Two things I think I think

I'm a big fan of Peter King's MMQB at CNNSI.com. I don't always agree with Peter, but he's generally entertaining, getting a lot of stuff in. Sometimes it's incisive, sometimes it's banal, sometimes it's silly. But it's almost always interesting.*

Anyway, a couple of things caught my eye from today's piece:

I think, still, that the Dolphins brought Ricky Williams back to try to trade him --- either in October or next offseason.

You can't that kind of incisive analysis just anywhere, you know. Martha Stewart, for example, has probably never opined that the Dolphins will want to trade Williams. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, have Mark Steyn or Hillary Clinton.

(We should probably cut Peter a bit of slack, however, as the NFL's been basically off for the last month, as has he.)

I think the reason I can't get all excited about Lance Armstrong -- and this is not to demean his accomplishments -- is that everything he does is due in large measure to a great team and yet all we hear about is Lance Armstrong. Strikes me that bike racing is a team sport, with all the help the leaders of each team get. And yet individuals get the glory.

I don't know where Peter's been getting his tour de France reporting, but Lance's teammates have been praised - repeatedly - and the team has been praised. But the fact is, there are many great teams, and only one Lance. He won in 1999 and 2000 when they said that he couldn't because his team was too weak. Only one of his teammates, George Hincapie, has been with him for all 7 wins. Roberto Heras was with him and is now leading his own team. Floyd Landis was with him and is now leading his own team. Tyler Hamilton was with him and led his own team last year. Yes, Lance's teammates did a great job and they won the team time trial. Yes, he's had great teamwork from his team in setting the paces on the big climbs. But they didn't put that time on Basso in the individual time trials - Lance did that himself. They didn't put the time on Vinokurov and Ullrich in the mountains - Lance did that himself. Lance is the best of the best, and what he's done the past 10 years is one of those stories that only happen in real-life - it's too unrealistic for fiction...



* - I have no interest in the Montclair softball stuff, but it doesn't bother me - I just don't read it...