The Sports Curmudgeon®

Folks:

I will be off the air for the rest of this week. The rant just below this entry will be the last one until at least next Monday.

The company that has been providing me with my Internet access here at our vacation home is going out of business on 31 July and the soonest I can possibly get a new connection is Friday 3 August. If everything went perfectly - and these kinds of things never seem to do that - the best I could hope for would be for my connection to be up and running effectively sometime next weekend.

I’ll be back as soon as I can. Trust me, I’ll miss writing these things far more than anyone will miss reading them…

Be well. Stay well.

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A couple of days ago, I posed a proposition bet setting the over/under time at 60 days until some Congressthing would call for an investigation of the NBA. I took UNDER; it seems to have happened already. Congressman Rush from Illinois is the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection. In that capacity, he has formally requested that David Stern come to DC to meet with him to discuss the NBA’s operations, procedures and security. I do not doubt that this could be a prelude to some hearings down the road and I find it mildly amusing that one of the things this subcommittee seeks to enhance is “Consumer Protection”. I wonder if they feel a need to protect the bettor who is getting down on NBA games with the local bookie. Is that the consumer who needs protection here - - or is it the bookie?

Mark Cuban thinks that publicity and notoriety is good for the league. He said so when Kobe Bryant was on trial; that event would get people talking about the NBA and might get some folks interested enough to tune in and check out the product. That was far-fetched back then but I wonder if he thinks all the attention being give to the Tim Donaghy situation is good for the league. It is not.

It took me until I had seen the 973rd replay of David Stern’s news conference last week to realize something about his statement. David Stern is a lawyer; he is certainly not a dolt, and he is extremely savvy in the ways of public relations. Given all of those things, he referred to Tim Donaghy as a “rogue isolated criminal”. For a lawyer to jump to that characterization of someone who had not yet been arrested let alone indicted or tried is really surprising. If anyone should be sensitive to “due process”, it ought to be David Stern.

Congressman Waxman of California obviously does not want to be overshadowed by Congressman Rush when it comes to investigations into “sporting matters”. Congressman Waxman has asked for the records of the WWE related to that organization’s steroid testing programs and policies. I certainly hope he will not feign surprise to learn that some of the folks in pro wrestling take steroids…

ESPN had a NASCAR race on this weekend. Brent Musberger called the race and Suzy Kolber was the studio anchor for the pre-race coverage. I did not watch all of the pre-race show and I tuned into the race only briefly, but I thought Suzy Kolber acquitted herself very well as the studio anchor while Musberger’s “contrived dramatics” style of broadcasting just didn’t work for me in terms of an auto race. ESPN will have five or six more races and then ABC will pick up ESPN for the “Chase for the Cup” races later in the year. Since Musberger will normally have college football duties at that time of year, I wonder if he’ll stay with NASCAR or if he’ll go back to college football.

In case you are itching for the NFL season to start and just cannot wait to get down some action on NFL football, you can wager now on the upcoming Super Bowl in February 2008. The line at the moment is AFC Champ – 7.5 over NFC Champ. Oh, and the over/under for the game is 47.5.

Nike, Rebok and the NFL have all taken steps to halt sales of any Michael Vick “stuff”. This is similar to what happened in the “Don Imus affair” last spring; sponsors decided they didn’t want to be associated with him and began to jump ship; that’s when Don Imus had his program canceled. Someone who is advising Michael Vick might want to walk him through what happened there; Vick’s net worth is about to take a major drop.

There is a real lesson for folks wrapped up in the Michael Vick situation and it seems clear that some folks need to learn from it. Michael Vick is indeed innocent until proven guilty; that is his Constitutional right; it must not be abridged. The US Government is required to take its evidence to a Federal Court and to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Michael Vick is guilty of the charges they have brought against him. Only if they are successful in that endeavor can Michael Vick properly be called a felon. How-evah … [/Stephen A. Smith]

In the much informal “court of public opinion” there is no need to have evidence convince the public to nearly that strict a standard for said “court of public opinion” to render a verdict. It seems to be doing just that at this moment; and in so doing, it violates exactly NONE of Michael Vick’s Constitutional rights. He has a Constitutional right to a speedy trial and a fair trial and all that stuff; he has exactly no Constitutional right to endorse athletic gear or to profit from such endorsements. He has no Constitutional right to play pro football. Those are privileges he earned by his talents. Privileges are earned and can be revoked; rights are “inalienable” and devolve to people because the rights are “endowed by their Creator.” That’s a stunningly big distinction that some folks just don’t seem to get.

Very soon after last year’s NFL season was over, Jim Mora Jr. was fired as the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. That had to be a less than wonderful time in his life. But I wonder if he looks back on those dark days from the perspective of July 2007 and says to himself, “Maybe it wasn’t all that bad to get out of town back there in January…”

The NFL Network is developing a college football show that reportedly will air daily. That’s a natural thing for the NFL Network to put on the air; it relates very well to the NFL product. What is a bit discomforting to learn is that the NFL is looking to add content to its line-up and is considering adding more high school football games to their programming mix. They already do a high school All-Star football game; now they want to see if they can strike a deal with some Texas high school football teams to televise some of their games. I know High School football is very big in Texas – and other parts of the southeastern US – but somehow I can’t bring myself to think that this is a completely good thing to have happen.

Finally, here’s Greg Cote of the Miami Herald summarizing the state of sports in late July 2007:

“Just woke up from the weirdest dream. [Michael] Vick, [Barry] Bonds and defrocked NBA ref Tim Donaghy were furiously pedaling up the Alps in the Tour de France.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Well, the precincts have reported; the numbers are in. As usual, you can look at the glass as half-full or half-empty. ESPN televised the David Beckham inaugural MLS contest with the LA Galaxy playing FC Chelsea. ESPN hyped the game at least as much as they have ever hyped a soccer game; I’ll be surprised if they hype any other MLS game to the same extent in the next year; no one who reads sports pages anywhere in the US was unaware of the David Beckham arrival. The game drew a rating of 1.0. That means that just under 950,000 households tuned in.

The soccer-bashers will see the glass has half-empty. Recall that the XFL went off the air because its ratings plummeted to 2.0; realize that pro wrestling on cable TV routinely draws ratings of 2.0 – 3.0; the women’s NCAA final game this year (Rutgers/Tennessee) pulled down a rating of 1.0. Soccer-bashers will note absolutely correctly that pro wrestling and women’s college basketball are not big time sports in the US and so the portrait of David Beckham as the “Savior of Soccer” is nothing more than wishful thinking. The soccer-bashers have a point.

