Draft: Enough with the good old days

Not being much of a draft guy, I'm hardly qualified to comment on this year's selections (though I'll happily crap all over the Buffalo Bills like everybody else just to make myself feel better). But I recently came across a dog-eared copy of the Sports Illustrated draft preview issue at the gym. In the introduction to the magazine's coverage is this passage:

"Years ago teams scouted players by what they read in newspapers and magazines, and by word of mouth, and that method worked pretty well. In 1956 the New York Giants picked Sam Huff, Jim Katcavage and Don Chandler in Rounds 3,4 and 5, respectively; the next year they selected Don Maynard in the ninth round. Huff and Maynard (who became a star with the New York Jets) made the Hall of Fame, and the Giants went to six NFL championship games with Katcavage and Chandler.

"Today the Giants have a 17-man scouting and personnel staff and employ a psychologist who uses a 480-question personality test to help project how well a prospect will fit into the team, but they would kill for the kind of production they got from their '56 draftees -- any team would."

If you can't figure out what's wrong with this passage, then you probably see it as a sign of the New England Patriots' genius that they were able to draft Tom Brady in the sixth round. More on that in a bit.

In 1956, the Giants drafted Huff in the third round, which means every team in the NFL passed on him at least once -- including the Giants themselves, who used their first pick that year on fullback Henry Moore. Huff went to the Hall of Fame as one of the greatest linebackers of all time. Moore lasted two seasons in the league (one with the Giants, one with the Colts) and will be best remembered as ... the Giants' first pick in the 1956 draft.

In 1957, the Giants drafted Maynard in the since-discontinued ninth round, which means every team in the league passed on him multiple times -- including the Giants, who used their first six picks on tackle Sam DeLuca (who never played a down for New York or any other NFL team but later bounced around the AFL), back Dennis Mendyk (who never played an NFL season), tackles Larry Wesley and Bob Hobert (ditto for both), quarterback Chuck Curtis (nope) and back John Bookman (one year with the Giants, plus two in the AFL).

In other words, the draft strategy that SI says worked "pretty well" in the Eisenhower years involved taking player after player who would never amount to anything while an electrifying receiver who would help change the way the game was played was left rotting on the board. Crafty!

Why has the NFL's pre-draft talent-evaluation process evolved into the ridiculous pseudoscience it is today? Because the old way of doing business -- throwing darts at a Street and Smith's college football annual -- was turning up benchloads of stumblebums and never-will-bes rather than competent professional football players, let alone bona fide stars. Evaluation methods were so primitive that even when the Giants managed to get a budding superhero like Maynard into their camp, they couldn't recognize him for what he was and let him go after one season.

At some point along the line, NFL teams recognized that if they did a better job scouting, evaluating and grading players, there was less of a chance that they'd load up on Mendyks instead of Maynards. Sure, the process has gotten absurd in its phony precision and forest-for-the-trees brain testing, but nowadays everybody takes every good idea four steps too far. ("Let's put the cheese inside the crust!") Football isn't any different. But just because teams rely too much on 40-yard-dash times and 225-pound bench-press reps doesn't mean those things shouldn't be measured -- and considered when making a pick.

Back to Tom Brady. People with limited knowledge of football tend to misinterpret the fact that New England was able to draft Brady -- who we now know is a sure-fire Hall of Famer -- in the sixth round, when most teams are picking up punters and burning spare picks on Division-III projects. Such people view it as evidence of genius on the part of the Patriots: This team can find superstars anywhere! Guess who doesn't see it that way? The New England Patriots. To this day, the Pats organization, starting with Bill Belichick, views the circumstances of the Brady selection not as the ultimate triumph of the team's scouting and personnel system, but rather as an utter breakdown of that same system. That the team passed on Brady six times in the 2000 draft before picking him still makes the folks in Foxboro shudder like a driver who narrowly avoids a car accident. Six times, the Pats were on the clock with Brady on the board. Six times, they left him up there. Among the guys they took instead of Brady: defensive end Jeff Marriott and tight end Dave Stachelski, neither of whom played a game as a Patriot; tailback J.R. Redmond, who carried the ball 164 times for 527 yards in three seasons; and DB Antwan Harris, who started two games in four years.

The Patriots front office is well aware that Tom Brady could have gone to any of the 30 other teams in the league in 2000. Today he could be preparing to lead, say, the Dallas Cowboys to their fourth Super Bowl title in six years. Or, just as easily, he could be turning to dust on the bench behind Whoever McPassy in Oakland or Tampa or Buffalo because those teams, like the Patriots, didn't see Brady as anything more than a potential backup. The 49ers could have taken Brady rather than Giovanni Carmazzi. The Browns could have take him rather than Spergon Wynn. The Steelers(!) could have taken him rather than Tee Martin. And, of course, the New England front office could have decided instead to draft the other QB they had on their board, Tim Rattay, who was still available when their turn to pick came around.

That the Patriots got Tom Brady at all (and that Drew Bledsoe nearly died on the field, giving him a chance to play) was a matter of luck. That the New York Giants wound up with Don Maynard in the throwaway rounds of the 1956 draft (regardless of whether they were smart enough to keep him) was also a matter of luck. The difference is, in today's NFL, Tom Brady is the exception. In 1956, Sam Huff and Maynard were the rule. Today, every other team looks at Brady and says, "We can't afford to let the next guy like that slip by us." In the late 1950s and '60s, every other team shrugged their shoulders at Maynard, said "Them's the breaks," and flipped the page in Street and Smith's.

In the draft, good luck for one team means bad luck for the other 31. No one wants to rely on luck, everyone is trying to strip luck out of the process, and that's why the Giants -- and the Patriots and the Steelers and everyone else -- rely on enormous scouting and personnel staffs to decide on draft choices, rather than fat guys picking names out of the newspaper.

Local TV sidelined. Common sense, too.

If I were the CEO of McDonald's -- no, wait, Arby's; damn I wish were the CEO of Arby's -- I would never turn down hundreds of millions of dollars a year in free advertising. That would be a terrible, short-sighted business decision, and it would peg me as a terrible, short-sighted business person.

I mean, imagine that all across the country, local TV stations wanted to come into Arby's restaurants once a week and shoot a couple hours' worth of tape. Then they'd use that footage all week long in stories about Arby's. Every day at noon, 5, 6 and 11, they'd serve up puff pieces about how great the sandwiches are at Arby's, about how much people in town just love Arby's, about lesser-known but still-delicious items on the Arby's menu, about the people behind the counter and in front of the deep-fryer who make the Arby's experience so world-class. Even when the stories they did were critical, they weren't too critical -- maybe an exposé on why there aren't more beverage selections available to complement the wonderful Arby's fare, or a probing piece on what kind of sandwiches Arby's could start making (bologna!) to further enhance the Arby's way of life.

Then, the next week, the stations would send crews back to Arby's to shoot new footage and start the cycle all over again.

Getting your product featured on TV without having to buy advertising time is known as "free media," and it's the Holy Grail of the public relations industry. Free media increases interest in your product, which translates into increased sales, which means more money in your pocket.

The NFL has decided it can do without free media.

You must have heard by now that the NFL owners voted last month to bar local TV stations' cameras from the sidelines during games. The league cited several reasons for this action, and we'll waste time examining a couple of them in a second, but the decision comes down to cash money, just like everything else out of 280 Park Avenue.

The league says the move is necessary ...

... to protect its property rights because unauthorized video of game action has been popping up online. The problem with this argument is, whenever I venture onto the Internet in search of game video, what I end up finding is clips from the network broadcast that someone has captured and uploaded. That's a violation of copyright for sure, but it isn't the local stations' problem. If the NFL is worried about stations posting their own game footage on their websites, it could easily prevent it by issuing sideline credentials only to those organizations that promise not to post -- and canceling the creds of those that do.

... to reduce "sideline clutter." Yes, the league actually floated this one. On the sidelines during your typical NFL game, you'll find cheerleaders, the color guard, maybe a dance line, halftime entertainers cooling their heels, Jerry Jones, a marching band or two, guys in mascot suits, two dozen still photographers, some asshole comedian doing a "bit" for Fox, several NFL Films crews, a platoon of soldiers in folding chairs, Pam Oliver or Melissa Stark, and a handful of yahoos who paid $10,000 a head to sit in a Barcalounger on the sidelines. So yeah, eliminating a few local TV cameras should clear things out nicely.

These arguments are smokescreens, of course. The NFL doesn't want local crews shooting from the sidelines because the footage those crews shoot doesn't produce any direct revenue for the league. When Fox, CBS, NBC or ESPN cameras are rolling in-stadium, it's because those networks are paying a billion-plus bucks a year for the privilege. But when the KRUD camera crew is in the house, it's there essentially for journalistic reasons, and as far as the owners can determine, there just ain't no money in that.

(It's important to note that the smokescreen blows the other way, too. Opponents of the new sideline policy have pointed out that many league stadiums are taxpayer-financed -- though pretty much all are taxpayer-supported in some fashion -- and therefore a team has no right to restrict what the press or anyone else can do on public property. But the team is paying the stadium authority rent for the use of the facility, and the rent gives them the run of the place. If you don't like that, take it up with the local officials dumb enough to write the lease, not the team smart enough to sign it.)

The NFL's strategy in the 21st century is to establish total control over the "product." That product is not professional football, mind you -- it's televised professional football. The NFL has no problem with written-word reporters coming into a stadium to cover a game, because the league views newspaper stories, magazine pieces and certain non-video Web coverage as necessary to keep up interest in the product. It doesn't feel the same way about locally shot video. It sees that as giving the product away for free. So it's banning the affiliates' cameras from the sidelines -- and thus chasing away it's most valuable source of free media. You could try explaining that other successful businesses, from food producers to barber shops to premium cable networks to law firms, give away some of their goods and services in the interest of widening the customer base, but you'd be wasting your time.

The no-local-cameras edict came down at around the same time the league announced that it will move eight of its 256 regular season games to the NFL Network in 2006. (Do you suppose the league gave its "broadcast partners" a 3% rebate for taking away 3% of the games? Ha.) This is a power play intended to force local cable systems to carry the NFL Network, and it's entirely within the league's rights. I have no doubt it'll work. If it produces enough ad revenue for NFL Net, watch for more games to migrate to non-broadcast (that is, pay) TV. In fact, it's not hard to envision a future in which all broadcasts of NFL games are controlled directly by the league. And in which all the games are on pay-per-view. How much do you suppose they'd charge for the Super Bowl?

Pete Rozelle, a PR man by trade, was more responsible than anyone for building the NFL into the sports colossus it is today. From the time he took over as commissioner in 1960, Rozelle's vision for growing the league centered on broadcasts over free TV and open access for both local and national media. And throughout his three-decade tenure, he held closely to those principles. Why did Al Davis move the Raiders to Los Angeles in 1982? Most people will say "for more stadium revenue," but most people would be wrong. Davis believed that the NFL would soon move from free TV to pay-per-view, and he wanted to be in a market with the greatest possible number of TV sets. Thirteen years later, with all NFL games still available on broadcast or basic cable, he moved back to Oakland. Pete Rozelle -- finally -- seemed to have gotten the better of Al Davis.

