Feb. 7 | 2 a.m. ET

A few last thoughts on Supe XLI:

When did scalpers become “ticket brokers?”

Every story I read about ticket prices talked about what they were going for through “brokers” who put them up on eBay or stubhub. One story in The Miami Herald talked about how the “brokers” had bought up scads of tickets at big prices, hoping to sell them to Bears fans. They initially were going for up to $5,000, but at those prices, demand was weak; even fans of da Bears have their limits. By early Super Bowl Week, they were down to $3,700. The story was written in such a way, I got the idea I was supposed to feel sorry for the “brokers.”

Never once was it mentioned that there might be anything illegal — or even unsavory — about this textbook display of supply-and-demand capitalism. I’ve never thought there should be; it’s a business like anything else, and if the manufacturers of computer printers can charge $30 for 30 cents worth of ink, and the NFL can charge $10 for a bottle of light beer, why shouldn’t tickets go for whatever the market will bear?

But it wasn’t that long ago — before the Internet — that such stories never talked about brokers, which suggests guys in three-piece suits working on Wall Street instead of guys with big pinkie rings working three cell phones and a big glass of scotch at the Marriott bar, which is closer to the actual article. In that not-so-long-ago, the guys selling at a big premium were scalpers, and they were always one step ahead of the cops.

I don’t think it’s an accident that if a guy in a hoody and jeans stands on the side of the road leading to the stadium and holds up a sign saying, “I need tickets,” he’s a scalper and scum, but if he wears an expensive jacket and wears a Rolex and does business from the headquarters hotel bar, he’s a broker. The first brand are often black, the latter often white. I don’t think the way they’re viewed is a coincidence.

I haven’t noticed the NFL cracking down on “brokers.” But most teams and cities deem it a crime if somebody who got their tickets the old-fashioned way — by buying them from the team or the league — sells them at anything but a minimal premium. Some teams have gone after fans for selling season tickets — at face value — that they’re not going to be able to use. The Yankees have pulled that trick.

But the “brokers” roll merrily along.

Hall snub?
Why didn’t Tagliabue make the Hall of Fame?

I thought the commish was a mortal lock to be a first-ballot hall of famer, but he didn’t even make it through the first round of voting the day before the Super Bowl. One of the voters — there are 40 of them — told me Tags didn’t get even 25 percent of that first vote.

Turns out that among people who have dealt with Paul Tagliabue day in and day out over the years find him to be insincere and duplicitous. “He lies to us all the time,” said one writer who was in the room.

West Coast voters can’t forgive him for failing to make a serious effort to get a franchise in L.A. Others want to see how the current collective bargaining agreement works out before anointing him for sainthood.

The feeling, according to one who was there, is that it will be a long time before Tagliabue musters the votes to get in.

Moving indoors?
Is it time to stop playing in open-air stadiums?

This is a tough one. Football should be played in any weather short of hurricanes, thunderstorms and tornadoes. And I wouldn’t have any problem seeing Super Bowls played on the frozen tundra.

But during halftime Sunday, I met a young woman in the smoking ghetto who was soaked to the skin and starting to shiver. She was wearing a Bears jersey, and, it turned out, she had just gotten married. She and her husband were to go to Costa Rica for their honeymoon, but when the Bears won the NFC Championship, they canceled that trip, booked a room in Boca Raton, and decided to honeymoon at the game.

The woman has season tickets to the Bears, but didn’t get Super Bowl tickets in the team lottery. Not having the money for $3,000 tickets from brokers, they prowled the perimeter of the stadium, hoping the price from the scalpers would come down. She didn’t want to say what they paid for the tickets, but she said the sellers vowed to eat the tickets before they’d sell them at a loss. I got the impression the couple paid $3,000, give or take five c-notes, for their two tickets. That would be for tickets that originally cost $700 each.

It struck me that when you’re charging people that much money, and when you’re adding insult to bankruptcy by socking them $5 for a bottle of water and $10 for a domestic beer and $50 to park, you owe them something approaching comfort.

I’d hate to see all games indoors, and this was the first of the 41 games that was played in an end-to-end downpour. But I also hate to see people soaked at the gate and in the stands, especially when I’m under an overhang and safe from water damage.