The soccer-lovers – after they get over the outrage they always feel when anyone says anything negative about soccer – will look at the ratings and say that these are much higher than the ratings ESPN drew for earlier MLS games this season and that it was the most widely viewed MLS game ever on TV and that this was an exhibition game which counted for exactly nothing. So, they will see this as an uptrend and they will point to the large crowd in attendance and the presence of lots of celebrities in the audience as a sign that soccer is indeed about to emerge onto the large stage of US sports. Other than the nonsense about the celebrities in attendance – most of whom were there to “be seen at the game” and not to “see the game” – the soccer-lovers too have a point.

But one cannot ignore the data. Nationwide, less than one million TV sets tuned in to see the first of David Beckham’s games in MLS. That’s about the level of nationwide interest you see in Arena Football. That’s about the number of people who will pay about $50 to watch Wrestlemania on pay-per-view. So, the objective now for MLS – and for ESPN as their broadcasting partner – is to grow the nationwide interest in soccer to the point where its “numbers” rivals pro wrestling; TV ratings will indicate their progress toward that goal.

Soccer-optimists and soccer-pessimists need to keep one thing in mind:

The Ultimate Optimist is a person who can think of a diaper as half-empty.

Speaking of numbers, I had a discussion with some friends the other night about the Hot Dog Eating Championship earlier this month. The thrust of the discussion is not relevant here but it reminded me that the winner of that event ate more than 60 hot dogs – and buns – in 12 MINUTES. I’ve reviewed my personal hot dog eating numbers and have made a linear projection. I can now make this announcement:

I will NOT eat 60 hot dogs in the 12 MONTHS that will comprise calendar year 2007.

As you know, I think PETA is a fringe organization made up of annoying people. I do not think that the Humane Society is a fringe organization despite the fact that they and PETA are on the same side of the dogfighting issue. So, when the Humane Society says that dogfighting is a “popular subculture among NFL players”, that should make the league and the union and the teams sit up and take notice. If there are even a couple of other NFL players involved in raising/breeding/training dogs for the purpose of dogfighting, it behooves NFL Security to identify them long before the Feds identify them.

The next time someone tries to rationalize dogfighting as some kind of cultural “thing” in America, think about this. If dogfighting was not so abhorrent and was nearly as important a “cultural expression” as the rationalizers want to make it out to be, then at least one major political candidate would embrace it as a way to reach out to that segment of the electorate. We have a boatload of presidential aspirants in both major political parties at the moment and I’m willing to go out on a limb here and say that none of them will support dogfighting anywhere on the arc of their campaigns. The people rationalizing dogfighting are exercising their right to free political expression, which must not be curtailed. They are also exercising their right to demonstrate that they are misguided fools; that too is a right that must not be curtailed; we really do need to know who the misguided fools are.

USC women’s basketball player, Brynn Cameron, is now the mother of Matt Leinart’s son, Cole. The young couple broke up prior to the birth of the child; recent events indicate that the bloom is definitely off the rose here. Cameron has gone to court to ask for $30K a month from Leinart; currently, Leinart supposedly is giving her $6K a month to raise Cole. Now Leinart supposedly will instigate a custody battle. The first round of this confrontation will happen on 13 August.

When I read the first note on this, I figured that $30K a month was such an excessive number for “child support” that it was just a negotiating ploy. However, an acquaintance of mine is an attorney who used to practice in California. She told me that California law and practice is to base child support payments on the income level of the parent providing the support and not on the basis of reasonable and customary living expenses.

So, Cameron is asking for $360K per year. Leinart’s contract with the Cardinals is reportedly worth about $50M over six years (counting in the option year) plus whatever money he might pull in from endorsements. So, over the six years of that contract, Cameron would be asking him to fork over a little more than 4% of his gross income (not counting endorsement money). Putting that into a perspective that ordinary folks might relate to, that means if Leinart were making $100K a year, Cameron would be asking him to pay her just over $4K a year, which is $350 a month. That’s not as outrageous as it sounded at first…

Finally, here’s an item from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald earlier this month:

“The US fencing summer nationals conclude today in Miami Beach. The event has generated an estimated 450 stories beamed nationwide by the media, 446 of which referenced the word ‘Zorro.’ “

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Arthur Blank has to be wondering why he stopped selling paint, dry wall, tools and lawn mowers to the general public to take up the job of owning a football team. Today his franchise quarterback has a date in Federal District Court that will keep him away from training camp and may keep him away from the team for a very long time if things don’t work out well. And today, the Falcons announced that their best running back, Warrick Dunn, had to undergo surgery last weekend on his back to take care of a herniated disk. Last year, the Falcons’ depth chart was Vick and Dunn; now it is Harrington and Norwood. That’s not as bad for Atlanta as the arrival of William Tecumseh Sherman, but it’s not good.

I wonder what the sentiment is in Chicago at the moment given the news that Lance Briggs has signed his one-year contract with the Bears and will report to training camp on time. On one hand, Bears’ fans can see a quality linebacker coming back to the team and to an already strong defense that got the team to the Super Bowl last year. On the other hand, they now have someone in the locker room who is clearly a poser. Lance Briggs swore up and down in myriad radio and TV interviews that he would never play another down for the Chicago Bears and that he was prepared to sit out all season and that he had set aside the money he needed to live and all that stuff. Remember how he and his smarmy agent, Drew Rosenhaus, orchestrated that carnival act? Well, he signed exactly the deal he found so offensive that it foisted that carnival act on all of us. The poor man will have to play this season for only $7.2M in salary. Obviously, he needs a hug…

Two seasons ago, Priest Holmes took a hit that looked as if it could have killed him. He has been out of football since then but now it seems as if those “head and neck trauma” injuries have healed sufficiently that Holmes will be in the Chiefs’ training camp this week. Holmes is 34 years old and has not played football for two years now; this will be an interesting comeback attempt – and there is a touch of irony to it. When the Chiefs drafted Larry Johnson, part of their motivation was to gain some leverage over Priest Holmes in a protracted contract negotiation. Now, Johnson is holding out on the Chiefs and demanding a new contract while Holmes announces his surprising return to the team.

Despite flagging TV ratings in other sports, the NFL juggernaut rolls on. According to reports, sales of advertising slots for NFL games this year are ahead of where they were last year at this time and the networks are able to charge slightly more for those slots this year than last. Supposedly, MNF has sold 70% of its slots already while the other networks have sold just over 60% of their slots. Viewers need not worry about any kind of advertising revolution here that might upset their viewing habits. Beer companies and car manufacturers will once again dominate the ad slots.

The Manchester United Football Club is involved in two situations that have “soap opera” written all over them. The team is trying to acquire an Argentinean player from the West Ham United team. They have agreed to the transfer price but the deal is held up while FIFA sends the case to the international Court of Arbitration for Sport. The issue here is who will get the approximately $60M transfer fee that Manchester United is willing to pay. West Ham United says it should get the money and that would seem to make some sense. But the player’s agent, Kia Joorabchian, asserts that he owns the player’s financial rights and that he – not the player nor the West Ham United team – should get the money. That should be an interesting argument before that tribunal.

