This Is Number Thirteen Or Is It Number 4,000

This is very close to my four thousandth post. So of course it gives me much joy to dedicate it to the Super Bowl XLV champions, the 2010 Green Bay Packers, improbably coming from 14 players on injured reserve and losing one of their star cornerbacks during the game, winning the championship and proving that in football, explosive action can beat slow and steady pressure.

I'm a little bit too drunk at the moment to muse intelligently about the not-quite-a-diplomatic-flap over the weekend involving Britain and the START treaty. Maybe tomorrow. For now, I'll just enjoy my team winning the Super Bowl.

Perhaps This Is Not The Best Prize

A homeless couple in Green Bay won an all-expense paid trip to the Super Bowl. Where it's only marginally warmer and less snowy than in Wisconsin right now. They are, apparently, big fans of the Packers (as should be all right-thinking Americans, including not only Chicago lawyers but also the guy who makes Pittsburgh's Terrible Towels). So they'll get flown down to Dallas, have a nice weekend in a nice hotel and some good food, and flown home. It would be an experience of a lifetime for a Packer fan, to see the team play in the Super Bowl.

But at the end of their adventure, they're still going to be homeless. Tickets, flights, food -- how much is all that worth? $10,000 or so? The median price on a house in Green Bay is $109,000. That same ten grand could go to for a 5% down payment on a median-level house in their own home town and closing costs, some basic furniture, a couple of new suits for job interviews, and finding some leads on suitable employment. Wouldn't that be better?

I'm a fan of the Packers and I'm excited about the game. But as much fun as it's going to be for those of us who can afford the luxury of indulging in its frivolity, it is still just a game. Watching the Packers play in the Super Bowl in person would be a big thrill, yes, but if I were homeless and unemployed, I would much rather watch them play on TV -- from the comfort of my own new house.

Today's NFC Championship Game

My next-door neighbor is a big Bears fan. This brings a fine bit of midwestern rivalry out to sunny, warm California:

This was to have been a music video for the popular Wisconsin pub song "The Bears Still Suck" but the video was removed due to a copyright claim. I have no desire to infringe anyone's copyright. I do, however, have a desire to talk trash to Bears fans before a game I expect the Packers to win (with justification, as it turned out)

.

Enjoy the game.

This Is Why There Are Sports Blogs

Correspondence from 1974 between an attorney who is a Cleveland Browns season ticket holder and the response turns out to be 100% pure awesome. If it's not genuine, it ought to be.

Fantasy Football Woes

It's time to hang 'em up. Our league is quarterback driven. This week our options for quarterback were:

Aaron Rodgers
Kyle Orton
Donovan McNabb
Tarvaris Jackson
Jimmy Clausen

What's worse, we had to pick two of those by Thursday.

Of these, it's a guarantee that three won't be playing again this season, and if da Bears beat Minnesota tonight (they're leading 17-7 as I write and are being ball hogs), that occludes the possibility that Green Bay can make the postseason, so why wouldn't Green Bay coast out the last three games by letting Matt Flynn get some experience?

This will leave us with one starting QB -- Jimmy Clausen of the Carolina Panthers. Something of a letdown after having had Aaron Rodgers all season.

Celibate World Cup

It's still twelve years in the future, but I can't understand how the World Cup in Qatar could possibly be a success. I'm already baffled that a sport whose biggest fans come from Western Europe and South America -- none of whom are shy about drinking booze while partying and cheering on their teams -- would be asked to go to Qatar, a tiny nation dominated by Puritanical moral laws concerning alcohol to watch the World Cup. These are people who are going to want to drink while they party and cheer and sing.

And it gets worse -- gay fans have just been asked by international soccer's governing body to refrain from having sex while in Qatar to cheer on their teams. Which brings to mind the fact that Qatar's next door neighbor, Saudi Arabia, still has the death sentence on the books for sodomy -- a punishment which is still actually enforced from time to time. I don't know if Qatar imposes the death penalty for sodomy and it's reasonable to assume that Qatar's morals police will be asked to relax their enforcement during the tournament. But what's going on here is not soccer expanding its audience into a new region; it's shining a spotlight on the shortcomings of the nations in question.

