Tag: sports

The fact that some are handed every chance at success doesn’t mean they will find it. Just as the fact that some are ignored and given no chance to succeed doesn’t mean they won’t.

A seven-year-old direct message to a recruiting analyst from the 2019 Heisman Trophy Winner, 2020 NCAA National Champion, and first pick in the NFL draft, who was not only overlooked as a high school player, but had to transfer colleges in order to get the chance to start.

This is an open thread to discuss the draft.

The President expects the NFL season to begin as scheduled:

The President conducted a conference call with sports commissioners on Saturday, and as to one sport in particular he expressed an opinion.

Via ESPN.com, Donald Trump said that he believes the NFL’s regular season should begin on time in September. Trump also added that he hopes to have fans in stadiums and arenas by August and September.

The question you should be asking yourself in response to this is not “doesn’t the President understand epidemiology?”, but “what does the President know about the situation that you do not?”

Let’s face it, he’s already gone two-for-two in the face of the media narrative, first with regards to flights from China and second about the efficacity of Hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus. I’d be willing to bet he’ll go three-for-three contra the establishment media narrative concerning sex-trafficking once that news finally breaks.

At this point, only a wilfully-ignorant fool bets against the God-Emperor.

A reader writes about the beneficial impact of the health crisis on the world of sports:

I have been watching the economic impact that this virus could potentially have on the sports landscape. I read this article where the University of Florida AD discusses the economic impact of missing football season. 85 percent of the athletic department’s budget comes from football. One season without football and we can bid adieu to women’s sports. I can already hear the shrieks.

Also, I found it very interesting that the NBA has had to increase their line of credit from $650M to $1.2B to cover operational costs. They already lost $200M before the season started with their Chinese debacle so this can’t be good for the most “woke” league in all of sports. The NBA is not nearly as popular as the media makes you think. ESPN breathlessly covers it because they spent $24B on a contract to air games until 2025. With the financial perils ESPN faces, I find it hard to see them making it through that contract. Now I’m sure that league will do everything they can do to keep an already bottomless money pit in the WNBA afloat, but for how long?

Personally I love college football and enjoy the NFL. But if going one year without it means we rid ourselves of a lot of nonsense I can gladly find other things to fill my Saturdays in the fall.

Is there anything she can’t do? 

I have to admit, despite all the warning signs, I’m still genuinely surprised. I thought he would retire a Patriot:

Tom Brady is leaving the New England Patriots. After 20 years with the organization, the quarterback posted a tweet on Tuesday, saying his farewell and his thanks to Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft and the entire Patriots organization.

In other NFL news, the Vikings resigned Kirk Cousins and traded Stefon Diggs for the #22 pick, a fifth-round pick, a sixth-round pick and a 2021 fourth-round pick from Buffalo. I don’t like to see Diggs go, but that’s an excellent haul that couldn’t be turned down, especially in this year’s receiver-rich draft.

I think he’s going to LA to play for the Chargers. It makes the most sense for his post-football career.

UPDATE: Apparently, I am wrong.

The Bucs have an agreement in principle with Brady for a deal worth roughly $30 million per season, Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports.

I hate the concept, of course, as well as the expansion of the playoffs, but no one asked me. In any event, the NFLPA approved the new CBA agreement with the NFL owners in a very close vote:

NFL players voted to approve the new proposed collective bargaining agreement, which signals 10 years of labor peace, increased revenue share for players, added benefits for former players, an expansion to a 17-game NFL regular season and more playoff teams.

The 10-day voting period closed at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday night. Owners voted to approve the new CBA on Feb. 20.

The NFL Players Association issued the following statement:

“NFL players have voted to approve ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement by a vote tally of 1,019 to 959. This comes after a long and democratic process in accordance with our constitution. An independent auditor received submitted ballots through a secure electronic platform, then verified, tallied and certified the results.”

It’s not all bad, and in fact, it helps the average player quite a bit. But it’s still sad to see the records of yesteryear rendered even more irrelevant as what was left of the league’s historical continuity is further destroyed.

It’s also interesting to see how incompetence permeates through every aspect of an organization. From Peter King’s weekly NFL column, to which I’m not going to bother to link because it is very long and mostly unrelated to the excerpted section:

Spike Lee has been a season ticket holder to Knicks games for about 30 years. He is America’s Sporting Masochist. He has evidently been entering Madison Square Garden through the media entrance for a while, and the Knicks wanted him to enter through the VIP entry gate instead. The Knicks picked last Monday night, when Lee was on a crowded elevator, to enforce the rule that he should be entering through the VIP entrance. According to Spike, he was asked to leave the building and re-enter through the proper gate. Lee said no. Which led to a fight, and Lee going on ESPN to lay waste to the Knicks, and the Knicks issuing a press release to rip Spike. As only it could, the New York Post hilariously labeled the brouhaha “Gategate.”

Now, I am definitely not a subscriber to “the customer is always right” theory. Some customers are morons. Some are a massive pain in the posterior, so much so that one is better off without them as customers. As our valued supporters of the Replatforming know, I tend to prefer the “just RTFM, please” approach. But this sort of thing is stupid because it is so pointless and unnecessary. It obviously isn’t an actual problem, it’s just some autistic gamma in the organization sperging out about the fact that a category is being misapplied.

The correct thing to do is fire the autistic gamma for failure to be human, not publicly attack your best customer because his broken perspective of the world was offended.

I’m with JJ Watts on the new NFL proposal to the NFLPA:

The new proposal includes expanding the NFL’s regular-season schedule to 17 games, which wouldn’t go into effect until 2021 at the earliest. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported earlier this week that the proposal would also boost the sport’s postseason from six teams per conference to seven.

