Conan the Barbarian

Everyone knows Cletus the dancing robot on Fox's NFL broadcasts. Since its origination it has gone from a cool little display of Fox's animation ablities at commercial breaks to now a Soul Train wannabe dominating the screen of every possible second. Comedy god and late night punster Conan O'Brien does what he does best and ridicules the dancing robot.

Lightning In A Bottle

Its post-season again for the San Diego Chargers. A southern California team where a brutal winter requires you only to don windbreakers, its perhaps more than the sweater weather that produces one of the most successful teams in the coldest months of the NFL season.

Being 12-1 in the months of December and January since Norv Turner took charge, the Chargers look as if they could be the wild-card team of this year. Well if the 'Bolts are the new Giants of last year, then 43 is the new 21.

The rise of RB Darren Sproles has sparked the current streak of success in the second half of a season that look like it would never recover from the botched call in the first Broncos match-up.

With LT's again place on the sideline for a second consecutive post-season, and a seemingly glaring absence of last years rising back-up star, Michael Turner, it was Sproles who had some big shoes to fill.

The 5'6'', 180 lbs return man has earned every bit of the praise that has been showered on him since his 328 total yards game against MVP winner Peyton Manning and the Colts.

"I think he is the strongest man out here," said Chargers starting QB Phillup Rivers. "Pound for pound, he is. He is also the hardest worker, so everything he gets, he's earned."

The fourth round draft pick was chosen by the Chargers in 2005, a pure slap in the face to the fourth runner up in Heisman voting for his time at Kansas State. (I wonder why....)

While it was the speedy legs of Sproles that carried the team to a fifth consecutive win, its his speed that will be tested against the slopppy field and one stingy Pitsburg defense that well see how he measures up this year.

Black Out??

Welcome to the NFL playoffs. The wild-card game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Minnesota Vikings might not be available to the local fans in Minnesota. More than 8,000 tickets are still available at Philadelphia Eagles Tickets, promting the NFL powers that be to threaten a black out on the local channels that would be broadcasting games to make fans buy up the remaining available tickets. Experts cite the sluggish economy as factors in the unsold tickets and the once unseeminly unshakable NFL economy seems vulnerable to the same bear market that has effected the entire nation.

Many owners, like the Cowboys Jerry Jones, have admitted the recession has effected personnel decisions, stadium repairs and rennovations, and even the bedrock of NFL money making -- Super Bowl halftime commercials are all feeling the belts being tightened across America with sponsers feeling anxious to shell out the absurd amounts of money for the 30 second spots.

Stop and Smell The Roses.

The Rose Bowl. Perhaps the most well known tradition for post-season college football has welcomed in the New Year for the better part of a century, giving everyone reason to wake from the self inflicted booze coma of the previous night.

In its infancy, Pasadena was ground zero in the battle to crown college's best team, pitting Pac-Ten and Big Ten teams of old; teams deserving of the lead roles on such a Broadway-esque stage.

Those days are long gone.

Since then the Rose Bowl looks more like a fifth grade theater production with an allure smelling more like the trail left by the Parade marshall's horse than the flowers adorning the creative floats.

The 38-24 USC victory makes three straight Rose Bowl victories all over Big Ten schools, but did little to silence BCS critics, and certainly threw more fuel on the fire over the debate of the status current bowl series.

While the Trojans rightfully earned their $18 million dollar booty for their violent pillaging of the Nittany Lions , many wonder if the same should be true for the performance from JoePa and Penn State who collect the same check.

Citi, this years sponsor of the Rose Bowl, can only make football fans (and taxpayers) alike scratch their head and wonder how a pure football tradition has turned more into a catalyst to making money than a grid iron battle to determine dominance.

Another season rolls by and football fans are collectivly wondering how things have evolved into their current state, and the same fans are left wondering who the top teams are.

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Farewell Farve!

Well, the streak is over. Its a sad day in sports. Brett Favre is hanging up the cleats on a 17 year career, that began with his first completion going to himself and ending with an Ice Bowl loss to the now Super Bowl champs, NY Giants. This is going to be weird. Ever since i knew what a QB was, Brett Favre was leading the Pack to Super Bowls, NFC championships, and enjoying the role as the face of a sports franchise. Is there one person out there that doesn't like Brett Farve? I don't think so. Few athletes come around, in any sport, that can garner respect and admiration from all, including die hard fans of opposing teams: Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Tiger Woods.... and Brett Favre. While their is no argument that he has been the face of the Packer franchise for the last 17 seasons, his role as one of the faces of the whole league maybe debated but not discounted.