I’ve always felt the game should be played in a warm climate, somewhere that people can get a tan, play golf and enjoy spring break for adults. And Miami is about as good a host city as you’ll find.

But I’m starting to think that people should be able to count on some comfort. Much as I dislike domes, that may be the way we’re headed, especially if we get a couple more like this.

Feb. 4 | 10 p.m. ET

Every year the Super Bowl pre-game show looks more like the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics — color and pageantry and dancing girls and allegorical characters and music and moments when you have no clue what it all means.

Watching this year’s installment, which featured the Cirque du Soleil, a Canadian circus act that has no discernible connection to football, it struck me that the National Football League may as well go all the way and add the last missing bit of theater to the show.

It’s time to institute the Super Bowl Game Ball Relay.

Picture it: the sacred oblate spheroid is stitched in the factory by women dressed as Greek goddesses; it is handed to the commissioner — the high priest of football — who gives it to the first runner, dressed in helmet and shoulder pads and knee-pants; the runner holds it aloft and runs a half mile, then hands it to another.

So it goes, starting with the first game of the season, working its way around the country and through every NFL city, carried by ordinary citizens chosen for their worthiness to hold the ball. There will be kids on crutches and adults in wheelchairs and people will come out and line country roads and city streets to watch it pass, their hearts swelling and their eyes growing misty at the sight of the Super Bowl Game Ball.

It is all timed to arrive in the Super Bowl Stadium just after the circus act has cleared the field and the captains and officials are moving to mid-field for the Ritual of the Flipping Coin. (Alternatively, he would dash in as the teams are lining up for the kickoff and hand it to the kicker.)

Of course, in addition to lucrative endorsement deals (The Super Bowl Game Ball Relay brought to you by Sprint.) there will be great speculation about who will carry the Sacred Football into the stadium and sprint to the 50-yard line. Will it be Jim Brown? Roger Staubach? Joe Montana? Paul Tagliabue? Janet Jackson? Muhammad Ali?

The last runner will burst into the stadium in a cascade of camera flashes and thunderous cheering, dressed in a uniform made of the uniforms of the two competing teams — one side NFC Champs, the other side AFC Champs.

It’s a great idea whose time has come. And I want a cut of the endorsement deals for thinking of it.

False patriotism
One final note on the opening ceremonies: The NFL plays the patriotism card better than anyone. This year, the league brought out the U.S. Marine Corps Band, and while it was playing, they trotted out five Marines dressed in faux WW II uniforms who re-enacted the planting of the flag at Iwo Jima. The ceremonies ended with a flyover of jet fighters.

But there’s a limit to the league’s patriotism. As long-time football writer Ira Miller pointed out back in 2002 after the great show of American spirit at the Super Bowl in New Orleans, it’s hard to find anything the NFL sells that is made in the country it purports to love and support.

Sure enough, fans received a seat cushion along with a transistor radio — both made in China. Journalists received box lunches in souvenir soft-sided insulated containers and umbrellas for afterward  — also made in China. Check the tag on that NFL jersey you have. Odds are it’s made in Honduras or El Salvador or Thailand or anywhere but the USA.

Patriotism is great, as long as it doesn’t affect the bottom line.

Feb. 2 | 3:43 p.m. ET

Other players may be going out on the town and checking out some of Miami’s night life, but not Tank Johnson. The Bears’ defensive tackle instead spent his week in his hotel room, reading his Bible.

This is what’s called a lifestyle change. It was just about seven weeks ago that he was arrested for the third time in 18 months, the latest arrest coming after police raided his home and found six weapons and a lot of ammunition. The guns weren’t registered, and, as he was on probation for a 2005 weapons-related offense. Two days after his Dec. 14 arrest, his friend and bodyguard, Willie B. Posey, was shot and killed at a Chicago night club.

To come to the Super Bowl, Johnson, who is allowed by the court to go only to work, needed a judge’s permission to leave Illinois. Some people think he shouldn’t have been allowed to play in the Super Bowl. After talking to him, I think the judge did the right thing.

He said he grew up in East Chicago, which is part of what is known in Indiana as “The Region” and which includes Gary and Hammond. There aren’t many more depressing and dangerous places to grow up in America.

