Anyway, most years the week leading up to this game is full of sports radio chatter about the big “rivalry.” Which has always struck me as a bit silly, frankly. I know a lot of marketing departments would like for us to think it’s a rivalry, but it really isn’t. Never has been. CU is a tier 1, BCS conference school (even when we suck, like we do this year) and the Rams are members of the second-tier Mountain West. No offense, but just because you’ve played a lot of times and are located fairly close to each other, that doesn’t make it a rivalry. CSU’s real rival is Wyoming (The Border War) and Colorado honestly doesn’t have a true rival. For years the big game was Nebraska, but we were never their big game. Now that they’ve departed for the Big 10 and we’re in the PAC-12 I imagine the marketers are hard at work on our new Big Game^®, which will presumably involve the other new member of the PAC, Utah. (Oh, wait – it’s already happening.)

The point is that for a lot of us purists, the word “rivalry” has a specific meaning, and that meaning explicitly excludes any game where we need to be told that it’s a rivalry. However, in the interests of helping sports fans everywhere speak more concisely, I’ve pulled together a little guide on all the different kinds of “rivalries,” and I have included what I hope will be useful illustrations. (Note – some rivalries fit into more than one category, as I think will be clear.) So here we go.

THE Rivalry. Rivalry with a capital R. The pure rivalry. The blood match. The end of the world for the loser. This is when the game is the game for both teams. It’s the biggest game on the schedule every year, no matter whether both teams are in the hunt for the title or both teams suck or one sucks and the other one is on top and you can throw out the records, etc. You’d rather win this game and lose all the others than win all the others and lose this one. Examples: Army/Navy. Ohio State/Michigan. Oregon/Oregon State (The Civil War). UCLA/USC. Stanford/Cal. Texas/Oklahoma. Harvard/Yale. Indiana/Purdue. West Virginia/Pitt. Clemson/South Carolina. Ledford/East Davidson (the Eagles can go to hell – Go Panthers!) And so on.

The One-Legged Rivalry. This is when it’s the big game for one team but the other team doesn’t really care. Or they care a little bit, but not as much as the other team. Usually it’s a case where one team is a big dog and the other one is a relatively poorer sister. The aforementioned Colorado/Nebraska game is a great case. Former Buff coach Bill McCartney decided that CU needed a big game and that the Huskers were going to be it, so he decreed that Nebraska was our rival. Everything was aimed toward that game and the intensity did, in fact, ramp up once CU beat NU a time or two. Mainly it was one-sided, though. Nebraska was far more concerned about their huge game with Oklahoma. (Of course, as the importance of the Red River Rivalry grew, Nebraska became less important to OU, making them participants in two One-Leggers.)

The King of the Hill Rivalry. Growing up on Tobacco Road I knew all about this one. Everybody else hated Carolina. So UNC was the big game for the other members of the Big 4 (State, Duke and Wake Forest), and it was also a pretty big deal for UVa. The Heels really didn’t care about Wake, though (where I went), so we were always sky-high for any game where there was Carolina Blue on the other bench. This was actually a nice advantage – when one team has rivalry emotion and the other is struggling to stay awake, the weak sister can have an edge. Once upon a time The UNC/State game was an alpha rivalry, but over time that has shifted and now UNC/Duke functions pretty much as a Pure Rivalry.

The Derby. Pronounced “darby,” and also known as the Proximity Rivalry or the In-State Rivalry. Derby is the English term for a game involving close neighbors, like Chelsea/Fulham (who sit a couple miles apart in West London). Sometimes these are the games and other times they’re sort of big games but not really (trust me, Chelsea and Arsenal care a lot more about Man U than they do Fulham and Spurs). Colorado/Colorado State is a good example. So is Michigan/Michigan State (which is also a one-legger).

The Really Big Game. We might also call this one the Gray Area Rivalry, since supporters of the sides involved may disagree. There are games out there that many assume are the game, but that perhaps really aren’t. For instance, Alabama/Auburn is huge, but when you talk to die-hard Bammers they’ll tell you that no, the game is Tennessee. The same goes for Southern Cal/Notre Dame, which is regarded by many as the big game for both (and it probably is for ND). But many Trojan fans see UCLA as the most important game (UCLA certainly does). There aren’t a lot of examples of this one that I can think of (I imagine that when you start looking at that cocktail of SEC East games there are some in there, like maybe South Carolina/Georgia and Georgia/Florida). Also, as a result of two teams getting really good and fighting it out for the title over a period of a few years you’ll sometimes hear people using the R word. This happens in the pros a lot (Indy/New England and Pittsburgh/Baltimore aren’t rivalries at all if the teams aren’t good for an extended period).

The Trophy Game. All across the country there are traditional match-ups where two schools play annually for a trophy. We don’t normally think of, say, Michigan State and Penn State as being a huge deal, but the winner gets the Land Grant Trophy. Iowa State and Missouri play for the Telephone Trophy. And, as if Michigan isn’t busy enough with OSU and Sparty, the Little Brown Jug is on the line when they play Minnesota. Lots more of these here.

The We-Don’t-Know-a-Real-Rivalry-Is. I recall a few years back being told what a huge rivalry the Duke/Maryland game had become in hoops. Bitch, please.

There may be more, but you get the idea. So please, use the R word judiciously, and let me know if there’s a category I have missed.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to head over to the store and pick up some lamb chops….

CBS Sports game analyst Randy Cross believes Tebow haters are bashing him for his outspoken Christian opinions.

“People, especially the media, root against him because of what he stands for,” said Cross.

The 3-time Super Bowl champ added: “My personal belief is there are people in the media, people in the stands, who are predisposed to see a guy like that fail…Just because he’s so public about the way he feels.”

My gut response is to mock Cross for being a barking gongbat. I could say things like “yes, it’s true, America hates Christians. Especially the media. I mean, the mere 85% of Americans who identify themselves as Christian constitutes an almost invisible minority. I know, I know, the president is a Christian and so is the VP and well over 90% of our Congressional representatives are Christian and the Supreme Court features seven Christians and all of our major presidential candidates in both major parties for as far back as anybody can remember have been Christians. And almost all of our past presidents were Christians (you have to go all the way back to Lincoln to find one we can even debate over). Hell, even sports franchises are building their operations around the evangelical litmus test. Still, you can make statistics say anything.

“And sweet hell, on top of this he’s saddled with the crippling disadvantage of being a white male. He’s like a modern-day Job.”

That said, there’s no doubt that Timmy’s PDPs (that’s public displays of piety) get on some folks’ nerves, and it’s also no secret that I’m one of them. So there’s a grain of truth in that part of Cross’s formulation, at least. I mean, hypothetically, if three out of 309 million Americans “root against him because of what he stands for,” then that means Cross is technically correct. Stupid and irrelevant, perhaps, but correct.

My larger problem, though, is this: Cross is subtly propagating a sinister little meme that I’m hearing more and more of in the last week or two, as Tebow’s lack of talent as an NFL quarterback has migrated him further and further down the depth chart. Depending on who’s talking, this myth takes a couple of forms. First, everybody hates Tebow because of his religion. And second, this prejudice is why he isn’t being given a chance to show that he’s truly a fantastic QB on the field.

You don’t hear this last argument being worded exactly that way, for the most part, but listen to Denver sports talk as much as I do and you come to understand that 90% of the conversations about Tebow are being conducted in code. When people are talking about why they love Timmy, they don’t say outright that’s it’s teh Jesus, but the religiosity is the only way of explaining the things they do say. Despite how people talk, Tebow isn’t the only “good kid” in camp. He’s not the only one who’s strong in what he believes. He’s not the only one who works his ass off or who has had to overcome obstacles. He’s not the only one with “intangibles” and “character.” And I’ve already explained in detail what’s going on when they trot out the ultimate code word, “faith.” (It’s not about race, either, because a lot of the other hard-working Christians who have overcome obstacles and have great intangibles are white.) So when the chatter turns to why he isn’t in the Hall of Fame yet, it’s not surprising to hear even more code from a vast, paranoid religious majority that seems to believe the government is going to start rounding up Baptists and shipping them off to concentration camps next week.

There’s so much wrong with what Cross and his ilk believe that it’s hard to know where to start. But I’m going to try.

On point one, that people hate Tebow because he’s a Christian:

• As noted above, everybody’s Christian. I can’t speak to what’s in people’s hearts, but my best guess is that the percentage of NFL players and coaches who claim to be Christian is even higher than 85%. I may be wrong, but I have seen no evidence to suggest that it’s lower. Listen to players talk. Watch the prayer huddles after the game. And think about the culture of conformity that attends any activity involving intense male subcultures. If I were going to hate on Christian athletes because of their religion, I’d have to stop watching American sports entirely.
• I don’t know who all these millions of people hating Tebow are, because his jersey was the #1 seller for much of 2010 (he finished third for the year). That doesn’t mean nobody hates him, but it does suggest that he’s not exactly Public Enemy Number One.
• As for the idea that the media hates Tebow, well, that one made me laugh so hard I nearly swallowed my own nose. Randy, the media I’m familiar with worships Tim Tebow about as hard as Tim worships the Lord, and why not – he’s great for their business. I may not have a full list here, but best I can tell he’s been featured on the cover of ESPN, Men’s Fitness, Sports Illustrated, GQ, 5280, The Beckett Football Magazine and Sporting News. And if you’re keeping score at home, ask yourself this: how many times in the past three years has Tebow been the subject of some story or other on your television? Good, now how many of those, percentagewise, were negative stories? In my case, the answers are “millions” and “less than 2%.”
• Oh, and by the way, Randy, you’re “the media.” Just saying.

On the second point, that he’s not getting a fair shot because of his religion:

• Let’s just say this straight away: if Tim Tebow had been your basic Catholic or mainline Protestant who pursued his beliefs without insisting on reminding us every time he opened his mouth (or every time he appeared on camera with the Bible verse glare patches under his eyes) he’d have been drafted in the fifth round. If he’d been a vocal atheist or agnostic or, the gods forbid, a Pagan or a Muslim or a Hindu, he’d have been lucky to talk himself into a tryout as an undrafted free agent. If you don’t think Skippy McDaniel was overly impressed by the player’s “character” you weren’t paying attention.
• Rick Reilly dismembered Tebow’s game in a much publicized column a couple of weeks ago. Which is what happens when you know a little about football and you watch closely. When Tebow drops back and the receiver runs a seven-yard out, there’s a chance that the ball will be underthrown. There’s a chance it will be behind the receiver. There’s a good chance he’ll hit someone on the sidelines in the numbers and if you’re in the front row or two of the stands you might get a souvenir. There’s also a chance that he’ll hit the receiver, although his statistics don’t recommend that you bet heavily on this outcome.
• More likely, he’s going to be unable to find an open man because he can’t read defenses (he was never really asked to do anything like this at the high school or college levels, and he has the same kinds of problems that other QBs coming from spread and running systems have had). No surprise there at all. In a recent interview with one of the sports stations here, one of the Broncos defensive players admitted that when Tebow is the QB, the defense plays differently – they crowd the running lanes and wait for him to break down and gallop into their waiting arms. He didn’t say it that negatively, but I’ve gotten pretty good at interpreting code lately.
• It’s also a pure joy to hear Tebow’s supporters talking about his ability to “make things happen with his feet.” Yeah, he raised hell at Florida, but there he was surrounded by talent that was usually superior to what was on the other side of the ball. However, his 40 time is in the 4.7 range, which isn’t special by NFL QB standards. Never mind trying to outrun some of the league’s many quick-footed linebackers – there are any number of defensive linemen who are faster than he is, and Head Coach John Fox can’t be terribly excited about handing the reins of the offense over to a guy who might get cheetahed by a nose tackle.
• If you think Tebow isn’t getting a fair chance you’re hallucinating. You don’t think everyone in the Doncs’ organization would kill to have a squeaky-clean Man of Faith^® as the face of the franchise? Think of the marketing potential. Think of the money. Denver is an exceptionally Christian market (and I say that as a guy who grew up in North Carolina, where some neighborhoods have more churches than convenience store). Lots of extremely white suburban megachurch types here, plus a huge Latino Catholic population that feckin’ loves Broncos football. These nuances are not lost on the likes of Pat Bowlen and his front office people. The only guy who might get more consideration than Tebow, despite having even less in the way of obvious experience and qualifications, would be Jesus Christ himself, should he return with an eye toward a football career. So if Tebow is the third-stringer, bet your ass it’s because he’s given the team nothing at all to hang its hat on. (And if you’ve watched him play, either in the pre-season or in three starts last year, you know that’s exactly what has happened.)
• In the end, you hear so much talk about Tim Tebow’s “intangibles.” The main reason is fairly simple: he has no tangibles to talk about. He can’t read defenses. He doesn’t understand how to run a pro passing offense because he’s never run a system remotely like it. And he cannot pass accurately. Period.

So, in summary, I guess I’d answer Randy Cross thusly:

1. Tim Tebow is hardly being oppressed. He’s gotten every chance in the world and then some, and there’s a great argument to be made that this is because of his relentless public religiosity. I can think of no other quarterback in history at this level who has been afforded more opportunities despite such glaring limitations.
2. Those who are sick of Tebow, either as a player or a person, have valid reasons.

Sure, I admit that I personally dislike being flogged by his religious arrogance and presumptuousness. But do you have any idea what a small minority I am, both in general and on this issue in particular?

Randy Cross might do a little math, too. Because we have the hard data on how many Christians there are in the US. If as many people are put off by the 24/7/4ever proselytizing as he seems to think, then it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to conclude that a lot of those who are fed up with Tebow are themselves Christians. That means something, and “they root against him for what he stands for” isn’t it.

I believe in Tim Tebow’s right to believe in whatever he chooses. I also believe in the free speech rights that allow me and everybody else to weigh in on the subject.

I don’t believe that your religion qualifies you to be a quarterback in the NFL, though, and if more people are coming around to my way of thinking then I’m glad to hear it.

There sure has been a lot of news about cheating in sports lately, hasn’t there?

• The NCAA last week denied the University of Southern California’s appeal against the sanctions it incurred for a host of violations under coaches Pete Carroll and Tim Floyd.
• Admitted cheater Tyler Hamilton joined the growing list of cyclists who say that seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong used performance enhancing drugs.
• Just before the MLB season began, two-time World Series champion Manny Ramirez retired from baseball after being busted for PED use for a second time.
• All-time homerun king* Barry Bonds was convicted of obstruction of justice over his alleged* steroid use.
• Roger Clemens is next.
• While diving and high operatic theatrics aren’t as ubiquitous in international soccer as the casual American sports fan believes, the shenanigans in the recent Champions League tie between Real Madrid and Barcelona were widely reported and more than a little embarrassing. This tends not to be an American problem (there’s a lot more flopping in college and pro hoops than in soccer in the US), but it seems worth noting, if only for context.
• Meanwhile, FIFA has just suspended two senior officials for ethics violations and it seems like it’s only a matter of time before the lid blows off over the curious decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar instead of the US. Again, just a little flavor.
• Now even the PGA is mulling testing golfers for HGH use. What next? Elevated fish oil levels in the brains of high school chess players?

Now, today’s top story: Embattled Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel has resigned.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jim Tressel, who guided Ohio State to its first national title in 34 years, resigned Monday amid NCAA violations from a tattoo-parlor scandal that sullied the image of one of the country’s top football programs.

“After meeting with university officials, we agreed that it is in the best interest of Ohio State that I resign as head football coach,” Tressel said in a statement released by the university.

Tressel and school administrators have been wriggling and squirming for months now, clearly hoping that a variety of self-imposed half-measures would ward off NCAA investigators and overly interested reporters. Still, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before Tressel was forced out. Today was that time. The decision may have been forced by a looming Sports Ilustrated feature, due to drop as early as this this evening, which is expected to throw even more gasoline on the flames.

I suppose none of us are surprised, either by the Ohio State case or by the general level of dishonesty in all forms of competition. Our culture valorizes winning above all else. While this is probably true of all cultures, I wonder if we’re not worse than most when it comes to our contempt for the loser. What’s most disturbing is the pervasive “first is first and second is last” mentality that seems to drive us. Technically the word “loser” can be applied to everything from the guy who finished second by a thousandth of a second (posting a time that was better than the old world record) to a child abusing meth addict, but some days it feels like we don’t distinguish much at all. Maybe I’m being too sensitive, but as I noted in a recent post, a lot of people seem to regard the Buffalo Bills, who lost four straight Super Bowls, as the biggest losers in American sports history. Odd, because they dominated the hell out of the rest of the AFC during that period, which suggests to me that it was all those other teams who were the losers. But what do I know.

Whatever Happened to Sportsmanship?

I first noticed it during discussions over steroid use and the Hall of Fame in baseball: there are principled, intelligent people who are in favor of letting them all in. Barry “The Asterisk” Bonds. Clemens. Sosa and McGwire. Rafael Palmeiro. Juicers and liars, the lot of them, players whose disrespect for the sanctity of the game knows few rivals. From where I sit, it’s borderline obscene to allow players who approached cheating their opponents with such malice aforethought a spot in Cooperstown. Sure, baseball has been played by every sort of rogue imaginable since its earliest days. I get that. But baseball has also punished those whose crimes called into question the integrity of the outcome (even, in the case of Joe Jackson, when there’s reason to further question just how badly he was actually cheating in the first place).

Why is this principle so obvious to me, I have wondered, when it seems so alien to others?

Maybe it has something to do with how I was raised. Let’s begin by understanding that I’m a little different front others my age. My parents split when I was three and I got handed off to my paternal grandparents. They had been born in 1913 and 1914 and had grown up in a world that was hard even before the Great Depression set in. I learned that for people like this the Depression never really ended (and sometimes I even joke that I grew up during the Depression). It was a no-frills life for them and theirs, and in households where you don’t have a lot, what you do have takes on even greater importance. Especially if you’re Southern Baptist working class descended from Scots-Irish immigrants.

What people like this have, in abundance, is principle. Morals, ethics, pride, integrity, a code, call it whatever you like, but when it came to me and athletics, nothing was more important than sportsmanship. Granddaddy had played ball and he’d played hard. When I talked to those who’d played with him, they said he’d been a very, very good catcher (up until he threw his arm out and had to move to the infield). In another place and time, maybe he’d have been good enough to have played professionally.

But when he talked to me about playing, he never stressed winning. Sure, he wanted to me to win, and he’d work with me on technique and strategy so that I’d be the best player I could be, but win or lose I was going to do it the right way. I was going to shake the other guy’s hand, I was going to comport myself with dignity, I was going to honor the game. If I didn’t, I wasn’t going to play, and I still remember, vividly, two occasions where he sat me down because of my attitude. One of those times he did it in front of all my friends.

As mad as it sometimes made me, the lessons took. I grew up playing the game the right way, win or lose. I was a serious enough competitor that I still remember all the heartbreaking losses. I can remember playing badly, I can remember blowing shots that might have won a game. But I’m proud of the fact that I didn’t cheat. I’d rather lose fair than cheat to win.

Also, I can sleep better, because there’s a part of me that thinks that if I’d cheated my grandfather’s ghost would climb up out of the grave and come after me with his belt.

Emmanuel Kant in the Age of John Stuart Mill Vince Lombardi

In a way it’s the age-old debate over moral philosophy: do the means justify the ends or vice versa? And the truth of our era is this: fair play is for punks, pussies and losers. Few people better typify our ethics than Vince Lombardi, who could have been the reincarnation of John Stuart Mill. Read a collection of Lombardi quotes sometime. He never stops talking about hard work, about preparation, about commitment. But never, ever, are we allowed to think that these values are the thing themselves. One doesn’t do it the right way because it’s the right way. One does it to win, and it seems clear that if you didn’t win then, by definition, you didn’t do it the right way. Winning is the only thing. If it weren’t, why would they keep score.

Despite the focus on hard work, etc., in this world one can only ascertain what the right way was after the fact, and by the way, in a 32-team league there are, by definition, 31 wrong ways to do it.

Am I exaggerating for effect? Maybe a little. Not every coach out there is Bobby “The Brain” Heenan. While the bad actors seem to get all the press, the truth is that there are hundreds of thousands and millions of athletes who care deeply about sportsmanship and about the valuable life lessons we can learn from competition. This is always one of the joys of watching non-revenue college sports, and women’s sports in particular. Who can forget this incredible moment, from a 2008 softball game between Western Oregon and Central Washington, for instance?

With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence.

But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury.

She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.

Then, members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count — an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlKtI7yd_s[/youtube]

I get that the win-at-all-costs mentality tends to thrive in proximity to money. In pro sports, it is about winning. It’s a business, jobs are at stake, your ability to provide for your family (in a business where your career is maybe five years instead of 25) is on the line, and so forth. (Although, a quick side note. I’m sick of hearing LeBron James talk about how he chose to go to Miami because it was the right thing to do for his family. The average American will have to work for nearly 1,162 years to earn as much as The Decision will make in 2011 alone. So with all due respect, Bron, how about chugging a nice tall glass of shut the fuck up juice.)

I just wish we could confine the professional mentality to the professional context. But D-1 colleges are, at this stage, de facto minor league adjuncts to the NFL and NBA. And the corruption is trickling down. Texas is now being forced to conduct steroid testing on high school football players. How long before it’s middle school? With more and more completely unhinged parents grooming Junior for a pro career while he’s in peewees, how long before the term “juice box” comes to connote something far more sinister than it does now?

So it’s goodbye, for now, to Jim Tressel, and here, in all likelihood, begins a several year slog in the wilderness for a program that values winning above all other things. We’ll see in time what kinds of sanctions the NCAA will visit on THE Ohio State University, and we’ll also see if there are broader implications for people like Gordon Gee, whose approach to being a university president has sometimes reminded us more of Vince Lombardi than Robert Maynard Hutchins.

Like a lot of sports-related subjects, this is one that generates strongly held, if only marginally informed opinions. For instance, I caught a few minutes of a radio show over the weekend where Mel Kiper was on the mic, and one of his callers was arguing that the Cowboys are the greatest franchise in NFL history because – and I’m just telling you what he said here – they made the Redskins and Packers relevant. I don’t know exactly what that means, to be honest. It can’t be about winning, because Green Bay and the Boston/Washington franchises combined to win eight NFL championships before the Cowboys were even founded. So maybe he was trying to make a point about TV ratings. Or something. The guy didn’t say what he does for a living, but I don’t think he’s a rocket surgeon.

America’s Team

If his “relevance” argument was trying to suggest that greatness has to do with ratings or revenue, I’d respond that most savvy fans are more concerned about the best football team, not the best marketing department. This, of course, circles back around to the “America’s Team” question, which tends to focus on Dallas, Pittsburgh and Green Bay. (There may be somebody out there who thinks that the Cardinals are America’s Team, but I haven’t run across them yet.)

So, what makes a franchise “America’s Team”? I think there are generally three criteria. You may be America’s Team if, everywhere you go in the US, there are bars where people gather to watch the games on Sunday, where there are lots of people sporting your logo merchandise, and where your games, when televised, draw great ratings. In other words, it’s about how many fans you have dispersed over the widest area. In the case of Dallas, their claim results from successful marketing. In the case of the Packers and Steelers it’s about being located in places where everybody wants to move somewhere else. That isn’t snark, either. Do you have any idea how many people I know here in Colorado who are from Wisconsin and western PA? Lots. Lots and lots. I probably know more Pennsylvanians here than I do native Coloradans and they love their Steelers.

If you follow one of America’s Teams, good for you, but it’s kinda like when Bobby “The Brain” Heenan decreed that Haku was the King of the WWF. It’s a pretty crown and all, but it didn’t actually have anything to do with winning.

Just saying.

Way Back When They Invented Football in the 1960s

The problem with these conversations, though, is that many of the most passionate participants believe the NFL was founded in 1966-67. That’s the season the Super Bowl was first played, and bajillions of fans like to base their arguments on criteria like “who won the most Super Bowls?” Mel Kiper’s caller, noted above, is a related species who thinks football began when the Dallas Cowboys were formed in 1960. If the Vikings weren’t 0-4 in Super Bowls we’d probably hear the same kind of silliness out of them.

Sadly, this kind of thinking is common, and it leads people to argue that the Steelers are the best ever because they have more Super Bowl wins than anybody else. There’s no doubt that Pittsburgh is a great and successful franchise, but there’s a difference between “history” and “recent history.” The Steelers were founded in 1933 and didn’t win their first title for 45 years. That kind of futility has to factor into our thinking, right? I mean, if the Clippers win the next three NBA titles, we’re not going to rename the trophy for Donald Sterling, are we?

The thing to understand, folks, is that NFL has been around since 1920, not 1966, and if we’re going to have opinions on the greatest franchise ever, we need to pay attention to the early days, too. With this in mind, let’s have a look at how many championships the top teams have won. This list includes Super Bowl wins from 1966 to the present and NFL championships from 1920-1965.

• Packers: 12
• Bears: 8
• Giants: 8
• Steelers: 6
• Redskins: 5
• Cowboys: 5
• 49ers: 5
• Lions: 4
• Browns: 4
• Colts: 4
• Eagles: 3
• Rams: 3
• Patriots: 3
• Raiders: 3
• Cardinals: 2
• Broncos: 2
• Dolphins: 2
• Chiefs: 1
• Jets: 1
• Ravens: 1
• Buccaneers: 1
• Saints: 1

Hmmm. Check that. The Pack has twice as many trophies as Pittsburgh. Four franchises have more than Dallas, which is tied with Boston/Washington.

The Verdict

If you like, feel free to argue for criteria other than championships. Wins matter, winning percentage, playoff appearances, etc. In the end, though, this is professional football, and if you didn’t win it all you’re just jockeying for position among the also-rans. First is first and second is King of the Losers, right?

By the ultimate standard – filling trophy cases – not only is Green Bay the greatest franchise of all time, it looks like it’s going to be a minimum of five or six years before there’s even a potential argument to had. But those of you who value lesser metrics and feel strongly about the importance of marketing, feel free to light up the switchboards, yo. Where would sports talk radio be without your … passion?

So the forthcoming defense of Jay Cutler isn’t about liking him. As Crash Davis said in Bull Durham, “show us that million-dollar arm, ’cause I got a good idea about that five-cent head of yours.” He was 11-35 in college and despite Hall of Fame physical skills he’s a mere .500 as a starter in the pros. If the Bears ever accomplish anything it will be despite him, not because of him. When the chips are down, guys like Cutler find a way to lose.

That said, all the people who are dogging him for coming out of the game with a banged-up knee during last week’s NFC Championship Game loss to Green Bay are way, way out of line. I expect all kinds of asshaberdashery out of the sports talk radio crowd, which thrives on callers who are frequently even dumber than most of the hosts. And this week didn’t disappoint. Cutler just quit in the middle of the game because … because … well, because he didn’t want to play. Or something. I wish I were exaggerating for effect, but this is literally the level of nuance and analytical rigor I was hearing driving around the last few days. Jebus, Bears fans were burning his jersey (granted, how much psychological balance should we expect from people who bought a Cutler jersey in the first place…)

Unfortunately, Cutler was taking the same kind of crap from analysts and players around the league. Trent Dilfer (who’s usually pretty sharp) called him out on ESPN, saying “You can play this position (QB) hurt. Some of us have.” Yes, Trent, you are much macho. You never played this hurt, though. Pedicure poisoning must be affecting your memory. Dilfer once suffered a sprained MCL and it took him out of the lineup until it healed, which is different from “cowboyed up and played through it.” He suffered a couple other notable injuries in his career, a concussion and an Achilles, and those also put him on the bench. The legend of Trent Dilfer is notably devoid of tales about the time time he put the whole team on his back and drug them on two broken legs 99 yards through an enraged Hall of Fame defense. If I’m missing some detail here fill me in, but otherwise Trent needs to relax and drink a nice tall glass of STFU Juice^©.

And since we now have Twitter, which allows us to demonstrate our stupidity to the world instantly,we got to hear from the Jags’ Maurice Jones-Drew and Cardinals tackle Darnell Dockett:

Said Jones-Drew: “Hey I think the urban meyer rule is effect right now… When the going gets tough……..QUIT.. … All I’m saying is that he can finish the game on a hurt knee… I played the whole season on one…”

Said Dockett: “If I’m on chicago team jay cutler has to wait till me and the team shower get dressed and leave before he comes in the locker room!”

Nobody is questioning Mo-Jo’s toughness, and he did play with a meniscus tear. I’d observe (as a guy who has had a meniscus tear) that they come in different varieties – some you can play through, in pain, and others (like the tear I had) you can’t even straighten your leg out. All knee injuries aren’t alike. As for Dockett, I can’t find anything online suggesting that he has any experience with this level of injury, either. So maybe sitting on the couch while other teams keep playing made him bitter. Hard to say.

As for Cutler’s diagnosis? Grade II MCL tear. On his plant leg. Which means that the issue wasn’t Cutler’s toughness, but whether the knee was wobbling around too badly to throw off of.

Despite the injury report, despite the assurances of Bears coach Lovie Smith, despite some pointed words from Brian Urlacher (a man widely regarded as something of an expert on toughness), the whole damned world seems to have instantly concluded that Cutler pussed out. Why is that? If the same thing had happened to Peyton Manning, or Tom Brady, or Aaron Rodgers, or Brett Favre, what would the public reaction have been? Would sports talk have blowed up over what gutless Nancy-boys they were?

Not likely. I think the reigning assumption about players like this is that if they come out of the game, something bad must be wrong. They get the benefit of the doubt, whereas the same crowd starts dogging Cutler right around the time the game kicks off.

There’s a lesson in the Cutler case for other players, especially younger players, no matter what sport they’re in. (For that matter, the lesson applies to non-athletes, as well, because attitude counts no matter what you’re doing.) In short, people aren’t calling #6 a quitter because they think he laid down. They think he laid down because he’s proven, time and time again, that he lacks character. From the first time something went wrong on the field in Denver, people noticed the body language. He has been perceived as guy who, instead of taking responsibility, blames his teammates. He embarrassed himself when he got involved in an on-field smack-talking confrontation with another punk, Chargers QB Philip Rivers, in a blowout loss. His results rarely lived up to what might be expected of a guy with his tremendous physical talent. He threw lots and lots of interceptions.

And when McSkippy botched an attempt to quietly trade Cutler for Matt Cassel, #6 had an opportunity to react like a genuine pro. He didn’t. He acted like a spoiled four year-old. Once he arrived in Chicago, his first move wasn’t to hit the field and project a new brand as a committed, hard-working champion. Instead, he and some image marketeers hit Michigan Ave. and got his GQ on.

Maybe some of this is unfair, but as former NFL coach Dennis Green once said, “if you don’t control your image, your image will control you.” Early on in his NFL career the perception of Cutler emerged as a sulky guy who did not carry himself like a winner, who didn’t go all-in every game, who let off-the-field concerns compromise his professional focus.

In the end, it’s possible that Cutler’s biggest crime – maybe his only crime – is that he’s just not somebody who’s very good at image management. However, and this much is for certain, we’ve now reached a point where there’s only one thing that’s going to rescue the man’s image, and that’s winning. Not regular season winning, but post-season winning, preferably winning that results in photos of him triumphantly hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. If he’s able to do this after having a blind-side blitzer literally rip a limb off, so much the better, because nothing answers challenges to your toughness like blood and bone protruding through the skin.

I’m not hoping for any of this, mind you, because had he been a better man I might not be sitting here right now looking down the barrel at a couple dark years with Tim Fucking Tebow as my team’s personal Lord and savior franchise quarterback. Every time he overthrows an open receiver by 10 yards I’m going to remember Cutler’s million-dollar arm and five-cent head.

In the meantime, if you’re serving up the HaterAde, pour me a glass. But let’s keep the criticism reality-based. Slap Cutler around all you like for his actual shortcomings – there have been plenty. If you want to bitch about last week, focus on the 6-14, the pick and the 31.8 QB rating he posted before leaving the game. But leave the knee alone, because once that happened the only thing he could have done on the field was hurt the Bears even worse. Carping about it does nothing for you but damage your credibility.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the owners are set to lock out the players and the two sides don’t seem terribly close to a new collective bargaining agreement. The commish is frustrated. The union has declared “war.” And the fans … well, I think most fans are sitting around thinking to themselves that the league can’t possibly be that dumb, can they? (It should be noted that the looming debacle is mainly the fault of the owners, who aren’t satisfied merely having most of the money. So we’ll have no talk about “the union and the owners.”)

If we don’t have a 2011-12 season, what are sports fans going to do? Watch bowling? Poker? Hmmm. If they’re smart, the NCAA will shift some games to Sunday to capitalize on the void, and that would be a good time.

I’ll tell you who else ought to be thinking about striding purposefully into that Sunday/Monday night vacuum: the English Premier League. For the uninitiated, the EPL is England’s top soccer flight, and it’s widely regarded as the best league in the world (yeah, a lot of Spaniards will argue this, but at best they’re tied for top honors). If you watched the World Cup last summer, a lot of those top international stars play club ball in the EPL.

Before we go any further, I know that there are some of you feeling a dire need to make sure the rest of us understand how boring soccer is not a real sport wusses French cheese-eaters nobody ever scores I’ll never watch soccer goddamned ESPN shoving that crap down our throats blah blah I’m a real man blah blah blarg…. Yes. We get it. You don’t like soccer. Thank you for offering your opinion.

Now, where was I?

I get that for many American football fans, Euro soccer (even very good Euro soccer) isn’t an acceptable substitute. I get that soccer isn’t going to be #1 in the US anytime soon, if ever. I understand that even a top EPL game wouldn’t draw anywhere near the ratings you’d get from a mid-season Steelers/Ravens slobberknocker. But this isn’t about replacing American football – it’s merely about providing sports enthusiasts with some alternatives while they’re waiting for the rich people to divvy up our money.

Soccer is, like it or not, increasing in viewer popularity here in the US.

• Over a third of the population caught some of the World Cup. Seriously, even restaurants and bars that you don’t normally associate with soccer were feckin’ zoos during the Cup.
• ESPN has made soccer coverage more of a priority (you routinely see futbol highlights in the Plays of the Day) and…
• Landon Donovan’s dramatic game-winner against Algeria, which sent the American side into the elimination rounds, was named ESPN’s Play of the Year. It was, too – if that didn’t get you out of the recliner you just don’t like sports.
• EPL ratings on ESPN2 and FSC are up and…
• December’s Manchester United/Arsenal match set a Prem viewership record in the US. That game, by the way, kicked at 5:30am here in Denver, and while the British Bulldog (local home to all things soccer) isn’t normally packed at that hour, they are open and doing a better breakfast business than most places.

ESPN has EPL broadcast rights both here and in the UK, so you can see where I’m heading: If it looks like the NFL is going to shut down next year, it makes sense for ESPN and the Premier League to have some serious talks about how they can provide alternate programming for an American audience that’s more interested in top-tier soccer than at any point in history. The sooner the planning begins, the better.

Unfortunately, the time difference tricks up the logistics. England is five hours ahead of the US East Coast, so the EPL would have to move start times back. Still, a Sunday night kick at 6pm local time would work fine as a replacement for the usual NFL early game, which kicks off at 1pm EST. I’m not sure how a 9pm London start time would go over for the Brits, but you could at least fill one Sunday slot, maybe two if you go with 11am and 2pm East Coast starts. Replacing Monday Night Football would be more difficult – would audiences who care enough about the EPL to follow it watch tape-delay? Maybe not.

I’m not proposing not a magic bullet solution by any stretch, and let’s be clear – the best solution is for the NFL’s owners to extract their heads from their asses and agree to a new CBA that the players can live with. Failing that, though, the NFL is currently swinging open a potential door of opportunity. It makes sense for ABC/ESPN to investigate a Plan B that will appeal to more viewers than the One-A-Day Earl Anthony Memorial Classic.

That said, I don’t think I’m wrong here.

Today’s introduction of new VP – Football Operations John Elway, a guy with no real football management experience outside of the Arena League, produced all the things that I know smart Doncs fans were hoping for:

• The new GM will be Brian Xanders, reporting to Elway. The thinking here is that it was all probably McSkippy’s fault.
• Joe Ellis, another guy whose name is synonymous with money in the bank, has been rewarded for his role in the team’s recent success by being promoted to President.
• When things are unclear, Elway is going to hear everyone out and hope that consensus emerges. There’s a plan for you.
• Whoever the new coach is, it’s going to be someone who is completely bought into the team’s franchise QB, Tim Tebow. The thinking here, one assumes, is that when you find yourself in a hole, dig like a motherfucker.

Yep. Former coach and savant Josh McDaniel painted the team into a corner by moving heaven and earth to draft a quarterback with a bigger windup than Daisuke Matsuzaka and the accuracy of a malfunctioning SCUD. And now, looking at an unsuited 2-7, the organization has decided to go all-in.

I can’t wait to see what kind of coach they can talk into taking the job. One thing’s for sure, we can forget all that talk about Cowher or Gruden. We’re now looking for a guy with no self-esteem whatsoever.

Some nominees (and you’re going to have to stretch to make a case for anybody not on this list):

(Coach; Record; Pct.; Titles)

• John Madden; 112-39-7; .731; 1
• Don Shula; 347-173-6; .665; 2
• Tony Dungy; 136-74; .648; 1
• Joe Gibbs; 171-101; .629; 3
• Bill Belichick; 142-85; .626; 3
• Curly Lambeau; 229-134-22; .623; 6
• Paul Brown; 170-108-6; .609; 3 (NFL only – numbers were 222-112-9;.660; 7 when you include AAFL record)
• Tom Landry; 270-178; .601; 2
• Chuck Noll; 209-156-1; .572; 4

What do you think?

I still remember the moment. I was less than five years old. It was in Albertville, Alabama. My brother and I were playing in the living room when I decided to climb on the foot stool. This was Alabama, after all. We didn’t have ottomans. Just foot stools.

I climbed up on that foot stool. I looked over my cousins. Even my older brother. There, a few paces away from my throne sat the family patriarch. My great-grandaddy, Reuben Smith. Reuben gazed at me with a sly smile. The smile of a man who spent the best years of his life working hard in a Goodyear factory providing for his family. Who supplied the Second Great War with rubber. Who fought the depression. Who became a yellow dawg Democrat with Big Jim Foldom’s call of “y’all come”, and never cared much for George Wallace. Yes, Reuben Smith of Albertville, Alabama gazed at me with that sly smile. A young boy, barely a toddler, didn’t know what to do with that intimidating stare from such a formidable old man. I stood on my throne as Reuben let those immortal words slip through that smile.

“Boy… if you gon’ say somthin’, it best be ‘Roll Tide, Roll!’”

What to do. My father sat opposite Reuben in the living room. Daddy, Reubens decednent, was orange and blue, through and through. So had I been up to that point, much to Daddy’s approval. But Momma was for The Tide. So were Meemaw and most of the Aunts and Uncles. So was Grandaddy and Great-Grandaddy.

There I was, standing on the foot stool. Surveying all that existed to a boy less than four. My brother, momma, daddy, cousins, Nanna, and Great-Grandaddy. And Great-Grandaddy was for the Tide. And at that moment, and for every moment on, so was I. Roll Tide.

This is why this week matters so much. People talk about the great rivalries of college athletics. Kansas versus Nebraska. Ohio State versus Michigan, and others. But those rivalries are divided by political lines established by statutes, and the lineages of families that dare not cross a state line. The Tide and the Tigers hold no such borders as sacred. We spend the entire calendar in interaction. Call it crazy, but when you lose the Iron Bowl (and yes, if your team of choice fails, YOU have lost the Iron Bowl with them. It doesn’t matter if you have never set foot in one class on that school’s campus), you spend the entire calendar year answering for it. In the workplace. In the grocery store. At church, which is the epicenter of social interaction in the Heart of Dixie.

Even under the Christmas tree, amongst the most blessed and coveted of family lineage. You will still be subject to the ridicule of Iron Bowl failure.

Our entire nation is in the midst of a fiscal crisis. On the national landscape, we argue who’s responsible for our economic misfortune.

But it doesn’t matter in Alabama. For the most part, regardless of who controls office space on Capitol Hill, we’re poor. We don’t have much to put up for pride. Just our homes, Momma’s cookin’, and our values.

But none of that matters. Because whether your veins are filled by orange and blue or crimson and white, for one day a week, four months out of the year you can be proud. You can be proud of your team no matter what the bank note says. If your crop didn’t come in or your house is going to be repossessed, you can be proud. If there wasn’t money for new school clothes, or if you still haven’t moved up from that construction worker’s apprentice position, you can be proud. When your boys are between the hash marks, you are a king atop your own throne.

And for one of those weeks, the most important to anyone born in The Heart of Dixie, you can be prouder than any other. Because it doesn’t matter what’s happening on the farm, or in your house or in the family. If you win, you can climb in that tailgate with the bottle of liquid shoe polish. You can scrawl the score on the back of the cab of your pick-up, followed by “ROLL TIDE!” or “WAR EAGLE!”. No matter how poor you are, no matter what shame comes your way, no matter how sad you think your existence; there is one day more important than any other in the South. And that is Iron Bowl day. And on that day, you were triumphant. And no matter what your circumstance in life, you can pick your chin up, and hold your head up high.

Because you may not have anything to be proud of in life. But by God, you have the team. And that may be the only thing that gets you through the year.

And that’s why the rest of the country will never know what this week means to those of us born and bred in The Heart of Dixie. But by God we know. And for a lot of us, it’s what will get us through to next year’s game.

Let’s take a look back at just why Brett Favre’s “retirement announcement” is probably not even worthy of any posting by anyone anywhere anytime (this post notwithstanding):

March 2008: Favre tells Packers he is retiring.

February 2009: Favre tells Jets he is retiring.

August 2010: Favre tells Vikings he is retiring.

Personally, while I don’t wish injury on anyone, the only way this blathering “look at me look at me look at me!!!” crap will go away is a major injury that will make a return impossible. Because there is some sucker team out there that will keep taking a chance on an old way way past his prime can’t-perform-in-the-clutch QB.