Category: Daily Rants

It has been a while since the Oklahoma City Thunder made it to the NBA Finals, but that is where they are this year.  Last night, the Thunder put on a dominant performance eliminating the Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals.  The score was 124-94; at times it looked as if the game might not have been that close.

In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pacers lead the Knicks 3 games to 1 and the teams meet tonight.  The game is in Madison Square Garden and the Knicks are favored by 4.5 points and are a solid minus-190 favorite on the Money Line.  If the Pacers do prevail in the series, it would set up a Thunder/Pacers matchup in the NBA Finals between two very small home TV audiences.  [Aside:  I posted on that issue a week or so ago.]

For those folks out there who are true believers that the NBA is fixed and that all important decisions emanate from Adam Silver’s office, ask yourself why the NBA braintrust would want their Finals to involve these two teams.  Maybe the answer is that these are the two NBA teams playing the best basketball over the last 5 or 6 weeks.  Maybe the NBA “conspired” to have two “hot teams” in their Finals.

However, if the Knicks rally from this 3-1 deficit and make it to the Finals, someone out there will see Adam Silver’s thumb on the scale having realized that the league needs the large NYC TV audience present to counterbalance the lack of hometown eyeballs in OKC.  If that happens, you heard it here first …

I have often taken the position that professional sports in America is a TV show providing entertainment to an audience that generates revenues from advertisers.  Usually, I make that argument when owners and players are negotiating a CBA because it is at that point when the two sides need to recognize that they are more like partners in the enterprise than they are like antagonists.  Today, I want to use that stance to make some recommendations as to how the NBA can make their telecasts – – particularly regular season games – – more entertaining.

• The NBA had a great announcing trio not very long ago with Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson.  Breen is still there; the league really needs to find a way to get the other two to return to the microphone.  The current lineup is nowhere near as good.
• Get rid of the All-Star Game which is an eyesore when at its best and play regular season games in that week.  If the league does that AND finds the fortitude to reduce the regular season schedule, that might spread out the games enough to minimize “load management” which is not part of entertainment enhancement for regular season telecasts.
• Late game fouling causes the final 3 minutes or so of some games to take 20-25 minutes of real time.  That is NOT entertainment in case anyone was wondering.  There have been several suggestions as to ways to address that problem; the league needs to focus attention here and do something.  I understand that the NBA is not ready to embrace something as radical as the Elam Ending, but they need to do something.
• Replay challenges also interrupt the flow of the game; by their nature, they must do that.  There is another annoying aspect to the introduction of replays in the NBA.  Next time you watch a game, try to count the number of times a player will wave his finger in the air to let the referee know that he thinks the play should be overturned.  Of course, that does nothing because only the coach can call for a replay.  So, to remove that annoying practice, make it such that players can indeed call for a replay and that they do so as soon as they “wave their finger in the air”.  Teams get only one replay per game; after that all calls for a replay should be handled like a team that calls timeout when they do not have any.  That practice will go away in about a week…
• Limits also need to be put on 3-point shot attempts.  My solution is simple.  Pick a number of attempts that a team is allowed per game.  For the sake of argument, say that number is 35.  For the first 35 attempts behind the 3-point line, the goal is worth three points if it is successful.  After the 35^th attempt, the goal is worth only two points for the rest of the game.
• Even more radical than shortening the regular season schedule and/or the Elam Ending, I suggest that the NBA shorten each game from the current 48 minutes to 40 minutes.  Pro games in Europe are 40 minutes, and the leagues seem to have survived; NCAA games are 40 minutes here in the US and college basketball is alive and well; shortening NBA games would serve three purposes:

1. 1. 1. It will reduce the need for “load management” which should be an important league objective.
      2. It should ensure that games that do not require OT will fit into a 2.5-hour TV window.  That is not necessarily the case with 48-minute games.
      3. It will limit the duration of “garbage time” which is of virtually no entertainment value at all.

Do I expect any of these ideas to get serious consideration by anyone in the NBA Front Office?  Let me put it this way; the NBA will entertain the thought of relegating teams to the G- League and promoting teams to the NBA from the G-League at the same time they consider my ideas here.

Finally, let me close today with these appropriate words from Coach John Wooden:

“We can have no progress without change, whether it be basketball or anything else.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

The CFP has existed in the “12-team format” for only one year and the folks in charge have already decided that the format needs a major overhaul.  Last year, the top 4 seeds in the tournament – – the ones that received a first round bye – – were the four highest ranking conference winners.  That allowed Boise St. to be seeded in the top 4 because they won the Mountain West Conference and it allowed Arizona St. to be seeded in the top 4 because they won the Big-12.   However, in no way on Planet Earth would anyone have considered Boise St. to be the third best team in the country nor Arizona St. the fourth.

So, the CFP mavens have decided this year to attempt to rank the top 12 teams – – with the proviso that conference champions get an invitation to the competition.  Here is the statement from Rich Clark – – the executive director of the CFP:

“This change will allow guaranteed success for the playoff by rewarding teams for winning their conference championship, but it will also allow us to construct a postseason bracket that recognizes the best performance on the field during the entire regular season.”