Now, however, it's entirely possible that Davis' vision, not Rozelle's, will ultimately win out. Games will move to NFL Network, then NFL2 (the Deuce!), NFL Classic, NFL News and so on and so on. If you want to watch pro football, you'll have to pay for premium cable or satellite packages. Playoffs? Super Bowls? Strictly pay-per-view (and you'll still have to sit through commercials). The National Football League is prepared to go where no sport has gone before.

No, wait, I take that back. One major American sport has already moved itself almost exclusively to premium cable and pay-per-view. NFL owners would be wise to study this sport. To see what can happen when a sport unhooks itself from the lifeline of free TV and makes its biggest matches available only to those viewers willing to pay $50.

Boxing.

Today, the boxing world would kill for the kind of free media the NFL is turning away, the kind of free media that boxing once attracted. But no one's coming to cover boxing anymore because no one cares anymore. Once the most popular and highest-rated sport on TV, perhaps the only sport more suited for TV than football, boxing over-reached and killed itself. The powers that control the sport wanted total control over the product. They wanted even more money. They got the control but not the money. Now boxing is a sad circus, a disreputable spectacle, a niche sport, a farce.

America needs you, Pete Rozelle.

No question, Maddox earned his ring

How Tommy Maddox became the most important Steelers quarterback since Terry Bradshaw:

1. In 2003, his one and only year as Pittsburgh's full-time starting QB, Maddox led the team to its worst showing of the Bill Cowher era. The Steelers' 6-10 record left them with the No. 11 pick in the 2004 draft. This is significant; over the preceding decade, the team's average first pick had been No. 21. With the 11th pick, the Steelers selected Ben Roethlisberger. The highest-rated quarterback still available at No. 21 that year? J.P. Losman.

2. In 2004, Maddox began the season as the starter but got hurt in a Week 2 loss to the Ravens. The injury forced the Steelers to junk the bring-Ben-along-slowly strategy and throw the kid into the fire. Though the team had high hopes for Roethlisberger as their QB of the future, they had somewhat lower expectations for him as their QB of the present. "We will certainly find out (whether he can lead the team)," Cowher said. "I don't see any reason why he can't." Said Hines Ward: "The potential's there. Now it's just for him to build on." But freed from much of the pressure that usually comes with being a rookie starter -- like the intense scrutiny from training camp on -- Roethlisberger won all 14 of his regular season starts and led the Steelers to the AFC title game.

3. In 2005, Maddox filled in for the injured Roethlisberger in a Week 6 game against Jacksonville. Maddox ended up throwing three interceptions, including the one in overtime that Jaguars cornerback Rashean Mathis returned 41 yards for the winning touchdown. At season's end, the 12-4 Jaguars took the No. 5 playoff seed in the AFC, while the 11-5 Steelers wound up with the No. 6 seed. Had Pittsburgh won that game in October, their first playoff game might have been in New England against the Patriots, the only team to beat Roethlisberger twice. Instead, the Jaguars were the ones beheaded in Foxboro. The Steelers, meanwhile, drew the Bengals in the opening round, and they were off and rolling. Just as important as who Pittsburgh played in the playoffs was where they played. The Steelers had been awful at home in the postseason for a decade. If any team could ever benefit from three road playoff games, it would be the 2005 Steelers. Indeed, coming into the playoffs as the bottom seed put Pittsburgh in a no-lose position. Unlike most years, no one expected them to win. No one, that is, but the boys in black and gold ... especially an old gunslinger by the name of Maddox.

Tommy Maddox's pedestrian play in 2003 made Pittsburgh's bright future possible. Tommy Maddox's bum elbow in 2004 brought that future into focus. And Tommy Maddox's awful decision-making in 2005 made that future a reality. Scorn him all you want, Pittsburgh. But you owe him.

Making the Squad:The Passion of the Dorie

I just hope that the NFL Network is bringing your family closer together the way it's doing for mine. Case in point: Over the weekend, my wife and I spent quality time in front of the tube taking in a marathon of Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders: Making the Squad, a "reality-based" program detailing the ups and downs -- well, really just the downs -- of the women hoping to win a spot with the 2005 Dolphins cheerleaders.

Men tuning in hoping for a little T&A (or a lot) will be disappointed by the show, because it makes an earnest effort to portray the would-be cheerleaders as human beings. The women come across as intelligent, articulate and driven. We see them not as bubbleheads or bobbleheads but as devoted athletes and dedicated performers.

Then, just when the show has painted this three-dimensional portrait, Dorie Grogan comes along and takes a box-cutter to it.

Dorie is introduced to us as the team's "director of event entertainment" and the outgoing "director of cheerleading." A former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader who has been terrorizing the Miami squad since 1996, Dorie tells us that 2005 will be her last year overseeing the selection process. And as that process gets rolling, it quickly becomes clear just what Dorie Grogan is looking for in a cheerleader: Dorie Grogan. Except with maybe an eating disorder. After five minutes of screen time for Dorie, my wife observed, "This woman has every single bad thing about her that you see in an evil sorority president." And as a former sorority president, she's qualified to make that judgment.

Let me just take a second to point out that I don't actually know Dorie Grogan, the person. I only know Dorie Grogan, the character portrayed on Making the Squad. For all I know, Dorie spends her spare time rescuing pandas or hammering out peace treaties. But she doesn't do any of that on the show, and I only know what I see on television.

The yin to Dorie's crazy yang in this train wreck is Heather Phillips, who in 2005 had just become the team's new "director of cheerleading." A former Dolphins cheerleader captain herself and then a reporter for a Miami TV station, Phillips is being "shown the ropes" by Dorie, who is "helping" her learn how to "run" the cheerleading operation. That's what they tell us anyway. In reality, Dorie wants Heather dead and doesn't care who knows it. Whenever Heather says "Yes," Dorie says "No." Any of the "girls" that Heather likes, Dorie is determined to destroy. When Heather acts with kindness, Dorie laughs with contempt. It didn't take long for both Tracy and I to realize that despite Phillips' fancy new title, she was going to have to pry the pom-poms and whistle out of Dorie's cold, dead hands. Sure enough, the Dolphins' current front-office directory tells us that Dorie is once again "director of event entertainment and cheerleaders," while Phillips has been busted down to "assistant director of cheerleaders." Welcome to the fucking jungle, baby. Kill or be killed.

But those changes were still in the future when Making the Squad began filming at the Dolphins' complex (or thereabouts) in the summer (or thereabouts) of 2005.

The show unfolds over only three episodes, so it doesn't waste our time with a lot of character development. But that's OK. The important thing is that Dorie, Heather and the gang are giving us a crash course in what it takes to be an NFL cheerleader (pep, a pretty smile, floppy hair, etc.). More important, they spell out for us the cardinal sins of cheerleading. (And those sins have nothing to do with the ladies' room at Banana Joe's.) Some things, the show teaches us, are utterly unacceptable for a member of Dorie's squad. Some things will cost you your spot on the team, if not your self-esteem and your very soul.

Take a wild guess what they are.

Turns out the modern NFL cheer squad is more of a dance line than a true cheerleading unit. These women don't do pyramids, after all, and they don't get catapulted into the air. So to make the team, a woman must have rhythm. She must have grace. She must know how to "work it." And she must be able to kick so high that she bangs her forehead with her knee. And yet ... on this show we don't see a single woman get eliminated from consideration because she can't dance, or because she can't kick high enough.

We're told that a cheerleader also must have a smile on her face at all times. Regardless of whether she's exhausted, or her feet hurt, or it's too hot or too cold, she's expected to keep smiling. Fans are out for a good time, and cheerleaders must not be wet blankets. If they can't see all thirty-two of your teeth from the upper deck, you aren't much of a cheerleader. And yet ... we don't see a single woman get eliminated from consideration because she can't keep a smile in place.

And we learn that the cheerleader is an ambassador for the franchise. As the Dolphins website describes it, "The job of a Miami Dolphins Cheerleader is to be a lady at all times, to be gracious and kind to those she comes into contact with and to support and uphold the impeccable image of the Miami Dolphins organization." And yet ... we don't see a single woman get eliminated from consideration because she isn't gracious and kind to those she comes into contact with.

We do, however, see one hopeful after another get her ass handed to her by Dorie for failing to support and uphold the impeccable image of the Miami Dolphins organization. What is that image? No fatties allowed.

In the first of the three episodes, more than 100 prospective rookie cheerleaders try out for the squad. Each woman (er, "girl") gets a fleeting chance to wiggle and jiggle for the amusement of Dorie and her retinue, and then it's cut-down time. About half will be heading home, and we get to sit in on the first of several roster-chopping sessions. Dorie, Heather and a motley assortment of judges (unidentified cheerleader types, some disc jockey and a guy in a wheelchair) get together to weigh (heh) the merits of each applicant. Each discussion includes a variation of this exchange:

Dorie: "How about Number 34?"
Judges: (In unison) "Yes ..."
Dorie: "No."
Judges: "... No."
Dorie: "Yeah, no. She's got a ... tummy problem. ... How about Number 56?"
Judges: (Muttering but no consensus.)
Phillips: "I'll say yes."
Dorie: "You say yes?"
Phillips: "Ah ... well ... "
Dorie: "Don't you thing she has a ... weight concern?"
Phillips: "OK ... yeah ... then no."

Now, I'm willing to entertain the idea that this is just the way the show is edited, but nobody's putting these words in Dorie's mouth. Over the course of the three episodes, every time a woman is sent home -- or is threatened with being sent home -- it's because of a "tummy problem" or "weight issues" or some other euphemism for "you disgust me." I'm not even inferring here; the judges tell us they're shooting down the fatties.

There is some consolation, however, because in the first two rounds of cuts (which were clearly made on the same day), none of the cuttees is actually told why she was eliminated. They're disappointed, of course -- some wander off in tears, shaking their heads in disbelief -- but they're the lucky ones. From this point forward, everyone who's eliminated has to sit down with Dorie, who tells her to her face just what a monster she is. Heather Phillips is there too, but only watches, frozen in terror as Dorie sucks the life energy from each woman and discards the husk.

While the rookies are being pared down, we get to meet some of the veterans. As you'd expect, seniority cuts no ice with Dorie, and these "girls" get run through the soul-grinder, too. I made you, and I can destroy you. The veteran who gets it worst, by far, is Ashley, a rookie in 2004 who has come back for 2005 in ... not the greatest shape, I suppose. The woman is indeed a little thick around the middle, at least as far as cheerleaders go, but she's hardly a beast. She looks good and healthy. Regardless, Dorie slaps her around like a cat with a mouse.

As an avid scholar of the game, I like to think I've got a pretty good idea of how NFL coaches go about cutting players. I saw Dave Campo do it on HBO's Hard Knocks. I saw Jack Del Rio do it on NFL Network's Jaguars Summer. And I read how Brian Billick does it in Next Man Up When these coaches cut a guy, they always try to let him down easy. They tell him that he's a great kid, that getting waived is his chance to catch on with another team, that he might even wind up back with the team on the practice squad. They tell him "this hurts me as much as you." Even if they don't mean it, they still do it, because it's the right thing to do. Because that's how our civil society operates.

