Let's not forget how much egg ended up on ESPN's face with their daily USC Hype-fest building up to the Rose Bowl. They spent time each night (cross-promoted on the webpage of course) having fluff arguments about how SC would fare against the great college football teams of the past. When SC actually lost the game, that PR campaign ended up looking as dumb as that "Dan and Dave" thing that Reebok ran in advance of the Olympics years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I was hoping USC would crush Texas because I enjoy watching California teams beating the hoary old Southern and Midwestern machines. But oh man, they could have at least waited until after the game to try annointing this USC team the Greatest College Team Ever.

but Jack, are you effing kidding?

Go ahead, Jack. Show us the place on your body where the professional athlete touched you.

I don't think it will ever happen because of the coral reef of commercial hooha that has grown up around the event, but I'd prefer a home field Super Bowl too. Maybe you could determine HFA the same way baseball does it, by letting the winner of the previous Pro Bowl determine which conference hosts.

Then, Peyton Manning's post-choking Pro Bowl heroics would actually mean something.

Two words: Larry Johnson.

If you're asking why Roaf made the Pro Bowl over Walter Jones... Two words: Different conferences.

Wouldn't it be nice if, instead of taking place under a dome in Detroit, the game were to be played out in the open air. Which might be cold enough at game to make Mick Jagger keep his shirt on.

I like the idea of the Steelers choosing to wear their road uniforms. It's a nifty tradition-snubbing move that reminds me of the Patriots foregoing the individual introductions to be introduced as a team in SB 36. What has gotten into Bill Cowher lately? All these years as a solid and predictable pillar of the NFL, and all of a sudden, he gets his freak on in the playoffs, with the gutsy game planning and the road uniform switcheroo.

DavidWilliam, that's an interesting point about the way superior physical talent is viewed. I won't express any opinions about King's own views, but I know I tend to admire the less gifted athletes who still excel in their sports. I think it's natural to admire those who do more with less, or make up for their lack of physical dominance with intelligence, preparation, and hard work. Montana wasn't as fast and didn't have as big an arm as Young, but my loyalties are still towards Montana. Jerry Rice was never the physical freak that Terrell Owens is, but (TO's bugfuck craziness aside) I preferred Rice's game. I prefer Russell to Wilt for basically the same reasons.

Maybe it's just that a lot of the people with supreme physical talent, like say Randy Moss, just don't seem to care that much.

SunGod, it boggled my mind a little bit to use Rice in the "less talented" half of my comparison -- but just looking at Jerry Rice, he wasn't some kind of physical anomaly among wide receivers, was he? Swann was probably more graceful, Randy Moss is a better jumper, any number of receivers had better straight-line speed. It's kind of fatuous to refer to any NFL player as "less talented" because each and every one of them, even Ted Washington, exists in some kind of incredibly small upper percentile of human physical capability. But you can compare them against each other. TO's got more natural physical tools than Jerry Rice did. Rice dominated the game with brains, a ridiculous work ethic, superior route-running skills, etc -- and not because he was faster or a better jumper than the hundreds of other receivers who came and went while he was active.

I do think you're on to something about "talent" as a code word for racial bias, but not in this column or the discussions that have followed. Not when the original point about talent came up in a comparison of two white hockey players.

There were more than a few teams that were devastated by injuries this year, and some of them managed to keep from imploding. The Eagles were in trouble for more reasons than just injuries. They also got bit by a snake that they knew was a snake when they picked it up.

I still giggle every time Joey Porter spouts off to the media. He's good entertainment.

While I think the "bulletin board material" thing is usually just a game of silly buggers, the fact remains that Porter and Stevens will likely spend a significant amount of time staring at each other across the line of scrimmage. What this little pseudo-story has done has made everybody that much more eager to see what happens if Stevens should have a pass thrown to him in the flat.

Thanks for the info share on Stevens, Rich. I hadn't realized that Stevens was bigger than Porter. But, as they say, Crazy beats Big every time...

Makes the potential for a short pass collision even more interesting to me.

KWRussell, I don't think anyone has said they bought into the theory that Porter needs negative commentary from the other team to get hyped up for a game.