Here’s the deal …  There is no perfectly objective way for any committee to rank the best teams in the country to the satisfaction of everyone.  However, the original system of putting conference winners preferentially in the top 4 produced a significantly unbalanced field last year.  All four of the teams nominally labeled as “Top 4” wound up losing their first games in the CFP to teams ranked below them.  Moreover, forcing some very good teams to play a first round game – – against a couple of overmatched opponents – – produced four dreary opening round games.

The new system will not be perfect; there will be complaints and there will likely still be a blowout game or two.  But I think this is a significant improvement suggested by the CFP mavens and they should be lauded for acting quickly to improve what should be a great sports/entertainment product.

And by the way, this change may only exist for one season.  In 2026, the CFP mavens will consider the possibility of expanding the 12-team tournament to 16 teams.  That means more games to televise which means more money to divide up; so, do not be surprised when that happens.  The great thing about a 16-team format is that the number 16 is an integral power of the number 2 which means – mathematically – there need be no byes given to any teams in the tournament.

And while I am in the mode of considering how “more TV money” might impact a decision related to college football, allow me to point out another college football situation.  For years, the SEC has scheduled 8 conference games per team; every once in a while, someone has suggested they go to a 9-game format to reduce the number of out-of-conference mismatches that teams find ways to schedule.  That suggestion always generates a “select committee” charged to study the proposition and that “select committee” has always recommended keeping the status quo ante.

A recent article in the NY Times says that ESPN has let it be known to the folks in charge of SEC football that the network would be willing to pay more for the conference TV rights if indeed there were a ninth game added to each team’s conference schedule.  The article did not cite specific numbers, but it most definitely said that ESPN was ready to up the ante for more SEC conference football games.

The article suggests that the addition of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC increases the number of high-profile games that the conference can present to ESPN for national telecasts.  I suspect that the conference was not willing to consider seriously the schedule change until ESPN signaled that they would fork over extra cash.

Here are why fans – – who will receive none of the monetary benefits under discussion here – – should want the schedule to expand.

• Under the 8-game format, each team is allowed only 1 major rivalry game per season.  Alabama will play Auburn every year, but Alabama/Tennessee would be on a rotational basis.  Texas and Oklahoma would play every year, but Texas/Texas A&M would not.
• Under the 9-game format, more annual rivalry games could be accommodated.  Fans should like that improved scheduling.

Back in Watergate days, Mark Felt – – the deputy director of the FBI who was also Woodward and Bernstein’s “Deep Throat” – – told the young reporters to “follow the money” if they wanted to expose the Watergate scandal.  Fans should pay attention to the money flows in college football as well …

Finally, having spoken of money today, I’ll close with this from comedian Steve Martin:

“I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

The English Premier League has one more round of games to be played in its season and that last round of games can be important for a whole bunch of teams.

• Liverpool will finish first; that is not in doubt.
• The teams from third place (Man City) to seventh place (Nottingham Forest) are only separated by 3 points.  In the Premier League, a win is worth 3 points.
• The top 5 finishers will play in the UEFA Champions League next year.
• The top 6 finishers will play in the Europa League next year.
• The seventh-place finisher will stay in the EPL but not be part of other competitions.

Often in the final week of play, there is some drama at the bottom of the EPL standings as the three teams destined for relegation can be in doubt.  Not so in 2025; the three bottom feeders are solidly in their places.  The team at the bottom of the standings – Southampton – had a particularly miserable season.  In their 37 games to date:

• They won 2 games, drew 6 games and lost 29 games.
• Their goal differential has been minus-59
• They may have difficulty even at the Championship level of competition next year.

Speaking of the Championship, two of the teams “graduating” to the EPL for next season are Leeds United and Burnley.  The third team to earn “promotion” is to be determined by a playoff involving the teams finishing third through sixth in the final standings.  That playoff will be hotly contested because there is a lot more money and a lot more prestige associated with EPL stature than with Championship stature.

There is one other thing to note in the EPL standings; that is the misfortune of Manchester United which is currently in 16^th place and has lost four of its last five matches with the other being a draw.  For more than 20 years, Man U was always in the top 5 of the EPL; this year has been a disaster; in 37 matches so far, the team has scored only 42 goals.

Man U is owned by the Glazer family – the same folks who own the Tampa Bay Bucs of the NFL; they bought the team in 2005.  Man U fans are passionate about their team to a degree that is beyond what exists in the US.  According to a report I read, the Glazer family members need to have security with them if they are in Manchester and are out and about in the city.  Fans in the DC area may have loathed Danny Boy Snyder, but he was not in danger of tarring and feathering in the area if he were to go to dinner somewhere.

Man U is in no danger of relegation this  year, but the trajectory of the team is not encouraging.  For the record, the last time Man U faced relegation was in 1974 which predates the existence of the EPL itself; that league was not created until the early 1990s.  It will be interesting to see if this season was an aberration or if Man U is destined for some time in the Championship down the line.

