The most overlooked fact from the 2009 season might be that the Cincinnati Bengals won the AFC North. Then the Bengals added Terrell Owens this offseason

Sunday they take T.O. and Chad Ochocinco to New England for the season opener. How will the Bengals fare? LeCharles Bentley takes a look on this edition of NFL Two-A-Days.

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ISTANBUL — Jerry Colangelo was the architect of the Redeem Team. But where did it all start that USA Basketball would need redemption?

Chinks in the armor began courtesy of Lithuania, a tiny nation of 3.3 million, about the size of Connecticut.

In 1992, the Dream Team rolled to a gold medal in the first Olympics with NBA players. That was followed by NBA stars leading the Americans to easy wins in the 1994 FIBA World Championship and the 1996 Olympics.

An NBA lockout stalled matters in 1998, and a group of minor leaguers and college kids took bronze at the Worlds. Then came the 2000 Olympics, when the Americans had a good team but one that was also missing some very top NBA players.

Entering the event, U.S. pro players had not played a game closer than 15 points while going undefeated in 1992, 1994 and 1996. In group play in 2000, they beat Lithuania by just nine. And in an Olympic semifinal Lithuania came close to providing one of the most shocking sports upsets ever.

A desperation three-pointer by Sarunas Jasikevicius at the buzzer fell short, and Team USA escaped with an 85-83 win. The Americans won the gold medal two days later but their aura of invincibility was slipping away.

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ISTANBUL — Jerry Colangelo was the architect of the Redeem Team. But where did it all start that USA Basketball would need redemption?

Chinks in the armor began courtesy of Lithuania, a tiny nation of 3.3 million, about the size of Connecticut.

In 1992, the Dream Team rolled to a gold medal in the first Olympics with NBA players. That was followed by NBA stars leading the Americans to easy wins in the 1994 FIBA World Championship and the 1996 Olympics.

An NBA lockout stalled matters in 1998, and a group of minor leaguers and college kids took bronze at the Worlds. Then came the 2000 Olympics, when the Americans had a good team but one that was also missing some very top NBA players.

Entering the event, U.S. pro players had not played a game closer than 15 points while going undefeated in 1992, 1994 and 1996. In group play in 2000, they beat Lithuania by just nine. And in an Olympic semifinal Lithuania came close to providing one of the most shocking sports upsets ever.

A desperation three-pointer by Sarunas Jasikevicius at the buzzer fell short, and Team USA escaped with an 85-83 win. The Americans won the gold medal two days later but their aura of invincibility was slipping away.

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SAN DIEGO, Calif. — I went to Charger Park with an empty notebook, looking for dope on the team’s new Hot Shot, and it’s good that I’m quick with the pen because Chargers linebacker Stephen Cooper hit me fast with the money quote.

“He’s a little bit like L.T. — but more physical,” Cooper said of Ryan Mathews, without being asked about LaDanian Tomlinson. “Honestly, Kansas City has a lot to look out for.”

Southern California’s NFL team will open its season in Flyover Land against the Chiefs on Monday night, and the Hot Shot will be among the better reasons to watch.

He’s fresh. With Tomlinson wearing Jets green after nine years in Chargers blue, Mathews steps in wearing No. 24, or L.T. plus three. The rookie knows the Chargers shed draft picks last April to get him, selecting him 12th overall after trading up. He cheered many years for L.T. and wore No. 21 at Fresno State, but if he’s sentimental about succeeding The One, who was voted greatest Chargers player by fans a year ago, it wasn’t evident as kickoff drew near.

“They drafted me because they needed help on the run game,” Mathews said on Wednesday. “I think that’s why they brought me in. That’s what I’m going to do.”

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A passenger from the other car in Tom Brady’s car accident on Thursday, 49-year-old Rogerio Rodrigues of Fall River, Mass., is reportedly severely injured and remains in the hospital undergoing surgery on a broken back, according to a boston.com report.

Rodrigues’ sister laid into the media on Friday, upset that her family is being portrayed as the cause of the accident and not being concerned for. “Why? Because we’re poor, we don’t have money, because Tom Brady is famous,” said the sister of Rodrigues, who reportedly wants to remain unidentified to not publicize the situation further.

According to the story, Rodrigues’ sister noted her brother suffered critical injuries in the accident, including a broken back that needed a series of surgeries on Thursday. He reportedly is undergoing additional surgery on Friday according to his sister.

Rogerio Rodrigues’ 21-year-old son, Ludgero, was driving the family’s 1997 Mercury Villager minivan on Commonwealth Avenue where he reportedly ran a red light and caused the crash at approximately 6:30 a.m (Brady’s car is pictured above). The boston.com article also reported that Ludgero Rodrigues has a poor driving record, according to the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

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The morning of September 11, 2001 started a bit overcast. I left home at my normal time but anticipated a very busy day at work because I had organizational telemeetings scheduled for the entire day. Every Mets minor league club had its own time window in which we were going to discuss each player in the organization and their progress over the minor league season. The big league club was on the road in Pittsburgh.

Normally I would listen to any number of radio stations on my drive into work. As I was approaching the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, which links the Bronx with Queens, I heard on a news station that a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. The speculation was that it was a small commuter plane. As I went over the bridge I could see the city skyline and smoke billowing off what I supposed was the first tower.

I called my wife to tell her what I heard and saw and asked her if she had seen anything on TV about it. She hadn’t but was going to check after we got off the phone.

Then as I got close to Shea Stadium my wife called back and told me that a second plane had hit the other tower at the World Trade Center. She said that at that point the speculation was that it was a terrorist attack. A terrorist attack!

I remember getting goose bumps all over and feeling a deep pit in my stomach.

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Maybe it’s time to stop poking fun at Ron Artest and start giving him his due.

He understands a problem when he sees it. And he’s doing something about it, using himself as an example.

Artest, the often zany, always colorful, but sometimes unstable veteran forward with the Los Angeles Lakers, won his first NBA title this summer, the crowning moment in a roller-coaster, 11-year career.

Now he has stepped forward to address a much more serious issue. He will be selling his coveted NBA championship ring — which he will get during a pregame ceremony Oct. 26 — to start raising funds and raising awareness for the need to put more psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists in our public schools.

He made the ring announcement earlier this week at a Los Angeles area middle school, where he appeared with U.S. Rep. Grace F. Napolitano, author of the Mental Health in Schools Act, the federal legislation she is pushing.

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Maybe it’s time to stop poking fun at Ron Artest and start giving him his due.

He understands a problem when he sees it. And he’s doing something about it, using himself as an example.

Artest, the often zany, always colorful, but sometimes unstable veteran forward with the Los Angeles Lakers, won his first NBA title this summer, the crowning moment in a roller-coaster, 11-year career.

Now he has stepped forward to address a much more serious issue. He will be selling his coveted NBA championship ring — which he will get during a pregame ceremony Oct. 26 — to start raising funds and raising awareness for the need to put more psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists in our public schools.

He made the ring announcement earlier this week at a Los Angeles area middle school, where he appeared with U.S. Rep. Grace F. Napolitano, author of the Mental Health in Schools Act, the federal legislation she is pushing.

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One guy is on the love seat, another shouldn’t be anywhere near the hot seat if the state of his team is considered realistically and honestly. In this edition of NFL Two-A-Days, LeCharles Bentley and Pat McManamon take a look at the league’s coaching conundrums.

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It’s a thought that seems too odd to consider legitimate, except it almost happened. Imagine: Jim Tressel, coach of the Miami Hurricanes.

Six years before he took the Ohio State job and while he was coach and athletic director at Youngstown State (then in Division I-AA), Tressel interviewed for the job and wowed UM officials to the point that he was under serious consideration to replace Dennis Erickson.

“The guy was unbelievable,” said Larry Wahl, Miami’s senior associate athletic director in 1995. “He was as good as any coach I had been around with his plans and philosophy and personality.”

Wahl spent five hours interviewing Tressel while then-AD Paul Dee and two members of the Board of Trustees were in another town interviewing another coach. When Dee returned, Wahl pulled him aside and said: “This guy (Tressel) is going to knock you off your feet.”

Tressel eventually removed his name from consideration, deciding it was not the right time to leave his home state. UM went on to hire Butch Davis, a coach it did not interview until Tressel withdrew. But that timeline does not reflect how close Tressel came to being hired at UM. In his interviews, Tressel had obliterated all concerns about a button-down, sweater-vest kind of guy, a Division I-AA coach, taking over the flamboyant Hurricanes.

