This Week in Sports

Dear Danny,

As some of you know, and all of you should know, this past week kicked off the 2007-2008 NFL season. It didn't disapoint. I mean, I was disappointed with a Bucs loss AND a heartbreaking Giants loss, but the 10 hours I got to watch were great. 3 last second wins, and a pretty good ending to the Monday night Bengals/Ravens game.

Now we're on to week 2, with a Bucs win, the Saints 0-2, the Giants 0-2 and the Texans 2-0...should be a good year in the NFL.

But I'm not here to talk about this past week in football I wanna talk about the offseason. We all know and will remember the whole Michael Vick saga but will we really remember Michael in 2 months, 2 years? I don't think that he'll be more than a glitch on the pop culture radar. What we should be looking at here is the man at the top. Roger Goodell starts his 2nd season as the commishioner of the league and has already had to deal with more shenanigans than anyone should.

What I want to bring up about Goodell is his nature towards sports. He brings in a new era of crack down no excuses football on and more importantly off the field. On the field he's bringing in more rules to get rid of player's hot tempers. We saw it today come into play when Jeremy Shockey spiked a ball and the Giants got a costly penalty. These new rules are trying to put a stricter sense of sportsmanship, which on one hand will just annoy a lot of hot tempered players but I also move to say it will bring out a lot more in terms of creativity, see Chad Johnson. Also look at a guy like Randy Moss. Hot tempered, showy, career going no where because of it. Now, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that he's under Billicheck, but he's more subdued and just about playing football, working out for him so far. The point is, the players are more about the game now.

Look further though to his offseason crack downs. It all started with Adam Jones, who I'm a huge fan of via Madden, and for the longest time I was a Jones supporter. He never did anything wrong was his case, and he shouldn't be harmed for doing so. But time and time again just showed how little Jones was taking this seriously. Now he's suspended, and we'll see if he'll play again. Then Tank Johnson was suspended and cut from the Bears, and still has yet to sign with any team. Then of course Vick, who hopefully will never play in the NFL again.

The point, at least in my eyes, is this - just because you're a sports star doesn't mean you're still not a person. Our culture now has risen sports stars to the level of pop stars (see A-Rod) and celebrities. Tom Brady was in People magazine, A-Rod the butt of many a Jay Leno joke, it's getting to the point of absurdity. Yes, I will admit that sports are just another form of entertainment, but that's not what they used to be. In the days of Ruth and Mays and Montana and Bird, sports icons were someone you could look up to as leaders. A sports star used to mean that you could lead your team through hardship and never give up. As a kid, I used to watch baseball games all the time and my favorite stat as a kid was the CG, the complete game. To me, pitching 9 innings, telling your coach that you didn't need the bulpen help, that you wanted to finish what you started, that was heroic. That's why Curt Schilling was my favorite player growing up, always wanted to go 9.

But now we don't look up to sports stars for inspiration, we look up to them to see records broken and slam dunks and hard tackles. Kids don't say, "I want to grow up to be a winner like Jordan" they say "I want to grow up and sign a huge contract like Jamarcus Russel." Hold outs and rookies getting 10 million a year without having thrown an NFL pass and kids coming out of high school has altered the goal of sports to peaked physical prowess to the top buck.

Michael Vick. Star quarterback. Flashy, showy, ran a lot, terrible, TERRIBLE quarterback. I could rattle off stats but that's not the point. The point is everyone wanted a Vick jersey. Martin Lawrence even wore one in Bad Boys 2. Kids idolized Vick. But then we see what he's like as a person. Cruel, destructive, a liar and a dishonorable person. I don't care if Whoopi Goldberg supports him, drowning dogs is cruel. So we have this should be convict in a time where heat sells, and as much as Goodell could have very easily not come down hard on Vick, he stands by his morals and sends him away. It sends out a message that this is not the kind of thing the NFL, or any sport, should support. Maybe Bud Selig can catch wind of this and maybe he'll do something about the steroid problem. Probably not, at least for another few years, but the example is out there now. Roger Goodell says that there's still hope for sports in this country, I think there is too. Look at some young guys like Vince Young, LeBron James, Greg Oden, Tomlinson, Jose Reyes or most of the Indian or Red Sox. Guys that like playing the game and like challenges and like meeting those challenges.

I don't think hope is lost for sports, but it will take a lot of time and effort to get things back even one tenth like the way they were