Sunday night bag of things which can be grabbed

Why are you laughing at the title? I didn't want to be boring and say "grab bag." OH I SEE THE DOUBLE ENTENDRE NOW. WHY I OUGHTA. First, we have a gem of logic from Rhodes Scholar and wordsmith Troy Aikman. Trailing the Packers by two points with about five minutes left, the Buccaneers went with an onside kick. It didn't work, and a few plays later Aaron Rodgers hit Jordy Nelson for a game-icing TD. But it was still a two point game when Troy said:

You know, some might say hey, Raheem Morris showed confidence in his defense being able to make a stop by going for it there, you know, with the onside kick. I think that that's an invalid argument to try to make. If you have that kind of confidence, with the time left on the clock, you kick it deep.

Which sends the more positive statement to your defense: "Hey, we're trying to get the ball back right away since that's our best shot at winning. However, if we can't, we're fine with giving you the job of stopping the best passing attack in the league on a short field" or "Uh, if we give up another touchdown the game is over, so we're going to try to make sure the Packers have to go the length of the field to score one. Onside kick? Nnnnope."

Next, we have Cris Collinsworth dropping some fantastic nonsense of the "GRRRR I HATE PLAYERS WHO TALK TRASH! THAT'S NOT HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME!" variety. In the second quarter of tonight's Eagles/Giants game, DeSean Jackson caught a 50 yard pass from Vince Young (I know! Yes, that Vince Young!) but had the gain negated because he taunted the Giants sideline after the play. Now obviously it was stupid and there's no defense for Jackson here. And Collinsworth is generally really good. But this:

Just watch! That play could decide this game!

is a little much. At the time it was 3-0 Eagles with about 38 minutes to play. The penalty gave the Eagles 1st and 10 from their own 5ish instead of from the Giants' 40ish. Jackson was being a dope, but commmmmme onnnnnnnn. Let's dial down the hyperbole.

Finally, I don't have the time or energy to parse the text of this, but just look at the headline:

Accolades aside, can Ells(bury) win MVP?

Votes aside, can Obama get second term? Stock market aside, can economy recover? Criminal charges aside, is Jerry Sandusky at risk of going to jail? And then the article goes into an MVP breakdown, the most inane portion of which is his analysis of Verlander's chances. Since the author works for ESPNBoston, yeah, you guessed it, he breaks out the "WELL IF PEDRO DIDN'T WIN IT IN '99..." tripe. The proper response to which, of course, is "go fuck yourself."