Really, don’t you have anything better to do? How about reading a book? Or listen to an audio version of a book? I listened to Tina Fey’s Bossypants during a drive to Indiana University last weekend. Very entertaining.

No, it looks like a significant majority of you tuned into NBC’s coverage of the Pro Bowl last night. According to NBC, the game did a 7.7 overnight rating, which means more than 12 million viewers tuned into the dullest and most worthless sporting event on TV.

To make matters worse, it appears as if the game won the night for NBC. A Sunday night in primetime in January, no less.

That rating will just encourage the NFL and the networks to continue playing this charade of a football game. Dare I say it, maybe they’ll even add a second Pro Bowl, much like baseball did when they used to play two All-Star games.

Speaking of baseball, you can’t be happy that the 7.7 rating for the Pro Bowl was higher than the 7.6 average rating for the four games of the World Series. Perhaps, Joe Buck should do next year’s series with Troy Aikman. Might trick a few football fans into watching.

Yes, we love football. Yes, we do.

It won’t be a complete celebration of the end of Ray Lewis’ great football career next week in New Orleans. The problem with reaching the Super Bowl is that the spotlight and scrutiny level goes up exponentially.

That means the off-the-field portion of Lewis’ life also will be examined. He has a dark moment in his past: His possible involvement in two murders in Atlanta in 2000.

The Washington Post isn’t waiting for New Orleans. The Post’s Kent Babb did a terrific piece of enterprise reporting with a long story about Lewis and the murders. Charges against Lewis were eventually dropped, although the Baltimore linebacker wound up paying millions to settle civil suits by the victims’ families.

Babb visited one of the victim’s families in Ohio. The family still believes Lewis was involved.

Babb writes:

Nearly 13 years after the incident, Lewis’s legacy centers on his outstanding career, his message of faith and giving, and the charisma that will no doubt be on display throughout next week before the Super Bowl.

Richard Lollar’s family in Akron, meanwhile, associates Lewis’s name with something far different, and they continue to struggle — with money and Priscilla’s mother’s illness and the impossibility, even so many years later, to find closure to a situation that has offered none. Some relatives have faced Richard’s death head-on, but his mother has dealt with it by ignoring the ordeal’s most elemental fact: that her son is dead.

Later, there’s this passage:

On Feb. 3, Lewis will be introduced in New Orleans and will play in his second Super Bowl. He said before the playoffs that he’ll retire after this season, and in five years, he will be eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which is headquartered in Canton, Ohio, less than 25 miles from the home where Richard Lollar grew up.

In the years since Lollar’s death Lewis has become one of football’s most beloved figures. He speaks openly about his faith in God, and his No. 52 Ravens jersey is, according to NFLshop.com, one of its highest sellers. At the country’s most-viewed sporting event, most eyes will be on Lewis, who most assuredly will be compared with a warrior making his heroic last stand.

“I don’t want to hear that,” Faye Lollar says, “because he’s not no hero to me.”

Lewis will have numerous media sessions with the national media next week. Will the murders be brought up? How much will it be a part of the narrative for the stories on him?

Judging from the Post story, plenty.

Note: I’m going to be out for a couple of weeks. However, I’m leaving behind some gifts for the holidays: The best of my Q/As. I’ll feature a new one each day through Jan. 2. Please check in. Happy Holidays to all.

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Posted on Sept. 17

Here is what’s more amazing than John Clayton becoming a YouTube sensation (more than 2 million views) with his new ESPN SportCenter ad: The fact that he even took a day off to shoot the ad.

Clayton rarely takes days off. Maybe 10, 15 tops, all year, he says.

The truth is, a day off separates him for doing what he truly loves: Studying football.

Study, not cover, is exactly what he does for ESPN. Hence, his nickname, “The Professor.”

I always have been fascinated by Clayton. In Chicago, he does a weekly report on Wednesday at 4 p.m. on WMVP-AM 1000, the ESPN-owned sports talk station. I am continually astounded at his knowledge and his ability to name players buried deep on a team’s depth chart

How does Clayton do that?

I now know how after talking to Clayton late last week. His schedule is insane. For instance, after covering the Atlanta-Kansas City game during week 1, Clayton woke at 3 a.m. the next morning so he can begin watching replays of the other games prior to going to the airport.

