Huge Personnel Moves Resulting In Very Little

This has been a big week for new contract for big stars so here is a look at some of the big names, what they signed and the expected outcome of the deals.

Manny Ramirez - 1 year, $25M with and player option for a second year at $20M with the Dodgers. Manny will sandbag for 3-4 months, angered that there was no market for him, that the Dodgers never upped their offer, and that he wound up taking less than half of his goal-contract. Then he will go nuts in August and September and bolt for a better deal elsewhere when the economy is improved. He will be pitched around a lot and the Dodgers will struggle with no protection for their new $25M marketing campaign.

Kurt Warner - 2 years, $23M with the Cardinals. Warner's "shopping around" routine was more convincing than Manny's and wound up winning him $3M extra on top of the Cards' original deal, so that's nice. And he is supposedly a great guy and is going to heaven and stuff, so that's cool. But also like Manny, he's not going back to the playoffs under this deal. His age is a problem. Anquan Boldin being gone is a problem. And trying to repeat as the "magical story-team" is a problem.

Terrell Owens - released by the Cowboys. Sometimes clubhouse issues get hyped in the press. We kinda throw around the old "clubhouse cancer" moniker pretty freely because it makes us sound like we really know what the hell is going on. But if you are among the best 2-3 players at your position in your generation and you keep getting released, I think it is safe to say that you are a clubhouse cancer. Where does he go next? Minnesota lost out on T.J. Houshmandzadeh but their coach was T.O.'s offensive coordinator in Phily previously. The Giants need a star at wide receiver but they're too character-happy to go for a slug (again). Miami is like a circus and could throw him into the mix, but Bill Parcells has worked with T.O. before and hated him. Oakland? San Diego? Cincinnati? Which team values character the least? Probably Cincy. But can they pony up the dough? Of course, with just better than average numbers last year, the dough may not be all that tough to pony up? Will there really be a bidding war for this toad?

Ray Lewis - 3 years, $22M with the Ravens. Lewis had one of his best season last year and hasn't killed anyone in nearly a decade (as far as we know), so he was rewarded with a potentially career-ending contract with the only team he's ever been on. Will Lewis' recent admission that he would love to play for the Cowboys hurt his "devotion to the team" quotient this season? Probably not because if anyone doubts him, he might kill them. Lewis' dominance will slowly fade as he gets fatter. The Ravens will miss the playoffs this year and he just won't be a serious threat for too much longer after that.

Laveranues Coles - 4 years, $28M with the Bengals. The only way you will ever hear of Coles in the next four years is when he is invariably arrested.

T.J. Houshmandzadeh - 5 years, $40+M with the Seahawks. The only way you will ever hear of Housh in the next five years is when the story leaks that the quietly asked the team for a new quarterback (because he's a good guy and won't get arrested or demand a trade in the media when he sees how bad a decision it was signing with Seattle).

Matt Cassel - traded to Kansas City. 12 touchdowns, 20 interceptions, 6-10. And so ends the story of Matt Cassel.

Cardinals Lose Super Bowl To Steelers, Referees

After another Super Bowl to remember, it will be hard to forget how terrible the officiating was. I try to never blame officials for outcomes of games because they can only be expected to be so perfect. However, at a championship game, they should be a little more perfect than normal, and this crew was far below par. It would be hard to prove that there was actually favoritism taking place, but four plays clearly stick out in my mind as instances where the Steelers benefited from clearly blown calls or no-calls.

1: There was clearly a clip at about the 32-yard line on James Harrison's touchdown return at the end of the first half. This no-call directly cost the Cardinals seven points. (Mute this video so you don't have to hear the song and look for the clip at :23, again at :40.)

2: Harrison was called for a personal foul on a Cardinals punt for punching Aaron Francisco. The ruling was that the penalty occurred after the change in possession, so the result of the play (punt, Steelers ball) stood and then 15 yards got tacked on. Before punching Francisco and knocking him down with utterly no provocation and receiving a penalty for it, he also punched him in the back while Francisco down down. This was before the ball was downed and before the possession officially changed. See it in this video starting at about the 1:08 mark. The Cardinals lost a first down and a continued possession, and Harrison obviously should have been ejected.

3: After catching what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown, Santonio Holmes performed a pretty funny little touchdown celebration in which he copied LeBron James' now-trademarked pregame chalk-toss up. See it in this video. The problem with this is that it is also clearly the type of celebration that the NFL deems illegal but it wasn't called. This cost the Cardinals 15-yards on the ensuing kickoff and would have made their final drive much more handle-able.

4: The NFL contends that the ruled fumble by Kurt Warner on the Cardinals' last drive was reviewed in the booth and the ruling on the field was upheld. However, it was never announced on the broadcast that the play was under review, and the next play was run nearly immediately. This play could not have been a quick review because of the importance of it and the average review in the NFL takes over two minutes. So how did this one, on the most important play of the season take 20-30 seconds? His arm was clearly moving forward as you can see in this video and the play was clearly not really reviewed. This cost the Cardinals a chance at a final play.

