•Syracuse...Dead! Villanova...Dead! PItt...Dead! Niedermayer...Dead! West Virginia survived, though it took a Da'Sean Butler three at the buzzer to do it. If nobody wants that automatic bid, maybe we should have just given it to DePaul.

•Tiger Woods is coming back, but when? At Bay Hill? At Augusta? He should play up the drama. This totally reminds me of that time Yokozuna put Undertaker in the casket, and he was gone for six months. Maybe it'll be an impostor in a red Nike shirt, and the real Tiger Woods will have to beat him in match play.

•The courtship of LaDainian Tomlinson continues, as he moves on from the Vikings to the Jets. Due to the "Final 8" rule, neither team can pay him huge money. Has he tried Oakland? I hear Al Davis is enamored with his 40-yard time.

•Chris Chelios made his season debut for Atlanta, in a 2-1 loss. To make it feel like a minor league game in order to ease him in, they played it in a half-empty arena in Columbus, Ohio.

•Agent Six? Gilbert Arenas has filed the paperwork to change his uniform number from zero to six, effective next season. Either he's a big LeBron fan, or it's a not-so-subtle way of telling fellow No. 6 Mike Miller to get out of town.

(Thanks to both Gerald and Patrick for the screengrab)

•••••

Happy Friday, friends. Show some love.

* A reader emails: "Ironic Tiger ads may be played out at this point, but I was in hawaii last week and saw this in the bathroom in a bar in oahu, pretty damn funny." Played out sure, but how did we not see that the guy's entire marketing strategy was based around his virility. People pissing in Oahu bars should have recognized this cry for help.

* The Chargers discover a loophole in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that says teams are not required to demonstrate loyalty by giving the bulk of their carries to hobbled, aging running backs who are mere shadows of their once-great former selves, so they immediately cut LaDainian Tomlinson. [ESPN]

* Allen Iverson leaves the 76ers to take care of his sick daughter, but probably won't be back, ever. He's running out of teams to resurrect his career with.

* As Canada concedes that they will not "own the podium" this year, Martin Brodeur is benched in favor of Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo. No pressure, buddy. [USA Today]

* * * * *

Tuesday. Life goes on, brah.

•Mike Dunleavy steps down as Clippers coach, but remains GM. Because, apparently, they've got all the talent in the world, but just need new playcalling.

•The Devils win the Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes, for a nice little package of young talent. That makes it official: the only remaining reason to be a Thrashers fan is to watch the Caps come in three times a year.

•LaDainian Tomlinson says he's played his last game in a Chargers uniform. But how can this be? He's got two years left on his contract, and in the NFL, contracts are ironclad!

•What are the odds of an American cow ending up as a football in the Super Bowl? You'll be less amazed at the answer than at the fact that someone took the time to figure it out.

•Here's a list of the worst Super Bowl halftimes of all time, culminating in a live action Indiana Jones spectacular featuring Tony Bennett and the Miami Sound Machine. This only happened 15 years ago, and I'm still not convinced the whole thing wasn't some opium hallucination.

(Screengrab via here)

•••••

Friday. A snowstorm and the Super Bowl beckon. Let's take it home.

Rivers played the entirety of the Chargers' 21-12 loss to the New England Patriots with a right knee with no ACL. He revealed Monday he had arthroscopic surgery last Monday to clean out loose cartilage and enable him to play. "If I don't do that Monday, I had no chance of playing," Rivers said. The San Diego Union-Tribune first reported Friday that Rivers had injured his ACL, but the extent of the injury was not known until today. "The ACL is gone," Rivers said.

Meanwhile, LaDainian Tomlinson now has himself the opposite reputation — funny how things work out sometimes, eh? — defending himself for sitting out the majority of the game with the Patriots. The NFL Network's Deion Sanders, for one, called LT out for not playing, saying, "Big-time players are supposed to play in big-time games." Said LT in response:

"He's never been a running back and had a sprained MCL. You tell me what running back has played with a sprained MCL and been effective. You might go out there and try to limp around and play, but it's not going to happen. I don't know how information gets passed on, but until you talk to the source of the problem, what's going on with me, I think it's ridiculous when people make comments like that."

