Category: Daily Rants

Tom Brady’s retirement is over; he will be coming back to play NFL football again in 2022; the retirement lasted about six weeks.  I was trying to think of a sports event involving “life commitment” that lasted less than Brady’s retirement and the best I could come up with was the marriage of Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman which lasted – seemingly – about a day and a half.  A friend asked me how I thought Brady would do this year and my answer was simple:

• If the Bucs put an offensive line in front of him that can protect him and generate a halfway decent running game, Brady will do just fine.  If not, he will not do well at all.

Please note that my response assumes that Brady will be a Buccaneer in 2022; given the current environment where players force trades, perhaps that will not be the case…

The Steelers have addressed their QB situation by signing Mitchell Trubisky to a 2-year deal.  They made that move after it was announced that Deshaun Watson would not face any criminal charges coming out of the sexual assault allegations against him; a grand jury in Texas chose not to indict Watson.  Even with that knowledge, the Steelers chose to go with Trubisky which tells me that the Steelers recognize there will be some “blowback” when Watson is cleared to play in the NFL and the Steelers did not want any part of it.

Naturally, Watson was happy with the grand jury decision and told the press soon after learning of that decision that the cloud hanging over his career was gone and that any team interested in his services should get in touch with the Texans and his agent.  I guess I would feel the same way were I in his position – – but not being there, his optimism seems a tad premature.  Almost two dozen massage therapists still have civil complaints against him, and Commissioner Goodell has yet to weigh in on any sort of suspension that might arise from a violation of the NFL’s “Personal Conduct Policy”.  I doubt that the Deshaun Watson situation is completely in the rear-view mirror…

• [Aside:  Ben Roethlisberger got a 6-game suspension when a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her even though no charges were brought.  That precedent happened in 2010 predating events such as the #MeToo Movement.  Ezekiel Elliott also gat a 6-game suspension based on domestic violence allegations where no criminal charges were leveled.  There is precedent for NFL suspension absent the establishment of criminal guilt.]

It appears that the Washington Commanders and the Dallas Cowboys are on parallel tracks these days.  The Commanders had a scandal involving their cheerleaders causing a long-term exec in the Front Office to retire unexpectedly and then moved on to a situation where a woman claimed to have been sexually assaulted by the team owner.  In more recent times, it seems that the Cowboys have also had some “issues” with their cheerleaders involving the surprising retirement of a senior staff member.  And now, a woman claims that owner Jerry Jones is her biological father, and she is suing seeking to get that “fact” acknowledged.

The paternity aspect of that lawsuit is the sort of thing that Maury Povich handles on his TV show with a combination of objectivity, rapidity and even a soupçon of aplomb.  Somehow, I do not think any of those sorts of conditions will apply to this lawsuit.  In fact, I think the only interesting point about the lawsuit will be:

• What are the measures – and how might they be applied – to get the plaintiff here to “STFU”?

The TV ratings for the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing were “disappointing” at best and probably closer to “miserable” on the ratings spectrum.  Some of the spin masters coming to NBC’s defense pinned that “disappointment” on the fact that live events were happening 10 or 12 time zones removed from American viewers.  That is undeniably correct – but it is also a distraction and not an explanation.  The reason I say that is that the 2018 Winter Olympic Games were held in PyeongChang, South Korea; those games “suffered” the same time-zone burden.  So, compare the “TV numbers” between the PyeongChang games and the Beijing games:

• In 2018, an average of 19.8 million viewers per night tuned in to watch all or part of the televised events.
• In 2022, an average of 11.4 million viewers per night tuned in to watch all or part of the televised events.
• That is an audience reduction of just over 42% and the “time-zone burden” is virtually the same.

I will not pretend to have “the answer” to this significant reduction in viewing audience for the Winter Games.  I have seen others attribute it to the fact that the Summer Games had to be postponed from 2020 to 2021 creating what some have called “Olympic Fatigue”.  Personally, any “Olympic Fatigue” I may have suffered had nothing to do with the postponement of the Summer Games in Japan.  Other commentators point to “international tensions” as the cause of this audience decline. Once again, that may have affected the viewing choices of some folks, but it was absolutely not a consideration for me.

Someone at NBC needs to figure out the issues here because NBC is on the hook for about $8B to telecast the Olympics through 2032.  That is a lot of cheese to spend on a property where the audience trend is decidedly downward.

Let me put this in another perspective for you:

• The 2022 Winter Games were shown in the US in prime time when TV audiences traditionally are larger.  They also reached potential viewers on a variety of channels and streaming services.  The potential for “big audiences” were all present for those Winter Games.  The audience averaged 11.4 million viewers.
• The average NFL game is played on a Sunday afternoon not prime time.  The average NFL game includes all those clunker games – – such as Jags/Jets on the day after Christmas.  And with all that, the average NFL game draws an audience of 16 million viewers which is about 40% more eyeballs than watched the 2022 Winter Games.

Finally, Dwight Perry had this comment last weekend regarding another NFL quarterback and his offseason events:

“Packers QB Aaron Rodgers officiated at teammate David Bakhtiari’s wedding on March 5.

“No word on whether Bakhtiari got the Rodgers rate, but the QB did get the bridesmaids to jump offside with a hard count.”

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

 

 

March 14^th is always celebrated as “Pi Day”; this year it is also “National Napping Day” since it is the day after the clocks were advanced forward an hour to accommodate Daylight Saving Time.  For 2022, it is also the day after Selection Sunday for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament; and, here in Curmudgeon Central, that means it is a special day.

In many parts of the sports world, today is spent identifying the teams that were “snubbed” by the Selection Committee and/or the ones who were seeded higher or lower than someone not on the Selectin Committee thinks is proper.  It is a day of lamentation and/or outrage when neither is really called for.  No one was “snubbed”; had any team “on the bubble” who failed to get the call won a game or two more than they did, they would be “on the inside”.  The Selection Committee are not the bad guys; the teams on the outside did it to themselves.

So, while others are caught up in either lamentation or outrage, I prefer to take this day to have some fun with the tournament brackets as they have been presented.  For example:

• In one of the play-in games, the Wyoming Cowboys will take on Indiana.
• In the East bracket, we might see the Baylor Bears taking on the UCLA Bruins in an ursine showdown.
• If the UConn Huskies and the Vermont Catamounts both advance to the second round, it will be a showdown between cats and dogs.
• Similarly, the first-round game between the Gonzaga Bulldogs and the Georgia State Panthers is a feline/canine battle.
• If the Texas Tech Red Raiders win their first-round game, they could meet the Alabama Crimson Tide in the next round – – or perhaps the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.
• If the St. Peter’s Peacocks meet the Creighton Blue Jays in the tournament Finals, it will be an all-avian showdown.  [Aside:  The same would be true if the Peacocks faced the Delaware Fighting Blue Hens.]
• In the Midwest bracket, we might see the USC Trojans meeting the San Diego State Aztecs in a showdown of ancient civilizations.
• In that same bracket, we might also see the Miami Hurricanes facing the Iowa State Cyclones in a battle of the natural disasters.
• In the West bracket, the regional final could pair the Michigan State Spartans with the Georgia State Spartans.
• Imagine a Final Game between the Colgate Red Raiders and the Texas Tech Red Raiders.  Surely, that would be a first…