Moving on …  The news related to Shedeur Sanders dropping all the way to the fifth round of the NFL Draft appeared to have ebbed; but in the words of Lee Corso:

“Not so fast, my friend!”

A fan of Colorado football has filed a $100M lawsuit against the NFL citing “harm caused to the Plaintiff and the impact of the NFL’s actions on his emotional well being.”  Plaintiff asserts he is a Colorado football fan and that he has closely followed Shedeur Sanders as the team QB for the last two years.  He asserts that the league “leaked” stories that Sanders “tanked some interviews” and that he was unprepared for interviews with teams and that caused his drop in the Draft.  The Plaintiff somehow labeled such leaked information as “slanderous” and that slander of Sanders somehow inflicted “emotional distress and trauma to the Plaintiff as a fan and consumer.”

According to the lawsuit, the NFL’s actions here are in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Civil Rights Act and various consumer protection laws.  In addition to the $100M sought in the matter, the Plaintiff also wants the NFL to implement “fairer practices in the drafting process” so that talented players are selected on the basis of merit alone.

I have never spent a single moment of my life in law school.  Nevertheless, my completely uniformed opinion here is that the NFL’s legal department is not burning the midnight oil trying to figure out what to do to defend against this one.

Finally, consider this from Mark Twain:

“I can’t do no literary work for the rest of this year because I am meditating another lawsuit and looking around for a defendant.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

The NBA Playoffs have determined the two conference finals matchups; in the East it will be the Knicks and the Pacers; in the West it will be the Thunder and the Timberwolves.  The Western Conference finals start tomorrow night in Oklahoma City.  I suspect that the people who work at NBA HQs are quietly pulling for the Knicks to win in the East simply because of these numbers courtesy of the good folks at Nielsen:

• NY:  Largest TV market in the US,- – 7.5 million TV Homes
• Twin Cities:  16^th largest TV market in the US – – 1.9 million TV Homes
• Indy:  25^th largest TV market in the US – – 1.2 million TV Homes
• OKC:  47^th largest TV market in the US – – 0.8 million TV Homes

The number of TV Homes in the NY market is almost double that of the total number of TV homes in the other three markets.  To put the OKC market in perspective, Oklahoma City is slightly larger than Albuquerque/Santa Fe as a TV market but not quite as large as Greensboro/High Point/Winston Salem.

An NBA Finals between the Pacers and the Thunder might be an exciting pairing but it could also be a TV disaster in terms of audience size.  Were I part of the “media division” at NBA HQs, I would be ever so happy to see the Knicks win in the East.

Sadly, in 2025, I need to add a disclaimer here.  I do NOT think, nor do I believe that the NBA will manipulate the games in any way to achieve a NY presence in the NBA Finals.  Please do not misinterpret my comment about the league being happy to see the Knicks as the East representatives in the Finals.

Moving on …  The Orioles fired manager Brandon Hyde as I suspected might be the case once the Pirates and the Rockies made it clear that it was “open season” on MLB managers of disappointing teams.  The O’s qualify as “disappointing” as they check in with a record of 15-30, a current losing streak of 6 games and a run differential of minus-85.  That looks bleak indeed but there is reason to believe that the O’s might be able to improve on their showing to date.

Three young promising players for the O’s have all gotten off to disappointing starts:

1. Adley Rutschman is only hitting .209 with an OPS of .640.  He is better than that.
2. Gunnar Henderson is only  hitting 2.58 with an OPS of .774.He is better than that.
3. Jackson Holiday is only hitting .275 with an OPS of .787.  He is better than that.

I will not be surprised if those three players provide significantly more offense for the balance of the O’s season than they have to date.  Maybe some of those improvements will be related to the managerial change but I suspect it will just be part of the normal ebb and flow of athletic performances.

The real problem for the Orioles has been the pitching staff.  As of this morning, the staff ERA is 5.55.  If I have counted correctly, only the Marlins’ and the Rockies’ pitching staffs have higher ERAs as of today.

• Seven starting pitchers for the Orioles have ERAs over 5.00.
• Two of those starters have ERAs in double digits.

Once again, if the Orioles’ pitchers simply “revert to the mean” for MLB pitchers over the rest of the 2025 season, the team will improve with a different manager in place.

Switching gears …  The Niners and Brock Purdy have come to an agreement that will keep the QB with the Niners for years to come.  The terms of the contract extension are 5-years and $265M.  I think there needs to be perspective here.

The Niners had a terrible year in 2024 finishing at 6-11-0 due to injuries and some degree of discontent on the roster.  The team purged a lot of the problems in the off-season and seems to have decided that Purdy is indeed their franchise QB, and they are going to build around him and his cap numbers.  I think that conclusion is demonstrated by the fact that the contract has a full no-trade clause in it and that would be the first time the Niners have ever signed on to one of them.

