Day 323

• The Packers have already released their special-teams head coach, and their defensive coordinator is also gone.  What, the NFL thinks the Packers won too many regular-season games the last two years and exposed the plot?  Certainly happened this year!   
• Major League Soccer is on the verge of a labor stoppage -- the players and owners will try for at least one more week to pan it out.  Although MLS was the first major league, with that bubble-tournament in Orlando, to return, the fact is soccer is a fifth-rate sport in this country once you get to professional/male World Cup levels.  I do not see MLS having much of a future in the United States, now that it is clear the goals of MLS back in USA '94 have clearly failed permanently.   
• Add long-time Temple men's basketball coach John Cheney to the In Memoriam list.  He was 89.  Illness, not long, and unspecified.
• Kentucky has cancelled it's game with #5 Texas for tomorrow -- and paused operations due to positive tests for COVID and contact tracing.  Given how poorly "Succeed and Proceed" is doing this year, might not be in the worst interest to pull the plug, Calipari...   
• St. Louis vs. Richmond is off for tonight, according to Yardbarker.
• Texas has now had three of it's last four games postponed or cancelled, according to ESPN reports.
• DeShaun Watson wants out of Houston -- Houston has no interest in trading him.  Maybe Watson knows what some NFL people suspect with Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay.  No future in that franchise as far as getting where they really want to go...  
• At this rate, it's a wonder Karl Anthony-Towns survived to get to this season!!  In addition to losing SEVEN family members to the coronavirus, Anthony-Towns was also hit by a drunk driver in the off-season.  And he now has the coronavirus himself and has sat out at least six games as a result.

St00pid Bowl LV/Corona Bowl I: The early money...

• The biggest story of the "off week", at least as relates to the game itself, appears to be that the early money on the game February 7 is largely coming in on the Kansas City side of the ledger.  As well, IMODO, it should...   
• But the MGM chain is very happy to have taken the largest bet so far (and especially because it's on Tampa Bay to help hedge some of the early Kansas City money!), according to ESPN Chalk.  Someone, last night, logged into their Nevada MGM app and placed a $2,300,000 bet on Tampa Bay to cover +3.5, giving an extra five cents of juice on the dollar (-115) to get the extra half point.  And not without cause.  ESPN Chalk noted, earlier this week, that the most common result in the NFL this year, about one game in seven, had an exact margin of three points.  Giving that extra half-point means a Chiefs win by 3 wins $2,000,000, instead of pushes the bet.  
• Tony Romo, analyst for CBS and the Super Bowl coverage, has been pimping this game, calling Brady vs. Mahomes one of the greatest matchups in the history of sports, according to Sports Illustrated.  Dear...  God.
• Word from the NFL that the players for both teams will be tested twice daily for the coronavirus, and any positive after Friday morning will rule the player out.  PCR test in the morning, rapid PCR test in the afternoon/evening.
• In the "Yeah, Fucking Right" Department:  The mask order for outside and around Raymond James Stadium extends to the Saturday following the Super Bowl, and carries a $500 fine.

This Gamestop story is going to show one thing, and it may be the central tenet of a lot of things, including what goes on in sports...

Been following this WallStreetBets/GameStop story for some time, and I keep coming back to one central tenet.

And I'm not going to be exactly comfortable in stating how this tenet works -- there will probably be triggering for some people who may not care for the type I person I was in my teens and 20s.

But, the TL;DR for a lot of people:  GameStop is a dying brand of brick-and-mortar game stores, largely based on the concept that they acquire your used materials for pennies on the dollar in trade (if that!) to resell to other gamers.

The problem is:  The digital market and the desire to take out this market on the part of video game manufacturers has rendered even this an undesirable market -- and THEN you add that GameStop is a bunch of crooked fucks.

So, smart money (at least until about 2-3 weeks ago) was to short the stock to zero.  I've even been listening to YouTube posts from at least one former GameStop employee, chronicling the death of the company by a million cuts.

The problem being:  They at least were able to stay around for the ill-fated launches of the PlayStation 5 and the XBox Series S.  Oof, those are debacles in themselves which could merit their own posts somewhere down the line.

But, then, what happened was a bunch of individuals began to get together on the WallStreetBets subreddit and decided "We're gonna take down a hedge fund, perhaps more, and make effectively unlimited money on their corpse."

As such, and as this movement gained traction (almost a new Occupy Wall Street), the stock price literally went up at least an order of magnitude in the process of a short period of time.

This was designed to bankrupt major market-player hedge funds.  How it was meant to do that was the concept of "shorting" a stock.  Since GameStop was seen as a dying brand (and as well it should be!!), market analysts and major hedge funds tried to make money by literally selling stock they didn't have -- shorting the stock and getting money, believing the stock price, in a certain period of time (when they would have to buy the stock back) would be effectively zero, making all that money.

But, if the stock price was 5-10-more times the regular price when "Margin Call" (the time they had to buy the stock comes back)...  It could kill the hedge funds.  One company who chronicles this states that over $70 billion has been lost to this movement by the hedge funds.

I'm all but going to tell you what is going to happen next, and then the tenet that I will demonstrate from outside the market is going to tell you why.  The Tweet I am producing is, at the moment, a parody.  I do not believe this will be the case much longer.

BREAKING: DoJ announces thousands of /r/wallstreetbets posters arrested and charged with outsider trading

— Off-World Duck (@quackocracy) January 29, 2021

This is going to happen.

Why?  Because of a central tenet of American society:

YOU DO NOT FUCK WITH BIG MONEY.

I'm going to give you several examples from my own life, and then show how this extrapolates into sports and other things:

1) My first college.  I was a "mad hugger", if you will, back in the day.  I was about into the Richard Dawson school of affection, but with hugging, not kissing.  The problem is, most people did not want me around -- in any capacity.  And my "mad hugger"-ness not only exacerbated it, and not only was a criminal offense in Wisconsin (sexual assault in the fourth degree with assumed sexual depravity, my own feelings on the subject be damned), but, by two years on, I could sexually harass every woman in the room I was in -- simply by walking into the room.

The concept of "hostile 'work' environment" should have resulted in my removal from that school within six or so months.  So why was it over two years until I was removed?

I don't know how many families did it, and I don't know if they ended up getting monetary settlements from the University (my guess is they did, but I do not know the story that far), but families were lining up the same lawsuits that Florida State University got for Jameis Winston.  "Failure to protect" under Title IX.  In essence, I was viewed as a serial rapist -- and, if one finally came forward, 50 would follow.  (None did, because I wasn't, but the law doesn't care about that, at least to the respect of harassment and the like.)

I compromised that first college's money -- not quite to the extent of where I should've gotten 20 or so in the state pen, and probably life after that in the state or federal mental-health system in-patient -- but I fucked with that college's money.

2) My second college.  This continued into the second college, and it eventually involved the dance team/pompon squad/kickline of said second college.  It was seeing them on the local coverage of the men's basketball team on the local station (they did about 3-4 home games a year) which motivated me to choose that school over the other state colleges.

So now I'm not only screwing with their situation (and probably creating the same lawsuit potential), I'm also screwing with the coverage of the basketball team.  In fact, the next season after I was banned from attending any further sporting events involving the squad (and all games at that arena, squad or not), the local station's coverage of the team was changed.  Halftime, now, was no longer the dance team and a fluff piece on the campus.  The fluff piece was preceded by a pre-taped show with the historic coach of the team, Ken Anderson.

So why was I allowed to continue at the school and graduate two and a half years later?  I hadn't fucked with big money "enough", and the fact I did abide by the ban and the resulting "restraining orders" helped matters.

3) I think you can tell where my third and final part is going.  Why, then, was I allowed to attend more than 30 Debbie Gibson events, under the cloud of what would've been sufficient suspicion under New York (her then-home state) law to have me arrested, probably even before the first time I ever met Gibson in 1994???

Well, because, at the end, I started fucking with Disney.  Probably to the tune of six figures, if not seven.  I cost Disney Theatrical Gibson at least two weeks near the end of her run in Beauty and the Beast, and, at 1500-2000 people per show at whatever the ticket price was on Broadway, that's high-six, if not seven, figures.

At that point, it could no longer be ignored.  Fact is, if New York had actually found out about the first two parts, they'd have convened the grand jury and I'd have done at least ten years in prison, if not longer -- if not life.  I was, by the standard of presumed depravity, HORRIFICALLY undercharged.

---

And that's just three examples from my life.  I'll give you more from outside it.  One from anime, and then sports:

4) The whole Vic Mignogna affair.  Still wending it's way through the appellate courts in Texas, at least last I checked, it appears that Mignogna WILL, in fact, be successfully painted as anime's Tim Donaghy -- a lone rogue.

So, then, WHY was he, for so many years, THE indisputable most-popular voice talent, most-sought after convention guest, and probably one of the biggest money players in anime throughout the DVD boom years and beyond?

Because it's clear to anyone (including Kotaku, who did a story about a circulating spreadsheet of sexual assaults, harassments, and complaints around, at, or near conventions, going back years -- just before Mignogna was fired from Sony) that the American anime and anime-convention industries harbored him and other sexual deviants, both within the industry and in the fandom.  (Given the above, it also would explain why a person such as myself was even allowed in the door at many of these events when I chose to attend!)

So why was he fired?  Sony.

Big Money put their HR Department and their rules to all of this, and that was the end of it.

