Nate McMillan: Ruben, you aren’t going to play.
Ruben Patterson: PLAY ME 25 MINUTES, OR I’M NOT GOING TO PLAY.
Nate McMillan: Um… I’m going with Option B.
Ruben Patterson: Kinda leaves us right where we started, huh?
Nate McMillan: Yeah.

“That’s the thing that is holding me up — John Nash won’t trade me unless he gets someone good,” Patterson told The Oregonian. Well, you have to remember. You are Ruben Patterson. There’s not a huge market out there for 30-year-old attempted nanny-rapers who turn the ball over and shoot as accurately as the kid who was hiding in the bathroom in Pulp Fiction.

Actually, I do think Ruben Patterson can help a team. Defensively, he’s a pit bull. Put him on a contender, and he could be their Bruce Bowen… only, without the three-pointers and general sanity. But even moreso with a contender than with a team like Portland… he’s not getting 25 minutes a game, unless he has a specific assignment like Kobe or McGrady, etc. Sorry pal.

I really believe that if you’re a football coach at the pro or college level, you should spend about 0 seconds per week caring about what the fans have to say. I have been to enough football games and enough sports bars to know that football fans, myself included, know very little about the X’s and O’s of football, despite being convinced that they’re experts.

Which is why I don’t understand why Phil Fulmer is going out of his way to tell fans that he knows this UT season was unacceptable, blah blah blah… save it, man. You sound like a pussy. You’re making yourself accountable to a group of people that aren’t your boss. If you believe in yourself, then do your job better instead of going around apologizing and looking for people to forgive you.

Anyway, Phil, if you really want to write a letter that’s going to create a little breathing room for you, get people off your back, and get them talking about something else… send this out to the fans.

Rick Arnett of SI.com points out that the Skins Game has used up its usefulness. I’d say that I agree, but he’s not voicing an opinion, so much as he’s stating a fact… it’s would be like me agreeing that yes, Ahman Green is black.

I don’t care about Fred Funk and the skirt, either. Perhaps it was worth the tinest of chuckles, but it was set up and contrived. Seeing highlights, I was amused for about a second.

When I was a kid, and I went golfing with my brother and my cousins, if you didn’t drive it past the women’s tee, the rule was that you played the rest of the hole with your dick out. You looking for some attention, Fred Funk? Go that route. Be a man and yank out the captain for the back nine.

Anyway, when I was a much younger MJD, I remember liking the Skins Game. They’re not my fondest childhood memories or anything, but I liked seeing Jack and Arnie chat it up. I remember Lee Trevino being a funny guy. I remember mimicking Chi-Chi’s putter swordsman thing. The problem now is that no one has any personality.

Jack and Arnie were beloved… unlike Tiger, who isn’t beloved so much as he is revered. People felt like they could walk up to Jack or Arnie and say hello. They felt like they could buy Lee Trevino a few shots after the round and then drive him home after he pisses all over himself. If you approach Tiger Woods, Steve Williams might punch you in the kidneys and steal your digital camera.

I can’t think of one guy right now that would be even mildly entertaining in this format. Tiger acts like (and just might be) a better human being than the rest of us. Maybe John Daly, but I’m too busy feeling sorry for him. Phil Mickelson has a nice smile, that’s it. In terms of personality, he is a barren wasteland on which displaying human emotion is not allowed. Same for Ernie, Vijay, Goosen, pretty much anyone else.

Seth Davis breaks down the reasons that mid-majors like Bucknell are having more and more success against the big boys. 2 of their last 5 games are wins over Syracuse and Kansas… which, you know, is pretty decent.

It’s a continuing trend, and Seth Davis isn’t ripping the lid off a huge new scoop or anything, but… it is a trend worth looking into. You’ve got teams like Louisville and UNC recruiting the McDonalds All-Americans of the world… and getting a year or two from them before they jump for the NBA. It’ll be hard for a squad like that to ever have a senior-laden line-up.

Meanwhile, a school like Bucknell will never come close to landing a McDonalds All-American… they couldn’t even get a Hardees All-American. But they will have teams with veteran leadership, experienced players who have been in every situation, and a team full of guys who know the system in and out. If you’ve got a good coach… that’s the way to go. In basketball, especially at the college level, intelligent play in a good system with unselfish players will beat raw ability. Ask Stephon Marbury. Maybe not every time, maybe not even most of the time… but it will eventually happen.

I just wonder how long it’s going to take before it changes the way that guys like Krzyzewski, Boeheim, and Pitino recruit.

Dre Bly:

“If we’d had production on offense, in particular the quarterback position, Mooch wouldn’t have been fired. If Jeff Garcia hadn’t gotten hurt, we wouldn’t be in this position today. Mooch wouldn’t have gotten fired. We’re all at fault, but I just feel like Joey [Harrington]‘s been here four years, and being the No. 3 pick in the draft, he hasn’t given us anything. He hasn’t given us what the third pick in the draft should give us.”

Jeff Garcia:

“You start to question whether the organization has the people in place who can go about making the proper selections. You really have to question that.”

Well… yeah. I have mixed feelings about this… On one hand, I’m glad that their eyes are open, and I’m glad that they care about the state of the organization. I’m glad they’re at least passionate about what the Lions are doing.

But in the case of Bly… I don’t know if it’s cool to put your quarterback on front street like that. I know he sucks… no one has made more cheap Joey Harrington jokes than I have. But he’s still the quarterback of the team. He’s still a teammate. I understand the frustration, and his anger is certainly justified, but the team is still the most important thing. Blast Matt Millen all you want… he’s not in the locker room, you don’t have to depend on him on Sundays. But as for Joey the Interception Machine… you have to leave him alone, at least in public.

