By The Numbers

0 – Number of 400 yard passing games Tom Brady had last season in his historic MVP year. Matt Cassel Just had his first career 400 yard air attack last Thursday in an overtime loss to the New York Jets, while also managing to compile 62 rushing yards. Matt made his case to force the Patriots to consider sticking with him or moving back to an injured Tom Brady. One has to go.
2 – Albert Pujols has now won the National League MVP award twice in his first eight seasons in the MLB. He’s also on track to shatter the career homerun record. In the first eight years Pujols has been in the league, he’s been well above average in career home runs compared to many legends of the game. In fact, he has the greatest number of home runs through eight years, then anyone else to step into a batter’s box. No doubt there are more MVP’s still to come.
5’9” – The height of the newly crowned American League MVP, Dustin Pedroia. The second baseman tied for the league lead in hits, was first in runs scored for the AL, led the league in doubles, held an American league second best batting average, and hit 17 home runs. All of that offensive production, and he comes with a Golden Glove as well, how convenient.
14.9 – Rebounds per game that Golden State center Andris Biedrins is averaging. After a 16 rebound game Saturday night, he boosted the stat to become the league leader, passing the fiend that is Dwight Howard. Howard grabbed a pitiful 7 boards in Sunday’s contest against Charlotte. If he plans on keeping up with Biedrins, he can’t have games like that, the Warrior has yet to grab less then 11 boards in a game thus far.
612 – The number of yards the great Bengal wide out is on track to finish with. Chad “Ocho Cinco” Johnson created quite the controversy in the beginning of the year, legally changing his last name to his Bengals jersey number, and permanently scaring his kids life as they go through attendance in school. With these shenanigans, everyone expected a good year out of Johnson, claiming a bad year would hurt his career, “talking smack and not backing it up.” Maybe he should take some tips from Joey Porter. The 612 yard finish would be his worst since his rookie year.
5,202 – The possible number that could land Drew Brees a MVP award. The New Orleans Gun Slinger is on track to hit 5,202 passing yards this season, giving him not only an almost certain MVP trophy, but the leading spot on the all-time single season passing yards list. This would also make him only the second quarterback in NFL history to compile a 5,000 yard season, joining Dan Marino on top, who has 5,084.

52,000,000 – The amount of money the new Bond film Quantum of Solace made in its first two days in the box office on Friday, November 14th, and Saturday November 15th. This also happens to be the amount of money Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster will be making over the next four years. After showing a glimmer of hope in 2001, at the young age of 24, Dempster compiled a 15-12 record as a starter on the Florida Marlins, undoubtedly making him a new young talent. But his spark was put out in the following years to come, not posting a winning record until 2005 as the Chicago Cubs closer. Following two more years of closing, he decided to make the switch back to starter last year, pulling a John Smoltz switch, and posting a 17-6 record. Of course this would be a fantastic sign from any pitcher, and deserve a new contract, but the recent switch and uncertain past isn’t too convincing. Of course, neither is the age of 33 as a pitcher in the MLB. Unless you’ve had hall of fame success in the past, no starting pitcher makes it much past their 35th birthday in the league. And with big mouths to feed on the team such as Zambrano, Ramirez and Soriano, how can the Cubs afford to throw this uncertain pitcher 52 million dollars? Looks like Dempster should ditch the pitching gig and go into the movie business. He’d make the same amount of money in two days as opposed to four years, and he won’t have to twirl his wrist around like a fairy a hundred times a week.