- Why is “elite” a compliment for quarterbacks but an insult for politicians?

- If we judged quarterbacks by the “guy I’d like to have a beer with” rule some people use for presidents, the league MVP would still be Brett Favre. 

- The latest measure of the state of Baltimore baseball: pitcher Jeremy Guthrie was thrilled to be traded to Colorado. Guthrie wasted no time practicing his new strikeout celebration.

- Detroit Tigers pitchers ranked third in the AL in Ground Ball Percentage (thank you, Fangraphs.com). Do they get a vote on moving Miguel Cabrera to third base?

- I’ve read – and had – some stupid ideas in my time, but for pure point-missing regarding the entire thrust of the sport, it’s hard to top Drew Sharp’s proposal to award field goals from inside the 30 just two points. 

Sharp wants to discourage such farces as the Ahmad Bradshaw accidental touchdown. Evidently, quarterbacks taking a knee at the 23-yard-line on third-and-goal from the 8 are OK with him.

- Advice for Ryan Braun: When Lance Armstrong’s lawyer phones you, take the call.

- The Knicks are just one-half game out of the last playoff spot in the East. They’re also 11-15. I suspect both of these things make David Stern very happy; he can’t be too pleased that the owner’s dispute with Time Warner is keeping the team off the biggest cable provider in New York. 

- I’m thrilled for Jeremy Lin (76 points and 25 assists for the Knicks in the last three games). It’s always nice to see Harvard men overcome their barriers to fame and fortune. According to the front page of The New York Times, Lin is staying with his brother on the Lower East Side, sleeping on the couch. I want to vote for him, but I’m not sure if I should use the NBA All-Star Ballot or Craigslist.

Before his recent explosion onto the scene, Lin had averaged 30 points and 16 assists per 48 minutes during the Knicks’ 19 prior games in 2012. It wasn’t difficult to calculate the averages, because he’d played exactly 48 minutes in those 19 games.

- The PGA Tour goes to Pebble Beach this week, with Bill Murray playing the most unlikely role of his career: Defending Champion. His pro-am partner D.A. Points, returning to the scene of his only Tour victory, had just one other finish above 20th place and missed eight cuts last year after the win. So much for Murray being a distraction.

The main focus of the CBS telecast will surely be Tiger Woods, in his first U.S. start of the season. That’s much better than when the main focus of the telecast was Ray Romano or Danny Gans.

- Looking for a precedent for the sprawling Big East?  Consider the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC), which governed a loose collection of largely independent schools in the years before the Big East was formed. The ECAC had a game-of-the-week television contract, and helped pay its bills by staging the annual Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden, a gathering of some of the nation’s top basketball teams. 

Another model may be the college hockey conferences, like the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA), which stretches from Miami to Alaska. (It’s Miami of Ohio, but that’s still a pretty long way). 

- With all the recent revelations about brain trauma, depression, and premature deaths among hockey enforcers, why does SportsCenter still feature fights so prominently in its NHL coverage?

- Duke-Carolina is the Mitt Romney of rivalries. 

- Gisele Bundchen’s post-Super Bowl comments remind us that no model has ever been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.   

- The London Olympics begin in 168 days, and I’m already psyched to see pint-sized gymnasts, Michael Phelps’ wingspan, flag-raising, and assorted other things you shouldn’t Google at work.

- It’s nice that Terrell Owens loves the game so much, but what am I supposed to do with the other Allen Wranglers wide receivers on my Indoor Football League fantasy team?

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – He said he’s at peace, and why not? After what Tiger Woods has gone through the past two years plus – even if ultimately he was responsible for most of the problems – Woods has escaped to a future which could bring memories of the past.

Do we need once more to review the agony, Tiger’s, golf’s? The dark cloud through which the sun never shown, the car accident, the admissions of infidelity, the divorce, the all too frequent injuries, the media attacks, the winless months?

So often he would show up for an interview and from either side, Tiger’s, the journalists', words seemed like daggers. The writers acted as if Tiger had personally let them down. Tiger acted as if the writers had become traitors.

But on a gray Tuesday morning along Carmel Bay, so opposite the man’s upbeat mood, Woods started the week of his return to the historic AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am – the event created 70 years ago by Bing Crosby under his own name – with laughs and optimism.

Not for 10 years had Woods played in the tournament, which for the first three days, starting Thursday, is held at Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Monterey Peninsula courses. He said it wasn’t because of the venue, or the format or often miserable weather but rather scheduling conflicts.

There’s no conflict this year and seemingly no conflict within Tiger. He greeted people with backslaps. He laughed at his own jokes – and the jokes of others, eager to get in as many clever remarks as possible.

Asked if he might be chiding amateur partner Tony Romo, the Cowboys quarterback, because the NFC East Division rival New York Giants won the Super Bowl, Woods almost leaped at the question.    

“What do you think?’’ he answered, then laughed. “Yeah, uh-huh.’’

Yeah, uh-huh.

The AT&T is two tournaments, one offering guys such as Tiger, Dustin Johnson, Ian Poulter and Phil Mickelson playing for money and FedEx Cup points; the other, the pro-am, with Romo, Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, Herman Edwards – who grew up in the area – Jim Harbaugh, Matt Cain, Darius Rucker. Chris Berman, Aaron Rodgers, Clyde “The Glide’’ Drexler and the inimitable defending champ, Bill Murray, playing for ego.

You have to handle tough courses. You have to handle the screams and pleas of spectators who could not be called golf fans. You have to handle rain and wind, although the forecast for this year is decent.

Tiger has handled all of the above. In 1997, a pro for only seven months, he shot 63-64 at Pebble to finish second by a shot. Three years later, trailing by seven shots midway through the last day, Woods overtook Matt Gogel. That was February. In June, Tiger won the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble by 15 shots.

Dare it be pointed out, Woods used to be brilliant and dominant? Now, at age 36, with a new swing, the adjective is hopeful.

A tie for third in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago, although after sharing the third-round lead. A win in his own 18-player event, the Chevron World, in December. A third in the Australian Open in November. Encouragement.

“Even though I lost,’’ he said of the tournament in Abu Dhabi, “I was very pleased with the way, my bad day of ball striking, wasn’t that bad.’’

What he likes is after taking a two-week break before Abu Dhabi, he hadn’t regressed – as he had during the summer of 2011, when, because of the knee and Achilles problems practice was restricted. He has moved forward, then fallen back.

“This time it was different,’’ said Woods. “I came out healthy. Things are progressing.’’

Woods reiterated his opposition to the so-called belly putter, the club with the shaft long enough the golfer can anchor the butt end in his midsection, providing a fulcrum. Ernie Els, who is using the club, joked, “As long as it’s legal, I’ll keep cheating like the rest of them.’’

Tiger said he would like a rule that the says the putter cannot be longer than the shaft of the shortest club in a player’s bag, usually the sand wedge.

Woods, who previously teamed with actor Kevin Costner and onetime Stanford teammate, Jerry Chang, asked to be paired with Romo, a scratch golfer.

“He’s one of those gifted athletes that whatever he picks up, he can do,’’ Tiger said of the quarterback. “Fortunately he picked up golf at an early age with his dad, and they’ve always played.’’

As did Woods and his late father, Earl, determined to make his son the best golfer in the world. Which until late 2009 he used to be but at age 36 probably won’t be again.

“I feel very at peace where I’m at,’’ Woods said. “I had to make some changes, and that took time. I’m starting to see results now, which is great. Everything’s headed in the right direction.’’

A U-turn he and the game both can use.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

A slightly updated Dickensian description is the most apt way of articulating the state of men's and women's tennis at the moment. Indeed, they have become two separate sports. Though both sexes strike a fuzzy yellow ball with a racket, the similarities end there.

Never has there been such an interest deficit between the two as exists today. To put it bluntly, I'd argue that men's tennis has never been better in the open era, while the women's game is sliding rapidly, inexorably into irrelevance. I wouldn't be so harsh as to analogize men's and women's tennis with the NBA and WNBA, but that comparison is not far off.

Of course, this sounds misogynistic. But the brutal truth is that most fans and - if they'd have the guts to admit it - 90 percent of those who cover the sport find women's tennis nearly unwatchable these last few years. For evidence, glance at the media section during a Grand Slam event. Unless it's the final or semis, the seats are nearly always empty when the women are playing.

It's tough to blame the paucity of drama and intrigue in the women's game on any one thing. Rather, a combination of factors have put the sport in danger. Most importantly, the game has lacked a consistent, compelling rivalry for nearly 20 years, since the final days of Steffi Graf and Monica Seles.

For a while, it appeared that Serena and Venus Williams would meet in many major finals. But that never materialized. And just when Serena and Justine Henin seemed about to create something special with their close matches and contrasting styles, that faded fast as Henin battled injuries and then retired.

Another aspect is the lack of all-court play by so many women. While the men are also plagued by the same monotonous way of playing that has overtaken the sport - big forehand followed by big forehand, volleying acumen nearly extinct - there's still enough of a difference among the top four or five men that distinct playing styles can be attributed to each. This most decidedly cannot be said for the women.

Obviously, there have been some great matches in this rather indefinable period in the sport. Two that come immediately to mind are Venus' victory over Lindsay Davenport in the 2005 Wimbledon final and Serena's thrilling triumph over Elena Dementieva at the same event four years later.

Yet even during times of brilliant rivalries, such as Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova or Graf and Seles, the women have never eclipsed the men in terms of excitement. The women have always been the undercard, despite all attempts otherwise.

Ask the committed tennis fans to think of the all-time great matches, and they'll likely name John McEnroe vs. Bjorn Borg at the 1980 Wimbledon, or Roger Federer vs. Rafael Nadal at the 2008 Wimbledon, or even Novak Djokovic's victory over Nadal last week in the Australian Open final. They'd be hard-pressed to recall a great women's match (of which there have been many).

As more have taken notice of the problems in the women's game, I've heard the age-old grumblings in many circles - from those in the tennis industry and fans alike - that, since women aren't the main attraction and since they're on the court for half to sometimes one-third the time that the men are at the Slam events, they don't deserve equal prize money.

On the face of it, this is a logical argument. Why should the women reap the same financial benefits as the men if they're not supplying the fans in the seats or the ratings on TV?

But pushing this issue doesn't do anything to improve the game. It only reinforces a contentious topic and sets up a specious way of separating the genders.

It was a woman, Billie Jean King, who was crucial in making the sport lucrative for all. During the tennis boom of the 1970s, she was perhaps more instrumental than anyone in expanding the popularity of the sport and setting the template that's still in place today that allows women - and men - to reap great financial rewards.

It's up to the players themselves, especially the younger ones, to find a way to push their games to new heights, as have Nadal, Federer and Djokovic these last eight years. They must reverse the disturbing trend of the last 20 years, with a decreasing level of excitement and anticipation.

By year's end, I would love to be proven wrong and have the women provide more excitement than the men. But I just don't see it happening.

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

John Terry, who is almost as adept at dodging controversy as England is at winning the World Cup, has been stripped of his captaincy of the English national team for racially abusive language. But this is no excuse for the Football Association to overstep the boundaries of its authority.

Terry allegedly called Queens Park Rangers’ Anton Ferdinand a “f------ black c---.” The Chelsea defender’s reputation would have sunk further had it not already been rock bottom.

The Football Association, English soccer’s governing body, has stepped in as if it fears that Terry’s actions with Chelsea could rebound on the national team’s reputation. On Friday, the FA board released a statement announcing the surprising decision.

It reads: “The Football Association confirm he will not captain the England team until the allegations against him are resolved. … This decision has been taken due to the higher profile nature of the England captaincy, on and off the pitch, and the additional demands and requirements expected of the captain leading into and during a tournament.”

The argument must be that Terry is but a representative of England and all that it stands for. A “higher profile” representative of England at the European Championship must be worthy of his task. The board has interceded so that England can be properly represented at an important occasion.

Yet, captains don’t only represent England on and off the pitch. They are supposed to be charismatic leaders who galvanize their teammates in difficult times and welcome newcomers into the fold. It is said of great captains that when they speak in the locker room, not a fly dares interrupt. 

The statement goes on to say that England manager Fabio Capello “has not been involved in the FA Board discussions which reached this conclusion.” But this decision should have been Capello’s, because it is entirely sports-related. The board assumes that the team’s reputation will be hurt if a sketchy personality like John Terry becomes too visible.

Treating the captaincy as a communications tool is a dangerous path to tread. Managers need a competent and effective decision maker on the pitch because multiple judgments are made in the midst of a match.

No manager can predict every circumstance. For example, a team needs to decide who will take a free kick. Often, the free kick taker varies depends on the distance and the angle. This can lead to situations in which it isn’t clear who must take it.

Though a manager might hand-pick someone to take penalties, the designated man might have been substituted or even sent off. To complicate matters, what if the customary penalty taker is on the pitch, but a teammate, by scoring another goal, would become the tournament’s top scorer?

Many players go out of the way to allow one of their teammates to secure an extra prize, such as the top scorer trophy. But the captain must be there to assess the risk and decide if a teammate’s chance at glory is worth the risk of a missed opportunity.

Though a captain’s influence has been somewhat lessened in the current age of touchline leadership from coaches, it isn’t a position to be taken lightly.

As captain, Terry did not hold an honorary position. There is a reason why captains aren’t designated by the Queen. Why hire a manager if soccer-related decisions will be made upstairs?

FA Chairman David Bernstein and his colleagues cannot judge John Terry’s ability to contribute to England at the European Championship. They don’t have anything to do with the day-to-day running of the team. They don’t know the players. They can’t judge the effectiveness of a captain.

But the FA board isn’t content with controlling the recipient of the captain’s armband. In this shocking move to usurp the authority of a more knowledgeable manager, the board states that “Fabio Capello is free to select [Terry] for the Holland fixture on 29 February and the European Championship.”

So Capello must feel comforted. The FA board is giving him permission to select John Terry to play for England. Presumably, that means that they are also free to withdraw it.

Have we gone from touchline management to boardroom management? If the FA board can kick a player off for activities totally unrelated to the team, are they now expected select the players or remotely lead training sessions?

The FA must decide if the English national team will be its pawn, or remain a serious sports team. Is the FA so used to failure at major tournaments that it no longer hopes to succeed?

There is nothing remotely serious about the statement. The FA appointed Capello to do a job. He has enough difficulty succeeding without having the board intercede.

England’s success at next summer’s European championship relies on Capello showing better judgment than the FA board.

Theodore Furchtgott is a RealClearSports soccer columnist. He can be reached at Theodore.Furchtgott@gmail.com.

Forget the numbers. Forget history. Look just at the performances.

Eli took the Giants 88 yards in the fourth quarter, on the must-score drive of the game, for the accidental touchdown that won Super Bowl XLVI 21-17 over New England on Sunday in Indianapolis. It was yet another game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or later for Manning and the Giants, their eighth of the season.

On the biggest play of the game, he hit Mario Manningham from deep in New York territory for 38 yards, to midfield, down by a point. Manningham made a spectacular catch along the sideline, getting both feet down as Patrick Chung and Sterling Moore converged to knock him out of bounds.

Manningham's catch was tremendous, but it wasn't possible without a superb throw that laid the ball over one defender and into the receiver's arms in stride.

Time after time, when New England needed a great play to put the game out of reach, Brady misfired.

He gave the New Yorkers two points on his first play of the game, throwing straight down the field to avoid a sack in the end zone and being charged with intentional grounding as a result.

On his first pass of the fourth quarter, he eluded the Giants' pass rush, got clear of the pressure and saw tight end Rob Gronkowski signal that he was going to break deep. Gronkowski's sprained ankle didn't give him much room, even when covered by linebacker Chase Blackburn, but he read the defense correctly and had nothing but open space ahead of him. Brady stopped, hurled and saw his pass come up 10 yards short of where it had to be. Gronkowski had to wait for it, and Blackburn got back into the play, making an interception for the game's only turnover.

It was a pass reminiscent of Brady's fourth-quarter interception in the AFC championship game, from nearly the same spot on the field. It came with the Patriots seeming in rhythm offensively. They had scored touchdowns on two of their three previous possessions, with Brady completing 15 in a row in that stretch, part of his Super Bowl-record streak of 16.

With four minutes to go, Brady had Wes Welker open down the field in the slot. The pass was behind Welker's back shoulder. He leaped and twisted to get his hands on it, but he couldn't pull it in. Welker blamed himself after the game, saying: "It's a play I never drop, and I always make. At the most critical situation, I let the team down." But the outside throw added an extra degree of difficulty to the play.

A completion to Welker there would have all but assured at least a New England field goal that would have changed the rest of the game drastically. The ensuing punt put the ball in Manning's hands - a dangerous place for it to be this season.

The comedy highlight was provided by Ahmad Bradshaw. The Giants had the ball, second-and-goal at the New England 6 with 1:04 to play, trailing 17-15. The Pats had just used their second timeout, the first having been burned challenging Manningham's sideline reception. New England wanted the Giants to score quickly, hoping to give Brady about a minute to drive for a touchdown, rather than letting New York run the clock down before kicking a field goal.

Manning handed the ball to Bradshaw, who saw a gaping hole in the middle of the defense. He charged through it, then tried to stop at the 1-yard line, but his momentum carried him into the end zone.

On the final drive, another Brady pass behind its target - this time Deion Branch - doomed the Patriots' best shot at picking up yardage, though their chances of getting a winning score were slim at best.

The Giants got some breaks. They committed the only two fumbles of the game but recovered both, the second deep in their own territory after Blackburn's interception. Gronkowski, the dominant Patriots threat anywhere on the field, was clearly hindered by his ankle injury, standing on the sidelines during a number of significant plays.

Still, it was a great Super Bowl, close right to the finish. The Giants got healthy and came together at just the right time, slipping into the playoffs, then playing their best football of the season in four consecutive games.

Never mind the question of whether Manning is in the class of Brady, as he declared back in August.

With two Super Bowl MVP trophies, it's time to consider whether he might be the best quarterback in his family.

The African Cup of Nations has evolved over the past few editions as one of the marquee continental competitions after the European Championship and South America’s Copa America. With a growing number of African players joining clubs in Europe, the focus on the tournament has grown over the past few years. This year, the competition has been rife with upsets given that traditional powers such as Egypt, Nigeria, Cameroon and South Africa all failed to qualify for the finals. 

As a result, the competition has given smaller nations the chance to shine. The tiny country of Equatorial Guinea and its 2-1 victory over favorites Senegal on a David Alvarez stoppage-time goal produced a finale worthy of a Disney movie. The goal has been by far the most exciting moment of a tournament that has been loaded with passion. By virtue of the win, the tournament co-hosts qualified for the knockout stage. 

Alvarez, whose father hails from Equatorial Guinea, was born and raised in Spain. Used to playing before sparse crowds for Spanish fourth division club Langreo, Alvarez became a national hero overnight as he celebrated before nearly 38,000 fans in the city of Bata. The goal was not only a source of pride for his adopted country, but also produced one of the greatest moments in African Cup of Nations history. 

As everything in life, good is always complemented by evil. For all the joy, emotion and passion that the African Cup of Nations has exuded, there has been tragedy on the African continent as well. In Egypt last Wednesday, a riot during a league match between El Masry and Al Ahly in Port Said resulted in at least 74 deaths and another 1,000 injuries. 

Scuffles broke out in the stands and after El Masry came from behind to win the game, 3-1. Knife-wielding fans stormed the field, chasing Al Ahly’s players into the locker room and attacking its fans. Police appeared unable to control the crowd, with the violence escalating into a bloodbath.  

“People here are dying and no one is doing a thing. It’s like a war,” Mohammed Abu Trika said in an interview on Al Ahly’s TV channel. “Is life this cheap?”

Unfortunately, yes. In a country ravaged by violence, there appears to be no refuge – not even at a soccer game. 

The violent fans that caused all the bloodshed and destruction had attacked a group known as ultras, the same group responsible for the revolution that led to the toppling last year of President Hosni Mubarak. Backers of Al Ahly, based in Cairo and one of the country’s most popular clubs, were on the forefront of the protests a year ago in Tahir Square. The ultras were ready for revolution after honing their skills inside stadiums for years, clashing with police on a regular basis and at the same time transforming themselves into a guerilla group. 

The Al Ahly ultras vowed retribution after accusing the authorities of intentionally letting rivals attack them because they had led the protests against Mubarak and the military. What ensued were days of violence.  

Africa has struggled with political unrest for decades. Even after European colonists stripped the continent of its natural resources, many African nations have been ruled by tyrants bent on delivering nothing but unrest and civil war. 

However, one of the best stories to come out of Africa has been the rebirth of South Africa. The country, once ruled by racist apartheid laws, has slowly emerged as one of the continent’s most prosperous nations. It is true that South Africa still struggles with poverty, AIDS and violence. It is still the place that average 50 murders a day. But for all the negative, there is positive. The 2010 World Cup was the chance for South Africa to showcase itself to the world and it did a magnificent job. 

That pride translated into putting together one of the best World Cups ever. Naysayers had warned of disaster. Instead, nothing of the sort took place. No violence, no tourists killed and no organizational snafus. FIFA’s gamble to host the World Cup on African soil for the first time had paid off. 

Even those memories can’t cancel the disturbing images from Egypt – but at least the African Cup of Nations will continue to show us the positive side of sports and humanity. 

Clemente Lisi writes a weekly soccer column for RealClearSports, appearing every Monday.  

This year’s January transfer window looks set to become the sporting non-event of the year, with a series of failed deals and botched negotiations becoming a celebration of the transfer that never was.

If anything, this year’s transfer party was set to be halfway worth it, complete with a decent schedule planned months in advance. There was Neymar, the latest “new Messi,” whose signature was supposed to start yet another epic Barcelona versus Real Madrid war.

But what did Neymar do? Instead of releasing cryptic and meaningless statements about his future, he decided to play the spoilsport and sign a contract extension with Santos. They have made us believe that he will stay at the club until 2014.

Nice try, Neymar. You thought you had tricked us into believing you were committed to playing for Santos. But no one is fooled. Every few months a new offer will come, more tempting than the last. And yes, you will be tempted. And so will Santos’ management. Why let a multi-million dollar transfer fee go to waste?

At least Neymar will have the moral satisfaction of knowing that his new salary will be subsidized by the Brazilian government. In a league devoid of mysterious Arab oil sheikhs, shady Russian oligarchs, unpopular American real estate magnates, and bankrupt governments, this one might be a trend setter.

Another trans-Atlantic splash that didn’t quite materialize was David Beckham’s move to Paris Saint-Germain. What self respecting owner wouldn’t want the world’s most famous soccer player? And besides, this wouldn’t be Beckham’s first trans-continental escape from MLS’s geriatric soccer care. He enjoyed successful loan spells at Milan under Carlo Ancelotti, now coaching PSG, and Leonardo, now PSG's Sporting Director.

What perfect timing. After five years of being forced to play MLS matches against his will, Becks was going to move to Paris with Posh. After five years of dramatically underwhelming excuses for performance, Beckham finished the season well. And after five years of ridiculously heightened expectations, Beckham won the Philip Anschutz Trophy.

What a time to leave. Talk about exiting in style. Beckham was poised to make the most stunning departure of recent times. When you can’t do anything dramatic on the pitch, grabbing headlines off the pitch has more appeal. But Beckham stayed. He saved himself the embarrassment of not being up to scratch. He saved himself from irrelevancy. He saved his image.

One has to admit that David Beckham has always understood the image thing. He somehow managed to cast himself as his generation’s biggest superstar and earns more than the likes of Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho. It’s hard to believe that he’s still playing, because his sponsors are more interested in his image than his performance.  

Some players go out of their way to destroy their image and stop people from having high opinions of them. Take Carlos Tevez as an example. Not content with disobeying his coach by refusing to play, Manchester City’s former star decided to escape to Argentina without going through the formalities of telling anyone.

Naturally, the Citizens wanted to get rid of him. And for some reason, some teams expressed an interest in signing him out of blind optimism, lack of common sense, or both. Tevez could have moved to Corinthians, Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan, or Internazionale.

Instead, he is still on Manchester City’s payroll playing golf and acting as if he’s retired. Tevez wasn’t referring to his own behavior when he told Kicker that “Something always wasn’t right.”

The entire transfer market wasn’t right. Managers would spend weeks pretending to magically solve their woes, wake up a few hours before the window shut, and then desperately agree to any half-baked plan that would go through before the party’s end.

Sometimes inaction is better than a hastily constructed transfer. Pep Guardiola realized that his youth academy is more effective than his transfer strategy. So he signed Isaac Cuenca from the youth setup.

Real Madrid had spent so much money building a team that loses to Barcelona that it must be tempting to spend more. But Real Madrid made no move.

At Bayern Munich, everything is going well, so there is no need for change. And sure enough, there was none.