I have fun with things like mascots and mascot pairings and players’ names that fall into patterns.  For example, consider the possibility that these players will go on in their lives and make a career that is indicated by the names they were given at birth.  People believe in astrology where the position of the stars at birth determines various aspects of one’s life; so, why not the name given at birth?  Consider:

• Carter Ash – – Smoke jumper – – Montana State
• Joey Baker – – No mystery here – – Duke
• Darius Banks – – Financier – – Chattanooga
• Brent Bland – – School cafeteria cook – – St. Peter’s
• Lamont Butler – – Valet – – San Diego State
• Andrew Carr – – Formula One racer – – Delaware
• Maliq Carr – – Andrew’s pit crew boss – – Michigan State
• Preston Cook – – Gordon Ramsey trainee – – Auburn
• Xavier Cork – – Vintner – – TCU
• Rashool Diggins – – Farmer – – UConn
• Malcom Dread – – Apocalyptic novelist – – Richmond
• Parker Edwards – – Park Service ranger – – LSU
• Joe Few – – Minimalist philosopher – – Gonzaga
• Jalen Finch – – Ornithologist – – Jax State
• Luke Fonts – – Graphic designer – – Providence
• Chris Ford – – NASCAR crew chief – – Norfolk State
• Simeon Fryer – – KFC franchise owner – – Texas A&M CC
• Alex Fudge – – Chocolatier – – LSU
• Luke Goode – – Philanthropist – – Illinois
• Will Graves – – Mortician – – Gonzaga
• Justice Hill – – Criminologist – – Murray State
• Eric Hunter, Jr. – – Survivalist – – Purdue
• Aundre Hyatt – – Hotelier – – Rutgers
• Jaden Ivey – – Landscape architect – – Purdue
• Chris Knight – – Crusader – – Loyola-Chicago
• Miller Kopp – – Detective – – Indiana
• Broden Lien – – Mortgage broker – – South Dakota State
• Chandler Leopard – – Safari Guide – – Auburn
• Zach Light – – Dietician – – Colgate
• Mitch Lightfoot – – Dance instructor – – Kansas
• Julius Marble II – – Sculptor – – Michigan State
• Charlie McCarthy – – Ventriloquist – – Kansas
• David McCormack – – Spice merchant – – Kansas
• Shereef Mitchell – – Law enforcement officer – – Creighton
• Joe Moon IV – – Astronomer – – Bryant
• Chance Moore – – Blackjack dealer – – Arkansas
• Storm Murphy – – Meteorologist – – VA Tech
• Justyn Mutts – – Dog breeder – – VA Tech
• Brandon Noel – – Mall Santa Claus – – Wright State
• Jeremy Roach – – Exterminator – – Duke
• Dylan Painter – – Too easy – – Delaware
• Oskar Palmquist – – Movie producer – – Rutgers
• Bailey Patella – – Knee surgeon – – Vermont
• Omar Payne – – Anesthesiologist – – Illinois
• Cam Pope – – Evangelist – – Jax State
• Charles Pride – – Lion Tamer – – Bryant
• Austin Sacks – – NFL defensive end – – Baylor
• Jabari Sawyer – – Carpenter – – St. Mary’s
• Marcus Shaver, Jr. – – Barber – – Boise State
• Michael Shipp – – Riverboat captain – – Indiana
• Brandon Slater – – Roofer – – Villanova
• Mouhamed Sow – – Farmer – – St. Peter’s
• Justice Sueing – – Attorney at law – – Ohio State
• Johnny Taylor, Jr.  – – Tailor to the stars – – Chattanooga
• Jordan Turner – – Wheelwright – – Baylor
• Kerwin Walton – – Retailer – – UNC
• Blake Wesley – – Theologian – – Notre Dame
• Sahvir Wheeler – – Interstate trucker – –  KY
• Justice Williams – – Judge – – LSU

Other players have what I call “Mirror Image Names”; if you reverse the first name with the last name, you still have a name that could easily be a tournament player – – such as:

• Galen Alexander – – Texas Southern
• Corey Allen – – Georgia State
• Dontaie Allen – – Kentucky
• Teddy Allen – – New Mexico State
• Raheem Anthony – – St. Mary’s
• Bryan Antoine – – Villanova
• Jules Bernard – – UCLA
• Lawson Blake – – Arkansas
• Trey Calvin – – Wright State
• Jaylen Clark – – UCLA
• Henry Clayton – – New Mexico State
• Ben Craig – – Davidson
• Robin Duncan – – Vermont
• Ja’Vier Francis – – Houston
• Juwan Gary – – Alabama
• Kent Gilbert – – Tennessee
• Ben Gregg – – Gonzaga
• Blake Henry – – Colgate
• Kayne Henry – – Jax State
• Jace Howard – – Michigan
• Graham Ike – – Wyoming
• Bensley Joseph – – Miami
• Theo John – – Duke
• Bates Jones – – Duke
• Vincent Lee – – Cal St. – Fullerton
• Tramon Mark – – Houston
• Cam Martin – – Kansas
• Chase Martin – – Purdue
• Mitchell Paul – – Baylor
• Kayden Perry – – Gonzaga
• Cedric Russell – – Ohio State
• Daylen Terry – – Arizona
• Dischon Thomas – – Colorado State
• Jaylen Thomas – – Georgia State

Here are players whose names might show up on an Artist’s Palette:

• Leaky Black – – UNC
• Cahiem Brown – – Norfolk State
• Gabe Brown – – Michigan State
• Kendall Brown – – Baylor
• Justin Brown – – UAB
• Tevin Brown – – Murray State
• Wendell Green, Jr. – – Auburn
• Ethan White – – Texas A&M CC
• Fabian White, Jr. – – Houston
• Isaiah White – – USC
• Joey White – – St. Mary’s

Some players have Geographical Names:

• Jordan Bohannon – – Iowa
• Dane Brazil – – St. Mary’s
• Brennan Canada – – KY
• Rafael Castro – – Providence
• Jordan Gilliam – – Texas Southern
• Jordan Hawkins – – UConn
• Jordan Miller – – Miami
• Reggie Parris – – USC
• Jordan Rawls – – Georgia State
• Jordan Roberts – – Texas A&M CC
• Jordan Walker – – UAB

[Aside:  Jordan Geronimo can easily be on this list, but I find it doubly interesting that someone named “Geronimo” plays for Indiana – – so I give him special billing here.]