5) Donaghy himself.  No one, with a straight face, can conclude anything other than that the general public sentiment was that the NBA was rigged, even at that time.  However, it's one thing for the public to have that -- it's another to actually have it proven without question.

Donaghy proved it -- and he was basically turned into the "lone rogue" because the entire future of the NBA became endangered (and a lot of Big Money fucked with!) because the truth was finally being known.

6) It can sometimes come down to simply merchandising comparisons and the like.  One of the main reasons I believe Pittsburgh defeated Arizona in Super Bowl XLIII.  Consider the comparative sizes of money for Steeler Super Bowl apparel and Cardinal Super Bowl apparel.

(One of the reasons I felt the league was going to put the Packers over on Sunday.  Now, they can pretty much forget a large-scale Super Bowl Champion apparel operation, no matter WHO wins.)

---

I could go on.

But there is a central thread:  YOU DO NOT FUCK WITH BIG MONEY.

George Carlin was right.  It is a Big Club, and you are not in it.

I will add (from even experiences up to the present day) that the law only exists to remove undesirables from the desired.  It is not equal, was never meant to be, and many people won't even get enforcement of the law under any circumstances.

Why?  Because there is a large-scale system to retain the status quo.

How large?  I cannot confirm the veracity of what I'm about to tell you.  I am only to posit a theory which has run through the conspiracy circles in the last month (it is largely believed by the QAnon crew that this is the main reason Chief Justice Roberts is "compromised" and that neither him, the Supreme Court, or Vice-President Pence stepped in to "rightfully" re-install Trump...).

Do I believe it is true?  I will put it at "better than 50-50".

If my circumstances have not triggered the squick factor, this almost certainly will.

Lin Wood is a lawyer of some conspiracy repute.  I would almost bet money he's been disbarred from one or more states.

After the Supreme Court refused to re-install Trump (and concurrent with Mike Pence allowing the Electoral College certification of Biden and Harris to complete) had probably about the scariest conspiracy theory I think I've ever heard.  It takes the "Pizzagate" pedophilia to the ultimate level.

Wood alleges that powerful people (under the cover of an international group of those "in control" -- the Illuminati, etc.) take prospective major power players into a room with a camera, a child, and a gun.

I will leave it at that, for some degree of squick-protection.

Wood has been banned from social media for making the case that Chief Justice Roberts HAS had to do this, and that he also believes Mike Pence did as well.

I leave you with this thought:  If THAT is what is necessary to be in "The Club" that Carlin talked about, then what kind of apparatus is in place to maintain the status quo -- be it in politics, entertainment, finance, etc. and so forth and on and on and on?

Day 322

• It appears there is enough of a case situation in the NHL that Las Vegas vs. St. Louis is probably off for tonight.
• The ACC will not have Notre Dame in it's football conference next year.
• The idiot sheriff of Riverside County, California who has made national headlines for slamming stay-at-home orders -- has the coronavirus himself...
• Tim Donaghy has returned to officiating, and in EXACTLY the way you expect -- Major League Wrestling, as a heel crooked ref.  :)
• St00pid Bowl LIV will have an outdoor mask order for at least the fans.

The Gates Close: No 2021 Baseball Hall of Fame Class

Announcement just came down.

Schilling the closest at 71.1%, 16 votes short.

Bonds and Clemens at about 61 1/2%.

And next year:  A-Rod and Ortiz, and the last year of all three of the above.

I'm saying it now:  You will see a mass push, led by ESPN and the other Bonds/Clemens supporters, to go through the list and find one or more who should be removed, on steroids or otherwise, for "integrity and sportsmanship" grounds.

If they cannot prove a Hall of Famer is already in the Hall who was on the gas, and then, in addition, the BBWAA throwing said player out directly or putting a mechanism together to throw that player out (not unlike The Wrestling Observer did for Chris Benoit -- after the double-murder/suicide, the person behind the Hall of Fame, Dave Meltzer, put a one-time ballot up, yes/no, 60% threshold to remove.  Benoit remains in the Observer Hall of Fame by a narrow margin.), Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens will never be in Cooperstown.

Which then really does lead to the question which may have to be asked:  Are we going to start seeing long stretches of no inductees?  I could easily see a retaliation two years down the road -- that if Bonds and Clemens are out, not even some of the slam dunks get in...

But, roidies, it's over.  You're not getting in, barring a sting of someone already in the Hall by the end of this baseball season.

And Schilling, this is because you are a fucking MAGAt who won't shut his fucking mouth.  Especially given one of the weakest ballots in decades and that you already had 70% inclusion, that usually is a rubber-stamp that you'll get in if no one else does.

Schilling's political views are what keeps him out of Cooperstown.  He's right only in that regard.  He can shut the fuck up otherwise.

(AND TO NOTE:  That in the title is fact.  There is no 2021 class of any kind whatsoever.  No main vote, no Veteran's Committee, no other side committees.  As of now, they are scheduling a 2021 ceremony for last year's Derek Jeter-led class.)

To speak to similar to several media situations already, I'm going to mirror ESPN's analysis thing and answer the questions they asked:

Biggest Winner:  The "Integrity and Sportsmanship" Clause, and the anti-roidies.  This year basically ended the candidacy of Bonds and Clemens, and neither stands a very good chance of getting in through a Veteran's Committee who has already tossed McGwire out.

A lot of people are saying Rolen on his raise on his fourth year, but be careful:  He's probably not getting in next year -- and, after that, there could be a very real backlash against the Hall by the pro-Bonds/Clemens/Schilling voters, even and especially if Schilling also fails in his final year.  I could see an easy 30% block say "If they're not in, NO ONE IS IN." -- and we get 5-6 straight YEARS of no one getting in.

(Which will probably mean the paring of another 100 or so voters, putting the number of voters in about 3 years at about 300.  My anonymous friend noted that the Hall pared the voting rolls for voters who didn't care and the like from 549 in 2015 to 396 this year.  And we all know, if this happens, it will not be subtle and it will be VERY public.)

Biggest Loser:  ESPN, Deadspin, and all the Bonds apologists.  This has ended the legitimate candidacy of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens for the Hall of Fame.  They're NOT GETTING IN unless someone hoodwinked the Hall previously.

What No One Getting In Means:  I think it's clear that the entire Steroid Era, barring that shock clean player (which is more and more a shock to a lot of people) is getting a clean rejection from at least 30-40% of the ballots -- which, as I said below in the other post, might mean baseball may someday have to consider wiping the books of the entire era (at least on a statistical sense) for those players not proven clean.

I think it also means Curt Schilling is a MAGAt Asshole, and he basically just threw in the towel himself and threw himself to the Veteran's Committee in a vitriolic tweet this afternoon.  In fact, I'd have to verify:  He may have just told the BBWAA not to bother to include him next year.

Which vote total is most surprising:  I think, more, that the complete lack of candidates meant we got a lot more of the 35-50% crowd this year.  2020 had the two winners, Schilling Bonds and Clemens, and one player above 35%.  People better start preparing, though, for what's probably going to go down in two years when Bonds and Clemens fail, and Schilling might go with them.

Eventually, this might force a Commissioner with integrity (meaning a new one) to actually throw the roidies out of the sport for life (and beyond).

Underrated the most:  Many are saying Jeff Kent, but he was probably as dirty as Bonds!!!  I can't really see an "underrated" name here, guys.

Next Year:  If Schilling is on the ballot, he's about the only real shot.  If the Hall is not putting in Bonds and Clemens, they won't put in ARod or Ortiz (positive in 2003).  Rolen is probably the next good shot, but I see next year as another zero, barring a discovery and a lack of removal.

Day 320

• It appears Cooperstown's doors will remain shut to steroid cheaters and Republican pigs.  Today is the day that the Hall of Fame will (by current prediction) announce no player received the 75% necessary by the BBWAA to get in the Hall.  This leaves one year for Schilling, Bonds, and Clemens to get in.
• See above for the results.
• I think that baseball is going to eventually have to have a reconciliation with the Steroid Era and wipe the books clean.  At least the statistical honors, and then who knows what you can do from there...  But it is clear that the BBWAA is sending a message that the entire era is effectively an invalidity -- that you now have to basically be proven innocent (not even really the stench of suspicion), or you're out.    

Are we seeing the beginnings of a Pay To View (Not Pay Per, Pay TO) model for the future of American sports...

It appears as if the first several salvos of the new sports reality may have been fired, most by NBCUniversal:

• The bulk of the Premier League is already on NBCU's pay Peacock service.
• NBC Sports Network will be a thing of the past at some point in the next 12 months -- probably sooner than later, once the Tokyo Olympics finally get scrapped and the entire Olympic movement suffers, if not a fatal blow, a near-fatal blow.
• And, even ancillary to sports, WWE Network is being phased out and sent over to the Peacock pay service as well.

And that's with Champions' League soccer already on CBS All Access, CBS' pay service, which is about to become Paramount+ in March.

People are beginning to figure this out -- and especially with ESPN on the ropes BEFORE the pandemic situation (so there's almost no way they survive in present form), could we be reaching the day, soon, that all meaningful live sports (with the NFL probably being the last holdout in the next three years or so) are either on Peacock, Disney+, or Paramount+, or whatever FOX might come up with for their libraries???

Day 319: I guess not!

• The WWE Network experiment is over in March.  Peacock, NBCUniversal's streaming platform, has bought out the over-the-top service and will convert the entire WWE Network, including PPVs/specials, into it's premium tier ($4.99/mo for commercials, $9.99/mo without).

