First, the offensive line has huge problems to be fixed.  And there really isn’t a playmaker receiver on the squad.  So beyond Steven Jackson, Bradford, if he starts, will be missing a supporting cast to be a winning quarterback in year one.  And he is liable to set an NFL record for number of times sacked if he starts all year.

He did  show in the first preseason game that he has strengthened his upper body and the surgically repaired shoulder when he took a hit and landed on the shoulder.  He got up with no apparent problems, letting the Rams breathe a sigh of relief.

So, if he does end up starting, it will be a long year for the Number one pick.  If he stays healthy through it though, he should have the chance to really take of in years 2 and 3 if the football team builds around him.

Good luck Sam.

Let’s first look at history.  T.O. always ends up throwing someone under the bus when things don’t go his way.  It ALWAYS happens.  And Ocho loves attention as much, if not more than T.O.  Someone in this duo will feel neglected.  Either with not enough passes to them or not enough attention.

And look at how they each view the pairing.  T.O. calls himself Batman with Ocho being Robin.  Ocho, on the other hand, calls himself Clyde and T.O. Bonnie.  Hmmm who’s leading this dance?

The bottom line is too much ego for one wide receiver corps and one football team.  I believe the explosion will happen before the halfway point in this football season.

Now from what I can tell, teammates flew down to Hattiesburg.  And people were apparently talking to him and they probably were talking to him and asking him to come back.  The team with him is in a position to win a Super Bowl.  But did he really have to make it sound the way he did?  I guess no one should be surprised.

The second thing was his announcement that he is back AND that he is retiring at the end of the year, almost in the same breath.  That, to me, means he wants to be the topic of discussion all year long.  You might disagree and that’s ok.  But given his history, I think he talked about it now just to get the attention.

Ok Brett here it is.  Great player, great quarterback, but I am through writing about you.  This is it.  The last time, I promise.  I just can’t do it anymore.  I just had to write this last one, I felt I owed it to the people, but after this many articles, I’m done………

Second, last year and now before training camp this year, he is so overweight and out of shape that he can’t really contribute to helping the team.  So, after accepting a $100 million dollar contract, he won’t honor that contract by working hard to help the team.

All of this points to character problems.  And to look at his character, I guess all you have to do is go back a few years and look at the incident in 2006 when he stomped on the head of Cowboys center Andre Gurode.  Or maybe it’s not really character problems, but no character at all.

Albert Haynesworth appears to me to be nothing more than an incredible waste of talent.  He has shown in the past that he can play the game, and play it well.  But now he either really doesn’t want to play anymore or thinks he can just take the money and show up without working. Either way, I just don’t understand it.

But here is the deal.  Remember the old saying “There is no I in team”?  Well Terrell proved that there is  a “TO in idiot” with all of his antics.  But all the things he did never stopped teams from taking a gamble on him.  And most of the time, he produced.

But the question I would like to pose is this.  What if T.O. had not carried so much baggage?  What if he wasn’t such a disruption in the locker room?  If he had stayed with one football team and one solid quarterback for an extended time, what kind of legacy would he have?  What kind of numbers would he have produced?

All of that talent and how much did it end up being under utilized because of his antics and attitude? I really wish we could have seen what could have been.  I think that he had the talent to be one of the best ever, maybe THE best.

So yes, I believe he will land with a team.  Because the talent is there.  But it probably won’t be the team that he would choose.  And he won’t get the money that he wants.  All because of attitude.  What a shame.

And let me first state that I think that the way that LeBron made this announcement is over the top and basically self centered to say the least.  But I’ll talk about that more in a minute.  First to the reactions.

Lets start with the owner, Dan Gilbert.  I don’t know the guy or anything about him.  But I feel pretty sure that had LeBron resigned, he would have called him not only “The King” but probably the greatest basketball player of all time or something to that effect.  But instead he rips him and calls him a coward and a quitter.  If he really believed he was a quitter, why wait until now?  Why be so upset that you weren’t able to sign him?

Now to the fans.  I hear the words “cruel”  “cowardly betrayal”  “deserted us”.  And they were burning his jersey in the streets.

I have three main thoughts on this.  First, why do people think that LeBron owes Cleveland anything?  As far as I know he never signed a lifetime contract.   And from what I saw, he gave the team and the city 7 great years of basketball.   To say he “betrayed” Cleveland, that he “deserted” them is just plain crazy in my opinion.  He has the right to pursue his desires, in this case a championship. And as far as I remember, he gave not only them great basketball but of himself to that community during that time. What, beyond that, does he owe?