Copy editors at newspapers and websites everywhere will have nightmares with these players’ names:

• Chibuzo Agbo – – Texas Tech
• Babatunde Akingbola – – Auburn
• Rati Andronikashvili – – Creighton
• Aziz Bandaofo – – Akron
• Emir Buyukhanli – – Yale
• Tahirou Diabate – – San Diego State
• Ibrahim Famouke Doumbia – – Cal St. Fullerton
• Fousseyni Drame – – St. Peter’s
• Filippos Gkogkos – – Miami
• Oso Ighodaro – – Marquette
• Souleymane Koureissi – – Richmond
• Pavle Kuzmanovic – – Boise State
• Ga’Khari Lacount – – Longwood
• Volodymyr Markovetskyy – – Univ. of San Francisco
• Bez Mbeng – – Yale
• Michel Ndayishimiye – – Vermont
• Jahcobi Neath – – Wisconsin
• Amanze Ngumezi – – Jax State
• Nnanna Njoku – – Villanova
• Olivier Nkamhoua – – Tennessee
• Leslie Nkereuwem – – Longwood
• Eliel Nsoseme – – Georgia State
• Shakiru Odunewu – – New Mexico State
• Brandin Podziemski – – Illinois
• Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua – – Baylor
• Azoulas Tubelis – – Arizona
• Tautvilas Tubelis – – Arizona

These players’ names recall historical US Presidents:

• Grant Basile – – Wright State
• Grayson Carter – – Texas Southern
• Kennedy Chandler – – Tennessee
• Carter Gilmore – – Wisconsin
• Carter Higgenbottom – – Wisconsin
• Harrison Hoofkin – – Ohio State
• Andre Jackson – – UConn
• Tray Jackson – – Seton Hall
• Quan Jackson – – UAB
• Zeb Jackson – – Michigan
• Ty Johnson – – Loyola-Chicago
• Marquise Kennedy – – Loyola-Chicago
• Michael Kennedy – – Marquette
• Carter Sobera – – Auburn
• Elijah Taylor – – Notre Dame
• Tyler Polley – – UConn
• Douglas Wilson – – South Dakota State
• Tyler Wahl – – Wisconsin
• Ty Ty Washington Jr.  Kentucky

There are enough players whose names have Biblical ties that we can break them up into Old Testament and New Testament teams.  For the Old Testament:

• Aaron Fiegen – – South Dakota State
• Adam Cottrell – – Alabama
• Noah Frechette – – St. Mary’s
• Jacob Grandison – – Illinois
• Noah Horchler – – Providence
• Isaiah Kelly – – Yale
• Samson Johnson – – UConn
• Isaac Lindsey – – Wisconsin
• Isaiah Mobley – – USC
• Joshua Morgan – – USC
• Elijah Morgan – – Notre Dame
• Jeremiah Oden – – Wyoming
• Micah Peavy – – TCU
• Jacob Radaker – – Chattanooga
• Noah Reynolds – – Wyoming
• Jeremaine Samuels – – Villanova
• Elijah Tate – – UAB
• Adam Thistlewood – – Colorado State
• Isaiah Thompson – – Purdue
• Tadarius Jacobs – – Memphis

And here are the New Testament players…:

• Luke Appel – – South Dakota State
• Christian Bishop – – Texas
• Xavier Bishop – – Montana State
• San Antonio Brinson – – Texas A&M CC
• Max Christie – – Michigan State
• Michael Christmas – – Longwood
• Rod Grace – – Richmond
• Christian Ings – – Norfolk State
• De’Lazerus Keys – – Texas A&M CC
• Saint Thomas – – Loyola-Chicago

And of course, there are players whose names are Alliterative:

• Amin Adamu – – Montana State
• Alex Arians – – South Dakota State
• Adonis Arms – – Texas Tech
• Akok Akok – – UConn
• Aguek Arop – – San Diego State
• Austin Ash – – Iowa
• Ben Bowen – – Wyoming
• Connor Crabtree – – Richmond
• Cameron Crawford – – Mew Mexico State
• Davonte Davis – – Arkansas
• Darius Days – – LSU
• Devin Davis – – Creighton
• Dylan Disu – – Texas
• Duncan Demuth – – Vermont
• D’Marco Dunn – – UNC
• Deng Dut – – Wyoming
• Emarion Ellis – – Marquette
• Francisco Farabello – – TCU
• Grant Golden – – Richmond
• Jacob Jennissen – – Colorado State
• Jamal Johnson – – UAB
• Jaden Jones – – Rutgers
• Joe Jones III – – Georgia State
• John Jones – – Texas Southern
• Johnny Juzang – – UCLA
• Kur Kuath – – Marquette
• Luke Laketa – – Iowa
• Lado Laku – – Cal St. – Fullerton
• Langston Love – – Baylor
• Mawot Mag – – Rutgers
• Mike Marshall, Jr. – – Bryant
• Matthew Mayer – – Baylor
• Mike Miles, Jr. – – TCU
• Mason Miller – – Creighton
• Matt Mims – – South Dakota State
• Matthew Mors – – Wisconsin
• Ndewedo Newbury – – Univ. of San Francisco
• Pearson Parker – – Colgate
• Shaedan Sharpe – – KY
• Sasha Stefanovic – – Purdue
• Trevian Tennyson – – Texas A&M CC
• Tony Toney – – UAB
• Zakai Ziegler – – Tennessee

This year, I found six players who hit the “Alliterative Trifecta”:

1. Ali Ali – – Akron
2. Addison Arnold – – Arizona
3. Cameron Carter – – Cal St. Fullerton
4. Drew Dibble – – Davidson
5. Jaime Jaquez, Jr. – – UCLA
6. Josiah Jordan-James – – Tennessee

I keep looking but have yet to find a player name – – with his school – – that completes an “Alliterative Superfecta”.  I keep looking for someone named Tommy Tunes from Texas Tech or Billy Bob Banks from Brown.  No luck yet…

I want to give special mention to six players in this year’s tournament because their names form a complete sentence:

1. Nick Falls – – St Mary’s
2. Erickson Bans – – Bryant
3. Isaac Spears – – Montana State
4. Delaney Heard – –  Alabama
5. Race Thompson – – Indiana  (in the imperative mood no less)
6. Ian Burns – – Michigan

I was hoping that DePaul would make the tournament because Courvoisier McCauley is on the DePaul team.  It would have been great to have him here today to present the possibility of a Cognac Showdown between McCauley and Remy Martin – – Kansas.  Unfortunately, DePaul posted a 15-16 record this year and did not make the tournament…

One final player name that needs mentioning:

• Nickolas Louis-Jacques  (Colgate) leads the tournament in first names.

Enough frivolity for the day.  All the folks who are in high dudgeon today will shed those feelings overnight because tomorrow’s focus will be identifying potential “bracket busters” for this year.  Let the games begin…

Finally, I’ll close today with an observation by Bob Knight whose Indiana teams won this basketball tournament three times:

“The greatest motivator in the world is your ass on the bench. Ass meets bench, bench retains ass, ass transmits signals to the brain, brain transmits signals to the body, body gets ass off bench and plays better. It’s a hell of a sequence.”