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The Richmond race, set to start at about 7:30 p.m., marks the end of the Sprint Cup regular season. After Saturday night’s race, the points will be reset and the top 12 drivers will battle in the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup.

The Chase begins at New Hampshire next weekend and ends at Homestead on Nov. 21.

I’ll be ready to answer your questions and talk about all of the latest news and events. Do you think Jimmie Johnson can win his fifth straight title? Will Kevin Harvick break through for his first title? What about Jeff Gordon? Denny Hamlin?

The NASCAR playoff season is about to begin and let’s talk anything and everything about racing, right here at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

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Congratulations, Sam Bradford, and good luck.

You’re gonna need it.

Bradford, the St. Louis Rams quarterback and former Heisman Trophy winner from Oklahoma, was pegged by coach Steve Spagnuola last weekend to start Sunday’s 2010 season opener against the Arizona Cardinals. The 6-foot-4, 228-pound Bradford won the job behind a solid training camp and impressive preseason outings, after 10-year journeyman A.J. Feeley, who figured to hold down the spot until Bradford was ready, injured his thumb in the second exhibition game.

Now, Bradford’s timetable has been accelerated.

“I feel like Coach has given me a great opportunity,” Bradford said. “But I realize there’s a lot of responsibility that comes with that opportunity.”

And a lot of history, mostly bad.

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It stood to reason that if people were watching meaningless NFL exhibition games in big numbers, they would turn out in an even higher volume once the games mattered. Sure enough, NBC wasted no time Friday crowing that its telecast of Thursday’s NFL opener between Minnesota and New Orleans got those bigger numbers — and then some.

The Vikings-Saints game, pitting the two franchises that met in last January’s NFC championship game, posted a 17.7 rating and 28 share, according to overnight data from Nielsen. The rating is the measurement of the percentage of households tuned in to a particular program, while the share is the percentage of television sets tuned to a program.

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Get your weekend off on the right foot with an eclectic look around the major leagues from Pat Lackey and Andrew Johnson in The Starting Rotation.

The Ace: Colby Rasmus’ Cardinal Sin

How long is too long for a manager to be in one place? How soon is too soon for a budding young hitter to request a trade when he isn’t getting the playing time he feels he deserves? Those are the questions we’re left with now that the apparently growing rift between Cardinals center fielder Colby Rasmus and manager Tony La Russa has been dragged out into the light of day.

We don’t know the full details of what happened between Rasmus and La Russa. Probably only a handful of people ever will. Did Rasmus do more to wear out his welcome than simply asking out of town? Did La Russa push a few of the wrong buttons as he seems to have done in the past with the likes of J.D. Drew, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen?

That’s for the Cardinals to know, and for us to wonder about, and there’s no question that the folks in the front office at Busch Stadium are best equipped to make all the important decisions on this situation.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t know a few things looking at the Cardinals from afar.

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Mike Shanahan has certainly shaken up the Washington Redskins. Hired in January to revive a team that sank from a wild-card berth in 2007 to 4-12 in 2009, the two-time Super Bowl-winning coach has replaced 23 of 53 players, most notably the starting quarterback, boldly trading with NFC East rival Philadelphia for 33-year-old Donovan McNabb.

Shanahan also dispensed with the methodical 4-3 defense of deposed coordinator Greg Blache and hired former New Orleans coach Jim Haslett to install an aggressive 3-4 scheme. That triggered a still-ongoing war of wills with $100 million defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth. A two-time All Pro with Tennessee, Haynesworth might still be traded back to the Titans after skipping the entire offseason program, failing Shanahan’s conditioning test three times and complaining about his role during preseason. Undoubtedly Washington’s most talented lineman, Haynesworth will open the season as a backup and it’s hard to see the conflict between disciplinarian coach and selfish, lazy player ending well despite the latter’s professed newfound enjoyment with the scheme and affection for Haslett.

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The passing stats and the postseason award shows all pointed to the Big 12 being synonymous with quarterbacks and gaudy aerial numbers in recent years.

It was only a natural with quarterbacks like Colt McCoy, Sam Bradford and Graham Harrell leading the way.

But if the opening week of this season is any indication, there could be a philosophical shift in the Big 12 this year with most of the attention turning toward a field of talented tailbacks. The conference had three 200-yard rushers in the same week for just the second time in Big 12 history.

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What it came down to was simply comfort level with the offense and the position as according to the New York Daily News the New York Jets named Matt Slauson their starting left guard over big second-round draft pick Vladimir Ducasse.

Slauson, in his second year out of Nebraska, had a year under his belt in the Jets‘ system and at 6-foot-5 and 314 pounds can more than hold his own on the interior of the offensive line. He’ll get an excellent chance to prove himself Monday night against the Baltimore Ravens when he has to try and block the boulder known as Haloti Ngata (6-4, 350) and the compact but powerful Kelly Gregg (6-0, 320).

Ducasse, at 6-5, 325, is slightly bigger than Slauson but he played left tackle in college at the University of Massachusetts, so he was being asked to make the transition from the edge of the line to moving inside. The native of Haiti showed physical promise but missed too many blocks in the preseason for Jets coach Rex Ryan to feel comfortable starting him and charging him to protect quarterback Mark Sanchez.

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On paper, Philadelphia has too many questions, especially at quarterback where Kevin Kolb, with all of two career starts, replaces Donovan McNabb, with 142, all with the Eagles. New No. 1 running back LeSean McCoy, who replaces the departed Brian Westbrook, has only two more career starts than his quarterback.

The interior of the offensive line, guards Todd Herremans, center Jamaal Jackson and right guard Nick Cole, all ended last year on the shelf, began training camp that way or finished preseason similarly wounded. None of the three linebackers are where they were last season and one of the safeties is a rookie.

However, the mere presence of Andy Reid might just trump all of those seeming headaches, except Kolb’s inexperience. Since Reid became their coach in 1999, the Eagles have reached the divisional round of the playoffs seven times and the NFC championship game five times, a record no other franchise can match. Reid even pulled off the former feat in 2006 after McNabb went down for the season in November. And after a 5-4 start last year, the Eagles won six straight games to clinch a playoff berth.

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The Buffalo Bills have added another former Miami Dolphin player to their roster as inside linebacker Akin Ayodele was signed Friday morning to join tight end David Martin and linebacker Reggie Torbor in Buffalo. Chris Brown of BuffaloBills.com wrote about the move, which was necessary after the team had to place Kawika Mitchell on Injured Reserve with a foot injury.

While Ayodele, who was released by Miami early in March, won’t be able to provide any insight into what new Dolphins defensive coordinator Mike Nolan has planned or relay any secrets about the offense, his transition should be a very smooth one. He played for Bills defensive coordinator George Edwards for the previous two seasons when Edwards was Miami’s linebackers coach.

Ayodele turns 31 next week (Sept. 17) and is in his ninth season, having played for Jacksonville (2002-05), Dallas (2006-07) and Miami (2008-09). The 6-foot-2, 255-pound older brother of New Orleans Saints nose tackle Remi Ayodele was signed by the Denver Broncos as an unrestricted free agent and was starting at inside linebacker through training camp and in the first two preseason games before he was surprisingly released on Aug. 24.

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It would be easy to dismiss the New England Patriots as an aging champion heading into the sunset, what with 10 offensive starters oder than the age of 26. In fact, 10 o the 11 oldest players on the entire team are on offense — and that’s where this team’s bread is supposedly buttered.

But as Jeremy Lundblad of ESPNBoston.com explains, it’s not as if Tom Brady, Randy Moss and Fred Taylor are using walkers to get from the huddle to the line of scrimmage. Taylor, at 34, is the oldest player on the team and Brady and Moss both are 33, with four-time Pro Bowl tight end Alge Crumpler not too far behind at 32.

Plus, when you compare Brady to the soon-to-be-41-year-old Brett Favre, he’s a virtual baby in the woods. In fact, as Lundblad points out, quarterbacks over the age of 33 have thrown for over 4,000 yards 21 times. Moss only has to look at the numbers Jerry Rice was putting up all the way up until his last season to feel comfortable with his production as there have been 50 wide receivers over the age of 33 to go over 1,000 yards receiving.

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The Manning brothers seemingly have it all: fame, wealth, beautiful wives, Super Bowl rings. They also quarterbacked the only teams to reach the playoffs every year from 2005-08. But while Peyton’s Indianapolis Colts reached the Super Bowl in 2009, Eli’s New York Giants slipped to 8-8 and had to watch postseason on television.

