When the Atlanta Falcons drafted Michael Vick with the first overall pick in 2001, they thought they were set at the quarterback position for the foreseeable future. Vick instantly became the face of the Falcons and a poster boy for the NFL. What the league and Falcons didn’t know, however, was that Vick had a very dark, twisted hobby. After months of wild rumors and speculation, federal investigators indicted Vick on charges of funding an illegal dog fighting operation that spanned multiple states. The feds discovered that Vick and three cohorts not only trained pit bulls to fight, but also shot, beat, hanged and even electrocuted the dogs that lost. Outrage quickly spread across the country as some wanted to see Vick kicked out of the league and thrown in jail immediately. The Animal Humane Society even protested outside of the Falcons’ training facility in Flowery Branch, Ga., and sent countless letters to owner Arthur Blank, pleading for Vick to be thrown off the team. All four men involved accepted plea agreements and recently Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison. Not since O.J. Simpson has a more popular athlete been wrapped up in so much scandal.

Tim Donaghy is a scumbag. He got into bed with organized crime and gave bettors information about which refereeing crews were on which games, giving them an edge against the general betting public. It’s unclear how many games Donaghy actually fixed, but it’s a given that he profited from his inside information and his ability to alter the outcomes of games. Rumors swirled, but at this point no other referees appear to be involved. Still, Donaghy’s actions gave the league a serious black eye and will fuel conspiracy theories for the foreseeable future. Some fans already think the league is fixed, and Donaghy’s actions certainly aren’t going to help NBA commish David Stern quell those concerns. Ironically, when it came to altering the league’s gambling rules, Stern elected to make some of the rules more lax, allowing refs to gamble at casinos and in the offseason, but still prohibiting any bets to be made through a bookie. The league will also conduct deeper background checks into their officials, announce which referee crews will be working which games every morning (so those schedules would no longer be “inside information,” something that Donaghy fed to his cohorts), publicly disclose all referee mistakes and use its immense statistical power to evaluate referees’ performance to detect any malicious activity. The NBA will also increase its training and hire a new executive to oversee the referees. Stern called this the most serious issue that he has had to deal with in his time with the league, and the changes he has made should help the NBA recover. But Kevin Garnett might have been the greatest catalyst in helping the league and its fans move on. Eleven days after the news about Donaghy broke, KG was traded to the Celtics. Conspiracy theorists should enjoy that one.

After months of waiting and rampant speculation, former Senator George Mitchell revealed the results of his investigation into the use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball on Dec. 13. Perhaps the most shocking thing about the list of players named in the Mitchell Report was that it wasn’t all that shocking. For all the hypothesizing about who would be outed, surely no one suspected the list would be comprised of players the likes of Glenallen Hill, Hal Morris, Tim Laker or Gregg Zaun. Not even the larger names, such as Miguel Tejada and 1995 AL MVP Mo Vaughn, were surprising.

However, the inclusion of Roger Clemens – whose use of steroids is extensively documented in the report – changes everything. Clemens is all over the record books, ranking second in strikeouts and eighth in wins. He is the only player to win seven Cy Young awards, and is one of nine players to record 300 wins and 3,000 strikeouts. That alone ends the discussion of asterisks in the record book; they would be everywhere, and there is no point in keeping records if a significant percentage of the entries are treated as if they do not count.

Mitchell has repeatedly stated that he does not believe that any of the players named in his report should be punished, and we agree. This report should be used not as a weapon with which to lay blame but as a cautionary tale of what can happen when any sport willfully stops governing itself in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Going forward, we can only hope that the players understand what’s at stake if they try to cheat, and that the owners understand that turning a blind eye to improper behavior is no longer an option. Time to man up and move on.

They’ve won three Super Bowls in six years, they don’t overpay for talented free agents, they draft well and they always seem to do everything right. Well, almost everything, anyway. After losing to the Patriots in Week 1, Jets’ head coach Eric Mangini filed a complaint with the NFL claiming that New England had a spy on their sidelines stealing defensive signals. The league investigated Mangini’s claims and decided that the man wearing Patriots gear and videotaping the Jets’ sideline was in fact a Patriot spy. Spygate was born. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell acted quickly, fining head coach Bill Belichick $500,000, the team $250,000, and also stripping the Patriots of the their 2008 first round draft choice. Of course, Belichick said afterwards, “We have never used sideline video to obtain a competitive advantage while the game was in progress.” Sure Belicheat, we believe you.

