2023 NFL Week Six Fine Blotter

Yes, I'm starting it early.

There's one on Friday which I don't know if it's going to be on the Gameday Accountability.  (If it is, I'll move it to the correct spot.)

But, from Friday:

• Seattle Seahawks
• Jamal Adams:  $50,000 for abuse of the independent concussion protocol adjudicator.
• I'm not sure how I'm going to make on that:  To me, that should be an ejection or a suspension too, but I'm not sure which column I wanna throw that one on.

The rest come Saturday at 1 PM Pacific on NFL.com and will be reported here in this post.

MAGA League Baseball Does It Again, and AGAIN, AND AGAIN...

So it's not enough for the misogynist Marlins to predetermine they needed to fire the first female GM in the league's history, playoff berth be damned...

It's not enough for Aubrey Huff to let his MAN FLAG fly and slam his former team for interviewing their bench coach, the first female bench coach in the history of the league, to become the first female manager in the league (a post at which she served several partial games this year)...

No, we have someone across the San Francisco Bay who has thrown in toward the genocide of transgenders across the country.

Brain-dead and completely blind to the room A's owner John Fisher, in his continuing quest to show he is a MAGA pig (and, hence, hates the Bay Area and everything it represents), threw a maximum Presidential donation to pro-trans-murder Presidential candidate Doug Burnum, according to San Francisco area news aggregator SFGATE.

Look, shithead:  We know you hate Oakland.

It sounds like we know a reason why, and I hope some San Francisco transgender belts you square across the face (since we know nothing else will get through, given the attempts on the parts of A's fans to get your ass to sell the team to -- oh, I don't know...  SOMEONE WHO GIVES A ROYAL SHIT ABOUT ANYTHING????)

You are a transphobic jackass, and I know you won't care, short of actual pain, because it's clear you hate everything about this sport except it's money and it's MAGA...

How many people are you going to get killed, if your man succeeds?  Asking for a friend!!!

2023 NFL Week Six Ratings Report

From Sports Media Watch:

• Late National (FOX, Philly-Jets lead):  12.8 rating, 26.1 million viewers.  
• Down 3% ratings, up 3% viewers from last year's Week 6 National.
• But it is the most-watched window of the season so far.
• In fact, Jon Lewis (the sole writer on SMW) notes the top three windows all have involved the Jets!  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....
• Monday (ESPN, Dallas-Chargers):  10.6, 19.6 million
• Up over 50% YoY (58% ratings, 63% viewers) -- not sure how much of that is the Cowboys and how much of that is the ABC simulcast due to the actors strike.
• Best single Monday night game since Week 1.
• Sunday Night (NBC, Giants-Buffalo):  9.0, 16.7 million
• Down about 20% in both metrics.
• Worst-rated and least-watched Sunday nighter of the season.
• Early Regional (FOX, 49ers-Browns lead):  7.2, 13.9 million
• Basically even in both metrics.  Down a tick rating, up a couple ticks viewers.
• Thursday (Amazon, KC-Denver):  6.4 local rating, 13.8 million total viewers.
• Only the third most-watched Thursday nighter.
• Sunday Single (CBS, Seattle-Cincinnati lead):  6.8, 13.3 million
• Down about 20% in both metrics.
• Easily and not close, the lowest-rated and least-watched singleheader window.
• London (NFL Network, Baltimore-Tennessee):  2.3, 4.3 million.

Suspension Blotter: Another PED fail...

Well, we probably now know what made this player so reliable for the Colts:

• Indianapolis Colts:  Grover Stewart will have to sit six games, he just got dinged for PEDs.

2023 NFL Week Six Score Report

That was almost the sixth game this week the NFL fucked with.

And yes, two of the others were the champagne-poppers for the '72 Dolphins.

Many "key stats" this week...

• Gonna have to look to see if I can find a lower one, but this was one of the lowest scoring weeks in memory:  Only 36.73 points per game.
• Season average is down to just 43.4.
• As a result, only two of the fifteen games cashed the over and one pushed.
• Season record on the over is now a dismal 35-56-2.
• If you bet $100 on every game to exceed the Vegas total, you'd be down about $403 a week!  Over $2400 for the year so far.
  
