The warp-speed, 4-day NFL off-season has been replaced by the training camp we all know and love as the surest sign of the impending loosening of summer’s sweltering grip on the country.

It is time to reflect on the possible end of America’s favorite on-going soap opera. It seems fitting that in the year in which many of the longest running day-time network TV soaps ends, so too does the NFL’s closest equivalent (complete with drug addictions, alcoholism, sexual misconduct and petty jealousy) – the Brett Favre Experience.

Despite the NFL Network and Ed Werder’s wife’s deepest hopes, it sure looks like the Ol’ Ball Slinger is finally going to spend an autumn on his John Deere.

More unexpectedly, it looks like Randy Moss may join him in plowing those fields (insert Jenn Sterger joke here).

With 2 of the highest profile and most controversial players in the NFL retiring at the same time it sets up what appears to be an exceedingly interesting next five years.

Now I normally consider the wait during the mandatory half decade before Hall of Fame consideration about as exciting as the wait leading up to the next Dancing with The Stars, but, with these two players making the journey in parallel it will be fun to see how their stories are molded and shaped before that hot day in Canton.

It will be interesting because in many of the superficial ways so important to how we view a player the two are completely different. In the broader NFL conscience many would probably consider them polar opposites.

Moss is the supremely talented player who took his gifts for granted and only tried when he felt like it. He was a team cancer who never really gave it all.

Favre is the fun-loving good old boy, who just wants to play football, drink beer and hang out with the boys. He played with more heart than skill and always left every ounce of himself on the field.

That is the plot that has been relentlessly drilled into our heads.

But in many important ways, they are more alike than anyone might expect. Athletically gifted southern boys from small towns who grew up into arrogant, me-first narcissists equally capable of single-handedly winning a game or torpedoing a season faster you can say “we should hire Lane Kiffin”.

Really the only difference between the two is the mystique that hangs around Favre that so enraptures old sportswriters like pheromones do a wild animal.

Both Moss and Favre grew up in small southern towns. While Favre has cultivated this image (see: Wrangler jeans) to the fullest extent, it should be noted it was Moss – not Favre – that had a commercial set to the theme song from the Dukes of Hazard.

Both were athletically skilled beyond almost any of their contemporaries.

Both also cost their games by playing arrogantly. Moss, by taking plays off and Favre by trying to force plays that weren’t there.

Arrogance permeated each off the field as well. Moss would sour on a team and publicly denounce coaches, teammates and owners while Favre held multiple teams and the entire sports watching public hostage with his annual ego-inflating off-season indecision.

In one way though they really are very different; Moss was ahead of his time – the first ‘diva’ wide receiver – blazing a trail for Terrell Owens, Chad Ochocinco and other less talented followers. Favre was a throwback to the days when football was played by boys that grew up on a farm, chewed tobacco and sat around drinking beer with sportswriters after the game.

Favre and Moss represent the crossroads where the NFL sits: glorifying a past viewed through sepia colored glasses while John Facenda extols the gladiatorial sacrifices made for the glory of the game, but at the same time, careening head long into an unknown future full of impossibly gifted athletes who only show a hint of personality when it brings glory on themselves.

Change is never welcome. In fact, faced with the prospect of change, the past (the known) is not just the reality we want to return to, but it morphs and shifts in our minds until it is idealized and romanticized to the point of being closer to dream than reality.

Guess which player was glorified and which was demonized by sportswriters that are always nostalgic for the past?

In the public’s and media’s mind, Favre and Moss were opposites.

One lived in the light while one lived in the dark.

One was held up as the ideal to which we should all aspire while one was vilified as what we should all seek to avoid.

But in the end, they weren’t opposites. They were instead two sides of the same coin with common foundations, common goals and common failings.

It is fitting now that they take the final journey as NFL legends together.

But, more importantly, with the benefit of time how will we take the journey with them? Will we cling to the comforting past and stick with long held beliefs.

Or will we evolve and see that Randy and Brett weren’t good or bad, they just played those roles on TV.