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

 

 

Almost 50 years ago when Gerald Ford was inaugurated as President of the United States after the resignation of President Nixon, he proclaimed:

“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

With the announcement last night that the MLB owners and the MLB players had reached an agreement on a new 5-year CBA,  I think President Ford’s announcement applies today.  Barring something like World War III erupting out of the Ukraine and/or the emergence of the omega variant of COVID-19, we are going to have a “normal” baseball season in 2022.

My position all along has been that neither side in this dispute had any claim on even a single square inch of the “moral high ground”.  And while I am as happy as anyone to know that baseball will take place in 2022, I would like to throw just a bit of cold water on the celebratory mood that seems to have engulfed most of the baseball media.

First, there is nothing – – and I do mean NOTHING – – in this new framework for a CBA that was not available to the negotiators the day after the lockout was announced.  No new ground was broken; none of the alleged abominations perpetrated by the “other side” in this dispute were eradicated.  Everything here could have emerged in short order had the two sides – – BOTH – – sat down and negotiated from realistic positions.  It was never clear to me then and it is certainly not clear to me now why there was a lockout in the first place; certainly now, it is clear that the negotiations dragged on – – or never even began in earnest – – for the first ten weeks after the unnecessary lockout.

• The owners were stupid and greedy in locking the players out.
• The players were petulant and greedy not knocking on the door to seek entry immediately.

Second, when all the details of the new CBA are ironed out and massaged by the lawyers, please do not think that we will enter an era of labor peace and mutual bliss on the part of the two sides here.  As I said above, NOTHING new is in this CBA other than a few numbers getting changed.  If the last CBA was sufficiently awful from the point of view of either or both sides, why would this one be any different?

Third, most of the baseball media sided with the players in this kerfuffle; that is OK with me; everyone has an inalienable right to be wrong.  Here is a datum that might lead you to believe that the players were significantly involved in delaying the outcome here.  Consider:

• Sitting in on negotiations for the players was the MLBPA Executive Subcommittee.  That body consists of 8 players elected by the rank and file.
• Each member of the Executive Subcommittee gets a ratification vote, and each team then gets one ratification vote too.  Thus, there are 38 votes for or against ratification and a simple majority is needed to ratify.
• In this case, all 8 members of the Executive Subcommittee voted NOT to ratify this proposed agreement, but the teams voted 24-6 in favor of ratification, so we got a deal.
• Please note, every player at the table doing the negotiating wanted baseball to stay dark longer than this.  With that on the record, might it not be the case that the players were not exactly striving for resolution?

The MLB regular season will begin on April 7^th; they will play 162 games and the players will get the full value of their contracts.  If there had been a representative of the fans at the bargaining table, maybe the following point would have been made:

• We don’t want to hear about 7-inning doubleheaders ever again unless teams charge only 7/9-ths of the admission price to those games and players only get paid 7/9-ths of their po-rated salaries for those games.

That is the sort of “issue” that neither the owners nor the players ever want to confront.  They both think they have a God-given right to ignore the fans that pay the freight for all the issues they just spent 3 months haggling over.

None of the haggling over the past 2 or 3 months really affected minor league baseball for a simple yet profound reason.  The lockout was by major league team owners not minor league team owners and the players’ side of the deal involved the MLB Players Association and minor league players are not members of that union – – with one exception.  Minor league players who were on the 40-man roster of a major league club at the time of the lockout are members of the union and therefore they could not be part of minor league teams or even workouts had this contretemps gone on further.  Basically, minor league teams had a set schedule and have been adhering to it:

• Triple A games will begin on April 5^th – – two days before MLB games
• Double A, High A and Low A games, will begin on April 8^th.

Just in case you are interested, here are the 8 members of the MLBPA Executive Subcommittee who were at the negotiating table and who voted against this now ratified CBA:

1. Zack Britton
2. Jason Castro
3. Gerritt Cole
4. Francisco Lindor
5. Andrew Miller
6. James Paxton
7. Max Scherzer
8. Marcus Semien

Finally, the poet William Butler Yeats had this observation about an Irishman; if you substitute “baseball fans” for “Irish” it seems appropriate today:

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”

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

 

 

Over the past year or so, whenever the “NFL franchise that calls itself Washington” got into the headlines, the event was about as welcome as sour milk.

• Allegations of “Peeping Toms” on undressed cheerleaders.
• Partners in the ownership group suing one another.
• Principal owner accused of sexual assault.
• Franchise fumbles the ball on its re-naming initiative.
• One of its roster players accused of vehicular homicide.

Yesterday, it was different; the Washington Commanders made news that was not sleazy, and it is unlikely to require a judge in a courtroom to render any decisions.

• The Washington Commanders traded for a QB and got Carson Wentz from the Colts.

That represents an upgrade for the team at the QB position so fans can sing Hallelujah; however, it is a stretch to say that this trade has brought to Washington their franchise QB who is going to lead this team for the next 5 or 7  years.  If I were to tell you that the Commanders were deficient at QB last year, your response should be along the lines of, “So how is that different from the last 35 years?”  The last real franchise QB for the Washington franchise was Joe Theismann and he last saw the field in 1985.

The fact is that acquiring Carson Wentz provides as many questions as it does answers.  Let me try to go over some of those questions and answers:

• Answer:  Wentz’s teams are 44-40-1 when he starts; he has thrown 140 TD passes compared to only 57 INTs; his career passing completion percentage is 62.6%.  He will be 30 years old in December, so he is not confronting the still undefeated Father Time.
• Question:  So … why will the Commanders be his third team in three seasons?

Two years ago, the Eagles benched Wentz in favor of Jalen Hurts; according to reports, Wentz did not take that demotion well and his behavior(s) in relation to his coach then were well below positive.  That got his coach, Doug Pederson, fired and it got Wentz traded to the Colts.  Last year, the Colts had the NFL’s leading rusher in Jonathan Taylor (1,811 yards and 18 TDs) and they had a Top Ten defense in points allowed.  Nevertheless, the Colts missed the playoffs in the most embarrassing way I can recall.

• In Week 18 playing against the 1-16 Jacksonville Jaguars in a win-and-you’re-in-game, the Colts lost; and Carson Wentz was awful in that game.

Here is the big question…  There are reports that unnamed players in both Philly and Indy were less than impressed with Wentz as a leader and/or as a positive element in the locker room and/or as “a guy”.  Most importantly, are those reports based in fact?  And if so, are there ways that the Commanders’ coaches can ameliorate those “problems” assuming they exist?

Carson Wentz has been a boom-or-bust sort of player for all of his career.  When he is “hot” he looks like Superman; when he is “off” he looks like Charlie Brown.  The Commanders are seeking stability at the QB position; stability and consistency go hand in hand; Wentz is hardly “consistent”.  Wentz is clearly a physical talent upgrade for the team, but questions remain…

Speaking of QB questions, let me turn now to two teams that need to decide about the QB position for next year.  Both the Colts and the Steelers have a good running back and a better than average defense; both teams have adequate if not great pass catchers; both teams lack a strong QB on their roster as of this morning.