That didn’t seem likely to happen when the Giants opened 2009 with a five-game winning streak. But a 48-27 whipping at New Orleans in Week 6 exposed major deficiencies in New York’s pass defense that opponents exploited the rest of the season. Despite fine performances from Manning and receiver Steve Smith, the offense just couldn’t score fast enough to prevent the Giants from losing eight of their last 11 games.

General manager Jerry Reese and coach Tom Coughlin responded by firing first-year coordinator Bill Sheridan and replacing him with Perry Fewell, who broke in under Coughlin in Jacksonville and ran an aggressive defense in Buffalo the past four years. The Giants also signed safeties Deon Grant and Antrel Rolle and linebacker Keith Bulluck and used five of their seven draft picks on defense. But the bigger positives might be the rededication of defensive end Osi Umenyiora, who’s out to regain his status as an elite pass rusher opposite Justin Tuck, and the return to health of safety Kenny Phillips, New York’s top choice in 2008.

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The referees who robbed his Dwyer High School football team of a victory last Monday should say, “I’m sorry.” They should apologize for either being incompetent or corrupt, and they should do so publicly.

The Glenville High School players and fans who taunted him should apologize. O’Leary punished them physically, but not verbally, all game and afterward they taunted him. He was by far the best player on the field and instead of shaking his hand in respect, they mocked him. They are an embarrassment.

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Here is what’s happening around baseball on Friday Sept. 10, 2010:

o. The Nationals and Marlins get back together tonight in D.C., a week and a half after their melee in South Florida, but both teams seem ready to bury the hatchet. Nats manager Jim Riggleman said the bad blood is “definitely” behind them and his Marlins counterpart agreed.

“Knowing Jim Riggleman, I’m pretty sure he’s going to tell his players ‘Move on, turn the page, let’s play baseball,’ ” Edwin Rodriguez said. “We’re going to Washington with the same attitude.”

It should help matters that the focal point of last week’s hostilities, Nyjer Morgan, likely will be serving whatever suspension MLB agrees upon after his 10 a.m. hearing Friday.

o. Mark Ellis, the longest-tenured Oakland A with nine seasons just about in the books, doesn’t know whether he’ll be back in 2011. The A’s hold a $6 million option on him for next year, but it’s unclear whether they’ll retain the veteran second baseman.

“They’re going to do what they want to do,” Ellis told the Mercury News. “Obviously I like it here. This is where I want to be. I just do what I can to help the team win, and that stuff will work itself out.”

o. It’s beginning to look like Jhonny Peralta could be the Tigers‘ starting shortstop in 2011, writes Tom Gage. It will cost the Tigers a hefty $7.25 million to keep him next year, but he might be the most palatable option available.

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The New York Jets spent a good portion of the offseason telling us how good they were.

So the NFL gave them a schedule that forces them to back up their braggadocio on the field: Baltimore, New England and Miami to open up.

The Jets open their half of the new Meadowlands Stadium Monday night (after the Giants initiate it against Carolina on Sunday) by taking on Baltimore, a team that should be every bit as good as they are. Or at least seems to be on paper. That’s reflected in the line in which the Jets are favored by two-and-a-half — or less than the three points that they’d get for home-field advantage.

The Ravens have some holes, notably at cornerback, where injuries have them still looking for bodies. But they also have an offense to go with the traditional defensive strength, especially now that they have Anquan Boldin, the best receiver the franchise has had in the 15 years it’s been in Baltimore. And Joe Flacco in his third season is far more advanced than Mark Sanchez in his second.

So take those points and then some with a team that has a decent chance to be in Dallas next February.

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OAKLAND — If it’s September, it must be time to wonder how close the Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki is to his annual 200 hits.

The answer, after two more hits against the A’s Wednesday in Oakland, is close — 17 hits, to be exact, going into Seattle’s weekend series with the Angels in Anaheim.

If/when he gets there, Ichiro would be the only player in major league history to record 200 or more hits 10 years in succession.

Hits are important to all batters, and even more so to Ichiro, the 2001 Most Valuable Player. He was a rookie that year and his 242 hits dazzled U.S. eyes that weren’t accustomed to such productivity. He’d joined the Seattle Mariners after leaving the Orix Blue Wave, becoming the first everyday player to make the jump from Japan to the big leagues.

And while many players don’t have a problem talking about hits, for Ichiro it can be the equivalent of a root canal, at least when the number 200 is involved. It’s not so bad in the middle of the season when 200 hits is a long way off. But when the goal is close, too many people want to talk about hits with him.

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Chaos was the operative word for the Coyotes at this time last year. Heading into this season, things are relatively calm in Phoenix.

The team was a major surprise last season, picked to finish at the bottom of the division, especially considering the bankruptcy mess Phoenix was dealing with and the lack of postseason appearances the previous six seasons.

With more minuses facing them than most underdogs, the Coyotes were among the best in the conference most of the season, and that’s despite the constant threat of a franchise move, plus the loss of coach Wayne Gretzky before the season’s start. New coach Dave Tippett wasn’t in place until late September, with exhibition games already underway.

So the team had some extra edge and used it to defy expectations. What does a semblance of stability do to the Coyotes’ mindset now? Will it take away some of their backs-against-the-wall fighting instinct, or will Phoenix be able to sustain the momentum gained from a fine season?

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It’s pick ‘em time in the NFC East and it’s hard to pick anybody except the defending champion Dallas Cowboys.

As outlined here during the past 10 days, Dallas has the best personnel in every area except head coach and special teams.

After seven winning seasons and four playoff berths during the previous 12 years, Dallas finally won a postseason game again in 2009 and is primed to contend with Super Bowl champion New Orleans, 2009 NFC runner-up Minnesota, Green Bay and maybe Atlanta for conference supremacy in 2010.

As their fans like to brag, the stars on the Cowboys‘ helmets are there because the team has so many. Consider an offense led by quarterback Tony Romo, tight end Jason Witten, rising receiver Miles Austin and center Andre Gurode not to mention the three-headed backfield of Marion Barber, Felix Jones and Tashard Choice. If receiver Dez Bryant, the top draft choice who missed preseason with a sprained ankle, is a good as advertised, opposing defenses won’t be able to ignore that spot either.

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It only took one game for calls for Mike Locksley’s job to surface.

The embattled second-year coach at New Mexico, whose tenure has been wrought with off-field incidents and a 1-11 record in his first season, lost his season opener last Saturday, 72-0, to Oregon. It was the Lobos’ worst defeat since 1991, and it stirred fans to say enough is enough.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

After settling lawsuits, making peace with a tough first year and adding Tony Dungy as a mentor, Locksley had renewed confidence that this season wasn’t going to be as bad as his first. And that his team, which actually got better as last season progressed and never seemed to quit on its coach, would pull it together and begin laying a foundation that would bring New Mexico football back to the level it was earlier in the decade when it was going to bowl games every year.

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Free agent offensive lineman Kevin Mawae, president of the NFL Players Association, is retiring from the NFL after playing 16 years in the league, an official with knowledge of the announcement reported anonymously to the Associated Press Friday morning.

During those 16 years he played for the Seattle Seahawks, New York Jets and most recently the Tennessee Titans.

Mawae has scheduled a news conference for Friday afternoon, according to the official who spoke on anonymity because Mawae had not made the announcement official himself yet.

Mawae played in eight Pro Bowls and was one of the league’s most dominant centers throughout the last decade. He made last year’s Pro Bowl while starting all 16 games last year for the Titans, still playing at a very high level. His last start gave him a then record 241 regular season games played among active lineman.

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The Pittsburgh Steelers may be counted out for the season because quarterback Ben Roethlisberger will miss the first four games of the regular season because of his suspension for sexually assaulting a Georgia student in March. On top of that, young quarterback Dennis Dixon, a player who had shown he can lead the Steelers, will start in Big Ben’s place for at least one game. The problem is that no one truly believes that Dixon can handle the leadership role, including the Steelers because they want to handle him with kid gloves. It showed when the Steelers signed quarterback Byron Leftwich in the offseason after Roethlisberger’s fate was sealed. Dixon will get the job done for his brief time, but the other steeler defensive leader is back in great health and the Steelers will feed off his play, safety Troy Polamalu.

The million-dollar hair man may look and sound soft because of his low-speaking voice, but there’s nothing soft about Polamalu’s play. He is becoming one of the NFL’s all-time greats and with linebackers James Farrior, James Harrison and the rest of the defensive line, the Steelers defense will give Dixon the chances he need to lead the offense.

