The race for MVP rages on at the midway point of the season, and it’s loaded with QBs, for good reason. Brees, Manning and Favre have a combined record of 21-1 and show no signs of slowing down. So we’ll give them their due, for now. Things are going to get mighty interesting, though, in the coming weeks as races get tighter and become closer to being decided, including this race for NFL MVP…..

1. Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints—Their games are getting tighter, but it’s not like the Saints just beat a bad Falcons team on Monday night. That was a tough divisional match up and the Saints just keep, you know, marching…oh, forget it.

2. Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts—No TDs against the Niners, but Manning still had a Week 8 best of 347 yards. Plus, the Colts remain undefeated.

3. Brett Favre, Minnesota Vikings—Okay, forget that one blemish against Pittsburgh. After another strong showing against his former team, Favre has now thrown for 1925 yards with 16 TDs and just 3 picks. And his team is 7-1. Raise your hand if you expected that kind of success.

4. Jared Allen, Minnesota Vikings—Three more sacks against the Packers. Jon Gruden talked about Allen having a “motor that never stops,” and that’s pretty spot on. Allen is not just playing like defensive player of the year, he’s making a strong case for MVP.

5. Cedric Benson, Cincinnati Bengals—Sorry Cedric, but while you were on bye, Favre and Allen terrorized the Packers, and Chris Johnson and Maurice Jones-Drew racked up a bunch of yards and TDs. We’ll hold you a spot, but let’s see how you do against the Ravens this week.

Honorable Mention–Elvis Dumervil, Broncos; Andre Johnson, Texans, Tom Brady, Patriots; Adrian Peterson, Vikings; Maurice Jones-Drew, Jaguars, Chris Johnson, Titans; Reggie Wayne, Colts; Matt Schaub, Texans

According to the National Football Post, Jon Gruden is Louisville’s No. 1 choice to be the school’s next head football coach if Steve Kragthorpe is fired. Gruden has been a hot name of late, as Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder was also rumored to be interested in the former Bucs head coach earlier this week.

A Gruden-to-Louisville marriage seems highly unlikely. While he did start at the collegiate level when he first got started in coaching (he was a graduate assistant at Tennessee, a quarterbacks coach at Southeast Missouri State and a wide receivers coach at University of Pacific), most of Gruden’s experience is in the NFL. In fact, he’s been in the NFL since 1990 and runs the West Coast Offense, which is predominately a pro-style system. Plus, Gruden has little to no experience recruiting, which is obviously a huge factor in building a collegiate program.

There are always head coaching vacancies in the NFL and teams will no doubt pursue Gruden in the offseason seeing as how he’s won a Super Bowl. If Gruden had his choice between staying in the NFL and going back to the college ranks, why would he choose college when he’s so familiar with the NFL? It just doesn’t make sense.

The only reason I could see Gruden winding up at Louisville is if the money was too good to pass up. But if the rumors are true that Snyder is interested in his services, than Gruden won’t have any problems making money.

According to a report by the Washington Examiner, Redskins owner Daniel Snyder wants Monday Night Football analyst Jon Gruden to be his next head coach.

Sources close to Snyder say he began considering options to replace coach Jim Zorn after losing to Detroit on Sept. 27; a victory that ended the Lions’ 19-game losing streak. The Redskins loss to Carolina on Sunday was its second in three games to a winless team. It followed a turbulent week when Snyder hired an “offensive consultant” to give Zorn another “fresh set of eyes” on a beleaguered offense.

Snyder has not contacted Gruden, say sources, but he believes the former Oakland-Tampa Bay coach might be the best fit among five Super Bowl winning coaches without jobs. Gruden currently is a Monday Night Football commentator who arrives in Washington for the Redskins-Philadelphia Eagles game on Oct. 26. Snyder and Gruden could meet during routine pregame research for the MNF program.

On the surface, this seems like a great fit. Gruden felt as though the Glazer family didn’t try to compete in Tampa, namely because they didn’t spend. The Buccaneers finished $45 million under the cap last year, which was Gruden’s final season in Tampa.

With Snyder’s free-spending ways and the NFL approaching an uncapped season in 2010, Gruden could construct the roster he wants right from the start. The key would be whether or not he could get the Redskins to play as a cohesive team, which is something Jim Zorn has struggled with.

This will be an interesting storyline to follow this season. That said, don’t be surprised if Snyder goes after some of the other big name head coaches that will be available in the offseason, including Bill Cowher and Mike Shanahan.

- FANHOUSE has the details about Cyborg’s TKO victory over Gina Carano. TONYBLOGS has the video.

- DEADSPIN describes the chaos at a Saints’ preseason game when there was some…um…confusion over the new tickets.

- PRO FOOTBALL TALK reports that the Titans’ owner plans to pay Vince Young big bucks. That’s right…big bucks.

- SHUTDOWN CORNER comments on the addition of Jon Gruden to MNF. Things are looking up.

