Jack’s Blog

In case you haven’t heard, the latest out of Vikings’ training camp (as if Percy Harvin collapsing after suffering a migraine headache isn’t enough significant news) is “an unnamed” Minnesota player told Yahoo Sports that Brett Favre thinks head coach Brad Childress doesn’t have a clue about the offense, that the QB doesn’t trust the head man and that was the reason why Brett hesitated to come back.

First of all, did someone really say all that?  Yeah, I’d say so, because there’s so much out of their camp to report on, there’s no need to make stuff like that up.  However, with the zoo that is the Vikes’ training site, somebody could make it up and get away with it because the fans are at the point where nothing that is said about Favre won’t be taken seriously.  More likely, the squealer would be a friend of Yahoo Sports.  Having spent 30 years in intercollegiate athletics, I’ve known several reporters who had their “high ranking sources” within the athletics department or the team itself who’d gladly exchange inside information for a quid pro quo somewhere down the road.  Whatever the case, this “story” is one that, true or false, shouldn’t be given any space.  And yet, here I am doing just that.

Could the unnamed player be one of the “shunned” quarterbacks?  Who would feel more frustrated?  Nah, they’re too easy to point a finger at, and anybody who expects to lead a team would (probably) be smart enough not to do something that would derail a career before it started.

How about a friend of the jilted QB’s?  If so, the player would undoubtedly be someone waaaaaaay down on the depth chart.  A contributor would know they would be foolish, if not treasonous comments, should their author be exposed.

Certainly, whoever did pop off is someone who has an ax to grind with either Favre or Childress or both.  Such untimely and damaging remarks come from someone who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “team.”  Absolutely nothing good can come of these remarks and the culprit is exactly the type of teammate the late Al McGuire was talking to when he said:

“There is an enemy - but it’s not in this locker room.”

Other than his name being spelled differently than it sounds, I have no trouble with anything Brett Favre has done - from a career standpoint.  OK, he waffles on whether he wants to return year after year, but so what?  His job is a lot of fun when he wins and a lot of misery (and pain) when he loses.  Plus, he gets paid rather handsomely.

One of my boyhood heroes, the late, great Roy Campanella, was quoted as saying about baseball, “It’s a man’s game, but you’ve got to have a lot of little boy in you to play it.“  Same for football - or any professional sport.  And who has more little boy in him than Brett Favre?  At the conclusion of each physically grueling season, there can’t be too many (position) football players, especially quarterbacks, who don’t question whether they want to go through the physical beating they just received for 5-6 months again the following year, independent of how much they’re paid.  So many stories are told by guys, QBs and others, who wake up and take longer to simply get out of bed than is normal.

Remember the story of the ultra-talented, two-sport guy who was trying to decide whether to play football or baseball for a living and received the advice (from a baseball player), “What do you want, a career or a limp?”  Football is a violent game - getting more so every year - so to do it for 20 years would naturally take some thought.

The argument that he’s just trying to miss preseason conditioning and camp?  Isn’t there a push to shorten the preseason anyway?  What’s the preseason for, and does it really benefit Favre - and the team who’s expecting him to put up big numbers (especially in the win column) - to go through it?  Didn’t he miss it last year - and go out and have the best year of his career?

Oh, you say, but how about team morale?  What do the rest of the guys on the team think about them having to go through the dog days, but letting “Mr. Pretty Boy” get away with blowing it off?  I guess that question was answered when three of his teammates flew to Hattiesburg, Miss to talk (beg) him into coming back.  I’ve been to Hattiesburg and, no offense to y’all who live there, but those guys weren’t vacationing.

I say, “Good for you, Brett.”  You’ve found the ultimate career.  As I’ve told my sons and mention every year to my students:

“The key to a successful job is to find something you love to do - and get somebody to pay you to do it.”

Many of the names occupying the sports pages recently have been old favorites, some still working, some looking for employment and some deciding that maybe now’s the time to hang ‘em up.

Lance Armstrong gave the two-wheeler one last shot and found it might be time to just make commercials - on a stationary bike.  Did he give the Tour de France one last go because he thought he could actually win it?  If anyone would know, it’s Lance - no one’s won that race more.  Or, was he trying to prove to his accusers he could, at his age, win it all, squash all speculation of PEDS, end in yellow, kiss girls (at the end of the race) and ride off into the sunset - in low gear?  Whatever, it didn’t end that way.

