Presuming it’s OK to admit that I love the Smurfs, I’ll ask you this: remember that time when the Smurfs always used to take the word “Smurf” and replace it with every other word in their sentences and language in order to be humorous?

Well, ESPN tried that on Monday with Brett Favre playing the role of “the smurf language” and Colin Cowherd playing the role of Gargamel. Or something. Point being: Cowherd set what is, I believe, the record for the most times saying the words “Brett Favre” on a single television show.

ESPN put out a press release prior to this event, they called up the Guinness Book of World Records and they did not seem to care that it would irritate every human being on the planet that was stupid enough to tune into “SportsNation” that afternoon. Why didn’t they care? Richard Deitsch explains via Twitter:

From Nielsen: Vikings-Pack draws a 13.2 national rating. Seen by an average of 21.8 million viewers. Most-watched cable sports telecast ever

In the words of that creepy serial killer from South Park, “DO YOU SEE???? DO YOU????”

Seriously, I’m not exactly sure why I haven’t bothered accepting the fact that — and although I’m generally not superb about acceptance of crappy things sometimes, I feel a little bit better that most of the sane portions of America seem to agree with me — we cannot stop Brett Favre. We cannot kill Brett Favre. We cannot even hope to contain Brett Favre.

He is the unmovable object, etc., etc. And when he ran up against the Vikings on Monday Night Football (if this was the NBA, I’d be blog-winking at David Stern for his amazing skedding powers) everyone watched. Everyone. So, trust me peeps, just follow my lead and stop caring. It feels a lot better even if it shouldn’t.

Yes, you read that correctly: Favre will wear pink cleats on Monday. But it’s not because he lost a bet. Or because he’s trying to express his undying love for Green Bay fans. No, it’s for the very obvious reason that he and the rest of the NFL are doing their best to fight breast cancer.

But Monday won’t be the first time Favre has donned pink. His wife, Deanna, survived breast cancer, and she once asked him to wear a pink hat.

“When I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh, I can’t believe I made him do that.’ But it was awesome that he did,” Deanna Favre said. “He’s tough enough to wear pink.”

Siiiiiiiiiiiigh. Just when we think he’s gone … just when we’re mere weeks away from the start of the season without Favre playing, he comes back. And then just when we think that he’s going to play quietly in Minnesota’s run-first system, he goes and helps Greg Lewis make an amazing catch. And now this.

Not that I’m mad that he’s doing it: it’s an awesome and fantastic show of support for people like his wife who have battled breast cancer, and, believe me, I think that athletes should do this as much as possible. It’s just that, well, when you combine this with the recent GB newspaper polls indicating that Favre is still more popular in the area than Aaron Rodgers, well, you have to wonder if he’ll ever go away.

The answer to that thought? He really might not. But at least this year while he’s hanging around, he’s actually turning into a likable guy again. (See, Brett? That wasn’t that hard.)

Last night, in the first MNF game of the season, the Patriots and Bills rocked old-school uniforms as part of one of the NFL’s “Legacy Games.” These matchups are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the original eight AFL teams this season. Usually throwback uniforms are pretty cool. Last night was no exception.

Except for the refs. The refs were subjected to these outfits:

As at least two bloggers (Sports Hernia, Tom Maz) have already pointed out, the refs are apparently doubling as the wait staff at TGI Fridays.

Now who wants some buffalo wings?

Jon Gruden’s hiring at ESPN as the new Mr. Tony has everyone in the sports media world all a-twitter (both literally and metaphorically in some cases). It’s an awesome move for ESPN, because the much-maligned Kornheiser gets to move peacefully out of the way, and the World Wide Leader actually finds someone who should create a booth without a tremendously weak link for the first time in a while.

But here’s the thing — and, full disclosure, this is more of a collaborative brain trust effort between MDS, Ryan Wilson and I than it is my own: what if Gruden is just a placeholder for Matt Millen? Seriously, think about it.

