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The New Orleans Saints visited the White House on Monday, and while US President Barack Obama is a Chicago Bears fan at heart, he made sure to point out how important the Saints’ Super Bowl victory was to the entire country.

But he also had some fun with Saints head coach Sean Payton, who obviously defined “gutsy” with his decision to use a surprise onside kick to start the second half of the biggest game of his life.

Here’s the video…

Oh and just because it’s impossible to tire of it (unless you’re a Colts fan), here’s the famous onside kick…

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It’s far too difficult to pick just one Emmitt Smith run or Jerry Rice catch. And it’s nearly impossible to single out one Bone-crushing John Randle hit that seemed to sting more than the rest. So I won’t.

These three legends highlight the Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees of 2010, and were honoured in a ceremony on the hallowed grounds of Canton, Ohio Saturday night. But there was an extra dash of character in this Hall of Fame class, a class which also honoured Dick LeBeau, the ball-hawking cornerback who starred for the Lions nearly four decades ago, and Russ Grimm, the guard who led the Redskins’ vaunted Hogs, one of the best offensive lines in NFL history.

Here’s a sample of what was written, argued, and reflected upon throughout the interwebs after the NFL’s 2010 Hall of Fame induction ceremony:

+ Alex Marvez of Fox Sports points out that during the 1991 season Smith’s primary backup Moose Johnston incredibly received only 17 carries.  Despite being such a workhorse early in his career, Smith was still able to break Walter Payton’s record and become the NFL’s all-time leading rusher.

“The NFL has some impressive young RBs, most notably Tennessee’s Chris Johnson and Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson. But even if both were able to avoid injury and continue their torrid paces, Smith’s mark wouldn’t fall for another 11 seasons.“

+ David Moore of the Dallas Morning News looks back on a Cowboys win over the Giants on Jan. 2, 1994 to clinch the NFC East and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. But this wasn’t just any win. It was the day that Emmitt Smith’s toughness was affirmed, even though it should have never been doubted. Smith’s shoulder was separated late in the first half, but he missed only two plays.

“He asked the offensive linemen to run down the field and pick him up after every play,” said Cowboys offensive lineman Nate Newton. “He said, ‘My shoulder is killing me.”

+ While heaping the usual praise on Jerry Rice for his renowned work ethic, Ray Ratto of CBSSports.com reminds us that Rice was the NFL’s first wide receiver diva. Although by today’s standards rice’s “antics” were pretty tame (i.e. publicly questioning how often he was targeted in the offence).

“He didn’t mind complaining that he didn’t get the ball often enough before anyone else ever thought of speaking out on the subject, which was a big deal back in the day. Now, everyone does it, so nobody’s listening any more.”

+Trying to establish who is the greatest player in any sport is a time-honoured bar debate that only gets more ridiculous with each brown beverage. The older, perhaps wiser gentleman at the end of the bar makes his case for Johnny Unitas, while the middle-aged single guy eying the bartender turns away for a moment to yell something about Joe Montana. But Joe Cole of Yahoo! Sports isn’t interested in the glamour position of quarterback. He’ll take Jerry Rice in this game to name the best who ever played the game.

“Rice showed the NFL that the passing game was more than a phase and that wide receivers weren’t simply occasional contributors. Since Rice, receiving numbers have increased, the use of three- and four-receiver sets has become prevalent, and teams throughout the league consistently throw more than they run. Rice made receivers into essential players, so much so that they are considered more important than running backs these days.”

+ The most common number we associate with John Randle is 137.5, his career sacks total which is still good enough for the all-time lead amongst defensive tackles. But what about the number 14? That’s the total number of undrafted players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and Randle is now one of them.

+ Thank God for Randle’s mom too, because the Texas-born tackler might have quit football to “hang out with the boys” if it wasn’t for the influence of his late mother Martha, writes Tom Orsborn of the San Antonio Express.

“At one point, I quit football,” Randle said. “She asked why and I told her I got tired of hitch-hiking a ride home from practice. She said, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I want to hang out with my friends.’ So she took me down to the basketball court and said, ‘That’s what you want to do? Hang out with those boys? That’s all they do is hang.’”

+ Nowadays, Dick LeBeau is known as the architect of the Steelers’ defence, that hard-hitting unit which guided Pittsburgh to two Super Bowl championships in the past ten years. It may have been almost four decades ago, but Bill Rabinowitz of the Columbus Post-Dispatch tells us that LeBeau could play too, and he was pretty damn good.

“LeBeau wasn’t the fastest cornerback, but he compensated with a natural knack for the ball, honed by a dedication to preparation that was ahead of his time.”