If only Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp had shown the same restraint. Redknapp orchestrated no fewer than six transfers on the closing day, all the while standing trial for tax evasion and finding time to lose to Wigan in his spare time.

Meanwhile, this great distraction has ended and so the rumor shop needs to invent some more imminent transfers to keep us occupied until next summer. 

Theodore Furchtgott is a RealClearSports soccer columnist. He can be reached at Theodore.Furchtgott@gmail.com.

A year ago, they were the team. A year ago, he was the man. A year ago.

How quickly the days go by. How swiftly times and teams change.

You're on top, and then you're not. As the Giants' Eli Manning has reminded us once more.

The Packers were supposed to be here this week, in Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday, repeating their impressive victory of 12 months ago, establishing a dynasty. It didn't turn out that way.

In sports, it often doesn't turn out the way we believe it will or hope it will or argue it will.

Yesterday's victories vanish into today's disappointments. Second-guessing becomes more significant than first downs.

"Having been in the NFL for eight years,'' Manning said Thursday, "you realize how hard it is to get here. ... You want to relay to the young guys this may be their last one. In my eighth year, this might be the last one I ever get to."

But at worst it is no less than the second one he'll get to, meaning the same as his brother Peyton. And in Peyton's town, Indianapolis - or what has been his town for 13 years - that realization strikes hard.

Two similar thoughts are unavoidable: Joaquin Andujar telling us, "You never know,'' and in a slight embellishment, Jim Mora, during an emotional postgame rant, insisting, "You think you know. But you don't know, and you never will know."

That is at once the joy and heartbreak of sports, possibility unfulfilled, potential unrealized, predictions overturned.

In Super Bowl XLII four years ago, the Patriots and Tom Brady were 12-point favorites over the Giants and Manning. That Patriots wound up three-point losers. We never know.

This has been a week of reflection - Manning, a quarterback about to play in his second Super Bowl and Brady, a quarterback about to play in his fifth, musing on experience. And inexperience.

Pro football is a quarterback's game, and Manning and Brady are as skilled in the art of handling questions as they are in handling the ball.

They do not shirk responsibility. Their theme is constant: The journey is special, so do not look back someday with regrets.

"Life is about taking advantage of opportunities,'' said Brady, "and you never know when you're going to get them. You have to be prepared to take advantage when you do get them."

He has taken advantage of those opportunities, if not alone. The quarterback's game depends on tackles and guards, receivers and running backs, and on a defense to get the ball back.

"This is all new to some guys,'' said Manning. "Mario Manningham, Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz, who had not been in playoff games and made big plays in clutch situations. I try to keep their mind-set: ‘Don't let this game become bigger than what it is.' You can't get nervous about it. You can't overthink things."

Yet that's what every one of us does. The bigger the event, the more overthinking, the more speculation, the more wondering. The last few days have been as much about Eli's older brother, whose career with the hometown Colts seemingly is near termination, as about what will happen in the Super Bowl.

Among the dozens of pages of interviews from players and coaches in the Super Bowl, more than 400 having been compiled since Sunday, are two of quotes from Colts owner Jim Irsay saying he'll sit down and talk to Peyton about the future after Eli and Brady orchestrate the last game of the 2011 season.

And for those who see all life is one big conspiracy theory, Andrew Luck of Stanford, the probable No. 1 pick in April's NFL draft, who would replace Peyton Manning, is here in Indy doing a promotion for Gatorade.

But center stage in this drama are Manning and Brady, the leaders, the spokesmen, men who have been here, done that and with their teammates are doing it again.

"The goal is to finish and to finish strong,'' said Manning. "I'm just glad to be in a Super Bowl. That's what it's all about. Now we're at our last game, and hopefully we'll finish that strong."

Brady's ideas are not dissimilar.

"This is everything you ask for as an athlete,'' Brady said. "When you're not here playing in this game, it hurts to turn on the TV. Every channel is talking about the game and the players. As a competitor, you want to be here."

He is here. Eli Manning is here. But unlike last year, Aaron Rodgers and the Packers are not here. Seize the time.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

The Super Bowl is three days away, and there’s one thing I can’t figure out.

Why are the Patriots favored?

I understand that New England went 13-3 while the Giants were 9-7. I know that the Giants scored six fewer points than they allowed over the course of the season, while the Pats had a positive differential of 171, third-highest in the league behind New Orleans and Green Bay. 

I know that the point spread isn’t a prediction about the game, it’s a gauge of where the betting money is likely to fall, with an eye toward balancing the books and pocketing the vig, the 10 percent premium on losing bets. 

The game opened a week and a half ago with the Patriots a 3.5-point favorite. The betting line has moved to 3. But I’ve yet to hear much analysis pointing toward a New England victory.

Why are the Patriots favored?

Does the team have a bigger fan base likely to bet on them? Unlikely. True, the New York market is split between the Jets and the Giants, but Jets fans have a much more bitter rivalry with the Pats than they do with their Meadowlands co-tenants.

As they did four years ago, the Giants are peaking at just the right time. The defensive line is healthy and wreaking havoc. They shut out the Atlanta offense, neutralized Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay, and matched the vaunted 49ers defense in the slop in San Francisco.

The offense is hitting its stride as well. With opponents geared up to stop dangerous slot man Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham have given Eli Manning a variety of deep threats, combining for seven touchdown receptions in the postseason. Eight Giants caught passes against the Niners, spreading the field and finally opening space for Cruz, who had 10 receptions for 142 yards. 

Sure, the Patriots have won 10 straight while averaging 35.9 points per game. The offense has unprecedented weapons in tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. Gronkowski, when healthy, has the speed to go deep up the middle, the height to catch the ball in traffic, and the strength to break off a pattern and still bull his way to a first down. Hernandez became a running threat out of the backfield in the divisional round against the Broncos, and if a defense concentrates too much on these two, that opens things up for Wes Welker, Deion Branch, and an assortment of others from innumerable spots on the field.

Statistically, according to Football Outsiders, the Giants performed reasonably against their opponents’ Nos. 1 and 2 receivers, but ranked 30th against all others. Teams that offer a multiplicity of options on offense gave the Giants problems, but with defensive end Osi Umenyiora back, New York can put pressure on the quarterback without blitzing, keeping seven in coverage, occasionally matching size with Gronkowski by dropping a lineman back and rushing a safety or linebacker. 

Early season or late, the Patriots’ defense has been dreadful. Football Outsiders ranks that unit 30th overall, equally bad against the rush and the pass. The most comparable defense in the league was Green Bay’s, and we all saw how the Giants handled that challenge.

While New York is coming together, the Patriots squeaked into the Super Bowl with one of their worst performances of the year against Baltimore. Tom Brady threw vital interceptions, the defense let Joe Flacco come within one completion in the end zone of winning in regulation, and Gronkowski’s high ankle sprain puts his value in question for Sunday’s game. 

The Giants silenced a strong offense from Atlanta, knocked out Super Bowl favorite Packers in Green Bay, and survived a slugfest with San Francisco. New England trounced the Broncos, though that was mostly a matter of being on hand when the magic ran out. And then they struggled against the Ravens.

Bill Belichick will have had two weeks to get ready for everything the Giants can throw at him, and to devise a few new wrinkles of his own. The same thing was true before Super Bowl XLII. With only one week to prepare, the Pats lost to the Giants 24-20 at home in week nine this season.   

Everything points to a Giants victory: current form, recent history, the strengths and weaknesses in the team matchup. That leaves just one question.

Why are the Patriots favored?

INDIANAPOLIS – “Name the Kardashian sisters.’’ Was that an order? Or a request? Rob Gronkowski sat and thought. Maybe better than being asked what kind of tree he would be if he were a tree. But not by much.

Super Bowl media day, when 100 football players, if not all at once, and 100,000 journalists, cameramen and assorted mountebanks – well, more like 3,000, but it seems like 100,000 - gather to annoy each other.

“Kim,’’ began Gronkowski, the Patriots’ tight end. “Khloe ...“ 

The man might have a bad ankle but that didn’t keep him from being a good sport, as well as an excellent football player.

He could go no father, however, and the woman who asked the Kardashian question chimed in with “Kourtney.’’

So what does this have to do with the single most important sporting attraction in America? Nothing. And everything. The Super Bowl, the one Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium between the Patriots and Giants, is No. XLVI, is what we decide it should be.

It’s the championship of the National Football League, an event for which tickets sell at a face value of $800 apiece. It’s also a national holiday of sorts, when hokum and silliness take control.

This is the end of the road as well as the season. We’ve seen it all, heard it all.

What could be new? Eli Manning’s thoughts? “I’m excited about being here.’’ Tom Brady’s feelings? “Look at all this. We love to play this game.’’ And we, the media, the public, love to get involved in the nonsense.

Media Day is a parody of itself. Beautiful women from the Spanish language TV network, Azteca, parade about in tight dresses, luring athletes to their microphone. A Los Angeles radio talk show personality, Vic (The Brick) Jacobs comes dressed as a Chinese emperor. Another TV type appears, as always, in a green-and-yellow Superman style outfit.

Someone, a man, did have the courage to ask Eli, “When’s the last time you danced your ass off?’’ The last time he passed it off would have been more fitting.

It’s all nonsense. And harmless. As the late commissioner Pete Rozelle said when forced to defend accusations the Super Bowl had become too big for its own good – and our own good – “All we are is entertainment.’’

Are we going to be entertained when Giants coach Tom Coughlin says of Eli Manning, “Well, he’s progressed steadily since he came into this league because he has a great work ethic’’? Is it going to be a thigh-slapper when Pats coach Bill Belichick points out, “We have to go out and play a good football game all the way around’’?

The stories have been told and retold, particularly since the Pats and Giants not only met in Super Bowl XLII four years ago but also this past November, with New York winning.

“The Giants are a different team than they were two months ago,,’’ said Belichick. “We’re a different team.’’ Not really. Same players, same tactics, same quotes.

Originally, media day was when the media got its first crack at the players. But the Patriots arrived Sunday and immediately were available. The Giants came in Monday and also had conferences with the press. Nothing had changed.

Maybe 15 years ago, media day became out of control, female Swedish announcers trying to teach players how to speak, “Downtown’’ Julie Brown wandering about in fishnet stockings, a huge costume party. The league cracked down on credentials, keeping out the wildest characters, but it can’t restrict intent.

We know Coughlin was in trouble early in the season. We know Belichick learned his football from his late father, Steve, a coach at Navy. We even know in high school Pats lineman Vince Wilfork played every position on the team.

We didn’t know what kind of surprise media folk would attempt, and it was the stupid but fascinating question to Gronkowski about the Kardashians. If nothing else it offset the 20 questions on the condition of Gronkowski’s left ankle, most of which he answered as if on a recorder, “day to day.’’

The athletes play the game, and the reference is not to football. They’ve either been through it before, or they’ve heard about it. Nobody threatens to walk away – they’d be fined anyway. Get out there and goof with the goofballs.

Gronkowski, for example, wore one of those tricorn hats in fashion when there were real patriots, in 1776. Chad Ochocinco wore a look of expectation.

“I’m ready to win the Super Bowl for the Patriots,’’ said Ochocinco, the receiver who came to the team this season.’’ When someone asked him whether because of Gronkowski’s injury, he would play a larger role, Ochocinco said, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the script.’’

For the game. For media day, the script is repetitive, a lot of dull questions broken up by few dumb ones. But who’s complaining?

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

It's almost as if the Australian Open isn't really a part of the annual tennis season. It seems to exist as a stand-alone event. There's hardly any tennis in the six previous weeks, and then only minor events for a month after. This is in stark contrast with the rest of the season, from March through the U.S. Open in September, when the sport is on a nonstop schedule. Save for a brief period in late July - except this year the Olympics will be taking place at that time - there's nary a rest for the players.

But this year, fans and observers - not to mention Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic - could use the break, if for no other reason than to absorb and savor the men's final, using its incandescence to brighten the winter months that still lie ahead.

So many moments from Djokovic's stirring triumph will linger for some time, not the least of which is the look of absolute exhaustion from both players at the end. The sporting comparison that comes immediately to mind is that of tight end Kellen Winslow after his San Diego Chargers defeated the Miami Dolphins in their epic playoff contest in January 1982.

The other snapshot of the Melbourne masterpiece that I can't shake is the backhand that got away from Nadal. Being a break up in the fifth set and serving ahead is pretty much as close as you can get to a lock for anyone, let alone a champion like Nadal. But when the Spaniard missed the easy backhand passing shot while up 4-2, 30-15, one just had an immediate sense that the match had changed back again to Djokovic's favor. And Nadal's self-loathing reaction said as much.

Djokovic was in his head at that moment, no question. From that point forward, Nadal ceased the aggressive style that had gotten him back into the match with his rousing fourt- set comeback. Instead he played defensively - more accurately, played into Djokovic's hands.

So are we to assume that Djokovic has forever taken up residence in Nadal's thoughts and their rivalry will become as one-sided as Nadal's tussles with Roger Federer have become? No.

Most of the tennis establishment is now convinced that Djokovic is unbeatable. But it's instructive that Nadal almost and perhaps should have won this match and that Nadal used to dominate his rivalry with Djokovic. I have a feeling that their rivalry will be of the back-and-forth variety.

Though Federer defeated Nadal in two Wimbledon finals before Nadal broke through on the grass in 2008 and won their version of the greatest match ever played, Nadal had Federer's number early, starting on the hard courts in Miami when a 17-year-old Nadal beat Federer on the hard courts. Their shared history has been one of acute and bewildering disappointment for Federer from the start.

This is in definite contrast with Nadal and Djokovic. Until last year, Nadal had the clear upper hand, including a 5-0 record in their Grand Slam encounters. And after Nadal beat Djokovic in the U.S. Open final just 16 months ago, no one would have guessed that Djokovic would soon overtake the sport in such an immediate and awesome fashion.

The Nadal-Djokovic battles remind me of the John McEnroe-Ivan Lendl rivalry. After McEnroe won their first two encounters in 1980, Lendl didn't lose to McEnroe in 1981 or '82, going 7-0 in that stretch. But after finally beating his nemesis in Philadelphia in early 1983, McEnroe won 12 of their next 14 matches. Lendl then closed out their rivalry with a 10-1 stretch after that, but that was when McEnroe was nowhere near the player he was in his prime.

McEnroe and Lendl presented completely contrasting playing styles. Nadal and Djokovic play a far more similar game. But the analogy is apt because it was an entirely mental thing with McEnroe and Lendl, as it has become with Nadal and Djokovic. And sometimes all it takes is one match for that to change.

I brought up the Philadelphia match that McEnroe won because sometimes it's not the Slams that can alter the course of a rivalry. Sometimes it's a second-tier tournament that allows a player to perform in a less stressful environment and retake control.

That is why March will become must-see viewing for tennis fans, and perhaps all sports fans. The two Masters Series hard-court events in the U.S. in a little over a month will provide the next opportunity for Nadal and Djokovic to compete in a final.

Last year the two met in the finals at Indian Wells and Miami, with Djokovic winning close matches both times. It has been said accurately by many that this is when the tide turned in their rivalry. And now Nadal can return the favor.

Though it will take a mighty effort for Nadal to navigate the mental and emotional minefield that Djokovic has laid down, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that their rivalry will not deliver a few more twists. That is, if Nadal remains healthy. So many forget that he was a Slam champion so young and his 26-year-old body has absorbed a great toll.

Nadal did learn a few things from his defeats to Djokovic in last year's Wimbledon and U.S. Open finals. For much of Sunday's match, Nadal utilized his inside-out forehand to attack Djokovic's forehand and move him off the court. It worked very effectively. If Nadal can add his 2010 serve (where that serve vanished to is one of tennis' biggest mysteries) to a more aggressive resolve, he'll begin to turn the tables on his rival.

Whatever happens, never before has March tennis been so anticipated.

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

When it comes to sports, there is nothing more important than consistency. When it comes to being consistent, the only team in all of sports that is just that is the U.S. women’s soccer team. Losers in the Women’s World Cup final last year against Japan, the team is now focused on capturing the Olympic gold medal this summer in London – and it plans on doing so by displaying its best trait of – what else? – being consistent. 

The team dominated the first round of the CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Vancouver, Canada, outscoring its three opponents 31-0 and reaching the semifinals undefeated. Of course, that didn’t mean anything unless the Americans could beat Costa Rica in the semifinals. Only a win would get the Americans to London. 

The United States has been consistent as a program since capturing the first Women’s World Cup in 1991. While the Americans are not perfect, they have been contenders over the past 20 years on a very consistent basis. If they’re not winning the title, they are definitely contending for it. Since the days of Mia Hamm right down to today with Abby Wambach, the Americans have consistently been the top-ranked team in the world by FIFA, no easy task given how much the women’s game has dramatically improved outside the United States over the past few years. 

The loss to Japan in the final last July – in what remains arguably the best played women’s soccer game to-date – may continue to sting, but the players have spent the past few months trying to put the defeat behind them. 

“We’re carrying that emotion from the World Cup, but we are careful to not get too emotional. We can’t let that get the best of us,” U.S. captain Christine Rampone said before last Friday’s semifinal clash. “We still have to fine tune some things and work on a new system, which always brings the team closer together because we are working and communicating more.” 

Goalkeeper Hope Solo – who emerged as a superstar in cleats after last summer’s World Cup and subsequently a hit in heels on the ABC show “Dancing with the Stars” – kept the task of qualifying in perspective, saying, “You can’t overlook any team.” 

With the exception of the World Cup and Olympic soccer tournament, the U.S. trains and plays in almost complete anonymity. TV ratings for its games are generally low (and those are the times when the games are even broadcast) and crowds typically sparse. It’s only in a World Cup or Olympic year that sports fans across the country decide to watch, making these women the stuff of water cooler talk.  

For those who haven’t bothered to look (or blinked when ESPN barely mentioned it on SportsCenter on Saturday morning), the United States did qualify for London 2012 after downing Costa Rica 3-0 at BC Place, an indoor facility with another Olympic connection in that it was used for the 2010 Winter Games. The scoreline may have the indication that the game was a rout, but the Americans struggled to dominate after taking the lead in the first half. 

“You can't take anything for granted. We did score a lot of goals, but Costa Rica, they came out and played well and played hard,” said U.S. coach Pia Sundage. “Eventually, we got our three goals, but despite that the first goal came quickly, we struggled a little bit. It became an emotional game more so than a tactical one.” 

Sundhage even admitted that taking a slim 1-0 lead into the dressing room was something that made the players “a little nervous.”  

The Americans finally put the game away late in the second half to qualify for the Summer Games. Once again, a consistent performance was all the American women needed to secure their spot in London. 

On Sunday, the Americans did one better in the tournament finale – showing again that consistent form by routing Canada 4-0 before a healthy crowd of 25,000. The attendance was large given that the U.S. is rarely a draw outside this country and that the NHL All-Star Game was played on the same day in Ottawa. Over five games, the U.S. posted a 5-0 record and outscored all opponents by a staggering 38-0. 

What the Americans are hoping to do now is defend their 2008 Olympic gold medal. In order to do so, the United States will face fierce competition from the likes of Japan. For its part, the U.S. not only has Solo and Wambach, two of the best female players on the planet, it also has something else – a history of consistently winning. Sometimes that’s all a team needs in order to continue to dominate.

Clemente Lisi writes a weekly soccer column for RealClearSports, appearing every Monday.  

For the record, the two main tournaments Sunday were won by Robert Rock and Brandt Snedeker. They'll be more remembered, if at all, for the men who didn't win: Tiger Woods in Abu Dhabi and Kyle Stanley at Torrey Pines.

Woods entered the final round tied for the lead with Rock, a 34-year-old Englishman with 24 top-10 finishes in 229 events on the European Tour. Ten years ago, Rock was the pro at a driving range, while Woods had already completed the career Grand Slam.

The phrase all week was "He's back!" Woods was striking the ball well - he made 17 of 18 greens in regulation in Thursday's opening round - and putting better as the tournament progressed.

But playing well enough to win over four rounds is very different from doing it for three, particularly when you're trying to ingrain the new habits of an altered swing. Sunday is unlike the other days, with anxiety and adrenaline combining to undermine a player's rhythm and touch.

Woods hit just two fairways all day, only six greens in regulation. Playing with his co-leader, he made two early bogeys and fell three shots behind. When Rock faltered and Tiger seemed ready to charge, with a birdie on the ninth to pull within one, he immediately handed back a stroke with a 6 on the par-5 10th.

He can say all he wants that he's "close," but there is no close in golf.

Every poor shot sows doubt, when the brain and body need calm and confidence. Young Tiger Woods missed a lot of drives, but he never missed an important putt. He didn't know he could miss.

He knows now. And that transmits pressure all through the bag.

His putter let him down Thursday, when he hit those 17 greens and made just two birdies. His Sunday failure, when a journeyman looked him in the eye and outplayed him, is just one more reminder that he's no longer the supremely mentally tough, transcendent golfer he used to be.

For Kyle Stanley, the lesson is different.

The 24-year-old opened the Farmers Insurance Open with a 62 on the North Course at Torrey Pines, followed with a pair of 68s on the more formidable South and took a five-shot lead into the final round.

It was just his second serious chance for victory, in his second season on the PGA Tour. In 2011, he trailed Steve Stricker by five shots with nine to play at the John Deere Classic. Stanley birdied five of the next six holes to take the lead, only to lose when he bogeyed 18 and Stricker made a 25-foot putt from off the green for the winning birdie.

On Sunday, Stanley was 21 under at the turn, seven ahead of Snedeker. He stood on the final tee with his lead down to three, a safe-looking margin with an easily reachable par-5 to play.

His drive found the intermediate rough. With 236 yards to the hole, he laid up short of the pond in front of the green, leaving himself a three-quarter sand wedge to the pin. The ball landed on the slope past the pin, but with too much spin. It zipped past the hole, rolled off the green, seemed to pause twice on the front slope, then continued down into the drink.

Now hitting his fifth shot, he made the safety-first play he should have on the previous swing, leaving it 40 feet above the hole. His first putt was too careful, stopping 4 feet short. On his left-breaking downhiller for the win, he barely grazed the edge of the hole, winding up with a triple-bogey 8 and a shocking tie for the lead.

In the playoff, beginning on 18, Snedeker again hit a third-shot wedge close. This time Stanley went long on his second but chipped to 3 feet, and both made their birdie putts. On the second playoff hole, the two left themselves 5-footers for par. Snedeker made his, but then Stanley pushed his to the right to complete his implosion.

It was one of the worst final-hole collapses in PGA Tour history, mostly the result of a single shot that had a little too much spin. He said all the right things afterward: "I know I'll be back. I'm not worried about that. ... I just need to be patient. One of my goals coming into this year was to just keep putting myself in position, and I'll do that."

He can take comfort from the example of Robert Garrigus, who gave away the St. Jude Classic in 2010 with an equally bad triple-bogey on the last hole, dropping into a playoff from which he was quickly eliminated. Five months later, he won his first tour event, the Children's Miracle Network Classic at Walt Disney World.

It was Snedeker's third tour victory, one that required him to shoot the day's low round, wait around in the unlikely event of a playoff, refocus once the playoff became a reality, birdie 18 twice and make a key par putt on the second sudden-death hole.

It's very hard to win a golf tournament, even when somebody hands you one.

Today’s match lasted nearly six hours; that was on top of more than five hours that Djokovic had spent defeating Andy Murray in the semifinals.

Nadal started the match in fine form, coming out with an obvious strategy to hit to Djokovic’s forehand and maintain a more aggressive posture throughout. This, combined with Djokovic playing at a sub-par level, allowed Nadal to take the first set.

But after the first stanza, Djokovic’s trademark return game improved rapidly and he was routinely landing his returns inches from the baseline, not allowing Nadal to get into an advantageous position during his service games. After claiming the second set, it was obvious that Djokovic relaxed and his service games became more secure, with not a break point in sight for Nadal.

It seemed like it would be an easy go of it after Djokovic claimed the third set in relatively quick fashion. Nadal was clearly out of sorts and the pressure of having to hold serve against the relentless returning power of Djokovic took an obvious toll on the Mallorcan’s usually impenetrable mindset.

Thus, perhaps the most stunning aspect of this historic encounter was that it went the distance. Serving at 3-4, 0-40 the match seemed all but over for Nadal. But then something happened – Nadal returned to the strategy that he started the match with.

One of the most difficult things for any player to stick with a game plan even when it doesn’t seem to be working consistently. Nadal knew his only way to crack the Djokovic code would be to mix the direction on his shots and stay more aggressive than he is usually comfortable with.

While these tactics worked in the first set, once Djokovic found his rhythm on the returns Nadal reverted to his old ways and didn’t attack the Djokovic forehand as he should have. But while down 3-4, 0-40 in that fourth set, Nadal blasted two inside-out forehand and a backhand down the line to even the match.

