And we've got a live one in Week One!!!

Western Michigan defeated #16 Michigan 12-7 today at the Big House.

That's not what anyone will tell you.

Ladies and gentlemen, a rigged result.

Pre-season Week 3 Fine Blotter

This'll be quick.  Only five for the week.

Point of Emphasis, both for helmet fouls:

• Buffalo:  Jalen Kilgore, $5,560
• New Orleans:  Danny Stutsman, $7,011

All the others:

• Indianapolis:  Cam Taylor-Britt, Striking, etc., $7,791
• Minnesota:  Jermar Jefferson, Face Mask, $5,583
• Pittsburgh:  Donelko Slaughter, Taunting, $4,917

Pre-season Week 2 Fine Blotter

Forgot to do this -- Week 3 should be out later today.  I doubt, again, that any incidents here will count as strikes on the new policy until regular-season Week 1.

Policy-level fines first:

Helmet fouls:

• Arizona:  Karson Sharar, $5,372, on the opening kickoff
• Dallas:  Malik Davis, $6,735
• Las Vegas:  Dre Ogunbawale, $7,222

Hip Drop Tackle:

• Cincinnati:  Shaka Heyward, $5,972

Defenseless Player:

• Arizona:  Dadion Taylor-Demerson, $7,148
• Arizona:  Wydett Williams, $4,935 (all three Arizona fines in the first half, only Taylor-Demerson's was flagged)

Blindside Block:

• Kansas City:  Jake Briningstool, $4,972

Outside the Points of Emphasis:

Conduct, all this week for Taunting:

• Buffalo:  Chase Lundt, $5,868
• Las Vegas:  Jermod McCoy, $6,729
• Tennessee:  Cedric Gray, $7,131

Striking, etc:

• Tampa Bay:  Ted Hurst, $6,985

Sounds like the big loser of the preseason week was facemasks:

• Indianapolis:  Trey Washington, $5,583
• New Orleans:  Treyton Welsh, $5,583
• Seattle:  Andre Fuller, $5,112
• Seattle:  Aaron Smith, $4,917 (the two Seattle fouls were three minutes apart in the fourth quarter, but to the NFL's credit, both of these were flagged)
• Tennessee:  Oluwafemi Oladejo gets the biggest fine of the week, $10,625.

As expected, he got waived...

Brock Rechsteiner's NFL career is over.

He will spend his six-week steroid suspension as a free agent, cut by the Saints today.

Gee, Brock, trying to tell us something as to your NFL aspirations?

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...)

The rest of the preseason NFL suspension blotter...

Source:  MSN.

Already covered:

• New Orleans:  Brock Rechsteiner, six games, PED policy.
• Atlanta:  James Pearce, eight games, personal conduct, attempted murder
• Buffalo:  Phidarian Mathis, three games, apparently an alcohol-related personal conduct offense from 2025.
• Washington:  Dorrance Armstrong, one game, personal conduct, assault charge in 2025.

Here are the rest that we know of:

• Tennessee:  Nazeeh Johnson, six games, PED policy -- according to his admission, sounds like it was a fertility drug banned by the league.
• Minnesota:  Jeshaun Jones, three games, PED policy, unknown.  Might be alcohol like Mathis, might be failure to cooperate several times with the program.
• Indianapolis:  Probably the highest profile one, Cam Taylor-Britt, one game, personal conduct, reckless driving arrest in 2025.

This may get Al Michaels thrown off NFL broadcasts...

Knowing the NFL's ties to the military, government, and to Trump.

That said (with the reminder that the NFL does not allow embeds -- and an additional reminder this was actually posted by a MAGA piece of shit), in this particular case (and to those who might disagree on other stands, in this one ONLY):

All hail Al Michaels!

And we thought the Micah Parsons injury carrying over into this year would be enough...

Now REALLY scratch the Packers off.

Josh Jacobs, probably the second-most relevant player on the team to Jordan Love, has been charged with two misdemeanors, down from several felonies, for a domestic violence incident at his Green Bay house.

....

Ezekiel Elliott game?

Dez Caught It?

How can you be so fucking stupid to even get NEAR something like this as an NFL player?

And double so as a Green Bay Packer???

The world of college sports is ending, people...

The recent court rulings rendering NFL training-camp invitees eligible to return to college and the NCAA has finished the job.

We're just watching the final downfall:

• The Big XII has banned all professional athletes from any sport.
• The SEC is going further:  Any school which offers professional athletes a path of return is DONE WITH THE CONFERENCE.  They lose their voting rights, half their athletic budget, and their head coach for at least half a season.
• The Big Ten has at least banned NFL returns.
• The ACC, the last of the "Power 4", is considering joining them.

The question now is simple:  Who's the first school which is gonna walk?

There is a 2026 Fine Blotter up for Week 1 of the preseason. And also the fine schedule for 2026-27.

Now, if I had to make a guess, since today was the day they announced the new policies, I don't think any fines from the preseason (or, at barest minimum, the first two weeks of the preseason) are going to count on this new policy.

Before we note of the fines for Week 1 of the preseason, here's the fine schedule:

A first offense of physical contact with an official will cost you not only the rest of the game, but a minimum of almost $42,000.  Double that for any subsequent offense.

Fighting will also carry the same penalties, including ejection ($42K and $84K)

They're upping Bench Involvement in an altercation significantly:  First one is a little more than $12K, the next one costs you $18K.

It looks like non-physical abuse of the officials has become a very serious problem, as they are upping the fines toward physical-abuse levels as well:  $33,523 for first offense, over $67,000 for anything further.

