And in case you didn’t get that, how in the heck did you not get that? That title for an article was pretty clever.

Yep, we’re talking about the team to beat in the coming 2011 NFL football season, the Philadelphia Eagles. On paper, they have everything any coach would want. But we all know what happens to a team getting branded as champions even before the season starts right? That’s right, they get their asses handed to them. Just ask LeBron.

And while the Philadelphia Eagles could very well be the hottest ticket in town right now, the defending Super Bowl champions from Green Bay ain’t fazed one bit.

Philly’s offseason overhaul hasn’t gone unnoticed as far as the Green Bay Packers are concerned. Neither has the hype that’s come along with it. While the reigning Super Bowl champion Packers are taking the Eagles seriously, they’re mildly amused at what they see as a rush to crown new conference favorites before the season starts. Given the chance, Green Bay is confident it will bring the “dream team” back to reality.

“On paper, I guess they’re the ‘dream team,’” Packers linebacker Desmond Bishop said. “You’ve definitely got to go out on the field and make it happen. So we’ll see.”

The Eagles positioned themselves as the Packers’ top challenger…

And it came from an unlikely challenge too.

The last time the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd beheld Rafael Nadal, he was facedown on the court, his body convulsing in sobs. The occasion was the 2010 United States Open final, where Nadal defeated Novak Djokovic in four sets to complete a career Grand Slam.

Nadal, 25, opened the defense of his title Tuesday against Andrey Golubev at the 2011 U.S. Open the same way he had secured the victory against Djokovic, by holding serve. That was where the comparisons ended. Armed with a big serve and a laser forehand, Golubev, the 98th-ranked player in the world, gave Nadal all the power he could handle before falling, 6-3, 7-6 (1), 7-5, in 2 hours 49 minutes.

“So happy for the victory,” Nadal said, adding, “I think I didn’t play that bad. The mental part was positive tonight. The tennis for sure can improve.”

The 24-year-old Andrey Golubev did not look like a player who had recently ended a 17-match winless streak. He had seven set points, the first five on his serve in the second set, and was up a double break in the third. That Golubev could not close out either set had less to do his lack of nerve than Nadal’s abundance of it.

Nadal produced his best shots at key moments. He hit a backhand passing shot on the run to earn a break and put himself in position to serve for the first set. On match point, he hit as pretty a forehand passing shot as you will ever see.

“If you don’t think about the points, it was not bad…”

Finally.

The 2011 Spanish La Liga season finally gets under way after players and league officials reached a deal to end a strike that postponed the opening round of games in the top two divisions.

An agreement was reached after the players’ union and the league returned to meet again after talks that started on Wednesday afternoon dragged late into the night, ending at 5:30 am.

The Association of Spanish Football Players (AFE) called off the strike after the league guaranteed payment of ?50 million ($72 million) owed to more than 200 players in back wages and also agreed to allow players to be released from their contracts if wages were not paid. In the latter case, if wages are not paid for three months, players have the right to terminate their contract and sign for another club.

“We’ve reached a deal that we believe is completely satisfactory,” AFE head Luis Rubiales said. “The strike is over, I’d like to thank the public for being understanding.” League head Jose Luis Astiazaran said he would ask clubs not to deduct pay corresponding to the postponed first round.

“We need to solve our problems in a more practical manner. We’re going to look to the future and keep working because there remains many gaps in the legislation governing professional sport,” Astiazaran said. “It was…”

Because he thinks one of his people within his camp is giving opposing fighters the edge whenever he fights.

If you needed some drama heading to UFC 135 when Rampage Jackson goes for Jon Jones’ UFC light heavyweight title, here it is. And from what Rampage is saying, he believes there’s a traitor in his midst.

In an interview with Yahoo Sports, Rampage Jackson said that he made up a story about having a hand injury last week. Yet, four hours after he mentioned the story in his gym, he said his manager received a call from UFC matchmaker Joe Silva asking about it.

Jackson said he first became wary about a spy in his camp during the days prior to his May 29, 2010, fight at UFC 114 in Las Vegas with Rashad Evans. He said he injured his knee in training, but kept it quiet and let no one know. He was pleased when the injury never found its way into the media.

Yet, Jackson said that during the fight, Evans punched him repeatedly on the injured knee. ”In all my years of fighting, I’d never been punched in the knee before and I never saw anyone punch someone in the knee,” Jackson said.

He said that made him wary that someone in his camp had been disloyal. But it wasn’t until recently, when he received a message from a fan on Twitter telling him that Jon Jones had a spy in Jackson’s camp, that he began to consider it a possibility. It prompted him to make up the story about the injured hand to see…

And we believe him.

Jenson Button believes he could have challenged for victory at the Belgian Grand Prix, marking the halfway point of the 2011 F1 season, had he not been caught up in the first-corner carnage at Spa-Francorchamps.

Still, Jenson Button made it through to third place despite having only qualified 13th. But he was convinced he had the pace to battle Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, regardless of his starting position, had he not needed to make an early pitstop to attend to damage sustained in a the multi-car collision at La Source.

“I think if I had stayed in 13th after the start it would have been a lot easier to challenge these guys [the Red Bulls],” said Button.

“Turn 1 was mayhem caused by the guys up front. [Paul] di Resta hit my rear wing, damaged my rear wing, half the endplate was gone and driving to Eau Rouge someone’s rear wing came off and went through my front wing and took the mirror off.”

“It was a bit scary. The guys said keep going until lap five, we did – then put options on and did rest of race with them.”