Johnson’s athletic ability got him out of the inner city, but he carries his history with him, etched indelibly into his flesh in crude and confusing tattoos. One of them is a devil’s trident that extends from his left wrist to above his bicep. What I’m saying is that there are no smiley faces on the kid.

When he arrived in Miami, he came to the media sessions, as all players are required to do, and he answered all questions, some better than others. He suggested he’s been portrayed unfairly in the media, saying that because he’s black and covered in tats and wears his hair in short dreads and flashes some bling, he’s being stereotyped. That’s certainly true, but it’s also true he had all those guns illegally and for no apparent reason.

Despite all the tough-guy accoutrements, Johnson’s face is clear and almost innocent-looking. What you see when you sit with him is a kid who survived a childhood of horror by buying into the prevailing culture of the street.

He admitted that the music he listened to and the culture he bought into was a negative influence, a culture consumed with guns and respect and death. His December arrest – he’s pleaded innocent – has opened his eyes to that and turned him away from it, he said.

It’s too early to tell whether the change is transitory or long-term, but it’s clear that being under threat of being sent straight to jail for getting out of line down here, he’s been a model citizen. He talks now to the team chaplain, he said, and reads the Bible.

I’d expected to find a surly and angry man but met a confused kid instead. He made some very bad choices, and they could ultimately cost him his freedom. But it’s hard to wish him ill. He thought he was being cool when he was only being stupid.

He’s coping with it now because he has a football game to focus on. The real test of Tank Johnson’s future will be next week, when the game is over, when there’s nothing to occupy his time.

Feb. 1 | 3:50 p.m. ET

The official defensive buzzword — actually two words, but who’s counting? — of Super Bowl XLI is “play fast.”

No matter whom you talk to on the Colts or the Bears, if the subject is defense, the response is: “We have to play fast.”

Like so many things in the NFL, it’s one of those phrases that seems as obvious as warts on a toad. (Another would be the referee’s call: “Prior to the snap, false start, offense.” Since you can’t have a false start after the snap, you wonder why they keep telling us about it. They don’t say: “After the snap, holding, defense.”) No one wants to play slow, do they?

Ron Meeks, the Colts’ defensive coordinator, says it means not hesitating and everyone swarming to the ball. To play fast, you have to trust your instincts and not second-guess yourself.

Tank Johnson, a Bears’ defensive lineman, says it means: “Make sure tackles, get 11 hats on the ball, and just hit people.” He said if everybody plays that way, someone will usually be there to cover for mistakes. “You can overcome a lot of things if you just play hard, play physical and play fast.”

Gee, I wonder if Vince Lombardi knew that?

While both teams intend to play fast, only the Bears have taken up a second slogan: “Play angry.” A fan put a sign up outside their practice facilities in Illinois during the season, and it’s reappeared on the lawn outside their hotel in Miami.

When asked about it, coach Lovie Smith said: “I would like them to be as angry as possible. We play hard. That’s just our style of football.”

Not long before saying that, Smith, who, like Colts’ coach Tony Dungy, almost never gets angry at his team, had given another mini-testimony on his Christian faith and how God would be involved in the outcome of the game, which suggested another possible slogan:

“Play angry for Jesus.”

Jan. 31 | 7:15 p.m. ET

This being 2007 and the first Super Bowl having been played in 1967, this should be the 40^th anniversary game. Unfortunately, the NFL couldn’t wait a year for such a momentous celebration and called last year’s game the 40^th anniversary, when it was actually just the 40^th game. Maybe the league wanted Detroit to get some much-needed glory. Or maybe somebody in the P.R. department can’t count.

The upshot is that Supe XLI has to get along without its proper designation. And instead of celebrating an anniversary, the NFL is pushing a slogan: “One Game. One Dream.”

I’m starting to worry about the league. That seems awfully lame, not to mention trite and downright inaccurate. You could say that every player shares the dream of winning, but that doesn’t make it the same dream. I’d figure that there are as many dreams as there are players and coaches. Wide receivers are dreaming about big catches, kickers about winning kicks, quarterbacks about hitting wide-open receivers, running backs about running over and around people, defensive backs about running back interceptions for touchdowns. It’s one game all right, but it’s at least 150 dreams.

