Exit Interview

Maybe Jason Campbell should rent the movie: “He’s Just Not That Into You.”

Talk about some clear signals! First, the Redskins fail to give him a contract extension going into his last year of his rookie contract. Then the owner nearly trades you for Jay Cutler.

Dude. Enjoy your last year as a Redskin.

Maybe more troubling for us Skins fans was THIS whopper of a paragraph in the Washington Post story on Saturday.

“Encouraged after his meeting yesterday with Washington Redskins owner Daniel M. Snyder, quarterback Jason Campbell said he has put aside his frustration about the team’s pursuit of Jay Cutler and is determined to become “the type of quarterback Mr. Snyder wants.”

Um, what the fuck!?

“The type of quarterback Mr. Snyder wants?”

Is the owner now the fucking QB coach as well? You must be kidding me. What kind of QB is that, exactly? Should Campbell put on a Peyton Manning mask and yuk it up in a southern drawl?

Well, surely our head coach, who happened to PLAY the position a little himself back in the day, would have something to say about this whole ugly situation, right?

Um, not exactly.

Zorn wasn’t quoted in this story. Neither was the useful stooge Vinny Cerrato. Vinny did issue a statement. “We met with Jason today and had a candid discussion. We told Jason that when Jay Cutler became available, we, like many other NFL teams, spoke with the Broncos. We are all on the same page and we are moving forward.”

Yeah, these clowns are on the same page alright. Page two. “NFL Franchise Management for Dummies.”

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Then there was this gem. Apparently, Dan Snyder still likes to get his off-season freak on! He was spotted by Norm! in the LV Review Journal at the trendy night club N9NE with his favorite Redskin! I’ll give you three guesses and here’s a hint: It wasn’t Shaun Suisham!

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Let’s hope the Masters has sufficiently dialed back the golf course to allow for weekend roars and daring attacks on the back nine come Sunday.

Jay Flemma of CyberGolf goes inside the numbers, and breaks down how and where Tom Fazio and the grumpy old men in green jackets ruined the place since 2002.

There hasn’t been a back-nine 31 or better in over 3 years by anybody in the field. That’s where the course used to shine. It was attackable. No longer. We’ll see this year. At least the weather looks succulent this year, unlike the artic Augusta weeks of the last two.

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From the Sydney Morning Herald…

HUMBLE, Texas: Greg Norman could hardly have conjured a more disastrous finish to take into this week's US Masters. The former world No.1 was humbled in Humble when he rounded out an otherwise promising tune up at the Houston Open with double bogey and quadruple bogey on his last two holes - finding the water twice on the 18th. Bogeys at the 11th, 12th and 14th were followed by a birdie at 15 before a double bogey at 17. And Norman capped it with an eight on the par-four 18th when he hit into the water twice, once on his lay-up shot and then again on his approach.

REACT: Great to know that this choking guppy, remains, a choker. Let’s pray he’s somehow in the final groups on Sunday at Augusta, because you KNOW how it’s gonna finish.

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Kudos to Brittany Lincicome who eagled 18 with a laced driver-hybrid on Sunday to win by 1 at the Nabisco.

This lovely lass caught my eye about 5 years ago when she briefly led the US Women’s Open. Her smile is just pure sunshine in a bottle.

That, and she’s proven to have 100 compression ovaries. You go, girl! I’d shine her irons with my tongue, if you know what I mean.

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How was Michelle Wie’s weekend? So bad, that TV networks - usually eager to show her no matter how many strokes behind the leaders - couldn’t even justify a token look-in. She shot 81-81 on Friday and Saturday to move safely out of sight, and out of mind.

REMEMBER: She plays with the men, because just playing against women would be “boring.” Her words. 60 Minutes interview, 5 years ago.

Wake Me When It's Over

It’s possible, that I was just extra cranky Saturday night.

Having been shunned by at least a half dozen “friends” to come over to the 5-Hour Dome and watch the Final Four, I was sitting all by my lonesome, making notes on the game.

I also had no great rooting interest in any team, or either game. My money long flushed in Vegas, my pool sheet down in flames even earlier than that.

Plus, I can be a moody bitch, you know.

I thought the Final Four sucked.

In fact, I turned it off.

Yep. It was about 13 minutes left in the Carolina v. Villanova game and I had seen one no-call too many. (PS: Was there any doubt Carolina had that game in a headlock?)

The heels 6-10 freshman Ed Davis caught the ball roughly 3 feet from the basket. Rising for an easy lay-in, not one but two (I swear!) Villanova players SHOVED him in the lower back. The easy lay-in caromed wildly off the glass and rim.

The refs apparently saw nothing.

Okay, good night now, I said to myself.

Had this been a rare horrible call, I probably would have stayed up for the inevitable Heels stompin’. But it wasn’t. The whole night was filled with a bunch of non-calls that simply perplexed me.

Thabeet gets juked into orbit, and lands ON TOP of a Spartan player. No call.

Price drives the lane and gets his head snapped back visibly in mid-air. No call.

And on and on it went.

The whole night seemed too NBA-ish for me. I’m not a “let ‘em play” guy, because in today’s game, that means “let ‘em foul.”

How on fucking earth could all three refs miss that play? How come Nantz and Kellogg didn’t mention it? (I think I know the answer, but more on that later).

Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, and a corpse of your choosing could have made that call.

Michigan State plays lights out defense. Give Izzo and Company full credit on that front. They hedged on every ball screen on top of the key against Uconn, and the Huskies never did figure it out. Michigan State pounded the boards. They came to ball. Good on them.

But if 70% of their defensive effort is pure desire and execution, then the remaining 30 percent is Van Gundy Style foulination. The logic is simple: “They can’t call them all.”