Concurrent with its attempt to acquire a player, Manchester United is struggling to find a way to keep one its players from going to a rival club. Gabriel Heinze is a defender on the Manchester team and rival Liverpool has offered $14M to acquire Heinze. Manchester United is fighting to prevent that from happening claiming that there is a clause in Heinze’s contract that forbids him from joining a team that has a legitimate chance to win the championship of the English Premier League. [Yeah, I know; I thought I had misread that item the first time I came across it too.] Obviously, I don’t know if such a clause is in Heinze’s contract; but if it is, I’d have to question why his agent allowed such a clause to get in there in the first place and why Heinze ever signed it. Can you imagine Scott Boras giving a baseball team control over where his client may or may not sign in free agency based on how good the other team is?

By now, you have to know that Barry Bonds’ former paramour, Kimberley Bell, will tell all and bare all for Playboy magazine later this year. Frankly, I don’t care even a little bit about that, but the US Attorneys who continue to pursue Bonds for issues related to the BALCO matter and tax evasion and perjury and whatever can’t be thrilled about this. If they have to call Ms. Bell as a witness, a significant part of the impact of her testimony will rest on her credibility. The defense will likely try to paint her as a bitter and scorned woman who is nothing but a gold-digger. Whether she is or not is irrelevant; the fact that she is getting paid to pose nude for Playboy indicates that she is willing to cash in on her 15 minutes of fame. That cannot help the prosecution.

Oh, by the way, if Kimberley Bell dishes some dirt to Playboy about how Bonds used steroids and/or any other performance enhancing substances, would it be fair to investigate whether or not there were any “image enhancing” substances/procedures involved in her nude photo shoot? Just asking…

The Lowell Spinners are a minor league baseball team in the New York-Penn League. They had a wonderful promotion earlier this week; they had Political Correctness Night. The team promised not to offend anyone on that night. Bases were not going to be identified as first, second or third because that might cause feelings of inferiority in the people seated near third base. Players would be identified in gender-neutral terms such as second-baseperson (I hope he will not feel inferior to the first-baseperson but that’s not so important because he’s a player and not a fan.) And to assure that everyone who participated in the wacky between-innings contests/races/etc felt fulfilled, all contestants received “participation trophies”. Isn’t that just swell…?

Eric Staal plays hockey for the Carolina Hurricanes; his brother Jordan plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins. They were arrested in Minnesota last night on charges of disorderly conduct when things got very loud at Eric Staal’s bachelor party. These are misdemeanor charges of no consequence and I mention it only because it sets up the following …

Finally, here’s an item from Jerry Greene in the Orlando Sentinel:

“Breaking news: The wizards at EA Sports announce Eric Staal will be on the cover of NHL 08. I knew you’d want to know.

“More breaking news: In a news conference today, EA Sports will tell us who Eric Staal is.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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As I was doing my reading today, I came across an excellent column by Bernie Lincicome in the Rocky Mountain News on the subject of the integrity of the NBA and what David Stern’s news conference yesterday tried to achieve. I commend this column to your reading.

The gist of Lincicome’s column is that the NBA has to do more than hold news conferences and say that this is a dark day for the league and that similar things have happened to other organizations that supposedly hire and retain people of impeccable character and trustworthiness. And, Messr. Lincicome is absolutely correct. Maybe David Stern did not say anything about what the NBA is going to do to make all of this better in the future because the FBI asked him not to do that; I can’t see why the FBI would ask such a thing, but it’s possible. Maybe David Stern did not say anything about what the NBA is going to do to make all of this better in the future because he and some trusted colleagues are in the midst of figuring all of that out but they aren’t finished yet. Or maybe David Stern did not say anything about what the NBA is going to do to make all of this better in the future because he has no idea what to do. I don’t read minds, but my guess is that the last hypothesis is the most likely one.

I got in trouble in the past for saying what I am going to say here, but it is appropriate to this situation.

Integrity is like virginity; you only get to lose it once.

Folks, the integrity of the NBA is now seriously in question. This is a league that has been having image and ratings problems in the past 5-7 years; yet the league officials – usually in the person of the Commissioner – were always aloof and unconcerned about any of them. No matter what criticism nor whatever the data, the NBA always intimated that it knew something that the public and the press didn’t know that made whatever anyone was worried about a trifling matter. That’s why I called David Stern the Viscount of Verisimilitude earlier today.

Yesterday, David Stern had to admit publicly and on tape that he had no idea any of this was going on until the FBI called him to schedule an appointment to talk to him and league officials about the investigation that the FBI had underway. Then he proceeded to say at least a half-dozen times that based on what the FBI had explained to him, Tim Donaghy was the only person associated with the NBA who might be guilty of wrongdoing. But David Stern really does not know if that is actually the case…

To use Al Gore’s recent phraseology, David Stern has to deal with “An Inconvenient Truth”. Actually, there are several related inconvenient truths here:

Truth # 1: The FBI is investigating Donaghy for activities associated with the 2005/06 season and the 2006/07 season. The NBA has been in the dark about alleged misdeeds for almost 2 years now.

Truth #2: Despite all the security procedures and all the background checks and all the monitoring processes that the NBA nominally has in place, it didn’t know that Tim Donaghy was betting on NBA games until June 20, 2007 - - unless of course David Stern lied about that fact in his news conference which would ruin his credibility related to any other part of this matter.

Truth #3: The people who are responsible for Security in the NBA – those professionals with backgrounds in the FBI and Homeland Security and police departments and DEA – failed to determine what was going on here and to warn the Commissioner that he needed to call the FBI in – not get a call from the FBI.

Truth #4: The personnel system struck out. It is supposed to monitor the performance on the job for officials and to include quality control checks and constant assessment of each referee’s performance on the court. What kind of marks would you be giving those folks today? The NBA has received questions about the way it assigns officials and rates officials over the years but has always maintained that the process was best kept in-house but that their processes were extensive and effective and efficient. Yeah, right!

Truth #5: Because David Stern does not know how all of this came about, he cannot tell the fans that this was a one-time event and that it will never happen again. He will try to do that at some later date, but it will all be smoke and mirrors. At the end of the day, the NBA will most likely put in place a system to catch the next referee who tries to do exactly what Tim Donaghy is alleged to have done here. But it will not catch a future Joe Flabeetz who may try to do something equally nefarious in a totally different way and for different reasons.

David Stern surely does not want my advice on this matter but I’ll provide it anyway at no charge. One of the “buzzwords” of 2007 is “accountability” and there are lots of folks in the NBA’s security and operations and personnel hierarchies that need to be held accountable. That means the services of those folks are no longer essential to the NBA; if David Stern doesn’t make that decision and act on it, then he too may need to find other employment.