One “elderly” chap - a true fans’ favorite (as well as a popular guy among his peers), John Daly, turned heads at the course where golf was invented - at least according to the inhabitants there.  Ol’ JD sported some pants that made him impossible to ignore and his play spoke as loudly as his drawers.  If anyone was looking for a comeback story, St. Andrews was a good place to start.

St. Paul might be home to another comeback story.  Maybe it’s not a comeback tale as much as it is a never leave one.  Brett Favre looks like he’ll be in purple & gold again this season.  The only debate surrounding Favre is whether he needs the additional time to heal or whether he’s just trying to avoid training camp.  Who cares?  His job is one where he is pampered nearly every day of his working life - except for the one day a week he poses as a human pinata.  If you think his decision is nerve-racking, how would you like to be his backup?

Another pigskin prodigy (or is the term pigheaded) is Terrell Owens.  He claims he is ready to play and, love him or hate him, one thing that’s never in question is his body.  If no one picks him up (which would be for a variety of reasons, all non-talent related), he ought to forget reality TV - in which he displays a very spoiled, hate-able side - and head up America’s War on Obesity.  Have those kids follow TO around and they’ll be in shape in no time.  What else they’ll become is another matter.

Another old warrior - and reality TV star - looking for work is Shaquille O’Neal.  He might be encountering some of the same issues TO is.  A talented guy who grabs more attention that his current ability warrants, Shaq has a couple of problems to deal with that Owens doesn’t - due to the demands of his sport.  While TO is still a serviceable wide receiver (although certainly not as prolific as he once was), Shaq has been exposed in recent years as a defensive liability anywhere outside of 15′ from the basket (especially in Cleveland), as someone a running team would have to wait for on offense (Phoenix) and a player a coach would rather not have on the floor at the end of a game if the team had a lead (everywhere).  Plus, the money he’s asking (demanding, begging) for might outprice him in the current market. 

Why is it guys seem to want to hang on so much longer?  The adulation can’t be the sole answer since many outstay their welcome and boos become more dominant that cheers at this stage of their career.  For my money - which ain’t much - the reason is that the key to a successful job is:

“Find something you love to do and get somebody to pay you to do it.”

Postgame comments on Brett Favre came from many different corners - talk radio, ESPN-TV, water coolers, bar stools.  If they weren’t so serious, the people in three of the four of those categories could be looked at as bit players performing comedy spoofs.  For those who never played, you’d think Brett Favre was one of the all-time great losers.

To hear them spout off statistics about late game interceptions, you’d think he never won a game, much less some pretty big ones.  Mark Twain once said that there were three types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.  I can understand if someone lost a bundle of money because they had the Vikes in the Super Bowl at big odds ridiculing the Minnesota QB.  This way, it’s his fault the mortgage payment went out the window, not the schmuck who put money on someone else, banking on him to bring home the bacon.  Why would someone who knows even a sliver about the game, mock someone as talented as Brett Favre?

Because in our society, there is a group who just gets a kick out seeing other people fail.  Makes them feel less lonely, I guess.  Just to play 19 seasons in the NFL - sure, he only won one Super Bowl - ought to be enough to earn the respect of someone whose claim to fame is having been the guest speaker at the local Rotary luncheon - more than once.

These folks will always believe in the theory: Strengthen the weak by weakening the strong, i.e. rather than trying to scratch and claw their way to the top, it’s easier and more fun to drag others down below them.  Then there are guys like Trent Dilfer and Tom Jackson who had a completely different take on the seemingly ageless quarterback.

When asked after the game about “the interception,” Dilfer, as always, gave his honest, i.e. “I’m an analyst now so it’s my job to call it straight and not be a shill for players” answer.  He wasn’t as critical of Favre for throwing that ill-advised pass as he was understanding of the gunslinger approach Brett Favre takes toward the game - and how, in some instances (that one in particular), he will attempt to make a pass he shouldn’t.  He said that style defines Favre and when you have him on your team, those are the throws you expect him to try to make.  But the difference was, because Dilfer has actually played not only the game, but the position, he acknowledged that same mentality is what gets his teams deep into the playoffs.

The other “men with the answers” were yucking it up over whether Favre would retire - ooh, will he or won’t he?  Making fun of his past indecisions, not bothering to mention it’s guys like them who ask a player immediately following a devastating loss - in which he took some nasty hits and had to be feeling as hurt physically (a hurt these people would never begin to feel) as he was mentally - “are you going to retire?”