Suddenly, instead of the match finishing in eerily similar fashion to their previous two Slam finals in 2011 at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, Nadal had a tiny bit of momentum. When the set marched toward a tiebreak it was Nadal who stayed on the attack and he claimed the last four points of the tiebreak.

Just like that, Nadal seemed to have the clear advantage. After all he got what he wanted - a chance to make the match a physical rather than shot-making encounter. With Djokovic looking drained and punch drunk, all signs were pointing to an unlikely Nadal comeback.

And when Nadal jumped to a 4-2 lead and serving, and Djokovic literally stumbling around the court, the fifth set began to have an anticlimactic feel.

But then Nadal got tight. Can’t really call it a choke in this circumstance, but while serving at 4-2. 30-15 Nadal had a ball in the forecourt and an easy backhand into an open court was all he needed to get to game point and a 5-2 lead. But instead of hitting the ball solidly, Nadal guided the ball too close to the line and it went out by inches.

And from there Djokovic lost only one game. Nadal never recovered from his error and he stayed just a bit too passive in the final games. Though he was able to get a break point with Djokovic serving at 6-5, he couldn’t cash it in. Nadal will long regret playing it safe when ahead in the fifth, as he tried to sustain rallies to tire Djokovic. Nadal likely would be holding his 11th Slam trophy had he kept attacking to Djokovic’s forehand. But that’s easier said than done. And that fact that Nadal brought the match to a fifth set, after all those losses to Djokovic the last 12 months says multitudes about his competitive ferocity.

For Djokovic to recover after squandering that fourth set and then falling behind in the fifth is testament to his truly unbelievable mental and physical strength. He is an utter tennis machine at the moment with no apparent weakness. While nearly losing to Murray and Nadal may suggest to some that he’s lost some of his 2011 invincibility, it’s more likely the case that he feels more unbeatable than ever.

Now it’s on to the clay and Paris in the spring with talk of a “Novak Slam as he seeks to win four Slams in a row. The last man to do that was Rod Laver, when he won the calendar year Grand Slam in 1969.

To start the 2012 tennis year with a such a staggering display of athletic guts and genius from both competitors is more proof that men's tennis is indeed in the midst of a golden age.

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

But these coaches aren’t ordinary retirees who spend their time putting on weight, talking on TV, and failing at pretty much everything they try. When their professional careers drew to a close, neither man chose to emulate Diego Maradona.

Kenny Dalglish is a legend at Liverpool. Not only the best player in the club’s history, Dalglish coached one of the greatest Liverpool sides in history - and played on it at the same time. 

Sir Alex Ferguson’s numerous achievements at Manchester United arguably make him history’s most successful soccer coach. Everything at the current setup was built by him, from the careers of the players in the locker room to the fear that Manchester United inspires in all of its opponents.

It’s unfair to call Ferguson the manager of Manchester United. Manchester United is Ferguson’s team. Ferguson is now in his 26th year at the club. His tenure started before most of his players were born. Today, most managers are nomadic and rarely stay at major teams for more than three years.

Bela Guttmann, one of the masterful managers of the twentieth century, argued that “the third season is fatal.” Guttmann would know, as only once in a four- decade coaching career did he keep a job for those fatal three years.

Guttmann, whose career ended in the 1970s, coached in Brazil, Argentina, and more than half a dozen European nations. He believed that if he stayed in one place for too long, opponents would figure out how to beat him. To some extent, this seems to be true. Few teams can dominate for more than three years.

Barcelona’s dominance must eventually end. After all, to the uneducated observer, the team’s tactics may seem simple. Just keep passing the ball until your opponents get tired out and then score. Tiki-taka, as they say. If you can say it in four syllables it can’t be too hard. How long should it take for a team with the financial resources of Real Madrid to end Barcelona’s dominance?

History will decide whether Barcelona will prove Guttmann’s Rule. But History has already indicated that Ferguson upended it. He was always ahead of the game. No matter how badly the Red Devils played, no matter how inferior they seemed, they would win.

And yet today’s Red Devils are not those of old. Manchester United is unrecognizable to those who know it best. Bowing out of the Champions League after finishing behind Benfica and Basle was disgraceful. Sitting second in the Premier League behind Manchester City, neighbors who for long plied their trade in the lower decks, is embarrassing. Standards are slipping, to say the least.

Instead of Sir Alex Ferguson, who saw great footballers before the world could appreciate their splendor, we see Ferguson the irrelevant player on the transfer market, the one who doesn’t get what he wants.

Once upon a time the Red Devils were famed for their midfield creativity. Theirs was a shirt that had been passed down by Duncan Edwards and Bobby Charlton, Nobby Stiles and George Best. David Beckham continued the tradition before passing it on to Roy Keane and then Cristiano Ronaldo.

Today, Manchester United has been out-glamored by Barcelona and its dizzying passes. Has Pep Guardiola unseated Ferguson as the world’s top manager? Is Ferguson’s 26th year fatal? With every sub-standard result, fans hope that this isn’t true. They want to believe in a team that in the old days conquered everything that lay before it. But what is there to believe in?

Where is the next Ronaldo? Where is the next Bobby Charlton? Where is the Manchester United we once knew? Are the old days gone forever? What is there to hope for?

All that can be hoped for is Ferguson at his best. He has faced adversity and overcome turmoil. If anyone can solve Manchester United’s problems, he can, and he most likely will.

But on Saturday he will confront Liverpool, a team led by one of its own legends. Liverpool, which has not won the Premier League in over 20 years. Liverpool, which forever lies in the shadow of its past. This is a make or break moment for Manchester United. Are these choppy waters on the river to glory? Or is the current decline evidence that Manchester United’s success must be buried next to Liverpool’s in the graveyard of History?

So many questions must be asked of the current team. But only one man can answer them. And that man is Sir Alex Ferguson, no ordinary retired soccer player.

Theodore Furchtgott is a RealClearSports soccer columnist. He can be reached at Theodore.Furchtgott@gmail.com.

"Difficulty-wise, he said for brain surgery, it was only about a 1 out of 10,'' Holmes said. "That made me feel better. But it was still brain surgery. Scary at first."

Scary at first? Scary anytime.

The symptoms began last spring. John Bradley Holmes, the longest hitter on the PGA Tour, was so dizzy he had trouble simply standing. The diagnosis finally was Chiari malformation, which restricts the flow of spinal fluids.

Dr. George Jallo operated in September at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. On a beautiful Thursday alongside the Pacific, Holmes, happy but at the same time unhappy, played his first competitive golf in more than five months.

"It was nice to be back,'' said Holmes, who shot a 4-over-par 76 Thursday in the opening round of the $6 million Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. "But it wasn't a whole lot of fun to be playing bad."

Even though he said he would appreciate returning after the worry and the recovery?

"I'm really competitive,'' he said. "Yeah, I'm glad to be here, but I'm out here trying to win and play well, so it's very frustrating. I'm not going to be jumping around smiling and everything."

Then, standing there in his orange golf shirt with his sponsor, Yum - the KFC and Kentucky Derby people - on the front, 29-year-old J.B. Holmes stopped talking and reflected for just a moment.

"Like I said, I'm glad to be out here,'' he said. "It's just frustrating not to hit the ball a little bit better. But that's part of golf, and I'll improve and I'll work on it, and I'll be all right."

They took out a small part of Holmes' skull, an area smaller than a golf ball but larger than a quarter. They put in a small titanium plate. He's storing a chunk of the part of the skull that was removed in a closet at home.

"It's just a reminder that I'm very fortunate to be able to go through something like that and be able to come back and play,'' he said. "Just very fortunate to have this job and be able to play a game for a living. I never really thought I wasn't going to come back, but when you go through a big surgery like that, there's always a possibility that everything doesn't go right and I don't get back out here."

For a while after the operation, everything didn't go right.

Fluid began to seep around the scar. He was allergic to the glue used as a sealer, and a stitch came loose. A second surgery was required, and he was airlifted from Kentucky, where his parents live, to Johns Hopkins.

"After that,'' said Holmes, "everything's gone pretty much to plan. I'm about 85 percent on the rotation in the neck. It just takes a little longer than you would want. Four or five months I couldn't do a whole lot. I never had to sit still that long in my life."

He played in 16 events last year and won more than $1.3 million. The problems started at The Players Championship in May.

"I was standing over a putt and almost felt I was falling,'' he said.

Maybe the problems started even earlier. Sometimes, he recalls, his hands shook when he played basketball as a teen.

After surgery, Holmes did not take a full swing with a club until Dec. 1. A month later, the start of January, he began practicing on a course.

"I really haven't gotten enough rounds in,'' Holmes said. "Haven't been able to play as much as I wanted. I'm just trying to get in tournament mode."

There were four bogeys and no birdies. It would have been worse, Holmes said, had he not putted well. He made an 8-footer to save par after hitting his second shot on the 554-yard 18th into a pond that fronts the green.

"This is not the round I wanted,'' said Holmes. "I thought I would play a little bit better, but I'm not totally shocked."

Holmes began well enough, with a drive down the middle. After that, he hit tee balls and iron shots in varying directions.

As he walked the fairways and through the rough, spectators who knew about his medical difficulties offered shouts of welcome, met by waves from Holmes.

"It's been hard,'' said Holmes. "I'm just glad to have that behind me and start anew. Hopefully I'll get it going and play well this year."

Others have the same hope.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

It was close. It was at times riveting. But the end was never truly in doubt.

And now it appears that the great Roger Federer may never unlock the key to his mystery – his absolute kryptonite - that is Rafael Nadal. The Spaniard outlasted Federer, 6-7, 6-2, 7-6, 6-4, yet again in a Grand Slam event Friday. It’s been nearly five years – at the 2007 Wimbledon – when Federer last defeated Nadal in a Slam.

And the way in which the downcast Federer exited the court in the late of an unusually cool Melbourne night one has a sense that manifest futility may be taking hold in the legendary Federer’s psyche.

For the equally legendary Nadal, he’s in another Slam final, making it seven of the last eight that he’ll be competing for the title.

When two great rivals face off so often, the stat line is nearly meaningless. As these two players know each other’s games and strategies so well, the playing of the match is far less about tactics and more about nerves. So it’s almost pointless to focus on break points or unforced errors or second serve points won or serving percentage or winners. A rivalry so rich like Nadal and Federer is more akin to competitive siblings; the conventional rules of analysis do not apply.

The narrative played out as expected. Federer attempted to be more aggressive and find a way to open up the court by hitting forehands down the line. And Nadal sought to find Federer’s backhand as often as possible.

And find it he did. Frequently during the match, especially in the last three sets, Nadal would redirect a point by hitting soft, high balls to Federer’s backhand side in an attempt to take control of the point. And it worked to perfection, as it always seems to for Nadal against Federer.

Federer obviously knew this is the way Nadal would play him. And to his credit Federer took chances and anticipated the predictable pattern that Nadal is prone to. But Nadal readjusted several times in the match, most noticeably with tossing in surprise serves to Federer’s forehand side in the deuce court.

Errors creep into the Federer game when he plays against Nadal. Mistakes that aren’t evident when he takes on everyone else. And the reason is simple – Federer feels that he has to force the issue earlier because of the way Nadal reads his game. And it’s not just because Nadal is so quick on the court and can track everything down; after all, Novak Djokovic is by far the best scrambler in tennis but Federer’s offense often neutralizes Djokovic’s defensive ability.

Federer’s issues with Nadal are part physics and part psychology. He’s never found a way to counter Nadal’s combination of power and spin. Knowing that he has to hit 10 times as many high backhands against Nadal than he would anyone else, Federer doubtlessly feels that, deep down, he knows he can’t sustain it.

Federer has tried running around the backhand. He’s gone the opposite way and attempted to hit at Nadal’s forehand to try to break it down. He’s attacked Nadal’s second serves with greater force to shorten the points. But, unless it’s on an indoor carpet, none of it works.

Additionally, Nadal just holds a mental advantage over Federer, plain and simple. There’s not much of an explanation for it. Maybe it’s because Nadal was the first one to chip away at Federer’s invincibility starting in 2005. Maybe it’s because Nadal never looks tired on court and never allows Federer a chance to feel like he has the momentum. Or perhaps Nadal is truly the better competitor, the smarter player in big moments. In the end, it is what it is.

Nadal has the luxury of two days off before the final on Sunday night where he’ll take on either Djokovic or Andy Murray. If it is Djokovic, like most are predicting, Nadal will have some mental work to do of his own. For just as Federer can’t beat Nadal, the Mallorcan hasn’t been able to take down Djokovic.

To say Nadal has a Djokovic problem is almost an understatement. Six times in 2011 the two met in finals – including Wimbledon and the U.S. Open – and each time Djokovic walked away the clear victor.

And just like Federer can’t rely on his usual all-court prowess to mute Nadal’s noisy game, Nadal can’t play his style against Djokovic – he can’t outrun and outcompete him.

But first things first. Djokovic must first beat Andy Murray, who has tackled his comfortable draw with great ease. With new coach Ivan Lendl at his side, Murray has shown immediate improvements when it comes to the mental and emotional parts of the game. No longer is he prone to bouts of pouty irritability and lapses of uninspired play.

Federer is beyond therapy when it comes to Nadal. Djokovic envelops Nadal with such doubt that Nadal becomes unhinged. Murray hasn’t beaten any of them in a Slam final but is making great strides with his on-court psychological makeup.

Who says the sport is about power and stamina? It’s all mental at this stage of the game.

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

There’s an old joke: A guy is bemoaning his fate to a friend. “I’m in so much trouble,” he says. “I owe the bookies a ton of money. I’ve lost 15 straight football bets, and if I don’t come up with the cash they’re going to break my legs.”

“Can’t you try to get even betting basketball?” the friend asks.

“Basketball?” the guy says. “What the hell do I know about basketball?”

Sometimes I wonder what the hell I know about everything, but I try to make sense of things anyway. Sports predictions are a lousy way to judge, but if I want to test myself by making them – avoiding the obvious like “Bill Belichick will do something inscrutable” – I have to be willing to look back and see how I did. 

On opening night, I made 11 predictions about the 2011 NFL season. Let’s see what the hell I know about football.

1.  Nearly everything that happens in the first four weeks of the season will be blamed on the lockout. Remember the lockout? It was blamed for hot starts, cold starts, offensive explosions, offensive droughts, and the unstoppability of Cam Newton. It wasn’t a hard thing to predict, because the eternal motto of talking heads is Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. (“After this, therefore because of this” – if A follows B, then B caused A. It’s a fallacy, but don’t tell Phil Simms or Troy Aikman.)

2.  Everything else will be blamed on the kickoff rule, which will not be changed. The second part of this is probably true; the first was not. Everybody stopped talking about the kickoff rule pretty quickly, even though touchbacks were up massively. In 2010, only two teams got touchbacks on more than 30 percent of their kickoffs; in 2011, only seven teams were UNDER 30 percent. The figure that led the league in 2010, Baltimore’s 46.15 percent, would have ranked 15th in 2011. 

3.  The Detroit Lions will not be the surprise team of the NFL. I knew they’d be good; I meant only that so many people were predicting it that it doesn’t qualify as a surprise. I did say they wouldn’t make the playoffs. I was wrong.

4.  The surprise team of the NFL will be the Cleveland Browns. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I thought they’d ride an easy schedule to an 8-3 start, then crash when they had to play Pittsburgh and Baltimore twice each in the last five weeks.  I overestimate Colt McCoy’s likely progress; in my defense, so did the Browns. And I should have factored in what the Madden Curse was going to do to Peyton Hillis. And I did say they wouldn’t make the playoffs.

5.  The surprise team in the playoffs will be the Minnesota Vikings. I must have gotten some bad sushi. 

6.  The league MVP will be Drew Brees. Not a bad call, even if wrong. Breaking Marino’s record got trumped by 15-1. 

7.  The two perennial contenders who will fade are Indianapolis and Baltimore. Half right, but so far off on the half that’s wrong that I take no credit for this one. An auxiliary prediction was that Atlanta and Tampa Bay would be unable to match their 2010 records, but Atlanta would still make the playoffs. So technically I was three-quarters right. Sort of.

8.  No coaches will be fired during the season. Jack Del Rio was the first to go; Tony Sparano and Todd Haley followed soon after. I thought Prediction No. 1 would keep teams from blaming the coach in-season. Nope.

9.  Tarvaris Jackson will remain Tarvaris Jackson. I did not think the Seahawks’ new quarterback would be much of a positive factor for Pete Carroll’s team. He did start 14 games, ranking 21st in the league in passer rating, 22nd in yards per attempt, 20th in total yards, and 17th in completion percentage. He threw 14 touchdowns and 13 interceptions; this is, taken as a whole, a pretty good definition of Replacement Level for quarterbacks. 

10.  Michael Vick will miss four games with injuries, and before the season is over will be booed in Philadelphia. So close – he missed three. He was not booed, because there were so many other targets. His passing numbers were decent, but a significant fall from his 2010 breakthrough. 

11.  The Saints will defeat the Chargers in the Super Bowl. New Orleans was on a roll entering the playoffs, but results are results. As for the Chargers, I still think I was right but Norv Turner got it wrong. On the other hand, that was predictable in itself. 

So it’s safe to say that I know a few moderate-sized things. I got the Super Bowl teams wrong, and didn’t mention Tim Tebow. Would you have? Call me an idiot if you want, but only if you share your 12 predictions for 2012. 

SAN FRANCISCO – Something was going to happen. Eli Manning made that observation. Something always does happen. Football, like life, is about timing.

Football, like life, also is about accountability.

Eli and Tom Brady are going to another Super Bowl, verification of their skills and, on pass patterns, their timing.

It’s a team game, says everyone who plays. No question, but it’s also an individual thing. Can you handle the pressure, or in the case of poor Kyle Williams, the football? No less importantly, can you handle failure?

There’s a quote John F. Kennedy took from someone else, so it’s been around. “Victory has a thousand fathers. Defeat is an orphan.’’

We hesitate to accept blame. But Kyle Williams and Billy Cundiff stood up and were counted. If they couldn’t come through on the field, they certainly did so in the locker rooms.

Winning is part of our DNA. We offer platitudes about sportsmanship, but we don’t really believe them. Rather, we taunt those who don’t win. “Show me a good loser,” was the imperious offering of Vince Lombardi, “and I’ll show you a loser.’’

Two wonderfully tense NFL games Sunday, each with a winner, a very good winner, and a loser, a good loser – good, in how well the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers played. But not well enough. Or not with the proper timing.

The sporting gods make painful choices. Lee Evans of the Ravens couldn’t hold on to the pass which would have given Baltimore the AFC championship. And so Billy Cundiff was forced to kick the game-tying field goal. Which he missed.

“First and foremost,’’ said Cundiff about what he would tell his two kids, “is to stand up and face the music and move on.’’

Williams is facing more than the music. There were death threats from 49ers fans because Williams fumbled in the fourth quarter, which allowed the Giants to go in front with a touchdown, and again in overtime, which allowed the Giants to win.

Death threats from San Francisco against a player from San Francisco. This used to be the laid-back town of brie and Chardonnay, “wine sippers,’’ the population was labeled by former 49er Randy Cross, a stadium full of spectators not fans. Oh, how it’s changed.

Williams 24 hours later hadn’t changed. He was front and center. “Everybody is responsible for what they do on the field,’’ he pointed out. “It’s something that I was responsible for, and I made a mistake, and it’s time to own up to it and move forward.’’

There were stories out of New York that Giants players knew Williams had a history of concussions so they went after him. But nobody hit him on the first fumble. The only thing that hit him was the football.

He failed to get out of the way when a punt bounced in front of him, you’re taught from high school on to avoid, and the ball nicked him on the knee and was recovered by New York. Not very smart, but we all do a lot of things which aren’t very smart.

The great columnist Jimmy Cannon once said, and I may not have it verbatim, “It’s all about a man being good at something.’’ He was referring to Joe Namath.

Billy Cundiff and Kyle Williams were being good at something, acting mature.

It’s tough losing. It’s tougher losing a big game. Players and coaches and fans keep thinking and talking about what might have been. In Baltimore and San Francisco, the post-mortems will last if not forever then until they are replaced by success. If they are replaced by success.

At least both the Niners and Ravens have won Super Bowls. Not with the current players, but history shows in the past when something happened, those teams made it happen.

Doug Gottlieb, the ESPN radio host, said he didn’t believe in either game the better team won. He was wrong. The Giants and the Patriots won because they were the better teams.

They didn’t fumble. They didn’t miss a field goal in the final seconds.

Timing. Another week, maybe, and Williams wouldn’t have been fielding punts. He was replacing the injured Ted Ginn, out with a knee injury. Ginn couldn’t play, and the opportunity – and the burden – was presented to Williams.

Do we dwell longer on mistakes than we do on achievement? It took Boston years to forgive Billy Buckner for that World Series error. But finally it has become mere a blemish rather than a sporting tragedy.

“Time heals all wounds,’’ was the advice of Jameel McClain, the Ravens linebacker

Then, he conceded, “This one is going to linger for a long time.’’

As it will for the 49ers, the team to which something happened, the wrong thing.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Utilizing his full arsenal, a cache of weapons that no player has likely ever possessed, Federer demoralized Juan Martin Del Potro in the Australian Open quarterfinals Tuesday night in a highly anticlimactic affair. The 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 victory kept Federer on the court for just under two hours. The victory also marked a milestone as it was the 1,000th match of Federer’s storied career.

Absent were the occasional glimpses of irritability that have appeared on his countenance of late. Gone were the wildly sprayed backhands which have hounded him at the latter stages of the big events the last two years. And, most importantly, he never allowed Del Potro to feel comfortable and climb his way back into the match.

It was evident from the early going that Federer was feeling good. What was most telling was how dangerous his backhand was in the first set. Rarely does he display such total confidence in his backhand side. While not really a true weakness, it is the one part of his game that has been vulnerable, especially since Rafael Nadal exposed the way to beat Federer years ago by pounding high balls to that side.

There were several points in the first set where Federer significantly shortened his swing on the backhand side, taking the ball early and surprising Del Potro in putting the ball out of reach, finding seemingly impossible acute angles. The precise touch and placement on his backhand side allowed Federer to feel more confident to go for outright backhand winners, especially down the line.

"I was able to mix it up well and control the ball, and right away sort of felt confident, which then sort of helped me to use all aspects of my game”, said Federer.

Confidence begets confidence, and for Del Potro it was a frightening scenario having to defend against Federer when a dazzling variety of shots are exploding off of both wings.

And it’s not that Del Potro played a particularly poor match. He displayed a quiet intensity that is his trademark and at times in the match, as when he rebounded from an early deficit in the first set, it appeared that he would level things. But each time he put together a streak of superb points, most often as a result of his lethal forehand, Federer would immediately arrest Del Potro’s momentum and heighten his game.

Del Potro’s defeat also proved just how difficult it is to return to peak form. He was on the cusp of threatening for the No. 1 ranking after beating Federer in the 2009 U.S. Open final, but injuries took hold soon after his glorious Slam triumph and it really wasn’t until this Australian Open where he put together multiple impressive victories in a major tournament. So the future is definitely looking brighter for the tall Argentine.

For Federer, past is prologue thus far. And it looks for now that it will take a great effort to derail the determined champion and prevent him from adding to his embarrassment of Slam riches.

But Federer’s task in the next match will be a mighty one as he’ll be playing Nadal in a highly anticipated semifinal Thursday evening. Consider – Federer hasn’t beaten Nadal in a Slam event since the 2007 Wimbledon.

Nadal’s path to the final four was far more arduous, a 6-7, 7-6, 6-4, 6-3 hard-fought win over Tomas Berdych, the seventh seed. The match lasted more than twice as long as Federer’s win, at four hours and 16 minutes. Nadal’s victory displayed all that is strong as well as all that is suspect in his game of late.

As he did several times in his six losses in finals to Novak Djokovic last year, Nadal uncharacteristically tightened at crucial moments. He had the service break in the first-set tiebreak but didn’t capitalize and again in the second set, Nadal served for the set at 5-3 but was broken.

Additionally, Nadal’s serve is not where it needs to be. Though his service games became easier as his physical advantage took its toll on Berdych late in the match, he was far too inconsistent in the first couple of sets. He will need to change this when he takes on Federer.

When Nadal won the U.S. Open in 2010 he was at his absolute peak, hitting serves at 130 mph. For some reason Nadal has not returned to the grip he was using on his serve at that time and he has lost significant speed on his first serves.

The good news for Nadal is that his supreme acumen with saving break points remains a pillar of his game. He was 11 for 13 on such points Tuesday night and this bodes very well for his match against Federer. Nadal’s selective forays to the net was another positive, as he took 17 of 22 such points.

