Torrey Smith, "The Last Time", and the best commissioner in sports

Disclaimer 1: Sorry I forgot my picks column yesterday. I did write them down, just never posted them. Went 6-9 through the first 15 games of the weekend. My "Lock of the Week" was Saints over Chiefs. We saw how that turned out.

Disclaimer 2: This isn't a recap of the Patriots game yesterday. My quick opinions: officiating was equally horrendous for both sides and therefore cannot be blamed for the loss. Try more handing the ball off to Danny Woodhead 15 times for just 34 yards, including some inexplicable run calls in the 4th quarter. Whether the kick was good or not, we may never know. 

Torrey Smith's performance last night could be described with one word: Favreian, as I tweeted last night. What's the correlation? Remember when the gunslinger played a nationally televised night game just a day after his father's death, torching the Raiders for 399 yards? Smith, in case you didn't hear, dealt with the loss of his younger brother in the early morning hours of Sunday. It would have been easy for him to take the game off and tend to his family. Instead? 6 catches, 127 yards, 2 touchdowns. He's another level of mental toughness I can't even begin to explain, just that it's Favreian.

Okay, now for the Patriots aspect of things. One of my favorite games to play is "the last time". Like, "the last time this happened, that happened." And it has to be something mind-boggling. For example: "before this season, the last time the Orioles had a winning record, Seinfeld was still in its 9th season and Hong Kong was still under British rule" or "the last time Frank Ryan won anything meaningful in fantasy sports, both members of the Levin family got straight A's." Only one of these scenarios is true, by the way.

What's this "the last time" for? The Patriots currently sit at 1-2, below .500. The last time they were below .500 at any point in a season? September 7, 2003, when the team was blown out by the Buffalo Bills in Week 1, 31-0. Consider the last time the Patriots were below .500,

• Drew Bledsoe was the starting quarterback for the Bills that day.

• Among other starting quarterbacks that weekend: Patrick Ramsey, Quincy Carter, Tommy Maddox, and Jeff Blake

• David Wells out-dueled Jeff Suppan, as the Yankees beat the Red Sox 3-1. Mariano Rivera earned save no. 276 on his career, a total he's since more than doubled to 608.

• The following Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks were still in college: Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, and Aaron Rodgers.

• The first NHL lockout hadn't even happened yet!

• Boston College, Miami, Virginia Tech, West Virginia were still in the Big East; Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M, and Missouri were still in the Big XII, and Penn State's losing streak was only at 62 games.

• Major combat had been over in Iraq for nearly 4 months. Seriously, look it up.

• "Shake Ya Tailfeather" by Nelly, Diddy, and Murphy Lee was no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. "P.I.M.P" by 50 Cent was no. 4

• I'm not sure what the demographics of are the blog these days, what the split of readers is between Hingham and Rhode Island, but I'd guess that less than half of the people reading this knew who I was. In fact, some of you were at least 6 years away from getting to know me, at least.

• Two and a Half Men would be making its series premier in three weeks

• There were only 313 episodes of The Simpsons. We're now at 508, with Season 23 set to premier this coming Sunday.

• Carly Rae Jepsen was a senior in high school.

Get the idea? It's been awhile. 

Now on to the most pressing of issues: Who's the best commissioner in professional sports right now? Is it Gary Bettman, who's league is currently in it's third work stoppage under his watch, and looking at a second cancelled season? 

Is it David Stern, who infamously vetoed the Chris Paul deal to the Lakers, almost lost an entire NBA season, dealt with the Tim Donaghy scandal, who's almost certainly rigged some draft lotteries, and let the SuperSonics literally be stolen from Seattle?

Is it Bud Selig, a man who's cancelled the World Series, declared the all-star game a tie, dealt with (by far) the most rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs of the four leagues, and currently has a post-season format for the Divisional Series (this season, anyways) where the team with home-field advantage won't play a home game until Game 3 of the series? And these are 5 gamers.

Or is it perhaps Roger Goodell, the man in charge of the most popular of the leagues, the one who's dealing with so much fallout from concussion lawsuits the league has been turning an eye on for years, the one who's league brought in roughly $10 billion in revenue a year ago, yet won't pay professional referees a matter of $5 million more per season, a man who despite all we've learned about concussions wants to add two regular-season games, a man who by letting these replacement officials run around, has essentially turned the league into the WWF? Yet another commissioner who almost lost a season due to a lockout? A man who's had no checks and balances in handing out punishments for players, most notably the Saints bounty scandal?

I defy you to come up with an answer for this one, because I sure as hell can't tell who it is. Be sure to vote in the poll. At the top of the page.

PS I have absolutely no idea who the MLS commissioner is, or if they even have one, but props to him for staying out of the headlines. Although with all sports in such disarray at the top, wouldn't this be an excellent opportunity for soccer to enter the mainstream in America? If not now, then never.