+ Russ Grimm was one helluva guard, and was part of the offensive line that spearheaded the Redskins to three Super Bowl championships during the team’s glory days in the mid-80′s and early 90′s. But, as Dan Steinberg of the D.C. Sports Blog writes, Grimm was also from an era where off-field shenanigans were not only encouraged, but accepted. Including having your equipment set on fire.

“Dave Butz put honey on a photographer’s stand to attract a swarm of bees. Donnie Warren hung the special teams coach’s bike atop a flag pole. Jeff Bostic filled Bubba Tyer’s car with popcorn. Grimm himself put hair-removal cream on George Rogers’s athletic supporter.”

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Apparently, Brett Favre is retiring.

Apparently, the reason for the rather shocking decision is a wonky ankle.

But there’s more to the story. With Favre, there always is.

Maybe he’s just looking for an excuse to sit out for awhile. Last year, Favre took much of August off. Maybe this year, he’s looking to pull a Roger Clemens and miss a chunk of the season.

Favre knows his body. If he thinks he can’t possibly go 16 regular-season games and three or four playoff games on that ankle, he won’t attempt it. When asked at his press conference Tuesday if such a scenario would be acceptable, Vikings head coach Brad Childress didn’t rule anything out.

And consider this: maybe Favre wants a raise.

We all see Favre as a fun-loving gunslinger who simply loves the game of football. A kid at heart, right? But he’s more calculating than we give him credit. Maybe he feels that if he’s going to risk his body in its current state, and if he’s worth that much to the Vikings, he’s owed more than the $13 million he is/was supposed to make in 2010.

If you don’t believe a guy like Favre would carry that sort of sense of entitlement, consider the way he’s treated training camp the last two years.

I don’t doubt Favre will be back. He’s emotional and probably wasn’t happy with the public perception that his return to the field was a foregone conclusion. The way things are now, there are no expectations. If he decides to play in a month, he’s a hero again in Minnesota. If he decides to stay retired, he’s not letting anyone down.

H retired in the 2008 offseason, eventually got the itch again and returned.

He retired in the 2009 offseason, eventually got the itch again and returned a little bit later than the previous year.

He retired today, but a few extra million bucks or a good day throwing to high school kids will eventually be Favre’s football mosquito bite. He’ll have to itch it once more.

We’ll see No. 4 in  September, maybe October.

Remember when player movement was this really cool, novel idea? Remember when free agency hit the NFL and was supposed to revolutionize professional football, sling-shotting it out of the 19th century, where it had supposedly been stuck?

NFL free agency is fun, but most fans would argue that the offseason carousel hasn’t spun as quickly and as wildly as we all expected when the Green Bay Packers made that initial splash with Reggie White in 1993.

Franchise tags and hefty signing bonuses have made it so that while the NFL is a free market, teams and players are still encouraged, financially, to stick with their teams.

That’s why Peyton Manning is synonymous with the Indianapolis Colts, Tom Brady with the New England Patriots and Brian Urlacher with the Chicago Bears.

Tom Brady is slated to become a free agent next year, but no one believes he's going anywhere.

In the NFL, stars rarely get a chance to jump ship and ditch their original franchises; the system simply isn’t designed to make that process an easy one. When big names do move, it’s usually only once they’ve passed their prime (see: LaDainian Tomlinson, Jason Taylor, Tony Gonzalez).

Call me old-fashioned, but that’s the way I like it. I am intrigued by a hot trade rumour or a sexy new signing as much as the next sports fan, but I’ve also noticed that the novelty wears off quickly.

Take the NBA: Is this LeBron James-Chris Bosh-Dwyane Wade Miami Heat super team intriguing and exciting? Sure, just as the Kevin Garnett-Ray Allen-Paul Pierce Boston Celtics super team was, too. But the shock value of seeing a dude like Garnett in Celtic green or LeBron in Heat colours doesn’t last forever … and then, eventually, you’re just left with a disparity problem, which is fun for nobody (expect maybe Heat or Celtics fans).

I’m not ready to say that the NBA has a player movement problem on its hands, especially considering this offseason may very well be an anomaly. But if players like Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets continue to push for trades when they see fellow stars meet up in more luxurious locations, you could very well have an issue on your hands.

That’s exactly what Ken Berger of CBSSports.com drove at in a recent column questioning whether the NBA should adopt NFL-like player movement rules.

“As part of the labor negotiations that are expected to resume next month, should the NBA look at an NFL-style system with signing bonuses in lieu of guaranteed contracts? As a way to prevent star players from fleeing their teams as unrestricted free agents, would an NFL-style franchise tag be useful in the NBA?”

