Jay Greeson: Friday mailbag with Kentucky's and Cal's collapse, NFL mega deal and death of discourse

Mar. 18—First the Rushmores.

Rushmore of band — Band of Brothers, "One time at band camp," American Bandstand and Sexual Chocolate the band that played so well behind Mr. Randy Watson, the man you know better as Joe the Policeman from the 'What's Going Down' episode of "That's my Momma."

Rushmore of celebs linked with charities — Jerry Lewis and MDA, Jimmy V and his foundation, Paul Newman and his foundation, Danny Thomas and St. Jude's.

Rushmore of movies/TV shows with Godfather references — (Side note: "Yellowstone" is modeled after the Corleone, but I'm not sure it has that many references.) "The Sopranos," of course. "The Freshman" which even had Brando in it. "The Simpsons" has a great Godfather connection through the years. And finally when Gru finds the doll head in his bed in "Despicable Me" which is aces by the way.

Rushmore of pie — As for flavors, apple, key lime, pizza and my wife's homemade peach pie. Still working on phrases and pop culture references.

From so many of you

What happened to Kentucky?

Gang —

I wish I knew. But whatever it was, it wrecked my bracket, which had these Mildcats going all the way.

And while the numbers and the metrics and the seeds and all of it tell us it's one of the biggest upsets in tournament history, watching the game, Saint Peter's looked like the better team.

And they were clearly the better-coached team and the better-prepared team.

Being someone who has stated multiple times that I think John Calipari for the most part is an underrated X's and O's guy, that was arguably the worst single performance of his Hall of Fame career.

What a stinker. And this was Cal's oldest most experienced team at Kentucky.

It was a shocker, for sure, a mega-shocker on a day filled with them as two 12s won against 5s and 11th-seeded Michigan thumped Colorado State.

Madness indeed.

From Paul

Jay, this may be too late for your Friday column but what are my Packers doing trading their second-best player?

Paul —

Such is the price of Aaron Rodgers, considering the Packers resigned their future Hall of Fame QB for about $50 million per year.

That's a monster chunk of the cap, and the Packers were already close, so that means Davante Adams is headed to Las Vegas. The raiders sent their first- and second-round picks to Green Bay for Rodgers' favorite target and the most productive WR in the league over the last three years.

And now we will assuredly get to see whether Adams was the beneficiary of Rodgers' greatness or truly great himself. Because while Adams has chemistry with Raiders QB Derek Carr — the two played at Fresno State together — the Las Vegas QB will never be confused with Rodgers in terms of skill set.

And when you woke up this morning, here's betting you thought that if we were going to be talking about a blockbuster NFL trade, it would have involved DeShaun Watson, right?

(As for Watson, it looks like Bearddawg may get his wish and the former Gainesville High star — Gainesville is about 50 miles north of the A-T-L — could be headed home to the Falcons.)

From Mrs. Sportsfan

What do you think about churches having political candidates to be guest speakers at worship? I watched the Herschel Walker video and that was the setting. Just curious.

Mrs. Sportsfan —

Man, that's a good question.

I am for all candidates to speak anywhere. And for any group to ask candidates to speak.

But one of the 12 million negative byproducts of our fractured current political system is that no one wants to have a discussion.

We either have pep rallies or screaming matches.

The death of discourse and the vitriol in our disagreements that make it impossible for adults to agree to disagree is the cigarette to our country's lung cancer.