We keep saying the Super Bowl is in Miami, but other than the headquarters hotels and the Bears hotel, nothing is actually in that city. The media center is in Miami Beach. The Colts are in Ft. Lauderdale. Dolphins Stadium is in Miami Gardens. It wasn’t always this way, but as the game grows, so do the logistics. Without buses, and lots of them, there is no game.

I don’t believe in complaining about the indignities of life as a sportswriter, but that’s never stopped me before, so it shouldn’t now. And I am really upset at the way we’ve been treated here, which is so well that I have nothing to complain about. What’s the use of being forced to cover the Super Bowl if you’re going to have impeccable bus service and be treated to a soiree at South Beach that includes complimentary hand-rolled cigars, courtesy of La Tradicion Cubana and Luis M. Sanchez; terrific food, scantily-clad women playing volleyball, some great Latin music, and top-shelf refreshments?

My compliments to the host committee.

Jan. 30 | 9:40 p.m. ET

Everything, as the NFL never tires of telling us, is bigger in the Super Bowl. That includes the prices.

The refreshment stands at Pro Player Stadium are already ready for Sunday’s game, each one dressed up with Super Bowl logos and Super Gouge price lists.

I suppose if you’re paying several thousand dollars for a ticket on eBay, you’re not going to mind the price of concessions. Just the same, even for one whose been inured to the high price of refreshments at Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden, the prices here are eye-popping.

The absolute cheapest thing you can buy is a “gourmet” pretzel, and that’ll set you back four dollars. I’m guessing what’s “gourmet” about it is the price. A bag of peanuts is also four bucks. For another dollar, you can get a “large” bottle of water, but even if that’s a quart, which I doubt, that’s $20 a gallon.

Five dollars will also buy a hot dog and another five will get you “seasoned” fries with it; for a foot-long dog, you’ll have to pony up another two bucks. Chicken tenders are $10 and cheesesteaks are nine. If you want a non-alcoholic beer to wash it down, it’ll be another six, and if you want a real beer, the price is $10, the same as for a glass of wine. A mixed drink is $12. For some reason, the operators of the stadium feel they need to remind the customer that there’s a two-drink limit.

So the next time you think about how much you want to go to the Super Bowl, remind yourself of how much money you’re saving by watching it on TV.

It’s not just the concessions that are sky-high. There’s a municipal golf course in Miami just a couple of blocks from the convention center and media headquarters. It’s a very nice-looking course, but it’s not Doral; it’s a muni.

A writer friend told me this morning that he was thinking of trying to squeeze a round in, so he called the course and learned that he could, indeed, play, and that the greens fee is $370 for Super Bowl week. That’s darned near Pebble Beach prices. The writer tried to use his status as person who writes frequently about golf to get a deal. He was told they’d let him play for just $200. He said he passed, but I’m guessing he’s still trying to figure out how he can hide that on his expense account.

Jan. 29 | 2 a.m. ET

It’s Super Bowl Week, and I’m a little concerned about the weather report. According to MSN Weather, I’m looking at a low of 47 Monday night, which coincides with my arrival in Miami.

Quite frankly, it’s gotten a bit nippy here in the Northeast, and if I wanted 47 degrees, I’d just stay in my living room and raise the thermostat a couple of degrees. Either that or go back to the site of last year’s Super Bowl, Detroit.

Nothing against Detroit, but the Super Bowl is supposed to be held somewhere warm, where I can get a sun tan to flaunt at the office when I get back. If it’s not in my contract, it should be.

I realize you don’t want to hear about my suffering, and neither do I. So let’s all hope it warms up so I don’t have to whine about the weather.

There are a few other things I’d prefer not to have to talk about while I’m in Miami. One of them is the idea that any player who goes on the field despite a boo-boo — or even a broken bone — is somehow courageous. You’ll hear some overly dramatic commentator make that claim this week, but don’t fall for it.

Call him dedicated or competitive or tough or even foolhardy, but don’t accuse him of bravery. There are millions of people who get up every morning not knowing if they’ll be able to feed their children. They are brave. There are others who go through life never knowing if they’ll be blown up by someone who wants to go to heaven by killing infidels. A sensible person would lock himself in the basement for the duration, but courage is pushing on despite the threat. Courage is what soldiers have. Athletes have determination — also cortisone shots.