And from my NFL-centric perspective, that’s the key: the franchise tag. It’s an easy solution to keep a big-name player in his original city for at least one more year (or more, depending on how things are ironed out in collective bargaining). It rewards the star in question with a contract that immediately makes him one of the five highest paid guys at his position (again, that’s the NFL’s policy) while giving the team in question one more year to get said star the supporting cast he requires/requests/prays for at night.

Only problem: the players hate it.

Obviously, right? I mean, these guys want their money and they want their money now, but they also risk limbs every day they take the field/court/ice and they want long-term security as quickly as possible, which is understandable. As Berger states it, “a series of one-year deals” is not enticing.

And that’s why franchise tags and non-guaranteed contracts (both of which exist in the NFL and not in the NBA) are crucial poker chips in CBA negotiation process.

LeBron James jumped ship and took less money to team up with other stars in Miami.

Berger adds that “if the NFL’s system is so good, the NBA union would argue, why are so many people looking to change it?” And he’s got a point. The NFL’s CBA expires after the 2010 season and it’s completely possible that the franchise tag — again, dreaded by players and agents — ends up in the garbage bin behind the NFL offices at 280 Park Ave. in Manhattan.

And then there’s the idea that player movement isn’t such a bad thing. After all, it does spark interest from fans at what would otherwise be down times.

“Look how much interest there was in the NBA this year with all the player movement,” NFL and NBA agent Mark Bartelstein told Berger. “Look at how much interest there has been in the NFL in the last month with all the player movement and with no salary cap. People like player movement. It drives ticket sales. There’s no question the NBA had the biggest increase in ticket sales it’s probably had in a long, long time.”

But, amazingly, what sells tickets and jerseys (trades and free agency have undoubtedly boosted the jersey market), isn’t always what’s best for the game. And as someone who spends time with sports fans seven days a week at my job and in my personal life, I don’t think I’m off base in saying that the NBA has turned a significant number of fans against it in the last three weeks.

So what if the NBA had a franchise tag in place right now? One that, as Berger proposes, allowed teams to discount the salary of its franchise player from its annual payroll?

James would likely still be a Cavalier and Bosh would likely still be a Raptor. The league would have more parity and — with the extra money made available by the payroll exemption — those teams would have a chance to spend money on complementary players to keep their stars in town long-term.

And what if the NBA had non-guaranteed contracts that hinged more heavily on signing bonuses and less on year-by-year commitments?

Chris Paul never would have had a chance to weasel his way out of New Orleans, as he very nearly did. He’d have had to play out his contract, because the Hornets wouldn’t have been able to cut bait and pay out his bonus all at once.

The beautiful thing about the NFL, especially this time of year, is the sense of optimism that flows in every city (except Cleveland). Never mind any given Sunday — in the NFL, it’s any given year. No North American sports league has as much balance. And with balance comes hope for every team (except Cleveland), which puts more fans in the seats than almost any trade or signing can.

How many NBA teams will realistically head into training camp in nine weeks thinking they can win an NBA championship? Based on what happened in July, that number probably won’t be very high.

The franchise tag and related restrictions on player movement might feel unfair, borderline anti-democratic. But sports are about the fans first, the people who pay big bucks so that the players and owners can make the big bucks. And while fans might be temporarily dazzled by glitzy trades and tantalizing signings, they ultimately want good games, which come from good competition.

And that’s something you can’t have when one or two super teams hijack a league.

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I haven’t formally announced it on here, so it legally hasn’t happened, but I’ve mentioned on Twitter here and there that the Baltimore Ravens are my early Super Bowl pick for 2010.

I love what the Ravens brought to the table in 2009 and think Joe Flacco will only get better with the addition of Anquan Boldin. I also love their top two picks in the draft, pass-rushing threat Sergio Kindle and run stuffer Terrence Cody.

But the summer hasn’t gone Baltimore’s way. Their weakest point — the defensive backfield — has taken several hits.

Superstar safety Ed Reed is already expected to miss a significant chunk of games as he recovers from offseason hip surgery; veteran cornerbacks Lardarius Webb and Fabian Washington are both trying to recover from ACL injuries; and another corner, Cary Williams, is suspended for the first two games of the season.

And now the biggest blow of all: Cornerback Domonique Foxworth has torn his ACL and is out for the season.

Making things extra tough for the secondary is that Kindle, who would have been able to relieve some pressure up front, recently fell down two flights of stairs and fractured his skull.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Considering how badly things have gone this offseason in Pittsburgh and considering that there’s no way the world would let Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens be successful together, I’m thinking we’re about to see a major surprise in that division.

Your 2010 AFC North champions: the Cleveland Browns.

From left to right: Vincent Jackson, Marcus McNeill and Shawne Merriman want new contracts.

