Lately it seems that sports fans are mesmerized by the "it could happen to us" motto.  I don't blame you. With the miracle 3-0 comeback by the Philadelphia Flyers against the Boston Bruins as well as other surprising upsets and comebacks throughout the NBA playoffs, what are we supposed to think?

I'm here to help all of you with your false hopes and dreams.  There's no need to have you hanging on the edge of your seat only to see your dreams shattered and your face full of tears.

Here's the top ten "don't get your hopes up" in sports:

10) Mike and Mike will still be on the air for another five years - I want it to end. You want it to end. Sports fans in general want the worst radio show in sports to end as soon as possible, but it won't. We all used to enjoy the show, but now it's just annoying and so over-produced that it's not even entertaining.  I'm tired of all the lame cliffhangers like "Golic had a hang nail on his big toe.  I'll tell you why after the break." Or all the ESPN forced rhetoric that comes out of these two.  Their contrasting opinions seem forced on most issues just to make the show go and it just gets old.  How many "Greeny is gay" and "Golic is fat" jokes can we really take?  Please just get off the air because we know we're hearing what ESPN wants you to talk about instead of sports issues you should really be talking about.

9) Brett Favre will not retire in 2011 - Brett Favre is coming back this year. We all know that. After this surgery he'll be back in purple and gold and go on to have another great season.  Just like last year, don't count on this one ending in the promised land. Another Super Bowl - less year will bring him back for an additional year. For a while, I was sick of the Brett talk. Now, he's hardly in the news because of all the previous speculation regarding his possible retirement. We expect him to come back so we don't need or have breaking news everyday telling us what's going on. Good for Brett and good for us because he's a staple player in the NFL. To boot, I need him around just to keep my site name relevant.

8) The NHL will not be aired on ESPN - The one thing that needs to happen in 2011 to make the sport relevant won't when the NHL's contract ends with Versus. The biggest reason for this: you guessed it, money. I actually think this will end up working out for the NHL, though.  Before, I thought that every sport needed to revolve around ESPN, but that just isn't the case anymore. Versus may not be on everyone's TV right now, but the the availability of channels has grown significantly in the past ten years.  The NHL will be aired on a few different stations, none of which with an affiliation to ESPN. They'll find a market that fits them well.

7) Tim Tebow will not score a single passing touchdown this year - I'm a Tim Tebow hater and damn proud of it. The guy is going to suck in the NFL. For all the thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who purchased a Broncos #15 jersey in April, I would return it to the store right now. We've heard that he is in line to see around 15 snaps a game, but I don't think that will happen. "Tebowmania" should die down after a couple of miscues early on. I think the Tebow experiment will end before it even starts.  If he sticks to running back, then it may work. If he stays behind center, than it won't.

6) Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio will not fight in 2010 - The fight is bound to happen; when it will happen is a whole different story. This fight will not only decide once and for all who is the greatest pound for pound fighter in the world, but the winner will leave the ring with a legacy in line with some of the greatest boxers of all time. To the disappointment of boxing fans everywhere, it won't be this year. Here's how it will go down: Both will make their easy millions with a few easy warm up bouts. Then, we'll finally see the epic battle ... sometime after 2010. Another factor to consider is the inevitability of a rematch, no matter the result.  When's the last boxing match that we knew would have a rematch?  Pavlik/Taylor and Vazquez/Marquez? Both were great fights that made us want sequels, but it's not like we wanted it before we saw the fight. This fight is in a league of its own and in a year other than 2010.

5) Stephen Strasburg will not have more than 7 wins - Oh No! Did I just commit blasphemy against Jesus? I'm definitely going to Hell now. I know he's dominated the minor leagues, but coming to the big leagues is a whole new ball game. The Nationals may have a winning record right now, but let's see what they look like after the All-Star break. Then we'll know if I'm right or wrong. Strasburg will be great in the future, but I think the hype will wane off quickly. Let's not forget about the Nat's offense either. The run production won't be there for Strasburg to win games.

4) The USA Soccer Team will not finish in the Top 8 - I don't think that they even make it out of their group, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt thanks to several injuries on the English team and one of the easiest groups in the World Cup.  America has their hopes up for the first time in soccer, but it won't last after they get eliminated as most soccer fans in the USA will be flat lining by the end of June. The team just can't match the talent around the world. Maybe give us 4-8 more years and then we will have a shot at the Cup.

