In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.

• Sources reported that Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis had an electronic device installed in his suite that allowed him to eavesdrop on the headset conversations of opposing coaches. "Listen, I know this looks bad," said Loomis, wearing a wide grin in an attempt to mollify the media, "but the truth is that 10 to 20 percent of the time, I couldn't even relay the plays to Sean in time for us to do anything. So, you know ... chillax, everyone. As my kids say. Non-story. Nothing to see here, move along, as a cop would say. Better get back on this bounty thing, right? That's the real deal. Where there's smoke, there's fire. I won't mention any names, but I've got it on good faith that Gregg Williams put a bounty on sleeping with other player's wives. Wink-wink. Who does that? That's sick, if you ask me. That's front page pornographic material. That's career-making, for a journalist. This electronics stuff belongs in an iPod newsletter, if anything. It's boring, guys. And let's be honest, you're boring enough already. 'Hey, look at me, I'm Dweeby McNewspaper, I play with walkie-talkies because I make no money and wish I was an Army grunt.' Not that I think any of you are dweebs, mind you. And please don't print that about the Army, I love and respect the Army. Big time. Well, don't say 'love,' because, you know, don't ask don't tell and that whole can of worms, but let's just avoid that issue altogether and focus on the heart of the matter, which is that Gregg Williams looks in the windows of other player's wives with binoculars on nights with no moon. Quote that as anonymous, if you would."

There is the victory you enjoy in private, at the end of a hard-fought day, with the family or close friends, feelings of ambient, total satisfaction in the chest and a cold beer in hand. And then there is the victory experienced in public: the gratuitous bat-flip and slow trot, the penalty for excessive celebration you’ll gladly take, kissing your badge to taunt the opposing fans. Generally, this second type of celebration is not permitted to NFL coaches; a fist-pump and a smile are about as swaggy as it gets. Which is why a good press conference can make for such great theater, the delicate and unlikely battlefield where these hypercompetitive leaders of hypercompetitive men might begin to work through some those accruing aggressions.

It's easy to look at the last few months of the New York Giants' season as some sort of flashback to 2007. There’s the dismal expectations, the near-victory in a late-season shootout against an undefeated team, the big underdog playoff road win, the huge catch here, the New England Patriots hurtling toward the Super Bowl over there.

But for all the similar stats or the new spins on old narratives, this year feels markedly different. 2007 had the feel of one of those nights where you don't plan on leaving your couch and then somehow end up on a wild 18-hour bender. This year things seem a little more high-stakes, a little more real, the kind of season that's liable to make you wind up in rehab.

With the Divisional Round of the playoffs in the books, it's time to take a look at some of the numbers and storylines from this week's games in "The Fabulous and the Flops." And while we could just make this simple and pick guys like Vernon Davis and Eli Manning to be stars and Roman Harper and Tim Tebow as scrubs, it would be a little redundant by now; you already know what they did. Instead, we're going to take a glance at some of the less obvious performances from this past week.