Peyton Manning wins record 4th AP MVP

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-nflmvp

Peyton Manning wins record 4th AP MVP
By BARRY WILNER, AP Football Writer
1-9-10

NEW YORK (AP)—Maybe the award should be renamed Most Valuable Peyton.

Peyton Manning became the first player to win The Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player honors four times. The Indianapolis Colts’ sensational quarterback romped to the award Saturday in balloting by 50 sports writers and broadcasters who cover the league.

He received 39 1/2 votes to 7 1/2 for Drew Brees of New Orleans. Only four players — all quarterbacks—earned votes. The other two were Philip Rivers of San Diego (2) and Brett Favre of Minnesota (1).

Manning also won in 2003, 2004 and 2008, breaking a tie with Favre at three MVPs.

“I’m very humbled and grateful to be honored with this award and I really feel like it is a reflection of our team,” said Manning, who guided the Colts to a 14-0 record before they rested starters in the second half of two games and finished 14-2.

“I have to believe that starting 14-0 and having seven comeback wins has a lot to do with this award coming our way, and I’m very grateful to all the players and the coaches and our fans, who were a big part of it. There were a number of other extremely deserving candidates.”

The Colts play in the divisional round next week and have home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs. The Super Bowl is Feb. 7 in Miami, the same place they won it three years ago.

Manning threw for 4,500 and 33 touchdowns this season. Perhaps most impressive, he led the Colts to all those comeback victories. The 33-year-old quarterback has started every game in his career, 192 in the regular season and 15 in the playoffs.

He is durable and dynamic, dependable and decisive. In other words, most valuable.

“He’s been such a highly accomplished performer year in and year out. Just when you think you’ve seen his best, he improves upon it,” said Jim Caldwell, who succeeded Tony Dungy as coach and benefited from the same kind of performances Manning gave Dungy. “This year is one of those in terms of when you look at his numbers and how he’s been able to play consistently well over a long period of time. It’s been remarkable.

“I think a lot of it has to do with his drive. He just has an innate sort of will to excel. He never gets bored with it. That, I think, is highly unusual.”

Manning joined the truly elite of team sports: Wayne Gretzky (9), Barry Bonds (7) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (6), the leaders for MVP awards in their sports.

“I’m not comfortable having my name on that list or drawing comparisons to those guys,” Manning said Saturday. “I think all of those people would probably echo the sentiments that I had before about being very humbled, especially in football which I think is the ultimate team game.”

Manning, the 2007 Super Bowl MVP when he won his only league championship, noted the support and stability he’s enjoyed in his career.

“I’ve been the beneficiary of having the same owner, the same team president all four times,” he said. “I’ve received great coaching from our head coaches and assistants and a number of different teammates who have all had a huge impact on me.”

But even when Dungy turned over the coaching to Caldwell last year, Manning and the Colts adapted.

“This offseason brought more change than any other year around here,” he said. “We have had that consistency till this year, with losing a head coach and Marvin (Harrison), sort of replacing by committee with a group of young receivers. I think dealing with those changes says a lot.”

Manning lost his longtime favorite receiver, Harrison, this season. Harrison’s replacement, Anthony Gonzalez(notes), went down with a right knee injury in the opener.

Manning simply turned to his latest fave, Reggie Wayne, who had 100 catches for 1,264 yards and 10 touchdowns. And to Dallas Clark, who joined Tony Gonzalez as the only tight ends with 100 receptions in a season when he grabbed exactly that many for 1,106 yards and 10 scores.

Plus, Austin Collie tied for the rookie lead in receptions with 60 and scored seven times. Pierre Garcon, nurtured in dozens of passing sessions with Manning, developed into a prime deep threat and averaged 16.3 yards on 47 catches, with four TDs.

“What he’s been able to do this year with Pierre and Austin—and obviously Dallas had a year that will go down in the record books,” linebacker and defensive captain Gary Brackett(notes) said. “And I think it really says something when you can work young guys like that.”

AP Sports Writer Michael Marot in Indianapolis contributed to this story.