3) Neither the Orlando Magic nor the Phoenix Suns will make the NBA Finals - Let's face the facts here my friends. The Lakers are 27-3 at home in their last 30 games. Did we forget that there would still be two games left at the Staples Center even if Phoenix wins game 6?  It's not going to happen. The Lake Show will return to form tonight and win the series, probably in 6. In the East, we see every single senior citizen and their grandchildren from the Orlando area jumping back on the Magic bandwagon. No team in the NBA has ever come back from 3-0 and it's not going to happen now. Stan Van Gundy can thank David Stern and Eddie Rush for saving his job by not getting swept, but Orlando is not winning this series. Lakers versus Celtics, just how we all wanted it.

2) LeBron James will not be a New York Knickerbocker - I hate to even delve into this ridiculous chaos that no one knows anything about. The one thing I do know is that LBJ will not be playing in MSG more than two times next year. Star players don't go to teams because they love the city; they go to teams because they can win. Athletes only go back to their home towns or favorite cities when they are on the final stages of their career and Bron Bron is far from it. So where do I think LeBron is going? I'm actually going to pick a place that nobody seems to bring up: Cleveland. LeBron is staying. The Cavs will go out and get a big name coach and they will pull off a trade deal for Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, or Joe Johnson that will help solidify the team. Ohio's own will stay in town to once again bear the weight of Cleveland aka the Armpit of America on his shoulders.

1) The New York Jets will not make the playoffs - Everyone’s favorite Super Bowl pick seems poised to make another run at the Lombardi Trophy, but they won't even get the chance to play in the post season. The Sanchise was solid his first year, but I don't see his skills really improving. Teams will be ready for him and therefore will stop the offense easily. The loss of Thomas Jones will be felt early on once Shonn Greene gets injured. Then we'll have to watch LT try to carry the load and tarnish his legacy even more. The defense will be solid, but with other talented teams in the AFC East, I'm trying to get Jets fans to take a step down from their high horses right now.

So that's my advice and predictions for all the things that people are legitimately believing in sports these days. In the words of Mr. Perfect, "I'm not the type of guy who says I told you so, but I told you so."

I may be wrong, but don't get your hopes up.

Some of you may have wondered what happened to Favre Dollar Footlongs.  My last column I wrote about was "The Drought" and not being interested in sports and the next thing you know, I am gone for over a week with no goodbye letter.  Well, I'm back from my drought, ready to write with a purpose and hopefully write every day, at least until next Friday.

I wasn't as much in a drought as I was in the end of an era.  Last week was my final week as an IT Administrator at my past company.  I'm moving on to bigger and better things, which I'll probably talk about next week.  Still, it was an awkward feeling to leave a small company that you've seen grow, hopefully due to some of my work.

I've been training my replacement for the past couple of weeks, getting him ready for all the problems that can arise in a small company.  The e-mail problems, the server, the time and attendance, the network, the printers; basically all the fun stuff that a sole IT person in a company has to deal with.  The person who was coming in to take over for me was great. He had a solid sense of humor and more importantly, he was able to grasp everything pretty quickly.

It's kind of awkward to think that someone is ready to take over everything that you've put in place for the past couple years.

During my past few years there, I've seen numerous hirings and firings; lots of temp workers who came in the morning and were already fired by the afternoon.  I've seen people get fired and have tirades, I've seen someone get fired over Facebook, and I've even seen an employee who was offered a raise and the next morning it was already off the table. Somehow, I made it through the mayhem.

It wasn't the best place to work or the worst place to work, but I wouldn't change those years for anything because it helped me gain all the experience I need to move on to my new company.

So now that I'm on my third day of vacation, which seems like more of a work week than my typical one usually is thanks to friends and family needing help on a bunch of different issues, I have finally sat back and reflected and realized how so many athletes feel when they are "forced out of town."

Now "forced out of town" can mean a lot of things.  It can mean that the team doesn't want them there anymore, it could be that they aren't providing the productivity needed, or it can mean that the team doesn't have the resources or doesn't want to pay them the value that they think they are worth.

