NFL Pre Season in Full Swing As the NBA Turns

NFL Pre Season in Full Swing As the NBA Turns.   This time of year is so great.  Getting into the NFL preseason.  College Football teams are in their fall camps.   The season is less than a month away.  Football is the only sport where the season is about the right length.  The amount of time from the end of the last season to the start of the new season.  Leaves everyone ready for football.  The NBA had a bomb dropped on it by Kevin Durant.  LOL  Not really.  He basically confirmed what we all though but the talking heads did not want to believe.  There had to be more going on their.  Right????  Nope.  The PGA needs to get in front of their pace of play problem.  People will only watch an event for so long before they are done with it.  All this and more in The Week That Was.

NFL Pre Season is on

Every team had a pre season game this past week.  Not sure what we can really learn from the first game.  Coaches are looking to try different things.  Plug in different players.  Looking for what they need to be working on.  They are games though so it is still fun to watch.  Since it has been six months since we have watch games.  If nothing else the first series for each team in each game should be pretty interesting.

The Browns first series could not have been written up any better.   They took a penalty on the opening kick off that put the Browns at their three yard line.  Baker said Hold my beer.  I got some work to do.  He came in drove down the field in under two minutes.  Threw a touchdown pass and was able to grab his beer back before anyone had a chance to take a sip from it.  People were gong nuts that Baker chugged a beer at an Indians game.  First it worked.  It sparked a rally by the Indians and the won the game.  Second not sure what people are complaining about.  He earned the right and showed it again in the first series of the Browns first pre season game.  When players are on their own time and are having harmless fun.  People need to just shut their traps.  They are allowed to have a good time just like you are.  You can’t be working 24/7 it will burn you out.  You get a break athletes deserve a break as well.

The Raiders being on Hard Knocks turned out to be a major win for HBO and the NFL.  With all the interesting stuff going on there I am sure the ratings are going to be really nice for them.  You really could not have scripted the Antonio Brown stuff any better.  Guess the Raiders will find out if it turned out to be a good deal for them or not.  They may end up wishing that they had kept Amari Cooper.  I know the Cowboys are glad they decided to trade him.  Pretty sure that the Steelers are glad they decided to trade Brown as well.

People really need to simmer down a bit about what happens in the first pre season games.  I saw some stuff about Redskins fans upset about Dwayne Haskins start for them.  Not only is this his first NFL game.  It is the first pre season game of the season.  What did you really think was going to happen here.  Yes sometimes a player has a great start.  It happens.  The bad starts happen as well. Neither of them mean much of anything at this point in the season.  I mean they do not mean much in the pre season.  Really come on folks get over it.

All teams have now played their first pre season game.  What have we learned from this?  First  that we see a lot of players that will not be playing week one of the NFL season.  Second – teams are trying new things.  Things that you may or may not see in the regular season.  It is basically a glorified practice that season ticket holders get the privilege of paying full game price for.  They can complain if they want and if it makes them feel better good for them.

NBA Durant Clears up Things Most of Us already Knew

Kevin Durant confirmed what any one with a brain knew.  The decision to play in game five of the NBA Championship series was his and his alone.  He said he took into consideration opinions and evaluations that other had and then made the choice himself.  At the time I thought it was odd that people were trying to blame the Warriors for rushing him back too quickly and that it was their fault for him re injuring his leg.  First it was not the same injury.  Some have said that the previous injury could contribute to the Achilles injurie.  Others have said it is highly unlikely.  Regardless it really does not matter.  Durant is a professional athlete.  He knows what he is doing.  This was going to be his last go around with the Warriors and those team mates.  He wanted to see if they could win and take it to another game.  It did not work out.  Sometimes that is just the way it goes.  It was a risk he was willing to take.  Even though he got hurt and they did not win the championship.  Over all things are working out pretty well for him.

The NBA should really be thanking Durant right now.  If not for him there would be no NBA news right now.  The NBA has done a much better job of trying to stay relevant though the whole off season. They are in a lull at this point.  The people that are saying he could have brought this up weeks ago.  You are correct but the NBA is glad that he did not.  Since this is the only news the NBA is getting right now.