Yeah, well, Dorie don't play that. Eyes afire, she sits down with poor, doomed Ashley and sinks the fangs in deep. By showing up out of shape, she hisses, you're doing more than letting yourself down. You're letting the team down. You're a disappointment to your teammates, and you're a disappointment to the Miami Dolphins organization. Ah, the Miami Dolphins. Remember, this is the team whose running back missed all of 2004 and the first four games of '05 because he loves smoking dope so much. This is the team that paid David Boston $2 million in 2004. This is the team that went into the 2005 season with Gus Frerotte as its starting quarterback. And Ashley's weight is the disappointment?

Poor Ashley's 2004 bio page identified her favorite holiday as Thanksgiving. I bet she wishes she'd said Lent.

Ashley was just one of many summoned before Dorie and the increasingly lifeless Heather in the cafeteria (ha!) of the Dolphins complex. One candidate -- now that I think about it, it may have even been Ashley -- is told that she has a tummy issue and one week to show improvement or hit the bricks. One week! As best I can tell, short of surgery, there are two ways to "slim down" your abdominal region:

1. Consume fewer calories (though never less than the baseline amount needed to prevent a starvation response) and increase the number of calories you burn through exercise. This creates a caloric deficit while preserving muscle and increasing metabolism, which in turn prompts your body to burn fat.
2. Take diuretics by the handful and live on saltines.

Guess which one produces "results" in a week.

This woman got the thumb anyway, so it doesn't matter. Except to any little girls who might be watching, who just got one doozy of a message.

One of the rookies the show followed closely was an engaging, enthusiastic woman in a cropped Junior Seau jersey whose name I unfortunately can't recall. We saw her make the team (yay!), but she's nowhere to be found on the Dolphins cheerleaders website. That's probably a bad sign. (Go here to see a 2005 team photo. When you mouse over each cheerleader, that woman's name -- and half of them are named Lauren -- pops up, and you can click to see her bio. But with at least three of the women, you get nothing. The Commisar Vanishes. ) Anyway, this young lady is oozing with excitement as she survives one round of cuts after another. As it's getting down to crunch time, Dorie tells her that she has, of course, some weight issues that she really needs to work on. In the saddest single scene of the entire show, the panicked cheerleader candidate immediately dashes out of the cafeteria, falls to the ground outside, in the dark, and starts doing ab exercises. Crunch time indeed. I'm glad I'm not the one who has to tell her that spot reduction is impossible. Talk about heartbreaking.

After seeing so many healthy-looking women criticized for their weight "problems," a Making the Squad viewer becomes understandably desensitized. But just when you're going completely numb, the producers play the irony card from the bottom of the deck and show us footage of a young Dorie as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. See Dorie wear that ridiculous, dated outfit. See Dorie flip her big hair. See Dorie escort Tom Landry at Texas Stadium. See Dorie pose for the swimsuit calendar.

I don't think Dorie would have made the 2005 Miami Dolphins cheerleaders.

Back at the Dolphins complex, it was during one of the cafeteria cut-down sessions that Heather Phillips' elevator finally made it to the top floor, albeit briefly. Dorie was happily slashing away at another poor "girl" when the candidate abruptly thanked the ladies for the opportunity, stood up and walked away. Phillips turned to Dorie and observed that the woman had been about to cry. Dorie's response: Was she? I didn't notice.

---

Ladies! Want to know what it feels like to have Dorie tear your throat open with her teeth? The 2006 Miami Dolphins cheerleader auditions are Saturday, April 8!

Yeah, kicking was the Colts' problem

All the radioactive dust appears to have settled out of the air following the Indianapolis Colts' signing of former Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri. Raise your hand if, like me, you're more surprised by the reaction to the deal than the deal itself. For one thing, the use of the word "traitor"* has thankfully been kept to a minimum in New England, where, wonder of wonders, many Patriot fans have chosen to remember Vinatieri with fondness and even acknowledge that after all he'd done for them, he had every right to chase as much money as possible. More people seem to be blaming the team for (understandably) refusing to pay Vinatieri's price than are blaming Vinatieri for (understandably) asking it. Miracles never cease.

Even more heartwarming in this story is that both Vinatieri and the Colts got exactly what they wanted.

Vinatieri got the career-capping, long-term contract he was seeking: five-years for $12 million, including a $3.5 million signing bonus. He gets to kick for a team with a supposedly yardage-gobbling offense, which means a higher percentage of short field goals, and he gets to kick indoors after a decade on the frozen sod -- or at least the frozen painted dirt -- of first Foxboro and later Gillette. I've come to love the little bastard, and I'm happy for him.

The Colts, meanwhile, got what they've deluded themselves into thinking was their "one missing piece": a clutch kicker.

I can understand why the Indianapolis brain trust would be reluctant to watch the tape of the Colts' painful, embarrassing loss in the divisional round of the playoffs. But they really should go back and review he footage, because as it stands, they've somehow concluded that Indy lost the game only because Mike Vanderjagt botched the tying 46-yard field goal with less than a minute to go.

We can all agree that Vanderjagt is a horse's ass who had worn out his welcome in Indianapolis, if not the United States, well before that grisly January Sunday. And while laying the loss to Pittsburgh squarely at his precious Canadian feet is tempting, it's also wrong. The Colts didn't lose because Vanderjagt failed in the final minute; they lost because the entire team -- players and coaches -- failed in the first 59 minutes. The Steelers were simply better prepared and better coached. They had a better strategy, better execution. They were the better team. The Steelers came screaming out of the tunnel and built a 14-point first-quarter lead, while the Colts gave themselves headaches trying to figure out why their game plan was suddenly failing them when it had worked so well in September and October. Sure, the Colts clawed their way back into the game, but Vanderjagt wouldn't have even been in position to miss the tying kick if the officials hadn't thieved the game-clinching interception from the Steelers. (But, you know, you'd never hear Pittsburgh fans complain about officiating. That's for losers!)

When you consider that the Colts' season began unraveling with the loss to the Chargers in the 14th game, you realize it was for the best that they lost to Pittsburgh. Let's say Vanderjagt actually got the ball through the uprights. (Better yet, let's say Peyton Manning used the two downs before the kick to try to get Vanderjagt into better position, rather than throw deep passes that fooled no one.) If the Colts tied it, then somehow won in overtime, they'd have then hosted Denver in the AFC Championship Game. And they would have gone into the game with the same script they used all season, and they'd have lost because by that point, the Colts were ... I don't want to say bad, because they weren't. What they were was predictable. And uninspired. And that isn't the kicker's fault. It's the coaches'. It's the organization's.

By all means, put a boot on Mike Vanderjagt's ass. But don't think getting rid of him is going to solve what's killing the team. And don't think that bringing in Adam Vinatieri is going to do it, either.

---

*The "traitor" issue: I was just sure that the fans in Boston were going to burn Vinatieri in effigy, because the Patriots-Colts "rivalry" is one of the most bizarre in sports. It's sort of like Yankees-Red Sox, except the polarity is totally screwy.

Prior to 2004, the Red Sox had never beaten the Yankees when it counted, so the relationship between the teams was only a "rivalry" in the sense that a nail has a rivalry with a hammer. The Yankees -- smugly superior, perennial winners, longtime stake through the heart of Red Sox Nation -- drove Boston fans up the wall. And the largest indignity of it all? The Yankees didn't seem to care. Now think about Colts-Patriots. For whatever reason, fans of the three-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots just can't seem to get over the six-time playoff-choking Indianapolis Colts. They utterly despise Manning. They get weirdly defensive about Tom Brady. The Colts have yet to beat the Patriots when it counts, and yet the Patriots' fans are totally hung up on Indy. Makes no sense to me.

(And speaking of the Yankees and Red Sox, I have to ask this about Johnny Damon: Since when is it a treasonous act to get the best deal you can? Sure, Damon followed the money to New York -- the same way he followed the money to Boston from Oakland four years earlier. The guy came up with the Kansas City Royals, for pete's sake, and he arrived in Boston as a free agent. Just like nearly every other key member of the Series-winning 2004 Sox. Stow the outrage.)

Patriots put Tom's money where their mouth is

David Givens signs with the Titans. Willie McGinest signs with the Browns. Tim Dwight signs with the Jets. Adam Vinatieri signs with the Colts, for the love of God. The New England Patriots have never been afraid to let players -- even "core" players -- walk away if the team doesn't think they're worth the money. That's the Patriot Way. And the Patriot Way has put three rings on Bob Kraft's fingers, not to mention one on Vladimir Putin's, so you can't discount their way of doing business.

But if I'm Tom Brady, questions are starting to bubble up inside my pretty head. About this time last year, Brady's own three Super Bowl rings were clinking against a conference table as he negotiated a contract extension with the Patriots. The deal he eventually signed produced a golden shower of praise because Brady -- unlike a certain Kenny Chesney fan with a horseshoe on his helmet -- took less money than he could have commanded in free agency in order to help out the team. As Brady explained it:

"In this game, the more one player gets, the more he takes away from what others can get. Is it going to make me feel any better to make an extra million, which, after taxes, is about $500,000? That million might be more important to the team."

Might be, but we don't know as yet because the team refuses to spend it. Not on the best clutch kicker in NFL history. Not on the all-time postseason sack leader. And certainly not on free agents, as the only player the Pats picked up this spring is Reche Caldwell (cue cartoon honking). According to the calculations at PatsCap.com, as of Wednesday, the Patriots were something like $18.5 million under the salary cap for 2006. Just imagine if Brady had held out for that extra million!

Perhaps the Patriots will carry that $18.5 million into the season and use it to extend other key players -- but don't count on it. Deion Branch, Dan Koppen, Richard Seymour and Asante Samuel are all in line to be unrestricted free agents next year. Each stands to collect extra-long green when (if) he hits the open market. The question is: Will the Patriots pay the asking price, or will they let them walk? Keep in mind that each also has two Super Bowl rings, so the take-less-and-have-a-shot-at-a-championship argument is somewhat blunted. David Patten followed the money last year; these guys may, too. And know who's a free agent in 2008? Tedy Bruschi. If sentiment didn't translate into cash for Vinatieri, it won't for Bruschi, either, if he still wants to play. If I'm Brady, maybe I'm not lying awake at night (next to Bridget Moynihan) wondering if that extra million I spotted the team will go toward keeping one or more of my friends in Foxboro. But I may be wondering it in my dreams.

So Tom Brady may have been jobbed. That's my first thought for the day.

Moving on, possibly the most celebrated aspect of the Patriot Way is the team's ability to fill roster spots with unheralded later-round picks and totally undrafted dudes rather than write up fat contracts for shiny free agents. One of the great things about unheralded later-round picks and undrafted dudes is that you don't need $18.5 million worth of cap space to sign them. Sixth-rounder Brady, for example, won Super Bowl XXXVI while playing for peanuts, while $100 million hat rack Drew Bledsoe rotted on the bench. But this strategy only works as long as the kind of guys you need for your team remain unheralded.

