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I was reading the news this morning and the AI no trade story is very popular at the moment. I was thinking about it, and then I started thinking why it was news at all. I mean why is the NBA and it’s over priced prima donna’s still news?

Beat Lithuania and then you can be news again.

Come in second in some international competition and then you can be news again, but for now no news for you.

These guys are obviously not the best basketball players in the world, hell they didn’t even make it to the final game of the World Championship. Spain and Greece beat the US “stars” - and in the Olympics 2 years before Argentina and Italy finished ahead of the US Ballers.

So, by my count US basketball is maybe #5.

I know that some foreign players like Ginobili and Gasol play in the NBA but that is not the point. The point is that the current system of basketball in the US is broken and the NBA is the pinnacle of that system. The NBA “superstars” can’t beat teams that can fundamentally pass, pick, and play defense.

So why is this inferior brand of basketball news? Maybe we just love style over substance.

Being down here is the South I get to see a lot of Atlanta Falcons games, and they have a pretty good team, but if they want to have a championship team they need to make a big move.

Trade Michael Vick.

Michael Vick is the World B Free of the NFL - he is exciting, even amazing, and sells a lot of tickets. What he is not, imho, is a championship caliber NFL quarterback.

Okay, maybe the World B Free reference was a low blow, and he seems like a good guy so I don’t want to be attacking him personally - but his trade value is not going to be any higher then it is right now. The falcons could get some defensive help up the middle for this year as well as a couple good future draft picks for him, and give themselves a chance to become a contender.

Matt Schaub is a good quarterback and I think he gives the Falcons at least as good an opportunity to win now as Vick does. Is Schaub as exciting as Vick? Not even close. Will he complete more third down passes then Vick on average? Yes. Schaub will be a starting quarterback in the NFL in the near future if the Falcons let him go and he is a better fit for the Falcons offense. If Schaub was given the offense and got all of the reps, I think that he would be a more efficient quarterback then Vick in short order.

Vick was the 25th rated quarterback in the league last year, that is 25th out of 34 - that is there were only 9 quarterbacks that qualified that were rated lower then he was.

By and large if you look at the list, the teams with the higher rated QB’s went to the playoff’s - only one quarterback in the lower half directed his team to the post season and that was Chris Simms who was in his first year at the helm and got significantly better as the year went on.

Vick starts the bottom quarter of this list.

Look at the division that the Falcons play in, the 2 top teams, the Bucs and the Carolina Panthers have both figured out how to stop Vick. Not even his dazzling running is effective against those teams. With Vick at the helm you can just about pencil in 4 conference losses for the Falcons.

Vick completed just 55.3 percent of his passes last year. The conventional wisdom is that a NFL quarterback needs to complete over 60% of his passes to be effective. His yards per attempt rank him 26th in the league and his 13 interceptions rank him 25th.

Vicks quarterback rating: 73.1
Schaub’s quarterback rating of 98.1

Not to mention that I am surprised every time Vick gets up from a hit and is not holding his knee or ankle. He has yet to prove that he can survive the rigors of the NFL season playing the game the way that he does.

Now, lets look at Vick’s perceived value - do you think that one of the other quarterback challenged clubs would not part with some really good players and or picks to secure Vick? Of course, because the egos of coaches are such that they think that the only thing Vick is missing is THEIR scheme or THEIR coaching.

And if you need proof of what a team can do by trading one superstar for draft picks, just look back at what Dallas did when they built their championship juggernauts by trading Herschell Walker to Minnesota for all those draft picks.

So the value proposition for fielding a winning football team is clear to me. Now Mr. Blank may be more interested in selling tickets then winning championships - and if so he should keep Vick. He is exciting as hell. But, if Blank, McCay, and Mora want to put together a championship team the solution is clear.

Trade Michael Vick

If I had an NBA team it would be called the Bullets ( I grew up a Bullets fan, saw a couple playoff and finals games when they won it all - the Wizards mean nothing to me ) and here are the starting 5 that I would want:

Steve Nash
Sam Cassell
Rasheed Wallace
Tim Duncan
Dirk Nowitzki

A little unoridox line up I know, but hey the Bullets won the championship with a 6′ 9″ center

Hey Cleveland, I always wanted to ask - Which is worse: getting beat by Michael Jordan’s impossible falling jumpshot over Ehlo, or by John Elway’s Drive?