The greatest rivalry in sports will have yet another installment Thursday night. Having played each other so often in the big matches, Nadal and Federer will think less about new strategy and more about solidifying their strengths. It will truly be an emotional and physical battle rather than a tactical challenge.

As stated above Federer hasn’t beaten Nadal in a Slam in almost five years. And it’ll likely be a mighty task – though not insurmountable – for him to do it again. The thinking here is that Nadal will again frustrate Federer in a Slam. But whatever happens, tennis fans are again gifted another chapter in this special, truly golden era in the men’s game.

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

Make a game-winner, and the team is celebrated. Miss it, and you live in infamy.

Think "Super Bowl kicker," and which name comes to mind first: Scott Norwood or Jim O'Brien?

Norwood missed the 47-yarder in 1990 that would have started Buffalo's run of four straight Super Bowls with a win. Instead, the Bills went 0-for-4, and none of the other three losses were remotely close.

All O'Brien did was hit a 32-yarder with five seconds to play that gave Baltimore a win in Super Bowl V.

Billy Cundiff will be reminded for the rest of his life of the 32-yarder he yanked to the left, denying Baltimore a chance to get to Super Bowl XLIV.

Ravens fans will never forget the name.

The kick, with 11 seconds to go, would have sent the AFC championship game into overtime. The snap was good, the hold was good, the plant was good. Cundiff just hit a pull-hook, one of the most sickening of flight paths.

Was he overcompensating?

In his first 11 games this season, Cundiff was 18-for-18 from inside the 40. Then, in the 12th game, in Cleveland, he missed from 34 and 41, both kicks wide right. At San Diego two weeks later, another miss, from 36, again wide right.

Did he fear the miss to the right? Did he focus too hard on coming across the ball?

He was successful from 48 and 44 against Houston in the divisional round, and from 20 and 39 against New England.

But kickers have to be perfect, or else.

Cundiff knows. In 2005, he was one of three kickers released by the Dallas Cowboys after missing several field-goal attempts between 30 and 40 yards. He was out of the league for two years. Then, with Baltimore in the last three regular seasons, he made 17 of 20 from that distance, 85 percent.

Still, all anyone's going to remember is the one that got away.

New England defeated Baltimore despite a host of uncharacteristic performances.

Tom Brady was mortal, throwing two interceptions and no touchdown passes, though he did run for a score. He and Joe Flacco were both 22-for-36, but Flacco hit for more yardage (306 to 229), two touchdowns and no interceptions.

Flacco had the two biggest pass plays, a 42-yarder to a wide-open Torrey Smith and a 37-yard post to Anquan Boldin. Both set up scores for the Ravens.

The porous Patriots defense largely kept the Baltimore running game in check, especially in the first half. The Ravens got just 15 yards out of eight first-down runs in the half, opening it up effectively after the intermission (six first-down runs for 31 yards).

As expected, a tight end caught a touchdown pass. Unexpectedly, it was a Baltimore tight end, Dennis Pitta, who had five catches and the Ravens' first TD. Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez combined for 12 catches and 153 yards, but the previously indestructible Gronkowski limped off the field near the end of the third quarter with an injured ankle.

With New England leading 23-20, Brandon Spikes gave the Pats a key turnover in the fourth quarter with an interception that stopped a Ravens drive in New England territory, returning it to midfield. But Brady immediately gave the ball back by throwing his second pick into double coverage in the end zone, his nemesis Bernard Pollard tipping the ball to Jimmy Smith, who took it back to the Baltimore 38.

That Ravens drive stalled thanks to consecutive big plays up the middle by Vince Wilfork. On third-and-3 at the Patriots 30, the Ravens tried running Rice out of the shotgun for the first time all day. Wilfork smelled the play and stuffed it for a loss of 3.

Now fourth-and-6 at the 33 - too far for a Cundiff field-goal attempt, as he was 1-for-6 on the year from 50 or more - Wilfork's power rush up the middle got to Flacco, who threw the ball out of bounds with the nose tackle pulling him down.

On the final drive of the game, Flacco and Boldin combined for three completions and 51 yards, moving Baltimore deep into New England territory. Overtime loomed, but unlike in the 49ers-Giants NFC clash, it was not to be.

Tom Brady is back in the Super Bowl for the fifth time in 11 seasons. Adam Vinatieri had a lot to do with those victories, but despite his heroics, Bill Belichick let him go to Indianapolis after the 2005 season.

Lawrence Tynes has played in two NFC championship games with the Giants - and won both with overtime kicks. How many Giants fans consider him a hero for either of them?

When the kicker does his job, the quarterback wins the game. When he doesn't, he is remembered forever.

It's the cruelest job in sports.

And unlike Tebow, Kaka wasn’t as controversial. Soccer has always had a special relationship with religion and God. Players have traditionally not encountered problems displaying their faith – on and off the field. In most of Europe and South America, where soccer is a religion unto itself, few fans have an issue with a player professing his faith publicly. After all, these are areas of the world that are predominately Christian. Brazil is the most populous Roman Catholic country on the planet.  

This brings us to Kaka. While not new to professing his faith, he has done more than any other player to express his love for God. Be it when taking the field, scoring a goal or greeting the closing whistle of a game his team had just won, Kaka is always there to provide the world with a religious moment. His typical post-game celebration included peeling off his AC Milan jersey to reveal a white shirt with the message: “I belong to Jesus.” His cleats even included the messages: “God is faithful” and “Jesus in first place.”     

Even Tebow never went that far. At the time, few fans and players cared. For Kaka, an evangelical Christian, soccer was another way for him to spread his faith and thank God for his success. From 2003 to 2009, Kaka was the face of AC Milan, scoring 70 goals in all competitions for the Italian giants. He typically pointed to the sky – in a gesture meant to thank God – following those goals. In the process, Kaka helped the team win the league title in 2004 and capped off a great 2007 with the Champions League and FIFA World Club Cup titles. There was a time when Kaka was equal to Messi, if not better. In 2007, after being named World Player of the Year, Kaka thanked, who else, God. Tebow would have been proud. 

To understand the Kaka phenomenon, one needs to know about his upbringing. He was born to a middle-class family in the city of Brasilia and became deeply religious at age 12. Kaka got closer to his faith at 18 when a spinal fracture suffered after slipping near a swimming pool threatened to end his budding playing career.

Kaka is a player seldom spoken of any longer since his transfer in 2009 to Real Madrid. He has struggled with injuries over the past few years and was a non-factor during the 2010 World Cup when Brazil was bounced out of the quarterfinals by the Netherlands. In fact, Kaka tore cartilage in his left knee during the World Cup, but continued to play through the pain. Doctors later said the Brazilian had risked his career by playing with the injury. 

In March 2011, Kaka injured his thigh, again hampering his chance to crack the Real Madrid lineup. This past September, a healthy Kaka scored a goal and assisted on another in Real Mardid’s 3-0 win over Ajax in a Champions League group stage match. Kaka looked his old self again after playing for 75 minutes before being subbed out.  

“I feel physically well and am eager to keep playing,” he told reporters after the game. “I am determined to succeed here and I think I will. My teammates are helping me a lot and we achieved a great victory in an important game tonight. Little by little, I’m getting better. In the past few matches things have been coming off for me and that makes me happy.”

Since then, however, Kaka has struggled to get playing time. Despite that, Real Madrid's pugnacious coach Jose Mourinho has decided to keep Kaka on the roster, hoping he can contribute as the season progresses. The confirmation came as Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain had shown interest in the Brazilian over the past few weeks. There was even a time that AC Milan seemed poised to make a bid to get Kaka back, but that offer fizzed out among the many other transfer season rumors that never come true.     

Last month, Kaka was quoted on Real Madrid’s official website as saying, “I feel fine and I'm gradually readapting to the team's pace.” 

If anyone can pull a miracle comeback it’s Kaka. There are times when you just have to have faith. Kaka does – both in himself and God – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  

Clemente Lisi writes a weekly soccer column for RealClearSports, appearing every Monday.  

Prior to their fourth round match on Sunday night at the Australian Open, it was assumed by many that local hero Bernard Tomic would give Roger Federer all he could handle. It was supposed to be the future vs. the fading present, the apprentice vs. the master. 

Turns out it was an utter anticlimax, completed in a little over 90 minutes, that proved just how far Tomic is from the impenetrable top tier of the sport.

Milos Raonic is considered by most tennis observers – myself included – to be the can’t-miss star of the very near future. With a Pete Sampras-like serve, easy manner and a placid demeanor that belies a competitive intensity, the Canadian appears ready to catapult himself into the Top 10, if not higher, in 2012. And with his breakthrough performance in Melbourne a year ago, it seemed likely that he’d be the co-star of a highly anticipated fourth-round match with Novak Djokovic.

But Lleyton Hewitt, Raonic’s third round foe, refused to abide by the script and the wily 30-year-old Australian native gave the future star a lesson in court positioning and tenacity and vanquished any hopes that the tournament would showcase Raonic’s frightening serve against Djokovic’s extraordinary return game. And that’s a pity too, because Hewitt has absolutely no chance to threaten Djokovic.

Tomic is praised for his unique way of striking the ball and all-court style. In this age of cookie-cutter power hitters, where most games are entirely based upon strong forehands and extended baseline rallies, Tomic does indeed stand out. For those old enough to remember Miloslav Mecir from the 1980s, Tomic is an updated version of the mercurial Slovakian as he uses spins, slices and deceptive variance in pace in an attempt to endlessly frustrate his foes. Often Tomic will lull an opponent into thinking he’s safe until seemingly out of nowhere Tomic will unleash a powerful winner.

But if anything is true about Federer’s legendary career is that finesse doesn’t beat him. Never has, never will (consistent power is the one thing that Federer can succumb to in the big matches, i.e. Rafael Nasal’s relentless hitting to his backhand, Juan Martina Del Porto moving Federer off the court with his baseline power at the 2009 U.S. Open, Jo Wilfried Tsonga’s aggressive forecourt attack at the 2011 Wimbledon, etc.) For if truth be told, Federer can play that slice and spin game better than nearly anyone. And he displayed his singular all-court acumen in his resounding 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 demolition of Tomic.

Using lobs and drop shots Federer clearly out-finessed Tomic. Watching the master at work it almost seemed as if Federer wanted to prove to everyone how simple that finesse style of game is for him. And just for good measure Federer also flexed his power with 13 aces in just 13 service games. It was this aspect of his game, the serve, that should give Federer fans the most comfort. Federer hasn’t had a truly brilliant serving Slam tournament since the 2009 Wimbledon, in which he dispatched a heartbroken Andy Roddick in the final with a display of serving prowess that only Sampras and a few others could relate to. If Federer can maintain an incredibly high first serve percentage he may indeed have a shot at another Slam title in Melbourne.

But first things first for Federer. Or, more to the point, he has to face Del Potro in what looks to be the first can’t-miss match of the fortnight. Del Potro is finally back in form after depressing injuries sidetracked what looked to be an inexorable climb toward the No. 1 ranking after he defeated Federer in the 2009 U.S. Open final.

Del Potro has looked literally destructive in his four victories thus far; he’s surrendered only 12 games total in his last two matches. It’s hard to believe that the Federer-Del Potro match won’t be close. The court conditions favor Del Potro as they’re slightly slower than normal for the hard court, which gives the giant Argentine that extra bit of time to step up and rip his relatively flat forehands so they move through the court.

As mentioned earlier, Federer will likely focus on keeping a very high first serve percentage, something around 70 percent. If he can do that and maintain aggression with selective forays into the forecourt, then he should move on. But if Del Potro can manage the superb placement on his ferocious forehands, then he’ll have a chance to advance to the semifinals to likely take on Nadal (Nadal will face Tomas Berdych in the quarterfinals). This match, likely to be played under the lights on Tuesday night, is just too close to call.

Two-time Slam champion Hewitt hasn’t been a factor in the major tournaments for several years now. But the relatively diminutive Aussie has always been one of the toughest outs, an intense competitor who possesses one of the higher tennis IQ’s. Most gave him little chance to withstand the serving barrage that he was likely to face against Raonic in the third round but, as usual, most underestimated Hewitt’s ability to make in-match adjustments.

Raonic took the first set against Hewitt 6-4, largely on the strength of his first serve. Consider that Raonic averaged nearly 30 mph more than Hewitt with the first serve. But then Hewitt made some subtle changes, including frequently adjusting his stance on the returns and also forcing Raonic to hit more backhands. Rather than continue to run around his forehand, which Raonic does very well, Raonic look flat-footed as Hewitt’s precise baseline shots didn’t allow Raonic to get into position to hit the forehand. This, combined with Hewitt serving well in his own right, shifted the match in Hewitt’s favor. Instead of it being a test of Hewitt’s return game, it ended up being Raonic who wasn’t able to make much of a dent in Hewitt’s service games.

It was another step in the learning process for Raonic. When Hewitt began to take control of the match in the third and fourth sets, Raonic failed to change things up – or in his case return to his earlier strategy – and counter Hewitt’s surge. Getting by on his lethal serve will likely win Raonic many matches, but to advance in the Slams he’ll need to improve his footwork that extra little bit to maintain an aggressive posture throughout.

Of course now we’re one match closer to yet another Slam matchup between Federer and Nadal, this time in the semis. While Nadal should have little difficulty against Berdych - Nadal has won their last nine meetings, dropping only one set along the way – the Del Potro-Federer match could be a classic.

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

The mid-season absence of critical players is enough to worry any manager. But news of a terrorist attack and a fear for players’ safety could have ended the 2010 tournament.

But in soccer, the game goes on.

This year’s competition is completely unpredictable, partly due to Egypt’s absence. When the Pharaohs won the tournament three times in a row, their dominance seemed unshakable. Now, with powerhouses Cameroon and Nigeria also absent, the end result is unforeseeable.

A host of new entrants could provide upsets for the few established teams in the running, but it is also possible that they will make the tournament dull by providing lesser competition for more experienced opponents.

Equatorial Guinea, Niger, Botswana, and Libya will be teams to watch. It’s not often that the world gets the opportunity to see these little-known teams. Spectators often enjoy a change. The newcomers rarely have the opportunity to compete at this level, and success, however elusive, will be all the sweeter for them if it arrives.

Cote d’Ivoire is the favorite to win this time around, along with World Cup quarterfinalist Ghana. Cote d’Ivoire will rely on the same players who earned the team world-wide recognition. Chelsea forward Didier Drogba is the competition’s most famous player and may use this as an opportunity to end his international career on a high at age 33.

Midfielder Yaya Touré was crowned African Player of the Year by the Confederation of African Football, and his brother Kolo is the tournament’s best defender. Gervinho and Seydou Doumbia are younger, and must prove their value to the team.

Ghana goes into the competition with high expectations, having reached the World Cup quarterfinals. Though AC Milan midfielder Kevin Prince Boateng announced his international retirement at age 24 and Michael Essien will be absent, Ghana’s midfield will still benefit from the contributions of BBC African Footballer of the Year Andre Ayew. The youthful side could go one step further than its 2010 runnerup performance at the Africa Cup of Nations.

Senegal has emerged from a decade-long dark period and boasts an impressive assortment of forwards. Newcastle United’s Demba Ba is one of the Premier League’s outstanding players this season. Moussa Sow was the Ligue 1 top scorer last year, while Papiss Cissé scored 22 goals for Freiburg.  

Once one of Europe’s most feared forwards, Senegal captain Mamadou Niang has been weakened by playing in the inferior Qatari league. The lower quality of Qatari defenses means that Niang no longer needs to play at his best. It remains to be seen if he can still do so.

Perennial underachiever Mali will try to fix its spotty record in the coming weeks. FC Barcelona midfielder Seydou Keita will be the player to watch. Also look out for Mali’s promising new generation, which includes Lyon midfielder Sidy Koné, RC Lens’ Samba Sow, and Brest defender Ousmane Coulibaly.

Morocco finally seems to be back on its feet. Run by the experienced Eric Gerets, the Atlas Lions have a skillful and disciplined squad which includes Arsenal forward Marouane Chamakh, Fiorentina midfielder Houssine Kharja, and Anzhi Makhachkala midfielder Mbark Boussouffa. Look out for midfielder Adel Taarabt, a rising figure in the Premier League.

Perhaps the favored teams will stumble and one of the less noteworthy teams will win. Whatever the outcome of the Africa Cup of Nations, it will surprise many fans.

Theodore Furchtgott is a RealClearSports soccer columnist. He can be reached at Theodore.Furchtgott@gmail.com.

Maybe nobody coaches better either.

In his first season in charge, Harbaugh has the San Francisco 49ers, once proud, then sad, within one step of the Super Bowl. Understanding the NFL and the recent history of the Niners, this is a monumental achievement.

It's San Francisco against the New York Giants on Sunday at Candlestick Park, probably in the rain. But stormy weather isn't discouraging to the Niners faithful or Harbaugh, relentless in pursuit of success.

He won at the nonscholarship University of San Diego. Which got him elevated to academically difficult Stanford, where he won. Which 12 months ago got him the position with the 49ers, who hadn't had a winning season or a place in the playoffs since 2002.

So you ask him the hows and whys, and Harbaugh offers rhetoric seemingly borrowed from a Shakespearean sonnet, full of flower and in cadence.

On quarterback Alex Smith, Harbaugh said, "Loved the toughness, loved the intelligence, loved the ability.'' About defensive end Justin Smith, Harbaugh remarked, "One of your best players, your hardest workers, your fiercest competitors."

A competitor to match Harbaugh, for whom football - indeed, all of life - gets down to who wins and who loses.

The son of a football coach, the brother of a football coach - John Harbaugh of the Ravens, also one game from the Super Bowl - and the brother of a woman married to Indiana basketball coach Tom Crean, Jim Harbaugh learned early what is demanded.

"We give no quarter,'' he said, "and we ask no quarter."

He often doesn't give much information in comments to the media, but that's part of the man. He never wants anyone comfortable, including himself.

Quarterback Andrew Luck was returning to Stanford for the season of 2011, but even though it might have been logical for his coach to do the same, Harbaugh was not returning.

"I didn't want to be in any comfort zone,'' he told the New York Times when camp opened in August. "I didn't want to be in any kind of guaranteed situation. The fact that it was uncharted waters, try to figure out ways to do things, gave me energy. ... I just like being the guy who throws rocks at the beehive every now and then."

Or back in 1997, when Harbaugh was the quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, throwing a punch at onetime Bills quarterback Jim Kelly, then an announcer, who claimed on air Harbaugh faked injuries. The injury he incurred from punching Kelly, a broken throwing hand, was not at all fake.

Nor is his respect for and admiration of the people who play pro football, particularly with the Niners.

"They're my heroes,'' said Harbaugh. "All of them."

For a coach to be successful, he must get those heroes to accept what he is telling them, to buy in to the system. What sort of magic Harbaugh employs is uncertain, but in five years the Stanford team he took over after a 1-11 record was 12-1, and after six months the 49ers squad that in 2010 was 6-10 is now 14-3.

"There was no two-year or three-year or five-year plan,'' said Harbaugh. "Let's win this year. Let's get better every day, today better than yesterday, tomorrow better than today."

Great coaches make players believe they are great. Harbaugh and the two coordinators he brought from Stanford, Vic Fangio on defense, Greg Roman on offense, have succeeded.

Not that it was a task of turning flax to gold. The athletes, after all the defeats, had to be persuaded they were golden. And they are. Harbaugh is one them, a pal, a father, an adviser.

They like the way he's willing to sit with them in the back of the charter flights on trips - a coach in coach, if you will. They appreciate his personal approach when they get in trouble.

"He said that we can do anything in the world and we can come and talk to him and he'll forgive us except put our hands on women,'' said safety Donte Whitner. "If you put your hand on a woman, then you're done in his book.

"Open-door policy. Everybody around here really likes him, and we want to win for him and for ourselves."

If the situation gets too serious, Harbaugh does a U-turn. When a journalist asked him to compare the Niners' six come-from-behind wins this year and the come-from-behind wins when he was quarterbacking the Colts in 1995, he nearly gasped.

"You can't compare,'' said Harbaugh. "It's so hard to compare. You're talking 15 or 16 years aog, my goodness. It's like baseball. Who's the greatest player of all time? It's such a tough argument. I like to say Willie Mays, but you have other people that'll say Babe Ruth."

It was Mays. And in the NFL this season, it's Harbaugh who's the best coach, and maybe best-spoken too.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Editor's note: In advance of President Obama's State of the Union address next week, RCP is rolling out daily "state of" reports to better frame the issues facing the nation. Today: The state of American sports.

On so many levels, most sports fans are happy to see 2011 in the rearview mirror. Both the NFL and NBA had prolonged work stoppages that threatened their seasons. Two major college programs - Ohio State and Miami - were exposed for rampant cheating involving criminal elements. And on top of all that, the alleged child rape scandal at Penn State not only obliterated its football coaching staff, but shook the entire university to its core.

So 2012 should be a stroll in the park then, with a restoration of the usual fun and games, right? While things can’t possibly be as bleak as they were last year, there are some dark clouds looming. Here’s a look ahead:

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

The NFL resolved its labor crisis with no loss of regular season games, and its perch as king of American sports was not threatened by the lockout - in fact, it might have become more entrenched. The $9 billion industry now is guaranteed labor peace for the next decade, and has further stuffed its coffers with a nine-year TV contract extension, worth $3 billion per year. Interest in the league is at an all-time high, buoyed in recent weeks by Tebow-mania, which just adds an embarrassment of riches to a league that hardly needs more publicity.

So the rest of the sports leagues will have to fight for the NFL’s leftover scraps. Major League Baseball managed to secure its own long-term labor peace without any rancor, though performance-enhancing drugs continue to cast a shadow on the sport, both in terms of Hall of Fame enshrinement of alleged PED users and the recent revelation that NL MVP Ryan Braun had failed a drug test.

The NBA had its own labor dispute, with the season saved by a last-minute deal that still came with a cost: the loss of about 20 percent of the games. But the sport with trouble ahead is the NHL, which already had one entire season wiped out in 2004-05. Donald Fehr, who spearheaded several of baseball’s labor wars, is now the head of the NHL players’ union. He had fired a shot across the owners’ bow last week by rejecting a realignment proposal, setting the stage for turbulent times ahead as the current deal is scheduled to expire in September.

COLLEGE SPORTS

NCAA President Mark Emmert might just have the most thankless task in sports. He has to navigate a billion-dollar industry masked as amateur athletics. The scandals at Ohio State and Miami (among others) demonstrated that the difficulties of maintaining a flawed system whose entire labor force is undercompensated 18-to-22-year-olds who can easily fall prey to nebulous outside influences.

A new proposal is on the table to pay compensation to college athletes in the form of a $2,000-per-month stipend. But that’s akin to patching up a gunshot wound with a Band-Aid. Emmert is considering more sweeping reforms that may more adequately address systemic issues facing the NCAA, which still operates an antiquated model that is no longer compatible - economically or otherwise - with the times.

College football, the real cash cow in college athletics, has specific problems to address that fall outside of the purview of the NCAA. The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is universally derided, with criticism only intensifying after the most recent championship game that pitted two schools (Alabama and LSU) from the same conference. The BCS also has done its part to destroy century-long rivalries by ushering in a conference realignment frenzy. With its current TV deal scheduled to expire after the 2013 season, the BCS will be forced to contemplate a dramatic shakeup, likely as soon as this summer.

THE OLYMPICS

If it’s a leap year, it must be time for the Summer Olympics. The 2012 London Games are facing numerous challenges, not the least of which is measuring up to its predecessor. The 2008 Games were orchestrated nearly flawlessly by China’s communist government, which spared no expenses or manpower to make sure everything went smoothly in Beijing, including an event-best 51 gold medals for the Chinese.

The U.S. team finished a distant second with 36 golds, though it did garner a Games-high 110 total medals. The Americans are favored to top both standings this year in England, with high hopes for a number of athletes, particularly swimmer Michael Phelps, who is expected to add to his record 14 gold medals in his final Olympics. 

SPORTS MEDIA

For the first time since 1988, the Olympics broadcast will not have Dick Ebersol at the helm, and that’s a good thing, as his insistence on tape-delaying live events had caused a steady decline of TV ratings on NBC, for both Summer and Winter Games.

NBC’s new owner Comcast will instead use the Olympics to increase viewership and visibility for its family of networks - especially the NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus) - and Web properties by making nearly every event available live, either on TV or via live-streaming. 

NBC, as well as Fox and CBS, are trying to maintain their influence in a sports media landscape increasingly dominated by ESPN, which raked in $8.5 billion in revenue in 2010 for parent company Disney. ESPN has been able to dramatically increase its cash flow by extracting ever more subscriber fees from cable and satellite operators to supplement its advertising revenue. 

