Tag: sports

It’s really rather remarkable that the NFL is the one institution that is observably capable of self-correction:

It’s human nature to resist admitting mistakes. The bigger, richer, and more powerful a company is, the less likely it will be to acknowledge an error. That makes the NFL’s willingness to scrap the Monday Night Football doubleheaders even more significant.

Appearing recently on The Schrager Hour podcast, NFL V.P. of broadcast planning Mike North was surprisingly candid about the league’s decision to declare defeat and retreat.

“Yes, the Monday night doubleheaders are a thing of the past,” North said, via Sam Neumann of Awful Announcing. “I don’t know why that didn’t work. Quite honestly, I thought it was fine. I thought it was good for us. That Monday night game, if it wasn’t your game on Monday, it would’ve been Sunday at [1:00 p.m. ET], among eight, nine, or 10 other games. You probably weren’t going to watch it anyway. Having it on Monday, a national broadcast . . . it just didn’t work. The fans didn’t appreciate it, and it probably wasn’t a good use of an NFL asset.”

I hated it. To be honest, I don’t even like the Thursday night games. But MNF was always special growing up; I was allowed to stay up and watch until the halftime highlights were over, and then my mother would write the final score on a piece of paper and tape it to my door so it would be the first thing I’d see in the morning. There was something about the music, and Howard Cosell, and the halftime highlights that just infused the game with more importance than usual.

That carried on into adulthood; a Monday Night Football game between the Vikings and Packers was an all-day event in the Twin Cities and there would invariably be a party at someone’s house with an 80-20 mix of Vikings and Packers fans.

So I hated, hated, hated the idea of a Monday night doubleheader. It felt like holding two Super Bowls on the same day. The college football administrators would do well to learn from the NFL’s self-correction, because they’re going to need it with their excessive expansions of a) March Madness and b) the College Football Playoff.

64 is the correct number for (a) and 8 is the correct number for (b).

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Arsenal have been crowned Premier League champions, ending a 22-year wait for the English title since the Invincibles team of 2004. Manchester City drew 1-1 with Bournemouth on Tuesday night, giving the Gunners an unassailable lead at the top of the table after they beat Burnley on Tuesday. Mikel Arteta’s men have been runners-up in each of the last three seasons but finally overcame Pep Guardiola’s team to be able to call themselves Kings of England.

The NFL owners are providing the real grass for the World Cup that it won’t provide for the NFL players who make their stadiums possible. The NFLPA has released a statement:

The 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off in one month, and work is underway to install fresh grass surfaces in NFL stadiums for the world’s top soccer players.

NFL players have spent years advocating for safer, high-quality grass fields at their place of work, but when the World Cup is over, most of these stadiums will revert back to turf for the NFL season.

Our players deserve workplaces that prioritize their preference, protect them against the weekly wear and tear of the game, and support their long-term health and performance.

I don’t usually have much sympathy for the NFLPA, but this is one area where they are absolutely right and the league’s position makes no sense. Football is much better on grass, and NFL teams make more than enough money to make sure they are playing on it.

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How can we be at Super Bowl 60? It seems to me like we should be in the late 30s, maybe mid-40s at most.

Anyhow, I expect the Seahawks to win easily. And good for Sam Darnold if they do. I like Mike Vrabel and I like this Patriots team, but they have had the easiest path to the Super Bowl of any team in NFL history.

FIRST HALF OBSERVATIONS:

• 9-0 Seahawks. Should be at least 17-0 and could easily be 24-0.
• Great defensive game. The Seattle defense is dominating. The New England defense is taking crazy risks but hasn’t paid for any of them yet.
• Both coaches are doing very well with what they have. Vrabel is correctly gambling that constant pressure on Darnold is his only chance.
• Kenny Walker looks like Leveon Bell with speed. Patient and then explosive. Probable MVP if they don’t give it to the entire defensive line, which they should.
• Sam Darnold is still Sam Darnold. The Vikings were right to let him walk. He still hangs onto the ball too long even when he knows the pressure is coming, and Seattle would be up 17-0 if he was capable of looking down the field under pressure. Two misses, and you could count three given how he had JSN in the end zone but threw it behind him.
• The New England line has no chance. The left side is being overwhelmed, but Seattle is blitzing effectively from the other side too.
• The long halftime will help New England’s defense rest. In a normal game, they crack mid-third quarter. Now, it will probably take until the fourth.
• The only way I see New England winning is if they can get Darnold to turn the ball over 2-3 times. If he just protects the ball, Walker and the defense will secure the win.

