Headlines Massages and Trades. That is what this week has all been about. The headlines may not have been ones that certain people wanted to see. But that is just the way it goes. If you are going to say and do certain things then when they come out you really can’t be all that upset about it. You can but then we will just laugh a little louder. It is the way of the world. Trades are always interesting especially when your team comes out way ahead. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it does not. At least you have to try. Right? It comes down to choices. What are the choices you have and did you make the correct choice. This past week has been a mixed bag of results. All this and more in the Week That Was.
NFL again takes top head-lines LOL
The NFL was again stealing headlines from other sports. The biggest head line was not one that they wanted. By now I am sure you all know about Robert Kraft getting identified for being in a massage parlor that was being investigated for human trafficking and for being a prostitution ring. This falls into one of those categories of. Really dude you are a multi billion air and one of the most well known people in sports. You are the owner of one of the most successful sports franchisees ever. What are you thinking dude? You have a good looking girl friend. You are a rich and powerful man. What are you doing going to one of these places? I just don’t get it. Of course he is denying it. The police say that they have video evidence. This is not the worst crime ever. It is just a really stupid one. Really Bob. Stop it.
On to more interesting things. The combine is coming up. Free agency is not far behind. The combine is always pretty interesting. The big question is if Murray is going to throw passes at the combine. If I were him I would not. There is no reason to and more times than not it will probably hurt you. Unless he is absolutely sure that nothing is going to go wrong. Skip the passing part. You can save that for your pro day when you have total control over the whole situation. After the combine is done all the mock drafts will change. The Mock drafts always crack me up a bit as they are great entertainment.
The other big news is the Broncos trade for Joe Flacco. This could be a good move. It is difficult to say. I am not sure he is any better than Case Keenum. At this point it is probably more of a lateral move. Flacco has the playoff experience. Was a Super Bowl MVP. The year he won the Super Bowl MVP he had a truly amazing playoff run. He turned that run into more then $120 million. Talk about taking advantage of your situation. More power to him on that. I am all for players getting the most they can from the owners. The question here is will he be better than what the Broncos have now? Unknown. On the surface I really don’t think so. Lightning could strike twice. I don’t fault Elway for giving it a go. At least he is trying something to get the Broncos back to the Super Bowl. It could work. More than likely the Broncos will be about what they were like last year.
The other curious thing is what the Steelers are doing. The Steelers are taking what had been a well oiled machine since the mid 90’s and turning it into a dumpster fire. At times in the last 12 months it really seems like the Steerlers have no idea what they are doing. The whole organisation is making it look like the Browns ran a tight ship in the Hue Jackson years. Ok maybe not quite that bad but really bad. In the last 12 months the Steelers have manages to alienate two of the better players in the league. They will lose Le’Veon Bell to nothing more than a third round compensatory pick. I guess it will depend on who they are able to grab with that pick but chances are that it will not be someone that will have the same production as Bell. The other one they are losing is Antonio Brown. Brown has been a distraction at times. He acts before he things. Sometimes with a talent like his you put up with some things because of how good he is. Brown is still in the prime of is career. He will have at least three more seasons at the same level. That will be difficult to replace. The Steelers will be able to trade him so it depends on if there is a bidding war for Brown on what the compensation is going to be. Pretty sure that it will at least be a first round pick. If several teams get into it there could be more. Even with the distractions. Who ever gets him will have a better offense.
AAF – No One is Watching
That is the question with the AAF. Is anyone watching? The first two weeks we had some pretty good answers for that. The game that was on CBS the numbers were really good. The games on the NFL network and TNT the numbers were alright. The games that are on The Bleacher Report Live – who knows. I watched a lot of the game between Salt Lake and Arizona that was on Bleacher Report Live. Well I watched as much of it as I could. The stream kept freezing and then knocking me off it. The coverage was fine but then that part of it was not up to Bleacher Report. Not exactly sure how or why Bleacher Report was selected as a broadcast partner for the AAF. I did a simple search to see how much it cost the different broadcast partners to buy the rights to the AAF. I could not find any numbers. Granted I did not look very hard.
During the half time of the Salt Lake vs Arizona game. Rod Woodson was heard on a hot mic saying ““Ahh nobody’s watching, nobody cares, no one’s listening.””. Is that true? Clearly it is not. I know because I was watching. I know several of my friends were watching as well. Saying that Bleacher Report did not make it easy to watch. My problem was at first when I went to the Bleacher report site they made it look like you had to pay to get access to the stream. I understand that they have to make money but I am really opposed to having to pay to watch streams like this. There are plenty of ways for them to make money without trying to collect a monthly fee. I then was able to figure out that all you had to do to watch was to sign up for an account and log in. I am fine with that. If they want to send me promotional information that is just another way for them to make some money.
Now comes the bummer part. The stream was just not that good. Over the course of the game it would freeze a lot and then at times it would just disconnect me. In a league that is going to struggle to bring in viewers. This just can not happen. People are already going to be on the fence about spending their time on this. You don’t want to give them a reason to not watch. Bleacher Report Live just has to do better. Especially if they want to play with the big players in the field.