Before anyone gets the idea that I am picking on David Stern here, let me say that it was a Federal investigation that opened up the BALCO situation and brought baseball’s steroid use to light. The MLB security folks missed that one by a mile. And it was a criminal investigation – first by some seemingly less than fully competent locals and then by the DoJ – that surfaced the dogfighting activities that seem to have been ongoing on property owned by Michael Vick in Virginia. The highly acclaimed NFL Security operatives seem never to have gotten wind of that business over several years. Personnel security is a tough business but major sports in the US are also multi-billion dollar businesses and it seems as if the folks who are supposed to assure its integrity aren’t doing all that well recently.

There was a movie made about the 1919 Black Sox Scandal; it was called Eight Men Out. When they make a movie about l’affaire Donaghy, perhaps they will give it the title Over/Under. I officiated basketball for 37 years – never anywhere near the NBA level to be sure – but I do know something about officiating. It would be difficult for a single official in a three-person crew to determine the outcome of a game; it would be easier – but certainly not trivial – for a single official to assure that a team covered or did not cover a spread. I think the easiest thing for an official to do in terms of tilting the scale relative to a betting situation would be to favor the OVER in totals betting.

If an official were to call a very tight game, that would tend to get the players to back off a bit on defense – and for coaches to tell them to watch out because the official has a quick whistle tonight – meaning more open scoring opportunities. Also, a tight game tends to have more fouls meaning that scoring happens with the clock stopped and teams get into the bonus sooner. If one wanted to bias a game toward the OVER, that’s one way to do it relatively unobtrusively.

If one wanted to bias a game toward the UNDER, there might be a lot of offensive fouls called along with three-second violations and other calls to consume time without having the ball go through the basket. The problem with trying to manipulate UNDERs is that overtime is a killer here and a single official might not be able to prevent overtime.

And since I mentioned “Over/Under Wagers”, let me pose a proposition here:

Time until some blowhard Congressthing expressing outrage – I say OUTRAGE – at this assault on basketball fandom calls for Congressional hearings on the matter: 60 days.

I’ll take UNDER…

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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The oddest sporting event for yesterday was David Stern’s news conference. What makes it odd was that David Stern did not conduct the session with a smirk on his face and a demeanor that intended to show everyone present that he was the smartest person in the zip code at the moment – and probably for many moments to come. The Count of Condescension, the Earl of Egotism, the Sultan of Smug and the Viscount of Vainglory stood there in the full awareness that no matter how much he tap danced around the questions or how much he tried to imply that he really did have all the answers but wouldn’t reveal them, it wasn’t gonna work this time.

He said that betrayal has happened to other organizations where people in trusted positions had turned on those organizations; he mentioned the CIA and the FBI specifically. Then he tried to justify the soundness of NBA Security by saying that the league hired people with FBI and CIA experience. Excuse me, but if the bad apples in those organizations are your rationalizations regarding why it took an outside organization to ferret out your internal problem child, then you can’t hold up alumni of those organizations as the gold standard for security. You can have it either way - - but not both.

The NBA will have to find a way to improve its internal security procedures – and notice that David Stern did not say that the NBA was already doing that. Surely, this is something that he would have trumpeted if they actually were. No one asked him what the league was waiting for so of course he didn’t explain. Here is one small portion of their problem; the NBA like many other organizations suffers from the syndrome that allows Person A to occupy a position of authority and control on the basis of whom Person A happens to know in the NBA hierarchy - - and not on the basis of Person A’s actual knowledge, skills and abilities to perform the functions of that job excellently.

I don’t expect David Stern to start asking any probing questions of the people in positions of authority and control within the NBA for a couple of reasons. First, it’s not clear to me he knows any probing questions to ask of the folks who are supposed to provide quality control oversight for the on-court actions of the referees. Secondly, if he starts doing that, he might have to extend those probing questions to folks who are in positions only because he put them there. And that will not be something the Viscount of Vainglory will deign to do.

Elliott Harris had this comment in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday – before David Stern’s news conference:

“The delay in NBA commissioner David Stern holding a news conference to discuss former referee Tim Donaghy’s case of betting on games? Must have been waiting for Vegas to set the over/under for other league officials involved in such activities.”

By the way, it is important that you remember an under-reported fact related to this matter because it will become relevant sometime in the near future. When NFL referees botch calls really badly, there are dozens of commentators whose immediate response is along the lines of: “When in the name of everything that is good and holy will the NFL hire full time referees who are part of the league and under their control/tutelage all year round?”

Memo to Knee-Jerkers: The NBA hires its officials exactly the way you want the NFL to hire them. The mode of hiring does NOT assure on-court/on-field competence nor does it assure the integrity of the corps of officials.

With the MLB trading deadline fast approaching, lots of commentators have focused on the Rangers’ Mark Teixiera as one of the plums out there to be plucked by a contending team. To be sure, Teixiera is a fine player and his contract extends through the 2008 season, but there are three things that could give an acquiring team pause:

1. The Rangers need to get more than one top prospect in return to jump-start their less than spectacular farm system; and preferably, those prospects would be pitchers. Most teams are not willing to part with top quality pitching prospects.

2. Teixiera is a first baseman and most of the contending teams have that position covered. The Braves are the only contending team where Teixiera would be an improvement of several quantum levels.

3. Texiera’s agent is Scott Boras so any acquiring team may be certain that he will not be signing a long-term contract extension and that Boras will ask for a minimum of $20 per year for Teixiera when he is a free agent. Teixiera is affordable now; he’s not a two-month player rental; he’s more like a player with a long-term lease in place; but the balloon payment at the end of that lease if you want to keep him might approach the GDP of a West African nation.

The NL Central is a pathetic division this year. According to my morning paper, four of the six teams are below .500 and three of the teams – half the division – are 14 or more games under .500. Someone will win that division and make the playoffs; that team might get hot in October and move on. But we have to recognize and acknowledge that the teams at the top of the NL Central got to play an unusually weak schedule this year and that whatever their record might be at the end of September, it would likely have been worse had they been in a different division.

When NFL training camp opens, that means the first of the Exhibition Games – the Hall of Fame Game – cannot be more than two weeks away. This year, it will be on 5 August and it will be telecast on NFL Network. In addition, NFL Network will telecast eight other Exhibition Games live and on a national basis AND the network will also show 45 Exhibition Games on tape delay. Some of those games will air starting around midnight here in the Eastern Time zone so they won’t be horribly convenient in terms of watching them and being a functional and social being on the next day. Watch any or all of these games at your pleasure but please do not succumb to the temptation to wager on these games just because they are on TV and you’ll get to see them live or on tape. If you find yourself even thinking along those lines, seek help immediately.