The wise commentary came from Jackson and Dilfer, each of whom had long careers in the professional ranks - and who know what it’s like to be in Favre’s shoes.  Jackson and Favre gave the sentiment - that, naturally it was his decision, but that he should play.  Dilfer said football is the greatest game in the world and it’s intoxicating, the most addictive drug in the world.  Jackson echoed that sentiment, but intelligently added, “if his body can hold up.”  The camaraderie among teammates, the feeling you get being in the locker room, being part of it, spelled out “do it as long as you can.”

Some guys feel the need to make snide comments, yet have never experienced the thrill or the agony.  For them, they ought to adhere to the old adage:

“Sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut and let everyone think you’re a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.” 

   Â

After all Aaron Rodgers had to endure, none of which was of his doing, he comes out in his first playoff game and puts up numbers a Hall-of-Fame quarterback would hope for.  Yet, his team loses.  

It’s a bummer, sure, but because his team is the legendary Green Bay Packers, the only community-owned NFL franchise, and the quarterback he replaced is the just as legendary Brett Favre (whose new team just happens to be the hated Minnesota Vikings), and the Vikings are still alive in the NFL playoffs, his emotions must skyrocketing.  What’s a guy to do?

For those who’ve never been part of a team (especially one competing at a high level), it’s easy to rationalize what Rodgers is going through.  He did as close to his best (anyone whose career has lasted over 30 minutes has made some mistakes) as he could.  The numbers speak for themselves so he should have nothing to be ashamed about.  Except for one thing.  The dreaded bottom line in team sports: did your club win?

If the answer’s no, it seems as though nothing else matters.  Those who are Rodgers’ fans (and that group should certainly have grown exponentially in witnesses after his  performance yesterday) will walk with their heads held high.  His detractors, though, will point to two areas, one a fact, the other, . . . we’ll never know.  The fact is, naturally, that the Pack lost - and, to fans, nothing else matters (except maybe in the NY-NJ area because whether you “covered” eases the pain somewhat).  The other, which in this group’s mind, he’ll never live down (at least until he leads the Green & Gold to, oh yeah, something called the Lombardi Trophy), is that if Brett were at QB, we’d have won today (”today,” meaning any day the Packers have a game - even though the stats don’t bear that out).  But “he would have led us to a score in OT” and “no way would he have let any defensive lineman strip him of the ball.”  It’s almost like the “h” in he is capitalized.

Unfair?  Hey, in sports - or life - what’s fair?  Ask Colt McCoy.  Or Wes Welker.  Or Bobby Hurley.  Or Muhammed Ali.  Or Wally Pipp.  Or Lou Gehrig.  Or Pat Tillman. 

Aaron Rodgers plays a game for a living.  For a lot of money.  He gave it his all, “left nothing on the field” as they say.  But, because his team, and as quarterback, make no mistake about it, it’s his team, I would imagine, as a true pro, he’s disappointed.  Yet he lives to play another day.  It just won’t be until next season.

Aaron Rodgers should take heed from another (to whom life was anything but fair), the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said:

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

He’ll get over it.Â

So Brett Favre has finally made a decision to retire from professional football.  Well, it wasn’t before many critics, a good number of them, wannabe comedians, took their shots at the Hattiesburg pinata.

There were a number of people outside of athletics (understandable) and, seemingly (not so understandable) just as many, inside the profession of athletics - for once, let’s even include journalists who make their living covering athletes and athletic events in that second group.  This takes on (in some cases) comedic proportions when you actually get to view the natural and acquired skills of some in the field of athletic journalism, e.g. the kind who can interview an athlete while the two are playing billiards and the reporter doesn’t make a shot during the entire session.  The reason for their inclusion is they ought to know why it was such a gut wrenching decision for Favre.

True, he did make himself an easy target by what he did after “retiring” from the Green Bay Packers, the team no one ever thought he’d leave.  Then, after a respectable season, but one with a disappointing finish, with the New York Jets, he hung them up again. However, he began hinting of another comeback, this time within the Packers’ division - with their bitter (that’s the first word that comes to mind when the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota are mentioned in sports that finish in the winter) rival, the Vikings.  It was reported his indecision became a distraction, although there are opposing accounts from a number of Minnesota coaches and players.

He had surgery, was working out - and, allegedly, had looked sharp, even making a statement that he could throw 100 balls and only feel pain in two of them.  Some of the more facetious people, these are usually the ones outside (waaaaaaay outside) the world of pro sports commented on how much money he’d make - as compared to how much he’d make if he didn’t play.  If ever there was a guy for whom money was never a major determinant (either because of being a greedy accumulator, an incredible miser, an outrageous philanothropist or a wild spendthrift mired in massive debt), Brett Favre was that guy.  Anyone who ever saw him play, even if they had no concept of football, could see the boyishness that the game brought out in him.

