5-at-10: Top 10 quarterbacks in value, UK falls to UT, Adler fired by ESPN, Rushmore of most famous songs

Atlanta Falcons' Matt Ryan walks off the field after the NFL football NFC championship game against the Green Bay Packers, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2017, in Atlanta. The Falcons won 44-21 to advance to Super Bowl LI. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Atlanta Falcons' Matt Ryan walks off the field after the NFL football NFC championship game against the Green Bay Packers, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2017, in Atlanta. The Falcons won 44-21 to advance to Super Bowl LI. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Quarterback tiers

We tossed this out Tuesday in reference to the ascent of Matt Ryan.

Is he an elite quarterback? It's a reasonable question, even for a guy who likely will be named MVP this weekend. (Case in point, the reigning MVP is Cam Newton, do you think he is an elite quarterback? So there's that.)

Regular contrarian and Cam Newton/Tom Brady hater Stewwie checked in late Tuesday around these parts with his rankings. WE agree and disagree with some of them. And a lot of that discussion depends on which gauge you choose. Here's Stewwie's comment from Tuesday: Matt Ryan is a top-5 QB, no question. The others are Rodgers, Luck, Brees, and Brady*. Selecting the next 5 is tough. Big Ben is there, but you could make an argument for about 7-8 others to belong there as well.

Of the guys in the game right now, we can take Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady and place them in the top, right?

Even in the most harsh terms of the "Value" player to a franchise - the metric we use to calculate true worth of a player on any team of any sport that is based one the analysis of if would you trade that player for player X, then player X has more value, and yes, age and contract are factors - the Packers nor the Patriots are dealing their QBs for anyone in the league.

Yes, that's knowing Brady is 39, but there's no way New England deals him for Andrew Luck or anyone else. In that purview, here's how we'd rank the 'Value' corollary of the top QBs in the NFL:

Rodgers. He's the only player the Patriots would not immediately hang the phone up if tossed out on a trade offer.

Brady. That said, the Packers would immediately say "No thanks" if the Patriots tossed out a Brady-for-Rodgers deal. In fact, there's no way the Packers would make the initial call, and that makes all the difference between 1 and 2.

Derek Carr. The Raiders QB still has time on his rookie deal which checks the important boxes of potentially great, affordable, young and talented.

Andrew Luck. Higher than most may think, especially after the big contract extension, but still has the tools and the look of the next great one.

Ryan. This was higher than we expected Matty Ice to fall to be honest. But you have to remember - even with the big contract number - he's only 31, and the fact that the Falcons are about to make him the highest-paid player in the league means they are not planning on ever trading him.

The next tier - we'll call the guys who their currents teams are completely happy with but would have to think about any of the above guys - skews far younger and way more affordable.

Russell Wilson. Already as a Super Bowl - and the big deal that goes with it - but there's no doubt that Wilson will be in Seattle for a long time.

Dak Prescott. Is this too high? Maybe. But remember, this about trade deals. Would the Steelers deal Big Ben for Dak? We think they'd say yes before the other way around. The Cowboys have the NFL's brightest three-year window because they have a QB they trust for less than seven-figures per, and can address myriad of needs.

Roethlisberger. All the retirement talk Tuesday makes this even more scary, but remember, he's only 34 - a dinosaur in football years but for every other position but QB - and is beloved.

Cam Newton. His age - dude is still in his mid-20s - really helps, and he's only a year from being the best player in the league. But the question of which year was the anomaly - 2015 or 2016 - is completely fair. Still, dude is a physical menace.

Marcus Mariota/Jamies Winston. Each of those second-year dudes have shown tremendous upside, and each carry the future hopes of each franchise moving forward.

OK, where does that leave us? It leaves us with three likely Hall of Famers not being more valuable heading into 2017 than the 11 names listed above. Are we saying Dak Prescott is better than Drew Brees? Nope. Not at all. We're saying Dak Prescott - at 23 with a team-friendly contract and a huge upside - is more desirable than a 38-year-old Brees who is owed at least $19 million in '17.

Thoughts?

photo Players celebrate on the Tennessee sideline during Saturday's home win against Mississippi State. The Vols host Kentucky on Tuesday.

