The Chat House

Sports News

Welcome to another edition of The Chat House where Post columnist Michael Wilbon was online Monday, Jan. 14 at 1:15 p.m. ET to take your questions and comments about the latest sports news and his recent columns.

The transcript follows.

Discussion Archive

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washingtonpost.com: Michael will begin answering questions around 1:30.

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Durango, Colo: Playoff football, man! Can it get better next week? There's just such a difference between regular season and championship playoffs, in any sport. Wow! Excuse me, please.

Michael Wilbon: Good afternoon everybody...I'm doing something strange today: Chatting from home...Well, from the PTI studios in downtown D.C. First time for that since, oh, last May. We'll jump right into the NFL weekend. For the first time, I think, since 1982 I didn't cover an NFL playoff game on the Division Playoff weekend. Too sick to get out of bed between Thursday and last night..never left home and never left the TV set...If there was a weekend to be sucking down chicken soup day and night this was it...

As for can the playoffs get better next weekend, the answer is, "No!" No chance. Becuase this past weekend might be the best in sports. Right up there with the first weekend of March Madness. I don't see either of the conference championship games being thrillers, to tell you the truth. I think the Patriots are MUCH better than the Chargers, who will be traveling across the country for the second straight weekend, and the Packers are quite a bit better than the Giants, though that's certainly up for debate if Eli Manning can, once again, avoid throwing picks.

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Middletown, Md.: Mike, Marion Jones' fall from grace...Is their anything more embarrassing to the young women in track and field, or for that matter the entire sport?

Michael Wilbon: It's embarassing, I presume, to Miss Jones. Why would it embarass anybody else?

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Richmond, Va.: How is it that Snyder can be such a brilliant businessman, yet not know how to get out of the way and hire a brilliant football op's guy to run his team. With Gibbs gone as President of Football op's, who now handles this function? Shouldn't he be focusing on filling that role then allow that person to pick the next coach? If Snyder plays that role, as he tried to do in the past with Cerrato, it does not matter who the coach is...the Redskins will be heading backwards!

Michael Wilbon: Look, I've been beating that drum for 10 years, literally. Look at what the Atlanta Falcons just did...They hired one of the Patriots top talent evaluators and made him GM and he'll oversee the football operation...This isn't a new issue and I doubt Dan Snyder sees the need to do the same.

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Washington, DC: Both the Colts and Bucs rested their starters at the end of the season and paid for it in the playoffs, while the Giants played as if everything was on the line during their meeting with the Patriots, and are now in the NFC Championship.

Any lessons here?

Michael Wilbon: Good question. Answer: Yes, keep playing. Throw the Cowboys into that first group, too.

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Sterling, Va.: I want to find a team to root for the next couple weeks (default from the Skins), but a lot of these players/games just become annoying to me. I could go the rest of the playoffs without a cut-in of Rivers yelling at someone or strutting to fans, Tom Coughlin constantly whining, or Rodney Harrison being Rodney Harrison. Am I just being a bitter fan because my team is out, or do you feel the same way?

Michael Wilbon: My team (the Bears) is out, too. You just sound bitter, though I agree completely with you about Rivers always yelling at people. He needs to stop acting like a Yahoo and play. He hasn't won enough to run his mouth non-stop.

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Arlington, Va.: So who's the better QB, Eli Manning or Phillip Rivers?

Michael Wilbon: Six on one hand, half-dozen on another. I see little if any bottom-line difference.

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Capitol Hill: No one gave the Chargers a chance at beating Indy and, with their backups playing, they did the unthinkable and beat Indy. Now everyone is saying that they have no chance at beating the Pats. Now with all due respect to the Pats and what they've accomplished, do you really think that the Chargers have zero chance to beat the Pats?

Michael Wilbon: Let me say this as carefully as I can: The Chargers have no chance, zero, to beat the Patriots. I know, how smug is that? You're assertion is right on the money. Of the four games this weekend, if you asked me to rank the games in terms of how certain I was of the victor, I would have told you, Colts, Patriots, Packers, Giants...That would have been my list...How wrong was I? How wrong were most of us. All Hail to Norv Turner, who has done exactly what Marty Schottenheimer couldn't. I'm absolutely happy for Norv and the Chargers played their butts off WITHOUT their two most important players, LT and Mouthy QB Philip Rivers. I never would have guessed it. The Colts had to be the disappointing team of the weekend, right? Even moreso than the Cowboys, I would say.

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Milwaukee, WI: A message to the person who doesn't know who to root for this weekend. The Packers. It's that easy, right Michael?

Michael Wilbon: Well, if you're from Milwaukee I guess it's easy enough to root for the Packers. Look, I HATE the Packers...It's my birthright as a Bears fan. But I see the ease with which somebody could root for Brett Favre and the Packers. There are several guys on the Giants I've known personally for years and years, like Strahan and Toomer, and come to be friendly with...So I have nothing whatsoever against the Giants. As a sportswriter, you tend to root for people who help you do your job and there are players and coaches on the Giants I know well and would like to see do well. But the Packers are easily a sentimental favorite.

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Arlington, Va.: Still too early to talk about college basketball in general (and Georgetown in specific)?