• Home teams, at the least, went 10-4.
• Pushing the home team record four games over .500 to 47-43.
• Favorites went 11-4 straight up last week.
• 60-31 for the season.
• And another good week for the betting public:  10-5 against the number.
• 48-39-4 for the season.
• And a rarity this far in.  If you bet $100 that every favorite would cover the spread without exception, you'd actually be $463+ ahead for the season!!!
• Team with more penalties was 7-5.
• 48-31 for the year.
• Here's what portends to what I think will be a half-million dollar charity Saturday for NFL players on Fine Blotter:  Not counting fracases like the pre-game one in Cleveland with the 49ers, 196 penalties were accepted in the 15 games.  Just over 13 a game.
• 1,155 for the season (12.6 per game)
• The aforementioned Cleveland-SF game had 25!
• The Monday nighter had 20.
• Two Cliffhangers this week.
• Meaning only 13 of the first 93 games this year have had a tying or go-ahead score in the last two minutes.
• By contrast, eight of the games had a Last Chance Miss, being a chance to tie or win (feasibly) in the final two minutes and failing.
• Twice as many Last Chance Misses as Cliffhangers, 26 total.
• The low scores meant 10 of the 15 games were decided within one score.
• 48 of the 93 for the season now.
• Three non-competitive games only -- that were never within one score at any point in the fourth quarter.
• A third of the games this season have had that happen, 31.
  

2023 NFL Week Six Fine Blotter Part Zero: Heads Up

Look for a sizeable fine blotter next week if the early stuff today is any indication:

• It's midway through the first quarter in Cleveland with the 49ers, and I think I've already counted six fines.  Four for the Niners for starting a pre-game scuffle, and a late hit and a face mask both flagged on the Browns during the first drive.
• Kyle Hamilton of the Ravens became the first NFL player to be ejected in an NFL game outside the United States for a helmet-to-helmet defenseless receiver play.
• And then, later in the same game, looked like another ejectable offense as Lamar Jackson got a helmet-to-helmet at the end of the 3rd quarter in London.

 

Backer went helmet to helmet on Lamar here. Throw him out the league
pic.twitter.com/ywblm8PrxS

— Bird Bath Banks (@BarstoolBanks) October 15, 2023

• And we might as well just chalk up DK Metcalf as a FIVE-TIME LOSER.  This will be Fine #5...

What is wrong with DK Metcalf? always getting these penalties on CBs.pic.twitter.com/4BH8Abwxwjhttps://t.co/Qze9KtxM2U

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) October 15, 2023

• Big fracas in the Giants-Bills Sunday nighter at the end of the 3rd quarter -- that'll be about four more fines.
   

2023 NFL Week Five Fine Blotter

Twenty-nine this week.  (In two fewer games no less, with a lot fewer penalties called per game (see below).)

This oughta be fun.

