Weekly Sporties

-With the season about to start, the issue of concussions in football and their impact on former players threatened to hang over the NFL every time there was a big hit or a player taken off the field. Everyone knows the League wants this story out of the papers and early this week they took the first step towards achieving that goal when they settled the lawsuit brought by 4,500 former players who contended the NFL knew about the long-term problems that result from concussions and did nothing, agreeing to pay $765 million over 20 years. Now, I know that sounds like a lot of money but it only works out to be about $150,000 per plaintiff (although that number will go up as the NFL will have to pay legal fees as well) and you have to remember that the NFL makes $9 billion per year, so $765 million spread out over 20 years will really be a drop in the bucket. But this settlement was never about profit margins for the League and that is why keeping these lawsuits from ever getting to a courtroom is the best money they will ever spend. Everyone knows playing sports, especially a violent sport like football, comes with certain risks. But, much like NASCAR fans want to see a big wreck and have everyone walk away, football fans don't want to acknowledge that they are watching these guys risk their long-term health for our entertainment. If every one of these trials featured a doctor reminding people of what is happening to players' brains and bodies with every single tackle, eventually parents would start to keep their kids away from football and the League's labor force would start to dry up. Before that people would stop going to games and the League's TV deals would get smaller and smaller. So by getting these lawsuits out of the public discussion (and probably making any future players sign waivers saying they won't sue) the NFL and its fans can go back only worrying about what is happening on the field while fooling ourselves into thinking that everything is fine, pretending the steps they have made thus far are more than enough and that as long as everyone can walk at the end of the game it was a good day. I'm not saying headshots are about to be legal again, but this settlement probably means the rules aren't going to be getting any stricter. I never would have thought it was possible to put a price on an entire community of people fooling themselves, but it turns out you can and it's $765 million.

-But while the NFL's concussion problem is simply being pushed to the back burner rather than going away for good, college football's longest-running story of the offseason may finally be coming to an end. After meeting with Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel for six hours regarding allegations that he took money in exchange for signing merchandise for a sports memorabilia dealer, the NCAA recommended suspending Manziel for the first half of the Aggie's first game this afternoon against Rice. Even though Manziel maintains he never took any money for his signature, he said he would accept the suspension and the NCAA subsequently said they consider the matter closed. I know to a lot of people making a player who may have broken one of the biggest rules in college athletics miss 30 minutes of a football game seems like a nothing penalty but that is only because it is. Texas A&M is a solid, up-and-coming program and while Rice has some nice moments in its history, the Aggies would have no problem beating the Owls even if Manziel never plays a snap. This is like punishing a kid by sending him to his room even though he was already on his way there because that is where is X-Box is. Despite the fact the penalty is less than a slap on the wrist, somehow this has to be considered a win for the NCAA because of the fact that they got anything at all. Let's be honest, if they had proof that Manziel broke a rule they would have brought the hammer down on him and the program but they didn't and they couldn't afford to raise this much of a stink and have nothing to show for it. Basically, the only way they were going to save face is if Manziel fell on the sword here and that is what happened. But that's the amazing thing out of all of this - Manziel is the biggest winner of them all. First off, I have no doubt someone got paid for all those autographs and that Johnny got his cut of it. (Considering I think NCAA players should get paid for stuff like that I am fine with it if he did.) But on top of that Manziel is now left looking like an unselfish leader, willing to be punished for a crime he did not commit in the name of removing a distraction from his teammates. This will only make him an even bigger God in College Station and, ironically, raise the value of his autograph in the future. So he probably got his money and managed to increase his legendary stature. Yeah, that'll teach him a lesson.