Now, Qatar beat out other nations, most notably including the United States, for hosting the Cup. I hate being a sore loser about that despite the fact that our bid was clearly superior to Qatar's, but here's the fact: gay soccer fans from around the world, you're obviously not welcome in Qatar. But you (and your money) are welcome here in the USA! Please plan on coming in 2022. You'll find plenty of friendly fellow soccer fans here,* some great places to eat, and lots of fun things to do in between games. Your money is welcome here; if you're over 21 years of age, you can have a beer or wine or a cocktail if you feel like it; and unlike your would-be Qatari hosts, our law enforcement authorities don't care what you do behind closed doors with other consenting adults.

* Yes, we call football "soccer," which is what the English used to call it. We have our own kind of football, too, which if you learn a thing or two about it, you might enjoy. Some Brits, however, think of themselves as very clever for claiming that our sport should be called "hand egg." They are incorrect.

Men Sometimes Lie About Sex, You Know

A breaking political "sex scandal" on Gawker.com is an article written by an anonymous (or barely-so) man who claims to have had what he calls a "one-night stand" with Christine O'Donnell is not one that I would credit. The fact that the scandal is being released right now, the weekend before the election, makes it almost indisputable that it is politically-motivated, to no end that I can ascertain given that O'Donnell is polling so badly and her campaign appears to be destined to go down in flames. Also note that the man in question was apparently paid cash money for his story -- something in the "four figures." Ooh. Aah.

Because my analysis crosses the line into the vulgar at one point, the rest of my take on the story comes after the jump. Suffice to say, if you want to skip my analysis, the story has two major holes that I found with only one read-through and minimal investigation, I don't believe it and neither should you. If you live in Delaware nothing in this story should affect the way you plan to vote for Senate -- if you liked O'Donnell before, you should still vote for her; if you liked Coons before, you should still vote for him. After the jump, then, the details about why I don't believe this crap for a second.

More After The Jump -->

I Second That Motion By The Bears Fan (UPDATED)

The NFL isn't supposed to be broadcasting games of grown men playing tag.  NFL football is about tackling. It is a contact sport, at its root a contest of strength and power. To be sure, there is much enjoyment to be had in watching the competing strategies play out, the speed and skill of elite players, and the rhythm of high-speed offenses clashing against the manipulation of the game clock and the effects of fatigue as a game wears on. All of this makes America's favorite sporting event a unique event that can be enjoyed at many levels simultaneously; if you've no appetite for the cerebral stuff, you can at least enjoy the hard hits and the circus-stunt catches.

It is, of course, entertainment -- ultimately, it is meaningless; it matters little to the day-to-day lives of nearly everyone whether the Chicago Bears or the Green Bay Packers win the NFC North division and thereby gain an automatic bid to the playoffs. But that means that if this endeavor called professional football is going to succeed, it's supposed to be fun to watch. It was bad enough when the NFL began fining and penalizing players for "orchestrated touchdown celebrations." Those goofy touchdown dances are fun. Come to think of it, it's fun (in a different way) to get mad at the players on other teams for partying against your guys. The fun stuff is what draws fans into the stands, what draws them to tune in on TV and make the advertisers willing to pay premium prices to hawk their products during time-outs and breaks in the action, and therefore that's what makes NFL football so profitable.

Instead, it's wimping out and threatening to penalize -- including fining and suspending -- players who hit each other hard and risk injuring their opponent. There is an inherent risk of injury in this sport, and all sports. People agree to do it anyway -- they compete and dedicate their entire lives to giving themselves even an opportunity to do it, because there is a tremendous audience for it -- and it's fun. I don't mean to suggest that the NFL should go back to the days of leather helmets, no pads, and adopt an eye-gouging rule. There should be reasonable ways to protect players from unnecessary and avoidable kinds of harm. I like that the players wear well-designed helmets, armor, and that there are particular kinds of maneuvers and stunts that are not permitted. It's a fine line to draw as to what kinds of methods of forcing your opponent to the ground should be permitted and what should not be. The guys who run the show need to do what is reasonable and appropriate to prevent injuries -- but they also need to bear in mind that we're talking about tackle football. There are going to be injuries and I thought everyone knew that.

