Free At Last!!!

With the beginning of preseason games, and the end of the Bret Favre epic poem, we as a nation have finally been liberated from the annual hostage crisis that is baseball season. Plus, not only has football swung in to save us, but he brought his friend and teammate the Olympics to rescue us from baseball's evil mustached clutches.

(I always picture evil as the over-acting silent film villain, twirling his mustache as he ties the damsel in distress to the railroad tracks, in the path of the oncoming train.)

Thus liberated, let's look at some of the highlight story lines that are looming over the NCAA and NFL seasons:

- Preseason polls mean nothing. Nothing. Early injuries at USC, Cal, Florida, UCLA, and Clemson already show that.

- Were Kansas and Mizzou one year wonders? Or is this the beginning of a changing of the guard in the Big 12?

- This is Ohio State's best team in the last three years; are they not going to play for a title because of the past two years failures?

- Early look Games to Watch For That Aren't Rivalry Games (G2W4TARG): Alabama vs. Clemson in Atlanta, App State at LSU (just kidding, Michigan), Ohio State at USC, Some team from Athens at Arizona State University...and that's just the first 4 weeks!

- Hard Knocks just isn't the same this year; the TO and Pac Man stuff is solid, but the Romo bits seem too staged. I do know I want more Tank Johnson, bonus points if the team takes an outing to a shooting range, and Tank isn't allowed to shoot.

- The biggest loser in the whole Green Bay/Brett Favre saga? Aaron Rogers. It would have been bad if Brett had come back as a coach, because his shadow would have been colored by his standing on the sideline. It would have been worse if Brett had come back and won the job. The worst case scenario is where Brett desperately wants to come back, but the team makes the smart move (more on that later...) and lets him go somewhere else. Now, Aaron is seen, fairly or not, as the man who drove out the Legend. Good luck kid.

- The Falcons looked more than half bad Saturday night, and Matt Ryan's over-celebrated touchdown was thrown late and behind the receiver. And people were happy. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2008 Atlanta Falcons!!!

- Green Bay made the best decision they could with the situation before them. From a football standpoint, it is a no-brainer that Favre gives you the best chance to win, but as we all must remember, professional sports aren't about championships. They are about the bottom line, and as a business decision, this was the right one; the team had invested money in making Aaron Rodgers the face of the franchise, and they had to stand by that.

Finally, I was hyped for the Olympics, I really was. I was excited to watch the Redeem Team (stupid name and all) come through and crush everyone else on some 1992 throwback type ish, and mildly excited for the games as a whole. I mean, it is always nice to see the world competing, isn't it?

After last night?

I'm pumped like Al Pacino delivered his 'Peace With Inches' speech. How dare those dirty French Frogs say that they were here to 'crush the Americans'...if that's why you came, then you should have stayed home, son! Forget building international bridges, I want the red, white, and blue to scorch the Earth in Beijing! Utter domination! YES WE CAN!!!

*Real Life Edit* - Oh, and Russia using the stage of global unity as a smokescreen to attacking Georgia? Classic. I, for one, hope Russia re-emerges as a Superpower and helps restabilize global tensions.