Let the McNabb trade talk begin

It's pretty difficult to imagine a scenario where the newly retired Kurt Warner will not be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. If they haven't begun casting the mold for his bust yet, maybe it's time to start pretty soon. Sure, the sculptor has some time but why procrastinate? Go ahead and knock it out already.

And perhaps while folks are mulling over Warner's body of work as a quarterback of the Cardinals, Rams, and in the Arena Football League, as well as a stock boy at some grocery in Iowa, maybe the speculation can begin in earnest regarding his replacement in Arizona.

Is it time to start the Donovan McNabb trade watch already? We don’t have to wait for Brett Favre to decide something, do we?

Long before the Eagles were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in Dallas way back at the beginning of the month, it appeared the best fit for McNabb just might be as a replacement for Warner or Favre rather than with the Eagles. With the Cardinals McNabb could step right in as the veteran leader with a high-powered offense that thrived with Warner. Better yet, after games and practices McNabb could turn his off-season home into his year-round pad. That certainly makes it a win-win.

With the Vikings McNabb could reunite with coach Brad Childress, who was the offensive coordinator with the Eagles during the quarterback’s best seasons. Where could he go wrong? The Cardinals are a season removed from nearly winning the Super Bowl followed by a solid playoff run, while the Vikings were a late-game meltdown away from winning the NFC Championship over the Saints.

It’s either go somewhere else with a talented team looking to take the proverbial next step or stay in Philadelphia where he can continue pounding his head against the wall like we all have for the past decade.

It’s an easy decision for everyone, right? The Vikings or Cardinals can plug in a seasoned All-Pro and the Eagles can focus on the future with Kevin Kolb, the quarterback they drafted in the second round in 2007. With McNabb in the last year of his current deal with the Eagles and asking for an extension, all that’s left is to figure on the partner, the price and then send out the press release.

Let’s get moving already…

As we know all too well it’s the easy decisions that are often the trickiest and most troublesome. Of course, as we also have seen over the past decade, any decision for the Eagles always dissolves into a circus wrapped manically inside of a soap opera. Can Joe Banner or Andy Reid ever come to a conclusion without everyone overreacting? Are we that sensitive or is it that we just can't help ourselves? Or maybe it's because we don't trust them. Sure, most of the decisions to let players go have been the right ones, but they still don't have much to show for it.

Besides, even when the Eagles make the most mundane decision it’s like watching the clown car crash into the bearded lady.

Of course the report that the Cardinals are going to turn over the quarterback gig over to Matt Leinart as well as McNabb’s consultation with his psychic only adds to the intrigue. After all, just because a pro sports general manager and Miss Cleo say something doesn’t make it completely true. We’re working from years of experience here and have learned that whatever becomes McNabb’s fate for the 2010 season, it will occur slowly and sloppily.

Yes, we read McNabb’s comments in the Inquirer claiming he would return to Philadelphia because coach Andy Reid told him so.

“That’s all that matters,” McNabb told The Inquirer. “I heard it when he said it to you guys, but I heard it before anyway. I think a lot of people look too far into things with all the assumptions and this could happen. He told everybody I'm going to be there, and I'm his guy. I don’t see anything that anybody should look into.”

Nobody believes McNabb is as naïve as that last sentence sounds. He knows all too well how people around these parts act when it comes to the football team. Considering it’s been a half-century since the Eagles have won a championship, what else is there to look into?

Arizona, Minnesota, Philadelphia? Yeah, this is just getting started.

Brett Favre is the greatest quarterback ever

Go ahead, admit it… you love Brett Favre. It’s OK to say it. It’s cathartic even. Seriously, do it:

I love you, Brett Favre!

See how easy that was?

The strange thing about this is that I even had to say it at all. Why wouldn’t everyone blather on about the gunslingin’ quarterback who just loves to play the game? Really, he just has fun out there. Besides, it’s impossible to write a sentence about Brett Favre without using the word, “just.”

Here’s the thing that’s just so lovable about Brett Favre (two names, please) — he always, always, always delivers. Every time. He’s like Michael Jordan that way. Tiger Woods, too. Whenever we need something in a football game, Brett Favre makes sure we get it.