The NFL coaching ranks include some of the most brilliant tacticians in all of sports. But by and large, the coaching profession is not one know for its, uh, originality. When a certain strategy -- either brand new or recycled -- proves itself a success, it's only a matter of time before the entire league is on board. ("Cover 2," anyone?) And the same goes for front-office strategies. One franchise develops an edge, and in time everybody else catches up. It never fails, and it's always been thus.

Take the early Cleveland Browns. They were all but unbeatable (52-4-3) in the All-America Football Conference of the 1940s, then lorded over the NFL through the 1950s. The Browns' run was partially a function of great players -- Marion Motley, Otto Graham, Bill Willis, Jim Brown -- but their sheer dominance of pro football was a product of coaching. Paul Brown was an NFL pioneer in his use of film study, classroom instruction and playbooks. He was the first coach with full-time, year-round assistants, the first to station assistants up in the pres box. The Browns' preparation was so thorough, so far beyond anything other NFL teams were doing at the time, that for a decade Cleveland wiped its feet on other teams.

Then, in time, every other team did exactly what Paul Brown was doing. The Browns lost their edge, and Art Modell fired Paul Brown. Modell never could read a room.

The lesson in this for the Patriots? The Patriot Way has produced three NFL championships in the past five years (as opposed to none for, say, the Redskin Way). At some point, the strategy New England has pursued will cease being the Patriot Way and become simply The Way Things Are Done. It isn't all that hard to identify the kinds of players the Patriots are looking for. Hell, there's a book that does a pretty good job of sketching it out. And when a dozen or more teams are looking for those same players, it becomes less likely that they're going to be available in the lower rounds, and it becomes more likely that you're going to have to pay through the nose for them.

To cite a different sport, early in this decade the Oakland A's made the playoffs year after year by playing moneyball, but they could never win a world championship. Then the Red Sox, pursuing a similar strategy, won the 2004 Series. Why? Because they had money coming out their arses and could pay twice as much for the kinds of guys Billy Beane used to get for cheap. For the A's, moneyball -- statistical analysis paired with the judicious application of limited resources -- lost out to MONEYBALL: statistical analysis paired with barges full of cash. As the landscape changed for the A's, so will it probably change for the Patriots.

In Belichick We Trust is still the cry in New England, as it should be. Bill Belichick is still a mastermind, and if anyone can stay a step ahead of a league in which the Patriot Way is just S.O.P., I'd lay good money that it's him. But if I were Tom Brady, and I was watching another half-dozen members of my team's Old Guard walk away while the franchise sits on the extra million I passed up for the good of the team, I'd be wondering what the future holds.

And I'd be putting ground glass in Matt Cassel's food.

As usual, baseball has it only half right

The latest book in the pile is Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football by Robert W. Peterson. The book spends too much time early on chasing down the answer to the trivia question "Who was the very first pro football player?" (Answer: Pudge Heffelfinger, maybe, but no one knows for sure.) Nevertheless, it's still an excellent account of the evolution of the pro game from the late 1800s until, of course, the 1958 NFL Championship Game. In the epilogue, however, Peterson gives a brief overview of how the NFL came to dominate American sports after The Greatest Game Ever Played. Unfortunately for such an extensively researched book, it includes this nugget of conventional wisdom:

"In contrast with the practice in major league baseball, the network-television bonanza is shared equally by all NFL teams."

Hopefully we can lay this one to rest once and for all: As far as television revenue is concerned, the NFL and Major League Baseball have nearly identical systems. In both leagues, network money is divided evenly, while local TV money belongs to the individual teams and is not shared. The critical difference is that in the NFL, nearly all television income comes from network contracts, while in baseball, the vast majority of TV revenue is generated on the local level.

Each year, the NFL plays only 256 regular season games and 11 playoff games. Every one of them is on either a broadcast or cable network. (Those of us with the dish are able to watch all 267, provided we don't have jobs or family responsibilities.) Four networks (Fox, CBS, NBC and ESPN) pay the league $3.1 billion a year -- that's billion with a B -- for the rights to the games, and that revenue is split 32 ways. This is why the league has a salary cap of more than $100 million. Local TV revenue? Well, each team is free to make as much money as it can off telecasts of its desultory exhibition games. This is not a large hill of beans -- almost negligible, actually.

Major League Baseball, meanwhile, has contracts with only two networks. Fox pays $2.5 billion over six years; ESPN, $2.4 billion over eight. That money is split 30 ways, and amounts to about one-quarter the revenue per team that NFL franchises receive. Baseball plays 2,430 regular season games a year. The networks cover maybe 120 of them, plus the playoffs. Dish or no dish, you ain't seeing most of the others. The thousands of other games are covered by local TV. And that's the problem. The New York Yankees, in an enormous media market, can make 10 times or more what a small-market club like the Kansas City Royals can bring in. That's why baseball doesn't have -- really can't have -- a salary cap.

None of this is about defending baseball's counterproductive and self-destructive revenue system. Baseball teams could decide to share local TV money the same way they split network money. They just don't.

Exclusive: First look at Vikings' new unis

As a native Minnesotan, I applaud new Vikings owner Zygi Wilf for his already extensive efforts to hose off the foul, greasy residue of disappointment that has coated the franchise since Bud Grant turned the keys over to Jerry Burns. Kicking Mike Tice's ass all the way to Florida with one foot and Daunte Culpepper's with the other made clear to one and all that the new boss was most definitely not the same as the old boss.

When Wilf arrived in the Gopher State, there were a lot of changes that needed to be made. The inmates were running the asylum. The stadium was a dump. Megan's Law was on the books. Hell, the only thing that didn't need changing was the Vikings' classic uniforms.

Well, a new broom always sweeps clean, and now Zygmunt is going ahead and changing the uniforms, too. It's his team, and he can do what he wants with it, so you're not going to catch me criticizing him. Besides, as purty as the current duds are, they've gone without a major revision through four lost Super Bowls and three lost NFC title games. Perhaps a change really is in order.

The team won't say what it's whipping up, but rumors are flying that the new getups will include an all-purple option, cashing in on the monochromatic craze. Down and Distance has seen the new uniforms, and can confirm that this is indeed the case. The Minnesota Vikings' new home uniforms can be seen here, and the road unis are here.

The straw man on the injured list

I've been spending the past month making my way through a stack of football books I didn't have time to read during the regular season. Right now I'm working on Next Man Up by John Feinstein. It's a behind-the-scenes, day-by-day account of the 2004 NFL season as experienced by the Baltimore Ravens. So naturally the cover of the book shows the Carolina Panthers taking the field (that's Chris Weinke at far right).

Anyway, I'm toodling along and I come across this line, in reference to the NFL's weekly injury report:

"There's no doubt that the league monitors the injured list closely in the interest of fairness, so teams can't simply lie or even hedge too much about injuries. Of course, the injury list is also important to gamblers since knowing who will and won't play affects betting lines and who bets on whom. The league would love people to believe that its popularity is based solely on the wonders of the game. ... The fact is that a large chunk of the league's popularity is driven by the fascination people have with betting on the games, both legally and illegally." (emphasis added)

This is a point I see made over and over by football writers: The NFL, the argument goes, is engaged in hypocrisy because on one hand it takes a public stance against gambling, while on the other it provides valuable information to gamblers in the form of the injury report. This argument, like many made by football writers, is predicated either on ignorance of NFL history or on willful disregard of it.

The NFL instituted the weekly injury report nearly six decades ago in the wake of the Hapes-Filchcock scandal. (Here's the part where you say: The what?) Before the 1946 NFL Championship Game, gamblers had befriended New York Giants players Merle Hapes and Frank Filchcock, plied them with free drinks and, I suppose, "broads," and tried to get them to throw the game. Though neither player accepted the money offered, neither reported the bribe attempts to the league, either. After the Giants lost the NFL title to the inferior (but nevertheless favored by 10 points) Chicago Bears, rumors of a fix spread. Hapes and Filchcock ended up suspended, essentially for life. And as NFL commissioner Bert Bell worked to clean up the league's image after the scandal, he declared:

"The game and its players must be kept free from corruption, from all bribes and offers of bribes and from any possible 'fixing' of games." (quoted in America's Game by Michael MacCambridge)

Central to this effort, of course, was preventing players (and others who could affect the outcome of games) from consorting with gambling interests. At the time, teams were constantly shadowed, and players constantly approached, by gamblers willing to pay generously for inside information that would provide a betting edge. Anyone who sold such information ended up compromised and susceptible to coercion -- threatened to throw a game, or shave points, or else be exposed at the cost of his career. No piece of inside information was more valuable than a team's injury status. That's why at the start of the 1947 season the league began publishing a weekly list of those players who were injured and less than likely to play. Because injury news was now widely disseminated, it was no longer "inside" information.

So, the injury report was not instituted in the interest of "fairness" between teams. From the beginning, the league acknowledged that the report existed because of gambling. League officials don't live in a fantasy world. They knew then and they know now that "a large chunk of the NFL's popularity" breaks down to money changing hands every Monday morning. They can't change that, but what they can do is make every effort to prevent the money wagered on the outcome of a game from determining the outcome of that game. Yes, the net overall effect of the injury report has been to make the game more attractive as a betting proposition -- but it has reduced the game's exposure to tampering.

When the subject is the NFL injury report, Feinstein and those like him are attacking a straw man. They cluck their tongues at the NFL and indict the league for pretending that the injury report is not gambling-related. But they're the ones who are pretending. They're pretending that the NFL is pretending that it's not gambling-related. It makes better copy -- it's "funny" -- to frame the issue this way, but it's intellectually dishonest and historically ignorant.

And it's old. It was old all the way back in 1991, when disgraced L.A. Stallions quarterback Jimmy Dix asked: "Why, Joe? Why is there an injury report in pro football, huh? Nobody else has a f---ing injury report, but football does, so the f---ing gamblers will know the spread."

Words to live by.

How to save the N.F.L.

Forget about the collective bargaining agreement. The National Football League has a bigger problem: an identity crisis. With the interweb becoming the "hot" new medium, an organization needs to have a presence "on-line." Further, once it gets on-line, it needs to attract viewers to its interweb location. That's where search programs called "engines" come in. The engines, such as Hot Bot, Dog Pile and the Go Network, steer viewers to various interweb "sites" based on the terms that those viewers enter into the search program. By making shrewd use of these "key-words," an organization can maximize the number of viewers it draws in. The NFL, however, is asking for trouble with one of it's key-words. Consider:

WHEN YOU SEARCH for "Football" on Google, NFL.com is result No. 1 out of an estimated 563 million pages.

