And another sacrifice to football...

D2 opener, scored a touchdown, died on the sideline.

William Jewell's MicahJo Barnett died on the sideline during the season opener vs. Fort Lewis College.

No details, but my guess -- another headshot-laced or COVID-laced event.

The game was suspended.

Asshole in Milwaukee Alert!!!

(And I'm not talking about myself, circa spring of 1998...)

Jokes aside, the NFL put out a far larger notice today.

And it is endemic to the Fine Blotters I used to post here.  We'll see if I get the time and want this year.

An OFFICIAL NFL Points of Emphasis For Supplemental Discipline has been released.

The NFL has put out the following five Player Safety Fouls for Point of Emphasis this year:

• Horse Collar
• Hip Drop
• Launching
• (Illegal) Hit on a Defenseless Player
• Blindside Block

The big news?  Any player who receives a Supplemental Discipline (and gets it to stand -- fine or suspension) for at least three of these fouls gets an automatic one-game suspension on top of any other suspension accrued.

I think I have a lengthy project ahead of me, if the NFL still has the data on its website from last year.

EDIT TO ADD:  Rats.  No, they took the 2025-26 ones down.

There is, of course, something the players get in exchange:

First, if a player commits only a single offense in certain other Supplemental Discipline categories, their fine will be returned, 100%.

If a player receives only a single offense in the Player Safety Fouls Point of Emphasis, their fine will be half-returned.

And all players, at least with respect to the Player Safety Fouls Point of Emphasis suspension, will start the 2026-27 season on a clean slate with respect to the current policy.  Not 100% sure whether that means long-time situations might get increased fines for a "first offense" of these fouls, but they will not already be counted against for THIS policy.

I will want to see if the league actually publishes the policy, as there are two other important parts:

1) Increased team fines for "excessive" Player Safety Points of Emphasis violations by a given team.  This is probably on top of the other team fines for excessive violations -- though those fines now are going to be more malleable, given possible rebates.

2) Any player receiving two violations under the Player Safety Points of Emphasis will require that the player and his coach submit to a meeting with the NFL.  No word on whether those meetings will be in-person or virtual.

The rampant sacrifice to football -- THEY ALL HAVE CTE!!! ALL OF THEM.

And the article in MSN from Amy Tennery deliberately obfuscates the situation.

878 former NFL players have died between the years of 2016 and 2021.

The article states at least one in four -- 215 of them -- had their brains tested and found CTE within them.

There's only one problem with the findings.

Not all of the brains were donated to science.

235 of them were.

That means almost 90% of the donated brains were found to have CTE -- an effective finding that every one of the brains donated had the disease.

That the basic finding should be that THEY ALL HAVE CTE.

EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM.

ALL OF THEM.

The findings also assert that the players are already beyond brain-damaged before they even hit the NFL -- that the players are fucked by youth football and high school football and college football too.

A sacrifice to football which is almost personal...

I know I am not nearly all-inclusive when articles like this are made public, but I did happen across a frightening story this afternoon which speaks of a school very familiar to me from my Western Wisconsin school days of the late 1980's.

Alma Center quarterback Adam Massman was beginning his senior year with a game at Turtle Lake last Thursday night.  He was injured and treated, and it was found out over the weekend that Massman died of his unspecified (almost certainly head) injuries.

Alma Center was a school about 50 miles or so from Plum City High School, where I attended school (and now has it's sports in a cooperative with Elmwood, a neighboring town).  The schools would occasionally compete in track and field together (in which I was the school timer and ersatz trainer).

I don't see this going very far either... (The next chapter of the Sorsby Saga...)

Brendan Sorsby has filed for the Supplemental Draft of the NFL.

This is probably under threat of Texas A&M's material expulsion from the Big XII Conference, but we will see if this is the end of the story, or whether Commissioner Goodell will even allow him to take a practice field in the NFL before banning his ass.

Update on Sorsby...

 According to Maren Angus-Coombs on SI:

Once Brendan Sorsby is allowed to play, he is slated to receive FOUR MILLION DOLLARS in NIL funds.

Let.  That.  Process.

One article (Dan Wetzel at ESPN) also does note that at least two of the 40+ bets he made at Indiana were against the Hoosiers in some way, shape, or form.

BOOM! There it just went...