St00pid Bowl LV/Corona Bowl I: Day 1 of the Prep

• Not sure if this is going to be the formal "Day 319" or not, but my anonymous friend's characterizations of the game cannot be left alone.
• Partially due to the 22,000 people in the stands (and only a third of them vaccinated first-responders)...
• Partially due to Brady vs. Mahomes, as much as all outside Tampa now hate Brady...
• and partially due to throwing away, WITH REFBALL, the biggest remaining fanbase you had left to absorb the ratings losses.
• And now, in a move that the White Right will state as evidence that the league is falling, Budweiser will not have an ad at Super Bowl LV at all.  They will take their entire ad budget and give it to COVID relief.  (Esquire)  It will be the first time Budweiser will not be part of the Super Bowl since 1984.
• Coke and Pepsi-Cola are also joining them. (KUSA)
• A 10% ratings loss over last year for the Super Bowl would be an audience of 90 million.  That is my current over-under, now that Packer Nation will probably largely sit this one out.
• 90 million would take us back to Super Bowl XL, and numbers only surpassed very occasionally over the course of Super Bowls XXVII-XXXIX.
• Even so, CBS is still asking $5.5 million for 30 seconds for the Tampa-Kansas City game.

Super Bowl LV: And that better be the last time I ever go with my heart...

I should've seen this coming, and said it was for the entire process of the situation until I 55-45'd the Packer pick.

It was Tom Brady, it was Tom Brady all along...  (Aw, son of a bitch!!!)

And now Rodgers is talking a bit morose and the like.  Fact is:  He's the first quarterback, to my understanding, to lose three conference title games while winning fewer than two.

He's never going to WIN another Super Bowl, and Green Bay's not getting to one again.  26-6 the last two years, and two playoff wins, and neither Super Bowl.

Tony Romo, who has often the exposition of the NFL's narrative, called this in Week 12...

At this point, the Bucs are 7-5 after losing to the Chiefs, entering their bye week.  With the Saints (even with Brees injured) with a significant division lead, the Seahawks making a push, and the Packers just racking up wins, Romo says THIS with Brian Tuohy making note of it today:

As the co-host of the CBS #SuperBowlLV broadcast, Romo had seen the script. https://t.co/BlGoe6zv8Y

— Brian Tuohy (@TheFixIsInTuohy) January 25, 2021

Green Bay is never winning another Super Bowl in this reality.

And Tampa Bay?  They have not lost since.  Seven in a row.

And then the refball came in.  Game ended 31-26.  1:46 to go in the fourth.  3rd and 4 at the Tampa 37.  And Max Kellerman catches this penalty on the same play the Packers were called for DPI to end the game:

On the PI call that ended the game, there was an OBVIOUS hold by Tristan Wirfs.

Can’t make one call without the other. pic.twitter.com/HZSLoNjtMX

— Max Kellerman (@maxkellerman) January 24, 2021

In fact, it looks, in the still, like TWO GUYS were holding on the play.  I did say one thing:  It was so close on the narrative that one call could make the difference.

One call did, and Rodgers goes home again to the narrative in the conference title game, for at least the third time in his career. 

--

And the AFC went exactly as I thought.  Game was non-competitive, Mahomes and the Chiefs win by two touchdowns.

--

So here we are:  It's obvious what the script is going to be.  If Mahomes can stay upright and perform for the balance of the game, it will be the official passing of the torch here, as Tampa becomes the first team to host a Super Bowl they will be in, but I'd be taking Kansas City -3 and the over 56.5 easily.

Only shot Tampa's got is if Mahomes comes in flat and it's clear he's still concussed in two weeks.

Day 318

• HA HA!  Conor McGregor got KTFO'd last night in an upset win by Dustin Poirier.
• All Super Bowl Week events will be either cancelled or held virtually.  The teams won't even be in town (the ones traveling, at the very least) until Friday or Saturday before game day!

My thoughts for tomorrow...

So we've made it to the conference title games...

As I've always said:  To get this far, you need an angle to begin with:

• Kansas City has the narrative of The Next Man
• Tampa has Tom Brady
• Buffalo has "Any Given Sunday"
• And Green Bay has not only Aaron Rodgers, but the one national fanbase who might absorb whatever ratings losses Super Bowl LV might have.

So how's it going to go?

Start with the easy one, the late game:

AFC:  Kansas City (-3) hosting Buffalo

Sorry, Bills Mafia.

But you are about to run into a buzzsaw.

There was no meaningful way that Patrick Mahomes was not going to be allowed to play tomorrow.  The league is literally banking EVERYTHING on this guy's back for the next half-decade, if not far more.  I'd put the over-under on the number of rings this guy gets at about five.

I do think a lot of it is BLM and all that stuff, as I think the NFL, though a right-wing organization, it at least wants to play-act as Black-friendly -- at great cost to it's ratings, mind you.

The one risk, at least this weekend, for them is that Mahomes has something in his head that isn't quite right, and the NFL's concussion disparagement is blown wide open for all to see.  Nothing personal against Mahomes himself -- but someone or something has to do that.  It'd be about the only way, however, I can see the Chiefs getting beaten by a team which will put up a brave fight, but is basically not ready for prime time -- but the last team standing in the way.

Kansas City 31 - Buffalo 20

The early game is far harder to predict:

NFC:  Green Bay (-3.5) hosting Tampa Bay

Brady and Rodgers.  That's basically the centerpiece -- and, to put it bluntly, it's an indictment of the league's "It's all about the quarterback." thought process.

I thought back last April, when the Packers took Jordan Love and got excoriated by many in the media and otherwise for the pick of a quarterback to succeed Rodgers, that the Packers were throwing in the towel, seeing that the NFC narrative was now Tom Brady and Tampa Bay.

And then, when the two teams met, Tampa Bay put the one ass-whipping on Green Bay that they got all season (Minnesota shocked a flat Green Bay, but only won by 6 -- and Indianapolis won an overtime decision some saw controversial.).  Tampa scored 38 unanswered to whomp them 38-10.  No other team this season has allowed fewer than 22 points against the NFL's number-one scoring team.  

So why am I not 100% certain that either this is Brady's #7 or a passing of the torch?

One simple reason:  Take a look at the other three teams in this.  Is there a national fanbase among any of them?

No.  There isn't.  And as someone who reads the blog and has seen my "Tom Brady as The Great White Hope" concept writ large has noted:  31 teams of fans hate the guy -- more than likely because he has been rammed down the sport's throat for the last 20 years, much of it cheated, rigged and manipulated.

And it's clear that the league WOULD like to get Tom one more on the way out, for his seven to be greater than Jordan's six.

That said, however, the league's very prescient ratings problem could easily see this the least-watched Super Bowl since at least Super Bowl XL.

At the end of the day, the league is a business.  That said, my head is 55-45 (percent) Tampa.  They put together Brady and Gronk (and eventually AB, though he will not play tomorrow due to a knee) for a reason, I believe.

The problem is:  Does anyone really want to see Brady, on a team without a national fanbase, face The Face of the League, similarly without a national fanbase?

And there is the thought that, once again, the league is going for the "State Farm Super Bowl" with Rodgers and Mahomes, who shot a couple commercials together for State Farm before last season.

This is a game where one key refball move will decide the contest -- the question is:  WHICH WAY?

The one main difference this year is that Green Bay is not the 14-3 flaming referee fraud they were last year.  That, and the game at Lambeau...

Green Bay 28 - Tampa Bay 17 -- but with SEVERE reservations and would not be surprised if it refballed the other way.

Day 317: The Covidiots get another major celebrity killed...

• Larry King.  COVID.  Thanks, Covidiots.   
• Someone might want to check on the Gardner-Webb wrestling program and think about shutting it down right now.  After a 42-0 shutout to NC State which featured two pins, a technical fall (where the match is stopped once one wrestler defeats the other by 15 points), three major decisions (8-14 points margin at the end of the match) and four standard victories...
• Their second match with Virginia, they gave up 44 points in not only being shut out, but due to a bench unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, actually left the match at minus 1.  44-  -1  The embarrassment is so bad, the university refuses to even put the score up on their website.
• North Carolina, 45-0.
• Last Sunday, losses to both UT-Chattanooga (22-13) and The Citadel (32-9 -- at least they got some wins in those two duals...).  At what point, especially during this challenging of a time, does being this non-competitive merit pulling the plug?  Seriously...  
• University of Michigan is the latest school to have to pull the plug on sports temporarily because of COVID cases.  Worse yet, at least one student-athlete is the first in the state to actually have one of the new, more virulent, variants of the virus.

I'm sorry, but this one has to get a post of it's own... RIP Hank Aaron.

As I said in the ever-increasing number of "Daily Coronavirus Era" posts, we just lost Hank Aaron about 7 Pacific this morning.

I don't think any examination of "Hammering Hank" will be complete without his proudest moment -- and a proudest moment for far more than just him...

First off, let's all be reminded of Vin Scully's words that night:

"What a marvelous moment for baseball.

 What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia.

 What a marvelous moment for the country and the world.

 A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking the

   record of an all time baseball idol.

 And it is a great moment for all of us, but particularly for Henry Aaron,

 who was met at home plate not only by every member of the Braves, but by his 

   father and mother."