When the Buckeyes were favored in the BCS title game over the Gators, there was a lot of talk about how Ohio State had the chance to win both the football and basketball championships in the same year. Lost in that discussion was the Gators’ chance to do the very same thing. Some pundits thought that the Gators didn’t deserve to face OSU in the BCS title game, and after Ted Ginn returned the opening kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown, it looked like they might be right. But Ginn hurt his foot while celebrating the score (oi!), and that was the beginning of the end for the Buckeyes, who lost the game 41-14. Florida dominated on both sides of the ball and after the game, defensive end Jarvis Moss rubbed some salt in the wounds, saying, “Honestly, we've played a lot better teams than them. I could name four or five teams in the SEC that could probably compete with them and play the same type of game we did against them." Ouch. A few months later, the Florida basketball team and its trio of stars -- Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer and Al Horford, who all spurned the NBA for a shot at a second title -- went in as favorites over the Buckeyes, who were led by diaper dandies Greg Oden and Mike Conley. The Gators jumped out to a 40-29 halftime lead, and even though foul trouble limited Noah to just 21 minutes, Florida coasted to an 84-75 victory. With the win, the basketball Gators are now in the Best Team Ever conversation, but more importantly, it gave Florida the ultimate NCAA twofer.

In the two years prior to Ainge taking over as GM of the Celtics, the team was a combined 93-71 (.567) and had advanced to the conference finals in 2002 and the conference semifinals in 2003. In other words, they were relevant. In the first four seasons under Ainge's leadership, the team had a combined record of 138-190 (.421) and was bounced out of the first round of the playoffs twice. (They missed the playoffs completely the last two years.) The 2006-07 season was especially embarrassing as the Celtics finished 24-58 and were tanking games toward the end to get a better shot at Greg Oden or Kevin Durant in the draft. Ainge had acquired a lot of prospects, but the youngsters weren’t coming along fast enough to complement franchise centerpiece Paul Pierce. After blowing a chance at Brandon Roy (and Randy Foye) in an ill-advised trade for Sebastian Telfair, it was clear that Ainge was on the hot seat. But two big moves this summer changed all that. He acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen for Telfair, Al Jefferson, Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West, Jeff Green, Gerald Green, Ryan Gomes, Theo Ratliff and two first round picks. By compiling three unselfish superstars, Ainge pulled off an impossible feat and has now positioned the Celtics as the frontrunner in the East. That’s quite the turnaround for Danny-boy.

Indianapolis Colts’ star Peyton Manning has long been known as one of the best quarterbacks in the league. Some, however, referred to Manning as simply a big time choker with gaudy stats who would never lead his team to the big game. Tom Brady was regarded as a “Super Bowl Quarterback,” but not Peyton. That all changed, however, on Feb. 4 in Miami, when Manning and the Colts beat the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI. His performance (247 yards, 1 TD) netted Manning the Super Bowl MVP award and dispelled the myth that he wasn’t a “Super Bowl Quarterback” once and for all.

In one of the biggest press conference meltdowns in sports history, Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy ripped columnist Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman for criticizing quarterback Bobby Reid’s toughness in one of her articles. Carlson questioned Reid’s desire to play through injuries and overcome his nerves, and she cited a rumor that claimed the quarterback wanted to transfer schools because the competition was too tough at OSU. She also hammered Reid for apparently being hand-fed chicken by his mother following a game, and insinuated that the coaching staff had had enough of his lack of toughness. In response, Gundy hammered Carlson’s article, claiming that three-fourths of it was “fiction” and also stating that, “Whoever wrote the article obviously doesn’t have a child.” He also made the now famous quote, “Come after me! I’m a man! I’m 40!” The incident spurned public debate on whether or not it was right for members of the media to criticize college athletes, and it now rivals Jim Mora’s “Playoffs?!” and Denny Green’s “They are who we thought they were!” postgame speeches in the hearts and minds of rubbernecking sports fans everywhere.

