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HERE YOU GO!

Just because the NFL took an off-week last week doesn’t mean it wasn’t an INTENSE week in the sports world. It certainly was. First off, the Pro Bowl was played last week and most people had a problem with the fact that the game was played one week prior to the Super Bowl and it wasn’t in Hawaii. I say poo-poo to that. First off, how many players from the Super Bowl participants ACTUALLY play in the games the week after? The champs usually are making the rounds on Leno and Letterman while the losers don’t usually want to show up to be reminded that they lost. For anyone trying to make the argument that OH Peyton wasn’t allowed to play, he wasn’t going to play the week after anyways. My second point is that no one watches the Pro Bowl after the Super Bowl is over. However, what else are people doing the Sunday before the big game? Watching the Grammys? I didn’t think so. I thought the timing was perfect because everyone is in FOOTBALL MODE and this was the perfect kickoff to the Super Bowl Week activities.
Now did the NFL step on itself by making the Saints and Colts players leave their teams to go be in photos and stand on the sidelines? Yes. Commissioner Roger Goodell should realize this and fix it. Alas, next season, the game is going back to Hawaii, I guess because too many of the players were complaining that they didn’t get their free trip to Hawaii. Umm, how many reserves do we ALWAYS see when the game is in Hawaii? And don’t you guys make enough money to send yourself to Hawaii? All I’m saying is that if I was going to that paradise out there, I wouldn’t want to have to hit people in the process. I’d rather just go for vacation. Note to the NFL: keep the game the week before but don’t make the Super Bowl teams send their players if they don’t want to go.

The Winter X-Games started last week on ESPN. Seems kind of weird doesn’t it, to be having the X-Games the week before the Winter Olympics? Especially since the events that people WATCH the X-games for are now in the Olympics. I wonder if ESPN realizes that people don’t watch the X-Games anymore. The network overkilled it. Do it every other year or so because honestly I don’t care if someone can bike on ice. I just don’t. Do we really need the X-Games every year though? Just wondering.

A new Nike ad came out featuring Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and part of the dialogue has Kobe saying that he plays his heart out and doesn’t leave anything in the chamber. Probably not a good idea right now to have a gun reference right after Agent Zero Gilbert Arenas was suspended for getting into an argument with a teammate that led to an incident involving a gun. I really don’t have a problem with the “leave nothing in the chamber,” quote but I understand that some people in this PC world we now live in will. To those people I say get over it! Come on. Move on. Grow up.

As I was watching the Georgetown/Duke game last weekend, I saw that CBS kept cutting to President Obama sitting in the crowd. Eventually Obama was brought to the broadcast booth and given a headset for a few minutes. Obama was never really seen cheering one way or the other (unlike when Bill Clinton was openly cheering for Arkansas back in the day) but he was seen as Joe Everyman. Hey, he likes basketball too! Actually, Obama seems like a guy you’d invite to your Super Bowl party, but shouldn’t he NOT be that? Shouldn’t he be the guy fixing the economy or solving unemployment? Just wondering. Perhaps those two hours could have been spent following up on some of the things he discussed in the State of the Union. And before you get all bent out of shape, I said the same things when George W Bush was in the ESPN baseball booth with Miller and Morgan.

I read in a recent Sports Illustrated issue where Boston Celtic guard Ray Allen said that the Boston/Atlanta back-and-forth isn’t really a rivalry. He noted that for whatever reason Boston didn’t think of Atlanta as a serious threat to them in the East. Hmm. Interesting there Ray. You are correct when you said it isn’t really a rivalry. Typically for it to be a rivalry, both teams need to win. Atlanta is 4-0 this season and just swept the season series from you. As far as a serious threat, maybe you guys should try and win a first round series in less than seven game when you are overwhelmingly favored. It might help to keep you guys a bit fresher for if you ever meet up with Atlanta in the playoffs. I guess it is going to take Atlanta going 4-0 in the playoffs for Boston to respect the Hawks.