One of the most popular girls in my high school class was OCD and she literally couldn’t stop buying jeans. Apparently Matt Millen is like the most popular girl in my high school in that he can’t stop buying skill players. The Detroit Free-Press is reporting that the inexplicably still-employed Millen is courting former Tennessee running back Chris Brown. This comes less than a week after the Lions traded cornerback Dre Bly to Denver for running back Tatum Bell. Lest we forget, the Lions also have Kevin Jones, a former first-round pick in his own right. Matt Millen is bulletproof!

Let’s Review:

-Daniel Graham, 5 years, $30 million, $15 million guaranteed

-Eric Steinbach, 7 years, $49.5 million, $17 million guaranteed

-Patrick Kerney, 6 years, $39.5 million, $19.5  million guaranteed

-London Fletcher, 5  years, $25 million, $13 million guaranteed

-Leonard Davis, 3 years, $24 million, $18.75 million guaranteed

-Ahman Green, 4 years, $25 million, $7 million guaranteed

-Drew Bennett, 6 years, $30 million, $10 million guaranteed

To borrow an expression from Mr. Belding…

What is going on here?! 

NFL free agency has officially gone nuts. Occasionally in my days at IU, I stayed awake during economics, despite my professor’s best efforts to render me unconscious, and I learned a little something about supply and demand. If supply is low, scarcity occurs which drives  up demand which then drives up price. And that’s exactly what’s happening in the NFL, I’m sure this isn’t breaking news to anyone. Demand is way higher than supply and thus teams are paying ridiculous salaries to players that are maybe worth a fourth of it.

I was in my car about 20 minutes listening to The Worldwide Leader and they were going to have John Clayton on to discuss free agency and  ask him whether or not the current amounts being paid to this year’s free agents was a good thing. I didn’t need to listen to “The Professor” to tell me that this spelled trouble for franchises in the future.

What you have in the NFL right now is what you have in baseball, especially with pitchers. The supply of quality pitching in major league baseball (starters, relievers, closers and set-up men) is so low that when one hits the free agent market, a feeding frenzy ensures. Sound familiar?

Anytime when a player like Drew Bennett or Leonard Davis are getting the kind of guaranteed money that they sign for then something is horribly wrong. But what the owners don’t realize is that they’ll be kicking themselves next year when it comes time to re-sign guys. Do you think a receiver like Marvin Harrison or Anquan Boldin or Torry Holt isn’t going to look at Drew Bennett’s deal and say ‘Well I’m way better than him and my contract better reflect that.’ Of course, they will.

I don’t blame the players or their agents for getting what they’ve gotten. They’re capitalists just like all of us and they are paid what they market can bear. But here’s the thing… the owners and GMs determine the market.

As I sifted through my news reader, the two stories that struck me the most were topics that I’d blogged about before. One was The Foul, the other was Arkansas football.

For some reason, I remain fixed on the saga that is the Razorback program because I think it’s a perfect example of what can go wrong in modern recruiting. What Houston Nutt is learning is just how dangerous it is to sell your soul and your program for a recruit.

Nutt and former Arkansas AD saw the potential of having an Arkansas kid lead the transformation of the program into a perennial powerhouse and were blinded to the potential consequences. So they hired Gus Malzahn and signed Mustain’s teammates. It was a package deal. And now the Springdale crew is probably going to be Nutt’s undoing as the head football coach at Arkansas with Damian Williams transferring to USC, Malzahn in Tulsa and Mustain still enrolled but almost certainly on the way out. Nutt’s future is imperiled despite the fact that he’s playing with one of the most talented players in all of college football.

Two stories today on CBS Sportsline focus on the downward spiral of Arkansas football, one focuses on who, exactly, is to blame for the dysfunction. The other is about Darren McFadden counting down the days until he bolts Fayetteville for the NFL.

More on The Foul

I didn’t anticipate writing another blog about this subject… ever. But alas, Tyler Hansbrough spoke for the first time since the incident occured and so here I am. After reading an AP story in the Washington Post and watching snippets of Hansbrough’s interview on The Worldwide Leader, one thing becomes strikingly clear to me… if Tyler Hansbrough meant what he said, he’s a far better person than I am. 

The AP is quoting the ACC’s best player as saying:

“‘I was upset when it happened,” Hansbrough said in his first public comments on the subject. “I don’t think he did it intentionally. I don’t really like talking about it because I really don’t know how to handle the situation, but I’m fine right now. I feel fine. I was kind of shocked my nose was broken. … I just thought it was a really bad nosebleed.’”

This is either one helluva classy move or Hansbrough is still concussed from punched in the head. I like Hansbrough’s comments but I don’t believe for a second  that if Duke and UNC meet in the ACC Tournament that Hansbrough isn’t going to hang 30 and 13 on the Dukies. I was honestly a little taken aback by this. Good for you, Tyler.

Great blog today by USAToday blogger Beau Dure, in which he wonders aloud if ESPN is giving more sporting events coverage if the ESPN/ABC family has a contract with the particular league. Despite denials by ESPN ombudsman George Solomon, the answer to that question is a resounding yes.

But here’s a message to the Worldwide Leader from The Bottom Line… YOU CAN’T MAKE ME CARE ABOUT ARENA FOOTBALL!  I DON’T CARE IF MIKE AND MIKE ARE CALLING THE GAMES!

If ESPN wants to posture and act like it’s the Worldwide Leader in Sports, it needs to conduct itself with the integrity of a first-class sports NEWS channel. You know what news means? It means covering everything in a fair and balanced manner, regardless of the corporate interest you might have in covering the Chicago Rush and the Philadelphia Soul.