I can’t for the life of me figure out what the San Diego Chargers are doing.

I understand that they’re uptight about the looming labour strife, but they’re on the verge of ruining a promising season simply because they’re too stubborn to open their wallet for three of their most important players.

It’s no secret that Vincent Jackson, Marcus McNeill and Shawne Merriman — respectively the best wide receiver, offensive lineman and pass rusher on the team — want new contracts. In fact, things are getting intense, according to ESPN.com’s Bill Williamson.

“Speaking about McNeill and Jackson, [general manager A.J. Smith] said in a phone interview Wednesday that he has been told that the two players will be ‘out for a considerable amount of time.’

“Smith said he, at this point, is expecting that both McNeill and Jackson will hold out for the first 10 games of the regular season and then report to accrue an NFL season. Smith admits he is disappointed that both players are likely to hold out for the long-term. Still, Smith said because of the CBA uncertainty the Chargers are reluctant to give out long-term deals.”

But the funny thing is that they do give long-term deals. Just today, they gave a lucrative five-year extension to Antonio Gates, according to ESPN’s Chris Mortensen.

So why give Gates more money when Jackson, McNeill and Merriman are the guys complaining? It could be marginally punitive. With three of his top players stumping for new contracts three weeks ago, Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum inexplicably re-signed D’Brickashaw Ferguson to a long-term deal. Maybe Smith is following suit.

Of course the more realistic explanation is that Smith is bluffing. I find it hard to believe he’d let Philip Rivers’ blind-side protector and best target sit out more than half the season.

“Whether they come back as starters, role players, or as injury replacements, that remains to be seen and will be up to Norv Turner,” Smith told Williamson. “But six games is still a significant part of the season.”

 But 10 games is a more significant part, and a Week 12 return might be too little, too late.

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I hope Mike Brown and Marvin Lewis have the flux capacitor in their possession, because if they do, they’re on the brink of becoming Super Bowl XLIII champions, replacing the Steelers, who in this dimension beat the Cardinals to take home the Lombardi Trophy.

Only two short years ago, Carson Palmer, Chad Johnson (now Ochocinco) and Terrell Owens were coming off fantastic seasons. Now, with Owens reportedly joining the Bengals today, Cincinnati has a trio of players who have seen their best days.

Look at the drop off:

Palmer, 2007: 65%, 4,132 YDS, 26 TD, 20 INT, 17 sacks, 86.7 rating 
Owens, 2007: 81 REC, 1,355 YDS, 15 TD
Ocho, 2007: 93 REC, 1,440 YDS, 8 TD

Palmer, 2008: 58.1%, 732 YDS, 3 TD, 4 INT, 11 sacks, 69.0 rating*
Owens, 2008: 69 REC, 1,052 YDS, 10 TD
Ocho, 2008: 53 REC, 540 YDS, 4 TD**

Palmer, 2009: 60.5%, 3,094 YDS, 21 TD, 13 INT, 26 sacks, 83.6 rating
Owens, 2009: 55 REC, 829 YDS, 5 TD
Ocho, 2009: 72 REC, 1,047 YDS, 9 TD

* Played only four games
** Started only 10 games

That’s not to say that Palmer, 30, and Ochocinco, 32, can’t rebound. But Palmer’s never been the same since tearing up his knee in the 2005 playoffs (although his 2006 stats were actually pretty solid), and Ochocinco’s production fell off a cliff two years ago.

It’s no secret that Owens isn’t the player he used to be either, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the veteran threesome can’t be relatively productive. Productive enough to make a playoff run? Probably not, but you could probably argue that signing Owens for only $2 million guaranteed was a low-risk move.

If he causes problems, just cut him.

It’s similar to last year’s scenario with Owens in Buffalo, where things weren’t always peachy, but Owens would put on a happy face knowing that he’d be free again at the end of the year.

The biggest difference in Cincinnati is that Ochocinco is somewhat of a diva and an egomaniac, too. In fact, you could argue that Owens has never played with a personality quite as colourful as Ochocinco’s.

But because it’s only a one-year deal, I just don’t see there being friction, or at least enough of it to cause severe problems or interrupt the flow of things. It’s also important to consider that — believe it or not — Owens and Ochocinco are both a little more mature now than they were half a decade ago.

Or at least they’re a little less focused, which in a weird way is a good thing. With their involvement in reality TV and their minds at least partially distracted by off-the-field dreams and goals, you’d have to think that stats aren’t as crucial to either player as they were in the past.

I rag on T.O. and Ochocinco like no one else in this league, but I do believe they both genuinely want to win a championship and they both realize that time is running out.

And there’s a good chance the flux capacitor won’t save them.