Oh.  My.  God.  If that logo doesn’t scream “Banged out by a student at a local community college’s graphic design program” I don’t know what does.  Reading the press release announcing the franchise’s new name and logo/colors is laughable.  Here’s my favorite part:

With a nickname denoting energy and power, a classic-look logo, and the colors of an Oklahoma sunset, Oklahoma City’s NBA team unveiled its identity today.

A classic-look logo?  If by ‘classic’ you mean ’sometime in the last 5 years’ then sure, it is I guess.  And if the team name is Thunder, why would you want the colors of an Oklahoma sunset?  Wouldn’t the presence of a pretty sunset typically indicate a lack of thunder?

And I just can’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen other logos like it before.  Hmmm…hey, I remember!

So yeah, good job on your new WNBA logo, Oklahoma City.  If you ever change your mind, you can use this logo I designed for you:

Curious?  Yeah, I thought so.  I haven’t watched a second of MSNBC’s Olympics coverage, but I think I need to start right away.  Particularly for the “Olympic Update” segments featuring co-hosts Tiki Barber and Jenna Wolfe.  Tiki, as most of you probably know, was a running back for the New York Giants until 2006, when he retired under less than friendly terms with the team.  They of course went on to win the Super Bowl without him at the end of last season.

That’s what Wolfe is alluding to at the beginning of this clip.  Pretty nasty dig for the situation I must say.  But then Tiki took it to a whole ‘nother level with his supposed slip of the tongue.  It’s at the 28-second mark:

Wow.  Just wow.  There is no way that was accidental, and Wolfe knows it.  Notice how she can’t even look at Tiki after his remark.  Now that’s interesting television, people.

• Two-hour segments on what Bill Parcells had for lunch, what color underwear Bill Parcells is wearing, and what Bill Parcells thinks of Francesa.
• All on-location shows to be held at Belmont Park.
• Francesa will have to quiz himself on the weekend’s sports TV ratings, leading to the debut of his colorful cast of voice characters.
• Callers will be cut off in mid-sentence so Francesa can explore the lyrics to obscure Bruce Springsteen songs.
• With no more tennis coverage or discussion, there will finally be some time to talk about baseball!

My prediction is that Russo finds moderate success in his satellite radio role, while Francesa is either forced to take a new partner within a year or is out of the afternoon slot.

But while most of the media focus has been on the story of another aging star quarterback moving to a new team (invoking names like Joe Namath and Johnny Unitas in the process), what about those like Rodgers, who are left behind to deal with the aforementioned legacies?  While some have managed to step out of the long shadows cast by their predecessors, most have not.  Here’s a sampling:

Scott Hunter, Green Bay Packers - Selected by the Packers in the 6th round of the 1971 NFL draft, Alabama University’s Hunter had the unenviable task of replacing the legendary Bart Starr, who retired that year.  It was Starr, after all, who helped lead Vince Lombardi’s team to dominance in the ’60s, winning five NFL championships and the first two Super Bowls.  But age and Lombardi’s retirement in 1968 took their toll on the mighty Pack, and the team quickly descended into mediocrity despite Starr’s best efforts.

With Hunter under center, the 1972 Green Bay squad regained some of their past glory.  They won 10 games and took their first divisional title since 1967, but lost 16-3 to the Redskins in the Divisional round of the playoffs.  They never made it back the postseason for the rest of the decade.

After 1973 Hunter bounced to the Bills, Falcons, and finally the Lions, where he ended his career after the 1979 season.  He finished with a career record of 21-18-3, and threw for just over 4,700 yards.  The Packers, meanwhile, were never more than mediocre for a few decades before head coach Mike Holmgren and the quarterback-who-shall-not-be-named arrived in 1992.

Steve Young, San Francisco 49ers - You may have heard of this guy, as he did one or two good things in the NFL during his career.  You know, seven Pro Bowls, two league MVP awards, one Super Bowl title (two more as a backup) - that sort of thing.  But before all that, things weren’t exactly rosy for this BYU product.  In 1984 Young signed with the Los Angeles Express of the upstart USFL out of college.  His (and the league’s) last season was 1985, where things got so grim for the team that he was forced to play running back.

After a brief and rather inauspicious stint with the Buccaneers from ‘85 to ‘86, Young was traded to San Francisco to serve as Joe Montana’s backup.  It was here that he began to flourish, and by 1993 Montana was history (traded to the Chiefs) and Young was the undisputed starter.  It then took only a few seasons for him to get the proverbial monkey off his back and lead the 49ers to a blowout win over the Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX.

