Weekly Sporties

-Last week we talked about how boring the Pro Bowl is because no one ever bothers to play defense, rendering the entire event a glorified 7-on-7 passing drill. But, at least you could always count on the players to at least pretend to try as they were attempting to keep up the ruse. However, even they couldn't lie about their effort this year, as most of the time the defensive linemen weren't even rushing the quarterbacks. It was so bad that Aaron Rodgers came out and was saying that this year's effort was really bad, even by Pro Bowl standards. I think we can all agree that the current format just isn't working anymore, because no one wants to risk getting hurt right before the offseason and potential free agency (and you can't blame them for that). The problem is I just can't give you a better alternative. Ideally you would like to do it at the start of the next year, maybe even as the Hall of Fame game, but with the amount of players retiring, changing teams and coaches getting fired it just doesn't make sense to wait that long. I'm going to guess that the only thing which would really inspire players would be more money to the winning side, because Conference pride certainly isn't working.

-After two weeks of hype, people are pretty much sick of Super Bowl coverage. But no matter how annoying you find it, at least they will finally be playing the game tomorrow and the two teams earned the right to be talked about this much. What I'm annoyed with is the fact that Peyton Manning's neck has somehow become the biggest story of this year's Super Bowl, even though Peyton hasn't played all year. It is customary for the quarterback from the host city make a few appearances, but Peyton has hijacked this year's game by leaking reports about his health and whether or not he is about to be released by the Colts. What annoys me even more is that the media is allowing him to do it. We all know the Colts plan to draft Andrew Luck and will probably release Peyton before he is do a very large bonus at the end of the month. (Even if he is healthy, he is probably not worth the monetary risk.) So, if we know all this, why are we letting him be such a big media story? There is no breaking news in any of these reports. I think it speaks volumes about his ego that he is purposely leaking these reports (and you'll never convince me otherwise) during the week that his little brother is playing in the Super Bowl. I can understand trying to steal Tom Brady's thunder, but doing this to Eli is a dick move. I know brothers can be competitive, but hasn't Peyton had the spotlight enough?

-Another guy I want to shut up until actual news happens is Dwight Howard. You may remember from previous sporties that Howard is currently the center for the Orlando Magic, but has continually asked for a trade from the team since he is in the last year of his deal and doesn't plan to return. Well last Sunday, as the Magic were getting their butts kicked against the Hornets (a common theme this year as the Magic have been free-falling after a hot start) Howard ripped into his team at half time, telling them that anyone who didn't want to play hard should just stay in the locker room for the rest of the game. Very inspirational stuff. Inspiration which lasted for about 24 hours, until the Magic were in Chicago to play the Bulls and Howard told reporters he would love to get traded there. Now, I know he was just being asked the question, but there is nothing which says you have to answer every question you have been asked. Suddenly it is easy to see why the Magic have been sputtering lately. It is really hard to follow a leader who has one foot out the door and is constantly telling people how he can't wait to get traded. Frankly, the way he is handling his exit would make me think twice about trading for the guy. Either way, I just want them to hurry up and get it over with.

-Another man with questionable leadership skills is LSU coach Les Miles. When last we saw Les he was being thoroughly out-coached in the BCS title game and harassed in his own post-game press conference by a radio show host about why he never made a quarterback switch. But on National Signing Day, when the top high school recruits pick their colleges, Miles surfaced again, just long enough to make a speech in which he publicly ripped former recruit Gunner Kiel. Kiel is the top quarterback prospect out of Indiana and he decommitted from LSU to stay in-state and go to Notre Dame. So, Miles spent several minutes on signing day not talking about Kiel by name, but constantly questioning his leadership skills with thinly-veiled insults. Never mind the fact that Miles had no such qualms about Kiel when he convinced Kiel to decommit from Indiana (his first choice) to sign with LSU. Apparently, that was just a no-honor-among-thieves kind of thing. But I think it shows a real lack of class to publicly make fun of an 18 year-old kid for waffling on a tough decision. Due to the cameras and the money, every now and again we forget that college sports are still played by teenagers. Miles may have built a hugely successful program down in Louisiana, but someone should remind him that it is still made up of a bunch of kids. Kids who just learned that if they cross him they shouldn't expect Miles to act like the adult in that situation.

-The big news of the offseason was that the Major League Baseball playoffs were going to be expanding. Now there will be two wild-card teams playing in a one-game series which would amount to a play-in game for the right to continue on in the postseason. Commissioner Bud Selig had hoped to get the changes in place by this coming season, but said this week that they would have to be held off until next season, due to scheduling and logistical problems. What scheduling problems? It's one extra game tacked on at the end of a 162-game season. Does he really think that adding one game is going to cause such massive problems, especially when teams typically only have two or three days to get ready for the playoffs anyway? I've worked in sports stadiums and know how quickly they can turn the place over for the next game. Honestly, after that long a season it would be just another night like all the others. I can't believe they are acting like this is some large problem. If they are having such issues with this it has suddenly become clear as to why they are so slow to work on expanding instant replay.

-Still, they are doing much better than the NHL, because it appears those guys can't even get the basics right.. A couple days ago during the final seconds of a game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Los Angeles Kings in LA, the Kings found themselves tied with a few seconds to play. They ended up scoring the winning goal with just .5 of a second left on the clock. But, after the goal it became clear that the clock had paused at 1.8 seconds. It wasn't a long stoppage, but definitely longer than .5 seconds. However, that wasn't what was being reviewed at the time, so no one in the booth noticed it and the goal was allowed to stand. Now, it clearly looked to the world that the Kings got a little home cooking. Had they sheepishly admitted it by putting out a statement saying they would look into a possible clock malfunction nothing more would have happened. But, instead they tried to absolve themselves of blame by saying that the clock was self-correcting and the pause was because it had moved too fast earlier in the period. Now, I will grant you that technology has made some things more complicated than they need to be. However, I don't think a clock counting down 20 minutes is one of those things. Just admit you screw up and be done with it. Making up some overly complicated answer about clocks just makes you look guiltier and causes the rest of us to be suspicious about your other time-keeping abilities. As always, trying to make excuses about how they were innocent just made the Kings look guilty.

-I'm always amazed at what constitutes news on ESPN.com. Some smaller but legitimate sport stories never get mentioned, while other things which don't seem like actual news end up on the front page. A perfect example of this happened early in the week when it was announced that Mike Tyson is going to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. He is going in for his contributions to the WWE acting as a guest-referee. Now, the fact that his few appearances were worthy of a Hall of Fame nod are strange enough. (Sylvester Stallone was more deserving of getting into the boxing Hall of Fame.) But the fact that ESPN thought it was worth a mention on the first page of their website is even stranger. Seriously, it is a fake, scripted sport and a fake Hall of Fame. No one goes in based on their accomplishments, they go in based on how much they got along with the owner and the writers behind the scenes. This isn't news any more than it would be a character on a soap opera received some award. Still, I guess as long as the Royal Rumble results don't start appearing on the ticker than I can't complain too much.