Steroids fueled spectacular rise and fall

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4073575

April 17, 2009
Steroids fueled spectacular rise and fall
By Kory Kozak
ESPN
The Story Of Tony Mandarich
Tony Mandarich discusses his steroid-fueled rise to top NFL prospect and his status as one of the biggest draft busts of all time

How could he not be great in the NFL? How could Tony Mandarich possibly be a bust?

I saw what might have been in 1988. I was an 18-year-old freshman defensive end at Rutgers. At that point, the Rutgers football slogan was "On the Rise" because we were always mediocre in those days. Our first game that season was against Michigan State, the 15th-ranked team in the country and defending Rose Bowl champ. They had an All-America tackle -- Tony Mandarich -- who was humiliating players every week.

He was 6-foot-6, 320 pounds. He was huge. He was a mutant. He was all-natural? Impossible.

I was all-natural, tipping the scales at about 230 and having already lost about 10 precious pounds in training camp.

Not a great matchup. You can imagine how that would have turned out. But it never happened. I was redshirted and wasn't going to see the field unless the seven or eight players in front of me were maimed.

And Mandarich, ultimately, was suspended. He sat out the first three games of the season after applying for the NFL draft.

During training camp, we studied Michigan State's offensive line on film. Watching the Rose Bowl, we saw Mandarich pancaking Tim Ryan from USC on one play, driving him out of the film frame on the next. It wasn't as if Ryan was terrible; the guy was a first-round pick of the Bears a year later.

Our reaction? Laughter. Not because Ryan was getting destroyed, but because we weren't. That wasn't going to be us because he wasn't playing.

We watched more film, and it wasn't only Ryan. We saw an All-America defensive end pinned to the ground by Mandarich, a linebacker from Wisconsin on skates 10 yards downfield, a defensive tackle from Ohio State curled up in the fetal position. The worst was the Iowa team captain who went for the trifecta: on skates for 10 yards, pinned to the ground and then curled up in the fetal position.

It didn't stop there.

Mandarich punched an Ohio State player during the coin toss and told him he "was going to die today." He drove a Northwestern player into the end zone, pancaked him and then told the player to "stay there."

Sometimes he was blocking two players at a time. Who does that? It was a no-brainer that Mandarich was the most dominant college offensive lineman ever. Maybe not the best, but definitely the most dominant.

How could he not make it in the NFL?

The Unnatural

Well, for starters, he was cheating.

He was chemically enhanced to the nth degree. He was the Six Million Dollar Man of steroids.

"I was taking Winstrol V, equipoise, Anadrol 50s, testosterone, Anavar, Dianabol," he told me dispassionately in an ESPN interview last month at the W Hotel, near his home in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Mandarich says he started using steroids in 1984, and was able to beat NCAA testing at the Rose and Gator bowls.
Twenty years after he was the second player taken in the 1989 NFL draft, Mandarich is 42 years old. He looks like a cross between Judas Priest's Rob Halford and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. He's still huge and looks as if he could still play. He told me he had been taking steroids since May 1984.

His older brother, John, who was playing at Kent State, turned Mandarich onto them. His usage escalated during his time at Michigan State. The rumors of steroids started to surface, but schools were not testing for steroids yet, and the NCAA tested only at bowl games. Mandarich kept beating the system. He cheated on the tests for the Rose and Gator bowls.

"I basically strapped something to my back a little -- it was actually a little doggie toy," Mandarich said in an interview that stretched longer than 2½ hours. "Hooked up a little hose to it … ran a tube underneath and put a piece of gum to cap the tube."

As a player, his legend was growing. So was his ego.

"You're not supposed to be as strong as I am. You're not supposed to be as fast as I am. You're not supposed to be as good as I am," Mandarich said in the midst of his steroid haze in 1989.

He dropped out of Michigan State after the Gator Bowl and moved to Los Angeles. It was where he wanted to be -- a big city with big-city media. He had big plans. He wanted to play football for six or seven years in the NFL, win Mr. Universe and then move on to the movies. He wanted to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was hanging out with Guns N' Roses, and he had the tattoos to prove it.