As a result, bidding wars for sports programming have caused rights fees to skyrocket. In just the last year, NBC paid $4.3 billion to the International Olympic Committee (for four Olympics through 2020); Fox, CBS and NBC paid $28 billion to the NFL while ESPN paid $15.2 billion for its own separate “Monday Night Football” deal (through 2022); ESPN also paid $500 million to the NCAA for non-football and non-basketball championships (through 2024); and CBS and NBC paid an undisclosed amount to the PGA Tour (through 2021).

All that cost of doing business will eventually be passed on to the average sports fan, even if he or she decides to forego paying escalating ticket prices and instead watches everything from home.

But the good news is that - other than, potentially, the NHL - there will be plenty to watch in 2012. And if we’re lucky, we won’t have to deal with learning a new household name, as we did in 2011 with Jerry Sandusky.

Samuel Chi is Editor of RealClearSports. He may be reached at sam@realclearsports.com. Follow him on Twitter @BCSGuru.

It’s not exactly a rivalry, but then again, it is.

Separated by a continent, meeting in the NFL schedule every couple of years, the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers may not engender the familiarity-bred contempt that the Giants and Eagles share, or the Niners and L.A. Rams used to. 

There’s still a history between these two teams, one that will see a new chapter added on Sunday when they face off for a Super Bowl berth.

The Giants and 49ers have met 28 times in the regular season, and each team has won 14 of them, San Francisco taking the most recent game in November, 27-20. The record may be even, but that’s because it’s been lopsided in both directions: New York won nine of the first 11 games, from 1952 to 1979; San Francisco then took 11 of 13 from 1980 to 2002. The Giants won the next three; the Niners’ win this year broke the string.

That loss started New York’s four-game losing streak that dropped it to 6-6 and launched a thousand “this team has quit on Tom Coughlin” stories. Suddenly, after two spectacular playoff performances, the Giants look like the best team in football, unstoppable on both sides of the ball. Eli Manning massively outplayed Aaron Rodgers, but the Green Bay defense can make a lot of quarterbacks look good.

San Francisco entered the playoffs with the league’s best defense, but dogged by questions about Alex Smith’s ability to win a big postseason shootout. After the epic showdown against New Orleans, the question is now, Has he really come this far under Jim Harbaugh?

Sunday’s game won’t be the first time these two teams have used each other to see how they measure up.

The 1981 49ers were Bill Walsh’s first playoff team. Joe Montana was in his first full season as a starter; Ronnie Lott and Eric Wright were rookies, and seven of the 11 starters on defense had three years’ experience or less. They went from 6-10 to 13-3, running away with their division, so they were largely untested as they entered the postseason. 

The Giants were similarly rebuilding. It was Phil Simms’s third year as well, and Lawrence Taylor’s first. New York sneaked into the playoffs with an overtime victory in its final game, then won its wild-card game against the defending NFC champion Eagles.    

San Francisco proved it belonged in the postseason with a convincing 38-24 victory at home. The week of rest had made a big difference – as had the extra week for Walsh to devise a game plan. One week later, Dwight Clark earned his place in posterity with "The Catch" against Dallas, en route to the 49ers' first Super Bowl win.

They met again in 1984, the 49ers winning 21-10 at Candlestick. This was Walsh’s greatest team, a 15-1 juggernaut that allowed the fewest points in the league and trailed only Miami in scoring. The Giants played them closest; Chicago went down 23-0 in the NFC Championship, and Miami lost 38-16 in the Super Bowl. 

The Giants got even in the wild-card round a year later, winning 17-3 at the Meadowlands. Montana was sacked four times; LT and Company limited Roger Craig, fresh off the first season in NFL history gaining 1,000 yards each in rushing and receiving, to 23 yards on the ground and 18 through the air. This first-round defeat was a sign that the Niners would have to retool in the years to come. 

Then, in 1986, the Giants came into the playoffs at 14-2 – but so did the Chicago Bears, who had beaten New York in the divisional round 21-0 in ’85, in a game that was not nearly as close as the score. The Giants had a championship-caliber defense, but Phil Simms had yet to eliminate the doubts about him as a playoff quarterback.

There were no further questions after the massacre in the Meadowlands. Giants 49, 49ers 3. Four touchdowns and no interceptions for Simms; a concussion and a night in the hospital for Montana, courtesy of a second-quarter hit by Jim Burt. Simms rode that confidence to a 17-0 win over Washington, and a Super Bowl MVP performance (22-of 25, 3 TDs, no INTs) against Denver.

In 1990, the two teams were as evenly matched as could be, having blown out their divisional-round opponents after dominant seasons. They had met on a Monday night in December, with the 49ers winning, 7-3. The rematch, also at Candlestick, was a brutal physical battle. In the fourth quarter alone, Montana limped off the field with a twisted ankle; Giants quarterback Jeff Hostetler was knocked out of the game when Burt, now a 49er, ran full speed into his knee; and when Montana returned to the game, Leonard Marshall hit him from behind, knocking the ball loose and leaving Montana with a broken bone in his right hand. 

Shortly after Montana’s exit, trailing 13-9, the Giants had fourth-and-2 on their own 46 and lined up to punt. Linebacker Gary Reasons, the blocking back in punt formation, spotted an opening in the San Francisco alignment and called for a direct snap. Thirty yards later, the Giants had a new set of downs, kicked a field goal to make the score 13-12, and then got another Matt Bahr field goal as time ran out for the 15-13 win – the only game among their seven playoff meetings won by the visiting team.

New York won the Super Bowl over Buffalo. Joe Montana played just one more game in a San Francisco uniform. Steve Young took over at quarterback, and in January 1994, the 49ers beat New York in the divisional round, 44-3, behind five Ricky Watters touchdown runs. 

And then, in 2002, came the wildest game of them all. New York was two years removed from losing to Baltimore in the Super Bowl. The Niners were Steve Mariucci’s team, with Jeff Garcia and Terrell Owens leading the offense. Few suspected that season would see San Francisco’s last playoff appearance until 2011. 

Kerry Collins threw for four first-half touchdown passes, and when Matt Bryant hit a field goal with four and a half minutes left in the third quarter, New York led by 38-14. 

And then things went haywire.

Garcia hit Owens for a touchdown, and again for two points. 38-22. The Giants went three-and-out, and a dreadful punt by Matt Allen combined with an unnecessary roughness penalty to give San Francisco the ball on the Giants’ 27. On the third play, Garcia ran 14 yards for another touchdown. Two-pointer to Owens. It was now 38-30, five seconds into the fourth quarter.

Another three-and-out. A 15-play drive ends in a 49ers field goal: 38-33. Three first downs get New York into field-goal range, but Matt Bryant misses from 42. Garcia takes over on his 24 with 3:01 to play, hits Eric Johnson for 25 yards on third-and-3 from midfield, and with a minute to play, finds Tai Streets for a 13-yard touchdown. SF 39, NY 38. 

And then it went really crazy.

On the two-point try, Will Allen intercepted a pass intended for Owens. As whistles blew the play dead, Owens smashed Allen out of bounds, drawing a penalty – but Allen went back at Owens, bringing more flags and eliminating the advantage.

Still, the Giants had great field position when they returned the kickoff to their 48. Three completions brought them down to the San Francisco 23 with six seconds to play. 

Long snapper Trey Junkin – signed out of retirement by the Giants just that week – bounced the ball back to holder Matt Allen, who managed to get it upright, but kicker Bryant had stopped his motion. Allen got up to try to scramble something out of the play. Lineman Rich Seubert – who reported in as an eligible receiver – released toward the goal line, and Allen spotted him. He threw to Seubert, but just before the ball arrived, San Francisco defensive end Chike Okeafor smacked Seubert to the ground. Flags flew.

The officials conferred, and ultimately ruled that the Giants had an ineligible receiver downfield, though no individual was specified. Pass interference was not called. The game was over, though the NFL acknowledged the next day that there should have been offsetting penalties – one of the linemen had gone downfield, though it is not clear he was the player called for the infraction – giving the Giants another crack at the field goal.

Such was the chaotic ending of the last playoff game between these distant rivals. Meeting No. 8 looms, and if history is any indication, the result will tell us a lot about who both teams are and what they may become.

SAN FRANCISCO – They were The City’s team, in name and function, created here, not transported from New York or Philadelphia. And if they never reached the top, they were no less entertaining than a ride on one of those cable cars halfway to the stars.

The 49ers were so very San Francisco, adored, beloved and invariably stuck in the fog of mediocrity. Oh well, let’s go down to the Buena Vista Café and have an Irish coffee.

The Niners originally played at an expanded high school stadium in Golden Gate Park where the wind whistled, seagulls alighted and fans departed as dissatisfied as one could be in a burg full of great restaurants and wonderful views.

The Pittsburgh Steelers won four Super Bowls before the Niners, in January 1982, even played in one. But under Bill Walsh and later George Seifert, the bumbling little franchise that couldn’t became the team of the '80s, dominating the NFL and winning five Super Bowls.

Success brings change, however. Fans who at first were delighted with the championships eventually became demanding. What was a joy turned into a burden. And then turned into a disaster.

The Niners not only became terrible, they became virtually irrelevant. You couldn’t find them on Sunday or Monday night telecasts. Where you could find them after the season of 2004 was at the bottom of the standings, with the worst record in the NFL.

The only emotion among the public greater than disbelief was disgust, reflected in the unused tickets grabbed by fans cheering for the Steelers or Cowboys or Bears. How mortifying to have your home, untidy as it might have been, turned into their home.

Now a window into the past has opened. It’s 1981 all over again. After eight consecutive seasons of neither a winning record nor a place in the playoffs, the Niners, unexpectedly, unpredictably, are part of the NFL’s final four, one step from the Super Bowl.

They may not make it. Not with the New York Giants, suddenly brilliant, in their way, Sunday at the decaying stadium by the bay, Candlestick Park.

Yet in truth they’ve already made it, going far beyond what anybody even dreamed, other maybe than the players.

Jim Harbaugh came over from Stanford, where in a matter of a few years he transformed a 1-11 team into a 12-1 team, and imposed his will and magic on the 49ers, who recorded the second-best record in pro football and then last weekend in the divisional playoff beat the Saints in the final seconds. Elation.

When the Giants, the San Francisco Giants, in 2010 won their first World Series since moving from the East Coast in 1958, their general manager, Brian Sabean, an East Coaster, almost hesitantly declared this place a baseball town.

While there certainly is a new appreciation and, if you will, idolization of the ball club – the Giants did sell out every home game in 2011 - San Francisco in its heart and soul always will be a 49er town. Harbaugh’s maneuvering has made that evident.

The bandwagon is rolling again.

Can one man make that great a difference? Absolutely. He along with the two coordinators he hauled along with him from Stanford, Vic Fangio on defense and Greg Roman, directing the offense, did what few thought could be done, especially with the maligned Alex Smith at quarterback.

Poor Alex, the No. 1 overall selection in the 2005 draft. Poor 49ers. The fans, the media, wanted the kid from across the bay at Cal, Aaron Rodgers, who eventually was taken way down the round by the Green Bay Packers – and then, naturally, won a Super Bowl while the Niners and Smith were hammered by opponents, bad luck and the indiscriminate booing of those who did attend games.

A onetime quarterback himself, Harbaugh understood what was possible and what was not. Smith was a free agent, who nobody – including Alex – believed would return. Harbaugh persuaded him to come back. Roman, the offensive coordinator, provided him with a workable plan.

“We ask no quarter,’’ said Harbaugh, alluding to post-game confrontations and unspoken pre-game gentlemen’s agreements with other coaches. “And we give no quarter.’’

What they gave this season was an effort on defense which set an NFL record of 14 games without allowing a rushing touchdown and it enabled the Niner offense to win at times with field goals instead of touchdowns.

What they gave was the jolt 49ers partisans had been missing since the season of 2002, after which the franchise had lost its direction, its mojo and far too many games. You could sense the renaissance against the Saints at Candlestick.  

“Our fans turned that stadium into a fortress,” Harbaugh gloated. “It was as good as it gets.’’

Said offensive tackle Anthony Davis, “I’ll remember that for the rest of my life. It felt like the city really appreciated it.”

He can’t know how much.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

“My thing was play as hard as you can, don’t be stupid, pay attention to details, and have enough guts in the clutch that you’re not afraid to make a play. Some things I thought were important for a young man to know.” Joe Paterno speaking with the Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins in their recent interview

These things were important for older men to know too.

Like a friendlier and more sympathetic Charles Foster Kane in modest surroundings, Joe Paterno came across as a tragically frail and fallen hero in his recent interview with the Washington Post. Though there was really nothing in the way of additional revelations about his knowledge of the alleged crimes that have shaken State College and exposed the sinister underside of that most unholy of alliances between universities and sports, what was illuminating was just how out of touch Paterno seems to still be.

No matter the depth of the vile deeds allegedly committed at Penn State, it’s not wrong to feel sorry for Paterno. First of all the man is suffering from cancer, a terrifying ordeal for anyone, let alone someone who is 85. And after all he didn’t commit any crimes. There’s never been any evidence that he did anything legally untoward in all his years at Penn State, let alone abuse children. Sure, any coach with such a stunning degree of success has skeletons and is inevitably overrated and falsely lionized to some degree, but overall there’s little to truly disparage over most of his gloried tenure at Penn State.

From all accounts he’s been a terrific family man and his own story, of being the white ethnic from Brooklyn who rose about the cloistered WASPy prejudices that dominated the powerful Ivy League establishment in the middle of the 20th century and became the model coach and teacher, is one that inspires. And of course Paterno at least boldly attempted to put academics on equal footing with football, even as college sports began to spiral out of control in the last few decades.

But, as they say when referring to any worthy pursuit, it’s not how you start it’s how you finish.

Presidential historians will often cite Lyndon Johnson as the ultimate example of “could have been.” Johnson could have been one of the all-time great presidents, they say, had it not been for his escalation of, and willfully misguided obsession with, the Vietnam War. But why even utter “could have been”? Johnson failed in epic fashion when it mattered most. True leaders – in any field – are supposed to be at their best when the situation is most dire.

This notion of “if it only it hadn’t been for this or that” is a moot point. It is the big decisions, the difficult choices we make that have the most far-reaching consequences and that will most define us. And when one doesn’t live up to his reputation when it is most crucial, then a consequence is that many of the other good deeds that took a life’s work in accumulating become less valid, if not wholly irrelevant. It’s a doleful reality. 

And after reading Paterno’s interview and watching him speak, knowing his words were carefully gauged by the lawyers and PR reps present in his home, it is sadly too obvious that Paterno failed in the biggest test of his extraordinary career. He spoke again of what took place back in 2002. "You know, he (assisant coach Mike McQueary) didn't want to get specific. And to be frank with you I don't know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to people that I thought would be, if there was a problem, that would be following up on it.”

Even taking into consideration that Paterno was of a generation that didn’t confront such graphic incidents openly, in this instance of never hearing of “rape and a man”, it is nonetheless mind boggling that Paterno didn’t act more swiftly and decisively.

“I said you (McQueary) did what you had to do. It's my job now to figure out what we want to do. So I sat around. It was a Saturday. Waited till Sunday because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. And then I called my superiors and I said, 'Hey, we got a problem, I think. Would you guys look into it?' 'Cause I didn't know, you know. We never had, until that point, 58 years I think, I had never had to deal with something like that. And I didn't feel adequate.”

Honest and as painful an assessment as this is, Paterno’s admitting he was inadequate to deal with something that was connected to his football program, it still doesn’t shield him from the obvious line of inquiry: why didn’t he seek to find out who the boy was, instead of disappearing for a day or two while he pondered his next step. 

Paterno, like all the other major players in this sordid tragedy, consistently delayed action and thought about the university first and not the victim. They followed up at a snail’s pace when urgency should have been the operative word. It is this aspect of the case, that so many knew that innocent children were apparently being viciously molested but none decided to take steps – any steps – to find out who the boy(s) was and contact his family. And no sincere, regretful post mortem can shed light on, or change, this ultimate failing.

Both Paterno and his wife Sue spoke about how lucky they are to have lived – and are living – a charmed life with a wonderful and healthy family. They both discussed how important it was for this story to be about the victims and not themselves, who are privileged. While not doubting their sincerity when they expressed these sentiments to Jenkins, it’s hard to synch these comments with how Paterno made it all about himself when the proverbial fan was hit back in November.

It all leaves one to wonder how often Paterno wishes he hadn’t been so stubbornly focused on attaining an ultimately meaningless victory record and retired years earlier.  

Paterno’s interview looks to be the first part of phase two of this ongoing story. Soon we’ll have the trials of former university vice president Gary Schultz and former athletic director Tim Curley, both accused of perjury. On Friday, Schultz and Curley waived a court hearing and pleaded not guilty to the charges.

When we next hear Schultz’s and Curley’s words during a trial, it likely won’t be expressions of regret as with Paterno. Rather they’ll be parsing the meaning of “serious” as it pertains to inappropriate actions with a minor, and they’ll be looking to play the blame and discredit card, either on each other but most likely with McQueary. It’s about to get even uglier.   

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

Forecasting how a women’s Grand Slam draw will unfold over the course of a fortnight has become a tedious act of analytical folly.

Finding the form of the women’s field is so difficult because its makeup is so elusive - is it solid, liquid or gas? Is Serena merely physically present in Melbourne or will her imposing presence be the only thing that matters? Is there any such entity as a favorite among the women if Serena isn’t at her best? Are the rankings completely meaningless if Caroline Wozniacki is seeded first even though she hasn’t reached a Slam final in nearly a year and a half? Is Petra Kvitova, the southpaw who won Wimbledon on the strength of her powerful serve and the current darling of the tennis commentating establishment, the real deal?

Some may think the unpredictability in women’s tennis is exciting, and keeps it all interesting. It isn’t, and it doesn’t.

For starters, there is no such thing as an upset in women’s tennis anymore. By its very definition, an upset has to be an unusual event, a circumstance in which a clearly superior player is defeated by an upstart (i.e. Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic losing before the quarterfinals). Yet how can there be upsets when there is no consistency? If any of the top 10 women lost in the first round it would be surprising to a degree but not at all shocking. That cannot be said for the men.

The last seven Slam championships for the women have produced six different winners: Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters, Francesca Schiavone, Li Na, Kvitova and Australia’s Sam Stosur. Obviously Serena’s and Clijsters’ triumphs were expected. But not the others.

There was potential for some great stories here. Na and Stosur are talented veterans who were rarely factors in Slams until last year. But if they don’t follow up their stirring victories, their inspiring play recedes quickly from consciousness. It was the same with Schiavone’s shocking victory at the French Open in 2010. It was great to see a tennis elder win and her abundant joy afterwards was refreshing and one of the best stories of 2010. But is she likely to even threaten for a Slam title again? No.

What one hopes is that 2012 produces a truly stellar, important, year for the sport. One in which the sport solidifies its liquid state and forms a cohesive and compelling whole. And this chiefly hinges on two things: Serena putting together one final stretch to top off her incredibly prolific career; and a young player, like Kvitova or Wozniacki, finally displaying a powerful consistency.

So can the 2012 Australian Open begin this process, of adding weight to the women’s game and again making it at least half as interesting as the men?

Serena will be 31 this year and is undoubtedly well into the second half of her championship-winning capability. She’s battled injuries of late and likely feels a sense of urgency to do well in Australia. Love her or not, she is far and away the best player of her generation and, if she can put together a couple of more multi-Slam victory years, she will be mentioned in the top 10 women of all time.

Though seeded only 12th, her path to victory in Australia appears as favorable as she could have hoped for. There’s nary a threat in her first few matches and she’s slated to meet Vera Zvonerva in the quarterfinals, against whom she is 6-2 (including 3-0 in Slam encounters). And if Serena manages this as easily as she is capable, awaiting her in the semis is likely Kvitova - though Kvitova may have a few roadblocks, most notably if she plays Ana Ivanovic in the fourth round.

The 24 year-old Ivanovic, the 2008 French Open champion, has been a non-factor of late in the Slams and injuries and mental fragility kept her off course. But she’s shown some promise of late and she is well positioned for an upset or two.  

Serena and Kvitova have played each other only twice, with Serena winning all four sets contested. But they haven’t met in two years and Kvitova is a much stronger player now. It could turn out to be a thrilling contest, with Serena’s mental and physical dominance competing against the best young women’s player who possesses a brutally difficult lefty serve. It’s unfortunate that these two are in the same half of the draw as they’re the two favorites to win the event.

The top half of the draw is far trickier to conjure up likely scenarios. Wozniacki, the No. 1 seed, isn’t really considered a favorite to win the tournament. Though a model of consistency and an emotionally and mentally focused competitor, Wozniacki hasn’t figured out a way to selectively add a power aspect to her baseline game. Until she does, she’ll likely maintain her current habit of rarely losing early in the big events but never coming out on top.

But with the unknown quality in the field, there’s not a better time for Wozniacki to prove her critics wrong. She’ll have her hands full in the quarterfinals where an appointment with four-time Slam champion Clijsters is likely. It appears that the winner of this contest will be one of the finalists.

Whatever eventually happens with the women Down Under, of this there is little doubt: the women have to start putting together watchable Slams, for their sport is becoming alarmingly irrelevant. The good news is that with Serena, Kvitova, Wozniacki and a couple of others, the ingredients are there for the women to stage an exciting tournament, worthy of the athleticism and hard work put into their efforts. 

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

Less than a week after winning his third Ballon d'Or, Lionel Messi is without debate the planet's best soccer player. He undoubtedly deserves that honor. While he may be the best person who gets paid to kick a ball for a living, is Messi the best athlete in the world when you include all sports? The answer is an emphatic yes! 

Just 24, Messi has won more in his career thus far than some soccer players, and athletes in general, do over a lifetime. He has already won five Spanish league titles, three Champions League trophies, an Olympic gold medal and a FIFA Under-20 World Cup title. Messi is the reason why Barcelona has become the greatest club team in the world, surpassing AC Milan and Manchester United in terms of victories and popularity. 

Is Messi also the best athlete in the world? That’s a question many have asked over the past few weeks. Better than LeBron James? Novak Djokovic? Derek Jeter? Aaron Rodgers? The answer is yes, yes, yes and yes! And add a yes to any other athlete you can name. While all these athletes are the best at their game, none are as good as Messi. The Argentine was the best in 2011 and there is little reason to believe that won’t continue to be the case in 2012 and over the next few years. 

The truth is that Messi is a leader, humble off the field and clutch on it. Messi has had one great season after another, playing with a consistency that few athletes are able to master. Messi hasn’t had one or two great seasons, he's had five. Even on a Barcelona team that features many star players, Messi is the MVP – most valuable to the lineup in every way. His teammates depend on him to create that magical pass or make a run himself in search of the winning goal. More times than not, Messi comes through. 

American sports fans who know little or nothing about soccer will argue this point. NFL fans will say that Rodgers, or any other quarterback for that matter, is better than any ol' soccer player. Ditto for NBA, baseball and tennis fans that regularly root for their idols. This is not about which sport is superior, more enjoyable to watch or more difficult to play. They are all difficult. That’s not the debate here. The reality is Messi has dominated his sport like none of these other athletes. Look no further than Messi’s trophy case and that of Barcelona’s over the last few years. The club keeps on winning and it’s because of Messi's talents.  

Oddly, Messi may be the best player and athlete in the world at the moment, but on the all-time list of great soccer players he still has a ways to go. Separating him from Pele and countryman Diego Maradona aren’t all the personal accolades. Those are no way to measure the worth of a player. In soccer, the only way to separate the good from the great is a World Cup title. 

Pele, of course, the greatest of them all has three championships. He won his first at age 17 back in 1958. He added others in 1962 and 1970. Maradona has one title (won in 1986) and reached another final that Argentina lost (in 1990 against West Germany). Messi has none for now – although given his young age he still has a shot at playing in two more World Cup tournaments over the current decade. 

Messi’s inability to excel with Argentina while dominating the opposition with Barcelona has been well documented in the past. It isn’t Messi’s fault that the supporting cast he has at Barcelona is much better than his Argentina teammates. Having said that, Messi is an outstanding individual player and no one can take away from him. Only time will tell if he enters the same pantheon as Pele and Maradona. 

Is Messi the best athlete in the world at the moment? Yes. Is he the best soccer player? For sure. Is he the best soccer player of all time? That remains a work-in-progress.  

Clemente Lisi writes a weekly soccer column for RealClearSports, appearing every Monday.  

As they did in January 2008, New York went to Green Bay and knocked off the favored Packers in the playoffs. They didn't need overtime this time, pulling away to a 37-20 victory that ended Green Bay's 13-game home winning streak.

The game from that prior postseason that appeared to provide a working template for a Giants victory was Super Bowl XLII, when they topped previously unbeaten New England. New York relied on a fierce pass rush on defense and a ground game that could take time off the clock. To beat an explosive force like the 2011 Packers, as with those Patriots - both led by runaway MVP candidates - the key seemed to be keeping the ball out of the offense's hands.

