By updating RealClearSports I read hundreds of articles every week but sometimes there are particular passages that need highlighting. And to make these passages more palatable I'm doing them in award form! The awards are completely random and will change weekly.

Hey, Bob Costas. Why so serious? That's a question WR Stevie Johnson might ask the announcer after his Andy Rooney-esque (and by that I mean shut-in Grandpa-like) rant on Sunday Night Football. The topic is now decades old and yet it seems like someone brings it up every week. This time it was Costas to get on his high horse and lecture us (in a supremely condescending manner) about how touchdown celebrations are a microcosm for the downfall of society. Think I'm exaggerating? Here's the beginning of Costas' rant:

"For those of you too busy keeping up with the Kardashians to notice, we live in a culture that in many ways grows more stupid and graceless by the moment. Sports both reflects and influences that sorry trend, so on playing fields everywhere, true style is in decline, while mindless exhibitionism abounds."

He called the celebrations "calculated displays of obnoxious self-indulgence." He does know a thing or two about being obnoxious. But instead of blaming the player why not look at the system? Why exactly are these things illegal? Analysts always rail on any player that equates football to war and whenever serious topics are broached we are constantly reminded that these athletes are simply playing childhood games. So why can't they have fun since it's just a game?

Why has the NFL taken it upon itself to become the moral police and penalize players for entertaining us? Who hasn't enjoyed Maurice Jones-Drew's powder toss in Cleveland or Deion Branch mocking Fireman Ed or Tony Scheffler swashbuckling (is that even a word?) in Tampa? These weren't just entertaining but they were clever as well. They certainly weren't "stupid and graceless" which is more than I can say for Costas' piece. On to the awards!

Those Horrible Players and Owners
Linda Robertson of the Miami Herald has no sympathy for the players and owners: Most days, Tammy Smith wakes up tired and goes to bed hungry. She has 12 children -- three with sickle cell anemia. She can't find a job. Her husband died last year.
To her, the NBA lockout that has put the season in jeopardy might as well be taking place on Mars.
The Lakers' Kobe Bryant, who pockets $307,859 per game when there are games, and Orlando Magic owner Richard DeVos, whose net worth is $5 billion, might as well be Martians.
Smith's No. 1 goal every day is to feed her kids. She cannot relate to Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen as a fellow human being. He owns a 416-foot yacht with two helicopters perched on its deck.

This reminds me of The Simpsons where Bart becomes a reporter and all of his pieces are meant to pray on people's emotions for ratings. What does Tammy Smith have anything to do with the lockout? If Robertson is so concerned with Ms. Smith than maybe she should give up half her salary because I'm sure she is living a luxurious life compared to Smith and isn't that all that matters? It's all relative. How about asking why Ms. Smith has 12 kids. Were the fathers of those kids basketball players or owners? If not, her story has absolutely nothing to do with the lockout and to link the two is simply sensationalistic journalism.

Pointing the Finger in the Wrong Direction
Peter Schrager of Fox Sports believes Urban Meyer was stealing the spotlight from Ohio State and Michigan players: Urban Meyer is the New Favre. All that's missing are the Wrangler jeans and the cell phone pictures. The fact that Meyer's stolen every headline surrounding this game with his tired "Will he or won't he?" act (yet, again) is unfair to the kids at Michigan, unfair to the kids at Ohio State, and disrespectful to the 108-year rivalry, itself.

Meyer is stealing the headlines?? How about the media not write about his every single move. Meyer did all he could do keep this story quiet and not leak anything until it became official. It's the media that allowed this to take over the games. It's not like Meyer was holding press conferences. He pretty much said no comment to just about everything. If you want to place blame on something other than the media blame Ohio State for beginning the hiring process midseason.

Saddest Story of the Week
It's no Tammy Smith sad-sack story but as an avid TV watcher this story from Kevin Van Valkenburg of the Baltimore Sun made me feel bad for Jack Harbaugh, the father of coaches Jim and John: Jack Harbaugh can hardly wait to descend into his basement, and click on his television -- the same one he's had since 1987 (he has no plans of getting a new one.) He'll spend the next few hours blissfully taking notes.