Now, this year, the injuries seem to be taking a particularly hard toll on my beloved Green Bay Packers. Fans from Sheboygan are coming to the game suited up, just in case they're needed in an emergency. But this Packers fan is sanguine about that, because dealing with injuries is part of the game, too. The luck of the draw is that Green Bay has to deal with that problem this year and the organization, as a whole, has to adapt to losing their top running back, their top tight end, a good safety, and a strong offensive lineman, within the course of just over a month of play. It sucks, but you have to deal. (Therein lies a life lesson, by the way.)

Part of the frustration is that I enjoy consuming this entertainment product, and the manufacturer of the product insists on continually taking out the very things in the product that I enjoy the most. Part of it is the frustration of watching a very successful business self-destruct because it just plain doesn't think things through. Football is about tackling, so you have to give the players enough latitude in the rules to actually tackle each other. That's what they came to the stadium to do, that's what the fans paid money at the stadium gate to see, that's the product the NFL is in the business of selling, as surely as Hershey's is in the business of selling sweetened chocolate.

Not letting football players tackle is kind of like banning curve balls in baseball because batters sometimes get hit when pitchers throw curves. This "don't hit the other guys too hard" rule is bound to be the New Coke of Professional Sports.

UPDATE 10/24:  This was apparently tweeted out of the Minnesota Vikings' Saturday practice:

...And that pretty much explains it all.

Good Message, Good News

Dexter McCluster, an early prospect for NFL rookie of the year, is to be praised for offering his time and his new-found fame to get the word out in this PSA:

I heartily agree with the message, even if laws trying to enforce the issue seem to be counterproductive. Don't text and drive. Eyes on the road, hands on the wheel. Nothing texted to you can possibly be so important that it's worth the loss of a human life, possibly your own.

It's also good news for the Kansas City Chiefs. Kanye West and Nelly don't have too much competition to worry about here, so McCluster is unlikely to be lured away from the Chiefs by a lucrative record deal any time soon.

Seventeen Penalties

Turns out, when you spot the home team 152 yards on seventeen different penalties, it's quite difficult to win a professional football game. Hopefully Green Bay can remember this interesting statistical factoid next week. Chicago, not Green Bay, joins the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Kansas City Cinderellas in the ranks of the as-yet undefeated. Green Bay, however, defeated itself.

Gaius Appuleius Diocles: The Best Paid Athlete Ever

It's always a little bit dangerous to compare ancient economics to modern ones. But if one takes what a typical blue-collar worker (say, a butcher) makes in a year as the index, the second-century Roman charioteer Gaius Appuleius Diocles earned the equivalent of fifteen billion dollars over his twenty-four year career as a charioteer in Rome.

That's the equivalent of $625,000,000 per year.  Compare that to contemporary athletes -- Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid, £11,300,00, or in U.S. money, $17,459,630), Peyton Manning (looking to improve over his $98,000,000 six-year deal, making $14,000,000 of that this year), and Tiger Woods (took a purse of just over $10,500,000 last year). Granted, this doesn't include product endorsements, but it also doesn't include any other money that Diocles might have earned other than on the circus maximus, which is not recorded anywhere. I've got to think that Diocles got paid not just a salary but took a percentage of his team's winnings, and may have been a part-owner of his team. In that sense, the modern equivalent would be closer to a NASCAR team's star driver rather than a star performer like Manning or Ronaldo.

Consider also that a serious occupational hazard for the Roman charioteer was death, something that Ronaldo, Manning, and Woods are not at serious risk of being killed on the job. Manning maybe a little bit, but NFL players wear a lot of protective gear and the complex rules of NFL make a life-endangering injury for an American football player very unlikely -- only one player has ever died on the field and it wasn't from being hit. (Major league baseball has a similar mortality rate, and that single fatality was from actual play -- shortstop Raymond Johnson Chapman of the Cleveland Indians was hit in the head by an inside pitch from New York Yankees pitcher Carl Mays on August 16, 1920.) Soccer is a good deal more dangerous than many Americans give it credit for being (a bicycle kick looks like a really good way to break your own neck to me), but again, life-threatening injuries are actually quite rare. And golfers pretty much only risk being struck by lightning as a potentially lethal risk of play.

