When that becomes the issue, the choice becomes way too easy.

Seeing Vick's name in the top 3 for the NFC was brutal. my reaction to it was, 'you gotta be kidding me!?'. The same guy who can't complete 60% of his passes, or at times throw for under 100 yards in a game. Oh, but he runs really well! Great, that's what running backs are for. Shaun Alexander didn't get into the Pro Bowl because of his arm. If Vick gets in with his legs, then just take 2 quarterbacks and add a 4th running back. Perhaps the 4th guy can actually hit receivers on stride rather than 2 hopping passes into their knees. I wonder how long it would take for T.O. to throw him under the bus alongside Jeff Garcia and Donovan McNabb if he decides to go to Atlanta.

There were much better choices for the 3rd QB for the NFC. The first one that comes to mind is Drew Bledsoe. Love him or hate him, his stats are much better this season and Dallas has improved from last year. Or how about Brad Johnson? He has led a team that was on the brink of a disaster season to a respectable run at a possible playoff position. I would have also taken Eli Manning and his 51% completion percentage over the man formally known as Ron Mexico.

Vick talks about not getting respect, as he feels he doesn't get enough credit for how well he plays the quarterback position. Well I have news for you V.D. boy: You've got way more respect that you've earned with your QB play. So I have 3 suggestions for you Ronald: 1) Shut up and play, let your team record and your play speak for itself, 2) Start throwing the ball with consistency, this is year #4, and 3) Wrap up always. That way you don't need an alias like Ron Mexico.

Have fun in Hawaii #7, you didn't deserve it.