Some say Brett Favre is overrated as a quarterback. OK, that might be true when talking about the actual quarterbacking skills. Throughout his career, Brett Favre has had 96 games in which he has thrown at least two interceptions, and seven games in which he has thrown at least four interceptions. Brett Favre has also been to the conference championship five times and has one more win than Donovan McNabb (one more Super Bowl victory, too).

So when it comes to the stats and his performance in big playoff games, yeah, Brett Favre might be a bit overrated. But then again, aren’t we all?

The truth is Brett Favre is completely underrated when it comes to the true essence of the NFL. In terms of the entertainment dollar, no one beats Brett Favre. Sure, Peyton Manning comes close, but that’s like comparing Superman to Batman. Superman can make the earth spin in reverse on its axis because he’s not even an earthling. He’s a mild-mannered freak from another planet and he flies. Superman is not perfect, but he rarely makes the same mistake twice.

Batman is human. He has hubris and vices. He falls down and gets concussions and still figures out how to go back to work only to repeat the entire process again.

Certainly the “humanness” of Brett Favre has been waxed upon for decades. There’s no new material there and in our selfish, mundanity of our everyday lives, we look at the rehashing of Brett Favre’s story as if it’s just another TV repeat. Worse, in this case the Brett Favre show isn’t even in syndication.

However, no one ever talks about how spectacularly Brett Favre fails. Sure, some quarterbacks throw bad passes in important parts of the game. Sometimes passes are dropped and tackles are missed. You know, the same ol’, same ol’.

But when Brett Favre goes down it’s like that old-timey newsreel of the Hindenburg exploding. Some guys watch their seasons go down the drain with a kneel or a simple expiration of time. Not Brett Favre. He grabs a flamethrower, amps it up as high as it will go and burns it all to the ground.

And we should love him for it.

When it comes to putting on a great show, yes, Brett Favre is ridiculously underrated. Better yet, there is no middle ground with him—people have extreme emotions to one side or the other. Yet the thing about the folks who loathe Brett Favre (just the football player, I hope) is their emotions are wrong. Certainly that’s a difficult judgment to make about another person, but it’s true. You are all wrong about this guy.

He’s great because he’s never lets you down.

How many guys have ended the past three seasons for three different teams with interceptions? I don’t have the figures or the charts, but I’m guessing this feat has never been done in the history of the NFL. In fact, the costly interception that kept the Vikings out of the Super Bowl (again) and ruined two weeks of unadulterated Brett Favre media coverage wasn’t even the worst (shouldn’t that be best?) one. Frankly, the interception he threw against the Eagles at the Linc in the 2003 Divisional Playoff game was totally awesome.

Remember that one? It was set up by the 4th-and-26 reception by Freddie Mitchell from Donovan McNabb to send the game into overtime. Then, after winning the coin toss, Brett Favre took the first snap, dropped back and threw the ball so high and far into the air that it was like a punt. Brian Dawkins was standing by himself so far back in the secondary that it seemed as if he should have called for a fair catch on Brett Favre’s punt/interception toss.

It was the most inexplicable throw by a quarterback in the history of the game. It was like a game of all-tackle-one broke out in the middle of a playoff game.

Sure, like any addicts we have are enablers like Chris Berman of ESPN who goes on and on about Brett Favre with a voice that makes one want to drive an ice pick into their middle ear. But the truth is we’re really going to miss him. Perfection, as we’ve learned, is sometimes a façade and always boring.

Brett Favre was never perfect and never boring.

Picking more playoff winners

Last week: 2-2
Playoffs: 5-3

Just imagine how crazy it will be for the promoters of the Super Bowl if Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings win in New Orleans tomorrow. Think of all the story lines that are just waiting to be pushed out there—Favre vs. the Jets or Favre vs. Peyton Manning.

It’s almost too easy. Never mind that Favre is a walking soap opera to begin with, but just imagine all the blathering and carrying on that will be belched out through Super Bowl Sunday if the Vikings get there.

Go ahead and think… I’ll wait.

The thing with Favre quarterbacking the Vikings is that no one will talk about the fact that the team is already 0-4 in the big game and no team has lost five Super Bowls.

That’s the hope for the right’s holders, of course. Favre, as we have learned, garners extreme feelings and Americans love to watch things specifically to root for the failure of others. How else could anyone explain the popularity of shows like “American Idol” or “How I Survived to Dance with the Stars?” You know… crap. Favre in the Super Bowl would pull in mega ratings of slack-jawed types rooting for the old man to get slapped around for 60-minutes.