By comparison, Diocles would was at nearly constant risk of having his fragile, light chariot fly apart into debris and timber if he it a low spot on the racetrack; being ground into a smear of garum into the inner wall of the track; getting trampled by the horses should he lose his balance and fall; having a lead amulet or other object thrown at his head by a spectator and knocking him unconscious (in a foreshadowing of Philadelphia Eagles' fans' highly unsportsmanlike propensity for tossing D-cell batteries at opposing players or even their own players who fall into disrepute); or just plain stabbed by one of his a rival charioteers, who would typically carry daggers during the race for the explicit purpose of killing their adversaries.

Which makes me think of life insurance. In the modern world, an elite athlete gets compensation for the risk of death in the form of a life insurance policy, which is cheaper for his sponsors to buy rather than salary out of pocket. It only provides the compensation in the event that the risk actually manifests, but presumably would be a very significant amount of money, even compared with the athlete's annual salary. In the ancient world, there was something analogous to life insurance, in the form of a funeral club. Someone who had as much money as Diocles would have no need of a funeral club, of course; he or his lawyers would have set aside some money for a lavish funeral and monument, and he'd never have noticed the expense. But there wasn't life insurance then because no one had yet invented so sophisticated a financial product -- there's more to it than paying a premium now and getting a benefit later -- so perhaps the risk of serious injury or death could only be handled by such an excessive salary and profit-sharing.

So the lesson is that if you think our athletic heroes are overpaid today, be consoled that we're not nearly as far along that arc of decadence as the Romans.

My Strength Of Schedule Assessment

I think I'm done making fun of the sports media for its all-Favre-all-the-time coverage. I'm also pretty much not bitter about Favre this year -- he's obviously on his swan song and frankly, I'm cheering for the old guy. Except when he plays against Green Bay. And in this context, "old guy" meaning a guy who is less than a year older than me.

Anyway, one of the things I do to try and get an edge up on my competition in fantasy football is to assess the strength of each team's schedule. It's not too hard to find canned statistical analysis out there that compiles the win-loss records of each team and its opponents.  But it is hard to find such canned analysis that factors in home-field advantage (typically averaged at 8%, but there's an interest note that home-field matters more when teams are closely matched).

It's also very hard to find canned analysis that shows you the degree of such an advantage -- it's one thing to say "Arizona has the easiest schedule" or "Green Bay has the twelfth-easiest schedule" by ranking the schedules on a scale that runs on integers from 1-32. It's much more interesting to see not only that Arizona's schedule is the easiest, but by how much.

Well, after a fair amount of wrestling with Excel tonight, I got to it. As a courtesy to my fellow fantasy football players, I publish my assessment of how each team's schedule helps or hinders its overall chances of success.  Obviously, any statistical assessment based on last year's performance of each team does not take into account personnel, coaching, health, and aging changes that have taken place in the interim. Even with what I think is a superior method of assessing strength of schedule, you need to remember that such an assessment has finite utility. As the season progresses, you will rely on something like this less and less.

Anyway, here goes, from worst to best schedules:

HOU	42.41%
TEN	42.82%
DAL	43.56%
CIN	43.96%
NE	44.12%
WAS	44.13%
JAX	44.29%
PHI	44.54%
NYG	45.03%
IND	45.35%
CLE	45.75%
DET	45.87%
BAL	46.89%
ATL	46.93%
CHI	46.98%
NYJ	47.06%
MIN	47.14%
OAK	47.25%
BUF	47.53%
PIT	47.97%
GB	48.03%
MIA	48.13%
KC	48.35%
DEN	48.67%
CAR	48.81%
TB	49.48%
NO	50.48%
SF	51.26%
SEA	51.31%
SD	51.36%
STL	51.65%
AZ	52.40%

You note that the average schedule factor here is less than 50%. You might think at first glance that since every game has a winner and a loser, this is necessarily a zero-sum game. But that's why the homefield advantage is important -- if you play all your easy opponents at home, and all your tough opponents away, that's an unfavorable schedule. The results are also skewed a bit because last year's NFL records were unusually polarized; there were a few teams with great records and a few teams with really bad records.