UT-UK hoops

Back in the day, we loved watching college hoops.

Loved it.

Big Monday was aces with the beasts of the Big East. Throughout the week, we made time to watch at least one game a night. Now, we're not really scheduling our viewing around the college hoops calendar. So it goes.

That said, we enjoy watching Duke more times than not. We also think it is pretty hysterical that ESPN analysts all have an opinion on Grayson Allen having emotional issues, but there was hardly a word about Adam Jones, the Bengals DB, being filmed telling a cop he hopes he dies. Priorities, right?

The other team we make a point to watch is Kentucky. This is not a bandwagon thing, as much as it is an investment.

It's an investment in knowledge, considering we need to be well-versed in the ways of the Wildcats come tournament picks time. It's an investment in sports drama, because UK always gets everyone's best shot, especially on the road. It's an investment in the future, because, well, let's be honest, there are almost always going to be more than a few on the UK roster as central figures in the NBA draft and playing on the big stage in the next year or two.

So, with that in mind, we watched a fair amount of the Vols-Cats on Tuesday.

Like just about everyone outside of the Barnes family, we were stunned that the Vols pulled off the 82-80 upset last night. It was a crazy night of Davids toppling Goliaths with the No. 4 Wildcats, the No. 2 Kansas Jayhawks and the top-ranked Villanova Wildcats all falling.

Still, the flaws exposed last night for UK were surprising. It's been since his days at Memphis with Derrick Rose has a John Caliper team been this dependent on one player. Yes, Malik Monk is a special player. And yes, he's a freshman and took some ill-advised shots.

But Monk had a third of UK's field goal tries and roughly half of its 3s. If your half-court offense goes through one dude that much, unless that guy is MJ in the 1990s or Kareem in the early '80s, well you are vulnerable.

Still, that was a fun game to watch, and that's because UK brings out the best in every foe and road crowd.

And good night

The Aussie Open has presented some fun story lines.

Top-seeds ousted. Fan-favorite and aging superstars looking for another run at a major. Yes, the start times make impossible to watch for most of us. (And that's OK for a lot of us who would not be watching anyway.)

That said, the story that has not gotten as much play was the firing of tennis analyst Doug Adler by ESPN. Adler was calling a second-round match that featured Venus Williams. Adler described Williams' aggressive style as having a "guerrilla effect" in reference to the Spanish word often used in describing types of warfare and attacks.

Listeners heard it and thought he was using "gorilla" and took offense to it. That lead to the charges of racism and contempt, and despite his explanation and even an apology, Adler was done.

Here's a story on it with a video of Adler on the broadcast.

Wow, that's a tough deal, and yet another example of ESPN flying way to the left on matters of social sensitivity. Thoughts?

This and that

- Want to see what $20 million in a box springs looks like? Of course you do.

- Wow, the price of big-time college football is overwhelming. Michigan, which announced earlier this month it would take a week of spring practice in Rome, Italy, is paying three assistants more than $1 million per year. Yes, three. Assistants. Oh my.

- Ben Roethlisberger sent social media spinning when he said on a Pittsburgh radio station "if there is a next year" hinting that he may be looking at retirement. We would bet every dollar in our pocket that Big Ben is back next fall, but how long before one of these QBs - one of these franchise guys - hangs them up at 31 or so? How about these numbers: Andrew Luck signed a six-year deal last June for $140 million. When it runs out he'll be 32 with something close to a nine-figure bank account. And if you are wondering when the NFL will start really paying attention to safety, well, when the quarterbacks start walking away early would certainly make teams sit up and take notice.

- This courtesy of Darren Rovell's Twitter: On this day 30 years ago, Phil Simms became the first to say the magical "I'm going to Disney World" after winning the Super Bowl MVP when the Giants beat the Broncos.

Today's questions

We could play a little one-word Wednesday, right?

The best team in college hoops is ____________.

The best description for UK hoops is ___________.

Dabo Swinney, saying passing on Deshaun Watson in the draft is like passing on Michael Jordan, is _____________.

And if you need a Rushmore, try this one: On this day in 1858, Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" is played for the first time ever at the ceremony of UK Princess Victoria. What's the Rushmore of the most universally famous songs?

Go, and enjoy the day.

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