Weekend winners
Everyone who gets to play Pebble Beach regularly. OK, maybe they are everyday winners and not just weekend winners, but the PGA Tour event was there this weekend, and holy buckets of beachfront beauty, what a glorious piece of real estate.
SEC front-runners. Auburn, Kentucky and Tennessee each handled its business on the road. Of those three, UT fans have to be encouraged by the improved offensive showings. Side note: Auburn loses tomorrow night in Arkansas. You heard it here first. Tough trip. Quick turnaround. Arkansas will be jacked and 24,000-plus in the house that Sidney Moncrief built, Alvin Robertson and Joe Kleine redesigned and Corliss and Scotty fine tuned. (Side note: If you had a tournament of the all-time teams from each SEC school, Arkansas is going to put together a pretty good squad. And believe it or not, even with all its banners, I don’t think Kentucky is the 1 seed. Because LSU is going to bring Pete and Shaq to the event and good luck with that.)
The players who made the most of their Senior Bowl exposure, like UTC lineman Cole Strange. Here’s a Dallas Cowboys-site that was praising Strange’s effort and play. Also of note, Kenny Pickett has gone from also-ran to QB1 in a matter of months, no?
Bonus: The 4/5 grade Nolan Knights girls’ hoops squad. Yeah, personal selection here, but the Knights – who also go by the Red Dinos (don’t ask) – entered the North Hamilton Basketball League tournament as the 6 see. (Again, don’t ask. Poor coaching is to blame for the low seed.) And dispatched the third-seeded North Hamilton and second-seeded Soddy to reach the league title game Tuesday night. Not sure if ESPN the Ocho has picked that game up or not yet.
Weekend losers
The Olympics. Forget the online heckling – this is over the top – the TV numbers were DEEEEEE-readful. By every measure. The Opening Ceremony was down 43% from the 2018 numbers.
Alvin Kamara. Dude, what happens in Vegas stays in jail apparently. Kamara, who was in Sin City for the Pro Bowl, was arrested after Sunday’s dreadful all-star exhibition and will be in court today facing charges of battery resulting in substantial bodily harm. (Translation: He opened up the entire can of whoop (bleep) on someone.)
The realization for casual bettors that football is almost done. With the exception of the Super Bowl in six days, the abyss of casual options – basketball betting is simply not as much fun – will only grow deeper if baseball’s work stoppage drags into the summer.
LeBron James. Not his play – dude is in the back half of his 30s and is as good as he was in his 20s if not better (Side question: If LeBron was in the MLB would be wondering about PEDs? Discuss.) – as much as the cast of characters in the play he has authored for the final chapters of his career. How about this: Did you know that there is more talent in Cleveland – the place he left for La-La-Land – than with the Lakers? What Los Angeles does heading into Thursday’s trading deadline will be intriguing because gang, Saturday night, every time Russell Westbrick caught the ball the Lakers home crowd either booed or collectively screamed, “Noooooo” when he was about to shoot. No es bueno.
North Carolina. Egad, Heels what in the name of Naismith was that? Yes, it’s Coach K’s farewell tour – someone is going to have to shoot 70-plus-% in March Madness to over come the Coach K friendly whistles that are starting to blow people – and Duke has a better roster, but still. UNC lost by 20 at home and is bagel-and-7 in Quad 1 games. Doug, the ACC is where you need to point your crusty finger of mid-major angst my man.
Super week
So it’s Super Bowl Week.
Feels like we need a contest, right? Who’s with me?
We have done the prop stuff in the past, and for those unaware, prop bets – propositional bets actually – are tangent items associated with the bigger football games that range from betting on the coin flip to the color of the Gatorade the winning team dumps on their coach.
(My favorite prop bet this year for actual entertainment purposes is plus-250 – bet $100, win $250 – on a non-QB to be the game’s MVP. With the dependance of each offense on superstar WRs who post monster numbers, that’s certainly an option. Plus, I think Aaron Donald is the biggest swing factor on the field come Sunday. Either way, you get Cupp, Chase, Donald and everyone else and you get plus-money. Also intriguing is the plus-500 on the game ending on a walk-off field goal. Hmmmmmmm. Yes please.)
I will post the props later today in the comments.
But heading into the week in which this puppy will be super (Super) overanalyzed, what are your thoughts before everyone starts parroting everyone come Thursday.
And yes, the team that can avoid third-and-long has the upper hand.
Oh yeah, the team that wins the turnover battle will be in good shape too.
This and that
– Wowser, I was looking through the preseason MaxPreps high school baseball All-American list for a Baylor kid or three. (Yes, the Red Raiders are that good.) But the first name that jumped off the page was Levi Huesman out of Virginia. With a 95-mph heater, the lefty also has familiar bloodlines.
– You know the rules. Here’s Weeds waxing wisely on the Mocs rebound date with Mercer, which UTC throttled Saturday. Man, Weeds is good at this.
– So the Dolphins hired former San Francisco offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel as their head coach. McDaniel is biracial, so the 49ers will receive a compensatory third-rounder this year and next, in the deal.
– Speaking of the NBA trade deadline, some dude named Caris LeVert was dealt from Indiana to Cleveland. Caris LeVert sounds like a late 1980s, early 1990s pop singer, no?
– So, well, there’s no easy way to say this but apparently a 13-year-old Wiffle Ball pitcher made former MLB slugger Jose Bautista look silly. No, that’s not the awkward part. The video has gone viral on YouTube. Again, that’s not awkward either. The kid – Landon Rawlins – has an array of pitches that defy gravity and expectation. And the craziest part? His nickname is ‘Doodoo Biscuit.’ So there’s that.
– So Mark Lye apparently had a show on SiriusXM’s PGA Tour Radio channel. He was fired for remarks he made over the weekend about women’s sports in general and the WNBA in particular. Of the WNBA, he said, “I saw some highlights of ladies basketball. Man. is there a gun in the house? I’ll shoot myself to watch that.” So the PGA Tour Radio big wigs thought it was a really bad Lye. And they dropped a pink slip. (Spy gets my golf jokes, right Spy? Right?)
Today’s questions
Weekend winners and losers. Go.
As for multiple-choice Monday, and in honor of Lamont Paris taping potato chips to his back to remind his team to, yes, play with a chip on their shoulder, what is the best plain potato chip? (Of course the best-flavored chip is Sour Cream and Onion, every other flavor is battling for second.)
Ruffles
Lay’s
Pringles
Other.
As for today, Feb. 7, let’s review.
Nice collection of birthdays. John Deere would have been 218. Chuck Dickens would have been 210. Garth is 60. Ashton Kutcher is 43.
“Blazing Saddles” was released on this day in 1974. So, so good.
Rushmore of the best movies of the 1970s. Go.