Concussions finally got the best of Young, whose last season in the league was 1999.  While he couldn’t eclipse Montana’s greatness, he left behind a pretty impressive legacy of his own.  He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005 and still holds the records for career QB rating (96.8), career rushing TDs by a quarterback (43), and TD passes in a Super Bowl (6 in XXIX).

Jay Fiedler, Miami Dolphins - Somewhere in between Hunter and Young comes Jay Fiedler.  Fielder entered the league from Dartmouth in 1994 and spent most of his time holding a clipboard with the Eagles, Vikings, and Jaguars (where he got his first start in 1999).  He came to the Dolphins in 2000, the first year of the post-Dan Marino era.

The Fins made the playoffs twice under Fiedler and new head coach Dave Wannstedt, in 2000 and 2001.  The 2000 team finished 11-5, won the AFC East for the first time since 1994, and beat the Colts in the Wild Card round before getting blanked by the Raiders the next week in Oakland.  The team matched their 11-5 mark in 2001 but were suffocated by the stout Baltimore Ravens defense in a 20-3 Wild Card round loss.  Fiedler threw one touchdown and seven interceptions in his Miami postseason career.

Although Miami posted winning records in two of Fiedler’s next three seasons with the team they failed to make the playoffs, and by the end of 2004 both he and Wannstedt were finished.  Fiedler signed with the division rival Jets as an unrestricted free agent in 2005 (as a backup for Chad Pennington) but suffered a season-ending injury in week 3.  He hasn’t played in the league since, while the Dolphins are still looking for a true successor to Marino.

Mark Malone/David Woodley, Pittsburgh Steelers - Four-time Super Bowl champion Terry Bradshaw staggered to the finish line of his career in the Steel City, missing most of the 1983 season after elbow surgery.  His lone start that year (December 10 against the Jets) was his final game, ending a run under center as part of the most dominant franchise of the ’70s.

Cliff Stoudt, who started in Bradshaw’s place during the ‘83 campaign, signed with the USFL in 1984.  So the Steelers opted for a two-headed approach to quarterback in ‘84, and those two were Mark Malone and David Woodley.  Malone had seen little action as a backup since being drafted by Pittsburgh in 1980, while Woodley came from the Dolphins (whom he led to an appearance in Super Bowl XVII just two seasons earlier) via trade after losing his starting job to Dan Marino.

The 1984 season began with Woodley as the starter, but by season’s end the job was Malone’s.  Pittsburgh took the AFC Central with a 9-7 record, won their first playoff game since Super Bowl XIV, and advanced to the AFC Championship, where they were swamped by Marino’s Dolphins.  The pair resumed co-starting duties in 1985, but finished just 7-9 and missed the playoffs.

Woodley unexpectedly retired before the 1986 season, leaving Malone to assume the role of full-time starting QB.  He kept that job until he was traded to the Chargers before the 1988 season, and was replaced by Bubby Brister.  Malone’s final season was with the New York Jets in 1989, where he played just one game.

Woodley, who was 24 when he made his Super Bowl appearance with Miami, never again lived up to the potential he showed when he replaced another legend - Bob Griese.  He fell hard into alcoholism and received a liver transplant in 1992 (not yet 35 years old at the time).  Woodley died in 2003 of complications from kidney and liver failure.  He was 44.

Todd Collins, Buffalo Bills - Despite falling short in four straight Super Bowls, Jim Kelly is to this day an icon in Buffalo.  A few years after he came to the Bills from the USFL in 1986, Buffalo became the most dominant team in the AFC.  It all finally came to end for Kelly when the Bills lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars, 30-27, at home in the Wild Card round of the ‘96/’97 postseason.

At the time of Kelly’s retirement, only Fran Tarkenton, Dan Fouts, and Johnny Unitas among Hall of Fame quarterbacks had passed for more yardage.  His replacement was Todd Collins, who was drafted by Buffalo out of the University of Michigan in 1995.  He had performed fairly competently in a handful of spot starts over two seasons before winning the starting job outright in 1997 (over such luminaries as Alex Van Pelt and Billy Joe Hobert).

Collins started 13 games in ‘97, and threw for 2,367 yards, 12 TDs, and 13 interceptions as Buffalo went 6-10 (their worst record since Jim Kelly’s first season) and finished fourth in the AFC East.  With that, he headed west to Kansas City (the Bills didn’t exactly throw themselves on the hood of his car), where he spent eight years doing little more than taking up space on the Chiefs’ bench.  Collins didn’t play a down until being appointed the team’s #2 QB in 2001.  He finished his Chiefs career with 229 passing yards and one touchdown.