For me I'm a little "the team doesn't have the resources or doesn't want to pay them the value" type of departure mixed with a little bit of "I want to go to a championship contender", a bigger and more successful company.

It doesn't really matter why you go out, but the appreciation you receive when you leave.

We saw numerous athletes this year who got bounced from their teams for one reason or another: Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, and Brady Quinn, just to name a few.  All these athletes were loved by the cities they played for, gave it the best they could, and all were sent packing with not so much as a thanks for playing for the team.

Each are gone for different reasons.  The Eagles didn't want to extend McNabb and pay him into the future so he got traded to the Redskins.  Brian Westbrook is one concussion away from becoming Gary Busey so they had to send him packing.  Brady Quinn just wasn't cutting it so the team had to move on in a different direction.

The team had their reasons for getting rid of each and every one of them, but it's how they were sent out is the problem I'm finally beginning to see.

My situation was a little different.  I knew about the position I was going to be taking and gave over two months notice that I would be leaving.  Everyone kept telling me to wait two weeks before or a month before; I chose to tell them soon after I found out.  When I actually told my boss I think he got confused and said, "That's soon."

At the same time I thought that maybe I just gave him the earliest notice that anyone has ever given.

The first month went by and then a couple weeks went by and my replacement came in for training.  Someone was taking my spot, and even if it was on my own accord, it's still a weird feeling to see it happen.

Last Friday was my last day.  I wasn't expecting much.  Over the more than two years I was with the company, I didn't receive a raise or as much as a "great job" more than twice a year, so why would I expect something different now?  During the farewell I just thought that maybe things would change.

Everyone else in the company was happy for me; the boss was sad to see me go.  Early in the morning he walked in, shook my hand, and said thanks for all my hard work. It was a kind gesture that I very much appreciated and reciprocated back.

Later on in the day I was asked what I was doing for lunch. They wanted to see if I wanted to have a pizza party for my last day.  A kind gesture, but one that I knew was kind of spur of the moment, since we had visitors in that were supposed to receive lunch, but they left early so it quickly moved into a gesture for me.  It was fine though; it was just nice to get everyone together one last time.

As the day ended and the boss was leaving, I thought he'd stop one last time to wish me good luck or say thank you.  He didn't.

That's how my first career ended.  A pizza party.

Maybe last week it bothered me a little, this week I could care less.  If I didn't receive appreciation during my years of work there why would I receive it on my last day?

The biggest thing I've learned is that appreciation from others is nice, but appreciating what you've done yourself is more important.  I know I did a lot for that company and hopefully helped it move in the right direction.  I know that I will be missed and that there will be the times that they wish I was still there.

Just like all the other athletes that are "run out of town" I want to prove my value to my next team.  All these players who have been released, traded, or signed elsewhere know that they have to prove their worth by benefiting their new city by means of production on the field, team leadership, community service, or anything else to prove to the team and the city that "I want to be here and this is where I belong."

I want to do the same with my opportunity.

Unlike most players who are out for revenge, I have no ill feelings toward my ex-employer.  I hope they do great.

Then again, I hope I do better.

My drought has begun.  As tough as it is to admit it, I have to face the facts.  Ever since Thursday night after the Cavs/Celtics game there is only one thing I can think about, football.

That's what the drought is; it's the period of time over the summer where all we have to watch on television is baseball.  Most years the drought begins in mid-June for me, but after two devastating defeats on back-to-back nights of my favorite teams last Wednesday and Thursday, then I've come to the conclusion that my drought has begun now.

The Pens losing to the Canadians has made me disinterested in the NHL playoffs now, and the Cavs getting knocked out by the Celtics has swayed me away from the NBA also.  I'll follow them both, I'll watch some or most of the games, but I just don't have any emotional stake in either of the sports now.

Part of the problem this year is that both my teams had legitimate championship aspirations.  The Penguins had the red carpet laid out for them.  The top three seeded teams ahead of them all get knocked out in the first round, and they got to play the No. 8 seed with home ice throughout the playoffs.

The setting just seemed perfect.

It's the last year of Mellon Arena and the team could've gone to the Stanley Cup for their third straight year.  It was there for the taking, but it got stolen away so quickly by the Montreal Canadians.  I'm sort of still in disbelief that it happened to us.

