I don't know a lot about the new NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.  But I am now convinced that either Goodell is out of his mind or he finally has found the way to kill the golden goose known as the NFL.

According to USA Today, Goodell says the league is exploring options for having the Super Bowl take place outside of the the U.S. (but not until 2012)  Among the viable options are Toronto, Mexico City or London.

HAVE YOU GONE INSANE, SIR?  Look, Rog, I'm glad the NFL wants to increase their foreign market share, but really.  This is the NFL.  It is the most popular sport in America.  And yet you want to take its' championship game and send it to (gulp) Mexico?  Or Canada, where they play with twelve men on the field?  Or England, where football is played on a pitch and they score about as often as often as Bill Clinton with Hilliary? 

The Super Bowl, besides being the American day of excess (Marti Gras is a week), is profoundly American.  And the communities that host the game collect room taxes and food taxes and rent a car taxes and reinvest them in their communities.  The economic impact of a Super Bowl in a city is gynormous.  And yet,  you'd rather subsidize Mexico (a country we are already subsidizing in many ways) or Canada (whose economic system is what we in this country choose to avoid).

Do you expect football fans to attend this game outside our borders?  Not the privileged, celebrity, deep pocketed, white collar, jet set elite that you pine for, but Joe fan, who swears off lunch for two years so he can pay the king's ransom to get a nosebleed seat so he can watch the Colts or Bears play in the big game.  You expect Joe, who is being scalped for $1,500 a seat to compound his misery and financial loss by hopping a plane for Mexico or London or driving across the border?  You expect Americans to be proud that you think that their soil is not good enough for your championship game? 

Rog, look.  If you want to play a meaningless. pre-season game in some other country, it's okay with me.  Hell, play in Iraq for all I care.  But take the Super Bowl off the American plantation and you will have a serious backlash.  If you want to have the Super Bowl in a place that's foreign and has different customs and doesn't speak English, do what the NCAA does: Hold the game in Indianapolis.

Lightning Round:

• Provided Tom Skilling got the memo, the White Sox meet the Angels tonight at the House that Greed Built.
• Detroit relief pitcher Joel Zumaya stops yelling at the umpire long enough to yell at himself.
• Tonight in the Chase for Lord Stanley's Cup, it's the shell shocked New York Rangers against the frisky Buffalo Sabres.  Buffalo will do themselves a big favor if they come out in the first period like Ottawa came out after New Jersey last night.  Out west, the Ducks entertain the still tired Vancouver Canucks.  Right now the Canucks have two objectives: Keep the crease clear in front of goalie Roberto Luongo and put a few biscuits in the basket. Lately, the Canucks offense has been about as effective as Dan Imus at an NAACP meeting.
• Don't believe all that talk you hear about the trade talks heating up for Lance Briggs.  It's most likely just Dru Rosenhaus spreading disinformation.
• If you are a Bears fan, this is what Lovie Smith dreams about.
• I'm sorry, son, but here at the University of Illinois, we only recruit the best basketball players and you are not one, I'm afraid.  Wait, a minute, your daddy is who?  And he'll come to games garnering us a lot of national attention?  And he'll contribute how much to hide it from your mother?  Welcome to the University of Illinois, Jeffrey!
• If you know BC football, then you know Jack.
• Former Imus producer Bernard McGuirk went on Fox last night with some sharp words regarding his and Don Imus' dismissal from MSNBC and CBS.  McGuirk says the Rev. Al Sharpton "terrorized broadcast executives" into firing both Imus and him.  And while McGuirk admits some accountability for "hogate", he does believe that Sharpton had a major role in the situation being blown out of proportion.  No argument there, Bernie.
  
• Not that Mike Huckabee has any chance at all of being elected President, but this will either be a major scandal blown out of proportion by the left or get him endorsed by the NRA.
• For those who enjoy my current job status, here are fifty options that you may not have thought about.
• A student in the Chicago suburbs wrote an essay that disturbed his teacher so much, the kid was arrested.  Memo to reactionaries: The kid needs help, not jail.
• There was a democratic debate last night (which is asinine considering the first primary is next February.) My takeaway from it was: Hillary's a cold hearted, arrogant bitch who wants to implement Canadian health care policy while raping my paycheck; Barach Obama is rough around the edges and seems to be wilting under the pressure; John Edwards is slicker than a used car salesman; Joe Biden is way past his prime; Chris Dodd has no business running; Dennis Kacinich won't get elected because he has Dumbo ears; Bill Richardson is pretty good, but nobody cares about him and Mike Gravel is this decade's answer to Admiral Stockdale.  It's no wonder that Al Gore and John Kerry are staying out of the race to let this group take shots at each other.  In my view, Kerry and Gore are still the two strongest candidates on the democratic side.
• Sex on the first date could lead to longer, more lasting relationships.  This according to Dr. Barry Gibb, a British researcher.  "We have nothing to be guilty of" said Dr. Gibb.  "It's about more than a woman. It's part of staying alive." Gibb confirmed the findings with his brother Robin, British scientist Dr. Reginald Dwight and American researcher Dr. William Joel.