Thinking out loud…while wondering if I’ve reached the age where looking in the mirror is like checking the news – I know there will be new developments I won’t like…
All things considered, Bailey Zappe actually accounted for himself pretty well against Green Bay last week.
Good thing Isaiah Wynn didn’t get him crushed while he was back there subbing for Brian Hoyer, who was subbing for Mac Jones…who were both crushed before him.
Bailey almost zapped the Pack, and while it’s easy to feel sorry for a guy like Hoyer in this instance, who suffered his concussion moments after Wynn suffered a monumental brain cramp…there is absolutely no way, no how Hoyer should be playing at this stage over Zappe at QB.
Thanks, Brian, for your loyal service and support of TB12 and MJ10. But how do the Patriots know what they have if they don’t play the kid?
When you’re in a state of transition, you’re constantly searching for answers…answers you may not get when you go with what you already know. Just sayin’.
So the Patriots are 1-3 to start a season for the ninth time in franchise history. Does that seem so bad when you learn that they were 1-3 last year, and reached the playoffs?
Or the time before that. They were 1-3 in 2001, and won the Super Bowl.
Like: Jack Jones. Seriously? Pick Six. Forced Fumble. Fumble Recovery.
Dislike: His mouth open wide enough afterward to say, “Personally, I find it disrespectful to throw an out route on me.”
Hey Jack? He may be a smug smart*** on occasion, but Aaron Rodgers is a certain HOFer. Open your mouth when you’ve actually played (well) a bit more, thanks.
Jamie Collins is back for a fourth – yes, FOURTH – tour of duty with New England. So why again did he leave the previous three times?
Wanted: Playmakers. To get the defense off the field. The present defense is 28th in the league, allowing 42% of third downs to be converted into first downs. Pretty soon, they’ll be asking Andre Tippett to don the red jersey and “get back in there!”
The Lions are next, and the week begins a stretch of games that – at the least – the Patriots should have solid chances to win, with or without QB1.
But two things stand out about these Lions: 1) They’re 9-2 in their last 11 games as underdogs against the spread; 2) they lead the NFL scoring 35 points per game.
Tweet of the Week, from @NFLResearch: “The #Lions have average 35.0 ppg & allowed 35.3 ppg this season. Detroit’s 281 combined points + points allowed are the most by any team in the first 4 games of a season in NFL history.”
Sunday’s game at Gillette will also mark ex-Bryant receiver Tom Kennedy’s return to the Detroit 53-man roster. Kennedy was one of the stars during the Lions’ “Hard Knocks” run on HBO this summer but was a roster casualty as the season started.
Scoring is down in the NFL this season if you haven’t noticed. It’s early, but my buddy Russell sez there have been 19 instances through the first four weeks of this season where a team has scored at least 30 points.
At this same point last season, there were 36 instances of a team hitting 30. The team with the most rushing attempts per game is also winning at a 47-14-1 clip.
Something to keep in mind as you watch what could be a track meet at Gillette Sunday.
File this one under “Are You Sure You Wanna Do That?” Brett Favre, with all of his alleged and impending fraud troubles, has hired former White House attorney (under Donald Trump) Eric Herschmann to defend him.
ICYMI, Arizona’s J.J. Watt played last week just four days after getting his heart shocked for atrial fibrillation. Whoa.
Not for nuthin’, but that fan/protester in San Francisco who ran onto the field last Monday night and got flattened by Rams’ linebacker Bobby Wagner? He filed a police report this week. Against Wagner.
I don’t know about you, but I thought the tackle was meh. Should have drilled him.
Not the Tweet of the Week, but the Line of the Week, or maybe The Year: “Gisele Bündchen joins Eli Manning and Nick Foles as the only people to ever take a ring away from Tom Brady.”
Since the NFL regular season began on Sept. 8th, New Yorkers have reportedly bet close to $1 billion, with Week 3 alone seeing more than $301 million in legal wagers.
What part of this is being misunderstood by decision makers in Massachusetts, trying to get sports betting up to speed and actually operating?
Despite sweeping the Rays in the final three games at Fenway, the Red Sox finished a combined 26-50 against the AL East, 10-28 against Tampa and Toronto this season. And just 3-16 against the Blue Jays.
That’s the worst record against a single team in the AL since the Sox finished 1-17 against the Twins way back in 1965. Yeah, there’s a lot of work to do…if you’re not even as good as Baltimore in your division. But they were 10-9 vs. the O’s, so there’s that.
