from the department of outrageously cliched cliches

winning a championship is exciting. from actual on-field sports, to fantasy sports, to march madness pick 'ems, to silly things like drinking games and poker, theres not a person out there who doesnt really enjoy the feeling of triumphing over a field of their opponents and for a time, being christened "best" at whatever they were competing in amongst that group.

but would someone please tell me the last time a pro sports team won a title, and then started off the following season by holding a press conference and emphatically stating: "we're still completely hung up on last year's title. completely. we're not even close to getting over it. we will not be focused on our upcoming season at all, not that we need to be- because, i mean, COME ON... we're the best! we expect to win this year's title without trying. why wouldnt we? we won it last year!"

no one does that! no one! so why is it a "big story" when a team coming off a title starts things off the following season the way any person/team with brains would- by stating that theyre ready to move on, not dwell on the past, and focus on the upcoming challenge of a new season. its so obvious, and happens so often, that im willing to arbitrarily place it amongst the elite cliches in sports. along with "we need to play our game" and "we need to minimize mistakes", "were not thinking about last season because its in the past" is simply one of the most extremely DUHHHHHH things athletes and coaches always say. so in that tradition, with nfl teams headed to camp, its time for the colts to take their place at the podium. len pasquarelli has the "scoop" in "dungy has colts focused on this season."

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=pasquarelli_len&id=2877313

first let me say i dont think len is inherently a bad writer. he usually does pretty good stuff. regardless, this is a dumb, pointless topic. the only time i want to hear about this kind of stuff is if some team comes out and says something along the lines of that ridiculous thing i made up in the second paragraph of this post. until then, keep this kind of crap away from readers.

"The letters on that banner might read 'Super Bowl,' but anyone who has been around Tony for a while knows what they really said," Pro Bowl center Jeff Saturday said. "It was like, 'OK, last year is over. That's it. Commit it to history. It's time to move on now.' I mean, it really doesn't take a rocket scientist, you know, to get the message."

it also doesnt take any kind of smart person to realize that no team lives in the past. it just doesnt happen. you, jeff saturday, should have politely declined this interview request. if youre smug enough about your intelligence to use a "it doesnt take a rocket scientist" quip, youre smart enough to realize this is a dumb story.

Short of collecting their Super Bowl rings, which are scheduled to be distributed at a mid-June ceremony, the Colts are finished with the celebrating. Or, in the mind of their single-minded coach, they had better be.

really? are you sure they shouldnt celebrate just a little more? make some more promo appearances? get on some more local talk shows and discuss last season's great playoff run? go out and get wasted every night, punching anyone who gets in their way with their super bowl rings? i think they could do at least 4 or 5 more months of that and still be fine for 2007.

In recent springs, coming after seasons in which Indianapolis always stumbled short of its Super Bowl expectations, Dungy delivered his minicamp address amid the specter of aspirations unfulfilled. This time around, his monologue was presented after a season of finished business. But the Colts' coach emphasized the finished element, along with the business component as well.

i mean, honestly... let me take you through a thought experiment. sports is not the only results-oriented business. literally tens of millions of americans make their living in a field like sales, law, or the arts in which there is a great deal of competition among themselves and their peers and a strong incentive to achieve "good" results (just like sports). how many of them make a big sale/win a big case/create a masterful work of art... and then end up damaging their future preformance because they sit back and admire their success for months and months? im sure it happens from time to time, but the kinds of people that succeed in these ultra-competitive fields tend to be the kinds of people that realize they cant afford to dwell on the past lest they quickly find themselves back at the middle of bottom of the pile. and len pasquarelli is here to tell us, emphatically: the colts are just like all those people!


the rest of the article is pretty much just more and more of this. i mean, its all pretty valid stuff, it makes sense. and like i already said pasquarelli isnt a dumb writer like most of our targets here (except for in this article when he said this: "A lot of coaches are about revisionist history. Dungy is about revising history, not so much by revisiting it, but rather adding to it." that is really really dumb. but hes no hatguy or jeff pearlman, to be certain.) anyways, theres just no point in writing an article like this. it contributes nothing to dialouge about the upcoming nfl season.

my pick to cut down the nets with the nba title this year is the san antonio spurs. assuming they do, i would love to see some reporter interviewing tim duncan before their 2007-2008 opening night game next november ask him "so its a brand new season, tim. what are you guys focused on?" tim duncan: "were still focused on our championship from last summer." *blank stare* that would make my night.