Ten Things I Think I Think

	Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga (right) introduces new coach Cam Cameron. AP
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1. I think these are my quick-hit thoughts of Championship weekend:

a. Sounds like Tiki Barber might be headed to the peacock, unless FOX stands in the way.

b. Mike Shula interviewing in Miami ... Let's understand what happened here. The Dolphins weren't interested in Shula being their head coach, not after a 26-23 record at Alabama, which translates to something like a 19-40 record in the NFL. My take: the Dolphins did father and son a favor here, getting Mike's name out there to help him rehab his image after a rough go at Alabama and, they hope, helping him get an NFL assistant's job or decent college head job.

c. Jim Mora really wanted that Miami job.

d. I still say, with conviction, that Nick Saban would still be the Miami coach today if he'd picked Brees over Daunte Culpepper last March.

e. I like Cam Cameron. Bright, tough enough, and a good teacher. But anyone who coaches in Miami is going to have to deal with the drumbeat of Bill Cowher taking over  in 2009.

f. Memo to Wayne Huizenga: We understand you're committed to winning, because every time you speak about the Dolphins, the first thing you say is you're committed to winning and you're all about winning. Three weeks ago, you said, "The Dolphins have always been about winning, and it's really about winning now.'' On Friday, you said when you hired Cameron: "He definitely is committed to winning ... and we are committed to winning. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, we want to win.'' But do you have to say at every public event that you're committed to winning? Doesn't it go without saying that you're committed to winning? Isn't every team in the NFL committed to winning? When the Cardinals announced their coach, did Bill Bidwill say, "We'd sort of like to win?'' When the Falcons announced their coach, did Arthur Blank say, "Winning's important, but it's not the end of the world?''

g. Nice job on the Tomlin story, Mike Silver.

h. Everything I hear about Tomlin is good. I mean, everything.

i. I still am getting pelted with e-mail and questions from fans about why Brian Westbrook didn't make the Pro Bowl. Pretty simple. Three running backs make it per conference. In the NFC, Westbrook was the fourth-leading rusher, behind Frank Gore, Tiki Barber and Steven Jackson, and he wasn't just nipped in the NFC rushing race. He trailed third-place Jackson by 311 yards. That's 19.5 yards per game fewer than any of the three who made it. Now let's move to rushing-receiving yards. Jackson 2,334, Gore, 2,180, Barber 2,127, Westbrook 1,906. Where's the injustice?

j. Speaking of the Pro Bowl, we don't write enough about what an idiotic game it is. For the non-playoff participants, there will be a 41-day gap between football games. Most of those players won't touch a football until they get to Hawaii a few days before a game. How can they play hard? Football is a game of passion, and who can have passion when you're not in peak shape and no one on earth cares who wins? I say the game should fade away. Don't play it.

k. I wonder if Access Hollywood will have a full-time Tom Brady/Gisele Bundchen beat reporter.

2. I think the San Diego Chargers have to be kidding. They offered Marty Schottenheimer a one-year contract extension for 2008, at $4.5 million, with only $1 million guaranteed. Here's what that offer says: Marty, please don't take this. We're only offering it so neither side can say you're being forced to come back and coach as a lame duck. You are coaching as a lame duck, but at least we're leaving the impression that we offered you a deal for 2008.

What great motivation this is for Schottenheimer. Imagine him winning the AFC next year, then being a 64-year-old coaching free agent. He gambled on himself. I doubt whatever happens next year he'll be an $8 million-a-year coach anywhere, but unless the Chargers tank next fall, he'll get a job somewhere for more than the $4.5 million he would have made in San Diego anyway ... and he'll go somewhere, likely, with everyone on the same page.

Bottom line: If you're going to offer a coach a contract extension, make it a legitimate one, not a papier-mache one.

One other thing about the Chargers: President Dean Spanos was upset at the media for reporting during the season that he "expected'' the Chargers would go deep into the playoffs. When they didn't, he said he was "disappointed'' they didn't go deep into the playoffs.

"I said early on that I'd be disappointed if we didn't go deep into the playoffs. I don't remember saying I expect to go deep," Spanos chided the press last Wednesday. "There's a big difference there.'' 

Let me understand this. Spanos was disappointed his team didn't go deep into the playoffs. But he didn't expect the team to go deep into the playoffs? If you know the difference, Dean, then you went to Rhetoric University and I didn't.

3. I think I have been neglectful is praising one of the great TV sports series I've ever seen, the NFL Films set of 20 one-hour programs, America's Game: The Super Bowl Champions.

A panel of 50 media and football people voted for the best Super Bowl teams of all time, and NFL Films put together one-hour shows on each of the top 20 teams, using three players or coaches to look back on the year that team had, plus the Super Bowl game it played. I watched my fourth of the first eight shows the other night, the number 13 New York Giants of 1986, with old footage and new analysis by Bill Parcells, Lawrence Taylor (Mr. Candor in this thing) and Phil Simms.

Taylor had this to say on the injury-ravaged Simms early in his career: "He was one of those guys I thought who drank tea with his pinky up.'' In other words, a wimp, Taylor thought.

Simms on what he said to Parcells when the coach picked Scott Brunner to play over him in 1983: "I can't play for you. You gotta trade me.''

Parcells to his team, emotionally, after the Super Bowl win over Denver: "The rest of your life men! The rest of yet life! Nobody can ever tell you you couldn't do it, because you did it!''

A great hour of TV, the same way the others I've seen have been.