Also, Bill Belichick maintained that Patriots DE Richard Seymour isn't a dirty player, but no one was listening to his bull####.

Philip Rivers Is One Tough Mofo [Larry Brown Sports]
Rivers Played On Knee With ACL 'Totally Gone' [San Diego Union-Tribune]
L.T. Fires Back At Neon Deion's Criticisms [MSNBC]
Seymour Stands Ground [Boston Globe]

In case you forgot, from last year:

"When you go to the middle of our field, when you start doing the dance that Shawne Merriman is known for, that's disrespectful to me. And I can't sit there and watch that. And so, yeah, I was very upset. And just the fact that they showed no class at all. Absolutely no class. And maybe that comes from their head coach. So you know, there you have it."

Woo-hoo! Scandal! And that's before Bill Belichick became really unpopular this season. Now, we just need to make sure L.T actually plays.

As for the other championship game, we hope it comes down to the last play of the game, with the Giants up for four with Favre driving ... and he rolls over for a Michael Strahan sack.

Anyway, to risk continuing to be Insensitive Bastards by actually discussing Ron Mexico's impact in football terms, but Lion In Oil brings up a great point: It turns out that the Chargers' trade of Vick's draft slot might have been one of the NFL's great trades.

[The late John] Butler, who built the Buffalo Bills teams of the early 1990s and went onto San Diego before dying of cancer in 2003, however, was weary of signing a top pick with top pick money at quarterback right after the disastrous pick of Ryan Leaf by the Chargers in 1998. So Butler, after being unable to come to terms with Vick before the end of the draft, made the shocking move of trading an instant superstar and got a player he was very high on, Tomlinson along with a third-rounder that year, a second-rounder the following year, and Tim Dwight.

Remember, too, that the Chargers picked Drew Brees in the second round that year, who turn out pretty great himself, albeit not for the Chargers. Wherever you are, Mr. Butler, we salute you. We hope you have some pit bulls as pets up there.

A Look Back At One Of The Great Trades Of All Time [Lion In Oil]

Multiple industry sources have told me that Tomlinson, in fact, was asked of his interest, was presented with an offer, and told Electronic Arts he was not interested. Tomlinson's turning down of Electronic Arts, we're told, doesn't have much to do with the highly publicized curse, which has been attributed to the recent misfortune of Michael Vick, Donovan McNabb and Shaun Alexander. It has more to do with the fact that the people at Electronic Arts know that, for many, their cover is seen as the "Wheaties box endorsement" — in that athletes are usually so honored they are willing to do it for less than market value. Tomlinson wasn't.

The deal usually pays the cover athlete $100,000 to $200,000 and requires multiple appearances to pump up the game. Since the Madden game sort of sells itself, the athlete on the cover doesn't really matter that much, but expect more NFL stars to turn down the cover in the future, not because of the curse, but because the price is just too low.

Eventually, if the asking price remains too low for big stars, we're going to see a kicker on the cover. Or maybe Ethan Albright!

Tomlinson Turns Down Madden [CNBC]
Begin Preparing For The Vince Young Injury [Deadspin]
Ethan Albright Strikes Back [The Phat Phree]

Some San Diego Chargers fans are doing what they can to cut the curse off at the pass, launching the newfangled Save LT From Madden Web site, designed entirely to keep the MVP from suffering the same fate as his predecessors. ESPN says Peyton Manning is the early favorite, but we would have thought LT was more likely, actually. We think they should put Favre on there; maybe he'll actually retire this time.

Save LT From Madden
Taking Madden Curse Into Their Own Hands [Lion In Oil]
The Contenders [ESPN Video Games]

So, now that he's officially won it — second place was Brees, and third, oddly, was Peyton Manning — we groggily salute him. He's the first ever Charger to win the MVP, which is a shame, because we really would have thought Ryan Leaf would have sneaked one out. And yes: That's a stupid joke we'd only make when we haven't slept.

Tomlinson Wins MVP Award [Yahoo Sports]