Weekly Sporties

-When the NFL announced that Terrelle Pryor was going to face the same five-game suspension when he entered the league that he would have had if he remained in college, a lot of players loudly wondered if the Commissioner would do the same thing to coaches who were in trouble with the NCAA and came to the NFL. Well, after the Indianapolis Colts hired Jim Tressel as their game-day "replay consultant", it appears we are about to find out. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't think the NFL would have to do anything to him, because Tressel was more in trouble for lying to the NCAA than for any rules violation. It's their issue, not the NFL's. But, Goodell opened up this Pandora's box when he suspended Pryor. Now, he almost has to give Tressel some kind of punishment or it will appear like he has it out for players. Goodell has enough of an image problems with the guys on the field - the last thing he needs is to give them another opportunity to talk about his bias against them.

-Speaking of the NFL having issues, this coming Thursday is the big kick-off to the season. The World Champion Packers are having a big celebration and have the national spotlight all to themselves. Almost. You see, President Obama is scheduled to make a speech to Congress that night and normally the network would preempt its programming to cover the speech. Even though the President will be done well before the game starts, he would still force the network to drop the pre-game concert festivities. The NFL isn't very happy about this. Here's my take: the pre-game show is Kid Rock, Maroon 5 and Lady Antebellum. Mr. President, preempt away.

-Early in the week Michael Vick signed a massive new contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. Everyone talked about how great this was for Vick, because it could finally get him out of all the legal debt he accrued during his dog-fighting trial and it symbolically completed his comeback. That's neither here nor there to me. What I don't get are all the people talking about his $100 million dollar deal as if it's real. NFL contracts aren't usually worth the paper they are written on. Almost nothing is guaranteed. Even is Vick stays healthy (which, given the way he plays, won't happen), there is no way he's going to see all that money. Haven't people learned this by now? That total the team announces is if he attends every workout and achieved every performance bonus. It sounds nice and impressive to throw out this massive round number and it makes the player, his agent and the team all sound really good, but the reality falls far short of that. It is just sad that sports writers think the rest of us don't realize that.

-Houston running back Arian Foster has been on the shelf with a hamstring injury for the past couple of weeks. A few days ago he Tweeted a picture of his hamstring's MRI and said he was good to go. As you can imagine, the Texans were not amused. Especially when several doctors in the employment of ESPN looked at that MRI and said, "Um, no he's not." Not only does this make Foster's doctor look bad, but now every team Houston is going to be playing knows just where to aim when they try and tackle Foster. Moral of the story: medical records are private for a reason.

-After first saying they were planning to leave the Big 12, then backing off when they weren't invited to join the SEC, Texas A&M sent a letter to the Big 12 Commissioner the other night officially announcing their intention to leave the conference. Oh my God, just go already. The back-and-forth is getting on my nerves. It isn't like A&M has this long and storied history with the Big 12 - it's only been around since 1996. Honestly, I'm not sure A&M is good enough to compete in the SEC anyway, so it is not like it will change the college football landscape. This would be like the Memphis Grizzlies taking forever to decide whether to be in the Eastern or the Western Conference in the NBA. You're not going to make an impact either way, so just hurry up, make a decision and get off the stage.

-Here's a cautionary tale for any NBA player thinking about playing overseas during the lockout: apparently Paul Pierce and Michael Beasley were on a promotional tour through China and playing in lots of tiny gyms. One thing they didn't count on was that roughly 60% of the Chinese population smokes and you can smoke pretty much anywhere you aren't performing open heart surgery. As such, the gyms were full of smoke and this lead to both players allegedly having breathing issues. That story should serve as a strict reminder - NBA players have it pretty good over here. They may need the threat of playing overseas to gain leverage in the labor negotiations, but at the end of the day I doubt many will actually follow through on that threat.

-For the longest time I haven't had an opinion on the belly putter craze sweeping the PGA Tour. Some people feel they should be illegal, because rules state that the club should not be anchored to the body. Other people say that is just an interpretation of the rules and they are perfectly within the laws. I wasn't planning on using one, so I didn't care one way or another. I say use whatever works for you. However, they are becoming so widespread that they are starting to annoy me. Walking around TPC Boston the other day, I couldn't get over how many guys are using them. Much in the same way driving behind the same person for too long makes you begin to hate them, seeing everyone making the switch to belly putters has caused me to form an irrational bias against them. More and more I'm starting to feel like if people want to ban them, it is alright in my book.