Carmelo Anthony

Dabo and the Non Existent Controversy

There is nothing to see here move along.  It appears that Clemson did not give a ring to quarterback Kelly Bryant.  Clemson gave out its Championship rings from last season and Bryant did not get one.  He started four games for the Tigers last season.  The first four games of the season.  They were all wins.  The problem was that as good as the Tigers Trevor Lawrence was a better quarterback than Bryant.  Everyone on Clemson knew it.  So they let Bryant know that going forward Lawrence was going to be the starter.  Bryant said he wanted to leave the team then.  I get it it.  DDabo Swinney got it as well. He tried to talk Bryant into staying.  Bryant said no he wanted to leave.  At that point the tigers honored his wishes and granted him his release from the team.  There was no hard feelings at least so it seems from either side.

So the rings are handed out and someone notices that Bryant did not get one.  Swinney was asked about it and his answer was.  Bryant was not on the team when we won the championship.  So he does not get a ring.  I am perfectly fine with this answer.  Bryant asked for and was granted his release because he lost the starting job.  He left his team.  It is easy for us on the outside looking in to say that we would have stayed.  The truth is that until you are in that type of situation you don’t know what you are going to do.  I am not sure if anyone asked Bryant about the ring.  I am sure that someone has.  We just don’t know what his answer it yet.   If I were him. I would not want one. He left so that he would have a better chance to play.  He was not a part of the team when they won it.  The funny thing is or maybe we should say more interesting thing is that if he had gotten kicked off the team after the first four games.  He probably would have gotten a ring.

I also heard someone say that if this had been Alabama and Nick Saban then nothing would have been said about this.  I am not sure that this is true. People want to have fake outrage over things that really do not matter.  It is what we do.  I have done it and will do it again.  By the time the season starts this will be forgotten.  The truth is he left the team.  Bryant was not on the team when they won the important games to get the ring.  By his own choice he was gone so no ring.  If he wants a ring then go out and win one.  Of course the chances of him doing that with Missouri are ZERO.  But he will get to play and show case his skills and incrase his chances of getting drafted.  So it is not a bad trade.  No ring but he gets to play.

PGA Pace of Play

This has been a problem in a few sports.  How long it takes to play a game or a round.  Bryson DeChambeau over the weekend was playing very slow.  He said that he will continue to do this.   It is not the first time that this problem has come up.  Not just with him but with other players over the years.  DeChambeau said that he will continue to play slow if he feels he needs to.  That is fine.  You can do what you want.  The problem is that you get paid based on how many people are watching you play.  If people get sick of waiting for you to hit the ball or the rest of the players are held up because of this the viewership will suffer.  This has happened in other sports.  Just look at the MLB and NASCAR.  Both have suffered significantly from slow periods in their sport.  People have an attention span and if you go past that they will lose interest.  So go a head Bryson play slow but when your paycheck goes down just remember you had a roll to play in that.

On the Tube TV not You

Are you watching Big Brother? If not you should be.  I am pretty sure that there are psychology classes that are using some of the episodes to show how human interaction progresses.  The interaction between the house guests is nothing short of amazing.  When you close off that many people in a controlled environment and then tell them the last one left in the house wins a half million dollars.  There are some pretty interesting things that happen.  Of cours enot all of them are good.  the game brings out the good and the bad in people.  It does show what people are willing to do in order to try and change their family standing on the outside of the house.  We have been watching Big Brother since season one.   It is different every year and to me that is fascinating.

We are also huge fans of Alaskan Bush People.  This is also a very interesting social experiment.  The experiment this time is not on the people that are the cast of the show.  Rather it is an experiment on the viewers and people in general.  If you are not familiar with the show.  It follows a family that lives off the grid. Well kind of off the grid.  They used to pretend to live in Alaska not they pretend to live in Washington.  Either way it is still very interesting.  They can’t really change the name of the show now.  The interesting part of the social experiment here is the comments people make on facebook and other social platforms.  The people that really watch the show know that it is not real.

You can find last weeks post here

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