Trade Deadline in the MLB. Not as busy as usual. Baseball had an unexpectedly wild end to trading season. It was fun to hear as the trades came in.There were some strange moves and one really significant move that changed who if favored to win the World Series. NASCAR is getting into the final stretch before The Chase. Not sure they want us to call it that anymore. Tom Brady shows again that winning is more important than being the highest paid player. That choice is not for everyone but at some point you have enough money and he knows that. NFL Training Camps dominated the news this week. The College football pre season polls came out. They are never important but it makes for some fun radio shows to listen to. All that and more in The Week That Was.
MLB Trade Deadline and a Strage Fight
The Trade Deadline was unexpectedly busy. This is exactly what baseball needed. Take a hit from the rest of the leagues. Attention is good and trades make it look like teams are trying. Some are and some are not. It is all about perception. For some teams we really will not understand what their plan it. For that you can look at the Reds and the Mets. Both picked up starting pitching. Sending away prospects and some other roll players. Neither team has much chance to make the playoffs this year. I always say that if you have a chance you should go for it. Neither of these teams has a chance so the move is odd at best. They are teams that really should be looking to the future. Picking up prospects that can help them down the road. There is not even desperation in these moves. They look like teams looked at them and said I bet the Reds or Mets will go for this deal.
On the other side of this is the Astros. They picked up Zack Greinke just before then end of the Trade Deadline. It was a stunner of a move. The Astros gave up a lot and paid a lot to get Greinke. We will find out if it was worth it. I say it really is worth taking a shot. With three of the top pitchers now in Baseball with Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, and now Zack Greinke the Astros are in a position that they will have an ace to put on the mound in any situation. This does not make the Astros unbeatable but it does give them a shot in every series. Their main competition will be the Yankees. The Yankees have had the worst starting rotation since the all star bread. They give up a lot of runs. The Yankees mostly count on being able to out score everyone. With The Astros now that will be a problem for them.
NFL Training Camps in Full Swing – The Season Has Started
Every team is in camp. The season has started. It is the Hall of Fame game and we do not get a lot from it. It is however football. The Denver and Atlanta starters did not play much and many of them did not play at all. Most teams do not want to play in this game. It is an interesting game to play in. It is played where it all started. On the bright side teams that play in the Hall Of Fame game get some extra practice in. On the downside they have to play an extra meaningless game. It would suck to have one of your key players have a season ending injury in this game but probably for the most part the extra practice pays off. Both teams looked pretty rusty. That is a surprise to no one. That is what this game is for to shake off some rust and get back into the groove of things.
Hold Outs Sill On
I have heard just about every guess as to what is going to happen with Elliott and the Cowboys. I heard someone say that Jerry Jones has been though this before. He is not going to let it go on. It will get resolved before the season. To that I say. Have you heard Jones talk? It really does not matter that he has been through this before. I actually think that he is going to let it go. We touched on this before. If they start out 2 – 0 or 1 – 1 then that takes a lot of leverage away from Elliott. If they start 0 – 2 then he will pretty much get what ever he wants. I think that both Jones and Elliott are willing to take that risk and see how this plays out.
The one that has no leverage and is really just wasting his time is Melvin Gordon. This week he asked for a trade. Pretty sure he is not going to get that either. The Chargers hold all the cards here. While Gordon is a good player he is not a top 5 back. It is arguable that he is a top ten back. Maybe he is but he has had the injury bug as well. At this point running back is a depreciated position. There are only a few backs that are going to command a huge pay day. I am not sure that Gordon is in that league yet.
Tom Brady just Wants to Win
Tom Brady shows again that he just wants to win. Once again to the dismay of the players union and agents. Tom Brady has restructured is contract to take less money this year. This year Brady will only make $23 Million. This will make him the 6th highest paid quarterback this year. So he really will not be hurting for money. This will allow the Patriots to use that money to sign players at other key positions. It really works out well for the Patriots that they have a top quarterback that has the ability to do this for them. There are not many players that would be willing to do this. This brings up another problem in the NFL. With the way the cap is structured most teams pay a larger percentage to their quarterback than to other positions. If a team like the Patriots is able to skew that percent it gives them an advantage. One way to take that advantage away is to have a separate cap for quarterbacks from the rest of the team. I am sure that will never happen and Brady can’t play forever. So this advantage will not last forever. On the other hand who knows. Maybe he will play for ever.
College Football Polls
College Football camps are all set to start as well. With that we are getting the pre season polls. The local sports guys always get their undies in a bunch when these come out. I am sure that every one is surprised that the top five in the Coaches Poll go Clemson, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio State. I know really who knew. For the last few year. Well more than a few. Probably five you could throw those teams in the top five in any order. Alabama and Clemson were the only two teams to get first place votes. Since those teams have dominated college football it is no surprise. The six first place votes that Alabama got pissed some people off with them saying. How could you give Alabama first place votes? Did you not see what Clemson did to them last year. Why yes Unnamed local sports host who’s nick name is the same as a large steak with a bone in it. But this is a poll for a new year not last year.
I really have a difficult time understanding how it is so difficult for many sports show hosts out there to understand that this poll is for the up coming year. Not for what the teams did last year. Saying that. I do think that it will be Alabama and Clemson again and that is a bad thing for college football. Hopefully there will be a team that steps up this year and sneaks into the championship game. It would be even better if Alabama and Clemson both got shut out of it. I see virtually no chance of that happening though.
Road Course Win for Elliott
Chase Elliott solidified a spot in the NASCAR Playoffs with a win at Watkins Glen one of two road courses on the NASCAR circuit. This win would have him starting sixth when the NASCAR playoffs start in a few weeks. The way they do the playoffs or rather the way they seed for the playoffs still has me confused. But lets face it. At this point it really does not matter how confusing it is. NASCAR has bigger problems that they have not addressed yet. At this point Jimmy Johnson is at risk of not being a part of the playoff. This would be a huge blow to NASCAR. They do need some changing of the guard so having new people in it help but Johnson being out at this point would really hurt. He would probably go out in the first round of the playoffs to it more than likely does not matter. Eliott being in helps a lot. The problem is that two of the drivers that NASCAR had been counting on have not had good seasons this year. Ty and Austin Dillon have really had rough seasons. With Austin at 22nd and Ty at 24th in the standings they have virtually no shot at making the playoffs. This is really quite a surprise that both are having seasons like this. I still say that there really should only be about six weeks left in the season at this point. Everyone is ready for football and racing is an after thought at this point.
On the Tube TV not You
Who else has this problem? You start to watch a new tv show and it gets cancelled after the first season. We seem to have that problem all the time. We talk about watching 13 episode seasons all the time. It is like we are the only ones watching them. It has probably always been like this but it seems like it has been worse lately. I guess that it why we cling to some of the reality shows that we watch. Survivor, Big Brother and the Amazing Race. I am sure they will all end at some point. Right now they seem like they will go on forever. We are good with that. Of course now that Football is about to start that will take up a lot of the TV watching time so its all good.
You can find last weeks post here
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