Quick Thursday Thoughts

Preparing something fun for tomorrow, so excuse the light posting today. Two things caught my eye during my daily web perusal and both deserve a mention here.
From Chris Suellentrop at Slate:

Also—and readers should know that I say this at great risk to my personal safety, as my wife and I recently moved to the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain—the hubris of Patriots fans is distasteful. Boston seems to have reached the late stages of dynasty fandom, in which the fans are so confident of victory that they don't even get that excited about the games, because there's no tingling, nervous anticipation before kickoff. The talk-radio airwaves are full of mockery of the "San Diego Super Chargers" song and bluster about how the Genius will outwit the Boobenheimer. I've never seen a No. 4 seed so confident it would defeat a No. 1 seed. And San Diego is not a weak No. 1, but rather the team that is by general acclamation the best in the NFL this year. Marty's first Super Bowl, Manning's first Super Bowl, or McNair's shot at Super Bowl redemption—I prefer all of those story lines to a "Can Brady match Bradshaw and Montana with a fourth ring?" game.

This will be covered tomorrow, but I have to agree with Suellentrop (Slate's former editor) here. Let's not forget that the Pats dominated their Wild Card game one year ago and then wet the bed on the road against the Broncos in the Divisional Playoffs. I'm actually considering picking the Pats (again, this will be discussed tomorrow), but they are awfully arrogant for a team that had exactly two wins against 2007 playoff teams.
The best clip of the day belongs to Luke Winn, who wrote the following in his SI.com college basketball power rankings:

The Hokies' Zabian Dowdell jersey-popped in the direction of the Cameron Crazies, and Coach K saw fit to pull him aside and tell him (according to Dowdell), "You're too classy a guy to be carrying on like that." The YouTube of Dowdell is here, and at most it's mildly unsportsmanlike. K obviously didn't like it. What about the scene last year in the same game, though? If you've forgotten, here's the YouTube. Sean Dockery hit a half-court shot to win it, and the Crazies rushed their own floor when they were ranked No. 1 and Tech was unranked, mobbed everyone, monkey-piled on Dockery, and danced with the mascot. It was a crazy moment, and a justified celebration considering the shot. But it also set a standard -- meaning the Hokies could pretty much do what ever they wanted after getting revenge. Including a harmless jersey-pop.

Man, Coach K is an even bigger asshole than I gave him credit for. How dare he talk to Dowdell when his players routinely engage in floorslapping, fan-taunting, whining and every other classless thing you can do on the basketball court. Just because he's the best coach of all-time doesn't mean he's entitled to act like he's the moral authority of the NCAA. Screw you, Coach K (and keep in mind this is coming from someone who hates Virginia Tech almost as much as he hates Duke).
Oh, and Beckham coming to America? Totally going to make soccer the biggest sport in the country!