Greetings.

Hope you are all set for Christmas.

And a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

I’m going to fiddle with a new format here on the blog. Basically, it will work like this: each day (or many days) I’ll post five quick opinions/comments that will require about five minutes of your reading time.

And then you can respond accordingly. And I will try to mix in some non-sports stuff, too.

I’ll still write longer-form “Extra Points” blogs when needed but wanted to spice things up a bit and have more fun.

Anyway, here are my five for today, and feel free to hit me with a five-minute penalty for blogging.

But keep it clean.

1. NO EXCUSES FOR MIZZOU: I don’t want to hear that the Tigers are young and inexperienced. I don’t want to hear that getting thumped by Illinois will be good for them.  The 75-59 loss to Illinois was a terrible performance, and it was another setback to the program’s credibility. Missouri fans had anticipated seeing an improved team, one ranked 25th in the AP poll, one that could stand up and defeat Illinois after an eight-year losing streak. And it seemed that coach Mike Anderson had finally established traction. Maybe he will as the season goes on. But on Tuesday night at Scottrade, we saw much of the same old thing.  Poor shot selection. A frantic set offense that had no discernible purpose. And a vulnerable half-court defense that was easily, almost comically, shredded by the Fighting Illini. Sorry, no positive spin here. No free pass. Just an awful night for Mizzou. Period.

2. APOLOGIZE TO BRUCE WEBER: After a transition period, he’s got Illinois headed in the right direction, and Illini fans have to be thrilled by the number of outstanding and heralded recruits that are on the way. Weber and staff have established a terrific recruiting pipeline, so the Illinois fans who turned on Weber because of his allegedly weak recruiting should step up and admit they were wrong. As I am doing right now. Coach: I didn’t think you could recruit like this. I was wrong. My apologies.

3. HERE’S A WORD TO DESCRIBE THE CARDINALS: Cheap.  This covers all of the code words and phrases that already have been offered, such as “low-hanging fruit,” and “patient” and “keeping the powder dry.”  No, what all of this really means is the Cardinals are cheap until they prove otherwise. No one is asking them to throw money around like those crazy Steinbrenners, but when Khalil Greene is the big offseason acquisition (so far) after the organization promised an “aggressive” approach … well, that’s sad.

4. I WON’T GO ANYWHERE THIS NEW TOM CRUISE FILM, VALKYRIE: Why does Cruise always play himself in movies? Cruise plays a character that’s a German officer , but he speaks the entire time with a perfect English accent as if he’s sitting in the VFW Hall on Big Bend?  Huh? Same with Kevin Costner; every film Costner makes he plays the role of … Kevin Costner. It’s old. As for this one … let me see if I get this straight: Cruise hopes to pep his career and warm up his image by doing a film RELEASED ON CHRISTMAS DAY that features a bunch of guys in Nazi uniforms? OK. He must be getting PR advice from Plaxico Burress.

5. WHY DIDN’T THE RAMS SIGN THIS GUY? The Pittsburgh Steelers, who have as good a chance as any AFC team to play in the Super Bowl, just signed a player off the Rams practice squad and put him on their active roster. No one is saying that offensive tackle Jason Capizzi is the next Dan Dierdorf, but if he’s good enough for the Steelers, then why didn’t the Rams keep him around, as part of their 53-man roster, and keep the big fella in play for training camp ‘09? The offensive line is the Rams’ weakest link, remember? Confusing, to say the least.

Thanks for reading.

-Bernie