Since I'm once again barred from embedding or posting on X for a week, I'll leave a link for you...

I don't think I ever saw magnets being alleged in basketball, but someone just has.

What do you think?

Most of the new rules proposals have been approved.

The only one of the five rules proposals listed below which was not approved today for next season was the "kickoff from the 50 advantage loophole" rule.

This, along with the fact that it now appears the league is preparing for a referee lockout, makes the League Office in New York City the officials of record for 2026-27. 

The NFL announces several proposals, and some of them have to do with the possibility we may be Fail Mary again...

Today was a big day for NFL rules proposals.  Some of them normal...

And some of them anticipating we're going back to the replacement refs who "blessed" the league with riggings like The Loudest Manure Chant and The Fail Mary (and the Bill Belichick assault of one of the replacement refs), which came 24 hours apart and forced the league to capitulate.

Here are at least some of the proposals:

1) Both teams can now declare an onside kick at any point in the game, regardless of score.

2) This probably ties into this rule:  A rule that, after an unsportsmanlike or other major foul on a score or try by the defense, that kicking team loses the incentive to kick the ball completely out of bounds if they kick off from the midfield line.  Any touchback from the 50 goes to the 20.

I'm going to have to have that one explained to me.  Reading the rule (Point 2 in the first section), where's the advantage?  

3) In another effort to create excitement and more kickoff returns with the new setup, the rules would be changed that one fewer receiving-team player must be on the line five yards from where the kicking team's non-kicker players are (the "restraining line").  In the next five yards of the receiving side of the field, the team can have one more player in that area, but cannot have more than two players in any area bounded by a sideline and the hashmark, or between the hashmarks.

They're still trying to save the kickoff, for obvious reasons.  I get what they are trying to do, but...   

4) This is going to be the biggest rule, and it sounds like it's going to require massive manpower watching each game from the New York offices.

They ARE officially proposing disqualification-level conduct and Player Safety fouls can be called from New York, starting next year.  The rules already allow direct communication between the Replay Official, the on-field officials, and New York on all rulings and applications of game rules.  (Which answers the question on that revoked touchdown during the season -- the rules actually DO allow direct communication with New York on situations such as that.)

The deadline is the next legal snap or kick.

... which will mean that each game will need not just one New York official at the NFL offices, but almost-certainly a team of officials on each and every game, dedicated to all such actions.   

5) This is the one that gets added if they lock out the regular referees and decide to Fail Mary the league again (the referees' CBA ends May 31):  The offsite officials effectively become the officials of the game, in concert with the on-field crew.

The rule, for only the 2026-27 season and only in the event of and for the duration of a referee lockout, allows for the New York officials to call:

• Roughing the passer
• Intentional grounding
• Changing a running into the kicker foul into a roughing the kicker foul, and the other way around 
• Any disqualification foul which would fall under the fourth rule change (remembering that these are independent rules proposals, and this one specifically dependent upon the referees' work-stoppage situation). 
• Nullification of mis-called fouls for: 
• Face masks
• Roughing the passer
• Intentional Grounding
• Horse-collar fouls
• Illegal contact
• A limited form of reversal of pass interference -- meaning that either the feet get tangled or neither player is playing the ball
• or specifically the fact that a penalty is declared on the field for disqualification.  (The yardage still applies, except...)
• After the two minute warning, they get even more power! 
• Basically any fifteen-yard penalty can now be fully reversed in the final two minutes from New York.

Oh shit.  If this isn't pressure to get that settled...  You think the Loudest Manure Chant was bad?  I give that about the three weeks the last set of problems had, and there will be a Bottlegate-level incident, if not WORSE, the first time you see New York decide a contest outright because of the replacement refs.  

 

Yeah, it's kinda that time...

Things slow down a bit for many (except for those who think every game they lose is rigged in Daily Fantasy)...

Here are a few things, though, to show I'm still here...  For now...

• What could probably deserve a longer form situation is NIL's impact on March Madness.  The only real upset of the tournament was High Point beating a badly overrated Wisconsin team in a 5-12 upset.  Two years in a row now, the 13-14-15 seeds went 0-12.  There is now at least a groundswell of a call to basically end the Madness part of it and push the one-bid conferences to the NIT entirely.
• As a result, we do have a new record perfect bracket, kinda.  For the first time in history (Center Road's -- which is still the record at 49 -- was in the Yahoo! game), ESPN actually got a perfect bracket into Day Four -- then Florida being upset blew it all up after 43 wins to start the tournament. 
• A darker story of some human interest:  The good news is that there is a quadruple amputee (hands and feet) in Maryland who has somehow gained the skill to play professional cornhole.
• The bad news is that, allegedly, he has also gained the skill to do something else:  Shoot a gun.  Dayton Webber is being charged with Murder 1, Murder 2, and other charges for shooting someone he had an argument with.