All the while, against the general rules of nature, Tony kept getting bigger, stronger and faster. He hosted his own combine at Michigan State that spring. The numbers were staggering:

Weight: 308 pounds
Bench press: 39 repetitions at 225 pounds
40-yard dash: 4.69 seconds.

The hype machine was at full throttle.

Sports Illustrated, memorably, put him on the cover, shirtless and massive. It called him "the best offensive line prospect ever." It bragged of his insane 15,000-calorie diet and his love for Axl Rose.

I put that SI cover on my dorm wall. Every lineman -- high school or college -- probably did the same. He was what all of us aspired to be: huge, cut and nasty on the football field. He was supposed to change offensive linemen forever. He was the anti-Reggie White, the guy who was built to block men like White and maybe even dominate them.

Before the 1989 draft, Sports Illustrated put Mandarich on the cover, shirtless and massive. They called him "the best offensive line prospect ever."

As the 1989 draft approached, Mandarich was the highest-rated player on the board. Higher than Troy Aikman. Higher than Barry Sanders. Higher than Deion Sanders and Derrick Thomas. It was on. He had serious clout. Mandarich could call his own shot. Everyone had bought in. Almost everyone.

The Kansas City Chiefs were courting Mandarich because they had one of the top five picks in the draft. General manager Carl Peterson and coach Marty Schottenheimer took him out to dinner. They asked him whether he was on steroids, Mandarich says. Fair question. Mandarich said he had never failed a drug test. Not exactly what the coach wanted to hear.

According to Mandarich, Schottenheimer looked him square in the eye and said, "I think you're lying."

"If you think I am lying," Mandarich said coolly, "then don't draft me."

His arrogance with NFL teams did not stop there.

"I had said even before the draft that I did not want to get drafted by the Packers," Mandarich said. "I didn't want to play in a small market. I called Green Bay a village. Some of the stuff I said, when I look back now, is just embarrassing."

Saying it, he truly sounds embarrassed, maybe even disgusted.

Needless to say, the Packers took Mandarich second overall, after the Cowboys took Aikman. Some experts thought Dallas was crazy for not taking Mandarich.

The Packers weren't planning to pay him the $1.1 million per year that he was demanding. So, Mandarich cranked up the hype again. He held out of Packers camp. Then he appeared on "Late Night with David Letterman."

Mandarich: "I want to fight Tyson."

Letterman: "Oh, geez … what kind of a guy does it take to sit here and say that?"

The Packers might lose Mandarich to boxing? They had to ante up. And they did.

A mythical monster

Green Bay had no idea what it was getting for its $4.4 million; Mandarich was the first offensive lineman to make seven figures a season.

Mandarich missed the entire training camp. He wasn't ready to play in the NFL's pass-first game. Michigan State threw the ball maybe 10 times a game in those days, and pass blocking was not Mandarich's strong suit.

But something else was happening, and it wasn't just steroids.

Mandarich had stopped taking steroids just before the combine for fear of getting caught by the NFL drug-testers. Those guys actually watch you fill the cup from point-blank range. No dog toys to save him there.

Mandarich was an utter disappointment in Green Bay, and he never made it on the field in the final season of a four-year, $4.4 million deal.

The bigger issue, according to Mandarich, was an addiction to painkillers. He was a junkie. By the time he arrived in Green Bay, he was hooked. As he ended his steroid usage, he started taking painkillers to get rid of the aches and pains from his intense weight training.

He wasn't messing around, either. He was main-lining them. Straight into the vein. Six or seven times a day. Even during practice.

"I was getting really paranoid about people finding out, so what I would do with that bottle and a syringe, I would put it in my jock strap," Mandarich said. "I'd say 'Hey, I've got to go to the bathroom,' lock myself in the bathroom, take a shot, and then come back out to practice and get ready for one-on-one pass drills with the defensive line, and I'm half in the bag."

He did this every day. Stadol, Fiorinal #3, Valium, Percodan, Percocet, Vicodin. The shots eventually became pills because they were easier to come by, and sometimes the pills were replaced by booze.