WHEN YOU SEARCH for "League" on Google, NFL.com is result No. 2 out of an estimated 389 million pages:

Major League Baseball
National Football League

WHEN YOU SEARCH for "National" on Google, NFL.com is a measly No. 35 out of an estimated 4.13 billion pages:

National Car Rental
National Semiconductor
National Instruments
National Archives and Records Administration
National Rail Enquiries (U.K.)
National Science Foundation
National Institutes of Health
National Geographic
National Education Association
National Park Service
National Public Radio
National Review
National Basketball Association
National Weather Service
Democratic National Committee
PTA (National)
National Cancer Institute
National Safety Council
National Gallery (London)
National Express
National Academies
National Archives (U.K.)
National MS Society
National Endowment for the Arts
Republican National Committee
American National Standards Institute
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)
National Wildlife Federation
New York Times national news
National Zoo
National Audubon Society
National Rifle Association
National Statistics (U.K.)
National Football League

However, when you search for "official site" on Google, NFL.com is an impressive No. 10 out of an estimated 313 million pages. That puts the league on the first page of results no matter what parameters you're using. That's more like it. So, Paul Tagliabue, if you still read Down and Distance, take note: Switching the name to the Official Site Football League could increase your traffic like 10% or more. Don't just leave that money on the table, man.

The OSFL. Finally, a league for our generation!

"Ryan Leaf": Not much of QB,but one hell of a metaphor

Even the most ignorant observer (present and accounted for!) can give a car-by-car description of the train derailment that was Ryan Leaf's brief NFL career: Crummy quarterback. Shitty teammate. Historic head case. All-around bad citizen. But in the three-plus years since he was kicked ass-first out of the league, Ryan Leaf, The Man, has given way to "Ryan Leaf," The Metaphor. And as such, Leaf has attained the immortality, versatility and durability that eluded him all those years he had his enormous head jammed into a helmet.

So handy is Leaf, The Metaphor, however, that people are now sticking it in places where it doesn't belong, and in doing so are cheapening one of the most precious additions our language has seen in the past half-century. "Ryan Leaf," a name that once stank richly of Greek tragedy and burnt toast, is in danger of becoming just another snarky synonym for "disappointing." And what a truly Ryan Leaf development that would be.

This comes to mind not because Leaf, The Man, has been in the news of late, but because Leaf, The Metaphor, has been kicking poor Darko Milicic in the crotch.

Milicic, a 7-foot center/forward from Serbia, was picked No. 2 overall by the Detroit Pistons in the 2003 NBA draft. Since joining the Pistons, Milicic has played somewhere between sparingly and not at all, and last week Detroit traded him to Orlando for Kelvin Cato and change. That was enough for Bob Cook of MSNBC.com -- the thinking man's NBC.com! -- to declare that Milicic appears "destined to be remembered as the Ryan Leaf of the NBA." Cook's piece, posted Friday, appears under a headline asserting, tautologically, "Similarities between ex-Piston and former NFL QB are eerily similar." Cook explains the eerily similar similarities thus:

"Like Leaf, Milicic was picked No. 2 behind a highly hyped No. 1. Like Leaf, Milicic was seen by many pundits -- and even those within his sport -- as having the potential to be perhaps even better someday than that highly hyped No. 1. Like Leaf, Milicic quickly got exposed as not ready for prime time, and as a result his name became a walking punch line."

And, really, that's the extent of it. Leaf and Milicic were both drafted No. 2 behind future superstars (in Leaf's case, Peyton Manning; in Milicic's, LeBron James). Both of them were also -- and let's count the qualifiers in this sentence -- "seen by many ... as having the potential to be perhaps even better someday" than the dudes who went No. 1. And both are not stars now.

There's just one minor, gaping hole in the "logic" behind the comparison. Leaf was drafted to be the savior of a destitute team, but he flopped on the field, poisoned the locker room and scarred the franchise for years. Milicic, meanwhile, was drafted by a team that didn't need him and didn't play him as a rookie because it was already a contender and was so loaded with talent that it promptly won two Eastern Conference championships and an NBA title. Milicic is indeed reminiscent of a certain San Diego quarterback, just not the one lazy writers like Cook would prefer. Darko Milicic is not the Ryan Leaf of the NBA. Darko Milicic is the Philip Rivers of the NBA.

Leaf and Rivers were both high-first-round picks who went to the San Diego Chargers. Leaf began his rookie year as the starting quarterback, put together a truly hideous season and lost his job to the immortal Craig Whelihan. Rivers arrived as the backup, just in time to watch Drew Brees become an elite quarterback ahead of him on the depth chart. The Chargers didn't need Rivers, so he sat for two years, and it appeared he would be traded this offseason. However, Brees got his throwing arm torn off in the 2005 season finale against Denver, and now Rivers seems destined to stay in San Diego -- either as the starter or in his familiar role as the spare tire on the Schottenheimer jalopy. In an eerily similar similarity to Rivers, the Pistons parked Milicic on the bench because they already had a team full of all-stars, and there he stayed until the trade. Maybe if Tayshaun Prince had ripped his labrum, too, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Cook is hardly alone in firing the Ryan Leaf Cannon at Milicic. For an analysis typical of what's floating around out there, we turn to the Record of Stockton, Calif.:

The Detroit Pistons finally traded Ryan Leaf ... er, Darko Milicic on Wednesday. Joe Dumars manned up and admitted that passing on Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade was a major mistake by shipping Darko and Carlos Arroyo to Disney World for Kelvin Cato and a protected first-round pick. Imagine this Pistons team with one of the aforementioned studs. They'd be on an 80-win pace.

That's the best you can do? The Pistons are 42-9 and they're in a slump. They lead the Eastern Conference by 10 games. The only team in the NBA even close to them is the Dallas Mavericks, whom I like to think Cook would call "the Indianapolis Colts of the NBA." The Pistons are on a pace for 68 wins, which would tie them for the fourth-most ever in an 82-game season, and you're going to wag your finger at them for not being 50-1? Further, to assume that the Pistons would be even better with, say, Carmelo Anthony is something of a reach. When a team is 42-9, it means that team has the right pieces in the right places. Dumars and Larry Brown knew that when they decided to use the No. 2 pick on a developmental project like Milicic rather than a superstar like Anthony. You put Carmelo Anthony on the Pistons, he's going to expect the offense to run through him. He isn't going to want to share the ball with Rip Hamilton, or Chauncey Billups, or the Wallace brothers -- you know, the guys who won the All-Star Game on Sunday night. Nike ain't paying him all that money to be no team player. And if you ask him to be, he just might go Ryan Leaf on you.

The Darko = Ryan equation breaks down every time you try to prove it. Leaf's teammates hated him and rejoiced after he was cut. Milicic's teammates, on the other hand, praised him after he was traded. Their only complaint was that he would let frustration get the better of him when he felt he wasn't being given an opportunity. Rasheed Wallace -- Rasheed Wallace! -- said: "Everyone thinks he's a bust and makes jokes about him. ... But the joke is going to be on them."

And that's the word we're really talking about here: bust. Is Darko Milicic a bust? Well, is Philip Rivers a bust? There's no way to tell, because neither player has had the opportunity to show what he can do. Milicic will now get that opportunity in Orlando. And he may very well fail. He may very well end up a bust after all. But being a bust does not make a player Ryan Leaf. Immediately after drawing comparisons between Milicic and Leaf, Cook erased them, though he probably didn't even know he was doing it:

"To be fair, Milicic, unlike Leaf, has not been known to berate or scream at reporters, heckling fans and his own teammates. He’s never been accused of being a malingerer. And fans have embraced him, rather than turned on him."

It's one thing to be a bust, which Darko Milicic might be. It's one thing to be a wasted pick, which he also might be. But if you don't scream at reporters, if you don't attack fans, if you don't get called lazy or a fat-ass or a cancer or a jake, then you are not Ryan Leaf. Being untalented does not make you "Ryan Leaf." Being a bad fit on a good team does not make you "Ryan Leaf." Being overrated, overpaid or overhyped does not make you "Ryan Leaf."

I'm always willing to help out writers who run dry on imagination or creativity. So here's a list of highly drafted NFL quarterbacks who turned out to be lousy players but weren't bad people: David Klingler, Heath Shuler, Rick Mirer, Andre Ware. The next time you come across a guy who can't get it done on the field (or at least hasn't gotten it done so far) but who isn't a fruitcake or a cancer in the locker room, try one of these names instead. Save "Ryan Leaf, The Metaphor" for the truly deserving. Or better yet, come up with your own alternatives.

Like ... "Alex Smith, the Kwame Brown of the NFL." Or is it the other way around?

Loooking for the Play-by-Playlooza?

It's still up. Scroll down below, or click here.

Tiptoe thru the tombstones:The Super Bowl covers of SI

It's time we break the cycle of denial and face an awful truth: The 2005 NFL season is dead and buried. I know because I saw its tombstone.

An NFL season is really an organic entity -- much like a human or a raccoon, or a mollusk or a coral reef. Though each season has its own individual characteristics, it follows a predictable life cycle: Out of a brief gestation (Latin for "exhibition games"), the season is born in September and takes its tottering first steps. From there, it grows quickly to manhood, devouring all rivals, and by December it looms tall and broad-shouldered over American sport. Then, in early February, at the peak of its vitality, this young life comes to a shattering and violent end. In a way, the Super Bowl is rather like the final scene in Scarface: Say hello to my little friend ... the Lombardi Trophy! From there we move to that maudlin funeral known as the Pro Bowl, and we pause to consider the season's gravestone, chiseled, as always, by the editors of Sports Illustrated.

For four decades, the arrival of SI's Super Bowl wrapup has signaled the passing of the NFL season. Oh, every year the magazine gamely tries to lessen the grief by sending out an issue crammed with softcore pr0n, but the comfort is cold at best. All the painted boobies and sand-encrusted booties in the world can't make us forget that we've got seven black months before the next season is birthed into the angled light of late summer.

The Super Bowl covers, like the games they represent -- like human beings -- are all different, yet share many characteristics. For example, each bears an epitaph -- a postscript on the game and the season just concluded. This year's Super Bowl cover (click it above to see the full-size version) is inscribed "Thumbs Up." In other years, it might say "Super Star!" or carry some gruesome pun on the order of "Patriots' Day!" or "Ride 'Em Cowboy!" Each Super Bowl cover also bears a photo of a hero (sorry, "Superhero!"), usually but not always the game MVP. This year's version features Hines Ward of the Steelers.

What follows is a trip through the NFL graveyard -- or, if you prefer, "down memory lane." Join us as we examine, evaluate and, if necessary, desecrate 40 years' worth of Sports Illustrated Super Bowl covers.

HOW TO DECODE THIS FEATURE
"Main cover line" / This is the primary "headline" of the cover. It's usually, but not necessarily, the biggest type on the page.
"Featured player" / The athlete displayed most prominently on the cover.
"MVP? Iconic image?" / Is the person on the cover the game MVP? Or does the picture show a "signature moment" from the game, such as Adam Vinatieri celebrating a field goal, John Riggins dragging half of Miami down the field, or Max McGee vomiting into his helmet?
"Cover story" / Why the cover is appropriate -- or why it makes no sense.
"Could cover line have been written before the game?"/ Some cover lines are so weak and meaningless ("Super Star" or "Wow!") that they say nothing about either the game or the team that won it. Others are team-specific ("Superboys") but still reveal nothing about what happened in the game. In both cases, the lines could have been written weeks, if not months, in advance.