In 1993, Peter McGowan purchased the San Francisco Giants. That offseason, he decided that he wanted a marquee player to go along with his new purchase, so he signed Barry Lamar Bonds, the cranky yet marvelously gifted outfielder formerly with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Over the course of the next 14 years, McGowan bent over backwards for Bonds, giving the star everything he ever wanted and turning a blind eye to what was painfully obvious to many in baseball: that Bonds was a volatile, steroid-popping cheater. Yes, he was a spectacular player, but McGowan and the Giants paid dearly for making every decision about what was best for Barry. After years of signing mid-level veterans to complement Bonds – as well as trading away young prospects for stopgap players like A.J. Pierzynski – San Francisco’s farm system is now depleted. In October, the Giants said enough was enough and made a public announcement that Bonds would not be brought back in 2008. Even though he gave them years of great memories (at least on the field) and sold a lot of tickets, the Giants finally realized that they could actually live without Barry Bonds roaming left field.

We covered this in more detail in May, but to sum it up, it’s getting awfully easy to root against the Spurs. Like the Patriots (or even the Duke Blue Devils or the Yankees), the Spurs have been at or near the top of their industry for the last decade, and that type of success breeds contempt. Making matters worse, Bruce Bowen is getting dirtier as he gets older and neither Tim Duncan nor Manu Ginobili ever admit to committing a foul. Lastly, Tony Parker married Eva Longoria after releasing a French rap album. ‘Nuff said.

In a September interview for HBO’s “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel,” Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb said that black quarterbacks are criticized more than their white counterparts. McNabb stated that black quarterbacks “have to do a little bit extra” because there are relatively few of them, adding “people didn’t want us to play this position.” Considering the quarterback position might be the most criticized position in all of sports, McNabb’s comments seemed a little shortsighted. After all, the most criticized quarterback in 2006 and 2007 might have been the Bears’ Rex Grossman, who is white. Other white quarterbacks like Chad Pennington, Jeff Garcia, J.P. Losman and Joey Harrington have all seen their fair share of criticism as well. Being heavily criticized seems to come with the territory of being an NFL quarterback, no matter what color your skin is.

Their absurd payroll allows them to fill their roster with a bunch of high-priced players signed off the free agent market, they crush teams that can’t spend the money to compete with them, and they’ve won two of the past three World Series. No, they’re not the New York Yankees – they’re the Boston Red Sox. Fans love to complain that the Yankees “buy all their players” and “buy championships,” but in 2007, the Bronx Bombers had 13 home grown players on their roster while Boston only had five. Plus, it wasn’t the Yankees that spent more than $100 million to court Japanese starter Daisuke Matsuzaka this past offseason, or parted with young prospects for overrated reliever Eric Gagne at the trade deadline. So, which team is “buying” championships? The Red Sox aren’t the loveable, cursed losers anymore – they’re a “Nation” now. Face it Red Sox fans, your team has become “Yankees Light.”

As the NBA regular season winded down, a few teams realized their playoff chances were slim to none (and slim had just left town), so they decided to sit their “injured” stars with the goal of increasing their chances of landing a top two pick in the NBA Lottery. The Sports Guy described an especially brutal Bucks/Celtics game where Michael Redd and Mo Williams joined the already injured Andrew Bogut and Charlie Villianueva on the Milwaukee bench. Not to be outdone, the Celtics sat Paul Pierce and Al Jefferson. As Simmons aptly put it, “Milwaukee lost by winning; Boston won by losing; every paying customer lost, period.” But who can blame teams for trying to increase their chances of landing once-in-a-decade type players like Oden and Durant? Heading into the draft, Oden, an athletic seven-footer with superb defensive timing and an ever-increasing arsenal of post moves, was considered to be a consensus #1 pick and a franchise center. That’s saying a lot, considering Durant’s stellar freshman season (25.8 points and 11.1 rebounds per game) that won him the Naismith award for most outstanding college player. A few extra ping-pong balls can’t hurt, right? Well, once the season ended, Boston and Milwaukee found themselves with the second- and third-best chances to land the top pick, but when the balls stopped bouncing, the worst possible scenario had actually happened. Portland, Seattle and Atlanta all jumped ahead of the Celtics and Bucks, who ended up with the #5 and #6 picks, respectively. Is this a case of lottery karma biting a couple of tankers in the butt? Maybe. But the C’s and Bucks turned their lottery misfortune into gold. Boston used their pick on Georgetown’s Jeff Green, and sent him to the Sonics as part of a deal for Ray Allen. Then, the addition of Ray Ray made Boston a more palatable destination for Kevin Garnett. For their part, Milwaukee bucked conventional wisdom (sorry, couldn’t resist) by drafting Yi Jianlian with the #6 pick. Other than Kevin Durant and Al Horford (who went to the Hawks with the #3 pick), Yi is playing the best ball of any rookie this season.