It was a bad bullpen. There was no first baseman. The outfield shuffled players like moving deck chairs on the Titanic. Sure, there were some injuries, too. But did you get the sense anyone really busted *** to get back out there and compete for a team set up so poorly in the first place?
There’s a great chance that next years’ team looks NOTHING like this years’ team did. That’s not such a bad thing. But Xander Bogaerts doesn’t really have the tough decision to make in my opinion…the Red Sox do.
Announce it already, whatever you’re going to do, and get on with it.
Dennis Eckersley helped make a moribund season worth watching – certainly worth listening to when he was on the air. Thanks Eck – for the career, for the conversation, and for the high cheese with hair. We’re all too cool for school having listened to you.
Rich Hill cashed a $250K bonus check for pitching past 120 innings, at least. Good for him. He earned $500K in bonuses on top of his $5 million salary.
Of all the problems with the pitching staff, he certainly wasn’t one of them. He could throw strikes, at least.
Think about this – the Red Sox have finished last in the AL East five times in the last 14 years. Tampa Bay? Once. Credit to WEEI’s Mike Mutnansky for that nugget this week.
Yeah, yeah, spare me the “but they’ve won four World Series’ since 2004” argument. For the payroll this team holds, and for the billions of dollars the franchise is worth…that’s embarrassing.
But you’ll still be there next year, singing “Sweet Caroline” at the old ballpark, won’t ya?
Then again, maybe not. There were 19 games this season at Fenway with attendance under 30K. From 2001-19, pre-pandemic, there were only EIGHT such games.
Think about this, Part II – Roger Maris’ AL homerun record stood for 60 years. Who does that anymore? Does Aaron Judge’s new record stand for another 60 years? Not likely.
There have only been nine 60+ HR seasons in major league history, by six different players. The Yankees are the first team to have multiple 60-homer players.
Judge will break the bank, wherever he goes – or stays. He’ll deserve every penny of it. But next year, the pressure on him to repeat what he’s done, or at least get close to it, will be great.
Or, you know, people will talk. People will wonder. People will opine. Such is life when you live in the fishbowl of professional sports. Fairness doesn’t exist.
One-time Red Sox consultant and longtime baseball manager Tony LaRussa has decided to finally step out of the dugout, He actually left the White Sox dugout a little over a month ago due to health concerns, and he made it official this week that he will retire.
LaRussa turned 78 years old this week and leaves the game with 2900 career wins – second only to Connie Mack.
Baseball may not be withering on the vine…among the younger crowd. Fandom is apparently on the rise, and in key younger demographics, if social media attraction is any indication.
On Instagram, 71% of MLB followers are under age 35, 66% on Twitter and 63% on Facebook. The median age of followers on every MLB social platform is 25-34 years old.
And even with the 99-day lockout that slowed the start of this season, baseball reports they have returned to pre-pandemic revenue levels. Forbes reported this week MLB made $10.7 billion in 2019, and the sport is destined to come in at about 95-96% of that amount for this year.
My buddy “Big E” sez he and Mrs. E often laugh and kid each other about how competitive they are. But he sez he laughs more.
You’ve seen college football players sitting out for bowl games, instead readying for potential professional careers, and not wanting to hurt those chances? Now, football players at SMU (and a few other schools) are willing to sit out entire seasons because things aren’t going well…so they can hit the transfer portal and not lose any eligibility.
WTH are we teaching this generation of athletes? That it’s ok to throw a fit and quit on yourself and your teammates when things don’t go according to plan? Or quit because you can make more NIL $$$ somewhere else?
Sure seems that way.
Looking for change? The NCAA and its search firm are creating a list of potential hires for the soon-to-be vacant NCAA president position and they are targeting an announcement date of January, 2023 at the NCAA Convention.
Oh, and the NCAA put out a ‘want ad’ this week, hoping to hire NIL enforcement officials. I’ll look forward to hearing about any illegalities they may find in, say, 2027?
Speaking of NIL – the average college football player is bringing in $3162 per transaction. At Auburn, football players there are averaging $7500 per month. I’m all for free enterprise, but I’m not sure this goes well long-term without some kind of regulation.
And you had to know it was coming. Football Bowl Subdivision athletic directors…just because they can…know they can use the NCAA basketball tournament as leverage to get the changes they want within their football structure. So sez CBS Sports this week.