• Atlanta
• Drew Dalman:  $6,301 for a flagged unnecessary roughness penalty.
• Buffalo got FOUR in their 25-20 loss to Jacksonville.
• AJ Epenesa:  $21,855 for roughing the passer.
• Tyler Matakevich:  $10,181 for unnecessary roughness.
• And, for the second week in a row, Ed Oliver gets two to become the season's second FOUR-TIME LOSER:
• $13,659 for his third unsportsmanlike conduct fine in two weeks.
• and $16,391 for roughing the passer six minutes before.
• WHERE IS THE SUSPENSION????
• Oliver also sent an Instagram on Monday derogatory at the officials.
• NONE of the four fouls have been flagged.
• Carolina's first of the year.
• Vonn Bell:  $16,391 for unnecessary roughness.
• Dallas matched Buffalo's week:  FOUR and one player got two!
• Jayron Kearse got $10,927 for taunting.
• Leighton Vander Esch got $18,219.
• And Donovan Wilson got two unnecessary roughness fines:
• $10,927 on the first offensive play for SF on a face mask.
• $16,391 for a late hit or something, the same play Jayron Kearse got fined for taunting.
• Denver
• Garrett Bolles, $10,927 for unflagged unnecessary roughness in the line.
• Detroit
• Alex Anzalone, TWO TIME LOSER:  $13,922 this time for roughing the passer.
• Aidan Hutchinson, $11,473 for unnecessary roughness.
• Houston
• Blake Cashman, $8,848
• Indianapolis
• Zack Moss, $6,330 for damage to the goal post -- dunking on the TD.
• And Jacksonville now means no teams lasted six weeks without at least one NFL fine:
• Jeremiah Ledbetter got a light roughing the passer number:  $5,611
• A second 15-yard penalty, also flagged on the same fourth-quarter play, was not fined.
• Kansas City
• L'Jaruis Sneed, $13,659 for unsportsmanlike conduct.  Sneed was the player who removed his helmet after being correctly called for pass interference, then rigged for the refs picking it up and ignoring two other fouls on the same 4th and 12 play for Minnesota with five minutes to go.
• That is the third Jake The Asshole Special -- The "Phony Baloney Rig-aroni With a Side of Baloney" count:  Three plays which openly rigged the result of games were later fined that, had they been called correctly, the game would've ended differently.
• Las Vegas
• Marcus Peters, $13,378 for a horse-collar tackle.
• Los Angeles Rams
• Derion Kendrick, $5,107, also for a horse-collar tackle.
• Miami
• Tyreek Hill, should've been more for his multi-year record of it:  $10,927 for taunting.
• New England
• Kyle Dugger, $20,266 for an uncalled roughing the passer which knocked Carr of New Orleans out of the game.
• Matt Slater, $14,819 for another uncalled unnecessary roughness.
• New Orleans
• Marshon Lattimore, $16,391 for unnecessary roughness.
• Philadelphia
• Reed Blankenship, $4,843, probably for altercation involvement.
• Dallas Goedert, $11,473 for a horse-collar tackle
• Pittsburgh adds to its league-leading total with another two-shot:
• TJ Watt, the "HIGH END TALENT!"
• $11,473 for unnecessary roughness
• and $13,659 for removing his helmet after the game-sealing tackle.
• And San Francisco wraps up the list:
• George Kittle got $13,659 for "Fuck Dallas" T-shirt.
• Aaron Banks, $10,440 for unnecessary roughness.

Totals:

• 29 fines, 150 total  
• From 18 different teams, with every NFL team having been assessed at least one fine now.
• 26 players, 130 different players
• Fine total for the week:  $358,453
• For the season:  $2,026,990
• And it's about the average:  15 of the 29 fouls were not flagged.
• Meaning 77 of the 150 fines were not flagged.

2023 NFL Week Five Ratings Report -- and a couple bytes...

• To no one's surprise:  After being returned to the United States, Sergio Brown was arrested as a fugitive regarding his mother's death.
• The warrant does indicate Murder 1.
  
• Tyreek Hill wants the pass interference review rule back.  Ha!  Fat chance...    
• COO John Roth and senior VP and general counsel Kathryn D'Angelo are out with the Sabres and Bills -- they're in a romantic relationship.
  

Week 5 Ratings from Sports Media Watch:

• A report appears to state at least some of the young-female increase this season is led by...  The Cowboys???????
• Thursday (Bears-Commanders):  5.6, 11.7 million.  Double-digit increases, again.
• Sunday Night (Cowboys-Niners):  12.1, 24.3 million.  30+% up from a bad matchup Week 5 last year.  Best Week 5 in NBC Sunday Night Football history.
  
• Sunday National (CBS, largely Chiefs-Vikings):  11.6, 23.1 million.  About 5% down from last year.
• Sunday Single (FOX, probably largely Giants-Dolphins):  8.4, 16.8 million.  About a 10% increase from last year.
• Sunday Regional (CBS, probably led Ravens-Steelers):  6.7, 12.6 million.  Down just a tick in both numbers.
• London (Jacksonville-Buffalo on NFL Network):  2.7, 5.1 million.  Down about 5% ratings, just a tick on the viewers from a Packer-Giant game last year.
• To give an idea, the Atlanta game Saturday night was the best for baseball:  But only 3.3 million.
  