What fun is that? Who wants to watch others fail? You know, besides jerks.

I guess it makes sense though. After all Favre said he was going to retire and he cried in front of writers and TV cameras because he was going to go back to Mississippi and enjoy life. A couple of months later he changed his mind about Mississippi, retirement and fun. In other words, the tears meant nothing. He was just faking it.

Nevertheless, the Packers traded him to the Jets where he played pretty good for awhile before struggling late in the season. When it was over there were the typical stories about how Favre was a divisive force in the locker room, didn’t really mingle with his teammates and just didn’t have it any more.

So what did Favre do? Yep, retirement, Mississippi, fun. At least for a little bit. When the Vikings came calling, Favre bolted out of Mississippi faster than General John C. Pemberton. Who could blame him? The guy loves to play the game. Better yet, the TV networks love to show him as he loves to play the game. How could they not? The guy is a gunslinger.

Still, Americans like retirees to remain retired. Most folks are counting down the days until they can quit their day job and go off to do what they really love, which is watch television and judge others. So by repeatedly retiring only to go back to work a few months later, Favre has proven himself to be more un-American than Alger Hiss.

Meanwhile, the city of New Orleans stands between Favre and a trip back to the Super Bowl. The Saints, representing the city on the gridiron, are in the NFC Championship for the second time in the last three seasons. Making matters tough for the Vikings is the fact that the Saints are playing in their home dome with the entire city galvanized behind them while loaded with an offense that scores more than … well, let’s just say the Saints score a lot.

Pick: Saints (minus-4) over the Vikings

We went through all the reasons why it name “Colts” and “Indianapolis” do not belong together last week. No sense rehashing it this week or proving that my ability to retain sports information stopped cold in 1983. Besides, if Baltimore has moved on past its depressions and given us state senator Clay Davis and detective Bunk Moreland, well, I guess it’s OK to cede the nickname Colts to Indiana.

That doesn’t mean I like it.

Besides, wouldn’t it be more fun if Peyton Manning played in Baltimore?

Anyway, in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated, there was a big story on Jim Irsay and his stewardship over the Colts. Jim Irsay, of course, is the son of Bob Irsay, the dude who crept out of Baltimore with a football team packed into a Mayflower truck under the cover of night. No, I haven’t read the story yet, but by all accounts the apple fell a long ways away from the tree—Jim is nothing like his old man.

For starters, the pictures in the magazine (yeah, I looked at the pictures not the words) reveal that Jim Irsay has a pretty bitchin’ vintage guitar collection. In fact, I saw a double Gibson-SG in one of the photographs, which is something I never knew existed. A double Gibson-SG? Can you imagine? Jim Irsay also owns the original manuscript of Jack Kerouac’s, “On the Road,” which was scribbled onto to a scroll that stretches 40 yards when unfurled. A few years ago Irsay lent out his scroll for a nationwide tour.

Hey, looking at a manuscript in a museum is no dumber than looking at King Tut.

For now, the media has focused on Jets’ coach Rex Reed, the son of legendary Eagles’ coach, Buddy Ryan. According to the stories, Rex likes to eat… a lot. Word is he needs 7,000 calories a day to keep going and likes to eat Mexican cuisine so much that it has been renamed, “Rexican food.”

Sounds gross.

Certainly Peyton Manning knows something or two about good food seeing as he comes from New Orleans. Archie Manning, Peyton’s dad, used to be the quarterback for the sad sack Saints back when folks turned out for their games wearing brown paper bags over their heads and calling their team, the Aints. Frankly, that’s your story line right there…

What kind of hype will we have force fed on us with the Mannings and New Orleans when they meet in the Super Bowl.

Pick: Colts (minus-8) over Jets

All Brett, all the time Part II

I generally don't believe in conspiracy theories. That goes for conspiracies within government as well as sports. For one thing, the organization and planning of the degree needed for such intricate subterfuge is often beyond the types that work in these businesses. Plus, keeping secrets is way too difficult. From what I know about writing about politics and sports over the years is that those people leak like sieves. The worst-kept secret is that there are no secrets. As a result, it makes the art of deception and conspiracy rather difficult.