No one really knows for sure what this might mean, but it’s a scary thought. Is Division I football stupid enough to screw up the best thing college sports has going for it right now – March Madness – to get what they want?
Fine. Give it to ‘em. They’ll likely choke on it, anyway. But don’t mess with hoops.
After a 38-10 Governors’ Cup win over Brown, Rhody football is up two spots to #23 in the FCS Top 25. That we even mention URI football and Top 25 polls in the same sentence is still weird. But a good weird.
Holy Cross is up a notch to #10 in the rankings after a 30-21 win at Harvard, their first at Harvard Stadium since 2000. The Crusaders are also 5-0 to start a season for the first time since 1991.
Want one more? It’s the first time – ever – in program history that Holy Cross has wins over both Harvard and Yale in the same year.
ICYMI, several reports have Friar assistant basketball coach Bob Walsh leaving PC to take an assistant coach spot with Rick Pitino at Iona. It’s a full circle deal for coach Walsh after spending two decades in Providence (at PC under Ed Cooley and Tim Welsh and at RIC as head coach).
Walsh was a grad assistant at Iona in ‘94 and began his career with the Gaels assisting Welsh before moving to Providence. He served as Assistant for Player Development under Cooley and may return to the road as a recruiting assistant for Pitino.
Big East Media Day will be at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 19th. PC doesn’t have a starter back from last year’s Sweet 16 team but will still probably find themselves in the middle of the pack in the preseason picks. The portal haul was, potentially, that good.
PC’s Hockey Friars open the regular season this weekend ranked 16th nationally, facing off with Sacred Heart.
Fall sports updates: URI men’s soccer is 5-1-4 on the season after a win over Saint Louis this week…the Brown men are 5-2-1, and a perfect 4-0 at home…Brown field hockey is 8-2…PC’s cross-country teams are ranked 2nd (women) and 4th (men) in the northeast, with the women ranked 16th nationally…
I gotta ask. Hey Edward in East Providence, what do you make – what should we make – out of the cheating scandal in chess? 19-year-old grandmaster Hans Niemann likely cheated on more than 100 online chess games, many of which offered prize money.
New Celtic signee Blake Griffin already made history for his new team this week. He’s the first in team history to wear jersey #91, and just the fifth in NBA history to do it. Dennis Rodman was the first to do that, of course.
He’s not the high-flyer he once was, of course. But as a six-time all-star, he should at least provide some strength and stability in the middle until Robert Williams can recover and then hurt himself again.
Did you see the NBA.com poll where the league GM’s don’t favor Boston to win it all this year? In fact, the Celtics are 4th on that list. Definitely a western bias, with Milwaukee, Golden State and the LA Clippers going 1-2-3 ahead of Boston.
But then again, 72% of the NBA general managers picked Brooklyn to win last year, so what do they really know?
Oh, those sneaks. LIV Golf may have figured out a way to get their golfers, who are slip-sliding their way down the world rankings, back into ranking consideration. LIV has created an alliance with the MENA Tour…a smaller, more obscure group that begins play this week in Thailand.
LIV Golfers are automatically eligible to play in MENA events, but there’s a catch. MENA tournaments pay out, on average, about $75K per tournament. That’s barely cab fare for those guys. LIV tournament payouts go for $25 million and up.
What else can they buy on top of a pro golf tour? Apparently, everything. The Saudis are now investing more than $37 billion in gaming and esports.
The Bruins are ready to start the NHL regular season? Wake me up when Marchand and McAvoy are back playing. Maybe Taylor Hall, too.
Loretta Lynn, the coal miner’s daughter, passed away this week at the age of 90. She spent more than six decades as a country-singing superstar, but what I always found interesting was her ability to use music as a way to bring attention to social issues.
If you’re of an age, you’ll recall “I Wanna Be Free,” “Dear Uncle Sam,” “Rated ‘X’,” “Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin’,” and “The Pill.” Each had an intended target audience for a particular social issue at the time. Brilliant…and ahead of her time.
Interested in having your questions on local Rhode Island sports (and yes, that includes the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics) answered in a somewhat timely fashion? It’s your chance to “think out loud,” so send your questions, comments, and local stories to jrbroadcaster@gmail.com. We’ll share mailbag comments/Facebook posts/Tweets right here! Would appreciate the follow on Twitter, @JRbroadcaster…and join in on Facebook, www.facebook.com/john.rooke ...
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