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TCU coach Gary Patterson was so upset last weekend that ESPN’s Lee Corso predicted the Horned Frogs would lose to Oregon State by three touchdowns that Patterson texted ESPN personnel to voice his displeasure.

Seriously? Patterson was upset a member of the media provided his team with great bulletin board material? Corso did Patterson a huge favor. To quote Kenny Bania: “That’s gold, Jerry. Gold!”

More like 24-carat gold.

Patterson should have sent Corso roses and a thank you card for providing his Horned Frogs some of that good, old fashion “us against the world/prove the media wrong” motivation.

Heck, when Florida coach Urban Meyer heard last week his Gators were my best bet to beat Miami (Ohio) by five touchdowns, he promptly told his team to prove me wrong. And, 13 bad center snaps later, boy did the Gators do that, stumbling to a 22-point win.

I don’t know about Corso, but to escape the wrath of Patterson this week, I, for one, am picking TCU to win. And win big in its home opener against Tennessee Tech, which lost a 44-3 nail biter at Arkansas last week. Go ahead Frogs, try and prove me wrong.

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ISTANBUL — Team USA center Lamar Odom had talked before the game about going against “their Wilt Chamberlain.”

Well, Russia’s Timofey Mozgov sure looked Chamberlain-like in the first quarter Thursday against the Americans. The 7-foot-1 center shot 4 of 4 and scored nine points and the Russians were surprisingly tied 25-25 with Team USA in a FIBA World Championship quarterfinal at the Sinan Erdem Dome.

Matters eventually settled down. The Americans won 89-79 and Mozgov, battling foul trouble, scored just four more points. But the New York Knicks sure had to be happy with that first quarter.

Mozgov, 24, signed a three-year, $9 million deal with them earlier this summer. And there was certainly no timidity at the start when he went up against some top NBA men.

“I was not nervous,” Mozgov said in broken English. “It was good for me. It was the fist game I play (against multiple NBA players). I can say it was a good experience.”

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The 2010 NFL season for the Cleveland Browns is not about the team and head coach Eric Mangini, who saved his job after a strong finish by winning the last four games last year. It is about team president Mike Holmgren whose NFL fingerprints don’t need dusting to prove his identity. From his days with the San Francisco 49ers to the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks, Holmgren either helped or led those franchises to championship form, especially the Packers and Seahawks, who weren’t performing well before his arrival.

For now, Holmgren isn’t expected to turn the Browns into a Super bowl contender overnight, but he wants to have the team competitive right away. Other than wide receiver Josh Cribbs, no one on the Browns’ roster jumps out as a threat. When Holmgren arrived, the Browns looked like an episode from “Clean House” as he cleared out former general manager Phil Savage’s selected players, quarterbacks Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn, tight end Kellen Winslow and wide receiver Braylon Edwards. Veteran quarterback Jake Delhomme, long time Carolina Panthers‘ signal caller, was brought in by Holmgren, along with quarterback Seneca Wallace who came over from the Seahawks.

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Chris Johnson let his play speak for him last season.

But this week, he stated his case vocally, as well by responding to comments made by Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings that Peterson is the best back in the NFL. Johnson, the Tennessee Titans‘ third-year running back, said Peterson is indeed very, very good.

But Johnson said Peterson isn’t the best.

When asked this week how he compared himself to Peterson, Johnson told Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean, “I don’t.”

“I am the best back in the league,” Johnson said. “He is not. I don’t think it is close. I feel like I am above all the other running backs in the league. I feel like I am above him.”

Peterson was widely considered the NFL’s best running back in 2008 when he led the NFL with 1,760 yards rushing. He said on the Dan Patrick Show Wednesday that while he respects Johnson, he considers himself the NFL’s best back.

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Houston Texans middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans talked a lot about Peyton Manning this week. That’s perfectly understandable.

Manning, the Indianapolis Colts‘ quarterback and the NFL’s Most Valuable Player the past two seasons, has had success against most NFL teams, but he has had particular success against the Texans in leading Indianapolis to a 15-1 all-time record in the series.

Manning has thrown for 37 touchdowns and 4,421 yards in the 16 games, and for the Texans to snap their six-game losing streak against the Colts, Ryans said they will need to slow Indianapolis’ other skill players.

Because Ryans said slowing Manning may not be possible.

“He’s like (Michael) Jordan, he’s going to get his points and make plays,” Ryans said as the Texans prepared to play the Colts in their 2010 regular-season opener Sunday in Houston. “We can’t let the other guys have a great day on us. Peyton is a great player. He’s been a great player in this league for several years now. He’s capable of finding holes in your coverages.

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Those clamoring that the Big East needs to be proactive in expanding its football conference will be happy to hear the league has an open offer to Villanova, Big East sources told FanHouse.

The Philadelphia Daily News first reported VU athletic director Vince Nicastro as saying the league will conduct an evaluation to determine if the school, which competes in the FCS division, will move up to the FBS level to join the Big East. Villanova already is a member of the Big East Conference in its other sports.

“The Big East very recently communicated its interest in adding Villanova as a football member,” Nicastro told the Daily News. “As a result, we have decided to embark on an in-depth evaluation of this opportunity.

“As you might suspect, this is a complex issue, which entails many dimensions — both quantitative and qualitative. While we will move forward on this as quickly as possible, it is critical that all of those dimensions are vetted thoroughly prior to making any final decision.”

In April, FanHouse reported league sources as saying they were interested in adding Villanova, the defending FCS national champions, to the Big East in football.

The Daily News reported Villanova has informally looked into many of the factors involved in making the jump to an FBS member, but now will “officially start the due-diligence process.”

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San Diego Chargers’ team president Dean Spanos reiterated the team’s firm stance against its two high-profile holdouts, wide receiver Vincent Jackson and left tackle Marcus McNeill.

In an interview Thursday with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Spanos said both players had the chance to sign lucrative one-year tenders but refused to do so. They instead sought longer-term deals, an idea the team not only has rebuffed but has said it won’t talk about, at least for the moment.

“They have put themselves in this position,” Spanos told Union-Tribune’s Kevin Acee. “We did not put them in this position. It’s very clear to me, obviously, the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agrrement) changed this year … We tendered them the highest possible offer we could, which is $3.2 or $3.3 million, which far exceeded their previous four years salaries collectively. They had two months to go out and find a team to play for. They didn’t, or couldn’t. They elected at the end of two months to not sign the tender. That’s the end of the story.”

Spanos said he would welcome their return and urged them to sign their tenders, whch have been sharply reduced in value.

“It was a business decision they made,” Spanos said. “I wish they were here, I wish they were playing for us. I believe they need to sign the tenders and come in and see what happens after that.”

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INDIANAPOLIS — It stands to reason the Indianapolis Colts would be motivated by the events of early last February.

Dwight Freeney’s not so sure.

Freeney, the Colts‘ five-time Pro Bowl defensive end, said this week while there may be some around the defending AFC Champions motivated by a Super Bowl XLIV loss to New Orleans, the reality is the Colts long have been an experienced, focused team.

As such, motivation is rarely an issue.

“You can look at it two ways,” Freeney said as the Colts prepared to play the Texans in their 2010 regular-season opener Sunday in Houston. “One way you can look at it is you got to the Super Bowl, and there are 30 other teams that didn’t get there, so you have achieved a lot, but whenever you don’t accomplish that goal that you want, and especially when you get so close, I think some guys probably use that as motivation. Not that we need any other motivation or anything to drive us, but you use whatever you can to play that much harder.

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The Kansas City Chiefs plan to go into the regular season carrying only two quarterbacks on their active roster.

The move is not unprecedented, though most NFL teams commonly carry three quarterbacks. League rules allow an “emergency” third quarterback who doesn’t have to count against teams’ 45-player game-day rosters.

The Chiefs start the regular season on Monday by hosting the AFC West rival Oakland Raiders in the opening of newly renovated Arrowhead Stadium. They’re going into the game with starter Matt Cassel and backup Brodie Croyle as the only quarterbacks on their roster.

Tyler Palko, who was the team’s third quarterback during the preseason, was released Saturday in the team’s final cut. He has been re-signed to the Chiefs’ eight-member practice squad, and could be available for promotion to the active roster should the need arise.

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This is a special edition of The Works.

In the beginning, there was the Z.

