I want to begin the new year by tossing an onion at the Tampa Bay Bucs. In the first half of their game in Philly, they ran Mike Alstott effectively and then put him on the bench. He was averaging 6 yards a carry and then he disappeared. He never touched the ball in the second half of the game. Anyone with an IQ equal to that of your average rutabaga could see that the Eagles' defense was not going to lose sight of Warrick Dunn on Sunday. So Tampa used Dunn as their running attack for the final 60% of the game. And this is the city that ran Mike Shula out of town as the fundamental problem with their offense last year. Well, if that is the case, then let me say that hiring Les Steckel for that job was "The Great Leap Sideways".

So how come the media anointed genius of Tony Dungy did not perceive that the offensive play calling needed to be filed under "Inept"? Tony seemed to be mellowing out on the sidelines as if his headset was playing tropical rainforest sounds. All the while, Warrick Dunn was gaining all of 1 yard for the day and Shaun King was throwing everything under 10 yards except for broken plays. By the way, why did Shaun King regress this year? He played much better at the end of last year than he did at the end of this year.

Memo to Tony D: Your offense stinks. You need to jump start it. Why not get an offensive coordinator with some track record of getting the job done and then getting him the players he needs and then getting out of the way. I hear there is this guy named Turner, who is looking for a position.

By the way, you may want to make a note in your calendar for the day that training camp opens next year. Make a note to begin to dislike Keyshawn Johnson on that day because he is an arrogant and egomaniacal asshole who talks a lot and complains at least as much as he talks but so far has led his college and his pro teams to the equivalent of "squadoosh". It will allow you to vent you spleen more thoroughly at this annoying biped next season if you start early.

Speaking of defense, you have to love the way the Saints and the Ravens and the Dolphins shut down the high powered offenses of the Rams, Broncos and Colts. And if that trend continues, the Vikes need to worry a lot next week. The Ravens held the Broncos to 177 yards on Sunday which is impressive all by itself, but when you realize that the Broncos averaged about 420 yards per game this year, that makes that stat even more noteworthy.

On New Years' Eve night as the year drew to a close - and as the millennium drew to a close for all those tedious people who felt compelled to remind you of that over and over again - the Chicago Bulls and the Washington Wizards and the Golden State Warriors all won games on the same night. It could easily be 5 years before that happens again!

The Wizards seem to have recognized that it will be a while before they are good again and before they will be a "hot ticket" in a town that has front-runner fans almost as bad as Miami and Atlanta. So the Wizards came up with a promotional idea. They gave 250 tickets to police officers who were doing sobriety checks on the roads on New Years' Eve night. When drivers were OK, they were given tickets as a "thank you" for not drinking and driving. You can only do that when you have more tickets available than you can hope to sell even with Divine intervention.

Tony Kornheiser is suggesting that the Wizards need to cut Rod Strickland to do something to show the fans that they realize the team stinks and the attitudes of the players are awful. I disagree. His contract is guaranteed so they have to pay him and if they release him, that would let him get his butt to a team that is in contention but needs a point guard that can be on good behavior with a new team for about 6 months. Why give this fool such an opportunity? Pay him; keep him; bench him; have the coach walk over to him and look at him 5 times a game and then walk away without putting him in the game for all the crowd to see. That will show the fans that the Wizards actually are beginning to "get it".

In checking through the myriad year in review articles last week, I came across an item that I include here for my small - but loyal - readership in California. It seems that in the year 2000 the authorities in the San Diego area broke up a fraud operation which was selling forged and fraudulent sports memorabilia items over the Internet. Not much news there, you say? Well, one of the items they purportedly sold was a "baseball autographed by Mother Teresa". Now here is my question:

At what point should we conclude that the buyer of such an item is so damned stupid that the sale is not "fraud" but just a "neat prank"?

The Redskins are hoping that an offer of $5M - 7M a year will convince Bill Parcells to coach them. Not likely. If he turns them down, that will take a lot of the high profile names off their list and they will be down to a huge list of people who have college credentials or some pro credentials but nothing to write home about.

Memo to Danny Boy: I hear there is this guy named Turner who is looking for a position. He has taken a team to the playoffs as a head coach and has Super Bowl rings from his days as a coordinator. Those credentials may confuse your chairman of the search committee, Pepper Rodgers, whose last resume entry was "FedEx Liaison to Redskins' Owner" because they paid a boatload of money to put their name on his stadium and they needed someone in the area to be sure that the little weasel did not sell the rights to the outside walls to UPS.