A salt truck pulls into the City of Chattanooga Public Works vehicle depot on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015, after overnight winter weather left the area with a mix of snow, ice, and freezing rain in Chattanooga, Tenn.ORLANDO - Gang, how's the weather. It's 85 and blue skies here. In fact, we're talking about going to a water park this afternoon. How about you folks back in Chatta-Vegas? Water slide anyone?
We kid. We kid.
Seriously, two quick things: One, sorry for the locked comments on Wednesday, and if you'd like to submit your Rushmore of Disney male characters, feel free; Secondly, mailbag needs some submissions. Whatcha' got?
From the satellite offices of the "Talk too much" studios, remember the sun screen.
Peyton
FILE - In this Jan. 11, 2015, file photo, Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning stretches prior to the team's NFL divisional playoff football game against the Indianapolis Colts in Denver. A person with knowledge of the situation tells The Associated Press that Manning will return for a fourth season in Denver and 18th in the NFL. Manning will reduce his salary from $19 million to $15 million in 2015, according to the person who spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no official announcement. However, he can make up all of the $4 million pay cut by reaching certain performance benchmarks. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey, File) So it appears Peyton Manning will be back in the NFL for an 18th season after agreeing to return to Denver for at least one more run at a second Super Bowl title.
This is grand news, whether you believe Peyton to be the GOAT or the most overrated player since Joe Namath.
This is grand news because he elevates the level of play and competition, especially in the AFC, and it continues one of the great personal rivalries we've had in all of team sports with the Manning-Tom Brady debate. A debate that has to be viewed with Brady comfortably in the lead considering Brady led the Patriots to the Super Bowl title last month, his fourth world championship compared to Manning's lone ring.
Still, that we get another run of the two future Hall of Famers vying for the same goal is good for all of us.
But, is the news that Manning will do this and take less money to do it - he took a $4 million pay cut to return to the Broncos - grand news?
There is certainly an open-endedness to that question. Manning is financially set for life, he has made hundreds of millions of dollars flinging footballs and pitching everything from pizza to insurance (everyone sing along in a Nationwide monotone: "Cashing checks from East to West").
So, Manning taking less money from the Broncos makes personal sense for him. He's still making $15 million, which is a little better than minimum wage after all, and the team has more money under the NFL salary cap to surround him with more talent and better players in the franchise's closing window of Super Bowl contention.
But the owners and the front office people are certainly not going to take less money are they? Will the league return some of its record-setting TV revenue now that Peyton - one of the game's most beloved and marketable stars (let's sing again, "Everyone loves 'Omaha'") - is back and will be a regular feature on prime time broadcasts.
Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning passes against the Buffalo Bills during an NFL football game in Denver in this Dec. 7, 2014, file photo.And if you think for a second that Manning does not elevate Denver to a place where TV covets them, ask yourself how many prime time spots will Denver get next year? At least three right and maybe one more. How many prime time spots would the Brock Osweiler-led Broncos get? Exactly.
So the onus is on the player to take less, even if everyone else gets more, and this seems fair how? Yes, Manning will be lauded as a good teammate who wants to win, but he was already viewed as a great teammate who was the most prepared player maybe in league history.
This is not a new scenario - future Hall of Famers such as Brady and the NBA's Tim Duncan have taken less money to help alleviate salary cap strains and provide more for better rosters - but why is this solely on the players?
It seems the franchise should carry some of this weight, too. Plus, it will only intensify the pressure on stars down the road to take less than they are worth, which is not a fair or equitable structure.
Manning deserves another shot at a Super Bowl, but he certainly deserves to make more money than Jay Cutler or Tony Romo or even his brother Eli as he does it.
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UT hoops
OK, how did that happen?
UT goes to LSU - arguably the second-most talented team in the SEC, which is like saying you're the second-most attractive of the Upton sisters, there's Kate and the then there's really all the others - and smashes the Tigers in the face.
OK, we have nothing really to explain the Vols snapping a five-game skid that was started when LSU drubbed UT in Knoxville with Wednesday's win at Baton Rouge.
We do know this, LSU has the worst resume of any 21-9 team in recent memory considering they have home losses to UT and a bad Auburn team and at an awful Missouri club and at a less-than good Mississippi State bunch.