-One of the reason college sports is so great is because of all the rivalries. Sure, pro teams may not like each other, but that hatred is tempered by the fact that if a player is a free agent and the team he claims to hate today offered him the most money, he would sign with them and then talk about how he has always respected and admired their approach to the game. Professional athletes are mercenaries and the fans of pro sports know that. That doesn't happen in college sports, where the hatred can be real and run deep. However, even the most intense collegiate rivalries have a line and it gets crossed when you expect the entire world to take your traditions as seriously as you do, which we were reminded of this week. In college football there aren't many rivalries as contentious as Ohio State and Michigan. Because of that Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer has declared that no one is allowed to wear Michigan blue during football activities. It is exactly the kind of easy motivational tool that college football coaches love and college kids eat up so it was a great idea - right up until Meyer made some NFL scouts change their shirts because they were wearing blue. Look, I'm all for motivating your kids, but what Meyer needs to remember here is that these guys are on campus doing his kids a favor by showing up and telling them what they have to do to this season if they make it to the next level (which Meyer told them he was going to do when he recruited them). Asking these guys to conform to a rule they didn't know about in the first place is only going to embarrass them and that's not how you should treat a potential employer. I know college football coaches are known for being dictators but every now and again someone needs to remind them that their kingdom only extends to their players and students. The rest of the world is full of adults that you are not able to control and who don't have to listen to a word you say. On top of that, Meyer should ask guys like Rick Pitino and Nick Saban how well their dictator act worked at the next level. Look, I'm not going to pretend that I particularly like Meyer cause I think he's a bully but even if I did this move is pretty indefensible. I only wished that the scouts hadn't gone along with it, because it is only going to inflate Meyer's ego even more. Considering he is on his way of having just as many off-the-field issues in Ohio as he did in Florida, maybe Meyer should worry about making sure none of his players end up in orange instead of blue.

-Still, even if I don't agree with Meyer or his tactics, there is no denying that rivalries make sports much more interesting. Even when the rivalries are manufactured they can make a regular season meeting have just a little bit more juice, so I was not surprised when the Nets started sniping at the New York Knicks after they moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn last year. Because familiarity breeds contempt and the two franchises share a media market there has always been something of a rivalry between the two, but it was one-sided as the Nets have never quite been able to crack into the Knicks stranglehold on the city and were seen as the ugly step-sister (which is a little crazy if you compared the two teams' records in the past decade). The Nets clearly arrived in Brooklyn determined to change that perception and they quickly stepped up their offensive. First it was a giant banner advertising the Nets which was put up outside Madison Square Garden and then it was Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov saying in an interview that he would never want to emulate the Knicks because he wants to model his franchise after a "winning organization." If the Knicks had fired back it would have been just the kind of war of words the New York media would have eaten up, which is why I am kind of surprised to learn that Knicks owner James Dolan asked NBA Commissioner David Stern to get Prokhorov to stop taking jabs at him and Stern agreed. I understand why Dolan, who is hated by Knicks fans, would want Prokhorov to stop picking on him because if you compared the two Dolan would lose, but I would have assumed Stern would have been all for this. At the moment the NBA is really devoid of interesting team rivalries. Sure, there are heated match-ups which bubble up when two teams have quality stars playing for them but there are almost no rivalries that can sustain themselves even when both teams are down. The only one I can think of is Lakers/Celtics and they only play each other twice a year, so I would have thought Stern would be chomping at the bit to build some animosity between the Knicks and the Nets who share a city as as well as a division and play each other four times a season. I can only assume his reluctance to keep this going is because Stern is getting ready to step down next season and wants everything calm before he does. It's too bad because in the past Stern would have promoted this thing like it was a WWE match.

-Last week I told you that Allen Iverson had decided to call it a career. Well, it must be that time of year because on Monday former superstar Tracy McGrady announced he too would be stepping away from the NBA. Now, unlike Iverson who hadn't been in the NBA for 3 years, McGrady was still hanging around on a roster, buried deep in the San Antonio Spurs rotation. It was the kind of cushy gig veterans like McGrady usually love because they get paid good money and don't have any expectations and my guess is he could have stayed there another year if he wanted to, but reportedly he wants to play overseas and make even more money simply for being Tracy McGrady. Now just like with Iverson I am not quite sure how history will judge Tracy McGrady. On the one hand there is no questioning his was a talented scorer. There are only 17 men in NBA history with as many points, assists and steals as McGrady and the other 16 are in the Hall of Fame. However, unlike Iverson, who you knew gave everything he had and was de-rail by off-court problems, McGrady always struck me as a guy who should have been so much better given his talent. Tracy never got out of the first round of the playoffs until this year with the Spurs, which makes me wonder just how great he could have been. After all, basketball is the one sport in which one player can will a team to victory, so with that giant hole in his resume I don't know if McGrady can really be considered all that great. I know McGrady dealt with knee and back problems and was never blessed with particularly great teammates, but plenty of great players have had bad teammates and still managed to make a run in the playoffs at least once in their careers. On top of that he got a few coaches fired, burned more than his share of bridges and was traded away from two teams with neither franchise particularly sad to see him go, which doesn't sound like a Hall of Fame player to me. I just feel like McGrady was the perfect symbol of the post-Jordan, pre-LeBron NBA: supremely talented but not particularly motivated or interested in winning. Based on the numbers alone I expect that McGrady will eventually find his way to Springfield but I certainly won't be seeking out his plaque when I visit after his induction.