If that wasn't bad enough, the next day I had to endure the third consecutive pathetic display of basketball that the Cleveland Cavaliers tried to win with.  After the Game 5 loss two nights before, I don't think many Cavalier fans expected the team to win the series, let alone even get to a Game 7.

To make matters worse, there is constant banter about where LeBron will go next.  All the talk is tiring.  My feeling on LeBron staying or leaving can be summed up by my friend James Simon when he said, "I've thought about it a lot and I'm just not sure."

I guess I feel the same way.  I guess I just want everything to play out and we'll wait until July 1 and then we'll see.  At this point I'm more disappointed that I can't watch anymore Cavs games or attend anymore playoff games than anything.  Do I care about LeBron? Yeah, but I just don't care about him right now.

I've haven't had two heartbreaks like that in the same week since Michael Jackson and Billy Mays died, and I hope to never have it happen again.

So that is why my drought has started.  The drought is really the worst time of the sports year.  It doesn't mean that there aren’t any sports to watch or there won't be anything to be entertaining enough for me to write, but it's just the slow period before our beloved football begins.

Most years I am lucky, either my teams make it to the finals or they aren't supposed to make it so it's not as punishing to my psyche, but this year is different.  For the other people who are in my shoes, I feel your pain.  For those of you that will hit the drought next month, cherish this time because it won't last long.

Maybe the drought is a good thing.  The early emergence of it this year has made me appreciate getting  into the playoffs much more and not just taking it for granted when you have a team that is "supposed" to make it.

It has made me appreciate football even more then I thought it could possibly be appreciated and it's even made me focus more on enjoying watching baseball, which has been pretty tough to do the last 17 years when you are a Pittsburgh Pirates fan.

Maybe the drought is a bad thing.  With every drought of something comes an abundance of another thing and this year it seems like the LeBron James sweepstakes.  I don't know if I can endure an entire summer of this nonsense.  Even once July 1st hits we are still going to have to hear about the ramifications of every team that was associated with him even more.

Is the drought a good thing? Is it a bad thing?

"I've thought a lot about it and I'm just not sure."

No offense to the old timers Peter King and Chris Mortensen, but my favorite NFL insiders are Adam Schefter and Jay Glazer.  It used to not be this way.  Actually, I used to not have any favorite NFL insiders.

Five years ago breaking news didn't seem that important.  I'd go throughout the day not hearing about anything that was happening in the sports world and that would be fine.  If I came home late in the day and saw that a trade happened, someone was injured, or another baseball player was suspected of PED's then I'd be interested to see it, but I never really cared that I didn't know about it immediately.

Times have changed.  Now I want to be the first to know everything.  I don't just want to be one of the first to know, I expect to be one of the first to know.  I consistently stay updated on all that is happening in the sports world through ESPN, whether it is on television, radio, or my phone, or I use the ultimate source of breaking news, Twitter.

Five years ago doesn't seem too long ago that it would change my whole mind state on obtaining sports news.  I mean I did have the times where I'd go on trips and be out of the loop on everything for an entire week and then have to jump back into the real world when I returned.  Other than those few times, I didn't really need to be updated every minute of the day.  Now I do.

Some people may say this is an addiction or a problem; that learning about a story thirty minutes from now compared to right now is no big deal.  I thought about the exact same opinion most people have and then realized that I'm right and they're wrong.

There isn’t many times that if people have the chance to obtain something quicker they won't take it.  If you could get to work five minutes faster and be able to sleep five minutes longer would you take it?  If you sit down at a restaurant and could be served ten minutes quicker and leave ten minutes earlier would you say no thanks?  If you could find out who was kicked off American Idol or Dancing With the Stars thirty minutes before other people knew would you want to know?

For every single person time is used differently, but at the end of the day we'd all like things done a little bit quicker so then we could essentially use more time.   That's exactly what I try to do and this is where Adam Schefter and Jay Glazer come in.