In 2006 Collins signed with the Redskins but again saw no action.  His shot finally came in 2007 when starter Jason Campbell injured his knee late in the season.  Collins rallied the ‘Skins, already reeling from the murder of teammate Sean Taylor, to four straight victories and an improbable postseason berth.

Although the Redskins were pasted by the Seahawks in the Wild Card round, Collins’ accomplishment can’t be denied.  After playing precious little football outside of practices and scrimmages for a decade, he led a team numbed by tragedy to a place few thought they could go.  Although he enters the 2008 season as the team’s backup once again, he was rewarded for his contributions with a new 3-year, $9 million contract.

What this means is that if you don’t feel like a) going to a bar or b) coughing up some big bucks for DirecTV and the NFL Sunday Ticket package, you’re pretty much screwed.  The situation got a little better for me when I moved to central Jersey about 4 years ago, as I’m now also in the Philly market and get the option of watching Eagles games.  But not much better, as I’m a lifelong Raiders fan.

My worst nightmare, come to life

I’ve come to accept my lot in life, and the fact that any football talk I’m exposed to around here is logically focused on the Jets and Giants.  But I fear that this situation will quickly become untenable, with the recent announcement that the NFL’s premiere drama queen, Brett Favre, was traded to the Jets.

This is not good, not good at all.  To no one’s surprise, the usual legion of Favre worshipers in the media are already working themselves into a nice lather over this momentous occasion.  Witness Sports Illustrated’s Peter King - always good for at least one worthless/ignorant/insanely hyperbolic statement per article - declaring that, “One of the biggest stories in recent sports history just got a lot bigger: Brett Favre is a New York Jet.”

No Peter you giant tool, it’s not one of the biggest sports stories in recent history.  It’s an irritating display of aggrandizement on Favre’s part, and you clowns in the media have been all too happy to help.  It got so bad that ESPN, which fell on the wrong side of the credibility threshold a long time ago, introduced a separate “Favre” ticker item at the bottom of the screen.

I don’t begrudge Favre for wanting to play another season.  Pro sports is not like most jobs - once the window has closed on your useful playing life (which for the majority of players is in their 20s), it’s closed forever.  But this insane amount of press coverage does nothing but reinforce what has to be his belief that the sporting world revolves around him, and that people outside Wisconsin and Bristol, Connecticut actually give a shit what he does.

And so now he comes to the Jets, and the most intense media market in the country.  I will be helpless to escape the gravitational pull of his ego and the obnoxiousness of Jets fans.  And now I have to suffer through the usual game time pabulum like “he’s a real gunslinger” and “look at him, he’s just having fun out there!”.

And just wait until John Madden rolls into town.  I think he may actually spontaneously combust now.  And I may just light myself on fire.  I guess I could always watch the Giants or Eagles instead.

Man, now I’m really depressed.

So in honor of those lesser-represented nations, here’s a little game to test your knowledge of them.  The flags here are of countries sending fewer than 50 athletes to this year’s Olympics.  Answers are at the bottom (no cheating!)…

A)

B)

C)

D)

E)

F)

G)

H)

I)

J)

And the answers are:

A) Ecuador
B) Iceland
C) Thailand
D) Saudi Arabia
E) Rwanda
F) Vietnam
G) Morocco
H) Cambodia
I) Fiji
J) Chile

Brett Favre, helmet in hand, strides onto the practice field and approaches Aaron Rodgers as a phalanx of reporters and fans cheers.

BRETT FAVRE

Hey Aaron!  I’m here buddy!  Listen, I know I said I was done with football, but I just couldn’t stay away.  I hope that’s cool with you, man.

Aaron looks around tentatively and takes a few steps back.  He runs directly in front of Brett, wheels back his right leg, and kicks him square in the nuts.

The End

I didn’t see his name listed in the article, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see that James Dolan is involved in this somehow.   Sorry Knicks fans, I searched Google and I didn’t find anything about the NBA trying to duplicate the NHL’s efforts.  If anything, Dolan would have more time to focus on the Knicks if he lost the Rangers.  Scary.

But losing was only part of the humiliation - tawdry scandal and general piss-poor decision-making reared their ugly heads at every turn with Thomas. In trying to think of a sports executive who displayed equal parts cluelessness and bad taste, I had to turn to the fictional world of the long-running sitcom Seinfeld, which placed the typically incompetent George Costanza in a cushy assignment with the New York Yankees. A stretch? Yeah, probably. But hey, let’s run with it anyway.