There is no way of knowing what would have happened if any one of these calls went the proper way, but all four were obvious mistakes and all four seem to have been crucial to the outcome of the game. You have to allow for a mistake here and there, but these were four huge, obvious mistakes and all going the same way. Perhaps the refs were not biased, but if they were not, they were totally incompetent.

Side note: The Best Interview Quote of Super Bowl XLIII goes to MVP Holmes for this gem after the game. He was asked if he believed that the Steelers still had a chance after the Cardinals scored with 2:37 to go in the fourth quarter. Holmes responded, "No, we knew we were gonna win. We knew our defense was gonna get us the ball back and we had time to go down and get a score."

Yep, they got you the ball back. They made the other team kickoff after scoring a really easy touchdown.

From Lingerie-Clad Football Players To Topless Figure Skaters

The sports world took a bitter blow on Monday. I imagine I don't really need to go into it further and you already know what I am referring to. The Lingerie Bowl was cancelled. Apparently one of the main roadblocks that wound up shutting down the event was that these highly principled, modest, proud young women were unwilling to degrade themselves by having to play the game at a nudist colony...I mean what are they, prostitutes?

As it turns out, this is the third consecutive year that this game has been cancelled. At what point is an event cancelled for the year and what point is it just an historical footnote? And does the fact that no one ever watched it when it (allegedly) was played make a difference?

The Cardinals and Steelers have arrived in Tampa for the other football game that was scheduled for Sunday (apparently still on, as of Tuesday morning). I have heard a lot of talk on sports radio and ESPN about how the Cardinals are built just like the Steelers are, so this success is not a fluke - they drafted well and are now reaping the benefits. So basically, the question is whether this season's success is repeatable.

I have heard a lot of interesting arguments that indeed, it is repeatable, but of course these arguments are all stupid. Kurt Warner is a fantastic story, but he is likely going to retire and even if he doesn't, it is far more likely he will look like the Kurt Warner of the previous five years, and not the one of last year. And besides his phenomenal year, this would have been the same team as last year: no running game, no running defense, great receivers, Matt Leinart.

When you are wondering if the "story of the year" team can repeat the next year, the answer is always no. If it is a miracle that they got this far, is it really fair to expect them to perform another miracle? Not only can they likely not pull it off, but everyone will be gunning for them from day 1. Ask the Rockies what it was likely coming back after that ridiculous 2007 season?

Are you hearing this Tampa Bay Rays?

The 2008 Dodgers are another such team, but their "magical run" was fueled exclusively by Manny Ramirez, there was no synergy, no draft picks that worked out, no coach pulling all the right strings. There was a dude hitting .400 that made all the other crappy players look they belonged in the major leagues.

I saw an interview with Dodgers first baseman James Loney recently where he said he was excited for the upcoming season, especially with the way everyone came together and really hit their strides towards the end of 2008. Does it count as your stride when someone is carrying you?

So then that means they just need Manny back and they'll win 120 games right? Not so much. With every swing, Manny was screaming "F you!" at Theo Epstein. That fire won't be there this year. If he is anywhere but L.A., he'll still hit .300 with 25 homers and 100 RBI, but he won't hit .400 with 50 homers and 150 RBI. If he is in L.A., he will sandbag the whole year and prove Boston was right to dump him.

Does anyone think that a guy with a history of loafing when he feels disrespected is going to hustle and smile and shine if he rejoins the Dodgers after they low-balled him for five months? He just came out Monday are repeated again that he wants 4-5 years at $25 million a year. So all this waiting and posing that the Dodgers have done has not knocked a dime off of his asking price. So in the next month, will he really knock 550,000,000 dimes off and then come to camp happy?

But the McCourts have done what they do best: they've made it look like they tied to fix things but that it was out of their hands. They made their crappy, low-ball offer and then made sure the media knew they did it. Now they can put all the blame on the player when he inevitably bolts for a better deal. I hope Manny relents (not likely with Scott Boras as his agent), takes a 3 year deal for $70 million and then just tanks for the next three years, making the Dodgers wish they still had Andruw Jones.

The last two stories of note: Floyd Landis' two year ban from supposedly doping during the 2006 Tour de France is up this weekend and Landis is training for the Tour of California and ideally the Tour de France, assuming that he can get onto a team that is in it. This means that this year's Tour de France could add Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Alberto Cantador, Andreas Kloden and Levi Leipheimer to the field after last year's superstar-devoid race. I personally thought the parity in 2008 was very entertaining and that Carlos Sastre, Cadel Evans, Christian Vandevelde, Bernhard Kohl, and Denis Menchov put together a great Tour. But the absence of the sports' stars was palpable throughout and it will be great to watch the French swallow having five Americans as potential favorites.

And finally, last week the strap of a pairs figure skater snapped and her breast was exposed during their routine. The pair amazingly didn't stop and actually finished the routine. They finished 12th, so apparently the judges didn't like what they saw.