After several weeks off due to the good (covering the World Cup), the bad (sad death of his brother) and the ugly (meeting naked guys in the bathroom at Wrigley – though not in the Larry Craig kind of way), Peter King yesterday returned with his Monday Morning Quarterback column. MMQB should be standard Monday lunch time/bathroom break reading for any NFL fan because Peter has been around longer and knows more people in and around the game than just about anyone else.  

As part of yesterday’s column, he re-iterated that his going-in position that the Packers and Chargers will meet for the Super Bowl. By my rough estimation (read: made up), this makes at least the 5^th year in a row one of the pre-eminent NFL experts has picked the Chargers to make the Super Bowl.

And for the 5^th year in a row, that pick will look ridiculous by the middle of January.

The problem with picking a Super Bowl champion in the off-season is that you end up basing it on the paper line up of the team, the schedule and memories of watching that team the previous fall. Memories which tend to fall one of two ways: either as a highlight reel or a bloopers show.

When someone looks at the talented roster of the Chargers, they would go back and put together a highlight reel of the 2009 season: 13-3 record, 11 straight wins, regular season victories over Jets, Cowboys, Titans, Bengals and Eagles.

But then they forget about the Chargers annual abysmal start (2-3) and home loss to the Jets in the playoffs. They also forget that the Chargers repeat this same pattern every single year.

At this point, to borrow a phrase, the Chargers are who we thought they are. A talented team that starts the season slow, picks up steam and gets on a roll late in the regular season then sputters out in the playoffs like a 39-year old Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France.

For me, it is impossible to sit here today and see how this year will be any different. The roster wasn’t greatly improved in the off-season and with potential hold-outs by players like Vincent Jackson, Shawne Merriman and Marcus McNeil they could be significantly worse. The Chargers also lost (an admittedly past his prime) LaDainain Tomlinson, free-love advocate Anonio Cromartie, Brandon Manumaleuna, Kasim Osgood and Jamal Williams. They picked up a rookie running back in the draft, Ryan Matthews who is also still un-signed and could be late to camp.

Someone much smarter than me needs to explain how all these moves make the Chargers appreciably better than they were a year ago.

Each year that no players are busting taking PEDs, the Chargers defense gets older and the chance of revisiting the dominating seasons of a couple years ago becomes smaller and smaller.

While Philip Rivers has grown into a solid quarterback all the weapons around him have not grown. The running game has atrophied like Merriman after his steroid suspension and Rivers’ receiving targets keep changing and it isn’t clear if they are getting any better or just substituting a new group of underachieving scrubs.

Putting all of their eggs in the cart of a rookie running back from Fresno State could help alleviate the pressure on Rivers or could blow up in their faces. Just ask the Raiders how the McFadden era helped Jamarcus Russell. Or ask the Broncos how Knowshon Moreno’s rookie campaign helped Kyle Orton. Or ask the Cowboys how Felix Jones’s rookie year helped Tony Romo. And remember how Marion Barber ended up being the key to the Patriots continued dominance? Oh yeah, me neither.

Beyond the roster being essentially the same if not worse, there is one additional element that will always keep me from believing the Chargers can win a Super Bowl until I actually see and hear Phillip Rivers say he is going to Disneyland.

And he goes by the name Norv.

Norv Turner has now been a head coach for 12 seasons in the NFL with three different teams. His playoff record is 4-4. What is different about this off-season that would ever make me think Norv suddenly knows how to win playoff games? Nothing. He is, to borrow another phrase, the same as he ever was.

Norv is a fine coach if you are looking for a good regular season record with a talented team. He is not someone that can turn around a bad team or put a good team over the top. That just isn’t in his genes.

My guess is that it has something to do with the name Norv. Do you really want to live in a world where a guy named Norv is successful?

I am the first to admit that I have no special knowledge of the NFL. I don’t spend my days texting with GMs. I don’t have players calling me to complain about their contract situations. Heck, I am not even allowed behind the ropes when I visit my hometown team’s practices. In short, I am just like you. Just a regular fan who maybe spend too much time thinking about football.

But if being stuck outside the ropes and watching 95% of NFL games from my couch are what keep me from continuously falling in to the conventional wisdom about NFL teams like the Chargers.

Pass me the guacamole.

