I realize comparing College FB to the NFL is sometimes like comparing apples to oranges, but couldn't you argue that the current 'go for it' condition was started by Pete Carroll at USC against Notre Dame? That happened the week before Dick Vermeil's TD choice against the Raiders. That would also make 3 straight occurances that could move this directly into the 'trend' category.

Also: I don't bother to listen to ESPN's monday night crew anymore. Only 2 weeks ago, with Buffalo leading by 9 with 10 minutes to go, and having controlled the time of posession for the entire game, the enlightened broadcasting crew pretty much claimed the game was over, and that Buffalo had "dominated" the game. Of course, the Patriots then scored 2 TD's in 5 minutes and won the game. Good Job guys!

Man, I understand your need for a vacation, but what about our need for one of the few intelligent commentariats on sports out there? I'm stuck in Seattle with the Go2Guy. Oh the pain.

Looking forward to January, have a good time off.

This runup to the Superbowl has been really interesting for me. As a resident of Seattle for many years, but growing up on the east coast (and lived in Pittsburgh for a few years as well), I've now had a chance to see how the media approaches sports teams from both sides.

All year, as the Seahawks continued to win, the media here in Seattle kept mentioning how Seattle was getting no respect from the national media. Since the only media I was privy to was the local media, I thought they were full of it. But now that the Seahawks have made the big game, they do indeed seem to be a footnote in the 'national' football universe.

One thing is true, having lived in Seattle and Pittsburgh (in 96 no less): Seattle fans, as a whole, are happy just to be there, while Pittsburgh fans will accept nothing less than a win on Sunday. For this reason, I have a hunch Seattle will win.

As a layperson when it comes to knowing the technicalities of figure skating, I'm not going to try to argue which skater was better than another. What bothers me the most is that the announcers do a fairly poor job of helping those of us who rarely watch this sport understand what makes one skater better than another. I personally thought many of the 'non-medal-contending' skaters looked better than the ones that ended up on the podium. So I have a suggestion on how they can better show people like me the differences.

Bring the overlay technology that they have been using for the downhill skiing to skating. When they say that skater X didn't jump as high, or didn't spin as fast, etc as another....lets see the matched videos of their performance on top of each other. I think that would go a long way to back up the statement of the announcers (and judges) to those of us who don't quite understand all the little differences between performances.

Add another vote for hockey. I realize there's 2 playoffs going on now, and basketball isn't relegated to OLN, but 1) the game is more interesting, and 2) the fandom of the NBA is below hockey these days. See the following survey (in a hockey free year even!):

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=622

How about those Sabres, eh?

Who's this Dirk guy I keep hearing about. Is he up-and- coming left winger for a team from Dallas? Someone once told me he played basketball, and so I watched the sport they were talking about, but all I saw was sweaty men carrying/dribbling a ball down the court, and then taking 4 or 5 steps to the basket after stopping dribbling. It was like the basketball I watch those college kids play, without all those pesky rules getting in the way of the scoring.

For me, a displaced western NY'er, I'm crushed to see Buffalo lose, and I'll be rooting for Edmonton, but I kinda feel like we just saw the Cup winner emerge from a brutal and amazingly entertaining seven game series.

While I haven't had my team leave the town where I live and have to decide what to do about rooting for them, I have left town myself while my favorite team stayed where it was. I may not live in Buffalo, but the Bills are still my 'home' team. If you're a Sonics fan, you can still root for them in OKC, or Kansas, or Spain, or wherever they choose to move to where the people want to pay for them.

The Sonics management has played an interesting gambit to the folks of Seattle here, the usual, "Pay for our stadium/arena or we'll leave. You wouldn't want that to happen, right?" The majority of Seattle seems to be of the opinion: "Eh. Whatever."

What's interesting is, for the Seahawks stadium, it actually failed a couple votes to have it funded by taxpayer money. It just took the persistence of Paul Allen to keep getting it back on the ballet, until it passed by about 1 vote. It would appear that Shultz and/or the OKC group are unlikely to have this level of persistence. I wonder if they'll keep the name 'Sonics' when they move, ala the Utah 'Jazz'. Hah!

It's interesting to see someone try so hard to throw away what obviously could have been a successful (both financially and otherwise) career.

I thought the following article on him written by Tom Friend, who apparently talked to him only a couple hours before he was arrested, was fairly interesting.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?id=2545078