*the funniest sports moment from the weekend was watching Steelers rookie WR Limas Sweed   drop a perfectly thrown deep ball from Ben Roethlisberger, fake a couple of injuries to stay on the ground, then get up only to be booed viciously by his home crowd. Man up next time butterfingers.

 *Jake Delhomme’s record-setting craptastic performance in this year’s playoffs wasn’t quite challenged by the under throws of Donovan McNabb, but damn if no. 5 didn’t do his best.

 *Congrats to Kurt Warner. In all the talk about nonsense like how he bakes cookies and goes to church every Sunday, the real story here is that this is one of the toughest guys in the game, somebody who can take big hits and not change his downfield focus a bit.  In both this offense and during his time in St. Loo he endured a lot of pressure due to the depth of WR routes and the lack of TE patterns, and he still is one of the better pass throwers in the league. This Super Bowl holds a rare quality in that I won’t mind seeing either team win.

 *great game between the Louisville Cards and Pitt on Saturday. In the past you would see Louisville get down under Paterno and seemingly get too nervous to act. Their current crop of players is a little bolder and a little more enduring under pressure.   Should be something to keep an eye on in the tourney.  And for fans of great defense, make sure to watch this Sunday as they face off against Boehim’s Orange in Syracuse.

 *In all the talk about the hard-hitting that went on in the Steelers/Ravens game (which was amazing if you’re a fan of good defenses) it was especially noteworthy that it might have been Ray Lewis’ last game in a Ravens uniform. He was out there hitting hard and throwing players around, but his ability to fill lanes on run defense has been a little bit lacking for a few years now. It’ll be interesting to see which of their three free agent linebackers they bring back. 

 *Hilariously, after all the undue praise and press spent talking about Joe Flacco (who had practically nothing to do with the Ravens’ run to the conference championship) there’s been a lack of talk about just how bad his throws were against a good defense.  Presumably there’s an explanation for why the media is so enamored with a guy with such mediocre numbers and below average accuracy.   And to be clear it wasn’t all his fault, since the Ravens had no running threat for much of the game and committed a few odd penalties (as well as having some bad calls against them) .  It would just be nice to see some sort of balance.

 *Rickey Henderson was voted in last week to the Hall of Fame.. and it wasn’t unanimous. In fact 28 people didn’t vote for him. This includes the 2 writers who refuse to vote for any modern player because of steroids. Getting in also on his last attempt was Red Sox great Jim Rice. Somehow, Rice’s stats weren’t good enough to be voted in for the first 14 tries, but this year did the trick. In discussing the cause, certain writers pointed out that Rice’s relationship with the sports media was a large part of his problem. What does it say about the people who make up the profession of sports journalists that they (A) don’t unanimously approve the greatest leadoff hitter of all time and (b) are willing to leave people out just because of how they treated the media? It’s always an odd contradiction that the same people who talk constantly about how athletes should be more appreciate of fans aren’t themselves more appreciative of the athletes who give them something to talk about.