This is dramaticaly illustrated with, for instance, Chicago -- Chicago is not a bad team by any stretch of the imagination, and was not a bad team last year. However, it has to play Minnesota twice and Green Bay twice. That's bad luck for da Bears because both Minnesota and Green Bay performed at playoff levels last year. That makes Chicago's a tough schedule and thus produces an unfavorable schedule rating.

So, there is no theoretical reason why schedule assessments should be a zero-sum system, and in fact it is not.  If it seems like Houston just can't catch a break this year, here is at least part of the answer as to why -- the vagaries of the scheduling system have stacked the deck against the Texans.

Now, good teams will rise above this sort of stuff where bad teams will fall victim to it. Which is to say, again, that it's important to not place too much weight on this -- a 52.40% schedule advantage does not doom Arizona to a 9-7 season. It means that all other things being equal -- and they are not -- Arizona's schedule looks like it will give it maybe one more win than a theoretical "average" schedule, particularly in a close game and particularly at home, making it more likely that Arizona will be a contender for the playoffs late in the season.

ASTN Fantasy Projections On The Only Player Who Matters

[Intro Music.]

HOST:  Welcome back to the All Sports Talk Network, for this week's Fantasy Bulletin. Today, we're talking Favre. Which is kind of like the last eighteen hours of our programming yesterday, only we've got some actual statistics generated in preseason play to run through our sophisticated forecast analysis computer models.  Paulina the Projector, take it away!

PAULINA:  Okay, thanks, Leonard! Folks, with no sign of antihistamine side-effects or slowness bothering Brett Favre in the four plays he participated in during this weekend's preseason game against San Francisco, sports fans everywhere are looking for clues about his upcoming performance. Favre, who was in on four plays, threw 1-1, for 13 yards and no touchdowns, had no interceptions, and was sacked once for a loss of ten yards.  ASTN has a statistical projection available run by our own Eddie the Egghead, and the result is surprisingly mixed.  Isn't that right, Eddie?

EDDIE:  That's right, Paula.  I ran ASTN's exclusive "straight projection" technique on Favre and the results are mixed.  On the one hand, we project his performance to be on pace for a record year in the regular season. Barring an injury, Favre will have a stunning and career-high quarterback rating of 118.75, which will be the second-best in NFL history. Brett will finally lick his career-long tendency to interceptions; ASTN projects based on his performance against the Niners that Favre will throw no INT's this year. That's right - zero. You heard it here on ASTN first.

PAULINA:  So I'm going to want to use my #1 overall pick to get Favre!

EDDIE:  Not so fast, Paula-Paula.  Maybe you girls are in a scoring league. If you are, I'd say look elsewhere.

HOST:  Whoa! Favre is a touchdown machine, Eddie!

EDDIE:  No, it's true. Favre threw no touchdowns at all despite having had four opportunities to do so. Based on how he played this weekend, we think that Favre will come in last place for touchdowns scored in the season among starting QBs. And, if you do draft him, beware of injuries! I know Favre has never missed a start yet in his twenty-year career, but based on what happened Sunday, Minnesota's offensive line will allow Brett to be sacked on roughly 25% of the plays, for an average of ten yards lost per sack. For some leagues, this could be devastating, and for everyone, this is a huge risk. Overall, I'm suggesting he's a fourth- or fifth-round pick in most leagues.

PAULINA: Huh! Interesting. So if you do draft Favre, you might want to handcuff him to Tarvaris Jackson, who we project will be available in the late rounds of your draft; could be a good value pickup. Got it, listeners? So, if I were in a scoring league, I'd be looking harder at Adrian Peterson than Favre based on what you're telling me, Edward.

