Rick Reilly Should 'Chillax' Over Lance Armstrong

Puffed up sportswriters ... "bless their hearts", as we say down South.

Take Rick Reilly ... please, as the old joke goes. Seriously, Reilly is a great sportswriter and I will probably never reach his level of success, but can he please chill out about himself?

Reilly, the ex-SI superstar who left for supposed greener pastures at ESPN, where he has become a much smaller fish in a much bigger fish tank, is hurting over the whole Lance Armstrong matter.

Lance Armstrong

From reading a recent column, Reilly seems more upset about being duped by Armstrong himself than the entire matter overall.

"...14 years of defending a man? And in the end, being made to look like a chump?," Reilly wrote, after indicating he received an apology from the former star cyclist who issued a 2 1/2 hour mea culpa on Oprah's TV network.

Should the issue be over YOU being lied to ... the great Rick Reilly, or EVERYONE being fooled?

At the end of the day, however, this will all go away and you will continue to have enjoy a remarkable career Rick.

Lance and his "real" victims, his sponsors and close associates, have real pieces to pick up from this mess though. Et tu Rick? ... not so much.

Sorry if I seem cold-hearted over this, but it just seems like you have gotten tons of good copy over Lance Armstrong over the years, even if you were on the wrong side of things in retrospect.

Move on ... back to your cushy gig at ESPN, or better still, return to SI, where you should never have left to begin with.

Brent Musburger Only Slightly Outta' Bounds

ESPN play-by-play veteran Brent Musburger may have been a little over the top in his compliments to Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron's girlfriend during the BCS title game, but it was really no big deal.

If anything, Musburger was just pointing out the obvious: Miss Alabama/model Katherine Webb IS really beautiful. I know it, you know it, the American people now know it ... to use an old Bob Dole expression.

Like Dole, ol' Brent is getting up there a bit in years, at 73, so perhaps he's not as guarded with his words as he once was.

Brent Musburger

"Wow, I'm telling you quarterbacks: You get all the good-looking women," he said, going on to say youngsters should take up the position so they would be, ahem, as equally as blessed as McCarron.

Webb was wise to be gracious about the attention, as it pushed her twitter total into the stratosphere and could provide a boost to her career.

"It was kind of nice," she told AP. "I didn't look at it as creepy at all. For a woman to be called beautiful, I don't see how that's an issue."

ESPN tread carefully in issuing the following statement:

"We always try to capture interesting storylines and the relationship between an Auburn grad who is Miss Alabama and the current Alabama quarterback certainly met that test. However, we apologize that the commentary in this instance went too far and Brent understands that."

Less is more, which Musburger should understand at this point in his career.

RG III should have been taken O-U-T of game!

I'm not nearly at the level of greatness at what I do as Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan or the renowned Dr. James Andrews.

Both of them blew it BIG TIME Sunday though when they made the call to leave the obviously ailing quarterback Robert Griffin III in the wild-card playoff game vs. the Seattle Seahawks.

The move, or non-move, to leave RG3 in didn't make sense in EITHER trying to win the game or keep the potential young superstar healthy for the long run. It was just a head-scratcher any way you look at it.

Shanahan may be a genius and Andrews at the top of his field, but all it should have taken to yank RG3 was to see him limping around the field trying to make things happen ... whether the injuries were old, new or whatever as was still being determined Monday night.

It was a courageous effort for RG3 to play, but one he shouldn't have been making. From the standpoint of winning, the 'Skins have a capable and healthy backup quarterback in Kirk Cousins that would have improved their chances.

And while it certainly wasn't their intent to put the emerging star's career in danger, a well placed hit could have done just that on the already wounded player.

After their history of playoff road struggles the game may have belonged to the Seahawks, anyway. It didn't mean the 'Skins needed to make things easier on them, however.