SECOND HALF OBSERVATIONS:

• This is the most dominant defensive performance since the Steelers beat the Vikings 16-6. It probably ranks third, as the Dolphins-Redskins is definitely #1.
• Kenneth Walker definitely deserved the MVP. The difference between him being patient and finding the holes and Rhamondre Stevenson smashing right into the back of his blockers when there was a visible hole to his right was stark.
• The New England coaches did a great job. McDaniel had no options because most of that overwhelming pressure was coming from the Seattle front four alone.
• The commentary was vanilla and inobservant. Saying “Maye just has to make a play” while ignoring what the defense is doing to prevent any plays being made is approaching Tony Romo territory.
• The interruption caused by the streaker was used by the NFL to give instructions to the coaches. You could see Seattle immediately start laying off the pressure to let New England score. No rush, and the defensive backs just sat back. The tell was the way both coaches reacted; McDonald wasn’t concerned and Vrabel wasn’t fired up. They both knew the game was officially over at that point. Never forget, this is ultimately an entertainment product.
• I’m pleased for Sam Darnold. He’s a good guy. But definitely no regrets on letting him go. The Vikings were never going to even get to the Super Bowl with him, much less win one, because he can’t win a game like this. Not losing it for the defense was the most he could do, and he managed to do that despite risking a few turnovers with those infuriating pump fakes under pressure on passes he never gets off.

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Minnesota is firing general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, according to a Friday morning report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter later confirmed by the team. Adofo-Mensah, 44, had served in the role since the 2022 season. The move comes less than a year after the Vikings opted to extend Adofo-Mensah’s contract in May 2025.

I’m honestly surprised it took this long. To make such an obviously terrible decision at QB is not a survivable offense as a general manager. I’m not bothered by them electing not to pay top dollar to Sam Darnold, although I had argued that they should lock him up with a decent contract halfway through the 2024 season, once it became clear that he was better than average. Darnold should win the Super Bowl with the Seahawks, but he was never going to do it with the Vikings offensive line and running game.

But letting Daniel Jones go when you already had him willing to sign an inexpensive contract just because you wouldn’t even give him a chance to compete with an untested, injured rookie? Even if it’s Darnold making it to the Super Bowl that sealed his fate, the Jones debacle was the more serious problem.

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RAMS-SEAHAWKS

It will be interesting to see if the Vikings were wrong and Sam Darnold does have what it takes to win a Super Bowl. While I wish him well, I am skeptical, and even if he does lead the Seahawks to two more wins and gets a ring, I don’t think the Vikings would have been able to do the same this year if they’d resigned him due to all the injuries on the offensive line. I tend to think Stafford and McVey are good for one more ring together, but the Seahawks definitely have the defensive edge.

BRONCOS-PATRIOTS

I think the Broncos will win even with their backup quarterback, mostly because I don’t believe Bo Nix is that much better than Jarret Stidham. Both of them are in a situation more akin to the 2000 Ravens, so as long as Stidham doesn’t try to win the game with his arm, the Broncos should be okay. Last week Houston would have won if CJ Stroud had never thrown a ball, so I don’t see why the Broncos D, who allowed 17 more yards and 6 less touchdowns than the Texans D this season, can’t shut down Drake Maye at home even more effectively than the Texas did on the road.

New England 10, Denver 7.

Mike Vrabel completely outcoached Sean Payton and Drake May out-managed Jarret Stidham. I think Payton lost the game when he a) didn’t kick the early field goal, b) didn’t run the ball on 4th-and-1, and c) tried to get cute by putting his backup quarterback in high-pressure passing situations. The touchdown they gave up was 100 percent unnecessary and I completely blame the coaching staff for not telling Stidham to either throw the ball away right away or take the sack.

That’s one area where defensive coaches are much better than offensive ones. They don’t actively lose games the way the offensive smart boys so often do.

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