Turns out Green Bay could do a pretty good job of that itself.

Seven Packers dropped a total of eight Aaron Rodgers passes. The team also lost three fumbles, one by fullback John Kuhn, who had never lost a fumble in his professional career. Add one interception - just the seventh Rodgers had thrown in more than 500 attempts this season - and you have the formula for sending a 15-1 team home for the winter.

A little luck helps too.

Just before halftime, with the Giants leading 13-10, Eli Manning threw a 37-yard Hail Mary to the left side of the end zone. Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz and Devin Thomas were waiting, with Mario Manningham arriving in case of a ricochet. Green Bay seemed unprepared for the final play, perhaps expecting Manning to try a shorter sideline pass to improva potential field goal position. The play was possible only because Ahmad Bradshaw not only ran for 23 yards on third-and-1 from his own 40 but was able to traverse the entire field to get out of bounds and stop the clock. Four Packers defenders - no manpower advantage - were in the area when Nicks rose and trapped the ball against his helmet visor, then gained full control as he fell to the turf.

Anyone who says he didn't immediately think of David Tyree's miracle catch in XLII is lying.

Manning was magnificent in the first half, completing 14 of 24 for 274 yards and two touchdowns. Both scores went to Nicks, who had turned an 18-yard first-quarter slant into a 66-yard TD. He absorbed a hit from safety Charlie Peprah that turned him around and pointed him in the direction of a seam through the closing defenders.

The Giants struggled on the ground all game. Before the final four minutes, they ran on first down 10 times, averaging 2.6 yards. Manning frequently found himself in third-and-long situations, but against the league's worst pass defense in yards allowed (sixth worst in yards per pass), he made several clutch conversions. In the first quarter alone, he got first downs on third-and-8, third-and-10 and third-and-11, adding another third-and-8 in the second quarter and a third-and-11 in the fourth that ended all thoughts of a Green Bay comeback.

It's not too early to consider Manning's standing among all quarterbacks in New York football history. No New Yorker has won two championships. Manning has already won as many postseason games as Phil Simms, with a much better record in road playoff games (Simms was 6-4 overall, 1-3 on the opponent's field; Manning is 6-3, 4-1 on the road). Y.A. Tittle never won a championship with the Giants. Charlie Conerly won one, but so did Jeff Hostetler.

Manning will hold the Giants records for touchdowns by the end of next season, yardage by the year after. His career completion percentage of 58.4 is better than Simms' or Tittle's, and his passer rating trails only Tittle among Giants QBs with 500 passes.

Among Jets quarterbacks, only Joe Namath is worth considering, but his resume is clouded by his low completion percentage (50.2) and passer rating (65.8), to say nothing of his 215 interceptions compared with 170 touchdowns. He played in only three postseason games, none before a hostile crowd.

For that matter, Manning's accomplishments in the postseason compare favorably to those of his brother. Peyton has a 9-10 career playoff record, 2-5 on the road. Each has won one Super Bowl.

The Giants will face a wholly different challenge in the NFC championship game against San Francisco. The 49ers defense allowed the fewest points in the conference, shutting down the running game with particular efficiency (fewest yards per game and per attempt). Their passing defense was 10th in the league in yards per attempt. Drew Brees put up 462 yards in the divisional round, but the Saints' yards per attempt, 6.9, exactly matched the Niners' season average. They turned the ball over the fewest times in the NFL, with five fumbles and five interceptions.

For what it's worth, Green Bay had the second-fewest turnovers, with 14.

To reach the Super Bowl, the Giants will need Manning to have a big game on the road, at Candlestick. Fortunately for them, he may be the best bet in the league under those circumstances.

When Federer slipped to No. 3 in the world by last year's French Open, the possibility existed that he and Nadal would play only the penultimate match at the last three Slams in 2011. But the tennis gods apparently deemed that the draw would continue to play out in the manner to which we had become accustomed, and as luck would have it, Federer continued to be placed on the opposite side of the draw.

But now, for the first time since 2005, Nadal and Federer reside on the same half of the draw in a Slam. Seeing their names so close together, instead of one at the top and the other at the bottom, the bracket reads like a permanent historical marker to indicate that these two champions are now just two of the three best players in the world. Novak Djokovic has about as secure a hold on the No. 1 ranking as has ever been seen.

So how likely is it that they will meet for a 10th time in a Slam, this time in the semis of the 2012 Australian Open? On first glance, Nadal has a relatively smooth path to the final weekend, but Federer has a far more arduous journey.

Aside from the Big Three Plus One (Andy Murray), I immediately looked for a few other players when the draw was unveiled: Bernard Tomic, Juan Martin del Potro and Milos Raonic. The basic thinking goes that whichever of the top four players has a couple of these names in his quarter of the draw faces a more daunting fortnight. And so it is with Federer.

Though he hasn't gone far in a Slam to date, Australian Tomic, 19, is considered one of the next big names in the sport. Adding increased power to go along with a disconcerting, rhythm-busting style that infuriates opponents with its mix of pace and spin, Tomic is beginning to realize the enormous potential that has been the talk of Australian tennis for a couple of years. If he gets by a brutal first-round match with 22nd-seeded Fernando Verdasco, Tomic will likely play Federer in the fourth round. Federer and Tomic have met only once, last year on grass, with Federer winning in four sets.

Del Potro appeared to be on the cusp of breaking the Nadal-Federer hold after his stunning five-set victory over Federer in the finals of the 2009 U.S. Open. But injuries derailed his momentum for nearly two years. Lately del Potro has shown some of the consistency he displayed a couple of seasons ago, to go along with his ferocious groundstroke power. It's very possible he'll be Federer's quarterfinal opponent.

If Federer does advance to the semis, all he'll have to do is face Nadal, a player he hasn't beaten in a Slam since the 2007 Wimbledon final, going 0-4 since then.

If Nadal and Federer are in the final four in Melbourne, Nadal will arrive at that point in stronger condition. The Mallorcan has the easiest draw of the top players, with only one big potential threat on the way to the semis. And when I say big, I mean it literally - John Isner. The 6-foot-9 Isner nearly shocked Nadal in the first round of the French Open in 2011 on Nadal's beloved clay, so the prospect of facing Isner on a hard court is a much more terrifying prospect. Nadal has won all three of their encounters, but that offers little solace if Isner is serving at his best. But aside from Isner, Nadal's road to the semis couldn't look any easier.

Of all the up-and-coming players, 21-year-old Canadian Raonic has seized most of the attention with his fluid, Pete Sampras-like serve and forecourt game. He burst onto the scene with a run to the fourth round of last year's Australian Open as a qualifier, then went on to win his first significant tournament at San Jose a month later. He battled injury problems for much of the second half of 2011 but has started the new year in fine form, winning last week's tournament in Chennai, India.

In a match that all would want to see, Raonic is set to meet Djokovic in the fourth round - if Raonic gets by Andy Roddick in the third round. If he does, it will be a match of tennis' current king against one who may wear the crown in short order. Djokovic has the best return in the men's game, and it would take an unbelievable serving effort from Raonic and surprise forays to the net in an attempt to throw Djokovic off balance for the youngster to topple the defending champion.

Like Nadal, Djokovic has just that one seeming threat to hold off before the final weekend. It gives little comfort to the other players to know that Djokovic should be well rested late in the tournament. Can Djokovic be stopped? Is it at all possible he can improve on his remarkable 2011?

Though he was exhausted and stumbled in the tournaments after the U.S. Open, Djokovic is unquestionably the odds-on favorite to claim his third Australian title. He has displayed sudden dominance over Nadal. But Federer poses a far greater risk to Djokovic, and Djokovic backers are no doubt pleased that he won't have to face Federer - again - in the semifinals, as he has so often in the past.

Defeating Nadal is six straight finals - including Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, as well as twice on clay - was the defining trend of Djokovic's 2011. Nadal looked a step slow, out of breath and utterly vacant at the end of those matches. Never had someone made Nadal appear psychologically defeated.

For Nadal to overcome that will be a huge undertaking. If Djokovic and Nadal were to meet for a third straight time in a Slam final, which seems likely, it could be the most critical juncture of Nadal's career. If he were to beat Djokovic right at the start of 2012, an immediate pendulum swing in their rivalry may occur. But if Djokovic were to again defeat Nadal in a Slam final, manifest futility may take hold in the Spaniard, and it could be devastating for the rest of his career.

But first things first. There's another man in the mix, Murray. The forever-disappointing Scot has received a fair share of attention lately for his shrewd move of hiring Hall of Famer Ivan Lendl as his new coach.

Murray has played his best Down Under, having reached the last two finals. But he has tightened up in all three Slam finals he has been in (he also reached the final of the 2008 U.S. Open). It is in this aspect of his playing personality that Lendl can be of most assistance. Lendl had a focused mind-set in the big moments, and Murray desperately needs such strength to truly be included with the top players.

As it looks now, Murray has a very favorable draw. The only major threat exists in his possible quarterfinal against fifth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Murray is often most vulnerable earlier in tournaments, where his concentration can wander. Look for Lendl's influence there, as I suspect his charge will not succumb to a first-week disappointment.

The proverbial stage is set for theatrical fireworks in Melbourne over the next two weeks. Can Federer once again find glory after winning only one of the previous nine Slams? Will Nadal solve Djokovic and reclaim the mantle as the world's best player? Can Djokovic distance himself even further by adding his third straight Slam title? And can Murray finally - finally - break through and win his first major as he approaches his 25th birthday?

No matter how exciting and dangerous some of the aforementioned young up-and-coming players are, it's hard to imagine anyone aside from the top four winning in Melbourne. My guess is that it will again be Djokovic and Nadal across the net from each other on yet another final Sunday

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

America is always an interesting place to be during a presidential campaign. Accusations and counter-accusations fly about along with debates on the finer points of policy. Amidst this tempest of Super-PACs, crony capitalists, and establishment figures, it’s no wonder that candidates have no opportunity to discuss soccer.

But there’s still time. Even though South Carolina is no soccer mecca, Romney, Gingrich or Santorum could receive unexpected questions from reporters on soccer policy. And to help prepare a convincing response, let’s look at how some other governments have influenced their nation’s soccer performance.

After setting up a brutally oppressive regime, isolating their country from the outside, and starving much of the populace, North Korea decided to organize the national team from a government agency. Kim Jong-il’s administration took much interest in soccer after coming to power, and made the national team compete in some tournaments.

After poor showings, North Korea went into hibernation mode to recover, and only recently re-emerged. After failing at the World Cup, coach Kim Jong-hun was reportedly sentenced to labor camp.

After a 2-0 loss to the U.S. at the Women’s World Cup coach Kim Kwang-min had a good excuse: “During training our players were struck by lightning, and more than five of them were hospitalized.” Whatever works.

This leads to tip No. 1: The government should not be in control of the team. Intimidating coaches does much to quench tactical innovation and little to improve results.

Other governments have hurt their country’s soccer through much more benign means. In France, a high tax burden makes a French salary less valuable than a foreign one. A 50 percent top tax bracket puts British teams at a similar disadvantage.

Compare that with a Spanish law that somehow allowed Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema a tax break for moving to Spain. No wonder all of the world’s best ply their trade in Spain.

Spain proves tip No. 2: Be the country with the lowest top tax rate so that you get the superstars.

Many countries’ failings have roots in more long-term problems. Ever wonder what caused the mass exodus from the Greek Super League? With the country’s economy lagging, teams such as Panathinaikos lacked the financial might to keep stars such as Djibril Cissé and Sidney Govou.

This is because Greek billionaires are no longer optimistic enough about the future to spend their money on soccer teams. Moreover, the dire economic situation discourages foreign investment in the league.

Learn tip No. 3 from Greece: For a league’s long term health, fiscal soundness is the key.

Political stability is also vital to a league’s development. Africa has never quite managed to pull itself together, and stable democracies are few and far between on the continent. As a result, there are no high-level soccer leagues. The talent is there, but players would rather go to Europe.

Egypt is the exception that proves this rule. Despite Hosni Mubarak’s numerous flaws, his regime was stable enough to allow a decent professional league to develop. Across the Atlantic, Brazil has demonstrated that turnarounds are doable.

In 1974, Pele refused to play at the World Cup in protest of the military dictatorship. Today, with a booming economy and a respected democracy, there are no such problems.

Tip No. 4: Make sure that your country remains stable both politically and economically.

So there you have it. The 2012 Candidates’ Guide to Soccer Policy. When it’s time to move beyond the fluff to important issues, the talking points are here.

Theodore Furchtgott is a RealClearSports soccer columnist. He can be reached at Theodore.Furchtgott@gmail.com.

A psychological analysis of Tebow by some doctor in Vienna - Austria, that is, not Virginia? An instructional video on how to throw wobbly passes?

Hula hoops, pet rocks ... and now America is obsessed with a football player.

"Fads are the kiss of death,'' said the late country-western singer who called himself Conway Twitty and had a No. 1 hit called, appropriately, "It's Only Make Believe."

"When the fad goes away, you go with it.''

Tebow is never going away. Through no fault of his own, he's become a TV star, a comic book character, a beloved quarterback, a despised religious zealot and, according to a poll, the most popular athlete in America. Well, that last part is his fault. Make that to his credit.

Eight teams remain in the NFL playoffs, and three have quarterbacks who have been Super Bowl MVPs - the Packers' Aaron Rodgers, the Saints' Drew Brees and the Patriots' Tom Brady. They pale next to Tebow.

Did Rodgers, whose Packers have the best record in pro football at 15-1, have an entire hour of "SportsCenter'' dedicated to him?

Did Brees have anybody question the formations he and the Saints employed so effectively, as people questioned the way the Broncos - six men on the line of scrimmage? - scored against the Steelers on the first play of overtime?

Did Brady get an entire column in the Jerusalem Post by one Michael Freund in which he points out, "I am neither threatened nor intimidated when Christians such as Tebow flaunt their faith in public, whether on or off the football field''?

Holy moly, using holy in a generic sense. Don't want to insult anyone.

Too much of a good thing is wonderful, advised actress Mae West. This, however, is numbing. It's what I choose to describe as the "Hey, Martha'' syndrome, as in "Hey, Martha, you're not going to believe what J-Lo is wearing'' or "Hey, Martha, you have to see this guy everyone's writing and talking about."

ESPN? When you're doing sports 24 hours a day on too many stations to keep track of, no complaints if there's an oddball twist, and it had to be more than Chris Berman's little piece with the Superman approach and cartoons - which also was OK.

So ESPN spent an hour only on Tebow. The idea, according to ESPN vice president/communications Mike Soltys, was to "bring a fresh approach to a very popular subject."

There is no fresh approach to the Tebow story, any more than there is the Packers' defense, or lack of same. Four people debating the same issue that has been debated every day: Is Tebow an NFL quarterback?

He's a polarizing figure, and that's ideal in politics, entertainment and sports. We think we know what works and who can work it. The battle for the Republican presidential nomination has grown weary. But win or lose, that QB is hot subject matter.

And a huge ratings draw, which is why no one is backing away. More Tebow? Yes, sir, whatever you think the viewers and listeners want.

Part of it is our love of the underdog, our support of the person who we're told has no chance. Part of it is our determination to see the experts proved wrong. "See, Harry, those guys talking about Tebow don't know beans. How do they even get their jobs?"

What they do know is how to maximize Tebow's presence. All NFL quarterbacks get some attention. Tebow gets all the attention. He's being treated like a curiosity, not a star athlete, but he never complains, a wonderful trait.

One of my sportswriting pals (name withheld to protect the guilty) said this about Tebow a week ago, before the Pittsburgh game, the one Tebow and Denver won:

"Tebow is not just the worst quarterback in the playoffs, leader of a team that scored the least points of any team in the postseason. He may be the worst quarterback in the NFL."

That could be amended, if we were so uncivil, to read "the worst quarterback still playing in the NFL.'' But Tebow deserves better; Tebow deserves what he has earned.

That's a place in the NFL divisional playoffs, and stories all the way from Denver to Jerusalem.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

The coolest cat in the biggest city, leading the biggest underdog in Super Bowl history, looked over the crowd at the Miami Touchdown Club luncheon, and in front of fans, reporters, and an open mike, said, “We’re gonna win the game. I guarantee it.”

Athletes didn’t talk that way in the 1960s, with one exception. Muhammad Ali had made himself famous by using the gate-building skills he learned from professional wrestlers like Gorgeous George; he knew he needed to stir things up just to get a fight with Sonny Liston. He believed he would win, but he knew that the fight would only happen if he goaded Liston into it. 

But Ali was a unique person in an individual sport that requires promotion as much as it does gloves and canvas. In team sports, self-effacement reigned; the quarterback of an 18½-point underdog didn’t go around guaranteeing victory. The big, bad Colts might get riled up.

Namath knew his words would make headlines; he wasn’t oblivious to the giant sucking sound caused by an almost universal gasp of shock when he said them. But he knew three things:

1.  He wanted his teammates to believe that they could win and would win, a belief that was hard to sustain when every prognosticator said the Colts were unbeatable.

2.  The Colts couldn’t get to him; his offensive line was solid, his quick release was legendary, and the Colts pass rushers lacked the speed to reach him in time. He wanted them hopped up and angry, and then increasingly frustrated. (That’s what he thought, anyway. Baltimore did sack him twice, and briefly knocked him out of the game.)

3.  The “guarantee” didn’t mean squat.

Really, what was the big deal?  What was the guarantee – “or your money back”? “Or I’ll kiss Don Shula”? “Or I won’t make a motorcycle movie with Ann-Margret”? 

When the Jets won, Namath’s statement became the stuff of legend, when it was simply an athlete expressing what every athlete ought to believe.

The code of conduct that called for false modesty and lavish praise for the opponent vanished long ago. It fell victim to the popularity of those who learned from Ali and Broadway Joe, a changing culture of touchdown and sack dances, home-run celebrations as SportsCenter highlights, dunks whose purpose was more a shattered backboard than a mere two points.

This is no lament; that code was as phony as a general manager’s vote of confidence, or a sportswriter’s outrage at an athlete predicting victory.

So Jason Pierre-Paul said on Sunday, flush with the New York Giants’ demolition of the Atlanta Falcons, “We’re going to win [in Green Bay]. One hundred percent we’re going to win … because we’re the best.”

One hundred percent! Can you believe this guy? That’s going to really fire ‘em up in the Packers locker room! 

Good thing for the Packers that Pierre-Paul said something; otherwise, how would Green Bay know that the Giants think they can win? And how would the Packers ever motivate themselves for a home playoff game, if not for the incentive provided by someone’s postgame quote?

“We know what’s at stake,” he added, “and we know it’s one-and-done. We aren’t going to let that happen. We are going to go out there and give all our effort and we are going to walk away with a win.”

There he goes, reminding the Packers that it’s not a best-of-seven series. And they’d better forget about their hopes that the Giants were not going to try their best.

What’s he supposed to say? “We’re going to have our heads handed to us”? Herm Edwards was right: You play to win the game. 

But when an emerging star like Pierre-Paul says something other than the predictable clichés, he gets predictably lambasted for it. 

It’s a wonder any athlete says anything at all.

We’ve had more than four decades of victory guarantees. Some of them were fulfilled; some of them weren’t. Only one thing is certain: Any time spent thinking about them or their effect is time better spent doing anything else.

OAKLAND – The little analysis of Hue Jackson by Al Davis is right there in the Oakland Raiders media guide. “The fire in Hue,’’ said Davis, “will set a flame that will burn for a long time in the hearts and minds of the Raider football team and Raider nation.’’

It was snuffed out, however, by Al’s son, Mark, who took over the team upon Al’s death.

On Tuesday, Mark Davis hired Reggie McKenzie from the Green Bay Packers as general manager, the position Al held de facto for decades.

On Tuesday, subsequently, Hue Jackson became the latest Raiders coach to be tossed on the scrap pile, fired by McKenzie.

“I want my guy,’’ said the 48-year-old McKenzie, who having been consigned full power to bring stability and success to the unstable, unsuccessful Raiders, certainly is Mark Davis’ guy.

“No disrespect to Hue Jackson,’’ McKenzie added, “but it’s a new era, and we want to start anew.’’

Which this past season in effect is what they attempted to do under Jackson, offensive coordinator in 2010.

It was nothing Hue did specifically, McKenzie said in as many words, while implying it was something the Raiders didn’t do for a ninth straight year, make the playoffs.

The dismissal of those involved in running NFL teams is neither surprising nor bewildering, particularly if the Raiders are involved. When hired, the new coach – probably someone from the Packers staff, perhaps Winston Moss or Darren Perry - will be Oakland’s sixth in nine years.

Observers speculate Jackson, an emotional, daring individual who gambled on play calling to an extreme, was done in by several factors, all negative.

He traded a couple of potential No. 1 draft picks to Cincinnati for holdout quarterback Carson Palmer, with whom Jackson was familiar from his days as a Bengals assistant, after Raiders starter Jason Campbell was lost with a broken collarbone. Palmer, who had been out of football, was erratic.

The Raiders once had a 7-4 record but lost four of their last five, including the final game at home to San Diego when a victory would have elevated them to the postseason over Denver.

Historically undisciplined, the Raiders, despite Jackson’s vocal pleading, not only led the league once again in penalties but set an all-time record of 163, an average of more than 10 per game.

After that ultimate defeat, the normally upbeat Jackson, until then all too eager to accept responsibility for any defeat, did a U-turn, calling out the same people that for 15 previous games he had called upon. "To say I'm pissed off is an understatement," snarled Jackson in his post-game tirade. "It didn't look like a football team that was hungry enough to go out and win the AFC West title."

What it looks like now is a franchise trying to find itself.

Al Davis became the Raiders coach in 1963, and for all but a small window when he was the AFL commissioner, was in control of the team until he died from a heart attack at age 82 in October.

Jackson, in conjunction with Al’s only child, Mark, made the decisions which had to be made. It was McKenzie’s decision to oust Jackson after his only season as a head coach in the NFL.

“I’m not going into details,’’ said McKenzie, “point-by-point, what he did or didn’t do. This decisions center around me wanting to bring in my own guy. If they had been 7-0 down the stretch, and made the playoffs, that would have entered into it.

“But the way the team was failing down at the end, the press conference, had nothing to do with it. Everybody says things they wish were taken back. We want to move forward. I want to bring in my own guy. Mark (Davis) was OK with that.’’

McKenzie, a linebacker from Tennessee, was a 10th-round pick by the Raiders in 1985, after the team had relocated to Los Angeles. In becoming director of football operations at Green Bay, he worked with Ron Wolf, who had been a personnel man for Al Davis on the Raiders. Mark Davis said he spoke to Wolf and onetime Raiders coach John Madden about bringing in McKenzie.

Now that he has turned over the organization to McKenzie, Mark Davis said he would get involved in non-football operations, including the attempt to get the team a new stadium, either in Oakland or by joining the 49ers in a move to Santa Clara.

“Everything is based on performance,’’ McKenzie said of his arriving and Jackson's departing. “I go with my gut a lot. When it’s time to make the final call, my gut told me to change coaches. I told him I had the power to hire and fire. He was OK with that.’’

Said Mark Davis, “Reggie’s going to be running the show now.’’

In doing so, he ran Hue Jackson off the stage.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Rafael Nadal, the other half of the open era's greatest rivalry, has won at least one Slam in seven consecutive seasons. If he can claim another title in Melbourne, Paris, London or New York in 2012, he will join Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras and Federer with an eighth year. No player has notched a Slam title in nine straight years.

Novak Djokovic won three Slams in 2011, something that has been accomplished by only five other men in the open era: Rod Laver, Jimmy Connors, Mats Wilander, Nadal and Federer, who has done it three times. And Djokovic did it by beating Nadal in two of those finals. He has four career major titles and is No. 1 in the world by a wide margin.

I'm reciting the obvious for most tennis fans. But sometimes this point needs to be reiterated because, for all the blatant evidence that we are in a golden age in the men's game, far too many followers express irrational and tiresome discontent with Djokovic, Nadal and Federer. In this age of endless vitriolic discourse, anonymous web postings and hyper-analytical rantings on the most trivial aspects of an athlete's talent or character, it has created strife in rooting circles when there isn't really reason for it.

Too often I get emails or talk to fans saying Nadal "will never be close to Federer's greatness," that he's "just a clay-court player, and without those French titles he's nothing." Or that Djokovic is "only winning because Federer and Nadal are on the downside of their careers." And that Federer ... well, the anti-Federer forces are fewer, but the pro-Federer fanatics can be downright vicious toward anyone who treats their man as something less than a deity.