From deep down in my stomach, with every inch of me, I pure, straight hate you. But goddammit, do I respect you!

- Wes Mantooth,  Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Today, I know how Wes feels.

With 4 divisional playoff games, it should be the best weekend of the year for The Hierarchy of Hate. Yet, in 3 of the 4 games, I really dislike one team, so there is no debate at all as to which team I will be cheering for.

I may respect their success but I can still pure, straight hate them.

It started in the pre-season when we laid out our most hated teams of the season. As you will see my two NFL choices are both playing this weekend. So how can I cheer for either of them? My reasons for hate in those warm, innocent days of late summer remain today. If anything as the temperatures cooled, my hate heated up.

The Pittsburgh fan-bases spent the summer ‘outraged’ at the antics of their quarterback, a guy who treats women like Michael Vick treats dogs, and Sarah Palin treats dignity. But the moment Big Ben took his hands off of co-eds who don’t want him touching them and put them back under center, all was forgiven.

Being a sexual predator is apparently ok in the Burgh as long as you can avoid the sack and complete the 15-yard out.  

In the pre-season, I hated the Jets for their ‘look-at-me’ antics and undue attention. Umm, how has that changed? Rex Ryan only stops being annoying when he has his wife’s toes in his mouth. Antonio Cromartie and Bart Scott have apparently taken the worst antics of their coach and decided to adopt that trait by calling attention to themselves with stupid comments. I hope that is the only trait they borrow from Rex.

 Just in case, the Jets cheerleaders should always wear socks around the Jets campus.

As for the other game in which my THH was set long ago, we have my 2^nd hometown playing the least likable former Bronco not named Bill Romanowski. You know you are a pretty miserable person when even Rick Reilly can’t find something nice to say about you.

 Jay Cutler is the first cancer that Reilly has met that he couldn’t turn into a heartwarming 800 word essay. That is impressive.

And he is playing against the underdogs from the Emerald city; a city where I have spent half of nearly every week for the last 3 years. To say, that this time has coincided with a low point in Seattle sports is like saying the women that go on the Bachelor embarrass their parents a little bit.

The Mariners have been the worst team in the majors twice. The Seahawks have been one of the worst teams in the NFL. The University of Washington was the worst team in NCAA 2 years ago. The SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City and became one of the more likable young teams in the NBA. Seattle needs this win.

That leaves one last game. So let’s give it the full THH treatment. Complete with a theme.

Packers @ Falcons – Each team has a somewhat disgraced former quarterback that started when these teams last met in the playoffs. Which QB would you cheer on if they were playing today?

Choosing between Brett Favre and Michael Vick is like asking me which coach I like more that did analysis before the BCS championship game last week: Urban Meyer or Nick Saban. I dislike them each greatly but for different reasons.

I am one of those softies that gets a lump in his throat every time he sees one of those ASPCA commercials (damn you Sarah McLachlan), so I am sorry if I can’t suddenly look at Michael Vick as a nice redemption story. I think he is, was and always will be a psychopath. I just don’t think spending a year and a half in jail is going to teach anyone that something is morally wrong – you either already know that or you never will. It can teach you that it is a societal wrong but I don’t think it can teach you basic right and wrong. If you once thought it was perfectly normal to torture dogs, jail won’t change that.

As for Favre, the only torturing he has done is to the American public with his constant, pathetic, Kardashian-level need for attention. Thanks to his accomplices in the media we have all been subjected to more, unnecessary Favre coverage over the last several years than anyone of us would want over several lifetimes. We have all suffered through more teary eyed press conferences than anyone outside of the Werder household can even count. We’ve had “OJ-in-the-Bronco-esque” live coverage of him arriving in Minneapolis. We’ve seen text pictures of his junk and, more disturbingly, him fondling his junk while wearing Crocs. I mean Crocs? Seriously?

Amazingly, and for probably the first time in the history of this web-site, I am siding with Favre on this one. Lots of players have tried to maintain a faint grasp on to the spotlight far too long. Remember Jerry Rice with the Seahawks and his training camp with the Broncos? Emmitt Smith with the Cardinals? Jamie Moyer with Toronto, Seattle (the 2^nd time) and the Phillies?