I also don’t want to hear the participants whine about being asked dumb questions, even if the question is if Tony Dungy or Lovie Smith has been a black coach all his life. All of these guys should be delighted that anyone wants to ask them any questions at all. They should be eternally grateful that national and international media representatives care about their opinions. The day will come all too quickly when they’ll be out of the game and they’ll be happy to have anyone ask them the time of day.

Anyway, no question that gets a good answer is dumb, and no question that gets no answer is intelligent. And anyone who gives good answers no matter what the question is a good guy.

That’s an important point about Super Bowl Week, because you’ll hear about what good guys some of the players are, and you need to know that the media’s definition of a good guy is one who answers our questions and returns our phone calls. So if the Pope refuses to talk about why he went for it on fourth-and-two from his own 30, he’s not a good guy, while if Charles Manson returns our phone calls, he’s really a swell fellow, just terribly misunderstood.

Jan. 24 | 12:20 a.m. ET

Just when you think you’ve seen the limit of tomfoolery, someone comes along and says something so stupendously inane, you want to soak your head in a tub of battery acid. Such a person — a consulting firm actually — is Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which actually wasted the time of perfectly good numbers-crunchers to determine that what you thought was happy chatter about the Super Bowl with your co-workers was actually a drain on the economy.

The firm, the AP story says, “estimated that lost wages could exceed $16 million a minute as millions of Americans chat about the game, plan parties, organize betting pools or research big-screen TVs.

That's more than $820 million from the week before the game alone.

And, as every child who’s not been left behind knows, that rounds off to a billion dollars. Left unreported is how much CG&C productivity was wasted on coming up with this utterly meaningless figure. It leads you to believe the firm doesn’t have enough work to keep the staff occupied with useful tasks.

Let’s start with the obvious: a billion dollars isn’t what it used to be. With a population of 300 million, the United States can raise that much by collecting $3.33 from each man, woman and child. If they’ll tell me where to mail my share, I’ll get the check right in the mail, so I can indulge in Super Bowl chat with a clear conscience. Even if the consultants are right in assigning the cost only to the 90 million people who watch the game, it’s still less than $12 a head.

But what, pray tell, is the cost of people discussing “American Idol” week in and week out? And what’s the cost of searching Google images for proof that Britney Spears is so poor she can’t afford underwear? How about the cost of talking about babies and engagements and weddings and divorces? And what about elections? Are they telling us that the Super Bowl costs America more in lost productivity than a presidential election?

More from the AP story: “John Challenger, the firm's chief executive, emphasized that his firm isn't trying to put a damper on the fun or suggest that companies ban betting pools. He acknowledged that some productivity gains can come from a friendlier workplace and higher employee morale. ‘We just want to inject a little sobriety into the discussion around the country, especially here in Chicago,' he said in a telephone interview.”

You want sobriety, Mister? I know exactly where to inject it. Americans work their tails off. Most office workers put in a lot more than the standard 40 hours, and they don’t get paid extra for it. Europeans get six weeks vacation a year. Americans get six minutes.

What are those productivity gains from “a friendlier workplace and higher employee morale?” As long as Challenger has staff sitting around with nothing better to do than put a price tag on fun, why doesn’t he put a number on the extra work that gets done by happy employees?

We’re not automatons. Work is where we spend more of our time and make most of our acquaintances. We take time off to collect money for baby showers and birthdays. We take little breaks to celebrate milestone work accomplishments — a big contract, an award. We grouse about our bosses and trade daydreams about what we’ll do when we hit the lottery. We talk about where we went on vacation and who the new hire in accounting is sleeping with. We gossip about TV shows, trade jokes on the Internet, take bathroom breaks, play practical jokes, mourn deaths.

And, yes, we talk about the Super Bowl. At work. And still, at the end of the day, we also get our work done.

We’re the most productive workers on earth. But we’re also human beings.

Get a life, Mr. Challenger.

Jan. 22 | 12:45 p.m. ET

The Pittsburgh Steelers have had a pretty good formula for picking head coaches, and the measure of its success is that they’ve had to apply just three times in 38 years. The formula is so simple even another NFL owner could understand it: Find the best and the brightest young coordinator you can, make him your coach, then sit back and enjoy the show for the next 15 or 20 years.