What's the absolute worst that can be said about each of the Big Three? Federer has sometimes displayed an elitist brand of arrogance, such as the blazer at Wimbledon, and an occasional refusal to admit he wasn't the better player on a certain day. Nadal can try the patience of player and fan alike with his in-match routines and tics. Djokovic's nationalistic fervor and outgoing personality can sometimes be too much to bear.

But all three display superb sportsmanship on the court. Rarely will you see any of them stage an extended, profane protest against the umpires. Additionally, especially as it pertains to Federer and Nadal, the players appear to genuinely like each other off the court. And they're actively involved in the politics of the ATP Tour, taking a keen interest in maintaining the sport's integrity.

Most importantly, after watching each of these three stage epic Slam victories over the last several years, it's impossible to question their heart. True, at one point Djokovic's competitive instincts came into question, but he answered all critics with his heartstopping triumphs in 2011.

Perhaps the most irritating and false claim is to say that any of the three is one-dimensional. Federer’s all-court acumen has never been in question. Nadal long ago dispelled any notion that he was just a dirt man. After all, he’s been the best player at Wimbledon over the last four years. Djokovic was thought not to have the forecourt mentality to win at Wimbledon. But then he went out and won the title in 2011.

We live in a media age when an artificial polarization is seemingly the go-to starting point for all discussion. Unfortunately, fans have followed suit. I mean, can one really hate Nadal? Do most really believe that Djokovic's joking comes from a bad place? Or fail to see that under the occasionally prickly postmatch appraisal from Federer is a fierce and admirable determination to hold on to his greatness as his career starts to slowly fade? And forget about it if any of the three mentions being injured. Fans in the other camps will jump all over it and claim that excuses are being made to pre-empt defeat.

Perhaps another reason this compulsion to create tension seems unending is that when tennis hit its peak in popularity in the 1970s, there were clear distinctions to be drawn among the top players in terms of playing style and personality.

For Borg's fans, Connors and John McEnroe represented the dark side. And there was some legitimacy to such claims, as Borg's quiet countenance drew a sharp contrast with the volatile and venom-spewing American southpaws. If one were a fan of Connors, the argument would be that Borg was emotionless and Connors embodied passion. McEnroe rooters would argue that Borg was a robotic baseliner and McEnroe a Picasso at the net.

But since that time, with the advent of racket technology, playing styles have gradually become less differentiated. Add to that the general mellowing of the personal aspect to rivalries - with the insane money being made by all concerned part of the reason - and the result is a less organic breeding ground for intense, nearly hateful rivalries. But the result is that now admirers of certain players will try to jump-start controversy to justify their fanaticism or to create excitement.

But that's really too bad. One should just accept this tennis epoch for what it is: a period that has featured three players trading years of dominance in a fashion never seen since the open era started in 1968. Add to that the Wimbledon final of 2008, which most agree was the finest Wimbledon final ever, and it's impossible not to appreciate what the tennis gods have gifted to fans.

Killjoys on parade: When Tim Tebow first received significant national attention as a pro player, it was mainly due to his outspoken religious views. Though I've long despised the invoking of any higher being when it comes to sports, and I didn't care for his appearance on a Focus on the Family commercial during the Super Bowl, it was hard to sustain intensive criticism of Tebow because he dealt so well with the nasty taunts and insulting commentary hurled his direction.

Now that Tebow has put together one of the least predictable stretches of victories in clutch moments, he is the subject of scorn, incredulity and envy. This has much to do with the narrow-mindedness of those who cover sports, coming from corners large (Stephen A. Smith of ESPN) and small (Josh Levin of Slate.com).

Sports journalism has become predictable because it is so institutionalized and connected to leagues and games it covers - and worse, so stat- and trivia-obsessed that a different style of winning can't be joyfully appreciated for what it is. In-depth analysis doesn't necessarily translate to insight.

Often in sport, it is what it is. And Tebow is winning because that's what he's good at. He won a state title in high school, the national championship in college and is now two games from the Super Bowl. It's highly doubtful he'll lead the Broncos past the Patriots, but I wouldn't be shocked if it happened.

The reason I bring up football at the end of a discussion of tennis is that I couldn't stop thinking about Brad Gilbert and his "winning ugly" style, which propelled Andre Agassi to the top in tennis. Gilbert is one of the few free-thinking commentators on the air who truly gets what sports are about. And though he's a Raiders fan, I'd bet he's reveling in Tebow's awkward but prolific winning ways.

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

David Beckham may not have elected to sign with Paris Saint-Germain, but the French club is still going forward, seeking to grab talent as it makes a move to become one of the world’s most successful clubs. For now, PSG is just one of the wealthiest teams, not winningest. The rebuilding started with the recent signing of Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti. By appointing Ancelotti manager, PSG hopes to attract star players who would have otherwise gone to established powers such as Manchester United, AC Milan and Real Madrid. 

With Beckham out, the club is now eyeing AC Milan’s Pato and Real Madrid’s Kaka. Both Brazilian strikers played for Ancelotti at AC Milan, winning two Champions League titles – something PSG has ambitions of also winning. Whether both players will sign with PSG this month (not very likely) or during the summer (a bit more likely) remains, for the time being, the stuff of transfer period gossip. 

During the Christmas break, Ancelotti sought to dampen PSG’s expectations, saying last week that the team’s only aim, for now, is to “play in the Champions League next season and become a great team in the future.” On Saturday, he tampered down expectations further, telling reporters, “I am not a superstar!”  

How far into the future will PSG have to wait? As any Frenchman knows – Paris is great, but it doesn’t have a great soccer team. Think New York with just the Mets as a baseball team. 

One doesn’t hire a manager of the caliber of Ancelotti because you want to just participate in the Champions League. Ancelotti landed at PSG after the club’s sporting director, former Brazil star Leonardo, made sure the Italian would coach the team. Leonardo was a player for a season under Ancelotti at AC Milan in 2002, and then worked within the organization before succeeding him as head coach in 2009. 

At the same time, PSG’s new owners since last May, the government-owned Qatar Sports Investment, wants results – and they want them now. Flush with cash, QSI wants top-caliber talent. Beckham would have been great, if not for his playing abilities but for the marketing prowess he possesses. Jersey sales alone would have been worth whatever money they were prepared to toss his way. Unlike leagues in England, Italy, Spain and Germany, big-name players have traditionally been reluctant to sign with French clubs. 

The reason is that succeeding in France doesn’t not necessarily mean your club will turn into Barcelona. Take Lyon. Winners of seven straight Ligue 1 titles, the club has not won the Champions League. Ever! It hasn't even come close. What QSI’s head Nasser Al Khelaifi wants, above all, is European success. Only that will bring him the recognition he wants for his club, not a bunch of French league titles. 

That aside, cash from rich Arabs and other foreign owners (mostly notably American and Russian) doesn’t guarantee success of any kind. The signing of marquee players to make a splash sometimes works – especially in garnering worldwide attention – but it does not always mean success on the field over the long haul. When the deal was made official in July that QSI had purchased a majority stake in PSG, Al-Khelaifi said, “We will work over the coming years to make PSG a great team and a strong brand on the international scene, one that will make all the fans proud. I am excited to see the Parisians come to enjoy family games and support their team.” 

Ancelotti inherits a squad that has done well over the past few months. PSG is in first place with a three-point lead over Montpellier. The French league is currently on winter break and resumes this coming Saturday when PSG hosts Toulouse. PSG spent the break in Doha, Qatar, close to its new corporate bosses. On Sunday, PSG returned to action, barely winning 2-1 against non-league side Locmine in the French Cup. It was yet another sign that PSG has a long way to go. 

There is another reason why PSG has not had the success of clubs from England, Italy and Spain. PSG is a relatively new team, founded in 1970 thanks to the merger of clubs Paris FC and Stade Saint-Germain. It has been playing in France’s first division since 1974 and has only won two league titles over that time. So far, PSG has not signed the big names it dreams of. Argentina’s Javier Pastore came over from Italian club Palermo last year as did Uruguay’s Diego Lugano, but neither player is the sort of star that can carry a team. Nor do they have the global marketing and promotional prowess of a Beckham or a player like Barcelona’s Lionel Messi.  

Dreaming big costs nothing. At PSG, money is no obstacle as the $116 million QSI has spent demonstrates. The only obstacle remains the lack of stars at the club. For now, it all remains a dream.

Clemente Lisi writes a weekly soccer column for RealClearSports, appearing every Monday.  

Tim Tebow was the reason the Denver Broncos defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 29-23 in overtime Sunday in the NFL playoffs.

The numbers (10 of 21, 316 yards) aren't impressive in a Brees-Rodgers world. But unlike his overhyped efforts during Denver's 7-1 stretch in the regular season, Tebow demonstrated the star NFL quarterback he may someday be.

He ran effectively. He hit receivers in stride. He threw the ball away when it was wise to do so. He escaped the pass rush and made big plays on the move.

In short, he did everything Ben Roethlisberger usually does - but couldn't on this day.

Roethlisberger was only one of the banged-up Steelers, still suffering from a bad ankle injured four weeks ago against Cleveland. The Broncos took advantage of his immobility, sacking him five times and intercepting him once.

Pittsburgh's defense, already diminished by injuries and the blood disorder that kept safety Ryan Clark from playing in the Denver altitude, lost two-thirds of its defensive line in the first half, with end Brett Keisel and nose tackle Casey Hampton forced to the sidelines.

The absence of Clark would be vital on the game's final play.

The Steelers dominated the first quarter, holding the ball for more than 10 minutes but getting just two field goals from their first three possessions. Denver, meanwhile, had two three-and-outs and gained just 8 total yards.

But everything changed in the second quarter, when Tebow had the finest 15 minutes of his pro career.

The book on the Broncos - executed against them to perfection in their season-ending three-game losing streak - was to play to stop the running game and make Tebow beat you through the air.

That's exactly what he did in turning a 6-0 deficit into a 20-6 halftime lead. He hit Demaryius Thomas for 51 yards and followed it with a 30-yard touchdown strike to Eddie Royal. On the next possession, he went deep to Thomas again, this time for 58, setting up two Tebow runs for the second score. A Quinton Carter interception led to a Denver field goal, and a 40-yard strike to tight end Daniel Fells set up another three-pointer.

For the quarter, Tebow was just 5-for-9, but his receivers dropped two passes and he threw one away. The five completions went for 185 yards - more in one quarter than Pittsburgh's league-leading pass defense had allowed per game this season.

It was also a total Tebow had topped in just three of his 11 starts.

Denver kept the ball on the ground in the second half, trying to keep the clock moving. Roethlisberger brought the Steelers back, aided by a Willis McGahee fumble that put Pittsburgh in position for the tying touchdown, a 31-yard strike to Jerricho Cotchery.

Both teams had a chance to win in the fourth quarter. Tebow's first really bad pass missed an open Thomas over the middle. Two sacks of Roethlisberger pushed Pittsburgh from the fringes of mile-high field-goal range back to its own 36.

Pittsburgh lost the coin toss for overtime, the first to be played under the new not-quite-sudden-death rules. The kickoff went through the end zone, giving Denver first-and-10 on its own 20. A Broncos field goal would give Pittsburgh a possession with a chance to tie or win.

It was moot. Denver lined up in a power shotgun, with only Thomas split wide. Safety Ryan Mundy came up to defend against the run. Tebow faked a handoff to McGahee and spotted Thomas breaking free of Ike Taylor on a quick post. Mundy had already realized his mistake and was sprinting back when Thomas caught the ball in stride at his 38 with nothing but open field ahead of him. He stiff-armed Taylor at the 45 and outran the two Steelers to the end zone for the win.

It was the Broncos' fourth overtime game of the season - and their fourth overtime win.

Tebow took off his helmet and went down to one knee in the opposite end zone.

Stardom may have come early to him, but that doesn't mean he won't live up to it. In his first professional playoff game, he did exactly that.

It was late Friday morning, and I had turned on the Tennis Channel to view the semifinal matches from the Qatar Open in Doha, one of several tournaments that kick off the calendar year in advance of the Australian Open. Though it's only a 250 event, meaning the least important from the standpoint of ranking points a player can accumulate, the field is always strong. This year was no exception, as Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer were in the draw.

The semifinal matchups promised to be entertaining, with Federer taking on Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the man who defeated him on his beloved Wimbledon grass last summer, and Nadal playing athletic if erratic Frenchman Gael Monfils.

I had tuned in slightly late and anticipated joining the Federer-Tsonga semi late in the first set. Sure enough, the first image I saw was that of Tsonga preparing to return serve.

It was after the camera pulled back to show the full court when it happened. It was as if I had been sent spiraling into some vortex in time. I heard the announcer say "Edberg," and indeed, when I squinted I could see "Edberg" written in the score line. Even more unusual was that the figure sprinting across the screen looked indeed like Stefan Edberg, the Swedish tennis legend who retired 16 years ago. I immediately walked closer to the TV.

Yes, it was definitely him. For the sports fan, especially in tennis, the implanted memories of the graceful athlete's movements are fixed in time. No one has ever used such a pronounced twist of the back on the serve, and no player today uses such a high ball toss. And surely no top player in the men's game now has such a weak forehand. But how, why was he on the court?

Must be a rain delay, I thought, and they're showing an exhibition. But it doesn't rain in the desert, and there was that "Live" icon in the upper corner of the TV screen and the sponsor signage clearly indicating this was Qatar.

So what gives? Is this for real? Because from those initial glimpses of my tennis-watching past suddenly kinetically alive, it appeared that Edberg was holding his own against Tsonga. He was knifing volleys to all angles of the court, putting balls out of reach of the speedy Tsonga, just as he had done against Boris Becker, Ivan Lendl and Pete Sampras decades ago.

After a few minutes of this I started to get frustrated that the announcers weren't in constant-update mode and telling the viewers why Edberg, who looks eerily similar to the way he did in the early 1990s when he was at his peak, was on the court. Where was Federer?

When the first set ended 7-5, the players shook hands at the net, and this "match" was obviously over. Finally, it was explained that Federer had withdrawn at the last moment with a bad back and didn't want to jeopardize his chances in Australia. So Edberg, who was in Doha, volunteered to play Tsonga, serving as practice more than anything.

Though he's 46, Edberg moved with such precision and attacked with a focused, quiet aggression that it leaves one to wonder why more players don't attempt to occasionally institute this strategy more often. Granted, Tsonga was playing at only about 75 percent, but Edberg held his own in those rallies that seemed genuine.

It was all too rational an explanation. I wanted there to be some odder reason for seeing Edberg play. I had been transported back in time and didn't feel like being brought back to the present just yet.

The main reason I felt this sudden disappointment at it being over was that it was so refreshing to see Edberg's unique game against a current top player. The serve-and-volley is a vanished art, and no one in the open era - not even John McEnroe or Sampras - played this style of game with the elegance and precision of Edberg.

Sports fans have always engaged in the parlor game of "I wish I had seen so-and-so from the past take on the current No. 1." And sometimes it nearly comes true. In 2008, Federer played Sampras in a series of exhibitions that were as good as one can expect from a retired player, as Sampras was. After watching those contests at the height of Federer mania, when so many were declaring him the best of all time, Sampras' high level of play left some reconsidering their earlier assessments.

But seeing Edberg was different. It was so unexpected, so hazily dreamy that it made the occasion somehow more special. So special, in fact, that I don't remember much of Monfils' upset of Nadal in the other semifinal.

I've said for some time that men's tennis is in the midst of a golden age, anchored by the exhilarating rivalry between Federer and Nadal in addition to current No. 1 Novak Djokovic. I consider myself lucky to have witnessed hundreds of matches up close the last 10 years. But sometimes it's reassuring to get a visit from out of the past and have memories seared into the subconscious come to life one more time.

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

Manchester City’s 6-1 rout of United in October suggested that their hefty recent expenditures had paid off, but the Red Devils eager for revenge. Although the team recovered after the setback, recent defeats leave them lacking momentum.

However, an understaffed Manchester City will have great difficulty dealing United a crippling defeat, as it did in October. Midfielder Yaya Touré and his brother, defender Kolo, are out on international duty, playing for their national team, Côte D’Ivoire. Defensive midfielder Gareth Barry is banned, striker Mario Balotelli is injured, and attacking midfielder Samir Nasri is unlikely to recover from illness in time.

In comparison, Manchester United’s loss of defensive mainstays Nemanja Vidic and Chris Smalling seems minor. United manager Sir Alex Ferguson keeps a sizable squad which often is less vulnerable to injuries. The size of the bench allows room for injuries and player rotation.

Yet Manchester City may take advantage of glaring weaknesses. Neither David De Gea nor Anders Lindegaard seem up to Manchester United’s goalkeeping standards, which were for many years set by Edwin Van Der Sar. In comparison, Joe Hart, the Premier League’s best, will be a formidable foe for the Manchester United offense.

Though a big deal is being made over Kolo Toure’s absence, he is far from essential for Manchester City’s central defense, which boasts the likes of Joleon Lescott and Vincent Kompany. At the other end of the pitch, the aging Rio Ferdinand is a liability, but Phil Jones could shine.

With both Barry and Yaya Toure missing, what the Manchester City midfield will look like is everyone’s guess, but Manchester United’s constant squad rotation makes its lineup even more mysterious.

City coach Roberto Mancini could opt for a 4-2-3-1 formation to divert play from the wings, where Manchester United is strong, to the center of the pitch. With De Jong and Milner in the holding positions. Johnson, Silva, and Edin Dzeko could play in the attacking positions, giving Manchester City an extra man in midfield.

The Red Devils usually favor a 4-4-2 in domestic matches. With Valencia and Young playing out wide alongside Giggs and Carrick who would hold the center, Manchester United could use an expansive and physical game to overwhelm Manchester City’s defense.

Whether that tactic will work is unclear. So hold your breath. This game will be worth watching.

Theodore Furchtgott is a RealClearSports soccer columnist. He can be reached at Theodore.Furchtgott@gmail.com.

Larry Scott was quoted as saying, “Imagine the kind of value we could unleash if there were only one seller – all six power conferences negotiating one deal” seems at odds with the BCS proponents’ claims that it does not resemble a cartel. The purpose of this essay is to suggest some additional reforms pertaining to the bowl system in addition to the more fundamental proposals outlined last month.

Recent football seasons have brought about an explosion of bowl games. This year over 57 percent of all Division I-A (Football Bowl Subdivision) teams are participating in these postseason games. This year’s crop of bowls produced a number of new lows for the sport including UCLA, the loser in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, which ended its “bowl season” with a record of 6-8 after losing to Illinois, which two days prior to the game had four coaches threatening to boycott the game.  

In addition, there was the inspiring Beef O’Brady's Bowl between (according to the Sagarin Predictor rankings) No. 91 Marshall versus No. 96 Florida International in front of only 20,072 people. The complete debasement of the concept of being invited to a bowl game makes the sports press pronouncements about this or that school’s bowl invitation history about as meaningful (and laughable) as comparing home run statistics if the steroid era had been accompanied by bringing the fences in 100 feet.  

Going to a bowl game used to mean something (and still does for what is now known as the BCS bowls) when one remembers that in the years 1950-80, six teams that were named national champions by either the AP or the coaches’ poll did not even get bowl invitations in their championship years.

Then there is the controversy about the national championship game itself. Here the many detractors make contradictory arguments. On one hand although it is usually pretty clear who the top team that should be playing for the national title is, there's often significant controversy as to one of a handful of powerful teams that should be the challenger. Think Oklahoma State this year or TCU last year or Texas in 2008 as examples. Here the argument is about who earned the right to play in the championship game.  

At the other end of the spectrum are those who wish to emulate the commercial success and excitement of March Madness and have a playoff as is the case in Division I-AA (Football Championship Subdivision). This view usually argues for a playoff of eight to 16 teams that would clearly have some teams with multiple losses or a very weak claim to eligibility for the title game.

This year’s BCS championship game is particularly irksome. At a time when college conferences are being ripped apart in order to have college championship games, one of the two teams in this year’s title game not only did not win its conference, it was the runnerup in its division and lost at home to the team that it will play in a rematch.  

Now for a set of proposals to restore some sanity in the bowl and championship pictures. First, bowl games should feature teams that actually excelled during the regular season. The selectivity, honor and luster should be restored. The number of bowl games should be reduced back to the level that prevailed until the 1990s. In order to be sanctioned as a bowl game, all or most of the following criteria should be satisfied:

• Each team should have to have a record of no worse than .500 after the bowl game.

• Each game should involve at least one team ranked in the Top 25.

• Each participating team should be required to sell at retail (not to a sponsor) 10,000 tickets (this requirement could be modified for the relative handful of universities in Division I-A that have smaller student bodies and also therefore fewer alumni).

• Since there is a requirement in Division I-A for teams to have stadiums of at least 30,000 seats, to be sanctioned a bowl should be required to have a minimum of 30,000 paid attendance at the games.

• Since it is college football, no team should be eligible for postseason play if its graduation rate is not above the overall average (currently 68.1 percent). The validity and quality of the graduation rates should be monitored and over time the minimum requirement should be raised to something more like 80 percent.

As for the championship game. There are often more than two teams that have a legitimate claim based on their performance over the season to be considered eligible to be national champion. There are often three but rarely more than four. A playoff that includes teams with multiple losses who must play through final exam periods while exposing players to that many more opportunities for serious injury does not seem consistent with the mission of college athletics. College bowls played during the break after exams and after giving banged-up players some time to heal makes sense.  

Then again, the color and tradition of the bowl games played on or around New Year’s Day is very much a part of what has made college football great. A modified playoff system that makes use of the existing bowl structure not only preserves this tradition, but has a better chance of getting the necessary buy-in to make it a reality. 

I propose that on a rotating basis two of the four major bowl games (Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, Orange) be used as semifinal games with one of the four bowls played a week later as the championship game. The teams eligible for the playoff would be the four highest rated of the conference champions from the six major conferences plus the highest rated teams from the remaining conferences and independents provided that they rank in the top 25 (otherwise highly ranked teams that were not conference champions would be considered if the other champions do not qualify - call this the modified conference champion system). In order to take subjectivity and popularity contest aspects out of the determination I would propose that computer ratings that take into account home field advantage and quality wins (capped to prevent running up the score) be used to rank the teams.

What would this system look this year? Using the Sagarin Predictor rating system the playoff games would be LSU vs. Oregon and Oklahoma State vs. Wisconsin. If the modified conference champion system outlined above were combined with graduation rates above the midpoint this year’s playoffs would be LSU vs. Notre Dame and TCU vs. Alabama. If you just took the four most powerful teams with graduation rates above the midpoint you would have LSU vs. Boise State and Alabama vs. Stanford.

David W. Wise, a businessman who lives in Annapolis, Md., is an avid college football fan who has attended over 200 games. He can be reached at wisedw@comcast.net.

Beneath the surface, there is always tension, division, sometimes open rebellion, the figurative smell.

Players can't get along with coaches. Players often can't get along with each other. Backups want more playing time, more money, more recognition. These problems are masked well by success.

Who's going to grumble when you're going to the Super Bowl? You'd be portrayed as the jerk you are. And who's going to pay attention anyway? Nobody wants rain on the parade, even if he's only cleaning up after the elephants.

When the parade ends, however, the unhappiness, maybe the truth, pours out. It's a revision of the Las Vegas slogan: What happens there - despite all the warnings of management - does not stay there.

What was in some heads quickly gets into the headlines.

There aren't a lot of secrets in New York sports, not with the tabloids and The New York Times hovering 24 hours a day.

The idea is to get on the back pages of the Post, Daily News and Newsday. And the Jets, with Rex Ryan making outlandish promises of championships not yet realized and quarterback Mark Sanchez making mistakes, did that frequently.

If Ryan and Sanchez took a verbal poke at each other along the way, well, they were being competitive, and they still had a common goal, as presumably did the rest of the Jets, to make the playoffs. The presumption apparently was incorrect. Some of those guys just wanted to make more waves.

A Jets quarterback on injured reserve this season and a former Jets quarterback now on radio and television both knocked the team for a locker room that was dysfunctional and athletes who were selfish. And because the Jets failed to make the postseason - no deodorant - the criticism was not passed over.

Rookie Greg McElroy, a seventh-round draft choice who two years ago quarterbacked Alabama's national champions, told a radio station in Birmingham, Ala., a "corrupt mind-set'' existed in the Jets locker room.

He supported Ryan, the coach, and also said he hoped offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer returned. But McElroy was openly disappointed about sharing a locker room with "extremely selfish individuals" who "didn't care whether we won or lost as long as they got theirs."

Ryan, frustrated, said after the season ended he did not have the pulse of his team, meaning just about the same thing, that players were not united.

The situation is not unique in sports. Check out some businesses. Tom Tolbert, now a talk-show host in San Francisco, has spoken on air of his days playing in the NBA. At times, a teammate would intentionally throw a pass so low it couldn't be converted for a basket, so the shooter wouldn't improve his scoring numbers.