Note: Our interview was interrupted twice because he had to takes call from NFL front office people. No doubt, calling him for information.

Here it is:

Who is the third string running back on the Bears?

They just made the change. Remember, they had Kahlil Bell, and they cut him. They made the adjustment with Armando Allen, who they brought up.

How do you keep track of all that? You’re talking about a guy who barely gets on the field. Do you have photographic memory?

Oh, well. Any free moment I have, I study it.That’s what I try to do. I’m even doing more things this year than I ever have before. I find it so essential to do.

I want to know everything I can about a roster. Everything.

I keep track of every contract in the league. I have every roster in the league. I make sure my rosters are updated every day.

I have these databases. One data base has every salary of every player, every age of every player, every height and weight of every player, every year of experience, every entry level.

What I do with the salaries I build a program, takes the salaries and add them up. I have the proration of their signing bonuses, and the money they are likely to earn. I mix that all together so I can put together a salary cap number of every team in the league.

Second data base: How they were built. I’ll have the name of the player; what year he came into the league and position he plays. I can keep track of whether the team is too old, how many new players they have.

I keep track of the inactives on Sunday…

Why do you need to know all this?

Because that’s what I do.

Not everybody does this.

OK, do I follow the salary of a player because I care about what he makes? No. A decision is made for that guy to make that salary. What does it mean that you have a back up who is making $2 million? Well, before the start of the season, they’re going to come to him and ask for a pay cut. You know going in, certain guys are going to go.

If you’re above the cap, you know Kyle Vanden Bosch is going to redo his contract to give (the Lions) cap room.

I also need to know who is the third receiver. When I talk about fantasy receivers, how do they use those guys? People want to know.

You live in Seattle. Nothing is close to you besides the Seahawks. Why do you feel you have to be at a game every Sunday as opposed to watching all of them on DirecTV?

To me, it’s the best way to get a feel for football and finding the changes and finding the trends. The game changes to a certain degree every 3 or 4 weeks. I’m at the game and I’m watching every game. I’ve got the iPad.

When you’re at the game, you get a full view of what’s going on and the immediacy of going down to the lockerroom and answering those questions. You don’t have the ability to ask those questions if you’re sitting at home.

I go to Atlanta-KC. I see what I see. Then I have the ability to go over to Matt Ryan and talk about what he’s doing with his offense; get a feel for the Chiefs.

I’d go to 32 training camps if they let me. When you’re watching practice, I’m pretty intense about following everything. You watching and saying, ‘this guy is in good shape, this guy has lost some speed…’ You’re putting that all in perspective and you have the immediacy of asking somebody.

Do you watch every game eventually?

Before I’d tape every game I could. Now thanks to NFL.com, they have the digital version of every game in 30 minutes. So literally in KC, I got up at 3 on Monday morning. I watched four games at the hotel. Went to the airport and watched three more. I had seven games done by the time I flew back home. When I got home, I watched the rest.

Does anyone do what you do?

The teams are. If teams are doing it, and if I can get in the heads of the teams, it might help me out a little bit.

You go, ‘All of the sudden. Wait a second. If the fourth round pick is ahead of the third round pick, then you start to realize maybe the third-round pick is being phased out.’

Do you have GMs hitting you up for information?

Yeah.

How do the players treat you? I imagine it is different than when you were covering the NFL as a newspaper reporter.

In 2000, ESPN did a Clayton Across America. I went to 31 teams in 28 days. The top players would be nice enough to come over to you, particularly on teams 23 and 24. They were following me. They would come over and say, ‘Hey John, I know you must be really tired. Do you need me for anything?’

I always do the Inside the Huddle notebook, because I’m trying to stay on top of trends. Once I started doing that segment, the top players on the teams were so cooperative. They would tell the little things they were doing differently. What trends they spotted.

If you’re a negative, ripping person, they’ll like you or hate you. I am what I am. I try to find the trends and do the most honest job I can. For whatever reason, that’s gone over well. Most of the top players are good to me when I see them or need them.

So what’s your daily routine?

I get up every day at 4,5,6. I try to go as long as I can before I get fatigued.

How much writing do you do?

Today, I did 3,500 words. Tomorrow, I’ll do about 1,400 words.

Do you ever see your wife?

Every Friday night is date night. As soon as I get done with my last segment, I take her out.

Do you ever take any days off?