The Steelers hired Chuck Noll at the age of 34 in 1969. In 1992, after four Super Bowl victories, they dusted off the magic formula and elevated Bill Cowher, also 34, to the job to replace Noll. On Monday, they’ve tabbed another 34-year-old, Mike Tomlin, to replace Cowher.

It could be he doesn’t work out; it happens that way sometimes. But the odds are in the Steelers’ favor. Look at the exceptionally young coaches who have been handed jobs over the past decade and you don’t see many clunkers. Jon Gruden won a Super Bowl, Jeff Fisher got to one, and Eric Mangini took a Jets team that was expected to finish 6-10 and got it into the playoffs. As far as that goes, Tony Dungy, who gave Tomlin his first NFL job in 2001 when Tomlin was 29, was just 39 when he got the head job in Tampa in 1995.

It’s the way I’d go if I were running a team. Hire someone young and charismatic, someone who’s not afraid to take chances, someone with new ideas and the ability to convey them to a team. Sure, he could fail, but so can everyone else, including the recycled veterans that so many teams end up hiring. Who would you rather have coaching your team, a Mangini or Gruden or Tomlin or a Tom Coughlin or Joe Gibbs?

Dungy has taken heat all his career for not getting to the Super Bowl, but he’s there now. And across the league, his former assistants are heading teams of their own. Tomlin is the latest; other Dungy disciples include Chiefs coach Herm Edwards, Bears coach Lovie Smith and Lions coach Rod Marinelli.

When Dungy started his career, African-American head coaches were still rare. Thanks in part to him, color is hardly worth mentioning anymore. Give the NFL credit, too. It has demanded that teams expand their coaching searches to include minority candidates, and it’s been to the benefit of everyone.

Dungy hired more African-American assistants than were common a decade ago. Thanks to him and others, there is critical mass; there is a deep pool of qualified assistants that includes black and white along with a recognition that skin color doesn’t have anything to do with how good a job a coach will do. Twenty years ago, it would have strained credulity to imagine an African-American coaching in a city like Pittsburgh. Today, it’s a big ho-hum. Steelers fans don’t care what color Tomlin is; they just want to know if he can win.

They’re reading encouraging words about him today in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. They’re checking his bio and finding nothing to give them reason to doubt the decision of the Rooneys.

He’s just the third Steelers head coach since 1969. If the formula works again, Pittsburgh won’t have to think about replacing him until 2022, at the earliest.

Jan. 21 | 9 p.m. ET

Reggie Bush is an incredible football player, but he’s got a lot to learn about how to behave on a football field. If you watched the Saints against the Bears in the NFC Championship Game, you know what I’m talking about. It came in the second quarter when Bush took a little swing pass 88 yards for a touchdown to bring New Orleans to within two points of the Bears.

It was a great play, the sort that can make him a legend by the time his NFL career is over. But he soiled it by showing up the Bears during the play and hotdogging at the end of it.

Bush didn’t do anything that others haven’t done too many times before him. He pointed back at Bears’ linebacker Brian Urlacher as he cruised the last 20 yards to paydirt. Then he did a front flip into the end zone. The little dance he did afterwards wasn’t anything special, for good or ill.

That happened to be the last good thing that would happen to the Saints all afternoon. The Bears came out in the second half and tore New Orleans into itty-bitty pieces. Reggie Bush was barely heard from again.

You can’t blame Bush’s showboating for what happened; the Bears came out smoking on defense and kept it going for just about the entire game. But showing up the Bears’ best player had to make the Bears more angry, and the flip just added to it.

What made it objectionable to a viewer was the fact that Bush was celebrating a score that didn’t even put his team ahead. The Saints were being badly outplayed when he took the pass and ran it in. The touchdown put them back in the game momentarily, but they were still losing. So what’s the celebration about, especially on the Bears’ home field? What’s the purpose of pointing fingers at the guys you just outran?

We don’t need Reggie to dance and pose and pound his chest to know how good he is. We don’t need him to show up the opposition to know he’s a game-breaker. And he doesn’t need to give enemy defenses reasons to hit him just a bit harder than they need to bring him down.

He’s a great player. It would be nice if he could be a classy one, too.