This announcement came after he listened to his head, heart and body.  Retirement won, 2-1.  The tiebreaker had to be the body - after hearing his comments about how his feet hurt after working out - when everybody “in the know” surely felt the decision belonged to his arm, i.e. shoulder, elbow, hand, fingers and whether those moving parts could make it through another grueling NFL campaign.  The way Brett Favre played it.    

Possibly last year showed Brett he couldn’t play to the level he needed to - in order to satisfy his own standards (although I’m not sure the competitor in him would ever admit that).  In the end, it came down to the question he couldn’t answer as positively as he knew he had to in order to strap it on and perform for the fans and his fellow teammates and coaches: Can I bring it - and can I bring it every Sunday - as much as is necessary to win - his bottom line?

I don’t know Brett Favre, have never met him, nor have I ever seen him in person, but that’s my feeling as to why he’s not going to be in camp.  As to solving the riddle of his retirement for others who were upset with what they perceived as his waffling, “game-playing” and attention-seeking, all I can say is the same thing I said to a college educated acquaintance of mine when I spoke with him last night.  His answer to my question was an emphatic “no.”  My question was:

“Do you know what it’s like to have a job that you love so much, in spite of the heartache, stress and insecurity it continually causes that you’d do it for nothing - and, chances are, that there probably was a time you did?”  Â

The number one sports question of all time, in any sport, that is argued the most (by far) is the universal, “Who is the greatest ever?”  Team, player, player at a certain position, coach, sportscaster/writer, play-by-play man, color guy, what or whoever? 

Invariably, someone tries to enter statistics into the discussion.  This is always touchy because statistics in different eras tell different stories.  Whether it’s field, court or track surfaces, equipment, training and coaching methods, diet, outside influences, the list seems to be endless and it’s mainly due to something Tony Sparano, coach of the Miami Dolphins, said in an article in Sports Illustrated (9/15/08).

“It’s the competition,” Sparano said, but his response was toward the question regarding “the motivation that drives NFL players to squeeze every snap out of their bodies, and why teams are eager to open their doors to anyone who can help them win.”  He was referring to Brett Favre and why he was having such a hard time retiring, to guys getting multiple chances after various social blunders (many of them resulting in arrests, e.g. Adam “Don’t Call Me PacMan Anymore” Jones).

That same quote, though, could also apply to 1 - steroid use (talk about squeezing every last …) 2 - one of the ultimate second chance stories (should it ever materialize) in Michael Vick and 3 - more benign, yet still considered radical (at least by the “old timers”) moves made by teams (in all sports) such as bringing in the latest gadgets (underwater treadmills and the University of Oregon’s Bod Pod, which measures fat-to-muscle ratio), improving facilites and equipment (include golf, tennis and swimming into this discussion), hiring nuitritionists, chefs, flexibility and player development coaches, and “feel good” guys (motivational, inspirational, team builders, psychologists, yoga instructors, even hypnotists). 

Some will argue technology has inflated statistics, while the N-Geners claim specializtion and strategies have improved to a level that they have had an adverse effect on today’s stats.  Changes such as the relief pitcher (back in the day, players were batting against the tired arm of a starter who had nothing left late in the game, thereby padding their stats) or, the short reliever (even moreso,  teams carrying a lefty, whose sole job is to get out - possibly - one left-handed batter per game).  Or, the defensive specialist in basketball or the nickel defense in football (not to mention that going both ways has gone the way of the buffalo).

Rule changes have rendered comparison of statistics virtually useless.  How many more points would great shooters, e.g. Pete Maravich, have scored if the three-point line had been in place when he played at LSU?  How about the goal posts being ten yards closer!  Changing yards to meters in races?  The new configuration of baseball stadiums - or, simply playing in Denver?

In an unrelated article in the 8/4/08 edition of SI, Phil Taylor wrote a column about Tim Forneris, the Busch Stadium groundskeeper who retrieved Mark McGwuire’s 70th home run ball and, rather than trying to sell it for the fortune it would have commanded back then, he gave it to McGwire.  Fast forward to the present day and, as Taylor wrote, “who would have thought that 10 years (later), the hero of the story would be Tim Forneris?”