Here’s a public service announcement; you may need to take a few moments to prepare for this. July 27 is Take Your Houseplant For A Walk Day; and simultaneously, it is National Walk On Stilts Day. Celebrating those two things together might take a bit of practice so I thought I’d give you a few days advance notice…

Finally, here’s a comment from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Good news for the Bengals: When just-released linebacker Odell Thurman was accused of kicking and hitting two men in a bar fight, police reports made no mention of illegal use or misuse of dogs, drugs, weapons or women.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Every team in the NFL has “re-tooled” for the upcoming 2007 season. To go through all 32 teams and to comment on the implications of whatever moves they have made would be a longer document than I really want to write - - and certainly too long a document for you to want to read. So, let me focus on the moves made by the teams who were at or near the top of the NFL food chain and those at or near the bottom of the food chain and see if what they have done portends any great change in the upcoming season. I’ll start in the AFC…

The Indy Colts were at the top of the food chain in the NFL last year and since winning the Super Bowl, they have lost seven players including starters on that championship team. For the record, that’s not good. The Colts did not add seven quality NFL players via free agency so one would have to believe that they might not be as strong this year as last. But the Colts’ coaching staff has shown the ability to mold a team out of individuals and the Colts still do have the Peyton Manning/Marvin Harrison/Reggie Wayne axis to build on. Anyone who thinks the Colts will take a nosedive this year is betting on the injury bug to hit the team, but they should not be as strong as they were last year.

The San Diego Chargers won more games in the regular season last year than any other team. Their key players are back; their entire coaching staff is not. Norv Turner brings loads of “potential” as a head coach to the Chargers but as I always try to remind you, “potential” means you haven’t accomplished anything yet. Expecting the Chargers to surpass last year’s 14-win total for the regular season would have been unrealistic even if there had been no coaching changes. The Chargers ought to be awfully good this year no matter who is on the sidelines wearing the headsets.

Somehow, the New England Patriots were a very good team last year even though their #1 receiver was Reche Caldwell (gaining all of 761 yards). The Pats rolled the dice hoping that Randy Moss’ receiving skills had not gone down the drain in Oakland but that he was unmotivated there. I think they took less of a chance signing Donte Stallworth and Wes Welker to play wide receiver; those guys will never be what Moss was four or five years ago, but they can both play well. The Pats should be real good again this year.

It seems as if the Denver Broncos tried to corner the market on defensive linemen during this off-season by means of free-agent signings and the draft. That is probably in response to the fact that the Broncos’ defensive line was pretty mediocre last year. In addition, Denver signed Dre Bly to play opposite Champ Bailey at CB and added Travis Henry and Daniel Graham to their offensive arsenal; all three of these guys should help. But the Broncos’ level of success next season probably rests on a move made in the middle of last season. Jay Cutler will be the QB. This is only his second year in the league and he really did seem overwhelmed some of the time last year. The real question for the Broncos this year is whether or not that half-year of experience for Cutler in 2006 can jump-start his offensive prowess for 2007. If so, the Broncos will be contenders for the Super Bowl; if not, they’ll be hugely disappointing to fans and disappointed as a team.

Over in the NFC at the top of the food chain, we have the Chicago Bears who dominated their division and the conference last year. Somewhat like the Colts, they have not had a very positive off-season – and I’m not even hinting at the muck and mire created by the Tank Johnson business. The Bears traded Thomas Jones; all he gave them was a rushing total over 1000 yards last year; they didn’t get a Pro-Bowl caliber player in return. Lance Briggs has said he will never play another down for the Bears – although that is probably as much bombast as it is a statement of principle. Other players have expressed a real desire to leave town even though the Bears were in the Super Bowl last year. The Bears got six TDs last year from the return game thanks to Devin Hester; he’s back but it’s asking an awful lot of him to expect that he can produce those kinds of points in the return game every year. The Super Bowl loser has not tended to do well in the subsequent season and I don’t think the Bears’ off-season moves point to a reversal of that trend. But they are in a weak division and should dominate it again this year and be back in the playoffs.

The New Orleans Saints provided the “tug-at-the-heartstrings story” for 2006. The team has been relatively quiet in the off-season so we should see if last year’s success was driven by the emotion of “returning home” after a year of exile due to Hurricane Katrina or if this is a team whose overall talent level is not yet widely recognized.

The Philadelphia Eagles were another of last season’s “last to first” stories winning the NFC East after finishing dead last in that division in 2005. And they did that with Donovan McNabb missing half the year – again. The team still lacks a game-breaking wide receiver but the only player of that type they have had in the past decade was Terrell Owens and they surely don’t want to go down that path again. Losing Donte Stallworth in free agency was not a positive move for the team. But they did add to their defensive front seven (Takeo Spikes, Monte Reagor and Ian Scott) and should be better against the run this year and that’s a very good thing. It will also help if Javon Kearse stays healthy this year and can regain most or all of his All-Pro form.

The Seattle Seahawks were the class of the NFC West last year despite injuries to Shaun Alexander and Matt Hasselbeck. Alexander has a lot of mileage on his tread but when healthy he is still a premier running back. The Seahawks needed help with rushing the passer so they signed Patrick Kerney; that was a good idea. And losing Jerramy Stevens was also a good idea - - the old addition by subtraction concept.

If we go to the bottom of the food chain in the AFC, the only place to begin is with the Oakland Raiders. To call their season in 2006 a train wreck would be to compliment it. On paper, the Raiders seem to have recognized their glaring need and seem to have taken steps to correct it. Their offense stunk; there’s no polite way to say it. So they did sign free agent Travis Taylor to play WR this year. They also acquired Dominic Rhodes to help out in the running game but he will miss the first 25% of the season with a suspension for running afoul of the substance abuse policy. Even with Roger Goodell as the “new sheriff in town”, this is not a heavy-handed suspension. The substance abuse policy is negotiated into the CBA and getting a 4-game suspension means the player has to have had multiple infractions here. And of course, the Raiders took JaMarcus Russell with the overall #1 pick in the draft - - but he hasn’t signed a contract yet so it is problematic as to whether or not he will be ready to play QB in the opening game. Like I said, it looks as if the Raiders addressed their problems on paper, but not necessarily on the field.

The Houston Texans made one very large move in the off-season. This team traded away David Carr whose performance in Houston was not spectacular by any means. They replaced him by acquiring Matt Schaub from Atlanta who has started all of two games in the NFL and he lost both of them. I am of the opinion that Carr was not solely the cause of the Texans’ offensive woes; his offensive line was horrid and there was no running game to speak of last season. So, I don’t think the Texans are poised to leapfrog over two dozen teams in the league to become one of the elite teams any time soon.