Baseball: Yeowch.

Texas and Arizona have 2-0 away sweeps.  That's 8-0 away for those two teams.

Baltimore and the Dodgers are one loss from elimination.  Cobb County even only went 1-1 in their yard.

Are we getting to the point where the grind of the regular season is just too much and that some degree of "management" is going to be required?

Are we literally down to "Do you want to win the division or the World Series?"

2023 NFL Week Five Score Report

You know what happened, and you know why I can't mention it right now.

And anyone lamenting the Packers tonight?  This was coming.  5-12 at best...  And that might be WITH the abortions in Chicago and Minnesota!

• 45 PPG for the week
• Season:  44.68
• Home teams:  7-6 for the week
• 37-39 for the season
• Over went 5-9
• 33-44-1 for the season
• 8-6 straight up and against the spread.
• Season:  38-34-4 against the number, 49-27 straight up.
• Stat of the week:  Team with more penalties was 10-2.
• 41-26 for the year.
• Penalties way down:  153, not even 11 a game
• Total:  959 for the 78 games.  Little more than 12 a game now.
• Two Cliffhangers:  Houston and Pittsburgh
• Only 11 for the five weeks.
• Six games finished within one score.
• 38, one less than half, for the season.
• Five non-competitive games
• 28 of those for the year.
• Four Last Chance Misses
• 18 for the year
  

2023 NFL Week Four Fine Blotter

So let's see how many lies the NFL wants to tell THIS WEEK...

Ah, a few fewer this week.  I see only 20 on the number this week.

• Arizona
• Jalen Thompson, $18,222 for lowering his helmet on a tackle.
• Ezekiel Turner, $10,927 for a face mask
• Atlanta
• Bud Dupree, $10,927 for unsportsmanlike conduct.
• DeMarcco Hellams, $4,314 for involvement in an altercation.
• Buffalo with FOUR this week...
• Stefon Diggs:  $13,659 for unsportsmanlike conduct.  Appears to have been an unflagged taunting foul for an illegal TD celebration.
• DaQuan Jones:  $16,391 for roughing the passer.
• And Ed Oliver got two:  Two unsportsmanlike conducts, $27,318 total, a minute and five seconds apart.  (And yes, that means he goes on the "should've been ejected" list)
• Both for grabbing his crotch.
• Houston
• Kurt Hanish:  $4,879 for altercation involvement.
• Indianapolis
• EJ Speed:  $10,927 for a late hit
• Kansas City
• Jawaan Taylor:  $16,391 for the facemask which resulted in a safety in the game.
• Las Vegas had three.
• Amik Robertson:  $6,297 for unnecessary roughness.
• Robert Spillane:  $13,972 for a blindside block.
• Jerry Tillery:  $10,927 for a FLAGRANT late hit out of bounds.
• The hit earned Tillery the second ejection of the 2023 season.
• Minnesota
• Justin Jefferson:  $10,927 for post-touchdown unflagged taunting.
• New England
• Christian Barmore:  $10,927 for a face mask.
• New York Jets
• Jordan Whitehead:  $21,855 for unnecessary roughness -- aggravated for the TWO-TIME LOSER in three weeks.  No flag, though.
• Philadelphia
• AJ Brown:  $10,769 for taunting, aided in sending the game to overtime.
• Seattle
• Geno Smith:  $10,769 for taunting.
• Tampa Bay
• Mike Greene:  But if this is a "Hit On The Quarterback", why only $4,170 -- something of the line of altercation involvement?
• He was flagged for roughing the passer, but then why only $4170??

The totals:

• 11 teams (only CAR and JAX are clean for the year)
• 19 players (two two-time losers)
• 121 total fines for 105 different players
• 62 of the 121 (over half!) unflagged!!!
• $234,731 for the week, over $1.6 million ($1,668,537) for the year.

I think this will pass muster...