• Colts’ QBs:  Sam Ehlinger and James Morgan
• Steelers’ QBs:  Joshua Dobbs, Dwayne Haskins and Mason Rudolph

Both teams should have playoff aspirations for 2022 – – assuming they find themselves a competent and reliable QB.  Of the five guys named above, Mason Rudolph is probably the best of the lot and he yet to prove that he is anything more than a stop gap.  So, who is out there for either the Steelers or the Colts to acquire?

• Teddy Bridgewater has stats similar to Carson Wentz but with a worse record of injuries.
• Nick Foles has something no other available QB has – – a Super Bowl ring AND a Super Bowl MVP award…
• Jimmy G is rumored to be on the trading block.  The Niners would probably like to recoup some of the draft capital they expended to move up and take Trey Lance in last year’s Draft.
• Jordan Love would seem to be superfluous in Green Bay these days…
• Gardner Minshew played well in place of Jalen Hurts in Philly when needed last year.  The Colts or the Steelers might have to bid against the Seahawks if the Eagles show interest in trading Minshew since he is a fan favorite in the Northwest having gone to Washington State.
• Mitchell Trubisky is an unrestricted free agent.  He has not shown greatness in his career, but he has shown some promise.  Rumor says he will sign with the Giants and stay with Brian Daboll who was his OC in Buffalo last year.  We shall see…

Or maybe either or both Colts/Steelers see a prospect in the Draft they really, really like…

Oh, by the way, MLB just cancelled another week’s worth of April games.  Hi, Ho…

Finally, Dwight Perry reminds us to keep a good thought here:

“March 20 is the International Day of Happiness.

“At least we can hope the baseball negotiations are over by then.”

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

 

 

Today’s athletes seem to work awfully hard off the field polishing their image – or in the modern parlance “advancing their brand”.  I want to focus on two NFL players today whose image polishing has not been totally effective recently.  Let me start with Aaron Rodgers…

I have always liked watching Aaron Rodgers play football; even if you are a diehard Bears’ fan and hate the Packers’ as a team and an organization to its core, you have to appreciate that Rodgers is one of the best ever at his position.  Off the field, he seemed to be intelligent, understated, and insightful while carrying an aura of Snoopy’s alter ego, “Joe Cool”.  I do not watch Jeopardy; so, I cannot say if he would have been a good replacement host for the program.  His low-key presence would seem to have fit the role.

However, over the past year, Aaron Rodgers has come across to me with an added dimension to his image/brand – – and it is not flattering.  Last year, he engaged in a long-term feud with his team management leading to stories about how he would never play for the Packers again and how he wanted to be traded and – – you remember all that.  Then came the NFL regular season and Rodgers worked his magic on the field again until the Packers lost in the playoffs to the Niners on 22 January.  That was six-and-a-half weeks ago.  A day or so after the game, Rodgers said that he would make up his mind about what he wanted to do with the rest of his career quickly so that the Packers could get their ducks in line and go forward with plans for 2022.  So, what has happened in those six weeks or so?

• We have had reports that Rodgers is going to retire.  If that were the case – and if he and Tom Brady actually “stay retired”, then Rodgers, Brady and Ben Roethlisberger can headline the Hall of Fame class 5 years from now.  [Aside:  I wonder if any of those three QBs would be happy “sharing that stage” with the other two inductees.  Just a thought…]
• We have had reports that Rodgers and the Packers’ management have patched up their relationship leading to the team making him a “huge offer”.
• We have had reports that he has made a list of teams where he would accept a trade – – and of course that led to speculation about what any potential trading partner might give to the Packers in exchange for Rodgers.

It has been six weeks, folks; no one forced Aaron Rodgers to say he would makeup his mind quickly; he did that all by his lonesome.  So, that leads me now to see him and his image as tending toward “attention whore territory” which is not even close to the image he has projected for the past decade.  Think about it; if he had been seen as an “attention whore” over the years, do you think he would have even gotten an audition for the Jeopardy host role?

The other player whose image/brand was blindsided and is taking on water would be Falcons’ WR, Calvin Ridley.  He has been suspended indefinitely – at a minimum for all of 2022 – for “violating the NFL policy on gambling”.  That is the sugar-coated version of the issue here; reports say that Ridley bet on NFL games last year including bets on the Falcons to win in parlay bets.  To be fair, he made those bets when he was inactive and not on the field; that is a small plus in this open ocean of stupidity.

Spare me the diatribe about the NFL’s hypocrisy for bellying up to the trough and taking millions of dollars from gambling institutions and websites.  There is a fundamental difference between the league allowing “strategic partnerships” with betting companies and the league allowing gambling ads on its programming on one hand and having an active player or coach or official betting on actual NFL games.  If anyone needs that distinction explained to them, I fear they will never understand it.

Ridley left the Falcons last year in October for “mental health reasons”.  That covers a broad landscape and I profess no expertise in the area.  However, according to reports sometime in November, he placed parlay bets on NFL games while he was away from the team.  Try as I might, I cannot cobble together a set of events whereby whatever healing processes/therapies/counselings he underwent for his mental health led him to think that betting on NFL games as a player in the NFL was OK.  Please do not try to convince me that it was a gambling addiction that was the mental health issue that caused him to leave the Falcons because if he had been betting on NFL games before that as an active player on the field, that makes it 100 times worse.

Ridley has subsequently Tweeted:

“I don’t have a gambling problem.”

Well, if that is unassailably true, then as far as I am concerned, he has an intellect problem.  The NFL has a history regarding players and gambling:

• In the 1960s, Paul Hornung and Alex Karras (both players inducted into the Hall of Fame) were suspended for 1 year for betting on games.  [Aside:  Karras also was a part owner of a bar in Detroit that was allegedly associated with organized crime there.]
• In the 1970s, the NFL “forced” Joe Namath (another Hall of Fame player) to sell a bar he opened in NYC because of “organized crime” association and possible illegal gambling activities.
• In the 1980s, the NFL had to deal with Art Schlichter whose gambling activities and gambling problem were chronicled even during his college days at Ohio State.  Rather than trying to summarize the train-wreck that was Art Schlichter, let me point you to his Wikipedia entry.

Aaron Rodgers is coming across as “annoying”; Calvin Ridley is coming across as “dumber than a bag of hammers”.  Neither “brand” is being advanced…

Finally, since I mentioned Alex Karras above, let me close with an incident that happened after he had been reinstated by the NFL.  As a game captain, Karras was at the 50-yardline with the officials for the coin toss; the referee asked Karras to call heads or tails and Karras reportedly replied:

“I’m sorry, sir; I’m not permitted to gamble.”

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

 

 

This week, fans of college basketball will be focused on conference tournaments looking to see which teams will get automatic entry into the upcoming tournament.  Here in the DC area, one of the teams that will assuredly NOT be in the tournament is Georgetown; the Hoyas have been a disaster this year.  Consider:

• Overall Record is 6-24
• Big East Conference record is 0-19
• Current losing streak is 20 games

Georgetown’s coach is Patrick Ewing; this is the end of his 5^th year in that job and my first thought was to use Thomas Wolfe’s novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, as a metaphor for his situation.  Indeed, Ewing’s coaching record at Georgetown bears no resemblance to Ewing’s playing record at Georgetown back in the 1980s.  As a coach, his cumulative record over 5 seasons stands today at 68-83.  However, I think there might be a larger context in which to think about Ewing’s status.