Few athletes, accustomed to the adoration that swirled around Favre for over a decade would find it easy to walk away. Beside, Favre can’t be fully at blame. Would he be nearly as obnoxious and annoying if ESPN didn’t report breathlessly on everything he did or if announcers found no fault with him in anything? Favre didn’t force all of the media to speak of him like Dick Vitale talking about Duke basketball.

If you hadn’t heard ‘objective reporters and journalists’ say a negative thing about you in 10 years, wouldn’t you also start to believe you could do no wrong and are more important than the league you play in?

Vick on the other hand has no one else to blame. I don’t care if he is ‘redeemed’. No one will ever convince me that he has changed.

Sorry, Falcons. I know it is a little unfair to cheer against you because you once employed a psychopath that you have since tried to exorcise from your organization history like USC did Reggie Bush.

But, that’s how we roll here at the THH.

Go, Pack go.

Brad Childress was fired today as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. A nice gesture by Vikings ownership to be sure. It tells the fans that they recognize this season hasn’t gone as expected one season after being one horrid Favre-ian decision from the Super Bowl.

Wade Phillips was fired a couple weeks ago for similar reasons. As opposed to Childress getting oh-so-close to the big show last year, Phillips has consistently underperformed but shown just enough to keep thinking there may be next year would be the year. It never was.

It is almost like Phillips and Childress are the yin and yang of fired coaches.

One is fat, one is slim(mer).

One is bald, the other has a full(ler) head of hair.

One lost all hope because his quarterback was injured and couldn’t play, the other because his quarterback is injured (at least when things go wrong) and won’t stop playing.

One looks like he shouldn’t be allowed within 1,000 feet of an elementary school, the other is probably playing Santa at a greater Dallas mall as we speak.

But in one respect, they are as alike as the Manning brothers facing a 2-minute drill.

They lost their jobs because in reality they weren’t in charge.

In a world of over-inflated egos and out of control tempers: from Parcells to Bo Pellini, it should be a relief to see two coaches actually seem to have perspective. Coaches that are able to treat their players with the same respect and kindness that one would expect in any other profession in the world. And maybe it would work if they each hadn’t run into the wrong person: the raging egotist that refuses to listen to others.

Wade Phillips could never really run the Cowboys because Jerry Jones was always there – looming in the shadows, dictating, controlling.

Here is what I wrote about the Cowboys a couple years ago in an AFC title game running commentary:

Is it just me or does that Pepsi commercial with the Cowboys calling ‘60-stretch farllllaaaa’ sum up why they aren’t playing this weekend? Jerry Jones wants to meddle too much, Wade Phillips isn’t smart enough to call a needed timeout and Tony Romo tries to make a play and fails.

Doesn’t it say something that even in a commercial Jerry Jones had to be in control? The Cowboys have only been successful when a coach stood up to Jones. Jimmy Johnson knew Jerry Jones in college, long before Jones became an oil billionaire. He could tell the guy to butt out and mind his own business. But his success only grew Jerry’s ego like the Extenze Johnson would hawk years later. After just a few years of trying to keep Jones in check, Jimmy bailed. Barry Switzer was able to ride the coattails of Johnson’s team to a Super Bowl win but the team has gone straight downhill since. Even Bill Parcells grew tired of Jones’ act before his rebuilding project could be complete. Outside of that time, the team that Jones has built has perfectly reflected its owner: lots of flashy names and big headlines but no substance.

Wade was simply too nice and easy going to succeed with a bull like Jones hiding behind every corner, has any other owner ever been the one to break injury news to the press?

Where Wade couldn’t contend with Jones’ shadow coaching staff, Childress couldn’t handle his chosen quarterback. Favre must have looked at Childress with something bordering on pity when he came to Minnesota: he had overrun more competent coaches than Childress even before he was media-appointed God. When Childress groveled at His knee to not just return once, but twice what chance did he ever have of then instilling any discipline in Favre?

None.