ESPN needs to conduct itself with the integrity of a first-class news-gathering agency, not unlike the AP, Reuters and the BBC. Unfortunately, ESPN is far too concerned with building its brand and self-promotion that it has little time to care about professional integrity.

The USAToday blog. 

This story has been unavoidable for much of the past couple days and I expect that with no new developments expected, it’ll fizzle and die out and become a highlight that ESPN shows when trying to promote the game. This morning I read two fairly good pieces, effectively eulogies on the story, and barring any new developments, I expect that this will be my last post on it as well.

The first was by New York Daily News columnist Bob Raissman. In the column, Raissman blasts CBS analyst Billy Packer for his blatant and borderline repugnant defense of Duke and Gerald Henderson in the moments after the foul.

What’s worse isn’t that Packer says this wasn’t a dirty foul in the seconds after it happened, it was that he insisted it wasn’t (Jim Nantz, coincidentally remained silent on the matter) even after they replayed the play 9 times. What I thought was comical when listening to Packer’s call was that he insisted that Henderson was going for the ball despite the fact that Hansbrough had been stripped of the ball before Henderson even left the ground.

And the coup de gras was when Henderson was ejected from the game, Packer said, “This a poor piece of officiating.”

Boy, who can wait for March Madness? But wait, you don’t have to wait for two more weeks to see Packer behave like a moron. This Sunday, he’ll, no doubt, be confronting the head of the NCAA Selection Committee on whatever teams they pick, or don’t pick, for the field of 65 and pretty much anything else he feels like criticizing.

Billy Packer has a place alongside sometime-Chicago Sun-Times columnist and ESPN talking head Jay Mariotti in the Blowhard Hall of Fame and I think his defense of Duke and Henderson in this case is reprehensible.

Here’s a link to Raissman’s column.

That’s it. I’m done. No more on Tyler Hansbrough, Coach K, Roy Williams, Gerald Henderson.

Pretty good piece on Coach K’s subtle spin of the incident by Yahoo! Sports’ Dan Wentzel. 

Best of the rest…

Great story in the New York Times today on George and Coby Karl.

The Detroit Free Press’ Drew Sharp on Greg Oden’s freshman experience.

There’s a new header on The Bottom Line. Being the proud IU alum that I am (Class of ‘06), I figured I’d make my allegiance to the Cream and Crimson known as March Madness heats up.

GO HOOSIERS!

Can anyone tell me why Bruce Feldman’s new picture on his ESPN’s InsiderBlog looks like a mugshot from “To Catch a Predator?”

Well it’s 10:19 a.m. and I’ve been able to hold off on blogging about what is sure to be the most talked about sports item of the day for about two hours. For years to come, this play might simply be called “The Foul.”

In the past 24 hours, we’ve heard from both sides of the aisle. Everyone who hates Duke seems convinced that Gerald Henderson intended to hurt Hansbrough when he smacked Hansbrough in the face with 12 seconds left in the game with UNC up by 12.

You have Henderson, after the game, saying he “didn’t mean to hurt the kid” but sounding pretty cold saying it. Coach K called any speculation that the foul was malicious, “ridiculous.”

Henderson will be suspended for Duke’s first game in the ACC tournament, according to an NCAA rule that requires ejected players to miss a game but Duke should levy a heavier penalty. This foul was ugly and brutal.

The “What was Hansbrough doing in the game?” defense is absolutely ludicrous.

I don’t think they should through the book at Henderson but Duke, the NCAA and the ACC must send a very clear message to the players. Hard fouls are part of basketball but cheap shots and flagrant fouls will not be tolerated. Commit them and you will be punished. This could easily have erupted into a very ugly scene. And next time, it just might.

Michigan forward Brent Petway shaved his head to look like the Michigan football helmet… niiiiiiice.

Jake Plummer has never been a particularly good quarterback. No one is going to confuse the trajectory of his career with that of the greatest quarterbacks of his generation. But what’s currently being done to the “Snake” by the Broncos is nothing short of embarrassing.

For some reasons, NFL owners and those in charge of personnel get off the hook. This morning, I turned on my news reader and the general sentiment from writers across the Rocky Mountains is “good riddance, Jake.” Somehow the Broncos have been absolved from all this.

It comes as a surprise to no one that Plummer’s days at Mile High were numbered after the Broncos took Jay Cutler in the first round of last year’s draft. It’s also no surprise that Plummer wanted to play in Houston for former Denver offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the Broncos traded the Snake to the Bucs, where Jon Gruden collects quarterbacks like coins for a mid-to-late round draft pick. If Plummer doesn’t report, the Broncos don’t get the pick but something tells me they really don’t care. This wasn’t about the Broncos getting another draft pick in April, it was about making sure Jake Plummer didn’t get what he wanted. So he’s packing it in.

Unfortunately, this is all too common in the NFL. Players are treating like cattle and when they don’t go along with the company line, they’re labeled as selfish (and some of them are). They’re urged to “re-negotiate” (see: give up money) to allow the teams to sign other players. Players are routinely cut and signed for less. Some of the NFL’s storied franchises, namely the Steelers refuse to sign players at a certain price after they’ve reached a certain age regardless of how long they’ve been with the team.

The major question for fans is this: how can you expect players to be loyal to your favorite team when your favorite team isn’t loyal to its players?

We accept that owning an NFL franchise is like owning a business but we frown upon NFL players handling theirs.