All for one and one for all has a nice ring, but unless a team is playing for a ring, the idea can easily be ignored.

"It's going to take a lot to kind of come together,'' McElroy said on the radio. "I know we'll be a better team because of the trials and tribulations this year."

Not necessarily, unless people such as Santonio Holmes, seemingly the most damaging of the group, seek to change their ways.

Boomer Esiason, a onetime Jets starting QB, told a Boston radio station that Ryan's decision to make Holmes the offensive captain "was an absolute embarrassment'' and a "slap in the face of all the good guys in the locker room."

He also said general manager Mike Tannenbaum brought "a lot of bad guys together in the locker room. ... There's a core of good players, but unfortunately all it takes is one guy."

Those listening might contend the one guy is Esiason, if it isn't McElroy, both talking about issues over which neither has control and stirring a pot. That the whining only makes a bad situation worse.

Erik Ainge, a onetime Jets quarterback - what, only QBs are willing to speak out - tweeted, "Someone tell McElroy to keep mouth shut about the NYJ locker room, speaking in the media about your teammates, entitled brat!"

Tannenbaum insisted he spoke to McElroy and a number of coaches "and we're going to fix a lot of these problems. ... Chemistry was certainly a factor this year. We haven't denied that."

After the final-game loss to the Dolphins, LaDainian Tomlinson said numerous players were "unhappy'' with Holmes. Another team member told the Newark Star-Ledger "Holmes quit in the game against Miami," adding, "It's happened for the past two or three weeks. It's happened all season."

The Jets either need a change in personnel or tons of Right Guard, Degree or Mennen Speed Stick.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

The 2012 pro golf season begins this week with the PGA Tour’s annual gathering of event-winners at Kapalua Resort in Maui. The Tournament of Champions was once a glamour event, sponsored by Mercedes.

The 2012 edition is brought to you by Hyundai.

The field at Kapalua is likewise a bit of a step down in horsepower. No Tiger Woods, no Phil Mickelson, no Luke Donald, no Rory McIlroy. Of the top 20 golfers in the Sony World Rankings, 12 won PGA Tour or World Golf Championship events in 2011, and only four of them will tee it up this week. 

The Tour has opted for an unusual Friday start, perhaps to avoid competing with the NFL playoffs on Sunday. Instead, it will finish on Monday, the day of that other pro football championship game between Alabama and LSU. If David Toms, a proud Tigers fan, ends up tied for the lead as the kickoff approaches, we might see the first-ever withdrawal from a sudden-death playoff.

A peek into my crystal Titleist has yielded the following predictions for the season to come:

Tiger Woods will win a tournament. Not a major, but a tournament. Quite possibly his first event, at Torrey Pines. But he will win only one, and will end his season with renewed concerns about his knee.

Total Tour wins for Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, and all American golfers over 40: Zero. It will be a lost season for the longtime standard-bearers of U.S. golf. They’ll be prime candidates as Captain’s picks for Davis Love III’s Ryder Cup team, but none of them will be among the qualifiers.

World No. 1 at the end of the year will be Jason Day. At 23, Day finished second at the Masters and U.S. Open and had top 10s at such prime events as The Players, the Tour Championship, and two WGCs. One breakthrough win will lead to several; Ladbrokes currently lists him at 33-1 for Augusta, and those odds are not likely to get shorter.

The biggest question in golf will be, “What’s wrong with Rory McIlroy?” New management, a globe-trotting romance, and the expectations that follow from his runaway victory at Congressional – a heady and mind-altering combination for the most grounded and mature veteran, never mind a 22-year-old. He will have many great years; 2012 will not be one of them.

A tournament winner will come out of the closet. A few days after winning his first tournament, two-year exemption in hand, a golfer will state publicly that he is gay. Despite the golf world’s conservative reputation, he will lose no endorsements, and will gain a few new ones.

Luke Donald will win his first major. The U.S. Open is at The Olympic Club, whose Lake Course favors control and shotmaking over power. It’s perfect for Donald, who won just about everything but a major in 2011, everywhere in the world.

The PGA Championship will be plagued by weather problems. August is the wettest month at Kiawah Island. If the wind blows as well, the course will be near-unplayable, leading to one of the most unsatisfying majors since Carnoustie in 1999. 

A few quick hits: The underdog U.S. team will win the Ryder Cup; a disputed drop will lead to blows at the Accenture Match-Play Championship; one more embarrassing incident will bring an end to the Adam Scott-Stevie Williams partnership; a player will win a tournament from which he would have been disqualified under the previous rules governing late-discovered violations; Danny Lee will be Rookie of the Year; rookies Kirk Triplett and Brad Faxon will not be enough to spark renewed interest in the Champions Tour; Lexi Thompson will bring enough attention to the LPGA that Americans will notice the greatness of Yani Tseng. 

It all starts on Friday in Hawaii. And remember, in case of predictions lasting more than four hours, please contact your physician. 

We have bowl games. We have the BCS. We had an overload of overtime. An abundance of suspense. What else do we need?

You think LSU-Alabama will be any better than Oregon-Wisconsin with a combined 1,130 yards gained?

Than Oklahoma State-Stanford, where the Cowboys’ Brandon Weeden completed 29 or 42 passes for 399 yards and Andrew Luck completed 27 of 31 for 347 yards?

Than Michigan State winning in the third OT? Than Michigan beating Virginia Tech in a single OT?

You think the bowl system is an anachronism? It’s a delight.

Andrew Luck out of luck, and what was Stanford coach David Shaw thinking anyway, trying to keep the ball on the ground until his ill-fated redshirt freshman kicker Jordan Williamson got it into the air – wide left, of course.

De’Anthony Thomas of Oregon had only two carries against Wisconsin. One was 91 yards for a touchdown, the other 64 yards for a touchdown in a 45-38 victory. If you’re going to run in this era of the pass, then that’s De way, or more accurately the De’Anthony way.

Michigan State down, 16-0, at the half and then up, 33-30 after the third OT. Michigan watching breathlessly as Virginia Tech’s Justin Meyer, who had connected on four field goals, failed in overtime to connect on a fifth and then winning the Sugar Bowl on its own boot, 23-20.

College football is perfect because it is imperfect, as well as chaotic, suspenseful, dramatic and traumatic, kids often making great plays, coaches occasionally making poor choices and fans loving every moment – even the failures.

Nobody wants to go home a loser, and the last few days nobody did, even those who didn’t win.

You think plus-one or an eight-team playoff would be any better than what we’ve watched previous 48 hours? This Rose Bowl (my 59th in succession, but that’s another story) was part Disney, part Chamber of Commerce – 82 degrees at kickoff for heaven’s sake – and all spectacle.

Then came the Fiesta Bowl, the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl if you choose, where Luck proved his greatness, Weeden showed his brilliance and all you could wish after Quinn Sharp of the Cowboys kicked the OT field goal after Williamson did not – his second botch in a matter of minutes – was for an encore.

We almost had one within 24 hours, when Michigan and Va Tech, disproving the idea they didn’t belong in the game, took the Sugar Bowl to the scheduled end and beyond.

At another level, in another era, when he was commissioner of the NFL, the late Pete Rozelle, responding to charges the Super Bowl had become too big, said, “All we are is entertainment.’’

So are college bowl games, huge parties with pompons and television timeouts and, from the squad with fewer points, perhaps a rueful observation or two.

“The bottom line,’’ said Shaw, the first-year Stanford coach, “was the kids played hard. We didn’t finish, not just the kid at the end.’’

The kid at the end would be Williamson, the kicker who will be remembered for a double-bagel, a miss and a miss. Still, if Shaw took advantage of Luck, in Andrew’s final game as an undergrad, maybe there’s a touchdown in the final seconds of regulation not a need for a field-goal attempt.

“We can’t settle for field goals against a good team,’’ said Shaw, repeating words heard maybe 10,000 times.

The rest of us will have to settle for Luck finishing his Stanford career. Andrew’s such a presence, the unequivocal No. 1 pick in April’s NFL draft, he’s already caused the disruption of the Indianapolis Colts front office and has the Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock, an Indy native, begging him to avoid the team.

Colts owner Jim Irsay on Monday fired team vice chairman Bill Polian, who amongst his other attributes, including turning the Buffalo Bills and Carolina Panthers into Super Bowl teams, drafted Peyton Manning.

Knowing Luck would be their choice and thinking Manning, unable to play a single game this season because of neck surgery, could be a distraction, Polian and son Chris, the GM, didn’t want Manning on the team in 2012.

Irsay didn’t want the Polians on the team in 2012.

Irsay, according to speculation, wanted to keep Manning, healthy or not, as well as adding Luck. The owner won that battle.

Luck, who could have entered the draft in 2011, stayed one more year.

“Yes, it was worth it,’’ he said after the Fiesta Bowl. “Not that I enjoyed every bit of it, because I didn’t. ... I had a chance to play great college football games, so it was definitely worth it.’’

Said Shaw, his coach: “He’s a Hall of Famer player. They come along every 20 years ago.’’

As opposed to captivating bowl games. They just don’t stop coming.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Often overlooked, however, is that Russell was a player-coach and twice won NBA championships in that capacity with the Celtics. Along with his contributions as a veteran player and head coach, his success was also testament to his strategic acumen and leadership ability.

For a player of Russell's caliber it is a rare feat to achieve success as a coach. While multiple Hall of Fame players achieved significant success as coaches - Mike Ditka and Bob Lemon are a couple of examples - the sports world is littered with all-time greats being unable to translate their on-field triumphs to similar achievements leading a team.

The list is long: Ted Williams, Yogi Berra, Walter Johnson, Eddie Mathews, Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas, to name a few.

It seems that the best coaches and managers were mediocre to fair players, never perpetual All-Stars. The names that come immediately to mind are Bill Cowher, Phil Jackson, Whitey Herzog, Tommy Lasorda, Billy Martin and Pat Riley.

Why this is has never been answered. A common theory is that it's difficult for the gifted player to sustain the patience that is such an integral part of understanding the players they're managing.

When Jimmy Connors' mother thought her fiery southpaw son needed more advanced teaching at the age of 16, she put him under the tutelage of the diminutive Pancho Segura. While a fine player in the pro ranks, Segura never won a Slam title. Yet he proved to be the perfect choice to tutor Connors, nurturing his famous passion and improving his on-court strategy.

Connors once tried his hand at coaching when he took on Andy Roddick as a pupil in July 2006. It appeared an ideal pairing at the time, as Roddick reached the finals of the U.S. Open just months later, losing to Roger Federer in four sets. But the partnership didn't produce any other stellar results, and Connors, after only 19 months, resigned.

Tennis is a sport in which, by far, the best coaches have been those who were decidedly not top winners. Federer is coached by Paul Annacone. Rafael Nadal's coach is his Uncle Toni. Pete Sampras was coached by Annacone as well as Tim Gullikson. And Brad Gilbert, perhaps the most successful and unconventional of modern tennis coaches, was the ideal choice for Andre Agassi for an extended period.

But as the New Year began, word came of a major coaching development in tennis. Ivan Lendl announced he would be coaching the great British hope and perpetual (perceived) underachiever, Andy Murray.

For those who follow tennis closely, the decision was a surprise. Since his retirement in the mid-1990s, Lendl has focused on playing golf more than tennis, with his daughters highly accomplished golfers. But his reappearance in tennis started a couple of years ago when the eight-time Grand Slam champion committed to practicing again, and he is now a fixture on the ATP Champions Tour.

On paper, the pairing of Lendl with Murray makes sense. Like Murray, Lendl had huge expectations hoisted upon him. When Lendl soared in the rankings in 1980, there loomed the seemingly impenetrable top three of Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe and Connors. And indeed they were. Lendl lost to Borg in the 1981 French Open final and to Connors in the 1982 and 1983 U.S. Open title matches. He also lost to Mats Wilander in the 1983 Australian Open final.

So by 1984, at 24, there were many who began to question whether Lendl would ever break through. But then, trailing two sets to none against McEnroe in the 1984 French final, Lendl fought back and won his first major title. For McEnroe it was unquestionably the hardest loss of his career, and he'd never again win a major after 1984.

Murray is in an eerily similar position. The mercurial 24-year-old Scot is faced with the daunting task of his brick wall of three players ranked ahead of him - Novak Djokovic, Nadal and Federer. And like Lendl before his 1984 French triumph, Murray has reached several Slam finals but has never performed near his best in any of them, losing to Federer at the 2008 U.S. and 2010 Australian Opens and to Djokovic at last year's Aussie.

Additionally, Lendl could serve as a model with his work ethic. Lendl, like his native countrywoman Martina Navratilova, was at the vanguard of physical conditioning in the 1980s. He was a relentless worker, and his consistency is borne out by reaching 26 semis or finals in a streak of 32 Slam tournaments.

Lendl rarely let mental demons infiltrate his psyche. This clearly cannot be said for Murray, who has been seen frequently unleashing verbal tirades at himself and his box during big matches. Murray has also appeared fatigued and mentally deflated during grueling battles with his foes. It's doubtful Lendl would tolerate such displays of weakness.

There's no telling what impact Lendl will have with Murray. After all, Gilbert, who has worked - and succeeded greatly - with such disparate personalities as Agassi and Roddick, spent time as Murray's coach. But it didn't produce stellar results.

But with the Australian Open just two weeks away, it seems the ideal time for Murray to embark on this surprising partnership. Melbourne is where Murray has played his best, and if Lendl can instill a more consistent and powerful game plan in Murray, the dreams of a British Slam titlist may not be that far off.

Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides regular commentary for RealClearSports on Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: joyce.timothy@gmail.com

Whether 2011 was a good year in soccer depends on whom you ask. For FIFA President Sepp Blatter, it was the worst in living memory as FIFA lost all credibility amidst numerous scandals. But for the game taking place on the pitch, it was one of the best in recent times.

AC Milan broke Internazionale’s Serie A dominance and played in a more entertaining style than the former champions, who preferred a stifling defense. This season, more improvements are underway as the Italian status quo has been broken with both Milan clubs disappointing.

In Germany, Borrussia Dortmund emerged from the ashes of bankruptcy to win the Bundesliga. Even the financial might of Bayern Munich couldn’t secure the league title. But above all, last year’s campaign was a triumph for Germany, with the country’s latest generation of young soccer players more numerous and talented than anyone could have predicted.

Lille’s victory in the Ligue 1 showed that attacking play is a viable option in a league recently dominated by lack of ambition and goalless draws. Along with more entertaining soccer, better players are on their way following the takeover of Paris Saint-Germain by an Arab consortium.

And of course, a dazzling Barcelona side won a quintuple. No matter what you feel about the team, there is nothing more satisfying than the sight of a technically gifted group of players overcoming negative tactics from the opposing team.

On the international scene, 2011 was the year of the underdog. The Copa America challenged everyone’s conceptions of the South American game. While commentators suggested that the tournament would as usual be dominated by Brazil and Argentina, the regional superpowers, both sides played terribly.

Uruguay, guided by the tactical astuteness of Oscar Washington Tabarez, won the trophy. Peru and Venezuela, often considered to have the worst soccer in the entire confederation, reached the semifinals. If only all major tournaments were as unpredictable.

Over the past 12 months, FIFA has received more publicity than ever, outshining some of the biggest teams. Some FIFA executives received more media attention than the sport’s well-known players. Unfortunately, none of this was for good reasons.

The controversy originated from the decision to host the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 edition in Qatar. It didn’t matter that the FIFA inspectors had clearly stated that these were the most expensive options. The oppressive heat of the Qatari summer will torment the teams when outside their air-conditioned stadiums. FIFA, an organization which claims to run a campaign against racism, awarded a World Cup to Russia, where racism in the grounds is the most widespread.

It does not help that the FBI is now investigating the organization, nor that the 2011 FIFA presidential election had exactly one candidate, nor that over three-quarters of the FIFA executives were suspected of corruption or other unethical practices. That’s not even counting those linked to shady regimes or simply incompetent.

When one sees Blatter coming up with clever solutions to reorganize FIFA, asking the advice of everyone who will listen, from Henry Kissinger to Placido Domingo, it’s hard not to imagine a bank robber reorganizing the police department.

This year proves that soccer belongs to the players and coaches, not the administrators peddling their influence. It’s clear where progress must be made for 2012. Let’s hope that we see improvement off the pitch. As for the state of FIFA, it can’t get any worse.

Theodore Furchtgott is a RealClearSports soccer columnist. He can be reached at Theodore.Furchtgott@gmail.com.

They can’t wait to get out.

Stein, the poet, author and art collector, in truth was born in Allegheny, Pa., resided in Baltimore and briefly in the late 1800s moved to Oakland.

The rest of her life – she died in 1946 – was spent in Paris, but in the 1930s she returned to visit California. Not able to locate her childhood house in Oakland, which had been razed, she penned that most memorable and unpunctuated of observations, to wit:

“What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yet write about it if I like or anything but not there, there is no there there.’’

Shortly, there may be no Oakland A’s there, no Golden State Warriors there, no Oakland Raiders there, if the franchise owners, for diverse and sundry reasons having to do with money – naturally – or prestige have their way. Which they may or may not.

Oakland? A tough town, with a bad reputation, not all undeserved, that had the geographical mistake to be located across the bay from “everyone’s favorite city,’’ San Francisco. The slogan is the creation of San Francisco, naturally, but not terribly inaccurate.

Sure, Oakland has sunshine to San Francisco’s fog; and redwoods growing in the hills; and is cheek-to-jowl with Berkeley, as in the University of California, where it’s easy to start a protest movement but excruciatingly difficult to get to the Rose Bowl, the Golden Bears last having appeared in the game on Jan. 1, 1959.

At least Cal since its founding in 1868 has been content not to change locations.

The A’s showed up 100 years later, 1968, coming from Kansas City, after starting out in Philadelphia. Oakland, the team, was baseball’s last dynasty, winning three consecutive World Series, 1972-73-74. But Oakland the city didn’t get much reflected glory or after the temporary savior, Walter Haas of Levi’s fame, sold the team, much attendance.

They have always played in the Coliseum, the last multipurpose stadium in use for both football and baseball, which was reconstructed – A’s fans, few that there are, say ruined – when the Raiders returned from L.A in 1995.

There’s this charming, waterside ballpark across the bay where the Giants play and there’s this huge sporting palace with the upper deck seats covered by tarps, where the A’s play.

So, the owners of the A’s, Lew Wolff – a fraternity brother of baseball commissioner Bud Selig – and John Fisher want to haul off to San Jose, 40 miles down Interstate 880, because that’s Silicon Valley territory and because they’ve been promised a new ballpark.

Of course, after the fire-sale trades of the last few days, the A’s, with the “Moneyball’’ guy Billy Beane pulling strings, exchanging top pitchers, Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez and finally Andrew Bailey – All-Star choices all – for prospects, cannon fodder if you will, who needs a new ballpark?

The A’s could shift to a muni stadium in San Jose where the San Francisco Giants’ Class A team plays.

The connection is that the Giants, the major league Giants, own the territorial rights to San Jose and environs, and former Giants managing general partner told the San Francisco Chronicle the Giants won’t relinquish those rights.

The NBA Warriors, once the San Francisco Warriors, again could be the San Francisco Warriors. The “Golden State’’ label was adopted in 1971 when the team scheduled a few home games in San Diego, after the Rockets shifted to Houston. Maybe it’s the earthquake faults under California which keep everything unstable.

The two guys who bought the Warriors 14 months ago, movie exec Peter Guber, dot.com venture capitalist Joe Lacob, would prefer a San Francisco address.

Oakland? Chaos-ville, with a mayor, Jean Quan, preoccupied with the Occupy movement. She did toss out an idea for a new stadium and arena, Coliseum City, to retain the three teams, but in this economy it doesn’t have a chance – not that San Jose’s grandiose plans to build the A’s a park are certain to be realized.

The Raiders, the only one of the three teams to have started in Oakland, in 1960, with the beginning of the AFL, already have changed locations, to Los Angeles. Then against all logic, because the late Al Davis, in command wasn’t ever concerned about logic, they moved back to Oakland.

Now? Davis died in October, and with Los Angeles announcing it would build a new football stadium, the possibility is the Raiders could retrace their last voyage and – heaven help us – return to L.A.

“The city,’’ read one article about Oakland’s assets, “is a transportation hub for the greater Bay Area, and its shipping port is the fifth busiest in the United States.’’

For the teams, it could be a case of shipping out instead of shaping up.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America. His columns appear in RealClearSports on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Your team leads by five points with a minute and a half to go. Your opponent has driven to your 1-yard line, where it's first-and-goal. You have no timeouts.

What is your optimal strategy?

You can try to shut the opponent out of the end zone with a heroic goal-line stand. It might work, but it's a four-down situation in which the opponent must have a touchdown. You may stop them once or twice, but even if they just run four quarterback sneaks, they're almost certain to score.

When they do, you'll wish you had the time back on the clock for your offense to try to get a game-winning field goal.

If you have a good or even average offense, your chances of getting a field goal in a minute and a quarter after a kickoff are better than of stopping the opponent on the goal line.

So on first down, you basically stand aside and let them score, giving up the lead but preserving time for your offense. You give up points in the present to improve your chances of winning in the future.

How is this different from tanking games to get a better draft pick?

Or consider this: In December 2007, with the Eagles leading 10-6 just before the 2-minute warning in the fourth quarter, Brian Westbrook broke free on a first-down run from the Dallas 25. He was untouched as he approached the end zone, then veered to the side and went down at the 1. The Cowboys had no timeouts. Donovan McNabb took three knees, and the game was over.

Westbrook wisely recognized that possession of the ball, not increasing the score, was the sure path to victory. It is unlikely Dallas could have scored a touchdown, recovered an onside kick and scored another TD - but it's possible. He sacrificed short-term gain for a larger goal.

How is this different from sitting your starters in a late-season game to keep them fresh for the playoffs?

These are the type of questions that arise at the end of an NFL season. Or earlier, if you've been following the Suck-for-Luck campaign.

St. Louis and Indianapolis are tied for the worst record in the league at 2-13. The Colts hold the tiebreaker, on the basis of strength of schedule. The team with the easier schedule gets the nod when there's a tie for draft position. They both stank, but since the Rams stank equally against a tougher set of teams, they didn't stink quite as badly for top-pick purposes.

The Rams host the 49ers on Sunday, and they would probably have no trouble losing even if they had no special incentive to do so. San Francisco has considerable incentive to win, since victory clinches the No. 2 seed in the NFC playoffs and a week off. (New Orleans can equal the 49ers' record, but San Francisco has the edge in games against common opponents. The Saints' losses to Tampa Bay and St. Louis were crucial in this and grow more inexplicable by the day.)

Indianapolis has won its last two games and goes to Jacksonville, where Blaine Gabbert is doing his best to undermine official recognition of 2011 as Year of the Rookie Quarterback. The Colts have nothing to gain by winning and a great deal to gain by losing.

Why should they even try to win?

On the other end of the St. Louis/San Francisco matchup, we come to th Saints. They have clinched their division and cannot be passed for the No. 3 seed but will move up only to No. 2 if they beat Carolina (see Year of the Rookie Quarterback, above) and the Niners lose to the Rams. Unlikely in the extreme.

Should they rest their starters?

I'm sure they've already given it a lot of thought. It's one reason it made sense for Drew Brees to go for the passing-yardage record on the final series against Atlanta on Monday night. There's now no record-related incentive to have Brees on the field Sunday.

(I'm no fan of putting records ahead of the play of the game, as Sean Payton and Brees did, but this additional factor makes it OK in this case. And, incidentally, before celebrating a yardage record, it would be wise to remember that it's possible to lose yards too. One screen pass tackled for a loss of 4, and the record is Dan Marino's again.)

There is no ethical problem when a team does what's in its own best interest, even losing. The problem is, pro football players have short careers, and the game hurts. It's hard to ask them to go out and get beat up.

Still, for a worst-case scenario in all directions, consider the Vikings last week. Two season-ending losses would put them in the potential 2-14 mix with the Colts and Rams. Instead of joining the great race to the bottom, Minnesota played to win - and lost Adrian Peterson to a devastating knee injury. Worse draft position and the loss of their one great player made Sunday at FedEx Field an almost perfect definition of Pyrrhic victory.

The NFL has actually done a terrific job of reducing the possibility of late-season manipulations. Matching all teams against division opponents can create head-to-head battles for playoff spots, as with the Giants and Dallas on Sunday night. (The Cowboys had their moment of weirdness last week. When the Giants beat the Jets, it eliminated the Eagles, and the Dallas-Philadelphia game meant nothing to the Cowboys' playoff prospects.) Scheduling teams whose games affect one another so they're played simultaneously this week - to the extent possible - is another smart move.

Still, when there is an incentive for losing, as there is with the draft, no one should point fingers at a team that chooses to lose.