A known gambling addict and probable game-fixer with a major NCAA school has just won an injunction to play next season at Texas Tech.

In an unthinkably stupid decision, almost exclusively on the concept that gambling addiction is a mental illness and needs to be treated (which it is, BUT...), Brendan Sorsby has won an injunction barring the NCAA from banning him, even though he is known, at the very least, to have placed 40 bets while a freshman quarterback at Indiana for games Indiana played in the 2022 season.

If even ONE of those bets was against the Hoosiers, he should be in prison for sports bribery.

He should be as welcome on a football field as I should be at a Broadway theatre -- banned as a danger to the entire institution thereto.

Now, boo-hoo to TCU coach Sonny Dykes, who publicly asked how any sporting event can be trusted ever again.  Coach Dykes, you are about...  25 years, if not more, too late.  My position, unlike other sports conspiracy theorists, is that any game that can be fixed is.

But to give you an idea as to how dangerous this ruling is to the entire institution of American sports, there are going to be meetings among the other Big XII schools, starting tomorrow.

There is discussion of how to proceed, if to proceed, and even calls for boycotting all Texas Tech sports, if not throwing them out of the Big XII Conference part and parcel -- which I would have to say is about the only real option the other schools probably have not to play Sorsby and the TTU football team.

In fact, the University of Georgia Athletic Director has officially enacted such a boycott.  He will not allow the Bulldogs to play Texas Tech in ANY SPORT.  Nebraska has also boycotted.

But this decision basically opens the door wide open.  I said, last week, on a far lesser case, that there was question as to when the entire situation of college sports as we even know them now just blows up completely.

I think we just got it.  I do believe the concerns are valid -- as it is now basically impossible to enforce, short of FBI-level Federal arrest for sports bribery, athletes who wager on their own teams.

That man needs to be UNEMPLOYABLE in sports, at any level.  He probably needs to be in prison.  And now, barring either someone doing the right thing or deliberately injuring him (take your pick), he's going to be on the field this Fall.

Another sacrifice to football...

Rondale Moore.

Suicide by gun.

25.

Lost both knees the last 2-3 years to the fringes of the NFL. 

And Metcalf's not the only one banned for the rest of the season...

Two bans for the rest of the season have been upheld.

DK Metcalf's, obviously...

But Denzel Perryman of the Chargers has also been banned under the Road to Burfict Rule.  A helmet-to-helmet foul on Dallas' Ryan Flournoy got him in person with the NFL, and he has been banned two games for a record of NFL violent disciplinary actions.

This is his second on-field suspension for helmet fouls, for which he has been fined or suspended six times in his 11-year NFL career. 

Been away a few days. Some catch-up:

•  Week 14 Gameday Accountability (scroll to Week 14 if you look at it later this season)...

1. 17 fines this week
2. Only two were even $17,000+
3. Biggest fine of the week was Alex Anzalone of the Lions, $17,968 for piling on -- it was listed as "Striking/kicking", etc., but it was for a leap into the pile in the game against the Cowboys.
4. The other was a repeat offender Taunting foul by Tariq Woolen of the Seahawks, $17,389.  One of only three unsportsmanlike fouls fined this week.  Woolen's third taunting offense and fourth fine in just 13 months.

• Are we ready to put football on trial yet for Football Man?  Ohio University has fired, for cause, head coach Brian Smith for the type of misconduct that the wording they used, quoted in the articles about the firing, indicates ANOTHER sexual harassment situation.
• Expect a $25,000 fine for the Rams Puka Nacua.  Called the referees "the worst" and says they make calls to get themselves on television.  You're fucking 11-3 and the #1 seed in the NFC, and you're going to mouth like that?  You know something's coming, I take it...    
• Tua Tagovailoa has finally been benched for poor play by the Dolphins.  Let's hope that's the first step that he never takes the field again before the next concussion turns out terminal.  When those fingers went all odd directions after that one, he never belonged on a football field again.     

After Further Review, College Edition: I want the ref fired, I want the player expelled.

How does Jaishawn Barham not get ejected for this?

 

That is a clear deliberate headbutt of the official.  The player was NOT ejected.

He should be immediately brought up on disciplinary charges for expulsion from the University of Michigan for the assault.

And, at least in 21 states, according to the National Association of Sports Officials, he would and should be arrested. 