While the Raiders were the worst offensive team in the NFL last year, the Cleveland Browns were the worst rushing team in the NFL. Give the Browns credit for seeing the problem and trying to resolve it. They signed guard, Eric Steinbach, as a free agent and drafted tackle, Joe Thomas, at #3 in the draft. Assuming that they sign Thomas – they haven’t as of this moment – and he lives up to 80% of his press clippings, they will have added two quality blockers to the offensive front. That never hurt a running game. They also signed RB, Jamaal Lewis; he has had some spectacular seasons and some very disappointing ones. Pardon me if I’m skeptical about how fiery he’ll be this year with that signing bonus giving him a fat wallet to sit on. We’ll see. Oh, yeah, the Browns also drafted Brady Quinn to play QB for them - - but they haven’t signed him either.

Among the bottom feeders in the NFC, the Vikings acquisition of RB, Adrian Peterson, via the draft should be a big help to a team that will need to be able to move the ball on the ground to be successful. The Vikes will go with Tarvaris Jackson at QB; even though I did not see him play all that much last season, it would be very generous of me to say that he played fluidly or confidently or instinctively or successfully. If the Vikes can’t run and have to rely on Tarvaris Jackson to win games for them in a one-dimensional offense, it might look like the team brought an NFL Europe offensive unit with them to the stadium. Peterson and the rest of the running attack look to be the key to whatever success will accrue in Minnesota this year.

Detroit Lions QB, Jon Kitna, said he was certain the Lions would win at least 10 games this year. I thought for sure that would put him on the list for random and repeated drug testing by the league since that seemed to me prima facie evidence of a potential violation of the league’s substance abuse policy. Whatever. The Lions drafted Calvin Johnson who is the latest of their “can’t miss” wide receivers. If indeed he “can’t miss” then the Lions ought to be able to score with Mike Martz calling the plays – and assuming that Jon Kitna really isn’t hallucinating out there on the field. The Lions defense needed help last year; they were in danger of losing DT Cory Redding but found a way to sign him to a long term deal. They ought to be better in 07 than they were in 06 but that ain’t saying much.

The Arizona Cardinals changed coaching staffs. I’ve always thought Dennis Greene was a good talent evaluator and drafter but an underachiever as a coach. Well now the team has Greene’s talent with a coaching staff that comes from the Pittsburgh Steeler tradition of getting the most out of the talent on the squad. The Cards lost only one free agent (OT, Leonard Davis) and they moved to replace him by taking OT Levi Brown in the first round of the draft. Davis got a huge contract in Dallas and motivation has always been the big question for him; the Cards probably didn’t want him at the price he could command and made an early decision in the matter. Matt Leinart seems to be the real deal as a QB and he has two Pro-Bowl caliber wide receivers to throw to (Boldin and Fitzgerald). Edgerrin James has been a huge disappointment since he arrived in Arizona; some say that he’s at the end of his useful life as a RB. If he has a good season left in him, then the Cards’ offense might rise above the level of moribund – where they have resided for a while now – in 2007.

If you didn’t see a comment on your favorite team here, just wait until training camp is about over and I do my Pre-Season analysis for every team in the league. And look at it from a positive perspective - - if your team isn’t in here, I didn’t include it as one of the bottom feeders on the food chain in either conference.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails from readers in the past few days regarding my idea that the NFL needs to find a way to keep Michael Vick at arms length until this case is resolved one way or another. As is often the case when one tries to take a moderate position on something, one gets excoriated by folks on both sides of the issue. Keeping Michael Vick at arms length but not banned from football is not tantamount to supporting animal abuse; keeping him at arms length is not an assumption of his guilt; it is merely a way for the league to carry on its pending business – the 2007 season – without the negative publicity that will hang over that pending business from the process that will ultimately resolve Michael Vick’s case. I didn’t say he should be shunned; I didn’t say he should be denied his living (a paid leave of absence certainly doesn’t do that). I think it is best for the NFL to find a way to allow themselves to put the focus on football – that is their business after all – and not the legal problems of one of their stars.

When a police officer is involved in a shooting, (s)he is usually put on administrative leave until there is a determination as to what happened that caused that officer to shoot someone. If nothing is wrong, the career is resumed and nothing untoward happens; if (s)he did something wrong, then there has to be accountability. And that seems to me to be what the NFL needs to find a way to do here.

Having said all of that, there is one aspect of the Vick investigation that has received far less attention than the animal abuse aspects of the matter. I’m not trying to downplay animal abuse; there isn’t any need for the “doggy people” out there to send me nasty-grams; it’s just that the animal abuse part of this story has dominated the coverage so far. The less reported aspect of this matter is gambling; there are some minor parts of all this that indicate that there was gambling involved relative to the dogfights. Normally, I am a defender of gambling because it is a human behavior that is going to happen anyway and laws to try to ban it are feckless endeavors. In this case, gambling might just be an “out” for the NFL.

If – I said IF – there is credible evidence that Michael Vick bankrolled or participated in a gambling enterprise that was associated with or existed in parallel with the dogfighting enterprise, then the NFL has precedent for a suspension for one year. Back in the 1960s, Paul Hornung and Alex Karas were both suspended for one year for gambling. Karas’ case is particularly relevant here; he owned – or was a part owner – of a bar/restaurant where gambling was commonplace and there were rumors of ties to the underworld. Both players were reinstated to the NFL after sitting out one season and that is probably just the time that the NFL needs as breathing room in this situation.

By the way, there is a story – probably an urban legend – that after Karas returned to the NFL he went to the center of the field as the defensive captain before a game. The referee asked him as defensive captain to call the coin toss. Karas supposedly said he couldn’t do that because the league told him when they reinstated him that he could never gamble again. Even if that’s not true, it’s a good story and my mother-in-law used to say that you should never spoil a good story with the truth…

There is an irony involved in this Michael Vick mess that hasn’t received a lot of attention. Recall that the Falcons acquired Vick via a draft pick exchange with the San Diego Chargers. The Falcons got to draft Vick; the Chargers drafted LaDanian Tomlinson and Drew Brees that year. In terms of on the field accomplishments, I think it’s pretty clear that the Falcons got the short end of that stick but there is another irony here. The NFL gives out the Walter Payton Award to its “Man of the Year”. Suffice it to say that Michael Vick has not been a strong candidate for that award in the recent past. But this year the Award was given to two players as “Co-Men of the Year”. That’s right. Drew Brees and LaDanian Tomlinson got the award.

The NFL has something else going on that fans may not want to happen. The City of New Orleans has sent a proposal to the NFL to move the NFL Draft from NYC to New Orleans. Why would I intimate that fans don’t want this to happen? Well, it isn’t because I have anything against New Orleans or Cajun food or anything like that. It is because of what the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports is in the proposal to the NFL. New Orleans says that it will augment the NFL draft with a weeklong menu of activities culminating in a “Mardi-Gras style parade” leading to the start of the draft. Folks, the NFL Draft is already overblown and over-hyped; a weeklong series of over-the-top events like this would be a mini-version of the Super Bowl week with the parade mimicking the Super Bowl halftime show. Tell the truth, do you really need or want two such happenings each year? I don’t.