A little less than two weeks ago, LeBron James went on television to announce that he was leaving his home town of Cleveland and going to play with two of his buddies on the Miami Heat. Since that moment it has been endlessly debated – not just his move but the manner in which he informed the world. I don’t need to add to that debate as every possible position has been staked out at this point and there really shouldn’t be anything left to say.

Especially since Michael Jordan weighed in yesterday and basically called LeBron a pansy. I’m paraphrasing.

Last Tuesday, George Steinbrenner died. While it shouldn’t be shocking that an ill 80-year old died, especially one with such a fondness for calzones, we still had to hear about it for about 24 hours straight from our friends and YESPN. Sorry ESPN. Sometimes I can’t tell the Yankees network and ESPN apart.

While George’s passing and LeBron’s Decision seems to have nothing in common, outside of the relentless over-exuberance of ESPN, I think they do. I think LeBron’s ego-fest on TV was the most straight-forward example of a phenomenon that seems to signal the end of a sports ownership best exemplified by Steinbrenner.

In the sports world, where for years a small group of powerful, rich, old (and mostly white) men held all of the cards, the world has flipped upside down. The power has come to the people.

Today, it is not the owners that truly rule the sports landscape. It is the players. The workers have risen up and revolution is at hand. Maybe all of that hysterical fear-mongering at Fox News was right about the US turning into a socialist state.

The Three Amigos now playing in Miami are the best example of this of course. D-Wade, LeBron and to a lesser extent Chris “Ringo” Bosh, held the basketball world captive while they pretended to debate and decide where they wanted to play. Billionaire owners came to Akron to kiss the ring of King James and begged for him to sign with their squad. Have we ever seen owners grovel like this before?

Of course, any time there are free agents, they are wined and dined and recruited but it tends to be equal parts wooing and vetting by teams. Not this time. Owners came to see LeBron and danced for him like monkeys.

There was no vetting by these teams. No physicals (remember LeBron’s mysterious sore elbow last spring that so impacted his playoff performance? Once free agency started that disappeared faster than a bottle of bourbon at Dan Gilbert’s house). Nothing. If James had anointed one of these teams as his chosen destination, they would have accepted him with open arms – even if he mowed down half the population in a shooting spree on his way out of Cleveland.

SIDEBAR:  One question that can never be answered because no one would admit: how do the owners of the Clippers, Nets and Knicks feel now, realizing that LeBron lacks killer instinct to lead a championship team? Knowing he just wants to be one of the boys and not feel the pressure to carry a team, is he less attractive to other teams? These teams were willing to sell their souls for LeBron. Now that it turns out he would rather be a sidekick, than the greatest of all time is there actually relief for some of these teams?

While LeBron is the most egregious example of the power shift in sports, he is not the only one.

It is July, so that means Brett Favre is playing his annual “will-he, won’t he” dance. In the process, he holds an entire team hostage. The Vikings essentially have to prepare for 2 seasons at the same time: the 2010 Season With Brett and the 2010 Season Without Brett. Unwilling to pressure the redneck diva, they can only wait and see just like the rest of us. Did the Vikings go out and get a free agent quarterback in the off-season (since they are convinced Tarvaris Jackson is not the answer)? No. They wouldn’t want to offend Brett. So, instead we are less than two weeks from training camp starting and the Vikings aren’t sure if their starting quarterback will even play this season.

Obviously after last season the Vikings are a hot pick for the Super Bowl (you know “assuming…”) but I ask you has any Super Bowl team ever had their head coach travel to the hometown of their quarterback just to find out if he might/maybe/pretty-please could let them know if he will play this year?

What a long time since 2008, when the Packers, tired of Favre’s annual flip-flop, named his successor, whether he was coming back or not.

While LeBron and Brett are the most obvious and painful examples of the new power structure they aren’t alone.

Raja Bell turned down an offer from the best team in the NBA to play for the Utah Jazz. Maybe he has a thing for choirs and ski slopes. 

Ochocinco and T.O. have their own TV shows. This despite T.O. not currently even having a team to play for.

It isn’t a question of why players are now the Ari Gold’s of the NFL, but rather what took so long? Ask any advertising company and they will tell you it is players, not teams that drive sales. Who do you think is more important to Nike and the NBA – LeBron or Dan Gilbert? If you have to ask, maybe the Heat colored LeBron Witness t-shirt already available on NBA.com will help you figure out the answer.

