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GRIDIRON..behold a rarity, an NFL preseason game fraught with genuine drama. Tom Brady will quarterback the New England Patriots tonight and every move he makes will be scrutinized and analyzed. If Brady is healthy, the Pats will rank as Superbowl favourites, at around 4-1, when the season commences in September. If Brady looks gun shy or hesitant, money will pour in on other strong contenders. I don’t believe the Belichick team would, no way, allow Brady to play tonight unless he was both prosperous and sound…a team I’m also anxious to watch is the Minnesota Vikings. The team is absolutely turbo charged on both sides of the ball but stunningly inept at QB. Initial reports from Viking camp are unfathomable - Sage Rosenfels has been a disaster and Tarvaris Jackson is hobbled. Could this supremely talented collection of studs be handicapped, again, by the inability of their pivot to mount an air attack? After enduring the limitations of Gus Frerotte, it is appalling to think this squad could come up with no contingency plan other than a Houston Texan back-up or a shop worn Brett Favre. The Vikings play tomorrow against Indy…TSN is showing the CFL (and who knew that league still existed, hands up?) tonight instead of the return of professional football. What a shame…a Michael Vicks “no holds barred” interview with 60 Minutes will air this Sunday…Tennessee visits Pittsburgh in the NFL regular season opener Thursday Sept 10^th…the NFC South is going to take it on the chops. The Saints, Falcons, Bucs and Panthers draw the formidable AFC East and NFC East as their optional opponents this year. That brain rattling, tooth loosening combo will sort the pretenders and contenders out quickly. How does 9-7 sound for the winner of that division this year?…since retiring, all time great Joe Montana has undergone two back surgeries and two neck surgeries. The once resplendent 49er can no longer run, an ominous reminder of the shellacking even the fleetest of pivots receive…multiple reports, including a drubbing on Fox Sports yesterday, rank the St Louis Rams receiving core as one step above a talented high school team. The oft injured running back Steven Jackson, a sublime talent who has seen his career wasted, is in for another pounding in 2009. Marc Bulger’s brain matter is going to be dripping from his ears by week six…Fox Sports, seemingly without reason, has touted the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers as teams on the verge of winless seasons. Look, it’s why I love betting football. Dumb guys abound…ICE..both Evengi Nabokov of the San Jose Sharks and Marty Turco of the Dallas Stars are entering the final year of lucrative contracts. Coincidentally, or not, both the Sharks and Stars were serious suitors for Swedish goalie Jonas Gustavsson. Both goalies are off disappointing seasons, though 34 year old Evengi did wait for the playoffs to go soft, and need bounce back performances to justify big tickets…Sporting News reporter Craig Custance points to Detroit, where an aging Chris Osgood is back up by an untested Jimmy Howard, and Chicago, where Cristobal Huet will attempt to prove his bonafides as the uncontested starter, as two cities seemingly on the verge of goaltending crisis’s…I can’t believe he left Philadelphia, looking to Ray Emery as their starter, off the list…PUG LIFE..Dana White on the UFC, “We were built on all the things boxing did wrong. We used (boxing) as a blueprint for what not to do”…Eddie Chambers will likely challenge Vladimir Klitschko on Dec 12^th in Germany. Chambers, off a couple of nice wins over Samuel Peter and Alex Dimitrenko, has a far better chance of an upset than does doughboy Chris Arreola against Vitali Klitschko Sept 26th…a perusal of the upcoming fights on Fightnews.com reveals a number of very appealing matches set for Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec….Kelly “The Ghost” Pavlik and Paul “The Destroyer” Williams will fight on Oct 3^rd for the middleweight championship. This is a highly anticipated match-up and one that will certainly measure, through ratings, how much interest remains when the sweet science puts together elite fighters. I like Pavlik, big time, in this fight. He fell into a “trap” when looking past veteran Bernard Hopkins, and should be deadly in his first meaningful chance to put that night behind him…