Hey, I’m just asking. I guess it could be Byner’s fumble, or maybe the answer is the Drew Carey Show…

I can remember my days playing little league more clearly then almost anything else from my childhood; the sound of the wooden bat making solid contact, the satisfying vibrations in my hands, the relief of making it to base safely.

The pure innocent joy that I remember is like very little that I have experienced since, and even though my interests quickly turned away from baseball to other sports, girls, music, etc. baseball still has a very special place in my internal mythos.

I think this is why I have had such a visceral reaction to the farce that Major League Baseball has turned into, and in my mind is personified by Barry Bonds. About the same time I was learning how to turn a double play, I watched Hank Aaron hit that Al Downing pitch over the wall to break Babe Ruth’s homerun record and I will be damned if I am going to support an organization that is planning on celebrating the aforementioned Mr. Bonds breaking Hammerin’ Hank’s record with the (alleged) aid of performance enhancing drugs.

I say alleged because it has never been proven that Bonds has ever used steroids; he has never tested positive, but come on, anyone that is the least bit unbiased can look at the evidence and come to a fair conclusion that there is very little doubt that he is/was not juiced. If you need more evidence than his physical transformation, the fact that he has gotten significantly higher production at point in his career when all pre-juice era players production falls off, and his laughable grand jury testimony, just read the excerpt from Game of Shadows and I think that you’ll get all of the evidence you need.

Early in this MLB season, Bonds will pass Babe Ruth to become the second most prolific home run hitter in Major League history. But I won’t see it. I am not going to watch the first baseball game this year, I am not watching the highlights on Sport Center, I will not attend a game, read any baseball news online, nothing. I am boycotting MLB because they are complicit in allowing this to happen and I want nothing to do with it.

If Bonds hits homeruns at the same pace this year as he has in the last few seasons, he will pass Henry Aaron later in the season to be baseball’s all time homerun hitter. I don’t care if you put an asterisk next to his name, tell me that nobody is going to think about this record the same way as Hank’s, etc. MLB is not only going to let it happen they are going to celebrate it - and it is a travesty, a miscarriage of justice and I will not be a part of it. I am boycotting MLB and I ask each of you to look inside yourself and decide if you want to support this farce.

If you watch baseball on TV, go to a game, buy merchandise – then you are an accomplice in this ludicrous, empty show – this mockery, this sham. Join me in letting Bud Selig and Barry Bonds know that this is NOT okay, that we are not going to be part of this travesty.

Join me in my Boycott of 2006 Major League Baseball.

It’s March Madness once again, I’ll give you my picks like this, I’ll give you my take on the top 5 odd seeds, including the secret formula that gives them each a percentage chance of them winning it all.

1. 16% chance Duke Wins it. Although any of the one’s have as good a chance at winning it, yes even Memphis. And Memphis out in the Oakland bracket looks pretty good - UCLA is the second weakest 2 seed imho ( Tenn first ). And Duke getting GW in the 2nd round could be the most competitive 2nd round games for a one seed.

3. 10.6 % Gonzage wins it all, 9.33% chance Iowas wins it all

5. 5% Washington wins it all, 4.77% Nevada Wins it all, and this may be high seeing that they are playing Boston College in Round 2 if they get that far….

7. 2.28% chance Georgetown wins it all, don’t like the other 7 seeds.

9. Wisconsin is the best 9 seed and it has a 1.7% change of wining.

Other thoughts:

The Beast from the East: Syracuse from the bubble to a 5, and 8 teams from the big east - more then even from back in the Chris Mullins / Patrick Ewing Heyday

If the first round seeds hold West Virginia vs. Iowa; Kansas vs. Pittsburgh; and Michigan St. vs. North Carolina could all be classic second round games. Arizona vs. Wisconsin is easily the best opening round game.

So Peyton manning couldn’t get it done in the big game again, just like he never got it done in college at Tennessee ( maybe the Colts need to bring in Tee Martin? ). Yawn - move along no news here.

There are big game quarterbacks ( think Bradshaw and Brady ) and there are record setting regular season quarterbacks ( think Marino and Fouts ) and it looks more and more likely that Peyton is the latter - even when he gets every single break possible ( the rare Bettis fumble, the ref’s stealing the Polamalu pick, etc. ) Peyton has never won the big one. Or in this case even the the game before the game before the big one.

