Rick Telander: Who is Jay Cutler? Do you know? Do you have any real sense of the most-spotlighted athlete in our city at this time? I don't. And if you're honest, I think you'll admit you don't, either.
Rick Telander: All American sports media thrive on the massive head shots, the stuns, the knockouts, the crushes that send a player into a rag-doll heap on the turf. But I wish we all could see the details of the brains of the deceased Andre Waters, Mike Webster and Justin Strzelczyk. That would get our attention.
Here's what the Browns must do. Go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in downtown Cleveland, find a section that suits their individual tastes -- rap, gospel, death metal, whatever -- and quit playing football for a while.
You can call me old or stupid or out of it, but when I meet someone like Tom Ricketts, the first thing I think is: How does anyone in this world make $1.2billion?
How big is the NFL, kids? Real big. And growing. As John Feinstein wrote recently, the NFL is ''the most powerful and profitable league there ever has been in professional sports.'' It is to Major League Baseball and the NBA as a mushroom is to a pair of toadstools.
Monday morning quarterbacking is easy --about as easy as Sunday afternoon quarterbacking is hard.
Rick Telander: Former Bears quarterback Bobby Douglass looks good these days. At 62, he's reflective and sturdy. A bout with squamous-cell throat cancer two years ago blasted him. ''I went from 260 pounds down to 185, didn't eat for four months -- I looked like I was dying.''
Rick Telander: Since fantasy football is taking over the world, why not bring its principles to the real NFL. The Buffalo Bills are terrible, their offense is horrid, their coaching staff is stupid and wide receiver Terrell Owens is so overpaid and under-used that he might as well be bronzed and placed by Lake Erie above a plaque reading: ''IF YOU WANT TO DISAPPEAR FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH, COME TO BUFFALO AND HANG OUT WITH DICK JAURON.''
Let me get this straight. The Cubs won 97 games in 2008 -- the best record in the National League -- and all they needed to do to reach the top was to get Milton Bradley.
In less than 24 hours, Brett Favre turns 40. That might not seem like a big deal until you factor in the graying fellow's performance in a victory Monday against the Packers up there in Minneapolis, a game in which the quarterback threw for 271 yards and three touchdowns and finished with an astounding passer rating of 135.3. He was named NFC offensive player of the week for his work.