Anyone who knows the story knows of the racist hate mail and death threats and everything that White America sent Hank Aaron over the course of the 1973-74 offseason.  He actually received a memento from the Postal Service, when the outpouring opposing the racism caused him to receive a million pieces of mail -- more in 1973 than anyone except politicians, according to Wikipedia.

It is with that backdrop that I recall two men, in particular.

Two men who committed an illegal act that evening, Cliff Courtenay (now a doctor) and Britt Gaston -- then college students -- ran onto the field and congratulated Aaron.

They got a night in jail for it, and were probably fined and barred for a time from attending MLB games.

Though those penalties were certainly proper, let us not forget one thing:

In the face of all the racism and pain Aaron suffered, especially in the last months and weeks before passing Ruth, two White college students -- without realizing it (Courtenay would say they were "pulled by the gravity" of the event and did not completely realize the politics of the affair, according to a 2010 Valdosta Daily Times article on the moment archived here) -- chose, instead, to also reject the racism and pain and honor that Black man in the Deep South for breaking the record of an all-time baseball idol.

Rightly, Courtenay and Gaston remain friends (and Aaron remained friends with them both).

And now "Hammerin' Hank" is gone.

Perhaps the best visage of his impact on the game, especially with the continuing controversies of the steroided home-run "phony kings of baseball" (and I can say that, I used to be a fan of one of them while homeless in San Francisco for a time!), is from Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today:

pic.twitter.com/VUnPVbu14w

— Sarah Spain (@SarahSpain) January 22, 2021

For him, perhaps more than most, his RIP SHOULD be Rest In Power.  You have done your work here, Hank.  Thank you.

Day 316

• Detroit Mercy has called off it's women's basketball season, now at least the third D1 college to do so -- this one, however, on account of an abusive coach (AnneMarie Gilbert, who, among the problems, actually told her players that if they actually tried to be students, they were not taking the athletic program seriously.  Door.  Ass.  Way Out.   (Yahoo)
• Gilbert was hired after last season.
• The costs of having a reputation...  Draymond Green was ejected last night for profanity as the Warriors were defeated at home by the New York Knicks.  However, the yelling was at a teammate for not paying attention on a turnover.  Coach Steve Kerr has admitted, upon further review, that the ejection is an admitted mistake.  Though I still maintain there's a reason that the Warriors have been semi-broken up, and I do think the league is responsible for it, because they didn't like how the team represented the NBA as champions.  
• Washington-Milwaukee and Memphis-Portland have both been called for tonight in the NBA.
• The four Washington Capitals in violation of the NHL COVID protocols are out four games each.
• And the legends keep falling.  We lost Hank Aaron today...
• Former Packers GM Ted Thompson passed away two days ago, just after turning 67.
• Latest word on the Super Bowl is about 1/4 capacity in Tampa, about 22,000 -- and 1/3 of those will be vaccinated health-care workers.  JUST A FUCKING THIRD?!?!?!?!?!???  EVERY DAMN PERSON IN THE STANDS SHOULD BE A VACCINATED HEALTH CARE WORKER -- ALL EXPENSES PAID!   
• And the first casualty of the pandemic-based sports reality in sports networks is in -- NBC Sports Network has about one year left, and will probably be shut down at the end of the calendar year, if not sooner.  If the Tokyo Olympics do get scrapped, think far sooner.  
• And that should do it for the AFC Championship unless Mahomes almost literally falls over:  He's out of the protocol and playing Sunday.  Still 55-45, if that, on the NFC game.   

Day 315

• The NBA called off the sixth consecutive Washington Wizards game last night.  
• In a last-ditch effort to save the European domestic leagues, FIFA announced this morning that any players playing in a breakaway Super League would be banned from the World Cup.
• Aaron Rodgers is stirring the pot, probably needlessly, to give a possible Packer storyline for Super Bowl LV.  He said yesterday his future was "a beautiful mystery".
• Florida-Carolina in the NHL has already been postponed for tonight.
• Alexandr Ovechkin has been fined for violations of the NHL COVID protocols -- four Washington Capitals are in the protocol now because he had to be stupid, and the team has been fined $100,000.
• Larry Scott is out as Commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference at the end of the school year.  Not sure anyone can save THAT sunken ship.  
• Notre Dame is on probation for one year for minor recruiting violations.
• It appears as if some of the major recruiting violations which got Tennessee's coach fired involved direct booster-to-recruit payments...
• The Times of London is reporting that part of the governing coalition of Japan has stated that the Olympics for Tokyo WILL have to be cancelled, and that Tokyo is lobbying for the next available Summer Games in 2032.  There is no confirmation of that point at this time, and it is believed that the Tokyo Games are still on for 2021.  Fat freaking chance.  The only thing is:  I do not believe the Olympic movement survives a full cancellation.   
• Three days before he is slated to fight Dustin Poirier again on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi, Conor McGregor is being sued AGAIN for sexual assault, according to Deadspin.  Anyone surprised?  Bueller?  BUELLER???   

Day 314 Part 1: Our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris...

I didn't think it would be allowed to get this far.  It's one of the reasons I posted a bunch of the Olbermann Vs. Trump rants before the election and the like -- and I'm remiss not to have done so since.

But today, barring a White Right temper tantrum, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States of America and Kamala Harris will be sworn as the first woman, African-American, and Asian-American Vice President, and the 49th overall.

Two weeks ago, we all saw what happened.  And I will say that it was the last five years writ large.

COWARDICE.

If there is one word which can describe the entire Trumpian movement of the last five years, there it is, in boldface.  Cowardice.

Cowardice by a movement, largely of White incel men or the men with the women they have literally beaten into submission, which intended to overwrite not only the American Civil War, but World War II.

Anyone who now does not believe there has been a nascent Nazi movement in this country in the last 100 years has not been paying attention, to the gravest of their peril.

Anyone who now does not believe that there is a movement on the Republican Right that women, at best, are cattle with no cogent ability to do anything but spread for them has not been paying attention, to the gravest of their peril.

Anyone who now does not believe that there is a movement (and not entirely Republican) to reverse the gains of the Texas Sodomy Decision and Obergefell has not been paying attention, to the gravest of their peril.

And there is also cowardice on the part of a stochastic terrorist who has occupied the Oval Office for the last four years (and many on same previously-mentioned movement believe won the election by such a large margin that no election can ever feasibly be held again in this country) whom, if we had laws in this world, would probably be taken out of the White House and given the same gallows that the aforementioned incident two weeks ago had brought to the Capitol.

Also, cowardice on the part of much of the American Left.  Even Reagan said, "We do not negotiate with terrorists."  It is unfortunate, however, that it appears that the BLM movement was co-opted in an attempt to subvert it by a violent right-wing movement, the Boogaloo Boys.  The fact is:  If Black men on the Left were angry enough to take to the streets as it were, it would probably be justified in this day and age.  It is too bad that it got subverted.

I believe that the White Right would've won the day and far more than the Presidency two weeks ago if it didn't have the cowardice to finish the job.

Consider:  Two weeks ago, the White Right Nazi movement in this country became only the second group, and the first in over 200 years, to successfully storm and defeat the security of the United States Capitol.  This is the reason, for one example, that Washington, DC stands under effective military rule and martial law this day, with over 25,000 National Guardsmen to ensure Biden and Harris are properly installed.

Had they not done so for what effectively ended up a social-media publicity stunt on the most part of them, they probably succeed.  They had help, not in any small manner from the Nazi movement now in Congress, including two members of the House of Representatives who are fully allied with the QAnon movement.  Eventually, even with the violent storming, over 120 members of the House of Representatives and at least 7 or 8 Senators (to no one's surprise, including a new US Senator who was a Southern college-football coaching legend -- Tommy Tuberville, you piece of shit) STILL voted to attempt to overturn the election.

There is even one reader here who is a fairly open Trump supporter and who wants me to "Stick To Sports".

He fails to realize, in many respects, the damage his side has done, even in a sports situation, much less the lives his side has not only ended, but ruined for being the crime of not being a Good, White, Male, Christian, Straight, Cisgender Landowner in this country.

• The National Pastime, once revered, has been soiled by a movement, starting from the Commissioner's Office on down, to move Major League Baseball to the American Right, including many political donations which MAY now only have been stopped due to the nature fo the violence two weeks ago at the US Capitol.
• One main reason for this move (beyond the political leanings of many of the White men on top) is the disintegration of the National Religion of the National Football League over the course of Trump's Presidency -- largely felled at the feet (more correctly, the knees) of Colin Kaepernick.  Many on the White Right have basically believed that Black men only exist to get beaten by cops, and -- for those who do not then submit to be good ------- -- killed by them.
• As a result, and just as a note of reference:

I give you the ratings for Week 8 from Sports Media Watch.

They already are not pretty.  20% drops across the board for every major period from 2015.

And they haven't recovered since.  Sunday Night Football on NBC is drawing very poorly.  And, even since the losses suffered through last year, ratings were off ANOTHER 7% this year, and I'm shocked it isn't far more.

And college football just had it's worst year ever, culminated by the record-lowest rated CFP National Championship Game in history -- or any championship game of the Bowl Championship Series which preceded it, by a margin of about 15%.

• In fact, most major sports championships have seen drops of the 30-60% variety year-over-year, wondering if America has turned it's back on sports as an entertainment!
• The NBA is only running right now because the Democrats won -- and they've basically openly embraced the fact that they are a Black league.
• Most Black athletes are now being shunned by the White Right, a fact which will give a very interesting paradox should the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games take place at all.