First it was Tampa. Then it was Carolina. Then this past year, the Anaheim Ducks, owned by the Disney folks, won hockey’s coveted Stanley Cup. If you’re Canadian and a hockey fan, you’ve probably ground your teeth down to a fine powder by now. In fact, the Cup hasn’t resided in Canada since the Montreal Canadiens won it all in 1993. The Ducks won in five games, with Scott Niedermayer taking home the MVP while winning the fourth Stanley Cup of his career. Even sweeter for Niedermayer was the fact that his brother Rob was a teammate, and they were able to share the championship. It was also the first Cup for 14-year veteran Teemu Selanne.

They said he couldn’t play at a high level any longer. They said that he didn’t have it, whatever it is that separates good quarterbacks from those who can’t win games anymore. After a 4-12 season in 2005 and a 4-8 start in 2006, the doubters were everywhere. “It’s just getting sad. Brett Favre should retire. He just isn’t relevant anymore.” Over that 28-game span in 2005 and 2006, Favre threw 35 TDs against 41 interceptions. Since then, the Packers are 14-2 and good ol’ Brett has tossed 25 scores and just 16 picks. His QB rating this season is 98.7, which is the second highest of his career. Favre is at his best when his team is good. If the Packers are in a position of strength, Favre is almost unbeatable. When Green Bay is behind or floundering, he’s going to roll the dice and try to make a big play. That’s just his nature. And since the Packers are looking good, so is Favre. Isn’t it funny how all those pundits who called for his retirement have since run for the hills?

It was one of the oddest scenes we’ve ever seen. Late in the third quarter of the Mavericks/Spurs game, NBA ref Joey Crawford called a technical foul on Tim Duncan, who was sitting on the bench laughing at one of Crawford’s calls. Then, after another call by Crawford, Duncan burst into laughter again, and again, Crawford called him for a technical, this time ejecting him from the game. After the game, Duncan claimed that Crawford asked him if he wanted to fight. (Be sure to check out this video to hear Duncan’s comments and Stephen A. Smith’s reaction.) One thing’s for sure -- Tim Duncan caught Joey Crawford on a very bad day. David Stern quickly stepped in and suspended the referee for the rest of the season and the playoffs, but did reinstate him this summer. As with the Tim Donaghy scandal, this incident once again pushed NBA officials into the limelight. There’s a saying – the best officials are the ones you don’t notice because they’re not changing the course of the game. Joey Crawford is widely considered one of the top officials in the NBA, but like any human being, he has a temper. On that night in Dallas, he lost it.

There’s a reason NCAA football is separated into three divisions, or classes. A program as big as Michigan should never play a small school like Division-II Appalachian State because it wouldn’t be fair. After all, Michigan has way more recruiting power, and their players are just bigger and better. Whoops. In arguably the greatest upset in college football history, Appalachian State rolled into the Big House on Sept. 1 and beat Michigan 34-32, proving that no D-I school should ever take a D-II opponent lightly. Going forward, coaches might be wise to include Appalachian State’s historic upset in their pregame speeches to ensure their players never assume victory over what’s supposed to be a lesser opponent.

Question: What do Michael Vick, Pacman Jones, Chris Henry and Tank Johnson have in common? Answer: They all make poor decisions off the field. Okay, well, yes, that’s true. However, the answer we were looking for was: All four athletes were made examples of by second-year commissioner Roger Goodell and his new Player Conduct Policy. On April 10, Goodell suspended Jones 17 games and Henry eight games for violating the league’s new policy. On June 4, Goodell struck again, suspending Johnson for the first 10 games of the 2007 season after being arrested on weapons charges. Finally, on August 24, Goodell suspended Vick indefinitely for lying about his involvement with a dog fighting ring. Never before had the NFL witnessed so many suspensions in a single offseason. The message was clear: Don’t mess with the new sheriff in town.

Entering the 2007 season, the Colorado Rockies were mostly known for their youth and inexperience. At an average age of 26.7, they were the sixth-youngest team in baseball. Many pundits believed that they would finish in the cellar of the NL West but also noted that they would be a team to contend with, perhaps in the near future. The near future turned out to be now as the Rockies put together an unbelievable run in the season's final month, winning 14 of their last 15 games to sneak into the playoffs as the NL Wild Card team. From there, the youthful Rockies, led by MVP runner-up Matt Holiday (27), Jeff Francis (26), Clint Barmes (28), Brad Hawpe (28) and Rookie of the Year finalist Troy Tulowitzki (23), swept both the Phillies and Diamondbacks on their way to their first World Series appearance in franchise history. Even though the Red Sox swept them in the Fall Classic, the 2007 Colorado Rockies proved that youth can overcome inexperience.

