No. 88

As the OTA season s now upon us, I thought it would be a good time to talk about legacy.

There has been much uproar over the past few months about Dallas' first round selection in the April draft, WR Dez Bryant. Hailed as a top-10 talent and blasted for having a 5 cent head, Bryant spent the last 9 games of his junior season at Oklahoma St. suspended. What did he do? Well, he had dinner with NFL great Deion Sanders, then lied about it to NCAA investigators. Why lie? Well, the NCAA are douche-bags who ignore major violations by prominent coaches (I'm looking at you, Pete Carroll and Tim Floyd) and programs (cough, cough USC, cough) so they can squash little programs for minor infractions. They also follow the rules to the letter if and when they want to, but by no means all the time. So this 20 year old son of a single mother worried that his having eaten dinner with an former professional player would constitute "receiving payment" (unlike Reggie Bush or OJ Mayo, who actually DID receive payment) and would lose his eligibility. So he lied to investigators, and they suspended him for 12 months. Not the rest of the season- 12 months. By the way, Oregon RB LeGarrette Blount sucker-punched an opposing player, then charged into the stands to fight fans and got 5 games.

So Bryant fell in the draft due to "character concerns." Great. Made me happy. Anytime you can get a top 10 talent at #24, you are relieved. Of course, this being the Cowboys, nothing can be quiet. Reports surfaced that during one of the many inane interviews given during the NFL's Combine, a GM asked Bryant if his mother was a prostitute. To top it off, Jerry gave Bryant the number 88 jersey.

For those of you unaware, #88 was the jersey worn by Cowboy greats Michael Irvin and Drew Pearson (and Antonio Bryant, who threw his sweaty jersey in Bill Parcells' face- but we'll try to forget that). I liked the move- honor your past, challenge your future. But while you're honoring hte past...

Why hasn't Drew Pearson been added to the Ring of Honor?Drew Pearson became Hall eligible in 1988. Since then Fred Biletnikoff, Charlie Joiner, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, and Bob Hayes have all made it to Canton.

Drew Pearson averaged more catches and yards per season than all of these current Hall of Fame wide receivers of his same era, and was in the middle of this pack when it comes to touchdowns and yards per catch.

Pearson played in three Super Bowls, helping the Cowboys to their second championship in Super Bowl XII over Denver. He was named to the NFL's All Decade Team for the '70s, went to three Pro Bowls, and three times was a First Team All Pro selection.

Drew Pearson finished his 11 year Cowboy career with 489 catches for 7,822 yards and 48 touchdowns.

Jerry, if you want to push your draft pick to succeed, put Pearson in the Ring.

Sports Czar, part 2

It seems as though expansion is the theme of 2010 in sports. The NCAA Tournament has added 3 teams, the Pac-10 and Big Ten (and the SEC and ACC- the Big 12 could be eviscerated) are exploring adding teams, and the NFL is debating whether or not to add 2 regular season games. If I were Sports Czar, these are the additions I would make...

NCAA Tournament:Now that the tournament is 68 teams, I would make the 4 opening round games between power conferences, with a 12 or 13 seed on the line. After one year of that, I would expand the tournament to 128 teams. Add a weekend of games, making the tourney a month-long affair, and coaches can then rest easier about a mediocre season ("but we made the tournament...")

Conference Expansion: The Big Ten is easy- add Notre Dame. The Irish play most of their schedule against Big Ten teams already, the Big Ten has its own network, and it just makes geographical sense. The Big Ten has 11 teams (with the addition of Penn St in 1990), so adding ND gives them 12 - the magic number for having a Conference Championship game in football.

The Pac-10 is a little different. There are no "natural" additions to be made since the schools are already paired as rivals (USC-UCLA, Arizona-Arizona St., Oregon-Oregon St., Washington-Washington St., Stanford-Cal). That means that bringing in 2 teams that are natural rivals. San Diego St.-San Diego doesn't work- too weak, too close. New Mexico-New Mexico St. doesn't have the gravitas of the other schools.

For basketball, Gonzaga makes sense- successful mid-major program, geographically close- but no football program. So they're out. I would love to add Boise St., but Idaho is their natural rival, and the Vandals suck. So they're out. Utah-BYU makes some sense, as Utah and BYU have good programs in football and basketball, but Utah isn't exactly on the Pacific, is it? Neither is Nevada, who could contribute UNLV-Nevada Reno.

After all that, however, I would add BYU and Utah to the Pac-10.

NFL Schedule: Commissioner Roger Goodell has thrown around the idea of adding two more regular season games, bringing the total to 18. I like this idea (more football=better), but think the NFL could really help the nature of the game by instituting a "rivalry" week as part of this schedule expansion.

I would make it so that each team would play a team in the opposite conference every year that they could generate a rivalry with. It would give fans another team to hate (sports hate is good), and make things interesting. These games would be played in Week 9- halfway there- and be locked in, home-and-home series.

Here's what I came up with:
DAL - HOU = Texas Bowl
NYG - NYJ = Battle for New York (or Jersey, where they actually play, or Swamp Bowl)
PHI - PIT = Battle of Pennsylvania
WAS - BAL = Crab Bowl
DET - CLE = Blue-Collar Bowl (could be ugly, but one of these teams has to get better, right? This also pits 2 pre-merger NFL teams against each other. Gotta love the history.
CHI - IND = Illinois vs Indiana (I know mid-westerners could get pumped for this)
STL - KC = Missouri Bowl
SF - OAK = Bay Bowl
GB - BUF = Small Frozen Bowl
TB - MIA = Sunshine Bowl
CAR - CIN = Feline Bowl
NO - TEN = Jazz vs Blues Bowl
ATL - JAX = The 2nd Largest Cocktail Party (behind the annual UGA-UF game, of course)
SEA - SD = Battle of Opposing Climates
ARI - DEN = Heat vs Altitude Bowl
MIN - NE = Large Frozen Bowl (Admittedly this is the weakest match-up. But it makes sense on some organic level, right? Minneapolis vs Boston, Dome vs Grass...No? Dammit.

I also toyed with MIN-BUF (4-Time SB Loser Bowl) and GB-NE (Cheeseheads vs Massholes), but I think I like the other match-ups better. Thoughts?