But yeah, I need to Stick To Sports.  Sure...  Really...

Day 313

• ... and he's gone, didn't even take til 9 AM Eastern the next morning!  The Mets need a new GM -- Jared Porter fired for sexual harassment.
• The 2021 Australian Open tennis tournament is in real trouble -- number of positive cases has reached five.  Number of quarantined players of some level have reached 72!
• And now we've lost Don Sutton in the 13th month of 2020.  My anonymous Dodger-fan friend makes a great point -- at the start of the year (2021), we had three living retired Dodger number players and two similarly-honored Dodger announcers.  We've lost two of the players already (Koufax is the third), and both announcers are well past their 80s.
• In a move which will please the ex-football fans to no end (/s) (and I've got A LOT to say about that at some point in the next 24 hours!), Sarah Thomas has been named the first woman to act as an official in some capacity in the Super Bowl -- she will be the Down Judge.  I assume, though I may be wrong, that the Down Judge is the member of the chain gang who keeps track of the downs.   
• The WNBA is close to finally banning Kelly Loeffler from the league and engineering a sale of her Atlanta Dream.
• Two NHL games and a Big Ten women's basketball game were all scrapped last night due to COVID concerns.
• In the "The NFL cannot be serious to think they can tell us this THAT blatantly..." Department:  Stupid blowhard Colin Cowherd is actually proposing that if Patrick Mahomes cannot play Sunday, that the NFL needs to postpone the AFC Championship Game until he can.
• Seriously.
• I'm not making this up.

Oh my....... Colin Cowherd believes the NFL should delay Sunday’s AFC Championship Game until Patrick Mahomes is cleared to play. pic.twitter.com/TUb0gWe7T1

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 19, 2021

• Back Surgery Number FIVE for Tiger Woods.  This one appears somewhat minor.

Four left, and the NFL's big "RUH ROH!" has hit!....

And now the entire narrative of the NFL 2020-21 season now hangs on the concussion protocols.

The league has cast aside two of it's second-tier also rans (Brees, probably, for the last time) this weekend.  But the big news comes out of Kansas City, and it's not the backup saving them -- it's why the backup was needed.

Yeah, they're all talking about Chad Henne and how he got it done to have the Chiefs beat the Browns, but Patrick Mahomes was knocked for a loop and taken out of the game with a concussion in the third quarter.

I've said all year that the league probably does NOT have a Plan B behind Mahomes -- they've all but been giving you The Royal Neon Sign for now three seasons that this is the next guy.

It was such an issue that, when opening lines were set for the Bills-Chiefs AFC title game, the line, depending on whether the book believed the injury would allow Mahomes to play or keep him out, ranged from Bills -2.5 to Chiefs -4, according to ESPN Chalk and David Purdum.

I do, however, honestly believe that was the reason that, even should Drew Brees retire, the NFL decided to push Brady over him anyway...

Now you get Brady vs. Rodgers, the one team which made Green Bay their bitch all season, and...  hoo boy.

Stay tuned on this one.  The NFL's entire 2020-21 narrative may be on the line here.

Day 312

• The 2021 NFL Combine has been cancelled.
• Full day of Martin Luther King Day games in the NBA today, starting at about noon Eastern.
• Phil Spector has passed away.  Murderer of Lana Clarkson, Spector went from major record producer to dying in prison.
• ESPN reports that the GM of the New York Mets, Jared Porter, sent 62 unsolicited sexual harassment texts to a female reporter over a one-month period in 2016, including at least one nude photo.  He has admitted it, and the Mets are probably looking for a new general manager.
• Also looking for a new coach is the Tennessee Volunteer football team -- Jeremy Pruitt, after an investigation into recruiting violations, has been fired by the school for cause.  They apparently found such a wide-ranging slew of violations and cover-ups...  Shut.  Down.  The.  Program.  If this is happening at an irrelevant school like TENNESSEE, it's time to pull the plug there.
• And the AD is gone too, Phil Fullmer, the long-time football coach of the school before Pruitt.
• Another outburst, another NBA team, another forced trade.  The Cleveland Cavaliers are looking to trade Kevin Porter Jr. after an outburst in the locker room.  If they can't, they'll fire him.

Day 311

• Well, here we go -- the scenario the NFL feared and probably did not plan for.  Patrick Mahomes exited today's divisional win over the Browns with a concussion.  Stay tuned, this might change everything (or it might change nothing)...  Given the opponent is Buffalo next week, I think it does give the NFL some flexibility in putting the Chiefs over and hoping things are ready to go in three weeks.
• Meaning now that both Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes have hit the concussion protocols this weekend.
• Sarah Fuller, the history-making kicker for Vanderbilt, has been invited to Wednesday's inauguration.  One report has that she will speak at the event.  They shouldn't be holding even a semi-public event.  Too dangerous - and I'm not talking COVID here.   
• Lionel Messi was sent off in today's Spanish Supercopa match after review with the VAR in extra time for serious foul play - shot to the head of Athletic Bilbao's Asier Villalibre.  He could be banned for four matches, depending on how the tribunal rules.  It is Messi's first red card with Barcelona.  Bilbao won 3-2.
• Philadelphia-Oklahoma City in the NBA has been scrapped for tonight.  That makes two of the games tonight, with the previous Cleveland-Washington postponement.
• Jay Glazer has just added his name to the reports that Drew Brees is retiring after the season.  13-13 at the half -- I stand by my contention that the game in progress (Tampa-New Orleans) is the NFC Championship Game and the winner will go to Lambeau and beat Green Bay next week.  Could this finally line up the stars for New Orleans here?  
• Nope.  30-20 Tom Brady.  And now Green Bay has to face the one team which made them their bitch this year.  Much like last year (the one main difference:  Green Bay is NOT a flaming ref-fueled fraud, like they were last year), the one kryptonite to the big season is the Pack's final obstacle.
• That said:  You take a look at the four remaining fanbases.  Which fanbase, and by a LARGE MARGIN, can help try to absorb the worst-watched Super Bowl in at least a decade and a half?  One thing my anonymous friend told me on not sleeping on Green Bay:  I need to recall that, unlike a lot of people, only one team's fanbase -- the team he plays for -- loves Tom Brady.  Everyone else does not, especially Boston, who now views him as traitor.  Gee, doesn't that sound familiar, Packer Nation?   
• 
  

Day 310

• To try to change the narrative, Vince McMahon announced today this year's Wrestlemania would be in Tampa (site of what was to be last year's), next year's in the Jerry Palace, and then LA in two years (which was supposed to be this year's).

Some thoughts on the two games today:

• Until The LA Experiment of the NFL is deemed to work (and that, increasingly, is becoming a distant IF, not WHEN), results like today's will continue.  I think much in the NFL will depend on what happens in the next 12 months or so with the virus and vaccines, but few places may be more impacted than the new megastadium sites in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
• Interesting stat today:  Aaron Rodgers, this season, broke an NFL record about the game he will play next week.  Rodgers became the player (who actually got to a home conference title game) to play in the most games in NFL history before his first home conference title game.  He broke the record of Fran Tarkenton.
• Baltimore, feel like Indy of years gone by yet?

More news:

• Japanese COVID-19 restrictions have felled a February 6 planned 14-hour FanFest stream the game was going to do.  Many thought they would announce the game's fourth expansion here.  A news drop (which will probably still contain the announcement) and a Producer's Live Letter (a forum with game Producer Naoki Yoshida) will still be held in an abbreviated format.

Wrestling, if it survives that long, will be better when Vince McMahon is gone.

Someone needs to #SpeakingOut on Vince McMahon and force him out of professional wrestling.

This Trumpian son of a bitch has topped most everything else not out of Saudi Arabia with the latest little jib on the "genetic grapefruits".

This goes back to one of the most infamous professional wrestling on-air incidents in history -- the on-air "live sex celebration" between Edge and Lita after Edge defeated John Cena to win the Raw championship in 2006.

On Tuesday, Amy Dumas, the woman who played Lita, revealed on her Twitch stream that, had she not gone along with the live sex celebration and done the bit right, she would've been fired from the company instantaneously.

Never mind that's BLATANT sexual harassment, etc. and so forth and on and on and on...

And a kicker to all of this:  Not only was Lita not cool with this -- neither were Cena NOR EDGE!!!

And this was the Cena who was more than willing, in character, to paint Lita as the biggest prostitute in professional wrestling history.

And THAT was the Edge WHO WAS THE OTHER PERSON INVOLVED IN THE EVENT.

It's not like (and there's 100 different ways professional wrestling always does this -- even in 2020) to imply that a successful heel female or couple are going to find the nearest hotel and get it on.

But Vince McMahon wanted Lita naked in the center of the ring.  No other way to put it.

Reminds me of the night Lita went out and paraded to a bunch of horny boys at WWE New York in a pair of bikinis.

You could tell in the video she was NOT cool with that either.

----

This is the kind of stuff which has a lot of us believing he pimped out his own daughter (we know he all but demanded she get a boob job for an on-camera role as Smackdown GM -- and there is the backcurrent conspiracy theory she was underage in a pairing with "Macho Man" Randy Savage, but no one will ever confirm that one).

This is the kind of stuff which makes a lot of us wonder how many (NOT IF!) women he made sexual demands of for a "push".