It was a strange sight: LeBron James sitting in the stands at Jacobs Field in Cleveland during Game 1 of the ALDS between the Indians and Yankees...wearing a Yankees hat. Huh? Of course, most of the Cleveland faithful at the Jake and at home watching the game already knew that LeBron was a Yankees fan after he declared his pinstriped loyalties while hosting “Saturday Night Live” a week earlier, but few expected to see their Sports Savior show up to a playoff game wearing enemy colors. It felt like an act of betrayal to many Cleveland fans hoping LBJ would someday end the city’s painful championship drought, but maybe they shouldn’t take it so personally. After all, LeBron also admitted that his favorite football team growing up was the Dallas Cowboys and his favorite basketball team was the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls, two of the most successful sports franchises of the ‘90s, along with the Yankees. Perhaps Clevelanders can take comfort in the fact that LBJ is a huge Ohio State football fan. Then again, considering the Buckeyes’ recent success, that's not entirely surprising.

It has to create a lot more recruiting work, but the NBA age limit has forced a bunch of very talented high school seniors into college basketball for at least a year. Last season, freshman Kevin Durant posted 25.8 points and 11.1 rebounds per game en route to winning the Naismith award. Meanwhile, Greg Oden made NBA scouts salivate with excellent defense and an improving post game as he and teammate Mike Conley led the Buckeyes into the title game against Florida. It’s good for the NBA, too. Scouts can now watch how these talented young freshmen develop in a year and are better able to determine how they’ll fare in the NBA come draft time. It also allows marginal players to assess their own strengths and weaknesses with more clarity, possibly staying in college for another year or two to develop. There’s definitely a “right to work” argument for those high school seniors, but the age limit has proven to be good for both the NBA and the NCAA.

Do you love college football? Wouldn't you love to get top-secret information about your favorite team? Well then, make sure to keep an eye on where former Texas A&M head coach Dennis Franchione winds up next year, because for a small yearly fee, he can give you all kinds of inside info on your hometown team. In September, the A&M athletic department discovered that Franchione was putting together secret newsletters containing team injury reports, player assessments and other information that he wasn’t sharing with the media. Boosters and other paying customers would shell out a yearly fee of $1,200 and Franchione would send out the newsletter every week. The money he collected was used to underwrite his personal website, coachfran.com, but A&M eventually put the kibosh on the whole operation, bought out his contract and now he’s currently out of work. Hey, at least he’s got a career in sales if the head coach thing doesn’t work out.

At the start of the 2007 baseball season, I had the pleasure of writing a feature story on the Nashville Sounds (AAA team for the Milwaukee Brewers) for a local weekly newspaper. I interviewed Prince Fielder, who played here in 2005 and is now the Brewers’ starting first baseman. I also included Ryan Braun among five players to watch in 2007 for Nashville. Boy, was that an understatement. I remember going to a game in April and watching Braun hit a home run off the scoreboard. I turned to my wife and said, “No way does this kid not get called up to Milwaukee.” Not to pat myself on the back, but Braun did get called up and never stopped hitting the cover off the ball. In just 113 games with the Brewers, Braun hit .320 with 34 home runs and 119 RBI on his way to winning the NL Rookie of the Year award. And Fielder? He led the National League with 50 home runs and came in third in the NL MVP Voting. Yep, that Brew Crew can hit a little.

Flashback to the Western Conference semifinals last spring. The Suns had just won Game 4 in San Antonio, tying the series at 2-2, and were returning home for Game 5. Only they had to play that game without Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw because the duo left the bench to aid Steve Nash in Game 4 after he was body checked into the scorer’s table by Robert Horry. Even without two of their stars, the Suns almost won Game 5 but they eventually lost the series when the Spurs prevailed in Game 6 in San Antonio. There’s no guarantee that the Suns would have advanced had Stoudemire and Diaw played in Game 5, but it sure would have helped. The team lost Kurt Thomas in the offseason, but replaced him with Brian Skinner and signed Grant Hill to provide some additional perimeter punch. With the clock ticking on Shawn Marion’s patience and Nash’s age, the time is now for the Suns.