Michael Wilbon: How 'bout them Hoyas? Wow. Roy Hibbert's form on that jump shot was perfect. Feet set, legs, up, release, spin...What a shot. You can tell that kid practices that shot. Georgetown is really good and I'm excited about watching them all season, like watching Maryland for 10 straight years or so...This year's Maryland team is going to struggle, but it's still a little early for me to start breakin' down college games...Once we get beyond the Super Bowl I'll lock in, but not until then.

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Boston: Celtics looking more vulnerable after losses to the Bobcats and Wizards?

Michael Wilbon: Yep...Look, the Celtics and Pistons are still on a collision course in the Eastern Conference but this stuff about the Celtics winning 70 games was and is nonsense. They're not THAT great. The longer the season goes the more opponents figure out how to counteract what any great team does well.

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Fairfax, Va.: Who do you feel is the best coach for the Redskins to hire given their current situation?

Michael Wilbon: I have no idea because I don't cover the NFL anymore to the extent that I know who the best coordinators are on each staff. Once upon a time, when I was The Post's NFL beat writer, I knew that stuff, but not anymore. I'm not going to just throw out famous names for the hell of it. The best coach for the Redskins is some energetic young work-a-holic who's imaginative offensively and has a sense of who the up-and-coming assistants are...

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Washington, D.C.: Mike: What matchup between athletes in their prime would you most want to see? Tiger Woods vs. Jack Nicklaus; Muhammad Ali vs. Mike Tyson; Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Sugar Ray Leonard; or Roger Federer vs. Rod Laver.

Michael Wilbon: Very nice question...I'd like to see all of them...Federer vs. Laver or Federer vs. John McEnroe or Federer vs. Bjorn Borg...I'd take any of those matchups...But I'd probably prefer 1965 Ali vs. 1939 Joe Louis most of all.

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El Segundo, Calif.: Michael,

What do you think of the comments made by Kelly Tilghman? And her suspension?

Michael Wilbon: Glad you asked...Kelly is my friend, first and foremost. I hated that she said what she did (the reference to lynching Tiger in an alley). It's a bad sentence to utter, no question, no qualifiers. But I know Kelly and I have no reservations standing up for who she is, who she's been, her work and her professionalism. She feels badly about saying it, and I think everything should be viewed in context. It's not like Kelly has some history of this, or at any time has she been involved in off-color story-telling. I worry every day about uttering something into a live microphone that's regrettable...and I'm on live TV a lot less than she is...Anyway, I don't think a suspension of that nature was warranted. And I certainly don't believe Rev. Al Sharpton's call for Kelly to be fired. Rev. Al really did his homework; he thought Kelly was a guy.

When I first heard the reference,lynching in a back alley, my first thought was that Kelly didn't know anything about the history of lynching black men in America...We weren't lynched in alleys, or in urban areas. Lynchings were rural events, very far from alleys...Still, if you're black the word "lynching" sends a chill up your spine. It does mine. But again, I hope in short time people will be back to listening to Kelly bring us professional golf, which she does very well.

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Alexandria, Va.: What are your thoughts about the mega extension that Alexander Ovechkin just signed (13 years, $124 million)?

Michael Wilbon: It's smart to wrap up one of the five best players in the NHL. Applause for Ted Leonsis.

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State College, PA: For the match-up question ... how about an ABA Dr. J. vs. 1988 MJ in a game of one-on-one to 20?

Michael Wilbon: Oh, I'd be down for that...1973 Julius vs. 1988 MJ...You could sell that on Pay-per-view.

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M Street NW, Washington, D.C.: Re: Historical matchups.

How about Babe Ruth the pitcher v. Babe Ruth the batter?

Michael Wilbon: Naaaa...If we're going pitcher-hitter, I want Ruth vs. Satchel Paige...Yes sir...

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19-0: Is there anybody you know rooting for the Patriots to win it all, just to see what everyone never thought could ever happen?

Michael Wilbon: Kornheiser's been rooting for this since April.

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DC: You got to admit, Mike, that the Wizards look pretty darn good right now. The fact that they're sitting pretty right now without their best player and beating a team like Boston is pretty impressive. When Gilbert gets back can't you see them making a run for the Eastern Conference finals.

Michael Wilbon: The Wizards look great. Just great. And they're to be commended for being two games over .500 with Arenas missing most of the season and with Butler missing a couple of games. They run the offense efficiently. They're making a greater effort on defense. There's no knuckleheaded play going on. Brendan Haywood has given a greater effort...I'm really impressed by the Wizards hanging in there.

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Boston: What was the most surprising thing to you over the NFL divisional weekend? Why is it so compelling? Do the people running NCAA DI football watch these games?

Michael Wilbon: Great question...I get the feeling that the college presidents, most of them, don't even know the NFL has reached the post-season. They're that smug, a great many of them. The Colts losing was the biggun' for me.

Okay, gotta run. But not without first saying something about Coach Joe Gibbs and his second departure from the Redskins. I don't know that it's ever happened that a coach has retired and is already in the Hall of Fame. The Redskins didn't win big on his watch the second time, but the team is better off with him having been here again. The cupboard is certainly not bare. It seems to close a second chapter on one of the great stories in Washington sports history.

See you next week everybody.

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Arlington, Va.: Wow -- I know it's football playoff season, but that win by the Wiz over Boston was huge. Everything this team has been lacking the last 4 or 5 years was on display. Tough defense, focus, physical play. And on the second night of back-to-backs following an O.T. game. Very encouraging.

Michael Wilbon: Okay, this will be the last word...Bye

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