This is the kind of stuff which had me thinking that you had to pose nude for Playboy to get what I called, back then, the "Striptease Championship" during the Attitude Era...

Someone needs to get Vince out of professional wrestling before he destroys it -- and I fear he will do so anyway, because one can only imagine what this pig has done in the last 40 years...

Stay tuned.

Day 309

• The conditional reinstatement of Josh Gordon has been rescinded.  He's suspended indefinitely and banned from the NFL for at least the..  what, now...  FOURTH TIME?  FIFTH?
• Wayne Rooney has retired as a player and will become the coach of a second-division side in England.
• Minnesota-Memphis is postponed in the NBA tonight due to COVID.
• One of the positives is Minnesota superstar Karl Anthony-Towns, who has already lost several family members to the virus.
• ... as are a back-to-back between Washington and Cleveland Sunday and Monday -- at least SIX Wizards have tested positive.  Bubble it all, or throw in the towel.  NOW.
• Von Miller is coming off an injury year and a team option on his contract in the offseason.  He's also under criminal investigation in Colorado.  For WHAT?  No one's saying.
• The deep conspiracy circle is claiming unconfirmed reports -- domestic violence.  If so, that's the end of him in Denver.
• It appears Seth Curry's positive may have had a role in the Wizards' positives, as well as Jayson Tatum's.
• At least five members of the Dallas Mavericks are sitting out tonight, per protocols.
• The NRA is bankrupt.

Day 308

• And that's both of them now...  Lost Seigfried today of Seigfried and Roy.  Roy died last year of COVID.
• ABC is doing a UFC Fight Night on Saturday for the first time...  Someone's desperate for programming...   
• Madison Keys will sit out the Australian Open -- positive for COVID.
• Virginia has scrapped the remainder of IT'S women's basketball season due to COVID concerns.
• Theo Epstein will serve as a consultant to Major League Baseball.
• The owner of the Raiders, Mark Davis, has bought the WNBA's Las Vegas team, the Aces.

Day 307

• You still think that Sturgis show was a good idea, Jericho???  Chris Jericho now all but admits he got coronavirus as a result of that performance, "maybe September" he said.
• Matt Jackson of the Young Bucks also, several days ago, announced he had the coronavirus in September as well, and may be still battling it to an extent with trying to get his cardio back up.  Gee, you think he might've gotten it from...   
• James Harden has basically thrown in the towel on the Houston Rockets.
• ... and, as I'm updating, word from The Athletic has a monster trade (four firsts, four pick-swaps) to the Nets basically in the works for Harden.
• Sports Illustrated's Ronan Nadkarni has basically thrown in the towel on the entire NBA 2021 season, stating the best case scenario for the league is getting everything ready for next year.  It's more and more likely, IMODO, that at least one NBA franchise will fail before then.  
• But that's nothing compared to the NHL, which is supposed to start tonight.  Commissioner Bettman has already said the league will lose billions, and that it'd have been cheaper to scrap the 2021 season entirely than play it.
• And the next MLB deal for ESPN will be at least $150 million/year less than this one.
• ESPN's Paul Finebaum, in saying players want to go to playoff teams, jokingly said that the only way to fix the CFP is to get Nick Saban to retire.  It'd be funny if it weren't fact.  The fact is, college football as you've known it is finished -- we're just down to how it actually collapses and what comes in it's place.   
• Zion Williamson is the latest COVID protocol departure from the NBA for a couple days.
• And there it is:  The James Harden Megadeal.

Brooklyn gets Harden, sacrifices the next SEVEN YEARS of drafts to Houston to get him (3 direct non-protected first-round picks the even numbered years, 4 first-round swaps the odd, and a first they got from Milwaukee)...

Wow.  If this isn't "star-driven league", and maybe even an indictment of what's about to happen to what's left of college sports...

Day 306

• According to Sports Media Watch, the NFL ratings for the year were only down 7%.  I want the evidence on that one -- the numbers I saw were indicating 20-30%.   
• Mike Milbury has been fired by NBC for misogynistic comments, stating the NHL would be better off in a bubble, without women to distract the players.
• Sports Media Watch also reports early predictions for Super Wild Card weekend appear to match about a 7% drop in viewers for the weekend.
• A 7% drop for the Super Bowl would make it the least watched in about 15 years, about equivalent to the 2003-2007 period.
• A massive superspreader event kicked off in Tuscaloosa after the Tide won the national football championship -- leading to "ROLL COVID" trending.
• And speaking of superspreader events, it sounds like we have our answer on Flat-Earther Kyrie Irving...  He said he was sat for "personal reasons".  It's not personal reasons -- video has now surfaced of him at a family birthday event, no masks.  He's in violation of NBA COVID protocols and is now under NBA investigation -- out at least the week.  Just perfect for a clueless Flat-Earther.   (Yahoo)
• And now, something I've been railing the Rethuglipigs about...  They will no longer be able to support the US Olympic Team -- and now, good chance, neither might the rest of us...   Identified as one of the insurrectionists at the Capitol last week, US Olympic swimmer Klete Keller, who was a three-time Olympian (Sydney, Athens, Beijing).  Double gold medalist in the distance freestyle relay, double bronze medalist in an individual freestyle event.  Many are now calling for his medals to be removed.
• As if the University of Kentucky wasn't in enough hot water for it's men's basketball NBA farm team at 1-6, calls to stop the team, team shirts being burned, etc. ...  because they knelt for racial unity before a game at the University of Florida over the weekend.  AW COME THE FUCK ON!   

Day 305

• Trump golf courses have now been PERMABANNED from the entire PGA Tour.
• Bill Belichick will NOT accept the Medal of Freedom from Trump.
• Ohio State has 13 players, including their top two kickers, out tonight for the title game.  Fully expect, and this is about 5 minutes into the first quarter, Bama wins by at least three TDs unless the demand comes in to make the game close.   
• WWE (Raw) Champion Drew McIntyre has tested positive for the coronavirus.
• Alabama wins another CFP title in another blowout.  At what point are we finally going to conclude the entire college football model has FAILED?   
• Here's why you shouldn't watch top-level college football again unless you are either a fan of the SEC, Ohio State, Clemson, or Oklahoma, or have an alumni interest in the school you are watching:

1. Alabama has won three of the seven CFP titles.  It has appeared in two other championship games.
2. Clemson has won two, and appeared in two more.
3. The average margin of the last three title games has been over 24 points.
4. Seven years, and only six different schools (Alabama five times, Clemson four, Ohio State twice, with Oregon, Georgia, and LSU once each) have played in the championship game.
5. In those seven years, only 11 different schools (Alabama and Clemson six times each, Ohio State and Oklahoma four times each, Notre Dame twice, with LSU, Washington, Georgia, Oregon, Florida State, and Michigan State once each -- and only LSU since 2017 in that one-timer group.)
6. Alabama or Clemson has been in the CFP tournament all seven years.
7. Only in the first year did neither school make it to the title game.
8. Alabama-Clemson has been the CFP final on three different occasions, and the semifinal once.

• Tonight was the first episode of Ken Jennings as interim host of Jeopardy.  He did more than a passable job.
• New Orleans-Dallas Monday night and Boston-Chicago Tuesday night were both postponed by the NBA tonight due to COVID protocols. How much longer do you think you can go before you throw in the towel??   

Day 304

• The PGA is looking for a new host of next year's PGA Championship.  It was going to be held on a Trump course, and obvious political events have nixed that.  I am more than a little surprised to that, given the amount of Trump support in the realms of professional golf.  Pro golf could be one the few sports you might actually see players boycott IN SUPPORT OF Donald Trump this year.   
• Appears to be a attempt to rig yesterday's game in the last minute toward the Colts with a missed call on a fourth-down pass attempt, but the Colts could not capitalize.
• Death toll is now six from the riot -- a second Capital Police officer has died due to effects from the riot.  This one was psychological, he committed suicide.
• And now the Celtics are down to eight players with protocols (at least seven of the nine players on the injury report are COVID protocols).  This is NOT a good idea to continue sports outside of a bubble, leagues!!!   
• DeMarcus Cousins and his Lakers replacement were both ejected in a win by the Lakers today over Cousins' Rockets.  Cousins got a technical in the first quarter for an altercation with the player who replaced him, Markeif Morris , Cousins then drew a Flagrant-2 for hitting LeBron James in the head.  Second ejection in the last four games (three T's and a F2 in that span)...

Sunday Super Wild Card Thoughts:

• UrinatingTree aside, you had to see this coming for the Steelers.  You don't start 11-0 and finish 12-4 and expect anyone to take you seriously.  That said, TWENTY-EIGHT IN THE FIRST?  Time to clean house, Captain Fatfuck on down.
• No surprise Baltimore goes over in what almost-certainly was the weekend's main event.  But when it does it stop being that Lamar Jackson is the Peyton Manning to Patrick Mahomes' Tom Brady, and when does it start being his time?
• And New Orleans get the win over the Bears in the Nickelodeon Game.  That said, there is a big piece of news which MIGHT tilt the balance of the NFC.  According to NFL.com, the rumor mill is now hot that Drew Brees may retire at the end of the season.

Next week:

Saturday early on FOX:  Rams at Packers

Saturday late on NBC:  Ravens at Bills

Sunday early on CBS:  Titans at Chiefs

Sunday late on FOX:  Bucs at Saints  which I now view as the true NFC Championship Game    

Day 303

• The 76ers are awaiting word from a contact-tracing report submitted to the NBA about people around Seth Curry, who tested positive for the coronavirus -- there is a possibility today's game with Denver might have to be postponed.
  