"Super"-fluous: This icon indicates a cover line that uses the word "Super" as a throwaway adjective -- basically, in any context but "Super Bowl."

Exclaim check: This icon denotes a cover line that hobbles across the page on crutches built of exclamation points.

Auntie Em: Dorothy's stern but loving aunt indicates a cover line that for whatever reason has decided to truncate "Them" as " 'Em" (or "Her" as " 'Er").

ALL COVER LINKS WILL OPEN IN ONE SEPARATE WINDOW.

And away we go:

SUPER BOWL XL (Pittsburgh 21, Seattle 10)
Issue date: Feb. 13, 2006
Main cover line: "Thumbs up."
Featured player: Hines Ward.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? Maybe, maybe not. History will decide, but if you go by ABC's coverage of the game, the lasting image will be Jerome Bettis on the sideline with his helmet in his hand, watching the action unfold.
Cover story: The cover line is pep-rally puffery that refers to the Steelers winning "one for the thumb." See, five Super Bowl championships means five Super Bowl rings, enough for each finger and the thumb. Get it? Clever! I'd suggest that when a team goes 26 years between Ring No. 4 and Ring No. 5, the guys on the field aren't completing a set of rings as much as they're starting a whole new one. If Terry Bradshaw had come out of retirement to back up Ben Roethlisberger this season, then he would have won one for the thumb. Everybody else on the Steelers was working on Ring No. 1.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Before Super Bowl XXX, even. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Ball Hawks"; "Reign in Seattle."

SUPER BOWL XXXIX (New England 24, Philadelphia 21)
Issue date: Feb. 14, 2005
Main cover line: "Down Pat."
Featured player: Rodney Harrison, with Mike Vrabel on his heels.
MVP? No (Deion Branch), but I'm not going to be the one to tell Harrison. Iconic image? Sure. It beats Donovan McNabb vomiting his pregame meal all over Terrell Owens' contract.
Cover story: Sports Illustrated spits in Harrison's face by forcing him to share the cover with a tiny photo of Phil Mickelson and a reefer about the U.S. ski team. The cover line is explained thus: With its third title in four years, New England appears to have the art of winning Super Bowls "down pat." Once you start trying to chase it down like that, you realize just how far SI expects us to go to carry their pun.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Eagles Soar"; "Philly's Finest."

SUPER BOWL XXXVIII (New England 32, Carolina 29)
Issue date: Feb. 9, 2004
Main cover line: "The Hero (Again)."
Featured player: Tom Brady.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? I'll say yes, because it's not like they're going to put Janet Jackson's breast out there. We can't see naked breasts until the next issue.
Cover story: The headline is noteworthy because it's the last SI Super Bowl cover to say something about the game besides "Team A won." The photo shows Brady and his teammates pouring off the bench after Adam Vinatieri kicked the winning field goal ... which wouldn't have been necessary had Vinatieri not missed two kicks earlier in the game ... which is why Brady can indisputably be the "hero" rather than Vinatieri.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Cardiac Cats!" "Pantherrific!"

SUPER BOWL XXXVII (Tampa Bay 48, Oakland 21)
Issue date: Feb. 3, 2003
Main cover line: "It's a Rout!"
Featured player: Joe Jurevicius.
MVP? Not hardly (Dexter Jackson). Iconic image? No.
Cover story: After a game utterly dominated by the Tampa defense, in which the Buccaneers intercepted five passes and returned three of them for touchdowns, SI puts on its cover ... Tampa's No. 3 receiver? One of the ground rules of visual editing is that you lead with your strongest image, and this picture of a pop-eyed Jurevicius giving the stiff-arm to Raiders corner Tory James is certainly catchy. But it ain't the real story.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Return to Excellence"; something with "Baby" in it.

SUPER BOWL XXXVI (New England 20, St. Louis 17)
Issue date: Feb. 11, 2002
Main cover line: "Patriots' Day."
Featured player: Willie McGinest.
MVP? No (Tom Brady). Iconic image? No way.
Cover story: If you were flipping through a stack of magazines looking for the one from the Rams-Patriots Super Bowl, you'd skip right over this cover, because you'd be expecting to see that immortal shot of Adam Vinatieri leaping in the air after nailing the game-winning, 48-yard field goal. The picture on this cover -- of McGinest grinding Kurt Warner's sternum into powder -- is certainly dramatic, but it isn't what we remember.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Oh, years before. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Dynasty!" "Ram Tough!"

SUPER BOWL XXXV (Baltimore 34, N.Y. Giants 7)
Issue date: Feb. 5, 2001
Main cover line: "Baltimore Bullies."
Featured player: Jamie Sharper.
MVP? No (Ray Lewis). Iconic image? It's as good as anything else from the game. Even considering the stretch where the teams scored touchdowns on three consecutive plays, this was still the dullest Super Bowl in recent memory.
Cover story: The sub-headline on the cover reads, "The Ravens' defense beats up the Giants in the Super Bowl." And "defense" is italicized like that, as if it were a surprise that the game played out the way it did. If there was anything surprising about the game it was that the Ravens' oleomargarine-flavored offense put up 20 points. Italicize that, buddy boy. Words aside, the cover is fitting, as it shows Sharper in the act of committing a personal foul on Giants quarterback Kerry Collins.
Could cover line have been written before the game? More or less. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Giant Upset"; "Kerry On My Wayward Son."

SUPER BOWL XXXIV (St. Louis 23, Tennessee 16)
Issue date: Feb. 7, 2000
Main cover line: "What a Super Bowl!"
Featured player: Kurt Warner.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? No.
Cover story: The art shows Warner throwing a pass over the head of a hard-charging Anthony Dorsett. The picture is just fine, because it matches the sub-headline, "Kurt Warner and the Rams: A Storybook Ending To a Miracle Season." (Go ahead and ask Kurt his thoughts on the "miracle" aspect. It's not a word he throws around this loosely.) The lasting image of the game, however, isn't of the Rams offense. It's of St. Louis linebacker Mike Jones stopping the Titans' Kevin Dyson a yard short at the final gun.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Maybe. Possible cover line if the other team had won: Same.

SUPER BOWL XXXIII (Denver 34, Atlanta 19)
Issue date: Feb. 8, 1999
Main cover line: "Super Bowl."
Featured player: John Elway.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? Yes.
Cover story: This cover is full of words, including "How John Elway took control." Elway did take control, and he did lead his team to victory. The perfect headline, actually, would have been "Sweet Redemption," because this game -- not the game against the Packers the year before -- was the one that proved John Elway, rather than the Broncos, can win the Super Bowl. But somebody went and jumped the gun.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Duh. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "How Chris Chandler took control"; "Dirty Birds Soar."

SUPER BOWL XXXII (Denver 31, Green Bay 24)
Issue date: Feb. 2, 1998
Main cover line: "Sweet Redemption." (See?)
Featured player: John Elway.
MVP? You may have forgotten, but definitely not (Terrell Davis). Iconic image? No.
Cover story: Looking at this cover, you realize that long, long before the game, someone decreed that if the Broncos came out on top, the story was going to be Elway Finally Wins the Big One. The problem is, Elway wasn't the one who "won" this game. He had one of his typically crummy Super Bowl outings (12-of-22 for 123 yards, no TDs and one interception) and was just along for the ride as Davis won the game in spite of him. Nevertheless, Elway wound up on the cover -- and it wasn't even the famous shot of him getting spun like a helicopter near the goal line. Meanwhile, the sub-headline on the cover calls this "the best Super Bowl ever." The '90s were a little over-the-top that way.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Packers Do It Again!" "Favre in Charge!"

SUPER BOWL XXXI (Green Bay 35, New England 21)
Issue date: Feb. 3, 1997
Main cover line: "Special Team."
Featured player: Desmond Howard.
MVP? Yup. Iconic image? No.
Cover story: The lasting image of Super Bowl XXXI will always be 16-year-old Brett Favre running around the Superdome turf with his helmet off after throwing a touchdown pass. (Nowadays, that costs you 15 yards.) But Howard was the one who broke the Patriots' spirits, and he deserves the cover. The headline, with its double reference, is a nice one.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Patriots' Day"; "Down Pat."

SUPER BOWL XXX (Dallas 27, Pittsburgh 17)
Issue date: Feb. 5, 1996
Main cover line: "Superboys."
Featured player: Emmitt Smith.
MVP? No (Larry Brown). Iconic image? No, but I can't think of any iconic images from Super Bowl XXX, except maybe Neil O'Donnell walking off the field with his chin strap undone. Or Barry Switzer chewing the scenery. Or that one official who tried to cheer up Bill Cowher as the darkness closed in. Nothing else comes to mind. Funny, isn't it?
Cover story: Previous Super Bowl MVPs Smith and Troy Aikman both had pretty pedestrian games, so the MVP went to cornerback Larry Brown, whose key contribution involved not dropping two O'Donnell passes that hit him square in the chest. In this case, SI ignored the MVP for good reason. But "Superboys"? God, don't get me started ...
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes, but it shouldn't have been. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "Thumbs Up," obviously. Hell, that should have been the line in either case. If SI's going to play that game in 2006 for a team that's been waiting a quarter-century for Ring No. 5, it could have done it in 1996 for a team that had been waiting only two years. Instead we get "Superboys," lazy and uninspired. (And I swear I could remember Smith being referred to as "Superman" just a few years earlier.)

SUPER BOWL XXIX (San Francisco 49, San Diego 26)
Issue date: Feb. 6, 1995
Main cover line: "Victory!"
Featured player: Steve Young.
MVP? No question. Iconic image? Definitely.
Cover story: Come on, now. "Victory"? That's all you can come up with? The photo is perfect: Young, who threw a record six touchdown passes, celebrates on the sidelines as time runs out. A famous NFL Films clip shot at almost the same moment shows Young calling for someone to come over and "get this monkey off my back!" The monkey, of course, was the comparison to Joe Montana, who won four Super Bowls for the 49ers. And who was Super Bowl MVP three times. And who did it against some better competition than Stan Humphries and the Chargers. Just saying.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Any game, in any sport. Possible cover line if the other team had won: Same.

SUPER BOWL XXVIII (Dallas 30, Buffalo 13)
Issue date: Feb. 7, 1994
Main Cover line: "Superman!"
Featured player: Emmitt Smith.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? Oh, why not. Might as well give some propers here, because when you ask people about Bills vs. Cowboys in the Super Bowl, they always remember the first game, not this one.
Cover story: Smith had 132 yards and two touchdowns and deserved MVP honors. He also deserved a better cover line than "Superman!" At least "Superboys" was somewhat team-specific.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Of course. Possible cover line if the other team had won: Same, just substitute a different picture.