Both the NBA and the NFL have used individuals to drive the leagues growth – marketing players more than teams. So, is it any wonder that these same players, the ones the leagues put on a pedestal in the first place, now call the shots more than some anonymous rich guys? Especially in a post-Goldman Sachs/Bear Stearns world where rich guys are always the enemy. Unless they became rich because they are really good at sports, of course.

No one ever praised the Packers community based ownership structure when they went to the 2008 NFC title game. No, it was the sole result of the gunslinger under center. Should the team be surprised when that same player suddenly sees himself as above the team?

Even today, the potential 3^rd string quarterback for the Broncos has his own signature shoe and the fastest selling NFL jersey. This for a guy that literally has no accomplishments at the pro level and most likely won’t see more than a handful of snaps for his team; though in this instance his team feels almost coincidental to the legend.

All of this revolution will inevitably end in backlash. We sit here today a year from potentially having no football or basketball seasons as both leagues face a re-negotiation of their collective bargaining agreements. With unprecedented costs (i.e. record breaking salaries) and lower revenues thanks to lower ticket sales and the slowly recovering economy, the owners of these teams are going to negotiate hard for concessions from the players. Team owners don’t become wealthy enough to buy a team without having the force of will to get things done their way. You can expect the cold hard boot of ownership to make a strong statement in next year’s negotiations. All of this newly discovered power for the people may not last as long as you can say ‘Mikhail Prokhorov’.

There is one alternative to the return of harsh dictatorial owners beating back the newly discovered liberties by players: a player-owned team.

Players are certainly getting rich enough to afford owning a team. Think of the contracts that D-Wade, Bosh and LeBron are signing with Miami. Imagine instead, they pooled that salary into ownership. Like an actor taking a percentage of ticket sales, players could for the first time have a stake in the success of the franchise. Not only would they be more incented to make decisions in the best interest of the team but can you imagine a team not having to pay its best players in addition to generating profit for its owner? The teams cost structure would be hundreds of millions dollars less than every other team. That allows for signing more players or helping offset the cyclical nature of sports revenues.

Now, I am sure there are at least 47 different clauses against this in both the owner’s agreements and the player union agreements but why? How does this hurt the game?

Building two-way loyalty between a player and his team? That is a revolution any fan can get behind.

Steinbrenner couldn’t have picked a better time to head to that great, big ballpark in the sky.

Not since the Jay Leno show was mercifully cancelled earlier this year has a TV channel broadcast a monument to a single man’s ego like it will on Thursday evening when LeBron James makes his announcement as to which team he will choose to pay him tens of millions of dollars over the next five or six years.

I guess this is how it had to end. People have been arguing and debating about this for months. Teams have been re-shaping their roster for years to give themselves the best opportunity to bid for his services. What no team can ‘win’ in this sweepstakes is the one thing that fans really want in a player: their heart and soul.

In his Bachelor-esque ego trip through the free agency process over the last few weeks James has shown his true colors. He is a mercenary. He is in this solely for himself. Fans and teammates of every team in the NBA be damned.

LeBron looks at this process as an opportunity to define himself and his legacy. He can become a global icon by going to the biggest stage in the world in New York; can win multiple titles by joining the Bulls or (somehow) subjugating his ego and joining the all-star team down on South Beach; or he can re-write the statistical record books and become the King of the Midwest by staying in Cleveland (where, not-so-coincidentally he will also earn the biggest paycheck).

However, I think this whole process has turned him into something else entirely: Brett Favre.

Much like Brett, I get the feeling that after years of carrying an underachieving team, LeBron has warmed to all of this attention. Where Brett found an annual off-season retirement kept the media watchdogs glued to his every lawn mowing, this summer LeBron has found that every thought and whisper generates more media mentions than the entire Lohan family in a year.

Brett quickly became addicted to the spotlight and soon started to believe his own hype: he was bigger than his team or the game. This led into his downward spiral of spotlight addiction to the point he has become a running joke even to his most ardent followers: the boy who cried retirement.

In his bouncing from team to team, retirement press conference to comeback press conference, Brett turned himself into a joke but also turned most of the country against him. Gone was the good old boy from Mississippi that ruled a small northern Wisconsin town. He had been replaced by an ego-maniac in constant need of attention and praise.