• They played today, under a degree of protest.  Lost 115-103 to Denver.
• And they had a point.  With nine players out, they could only suit seven -- and I thought eight WAS the minimum.

Some Saturday Super Wild Card thoughts:

• Didn't think Indy was worth that much in the final equation, so not surprised to see Buffalo moving on.
• More than a bit surprised the 12th Man is going home -- might indicate that, IF trying to prop the ratings is the story, it is Green Bay...
• But Tom Brady and the Bucs got through today.  A little closer than expected, but probably needed to at least make it look somewhat palatable.

Day 302

• We finally lost Lasorda today.  Tommy Lasorda passed today at age 93, after a long illness.
• Tonight is Alex Trebek's final episode of Jeopardy.
• One day after the first episode of ABC's The Chase, which features the three greatest Jeopardy champions as the mercenaries attempting to keep players from the big money.  ABC and the host of the show dedicated the nine-episode series to Trebek in a top-of-the-show statement.
• Appears to be the beginnings of a COVID outbreak in the NBA -- Robert Williams of the Celtics is positive (placing two more in the protocol), as did Seth Curry of the 76ers (but wasn't told til he had been on the bench the entire first quarter).  The 76ers have to stay in New York for contact tracing and testing.
• At least six top-flight superstar MLB pitchers have been named in a lawsuit against the Angels by a visiting clubhouse manager who apparently provided them (and others) with illegal substances to aid in gripping the ball.  I'm STILL wondering how this doesn't at least get a criminal investigation going.  That's the VISITING clubhouse manager.  

1. Gerrit Cole
2. Justin Verlander
3. Corey Kluber
4. Adam Wainwright
5. Max Scherzer
6. Felix Hernandez

• At least almost a week before the start of the NHL season, the Dallas Stars will not be able to begin because of coronavirus protocols.
• Trump's ban from Twitter is now permanent -- he is also banned from Twitch.
• The impeachment of Trump over the Capitol riot probably goes to the House on Monday.

Day 301: The Day After

• There is a report that says Tommy John has the coronavirus.
• His son is an anti-vaxxer idiot -- and proclaims the report to be fake.  Fuck you.  
• Because of COVID, the Cleveland Browns will be coached this weekend by Mike Priefer -- who once said that gays should be "nuked".  And the NFL will do nothing...  Michael Sam, anyone???   
• One of the most popular emojis on Twitch, the "Pogchamp" emoji, has been removed from the service.  Why?  The man pictured in the emoji, Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez, was caught inciting part of Wednesday's rioting in Washington, DC on his Twitter account.  He is also a believer that COVID and the vaccine are part of Bill Gates' "Agenda 21" depopulation movement, a common right-wing conspiratorial point.
• The head of the Capitol Police has resigned, taking heat for apparently taking sides with the protestors.
• One of his subordinates has apparently died as a result of the riot, bringing the death toll to at least five now?
• About 5 Pacific on Thursday night, Awesome Games Done Quick has passed the $1,000,000 mark for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

Day 300: It's on.

A riot, on the day Congress is working on the Electoral College, has locked down the Capitol most of the day.

The scene is largely reminiscent of the armed mob which attempted to descend on Michigan's capital about a month into this Covidiocy.  The US Capitol was violently breached by Trump supporters this morning as a first counterattack in the Second American Civil War declared by BLM, etc. seven months ago.

There is some discussion that either the Congress is back to meeting in the Capitol to continue the attempt to certify the election (MSN) OR that they are actually in a secret location and FINALLY ready to invoke the 25th Amendment -- this after the National Guard was activated to quell the riot, Trump stood them down, Pence reactivated them.

The situation is extremely fluid.  It DOES appear that an overthrow effort is in it's nascent stages in the state of Washington -- that Capitol has been stormed as well.

At least one person has been killed in the riot, shot by the police.

Donald Trump's Twitter account has FINALLY been softlocked for at least 12 hours (took place in the last four), and at least two posts have been removed from the service for inciting violence.

In short:  It's on.

I guess it finally took the last vestiges of the certification of the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (plus a sweep of the two Senate seats in Georgia for the Democrats, giving the Democrats the tiebreaker control of the body on January 22nd or whenever they seat) to do it.

Trump has to go, and he has to go tonight.  Whatever legal or quasi-legal means to remove him, he has to go tonight, or we can kiss it all goodbye, soon.

More as it becomes apparent.

• And, about 7 Eastern, a new threat against the Capitol.  Back on lockdown.
• Now word about 8 Eastern that the Senators are returning.
• CBS News now reports (8:40 PM Eastern) that members of the Cabinet are, in fact, in communication with each other to remove Donald Trump from the Presidency via the 25th Amendment.  The 25th requires that the Vice-President (who is not involved as of yet) and the Cabinet declare the President unfit.
• Facebook has (9 Eastern) just banned Trump for at least one full day.
• At least one major manufacturing group and the Miami Herald (and Miami was one of the major centers which got Trump Florida in November!!) are calling for the invocation of the 25th.
• Now, so has the House Judiciary Committee.  But, again, the 25th MUST be invoked by the VP and a majority of the Cabinet.
• Large weapons caches and homemade bombs have been discovered near the National Committee offices of both parties this evening.
• Trump's deputy Press Secretary has resigned.
• His Secretary of Transportation is considering it.
• The first major challenge has been rebuffed magnificently by the Republican Senate:  At 10:10 PM Eastern tonight, the US Senate rejected the challenge to Arizona's electoral votes going to Joe Biden by a margin of 93 against to 6 for.
• Pigfucker former football coach and new US Senator Tommy Tuberville was one of the six affirmatives.
• It is apparent that the woman shot and killed was inside the Capitol and going after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
• An ABC News analyst (I didn't get his name) said that a YouGov poll today says that 45% of the Republicans polled (no clue as to how many were in the poll) actually supported the storming of the Capitol building today.
• With about 115 votes still to cast (10:50 PM Eastern), the House of Representatives has also rejected the Arizona challenge.  However, unlike the Senate, a significant number of Republicans (over 100 now, with the voting still going on past time), are in support.
• At least three others have died as a result of health emergencies during the riots in DC today.
• Now the Washington Post has added it's call for Trump's immediate removal.
• 121 Republican House members voted to affirm the Arizona challenge in the House.  Still failed by a significant margin.
• After a similar smackdown of the Pennsylvania challenge, sufficient electoral votes are now in.  Joe Biden is the next President, Kamala Harris the next VP -- unless Trump is removed between now and the 20th.
• And a nation now holds it's breath, especially with a near-fight on the House floor just beforehand.

Day 299

• More pressure on the English Premier League to call it off.  Now up to forty positive tests, and lockdowns throughout England.
• The Browns have more positives (two coaches, two players, and head coach Kevin Stefanski), so Mike Priefer will be the acting head coach for Super Wild Card Weekend. 
• And, later on, apparently two members of the Browns got caught drag racing...
• Tonight is the Heisman Trophy ceremony -- two Alabama players and Clemson QB Lawrence are among the four finalists, and a third Alabama player finished fifth!
• Two important days in American politics the next two days:  Today is the two Georgia runoff Senate seats -- and if the Dems win them both, they win the Senate for the next two years...
• ... if the Congress, after closed-session debate after the challenges tomorrow, approves Joe Biden's victory in the Electoral College.
• Kota Ibushi is the new IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental Champion, defeating Tetsuya Naito on night one and Jay White on night two of Wrestle Kingdom 15.
  
• DeVonta Smith of Alabama won the 2020 Heisman Trophy.
• Significance?  He's a wide receiver.  He becomes the first non-QB since Derrick Henry of Alabama won in 2015.  He becomes only the third non-QB this century, all running backs, to win the award and be able to keep it.

Day 298: The NFL's Black Monday...

• The second head coach to be fired is the LA Chargers'.  Anthony Lynn is out after four years.  "Falling short of expectations", Spanos?  You have no fans, no hope, and no real future.  Fold the team and get out of the fucking NFL!  Fuck you, Spanos!   
• The third is Jacksonville's Doug Marrone.  That's what happens when you go 1-15 and win the #1 Draft Pick.  After winning 10 games his first season and making it to the Conference Championship, Marrone's Jaguars have gone 12-36!  They won as many games (including playoffs) in 2017-18 as they have the three seasons since.  They fired the GM during the season.  This is another good candidate for NFL contraction, if the league finally loses it's status as a mint to make money.  
• The Lions (November 28) , Texans (October 5) and Falcons (October 12) already have fired their head coaches.  So that's six, and it's only 1 PM Eastern.
• If the 2021 March Madness is held, it will be held entirely in the state of Indiana.  Good fucking luck.   
• In a signal that $Cam may be about done in the NFL, he's saying it's too early to tell whether he'll accept a backup role.
• Numerous calls for the NFL to investigate last night's thrown Week 17 game with the Eagles  (several of them from Sports Illustrated).  Word is also leaking out, through "sources", Carson Wentz wants out.
• This IS going to be as bad as 2020, if not worse, isn't it???  About 5:15 this evening, announced from the Dodgers, the passing of Sandi Scully, Vin's wife of 47 years.
• Marty Scurll has been fired from Ring of Honor Wrestling for his improprieties exposed in the #SpeakingOut campaign from last summer.
• Today begins the final week of Alex Trebek's tenure on Jeopardy!  
• Kevin Durant will quarantine due to high-risk contacts for COVID, and miss four games as a result.
• Villanova's men's basketball team will postpone three for the same reason.