Nothing wrong with that ( other then the point of the exercise is to win championships….. ) but how in the hell can Peyton justify comments like “I’m trying to be a good teammate here … let’s just say we had some problems with protection.” Come on, I don’t here Tarik Glenn saying “I’m trying to be a good teammate here … let’s just say our quarterback had some problems with happy feet.” or Marvin Harrison saying “I’m trying to be a good teammate here … let’s just say we had some problems braving the rush and stepping into our passes.”

Either one of them could have said that, and it would have been just as true as Manning’s comments. But you don’t hear that kind of smack, you just hear Manning blaming someone other then himself. I hope that Reggie Wayne and Edgerrin James move along into free agency so that we can see what Peyton looks like without a stellar surrounding cast.

Okay, so maybe I had the score wrong - but I told you that Texas was gonna beat USC.

Once again the Heisman folks gave the trophy to the wrong player - Vince Young, not Reggie Bush, is obviously the best player in college football. That may have been the best game I have ever seen a player have in a championship game in the 30 + years that I have been watching sports.

Vince Young was singularly responsible for the Texas win - Pete Carrol out coached Mack Brown. Didn’t matter. Texas special teams sucked. Didn’t matter. USC was the overall better team. Didn’t matter. All that mattered is that Vince Young got one more shot - and the Texas coaches finally left it in his hands throughout the entire final drive.

Turns out that USC is not the greatest college team of all time, and that Reggie Bush is not the best player in college football.

Vince Young’s performance tonight is sure to go down in history as one of the best, if not the best, single performaces in not only college footbal history, but sports history.

That’s right, On January 4th in the Rose Bowl Texas will prove that USC is not the greatest college football team ever, that they are not even the best team this year. Here is how Texas is gonna do it.

After both teams get little to nothing done on their first drives USC picks up a few first downs on their second before Matt Leinart is picked off and Texas runs it back to within the 10 yard line. 3 plays later Jamaal Charles scores from 2 yards out.

7-0 Texas

Texas forces a USC punt after giving up 25 yards on the Trojans next possession. Texas takes the ball slowly down the field effectively running Young and Charles with a few crucial short passes thrown to pick up first downs. They burn up a lot of clock. USC extends the drive with a personal foul on a long 3rd down. Mac Brown goes for it on fourth and one on the Trojan 35 and gets it, but Texas has to settle for a field goal.

10-0 Texas

USC moves the ball well on the grown with Reggie Bush and White, but LenDale fumbles a hand off and Texas takes over on its own 35. After Texas punts the ball back to USC, The Trojans miss a long field goal attempt as the first half comes to a close.

Texas gets the ball to open the second half and runs a half dozen plays before they punt it to Reggie Bush who flips the field and sets USC up for an excellent scoring opportunity. The drive culminates with LenDale White scoring from 3 yards out.

10-7 Texas

Texas takes the ensuing kick off and screws around accomplishing little and punts soon thereafter. Leinart hooks up with Bush for a 30 yard pass and run before he is sacked on back to back plays forcing USC out of field goal range and forcing another Trojan punt.

Texas takes over deep in their own half of the field and struggles to advance the ball. Vince Young is hit hard at the line of scrimmage on a quarterback draw on 3rd and 6.

Another nice punt return by Reggie Bush sets up a 28 yard Matt Leinart to Reggie Bush Touchdown pass.

14-10 USC

Texas gets the ball back with time starting to become a factor. Texas goes back to what worked so well in the first half - mixing the running of Charles and Vince Young with a short crisp passing game. They control the ball and the clock and eat up the majority of the quarter. Vince Young turns a busted play into a 18 yard gain down inside the Trojan 5 yard line. 2 Plays later Charles bust through the line to score the go ahead touch down.

17-14 Texas

Leinart takes the Trojans down the field, but a holding penalty and a drop pass impede their progress. They manage to get across the 50 yard line with time running down and move the ball to within reasonable field goal range. USC misses a 48 yard field goal to lose the Rose Bowl in a low scoring game because Texas was smart enough to keep the Trojan offence of the field by controlling the clock.

Either that, or USC will win 42-38