Obviously, Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch are sold on Purdy as their QB going forward.  There are other points of view in the football punditry world.  My view is that Purdy is a much better than average QB – one who would be welcomed with open arms in at least 15 locker rooms.  He is not the best QB in the league, but he has been to two NFC Conference Championship games in his short career meaning that a team can “make a run” with him at the helm.

Finally, these words from PJ O’Rourke:

“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Because I may not be able to post timely rants next week, let me use today to make a couple of brief remarks about ESPN.  I have been a consumer of ESPN telecasts since 1979; to say the network has changed/evolved over that time span is an understatement.

SportsCenter was the foundation piece of ESPN in 1979.  It was basically a newscast focused on sports; it is where you went to see highlights and to reallize the results of sports events from the recent past.  It had substance and virtually no glitz; the anchors for the program were reportorial and displayed almost no “personality”.

Compare that the SportsCenter today.  Now broadcasts are associated with specific anchors and most of them have an angle to their program.  Scott Van Pelt focuses a lot of attention on the gambling aspects of the games covered; when Michael Smith and Jemelle Hill anchored SportsCenter, I almost thought I had tuned into an hour of social commentary with a passing relationship to sports.  Anchors now make fashion statements in their presentation; in 1979, anchors wore a shirt and tie and a jacket and were seated for 99% of the program.

Personally, I think the scale has tipped too far in favor of “personalities” and “entertainment” at ESPN and I wish it would do a lot more “sports reporting” and presenting of “sports insight”.  And now you are free to flip me the bird and tell me you will not get off my lawn…

I mention this because Around the Horn will go off the air next Friday.  If ever there was a single program on ESPN other than SportsCenter that changed so drastically, I don’t know what it might be.  In the beginning the idea was sports debate with four acknowledged “experts” in sports.  Now the format has endured, but there is way too much focus on matters peripheral to sports and games offered up by people whose credentials as “acknowledged experts” is more than suspect.  In the old days, I cared about the opinions of people like Jay Mariotti and Bob Ryan and Woody Paige because they had gravitas.  Tune in today and most of the panelists evoke the following sentiment from me:

• Who’s that?
• Who cares?

Suddenly, the debate becomes a lot less interesting and when it angles off into social commentary as opposed to straight sports, it becomes worthy of channel changing.  At its peak, Around the Horn drew audiences of about 800,000; today the audience is about 300,000.  I will not miss the 2025 version of Around the Horn, but as audiences continue to decline for ESPN as a network, maybe a detached view of what happened to Around the Horn might be instructive for the ESPN mavens as they ponder the future of the network as a whole.

Finally, since all of today has been about sports broadcasting, let me close with a comment from a great broadcaster, Bob Uecker:

“Before broadcasting for 50-some years, I did TV, played 10 years in the big leagues, won a world championship – and played a big part in that, too, letting the Cardinals inject me with hepatitis. Takes a big man to do that.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Yesterday, I mentioned that Rob Manfred has lifted the “permanent ban” on Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson choosing instead to see their banishment as a “lifetime sentence”.  I believe the beneficiary of that action is neither Rose nor Jackson but the Hall of Fame itself, which now has the opportunity to include two players whose on-the-field performances merit such inclusion.  Be aware; the ban on Pete Rose does not mean that some of his memorabilia is excluded from the museum portion of the Hall of Fame; there is plenty of that sort of thing on display there.

Clearly, my opinion is not universally hailed as a beacon of enlightenment.  Today, Sally Jenkins’ column in the Washington Post leaves no doubt that she thinks Rob Manfred was in an anatomically impossible posture when he made that decision.  Her column has this online headline followed by paragraph 1:

Baseball’s surrender on Pete Rose is a disgrace to the game

“Banning someone from baseball’s Hall of Fame is not a sentence to the electric chair, much as the worshipers of the emerald chessboard like to frame it so. It’s not a guillotine. It’s not denial of a second chance in life. It’s just a simple statement that says, ‘We will not enshrine you.’ We will not exalt and consecrate you, we will not immortalize you, we will not memorialize and reverence you under glass.”

Switching gears …  The full NFL regular schedule for 2025 is now released and many people have parsed every aspect of the slate.  Until we know which teams will be surprising – – both positively and negatively by the way – – it is hard to draw firm conclusions about many of the matchups and their timing.  However, four general observations jump out at me:

1. The Chiefs will have a prime-time game five times in the first half of the NFL regular season.  I enjoy watching the Chiefs, but maybe this is a bit much?
2. I am surprised that one of those early season prime-time appearances by the Chiefs is not on opening night against the Eagles in a Super Bowl rematch.
3. The Vikes will play in two “international games” in consecutive weeks this season.  The Jags did that last year.
4. Both the Cowboys and the Lions will play on Christmas Day after both of them played on Thanksgiving Day.  Why not “spread the wealth”?