It is easy to see LeBron slowly fall into this same trap. After the constant LeBron-watch over the last year, can you imagine LeBron simply going back to Cleveland and continuing to lead what is essentially the same team to the same early-round playoff exit for years to come? To maximize his Cavs contract he would sign up for 6 more years. That is the prime of his career – will he really spend it on mediocre teams in the Midwest while his buddies down in Miami start piling up titles or his older rival, Kobe, out in LA continues to put more championship rings between himself and LeBron in the race to be heralded as the ‘greatest player of his generation’.

No chance.

Even if he takes the money, it is hard to see LeBron not wanting to maintain this media glare. Like a Kardashian he is going to get addicted to the bright lights. When they shut off in a week and move on to the next story (ironically, probably back to Mississippi) how long will he go before craving it again?

A lot less than 6 years.

And in the process he achieves the same result as the Wrangler-clad one down in Hattiesburg; he kills the affection of fans everywhere and demonstrates what is most important.

Me, myself and I.

Sometimes it sucks to be a sports fan.

The Fourth of July is many things to many people. To some it is a day off of work and an excuse to drink beer and barbeque. To some it is a chance to celebrate the last time Americans liked the French more than the English. To others it is their chance to legally enjoy that pyromaniac tendency without risk of an arson conviction. But to me it is something else entirely. The dawn of a New Year.

I recognize that scientists and annoying know-it-alls will tell you that summer just started a couple weeks ago, but for me, July 4^th is the beginning of the end of summer. The 4^th of July is the last day where football season is a distant, hazy mirage. Starting tomorrow the new football season starts to take form and become a recognizable shape. Even if still as fuzzy as a road sign at night when I am not wearing my glasses.

NFL two-a-days start in less than a month. My fantasy draft is a month and a half away. The first college football game is 2 months away. Basically our football-less days are almost at an end. We are closer to watching NFL players dance in the End Zone than dance on a reality show.

In the heat of July with the World Cup winding down and baseball games the only distraction in a dreary sports landscape, you may not believe me. But just look at these signs of football in the world around us:

• Peyton Manning is already showing up with Justin Timberlake in a new commercial for Sony. Sadly, doesn’t end with Timberlake stealing Peyton’s 3-D glasses and returning them for a game-clinching touchdown.
• Brett Favre, presumably jealous of the attention being paid to another former drug addict/media whore named Diego Maradona, has begun his annual “will-he, won’t he” dance with the media – playing catch with high school kids in Mississippi. Let me save everyone in the media a lot of time and effort. He is playing. Stop with the breathless updates, please.
• I am currently watching a Hard Knocks marathon on NFL Network, reacquainting myself with the comedy of the 2007 Kansas City Chiefs and the joys of Mrs. Brody Croyle wearing a tight shirt. One thing I can guarantee is that the Chiefs season absolutely featured more clips of the head coach working out than we will see this year with the New York Jets and head coach Rex Ryan.
• Michael Vick and his friends are in trouble again after a shooting at Michael Vick’s birthday party. This is only news in that for once Vick and his cohorts this time took on victims that could fight back. It is also news that the Eagles are reportedly not interested in releasing Vick. So for those keeping track at home, in Philadelphia being the leading citizen in the city for a decade gets you released. Having a snitch shot at your birthday party gets you a signing bonus.
• On the sports radio in Seattle this past week; talk had turned to the UW football team and their Heisman candidate Jake Locker. For those of you not on the west coast who aren’t familiar with Jake Locker he is much like Tim Tebow. The difference being with a rumored 4.3 40-yard dash Locker is much faster, not being slowed down by the weight of his own self-righteousness.
• Speaking of Tebow, if we are still a month away and are this obsessed with Timmy what is going to happen when the games actually start? If for no other reason than this you know Brett Favre will return. You think his 12-year old girl like need for attention would allow another quarterback to hog the media spotlight? As Ochocinco would say: child please.

Making fun of Tebow and Favre already? I am definitely ready for football to get here.

The Raiders are apparently chasing after Jamarcus Russell for him to return a portion of the salary paid to him over his less-than-stellar stay in the Bay Area. The Raiders want Russell to pay back the upfront guaranteed money he was paid for playing seasons 2010-2012 of his contract. You know the seasons he won’t play, now that the Raiders cut him.