Another surefire way for me to get e-mail comments is to say something critical about soccer in general or David Beckham in particular. So, let me try to make a moderate comment about soccer and see if I can dodge the “you are-a-moron comments”. A senior official with the Real Madrid soccer club said that David Beckham generated $600M in revenue for that Spanish team in his tenure with the club and that he should do that again with the LA Galaxy because the US market is so big. Obviously, I have no way to verify that $600M figure for the Spanish team so I’ll take it as a fact. However, here’s why I don’t think David Beckham will come anywhere near that figure for the LA Galaxy.

The LA Galaxy and most of MLS is or was owned by AEG. This is a company that derives its resources from the wealth of its founder and that wealth is measured in the several billions of dollars. This man and this company are not naives in the business world; they didn’t amass assets in the several billions of dollars category by being stupid or blind to opportunity. Therefore, if those folks saw the realistic possibility that they could generate $600M in revenue by signing David Beckham to a contract for $250M, that would generate for them a gross profit of $350M. Even a business dolt such as I can see that would be a good thing. But that’s not what they have done.

Subsequent to signing David Beckham, they have sold off teams in MLS that they own to others and they have added a team to the league and they structured this Beckham deal such that the league owners would share in the profits that he generates for the league. I conclude from that behavior that they don’t see $600M coming in the door because I don’t think there would be a strong impetus to dilute their share of such a revenue tsunami were it a realistic possibility.

Finally, a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“A Wilmington, Del, filmmaker, Tim Carr, is producing and starring in Leaf: An Almost True Story, a movie about Ryan Leaf. Seriously. Which might explain why Mr. Carr is a filmmaker in Delaware.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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I may have not been “on the air” for a few days, but I have not been living in a cave. Stuff has happened and I want to put my two cents in on some of it. The first part of this relates to the Michael Vick situation. I’ve read and heard on some sports radio programs that the demonstration by PETA outside NFL HQs in New York last week demonstrates the danger to NFL popularity that the Vick “situation” presents. Horse Hockey!! The fact is that PETA is a fringe group; the people in PETA live to find a reason to hold a protest to get the public to look at them and recall that the organization continues to exist. The NFL can’t kowtow to PETA over this issue because if it does then PETA will likely be back in front of NFL HQs protesting the use of leather in footballs and the use of leather in football shoes and the serving of steaks at NFL pre-game meals. The PETA protest only means that TV networks and newspaper columnists had one more thing to comment on.

Here is the danger that the NFL has to worry about. It can be personified by a conversation I had with a gentleman last evening. He doesn’t care about PETA and he doesn’t care about Michael Vick or the Atlanta Falcons and he doesn’t care about the image of the NFL. This gentleman loves dogs; he owns dogs; he watches sports on TV with his dog at his feet. He wants any and all people who abuse dogs or act cruelly to dogs to fry in Hell. That is the kind of person that the NFL cannot afford to alienate because there are too many dog-owners/dog-lovers out there. The NFL can ignore PETA protests but it cannot behave in such a way that even 10% of the dog-owners in the US decide to turn their backs on NFL football.

And it is for that reason – and not really any other – that I believe that the NFL and the NFLPA and the Atlanta Falcons and Michael Vick’s representatives must find a way to assure that Michael Vick does not set foot on the field at any official NFL sanctioned event until and unless this matter is completely resolved in court or the charges are dropped by the Department of Justice. The potential for volatility here is much too great for them to take a chance with that.

I heard one goof on the radio say that dogfighting had to be taken in a societal context and then he used the growing popularity of UFC and other mixed martial arts fighting as evidence that cruel blood sports were acceptable in the US. Excuse me, but here is one of many fundamental differences that I see. None of the UFC fighters is forced to be a fighter; he can choose to fight or to become an oboist with a symphony orchestra. If he takes up fighting and isn’t very good at it, he’ll get his ass kicked a few times, but his manager is not likely to throw water on him and electrocute him because he can’t fight all that well. The differences between the people who run UFC and the people who run dogfighting events are so huge that you cannot try to use one to justify/rationalize the other.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Allen Iverson had a comment about the Michael Vick situation during halftime of a Celebrity Flag Football Game at the Allen Iverson Summer Classic Weekend on Saturday. Iverson said that Vick should “keep his head up” and that he understood what Vick was going through because:

“It’s always been like that from day one, since there was sports … There was always a bull’s-eye on us. Everybody doesn’t love athletes. Some people feel like we’re spoiled. Some people feel that because we are rich, we think we are above the law; we’re better than everybody else. But it’s not like that, but some people perceive us that way. And they give us a hard time about it.”

If you ever wanted proof that Allen Iverson does not have a publicist who is feeding him lines to speak or trying to “keep him on message”, this has to be such evidence. The only thing you can say about the Michael Vick situation at the moment is that the process needs to play itself out before a final judgment can be made – either way. But to tell him to keep his head up because all of this is happening because he is a rich athlete is nonsense – just as it would be nonsensical to say that the only reason this is happening is because the FBI sneaked onto the grounds of that house in Surry Virginia and buried the dog carcasses found there.

Now for a segue to the next topic. Last week, the story broke that an NBA referee was under investigation by the FBI for betting on games that he officiated. For more than a few hours, the story was out there with no name attached to it. Yet the sports radio shows lit up with people assuming it was true and virtually convicting whomever might be subsequently charged here in the court of public opinion. Why is that important?

Keep that in mind the next time someone tries to spin you a story that the only reason people rush to judgment on the guilt of some athlete is because he is Black. Remember, there was no name offered here when the public vilification began. Statistically speaking, you’d have to have concluded at that point that the person involved was a white male; there are far more white male referees in the NBA than there are all the other demographics put together. So, the public’s rush to judgment was not racially motivated. And now that we know the identity of Tim Donaghy, let’s note that the public has not been overly kind to this white male; he has needed police protection at his house because of death threats.

Actually, I think the Tim Donaghy situation is far more potentially damaging to the NBA than is the Michael Vick situation to the NFL. The NBA has to be in every church in the country lighting candles in hopes that Donaghy acted alone in this matter. Because if he gives up even one more name of a referee – active or retired – who has done the same thing, then the NBA is in danger of moving from the orbit of “real sports” to the orbit now occupied by “WWE” and “Roller Derby” and the like. The NBA cannot sustain its salary structure on the revenues generated by those sports exhibitions where the majority of the fans acknowledge that the outcomes are predetermined.

I heard a couple of sports radio hosts clucking this morning that the Tim Donaghy story demonstrated the stupidity of putting an NBA franchise – or any other pro franchise – in Las Vegas. Excuse me. There is no franchise there now and we have an official about to be arrested on these charges. Remembering that he is not yet indicted or convicted, let me only point out that a sport can get into this sort of difficulty without having a team in Las Vegas and it is just as possible that having a team in Las Vegas would prevent such a thing from happening as it is possible that the absence of a team in Las Vegas caused this to happen. Obviously, these radio hosts never had to study Aristotelian logic.