Second, I would say that he could have handled the decision and announcement differently.  Creating the frenzy, stringing it along, having your own prime time show to announce that you are leaving, well I’m not a fan of that approach.  I do think it adds to the hurt and the sting of his leaving.  Was it narcissistic?  Was it self-promoting?  Was it a spectacle?   Probably yes to all of those.  But was it wrong, a crime, betrayal, cowardly?  Not in my humble opinion.

Last, I would ask, “What do you expect?”  While I am not a fan of the approach that LeBron took, look at how we have elevated him and other sports stars.  If you call a guy “The King”, treat him like he is, literally, a king, why would you expect him to act any other way.  Kings are never about the subjects.  They are about their kingdom and their own power.  And that is part of the problem in all sports.

We create this atmosphere, allow all types of behavior, pay them obscene amounts of money and then we are surprised by their behavior.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that LeBron is like some of the other professional athletes with their legal problems and other issues.  But I am saying that if he did handle this in a narcissistic, self promoting, self centered way, are you really, seriously surprised?

Get a grip America.

How did Coach Pete Carroll react?  Here is his quote “A great maple bar is a great maple bar, right Golden?”  Are you kidding me?

Some people might say no harm, no foul.  But what if this was a 15 year old kid from the wrong side of town?  Do you think that it would have been laughed off and no charges pressed?  I doubt it.  Interestingly Top Pot is a recent new sponsor for the Seahawks AND decided not to press charges.

And what was Golden Tate’s response?  “They’re irresistible”.  I guess he can say that when his coach laughs and he only receives a warning.

But mark my word, when coaches let things slide, they have set the bar.  Just like Coach Childress in Minnesota.  He let Favre skip preseason work and guess what?  Now Adrian Peterson missed this year’s minicamp.  Give them an inch….

So now we know where the bar is for the Seahawks and it will be interesting to see what happens when something else happens and the victim isn’t so accommodating.   What will Carroll do then?  My guess is as little as possible.

I wonder if the Seahawks owner and management are starting to regret their hire?  I believe that they will before it’s over.  Just ask USC.

I believe that mega conferences are coming, it’s only a matter of time (translate to money).  The TV revenues that a “mega conference” can offer will ultimately win out over local rivalries, tradition, and probably some common sense in some cases.

I hate to say it, but as Mr. Smith said to Neo in The Matrix  “Hear that? That’s the sound of the inevitable.” Or something like that.   I believe that the big dollars will just be too much to turn down.   So if it’s money, why didn’t it happen this time?  Well I don’t know for sure, but I can hazard a guess.

I think that once the SEC jumped into the fray competing with the Pac-10, someone or several someones at Texas, A&M, Oklahoma or all of the above said “Wait a minute, we don’t want to rush here.  We might leave money on the table if we make a rash decision.”

Call me cynical? You bet.  It’s going to happen.  And sooner, rather than later.

So what are we losing? Well, for one thing probably some pretty good football rivalries; Texas vs Oklahoma for one.  Now we won’t know the final impact for a few more days until all the moves are announced.   But I just don’t see Texas Tech and Arizona creating good ole fashioned hate like a lot of the rivalries we have today.  And part of that is being close enough for buddies to do things like burn the final score in their friends yard.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always preferred college sports to professional.  And now I start to ask myself this question:  As money continues to drive more and more decisions in college football, I worry about what we’ll end up with 5 years from now.

Your thoughts Football Fans?

What has always impressed me so much about John Wooden was how he achieved success while impacting so many of his players in huge ways.  If you watch over the next couple of weeks, you will hear those testimonies pouring out.  And they are well deserved in my opinion.

He was intensely loyal.  He taught life lessons, not just basketball.  He was all about team, not the individual.  And he cared about his players immensely.  And he knew how to win, and in a big way regardless of the talent he had.

Basketball and sports in general have changed quite a bit since Wooden was at UCLA.   Many might say that he couldn’t achieve today what he did in the 60’s and 70’s.  I’m not convinced of that, but we’ll never know.

What I do know, or at least believe very strongly is that we won’t see another coach and man like John Wooden for a long time, if ever.

Thank you coach for all you did and taught to all of us!