When it comes to arguing the “who’s the greatest” question, let’s hope that, at the very least, for the integrity of each sport and athlete, each individual involved would, as Phil Taylor describes the action of Forneris:

“Do right when so much around them is wrong.”

This time I think Brett Favre’s really going to stay retired.  That’s what many people thought last time, but he ran an end around and kept himself in the game with what must seem now like a Hail Mary.  As in, let me pray my body can stand up to another NFL season because I still think I can make a difference for a team in this league, the highest football competition there is in the world.

It couldn’t.  And what made it worse, was the injury to his throwing shoulder.  Anything related to a QB’s throwing motion, e.g. his throwing hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder render him ineffective - certainly way less than the 100% that’s needed to compete at the level necessary to win in the NFL.

Skeptics, and those who predicted this would happen, are having a field day, nearly running out of “I told you so’s.”  What they don’t realize is that when you’re in the class that Brett Favre is in, and if you don’t know what that class is, check the records for quarterbacks, it’s difficult to close the book on a career you’ve loved so much for so long.  Especially when you think you can squeeze another year out of your body.  Heck, you’ve done it for so long, what’s another year?

But there does come a time when good judgment overcomes the emotional attachment.  Most people can’t understand this because they equate it to their job (which they claim they also loved, not realizing there’s no comparison between the rush you get in professional athletics - in terms of competing, in terms of winning, in terms of surviving - to any other occupation with the possible exception of being a member of the bomb squad).  You just have to play until you’re absolutely sure it’s the right time.  Most stay too long and wind up in horrific pain.  As foolish as it sounds, considering they’re dealing with their body, the only one they’ll ever have - although with all the new implants and procedures, it’s time to wonder if a professional athlete will soon be able to turn in their body for a new one - or at least a better one that will allow them a few more good years, the uber competitive athlete would rather stay a year too long (and limp away - even if it’s for the rest of his life) than walk away, leaving one more good season on the table.

Although I’ve never been there, I’ve been around hundreds of elite athletes who have told me exactly what I’m posting in this blog.  These are people with the kind of talent you and I only dream about - and they understand the gift that’s been given to them - and don’t take that gift lightly.  They have done what Erica Jong professed in her statement:

“Everyone has talent.  What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads.”

How could a team that was, at one time, 8-3 in the NFL not make it to the playoffs?  After the stories that came out the past few days, it’s obvious why the New York Jets are at home instead of participating in the post season this year.

The swan dive they took at season’s end had less to do with the strategy of the game than the unity of the members of the team.  Football, and every other true team sport, is different from individual sports that have a team concept such as (and I mean this more on high school and college levels) wrestling, tennis, golf and swimming, in that everybody on the team has the same record.  In those other sports, if someone were to ask a team member, “What’s your record?” they’d probably respond with, “Do you mean my individual record or the team’s overall record?” 

In wrestling, you can pin every opponent you face, but your team might not have won a match.  Ditto for tennis, golf and swimming as far as capturing individual titles.  Just like you might have finished last in every race in which you swam, but your team might very well be undefeated.

I recall a story when the United States’ Davis Cup captain was, I believe, Tom Gullikson.  He had a rule that the night before the first “tie” which is how matches are referred to in Davis Cup play, there was a mandatory dinner everyone on the team was to attend.  Andre Agassi told Captain T something to the effect that he had a specific routine when he prepared for a match and one part of it was that the night before he was to play, he always ate with the same people.  It’s been a while since I heard the story, but I think I remember his dinner party consisted of his brother, Phillip, Nick Bollettieri and his agent, Bill Shelton.

My first reaction to this was shock.  Was this guy so clueless (or selfish) regarding the team concept that he couldn’t have dinner one night with his fellow teammates?  Then, a thought struck me - the only way Andre Agassi could help his team with the Davis Cup was if he won his tie.  To make an absurd analogy, the U.S. could have picked me to play.  I would have been at every meeting (early) and would have attended every function Tom Gullikson and the Davis Cup people requested.  Then, I would have gone out, lost 6-0, 6-0 but cheered like mad for the other guys on the team.  No one would have been a better, more supportive teammate.  But unless we won every other tie (besides my two singles), we’d have lost.  In that regard, individual sports and team sports differ drastically.

On a team, everybody’s record is identical: it’s how many wins does the team have and how many losses does it have.  If, in the opening game of the year, the offense plays awful, but the defense shuts out the opponent, forces a fumble on the opponents’ one-yard line and the place kicker comes in after three unsuccessful attempts by the offense at getting the ball into the end zone and kicks an 18-yard field goal to win 3-0, the team’s record is 1-0.  The offense’s record is 1-0, the defense’s record is 1-0, the guys on the special teams, 1-0 - heck, even the guys who didn’t play are 1-0.

