The Tennessee Titans will honor quarterback Steve McNair with a No. 9 helmet decal, starting with Sunday's preseason game against Buffalo.

Here's a story from The Tennessean.

By the way, the Titans will be wearing Houston Oilers "throwback" helmets this weekend, as they have this week in practice. Kids, you do remember the Houston Oilers ... right?

We keep hearing talk about which NFL team will take a chance on Michael Vick. Why assume any NFL team will roll the dice?

Here's a newspaper story from Wisconsin on the Packers' interest.

According to an ESPN.con Insider report, only three teams have yet to categorically deny interest in Vick: the Packers, Patriots and Ravens.

Seems to us Vick's NFL future is starting to resemble that of baseball's Barry Bonds after his contract ran out in San Francisco. "Everybody" agreed that Bonds could help a team that needed his bat, yet nobody brought him in. Not collusion, just too much baggage.

The big news Wednesday is that Eli Manning has swung a new deal with the New York Giants that makes him the highest paid quarterback in pro football.

After doing the math, most reports say he'll also be the NFL's highest paid player.

Here's what the New York Post has to say about the deal. And here's coverage from the New York Daily News.

First thought: Manning is exceptionally fortunate to get this deal done before his first full season without WR Plaxico Burress, whose next uniform will likely be an orange jumpsuit because of the gun charges he faces in New York.

Manning looked very ordinary at the end of last season without that big target downfield. In three of his four NFL playoff seasons, the Giants have exited quietly. Yes, he has a Super Bowl ring, and that's significant. But that doesn't entirely settle the question of his future value.

At least Eli is a good kid. At one point, Michael Vick was the NFL's highest-paid player, and at no point did anyone ever argue that he was the league's best quarterback.

Hey, baby, Dick Vitale is out with his preseason top 40 for men's basketball!

You can see the complete list here.



It's pretty much all brand names at the top, with Kansas No. 1 and John Calipari's first Kentucky squad seemingly way overrated at No. 2. Michigan State, Texas and Duke round out the top 5. North Carolina is No. 8.

Other SEC teams in the mix: Tennessee (12), Mississippi State (18), Florida (22), South Carolina (36). Memphis sneaks in at No. 40.

Vitale's comment on Mississippi State: "If Renardo Sidney is eligible, this could be a top-10 team. Jarvis Varnado's return made coach Rick Stansbury smile."

There's a trailer floating around now for The Blind Side, the movie based on the book based on the life of former Ole Miss standout Michael Oher.

Here it is, but we need to warn you about something.

It's appears to be a Sandra Bullock movie disguised as a football movie.

Judge for yourself.

You can read more about the movie here, where it says the release date is Nov. 20.

Here is a pretty good blog post that underscores how the trailer seems to get it wrong. Maybe it's just the trailer, of course, and not the whole movie. But I read the Blind Side and it seems to me Sean Tuohy had a lot more to do with the Michael Oher story than he seems to get credit for in the trailer. In it, he seems like a befuddled sitcom dad.

The movie was directed by John Lee Hancock, whose most significant previous movie credit seems to be The Rookie, the 2002 Dennis Quaid based-on-a-true-story film about a Texas high school baseball coach who eventually makes it to the big leagues.

It's not like it was Road House, but it was pretty good.

Parrish Alford takes a look at a crucial spot for the Ole Miss Rebels -- left tackle. Brad Locke delivers a camp update from Starkville. Gene Phelps reports from the Country Club of Oxford, where the Coca-Cola Junior Tour wrapped up its championship tournament. And the "new guy," Brandon Walker, updates us on community college football workouts.

And, as we always do on Wednesdays, there's a NASCAR page and a small at-a-glance feature on Page 2 that brings you up to speed on this week's pro golf events. We started running the golf thing on Wednesday, quite frankly, because the Clarion Heath Ledger would always run it on Thursdays. Gave us the drop on them, to loosely use a golf term.

Anyway, quite a bit to pack into three-plus pages.

Our Journal colleague Bobby Pepper notes that the 2009-2010 NBA schedule is out today. The Memphis Grizzlies, the lesser of that city’s pro basketball teams in recent seasons, opens its regular season on Wednesday, Oct. 28 at home against Detroit. Their road to yet another high lottery pick will end April 14 at Oklahoma City.

Here is the Grizzlies' schedule.

There's only one "real" national TV game is on the Grizz schedule, a Jan. 18 MLK Day afternoon home game with Phoenix that will be seen on TNT.

Here's the Commercial Appeal's quick take on the Grizz schedule.

The big national headline out of the schedule release? Another Kobe-Shaq game for Christmas, with the L.A. Lakers at home against the Cleveland Cavaliers in a 4 p.m. ABC game. Oh yeah, that LeBron guy will be there, too.

Southern Miss players reported for duty on Tuesday and will begin fall camp on Wednesday.

It’s the second season for coach Larry Fedora, who guided the team to a 7-6 record with a New Orleans Bowl victory in 2008.

Here's a report from the Hattiesburg American.

A total of 103 players reported, including 36 freshmen and transfers. Senior running back Damion Fletcher (4,287 career yards), who was barred from spring workouts after pleading guilty to a gun violation in March, is also back in camp.

Receiver DeAndre Brown, who had an outstanding freshman season (67 catches, 1,117 yards, 12 TDs), is continuing to rehab a broken leg he suffered in the bowl.

Practices will be closed; Sunday marks the first day of contact work in full pads, with two-a-days starting on Tuesday.

The Golden Eagles open Sept. 5 at home against Alcorn State.

There have been rumors for some time that the Arena Football League wasn’t coming back after suspending operations in December.

The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that the 22-year-old league is on the brink of bankruptcy and that a shutdown is inevitable.

One of the 15 league teams from last season, the Georgia Force, ceased operations on Tuesday.

Shannon’s Shane Grice, the former ICC and Ole Miss standout, played several seasons for the Force, and was a second-team All-AFL selection in 2008.

Two other regional franchises didn’t make it to the end. The Nashville Kats folded in 2007 and the New Orleans VooDoo vanished last year.

An AFL offshoot, known as af2, is in the midst of its ArenaCup playoffs and expects to return in 2010.

The Associated Press advises that its preseason college football poll will be released on the morning of Saturday, Aug. 22. That means we'll be able to publish the details -- and reaction from the Ole Miss camp, no doubt -- in the Sunday Journal of Aug. 23.

To refresh your memories, here's a look at the final Top 25s from last season. Note that Ole Miss finished a couple of spots behind the team it solidly whipped in the Cotton Bowl, Texas Tech, in both the AP and the coaches' poll.

There was almost immediately some "buyer's remorse" from selected AP poll voters about that. Wonder if some of them might overcorrect by voting the Rebels a couple of spots higher this time around?