It was April, and it was 2009. The Thunder weren’t winning much yet, but Sam Presti’s architecture was starting to reveal itself. This was a team with whom traditional positions simply didn’t register; at times, it was as if they ignored position altogether and just played the game. We and a few others had for some time sensed that basketball was headed in this direction. Oklahoma City, despite its poor record, was poised to force a change in thinking, scrambling positions to make more, not less, sense of the players Presti had assembled.

That’s how the Z-chart was born. Its aim was to represent the spectrum of positionality, point guard and center, the two positions defined most purely, were located at either end. The top was, roughly, little men, and the base, big men. The bridge in between the two is where the small forward would be — if such a position still existed in a pure form the way in once did (think Alex English or James Worthy; now flash forward to today’s 2-3 swingmen and 3-4 tweeners). You can locate shooting guard near the bend at the top, and power forward in the same spot at the bottom. Traditional roles still exist, but are understood as part of a continuum. Positions are fluid, responsibilities divvied up according to scheme, not dogma.

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It’s been five weeks since San Francisco wide receiver Michael Crabtree last spoke with the media covering the 49ers.
Since then much has happened — including Crabtree sitting out all four of San Francisco’s preseason games with a neck strain and his 20-minute on-the-field argument with tight end Vernon Davis during practice on Sept. 1.

On Thursday, Crabtree spoke again, said he’s healthy, in shape and ready for a big year.

Then he dove into the one question that the media wanted answered more than any other — how is his relationship with Davis?

“Ah, man, it was just something inside, you know,” Crabtree said. “Something I just really don’t want to talk about it because it’s not a problem. By me talking about it it’s going to make it a problem. It’s nothing.”

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Oregon started its season last Saturday at home at Autzen Stadium, thrashing New Mexico to the tune of 72-0.

LaMichael James started the season last Saturday standing on the sideline at Autzen Stadium, watching Oregon’s thrashing of New Mexico and figuring, frankly, that he probably hadn’t missed out on that much.

“The way it went, I maybe would have played like 10 minutes,” James said. “Everything was clicking, we were playing well. So that made it pretty easy for me.”

James, the Pac-10’s leading returning rusher, was serving a one-game suspension related to an offseason incident, an altercation with his girlfriend that ended with James spending two days in jail and pleading guilty to a misdemeanor harassment charge.

But James is back in time for what could be the seventh-ranked Ducks’ highest profile game of the regular season, Saturday’s date in Knoxville against Tennessee.

“I think I have a little more edge,” James said about sitting out last week’s game. “Being away from my teammates for just one game made me more determined and more motivated this week.”

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Adrian Peterson had 13 carries on the Vikings‘ first three possessions on Thursday night. The Vikings’ game plan was, clearly, to get Peterson the ball coming out of the gate.

And then the Vikings got away from that game plan. Peterson had just six carries the rest of the game, and none at all on the Vikings’ final drive, on which Brett Favre threw seven passes, the Vikings ended up punting with five and a half minutes left, and then the Saints proceeded to run out the clock.

So why didn’t Peterson get the ball more late in the game? He says he asked for it, but he’s not sure if coach Brad Childress heard him.

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With training camp set to open, the Toronto Maple Leafs have taken the early lead on comments that might come back to haunt them before the 2010-11 season is over.

“We’re definitely a playoff team,” newly-minted captain Dion Phaneuf said recently. “Our goal at the start of this season is to make the playoffs. Anything short of that is unacceptable.”

What else was Phaneuf to say?

Was he supposed to say, “Look, we might not have enough to make the playoffs”?

On paper, the Leafs probably have enough to advance to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in seven years but the trouble is other non-playoff clubs made significant additions to their rosters compared to the ones general manager Brian Burke made to his.

Then there was coach Ron Wilson.

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The legends who have walked on the field at Notre Dame Stadium rank among the best in the history of sports. From Rockne to Leahy to Parseghian, the list of coaches to walk the sidelines is long and filled with historic names.

FanHouse TV’s Terence Moore is in South Bend and thinks the best is still to come. Moore and John Walters will cover Notre Dame’s game against Michigan on Saturday.

Click to watch:

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On Monday, third-ranked Boise State passed its first big test by edging No. 13 Virginia Tech. How will No. 1 ranked Alabama and No. 2 Ohio State handle their first big challenges on Saturday? The Crimson Tide faces No. 18 Penn State and the Buckeyes battle No. 12 Miami as part of a monster lineup of games this weekend.

FanHouse TV’s Brett McMurphy breaks down a huge weekend in college football, including other marquee matchups such as Florida State at Oklahoma and Michigan at Notre Dame.

Click to watch:

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On Friday, football fans across the country will take part in the United Way’s “Back to Football Friday,” an effort by the organization to both raise awareness of, and try to put an end to, childhood obesity. The idea-that fans will wear their team colors, jerseys and paraphernalia to work, school, and around town-has been championed by everyone from Ron Jaworski to New York Giants wide receiver Steve Smith.

One of the most involved players in the United Way’s campaign has been Oakland Raiders Pro Bowler Nnamdi Asomugha, widely regarded as one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL. He spoke with FanHouse about Back to Football Friday, life as a top cornerback, Oakland’s potential for 2010 and more.

FanHouse: Between your work with the United Way, your own charities, and your family’s charity, we have to ask… how do you find time for football?

Nnamdi Asomugha: There’s a lot of time for football. When I’m done with practice, and I’m done with film, and there’s something like this that I want to be a part of or something that kind of touches me, then I’ll find the time for it. And with most of this stuff that I’m involved in, the bulk of the work and the events and things like that, that’s all during the offseason. It’s not like it interferes with game week stuff or anything like that.

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FanHouse’s college football staff provides you with a personal quarterback. We do the primary and secondary reads for you so you can properly start your day.

1. Now that Boise State has cleared one of two real hurdles to a possible national championship run, Internet message boards and talk radio stations have been a battle ground between two sides: one that believes the Broncos have no business in the BCS Championship regardless of record, and one that believes they deserve to go if they go undefeated and no more than one other team does.

Not surprisingly, Alabama’s Nick Saban — head coach of the defending champs and a member of the mighty SEC — falls into the former camp.

On his radio show Thursday night, Saban pointed out the Crimson Tide beat Virginia Tech last season, but also at least six other teams that were as good or better than the Hokies.

“It’s the full body of work,” he said, according to Birmingham News. “It’s not just that you can beat one team, but if you have to beat six or seven other teams and have to play with consistency to do it, I think that goes a long way in saying a lot about what kind of football team that you have. And that’s no disrespect that you have, because they may certainly be able to do the same thing if they were put in that circumstance.”

And therein lies the issue. While it’s become a big boys vs. little guys war of words, the real culprit here is the BCS. If there was an eight- or 16-team playoff, we wouldn’t even be bothering with this debate. I think even SEC chest-thumpers would admit Boise is probably among the 16 best teams in America and would deserve a chance in the tournament, should it win the next 11 games this season.

Instead, we either run the risk of having one or two undeserving teams as the only two with a shot at the championship come January. Whether one of those teams comes from the SEC, Big Ten, WAC or Sun Belt makes no difference. In this system, there’s no way of really knowing the two best teams are meeting in the title bout.

The BCS will tell you the regular season is the tournament. But it’s really not. It can’t be if teams can run the table and still not have a shot.

Whatever side you’re on, don’t hate the team (Boise State) or conference (any of the automatic qualifiers). Hate the system.

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Former NBA big man Greg Ostertag has been working toward returning to basketball for over a year now and it seems that a team is finally willing to give him an opportunity. It isn’t with an NBA franchise like Ostertag had hoped, but instead with the NBA D-League’s newest franchise.

The Frisco Legends, a team owned by Dallas Mavericks GM Donnie Nelson and coached by Basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman, is looking at Ostertag to join the team either as a player or an assistant coach — and possibly both — according to a report from the Dallas Morning News.

Ostertag has been working toward a comeback for some time, as the first mention of it came a year ago this week when the center best known for his work with the Utah Jazz auditioned with the Portland Trail Blazers following three years of NBA inactivity. At that time, he told the Lawrence Journal-World that he was still attempting to get back into shape.

“I have some cobwebs. The more I play, the quicker I’ll get it back. Now I’m trying to get in good shape and get stronger. The basketball will come,” Ostertag said. “I’ve been working hard since June to get weight off to where I can be productive. I’m in the mode I don’t want to work this hard for nothing. I want to get my feet planted somewhere, get in veterans camp, and in the preseason maybe somebody will like what they see.”

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Amid reports he violated the NFL’s drug policy, Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Antwan Odom turned to Twitter in an attempt to clear his name.