• NBA players do not necessarily become good college basketball coaches.

Yes, Bobby Hurley has been a success at Buffalo and at Arizona State compiling a 160-119 record and three NCAA Tournament appearances over 9 seasons.  And yes, Penny Hardaway has been 82-41 over for seasons at Memphis and his team won the NIT last year.  Another success story would be Johnny Dawkins who has been the head coach at Stanford (8 years) and UCF (6 years) amassing a record of 267-186 and winning the NIT two times.  Avery Johnson was a combined 75-62 at Alabama over 4 seasons.  It is too soon to tell, but I’ll put Hubert Davis in this category provisionally given his first UNC team has a 23-8 record as of this morning.

However, check out some of these other records for NBA players turned college head coaches; some of these are not pretty at all:

• Danny Manning is 126-152 over 8.5 seasons.  (Took over mid-season this year)
• Donyell Marshall is 40-104 over 5 seasons.
• Aaron McKie is 36-39 over 3 seasons.  (He too is back at his alma mater.)
• Chris Mullen was 59-73 over 4 seasons.  (He too went back to his alma mater.)
• Terry Porter was 43-104 over 5 seasons.
• Mark Price was 30-42 over 3 seasons.
• Jerry Stackhouse is 35-52 over 3 seasons.
• Reggie Theus is 103-149 over 7 seasons.

Let me interject a disclaimer here.  The “research” that went into compiling this data represents about an hour’s worth of work.  These are the former NBA players that came to mind as college coaches and truth be told, I was not sure where some of them had tried their hand at coaching college kids.  And I did not even try to go back to the early days of the NBA so that meant that I left Al McGuire off this list.  I accept without question that McGuire was a great college coach, but his NBA career on the floor was a bit less than some of the other coaches here.  In fact, as a player, he was not the best one in his immediate family; his brother Dick McGuire would carry that label.

So, maybe in this context, it is not all that surprising that Patrick Ewing is struggling on the bench at Georgetown.

Shifting gears…  Another top-shelf basketball player – – Brittney Griner – – finds herself in serious circumstances today.  Last month, she was arrested in Russia on charges that she was smuggling drugs into the country.  Griner plays for a women’s pro team in Russia and evidently a drug-sniffing dog alerted authorities to vape cartridges in her bag that supposedly contained “Hash Oil”.  Based on news reporting, “Hash Oil” is an illegal substance in Russia.

Let me just say that Russia and the United States do not see eye-to-eye on things these days.  Being arrested in Russia and being subject to their system of jurisprudence would be a bad thing under the best of circumstances; being in that status today cannot be anything close to calm and serene.

Moving on …  Several months ago, Robert Griffin III announced that he would be writing a “tell-all book” about his time with the Washington Commanders – – under one of their previous names.  He said his working title for the book that would indicate the content was Surviving Washington.  Given the various allegations and complaints made by women who worked for the team in the days when Griffin was with the team, one might concoct in one’s mind some sort of web of sordid tales.  Griffin alluded to issues of sexual harassment and “medical mismanagement” when he announced the upcoming book release.  Here is how Goodreads.com characterized the book prior to its publication:

“A one-of-a-kind, explosive tell-all from former franchise savior, Robert Griffin III, detailing the shocking mismanagement and toxic culture within the most dysfunctional professional football team in America.”

Late last week, however, RG3 announced that his book will not be released.  It is not clear why that decision was made but reports have it that Griffin’s co-author has “moved on to other projects”.  Here is what RG3 had to say about the situation, and it is anything but conclusive:

“Through the process of thinking about writing a book, I’ve learned that this an issue bigger than one person.  I want to give space to and elevate those who have already come forward, while encouraging those who have not yet to feel empowered to speak. This is a matter that very qualified people are continuing to manage with sensitivity and seriousness, and ultimately, I learned that this book was not the proper forum for this. In time and through a more meaningful method, I hope to address my first-hand experience.”

I have no idea what all that means; you are on your own to decipher that argle-bargle.

Finally, let me close today with an entry from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“James Joyce:  Famous Irishman who was noted for creating rambling stream-of-consciousness and often incomprehensible stories even without the aid of a pub.”

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

 

 

I was scrolling through the sports channels yesterday looking to find the most interesting thing to watch when I happened across NFL Network and its coverage of the Combine.  A QB prospect from W. Kentucky named Bailey Zappe had just completed his 40-yard dash and the screen graphic said it was 4.88 and at that point I realized a couple of things:

• I had never heard the name Bailey Zappe; so, I was surprised to learn that he was a Combine invitee.
• I know that CBs and WRs normally record times for the 40-yard dash around 4.3 seconds, but I did not know what was a “normal time” for a QB off the top of my head.
• The standard evaluation of this year’s QB crop is that it does not have a sure-fire star or two at the top of the class or even a lot of depth in the class.

That convinced me to go and find out what sort of impressions folks took away from the entirety of the workouts from yesterday’s Combine performances.  From the reporting, here is what I learned:

• QBs had their hands measured and people surprised to see that one of the top prospects – – Kenny Pickett from Pitt – – has a “very small hand.”  His hand measures 8 ½ inches and only one other QB measured below 9 inches with one QB having a 10-inch hand.  [For the record, my hand measures at 9 ¼ inches to give you a “real world” perspective.]
• The fastest 40-yard dash time for one of the QBs  yesterday was 4.52 seconds by Desmond Ridder from Cincy.  That is the same fastest 40-yard dash time recorded for all the tight end prospects this year recorded by Chigoziem Okonkwo from Maryland.
• There are 15 QBs performing at the Combine this year.  A quick glance through my notes from watching college football games last year does not reveal a surfeit of praise for the folks on that list.

And that last item led me to start thinking this morning about lean years for teams that are looking to find a QB in the Draft.  [Aside:  In case you were wondering how and why I get mired in Google searches for sports stuff, this meander into NFL Draft history might provide an example.]  So, I started looking back at NFL Drafts to see when the last “lean year for QBs” occurred.

It took a while before I got back to the 2013 NFL Draft.  I wasn’t looking just for the presence of future Hall of Fame prospects in these drafts, I was looking to see if there were a handful of reliable starters in the batches.  Here is what I came up with for 2013:

• Matt Barkley
• Mike Glennon
• Landry Jones
• EJ Manuel
• Geno Smith

EJ Manuel was the first QB taken in that Draft at pick #16 in the first round; he was the only QB taken in the first round that year.  Geno Smith was the next one off the board early in the second round; of all the QBs taken in 2013, Geno Smith is at the head of the class.  Meaning no disrespect to Geno Smith, that means the QB in that Draft who achieved the most in the NFL barely made it to the journeyman level.