I know a lot of this is probably salt from a rival team, but the Spidey Sense is definitely tingling on this one...

Did the Philadelphia Eagles take a dive last night to put the Washington Football Team into the playoffs?

Many New York Giants fans think so, and I do have to wonder, after seeing two things...

One:  Why, after Jalen Hurts scores two rushing touchdowns in the first half and looks like he's moving the offense, he gets pulled in a three-point game for completely-unproven Nate Sundfeld because the coach wanted to get him some reps...

Two:  This was basically the last meaningful shot the Eagles had -- 4th and inches for Washington -- the two minute warning has just occurred -- midfield, and the Football Team is only up six points...

So why is Washington going for it, first off?

And then...  (It'll probably make you have to watch it on YouTube itself...)

The Philadelphia Eagles appear to have thrown last night's game to fuck the Giants.  HOO BOY -- who made THAT CALL in the league office, and why would anyone, at this juncture, want to bail out Dan Snyder??!?!????

2020-21 Start of Playoffs NFL Power Rankings

AFC:

1. It's Kansas City, and then it's everybody else.

Super Bowl LV is so looking like "Kansas City 41 -- Insert Fill In The Blank 17", it's not even funny.

There's a reason that Kansas City, as of right now, is +180 (9-5) to win the Super Bowl, and the next team, Green Bay, is +450 (9-2).

The reason they are so prohibitive of favorites is one narrative -- The New Man, Patrick Mahomes.

I don't need to tell you that the league has now spent THREE seasons basically installing this guy as probably the next Brady, perhaps even more than that.  I think it's clear that, barring an injury, an incident, or a change in the narrative, the Chiefs are winning five Super Bowls at some point in the next 8-10 years, counting last year as the first.

I think they are so prohibitive of political favorites that you may actually consider the unthinkable -- that the Chiefs are going to be prohibitive favorites to be the first team EVER to win three in a row.  And that might be just the beginning.

But there's two major hitches:  First, Kansas City, though it's fan base is growing with the bandwagoners, does NOT have a national following.  This Super Bowl is likely to be the least-watched in 30 years.  Though Mahomes and KC are a Hell of a story (only eight times has the Lombardi Trophy been successfully defended in the first place), it just doesn't seem Chiefs Nation has the reach of even Raider Nation, much less Cowboy or Packer Nation.

The second is the White Right.  You look up and down the list of teams in these playoffs.  How many Black quarterbacks starting?  Hell, New Orleans passed up the guy they just picked up in the offseason to go with an unproven talent because he was White.  Yeah, I'll say it, I believe it.

Get through those two hitches, though, and this is a fait accompli of massive proportions.

Next game:  January 16 or 17, TBD.

2.  I guess you have to go Buffalo here, but that gives you an idea of just how far down you have to go from one to the next.

Pittsburgh is flat on it's back.  Cleveland isn't ready and I'm not sure the league wants to showcase them anyway.  One of Baltimore and Tennessee, who would otherwise probably be contending for #2, will be out after the first weekend.

So Buffalo, who inherits the Earth the departure of Tom Brady from the AFC East, takes the mantle of "Any Given Sunday", which would give even the least of teams hope in the NFL going forward.

But is that the QUIETEST 13-3 in NFL history?  Not necessarily quiet because of fraud, like, say, the Pack last year.  More quiet because of irrelevance.

Next game:  Home against Indianapolis, first game Saturday.  CBS

3.  Tennessee, smidge over Baltimore for the White Right angle.

Tennessee has always has kind of a sleeper this year, with the running game being the forefront.

They're a very good team, but I think it's clear they are a step (or more) below Kansas City, and I'm not sure they have an up on Buffalo either.  That Green Bay game could've spoken wonders, but...

Next game:  Home to Baltimore, first game Sunday.  ABC/ESPN.

4) Baltimore

You know there's always one game where it seems two teams which should be in Divisional Weekend are playing each other on Wild Card Weekend.

Though I think Baltimore has the bigger star, I think Tennessee has the narrative here.  I could very easily see Lamar Jackson as that junior quarterback (a Peyton Manning or the like) who doesn't quite get to the top as much as he is seen to as "should" -- and this is for the same reason I see the second problem with KC.

Next game:  At Tennessee, first game Sunday, ABC/ESPN.

5) Cleveland

Oh, but for a couple earlier weeks in the season for Pittsburgh to fall flat on ass.

Next game:  At Pittsburgh, Sunday nightcap  NBC family

6)  Pittsburgh

11-0 to frauds, basically overnight.

Next game:  Home to Cleveland, Sunday nightcap, NBC family

7) Indianapolis

That win over Green Bay looks like a distant memory now.

Next game:  At Buffalo, first game Saturday, CBS.

Predictions, as I see the narrative now:

Buffalo over Indy

Cleveland over Pittsburgh

Tennessee over Baltimore in a tight game

Kansas City over Cleveland

Buffalo over Tennessee

Kansas City destroys Buffalo to win the AFC easily.

NFC:

1)  I'm still going with Tom Brady here.

I really think Green Bay at #1 is a SURROGATE.  There was one team, and one alone, which destroyed the Packers in the regular season.  The Indy win was an overtime GotW, the loss to Minnesota a flat performance, completely unexpected.

Green Bay was the highest scoring team in the NFL this year, held to ten points in a 38-10 romp.  No other team held the Pack under 22 (and that was the loss to Minnesota!).  

You know what that reminds me of???  San Francisco, last year.

And with everything appearing to go toward Mahomes, you really have two angles here if they go with Tampa:  Does Tom Brady get #7 as the White Right quarterback?  Or does he pass the torch truly as The Next Man to Mahomes?

As a result, I think, even though with the extra game and road movement, I do think Tampa Bay has the narrative here.

Next game:  At Washington, Saturday nightcap, NBC

2) As much as I hem and haw, and as much I don't think they're making it out of Divisional Weekend because they're going to be beaten by Tampa, I have to go Green Bay here, basically for lack of other options.

Especially if they are going to play the race card here, Russell Wilson is a question mark.  The Rams and the whole LA Experiment are as fraudulent as they were two years ago.  You still have to convince me the league won't screw New Orleans a third time, as well as can Brees' rib cases hold up.  Washington?  Please...  And the Bears...  still suck.

And there's one more very important angle which really will not have me dispute any Packer fan, even with difference of belief regarding the legitimacy of the games, about the Packers playing in the Super Bowl with two wins at Lambeau:  Packer Nation.  Again, this is going to be the least watched Super Bowl in circa 30 years.  This game, this league, NEEDS a stalwart fanbase who's going to cushion the losses.

Next game:  January 16 or 17, TBD.

The league has, really, two options here to save the ratings -- this is one...

3) Seattle is the other.  But, again, can the league afford two Black quarterbacks in a Super Bowl in which a large part of White America has functionally turned it's back on the National Religion?

It certainly has the biggest cult fanbase in the NFL in the 12th Man, but is that going to be enough?

Next game:  Home to the Rams, Saturday middle game, FOX

4) New Orleans COULD, very easily, get to the Super Bowl.  It would make all the sense in the world, and be an effective replay of Super Bowl XXXVII, where the team that got screwed (now, twice!) is basically there to play patsy for the NFL's narrative.

That said, two major concerns:  The fix plays into the kayfabe:  The biggest thing about New Orleans is:  "Don't tell me, show me."

And, secondly, does Drew Brees have enough ribcage left to get to Tampa for the Super Bowl?

Next game:  Home to Chicago, Sunday middle game, CBS/Amazon/Nickolodeon kid's based broadcast

5) The LA Rams are a product that the league still would want the LA Experiment to APPEAR to work.

There are three MAJOR problems, however:

a) The Chargers are done as a going concern.  They exist simply as a printing press for about the money of the six fans the team has left.  The NFL needs to chuck the Chargers and Spanos, create an expansion franchise someplace else, and cut losses.

b) You still have major questions about the future of LA in general, especially as the city and region continue to deteriorate.  You think you had it bad coming to Raider games in Oakland and in that part of the Bay Area?  That may be nothing to what Inglewood might look like if and when fans are allowed to return...

c) ... and when are fans going to be allowed to return?  I mean, if they don't recall Newsom, and especially with the second strain now becoming apparent in the States, are we looking 2023 before crowds can come back? If the "freedumb" Covidiots out here have their way, 2024?

Of what good is a shiny new stadium no one is going to be allowed into going to be, for the city and for the NFL?

Next game:  At Seattle, Saturday middle game, FOX

6) Chicago just kind of is...  there as the last team really standing of "everybody else" in the NFC.

Next game:  At New Orleans, Sunday middle game, CBS/Amazon/Nickelodeon kid's based broadcast

7) And Washington and that entire division need separate investigations.  The league needs rid of Daniel Snyder and needs rid of him yesterday.

Next game:  Home to Tampa Bay, Saturday nightcap, NBC

Predictions:

Tampa over Washington

Seattle over LA Rams

New Orleans over Chicago

Tampa over Green Bay

Seattle over New Orleans through screwjon

Tampa over Seattle

Kansas City 41- Tampa Bay 17