Impact on Team Success

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Whatever anyone thinks about these two, what really matters to fans is how their respective teams performed.

IT - The Knicks made the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s seventh seed the same season Thomas was hired, but were swept in the first round by the rival New Jersey Nets. After that they finished with season win totals of 33, 23, 33, and 23 respectively. In other words, it wasn’t pretty at all.

GC -Assuming that the Seinfeld timeline was fairly faithful to real life, Costanza’s tenure with the Yankees would have been from about spring/summer 1994 until the spring of 1997 (approx. three seasons). During that time the Bronx Bombers made two playoff appearances, culminating with their 1996 World Series title, the team’s first since 1978. Sure, Costanza was only the assistant to the traveling secretary, but somebody had to make sure the players had clean hotel rooms waiting for them.

Verdict - It doesn’t take a statistician to see that the Yankees thrived with Costanza, while the Knicks shriveled with Thomas.

Off-Field/Court Misdeeds

Winning helps to cover up a lot, but it can only do so much. And if you’re losing, well, any outside indiscretions/distractions just make a bad situation even worse.

IT -Thomas did very little to endear himself to his team or its fans, but his nadir had to be the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him and Madison Square Garden by former senior Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders. She alleged in her suit that Thomas made untoward sexual advances and described her with colorful and eloquent terms such as “bitch” and “ho”. After all the sordid details were revealed during the trial, Sanders won and was awarded $11.6 million in punitive damages. The parties eventually settled, but beyond any monetary damages, the PR damage was incalculable.

GC -George committed a carnal sin of his own when he started sleeping with his secretary (he was apparently turned on by her superior organizational skills). During a moment of passion he promised to give her a raise, which he was not authorized to do. The humiliation kicked in when he pleaded with George Steinbrenner to give her the raise, only to end up with a secretary who made more than he did. Later, toward the end of his tenure with the Yankees, George went out of his way to stomp on the team legacy - he wiped strawberries on an original Babe Ruth game jersey, streaked across Yankee Stadium (wearing a flesh-toned body suit), and dragged the team’s World Series trophy behind his car in the stadium parking lot.

Verdict - While Costanza’s buffoonery was obviously intentional, it caused relatively little harm to the team. Thomas cost his bosses and himself a hell of a lot of money, and in the process guaranteed that people were even more fixated on his childish stupidity than on his crappy coaching.

Player Relations

While getting along with a large group of distinct personalities is always desirable, it’s usually not possible. Still, you at least should strive to have their respect.

IT - Thomas didn’t make a whole lot of friends on the team, least of all mercurial point guard Stephon Marbury, who at some point became Isiah’s punching bag. Marbury had his own faults to be sure, but any time a player openly revolts as he did, some of the blame has to go to the coach. Thomas also ended up benching underperforming center Eddy Curry, for whom he had traded away what turned out to be a pair of valuable lottery draft picks.

GC - Although he didn’t have daily interaction with the players, Costanza certainly had an impact on most of them. Memorably, he made them all look like fools when he convinced the team brass to switch to all-cotton uniforms, which proceeded to shrink and split. Mostly he was just a nuisance, as when he made Danny Tartabull miss a public television fundraiser, or when he pressured Paul O’Neill to hit two homers in a game for a sick kid.

Verdict - Tough call here - loathing vs. persistent annoyance. I’ll declare this one a draw.

Relations with Superiors

IT - For some inexplicable reason, Thomas seemed to have the ear of Knicks owner James Dolan. Long after it was apparent that the team was going nowhere fast with Isiah, Dolan even handed him a lucrative contract extension. As a result, the team currently owes the still-employed but title-less Thomas in the neighborhood of $18 million for doing absolutely nothing.

GC - It’s hard to argue that Costanza’s stay with the Yankees wasn’t at least two years too long, but that was more of a reflection on his employers’ inattention than on his obvious incompetence. Still, he did manage to get himself temporarily sent to a chicken distributor in exchange for having the Yankee Stadium concessions converted to all-chicken products; and he was sent to Cuba to recruit a player for the Yankees, only to find that Castro was just as clueless and long-winded as Steinbrenner. And when he was finally let go from the team he received what amounted to a pretty standard severance package.

Verdict - It’s hard to beat getting $18 million for just showing up to work, so this is a big win for Thomas.

Final Verdict

Well, I tried. Even when I wandered into the realm of fiction I simply couldn’t find a sports executive whose unique mixture of professional incompetence and sheer disregard for others matched that of Isiah Thomas.  Yikes.