Do they have the guts to move the Trump Transphobe Games?

USA Today reports today that the World Anti-Drug Association wants to ban Donald Trump and several major US officials from the Trump Transphobe Games in Los Angeles.  (And possibly the Trump Cup this summer.)

Just before the Transphobe Winter Games, the Trump administration pulled all dues money from WADA with respect to the United States.

Though this battle between WADA and the US does encompass both parties, I think I can safely say that this is a defense of the drug-ladened athlete culture in the United States, up to and including Cocaine Jr.'s (Trump's son Donald Jr.) support of the Enhanced Games in Las Vegas later this year, where cash prizes will be awarded to mostly-drugged athletes.

(I have to say MOSTLY-drugged because there IS, actually, at least one drug-free swimmer who wants to try his luck against the steroid freaks.) 

We can only hope this is a first move to remove the Trump Transphobe Games from Los Angeles and the Trump Cup from the United States and Mexico (let Canada host the whole thing if it can!)... 

Why we can't just stick to sprots, Part II...

The rest of the political-registration survey from earlier was found by our friends at Close Call Sports and they published the findings on their Discord.  They finally also allowed me to find the link to the article with all of the information.

None of what at least the charts they publicized should be of any degree of surprise... 

A side chart on the NFL first...

Among NFL players, defensive and skill-position players tend to lean the most Democratic, while special teams players are the most Republican. Quarterbacks fall somewhere in between the two. pic.twitter.com/QcioxpdKDR

— VoteHub (@VoteHub) January 20, 2026

Defense usually scales Democratic (by well over 30 points), offense and special teams Republican.

And don't fall for VoteHub's trying to sugar-coat it:  Quarterbacks skew Republican by about 13 points.

But the bigger lack of surprise is in the general findings:

• One of the things I really felt would start happening is the abolition of the NBA and WNBA, in the favor of MAGA League Baseball and the NHL.
• MLB is the most Republican-skewing of the major sports, with over 53% of those found registered Republican, only 7.8% Democrat. 
• And I don't believe your rant at all, Firefox Pocket or SB Nation or whoever it was:  The NHL has been actively trying to position itself as The Winter Sport under Trump.
• The NHL has the smallest Democratic registration of all the sports at less then 6%.  Republican?  Almost 44%.
• I don't believe for a second that US MAGA celebration with the FBI director was either against what you believe in or a bad thing for the league.  It probably came at Bettman's direction!
• The reason I think the NBA and WNBA are doomed if Trump ever gets around to being the President they REALLY voted for?  NBA:  42.9% Democrat, 10% Republican.
• WNBA:  2.3% Republican.  13 teams in the WNBA, assume 15 roster spots (as in the NBA) per team.  That would mean, if a representative sample were found, precisely FOUR Republican players in the WNBA.
• Democrat?  67.5%.  Or about a hundred and forty.

 

Oh boy...

On a day where there are far more important things than sports, and I might want to see if I can finally finish a series of posts for another blog, aimed at these stupid MAGA fucks, comes this story from Los Angeles:

On Saturday, Chad Baker-Mazara, ostensibly a USC basketball player, was injured in a late-season game.  After playing about three minutes of the second half, it is now apparent that Baker-Mazara is, somehow and for some reason, done with the Trojan program.

Baker-Mazara was apparently talking with a woman for much of the second half of the game.  Baker-Mazara was one of the leading scorers on the USC team.

He was an NIL transfer from Auburn.  USC was apparently his fourth school.  According to current reports, he's 26.

Current trolling meme (at least that's what's being alleged) is that Baker-Mazara is actually 32 with four children. 

But let's separate fact from (apparent) fiction:  He dipped on the USC program (or the USC program dipped on him) at some point Saturday.  The reasons do not appear non-suspicious:  SOMETHING went down.

Regardless of whether this apparent satire/meme account who's gotten a hold of this is trolling or not, one thing is for absolute certain:  Someone found out SOMETHING.