Here’s my question in all of this. If Tim Donaghy has been under investigation for a year – as has been reported – then he has to have been doing this allegedly for more than one year. So, what were the NBA Security folks doing all that time? How come they never came up with any indicators that things weren’t “hunky-dory”? How come they never noticed any untoward financial transactions involving Mr. Donaghy? How come …? I guess my series of questions boils down to two basic questions:

What do those NBA Security folks actually do for a living?

For all the times that they briefed the NBA Commish and the NBA executives in the past year without warning them that this problem was brewing, what should be the “accountability” that rains down on their heads?

Finally, here’s something from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“A Florida congressman has proposed investigating steroid use in pro wrestling. Talk about a shot in the dark! What’s next? Investigating collagen use in L.A.?”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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I’m not all that surprised that Michael Vick has been indicted in the dogfighting investigation. Once the Feds moved in and took over the case, I had to believe that there was some indication in the evidence already in hand that could implicate a “person of some public renown”. If not, it would not make sense for the Feds to bigfoot their way into a local investigation. Let’s not forget that an indictment is not a finding of guilt; there is still that “little thing” known as a trial to get out of the way.

Nonetheless, in the world of advertising and sponsorship, I’d have to think that this turns Michael Vick into the equivalent of the goo sitting down there in the midst of the buried reactor at Chernobyl. What new sponsor would want to dive into that pool headfirst at the moment? And it will be very interesting to see what NFL Commish, Roger Goodell, does with this one. He has suspended other players without the presence of a conviction on the record. While those players have achieved notoriety for their antisocial behaviors (Pacman Jones for example), none has the star power of a Michael Vick.

Football broadcasters are prone to say that every boneheaded play by a quarterback is the result of “making a bad decision”. Frankly, I find that phraseology a bit tedious and clearly misleading; sorority girls who get drunk at parties make bad decisions if the evening evolves to a point where they get to know – in the Biblical sense – about a dozen or so frat boys. Quarterbacks make bad plays or sometimes they just stink. However, if – remember I said IF – Michael Vick is ultimately convicted here, that would qualify as a quarterback making some bad decisions.

I had a note on my clipboard to make this observation about halfway through the NFL training camp calendar but this indictment makes me think I should write it now. I made a list of three people in the NFL who need to “show up and get the job done” this year more than your average run-of-the-mill NFL person. Here was my list:

1. Joe Gibbs: He’s been back in the league for three years and he’s been under .500 in two of those years. Last year’s team was embarrassingly disorganized on the sidelines during the games and that falls directly under the heading of “poor coaching”. If Gibbs goes under .500 again this year, some folks just might begin to wonder if he really should have been inducted into Canton …

2. Norv Turner: Fifteen years ago, he followed Gibbs in Washington – after one embarrassing season under Richie Pettibone. Turner was less than fully successful there and showed little “fire in the belly” during that stint. Then he had those horrid years in Oakland, which many want to expunge from his record because he had to carry the burden of Al Davis there. Speaking of his “record”, it now stands at 58-82-1; that’s pretty bad. But he took over a team that was 14-2 last year so anything less than 12 wins and then one playoff win ought to be considered a bad year and a black stain on his coaching abilities.

3. Michael Vick: The time for all the excuses is past. It’s time to acknowledge that his highlight reel full of running exploits is a wonderful thing – for a running back or a single-wing tailback. This year he has to show that he can throw the ball far more accurately than he has in any prior season to be worth even half of what he’s being paid.

I wrote those notes before any indictment was handed down in the dogfighting matter. And I stand by my football judgment here regarding Michael Vick. To date, he’s been flawed as a quarterback because he just does not throw the ball accurately. Those aren’t “bad decisions”; those are “wildly inaccurate throws.”

Since I mentioned Norv Turner and his stint with the Raiders above, I need to point out that the Raiders went out and signed Dominic Rhodes as a free agent after he helped the Colts win last year’s Super Bowl. The Raiders’ offense was putrid last year so signing just about any quality offensive player has to be seen as a positive move - - unless that signee gets himself suspended for the first four games of the season. That’s what happened to Rhodes and it happened under the league’s “substance abuse policy”. Rhodes was arrested for speeding and driving while impaired and that triggered the suspension. But the important thing to realize here is that under the “substance abuse policy” – something negotiated into the CBA – a four game suspension does not happen until the third or fourth time a player runs afoul of the “substance abuse policy”. So, Rhodes had to have been “on the list” when the Raiders made him that free agent offer. So, maybe it wasn’t a totally positive move on their part…

The IOC has decided to hold the Winter Games for 2014 in Sochi, Russia. In case you weren’t a geography major, Sochi is on the Black Sea, which is that big body of water that is connected to the Mediterranean Sea by that little bit of water that cuts Turkey into two pieces. The IOC said that Sochi is part of “the Russian Riviera”. I admit that I was not a geography major but I didn’t know Russia had a Riviera. Do Paraguay and Switzerland also have Rivieras?

Recently, I noted that LA Galaxy president, Alexi Lalas, might have gone hyperbolic by saying that David Beckham would be bigger here in the US than Michael Jordan. That brought me criticism – naturally – from the soccer acolytes who are spring-loaded to see the world of US soccer in only the best possible light. Well today, I’ll risk their wrath again by quoting Brad Rock of the Deseret News regarding another of Alexi Lalas’ flights of fancy:

“LA Galaxy president Alexi Lalas comparing MLS with Europe’s Premier League: ‘In England, our league is considered second class, but I honestly believe if you took a helicopter and grabbed a bunch of MLS players and took them to the perceived best league in the world, they wouldn’t miss a beat and the fans wouldn’t notice any drop in quality.’

“Uh-huh.

“And if you took a busload of NFL Europe players and dropped them off at the Super Bowl you wouldn’t notice a difference there either.”

Having mentioned the LA Galaxy, that reminds me that David Beckham has arrived in LA and may actually play in a game for that team sometime soon if he gets over an ankle injury that has produced swelling (according to the team) fully a month after his last game. That’s one serious injury. But that makes me also recall that I read where Brazil and Argentina played in the finals of the Copa America and Brazil won that tournament. Normally, I’d think that any game involving Brazil and Argentina would be an important one, but given the publicity about soccer recently, I guess I ought to conclude that it was a minor exhibition since David Beckham wasn’t even in the stands to watch it.

Finally, Scott Ostler had this observation recently in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Good news for the Bengals: When just-released linebacker Odell Thurman was accused of kicking and hitting two men in a bar fight, police reports made no mention of illegal use or misuse of dogs, drugs, weapons or women.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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