Presenting the two smartest men in sports, at least until Sunday: Jon Gruden and Billy Beane.

Both have jobs that, at the beginning, looked hopeless. Gruden was asked to win while scurrying around trying to avoid Al Davis' shadow. Beane was asked to assemble a contending baseball team in Oakland while making sure the bare minimum of tuna helper is served in the visitor's clubhouse.

Gruden has emerged from Davis' shadow and, at the same time, brought Davis back into the bright lights. He has done this with a severe work ethic and a reliance on an offense Davis once considered the football version of ipecac.

And Beane? Beane got himself Johnny Damon.

Considering the teams that wanted Damon, it's remarkable that Oakland got him. But Beane has shown a knack for flying in low and coming away with big prizes -- Kevin Appier, Jason Isringhausen, now Damon.

Most of the news reports in the wake of the Damon trade indicated that "now" the A's are the favorites in the AL West. Now? You mean they weren't before? Who was -- the Rangers? Please. The A's won the division last year, when Alex Rodriguez was on a better team with a better pitching staff in the same division.

Better than anything, though, Beane and the A's have provided an answer to all those owners and GMs who say they just can't compete. They all have their Selig-isms at the ready, but Beane has proven them wrong. You just can't do it? Yes, you can -- provided you're smart and make the right phone calls.

This Week's List

The answer is "Sir, the party's two doors down," and the question is: What to say if Brian Billick comes knocking at your door.

One irrefutable fact about life in the NFL: It's always easier to say you're going to knock down the door and call out all the SOBs when you're standing behind Ray Lewis.

And, no -- the answer is no: Billick doesn't look any tougher in person.

The Ravens thought of something like this, but the Browns retained the legal right to all motivational speeches: The Giants want Lawrence Taylor to come back and pump them up before Sunday's game.

Three NBA players hit for 50 in a week, teams (other than the Hornets or Knicks) are occasionally reaching triple-digits -- there's only one possible explanation: David Stern ordered the ball to be juiced.

That's the good news, but the bad news is that ABC has to put Al Trautwig -- and his thesaurus -- on Monday Night Football: NBC gets a loan of Jim McKay for the Salt Lake Olympics.

Then again: A Monday Night Football "Miller and Trautwig: Fighting For the Thesaurus" halftime show might be amusing.

This week's underneath-the-huddle, inside-the-line-of-scrimmage, deep-in-the-secondary picks: Raiders, Vikings.

And the reason?: Do you want to watch a Ravens-Giants Super Bowl?

Making friends, coast to coast: Rick Pitino.

Acknowledging the fine line between sensitivity and scab-pulling, there comes a time when a man needs to say what every other man is saying: TNT's Jim Huber had a fine interview with David Wesley the other night, but when Wesley said, "Bobby drove fast. I drive fast," the question that screamed out was, "Still?"

It's the kind of take that a guy like Jim Rome would listen to and then say, "Uh ... you think?": In Jim Rome's "The Last Word" column on foxsports.com, Jim Rome says that Rod Strickland's third DUI in three years indicates that he is not the kind of guy who learns from his mistakes.

You can Coach K until you're blue in the face, but until further notice there's no doubt as to the identity of the best college basketball coach in America: Mike Montgomery.

In a very real sense, it was the only announcement he needed to make: Michael Vick arrived at his press conference Thursday driving a new Lexus GS-300.

There are four teams in the NFL who seriously believe they haven't received the proper amount of respect from you, me, or anybody else with an opinion: 1) Ravens; 2) Giants; 3) Raiders; 4) Vikings.

One guy who had conducted himself better than he's getting credit for: Kerry Collins

What, you expect a guy who doesn't believe in dinosaurs to change his mind?: Carl Everett told Boston reporters, "You're always going to have problems, especially when you have the media. If there were no media, you would never have problems."

And, Carl, one other thing: If there were no media, there would probably be no contracts worth $10 million per.

It might be a communication problem, given the fact that two of the primaries are acting like they're on "The Real World" and the other guy is providing the narration for a "Frontline" special on aqueduct-building: Kobe, Shaq and Phil Jackson.

And finally, amidst the confusion, a halftime show was born: A blimp touting the XFL crashed on a restaurant in Oakland.

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail tim.keown@espnmag.com.