However, when I heard that Brett Favre - the most famous man on the planet if you believe the breathless dispatches from ESPN -- had been traded to the New York Jets, well, I started looking behind the grassy knoll.

An attention hound quarterback with decades of fawning by the largest sports media outlet in the world headed to the largest media market in the country... nah, there can't be anything behind it, could there?

Brett Favre in New York? Mere coincidence.

To be fair, accounts coming out of Wisconsin or Mississippi or 34,000-feet above the earth or wherever the hell Brett Favre is these days, indicate that he really didn't want to get traded to the Jets. After all, the Jets were 4-12 last season, which is four games worse than what Favre's Packers were during a dreadful 2006, but identical to the 4-12 2005 season Favre masterminded in 2005.

Hey, it's not like the Jets are getting Doug Williams or Trent Dilfer [1]to replace Chad Pennington, who nearly guided the surprising '06 team into the AFC Championship. And they certainly are not getting a Bart Starr in the twilight years in Favre. Make it more like Johnny Unitas going to the Chargers for one last go-around or Willie Mays with the Mets, flailing away on the turf at Shea during the '73 post-season.

Sure, the New York media will give the big star some love when he arrives. New York loves a media event and a star, after all. But in New York (to paraphrase Lou Reed) there are no stars in the sky - they are all on the ground.

Maybe that's why Favre reportedly preferred a trade to Tampa Bay? Sunny skies, warm weather, and plenty of things to do outdoors during the winter instead of sitting inside and watching the old quarterback flail around on the turf while attempting to turn the clock back.

***

Back in the old days when Sports Illustrated was the king of all sports media, they used to put out a special Olympic preview in the weeks before the games opened. Aside from the feature stories and the look into the American athletes' chances in Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, etc., etc., the magazine predicted the winners of the gold, silver and bronze in every event.

It was pretty cool, I thought. Sometimes they were even accurate with the predictions.

Wouldn't you know it that Sports Illustrated still makes its predictions? Here they are.

After a quick glance, here's what caught my eye:

• Bernard Lagat taking the silver in the 1,500, but off the podium in the 5,000.
• Kenyan Martin Lel atop the field in the Marathon. Strangely, of the 14 nations to take gold in the marathon, Kenya is not one of them. Incidentally, Lel and countryman Robert Cheuriyot are the best, big-race marathoners in the world, but I still say don't sleep on Ryan Hall.
• No American women in the distance events. Not even Deena Kastor, who took the bronze in the marathon in sweltering heat and humidity at the Athens games.
• Tyson Gay over Usain Bolt in the 100.
• Usain Bolt over everyone in the 200.
• Jeremy Wariner over LaShawn Merritt in the 400.

Aside from Ryan Hall, Brian Sell, Dathan Ritzenhein and the other distance guys, it will be interesting to see how NBC covers Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang as he attempts to beat world-record holder Dayron Robles in the 110-meter hurdles. NBC went all out in reporting on Australian Cathy Freeman during the Sydney games, which is understandable. But along with women's marathoner Zhou Chunxiu, Liu Xiang is the biggest threat to win gold for the host country.

***

Finally, Philadelphia Will Do's Dan McQuade is chronicling the Olympics in blog form for Vanity Fair (yeah, freaking Vanity Fair!). Here's his first post.

For the record, Dan is Luke Skywalker to my Obi Wan... well, probably not, but I'm going to say it anyway.

---

[1] QBs just like Brett Favre in that they have won exactly one Super Bowl.

Mother Nature 1, Everyone else 0

The weather has a tendency to get a little chilly in the month of January as folks may have noticed from walking outdoors, watching football on television or from watching the little soft-shoe routine those suspenders-and-sports coat frocked slicksters pull off every night on the evening news. The weather is big business on local TV news. In fact, it is such big business that there are song lyrics that go: "Murder and weather is our only news..."

If those lyrics don't exist, they should.

Anyway, the middle part - the part about football, the outdoors and that nip, nip, nip at your nose - is the intriguing part. The truth is I tuned in to last Sunday's Giants-Packers just to see how cold it was. Oh sure, I had a sneaking suspicion that Packers' quarterback Brett Favre just might do something crazy enough to sabotage the game for his team, and in that regard I suppose no one was disappointed. But really, the outcome of the game was pretty meaningless. All I wanted to see what Favre's breath turn from a plume of carbon dioxide and crystallize into a free-floating diamond-shaped ball of ice.