“Please don’t believe the rumors,” Odom wrote. “Yes I tested positive for a banned substance but it wasn’t steroids or PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs). More details to come but for now it’s a league issue that’s under appeal. Just know that I would never cheat to gain an edge in this game that I love.”

The Cincinnati-based blog Three-Way Chili was the first to report Thursday that Odom, a seven-year pro, faces a four-game suspension. Since the violation hasn’t been announced, the NFL refused comment and it’s likely Odom will be available as the Bengals open their season on the road against the New England Patriots on Sunday.

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The AP, citing an anonymous source, reported that the NCAA has talked to Pearl and assistant about possible excessive contact with recruits. The source told the AP that the league had also spoken to associate head coach Tony Jones, who is Pearl’s top assistant and heavily involved in recruiting. ESPN sources also confirmed the story and indicated that the investigation may include use of unauthorized phones.

Tennessee has not yet received a formal letter of inquiry from the NCAA and would not comment on the investigation.

The Volunteer football program self-reported six secondary violations under Lane Kiffin, though ESPN reports the NCAA has expanded its investigation into the football team beyond the inquiry into the use of hostesses at high school football games.

The Volunteers went 26-9 last season and advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, the school’s best-ever finish.

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STARKVILLE, Miss. — Auburn is supposed to score points. Lots and lots of points.

Offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn spent 10 minutes Thursday afternoon walking the field at Davis Wade Stadium. He paced slowly from sideline to sideline with no sidekick in tow, mumbling notes to himself about every scenario his unit could face.

Yet he didn’t see this one coming.

Auburn earned a 17-14 win against Mississippi State with defense Thursday night.

It was an odd twist for a team that dedicates so many resources toward offensive supremacy. All the innovation and trickery and misdirection meant almost nothing against an MSU defense that was fast enough to mess with Malzahn’s group.

“We put a lot of faith in our defense,” wideout Darvin Adams said. “We had a lot of anxiety, but the defense ultimately came through for our offense.”

Auburn typically starts quickly. Thursday was no exception.

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NEW ORLEANS — Who dat said dey’d only score 14 points?

Who dat? Who dat?

No dat around here.

Yet there were the high-powered, high-flying New Orleans Saints, defending Super Bowl champions and darlings to the region, opening the 2010 NFL season Thursday night minus the expected fireworks and settling — gladly, by the way — for a 14-9 defeat of the Minnesota Vikings that was as blue-collar as it was workmanlike.

So who were those who dats seeking a 2Dat but only scoring two touchdowns?

“We don’t look at the 14,” linebacker and team captain Jonathan Vilma said. “We look at the nine.”

“It wasn’t the prettiest game we’d ever played, but it was a W,” offensive tackle Jermon Bushrod added. “And Ws are hard to come by in this league.”

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SAN DIEGO — For baseball fans aching for a tight pennant race, West Coast Bias offers unbeatable advice.

Look to the National League West, where the jockeying is starting to resemble rush hour traffic in Los Angeles.

The frontrunning San Diego Padres somehow lost 10 games in a row recently, which allowed the second-place San Francisco Giants to see the bumper sticker on their economy vehicle. You know, the one that reads “Honk If You Believe a $38 Million Payroll Can Win the NL West.”

Meantime, look in the carpool lane for the purple truck that’s closer than it may appear in the side mirror. It belongs to the third-place Colorado Rockies, who are too dumb to realize their season ended last month.

Thursday brought together the Padres and Giants, who were two games apart entering the opener to their four-game set.

Hours earlier at San Diego’s ballpark, both teams watched on clubhouse TVs as the Rockies pulled out their seventh consecutive victory, which left Colorado four games behind the Padres. Two weeks ago the gap was 11 games.

“This is the best race going,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, and that was before his team’s 7-3 victory Thursday squeezed San Diego’s leads to one and 3 1/2 games over San Francisco and Colorado, respectively.

In all of the other five divisions, no team outside of second place is in serious contention, and four of the second-place teams are at least five games out.

Come West, baseball fans. The Padres have plenty of room in their ballpark, where a crowd of 28,456 gathered for the series opener.

“Any manager loves this kind of race,” said the Padres’ Bud Black, who wasn’t feeling as theatrical after his team’s win streak ended at three games. “Managers, coaches, players, GMs — this is what the game is all about.”

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NEW ORLEANS — Maybe the Thursday night opener wasn’t a real good break for Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings. The way they played in their 14-9 loss to the Saints, it sure looked as if they could have used at least a couple of extra days to get ready.

“I can’t say that we were hitting on all cylinders like we were in the NFC championship game,” Favre said when this ugly mess of a game was over. “I know we’re better. And it’s not that we were not any good tonight. There were a lot of opportunities that we capitalized on but way too many that we didn’t.”

Yes, this game counted in the standings, but the Vikings didn’t appear ready for it. They still need to figure out their receiver situation minus Sidney Rice. They played with just three cornerbacks, who looked overmatched on the Saints’ ridiculously easy opening drive. Coach Brad Childress fessed up after the game that he was caught off-guard by the Saints’ defensive game plan. And Favre admitted that he missed a couple of key throws to open receivers on plays that could have swung the game Minnesota’s way.

The Vikings clearly have enough good players to be a force in the NFC, but the total package hasn’t come together just yet.

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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Denver Broncos Pro Bowl left tackle Ryan Clady is coming back from a serious knee injury in time to start Sunday’s opener at Jacksonville, a remarkable turn in his unfortunate offseason saga.

Clady, who got a handful of snaps in Denver’s preseason finale at Minnesota after missing spring workouts and most of training camp, will be at the center of one of Sunday’s key matchups.

He’ll square off against Jacksonville’s marquee free agent addition, defensive end Aaron Kampman, who also is coming off a knee injury suffered last November while playing for Green Bay.

Clady suffered a torn patella tendon while playing in a pickup game basketball in April.

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Three of the four NFC West teams have voted on their team captains for the 2010 season — the Seattle Seahawks have not — but there are votes and then there are votes.

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All things considered, Vikings quarterback Brett Favre was pretty good in Thursday night’s season-opening loss to the Saints. Yes, he was a little rusty, yes, the numbers — 15-of-27 for 171 yards, one touchdown and one interception — were mediocre.

And yes, that one interception was worse than mediocre. It was a stupid decision.

But Favre was good most of the time and great at the end of the first half, when he threw a couple of beautiful passes to get the Vikings into the end zone and steal a halftime lead.

The problem for the Vikings is that they’re not a team where just “good” from the quarterback position is going to be good enough, at least not when they’re playing elite teams like New Orleans. The passing game clearly misses the injured wide receiver Sidney Rice, the offensive line struggled, and the defense, although stout most of the time, wore down late in the game.

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John Wooden was near and dear to the hearts of many across the nation, and that fact became even clearer when he died earlier this year. It’s not just people of UCLA who feel a special kinship with the Wizard of Westwood, it’s also those from his hometown of Martinsville, Ind., and his alma mater, Purdue University.

Wooden played basketball for the Boilermakers all the way back in the early 1930s. He was named the national player of the year as a senior and become the first player in college basketball history to be a three-time consensus All-American.

Thus, Purdue will unveil a new street sign Saturday before the football team plays host to Western Illinois. A portion of road in close proximity to many of Purdue’s athletic facilities (including Mackey Arena) will be renamed John R. Wooden Drive.

“While I know he was a Bruin, Coach Wooden never shed his Purdue ties,” Purdue athletics director Morgan Burke said in a press release from the school. “It is appropriate that North University Drive passes Lambert Fieldhouse, named after Coach Wooden’s coach at Purdue, ‘Piggy’ Lambert; Mackey Arena, which was dedicated against Coach Wooden’s UCLA team in 1967; and the Brees Center, which symbolizes teaching and learning and were keys to Coach Wooden’s life.”

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The Diamondbacks hope to have a permanent general manager in place by the end of the regular season, and the Arizona Republic reports two candidates have emerged as front-runners for the job.

Interim GM Jerry Dipoto and former Padres GM Kevin Towers are atop the heap of candidates, with Dodgers scouting director Logan White lingering as a dark horse candidate, according to the Republic.

The two leading contenders offer quite a contras in resumes. Dipoto, the former major league pitcher, doesn’t have nearly the front office experience Towers does, but he knows the personnel and the perception is he has done well since stepping in for the fired Josh Byrnes.

Towers, meanwhile, was one of the longest-tenured general managers in the game as he spent 14 years running the Padres’ front office. He knows the job and is well-regarded around the industry, which should make him a candidate for any GM job that opens up.

