Feel the Burn

Once again, it's time to cue up our groovy Olivia Newton-John soundtrack and get physical about a few confusing tidbits from recent times in sports. V for Vendetta baby, it's the Vick, Vickers, and Vikings blog.

Mike Vick joined the Philadelphia Eagles and vowed he's a changed man. Here's a newsflash, a dude in prison found Jesus! Well, that's gotta be a first. Mike faced the punishment that was handed out for operating an illegal (and immoral) dogfighting outfit and served his time, and now he's preparing to make a splashy return to the NFL. Except for the fact that people seem to forget Vick wasn't all that great as a QB before his troubles with the law. He's extremely athletic, no doubts there, but he relies on that athleticism too much - and that's probably hurt his development as a pro quarterback. In my humble opinion all the Eagles accomplished was to disrupt their training camp and disturb their calm for a back-up QB who doesn't bring alot of positives to the team. Not exactly a blockbuster deal.

Speaking of newsflashes, here's another shocker. The Sprint Cup race at MIS was a fuel mileage race! Can you believe it?! Once upon a time I tried to come up with a nickname for Brian Vickers, but I'm still not completely sold on one in particular. Some of the options were Darth Vickers, the Red Brian (or maybe the Red Baron Brian), Vicks Racing Rub, and Brian Whiskers. If you've got any good ideas for nicknames, drop 'em on me. When the exciting factor of a particular race is wondering if/when the cars will run out of fuel, then it's possible the race needs some tweaking to make it just a wee bit more entertaining for the fans. Shorten the race distance. Or lengthen the race distance. Or scatter clowns around the track, and hitting a clown earns 50 bonus points. I don't know, but waiting for cars to run out of fuel is about as fun as watching the grass grow or listening to Rusty Wallace talk race strategy.

And finally, the Minnesota Vikings have added Brett "Firing Blanks" Favre. I guess old QB's never really retire they just keep holding press conferences. Doesn't anyone remember the disaster the NY Jets went through with Favre Beans last year? Just to recap ... the team missed the playoffs and Favre bailed on them, saying he'd never play again (again), and then the entire coaching staff got fired. That doesn't sound like a banner year to me. And yet here are the Vikings who actually have a good team, ready willing and able to venture down that road with Grecian Formula Man #4 steering the big purple bus. Oh boy, nothing spells reality tv show quite like an old drama queen QB ruining a team's chemistry.

Well, there is the ongoing Mayfield saga too. That could be a pretty wild reality show too I suppose.