EDDIE: That's probably a good way to go. We're projecting that 100% of Favre's passes will be to Peterson, based on the fact that 100% of Favre's passes were to him yesterday. Hey, when a guy's got the hot hands, what else are you going to do? Pick up some cheap points from the TD's, that's what.

PAULINA: But see, Eddie, I'm not in a scoring league. Touchdowns only count in the real game. What we care about in fantasy sports is yardage, right?  Boo-ya!  [EDDIE and PAULINA high five, turn to HOST.]

HOST:  [Coldly] That's my thing, Paulina, are you stealing it from me like you stole Trevor? [Awkward pause. HOST turns to camera, speaks brightly.] Coming up, we've got more insider tips from ASTN's crack fantasy projection squad, including this week's Tough Call, brought to you by Stinkpretty Cologne for Men. Today's Tough Call: Defense--Browns or Lions? Stay tuned! [To PAULINA, sotto voce:]  Homewrecker.

[Take-out music plays.]

Breaking: Favre Seen At Walgreen's

MANKATO, MINNESOTA -- ATSN Exclusive -- We have unconfirmed reports that Brett Favre was seen entering a Walgreen's earlier today in Skyline, Minnesota, and was seen heading towards the "Allergy Remedies" on aisle six.  Repeat, an unconfirmed report that Brett Favre entered a Wallgreen's drug store, near the Minnesota Vikings' training camp at Mankato State University, and apparently purchased a Claritin or a similar product.  So far, we have no official reaction from either Favre or the Minnesota Vikings concerning Favre's health or whether this apparent chronic attack of allergies has any effect on his ability to play.  Also, we have yet to learn what, if anything, Favre ate for breakfast and if this is a repeat of yesterday's "peppered eggs" sneezing incident.  Our investigation is ongoing.  Stay tuned to ATSN for all your sports news, we'll keep you up to date!

More On The Brett Favre Story

[Cue music]

Anchor:  You're watching ASTN, the All-Sports Talk Network, and this is "False Start."  Here with us today is sports physiologist Jimmy Buckley, and Sterling Sharpe, Brett's former teammate and easily the best-dressed commentator on the NFL Network.  Let's start with you, Sterling.  Great suit!

Sharpe:  Thanks, man.

Anchor:  Now, Sterling, you were Brett Favre's teammate for a couple of great years back in the early 1990's.

Sharpe:  Yeah, that's right.  Thirty-four touchdowns Brett and me hooked up for.  We broke the single-season TD record, baby!

Anchor:  Boo-ya!  [Laughter, high-fives.]  Okay, let's get serious.  In that time, did you ever, you know, eat breakfast with Brett?

Sharpe:  Oh, sure.  We'd have breakfast before practice, before a game, or sometimes just hanging out.  And here's the thing that I think a lot of people on this story have overlooked.  Brett likes to eat salt and pepper on his eggs.

Anchor:  Salt and pepper, you say?

Sharpe:  Man, I seen him!  He just shakes that stuff on there like he don't care.  [Gestures wildly.]  Ketchup, too.  I went to Waffle House in Manitowoc with him one time back in '93.  Brett even had cheese on his eggs that day.  He was kind of a wild man back then, hah-hah!

Anchor:  Wow.  Okay.  Now, Jimmy, what's your reaction to this information?

Buckley:  Very interesting!  We can't be sure, because we haven't got this level of detail to know for sure if Brett did put pepper on his eggs this morning.  But if it's true that Favre made his initial sneezes right after eating eggs, this suggests that maybe it wasn't the eggs per se that made him sneeze, but maybe a stray whiff of pepper.

Anchor:  So if that's the case, then how does this affect his ability to play?

Buckley:  Well, that's where the antihistamine comes in.  You see, an antihistamine, sometimes called a "histomine antagonist," suppresses the body's reaction to allergic stimulants.

Anchor:  Stimulants, pills -- uh-oh!  Brett's had enough trouble with that sort of thing in his career!

Buckley:  No kidding.  So if he's using this --

Sharpe:  [Interrupts]  Whoa, whoa, whoa.  You guys are talking about a cold pill.  An over-the-counter thing.

Anchor:  What's your point, Sterling?