Last month we started looking at last season’s statistics for position players in fantasy football land, and today we’ll look at a position many often overlook. That’s fantasy defenses, which can sometimes put up just enough points to earn your team a victory once in a while. It’s always smart to try and grab one of the top units, although as we’ve seen before, things change, sometimes drastically, from year to year with fantasy D’s. Me? I like to grab my defense before my kicker. This list is based on point totals from one of my leagues, so keep in mind that stats vary from year to year.

1. Baltimore Ravens—The Ravens’ defense is perennially awesome, and we’ll find out for sure how much of that was due to former coordinator Rex Ryan, who is now the head honcho for the Jets. Ryan took plenty of players with him too, like LB Bart Scott and S Jim Leonhard, but the Ravens still have Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Terrell Suggs. Reed just keeps getting better every year, and his sick nose for the ball is one reason the Ravens had a league high 26 picks. They will keep scoring low as always, but their 34 sacks last season isn’t much to get excited about. Bottom line: The Ravens won’t be a number one this year, but are still top 10.

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According to Peter King of SI.com, the NFL Network is furious with Jon Gruden, who nixed a deal with them to replace Tony Kornheiser and join the cast of Monday Night Football.

Do not invite Gruden and NFL Network czar Steve Bornstein to the same event anytime soon, or ever. Bornstein wants to wring Gruden’s neck. The NFL Network is furious with Gruden for jilting the network after he’d verbally agreed to a deal to work there. The former Bucs coach had been very good on the NFL Network, colorful and opinionated, at the NFL scouting combine and the NFL draft, and the network had finalized everything but the signature on the paper for Gruden to begin working there immediately. In fact, he was slated to be at NFL Films this week to begin his job full time. But ESPN swooped in, offered Gruden the Monday night seat vacated by Tony Kornheiser (how convenient), and Gruden took it.

The NFL Network planned to put Gruden on the air all season, then move him to the Thursday night football booth alongside Bob Papa, replacing Cris Collinsworth. Now it’s back to ground zero in its search for a voice to pair with Papa.

One of the reasons the NFL Network is so steamed, I’m told, is that no one from the Gruden camp called Bornstein to tell him. In many cases like this, the league might work with its TV partners to tell them, “Hey, hands off,” or “Play fair here,” but that didn’t happen here. ESPN got to Gruden too fast.

Now there are two people who should have been NFL Network stars this fall — Gruden and ace reporter Adam Schefter — who will instead work for ESPN. And the NFL Network is not pleased about the defection of either one.

The NFL Network has a tough roe to hoe when a bigger network such as ESPN comes a calling for some of their “players”, considering their reach and audience isn’t that big. If you got the opportunity to call a Monday Night Football game when you knew millions of people will be watching on a weekly basis, why would you stay at NFL Network calling late season Thursday night games for an audience of about 12 people?

Still, if this report is true what a crappy move by Gruden. You have to at least have the decency to tell your employer that you’re moving on if you already had an agreement with them to stick around for a while. Either way, he’ll likely be back on the sidelines in 2010, so ESPN will be looking for his replacement soon enough.

For Monday Night Football telecasts, it’s out with TV personality Tony Kornheiser and in with former head coach Jon Gruden.

Former Super Bowl-Winning Coach to Team with Tirico and Jaworski in MNF Booth
Gruden replaces Tony Kornheiser, who has decided to step down after three years in the Monday Night Football booth.

Kornheiser added: “I am totally grateful for the MNF opportunity that I truly enjoyed the last three seasons. I feel we got better each year. My fear of planes is legendary and sadly true. When I looked at the upcoming schedule it was the perfect storm that would’ve frequently moved me from the bus to the air. I kept looking at the schedule the past month and wanted to find a way to quietly extricate myself. If I could handpick a replacement of a football guy, I would cast a net and drag in Jon Gruden. He is the two things you most want — smart and funny — and has the two things I don’t — good hair and a tan. I love PTI and am looking forward to continuing to yammer and yodel with Wilbon until the end of time.”

Gruden was an analyst for the NFL Network during the draft and he did a nice job. He didn’t blow me away with his commentary, but he was solid nonetheless.

The brains behind MNF need to get it together. I realize they’re trying to appeal to a broader audience and that’s why they’ve tried comedians and other personalities like Kornheiser and Dennis Miller, but just freaking stick a football guy between Tirico and Jaws and call it a day.

Football fans want to hear the broadcasters discuss the game – not some irrelevant stat or story that is force-fed to Kornheiser by the producers. It seemed that most of Kornheiser’s jokes were written for him and they wound up being a distraction at times. He played his role perfectly (i.e. someone that tried to bring up different topics during the game), but again, I’d rather have a football guy like Gruden in the booth who obviously has knowledge of the game.

The question is, how long before Gruden returns to the sidelines? I’m assuming he’ll only be unemployed for a year and that means MNF will have to find another replacement again.

Never one to shy away from giving his truthful opinion, Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star ripped former Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards for his less-than stellar performance on ESPN’s broadcast of the NFL draft last weekend.

