Quickly, then we’re done.

Three competing – but tired – stories still plague our airwaves, hurting our ears and frustrating sensibilities. Not so for sports media, however, which demonstrates irrelevance with each character study. Let’s deliver our backhanded compliments and be gone from these topics forever:

I. Vick.

So Michael Vick signed with Philadelphia, probably because of a Donovan McNabb connection. This occurred late last week, after rampant speculation swirled around the Bills, Packers and Panthers, and really no one else. No one mentioned the Eagles, not even as a remote possibility. Previously, I wondered how precisely zero of the hundreds of columnists and reporters assigned to the Vick circuit could even speculate on an Eagles connection? None. Nice reporting.

Still, it’s tough for me to see the relevance. Sure, Vick may fit the prototype of the Wildcat or whatever cockamamie scheme the Eagles might uncork, but does anyone really believe he’ll return to his ultra-athletic ceiling? Jamal Lewis hasn’t been the same runner since he served time in the house – he was particularly abysmal immediately after his return to the field – and he only did four months! Vick may be an NFL player, but alas, he’s 29, and now probably just a marginal one.

And, of course, how he merits only a quick 6-game suspension for a cruel, knowing, and complicit crime is beyond me, especially while Donte Stallworth earns a full year for an accidental crime, replete with contrite, no-contest settlements. I’m fine with the NFL issuing strict deterrents. I’m not fine with its capricious and arbitrary rendering of justice.

II. Favre

And a nation is not surprised. I’ll spare you any lecture wondering if Brett is diva or douchebag. (He’s both.) Once again, however, Favre and Childress‘ earlier denial – issued three weeks prior, fully deterred Brett’s media lapdogs. Once again, the NFL’s cadre of meathead reporters bolted at the first denial, and didn’t even sniff this until today, when, hello, they were contacted. This after two years of speculation! Even Chris Mortenson‘s stupid bus didn’t stop in Bumfuck, Mississippi or wherever King Hayseed lived.

But here Favre is, finally showing up in St. Paul basically alongside a press release, with the Vikings stroking Brett’s ego and lauding the opportunity. Some opportunity – Minneapolis pays $12 million for a paltry QB Rating upgrade of 1.5 over Sage Rosenfels.

Congratulations, Minnesota, you’ve purchased the NFL’s version of Toronto Raptor Hakeem Olajuwon. I cannot be the only person on Earth who thinks Brett Favre circa 2009 is a downgrade from Sage Rosenfels. Can I?

III. Strasburg

Each story I read about Steven Strasburg, new Washington National wunderkind, I cannot help but feel pangs of memory, evoking Mark Prior. Sigh.

Maybe Strasburg‘s a bust, maybe he’s not – but throughout the media today, you could practically sense sportswriters chortling at Scott Boras “failing” to earn his initial $50 million contract demand. Which just goes to show – sportswriters toil outside the business world for a reason.

All Boras does is represent a client to the best of his ability – throwing out a pipe dream number, and negotiating downward to a workable solution that, oh by the way, turns out to be the best rookie contract in history and allows Strasburg to escape after a scant 4 years – well before he even sniffs his prime. Wow, what a failure!

Boras aside, I’ll never understand the tendency of fans and media to side with big labor. In Strasburg‘s case, and in the case of Michael Crabtree, we watch two youngsters with virtually no leverage simply asking for the best deal they can get, respective of their market value. Yet the zeitgeist scolds each for not rushing into camp, or inking a bad deal quickly – when each has little leverage to do the opposite.

Basically, Crabtree is in a pickle – he needs to get to camp in a hurry to validate his expectations and ease his transition. This is a huge bargaining chip for every behemoth corporation football team – Crabtree needs camp to play and to develop his image. The team has no such obstacle.

It’s similar with Strasburg - each writer practically scolds the kid, assuming his agent coerced him into making a demand simply to avoid signing with the Nats. But what’s the incentive for Strasburg to return to school or go play in the Independent League? He doesn’t want to do that – it could at least harm his market value and at worst decimate that value. So once again, the team has additional bargaining chips – there’s certainly more incentive for Strasburg to sign than to hold out. No matter the portrayal, it ain’t the other way around.

But nope – we scoff and snort and castigate these kids; sitting on the precipice of the only thing they know how to do, and perhaps the only chance they’ll have to make a living doing so. We hope they’ll rush to the aid of these behemoth corporations – sports teams with no real care for the player nor the audience, and scold the players for worrying about their own bottom line. And we can’t scold the corporations for the one-sided negotiatiing, strong-arming, and worrying about the same?

And we assume we’d be different how?