Mandarich created a monster built on lies. It was all torn down in a few months. He was the bust to end all busts. He never got on the field for the last year of his contract, 1992, and Mike Holmgren's new Green Bay regime elected to not re-sign him.

"I spent four years in Green Bay and never [had] a sober day," Mandarich said. "Every day I was ever in Green Bay I was not sober."

Mandarich went to his home in Traverse City, Mich., and became a full-time junkie -- and hid. His full-time job was to find ways to get more drugs by conning another doctor or faking another illness.

More lies.

Things got worse. Mandarich's older brother, John, was dying of cancer. John was his hero, having played for Kent State and then the Edmonton Eskimos in the Canadian Football League. On the day John died in 1993, his little brother was in his truck, driving 400 miles to Green Bay from Traverse City to get more painkillers.

At that point, the drugs were more important to him than anything.

This was the time that Mandarich was supposed be in the prime of his career, taking on Reggie White and Bruce Smith on his way to the Hall of Fame, with yearly visits to Hawaii along the way. Instead, he was chasing down painkillers to get by until the next day. He was down to 260 pounds, pale, and looking nothing like the shirtless guy who was on the cover of SI.

"Fifty, 60, 70 painkillers a day," Mandarich said. "I would just drink more because it's easier to get alcohol. A lot of self-loathing … absolutely hated myself. I hated everything about me."

He could never live up to that monster he created.

Tony Mandarich, now 42, says he doesn't regret the mistakes he made because they "forced me to make corrections -- it was either make corrections or die for me."

Making it right

Rock bottom. He was there.

In March 1995, Mandarich checked himself into the Brighton Hospital Chemical Dependency and Mental Health Treatment Center in Brighton, Mich. Twelve steps. Time to pay the price for all those lies.

"How in the world do you make amends for the disaster you created in the NFL?" he said, sounding contrite. "And that you had wronged the fans, you had wronged the Packers, you embarrassed the sport. How do you right that wrong?"

Mandarich's way was to try to come back to the NFL, but this time do it right. Clean. Sober. No outrageous comments. Be happy to be there.

In 1996, Mandarich made it back to the NFL, playing three seasons with the Colts -- without the aid of steroids, he says.

Miraculously, Mandarich made it back to the NFL in 1996, playing for the Indianapolis Colts. He was huge once again, weighing in at around 320. But this time, he says, it was natural. No juice. For three more years, he was good, not great -- not pinning guys on their backs, not keeping stats of pancakes and guys he drove off the screen.

But he says he was clean. And Mandarich insists he has remained clean since.

Today he keeps a low profile in Arizona, with his wife and business partner, Char. They run an Internet marketing company and do photography and video work. In their home, there are few mementos from his football days. In one small room, his Michigan State Rose Bowl jersey and his Colts jersey hang on the wall.

Nothing from his years with the Packers. No other trophies. A few years ago, Mandarich took all the trophies he had from Michigan State and burned them.

"Got tired of them sitting in boxes," he explained.

That might have been as symbolic as anything he did. Clearly, that time in his life is well behind him.

He is promoting a new book, "My Dirty Little Secrets," published by Modern History Press. He said he wants to speak to NFL players about the dangers of steroid abuse and painkillers, another step in the 12-step circle of making amends.

He has become -- sincerely, it seems -- reflective.

"I don't regret any of the pills I took, or I don't regret the steroids I took," he said. "I don't regret the whiskey I drank, and I don't regret the mistakes I made, because all of those things coupled together tore me down and made me forced me to look at myself and forced me to make corrections -- it was either make corrections or die for me."

There is one eye-catching remnant of his chemically enhanced life. The infamous Sports Illustrated cover, the one that proclaimed him "The Incredible Bulk." He has a blown-up version in his garage.

It hangs just above a garbage can.

Kory Kozak is a producer for ESPN.

Dungy steps away after historic Colts tenure

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/colts/2009-01-12-dungy-decision_N.htm

Living 'a dream': Dungy steps away after historic Colts tenure
By Tom Pedulla, USA TODAY
1-12-9

Tony Dungy, a trailblazer and a model for all coaches with his grace and class, announced his retirement from the Indianapolis Colts on Monday.

"Don't shed any tears for me," Dungy, 53, said at an emotional news conference while his wife, Lauren, looked on. "I've gotten to live a dream most people don't get to live."

The prospect of moving into another phase of his life had intrigued Dungy for some time. Even after the defining moment of his 31-year NFL career, when he became the first black coach to hold aloft the Vince Lombardi Trophy after guiding Indianapolis to a 29-17 victory against the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI to close the 2006 season, he wavered about his future.

"I have a real peace about it that this is the right time," said Dungy, who often emphasized that faith, family and football are his priorities, in that order.

On Monday, he mentioned the possibility of working as a television analyst but said, "I really don't know what I'm going to do from here. I know I want to do something that will allow me to spend more time with my family and allow me to connect with young people."

He and Lauren have two daughters, Tiara and Jade, and three sons, Eric, Jordan and Justin. They have struggled to cope with immense grief after another son, James, committed suicide at age 18 in December 2005 while attending school in Tampa.

Kansas City Chiefs coach Herm Edwards, a member of Dungy's coaching staff with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and a close friend, believes family considerations played a huge role in the decision. "He's got a lot of fathering to do," he said.

While Dungy expressed regret at having not turned his 11 postseason appearances into more NFL titles, most would argue he had little left to prove.

"He's done about as much as he can do in football," Edwards said. "I know he wants to go into the community and do other things. That is his higher calling."

Dungy has no regrets. "I won't look back and think that I could have done anything more, that if I'd put more time in, maybe we'd have won one more game," he said. "I think I did all that I could do. I think our coaches and players did all that we could do.

"The Lord blessed us with one (Super Bowl win), and that's one more than a lot of people win."

Among other activities, Dungy has spent time visiting young prison inmates in Tampa, where he now makes his home.

He said after his Super Bowl triumph, "When I was young, I thought prison was a place where you put bad people away. When I got to Tampa and I started visiting prisons, I just realized these were 17-, 18-, 19-year-old kids who had made a wrong choice and had so much more life ahead of them that we can't afford to waste."

Dungy, knowing how great the pull of the game can be for some coaches once they step away, kept the door slightly ajar for an eventual return. "I can't imagine coming back," he said, "but who knows what's going to happen five years from now?"

Jim Caldwell, another former Buccaneers assistant and member of his staff for the last seven years, will be elevated from associated head coach to head coach in keeping with a plan that was put into place last year.

He will have three-time NFL MVP quarterback Peyton Manning to direct a high-powered offense but faces enormous pressure as he follows in the footsteps of the only coach to produce six consecutive 12-win seasons and 10 playoff appearances in a row.

"He's ready. He's going to be fantastic," Dungy said of the offense-oriented Caldwell, who lacks experience as an NFL coordinator.

"He's going to keep us winning."

Victory lane

Dungy established himself as one of the finest head coaches of this era over the last 13 seasons. He compiled a lifetime record of 139-69 in the regular season, a .668 winning percentage that ranks seventh in league history.

After spending 15 seasons as an NFL assistant coach and going through countless interviews for a top job without receiving an offer, he gained the opportunity he yearned for when he was hired to take over the lowly Buccaneers in 1996.

After enduring a 6-10 record in his first season, he would never suffer another losing record as a head coach. He gradually built Tampa Bay into an NFC power. The Bucs reached postseason in each of his last three seasons there before he was hired by the Colts in 2002.

Indianapolis rattled off five consecutive AFC South titles before the Tennessee Titans ended that string this season. The Colts were hit hard by injuries in starting 3-4 with Manning and defensive stars Dwight Freeney and Bob Sanders hobbled at times. But they swept their last nine regular-season games before suffering a 23-17 overtime loss to the San Diego Chargers in the wild-card round.

The wild ride of a season demonstrated the steady hand that Colts president Bill Polian respected so much.

"When we were 3-4 and injured and things looked as bleak as they possibly could," Polian said at the farewell news conference, "a friend of mine said to me, 'You know, there's no God-given right to winning. You better get used to the fact that one of these years, the breaks will go against you and the injuries will become too great and the obstacles will become too high. You won't have that magical season.'

"I said, 'No, no. … That's not the case at all. We have to keep scratching and patching and sooner or later Tony will do his magic,' and so he did. This season, I think — and most of us around this team believe — was his greatest coaching job of all."

Held in high esteem

Polian, with his voice cracking, said of the coach who kept Indianapolis a power despite operating within the NFL's parity-driven system, "We'll miss his faith. We'll miss his optimism. We'll miss his patience — and that's something he taught me in abundance. All of which contributes to the Dungy magic."

Like Polian, Manning, who spoke with Dungy by phone on Monday, was emotional about his coach's departure.

"We went through some of the memories. We've had some great memories together," Manning said. "I told him I loved him. He told me he loved me the same. We'll always be in touch, but I am sad that he won't be my coach anymore."

For African-American coaches still striving to make inroads, Dungy will always be the one who showed the way.

"He's given a lot of energy, a lot of hope, to black coaches with the way he did it," Edwards said.

The coach's announcement prompted a wide range of reactions from across the league.

REACTION TO DUNGY: What they're saying about coach's departure

• "We are losing one of the all-time great coaches," said Bears coach Lovie Smith, a former Dungy assistant coach and his counterpart in his Super Bowl triumph. "He is one of the modern-day pioneers of our game."

• Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney said, "I think we'll miss his knowledge, what he does. He's a good person. He's the kind of guy you'd want to see in the league. But on the other hand, if he feels it's time for him to move on, then I respect him for it."

• Running back Warrick Dunn, who played for Dungy in Tampa Bay, said, "The good news is that coach Dungy may leave football, but what he's really doing is moving his extraordinary influence to other places. Just like he did for me and for countless other players, he will always be able to help teach young men how to be grown and able men."

• Long-time rival Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots, known for his chilly postgame greetings, said, "People often say that teams reflect their coach, and that can be said of Tony Dungy's teams, which are consistent winners every single year."

Contributing: Jim Corbett, Jarrett Bell, Phil Richards of the Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis Star is owned by Gannett, parent company of USA TODAY

Manning Named MVP

http://views.washingtonpost.com/theleague/nflnewsfeed/2009/01/manning-named-mvp.html

Manning Named MVP
By Mark Maske
January 2, 2009

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was named the NFL's most valuable player today by the Associated Press.

Manning also won the award in 2003 and 2004 and joins New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre as the league's only three-time MVPs. Favre won his awards while with the Green Bay Packers.

Each of the quarterbacks shared the award once, Manning with Steve McNair in 2003 and Favre with Barry Sanders in 1997. Favre's other two awards came in 1995 and '96.

Manning received 32 votes in balloting of media members to far outdistance Miami Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington and Atlanta Falcons tailback Michael Turner, who finished tied for second with four votes each.

Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison and Minnesota Vikings tailback Adrian Peterson got three votes apiece. San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers received two votes, and Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner and Tennessee Titans rookie tailback Chris Johnson each got one.

Manning and the Colts got off to a sluggish start this season after Manning underwent preseason knee surgery. The Colts lost four of their first seven games. But they won their final nine games of the season to secure a playoff spot, and Manning led the way. He threw 27 touchdown passes and 12 interceptions this season while passing for 4,002 yards, and he was the league's fifth-rated passer.

Holiday World plans towering water slide

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080826/NEWS/808260428/1003/BUSINESS

Holiday World plans towering water slide
By Zach Dunkin
Posted: August 26, 2008

Holiday World & Splashin' Safari in Santa Claus, Ind., today announced an $8.9 million expansion that will include the world's tallest water ride for the 2009 season.

Pilgrims Plunge, a classic "shoot the chute" ride, will use an open elevator to lift boats filled with riders 135 feet in the air. The boats will pause briefly and then rapidly descend a record 131 feet at a 45-degree angle, creating a wall of water splashing 45 feet high and 90 feet wide. Its maximum speed will top 50 miles per hour.

In addition, park president Will Koch announced a free HoliWatch program for 2009. The wristband-style radio frequency identification service will serve as locators for families or groups who become separated during their visit.

The expansion project is the second largest in the 63-year history of the park, located 180 miles southwest of Indianapolis.

Contact Star reporter Zach Dunkin at (317) 444-6079.

Indianapolis lands 2012 Super Bowl

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=414004

Indianapolis lands 2012 Super Bowl
May 20, 2008
Sporting News staff reports

The Indianapolis Colts will have home-field advantage should they make it into Super Bowl 46.

Overshadowed by the labor vote, NFL owners also voted Tuesday to grant the 2012 Super Bowl -- if there's no work stoppage -- to Indianapolis. Arizona and Houston were the other finalists in a competition that usually goes to warm-weather cities. The next two Super Bowls are in Tampa and in South Florida.

Indianapolis narrowly lost a bid last May to host the 2011 Super Bowl. Indianapolis will be the fourth Super Bowl in a cold-weather city. Detroit has hosted two Super Bowls, and Minneapolis has hosted one.

Part of the Indianapolis' bid includes a pledge by the city to build a practice facility downtown that will be left in place for local residents to use.

Associated Press contributed to this report

It's still too early to call a winner in Manning vs. Leaf

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/I-say-it-s-still-too-early-to-call-a-winner-in-M?urn=nfl,78868

Thursday, Apr 24, 2008
I say it's still too early to call a winner in Manning vs. Leaf
By MJD

"... this could go down as one of the all-time (screw)-ups."
- Former Chargers GM Bobby Beathard, one year after drafting Ryan Leaf

And the general consensus seems to be that yes, Bobby Beathard did commit one of the all-time (screw)-ups ten years ago when he drafted Ryan Leaf 2nd overall in the 1998 NFL Draft. Probably the all-time (screw)-up.

But I think it really depends on what you're looking for in a draft pick. If you want a quarterback who's a lock to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and you don't want a quarterback who will be out of the league at the age of 26, but not before damaging your franchise in every possible way a player can damage a franchise, then yeah, maybe Bobby Beathard screwed up.

But here's what people fail to see: if Bobby Beathard doesn't make that pick, the West Texas A&M golf team wouldn't have such a capable coach right now. So many draft evaluators fail to take into consideration the needs of the West Texas A&M golf team when handing out their draft grades. I think it's thoughtless and cruel of them.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'll tell you that I'm a Chargers fan, but honestly, I'm past Ryan Leaf. I have no interest in dwelling on the guy, and I wish him the best. I hope the West Texas A&M golf team wins the next 30 national championships. May their grips be firm and their balls be straight.

But on the ten-year anniversary of the great Peyton Manning vs. Ryan Leaf decision, it's still worth looking back and noting just how damaging that day was to the Chargers. It wasn't just a bad draft pick. People had made bad draft picks before. Aundray Bruce. Steve Emtman. Ki-Jana Carter. All bad. All way, way, way better than Ryan Leaf.

If the Chargers could go back in time and take a guy who simply wouldn't make any positive contributions to their team, they'd do it in a second. They literally would have been better off drafting an epileptic plumber who can't read, and just paying him to stay home and watch cartoons and play with his wrench.

Two things made the Leaf pick so disastrous:

1) The amount the Chargers gave up to get him. They were slotted to pick 3rd in the draft, but to move up to the 2nd spot, they had to hand the Arizona Cardinals their #1 pick in the '98 draft, their #1 pick in the '99 draft, their 2nd-round pick in the '98 draft, and two players, Eric Metcalf and Patrick Sapp.

2) Leaf wasn't just worthless as a player, he actually damaged the franchise. If he just couldn't play, that would've been one thing. But players hated playing with him. He constantly clashed with coaches and management. He was causing a new media distraction every week.

The Chargers would have been better off if they'd gone up to the podium on draft day and said, "We pass. We're not going to make a selection. Also, we're going to go back home and burn down our stadium. Thank you, and goodnight."