I really can't go talking about the different situations with the NFL, but something viewers caught in last night's Washington-Chicago game got the attention of Dov Kleiman (and if you don't think the game was for Dick Butkus, I don't know what to tell you...).

What in the world is this?

During last night's game, someone using a #Commanders case phone was standing behind #Bears OC Luke Getsy and directed it at his playbook, possibly recording it?

This seems really odd - what do you make of this?

(h/t @DrunkRyanPoles) https://t.co/EcL8Dad4rX pic.twitter.com/MbaDZAF7Pa

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) October 6, 2023

At best, that's a BAD visual there. He or she's got an NFL overlay on and he or she has credentials.

You best fucking hope this isn't what we think it is, Elon...

YOU SICK FUCK!!!

Elon, you best hope either a) this isn't true or b) it isn't who we think it might be...

BREAKING: Police have found human remains and evidence of cannibalism in Elon Musk's LA home that he sold in 2022 https://t.co/pYPoe0gPfx

— KnowNothing (@KnowNothingTV) October 5, 2023

Why I can no longer, in the eyes of those being attacked, continue to attack the NFL...

You may notice that I am making good that you won't be seeing Jake The Asshole or much of the rest of Twitter over the course of the next little while -- perhaps far longer than a little while.

Two subjects (which will go unnamed, but at least one is all over the news openly in the NFL, including the NFL's support of the overkill!) are basically forbidden by friends of mine who read the blog.  One, due to the support of transgender and other such communities by the person involved.  The other, because it treads a bit too close (even though I tried to separate) to right-wing talking points of those wanting to kill transgenders and other what right-wing pig Hillary Clinton called "unpopular opinions"...

(Never minding that, up to and including the National Guard, the post-(First) Civil War Constitution is an imposition of rights AGAINST the majority demographic to protect the human and civil rights of such "unpopular opinions".  Brown vs. Board of Education.  Loving vs. Virginia.  Lawrence vs. Texas.  Obergefell vs. Hodges.  And I could go on.)

And if you want to see why things have come to a flashpoint, I submit to you Martina Navritalova and her bigotry (for which she needs her fucking head smashed in), basically going full Nazi because she's offended by the concept of Dylan Mulvaney endorsing sports bras and all that.

Never mind that she's under so many steroids, I'm beginning to wonder if she has finally taken the last steps to "MAN UP"...

And then I submit to you 43-year-old Joshua "Taco" Pleasnick, soon to be of Waupun, WI, but should be of Six Feet Under, DEAD.

After the Republican Assembly in Wisconsin decided to let their transphobe flags fly, Democratic governor Tony Evers protested with a number of transgender students.

"Taco" walked in to the Capitol, shirtless, about 2 PM yesterday with a handgun and a demand to see Gov. Evers.

He was arrested, posted bail, and seven hours later returned with a deer-hunting rifle!

WHY DIDN'T THEY SHOOT HIS FUCKING NAZI ASS?

What, too many people like where I used to live believe he's right on this shit???

SERIOUSLIKE?

But, as long as the situation is becoming this flashpoint, I have had concern stated rightly to me that there might well be (though I do not intend it) support of evil Nazi talking points, even though I have tried to use my own two eyes and my own brain as "research".

I think that is one of the things separating me from the numerology bullshit.

But, as long as we have supposed "enlightened" people straight out of the fucking movie Idiocracy, some of my friends can no longer believe that separation.

Since I value them as friends, they shall be listened to -- beginning with the wish that MarTERFna and "Taco" both get their heads bashed in!

2023 NFL Week Four Score And Ratings Report

Yes, I deleted the post.  I probably am not going to be able to do any more than number-crunching for the time being.  The Politicals are even going to be on ice for a while.

I'm not even going to be able to do After Further Review anymore, especially Jake The Asshole.  My readers find out what THAT motherfucker believes outside of football (even with my dis-endorsement and statement vis-a-vis the collation of some of the plays of the week), and... 

Just start looking up #Rigged on X.  Videos are popping up pretty well for many of the fucked plays.

