FanHouse John Elway

ESPN and various media outlets have Brett Favre talking with Vikings coach Brad Childress about something.

Many speculate it's about coming out of retirement. Favre's agent Bus Cook told Fanhouse last week that we could stick a fork in Favre and that the only way the quarterback would return would be to win another championship. If that's the case, the Vikings are not that much better with Favre as their quarterback. The beasts of the NFC are the Giants and Eagles. (But that's another story for another day.)

Favre's returning could embarrass him. The fact is that Favre is an old quarterback. He turns 40 in October and old quarterbacks don't win Super Bowls unless they have plenty of help.

Everyone makes mistakes. But when those mistakes are magnified by intense scrutiny of the NFL draft, well, they become much more embarrassing than, say, my typical Friday morning, mustard-stain-on-khakis incident.

Which is why the NFL FanHouse braintrust got together to determine who is the biggest bust for each NFL team. They're not listed in terms of stupidity -- they're all stupid relative to a team's total draft performance. Meaning, of course, some teams "bust" is much different than another organization's; we did it this way to avoid just linking you to DetroitLions.com.

Instead, we're putting it in current draft order, sans trades, and allowing this list to serve as a reminder of each's team's ability to properly execute a fail. The "bust factor" was based primarily on three things: statistical production (or lack thereof), position in the draft and other available options during that year's draft.

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CHICAGO -- So the Summer Olympics must be coming in 2016. And a minefield of potholes soon will be magically filled. And the Cubs will win a World Series for the first time since, oh, your grandparents' grandparents were double-dating in Henry Ford's Model T. And those wicked, face-eating winters will be replaced by pleasant, sunny, balmy, gorgeous ... all right, I'm obviously overcome by shock.

I don't know about you, but when one of my bosses urgently needs me, he either calls or yanks me by the earlobe into his office. We're still waiting for Pat Bowlen to have such contact with Jay Cutler, which shocks me. For a quarter-century, Bowlen has been among the dynamic owners in American sports, a primary reason why the Denver Broncos have been an elite NFL franchise.

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Kurt Warner had a bit of a renaissance in 2008, taking a team that's used to hanging out in the gutter all the way to the Super Bowl, before coming up justthisshort in lifting the Cardinals to their first title.

Yet despite his successes, it was rumored that Warner might retire this offseason. But apparently Warner isn't going down that road. According to his agent Mark Bartelstein, Warner, 37, will be in shoulder pads next season.

Sorting the Sunday Pile looks back at the NFL weekend that was. It's also an unofficial Mittens blog.

Ben Roethlisberger has started 82 games in his five-year career, winning close to 80 percent of them. Yet for most of the football-observing public not located in Western Pennsylvania, he's still nothing more than a game manager. A good quarterback who fell into a great situation and is just along for the ride.

That changed for good Sunday night.

If you are a die-hard sports fan like me, you probably get your sports news the same way. You read things online, you check your Google reader every few minutes to see updated news, and you keep ESPNews on in the background just in case a press conference or something is breaking.

What you might not do is tune in to ESPN that much anymore, just because most of the shows are aimed at people that might not have enough time in their day to read up on everything going on, so hitting the big stories is good enough. (Or you might just avoid most of the shows because, at times, they can be obnoxious.)

Good news if you're more on the side of sports features that don't really break the concrete, if you will. ESPN has decided to give Rick Reilly, their $17 million dollar journalist hire, his own television show called "Homecoming." Trust me, it gets better.

ESPN2's new series -- Homecoming -- challenges that old adage "you can't go home again." Hosted by 10-time Sportswriter of the Year Rick Reilly, Homecoming will debut Friday, Jan. 9, at 8 p.m. ET with an episode on Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers in his hometown of Raleigh, N.C. The following week, Pro Football Hall of Famer John Elway returns to Van Nuys, Calif. The shows are the first two of a six-part series featuring one-on-one, hour-long interviews of today's top names in sports from the towns and cities where they grew up.

The holiday season doesn't bring good tidings for everybody. Just ask those head coaches who are spending the New Year cleaning out their offices.

There is a large contingent of people -- myself and Ciskie are certainly included -- that believe Mike Shanahan wasn't really "fired" from the Denver Broncos, in the real sense of the word. In other words, Pat Bowlen demanded changes, Shanny said something that's probably impolite about running the team, and then probably dared Bowlen to fire him.

Bowlen's press conference today, regarding the decision, requires a little reading between the lines, but it certainly might lend some credence to that theory.

Naturally, Bowlen denied the idea that he demanded changes, stating that as an owner, he wasn't qualified to pick coaches and that, "No I did not (request for Mike to make changes to staff)" -- although it's important to remember that he's not necessarily dismissing the idea that he asked Shanahan to step down as VP of the team, adding that he hasn't "necessarily thought about" having a coach/GM combo again in the future.

That, coupled with the fact that Bowlen says he had "thought about it for a while" -- re: firing Shanahan -- in addition to Bowlen saying the toughest part of the move was "the emotion" and "the friendship" followed by the Broncos' owner getting choked up himself makes this all seem like a pretty unusual firing.

There were some grumblings that Cowboys receiver Roy Williams wasn't all that jazzed with his role as sideline observer. At least when he was in Detroit, he got to play as the Lions bumbled their way to demoralizing loss after demoralizing loss.

But that's all changing. According to the Dallas Morning News' Tim MacMahon, Williams is officially the team's No. 2 receiver after Terrell Owens. Patrick Crayton, the guy Williams is replacing, in true "there's no 'I' in team" fashion, is cool with the move.

"That's the business," Crayton said of Williams replacing him in the starting lineup. "You pay a guy a lot of money, you've got to play him, or else people are going to be asking why you gave him all that money and aren't playing him. Hopefully, he does give us an opportunity to win some games. That's what we need to do right now."

Good points, all of them. Jerry Jones gave Williams a five-year, $35 million extension shortly after bringing him to Dallas, and unless you're Al Davis, those guys eventually have to start. If nothing else, the news, along with Tony Romo returning to the lineup after a month off, is a morale boost for a team that could desperately use it.

Plus, maybe it'll distract Terrell Owens from recent bad news, courtesy of accomplished author John Elway.

Each week in the NFL, there are players that impress and players that distress. One week a certain quarterback might toss four touchdowns and run around with his finger in the air while the next he's laying on his back, holding his facemask as the other team returns one of his three interceptions for the game-winning score. With that in mind, here's Studs and Duds.

Here's Week 9 at a glance, where we point out the horses destined for the Kentucky Derby and jeer those headed to the glue factory.

Studs

Tim Hightower, RB Arizona (22 rushes, 109 yards, 1 TD) -- Edgerrin James is a name that will be quickly forgotten in West Phoenix if Hightower continues these games. The rookie running back, in his first game as starter, averaged five yards per carry and made one of the worst rushing teams in the league relevant again on the ground. While James has pouted about his role in the offense, Hightower has quietly snagged carries, and Ken Whisenhunt took notice. Good news for Tim -- you have the 49ers and Seahawks the next two weeks. If Hightower is available in your fantasy league, you need to grab him and also get smarter friends.