He had set himself down this path by trying to bring in Favre and his raging ego. It worked when they won, but when it started going bad, don’t you think Favre just looked at Childress and thought ‘what have you ever done without me? Don’t tell me what to do.’ any time Childress had a suggestion?

When a coach asks a number of players to fly across the country and beg a player to come back, who do you think the other players in the locker room are going to respect? Childress might have well put his testicles on the flight as well and had those delivered to Favre as well.

Once you have sent that message to your team, why should they ever listen to you again?

When a coach isn’t perceived as being the one running the show, they are done.

When I was growing up, outside of Saved By The Bell, there was one afternoon sitcom most kids I knew watched at least on occasion. Admittedly most of us guys were watching to see a young Nicole Eggert but there were apparently a large contingent of girls out there watching for Scott Baio because we have since learned he was able to get pretty much any woman in the country (and did).

Maybe there was something about him beyond the feathered hair and visible gold chain that made the women swoon.

Charles was in charge.

Regardless of whether the Randy Moss trade was the right move for either the Pats or the Vikings, there is one thing that it proves without a doubt: the Vikings are going all-in this year with Brett Favre.

(Yes, I know. A gambling analogy. Sue me, it works.)

There is no concern about positioning a team to dominate for a decade like the 49ers of the 80’s or Cowboys of the 90’s with a large group of players that can grow and mature together.

This is about finding a way to win right now, while they still have that one-legged gunslinger at quarterback.

Despite a bad attitude that pops up on a regular basis like Punxsutawney Phil, Moss is still a very good player. Is he the completely dominant player of a few years ago? We don’t think so. But then again we didn’t think so when he was moping through Oakland either and he turned it all around when put in a new situation in New England.

With Sydney Rice out with a bad hip, the Vikings offense had nowhere near the lethality that it did last year on its way to the NFC title game. They needed a shot of something new to get going again. They believe Moss coming back to where he started his career can be the spark to re-awaken their offense and resurrect Favre one more time.

But this move is only a short term fix. A speed receiver in his mid-30’s is not a long term solution to a stagnant offense. This move says the Vikings looked around the NFC and decided this is the year for them to make it to the Super Bowl.

Looking at the two best teams in the NFC – the Saints struggling at home and the Packers losing at Soldier Field – must have convinced the Vikings that despite a poor start and all evidence in the world pointing to Favre not having another ‘Roger Clemens with Astros’-esque season, this year is their only shot at the Super Bowl.

By going all Single White Female on Favre in the offseason in an attempt to convince him that he is the most important person in the franchise and they would do anything for him to return, the Vikings had already laid a sizable bet on this season getting them their first Super Bowl win.

So now they give up another draft pick and double down on this season. Despite the best young running back in the game, talented receivers and a talented young defense, the Vikings have put their fate in the hands of an erratic grandfather and a bi-polar wide receiver.

Has this approach ever worked? I can’t think of a single time in the NFL when a team brought in a couple great but very veteran players to lead a team to a Super Bowl. Every great team I can think of was, at its core, a group of players that had all grown together with maybe a couple vets added to the mix to bring it over the top.

It is sort of the Yankee approach to winning titles; an approach that failed for a decade until the veterans were mixed with a group of youngsters and became a real team rather an all-star exhibition.

If they do fall short of the Super Bowl this year (if Favre can lose you a playoff game in his best year…) then what? Next year, they will be starting over with a new quarterback. A presumably healthy but disgruntled Sydney Rice. An even older Moss who will most likely get frustrated with the new quarterback and resume acting like a 13-year old girl. Peterson’s prime will be on the downward slide to 30 years of age and automatic running back irrelevance.

Meanwhile, their rival Packers will continue getting better as Aaron Rodgers continues to mature, their young defense grows and they shore up their offensive line and running game through draft or trade.

Will it work? Hell if I know. I am the one that wrote before last season that the Vikings would be better off with Tarvaris Jackson under center.

I just know it must work now because after this year the Vikings could be looking at some tough years.

Look on the bright side Minnesota fans, at least the Twins built their team for the long haul.

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.