When the end of the year comes around, and the team has done a complete 180 degree turn from the beginning - and a player is quoted as saying it was the quarterback’s fault, that he was aloof and distant, you can be certain that the same player resented that quarterback when the team was 8-3.  He was just waiting in the weeds.  And to come out anonymously!  (Please see my 11/15/07 blog on having a problem with someone and how to solve it). 

Football is no place for cowards.  It’s too violent a game.  It’s mano a mano, if I have to smash you in the face (or take a smash in the face from you), in order for us to win, let’s get it on.  Complaining anonymously about somebody is more for one of the contestants who didn’t win the sixth grade spell-a-thon, claiming the winner got all easy words, not for a professional football player.  In football you always hear the saying, “He’s the kind of guy I’d want to have in a foxhole with me.”  And although comparing football (a game in which, when it’s over, the combatants usually exchange handshakes and, more than occasionally nowadays, hugs -mainly because they realize and appreciate how difficult it was for the other guy) to war (where the team’s goal is much more “final”) is stretching it far beyond reality, but there is still no room for anonymous sources in either encounter.

They’re called traitors in the armed forces.  Yet, they’re gladly welcomed by media in the sports world - but they’re still considered traitors by those with whom they share a uniform.  And when it comes out after the season is over, when nothing good can come of it, it’s also called disloyalty.  If there’s one trait any player can have, even if he has no innate skill or ability at all, it’s the decency to be loyal to the teams’ cause and its members.

The author of this quote I saw was listed as unknown, which is not the same as anonymous, but it rings true on teams that win:

“If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn’t follow.  I’d be at the bottom to catch them when they fell.”Â

To go from 1-15 to Division Champs is a remarkable accomplishment, mainly because each end of that is a remarkable feat in and of itself.  It’s difficult to win only one game in an NFL season (ask the Detroit Lions).  Seriously, the way the league is set up, with the teams drafting in reverse order of their records and the schedule set up to help out the clubs which had the poorest records in the prior season, you’d think that some type of competitive balance (and pride) would give a team at least a few shots at winning.

Yet, last year, the Miami Dolphins lost 15 of 16 contests.  In came the demanding and knowledgeable (probably in equal amounts) Bill Parcells, along with one of those long-time assistants, Tony Sporano, a guy waiting (quite a while) to get his shot as a head coach.  With the addition of, among others, Chad Pennington, a talented player, but one who became expendable when the New York Jets had the opportunity to sign the immensely popular Brett Favre, the Miami Dolphins did what coaches and the TV and radio talking heads mention all the time as the main intangible to winning: they bought in to the philosophy of the organization.

There was disagreement regarding the Favre decision between two very astute television personalities.  First, Cris Collinsworth (a fine NFL player in his own right and someone who’s made a seemless transition to the TV side) said the Favre move looked good at the time, but people would have to admit Pennington got his revenge and in hindsight, it was a move that probably should not have been made.  Costas disagreed, saying that even with the benefit of looking back, it was something that needed to be done because the Jets didn’t have an identity.  But I digress from the true point of this blog.

One of the other talking heads, former Super Bowl winning NFL quarterback (and Fresno State’s own) Trent Dilfer drew the comparison between what went on with the 2008 Dolphins and what occurred with our Olympic men’s basketball squad.  Embarrassed in the previous Olympics, Coach Mike Krzyzewski, someone who feels, first and foremost, that buying in is mandatory for a team to reach its maximum potential, had several exercises in place to find out which guys he could count on to “buy in” and went with those players.  Fortunately for him, the ones who did were exactly the ones he needed (mainly Kobe Bryant - to name the one vital cog in the Olympian’s success).

On a similar note, the Dolphins followed suit and fell in line with what the coaching staff (and anyone would be naive if Bill Parcells weren’t counted among that group) demanded.  And now they’re Division Champs.  Dilfer passed on a major compliment when he, off the cuff, blurted out to the youth of America, “Hey, kids, try to be like the Dolphins, not the Cowboys.”  Dallas’ fall from grace is probably fodder for another blog at another time. 

For now, Carolina Panthers’ coach John Fox has the last say (quoting his line from a few years ago):

“You can force players to do what you want, but it won’t work in the long haul if they don’t believe in it.” Â