Herm spent two days on air making damn sure he didn’t offer one opinion that could potentially put him at odds with an NFL owner, general manager or remotely talented player. Edwards isn’t the first former coach to hit the television airwaves determined to pick up an easy paycheck and protect his future coaching prospects.

If he’s not careful, his ESPN job is going to sabotage his coaching career. In two days of breaking down the draft, Edwards came across as sound and fury signifying absolutely nothing. His commentary was a mixture of Mike Ditka, Sarah Palin and Michael Irvin.

I fully expect to soon see Edwards standing in front of the pointless touch-screen prop that had promising Michael Smith looking and sounding more like Vanna White than the next Chris Mortensen during the draft weekend.

For a man who was supposed to be a broadcasting natural, Edwards mumbled, stumbled and clichéd his way through two days of draft coverage. Kansas City’s 2-14 record made sense.

Unfortunately I didn’t see Edwards’ performance on ESPN because my TV never left the NFL Network’s coverage of the draft, but it would make sense that Herm wouldn’t want to ruffle any feathers if he hopes to get another head coaching gig.

Jon Gruden was an analyst for the NFL Network all weekend and while I didn’t think he did a bad job, he didn’t give any earth-shattering commentary either. I thought he played his role – talked about team needs, what a head coach looks for in prospects and gave his opinion on the state of certain franchises. I wouldn’t expect him to rip another head coach, owner or team given the fact that he’ll probably be in the league again next year. I would have to assume that NFL coaches share a brotherhood to some extent, which is why Herm probably didn’t feel the need to lambaste anyone either.

It still would have been nice to see what Whitlock is talking about with Edwards though. Anyone agree with Whitlock’s assessment of Herm’s performance?

In one sweeping move, new Buccaneers GM Mark Dominik released veterans Derrick Brooks, Warrick Dunn, Joey Galloway, Ike Hilliard and Cato June on Wednesday according to the Tampa Tribune.

Tampa fans will be outraged at seeing the names Brooks, Galloway and Dunn (even though he played in Atlanta four of the past five seasons), but June is the only surprising cut. The rest are cap casualties whose salaries have exceeded their on-field production.

Still, this must be a sobering day for Bucs fans, which no doubt will miss what Brooks, Galloway, Hilliard and Dunn brought to the field every Sunday. All four are consummate professionals who are team-first players and in the case of Brooks, he essentially carried Tampa to a Super Bowl victory in 2002.

With June’s release, it’s clear that new defensive coordinator Jim Bates wants bigger athletes on that side of the ball. June is a sideline-to-sideline player and is solid in coverage. But obviously Bates wants his linebackers to be tough, physical and always thinking run-first. Goodbye Tampa 2, hello more conventional defense.

With the departures of Brooks, Galloway, Hilliard, Dunn, Jon Gruden, Bruce Allen and Monte Kiffin, it’s clearly an end of an era in Tampa.

In a recent interview with Pat Kirwan and Tim Ryan on Sirius NFL Radio, former Buccaneers’ defensive end Simeon Rice blasted his old coach Jon Gruden and even called him a “scumbag.”

“You get what you deserve,” Rice said. “That’s what Jon said. He got it now. Everybody gets what they deserve. . . .

“You look at what he did when Chris [Simms] damn near died on the field he wanted to release him right when he got injured. I get hurt, my shoulder’s torn off the bone. This dude releases me. You know what I mean? I’m your guy. The list goes on. Keenan McCardell, that situation was a debacle. Keyshawn Johnson, another situation [that] was a debacle. Joey Galloway, which was his man, was in the dog house all year because he got injured, broke his ankle or whatever. Brad Johnson that situation was bad. Brings Jeff Garcia in here, oh, he’s going to change things. I helped recruit him [and he] released me, kept Jeff and then put him in the doghouse. Gets rid of Brian Greise, brings him, starts a controversy. It was chaotic. I’m giving you facts.”

“How I feel personally? I could tell you that, too. I think he’s a scumbag,” Rice said. “I think he’s a scumbag personally. That’s when he’s telling you one thing and… You know what he told me? ‘Simeon you’ll be here in the next five years.’ I got injured [and] this man’s never said one word to me. I won a Super Bowl for you. I got 13 sacks, 12, 15 every year for you. I balled. I got injured [and] you let me go like it was nothing.”

I don’t dispute what Rice is saying because obviously I wasn’t in the Buccaneer locker room all those years, but unfortunately Gruden probably acted the same way a lot of coaches and teams do when players are injured. A player gets injured and then the coach acts like that player isn’t even on the team anymore because they’re of no use to him. It’s not fair, but most teams go about their business this way because the NFL is so cutthroat.

Look at Tom Brady last year. The man got the Patriots to four Super Bowls but because he got hurt, speculation started to surface that the team would eventually move on to Matt Cassel. When players get older and suffer major injuries, a team has to start looking ahead. It’s nothing personal and although Gruden might be more cutthroat than other coaches, I don’t know if it merits Rice calling him a scumbag. But again, I wasn’t in the locker room so maybe he is a scumbag. It’s not like Rice is the only player that has taken shots at Gruden since the team fired him.