Kenny Easley died over the weekend; he was 66 years old. Easley had a brief but illustrious NFL career with the Seattle Seahawks as a safety who made the All-Pro team 4 times in 7 years and was the Defensive Player of the Year in 1984. He was traded to the Cards after the 1987 season but never played there because the routine physical associated with any trade revealed a severe kidney disease that forced his retirement at age 28. Kenny Easley was selected for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017.
Rest in peace, Kenny Easley.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders are the CFL champions for 2025; they defeated the Montreal Alouettes yesterday in the Grey Cup game by a score of 25-17. The stat sheet for this game was about as even as possible with one exception:
- The Alouettes turned the ball over 4 times (3 INTs and a lost fumble) while the Roughriders did not turn the ball over at all.
This win produced the first championship for the Roughriders since 2013. The Alouettes were last CFL champs in 2023.
Moving on … The Miami Dolphins and the Washington Commanders played in the first NFL regular season game in Spain yesterday. The game went to overtime which might lead one to conclude that it was an exciting/nail-biting spectacle; actually, the team that made the last mistake lost the game. The result is of minimal importance as compared to some data related to the game itself.
The NFL – like several other sporting enterprises globally – seeks to extend its reach outside the borders of the US. And there does seem to be a large and enthusiastic audience out there for NFL football. Consider:
- The NFL staged its first game in Dublin Ireland in Week 1 of this season. An AP report said that “…600,000 digital devices were logged on to try to buy tickets for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ game against the Minnesota Vikings at Dublin’s famed Croke Park.”
- For the game yesterday in Madrid, it seems that “…nearly 700,000 people trying to get a seat to watch the Miami Dolphins play the Washington Commanders on Sunday at Real Madrid’s iconic Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.”
With fan reactions at that level, the NFL continues to place games in new spots around the world. Next year, the NFL will schedule a game in Melbourne, Australia; the LA Rams have been designated as the host team for that game, and you can sign up to get on the list to buy tickets to that game already. Tickets are not on sale, but this activity is a registration for the opportunity to buy tickets at some future date. And the website says explicitly:
“Registering your interest does not guarantee you can purchase a ticket”
The good news for aspiring ticket buyers is that the venue in Melbourne seats 100,000 folks; so, there will be tickets up for grabs when the time comes.
According to Gerrit Meier – – the Managing Director and Head of NFL International – – the league has its eye on staging at least one game in Asia down the line. Other countries/cities are expressing interest in hosting regular season games including a request by Saudi Arabia. Here is what we know about the NFL’s international plans for 2026:
- There will be games in Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City.
- The NFL will have games in the UK – – the number is unannounced.
- The NFL is likely to play in venues on the European mainland.
- Specifics are not yet announced but it would seem that seven or eight international games will happen in 2026.
Switching gears … Deadlines drive action; it happens in politics, and it happens in sports. And there is a deadline approaching in college football. On December 1st, the folks in charge of the CFP must inform ESPN of any changes in format that will happen in subsequent CFP Tournaments.
- Translation: Will the CFP expand to 16 teams next year or not?
Why is that a big deal? Well, many of the other bowl games have contracts with various conferences that define what team in the conference standings will go to play in which bowl game. Most if not all those contracts will expire at the end of the next college football season and will need renegotiation and possible realignment. And none of that can happen until the CFP – – the 800-pound gorilla of college football – – decides what it chooses to do. Bowl committees and conference representatives are probably involved in contingency planning as I type these sentences.
The SEC and the Big-10 will determine if there are to be changes to the CFP and the two conferences cannot – yet – agree on how to do this.
- The Big-10 wants a structured allocation model. SEC and Big-10 get 4 slots each; the Big-12 and the ACC each get two slots; the best “Group of Six” team gets one slot, and a committee chooses the final three teams to make a field of sixteen.
- The SEC wants the system in place now to continue. Conference Champions get automatic invitations, and a committee picks all the other participants.
I prefer the SEC model simply because there are going to be years when the guaranteed positions for a conference or two don’t make sense. I am not sure there are four Big-10 teams this year that belong in an expanded CFP and I can easily be convinced that the ACC should only get one team in the field for 2025. I presume that if the two major conferences cannot come to a compromise, the 12-team field with current rules will prevail into the future.
Time’s a-wastin’ gentlemen …
Finally, here is an observation from Warren Buffet:
“When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………