Look at it this way: the New Orleans Saints had their city and stadium destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and I feel pretty confident in saying that Leaf hurt the Chargers more than Katrina hurt the Saints. Now, as far as I know, the city of San Diego's still doing okay, and the Ryan Leaf era didn't actually come with a death toll. But as far as the effects they had on football alone, Leaf was worse for the Chargers than Katrina was for the Saints.

After picking Leaf, it would be seven years before the Chargers would put up a winning record. It took the franchise seven full years to recover from him. Meanwhile, since drafting Peyton Manning one spot earlier in the same draft, the Colts, other than Manning's rookie season when they went 3-13, have had only one season where they've won fewer than 10 games.

On the flip-side, though, the West Texas A&M golf team just finished in 10th place in the Lone Star Conference Championship. Tenth place ... out of ten teams.

Okay, so maybe Peyton Manning does get the nod.

Related: Peyton Manning, Arizona Cardinals, Indianapolis Colts, New Orleans Saints, San Diego Chargers, NFL Draft

Stagnant home prices boost home affordability

http://biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/070821/082107_most_affordable_metro_areas.html

CNNMoney.com
Stagnant home prices boost home affordability
Tuesday August 21
By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Midwest cities dominated the top of the most affordable, housing markets list, according to the latest survey from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

The report covered the three months ended June 30 and Indianapolis retained its number-one rating among big U.S. cities for being most affordable. Indiana neighbor, Kokomo, ranks first among all 215 markets rated. The highest ranked market outside the region is Cumberland, Maryland, rated 12th.

As for least affordable housing markets, Los Angeles is dead last.

Nationally, home affordability has improved quite a bit over the past year as many markets experienced price declines or stagnation and earnings have increased. To be deemed affordable, housing expenses must be no more than 28 percent of income. Expenses include property taxes and insurance as well as the mortgage payment.

The percentage of homes affordable to the median income household for the nation as a whole increased to 43.1 percent compared with 40.6 percent during the same three months of 2006.

The NAHB survey, done in collaboration with Wells Fargo Bank, bases its affordability ratings on the percentage of new and existing homes sold in the individual markets that were affordable to households earning the median income for that area. It also takes into account mortgage rates.

Thus, Indianapolis's 86.8 rating meant that less than 14 percent of all homes purchased in the metro area were unobtainable by a typical family. By contrast, only 3 percent of Los Angeles homes sold could be comfortably afforded by an average family.

That's despite the fact that median household income for the two metro areas was roughly the same - $63,800 for the Hoosier capital and $61,700 for Angelenos. The difference, of course, was in the median price of homes. In Indianapolis, $122,000 bought the median home compared with $530,000 in Los Angeles.

Nine of the 10 least affordable markets were in California. Salinas (3.7 percent), Merced (3.8 percent), Santa Ana (4.4 percent) and San Francisco (5.7 percent) formed the bottom five. The only outsider to crack the list was New York City with 6.3 percent of homes affordable to median-income households.

Detroit (86.0 percent), Buffalo (84.8 percent) and Cleveland (78.7 percent) were other large metro areas with high affordability numbers.

Most recent home prices

In a survey last week, the National Association of Realtors said that the median price for a single-family home sold during the three months ended June 30 fell to $223,800, 1.5 percent below the price a year ago.

Some of the results of the survey were more positive. More metro area markets - 97 of 149 - gained ground than lost.

One of the four U.S. regions, the Northeast recorded a slight price gain of 0.7 percent. The West lost 0.4 percent, the South 1.6 percent and the Midwest 2.2 percent.

NAR predicts home prices will turn slightly positive again by spring of 2008 and rise about 2 percent that year.

Among individual metro areas, prices in the second quarter plunged most in Elmira, New York, down 17.9 percent to $71,700. Other big losers included Palm Bay, Florida (down 15 percent to $183,300), Davenport, Iowa (down 11.3 percent to $103,300) and Sarasota, Florida (down 11.3 percent to $311,400).