SUPER BOWL XXVII (Dallas 52, Buffalo 17)
Issue date: Feb. 8. 1993
Main cover line: "Ride 'Em Cowboy."
Featured player: Troy Aikman.
MVP? Hell yes. Iconic image? No, which is too bad.
Cover story: Aikman picked apart the Buffalo defense, throwing for 273 yards and four touchdowns before being pulled in the fourth quarter. He also had 28 rushing yards, including two scrambles for first downs. All told, it was one of the most dominating QB performances in Super Bowl history -- yet no one seems to remember it. That's because the most enduring image from Super Bowl XXVII is of showboating slob Leon Lett getting caught from behind by Don Beebe before he could reach the end zone. It's devastating that in a game the Cowboys won by five touchdowns, Lett's overstuffed ego swung the spotlight away from his team's accomplishments and shone it instead on the never-say-die Bills. Buffalo lost four straight Super Bowls, including one at the gun, yet this one desperate play became their defining moment. Sorry, Troy. You deserved better.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Not really. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Machine-Gun Kelly"; "Million-Dollar Bills."

SUPER BOWL XXVI (Washington 37, Buffalo 24)
Issue date: Feb. 3, 1992
Main cover line: "Let 'Er Rip."
Featured player: Mark Rypien.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? No.
Cover story: Let 'er rip. Get it? Rypien? Get it? His nickname's Ryp. Get it now? Dumb headline about a game that was forgettable in almost every aspect, except that it was played in Minneapolis. Rypien deserved to be MVP as much as anyone, but let us not forget that for years, Mark Rypien was the quarterback most often cited in this argument: "If (NAME) can win a Super Bowl, then winning the Super Bowl is not the best measure of greatness." Rypien, of course, has since been supplanted by Trent Dilfer.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Machine-Gun Kelly"; "Million-Dollar Bills." Look, they would have used these if given the chance.

SUPER BOWL XXV (N.Y. Giants 20, Buffalo 19)
Issue date: Feb. 4, 1991
Main cover line: "Bravo!"
Featured player: Everson Walls.
MVP? No (Ottis Anderson). Iconic image? No way.
Cover story: The defining picture, and phrase, of Super Bowl XXV was "Wide Right." But they don't put losing-team kickers on the cover of SI, so we get Walls, who was celebrating in the right manner in the right place at the right time.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: Same. Or "Machine-Gun Kelly" or "Million-Dollar Bills."

SUPER BOWL XXIV (San Francisco 55, Denver 10)
Issue date: Feb. 5, 1990
Main cover line: "Joe Knows Super Bowls."
Featured player: Joe Montana.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? Yes.
Cover story: Joe Montana, winner of four Super Bowls and MVP of three, finally makes the cover of the Sports Illustrated Super Bowl issue, though he had to throw five touchdowns to do it. So he and Earl Cooper are equal in at least one respect. In the cover photo, Montana appears to be levitating, which squares with what the battered Broncos probably remember. The line "Joe Knows Super Bowls" is a play on Bo Jackson's "Bo Knows" commercials for Nike. A primer for younger readers: Bo Jackson was a remarkable athlete who played two pro sports, then broke his hip and played no pro sports. Before he got hurt, he appeared in a series of ads in which he played every game under the sun ("Bo knows baseball." "Bo knows football." "Bo knows tennis," and so on). It was a huge sensation that means very little today, but you'll still hear obnoxious people reference it as if it's common currency. Sort of like with baby boomers and, say, Tangerine Dream.
Could cover line have been written before the game? I'll say yes, because everybody and their sister knew well ahead of time that the 49ers were going to slaughter the Broncos and then pee on their dead bodies. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "Sweet Redemption!" (I never get tired of that one.)

SUPER BOWL XXIII (San Francisco 20, Cincinnati 16)
Issue date: Jan. 30, 1989
Main cover line: "Super Show!"
Featured player: Jerry Rice.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? Yes.
Cover story: Rice had 215 yards receiving against the Bengals, including 51 on the game-winning drive.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover line if the other team had won: Same.

SUPER BOWL XXII (Washington 42, Denver 10)
Issue date: Feb. 8, 1988
Main cover line: "Wow!"
Featured player: Doug Williams.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? Yes.
Cover story: "Wow"? Williams threw for 340 yards and four touchdowns, led the Redskins to 35 points in the second quarter and smashed the QB color barrier like no man before him. And all they can say is "Wow"? It's a genuine sentiment, but an accomplishment like that really calls for a little more eloquence. Paging Frank Deford! Perhaps I'm being a little too critical. It certainly could have been worse. It could have been "Yippeee!"
Could cover line have been written before the game? Maybe. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: Seeing as it was only John Elway's second Super Bowl loss, it's probably too early for "Sweet Redemption!" Other options: "Mile High!" and "Bucking History!"

SUPER BOWL XXI (N.Y. Giants 39, Denver 20)
Issue date: Feb. 2, 1987
Main cover line: "Super Star."
Featured player: Phil Simms.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? Yes.
Cover story: Simms put together the most efficient performance ever by a Super Bowl quarterback: 22-of-25 for 263 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. He didn't throw a single incompletion in the entire second half, and he added a 22-yard scramble just for the hell of it. So, strictly speaking, "Super Star" is an accurate description, but it really shortchanges Simms. Every Super Bowl has a star, so this line could have been written about any player in any game. It's even worse than "Wow!"
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover line if the other team had won: Same.

SUPER BOWL XX (Chicago 46, New England 10)
Issue date: Feb. 3, 1986
Main cover line: "Supermen!"
Featured player: Wilber Marshall, Dan Hampton.
MVP? No, and no (Richard Dent). Iconic image? Not really.
Cover story: Another generic cover line. This was the ugliest title game of the Super Bowl era. Not ugly in terms of the quality of play -- it was pretty much a typical mid- to late-1980s-style blowout. No, it was ugly in the way it looked. It was played indoors, for one thing, which gave everything that bleached-out, filmed-in-a-hospital pallor. The Bears were forced to play in their bloodless road uniforms, rather than their fearsome home blues. The Patriots wore those dreadful 1970s candy-striper outfits with the hemorrhoidal Minuteman on the helmet. All things considered, the SI cover is as unpleasant to look at as the game footage. Essentially, it shows Pats QB Tony Eason under a pile of Bears, notably Marshall (58) and Hampton (99). There's nothing especially wrong with the photo -- it at least celebrates the Bears' defense -- but there's nothing particularly right with it either. SI earns points, however, for refusing to put Refrigerator Perry on the cover. Know what would have been cool to see on the cover? Buddy Ryan being carried off the field by the defensive players who considered him, rather than the clownlike Mike Ditka, as their spiritual leader.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Patriots' Day" or "Down Pat," of course.

SUPER BOWL XIX (San Francisco 38, Miami 16)
Issue date: Jan. 28, 1985
Main cover line: "The Niners Nail 'Em."
Featured player: Roger Craig.
MVP? No (Joe Montana). Iconic image? No.
Cover story: Craig had a fine game, so putting him on the cover isn't really a problem -- except that this was the second time Montana had been Super Bowl MVP and the second time SI chose to feature the guy catching the ball rather than the guy throwing the ball. The cover line is just weird, though. It doesn't sound like something you'd come up with before the game. And the sub-headline carries the "nail" metaphor a step further: "Roger Craig Hammers The Dolphins." Kind of odd, but whatever. At least the words more or less reflected the game.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "The Dolphins Nail 'Em (Uwe Von Schamann Hammers The 49ers)."

SUPER BOWL XVIII (L.A. Raiders 38, Washington 9)
Issue date: Jan. 30, 1984
Main cover line: "Blowout!"
Featured player: Jack Squirek.
MVP? Officially, no (Marcus Allen); but unofficially, maybe. Iconic image? Absolutely.
Cover story: By far, the best Sports Illustrated Super Bowl cover. The photo -- Squirek returning an interception for a touchdown past the forlorn Joe Theismann -- and the cover line pair up to convey the spirit of the game: an ambush and a blowout. Well done.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Redskins Repeat!" "Theis-Mann of the Year!"

SUPER BOWL XVII (Washington 27, Miami 17)
Issue date: Feb. 7, 1983
Main cover line: "Power and Glory."
Featured player: John Riggins.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? And how.
Cover story: Riggins' 166-yard game against the Dolphins was the high point of his Hall of Fame career. The photo SI went with captures the day perfectly: The Diesel churning downfield with half the Miami defense clinging vainly to his legs. The cover line is a little weird at first glance, but it totally grows on you: Riggins and the Redskins definitely rode power to glory. I don't know who the magazine's cover editor was at the time, but he or she did a hell of a job with Super Bowls XVII and XVIII.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "Fintastic!" Or something that rhymes with "Cefalo."

SUPER BOWL XVI (San Francisco 26, Cincinnati 21)
Issue date: Feb. 1, 1982
Main cover line: "The 49ers Hit Pay Dirt"
Featured player: Earl Cooper
MVP? No (Joe Montana). Iconic image? Not really.
Cover story: This Super Bowl was almost as ugly as Super Bowl XX -- again, not in terms of game play, but in terms of overall appearance. The game was staged in the Pontiac Superdome but looked like it was in an aircraft hangar. One in which the aircraft were running their engines and belching smoke. Montana didn't have a heck of a game, but neither did anyone else on the 49ers, Earl Cooper included, so the QB got the MVP by default. Happens all the time. The SI cover line is just a meaningless cliche. That also happens all the time.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "The Bengals Hit Pay Dirt."

SUPER BOWL XV (Oakland 27, Philadelphia 10)
Issue date: Feb. 2, 1981
Main cover line: "Oh, What a Feeling!"
Featured player: Rod Martin.
MVP? No (Jim Plunkett), but he could have been. Iconic image? I'm going to say yes, because the only other image that comes to mind is Dick Vermeil coming unglued before, during and after the game. That dude was pretty much born unglued.
Cover story: Linebacker Martin's three interceptions crushed Ron Jaworski's Philadelphia soul. The Raiders dominated the whole game, but it was Martin -- whose picks included one on the opening possession of the game -- who set the tone. Sports Illustrated's cover calls him the game's "hero." I'd call him the MVP, but no one asked me what I thought. They never do.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. In fact, it was Toyota's catchphrase for most of the 1980s. Possible cover line if the other team had won: Same, though the photo would have been of Vermeil weeping softly rather than Martin beaming triumphantly.

SUPER BOWL XIV (Pittsburgh 31, Los Angeles 19)
Issue date: Jan. 28, 1980
Main cover line: "This One Was Really Super."
Featured player: John Stallworth.
MVP? No (Terry Bradshaw). Iconic image? No.
Cover story: It's not clear why this game was any more "Super" than the Steelers' three previous victories. It was tight through three quarters, but so was Super Bowl X. It ended with a flurry of activity, but so did XIII. Steelers QB Bradshaw threw three picks vs. two touchdowns. Rams QB Vince Ferragamo was kind of a dud. Nobody on either side had much of a rushing day. At least Stallworth had 121 yards receiving, including the 73-yard go-ahead touchdown, so he might as well be on the cover. Hell, he should have been the MVP.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover line if the other team had won: Same. Look, they were going to use this cover line regardless of what happened.