Rugged as the Wranglers he sports, Favre was known for his gritty, gutsy gunslinging style of play that led him to claim numerous records, including consecutive starts, passing TDs and even interceptions. While the interceptions were numerous, they are just indicative of the length of time spent under center. With two Super Bowl visits and one victory, Favre apparently was not hinging his retirement on winning another one. Who can question why he leaves now? While most thought and even encouraged his retirement last year, following a dismal season statistically, this past 13-3 season the inverse was true with many expecting his return.

Stating mental frustration, Favre demonstrated true leadership, retiring before he became a hindrance rather than a catalyst for success. Usually the definition of physical endurance, both games this year played in sub zero temperature, at Chicago and at home versus the Giants, Favre was, quite unusually, the lesser quarterback. Normally dominate in games that come down to grit and determination, his sub par performances in those games, perhaps signaled the onset of old age.

While his on-field persona was herald as a football great deserving of a space in Canton, Ohio. His off-field life was of equal or greater importance. His personal battle against alcohol and pain killer abuse showed all NFL fans his fallible, average-Joe side, but his role in overcoming his problem and reaching out to other players with the same and similar problems has revealed his true superhero status. His role in the research of cancer with the foundation he formed with his wife, after she was diagnosed with the same disease, make his football accomplishments diminished in comparison.

Ready or not, Aaron Rogers. Not since whoever coached UCLA after John Wooden, has anyone had to fill some bigger shoes. Now we have to say goodbye to a remarkable era, and try to adjust to a Favre-less NFL.

In Fraud We Trust?

I have an idea. It's solid. A solid idea, forged on the anvil of what is my genius. Sports figures will no longer be accepted as a role models. Yes. A sportswriter biting the hand that feeds, but it's the truth.

The names keep adding up. From O.J. Simpson, Sport's original fall from grace toting Heisman Honors, NFL superstar status, and a Naked Gun movie so successful they filmed it three separate times. To Ex-Falcon Michael Vick. At one time the highest paid NFL player in the league, and first person to rush for 100 yards and throw for 250 in the same game can now be found hiding his Apple Juice in his cell to make jail-wine to pass the time on a 23-month prison term. And now: Roger Clemens and a huge majority of the MLB superstars of the last 10 years, whose steroid use to shatter MLB records has done nothing but augment the true awesomeness of the original records set.

Week after week, new chapters of the manly soap opera that we call Major League Baseball are penned with new scandals, investigations, and witty wordsmithing of the sports buzzword. Scandals? So what. Have things really ever changed in baseball? The 1914 Blacksox? Pete Rose? The Pittsburgh Drug Trials? Okay, that last scandal was a little before my time still was worthy of being called a scandal. A scandal which consisted of most of the Pittsburgh Pirates dugout, including the Pirate mascot, being convicted of abusing and selling cocaine to fellow MLB players. Gives new terms to the sports expression "Take a Blow." Its probably hard to enjoy the seventh inning stretch, when your mascot is spending more time slinging eightballs, than starting the wave.

Baseball fans have stuck around before. An 100+ years of stoic history has most fans anchored to the bedrock of ancient baseball tradition. Wearing a hat inside out to help my team rally from behind, cheering when an oafish security guard couldn't quite get his hands on an errant beach ball, bouncing in the cheap seats and avoiding knife fights in those same outfield seats at Dodger games in the early 90's have cemented my feet in baseball better than any Soprano goon could.

We have endured strikes. Corked bats and twiggy rookies morphing into Hulk-like characters with Popeye arms at the end of their careers, spanking home runs over fences in a manner that God did not intend.

We have all watched the past months, as a Rocket fizzles out of superstar jet fuel, crashing to earth with it's ego at the helm.

We still watch.

We watch as ancient curses are lifted. We watch as the balance of power shifts to Boston, as George Steinbrenner's checkbook fails to carry the same clout as that very Bambino that caused the now defunct BoSox curse.

Baseball still demands captive audiences. The same number of die hard fans fill the spring training stands, watching the worthless games with the same anxiety as any post-season game. And just as quick as the muscle bound record-setters retire to their pastures of anonymity hoping to avoid the media, fans and the truth, Opening Day is always a way to remind us of why we still watch.