This has been a weird week in sports with baseball holding their winter meetings, the NBA returning from their lockout, more college conference realignments and the NFL getting closer to a playoff picture.

The Miami Marlins have a new stadium and new look and seem to have found a money tree. The club signed closer Heath Bell to a 27 million dollar deal. They followed up that move by signing free agent short stop Jose Reyes to a 106 million dollar contract. For a team, who in the past, doesn’t like to spend much money they are looking more like the Yankees this off-season. The Marlins have now offered Albert Pujols a 10 year 200+ million dollar contract, but it sounds like the St. Louis Cardinals still have the upper hand in landing him. Many people thought Pujols would be the last free agent target of the Marlins, but today they have made another splash in the market. The Marlins today signed free agent starting pitcher Mark Buehrle to a 58 million dollar deal. Their front office has even stated that if they don’t sign Pujols they will attempt to sign the next best free agent first baseman in Prince Fielder.

The NFL playoffs are getting closer and closer to being set. The Denver Broncos who seemed out of the playoff picture just five weeks ago are now on top of their division and would host the Pittsburgh Steelers if the playoffs started today. The Packers remain undefeated and look to have a 16-0 season all wrapped up if they continue to play at the level they have so far this season. Green Bay and San Fransisco, the top two teams in the NFC, are also the first two teams in the NFL to clinch their respective divisions. All four of the AFC divisions could still change and potentially could come down to the last two weeks of the season that have many divisional games scheduled to be played. You can use the ESPN Playoff Predictor to set your own playoff picture.

We also saw an end to the NBA lockout and teams are getting back together, but we have also seen that very little changed in the NBA’s new CBA. There is now talk that the CBA that was agreed on may not be signed off on after all. Many players and owners don’t believe that the new deal is any better than the previous CBA. This week has also held many rumors that include superstars Dwight Howard and Chris Paul. Some of these rumors include Howard and Paul joining Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles with the Lakers. These rumors prove that nothing was fixed in the NBA negotiations. Many fans believed that the NBA lockout was mainly to bring parity and competition to the league. Moves like these, however, would make the league even less competitive and take away some of what parity did exist.

Now one of the weirdest things that is going on in sports right now. Many college conferences are attempting to make their conferences stronger by adding new teams and bringing in teams from other conferences. Currently the Mountain West and Conference USA are talking about merging together. The weirdest story at this time, however, is the schools that the Big East is looking to bring into their conference. The Big East is expanding and has officially announced the addition of the Houston Cougars, Boise St. Broncos, San Diego St. Aztecs, Central Florida Knights and SMU Mustangs. Nothing says East like the Broncos from Boise, Idaho and the Aztecs from San Diego, California. I mean how much more east can you go than California, right? I understand that these conferences are attempting to become bigger and stronger in an attempt to get more money and respect from the BCS, but this conferece realignment needs to be done in another way.