The Buck List: The Saga Continues

It's time for another installment of everyone's favorite weekly segment, and a familiar face sits atop our rankings....

5. Greg Oden.  The seemingly cursed Blazers center broke his left patella in the first quarter of Portland's win over the Rockets on Saturday.  The first overall pick of the 2007 draft had surgery Monday and will miss the rest of the season.  Oden is no stranger to the IR.  He sat out 21 games last season with an assortment of ailments and spent the entire '07-'08 season on the bench recovering from microfracture surgery on his right knee.  After a laughably poor performance as a reserve for the Blazers last season, Oden had been playing well this year, averaging 11.1 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per contest.  And now Oden will have to start all over again.  Making matters worse for the Blazers, Kevin Durant's endless promise and 28 points per game serve as a constant reminder of what should have been in Portland.  Blazers fans are left trying to convince themselves that Oden suffers from Benjamin Button disorder.  If Oden has actually been aging in reverse this whole time, his constant injury woes make perfect sense.  His body is simply going through the problems that most athletes face at the end of their careers.  In five years or so, Oden will begin to resemble Tim Duncan in his prime.  And if not, Greg always has his acting to fall back on.....

4. Rick Reilly.  America's most overpaid sportswriter has embarrassed himself once again.  In a column he "wrote" for ESPN this week, Reilly essentially reworded a piece (which frankly wasn't very good the first time) he had written for Sports Illustrated in 2007.  Deadspin put together a thorough comparison of the two columns, and the similarities are laughable.  Oh, and this isn't the first time Reilly has been caught regurgitating his own work.  What has become of Reilly's career?  His columns are mostly overly moralistic tales of supposed inspiration with an occasional sprinkling of hackneyed jokes.  Occasionally he hosts an ESPN television show during which he awkwardly interviews athletes.  And now he passes old columns off as originals.  In the future, most sports fans probably will remember Reilly in his current form rather than as one of the greatest features writers ever to work at Sports Illustrated (see here, here, and here).

3. The Pittsburgh Steelers.  The defending Super Bowl champs have hit a bit of a rough patch.  The Steelers lost for their fourth straight game Sunday, and this was a bad one.  Pittsburgh native Bruce Gradkowski threw three fourth quarter touchdowns -- the last one coming with nine seconds left on the clock -- to lead the lowly Raiders to a shocking win at Heinz Field.  The Steelers now sit at 6-6 having lost to the Bears, Chiefs, and Raiders -- to borrow a phrase from fellow Buck Lister Ryan, that is not Steelers football.  With star safety Troy Polamalu possibly sidelined for the rest of the year, the Steelers are in very serious trouble of missing the playoffs for just the second time in the Big Benjamin Roethlisberger era.  Looking on the bright side, Troy P will have more time to film his awesome Head and Shoulders commercials...

2.  Tim Tebow.  The Prophet's heralded college football career hit its low point Saturday in the SEC championship game.  Alabama upset the top ranked Gators, and Tebow threw a costly second half pick that ended Florida's comeback hopes.  Tebow had a lot on the line in this game.  With a typically strong performance and a Florida victory, Tebow might have left Atlanta with a second Heisman Trophy and a third national championship in his pocket.  College football analysts would have crowned him the greatest player the sport had ever seen.  Instead, the entire country watched Tebow sob on national television.  We are ashamed to admit that we felt a little sorry for Tebow, who was actually a very gracious loser at the end of the game.  If only Tim hadn't jinxed himself with that damn front hug. 

1.  Tiger Woods.  Shortly after releasing last week's inaugural edition of the Buck List, we received a mysterious voicemail: "Hey, it's uhh Tiger.  I need you to do me a huge favor. Umm...can you please take my name off the Buck List?  My wife went through your blog and may be contacting you.  If you can, please take my name off that list.  You gotta do this for me...huge...quickly.  Alright, bye."  Sorry, Eldrick, but we can't remove you from the top spot in good conscience.  Apparently, last week was just the beginning for Tiger.  Quite a bit has come out since the infamous crash.  The number of women claiming to have had trysts with Tiger has reached double digits.  There are rumors that Tiger's wife has decided to leave him.  An ambulance rushed Elin's mother from Tiger's house the hospital early this morning.  Oh, and the world learned that Tiger particularly enjoys doing certain things on ambien.  But at least El Tigre still sits atop the World Golf Rankings.  And the Buck List.

Others receiving votes.  John Stevens: In 2007–08 Stevens led the Flyers to a 40-point turnaround from the previous year and the Eastern Conference Finals and won The Hockey News' Coach of the Year.  On Friday he was fired after stumbling to a 13-11-1 start.  What have you done for me lately, I guess.; Non-Power Football Conferences: Three pretty impressive undefeated teams (no, Big East, you are not a power conference) will have no shot at the BCS championship this year.  And two (TCU & Boise State) get to duke it out with each other so that the media can claim the winner proved nothing.  Life's rough outside of the SEC.; Notre Dame's Offense: To no one's great surprise, the Fighting Irish learned Monday that college's best quarterback and wide receiver combo—Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate—will be leaving this year for the NFL draft.  That's no small loss for whoever will be taking over Charlie Weis's squad next year.; Alex Ovechkin: After two ejections in three games, Ovechkin was suspended for two games after a knee-on-knee hit last Tuesday.  A two-game suspension wouldn't be that big of a deal, except that Ovie is supposed to be the face of the NHL, and particularly for his "aggressive" play.  Maybe now that Colin Campbell isn't going to give him the star treatment, Ovechkin will play with a little restraint.; The Fiesta Bowl: The Fiesta Bowl folks basically did it to themselves, but TCU-Boise State?  Yikes.