“It was a enjoyable race. You’re always going to say what could have been…”

Oh it was classic alright.

For those of you who missed UFC 134, Anderson Silva put on quite the show, destroying Yushin Okami for his fans in Brazil.

It’s hard to argue with the idea that Anderson Silva is the best pound – for – pound fighter in the sport. It’s even harder to argue that he’s not the greatest fighter in mixed martial arts history. So with 15 straight victories and nine straight title defenses, what’s left for the fighter who apparently can’t be beaten?

According to UFC President Dana White, that’s something they will have to sit down with Silva and talk about following his latest win at UFC 134 over Yushin Okami.

”You’re out of your mind if you don’t think this guy is pound – for – pound the best fighter in the world. People will say ‘oh he needs to be challenged.’ The 185-pound division has a ton of great fighters, the reality is this guy is so good he makes it look like it’s not,” Dana White said following the fights.

”What happens next is we’ll talk to him, see what he’s thinking about what he wants to do. Forrest (Griffin) thinks he should fight two guys at the same time.”

Given Silva’s ability to go in and not only win but to finish just about every opponent he faces in the Octagon, having two fighters face him might not be a bad idea. All jokes aside, White understands that with Silva’s current winning streak and the status of UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, it’s hard to ignore that super fight from…

The long break is over.

Heading into the 2011 F1 Belgian Grand Prix, the sentimental favorite has to be Michael Schumacher of Mercedes-Benz. The seven-time world champion is hoping to celebrate in style on the 20^th anniversary of his Formula 1 debut in Belgium this weekend.

The Brackley-based team’s 2011 challenger should be well-suited to the long straights and high speed corners of Spa, having faced difficulties in recent outings at tight and twisty venues like the Hungaroring.

Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug reckons that the Spa characteristics and a team refreshed after the summer break could help deliver a good result on a big weekend for Michael Schumacher.

“Our team members have been able to recharge their batteries during the mandatory shutdown period, and we will head to Spa fully motivated for the final part of the season,” said Haug.

“It will be a special weekend for Michael, who will mark the 20th…

And it was no surprise that it involves Lewis Hamilton yet again.

Lewis Hamilton was left rather confused after Pastor Maldonado not only raced him but also hit him after the chequered flag fell in Q2 at Spa in preparation for the Belgium GP at the halfyway mark of the 2011 F1 season.

Fighting for track positions two minutes before the end of Q2 – and all in need of another run – Lewis Hamilton overtook the Williams driver and booked his place in the final top ten qualifying shoot-out.

However, after the flag had fallen and the drivers were slowing down to make their way back to the pits, Maldonado, who didn’t make it through, came sweeping by Hamilton, hitting the side of the Brit’s McLaren.

The shunt damaged Hamilton’s front wing and his sidepod, although thankfully his suspension wasn’t broken. Hamilton went on to qualifying in second place after a few tense minutes of minor repairs from his mechanics.

And now the Brit is waiting for a visit to the stewards’ office, although this time he’s not the one at fault.

“I’ll have to look at it,” Hamilton said in the post-qualifying…

Oh yes, he’s 32.

Once and only once this summer has the Jets running backs coach Anthony Lynn thought about LaDainian Tomlinson’s age, and it happened during practice last week as the Jets prepare for the 2011 NFL football season.

After receiving a handoff, LaDainian Tomlinson sprinted toward the line of scrimmage and made one of his signature moves, a jump cut. Inches away from an offensive lineman, Tomlinson hopped to his left with both feet, evading a defender, then burst through a gap, all without breaking stride.

”It was so quick, which is exactly what you teach, and he did it better than anybody I’ve ever seen,” Lynn said. ”You saw the quick feet, the elusiveness of the hips, the body control. I was like, Wow, that’’ a 32-year-old? He looked like he was 20.”

If 30 is old for an NFL running back, then Tomlinson is practically Methuselah. There have been only 11 1,000-yard rushing seasons by a player age 32 or older, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com, and Tomlinson does not expect to crack the list.

He turned back time once already with the New York Jets, silencing skeptics who believed that his poor 2009 with San Diego heralded a steep decline. He ran for 914 yards and averaged 4.2 yards…

Probably.

The good news is, NBA Commissioner David Stern expects owners and players to reach a deal, thereby preventing the cancellation of the 2011-12 NBA basketball season.

The bad news is that both sides are too busy arguing about when to meet so as to actually get anything done, prompting me to believe that all Stern has at this point is wishful thinking.

”I would say that we have very smart players who recognize that this system is very good to them,” NBA Commissioner David Stern said. ”You’ve got 13 players on a roster averaging $5 million apiece, that’s $65 million and what the owners have said is, ‘we’re going to try very hard as we reset this thing to keep you as close to that number as we can.”

”The NFL, which is usually profitable as opposed to the NBA, which isn’t, got the double-digit [revenue] reductions from their players. Our players will understand that when the rhetoric stops and they will understand that the owners are trying to do the right thing and our players always try to do the right thing.”

”I expect that we’ll make a deal because the alternative is very destructive,” he adds. ”It’s destructive of $2 billion worth of player salaries and it’s destructive most important to our fans of the game. And if it spirals badly everyone gets hurt. But in some ways I worry because the players have more to lose, especially those in the later stages of their career. So we’re going to do everything we can when the rhetoric slows down to get this thing back on track.”

The problem is, crucial negotiation meetings are getting cancelled…