I listen to a lot of sports radio. I drive around a lot for my day job. We used to have two sports radio stations. A few weeks ago we lost one. That is fine but it limits what I have to listen to. One of the shows that I would have listened to anyway they were discussing the AAF. They seemed to be complaining about the trajectory the AAF is taking. They said Hey I thought that the AAF said they were going to be a totally unique league that would not resemble the NFL at all. Now they have adopted many NFL rules and look like a carbon copy. My answer to that is YES. You are correct. They may have said in teh beginning that they were going to be unique and different. Then they realized that to survive it would be much smarter to work with the NFL since there is no way that they are going to be able to compete with them. If they can pull this off they can be the minor league for the NFL. Something that we have needed for a long time. The best players are never going to stay in this league. There is nothing wrong with that. We can still have a very interesting and entertaining product. So yes of course they are playing a similar game as the NFL. It makes a lot of sense and will give this league the best possible chance to survive.
NBA the Lakers OUCH
The Lakers are still a huge mess. It is not going to get better this year. The idea that they were going to be maybe a 4 seed in the playoffs now seems crazy. LeBron thought that he was going to take this ragged group at least to the playoffs. With the Cavaliers he at least had a team. They are showing that they are not a very good team with out LeBron but they were still a team. The Lakers have a group of players. That is it. A group of players that are not good with each other and will not more than likely ever be. I am not saying that many of them can’t have a good NBA career. I am saying that in this group it is done. The only way that the Lakers could make the playoffs now would be if the teams in front of them suddenly get really bad. The Clippers, Spurs and Jazz are not great teams but they are also not going be teams that just lay over and die. They may have a 5 – 5 record or worse for 10 game stretches but the Lakers are not going on an 8 – 2 run to pass them.
What does all this mean for LeBrons legacy? Nothing. It really means nothing at all. The talking heads need to just take a step back and stop it. He was still in the finals 8 years in a row. Think about that. Eight years in a row with two different teams. Once team in Miami that was pretty good. One group with Cleveland that LeBron made good. It just was not meant to happen with the Lakers. With the who is better Jordan or James? Who cares they are both great and it does not matter who was better. The older generation will say Jordan the younger one will say James. Your perception is completely based on who you were able to see play. It’s all good there is plenty of good players to go around.
What is going to happen in the East. The race there is getting very interesting. With LeBron in the West now other teams in the East have come to life. The Bucks, Raptors, Pacers and 76ers are on fire. Boston is not far behind. There is realistically 5 teams that have a chance to come out of the East. That will make for a very interesting finish to the regular season and then some really interesting playoff series. Yes I said an interesting finish to the regular season. LOL sounds funny right but really it is going just like an NBA game. Boring play for three quarters and then it is interesting in the fourth.
NASCAR Today
Week two of the NASCAR Season. The race in Atlanta was much more interesting than the Daytona Race. I know sacrilege right? Think what you want. The Daytona 500 is a spectacle not always the best race but certainly the most popular race. Atlanta offered some tight racing. Fewer crashes and an exciting finish. That for me is what makes a great race. I like it when a race is decided by the racing and not by who got caught up in what crash. Yes I know that is part of the sport. An interesting part of the sport. When a crash happens every few laps or takes out half the field it gets annoying.
Brad Keselowski had every reason to sit out the race. He was as sick as sick could be but decided he had to at least start the race. He then stayed in the car and pushed all the way to the end. Keselowski led for 35 laps in this race. He ran a masterful race and other than being sick everything fell into place. Sometimes that happens. He could have made the choice to start and then get out of the car. No one would have faulted him for that choice. Instead he proved that NASCAR drivers are as tough as any one in sports. This is the kind of choice that can be the difference between making it a great year rather than a good year. For making that choice he was rewarded for his hard work with a win.
Golf – Mexico Championship 7000 feet of fun
The Mexico Championship that had been held now in Mexico City since 2017 was a pretty tame finish. Tiger finished ties for 10 but was 13 strokes back from the winner Dustin Johnson. To be fair Rory McIlroy was second and finished 5 strokes back from Johnson. Sometimes a player just has one of those tournaments that everything goes well for them. Johnsons worst round was the second round where he shot a 67. Ouch. LOL. This Tournament is played at the Club de Golf Chapultepec which is a bout 7000 feet above sea level. Not sure that will make the Ball fly any better but we know that is can affect the players. Everyone has to play in the same conditions so it should affect them all the same. The Golf was ok. There really was not a lot of suspense with Johnson playing the way he did. Tiger finishing in the top 10 did help though. That is two tournaments in a row that Tiger has played pretty well. Golf needs him to play great. Even if it is only for a few weeks this year.
This week in Entertainment
The Oscars were this weekend. I used to watch them every year. Over the last few years I started to watch them less. Now I am to the point where I just check to see who won. Guess it is just the way people change over time. Guess it goes back to those choices that we all have in front of us. I did watch more of the football so that took some of my weekend time. I also watched about 4 episodes of Untold stories of the ER. If you have not seen this show it is very interesting. It is on TLC. Not sure if it is on demand or not. They usually have three stories in each episode. Each of them is about something crazy that has happened in an ER. If you find it I would highly recommend watching. It is corny sappy and great fun.
Other favorite shows we have going on. The Resident, The Good Doctor, The Gifted. We are sad that Gotham is ending this year but I am a bit glad that they are going to end it before it gets to goofy. It has been a great show for the last five years.
What are some of your favorite shows?
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