But I did not stop there because there was a draft class that had the potential to be worse because I knew that the overall #1 pick in that draft was a QB and that he was a total bust.  I reasoned that unless there was a “Tom Brady Sleeper” in that draft, it could be even less impressive.  It took me another 20-30 minutes to get to the 2007 NFL Draft.  [Aside:  What I really needed was Mr. Peabody and his Wayback Machine…]

            Here are the QBs from the 2007 Draft who became starters in the NFL:

• John Beck  (2^nd round)
• Trent Edwards  (3^rd round)
• Kevin Kolb (2^nd round)
• Brady Quinn (second QB taken in the draft with pick #22 in the 1^st round)
• JaMarcus Russell (taken first overall in the 2013 Draft)
• Drew Stanton  (2^nd round)
• Tyler Thigpen  (7^th round)

Here is the scary thing about those two lists.  Geno Smith is the best pro QB if you combine the two lists.  This could be a cautionary tale for NFL coaches and GMs looking for a QB in this year’s Draft.  Sure, it is possible to find a Tom Brady in the 6^th round and it is possible to find a Russell Wilson in the 3^rd round and/or a Dak Prescott in the 4^th round, but it is also possible that there are no “top prospects” AND there are also no “hidden gems” in the QB pool.

Finally, for no good reason at all, let me close today with the definition from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

Incoherent:  What you claim your girlfriend is being when you are not yet ready to admit she is right.

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

 

 

A former colleague sent me an email yesterday with a piece of trivia possibly portending frustration for Bengals’ QB, Joe Burrow; here is the tidbit:

“Did you know that the last 15 quarterbacks to lose their first Super Bowl appearance never made it back to another Super Bowl game?”

That is a stark circumstance, and it checks out; the last NFL quarterback to lose the first time he went to the Super Bowl was Jim Kelly with the Bills in 1990.  Kelly went back – – and lost – – three more times from 1991-1993.  Now in going to check out that assertion, something else about Super Bowl QBs struck me:

• The QBs for winning Super Bowl teams are well represented in the Hall of Fame.

In fact, there are only 9 QBs whose teams won the Super Bowl who are not enshrined in Canton.  Here is that list chronologically:

1. Jim Plunkett – – he won twice
2. Joe Theismann
3. Jim McMahon
4. Phil Simms
5. Doug Williams
6. Jim Hostetler
7. Mark Rypien
8. Trent Dilfer
9. Brad Johnson.

I suspect that no one on that list is ever going to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame but there are 10 other Super Bowl winning QBs who are not in the Hall of Fame simply because they are not yet eligible for consideration.  Here is that list with my guess as to their likelihood of entry:

1. Tom Brady – – The only reason he might not get in would be if the entire Hall of Fame dropped into a giant sinkhole never to be seen again.
2. Ben Roethlisberger – – He should be a first ballot entry.
3. Eli Manning – – I know my opinion is not universally held, but I think Eli Manning belongs in the Hall of Fame.  His durability plus his two upset victories in the Super Bowl would get my vote – – if I had one.
4. Drew Brees – – His passing statistics cannot be overlooked.
5. Aaron Rodgers – – I realize that Aaron Rodgers is not a particularly likeable person, but he is a Hall of Fame QB.
6. Joe Flacco – – I don’t think so…
7. Russell Wilson – – Maybe so, but I would need to see more good seasons from him to get my vote – – if I had one.
8. Nick Foles – – His TD in the Super Bowl on the “Philly Special” will be an NFL Films highlight for decades, but Nick Foles is not going to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
9. Patrick Mahomes – – It is way too early to tell, but his career trajectory is on target.
10. Matthew Stafford – – The decision here rests on a knife edge…

One person can look at Stafford’s win a month ago and say that he merely managed a game where other players carried the team to the win.  Another person can look at Stafford’s win a month ago and say that he showed what could have been for his career if only he had not been saddled with the rosters of the Detroit Lions for the first 12 years of his NFL career.  Po-Tay-Toe or Po-Tah-Toe?

Having opined about the future Hall of Fame worthiness of players above, let me say that I have no problem at all with the five players who will enter the Hall of Fame next summer.  I fact, I am glad to see that four of the five players are defenders and that the “offensive guy” is a lineman.  If you missed the announcement, here is the “Class of ‘22”:

• Tony Boselli
• LeRoy Butler
• Sam Mills
• Richard Seymour
• Bryant Young

Having mentioned Patrick Mahomes above, there is a report on CBSSports.com today that the Washington Commanders have called all 31 of the other NFL teams to inquire about the potential availability of QBs on other rosters.  The Commanders clearly need an upgrade at that position, but I do wonder why they wasted the time and energy to call the Chiefs to find out what the asking price might be for Patrick Mahomes.

Finally, Dwight Perry had this note in his Sideline Chatter column last week in the Seattle Times:

“Mike Bianchi of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, defending the Dolphins against ex-coach Brian Flores’ allegations that race played a role in his firing: ‘He could be right, but I believe the Dolphins fired Flores because they are a bungling organization more than a bigoted one.’”

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

 

 

With the first week of the MLB regular season canceled – for the moment – most of the national baseball press seems to have taken sides in the contretemps.  Here are a few headlines from the last 48 hours or so:

“How Rob Manfred’s ineffective reign as MLB Commissioner led to baseball’s ‘disastrous outcome’”

And …

“MLB Commissioner Manfred blasted after announcing cancelation of games”

And…

“With MLB games canceled and fan apathy blooming blame rests solely on owners”

You get the idea – – and I think that narrative is wrong.  By that I do not mean that the owners – and Rob Manfred far more specifically – are the aggrieved party in this mess.  What I mean is that for every bungling mishandling of dicey situations faced by Commissioner Manfred, there has been a similar lack of ability to compromise on the other side of the table.  Please, do not try to make Tony Clark out to be a reincarnated Samuel Gompers; he is not; he and the negotiating team that he leads cannot be held blameless when it takes “two signatures” and a ratification vote on both sides to put a new CBA into effect.

It is not difficult to point to a half-dozen actions taken by – or dodged by – Rob Manfred that were not in the “best interests of baseball”.  If you were to go and rank the ten MLB Commissioners going all the way back to Judge Landis more than a hundred years ago, I would be surprised if you put Manfred in the top five.  Rob Manfred makes Bud Selig look like a certified genius.

But please do not forget to examine critically Tony Clark’s role in all of this.  Clark has been the Executive Director of the MLBPA for just over 8 years.  If you want to point to a problem with the game that has arisen or has captured national attention in that time, please stop and tell me how Tony Clark acted to make everything better.  Which side of the table opposed pitch clocks?  Which side of the table refused to have a Federal mediator try to bring the two sides together to get a deal done here?

In the opening paragraph here, I said that the games in the first week of the regular season have been canceled “for now”.  The question as to whether those games should be made up and/or how players will be compensated for games lost simply puts another barrier in the path to get a deal done.  Given the history of the lack of leadership skills shown by Rob Manfred AND by Tony Clark, another bone of contention is not a good thing.

