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(I know that I can’t replace TB, but I can only hope to be exponentially better. Here’s what I hope is a comparable replacement for the normal NFL wrapup)

– The onside kick call is named “Ambush.” Who’s going to be the first person to say “don’t feel sorry for Hank Baskett, he’s married to a Playboy Playmate.”?

–I was kind of surprised that the Super Bowl record for completions was only 32. And of course, I thought for sure that Brees was going to break it, not tie it.

–We are on one hell of a run of Super Bowls lately, and of course, all good things must come to an end. Hopefully not, but it’s there.

–Oh, Tracy Porter was a ZERO star recruit coming out of high school.

–Peyton Manning now has a 9-9 record in the playoffs. I would have given someone 6-1 odds that we would have seen the Manning face last night.

–Even if Sean Payton really is as much of a dick as Mike Freeman of CBS Sports says he is, you have to love his willingness to not always make the traditional football decision when he thinks the odds are in his favor.

–Alright McLovin, I love you on Dan Patrick, but I gotta rip this one apart:

1. No, the Super Bowl did not need a certain quarterback not participating in the game. If the eight yard pass is too easy, then defenses need to commit to stopping the eight yard pass. Guess what? The long passes would be back with a vengeance when that happened. NFL defenses are conditioned to not give up the big play. That’s the whole basis of the Cover 2 scheme that Indy runs.

2. I really don’t know what the onside kick has to do with the Saints having the NFL’s best offense. It impacts the defense much much more, because you’re giving the one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history only 40 yards to score.

3. I can agree with this post much more than the previous two, but that Saints line isn’t shabby. Plus, as you mentioned earlier, Dwight Freeney was hurt.

4. The Saints need Reggie Bush and Reggie Bush needs the Saints. Pierre Thomas is a very good running back for New Orleans’ system, but Bush can break it every time he touches the football. He’s not going to make as much as he did with his rookie contract, so the Saints should re-sign him.

6. Mike Leach.

–Tom Morestead was “terrified.”

And if you needed another sign that talks for the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement aren’t going well, Sports Business Journal reporter Daniel Kaplan was ejected from the meetings this morning.

No, not because he was in the room, but because he was in the hallway, waiting to get reaction from the key figures in attendance as they left the meeting.

Ouch.

The NFL can shine up this turd all they want, but the fans who are paying attention can read between the lines and realize that this is quickly spiraling past the point of no return.

Of course, none of you do so it’s a moot point.

But anyway, today may be the biggest non-Daytona 500 day of racing in Daytona Speedweeks history.

Usually, pole day for the Daytona 500 is on Sunday, but the Super Bowl is obviously tomorrow, so instead it’s today. And per usual, the Budweiser Shootout unofficially kicks off the race season tonight with a 24 car, 75 lap exhibition race that may come down to which car can crash the least.

And for many, sandwiched between the two, is the main event. Danicamania.

Yes, today’s the day when Danica Patrick races in a stock car for the first time. She qualified 12th, and has one of the best cars in the field, but it’s an ARCA race. ARCA races at Daytona tend to turn into demolition derbies that seemingly involve blind drivers. There are moments when you can’t believe that a driver doesn’t slow down to avoid a wreck much further up the in field and then subsequently wonders why the heck he got caught up in the mess. (Last year, this happened late in the race, and led to a fractured back for one of ARCA’s best drivers)

However, Danica isn’t the only female driver in the field for the ARCA race. There are four others, but none of them have either the looks or the marketing prowess that Patrick does. (Though I guess you have to give Jennifer Jo Cobb some credit for trying. She’s taken advantage of the economic stimulus and gotten new hair, teeth and boobs)

How will Danica do? Well, I’m already on record as saying that she’s going to win today, so I’ll stick with it. Remember, this is ARCA. It ain’t rocket science. It’s crash avoidance.

I guess I’m used to seeing pictures of Danica Patrick or Anna Kournikova in bikinis when this argument is made, but instead, Lindsey Vonn’s SI cover this week is “a sexualized pose” according to Dr. Nicole M. LaVoi.

Over the last 60 years researchers have shown that about 4% of all SI covers have portrayed women.

When females are featured on the cover of SI, they are more likely than not to be in sexualized poses and not in action–and the most recent Vonn cover is no exception.

The crux of LaVoi’s argument is based on the fact that Vonn doesn’t have a helmet and goggles on, and it’s a passive photo. And given that criteria, SI just loves making athletes objects. Look at Jimmy Connors and his come hither grin! Or Tom Brady and his fantastic teeth and shirtless body!

