Whether you've reached the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt's End:
*Sure the Mavs have won three in a row, but they've beaten no one -- Nets, Clippers and Rockets -- and when you blow a 25-point home lead to Houston and have to be bailed out by J.J. Barea, things aren't good.
*Let's not shed too many tears for the Rangers' Michael Young. Yes, his role is being diminished with each passing transaction, but he'll make $16 million each of the next three years. For that kind of cash, I'd take a demotion to Wilonsky's blog boy.
*What does Miles Austin going to the Pro Bowl mean? It means the Pro Bowl is farcical, that's what it means.
*I take no joy in the fact that The Ticket had one of its worst ratings periods in a long time over the holidays. Why? Because -- nope, I won't run from bad news -- Greggo and I somehow slumped in December and are clearly No. 3 in the afternoon sports talk radio race. In Men 25-54 in December The Ticket drew a 4.3, followed by ESPN at 3.0 and 105.3 The Fan at 2.9. As I've said before, I ain't good on radio. But the good news is I just signed a new contract that gives me plenty of time to get better.
*Was at the Dallas Convention Center yesterday afternoon when the NFL Experience opened for business. Saw Drew Pearson, in delicate white gloves, usher in the $25,000 Lombardi Trophy. What? He almost dropped it?!
*Hot.
*Not.
*Last weekend Jason and Brill Garrett had company when they went to dinner at this restaurant on Oak Lawn: A couple named Tony Romo and Candice Crawford.
*Don't understand all this fawning over the stories about Troy Aikman on HBO's Real Sports and in D Magazine. I've seen a couple of Tweets saying the stories "nailed it" on the real Aikman. Really? How do you do an in-depth story on a guy and miss the part about his impending divorce? Some of you will remember back in November when I remarked that something seemed fishy about Aikman. Now you know.
*At the NFL Experience I saw mayors Mike Moncrief (Fort Worth), Robert Cluck (Arlington) and Tom Leppert (Dallas). Moncrief and Cluck strolled around with their wives while Leppert had a posse that must've been at least six guys in suits.
*ESPN's Erin Andrews rips TCU's Nike cleats days before she signs a deal with Reebok. Conflict of interest or just an excuse for all of us to think about her wearing nothing but shoes?
*Do we think a 6-foot-2, 250-pound, 35-year-old generic white dude can kick off his dress shoes and run a 4.86 40-yard dash? Saw that at the NFL Experience, but not sure I believe it.
*Troy Polamalu has the No. 1-selling jersey among women. What is it about women liking guys with long hair? (Said the guy with increasingly no hair.)
*Ah, the good ol' days.
*Speaking of white dudes, I've heard BYU's Jimmer Fredette compared to everyone from Pete Maravich (way too high) to Dan Dickau (waaaay too low). He leads the nation in scoring and I'll say this, he's better than J.J. Redick because he can create his own shot. Maybe he's a Barea some day?
*The Superpages.com Center is now being re-re-re-re-re-branded as Gexa Energy Pavilion. Forget it, it'll always be Starplex to me.
*This weekend? The calm before the storm. For once do be a stranger. With Super Bowl parties every night, we'll see plenty of each other next week.