When you look at the NFL's top quarterbacks in 2007, each conference is led by a player that was not a high draft pick. In fact, Dallas QB Tony Romo was an undrafted free agent and New England’s Tom Brady constantly reminds us all that he was a very late sixth round pick in 2000. But here they are. Brady is lighting up the scoreboard (as well as all of New England and Fantasy Nation) with 4,095 yards and 45 TD passes to just five interceptions in 13 games for a quarterback rating of 123.5, while Romo has 35 TD passes, 3,654 yards and an NFC-best 107.7 rating. By comparison, the Giants’ Eli Manning ranks 23rd in the NFL with a 75.2 passer rating after essentially holding the Chargers hostage in the 2004 draft and forcing a trade to New York. It’s also worth nothing that Cleveland’s Brady Quinn (22nd overall pick in 2007) now sits second on the depth chart behind Derek Anderson, a former sixth-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens who has sparked a huge offensive resurgence for the Browns this year.

After winning back-to-back NCAA titles at Florida, Billy Donovan turned down a seven-year, $24.5 million deal to stay in Gainesville and decided to sign a five-year, $27.5 million deal to coach the Orlando Magic. It seemed like the perfect time for Donovan to leave Florida. His four stars -- Al Horford, Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer and Taurean Green -- decided to head to the Association, so why shouldn’t he? The fact that he’d be coaching close to home in Orlando and that he’d get to coach one of the league’s brightest rising stars (Dwight Howard) didn’t hurt either. But a few days later, Donovan changed his mind and called Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley (who was on a plane to interview Donovan’s former assistant, Anthony Grant, for the vacant head coaching position) to express his interest in returning to Florida. After the Magic negotiated a no-competition clause that would keep Donovan out of the NBA for five years, the franchise let him out of his contract. So now Donovan is locked into a contract with the Gators for the next seven years, which is good (for Donovan) considering the whole debacle gave him a reputation for being an indecisive tease.

Remember when certain schools were football powerhouses and certain teams were basketball powerhouses? You still have that to some degree with predominantly football schools like Georgia, LSU and Virginia Tech, and even more so with basketball-dominant schools like Duke, North Carolina and Syracuse. But this past year we had Ohio State and Florida in the title game in both football and basketball, and other schools like Kansas, Missouri, Arizona State, Cincinnati and Arkansas that have been historically good at basketball and lousy at football suddenly became relevant on the gridiron.

Heading into the 2007 Draft, the seven-foot Yi Jianlian was a bit of a mystery. Playing in the Chinese Basketball Association, his experience was limited and teams weren’t (and still aren’t) even sure if the kid was 19 or 22, or some age in between. His handlers were only allowing certain teams to see him in individual workouts, but it was the Bucks (one of the “unapproved” teams) who drafted him #6 overall. After a long, bitter negotiation, Yi finally agreed to play in Milwaukee and hasn’t looked back. Thus far, in 25.6 minutes per game, he’s averaging 9.4 points and 5.4 rebounds. Those aren’t spectacular numbers, but outside of Seattle (Kevin Durant) and Atlanta (Al Horford) there isn’t a rookie playing better ball. Moreover, he has shown flashes of brilliance and a terrific shooting touch, which means that the kid should be a very tough cover in a couple of years.

Coming off a miserable 4-12 season and with prized rookie Brady Quinn staging a lengthy holdout, the Cleveland Browns had a decision on their hands: who would start the team’s first exhibition game of the year? Incumbent Charlie Frye had thrown 17 interceptions vs. just 10 touchdowns in 2006, and third-year quarterback Derek Anderson compiled a 63.1 QB rating in his five games behind center. Hmm, tough choice. So how did embattled head coach Romeo Crennel decide? He flipped a coin. That’s right, the coach who’d gone 10-22 in two years with the Browns decided to not make a decision, instead allowing chance to determine the fate of his team and his own job. The winner of the coin toss, Frye, went on to start the first game of the season, but after getting sacked five times by the Steelers in the opening quarter, he was benched for Anderson. A couple days later, Frye was shipped to Seattle. Anderson, whom new offensive coordinator Rod Chudzinski had been lobbying for all along, took over the reins and has since helped lead the Browns into the thick of the playoff race, unfamiliar territory for the beleaguered franchise. Now, with Anderson heading into restricted free agency and Quinn waiting in the wings, the Browns could be faced with another tough decision: who is the team’s quarterback of the future? Eenie, meenie, minie, moe….