Knowing the home crowd would wail at every marginal call, knowing that if the foul count got out of whack (which it did) the refs would start to issue some “make up” citations, and knowing that this is the FINAL FOUR, so you surely wouldn’t want to FOUL SOMEBODY OUT, knowing all this just gave Izzo more of a green light to turn it into a brawl.

And Uconn responded in kind. For the most part. Adrian and Robinson were flat out beastly. In fact, Stanley Robinson played with a ferocity that was simply awesome to watch. He made about 6 plays (I counted) that were better than any play everything on the first 3 editions of “One Shining Moment” from back in the 1980’s.

At the end of the night, let’s see….

One guy fouled out. One. Draymond Green for Michigan State. He had 5 fouls in 12 minutes. Ibok had 3 in 6 minutes and didn’t even make much pretense of his intentions.

It was just so ragged. Not unlike the call by Nantz. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a Nantz FANATIC. He just seemed, so… so… out of sorts. Maybe he’s still getting used to the post-Billy era. But I have a different theory.

He couldn’t see what was happening. Because like everybody else courtside, he was EYEBALL TO DUSTMITES with the FUBAR floor being 4 feet in the air thanks to the Dome set up.

Why can’t they put a floor, like, on the floor?

Even though they let the head coaches roam the perch above the “dugouts” during the game, they were all alone. Substitutions required an awkward “excuse me, pardon, excuse….” shuffle up the mini-stairs, like going to get Milk Duds at a movie.

It just sucks. All basketball games in football stadiums suck. And I resented - RESENTED - Nantz and Kellogg trying to shuck and jive me about how “great” the environment was. Please. Get the NCAA’s dick out of your mouth.

The crowd was amped at times, but more often, the distance from the game left many stretches of play seem hollow and utterly dead. The camera angles get all fucked up in football domes. They have to shoot from father away. There aren’t as many good close ups.

Sorry, am I being a bitch here, or am I finally telling it like is?

I suppose the weight of the NCAA’s greed and hypocrisy has finally broken my back on this event. They shouldn’t be playing these games in anything but basketball arenas. And when coaches leave for another team, either they should have to sit out a year, or the players they left behind should become instant free agents.

And knock it off with the whole “student athletes” crap.

Finally, can we call a foul, a foul? Can we get back to basketball? If you let them play, you are going to get a crappy looking game. If you call fouls early, then the players will adjust.

They might not even try to low-bridge a lay-up with a two-fisted shove.

So will I be back for tonite’s finale? I would, because I still love the college game in general, and these are two very, very, very good teams.

But the tip time in the east is 9:22 p.m.

Ridiculous.

Good night. I’m going to bed, and the highlights will be waiting for me in the morning.

With Friends Like These.....

I'm sorry to keep going to the well on great Sports Illustrated stories from the past, but seeing how Gary Sheffield is in the news now, I couldn't resist.

If you never saw this story from years ago, it's still a must read. It's by Tom Verducci and it describes how much of a jackass Barry Bonds can be when he really puts his mind to it!

As I read the story, I started to feel kinda bad for Sheffield. Then I realized he's as big of an asshat as Bonds!

Here's a money passage for you people too busy to digest the whole thing.

Soon after Sheffield arrived in San Francisco, the friendship between him and Bonds began to sour. Bonds insisted that Sheffield stay at his house and not rent a car. He insisted that Sheffield not pay for anything, though Sheffield did bring his personal chef. "[It was], 'It's my way or no way,' " Sheffield says. "I'm not a child. I make $11 million. I can buy what I want."

To thank Bonds for inviting him into his home, Sheffield arranged for the two of them to see a boxing match in Miami on Feb. 2, 2002. "I was going to pay for the plane, the flight, pay for the limo service, the hotel," Sheffield says. "He gets my mail. He looks in my mail and sees he can get better seats, so he gets better seats. He can get a better flight, so he gets a better flight. He can get a better limo service. And he can get a better hotel. So basically my plan, in trying to do something in return, he wound up doing it. And [that sort of behavior] just escalated."

Another time, Sheffield arranged for a limo and tickets for him and Bonds to see the Sacramento Kings host the Los Angeles Lakers. "He complained the whole drive," Sheffield says. "'Man, I could have drove. We would have gotten there a lot faster.' The whole time. And I'm saying to myself, Never again. Never again."

Sheffield says the breaking point occurred one morning when Bonds departed for their morning workout without him, leaving Sheffield to scramble for transportation to the gym.

When Sheffield eventually showed up, he found Bonds laughing at him with someone he later learned was a writer for Men's Journal. "He sold me out to the media," Sheffield says.

Though Sheffield says he was under doctor's orders not to run because of his knee, he did so anyway because Bonds and his trainers wanted him to. "Now all of a sudden my knee was hurting," Sheffield says. "He said something to me [about being late]. I did not respond, because if I did respond at that particular moment, I would have knocked him out. That's how I was feeling. [But] I said [to myself], No, I'm just going to walk away, and when I say walk away I mean walk away."

Sheffield flew home to Florida with his chef. The chef told him, "Gary, I want to confess something. [Bonds] made an offer to hire me: He'll get me a car, give me a place to stay and pay off my student loan."

Shortly after they returned, Sheffield says he and his chef parted ways. Sheffield says about a month later Bonds called him to inquire about why the chef was no longer working for Sheffield but made no mention of a related development: Bonds had hired him.

"That's the kind of person I found out I was dealing with," Sheffield says. "To me, I don't want friends like that. I never will have friends like that."

REACT: It's just priceless stuff. If either man makes the baseball HOF, then I pray to God that the other guy crashes the podium and starts trashing the inductee.