It isn’t my place to question one of the country’s model sports organizations (it is still 1985 right?), but do the Raiders really think that Russell should pay them back because the Raiders agreed to pay him too much money and he turned out to not be very good at football?

Do I get to ask for some of money back when a restaurant billing itself as having the World’s Best Coffee serves me undrinkable sludge?

Do I get a portion of my money back from a restaurant when I am too full to eat all of the dessert I ordered?

For the record, Jamarcus doesn’t understand the last analogy as he has never not finished dessert. Which in hindsight might have been part of his problem.

Do I get my money back when the new golf clubs I spent top dollar on, don’t improve my golf game, instead sending every ball exactly where I don’t want it to go?

No, of course not. In the real world, there is a phrase that says ‘buyer beware’ and ‘you break it, you bought it’. In other words, if you make a mistake in acquiring something that turns out to not be what you wanted. Too bad, sucker.

The Raiders apparently don’t see it this way. In their view, a horribly run organization spending entirely too much money on a quarterback who turns out to not be very good, is 100% the quarterback’s fault.

NOTE: All of this assumes Jamarcus didn’t breach a specific term in his contract, like taking drugs, committing a felony or eating entire gallons of ice cream at each water break in practice. If he did actually breach his contract, than I apologize to the Crypt Keeper and you can stop reading.

The Raiders are, in essence, blaming Jamarcus for their own ignorance. They probably agree with FIFA when it debated punishing Thierry Henry for scoring the winning goal against Ireland after a hands penalty was never called. Yes, FIFA, it is Henry’s fault your refs were so bad that game that even NBA refs looked at them and said “wow, how did he miss that?”

What’s next Raiders? Are you going to sue Darius Heyward-Bey for not being able to catch?

For the first time since he played Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl, I am on Jamarcus’ side in this one. Though you probably can’t see me behind his gut.

Sports teams can not be allowed to sue their way out of stupid decisions. That is a bad precedent to set. If an organization is run by a guy that can’t tell whether his lunch is vanilla or chocolate pudding and therefore manages a sports team worse than anyone not named Isaiah Thomas, the beneficiaries of his idiocy shouldn’t be held responsible. The Raiders have scouts and a (figurehead) GM. It isn’t Russell’s fault that all of these people thought he was good, and deserved a huge contract.

If teams were allowed a Get Out of Jail Free Card for every contract given to a player that didn’t live up to their salary, half of the teams in the NBA and Major League Baseball wouldn’t be able to field a team.

For once teams need to think of their fans. If they can’t field a decent team then the least they can do is give us busts and their awful contracts laugh at.

Sunday, the only NFL story in the Denver Post on yet another slow football news day was at least the fifth of what projects to be approximately 1,437 articles to be written about the Denver Broncos quarterback situation this offseason. This article was a relatively even handed look at Kyle Orton and whether he should retain his starter status with chronic underachiever Brady Quinn and Our Lord and Savior Tim Tebow behind him on the roster.

NOTE #1: The wife actually refers to Tebow as ‘He who shall not be named’. Not willing to go that far (if for no other reason than it is a long phrase to type every time I need to discuss him), I will henceforth refer to Tebow as OLASTT. Why? See above.

The article’s objectivity stands in stark contrast to the civil war brewing in the Post sports section between the Tebow partisans (led by perennially tanned, Around the Horn participant Woody Paige) and the Quinn supporters (captained by Mark Kiszla, who is probably a little jealous of Paige’s TV time and presumably even more jealous of his tan).

NOTE #2: In my imagination the rift will be resolved in an Anchorman-esque duel in Civic Center Park, escalating quickly until Jim Armstrong kills Dave Krieger with a trident.

The article goes as far as to offer the scenario that Orton will be traded, leaving the Broncos the nightmare-inducing prospect of Quinn and Tebow battling for the opening day start. This got me to thinking: why does everyone hate Kyle Orton?

Now I am sure there are people that hate Orton for very THH-ish reasons – stridently anti-neck beard types or alums of whatever school would consider Purdue a major rival (Indiana maybe? If they still have an athletic program – I should check that) – so when I ask that question, it isn’t about Kyle specifically. More importantly, I am trying to figure out why quarterbacks like Orton always fail to inspire loyalty in fans and more importantly teams. As with most things in football there is clearly only one man to blame.