As I said earlier, Twitter is the best source available for breaking news.  Much of the sports news and particularly NFL news is brought to us by @adam_schefter and @jay_glazer.  These two sources of information constantly update their feeds with credible information before anyone else does.  If something is happening behind the scenes in the NFL then one of these two guys know it first.  This isn't to say that other insiders like Peter King and The Mort Report don't use Twitter as well; they just don't use Twitter as well as Schefter and Glazer.

I hope this doesn't sound like a love fast for the two because it definitely isn't supposed to be.   This is just my take on two underappreciated insiders who complete their job to the fullest by keeping us in the know almost 24 hours a day.  Not only do they feed us all the news they receive, but occasionally they will answer questions you send to them as well.  It's pretty nice to have a source where you can have a legit sports question on your mind, ask one of them, and you receive a legitimate answer from someone who is closely affiliated to the source.  I guess this is why they are the new age of reporters.

Information is important to me.  Maybe I'm in the minority that needs to know all immediately.  Maybe I'm just one of the few that understands and appreciates the fact that we have the resources to do so.  I see it as a benefit.  By me knowing something an hour, thirty minutes, or even a minute before other people then I'm ahead of the curve and can move on to the next thing.  Twitter, with the help of @adam_schefter and @jay_glazer, empowers me to do so.

Technology isn't going in reverse anytime soon.  Immediate news is going to be a way of life for everyone in the near future.  I'm just trying to get other people to jump on board now.  Then again, I don't mind being the one who knows first.

The talk of the town around NCAA fans these days is the expansion possibilities of the Big Ten.  I'll continue calling it the Big Ten because I don't need to act like the millions of other lame people who think the joke is still funny to refer to it as the Big Eleven.  Congratulations you know there are eleven teams and not ten.

Everyone doesn't seem to have a problem with the Big Ten expanding, but they do have a problem with the repercussions that be caused from it.   We've heard of the Big East getting dismantled.  Teams from the Big 12 moving to the Big Ten and that conference having to grab new teams.  Basically once the Big Ten is done figuring out who wants to come and who they are going to take, then the rest of the conferences can start rebuilding, reloading, or collapsing entirely.  Don't blame it on the Big Ten, blame it on the BCS.

Would we really be in this predicament if the BCS never started?  Conferences now have to expand to have enough teams for conference championships because a team will be overlooked if they play one less game.  Without the BCS, things would've stayed the same; we would've had the Big Ten Champion playing the Pac 10 Champion in the Rose Bowl every year and everyone would've been happy right?  Wrong.  For all the hate that the BCS deservingly receives, the one thing it has done right is caused the whole landscape of college football for the change, and it seems like it will be for the better.

Not to say that teams weren't focused on the National Championship before the BCS, but now the entire focus is on the national title.  Winning your conference and making it to the BCS is a great accomplishment, but if you're not in that title game then your season could feel incomplete.  We never had that before.  Expansion could cause NCAA football to have more focus on each separate conference instead of individual teams.  If we do end up with the super power conferences of 16 teams that it seems like we're going to then this causes many more important conference games throughout the season and very important end of season conference championships.  Of course this would all be much better if we had a tournament style post season.

I like where the expansion of college football is headed, but the one problem with all of this is NCAA basketball.  Many people have brought it up, but few have elaborated on the fact that the movement amongst teams to different conferences in football also has a major impact on basketball.  There are traditions and rivalries that are instilled in both separate sports that need to be maintained and some drastic changes by either of the sports will cause the demise of the other sports rivalries and traditions.

There's a simple solution to this problem.  The NCAA should have separate conferences for football and separate conferences for basketball.

Do we really care if Syracuse and UConn play football in the Big Ten and then play basketball in the Big East?  Would we really be upset if Duke and UNC were in the ACC in basketball and then Duke wasn't even part of one of the super conferences in football?

The NCAA already has separate conferences for Division I hockey.  Notre Dame is independent in football and plays in the Big East in basketball and Georgetown plays Big East basketball and doesn't even have a D1 football team.  There are already many instances where similar situations take place, just now if they follow my lead then it will be more severe, but better for both games overall.

I say expand the conferences and expand our mind sight at the same time.  College football and college basketball are great, but both could be even better by creating the best possible conferences in each individual sport.

I'm all for maintaining the current rivalries and traditions that are in place, but I'm also for seeing new traditions and rivalries be created.