Why do you think pro athletes don’t learn from the consequences of other pro athletes carrying firearms in public places?
NEW DAWG: Yo, Ray. You don’t know what the streets is saying. The game has passed you by. When my boys tell me to hit that club in NYC, I know I need to pack heat. It is what it is. I’m not spending every night in my 5,000-square-foot home with my $100,000 game room and media room watching DVDs all night. I need to be out.
BUCK: Yo, Newy. It’s OK to be out, be cool ... but don’t be a fool. Plaxico Burress is one of about 1,700 players on current NFL rosters, and still the only one who has shot himself in the thigh this season. Twice, you used the word “need” — but you forgot to mention it in the context that this gun-totin’ knucklehead “needed” to be getting back on the field (hamstring). He does play a team sport. You say “it is what it is” — well, that’s the problem. Your man Plax is the latest in a growing list of self-absorbed, overpaid pro athletes who think they’re bulletproof ... well, until now.
Can Colt McCoy still win the Heisman Trophy on Dec 13 without a Big 12 Championship Game to pump up his stats?
NEW DAWG: I think Sam Bradford should find some space in his apartment. That trophy is his.
BUCK: The Heisman was Colt McCoy’s to lose going into last week’s games. UT fans now have the BCS to thank for “losing” it for him.
Did the BCS get it right by slotting Oklahoma ahead of Texas?
NEW DAWG: Texas got jobbed. Bottom line, UT beat OU by 10. This is why I like pro football better. This type of junk doesn’t exist.
BUCK: College football has far more compelling games and far more water-cooler debates than the NFL. And water-cooler debates are what the NCAA wants. We proponents of a playoff system in college football are terribly naive. The impish BCS gave it to us both ways in the last two rankings. Priceless.
Was Roger Goodell too soft on Adam “Pacman” Jones with a suspension that lasted only six games this last time?
NEW DAWG: Heck, yeah. Pacman should have been suspended for at least eight games. Don’t worry, he won’t be a Cowboy in 2009. I’m confident he’ll find trouble again, then he’ll be out of football for life. His history says he will screw up.
BUCK: Roger Goodell is no Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Based on what Goodell told us, Pacman had no wiggle room. Now, we find out, Pacman’s body guard had no wiggle room.
Nets point guard Devin Harris scored 47 points against the Suns on Sunday. Did the Mavs blow it?
NEW DAWG: Devin Harris is about to become an All-Star. The Mavs screwed up trading him because Jason Kidd will be a free agent after the season, and they will be searching for a floor general. New Jersey is set for years.
BUCK: The Harris-Kidd trade became a colossal mistake as soon as the Mavs were eliminated in the first round with Kidd at point guard (by New Orleans), just as they were eliminated in the first round with Harris at point guard (by Golden State) the year before. Of course, Einstein, you want youth if the end result is going to be the same.
Does Charlie Weis get another free pass at Notre Dame?
NEW DAWG: Fake Tuna Charlie is a fraud and Notre Dame can’t buy him out. I really like that. Weis’s signature win at ND ... well, he doesn’t have one. Notre Dame needs to look at USC, who in ’98 hired an NFL guy, Paul Hackett, who ran the program into the dirt. The Irish need to move on, but won’t.
BUCK: The Irish would have to use both hands, then take their shoes off, to count up the millions that Weis’s buyout is worth. It’s sometimes cheaper to live with someone ... something Paul McCartney learned too late.
Which catcher should the Rangers trade? Laird? Teagarden? Ramirez? Or Saltalamacchia?
NEW DAWG: I’d keep Taylor Teagarden because he knows how to call a game, and I’d move Jarrod Saltalamacchia because I know Boston loves him.
BUCK: Not so fast, bird dog. The Rangers need to quit making the same mistake of unloading young talent — and Salty, at 23, is the youngest of these four guys. Max Ramirez, 24, is a keeper at Triple A. The rapid evolution of Teagarden, 24, now makes 29-year-old Gerald Laird expendable.
CBS analyst Bill Cowher is a proponent of making NFL field goals tougher by narrowing the uprights by four feet ... or less valuable by awarding only two points for FGs inside 30 yards. Agree?
NEW DAWG: I never watch the CBS show. Glad to know that I haven’t missed a darned thing.
BUCK: Cowher sounds like he wants to be commissioner. We’ve been duped. We thought all along he’d eventually come back and coach. I think his first suggestion has merit. But his second one is too far out for even the World Football League to have dreamed up.