SUPER BOWL XIII (Pittsburgh 35, Dallas 31)
Issue date: Jan. 29, 1979
Main cover line: "Super Steelers."
Featured player: Rocky Bleier.
MVP? No (Terry Bradshaw). Iconic image? No.
Cover story: Bleier is a hero, in more ways than one, but don't ask me what he's doing on the cover here. Against the Cowboys, he had just two rushes for a total of 3 yards and one catch for a 7-yard touchdown. That TD came in the second quarter, and although it was a heck of a catch and although it did, as the cover says, put the Steelers "ahead to stay," the game was anything but over at that point. Indeed, Dallas' furious but ultimately failed fourth-quarter comeback made this one of the most exciting Super Bowls from start to finish. Bleier's greatest play, actually, may have been recovering the Cowboys' last onside kick, sealing the game with less than a minute to play. The signature moment? It has to be Dallas tight end Jackie Smith flopping around in self-loathing after dropping Roger Staubach's perfect pass in the end zone. The 4-point difference between that missed touchdown and the field goal the Cowboys settled for on the drive ended up as the margin of defeat.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "Super Cowboys."

SUPER BOWL XII (Dallas 27, Denver 10)
Issue date: Jan. 23, 1978
Main cover line: "Yippeee!"
Featured player: Randy White, Harvey Martin.
MVP? Yes, and yes. Iconic image? No.
Cover story: The only co-MVPs in Super Bowl history, White and Martin certainly deserved to appear on the cover. Evidence: They led a Dallas defense that forced eight Denver turnovers. They kept so much pressure on Broncos quarterback Craig Morton -- a former Cowboy and the only QB to lose Super Bowls for two different teams -- that he completed as many passes to the Dallas defense (four) as to his own receivers. And they didn't snort cocaine on the field, as their colorful teammate Hollywood Henderson would later do. Now, it would have been nice to see an action shot of the Dallas D, but the celebration photo SI used was just fine. What leaves a lot to be desired, however, is the cover line: "Yippeee!" There's so much wrong with it. Such as: Since when are there three Es in the word? There's more, but why bother?
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Yippeee!" Every Super Bowl cover should have a "Yippeee!" on it somewhere. And you almost want to offer up "Sweet Redemption."

SUPER BOWL XI (Oakland 32, Minnesota 14)
Issue date: Jan. 17, 1977
Main cover line: "Oakland Bowls 'Em Over."
Featured player: Ken Stabler.
MVP? No (Fred Biletnikoff). Iconic image? No.
Cover story: With nothing in particular to say about the game, SI reaches into its sack of ready-written cover lines. This was the first football game I ever watched, so I just naturally assumed that the Vikings were in the Super Bowl every year. Twenty-nine years later, and I'm still waiting for the next shot. There are a few moments from this game that linger in the collective memory. Biletnikoff, covered in mucus, hauling in a 48-yard pass at the Minnesota 2 yard line. Willie Brown returning an interception 75 yards to ice the game. Fran Tarkenton getting slapped around by Raider defenders. What I don't really think about is Stabler standing in the pocket. But maybe now I will. The Vikings finally scored more than 7 points in a Super Bowl, so for them it was a moral victory.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "Minnesota Bowls 'Em Over."

SUPER BOWL X (Pittsburgh 21, Dallas 17)
Issue date: Jan. 16, 1976
Main cover line: "Pittsburgh Does It Again."
Featured player: Lynn Swann.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? Yes.
Cover story: The photo shows one of Swann's most famous catches, a sprawling grab over a supine Cowboy. Swann caught only four balls all game -- but then again, Terry Bradshaw completed only nine passes all game. Those four catches, however, went for 12, 32, 53 and 64 yards, adding up to 161 of Pittsburgh's 209 passing yards. Give him the MVP and the cover, I say. But can't we come up with a better sub-headline? "Lynn Swann Shows the Way" sounds awfully, awfully familiar.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No, but it probably didn't take a lot of effort on deadline. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "Ride 'Em, Cowboys" comes to mind ...

SUPER BOWL IX (Pittsburgh 16, Minnesota 6)
Issue date: Jan. 20, 1975
Main cover line: "The Steelers!"
Featured player: Terry Bradshaw
MVP? No (Franco Harris). Iconic image? No.
Cover story: In Super Bowl IX, it was the Steelers' turn to use the Vikings like toilet paper. No skill player on either team played particularly well except Harris, who had 158 yards rushing. So naturally the cover featured future spelling bee champion Terry Bradshaw (9-of-14 for 96 yards) and the sub-head "Bradshaw shows the way." I'm sure Harris appreciated the guidance.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "The Vikings!"

SUPER BOWL VIII (Miami 24, Minnesota 7)
Issue date: Jan. 21, 1974
Main cover line: "Zonk!"
Featured player: Larry Csonka.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? Damn straight.
Cover story: Csonka went hog-wild on the Vikings for 165 yards and two touchdowns. The boys at SI weren't exaggerating when they wrote the sub-head "Miami Massacres Minnesota." Trivia: Csonka wouldn't return to the cover of the magazine until a year later, when he would pose in an empty stadium as a member of the WFL Memphis Southmen. (It was a photo that deliberately mocked his own glory days in Miami.)
Could cover line have been written before the game? You really wish they would have run with "Zonk!" regardless of who won -- or who even played -- but in the end, no. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Tarkenton!" just doesn't have the same ring. Maybe "Marinaro!" (or "Ed!").

SUPER BOWL VII (Miami 14, Washington 7)
Issue date: Jan. 22, 1973
Main cover line: "Miami All the Way."
Featured player: Bob Griese.
MVP? No (Jake Scott). Iconic image? It should have been, but it wasn't.
Cover story: This is a nice cover line, as it sums up both the Dolphins' unbeaten season, plus the way they never trailed Washington's Over the Hill Gang in the Super Bowl. As always seems to be the case, the signature image not only from the game but from Miami's entire 17-0 season was a total lowlight: kicker Garo Yepremian's botched pass/fumble/burlesque act after a blocked field goal. Imagine if that had cost them the game. It might have snuffed out the 1972 Dolphins' (alleged) annual champagne celebrations before they even started. Too bad.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "Over the Hill to the Mountaintop."

SUPER BOWL VI (Dallas 24, Miami 3)
Issue date: Jan. 24, 1972
Main cover line: "Super Day for Dallas."
Featured player: Duane Thomas.
MVP? No (Roger Staubach). Iconic image? Yes.
Cover story: This is a fair way to split the honors, I think. Staubach had a good day, though hardly phenomenal: 12-of-19 for 119 yards and two TDs. Running back Thomas also had a good day, though hardly phenomenal: 19 carries for 95 yards and a touchdown, plus three catches for 17 yards. In situations like that, they always give the hardware to the quarterback. Thomas, meanwhile, got to appear on the cover of SI in a total Heisman Trophy pose, with a suitably Age-of-Aquarius sub-headline: "The Sphinx They Couldn't Stop." (Thomas was famous for reticence in the press. Beats me how that translates into the nickname "The Sphinx." I thought the Sphinx spoke in riddles.)
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "Super Day for Miami."

SUPER BOWL V (Baltimore 16, Dallas 13)
Issue date: Jan. 25, 1971
Main cover line: "Baltimore Wins the Blunder Bowl."
Featured player: Jim O'Brien.
MVP? Well, no (Chuck Howley), but don't blame him. Iconic image? Yes(?)
Cover story: I have so much respect for this cover. Sports Illustrated would never run something like this today, because SI doesn't want a Super Bowl cover that reflects reality. It wants one that it can use as a commemorative poster to goose subscriptions. (Remember when Time would use its Man of the Year issue to identify the individual who had the greatest impact on the past year, rather than try to pick the most popular, feel-good figure? It's the same sort of thing.) The Colts and Cowboys combined for 11 turnovers in a game so dreadful that a guy from the losing team was chosen MVP. Still, Super Bowl V had quite a memorable ending, as O'Brien (featured, but barely visible, on the cover) kicked a field goal as time ran out. It'd be 30 years before that happened again.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "Dallas Wins the Blunder Bowl."

SUPER BOWL IV (Kansas City 23, Minnesota 7)
Issue date: Jan. 19, 1970
Main cover line: "Len Dawson Engineers Superchief Upset."
Featured player: Len Dawson.
MVP? Obviously. Iconic image? No.
Cover story: A rather bizarre turn of phrase ("Superchief Upset"?) accompanies a stock photo of Dawson crouched over center. Super Bowl IV, the last before the AFL-NFL merger became official, may have been just as big an upset as the Jets over the Colts in Super Bowl III. But because Dawson was an all-American boy playing in the Heartland rather a degenerate hippie drinking his way across Manhattan, no one seemed to care. What do we remember from this game? Hank Stram urging "Lenny" to keep matriculating the ball down the field.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Viking Conquest"; "Vikes Pop a Kapp in Their Ass."

SUPER BOWL III (N.Y. Jets 16, Baltimore 7)
Issue date: Jan. 20, 1969
Main cover line: "Super Hero Super Joe"
Featured player: Joe Namath.
MVP? Yes. Iconic image? Oh, good Lord, no.
Cover story: Have you heard the one about Joe Namath predicting that the Jets would beat the heavily favored Colts in the Super Bowl? Unfortunately, he was right, and thus was born one of the truly great non-stories in NFL history. In Namath hagiography, the prediction was the act of a brash rebel. In the world where the rest of us live, it was the act of a cheeky underdog who didn't have anything to lose. Underdogs are always predicting victory; it's just that no one remembers when they're wrong. That said, Namath had a decent game and probably deserved the MVP. The signature moment of the game was Broadway Joe jogging off the field afterward with his index finger in the air. SI, however, went with a picture of Namath drinking out of a squeeze bottle.
Could cover line have been written before the game? No. Possible cover lines if the other team had won: "Morrall of the Story." "Unitas We Stand." Preferably both.

SUPER BOWL II (Green Bay 33, Oakland 14)
Issue date: Jan. 22, 1968
Main cover line: "The Super Champion."
Featured player: Vince Lombardi.
MVP? No; not even eligible (Bart Starr). Iconic image? Sure.
Cover story: What's the lasting image of Super Bowl II? I guess it has to be Lombardi being carried off after his last game as coach of the Packers, because damned if I can recall anything about the game. Super Bowl II: The Buzz Aldrin of Super Bowls.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover line if the other team had won: Same.

SUPER BOWL I (Green Bay 35, Kansas City 10)
Issue date: Jan. 23, 1967
Main cover line: "Green Bay on Top of the World."
Featured player: Max McGee.
MVP? No (Bart Starr). Iconic image? In a way.
Cover story: Green Bay receiver McGee is seen chugging downfield, his chiseled physique a-jiggle. If he looks like he's on the verge of either vomiting or passing out, it's because he was sharing his helmet with one of history's greatest hangovers. McGee hadn't expected to play, so he'd been out partying until the wee, wee hours the night before. However, he had to go in as an injury replacement, and the rest is 80-proof history.
Could cover line have been written before the game? Yes. Possible cover line if the other team had won: "Len Dawson Engineers Superchief Upset."