Same TV as 1987?? Do you know what you're missing? You're not watching this footage and your sons coach in HD? Might as well be getting his information by carrier pigeon.

Insanely Insensitive Column of the Week
Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star is probably having a rough year. The Colts are now 0-11 and have a very good chance of going winless. It's a stark departure from consistently winning 10-plus over the past decade. It looks like he has run out of ways to write about how bad the Colts are and recently wrote a scene of a Colts Thanksgiving: The doorbell rings. It's Kerry Collins.
Collins: "Hello, gentlemen."
He grabs a huge plate of appetizers. And three bottles of wine. Then walks out the door.
Collins: "Thanks for everything, guys."

Did he really forget that Collins has battled with alcoholism? If he did, it's not saying much about him as an NFL reporter. If he didn't, it doesn't speak well to him as a human being.

Those Dirty Owners!
Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News believe the owners schemed their way to a lockout win: The owners won. We knew they'd win. ... The only minor surprise is that the 10 to 15 hard-line owners didn't keep pushing to try to crush the players in totality. But this way, the owners got Christmas, and they got the player givebacks they wanted.

Those Horrible Players!
Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times believes the players were to blame: You boo them for spending months rejecting the approximate 50-50 revenue split that was ultimately agreed upon. You boo them for being the last people on the planet to realize the owners were serious about shutting down a season for the sake of a better league. You boo them for being controlled by fat egos that finally collapsed upon thinning wallets.

Yes! Boo the players for not realizing they were going to get screwed. Makes perfect sense to me.

Possible Reason for All the Lockout Vitriol
Henry Abbott of TrueHoop gives an account of what it was like following the lockout (a fun read): Dozens of times I kissed my family goodbye and got on a bus or in a car and headed off to somewhere in midtown Manhattan, having no idea if I'd be home at 6 p.m. or 6 a.m. ... And almost all of it was time wasted.

Day after day. Week after week. Hanging out in hotel rooms. Eating street meat and delivery food. Who wouldn't be upset after all that? Writing columns into the early hours of the day; how could this experience not effect the writing? Maybe that's why so many columnists railed against this lockout and blasted both sides.

Charity Work Is Only For Nice Guys
Greg Doyel of CBS Sports believes Ndamukong Suh's strong reputation off the field is an awful thing: Apparently he's a great guy off the field, donating time and money to worthwhile causes, and that's noted. It's also irrelevant. In fact, it's insulting. The way Suh behaves on the field, it undercuts what he does off it. Makes it look insincere. Fake. Because on the field he's a monster. He's a prince off the field? Faker. Fraud. We see the real Ndamukong Suh every week, all fall, and he's no prince.

Players can't have different personalities on and off the field? Isn't that what we want from them? When we hear of a story of a player beating someone up we're not surprised because how can these players separate the aggression on the field from their personal lives off of it? If Suh can do that then that's amazing and something to embrace. Of course, Suh could PROBABLY dial it back a bit and refrain from slamming players' heads into the turf or stomping on them. Mmmkay. Yeah. That'd be great.

Not a Former Football Player
I'm not sure if David Steele is a former football player or not but it doesn't seem that way based on this Sporting News article in response to Suh's stomping and Stevie Johnson's TD celebration: They violated what once was a serious, if not sacred, code among players: play hard, play to win, play all-out, but don't threaten another player's livelihood. Respect another combatant in battle (and knowing what we know now about the long-term effects of this game, that's no longer too harsh a characterization) as you'd want that combatant to respect you.

All he has to do is read Kris Jenkins' article in the New York Times to know there's no real code in football. During pile-ups he tried to break people's bones, twist elbows and pop elbows out. That doesn't seem like a group that doesn't threaten another player's livelihood to me.