Speaking of football scheduling, the folks in charge of the College Football Playoff have set the dates for the quarterfinals, semifinals and championship game.  The schedule for the first-round playoff games – which produced nothing of interest last year – will be announced later. Here are the “main course” games:

• Quarterfinal Games:
• Wednesday Dec 31 at 7:30 PM ET – – Cotton Bowl
  • • Thursday Jan 1 at Noon ET – – Orange Bowl
    • Thursday Jan 1 at 4:00 PM ET – – Rose Bowl
    • Thursday Jan 1 at 8:00 PMET  – – Sugar Bowl
• Semifinal Games:
  • • Thursday Jan 8 at 7:30 PM ET – – Fiesta Bowl
    • Friday Jan 9 at 7:30 PM ET – – Peach Bowl
• Championship Game:
  • Monday Jan 19 at 7:30 PM ET – – Game is in Miami FL.

That schedule returns college football to prominence on New Year’s Day.  When I was a kid and you could count the number of college football bowl games on two hands, there were four games scheduled for New Year’s Day and it was the biggest football orgy of the year.

• There will be no NFL Thursday Night Football game on Jan 1, 2026, meaning that the day will belong to the “amateurs”.
• All the NFL regular season games in Week 18 will take place on Sunday Jan 4.  So, there is no direct competition with the college guys for the semifinal games either.
• It’s enough to make me wonder if those two sets of “scheduling mavens” had a few chats” as they were doing their jobs…

Moving on …  The LA Dodgers are about to activate Clayton Kershaw and have said he will make his first start for 2025 on Saturday.  Kershaw underwent surgeries on his knee and his big toe in the offseason and has been working in Triple A games as part of his rehab work.  In five Triple A appearances, he threw 21 innings allowing 6 runs striking out 16 batters and walking four.  This will be Kershaw’s 18^th season in MLB – – all with the Dodgers by the way.  Over the course of that career, he has thrown 2742.2 innings in the major leagues and has struck out 2968 hitters – – more than one per inning.

Finally, these words about schedules from Henry Kissinger:

“There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

MLB Commissioner, Rob Manfred, took Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson and a bunch of other folks off baseball’s “permanently ineligible list”  yesterday using the following logic:

• Rule 21 bans people who bet on baseball; it is there to protect the integrity of the game.
• Once people banned for betting on baseball have died, they can no longer threaten the integrity of the game.
• So, while Rule 21 continues to apply, the purpose served by Rule 21 is rendered moot.

The beneficiary of that decision is the institution – – The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY.  A baseball fan who visits that site today knows for sure that Pete Rose had more base hits than any other person ever to play in the major leagues, but he does not have a plaque in the Hall.  That makes no sense; it made sense while Rose was alive and still involved with gambling and gambling entities, but it makes no sense now that he is dead.  At this point, it is possible for him to be part of the formal history of the game in Cooperstown.  Continuing to exclude him is simply another instance of “cancel culture” which makes some folks feel good but changes nothing.

Before concluding that this action by The Commish cracks open the door for players wearing the “Steroid Label” to get into the Hall of Fame, let me offer one argument”

• Rose bet on baseball and broke Rule 21.  It is not even an airtight case that Jackson did the same.  Neither player enjoyed an enhancement to their career stats as a result of gambling.
• Such is not the case with the “Steroid Guys”.  What they used are called “Performance ENHANCING Drugs”.  Some analytics guru somewhere needs to come up with an algorithm to give weight to such “enhancement”.

Moving on …  There was a comment attached to a rant last week about the Browns drafting Shedeur Sanders as a second QB in the 2025 Draft.  Commenter Rich pointed out that in 1965, the Jets took Joe Namath in the first round of the AFL Draft and took John Huarte in the second round of that Draft.  Since Sanders lasted until the 5^th round this year, it made me wonder if any “fifth round QBs” had ever “made it” in the NFL.  Thanks to Commenter Rich, I went down a rabbit hole.

1. Mark Brunell was a fifth-round pick by the Packers in 1993.
2. Bob Waterfield was a fifth-round pick by the (Cleveland) Rams in 1944.

That is all that I could find for the QB position but in searching through some old Draft lists, there were some extremely good players that came out of the fifth round of NFL Drafts including:

• Stefon Diggs – – Vikes – – 2015
• Kevin Greene – – Rams – – 1985
• Rodney Harrison – – Chargers – – 1994
• Lester Hayes – – Raiders – – 1977
• Tyreek Hill – – Chiefs – – 2016
• Robert Mathis – – Colts – – 2003
• George Kittle – – Niners – – 2017
• Richard Sherman – – Seahawks – – 2011
• Herschell Walker – – Cowboys – – 1985
• Mike Webster – – Steelers – – 1974

One other “fifth rounder” that bears mention here is Dick LeBeau drafted by the Browns in 1959.  Fans today know him as a top-shelf defensive coordinator – – which he was indeed.  However, he was selected for the Hall of Fame as a player well before people recognized him as an outstanding defensive coordinator.