Peyton Manning.

Orton is an athletically limited quarterback, who doesn’t have the strongest arm and will never date super models. Yet, he has been consistently successful in college and the pros with less than top-shelf talent around him. Orton’s final season at Chicago he went 9-6 yet was shipped out for big armed (and big egoed) Jay Cutler, who proceeded to pout his way through a 7-9 season – yet another non-winning season for him (continuing a truly impressive streak dating back to high school).

Orton never looks flashy. He will never set a single season touchdown record, no matter what his receivers do. He just limits his mistakes (He threw 5 interceptions through 10 games last season, which was equaled by Cutler in one game). Surround him by capable skill players, a solid offensive line and a decent defense and your team will succeed.

Yet from the moment he arrived in Denver, all of Broncos nation has been looking to find his replacement. Why?

Because he isn’t Peyton Manning and it has been drilled into our heads that you need Peyton Manning to win in this league.

However, if you really look back at the last decade, what you see is that you are just as likely to win a Super Bowl with a Kyle Orton as you are with a Manning or Brady.

Manning, despite his commercials and fawning press coverage has one Super Bowl win more than Orton. In the last ten years, Peyton has won as many Super Bowls as Brad Johnson or Trent Dilfer.

You can point to Tom Brady as well as another swaggering quarterback single-handedly leading his team to a Super Bowl. But that forgets that his three Super Bowls were won with ball-control, balanced run-pass attacks? The Patriots league passing yardage ranks in their Super Bowl winning years: 2001 – 24th; 2003: 15th; 2004: 17th.

Yes, Brady now owns probably the greatest single season a quarterback has ever had. But he lost the Super Bowl that year. To Eli Manning. Who had 247 yards in that game and a 73.9 quarterback rating that season. Orton’s rating was 86.8 last season.

Ben Roethlisberger won a Super Bowl as a second year player. But that was years before he became a sexual predator and pass-first stalwart of my fantasy team. In that Super Bowl he passed for 123 yards. Relying on Jerome Bettis not-fumbling, Willie Parker still being fast, a stout defense and helpful officiating crew to win.

Even the Saints wide-open style of offense isn’t a product of Drew Brees’ huge talent. It is a product of the large number of weapons and Brees’ smart decision making.

We like to say that the NFL is now a passer’s league. While that is true, it isn’t a downfield, Air Coryell-style league, despite what the Crypt Keeper…I mean Al Davis…thinks. Passing today is a more refined version of the West Coast offense of short, yardage- eating passes. A truly successful offense combines that with a multi-headed, multi-dimensional running game. It doesn’t take a big arm and charming smile to win in that style. It takes smart play and safe decisions.

Let’s face it; there aren’t a lot of Mannings and Bradys out there. Heck, there is even one Manning out there that isn’t a Manning – if you know what I mean. A team seems to have a much better chance of success by finding a solid quarterback and surrounding him with talent (see: Flacco, Joe; Rodgers, Aaron; Sanchez, Mark).

A team that sells it soul looking for the next great quarterback is much more likely to end up a loser than a dynasty.

Just look at the news from the past few weeks to see the folly of trying to find the next, great quarterback.

J.P. Losman (Bills franchise savior), long since abandoned by Buffalo, signed as a 4^th option in Seattle.

Brady Quinn (Browns franchise savior) is given up on and shipped to the Broncos. Replaced by human turnover machine Jake Delhomme. Delhomme is seen as an improvement by Browns fans who don’t have the NFL package and didn’t watch the Panthers last year.  

Jamarcus Russell (Oakland franchise savior) cut.

Jay Cutler (Bears franchise savior) sets single OTA interception record (this is conjecture).

Jason Campbell (Redskins franchise savior) shipped to Oakland.

Alex Smith (Forty-Niners franchise savior) loses starting job to homeless junkie from San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.

Whoops, sorry that last one is next week’s news (Spoiler Alert).

All of these team’s have been consistently bad over the last decade looking for that one great quarterback to come in and save them.

All except when the Bears concentrated on a running game and defense; won two division titles and went to a Super Bowl with Rex Grossmann at quarterback.

That other division title season also featured a young quarterback named Kyle Orton going 10-5.