Jan. 19 | 11:55 p.m. ET

The Nuggets, who beat Cleveland on Friday and Houston on Saturday, get Carmelo Anthony back on Monday for a home game against the Grizzlies, and it’s not a moment too soon. Any player who professes to put the team first should look at what’s happened to Denver in his absence before deciding to be as stupid as Anthony was.

Denver wasn’t exactly sailing when the star forward threw the punch in the brawl in Madison Square Garden on Dec. 16 that got him suspended for 15 games, but they were 13-9 in the brutally tough NBA West at the time. They won their next game, but have gone 5-8 since then, dropping their record to 19-17, which has them clinging to the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference.

So in answer to the question, “Did they miss him?” yes, they did. A lot.

Anthony will come back in his team’s 38^th game, three games shy of the half-way point in the season. So there’s still plenty of time to make up ground. But you have to figure that the Nuggets would have won nine or ten of the 15 games while he was out. With Allen Iverson aboard, they may even have won 11 or 12. The best they can do now is to win seven of them. That’s anywhere from two to five games in the standings.

The Nuggets can be expected to make up ground, thanks to Iverson. Only his presence has kept the team from total collapse in Anthony’s absence.  His 29.4 points per game are third in the league, half a point behind Gilbert Arenas and 2.2 behind Anthony. Iverson is also averaging 7.3 assists per game, eleventh in the league , four behind league leader Steve Nash and two or fewer behind everyone else. Iverson man isn’t just a shooter.

It will probably take a few games for Anthony and Iverson to get comfortable with each other – more games the Nuggets can’t afford to give away. When they do get on the same page, you figure the Nuggets will start to roll.

But as much as they may win, they can’t get back the games that Anthony gave away when he decided to throw a sucker punch. The damage to the season is permanent.

Come the playoffs, the Nuggets are almost certainly going to be a place or two lower in the seedings than they otherwise would have been. If the postseason were to start today, the Nuggets would be taking on the Mavericks. If Anthony hadn’t been suspended, they’d probably have the seventh slot now held by Minnesota and a first-round match-up with Phoenix. There’s a substantial gap from there to the sixth spot held by the Rockets, who were 10 games over .500 as of this morning.

But if Anthony had been aboard, the gap would be narrower and the odds of closing it better. It’s not a small issue; it’s the difference between having to play either Phoenix or the Mavs, the two best teams in the league, or either San Antonio or Utah. Those aren’t exactly easy opponents, but they’re not quite as hard.

You wouldn’t expect Iverson to be the guy to put it all in perspective, but he did just that when he told The Sporting News, "It's a stiff penalty. Fifteen games, that's a lot for one punch. There's no place for it. This is not boxing. This is basketball. I think the league is sending a good message that they're not going to tolerate anything like that. It's not good for the fans, it's not good for us. Hopefully, it won't happen again."

There’s not a fan in Denver who wouldn’t add, “Amen.”

Jan. 18 | 7 p.m. ET

Michael Vick is guilty of being a knucklehead. What else can you say of a guy who tries to board a plane with a water bottle that has a secret compartment in it filled with — as only a police report could put it — “a small amount of dark particulate and a pungent aroma closely associated with marijuana.” Taking the bottle was dumb enough, but Vick compounded his brain lock by being reluctant to be a good air passenger and toss the bottle in the trash, as the nice security people asked him to do.

Vick hasn’t had a good year, but nothing he’s done, including this latest episode, is grounds for the Falcons to consider getting rid of him. As the news story I’ve linked notes, last year a woman sued him for giving her — she claims — herpes. That one you can file under: “Use a condom.”

During the season, he also flipped off the home fans during a particularly stressful game. That’s a big no-no, even under the duress of playing lousy and being booed by the folks who are paying your salary.

This latest should be a non-issue. Under Florida law — Vick was flying from Miami — he could be charged with a misdemeanor for possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana and fined up to $1,000, which puts it in the neighborhood of a DWI offense. And if the local prosecutors want to prove how hard they are on drugs, they’ll charge him.

The Falcons could also use the incident as grounds for releasing Vick and letting him find another job. (He can play on my team any day.) Marijuana is a banned substance under the NFL’s drug policy; it’s the drug that got Ricky Williams in most of his trouble.

It shouldn’t happen. If the Falcons feel they don’t want Vick to run the team because of the way he plays or his performance, that’s one thing, and they could present a good argument to support the decision. But trying to board a plane with marijuana shouldn’t even be in the discussion.