White is credited with building up the supply of young talent in the Dodgers’ organization over the better part of the last decade. He has a long track record of success as a scout, but that’s the extent of his experience in a front office setting.

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The Vikings-Saints rematch didn’t exactly live up to the hype. In the NFL’s season opener Thursday night, the two teams that so epically battled in the NFC title game last season — won in overtime by the Saints, en route to a Super Bowl crown — looked out of sorts in their Week 1 showdown.

New Orleans used a second-quarter Pierre Thomas TD run to erase a 9-7 halftime deficit and secure a 14-9 win — far from the explosive, high-scoring shootout that most people expected. But it was enough to move the defending champs to 1-0 on the season and drop Minnesota to 0-1.

Some thoughts following New Orleans’ win:

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After a handful of reports made it clear that it was almost done, Tom Brady finally got his new multi-year contract with the New England Patriots on Thursday.

The quarterback has agreed to terms on a new four-year deal that goes through the 2014 season, according to Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, who broke the news while working the Minnesota-New Orleans game for NBC. King cited Patriots owner Robert Kraft as confirming the deal.

Kraft didn’t divulge the financial terms, but King speculated it was in the area of $19 million per season — a number that would make Brady the highest-paid player in NFL history.

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The historic rookie season of Omri Casspi wasn’t without its challenges.

Israel’s first NBA player earned a starting role with the Sacramento Kings, then lost it. He hit the proverbial “rookie wall,” then never truly found his way over it.

But all in all, it was something close to storybook.

Picked 23rd overall in the June 2009 draft, the 6-foot-9 small forward cried tears of joy inside his Yavne, Israel, home when commissioner David Stern spoke his name and enjoyed the season-long love fest that followed. He was a relative rock star in every city in which the Kings played, a point of pride for the respective Jewish communities that almost always showed up in force to wave the Israeli flag and chant “Casspi!”

Yet as Casspi spoke to FanHouse by phone from his home on Thursday — on the celebration of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, no less — there was no such joy in his voice as he discussed the first painful part of his experience. A swastika that had been painted on a mural of his face in midtown Sacramento was discovered on Wednesday, the act being deemed a hate crime by local authorities who are investigating the matter and looking for the moronic culprit.

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Steve Spagnuolo is primarily a defensive coach.

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Nobody could blame quarterback Derek Anderson for leaving the chaos of the Cleveland Browns behind him and heading to the desert to be the backup for Arizona quarterback Matt Leinart.

Things were a tad crazy in Cleveland and the Cardinals, the two-time defending NFC West champions, seemed to offer a little more sanity. A Pro Bowl quarterback in 2007, Anderson found himself losing a popularity contest amongst Cleveland fans with 2007 first round draft pick Brady Quinn.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans.

Quinn and Anderson dueled for starting time and nobody was happy. In the space of a month, Anderson went from backup, to being twice a starter in preseason games to being named the starting quarterback. And Leinart was shown the way out.

It’s been a little bit of weird in the Valley of the Sun, too. Instead of waiting for a chance to prove himself and maybe getting a chance to start, Anderson is the starter. Period.

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Check out FanHouse’s live chat for Vikings-Saints.

9:50 p.m. ET

Turnovers are not an accident against the Saints. They force them. Roman Harper was on the blitz and had Brett Favre, and the quarterback made a rushed, dumb throw. It was picked off by Jonathan Vilma. It’s what they do.

Opponents made 39 turnovers against the Saints in 2009. The New Orleans defenders insist they can get more than that in 2010.

There is the strength of the Saints: cornerback Jabari Greer in man-to-man coverage vs. Bernard Berrian. Incomplete on third and 9 and the Vikings have to kick a field goal. That’s a win for the Saints. It’s how they do business. Blitz and hope one runner gets free to knock Favre and then play in the secondary and make plays.

9:34 p.m. ET

The Saints have to be ready. Here comes the play-action, I think. The Vikings are very conservative. Malcolm Jenkins, the young safety, is going to get tested soon by Percy Harvin.

Minnesota is conservative, but that’s fine. The first down throws will come and the Saints are going to be vulnerable.

Devery Henderson is from Louisiana. He was a star in high school and a star at LSU. He is still a star with the Saints. The Vikings are having all kinds of trouble keeping tabs on him tonight. So far, one catch for 29 yards and a touchdown, but he has been open.

I have not seen much of the Saints defensive tackles. The Vikings need to keep running with Peterson and see if Sedrick Ellis, the DT, shows up.

Why run the ball when you can take your time and throw? Why run those little bubble screens? Take some shots downfield.

Asher Allen, the Minnesota cornerback, is having trouble staying balanced and strong. He looks overmatched on the right side. Drew Brees and the Saints cut him a break going to the other side.

The Vikings safeties have some issues.

Meanwhile, the Vikings have the right idea. Run the rock. They are going to have to avoid penalties and convert third down.

8:35 p.m. ET

Adrian Peterson was just filling up the TV screen on the floor of the Superdome. He had all those touchdowns for the Vikings in 2009….

…and all those fumbles.

If I am the Vikes I make sure Peterson gets the rock all night. If he holds onto it and gets 125 yards, Football 101 says Minnesota will win or make it a darn good game.

Peterson does not necessarily have to finish the drives. Brett Favre can do that to Percy Harvin. What Peterson has to do is control the ball and keep Drew Brees’ heels on the sidelines.

Everybody understands the Vikings outplayed the Saints in the NFC championship game in January: 475 yards to 257 yards. Turnovers are part of it and the Vikings made five turnovers to one for the Saints and Minnesota lost in OT.

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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New York Yankees left-hander Andy Pettitte began a minor league rehabilitation start Thursday night by breezing through Double-A hitters as he works his way back from a groin injury.

Pettitte allowed two hits in four innings for the Trenton Thunder in an Eastern League playoff game. He struck out four against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

Pettitte threw 51 pitches, 37 for strikes. He also uncorked two wild pitches.

A healthy Pettitte is considered crucial to the Yanks’ chances of repeating as World Series champions. The 38-year-old Pettitte is 11-2 with a 2.88 ERA in 18 starts.

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It’s beginning to look increasingly doubtful that the Cardinals will be able to count on running back Beanie Wells in Arizona’s opener against the St. Louis Rams.

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Michael Irvin isn’t a Roy Williams fan.

The former Cowboys receiver was asked on the NFL Network for his Super Bowl pick. He didn’t hold back in dogging his old team — and Williams, in particular.

“I won’t take Dallas until Dallas has whatever it needs to stop playing 10 vs. 11. And with Roy Williams on the field, they’re playing 10 vs. 11,” Irvin said (as relayed by the Dallas Morning News).

Irvin said that he would pick the Cowboys to win the Super Bowl if they had Dez Bryant in the starting lineup instead of Williams.

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It’s not like the 49ers and the Seahawks play the same kind of game, but they do think alike at many levels.

Why? A whole bunch of 49ers have migrated to the Pacific Northwest, most recently running back Michael Robinson. Before that former San Francisco GM Scot McCloughan showed up in the guise of a Seattle senior assistant, and defensive lineman Kentwan Balmer was added by Seattle in a trade.

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NEW ORLEANS — NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said during a recent radio appearance that he hoped to have a new collective bargaining agreement with the league’s players before March. But on Thursday night, hours before the league’s regular-season opener between the Vikings and the Saints, NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith said the union’s timetable is much sooner than that.

“The players of the National Football League would love to have a deal done in November,” Smith said. “The timetable and the deadline for players is sooner rather than later.”

Smith explained that the players are concerned that the NFL will discontinue health insurance for them and their families in the event of a lockout, which would begin in March without a new agreement. And while the league could come out and announce that health coverage would continue during a lockout, it has not done so.

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Three rookie free agents made the Redskins. But unlike receiver Brad Banks and running back Keiland Williams, Logan Paulsen did get the dreaded call last Saturday informing him that he had been cut. One of Washington’s scouts told the tight end from UCLA that he hadn’t made the team, but that he would be signed to the practice squad if he cleared waivers.

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Austin Howard might not have been drafted, but few rookie free agents have ever been better prepared for the NFL.

Howard’s eldest brother. Marcel, had spent the summer of 2002 with the Detroit Lions as an undrafted rookie offensive lineman. Howard’s college linemates, Chad Rinehart and Brandon Keith, had spent the past two seasons with the Washington Redskins and Arizona Cardinals, respectively, and gave him tips on the life of an NFL offensive lineman.

