Mrs. Linklater -- Your Weekend Sports Anchor

Twice in recent weeks, Sports Illustrated has had members of the New England Patriots on the cover of their magazine. Once it was Tom Brady and just now they featured the linebackers. So far the SI curse hasn't kicked in. Usually it doesn't take much for an appearance on the cover to adversely affect the person or team that's featured. Usually win streaks end or batting slumps begin -- pretty much anything good that's going on comes to an immediate halt. But so far, nothing of the sort has affected the Patriots' undefeated record. Maybe the cover curse is just on a delay. Let's see what happens this weekend. Ha -- bet they have a bye.

Brian Griese went down with a shoulder injury during the Bears' game last weekend. The way he went down usually means that someone missed a block. Yessirree. When the play that injured Griese was reviewed it turns out that Cedric Benson, the Bears overrated, underperforming running back blew his blocking assignment. Usually he comes out on pass plays because of his suspect skills, but not this time. What were they thinking? He might suddenly be effective? I think players should be fined when a missed assignment causes the quarterback to go down and out.That money can be sent to me for safekeeping. It might offer them a little incentive to work harder. In college I'd rescind a player's scholarship. Or sit him down for a long long time. In high school I'd bench a kid for the season if the QB went down for good because that kind of mistake. Yeah, I'd be one tough MF if I were a football coach.

If I go to bed early I'm guaranteed to wake up in time to catch Poker After Dark. It's happened enough times that I'm becoming familiar with all the big names -- Ivey, Lederer, Hellmuth, Harman, all of whom are named Phil, Gus, and Howard I think. There's also Jennifer Tilley's boyfriend the Unabomber, and a female player with short blond hair. The group plays for $120,000, winner take all. Every week there's a new group of bigime players. The play by play guy talks in jargon so I have no idea what's going on most of the time, until someone gets up, shakes hands with everyone and there's one less person at the table. I wonder if I could get in a game at the local senior center.

Since the last time I played poker was in junior high for safety matches, it's been a long learning curve for me. Not to mention this is all taking place in the middle of the night, I'mhalf asleep and basically just watching TV to kill time until I crash again. There's only one player that seems like he could pass for a regular person and that's Phil Ivey. He doesn't have strange hair, long hair or hair on his face. He doesn't wear shades. He doesn't wear a cowboy hat. He doesn't have an obnoxious personality. He does wear a wedding ring. By comparison, everybody else seems like a character out of a bad detective novel. Kind of like me.

I see by the clock on the wall this entry is over. Time to haul up the anchor, Mrs. L's weekend sports report is officially toast.