Gruden has side-stepped questions about the length of his contract and his intended stay at ESPN, utilizing the excuse of being “short-term-focused” as a way of saying “kindly stop asking that question immediately, thank you,” even when speaking to his future broadcasting partner. (Props to Tirico for actually asking that, by the way.)

As the Times mentioned yesterday, all of Gruden’s speak, in fact, circulates around just being on the set of MNF for one year. But in the face of so many poor choices for America’s most popular football show, you would think that ESPN might consider some long-term planning.

Which is exactly where Millen comes in: As MDS pointed out last night, Matt Millen is a freaking fantastic announcer. He’s actually a really good guy too. He’s just considered a “boob” because of his incomparable blunders in the Lions’ front office. And there’s nothing wrong with thinking that, because it’s accurate.

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You know what I was going to do for a second? I was going to try and argue — get this — that Tony Kornheiser wasn’t all that bad during his time as an analyst on Monday Night Football. I sort of believed it, just for a split second, and I thought, hey, that’s an angle, Ryan will like that, I should give it a shot. Why not, right?

And then I answered my own question. And then I started writing this.

Tony’s leaving MNF now. He was there for three seasons. If you were to picture the good will Kornheiser had in regards to his position as the third man in the broadcast booth, it would have peaked right around when the gig was announced. It would have dipped a bit and stayed steady through Season 1. And then it would have plummeted. Unceasingly. Right now it’s probably at its all-time low. So at least Kornheiser recognized the situation. That’s something.

The official excuse for the resignation is the travel schedule, which makes sense; Kornheiser is famously fearful of flight, and the West Coast games on the schedule would have forced him aboard. But it’s also hard not to think that Kornheiser was tired of being so bad at something.

He’s so good at everything else. He was a great columnist. He’s great on “PTI.” His radio show was excellent. His Monday Night Football work was none of those things. It was not the funny, off-the-cuff, intelligent Kornheiser, the guy giggling with Wilbon over some arbitrary odds contest. It was someone different. It was a guy that takes everything way too seriously, that believes that every tiny little development in the game — Player X gets hurt, and later returns — is worthy of an attempt at “Can you believe that?” catcalls. These are just regular season football games on Monday night, and yet Kornheiser always felt the need to create some overarching, faux-poetic storyline whether it existed or not. It went against what viewers saw. They hated it.

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Last night, the Panthers rushing attack got straight up LOOSE on the Tampa Bay Bucs, grinding them out for more than 300 yards. And while that was the “important” story from a football sense, the sickest thing that happened all night was Antonio Bryant catching a touchdown in the fourth quarter to bring the Bucs within seven … and doing it with what is probably going down as the best football catch of 2008:

Of course, if Jeff Garcia had as accurate an arm as the Panthers fan who zinged a beer can at Emmitt Smith Steve Young during the post-game discussion (vid after the jump) then Bryant probably wouldn’t have had to use just one hand.

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It occurred to me last night, while in the middle of trying to utilize three bottles of Nyquil to tone out Tony Kornheiser and his horrible commentary, that if Barack Obama can swing into office and start trying to implement a college football playoff system, and if Dubya can waste taxpayer money chasing athletes who use steroids, why the heck can’t our government intervene into the free market of televised football and do something about the torture that currently is Mr. Tony on MNF?

Exactly. They should be able to. So, without further ado, the five point Kornheiser Doctrine designed to save Monday Night Football from another season of you-know-who’s awful work in the booth.

1. Beginning immediately, all Monday Night Football games featuring Mr. Tony will begin at 11 pm.

Will we, as a football watching nation, suffer irreparable Tuesday morning damages by being forced to stay awake until 2 a.m. to start the week just to catch the end of the game? Oh hells yes we will. But have you seen the Thanksgiving-like semi-coma that Mr. Tony slips into after 11? Just like “free speech” and other ludicrous notions, it’s widespread suffering for the betterment of the nation. (Yes, we’re willing to concede that should there be a double header, Mr. Tony is actually better than the Three Mikes and may start at the normal time.)

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