The player-safety list:

First, the five Points of Emphasis, all of which, once confirmed, carry a strike toward suspension after three, all carry first-offense fines of almost $18,000.  About $24,000 for a second offense, which carries a league meeting.  And a third is a one-game suspension, on top of the potential of any further suspension for the offenses themselves.

That's for Horse Collar, Hip Drop, Launching/Helmet, Blindside Block, or Defenseless Player fouls.

Striking and variants, low block, or chop block:  About $12,500 and $18,500.

Face mask or late hit without other aggravation:  About $12K and $18K

The rest (Leg Whip and Roughing the Passer):  About $18K and $24K

The straight conduct list (if I had to guess currently, this is probably the one-time full-rebate at the end of the season list):

Straight unsportsmanlike conduct costs you about $15K and $21K.

Taunting will get you the same fine as a Face Mask or Late Hit:  $12K and $18K

And a football into the stands costs you $8300 and $14300.

And here's the dress code stuff (probably also one-time full-rebate at the end of the season with no other offenses):

Any minor uniform violation (from visor tint to illegally-worn pads to foreign substances to the more standard ones of socks and the like you hear about):  $6K and $12K

Major violations (personal branding and illegal/unauthorized intellectual property):  Personal is $12K/$18K.  Intellectual property is $12K/$24K.

And one more section I see every year but I'm not sure it's ever called:  If a player ever flashes gang signals during a game, it is conduct detrimental to the league and goes to the Personal Conduct Policy directly for whatever penalties deemed appropriate.

----------------------

Now, Week 1 of the Preseason:

Striking and variants:

• Buffalo:  Landon Jackson, $8,190
• Cleveland:  Tytus Howard gets the full $12,537
• Las Vegas:  Tommy Eichenburg, $6,441

Conduct:

• Miami:  Ollie Gordon, $5,962, taunting

Facemasks:

• Detroit:  Thomas Harper, $5,972
• Tennessee:  Jerrick Reed, $6,361

And now what WOULD BE under the Points of Emphasis -- but with the policy announced today, I seriously doubt these will be treated as "strikes":

• LA Chargers:  Kendall Williamson, $5,972, impermissible use of the helmet
• LA Rams:  Darryl Peterson, $4,935, horse collar
• Tampa Bay: David Walker, $6,254, blindside block

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.

An anachronism has been completely and finally put to bed...

The Pro Bowl Games -- and that meaning any on-field Pro Bowl itself -- finally died today.

And, as I've already seen in one Discord server with the report -- Nothing Of Value Was Lost.

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).

Discipline Blotter: I wonder if this means the end of joint practices...

The viral brawl in which the Steiner kid who's already suspended for PED's German suplexed a player has gotten both the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints $500,000 league fines for lack of sportsmanship.

Once again, I must remind you:  One of the things that the believers state with respect in their belief the NFL is not rigged is the fact that the league's largest cash-cow, the Cowboys, hasn't won a title or sniffed one in decades.

Again, a champion (not unlike some of the rigged music competition shows) represents the brand -- and it's as true for the NFL as it is for American Idol.

EDIT TO ADD 5:05 PM PDT:  Sounds like the Giants and Dolphins are probably next.  Big brawl today at a joint practice.

NFL Suspension Blotter and some political MLB news...

First, three more suspensions:

• Atlanta Falcons:  James Pearce suspended the for 8 games, personal conduct.  For being accused of taking his car and ramming it into his girlfriend during a domestic dispute.  Let that process.  Attempted murder gets you only 8 games in the NFL.
• Buffalo Bills:  Phidarian Mathis:  Banned for the first 3 games.  Sounds like a repeat offense of failing to cooperate with the Substances of Abuse policy.
• Washington Commanders:  Dorance Armstrong, 1 game for personal conduct, assault and resisting arrest charges under probation in 2025.

And then, it sounds like the vibes against San Francisco's Pride celebrations worked for the Giants:

The Giants and the Bay Area host the All-Star Game for MAGA League Baseball in 2028.

Early NFL Suspension Blotter: And there's a 163 1/3% chance he's not making the Saints roster...

Brock Rechsteiner has been suspended the first six games of the season, but they say no one knows why.

Brock is the son of Scott Steiner.

I think anyone who's seen Scott Steiner the last 20 years or so can figure it out.

ROIDS!!!

EDIT TO ADD:  Confirmed.  PED policy.

Sounds like COVIDIOT-Shithead isn't doing it to just football teams...

Danica Patrick basically states that Aaron Rodgers is an emotionally-abusive twit -- saying "He leaves behind a trail of blood."

No.  Shit.  Sherlock.

Super Bowl $eahawk$: Did Tom Brady throw Super Bowl LX?

I'm not going to attribute the Tweet for which I found, but go to the direct source instead.  The indirect source is completely shitlisted.

However, the Awful Announcing blog has made a charge that Tom Brady may well have thrown Super Bowl LX to the Seahawks.

Their source?  Seattle head coach Mike MacDonald -- on today's The Dan Patrick Show:

MacDonald, at the celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, acknowledges that someone with a "conflict of interest" aided MacDonald and the Seahawks in their preparations to defeat the Patriots last February.

That said, there are two MAJOR problems:

That would be a level of betrayal on a scale even beyond Brett Favre and the Packers or Calahan and the Raiders to aid Gruden and the Buccaneers.

The larger problem, though, appears to be Tom Brady's involvement with FOX Sports, and that leading to a possibility that the NFL themselves might've been involved in tampering through Brady passing information to the Seahawks.

And Brady's involvement as a part-owner of the Raiders -- the Raiders getting the Seahawks' offensive coordinator as their new head coach.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM......