Last Rites for B. West

The time has come to cut off the life-support machine. News broke all over the place that the Eagles will release Brian Westbrook next month. The staff at the D-train Daily is looking forward to the video montage of Westbrook highlights that will likely be on Comcast Sports Network tonight. Watching him dart in and through defenses was a such a pleasure.

The Carolina Panthers will allow defensive end Julius Peppers to enter the free-agent market since they won't be able to re-sign him. The Panthers likely would have had some loot to spare if they had not given QB Jake Delhomme a substantial extension last year (5 years, 42.5 million). Even before this past season's 18 interception mess, Delhomme's contract begged the question...FOR WHAT!!! After, even during, the season the extension could have been called, as grannyandthepig.wordpress.com put it, "the worst NFL money ever spent."

The Detroit Lions are willing to trade down from the number two pick in the April's NFL draft. It only makes since. Lions fans traded down when they adopted that team. Last week the Lions announced they would be reducing ticket prices for the second straight year. Perhaps they should copy the slogan for the Sixers' next ticket-sales campaign, "Take these tickets! Please!"

Green Bay Packers GM Ted Thompson has to be smiling about Minnesota's upcoming off-season. Now it's the Vikes' turn to wait until August for Brett Favre to announce his intentions.

Outfielder Johnny Damon has agreed to a one-year contract with the Detroit Lions. According to ESPN's First Take, Damon said of the signing, "It's where I always wanted to be." ESPN must have forgotten to add when Mr. Damon said,"l-o-l." Nothing but proud Philadelphians work on this train, but there is not one reason to chose Detroit over New York.

THIS JUST IN: No one on the University of Oregon football team has been arrested in a week.

A Kinder, More Gentler Shaq

Shaquille O'Neal and the Cleveland Cavaliers were defeated by the Orlando Magic 101-95 yesterday and O'Neal gave no sound bites. Well not any derisive ones at least. In fact after banging in the paint with Magic Center Dwight Howard, O'Neal was almost complimentary to his counterpart.

"Dwight is one of the only true big men left," said O'Neal. "I'm sure he doesn't mind a bit of physicality. I darn sure don't. Two big, strong guys. Old ball, young ball going at it. Fun game to watch."

It was nice to see that personable Shaq on display. It is good to see that he is not too old to switch his tracks once in a while. And just a week ago The D-train Daily penalized him for unnecessary verbal roughness.

Or is O'Neal setting Howard up with some "rope-a-dope" with the playoffs on the distant horizon? Or are we not seeing this deep enough? Could it be that Shaq has decided to be... Bizarro?!

The Year of the Tiger

Finally Tiger Woods exerciseded some control over this madcap situation that he is in. In a move that George W. Bush would be proud of, he controlled access to his reading of a prepared statement as though an unapproved media person would assassinate him (or his character) if allowed in. Or maybe Woods was scared that news outlets would send their prettiest reporter and his vicious cycle of infidelity would start all over again.

"I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated," said Woods yesterday.

Flag on the play; redundant statement.

The hours-long analysis of Woods' 13 minute statement was mind-numbing, with an endless stream of image consultants reviewing Tiger's statement as if it was game film.

And then the withered porn star, Joslyn James, did not miss out on a chance to some attention. Holding a press conference of her own, poor Ms. James did a better job of faking oncoming tears than Woods.

"Tiger pursued me and over time I fell in love with him," said James. "And he told me that he loved me too."

Yeah, because that's original. For the record, Miss James is creepy.

What a great touch by the people who staged this debacle, having the main camera shoot Woods with his mother right in the background. Who can hate a mamma's boy?

The media outlets that are covered in the cable plan on the D-train, covered this "event" with amazing zeal and detail. Well not really, but they gave effort which is more than we can say for their usual news gathering techniques.

Woods could have skipped that awkward "press-conference" and appeared more sincere by doing what so many folks had opined that he should do... Oprah.

Author James Frey of "A Million Little Pieces" is a walking testimonial of the benefits of presenting oneself at Oprah's feet and owning up to sins. If Oprah forgives, a sizable part of the population forgives. All Woods would have had to do after that is win The Masters later this year and he would have been back on top like nothing ever happened.

It's hard to envision all of this interest if Woods played football or basketball.

Little fun fact: Tiger Woods and his trysts landed him on the front page of the New York Post for 17 consecutive weeks back when this started. Only one event was on the cover of The Post longer, and that was 19 weeks. By the way that event was 911. A little hard to compare the two, although they got almost equal news coverage.

The Shawshank Redemption NBA-style

Antawn Jamison likely got in touch with his inner Andy Dufresne when he got traded from the Washington Wizards to the Cleveland Cavaliers yesterday.

Just as when Tim Robbins emerged from that sewage pipe in "The Shawshank Redemption", Jamison has left the mess in Washington for an NBA Finals contender. And just a few weeks ago Jamison was apologizing for Gilbert Arenas' foolishness. Now he is a running mate of Lebron James with an express ticket to, at least, the Eastern Conference Finals

In his 11-plus years in the NBA Jamison has been just three playoff teams (Dallas in '03-'04, Washington in '04-'05 & '06-'07. And only one of those teams advanced past the first round. And now he is one of King James' loyal subjects.

Antawn Jamison, who went down a river of sugar honey ice tea, and came out clean on the other side.

Oregon star LaMichael James was arrested Monday night in Lane County Oregon on charges of menacing*, assault, and strangulation. This, just a few weeks after Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli's name arose on suspicion of stealing laptops.

James ought know better about the dangers of senseless violence. Teammate LaGarrete Blount's suspension for dropping a Boise State player with a swift right benefitted James. He rushed for a Pac-10 freshman record 1546 yards.

The bit with players tossing their girlfriends around, and writing bad checks, and robbing people, etc., is old. Aside from the societal standard of not hitting women, these guys should be protecting their investment; a free education in the most carefree years of their life and with a lot of hard work and a little luck, and NFL contract.

Two pearls of wisdom heard on the passenger car of the D-train Daily:

1) "If you are not threatened, do not fight." -Sun Tzu

2) "Everybody keep they hands to themself, and everything'll be everything." -David DeVoue Jr.


* We seriously had to look up the legal charge menacing. It sounds like something a comic-book super villian does!

Menacing (charge)(varies slightly from state to state): to display a weapon to a person with the intention of threatening them with bodily harm from said weapon.

A Dunk Contest Enduced Blackout

We lost the time. The last thing the D-train staff remembers is that the dunk contest was on the monitor and all of a sudden it is Wednesday.

Seriously, this past Saturday's annual dunk-a-thon was a cure for insomnia. Sports pundits are calling for more stars in the contest. They need to switch the tracks on that one. To want a Lebron James or Kobe Bryant in the dunk contest harkens back to the past when Jordan and Dominique Wilkins soared above hardwood. The stars that the talking heads want to see may be the best players, but they are not the best dunkers. Let guys like Nate Robinson be the star of the contest and raid places like Rucker Park for some real sky-walkers who don't have to waste valuable time with fundamentals.

Our conductor once told the legend of an unnamed fellow in the mid-'90's that played in the currently defunct Continental Basketball Association who could dunk at the end of performing a cartwheel. He tried to get into the contest back then and was denied entry. Although the league has finally broken recently on that stance

Awakened from our dunk contest enabled slumber, we turned on the Winter Olympics and viewed the peculiar sport known as curling. "I thought this was an urban legend," said our conductor.

The U.S. women's curling team (who look in better shape than the men) lost a "thriller" of a match yesterday. The intensity and focus on the competitors’ faces was remarkable. It is hard to knock a sport that has been around since the 15th century. But after viewing it, it is hard to get into as well.

This past Tuesday, "Pretty Boy" Floyd Mayweather was the guest on the Brian Kenny show. The failed negotiations that Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao over blood testing came up as it should have.

"I never knew a guy that didn't wanna take a 25 million dollar drug test," said Mayweather.

Now most of us at the D-train Daily cannot profess to be Mayweather fans we were swayed a bit on this issue by Floyd's next point.

"Athletes just don't start off average, or ordinary, and once they get over 25 become extra-ordinary. It doesn't work like that in the sport of boxing."

We are hardly trying to suggest that the Pac Man is doping. He is a national treasure in the Philippines and there a far too many Tagalog speaking folks in the area to cause offense. However, given Money Mayweather's point on not only the escalation in performance, but the money... it does get one to thinking.

It's all in a (nick)name?

Is it us here at the D-train Daily or is Shaq getting real crotchety in his advancing years? A couple of years back when he asked Kobe Bryant to tell him how his rear-end tastes while enduring a California divorce, we thought that we had seen big fella at his public-relations nadir. It seems that we will see him go even lower if the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers should meet in the Eastern Conference Finals later this year.

In case you haven't heard Shaq went into a short tirade aimed at Magic Center Dwight Howard after his team beat the Magic last week. "Superman my ass," said O'Neal. "You tell me who the real Superman is."

Um, George Reeves?

O'Neal feels that Howard "stole" the Superman nickname from him. Many sportswriters second his inaccurate opinion. Obviously they are not fond of the Sportscenter commercial in which Howard plays a Clark Kent like persona.

But let's be clear, if O'Neal wants to throw barbs at Howard about the Superman name he opens a can of worms that dates back to 1932 when Superman was created by Joe Schuster and Jerry Seigel. Schuster and Seigel sold the character to Detective Comics in 1938. So if anyone has a real beef in this matter it is D.C. Comics.

Shaq apparently has a greed for nicknames like A.I.G. does for money. How many nicknames has O'Neal had over the years? The Diesel, The Big Aristotle, The Big Cactus, and so forth. O'Neal is lucky that all the anti-trust restrictions have been eased over the years because he would be in serious violation. He's trying to corner of the market.

Why does the 37 year-old O'Neal have all of this venom in his fangs for the 23 year-old Howard? Before last year's NBA Finals, O'Neal went on record with his hopes that the Magic would get swept by the Lakers. Does he really dislike Howard so much that he would root for Kobe Bryant?! Shaq went even further by tweeting a picture of what a child between Howard and Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy would look like.

Why O'Neal's maturity continues to diminish while his age increases is beyond anyone on the D-train Daily staff, but it's getting to the point of sad to watch.

The Millionaires vs. Billionaires Stare-down

Now that the NFL playing season has concluded, it is time for the meat market portion of the season to commence. But first, it is time for a lot of posturing about the labor situation.

On February 4, Executive Director of the NFLPA Demaurice Smith was asked about the likelihood of a work-stoppage, or lockout depending on who you are speaking with, he responded with all the dramatic verve one would expect from anyone involved the situation. "On a scale of 1-10," said Smith, "It's a 14."

The owners have whined that they are losing money while the players get too big a piece of the revenue pie, but who owns a football team to make money?!

No, seriously, these guys are the wealthy equivalent of the upper-middle class fellow who owns a vintage GTO or the like that he is restoring; it is his hobby.

Smith wants the owners to open their books to prove that they are somehow hemorrhaging money. Of course, that will not happen without them legally being forced to do so.

There have been two work strikes in the NFL; A 57 day stoppage in 1982 and a 24 day "break" in 1987. The NFL managed to get through those strikes and prosper since then. The dynamic has shifted greatly since then. Now the NFL has the good problem of being "America's game", so to have a work stoppage after next season would be disastrous.
In the children's story Jack and the Beanstalk, did Jack kick the goose that laid golden eggs after escaping the giant?

This situation is reminiscent of the scene in "A Christmas Story"... We "triple dog dare" them to strike in 2011.

On another note the Washington Redskins hired none other than Bill Romanowski to be their Strength and Conditioning Coach. The same Romanowski who's name was on the BALCO ledger of customers. Skip Senseless (Bayless) of ESPN's First Take said that this is a good move because Roid Rage Romo knew so much about staying in shape.

That is the kind of logic that makes Skip such a viable talking head for ESPN. Romanowski was/is, for lack of a better word, a scumbag. For whatever reason, he was not half as demonized as he should have been for his multitude of transgressions against the game of football in general, and other players in particular. Perhaps Senseless can rub ointment on Romanowski's injection sites while heaping more of his patented babble on us.

Lingering Questions from the Super Bowl XLIV

It certainly started off like it was supposed to.

Peyton Manning (31-45, 333 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT), the NFL equivalent to Jesus, and his apostles were up 10-0, and seemingly about to take control of the Super Bowl XLIV . Then the New Orleans Saints displayed the resilience and audacity of the city they call home as they chopped away at the Indianapolis Colts' lead to win the 31-17.

A few questions linger from last night’s game.

-Pinned deep in their own territory on 3rd and 1 with less than a minute to go, why did the Colts elect to try Mike Hart up the middle rather than put the ball in their best player’s hands? The Hart running play made New Orleans burn a timeout however, they had one left when they got the ball back with 35 seconds left and at most 10 yards outside of Kicker Garret Hartley’s (3-3, 47 yd long.) range. The Saints got three points out of the Colts' blunder and momentum heading into the half.

In the 2006 season, the Eagles were playing the Saints in the Superdome. New Orleans owned the last 12 minutes of the game with the ball (on one drive), kicking the game-winning field goal as time expired. The moral of the story is, when playing the Saints… do not relinquish possession of the football.

-Does New Orleans Head Coach Sean Payton have a pair of onions in his grocery sack or what? The fourth and 1 attempt at the Indianapolis one, down 10-0, was one thing, but the onside kick to start the second half took huevos grandes. Payton’s relentless aggression lent to that wide-eyed look of bewilderment on Indy Head Coach Jim Caldwell's face in the second-half. Napoleon Bonaparte, watching an aggressive and creative general at work, smiled in his grave.

-On the aforementioned onside kick, did Hartley target Hank Baskett just like in the final game of the movie "The Waterboy"? “Where’s my bitch? Oh yeah, there she is.”

As an NFL player, Baskett should know to watch the ball leave the tee on a kickoff. Caught off-guard by the kick, Baskett looked scared as he attempted to field the ball. He did not, and the complexion of the game was altered.

-How can anyone be surprised by anything Drew Brees does anymore? Ever since his Purdue days in the late 90's when he was the point guard for Joe Tiller’s “basketball on grass” offense, Brees has run every offense he has been in with proficiency and aptitude. Payton and Brees are a perfect marriage.

-With respect to the quality of commercials, is there a writer's strike? Seriously, the Brett Favre 2020 MVP was funny, because it was preposterous and yet possible. The kid in the Dorito's ad was okay. Some of us have been that kid in the commercial so that's what made it funny. Other than that...

On a related note; was all that controversy about the ad with Tim Tebow and his mother really necessary? With the drama presented by large news outlets focusing on small protests leading up to the ads airing, one would have thought that the commercial would depict Tebow taking mom out abortion clinic bombing.

-Somewhere, did Andy Reid notice how balanced the New Orleans offense had been all season and how that balance just might have contributed to their success? Time reveals all.

Pro Bowl Coverage on the D-train

Now that the Pro-Bowl is concluded, the fact that it took place before the Super Bowl is a good thing. Not only was it not as boring, but the season ends with the Super Bowl; what could be more true to the game of football.

So the entire staff on the D-train Daily dropped work and headed to the Bar Car to watch it.

On the fifth play of their first possession, the announcers say that the AFC team is about to run a pump and go. "If that's to Asante Samuel's side," says the Cafe Car Chef it's gonna be a touchdown!"

Sure enough QB Matt Schaub lofts the ball to a wide open Andre Johnson for a 33 yard touchdown, and a confused Samuels tailing eight yards behind.

It was then we all did our first group shot.

The NFC's first possession saw them open with three straight passes. On the game's ninth play Adrian Peterson carries for the game's first running play.

This prompted our Conductor to say "I thought Big Red (Andy Reid) wasn't coaching today."

In a sideline interview Peyton Manning answers a Suzy Kolber question, "... we're not gonna speculate on that." "Not gonna speculate"? Manning has to be aware of the fact that Kolber works for ESPN.

For the second quarter, we changed things up and listened to the game as if the Eagles were playing; turning down the TV and listening to radio coverage. Calling the game was Marv Albert, Boomer Esiason, Dan Fouts, and Albert's hairpiece.

At one point Chad Ocho Cinco became the topic of conversation, which dragged on somewhat. Finally Fouts starts off a point with, "Just to wrap it up on Ocho Cinco..."

We poured a group shot in preparation for the happy occasion... and Albert brought it back to the Bengal’s loudmouth. It ruined the fun of the shot, but we did it anyway.

The broadcasters eventually got to a PSA by Esiason touting his foundation for Cystic Fibrosis. Esiason mentions that it is the disease that his son, Gunther, is afflicted with. Esiason also mentions that Gunner is now a freshman at Boston College.

One of our maintainence staff says, "I think the kid's doing just fine. Get a real cause Boomer!"

Moments later Esiason concludes a statement by saying to Fouts, "you don't know because you didn't play in a Super Bowl."

"Did Boomer just try to play Dan," asks our Engineer. He continued "What Fouts should have said is 'Yes Boomer. You should feel my pain since you will never write your Hall of Fame induction speech.'"

Later, NFC QB Donovan McNabb hits AFC linebacker Lamar Woodley between the numbers for an interception. The Chef shouts, "Ha! Who says McNabb's not accurate?"

Shortly after, McNabb is being interviewed by Michelle Tafoya on the sideline. Attempting to stir the waters, Tafoya questions McNabb about next season and his contract. McNabb does us all proud by not only dismissing the question but answering as if she had answered a different question.

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob McNamara would've been proud. McNamara preached about interviews, "Don't answer the question they asked you. Answer the question you wished they would've asked you."

To honor McNabb's defiance we did a group shot.

When he threw a pick on the NFC's next possession, we did another.

On the AFC's ensuing possession, the offense was led by Jacksonville quarterback, David Garrard.

"Is that David Garrard in the Pro Bowl," yells the cocktail waitress. "Turn to the Grammy's!"

"Yeah," seconds the barmaid. "It's the first one since MJ died."

No one could argue with that succinct logic so we turned to the Grammy's.

To kill time during the commercials someone brought up the recent photos of Portland Trailblazer Greg Oden. Most of the staff, uninformed of the pictures made the mistake of asking to see them. We only watched one. The picture featured a naked (save for the wave-cap) Oden photographing his reflection in a bathroom mirror.

“No wonder he’s always hurting his knee having to carry that thing,” says the barmaid.

It was at that point we realized it was time to wrap up the evening.