The NFL has been remarkably stupid under Roger Goodell. But this takes the cake, especially in light of the appearance of a new potential competitor. Watering down the regular season AND the postseason defies belief.

All sports leagues make changes in the hopes of increasing revenue. But as NASCAR has demonstrated over the last decade, it’s very far from impossible for these changes to result in steeply declining revenues.

I’ll admit it, I am intrigued:

NO EXTRA POINT KICKS

Teams can go for one point from the 2-yard line, two points from the 5-yard line or three points from the 10-yard line. That means a team could score a nine-points in one possession. These three different scoring options will make a regulation tie a lot less likely. The options will create a fascinating wrinkle in coaching strategy. It’s likely that two-point conversions will be most common, but after a defensive touchdown, why not go for three?

SAFER KICKOFFS AND PUNTS

Two other game play innovations involved the kicking game: Kickoffs have been altered to make them safer so players aren’t hitting each other at full-speed. The kicker will kick off from the 30-yard line, 5 yards farther back than in the NFL, as a way to limit touchbacks. Most players will line up across from each other between the other 30- and 35-yard line and cannot move until the returner catches the ball.

The XFL made some changes to disincentivize punting, in the hopes of encouraging more teams to go for it on fourth down. Balls that are punted into the end zone or out of bounds will be marked at the 35-yard line, as opposed to the 20 in the NFL. The XFL is calling that a “major touchback.” If a team does punt, it will be more difficult to cover. No player on the punt team can run downfield until the ball is kicked, which will give returners more space to work with.

It looks as if the XFL is making a serious attempt to improve the game of football rather than simply imitate the NFL. That doesn’t mean it will be successful, of course, but it does suggest that it may be worth watching. I really like the extra point(s) option. That’s an indication of good game design.

This was my prediction the last time Andy Reid got to the Super Bowl:

Andy Reid is a solid coach, but he is not a great one. He doesn’t get outcoached, for the most part, but neither does he outcoach anyone, not even Mike Tice. Bill Belicheck, on the other hand, has repeatedly proven himself to be a Jedi master, with game plans in this year’s playoffs that left two very good teams, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, in near-complete disarray. Notice how there hasn’t even been a whisper of Charlie Weis being distracted by his moonlighting job as the Notre Dame head coach of late. The Patriots are a strategic machine, awesome to behold.

Factor in the Terrell Owens injury and the “happy-to-be-there” factor of the Eagles, and I suspect that under the guidance of the maglia ex machina, the Patriots will methodically dismantle the Eagles. I don’t think it will be a blow-out, and the combination of a tough Eagles defense and a screw-the-gameplan drive filled with scrambles by McNabb will probably help the Eagles make a last, desperate push to keep the game close in the third quarter, but this one should be over early in the fourth with a nail-in-the-coffin Patriots score.

I suspect Kyle Shanahan learned more from his Super Bowl failure than Andy Reid did from his. Despite all the media hype surrounding the Chiefs and Pat Mahomes, few observers seem to be paying much attention to the actual performance of the two teams this year or the way in which they played in getting to the Super Bowl. I really don’t like the way Kansas City seems to come out flatter than flat in big games this year.

It is, of course, well known that in championship games, defense generally trumps even the most explosive offenses. The 49ers have the second-best yards/game defense and the eighth-best points/game defense. The Chiefs actually have the seventh-best points/game defense, although they give up more yards and rank only 17th in that category.

But when it comes down to it, I have more confidence in Shanahan + Garappolo + DEF-SF than I do in Reid + Mahomes + DEF-KC. Also, if the 49ers have the lead, Shanahan isn’t going to make the mistake that Houston’s O’Brien did by taking his foot off the gas.

49ers by 10.

Football Outsiders, on the other hand, predicts a Chiefs victory:

I give the slight edge to Kansas City. I think San Francisco will be able to have offensive success running the ball, but their defense is not going to go out and make Patrick Mahomes look like Kirk Cousins looked three weeks ago. Calling for a high-scoring game didn’t end up working out for me last year but I’m calling for a high-scoring game again this year. I also think it will be close, but the Chiefs are the favorite with the better chance to come out ahead.

Both MDS and Florio from ProFootballTalk are also picking the Chiefs.

HALFTIME: 10-10. I don’t watch the halftime show, or the commercials, but the game itself is pretty good. Shanahan was getting a little too cute early on, but now that he’s gone back to the run, I expect San Francisco to start to take control in the third quarter.

4TH QUARTER: SF 20 KC 17. Kyle Shanahan is still a choker. Twice, he’s faced 2nd-and-5, tried to get cute instead of relying upon his superior running game, thrown incomplete twice, and been forced to punt. Incredibly stupid considering they have the lead, the ball, and the clock. SF could and should win this game, but if they lose it, it’s on Shanahan’s poor play-calling in the fourth quarter.

Unbelievable! San Francisco is averaging nearly 9 yards per rush on the ground. It’s first down inside Kansas City territory with four minutes left. So, naturally, you THROW THE BALL FOUR TIMES I A ROW for zero yards to lose the game. Absolutely INDEFENSIBLE stupidity. This is the second time Shanahan has thrown away a perfectly winnable Super Bowl for his team.

I don’t like the 49ers. I didn’t want them to win, although I’m not looking forward to all the unwarranted, but inevitable Mahomes worship to come. But watching the SF playcalling in the 4th quarter was downright painful. I can’t even imagine how berserk the more knowledgeable 49er fans must have been going when watching that coaching choke job for the ages.