Without the proper context of Sports Illustrated cover poses over the years, LaVoi comes off as looking as an uninformed feminist using the Vonn cover to try to make a point that really isn’t there. If Vonn had been scantily clad, this may be a legitimate argument. Instead, it looks pretty foolish.

(h/t The Big Lead)

Seriously.

This is ridiculous. My immediate reaction is to blame Lane Kiffin, but this sounds like USC had been recruiting Sills for a while, so Pete Carroll can’t immediately be absolved either.

I realize that this has happened in college basketball before, but this has got to stop. However, given that these are verbal commitments, I don’t know what you could do to really enforce any regulations.

For the long time soccer heads out there, this may be old news, but the reason that John Harkes was dropped from the 1998 World Cup team was because he was having an affair with Eric Wynalda’s wife.

Allegedly.

Harkes, a current ESPN soccer analyst, has long denied having an affair with Amy Wynalda.

Wynalda, a former ESPN soccer analyst, brought up the situation Monday night during a discussion on “Fox Football Fone-In” about a scandal in England over an alleged relationship between current English captain John Terry and the former partner of Wayne Bridge, his teammate on the national squad.

Sampson told The Associated Press on Tuesday he was glad the story was coming out now because “maybe people will have a little better of an understanding of what happened in the final months leading up to the World Cup.”

And it’s also interesting to note that Harkes trumped Wynalda again, replacing Wynalda as ESPN’s lead soccer analyst in 2006.

Of course, Wynalda may only be spilling the beans now, not because of the John Terry-Wayne Bridge situation, but because he’s writing a book. But he got Steve Sampson to talk about it, and it’s surprising to read that Wynalda was actually against Sampson’s decision to drop Harkes at the time.

Since this was soccer in the United States in the 1990s, not many cared about the situation at the time. Too bad TMZ didn’t exist back then… we wouldn’t have had to wait 12 years for all the details!

(before you bitch, turn your sarcasm meter on)

Leave it to the always shrinking Kansas City Star to drop the ball on this one.

According to an AP/CP report, the Negro Leagues Museum is facing a VERY rocky future.

What’s more, the recession has cut deeply into donations. After posting its first loss two years ago of about US$30,000, the museum is looking at what one staffer termed “a monster loss” that could approach a quarter of a million dollars when the final accounting for 2009 is complete. For a relatively small museum that has always depended on the kindness of others, $200,000 is seismic.

The museum is distancing itself from Buck O’Neil, which is an absolutely terrible move. For many people, Buck is their connection to the Negro Leagues thanks Ken Burns’s Baseball series.

In large part because of their treatment of Buck after his death, Joe Posnanski has vowed never to set foot in the Negro Leagues Museum again. The museum board got rid of revered director Bob Kendrick, and has basically been an afterthought since his departure.

It would be a horrible loss for the baseball world and the Kansas City community if the Negro Leagues museum was to disappear. However, unless they can fix their budget problems and fix their reputation around Kansas City, it’s not looking bright at all.

In the excerpts from this Salon column, the analogies scream Simmons. Even though the not-so-subtle racism doesn’t.

Shirley, as you may know, made waves with his blog post about Haiti this week. Immediately after his post, ESPN got rid of him.

Now that we’ve got a bit of a backstory, it’s pretty clear where the Haiti column came from. I remember Shirley first as the Iowa State player (yes, Iowa State actually had black players. Shirley played with Kelvin Cato and Jamaal Tinsley, if I remember right) and secondly as the dude who wrote a book about barnstorming throughout Europe.

Instead, he’s now known as the guy who may or may not dislike people who aren’t white. That’s pretty sad, and Shirley’s got no one to blame but himself.

The NBA is understandably sensitive about gun violence, given that two of its players recently brandished guns in a locker room. But they’re losing perspective, and coming across as unreasonable hypocrites. Months ago, Nike did a LeBron-Kobe print ad where Kobe says, “I’ll do whatever it takes to win games. I don’t leave anything in the chamber.”

The ad has been released, and the NBA is offended, releasing this statement: “We had no prior notice of this ad. We think it is inappropriate.”

Really? I mean, really? Are you even remotely serious? Because, if you are serious, you’re either a blind idiot (which we know Stern is not) or a massive hypocritical bully. You operate a sport where the entire dialect revolves around the word “shoot” and its variants. Shoot. Shot. Shot clock. Blocked shot. Shooting percentage. Three-point shot. Sharpshooter. Sniper. Rifleman. And you’re going to take offense at a shooting reference?

And don’t try to tell me Kobe agreed, so the NBA is correct. Of course Kobe agreed. He’s corporate. He knows this isn’t a battle worth wasting breath on, because he understands Stern is just doing this for PR. Something Kobe understands completely. But this is beyond stupid, and it should be called out as such. It’s Stern’s obsession over the public image of the league run amok.

If this is how you want to play it, Stern, then be consistent. Rename every aspect of the game. Change all of the NBA’s historical records. Take down the NBA.com website now until you can reconstruct it without any reference to shooting. Stop selling all books that use the term. Re-write them. Stop selling all DVDs. Re-dub them. Never replay any game on the NBA Network where any variation of the term is stated by an announcer or displayed on the screen.

And maybe, just maybe, start being consistent. As the AP article points out, just yesterday, Pacers coach Jim O’Brien said: “We did not have enough bullets in our gun to make games of it.” Stern, are you going to fine him? Call it inappropriate? Or is your paternalistic hypocrisy reserved for young black men?

Can be found here

The site hasn’t revealed the receivers and quarterbacks, but the print edition of Sports Weekly has and the receivers are Terrell Owens, Randy Moss, Marvin Harrison, Torry Holt and Hines Ward while the quarterbacks are Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Bert Farv, Donovan McNabb and Drew Brees.

Ten members of the USA Today staff voted five players at each position on a 5-4-3-2-1 scale and sometimes it seems like they weighed longevity over excellence, and I couldn’t figure out how heavily they weighed recency.

Quarterbacks: I’ve got no arguments with the QBs, and it’s important to note that Brady beat Manning by only one point. Ben Roethlisberger and Kurt Warner were the only other quarterbacks to receive votes, and Drew Brees was a very distant fifth which is a bit surprising given his last three years.

Running Backs: LT at the top is a no brainer, and there’s a long way to Shaun Alexander in second. But when healthy, was Priest Holmes really only the fifth best back of the decade? Had he not had the neck and hip injuries, the argument can be made that he’s second. Interesting to note that Lorenzo Neal received a vote.

Wide Receivers: Only seven receivers got a vote here with Larry Fitzgerald and Derrick Mason in the others category. Where the heck is Reggie Wayne? Hines Ward was fifth with only seven points, and the argument can be made that Wayne and Fitzgerald deserve to be above Ward.

Tight End: Like LT, Tony Gonzalez got all the first place votes and Antonio Gates swept second place. Jason Witten got eight of the 10 third place votes. But why did Alge Crumpler get more points (6) than Dallas Clark (3)?

Tackle: Jonathan Ogden and Walter Jones are the top two, with Orlando Pace third. Willie Roaf was a distant fifth. Given how dominant Roaf was in the early half of the decade, he should be higher.

Guard-Center: Alan Faneca wins yet another career achievement award and Steve Hutchinson is second. I’d put Will Shields first, but I’m biased towards Chiefs players. Kevin Mawae probably deserves to be higher than fourth as well, but the combo category hurts.

Defensive End: Jason Taylor and Michael Strahan are the leaders while Jared Allen gets only two points. However, with Freeney, Peppers, Abraham and Seymour ahead of him, there’s really no room.

Defensive Tackle: Was La’Roi Glover really the third best defensive tackle of the decade?

Outside Linebacker: I’m surprised Joey Porter hasn’t already complained that he lost out to Derrick Brooks. However, Brooks only beat him by four points, a total that’s probably suppressed by his low sack total.

Inside Linebacker: God’s Linebacker swept this category, with Urlacher second. Remember Al Wilson? He was fifth.

Cornerback: Champ Bailey got all but one first place vote while Ronde Barber’s career longevity probably is the reason why he beat out Ty Law for second. Surprisingly, Darrelle Revis didn’t get a single vote.

Safety: Troy Polamalu is third to Ed Reed and Brian Dawkins. Can’t really argue with this one.

Kick Returner: I’d still take the 2002-2004 version of Dante Hall over Devin Hester, but I already told you that I was biased. Remember Az Hakim? He got a vote.

Kicker: Not surprisingly, Vinatieri wins. The always consistent Matt Stover is a deserving second, and I’m surprised that Jason Hanson didn’t crack the top five.

Punter: Lechler sweeps.

Coach: Many Philly fans will disagree with Andy Reid tying Bill Cowher for third.

Think that I’m wrong about these completely irrelevant awards? Stop by and let us know in the Swamp.