Washington Redskins

In life, and in sports, nearly everyone experiences prolonged periods of both success and failure. Of course, the 2014 sports year was far from different, as fans were treated to some truly memorable performances, of both the good and bad sort.

Madison Bumgarner, for example, had a downright iconic year, establishing himself as one of baseball’s all-time greats with the type of postseason pitching we’d never seen before.

I was all set to pen a post about how John Riggins was nothing more than a bigger, more popular version of Brian Mitchell; a former Redskin hardwired to blow hard for fast money.

It’s hard to tell what is a sicker part of the entire Washington Redskins-Jim Zorn saga, the fact that Daniel Snyder is arrogant enough to publicly humiliate his head coach without firing him, or that Jim Zorn has enough resolve to stick it out for the money.

Obviously, Snyder’s foolishness has the staying power of 10 years of futility, but there is something admirable about Jim Zorn’s refusal to buckle to the whim of a petulant billionaire .

Long gone are the days of being a plumber by day, baller by night. Whether that 'baller' be basket, foot, golf, or otherwise related, the players are paid too much.

Now, when someone sees an NFL player getting paid less than $1,000,000 per year, they say "wow, he's getting screwed."

It never should have come to this. The money and commercialized culture of sports will be the death of the selfless athlete.

Remember when all an athlete needed to be happy was a ring, trophy, or medal?

Neither do I.