Howard even possessed the good karma of having worked at an Iowa Hy Vee grocery store as had fellow Northern Iowa product Kurt Warner before becoming a Super Bowl MVP and rags-to-riches tale for the ages

So even though Philadelphia drafted a league-high 13 players in April, Howard chose to sign with the Eagles, but not on a whim.

“They drafted 13 players, but no offensive lineman,” the criminology major reasoned. “And I had been talking to (offensive line) coach (Juan) Castillo. He told me (he) had a history of taking undrafted linemen and turning them into starters (current center Jamaal Jackson and right guard Nick Cole among them). He told me I would have the same opportunity.”

Howard has always been realistic about his place in the game. He didn’t complain when he was switched from blocking tight end to left tackle during the spring before his junior season at Northern Iowa. Howard realized that at 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds he would likely have a better future at tackle, after putting on some extra weight, than at tight end. By his senior year, Howard was 333 pounds and starring on the conference’s top offense, one that allowed just 10 sacks in 11 games.

And Howard was thrilled this summer as the second-string left tackle, facing Eagles standout defensive end Trent Cole every day in practice.

“That was the best way for me to get better, going against a phenomenal player like Trent,” Howard said with typical enthusiasm. “I pretty much held my own. And then when I had a few pancakes (knockdown blocks) in our first preseason game against Jacksonville, I think I really opened up a lot of eyes.”

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Clinton Portis conducted his first, lengthy group session with the Washington media today and the always entertaining running back was provocative about such subjects as coming back from the concussion that ended his 2009 season after nine games, and his place with the Redskins.

“(Missing the last half of last season) gave you the opportunity to go out and realize how much being on this field really meant to you, how much being around your teammates meant,” Portis said. “I think it gave me a chance to go out and take a look in the mirror and realize my faults and the things I was doing wrong and the person I needed to be and what I needed to do to come back and be a part of an organization and try to lead an organization.”

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LEMONT, Ill. (AP) — Already having his best season, Matt Kuchar got off to his best start of the year Thursday in the BMW Championship. A mystery season for Tiger Woods took another unexpected turn.

Kuchar, who won the opening FedExCup playoff event to position himself for the $10 million bonus, wasted no time putting his name atop the leaderboard. He finished with an 18-foot birdie putt for a 7-under 64 and a one-shot lead over Ryan Moore.

Ian Poulter of England, who has finished in the top 10 only once since winning the Match Play Championship in February, had a 66 for the best round of the afternoon despite opening with a double bogey.

Woods also started with a double bogey, but he never got those shots back.

With one last bogey on the 18th hole, he wound up with a 73 to leave himself in a big hole as he tries to advance to the final stage of the playoffs in Atlanta. It was his highest round at Cog Hill since he opened with a 73 in the 2005 Western Open. It also ended a streak of 11 consecutive rounds in the 60s on the public course in the Chicago suburbs where he has won five times.

Woods should be used to rough starts by now. His scoring average in the first round this year is 71.08, compared with 68.9 a year ago in the same tournaments.

Even so, it was peculiar to hear him discuss how much ground he has to make up — not against Kuchar, but the finish he needs to get into the top 30 in the FedExCup standings and advance to the Tour Championship.

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It’s difficult to get excited about the September stretch run given how wide some of the division and wild-card leads are with just over three weeks to play in the regular season.

But the Rockies — naturally, the Rockies — gave us a refresher course in the magic of the season’s final month Thursday afternoon. As if it wasn’t enough to complete a four-game sweep of the first-place Reds with a 6-5 comeback victory, Colorado scored the eventual winning run on a steal of home plate.

Rookie pinch-runner Chris Nelson did the honors in the eighth inning, racing to the plate just about literally under Reds pitcher Nick Masset’s nose. Masset, a right-hander working from the stretch with one out and Melvin Mora on first base, had an epic brain cramp as Nelson found him inattentive and took off for home plate. And when Masset heard his teammates yelling that a runner was going, he first looked toward second base, not home plate where Nelson was sliding safely home without a throw. (Watch the video here.)

Rockies manager Jim Tracy said the play in question was supposed to be a squeeze but Nelson took off too soon. Luckily for the Rockies, he kept his cool better than Masset did.

“Completely my mistake,” Masset told reporters. “It’s embarrassing. Never should have happened.”

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OK, so I promised the words “Hard Knocks” wouldn’t appear on this blog again now that the show is over, and that really was my intent before I came across a story and video on The Washington Post’s website.

Baltimore Ravens all-everything linebacker Ray Lewis finally had enough of hearing what his former defensive coordinator and now New York Jets coach Rex Ryan has been saying about his team. Between his bold predictions at press conferences and his bold statements behind closed doors — but in front of HBO’s cameras — Ryan managed to tick off one of his favorite players.

Ironically, Ryan happened to mention Lewis and Ravens safety Ed Reed in Wednesday night’s season finale of “Hard Knocks: Training Camp With the New York Jets” when he let quarterback Mark Sanchez know that he was going to allow him to call the plays on offense in the second half of New York’s preseason game at the Philadelphia Eagles.

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One way to take add even more intrigue to an already appealing opening day match-up between the Cincinnati Bengals and New England Patriots is to have one key player engage in a war of words with another on the opposing team — but that usually happens through the media. One player makes a bold prediction on camera or to the throng of microphones and tape recorders in front of him and the other reads about it or sees it on television or hears it on the radio.

Now that we are in the age of social media, this no longer has to be limited to press conferences and open locker rooms, as Chad Ochocinco has once again proven this week. Last week it was his promise to take a rifle away from one of the Minutemen in the Patriots‘ end zone at Gillette Stadium and shoot it in the air if he scores a touchdown. This week he set his sights on young Patriots cornerback Darius Butler, as Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald wrote in Thursday’s paper.

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Miles Austin was a breakout star during the 2009 NFL season. The Cowboys are betting a lot of money that he’s more than just a one-year wonder. Dallas signed Austin to a six-year contract extension worth a reported $54 million, according to the team’s website.

Austin, who had 81 catches for 1,320 yards and 11 touchdowns during a Pro Bowl campaign in 2009, was set to make a little more than $3 million this season after signing a restricted free agent tender. He would have become a free agent following the 2010 season, but instead is now locked up through 2016.

“This is great for me, but the most important thing is to get ready for the Redskins (Dallas’ Week 1 foe),” Austin told Nick Eatman of DallasCowboys.com. “That’s still the No. 1 goal for me and this team. We want to win as many games as possible.”

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ISTANBUL — This is not a Dream Team the Americans have assembled. And that’s good enough for Lithuania forward Linas Kleiza to not count out his guys in green against a Team USA outfit that is green when it comes to experience.

“Are they beatable?” Kleiza (right) said in answering that very question about the Americans, who face Lithuania on Saturday in a FIBA World Championship semifinal. “I think every team is beatable. There’s no such a team as unbeatable expect that Dream Team (the Americans put together for the 1992 Olympics). They’re definitely not beatable in a seven-game series. But in one game, who knows what can happen? A lot of things can go right and a lot of things can go wrong. But they’re a very good team.”

The Americans earned a berth in the semifinals with an 89-79 win over Russia in the first quarterfinal played Thursday at the Sinan Erdem Dome. Lithuania followed with a stunningly easy 104-85 win over Argentina.

The teams meet at noon ET on Saturday, with Turkey and Serbia to follow at 2:30 p.m. ET. The winners play Sunday for the gold medal.

“Of course,” said Lithuania forward Paulius Jankunas, when asked if the Americans are beatable. “We just need to play good and everything is OK.”

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A world-class, 23-year-old athlete blasted a batting practice home run that bounced out of PNC Park yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the athlete in question was crosstown hockey star, Sidney Crosby. Crosby was there with eight of his teammates as a guest of former Pirate and Pittsburgh native Sean Casey.

Crosby’s blast was estimated at 360 feet and it skipped over the top wall of PNC Park’s right field grandstand and down onto the stadium’s River Walk. After hitting the homer, Crosby gave a brief interview to PittsburghPenguins.com (you can see both the homer and the interview in the video embedded below the jump) and tried to downplay the homer by mentioning that he played baseball until he was 13 and that it’s easy to hit a homer to right in PNC.

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Just days before Sunday’s opener at Tennessee, the Raiders went out and got some additional defensive line help.

Defensive tackle Jay Alford was signed this week by the Raiders soon after his release by the New York Giants in their final cut. Raiders coach Tom Cable told