Sharpe:  Look, Brett went through a rough time back then, and he came out stronger for it.  That's the kind of guy he is, he always comes out tougher and stronger.  That's what I'm saying.

Buckley:  Well, the thing to remember here is that there are some kinds of histamine antagonists that have significant side effects, like drowsiness, dizziness, or even nausea, in some people.  [Sharpe shrugs, anchor nods.]  I can tell you that I wouldn't want to be out there playing football like that, for sure.

Anchor:  So if he suffers these side effects, that might affect his ability to perform?

Buckley:  Sure.  It slows him down, maybe just a fraction of a second, but --

Sharpe:  Man, a fraction of a second is an eternity out there on the field!  [Looks directly at camera.]  Brett, man, stay healthy.  For you and Deanna and those girls, not just all those fans out there pulling for you.

Buckley:  I should add, guys, that eggs are a really rich source of protein, and there's no doubt that for an athlete, especially of Brett's age, getting a lot of good healthy protein is an important part of an athlete's diet.  Now, all that cholestrol, I don't know.  But if it's pepper and not the eggs, that's more good news than bad.

Anchor:  Jimmy?  Does this affect whether Favre is gonna play?

Buckley:  Let me put it this way:  I'm in a keeper league, and Favre's been my guy since nineteen ninety five.

Sterling:  Sure, cause before that, you must have had me!  [Laughter]

Anchor:  Sterling, do you think he's going to play?

Sharpe:  Oh, yeah.  Brett's hungry, that's why he's eating eggs!  If his ankle is in shape, look out for Old Number Four.

Anchor:  Okay, thanks, fellahs.  Exclusively here an ASTN -- but wait, there's more.  Stay tuned for Molly McKleinquist's interview with a guy who used to be the mailroom clerk at Brett's agent's office, who says he's heard Favre sneeze like this in the past.  Is Brett Favre conjuring up old demons?  Find out after the break, only here on ASTN.  You're watching "False Start!"

[Music, fade-out to jock itch relief cream commercial]

...Yes, Readers, I'm getting a little tired of the inanity of sports radio.  I can't wait for the NPR pledge drive to be over and my research for fantasy football completed.

Breaking Sports News

This just in -- Brett Favre was reputed to have sneezed five times in a row after eating scrambled eggs. According to sources close to the event, he later took an antihistamine. More on this important story as it develops.

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The Nineteenth Retirement

ESPN ought to thank Brett Favre for providing fodder for a round-the-clock, non-stop coverage item.  You can be sure that coverage of this, Brett Favre's most recent announcement of his retirement from professional football, will be the only thing discussed in any sports media today.  When the Vikings offer to raise his salary to squeeze just one more year" out of the 40-year-old 19-year veteran, Favre's fourth unretirement will receive the same level of coverage, as will his post-unretirement re-retirement announcement.  This will all happen before the regular NFL season begins.

Come to think of it, most of Favre's previous retirement, un-retirement, re-retirement, re-un-retirement, re-re-retirement, re-re-un-retirement, re-re-re-retirment, and re-re-re-un-retirement announcements, just like today's re-re-re-re-retirement announcement, all seemed to happen during pre-season training camps or otherwise in the few weeks leading to the beginning of the formal NFL season.  Cynics might suggest that it is all to jockey for additional money, but I would not agree.  Favre makes way more in endorsements than in salary, so salary isn't the big issue for him so much as ability to play and maintain visibility and thus make his endorsements valuable. 

No, my thinking is it's good old-fashioned narcissism, which ill-suits someone whose record speaks for itself and places him indisputably and forever in the pantheon of "greatest ever" contenders -- and may there never be a clear winner.

Gratifying

The line outside the sports bar for the US-Ghana game is around the corner. Open wide for some soccer!

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Damned Jondas

What the hell is a "fighting jonda" anyway? And how could they have scored three goals? Oh well, so much for the Azzuri. I'm all about the Stars and Stripes now. I think they can hang with any of Ghana, Uruguay, or South Korea. Take nothing for granted, soccer fans.

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Extra Time

One goal in the ninety first minute is all we needed to not only advance but to win the group. Go USA!

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