And in the midst of all that sturm und drang, Derek Jeter made headlines this week announcing that he has stepped down as the CEO of the Miami Marlins AND that he is going to divest himself of his 4% ownership stake in the franchise.  Say what?

If you put any faith in the Forbes valuations of sports franchises, you can find that the last valuation from 2021 puts the Miami Marlins value at $990M.  That is the lowest valuation in MLB and the only team valued below $1B.  [Aside: the Marlins sold for $1.2B just 4 years ago meaning that if Forbes is correct, the Miami franchise has declined in value over the last 4 years and that is a rarity in US sports businesses.]  Nonetheless, Jeter’s 4% stake is worth a tidy $39.6M and his abrupt and surprising departure from the organization is surely not going to enhance the value of that stake when it comes to an outsider bidding for it.  Obviously, the $64,000 question is:

• Why?

Here is the salient part of Jeter’s prepared statement when he made his decision known:

“Today I am announcing that the Miami Marlins and I are officially ending our relationship and I will no longer serve as CEO nor as a shareholder in the Club. We had a vision five years ago to turn the Marlins franchise around, and as CEO, I have been proud to put my name and reputation on the line to make our plan a reality. Through hard work, trust and accountability, we transformed every aspect of the franchise, reshaping the workforce, and developing a long-term strategic plan for success.

“That said, the vision for the future of the franchise is different than the one I signed up to lead. Now is the right time for me to step aside as a new season begins.”

A difference of opinion that cannot be resolved regarding “the vision of the future” can mean almost anything; I was ready to ignore this whole situation until I read a column by Joel Sherman in the NY Post.  I recommend that you take a moment to follow this link and read that column in its entirety.

Joel Sherman is a baseball insider; he has information sources inside the game that are usually reliable.  If he is correct that this impasse over the future vision for the team boils down to a “$15M misunderstanding”, that might be almost as myopic a situation as the one demonstrated by the league and the players union at the negotiating table.

Finally, since I spent time exposing my feelings today about Rob Manfred and Tony Clark, let me close with an observation by scholar John Ciardi:

“The Constitution gives every American the unalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.”

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

 

 

Back when the announcement came that there was going to be a USFL 2.0 backed by FOX Sports in the Spring of 2022, I automatically assumed that FOX had acquired the rights to all the names and trademarks from “Original USFL” which existed – and then folded – back in the 1980s.  As of this morning, all I can say is that perhaps that assumption was correct and perhaps not.

Some the owners and executives from “Original USFL” have formed a legal entity known as “The Real USFL LLC” and that LLC entity has filed a lawsuit against FOX seeking to bar FOX from using the name “USFL” and the names/logos of the teams that played in “Original USFL.”  As I understand it, these are the positions of the two sides:

• “The Real USFL LLC” claims that FOX has taken the name USFL to which it has no rights and that it has usurped the names and team logos for 8 teams that used to play in the “Original USFL.”  That makes FOX an “unabashed counterfeit” according to the plaintiff.
• FOX claims that the names, logos and trademarks were abandoned by “Original USFL” and have been left fallow for more than 30 years.
• The plaintiff alleges trademark infringement (makes sense to me), false advertising (makes no sense to me) and false association (sort of makes sense to me).

Recall that “Original USFL” folded after it filed – and won – a lawsuit against the USFL claiming violations of anti-trust laws.  The problem there was that the jury decided that “Original USFL’s” claim was valid but that it only mattered in a trivial sense.  The jury awarded “Original USFL” one dollar which was trebled under terms of anti-trust law bringing the total haul from the victorious lawsuit to three dollars.  I claim no expertise in the law, but it seems to me that “The Real USFL LLC” might be on a similar glide path.

Assume for a moment that a court agrees with the plaintiff’s claims and issues a restraining order/injunction (I do not know the difference between these two things) to prevent FOX from starting its Spring Football season using those names and logos and the like.  It would seem to me that ruling would be favorable to “The Real USFL LLC” but not so damaging for FOX.  If the court says they cannot play football games between the New Jersey Generals and the Tampa Bay Bandits because of trademark violations, what stops FOX from following that court order and playing a game between the New Jersey Seashore and the Tampa Bay Hurricanes?

“USFL 2.0” is scheduled to begin in late April – absent any sort of injunction of course.  There is another Spring Football entity out there seeking a relaunch in the Spring of 2023; that would be XFL 3.0; that is the league owned by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Dany Garcia.  At least for the moment, XFL 3.0 is proceeding along without legal entanglements or obstacles.  In fact, it appears that XFL 3.0 has charted a course for itself that makes it an ally/adjunct to the NFL.

About a week ago, the NFL and XFL 3.0 announced an “R&D partnership” whose purpose is to “expand the game of football.”  This partnership sets up a collaborative process in which the two partners will work together to create “forward-thinking physical and mental fitness programs for players.”  That is sufficiently open-ended that it could mean just about anything but there are some interesting – maybe tantalizing – nuggets in a statement made by Ms. Garcia relative to this partnership:

“We are bringing forward an XFL that is progressive and forward-thinking when it comes to innovation, leveraging the newest technology to enhance gameday experience. We have an open field for innovative rules to enhance in-game access. Sharing insights and practices between the XFL and NFL will do a tremendous amount of good for the game of football and support the player ecosystem overall.”

Please ignore the argle-bargle about “player ecosystem” and note the XFL 3.0 interest in “new technology” and “innovative rules”.

• Maybe this is where the NFL can try out new proposals for rule changes that do not get the necessary support of 24 teams to be incorporated into the NFL Rule Book and yet there is enough interest to see how they might play out.
• Maybe this is the laboratory where footballs with embedded electronic chips determine things like first downs and touchdowns “automatically.”
• Maybe this is where fans can see ways for a coach’s challenge to be adjudicated far more quickly than they are now.

I am not saying that all of those things would turn out to be positive additions to NFL football – – but at least there is a venue for them to be tested/vetted under real competitive conditions.  One thing I would hope that this “R&D partnership” would investigate is the various playing surfaces used in NFL stadiums.  There was a time when the choices boiled down to “real grass” or something known as Astroturf that was laid out on a concrete slab.  Many of those “artificial” playing surfaces existed for several decades until new ways of creating and maintaining “other than grass fields” became available.

There is currently a tradeoff that exists.  Grass fields tend to be “safer”, but they also tend to degrade into dirt field late in the season when many climates do not favor grass growing and after thousands of cleat impacts tear up the grass and its root system.  Dirt field are not nearly as “safe” as grass fields particularly if they freeze.  Artificial surfaces are not as safe as grass, but they are far more durable and far less subject to weather conditions or “wear and tear”.  I believe there is plenty of room for some joint R&D studies/experiments/evaluations in the area of playing and playing surfaces.  Let the guys in the white lab coats begin…

Finally, since today’s rant began with “legal stuff”, let me close with an observation by the so-called Bard of Baltimore, H. L. Mencken:

“The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.”

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