The Monday nighter was a joke -- 11 sacks for the Seahawks is the most in a game for a team in five years, and tied for #9 all-time.  At least 18 games now have had a team get 11 sacks.  A special-teams ejection for the Giants was missed, even though the personal foul was called for the punch/forearm!

Last week of the full 16-game schedule for the time being.

• 43.56 points per game for the week.  Season average:  44.61.
• First London game this week as well, so home teams went 7-8 -- 30-33 for the year.
• Over went 7-9, 28-35-1 for the year.
• 10-5-1 against the number, in a rare week for favorites.  And even rarer, even this far into the season:  Favorites are over .500 against the spread!!  30-28-4.
• Straight up, only the Bengals, Steelers, and Saints lost for 13-3.  41-21 for the year.
• Team with more penalties was 7-6 this week, 31-24 for the year.
• 209 penalties, pretty on par for the full 16 game schedule.  816 for the year.  (12.7 per game)
  

And now the ugly:

• Do not let the league fool you -- only HALF of the first four weeks' games have even finished within one score.  Only six this week.
• Two Cliffhangers, so only nine of the first 64 games have had a lead tie or change (at least one) in the final two minutes.
• Only two Last Chance Misses -- the Panthers and Bears.  14 for the year.
• But the biggest stat?  Half the games never got within 8 points in the fourth quarter.  I think eight is the most I've seen since I started tracking the stat, but I'm on my third different computer since I did, and at least one has completely expired.  That makes 23 of those, more than a third of the first four weeks' games.
• The average NFL game, through four weeks, is 28.6-16 (or a margin of about 12.6).
• Funny, I thought that number would be larger.
  

From Sports Media Watch:

• Thursday Night:  Packers-Lions drew for Amazon.  6.3 in the local markets, 13.5 million viewers (9% ratings increase for the local TV markets, 15% viewer increase, including Amazon)
• For the first three weeks, they're up 19% viewers.
• Sunday Night:  25.15 million on Neilsen, only behind a Cowboys-led national window in Week 2. 22% up viewers, the 12.9 rating up 15%.
• Biggest number to crunch:  An 83 share for Kansas City.  Meaning, out of every six television sets turned on, five were watching the Chiefs.
• Well, second-biggest:  SMW notes that the game Sunday night was the most-watched prime-time television program (Nielsen measure only, no streaming) since the Super Bowl.
  
• Sunday National (mainly Cowboys-Patriots):  11.3, 23.37 million (down 11% rating and 5% viewers from last year -- a Patriots-Packers led situation) 
• Monday (Giants-Seahawks):  9.2, 16.6 million -- best Week 4 since Favre's first game against the Packers as a Viking (2009)
• Sunday Single (mainly Dolphins-Bills):  8.4, 16.86 million (up 5-10%)
• Sunday Regional (mainly Eagles-Commanders):  6.6, 13.2 million (down 10-13%).
• FOX has not had a good season.  Six of their seven game windows have scored declines.
  

Playoffs are set in baseball...

Texas lost to Seattle 1-0

Houston beat Arizona 8-1

Tampa is beating Toronto 12-8

Houston wins the AL West again

Texas the AL #5

Toronto the AL #6

AL Bracket:  Texas at Tampa Bay, winner of that best of three gets a best of five with Houston

Toronto at Minnesota, winner of that series gets Baltimore

NL:  Arizona lost

Miami lost.

Miami wins the tiebreaker, so tomorrow's half-inning won't matter.

NL Bracket:  Arizona at Milwaukee, winner gets the Dodgers

Miami at Philadelphia, winner gets Cobb County

Do I need any more fuel to kick Schilling's ass?

Tim Wakefield has died of brain cancer at 57.

October 1, 2023 News and Notes

• At least as of early morning Eastern Sunday, we may get the first look at the Damar Hamlin Experiment.
• To no one's material surprise, Europe retains the Ryder Cup.  16 1/2 - 11 1/2.
• The only real surprise is it actually took nine of the 12 singles matches being played for the rout to be consummated.
• Jerry Tillery did it again:  Flagrant roughing the quarterback after he gave himself up and went out of bounds.  Tillery has become the second ejection of the NFL season.