And there you have the distillation of about 5 hours of digging and sifting through lists of fifth round picks thanks to Commenter Rick …

Switching gears …  Here is another potential rabbit hole for me to enter – – but I am not even going to try this one because it would take way more time than it is worth.  So, I will just set the question, offer one possible answer and leave it at that:

• Q:  If the Steelers do not sign Aaron Rodgers or trade for another QB, their QB room will be Mason Rudolph, Skylar Thompson and will Howard.  Is that the least impressive team QB roster ever?
• A:  Maybe not.  Once, the Cowboys’ QB roster was Quincy Carter (starter) with Ryan Leaf and Clint Stoerner as the backups.

            You make the call …

Finally, here is something to ponder:

“The word abbreviation sure is long for what it means.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

The “Blame Game” started early in this MLB season.  It began late last week when the Pittsburgh Pirates fired manager Derek Shelton.  Indeed, the Pirates have been disappointing this season; as of this morning, their record stands at 14-28, putting them dead last in the NL Central Division and in danger of losing touch with the rest of the teams there.  This is a surprise to me because in mid-September of last season, the Pirates were within hailing distance of a wild card playoff spot.  Remember, the Pirates shut down Paul Skenes by that time in the season because Skenes had already thrown a full season of college baseball before coming to the Pirates.  I do not question for a moment the decision to do that, but had he been available for three or four more starts last year …?

So, with Skenes set for a full season and some further development anticipated from youngsters like Oneil Cruz and Ke’Bryan Hayes, it appears to have been an offseason where the Pirates added a free agent or two.  Playoffs, here we come …  Not happening; if my scanning is correct, the Pirates offseason free agent dabbling amounted to signing Tommy Pham to a 1-year deal.  Pham is a decent player, but he is not the sum and substance of a “push to break through to the playoffs”.

Yes, the Pirates are underachieving so far in 2025 – – but it is only Mother’s Day for Heaven’s sake.  Derek Shelton is not the problem in Pittsburgh; the front office – – and maybe the ownership too – – is the problem in Pittsburgh.

Once the news of the Pirates’ managerial change hit the streets, that seems to have provided cover for the Colorado Rockies to fire their manager, Bud Black.  If you look at the standings, you can say that the move is totally justified; as of this morning, the Rockies check in with a record of 7-34; they are already 20 games behind the Division-leading Dodgers.

• [Aside:  At their current pace the Rockies project to a final record of 28-134 which would make last year’s Chicago White Sox look like world-beaters.]

The Rockies are not merely bad; they are memorably bad.  They lost a game last week by the score of 21-0; earlier this year, they lost games by scores of 17-2,10-2 and 11-1; their run differential is already at minus-129; the next-worst run differential in MLB today is the Miami Marlins at a measly minus-72 runs.  The Rockies cannot hit major league pitching very well and the Rockies’ pitchers cannot get major league hitters out efficiently; that is not a managerial issue.

Dave Roberts is the manager of the LA Dodgers; he has no “lack of talent” issues on his plate.  Roberts previously worked with Bud Black in San Diego.  Here is what Roberts had to say when he heard of the firing:

“I don’t think Casey Stengel could change the outcome of that ballclub, and that’s not the manager’s fault.  But obviously, they felt they needed a change in voice or direction.  But for me, there’s not many people that are better than Buddy Black.  So yeah, that’s very disappointing; it is certainly not his doing.”

Roberts allusion to Casey Stengel there is particularly cogent because it was Stengel – – unquestionably a competent manager of baseball teams – – who led the NY Mets in the first years of that club’s existence.  Here are some stats:

• In 12 seasons with the Yankees, Stengel’s teams went 1149-696 (win percentage = .623).  The Yanks won 10 pennants and 7 World Series in those 12 seasons.
• In 4 seasons with the Mets, Stengel’s teams went 175-404 (win percentage = .302).  The Mets finished 10^th in the NL in each of Stengel’s 4 seasons there.
• Casey Stengel was “out of baseball” for one year between his time with the Yankees and the Mets; clearly, he forgot everything about how to win baseball games in that hiatus.

So, if the current standard for managerial instability is underachievement/uncompetitive records, who might be next?  I would not advocate changes here, but two situations come to mind:

1. LA Angels:  For a while, the Angels led the AL West and were playing solid/winning baseball.  Then, the Angels went into a funk, and they are now last in the AL West with a record of 17-23.  Ron Washington is the Angels’ manager …
2. Baltimore Orioles:  Lots of people – – me included – – thought the O’s might win the AL East with a bunch of really good young players.  Not so; the O’s are last in the AL East with a record of 15-24.  The big problem is the Orioles’ pitching staff; they have injuries to starters and free agent acquisition, Charlie Morton, has been shelled almost every time out; his record is 0-7 and his ERA is 8.82.  Brandon Hyde is the Oriole’s manager …

So, is there any good news in MLB this morning.  If you want to feel good about something in baseball this morning, check out Aaron Judge and the season he is having.  The season is 25% over already and here is what Aaron Judge had been doing at the plate:

• Batting Average = .414
• OPS = 1.283
• RBI’s = 40
• Runs scored = 39

Finally, today has been mostly about losing and failure.  Here is what Bill Gates had to say relative to that:

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Last week, a reader wanted to know my current thoughts about Bill Belichick.  I suspect these are not going to be satisfactory to many folks.  The BIG question in my mind about Bill Belichick is this:

• We know that he is a great football coach and that he had success at the NFL level for about three decades, but can those skills and coaching techniques translate to the Division 1-A collegiate level?

