A lot of people will say that the NFL preseason is meaningless. Yes, win-loss records in the preseason are meaningless, but as a whole, the preseason has a lot of significance in my mind, much like spring training for baseball. Here’s why: if you’re having trouble executing in practice games, chances are you’re not going to magically turn things around in real games. The converse would be the case for dominating performances, much like that of the Green Bay Packers this preseason.

In case you’ve missed it, the Packers have been the most dominating team in the preseason this year. They’re 3-0 and coming off a win over the Arizona Cardinals on Friday night, 44-37. Yes, put the record aside and just look at the straight facts that bear the significance. In 12 possessions this preseason, Green Bay’s first-team offense has scored nine touchdowns and kicked one field goal, and they didn’t even have to punt the other two drives. Aaron Rodgers is 28/37 for 458 yards, 6 touchdowns and no interceptions. And it’s not just the first-team offense that’s getting it done; the first-team defense held the Cards to 10 points in the first half and they shutout both the Browns and Bills.

Yes I realize that these statistics and records are meaningless towards the regular season but there’s no doubt in my mind that the Packers are ready to roll and dominate this year. Want to know another offense that looked this good in the preseason? The Saints last year, and their quarterback threw for over 5,000 yards. You heard it hear first — the Packers are poised to take the NFC North.

Chad Ochocinco aka Chad Johnson has officially become the Gilbert Arenas of the NFL. By that, I mean the guy has become bigger for what he does off the athletic field than what he does on it, but he’s good enough for us to respect his work on the field. The difference is that Gilbert became the first athlete to maximize the reach of a blog while Chad’s using twitter. Oh yeah, and Chad’s taking his twitter game to a new level — that of NFL reporter.

After holding out for the first three weeks of the pre-season, Bengals first-round pick Andre Smith finally signed with the team. Where was the first place the news broke? Ocho’s twitter account. As if that wasn’t enough, Ocho also did some investigative journalism to check on the status of Tom Brady who got hurt in his pre-season game against the Redskins. Couple those two news items with Chad’s tweets reaching out to Barack and Oprah and it’s pretty clear that this guy is doing everything he can to build the Ocho brand.

Lastly, in case you missed it last week, Chad’s been trying to find a loophole in NFL policy so that he can tweet to his followers during games. His latest idea is to fly one of his fans to each game and develop a system of hand signals so that the fan can tweet on behalf of Ocho during games. Sure sounds like his head is in the right place, right? I guess this is only the next level up from touchdown celebrations.

Earlier in the week we presented video of a two-second knockout and I thought that was impressive. What the fans in Portland saw at UFC 102 on Saturday night was pretty cool too. After not touching gloves before the fight, Todd Duffee caught Tim Hague with a jab to start the fight and pounced after knocking him down. The result was a record 7-second knockout. Check it:

I don’t know if they’ll get the “Fight of the Night” reward but they’ll probably be up there. Maybe it will go to Couture and Nogueira who went the distance.

Randy Couture and Minotauro Nogueira went the full three rounds at UFC 102 in Portland and the decision was unanimous in favor of Nogueira. Despite chants from the crowd in favor of Couture, Nogueira came out ahead. He put together a sweet knockdown in the third round and proceeded to play volleyball with Couture’s head. It was quite the classic. Here are the first two rounds of the fight:

Even at 46-years-old, Couture still showed he has plenty left in the tank. They really put on a good show at the Rose Garden and proved once again how worthwhile some of these PPV buys are.

It was a big night for the Golden Sombrero on Friday night and all three told a story. Jim Thome was a pretty notable inductee to the Club going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts against the Yanks. Thome went down looking the first time and swinging the next three times as the White Sox lost 5-2 in 10 innings, dropping under .500 for the season. Incidentally, Thome got the lone hit for the White Sox when they got one-hit by the Yankees on Saturday. At two games under .500, you can pretty much bury the White Sox playoff hopes unless they get Rockies-hot.

Jeff Mathis did his usual work for the Angels on Friday night, going 0-for-4 with four punch-outs. In a lineup full of seven .300 hitters and Howie Kendrick hitting in the .270s, Mathis is the eye-sore when they sub him in for Mike Napoli. The one good part about Mathis’ night was that he went down hacking each time, but the real kick in the balls must have been in the 7th inning when Mathis made two of the three outs while the rest of the team batted around. Ouch.

Lastly, on a night where we had two full on sombreros, Travis Snider of the Blue Jays must be mentioned for taking the collar going 0-for-4 with four Ks. His only redeeming point was that he walked once. Every time Snider punched out he ended the inning with one, including in the 9th with the bases loaded against Jonathan Papelbon to end the game. Talk about a crowning achievement.

What else can we add to the resume of Rich Rodriguez? Recruiting and playing badboys Pacman Jones and Chris Henry — check. Recruiting a known drug dealer to play quarterback — check. Breaking NCAA practice rules? Check.

Players on the 2008 and 2009 teams described training and practice sessions that far exceeded limits set by the NCAA, which governs college athletics.
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The players say they routinely are required to work out or practice many more hours throughout the year than the NCAA allows. They also say members of Rodriguez’s staff have broken rules by monitoring off-season scrimmages.

Hmm, how was it that Rich Rodriguez had a leg up on the competition when he was at West Virginia? Pretty easy if you’re spending about two-three times the amount of time with the team than the NCAA allows, especially if most programs are coming closer to the limit (I’m guessing most push and surpass the limit, but not by this amount). Actually the veteran players say the team followed the rules under Lloyd Carr. Student-athlete my butt — Rich Rod’s there for one reason — to run the football team at professional standards. Michigan sold its soul to the Rod and now they’ll likely pay the punishment price.