Of course, none of that means that Bly is actually wrong. He and Garcia are both 100% correct.

I’ll admit, I’ve been a little bit skeptical of the Colts. It’s not that I didn’t think they were good… I just wasn’t sure that they were quite as good their reputation. Last night’s performance left me convinced. That was truly impressive. I feel like the last one of the bandwagon.

The Steelers, who I think pretty highly of as a football team, just had no answers. They didn’t even crack the 200 yard barrier for total offense. Their offensive line was beaten. Their defensive line was beaten. They didn’t tackle well. Ben Roethlisberger’s new beard didn’t even seem as lively and spunky as it should have been.

I have yet to talk about the possibility of the Colts going undefeated, mainly because I don’t care. It might be neat to see, but… that’s not the goal, right? The big game at the end of the year is called the Super Bowl, not the Hey Let’s Give a Trophy to Anyone Who Goes Undefeated Bowl, right?

Anyway… I believe they could run the table if they wanted to. But they don’t. And they shouldn’t. They’ll rest Peyton, Edge, Marvin, and whoever else. And if the Colts don’t care, and if they’re not actively pursuing it, then… I don’t know why I should care about something they aren’t trying to accomplish.

But I do care about who’s going to win the Super Bowl… and after last night, it is abundantly clear that when it comes to Super Bowl favorites… there’s the Colts, and there’s everyone else. They seemed perfect last night. Anything a defense can do against them, they can answer. And Peyton Manning usually has that answer figured out before the opposing defense has even started to consider it.

Notre Dame is probably going to the Fiesta Bowl… and I am getting tired of people saying that it doesn’t matter if Notre Dame deserves a BCS game or not. I heard Michael Smith say it, I heard Jim Rome say it, I heard Tony Kornheiser say it.

Obviously, it’s true that it doesn’t matter how deserving Notre Dame may or may not be. That’s not really a fresh take on the situation, because everyone can see it happening right in front of them. We all know that, okay? Being deserving clearly does not matter. But it should, shouldn’t it?

I know they have a nationwide fan base. I know they get good TV ratings. I also do not care. I don’t run a TV network, and I don’t own a hotel in Tempe. I don’t know why those reasons trump a silly reason like, oh, I dunno… another team being more deserving.

I could get into why Oregon and Auburn have earned a BCS game over Notre Dame, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the system is beyond fucked up, even without special considerations for one particular school… and how we got to this point, I have no idea. If an alien landed on earth with no knowledge of how our college football champion is determined… the BCS would be pretty damn hard to explain, wouldn’t it?

If you’re a Notre Dame fan… I don’t know how you can celebrate being handed something that you didn’t earn. You beat one good team, and that’s a 4-loss Michigan squad that barely cracks the Top 20. You shouldn’t be happy. You should be ashamed.

I fully support Ron Artest’s head logo. I mean, I’m not likely to ever buy an album from the TruWarier label, but… anything that makes David Stern turn on the TV and say, “God DAMN IT,” I’m okay with.

Because you know Stern thought he had that whole “How do we appeal to old, white, corporate sponsors?” problem solved. But leave it to my man Ron-Ron to come up with a way to beat the system. I think it’s a good look, too. I’m considering doing something similar with my pubic region.

And no matter how dumb you think it looks… You have to give it up for whoever did the shaving. That’s some quality work.

I hate this idea… and I don’t even particularly care about the Celtics. I thought the Celtics would be one of the organizations that are above this bullshit, trendy-ass, we-need-seven-different-uniforms phase. They should be in that group that includes the Packers, Steelers, Chicago Bears, Yankees, Red Sox, New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, etc.

Putting black in the Celtics uniforms is like giving the Mona Lisa an eyebrow-piercing. The C’s were the NBA’s last and only hope to hang on to some uniform dignity. As it stands, however, the one NBA team that has held true to their classic and dignified look, throughout franchise history… is the Charlotte Bobcats.

I guess the Lakers and Bulls have also maintained some, but not all, of their dignity. The Spurs, too, though I’m not about to forgive that pastel logo. I think a good many of the NBA’s uniforms are flat-out embarrassing. You want a dress code, David Stern? Let’s worry about getting purple and green deer off of the jerseys before we start bitching about players footwear as they enter an arena.

Following in the proud tradition of college coaches in Ohio, police found Ohio U. head football coach Frank Solich passed out in his car on Saturday. The car, incidentally, was facing the wrong way on a one-way street. And it was in drive. While he was slumped over the wheel.

He was convicted of drunk driving on Monday. Yeah… you’re not talking your way out of that one. Even if Solich was able to form complete sentences right then, there just aren’t a lot of things to be said at that moment.

Being something of a celebrity, you might be able to talk your way out of a drunk stop. You might also convince the officer that you don’t know the neighborhood and took a wrong turn. But the car being in drive, in conjunction with the first two… Sorry, pal. “I’m fucked” is about your only option.

He pleaded no contest, and his AD doesn’t seem to concerned about it.

“I know Frank as a man of impeccable integrity, and I am confident that he will respond to this situation in a positive manner and use these circumstances to better teach others, including his players, the importance of making wise decisions,” Ohio athletic director Kirby Hocutt said in the statement.

That’s pretty damn rosy. I’m guessing a janitor at the same school wouldn’t get the same consideration. To me, it sounds like Solich is going to get a raise over this.