Currently, the “Belichick Story” has nothing to do with that question and had focused in on his “relationship” with a woman one-third of his age.  The intensity of the “investigations” into this “relationship” are even more smarmy than the relationship itself.  By all appearances, they are two consenting adults whose actions are scrutinized only because one of the participants is a “recognizable person”.  So, my current thought on the matter is to ignore this story for a week and it will dry up and blow away.

A secondary question in my mind about Bill Belichick is this:

• Does he really intend to coach football at UNC for real or is this merely a way to assure that his son gets that head coaching gig when Dad bails at the eleventh-hour and fifty-ninth minute?

Once again, a little “benign neglect” [Hat Tip to Daniel Patrick Moynihan] will yield an answer to the secondary question more certainly than any sort of “probing”.

Moving on …  I want to look at the offseason activities of the Pittsburgh Steelers; I think they have been unusual.  Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the Steelers are the only team in my memory ever to jettison their leading passer from last season (Russell Wilson) and their leading rusher (Najee Harris) and their leading receiver (George Pickens).  I am not trying to say that those three players are great; they are all of “starting quality”, but for a team to clean house to that degree in one offseason is more than unusual.

I mentioned the Pickens trade to the Cowboys last week and I want to elaborate on it a bit.  George Pickens is not the best WR in the NFL, but he qualifies as a starter for a boatload of teams.  The Cowboys got him for a third-round pick in 2026 and a late-round pick-swap in 2027.  Excuse me, that appears to be a stone-cold bargain for the Cowboys who desperately need another WR for their roster.

My guess – – and it is only a guess – – is that the Steelers’ organization had had their fill of Pickens’ antics and just wanted him gone.  Last year, Coach Mike Tomlin said Pickens needed to “grow up in a hurry” after he got two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in a game; and later in the season, Pickens was almost an hour late arriving for a scheduled game.  Now, before you conclude that the Cowboys are the clear winners in this matter, consider that the Steelers have a history of trading away talented wide receivers with “maturity issues” and surviving the aftermath:

1. In 2019, the Steelers traded Antonio Brown to the Raiders for what appeared to be a bag of beans.  Brown never played a down for the Raiders and ended his career walking off the field shoulder pads in hand in the middle of a regular season game for the Bucs.
2. In 2022, the Steelers traded away Chase Claypool to the Bears who subsequently traded him to the Dolphins in 2023.  Currently, he is on a 1-year deal with the Bills.
3. In 2024, the Steelers traded away Diontae Johnson to the Panthers who then traded him to the Ravens in the middle of the 2024 season.  After bouncing around on the waiver wire at the end of 2024, he signed a one-year deal with the Browns for 2025.

The Steelers seem to have a knack for drafting talented – – and flawed – – WRs and then trading them away for seemingly small prices and moving on as an organization.  It will be interesting to see how George Pickens fares with a star on his helmet.

Switching gears …  Darek Carr surprisingly announced his retirement from the NFL over the weekend.  Carr says he has a shoulder injury that requires surgery and rehab that would negate the entire 2025 season and thus he chose to hang up his cleats.  One report I read said that by retiring as opposed to having the surgery and going through the rehab and collecting the guaranteed money in his contract, Carr left $30M on the table.  Not to worry, if my calculations are correct, Derek Carr made something in the neighborhood of $200M over his NFL career; so, you are not liable to see him in a homeless state any time soon.

But leaving $30M “on the table” does make me wonder:

• Did the doctors tell him that the surgery/rehab would be arduous and that there is only a 50/50 chance for a full recovery?
• Does he realize his “fire for the game” is diminishing and his moral compass does not allow him to collect that $30M under “false pretenses”?

I obviously don’t know the answer(s) here, but I do know that the New Orleans Saints have a precarious QB situation now.  Here are the QBs on their roster:

• Jake Haener
• Spencer Rattler
• Tyler Shough – – 2^nd round pick in this year’s Draft.

We saw both Haener and Rattler in starting roles last year.  Neither one inspired much confidence.  The Saints have a rookie head coach (Kellen Moore) whose reputation is as an offensive innovator.  That situation could be fun to watch if it heads in a positive direction or it could be a massive dumpster fire.

Finally, since today dealt with football matters, let me close with something from Bear Bryant:

“If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Back from a couple of weeks in Europe visiting Dublin, Budapest, Vienna, Passau, Ringenberg, Nurenberg and Prague.  I am not quite in sync with the Eastern Time Zone of the US and I am not nearly caught up  on all that transpired during my European adventure; nonetheless, I will try to do a quick skimming of the surface regarding the last couple of weeks in sports.

In the NBA Playoffs, the Lakers went out in Round 1 losing to the Timberwolves.  Only once in 5 games did the Wolves fail to hit triple digits on the scoreboard which indicates a porous defense for the Lakers.  Indeed, in the high-profile trade where the Lakers acquired Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis, what the Lakers did was to trade away their only strong defender.  So much for the conspiracy theory that the NBA engineered the trade to get the Lakers into the NBA Finals – presumably against the Celtics – to goose TV ratings with the two blueblood franchises in the Finals.

Speaking of the Celtics, they are trailing the Knicks 2-0 in that second round series.  In both victories, the Knicks rallied from 20 points down on the road to win those games.  Game 3 is tomorrow in Madison Square Garden…  If that game does not draw a big TV audience, the NBA is in trouble.

Gregg Popovich is retiring from coaching the San Antonio Spurs; he is the President of the Spurs in addition to being the head coach; as of now, he will continue in that executive role.  Popovich was an Assistant Coach with the Spurs from 1988 to 1994.  He took over as head coach in 1996 and has been there ever since.  His teams have won 5 NBA championships, and the Spurs lost in the Finals one other time.  His regular season coaching record is 1422-869 (win percentage = .621)  Popovich suffered a stroke in November 2024; he is said to be recovering well, but the idea of continuing with the stress of coaching after such a health scare makes his retirement easily understood.

Personally, I have always admired the way Popovich has dismissed the inane questions put to him by sideline reporters.  Once he was asked on the way into the locker room at halftime of a tie game what he thought the team needed to do in the second half to pull out a victory.  His response was a classic:

“Score more points than they do.”

Moving on …  I was surprised by the precipitous fall of Shedeur Sanders in the NFL Draft.  I said prior to the Draft that I did not think he would be a great first round pick, but he lasted  until Round 5 where the Browns took him as their second QB in the Draft.  My first thought was that scouts had detected a serious flaw in his game but after thinking about it for a while I have another idea.  Maybe – – just maybe – – Sanders suffers from something I will call “Colin Kaepernick Syndrome”.  Hear me out …

• Kaepernick would be the focus of media attention and reporting on any team that signed him and given his absence from the game and his performance in his last games as a regular player, the best he could hope to be is a backup QB.  Teams do not want their backup QB to be a focus for the media; teams want their backup QB to be a wallflower not a spotlight entity.
• Shedeur Sanders may or may not turn out to be a franchise QB someday, but his draft slot says that most scouts/coaches/GMs see him as a project meaning that he will be a backup for some time.  In that case, Sanders would be like Kaepernick and draw attention to himself and the backup QB position which is not what the ideal NFL team model looks like.

The Browns have 3 QBs on their roster already in Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and Deshaun Watson; in the Draft the Browns took Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders.  There is little likelihood that the Browns will keep all 5 on their books; usually only one player on the Practice Squad is a QB.  Suddenly, the Browns’ Training Camp became a point of interest; can Sanders even make the cut?

The Ravens released kicker Justin Tucker.  Yes, he had a sub-standard season in 2024 but historically, he is one of the best placekickers in NFL history.  The “problem” here is the allegation that he behaved inappropriately with some female massage therapists over the years.  The message there is that it is easier for the Ravens to find a replacement kicker than it is for the team to appear to condone or accept such alleged behaviors.

And of course, the Aaron Rodgers Saga continues.  All signs point to him signing with the Steelers who did not draft a QB until Round 6 last month but you never know with Rodgers.  I have said here before that he is addicted to public attention, and I think that factor is playing into the hemming and hawing at this late date.  Once again, hear me out:

• At least 5 days a week someone writes a story about Rodgers and his “decision” for the 2025 season and beyond.  The day Rodgers signs on somewhere or announces his retirement, those stories 5 days a week will dry up.
• If he signs with the Steelers, the focus will be on how he blends in with the team not about his latest “darkness retreat” or a long weekend on ayahuasca.  He will share the storyline with teammates and with coach Mike Tomlin who does not give the impression that he likes prima donnas very much.
• And to make that storyline reduction even bigger, making his decision final would open the door to another QB “narrative” that is waiting to happen as the Niners and Brock Purdy decide what their future will be after 2025.  Purdy’s contract is up this year; he will make $5M this year.  As a franchise QB, he might ask for $50M per year; should the Niners pay him that much; will they pay him that much?  There is a storyline that could relegate Aaron Rodgers to “old news”.

Meanwhile, the Steelers also traded away WR, Geroge Pickens to the Cowboys.  Mike Tomlin said that Pickens needed to “grow up” related to some of his antics with the team and the local media.  Evidently Pickens – – an above average WR – – remained immature.

Finally, another quote from Gregg Popovich:

“I’m not too interested in talking about the past. It doesn’t do us any good whatsoever.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………