In honor of Monday Night Football’s collective tongue-bath of Brett Favre, here is ESPN’s hilarious “This is Sportscenter” clip about dealing with #4′s legendary indecisiveness:

The legendary Patriot retired today with 3 Super Bowls to his name.

New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi retired from the game of football today and what else can you say but, you’ll be missed.

Bruschi retires as a fan favorite, a winner, and an iconic Patriot. He leaves behind a legacy of victory and, as he goes forward, he’ll carry with him a resume of storied leadership and true courage. The stroke story has been told and retold, but it really is a perfect illustration of what I’ll call the Bruschi Ethic – intensity, effort, and a strong will in the face of adversity. As he explained during his retirement press conference today, the Patriots facility has a Notre Dame-esque sign on the entrance that reads “Do Your Job,” and no Patriots player – perhaps no NFL player – fully lived that motto more than Tedy Bruschi. He did his job, every day, for 13 years and he did it well. The gridiron was his construction site and his hard hat, a Patriots helmet.

Bruschi will be sorely missed by a fan base for whom he embodied the underdog fighting spirit, but he’ll long be remembered as a paragon of hard work and valor. And he’ll be just as missed, if not more so, by the New England community within which he emerged as a beneficial force and a kindred spirit. His work with the organization he started following his famous stroke, Tedy’s Team, is only one of the ways in which Bruschi has energized and enriched our collective home. Fortunately for us, I have a hunch that he won’t go far.

But at the end of the day, Tedy Bruschi should be honored for what he really was: a gritty, talented, true football player, and a damn good one. The former third-round draft choice worked his ass off to become, as Bill Belichick intoned at today’s press conference, “the perfect player,” and no words here can eulogize Bruschi’s career as appropriately as did the wavering in Belichick’s voice when he said it.

So, a tip of the cap to you Tedy. You were the best. We’ll miss you.

Sorry for the absence of posts over the last week or so. Contrary to popular belief, Game 6 has not closed its doors – our staff (me) is simply on vacation and will be for a few more days. Hey, it’s not easy being the head of a heavily-read and widely-discussed Blogging Empire. We need breaks. too.

A few morsels to tide you over until Game 6 makes its triumphant return:

- Plaxico Burress: It’s funny that he got 2 years in prison for shooting himself in the leg. What’s not quite as funny is that Donte Stallworth got 24 days for drunkenly killing a pedestrian.

- The Sox: The sweep of the Jays helped. The Yankees losses hurt. And the Billy Wagner move confuses me. I’m not sure I follow the logic behind signing a tired 38-year-old closer when you know very well that your current closer is an easily irritated, overly sensitive fireballer of questionable mental stability. I honestly cannot tell you whether this team is going to make the playoffs – and I sure as hell don’t know what they’re going to do if they get there.

- RIP, Greg Montalbano: Some of you may have heard that former Northeastern Husky hurler and Red Sox prospect Greg Montalbano, 31, passed away over the weekend after a long battle with testicular cancer. The news of his passing came as a shock to me because, last I’d heard, he’d beaten the disease into remission and was working hard at his dream of one day pulling on a major league uniform.

Montalbano was a Sea Dogs standout

If you were previously unaware of Montalbano and had never heard him speak or spoken with him, take it from me – he was special, both as a player and a person. I met him more than a decade ago at Northeastern’s baseball camp, when I was a deeply impressionable middle schooler and he a counselor and rising star in the Husky program. I followed his career ever since as he rose through the ranks of baseball’s minor leagues because, simply put, his influence stuck with me. Here was a brilliantly talented lefty pitcher well on his way to big league stardom, yet he couldn’t have been nicer to an awkward 12-year-old who wanted nothing more than a bit of attention from a Cool Older Guy. Montalbano – and also teammate Carlos Pena, the Huskies two stars at the time – both went out of their way to connect with each camper and I’ve never forgotten it.

When I learned, years later, that Montalbano was stricken with cancer, I was surprised but I didn’t worry. I didn’t worry because I was certain that nothing truly tragic could ever happen to such a down-to-Earth, superiorly talented individual. I figured he’d shrug it off, like a fluke homer in a rusty first inning. I definitely never thought I’d wake up to a headline on Boston.com announcing his death.

And I wasn’t nearly prepared for how sad I’d be when I did.

Cancer snuffed out one of its brightest lights when it finally took Montalbano this weekend. Fortunately, the work he did on behalf of cancer advocacy and the impressions he made on young athletes will linger, preserving his memory long after we’ve stopped mourning his passing. But that doesn’t lessen the sting nor does it mitigate the tragedy of the situation.

A young man lost his life as a result of an evil, pitiless disease. We should all be so fortunate to have known him.