-After all the early-season praise heaped on LA Dodgers' outfielder Yasiel Puig it would be perfectly understandable if the kid developed a bit of a big head. You had already started to hear bellyaching about him from other organizations - he didn't speak to their media, was showing off too much during games and didn't appear to follow all of baseball's unwritten rules. I assumed it was jealousy and didn't put much stock into it until later in the season when you started to hear that the Dodgers themselves were trying to reign him in and 'sources' started leaking allegations to the media that Puig was making too many of the same mistakes and it was annoying to manager Don Mattingly. This may have finally come to a head the other night when Puig was benched in the middle of a game, reportedly because after he struck out to end an inning, he sulked into the dugout then sulked out to his position and took so long to do so he was still not ready to play defense by the time the pitcher had begun throwing to the first batter of the inning. Normally I hate it when the "old guard" takes it upon themselves to police the game and teach these young folk how it should be played because it just feels like they are taking sports too seriously and forgetting how they acted when they were that age but in this case I think I am on Mattingly's side. Think about any baseball game you have ever attended - the amount of time it takes between innings is interminable. Infielders toss a couple warm-ups balls, the batter has to get his gear on and the pitcher gets a couple throws to loosen his arm. The entire thing takes a solid four minutes, which is more than enough time for a guy, even moving at half speed, to make it out to his position and get into a defensive stance. The fact Puig wasn't at his spot by the time the first pitch was thrown means he must have been moving at a snail's pace and if the ball had been hit in his direction it would have been disastrous. I'm not saying the kid needs to be sent down to the minors to be taught a lesson about what a privilege it is to play baseball for a living, but I have no problem with using this as a teaching moment. It's fine to get mad at yourself for striking out but baseball players strike out dozens of times in a season - you need to have a short memory and you need to be ready when the ball is in play. The good news is that you can learn that lesson in less time than it takes for a pitcher to make it to the mound from the bullpen, so Puig should be fine.

-I'm always fascinated by what sports fans decide to get outraged about versus what we just accept as the cost of doing business. For example, steroids in baseball are the worst thing in the history of civilization and yet we automatically assume everyone in other sports are using them and couldn't care less. One of the sports where we are more shocked to find out someone isn't using science to improve than we would be if they failed a drug test is weightlifting. Now, even though I actually liked lifting back in the day I never saw it as anything other than a means to an end, so I never particularly understood the people who kept going with it. I mean, we have things like forklifts and pallet jacks specifically so no one has to lift 400 lbs anymore. Anyway, I think the average sports fan just assumes everyone involved with that sport is taking drugs at all hours of the day and stories like this one certainly won't help to change that image: an 80 year-old weightlifter tested positive for steroids while competing at the Pan American Masters, where he was attempting to break a record for his age group. (As you can imagine, that story left me with more questions than answers such as how many people were competing in this age group, what was the make-up of the group (70-80 or just 65+) and what was the record he was going for? Sadly, none of those questions were answered in the article I saw.) He was tested by the same group which tested Lance Armstrong, so I can only assume this guy is going to blame the French. And for as much as I want athletes competing on a level playing field, I kind of feel like we should let this one slide. I mean, elderly people practically have pharmacies in their medicine cabinets and for all we know this guy popped positive for some unrelated medication he actually needs to take. But even if that isn't the case I see no harm in looking the other way when an 80 year-old takes drugs. Frankly, I am impressed that he found a vein, so I say if you make it to 80 you can do whatever the hell you want. What I find extra ironic is that I can almost guarantee you that the organizers pointed the drug testers at this group assuming everyone would pass and it would count as an all-clear for the entire event. I guess this just goes to prove old habits aren't the only thing that die hard.