Year round, maybe take 10-15 days off. It’s a seven-day-a-week job.

Do you feel if you did anything less, you’d be slacking off?

I would, yeah. What it all comes down to is that even though I’ve been doing this for a long period of time, I’m trying to always reinvent myself. I’m trying to get better. You can only get better when there’s so much new information out there.

You really love this, don’t you?

My only goal in life was to be an NFL beat writer for a team. Now instead of doing it for one team, I get to do it for 32 teams.

It’s phenomenal how much fun it can be. There’s so much information out there. I would like to do more with the numbers from a sabemetrics perspective. Sort of like what they do for baseball. Could I find a wins against replacement number for a QB, WR, Offensive tackle? I can see things visually, but I’d like to translate them into numbers.

It’s a fantastic job, and it’s only getting better.

Not to be flippant, but I really want to see Frank Caliendo on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown next week. That would mean the NFL went through the week without suffering any tragedies.

For the second week in a row, Caliendo’s regular segment had to be scratched in walk of another horrific incident involving an NFL player. It was the right call. Given what happened, a light-hearted comedy bit definitely was out of place.

NFL Today obviously learned its lesson. A week after the CBS pregame show was grilled for failing to open with the murder-suicide in Kansas City, and sticking with a Victoria Secret segment, the program got it right Sunday.

James Brown led the panelists in a discussion of the recent events. Then he gave a pointed commentary:

This has been a harrowing eight days in the national football league. We’ve witnessed a series of events that have cast the harsh spotlight on a pair of major societal issues. Alcohol abuse, which yesterday as we’ve talked about, needlessly claimed the life of a young Dallas Cowboy player, and domestic violence. Women typically take the lead in cause-related efforts, so this is a call to us men for more of us to get off the sidelines and become meaningfully engaged in helping to change this ugly, painful situation. Right now, three women-per-day on average are being killed by their husbands or boyfriends. This means that since Kasandra Perkins’ death last Saturday, at least 21 more women have met the same fate. Respecting and valuing women would seem to be a no-brainer. But profane language in music, the locker room or anywhere else that degrades and devalues women can contribute to attitudes and beliefs that are destructive and potentially violent.  A 2006 study demonstrated that with proper coaching and leadership, teenagers can successfully change their attitudes and behaviors towards women. So why can’t more of us grown men do that as well? Three more women will pay with their lives today, and they don’t have to. I certainly pray that we men are fed up enough or are hurt enough to want to do and say more about these critical issues. Because right now, the silence is deadly.

Meanwhile, the panelists weighed in on Countdown. Cris Carter, who has battled substance abuse, had an interesting perspective:

In the National Football League, they go to the max as far as the amount of money that they spend on the substance abuse program. I know this personally. I was involved in the program for my whole career, alright. I know the type of information. There are no excuses, alright. It comes down to decisions… Roger Goodell: There’s only one answer for all of this. The only thing the players now, the modern-day athlete understands is take him off the field.

Over at NBC, there was this exchange between Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison:

Dungy: “As an NFL coach, you’re coaching very, very young men. So I would  always talk at the first team meeting of the year. I would talk about decision  making, about drugs and alcohol and parties, and late hours. You just constantly  preach to them all year — make good decisions. Every Friday I used to tell our  team after practice, be smart, get home early, don’t drink and drive. But you  come in Saturday morning, and every coach says this, not just me, but you come  in Saturday morning and you just hope everyone gets there.”

Harrison: “You coaches do a great job relaying that message each and every  Friday. But at 25 years old, I’ll have to admit, I was a guy who went out. I  partied on Friday. I had three or four drinks, and I got behind the wheel and  drove home. Why? Because I thought I felt invincible. ‘Oh, nothing would happen  to me.’ But the older I got I started gaining perspective. I started realizing  what was important. Suddenly, I became that guy who would preach to the younger  players about family, about career, and about the dangers of DUI.”

Dungy: “I couldn’t tell them not to go out, because I knew they were going  out. But be smart. Come home at 12 o’clock. If you’re going to drink, use the  vehicles, the car service, and be smart about it. But you just don’t know if  they’re listening.”

Hopefully, people will listen. That’s why it is important to have these kinds of discussions in the wake of these tragedies.

Maybe other players will learn from these mistakes. It would be nice to see the pregame shows return to fun-and-games.