Yes, LSU will likely get into the tournament, but that's more a statement about the blah-tasticness of the bubble than the merits of LSU.
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Game-changer retiring?
Reports are varying on the future of Pittsburgh Steelers defensive back Troy Polamalu.
He is 33 and a 12-year NFL veteran, but the way he threw his body around, those numbers can be measured by a factor of at least two.
If he does not retire, there are reports that the Steelers will release the former NFL defensive player of the year.
Pittsburgh Steelers safeties Ryan Clark, top, and Troy Polamalu celebrate after a 24-19 win over the New York Jets in the AFC Championship NFL football game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011. The Steelers advance to the Super Bowl to face the Green Bay Packers. (AP Photo/Matt SlocumSeeing Polamalu in anything other than black and gold will certainly be weird, and you can see both sides of the debate - player want to keep playing, team knowing that $6 million is likely too steep a price for a safety that did not have a sack or a pick and missed four games with a knee injury in 2014.
Whatever the future holds, Polamalu will be a Hall of Famer, and is one of the players that shaped today's game.
He is a do-it-all safety that covered and rushed the passer. He also, in this age of affordability and cap management was the rare defensive player that demanded attention on every play, and defensive savant Dick LeBeau weaved Polamalu into and throughout his famed zone-blitziung 3-4 set that it really was the forefather to the multiple of defensive looks that were mixed and matched.
We also know this: At the height of his powers, Polamalu was on the short list of defensive game-changers in the league, and when we think of the two safeties that ushered in a new, pass-first, pass-forever era of the NFL, it will be Ed Reed at free safety and Troy Polamalu at strong safety.
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This and that
- TFP ace columnist Mark Wiedmer on the Mocses SoCon tourney high hopes.
- Side note: Last night we were looking for potential Braves spring training tickets for this week. Sweet buckets of part-time jobs and huge hikes, take a guess what the baseline started at for tickets? They started at 26 bucks per seat in the upper deck.
n this Nov. 12, 2013 file photo, a statue of Hall of Fame baseball player Hank Aaron stands outside Turner Field, the home of the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta. Eight years after Braves right-fielder Hank Aaron shattered Babe Ruth's home-run record in 1974, Bob Hope, a local marketing guru, not the famous comedian, decided to form a nonprofit group dedicated to erecting a monument to the baseball legend. As a symbolic gesture of gratitude, the nonprofit deemed, it should be paid for by Aaron's fans. In the end, a larger-than-life statue was erected at the Atlanta Fulton County Stadium in 1982, and later moved to Turner Field. So, now that the Braves are headed to the suburbs, what should become of this gesture of gratitude, paid for largely by Atlantans? Specifically, who owns it, and where will it go when the team leaves town? Well, that all depends on whom you ask. - If you are talking college sports rivalries, you normally start at the Iron Bowl or Michigan-Ohio State (depending on whether you like grits or Cream of Wheat) and go from there. Sure you can go all patriotic on everyone with Army-Navy and few will argue. How about Tuskegee and Albany State? The two met in the SIAC hoops tournament and a fight broke out - among the cheerleaders. Yep, when the cheerleaders drop the gloves, that's some bad blood.
- Russell Westbrook scored 49 and had his fourth triple-double in a row. Dude is slap ballin' and maybe be the best athlete in all of team sports right now. (And everyone knowing our man-crush on LeBron, that was painful for us to type.)
- Interesting item on ESPN about the artist formerly known as Prince growing up as the point guard that would be later known as Prince.
- Interesting tidbit: The folks at PredictionMachine.com have the Nationals beating the Mariners in the World Series. Before you scoff at their name, know this: PredictionMachine.com is a simulator using algorithms created by two MIT grads that predicts all types of sporting events, and they are pretty good at it. Now you know.
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Today's question
Happy 117th birthday to Misao Okawa, the world's oldest person. Yes, she was born in 1898 and is now well into her third century. Nuts right?
That's so long ago, she was born in the same year as Enzo Ferrari, George Gershwin and Curley Lambeau, not to mention Randolph Scott and famous Alabama coach Frank Thomas.
Feel free to offer insight on the above - be it anything from Manning to the Mocs.
If you need more, well we asked Wednesday for the Rushmore of Disney male characters. So today's we'll do the Rushmore of female Disney characters.
Whatcha' got - and remember the mailbag.