My guess is that it was something that other folks wanted to see, too. Actually, it appeared as if the only story of the game wasn't Favre trying to get back to the Super Bowl one last time or Eli Manning attempting to copy his big brother and make it to the big game, but instead it was the coffee-sicle that formed in Terry Bradshaw's mug during the pre-game show. Because, as it is, if it's negative-three degrees without the wind chill in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the smart thing to do is hold the pre-game show out of doors. That way the frostbite that forms on Howie Long's exposed extremities can be used as a tax write-off because technically it was a live experiment kind of like the stuff they do on Nova.

What, do you really think people cared if Howie broke down the Cover-2? Hell, the viewers at home wanted permanent scarring. It makes the frozen coffee go down smoother.

Now I don't know where the idea that meteorology is a pseudo-science came from. It didn't come from me, I can tell you that much. But what they don't tell you during football games and TV weather reports is that cold weather hurts. It actually causes pain to a person more than a muggy scorcher in August ever could. No, cold temperatures don't make one wake up screaming in the middle of the night and running off to find a doorway with your sleeping cap slouched to the side. That's the move for an earthquake. But cold weather can freeze pipes and cause them to burst making floods or fires or both. Certainly that's no picnic.

Interestingly though, the pain of cold temperatures in this part of the world only lasts a little while. At least that's the way it worked out for me on Sunday and Monday when I decided to go out for a run. Hey, if they're playing football all the way out there in Wisconsin, which is close to Canada and very near outer space where it gets as nippy as your Aunt Tilly's gazpacho, I figured I ought to get out there and get my work in.

So out I went during the coldest part of the day, which, according to the Accuweather web site, was a raw negative-1 degree on the ol' real feel index. Apparently such numbers are deduced when one accounts for the temperature, wind speed and direction, the time of day and on-base percentage. In other words it's the Moneyball of weather. But the thing I learned about running around in ultra-cold weather was that it's all about the wind. When the wind blows at one's face it's bad. When it blows at your back, it ain't all that.

But you get used to it. At least that's the way it went down on Sunday thanks to some effort and creative rambling. During a 60-minute effort the first few moments are the key. That's when one decides whether to keep at it, thus proving oneself as an evolved life being that continuously takes strides at improvement. Or, it's when one says out loud to no one, "This is stupid. I'm going back home so I can strip down, flop on the couch, order up a mushroom ‘boli and watch Rachel Ray... or whatever."

Clearly I'm evolved, but during the first couple of minutes as I negotiated through the neighborhood, I thought, "Wow! It's cold! It's really, really cold! Oh well, I guess it will be OK when I warm up."

The notion of personal evolvement disappeared approximately five minutes into the run when I passed by a friend's house, turned to look to spy someone moving around inside and realized that I couldn't feel my face. Oh, I could touch it, but I couldn't feel it.

"Is this dangerous?" I thought. "This feels like it could be dangerous. This isn't dangerous is it?"

I realized I made a mistake when I put a gloved hand to my face and it felt like a bee sting. That sensation soon went away when my toes felt as though I had just dropped a canned ham on them. But oddly enough - after just 15 minutes of running - everything was back to normal. The wind had shifted, the swarm of bees that peppered my face had rubbed it with aloe and everything was back in order. The strut around the ‘hood was no longer dangerous. Instead, it was fun... as long as the wind remained where it was.

It looked as if the football players were out there having fun in Green Bay, too. Better yet, it didn't look as if the cold temperatures changed much about the performances at all. Plaxico Burress made Al Harris look like his personal hand puppet, Tom Coughlin was typical full bore jackassery, and Brett Favre caught a late case of the crazies when his passes suddenly began to behave as if they were punts.

More than the Giants, the Super Bowl, or the Fox network, the weather was the winner last weekend. It showed that it will always be the topic of discussion in ways beyond the banality of, "Some weather we're having, huh?" Yep, it got cold and none of that silliness about "Global Warming" reared its un-ironic head as the great misnomer of the past decade.

You know, global warming... kind of like jumbo shrimp.