Multi-Disciplinary Blotter

• First, college football.

Colorado State has suspended it's quarterback, Darius Curry, and lineman Liam Wortmann for one game for spitting on Boise State players in the second half of a game Boise won 49-21.

Curry's first start, Wortmann had started all season.

The conference already has affirmed the school's decision.

Let's hope that's the last game either suits up for -- at any level.  In fact, it would be nice to find student disciplinary procedures against the pair to remove them from Colorado State University entirely.

• The unthinkable in college football, Saturday in Birmingham, AL.

At the UAB football complex on Saturday, Daniel Mincey, a transfer to the UAB program this season, was arrested for allegedly attempting to murder two of his teammates on Senior Day.

No further details have been released. 

• Hockey...

An ugly boarding incident earlier this week involving Dallas' Miko Rantanen.

Rantenan boarded Alexander Romanov of the Islanders and was ejected from the game, in a hit I truly believed merited an in-person meeting for a significant suspension.  DoPS declined.  Word is that Romanov is out the season with an injury as a result of the hit.

They have also declined a second Rantanen boarding incident against Matt Coronato, instead opting to defer to NHL rules -- receiving two physical game misconducts within a half season is an automatic one-game suspension.  Any further adds a game to the suspension.  He must play half a season worth of games or lapse two years before they wipe.

He should've gotten five or more just for the Romanov hit! 

• And we might as well just do the NFL weekly Gameday Accountability Report here...  (Scroll to Week 11...)

So what do we have here?

• 23, so a fairly consistent week.
• Seven unsportsmanlike fines this week.
• Jalen Ramsay got a regular $14,491 fine for his punch to JaMarr Chase.
• George Pickens of the Cowboys drew the biggest fine of the week, $26,085 for repeat offender illegal touchdown celebration -- use of a prop.  His FIFTH Unsportsmanlike Conduct fine of the year. 

 

Kneeland Update -- appears we have a CTE case here...

The Cowboys are on their bye week, so, Wednesday night, Marshawn Kneeland was at home -- and about two hours before his body was found after a police chase, police were summoned to the house for a welfare check for suicidal ideations...

sigh

Fucking CTE from high school and college is probably now the front-runner.  Hopefully someone can donate his brain to science so we can find out.

24...  Was in the NFL and contributing...  I know it's easy to pile on the Cowboys as a lesser team, but he was on there and trying...  

I expect this story to end exactly how I think it will end...

Antonio Brown is now in prison, after being extradited from Dubai, where he fled after an attempted murder rap in Florida.

Yeah...

This is going to end exactly as you think it's going to end.

Maybe they'll search his brain for CTE when this is all over. 

Probably the highest-profile sacrifice to football yet...

On Monday night, 2024 second-round draft pick of the Cowboys Marshawn Kneeland scored a blocked-punt touchdown for the team on Monday Night Football.

By Thursday morning, he was dead.  He was 24.  Traffic incident, sped off to avoid the police, shot and killed himself.

24, in the NFL second season...  Wow... 

So now the only question left, in my mind:  College and HS-based CTE?  Or was he on the run from something and somehow hid it from even the NFL? 

Probably the least surprising news of the weekend...

Adrian Peterson.

DWI and weapons charges near Houston, his second DWI in seven months.

He remains in jail today.

Gee what a fucking shock. 

Almost certainly ANOTHER sacrifice to the sport of football:

Nick Mangold, former center of the Jets.

Dead at 41.  Needed a kidney transplant and everything failed within 12 days of announcement.

Makes you wonder what was done to get that man on the field every week... 

Another sacrifice to football?

Yesterday, it was reported that seven-year NFL veteran Doug Martin died at 36.

It's now clear it was police-involved, according to a report today.

Martin was involved in a break-in in Oakland, CA, was arrested, and died in custody.

Money I don't have says he was disposed of by the police. 

2025 Early Week 6 Discipline Blotter

The Lions Brian Branch did something stupid after losing to the Chiefs last night.

He started a mass melee by busting the nose of Ju-ju Smith-Schuster.

And, for that, he got the correct one-game suspension.  That's at least his third transgression against the league this year.

Branch will appeal -- one I hope fails, for not only the stupidity of the act on it's face, but the fact it's his third already this season.