The story makes Vick a bad guy because he was in possession off what appears to be week. That’s because marijuana has been illegal ever since the demented crusader Harry Ainslinger campaigned against it on the grounds that it induced users to commit crimes. It helped that the users he cited were Hispanics and blacks; racism wasn’t yet out of fashion in governmental circles then.

Since then, an entire industry has grown up for the sole purpose of demonizing marijuana and all other drugs with the exception of America’s favorite, alcohol, which happens to be one of the most dangerous drugs there is. Here’s one list of the dangers of cannabis according to Narcanon in California. Here’s another list from familydoctor.org. Both of these lists repeat the litany developed under Ainslinger.

If you’re going to read the above, you better then read another viewpoint, courtesy of drugpolicy.org. This information has the benefit of being backed by actual research. Pay attention to the paragraph where it is reported that the Netherlands, which has the most lenient marijuana laws on the planet — it’s not a crime for anyone over 18 — also has a lower rate of use of that drug among “young adolescents.” The overall usage rate is about the same as in the United States.

Increasingly, voters in individual states are choosing to legalize medical marijuana, which the federal government, which apparently has nothing better to do, keeps fighting, as if allowing a terminal AIDS patient or someone with multiple sclerosis a bit of relief somehow makes for a better republic.

The war on drugs hasn’t accomplished anything except create a lot of criminals out of people who aren’t criminals. This recent op-ed piece in The Globe and Mail, the Toronto newspaper, doesn’t talk about marijuana, but it gives a good idea of how misguided our drug laws are.

Hemp was a highly profitable crop before Ainslinger got involved. It can be a source of cheap pulp for paper and a raw material from which plastics can be made. George Washington raised hemp. And just about every society on earth with access to it has found it to have useful medicinal properties.

The Olympics, which test for every possible drug, don’t test for marijuana because it isn’t performance-enhancing.

Having said all of that, you’ve got to be a knucklehead to try to carry it on a plane, especially if you’re Michael Vick. It’s illegal — even if there’s no good reason for it to be — and that’s enough. You get caught with it, you’re going to be hammered and vilified by people who don’t know anything except what the government tells them. You might even lose your job.

It’s not worth it.

Jan. 15 | 11:45 p.m. ET

James Hylton is trying to qualify for the Daytona 500. He’s 72 years old.

It’s a good choice of races — it’s all left turns, so it won’t matter if he leaves the signal on. Joking aside, I’m rooting for the guy, even though I had no idea who he was until he decided to take one last shot at glory 42 years after he ran his first NASCAR race. I’ll understand if you don’t want to consider auto racing a sport and say that Hylton’s effort just proves it.

The example of Rocky Balboa aside, people don’t compete at the top level of a major-league sport at an age when even Supreme Court Justices are starting to consider retirement. We keep calling Roger Clemens ancient, and he’s 43. If a 72-year-old can even think about competing in something, it can’t be that demanding a sport. Can it?

The truth is that auto racing is a lot tougher on the body than it used to be. The G forces are terrific at 200 m.p.h. and the heat in the cockpit can be devastating in a three-hour race. If Hylton can make the starting grid, the odds aren’t great that he’ll finish.

But you have to admire a sport — or a competition — that lets all comers try to win as long as they have the equipment. Hylton has a car and a crew — all on loan — and if he can qualify, he can race. Anyone who meets the minimum handicap requirements can try out for the U.S. Open Golf Championship, and there are qualifying tournaments for the U.S. Open Tennis Championship, but that’s about it. In neither of those does a 72-year-old have any realistic chance.

Hylton may not have a realistic chance, either. On his first day of practice, he spent most of his time trying to fix his radio. His best lap was nearly 4 m.p.h. slower than the leaders, and in NASCAR, that’s an eternity.

He says he wants to be the oldest person to drive in a Cup race; the record now stands at 65, which is also up there in years. He’s been racing all his life, and had a good NASCAR career, but he doesn’t have much to show for it. He won Talladega in 1972, which is so long ago he can’t even remember how to spell it.

But you don’t get points for spelling, just going fast. Maybe he makes it; probably he doesn’t. But at least he’s out there trying.

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