Frosty Review of Bledsoe Ignores the Big Picture

“The Miami Dolphins will finish the regular season a delightful 11-5 after dispatching this dreadful New England team and their mobile-as-a-snowman quarterback today, the Christmas lights on that scoreboard illuminating a gift-wrapped AFC East title not even Jimmy Johnson could ever deliver.”

So wrote the Miami Herald’s Dan Le Batard before the Dolphins’ 27-24 Christmas Eve victory at Foxboro Stadium.

More to the point, however, “mobile-as-a-snowman” Drew Bledsoe completed 18 of 34 passes for 312 yards and reached 2,500 career completions faster than anyone, except that old Dolphin, Dan Marino. He also joined Marino, John Elway and Brett Favre as the only quarterbacks to pass for 3,000 yards in seven consecutive seasons.

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Trivia time: A field-level box seat at Yankee Stadium costs $65. How much did the same seat cost only four years ago?

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Thrown for a loss: Before the final slate of regular-season games, six of the nine worst-rated passers in the NFL had something in common besides a bad year. They were Cincinnati’s Akili Smith (31st), San Diego’s Ryan Leaf (30th), Dallas’ Troy Aikman (29th), Chicago’s Cade McNown (27th), Arizona’s Jake Plummer (tied for 24th) and Atlanta’s Chris Chandler (23rd).

“The moral of the story,” wrote the Chicago Tribune’s Don Pierson, “is don’t get your quarterbacks from the Pacific 10 Conference.”

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Quick quip: The Detroit Pistons’ Jud Buechler suffered a chip fracture in his right ankle when he jumped out of bounds and landed on a cameraman.

Said Buechler, a former Bull: “I wanted to kick him, like [Dennis] Rodman, but I couldn’t afford it.”

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Out for the count: Chicago Sun-Times columnist Ron Rapoport poses a question that illuminates boxing’s decline.

“Could you pick Lennox Lewis out of a crowd?” he asks. “He’s the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion of the world, you know. No, really, he is.”

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And the point is? The Rams’ 26-21 victory over the Saints at New Orleans not only salvaged their playoff spot but established an unusual NFL record--one for the most combined points in a season.

The Rams scored 540 points and allowed 471, breaking the 1,000-combined-points barrier and leaving the previous high of 902, set by the 1985 San Diego Chargers, far behind.

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Hard to please: According to the Cincinnati Post’s Bill Koch, Brad Henderson’s teammates were not overly impressed when the University of Chicago forward became one of only 32 people in the U.S. to win a Rhodes scholarship.

In their view, an NCAA Division III basketball title would be a greater accomplishment.

“That’s our goal,” Henderson said. “A bunch of my friends have said the same thing. Big deal, you won a Rhodes scholarship. Now you have to win a national championship.”

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Wrong again: Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times delighted in pointing out--inaccurately--that 2000 was “the worst collective year to date” in the city’s sports history.

“Even including the White Sox’s stunning division title, the Bears, Cubs, Bulls and Blackhawks have been woeful enough to sink the average winning percentage to .350. That breaks the previous low of, well, the year before, when the locals finished at a crackling .385.”

Guess it would have spoiled Mariotti’s story angle had he included another Soldier Field tenant in his calculations. The Chicago Fire reached Major League Soccer’s championship game and won the U.S. Open Cup.

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Trivia answer: $25.

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And finally: Sports Illustrated recently surveyed professional athletes and asked them to rate fans in various categories. In baseball, players named St. Louis fans as the most loyal. “True,” wrote Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “but that was before the Cardinals raised ticket prices by 21% for next season.”