From a bunch of you
What happens with Myles Garrett?
And from Taylor
I think Garrett should be prosecuted for assault. What do you think?
Gang and Taylor –
Well, I guess we could start that if Mason Rudolph had thrown a punch it would have been intercepted. Thank you. Thank you. Don’t forget the wait staff.
Garrett has a lengthy suspension coming. Likely the rest of the season, and that’s too bad. He was having an All-Pro year.
He deserves the suspension for sure, and the folks trying to defend the behavior are letting their fandom speak more than anything else.
But the folks that are saying ban him for life or he has to miss a year or are clutching their pearls and saying it has violated the sanctity of the game, well, those folks are preaching too much for my tastes, too.
In some ways, the conversation could be, “We’re lucky this doesn’t happen more often.”
Not for nothing, but we ask these guys to go and commit assault for 80-to-100 snaps every Sunday and someone loses his cool and we lose it.
Yes, we’re lucky that Rudolph was not seriously hurt. That’s the good news. And Garrett likely won’t be the only one suspended here either.
Again, he deserves the suspension that is coming and no one can condone the helmet swing, I’m just not as surprised as the rest of the talking heads in and around the media realm.
As for charges, well, c’mon. If we’re going to start down that slope, well, what’s the level of legality of hockey fights, 100-mph heaters at someone’s noggin and MMA in general?
It was a terrible look for the NFL in general and Garrett in particular – and again, he earned the suspension that is coming – but the overreaction coming from the league is as much about image and prevention as it is his action.
The league does not want the rest of us to realize the line between on-field thrills and chaotic violence that is every Sunday in the fall.
From Chas (has two this week)
Yesterday (too late to attend) I read in the Mountain Mirror about the Mrs. 5@10’s photo show. Impressive pix and impressive that she cares about a part of the world that needs all the friends they can get. As it happens, I walked by the AVA space last Friday and saw a show being displayed, but didn’t know what it was. Wish I’d known. Oh, and the most amazing part is that the photo accompanying the article reveals that Kathleen is a stunner. Hard to see how you got her. Big bank account?
How about a Rushmore of best renditions of “Georgia on My Mind?”
Which is the stinkin’est scandal, Penny paying Wiseman’s moving expenses, or Smokey’s handlers skimming the dog food allowance?
Chas
Well, first thanks for the kind words about the Mrs. Yes, she’s awesome and I should have announced it around these parts. (To see more of her work, including some of the selected images she had at the showing from Guatemala, you can go here.)
As for out-kicking my coverage to that level, well, I’ve never heard it called a “bank account” before but yes, I suppose it’s big enough. And always remember my man, it’s not necessarily the size of your bank account as much as how you use your bank account. (I showed your post to the Mrs., and she laughed. And mumbled something like, “No, the reason is because you’re funny.” So there’s that.)
As for renditions of “Georgia on My Mind,” well, even Trump and Schiff would agree that half that Rushmore is Willie and Ray Charles. Deal? Deal.
Give me Annie Lennox and Michael Bublé.
(Side note: Michael Bublé’s name is fun to say. Side note to the side note: Michael Bublé has one of those names that you almost always have to say both the first and last name and add a little twist at the end, “Michael Bublé.” Side question to the side note after the side note: The possessive form of Michael Bublé’s name with those back-to-back thingys is pretty weird, no?)
Great question. And that got me scanning the music options on the interwebs to find the links, and found a great cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by John Legend, who is aptly named. Dude is awesome in his awesomeness.
As for the stinkiest scandal, I think the embezzlement, especially at the cost of Smokey, is worse. By a lot.
Penny’s hijinks should offend the TSSAA more than the NCAA, but the ripple I think Penny and Memphis could not care less about the NCAA, but this is more than that moving forward.
(Side note: Who knew that you needed a hoss nickname to stand toe-to-toe with the NCAA. First there was Tark the Shark. Now it’s Penny.)
Penny gets to use this as a recruiting chip. “Look how I stand up for my players.”
And the rest of the power programs are going to follow suit. And maybe that’s the biggest fallout of the FBI stuff. Programs saw real subpoena power and the consequences of not cooperating when the FBI came calling.
The NCAA? PUH-lease.
NCAA: “Uh coach, there are some problems with your program.”
Coach: “Beat it Emmert and take your ‘investigators’ with you.”
NCAA: “But you are paying players.”
Coach: “Dang right. And want to know why? Because we can and you won’t.”
NCAA: “We’ll see ourselves out.”
Still the UT story is a shame. Anyway, we can blame Butch for that one, too.
From the Lunch Bunch
Jay, we have embraced your challenge and this one feels like it is right up your alley. We spent all day at lunch talking about how sad it is that SI is almost dead.
You are a little bit older than the majority of us, so what do you think of when someone says “Sports Illustrated,” and we tried to come up with a Rushmore of all-time SI covers.
As you like to ask, ‘Whatcha got?’
LB –
You guys are excellent. Sounds like a fun group to grab a sandwich with.
It’s terribly sad that SI is fading into history. The announcement that SI was going to be monthly in 2020 and issue a grand total of 17 issues made me sad.
You asked me what I think of when I think of SI. So many things.
Football phones. Getting delivered to my house on Thursdays and spending most of Thursday night of my childhood reading it from cover to cover. Rick Reilly at the height of his powers and long before he became a cranky Twitter version of one of the two Muppets sitting in the balcony heckling everything Trump does.
Gary Smith’s amazing human interest stories, including the best single sports story I’ve ever read on the black basketball coach in Amish country. It’s long, but it’s amazing. (On the personal Rushmore of all-time professional influences: Growing up in Atlanta, Grizzard is far left, and it’s not close. Gary Smith was the best feature writer ever in my mind. Jim Murray was an all-timer in my eyes and did more in a sentence than most can do in chapters, and Dan Jenkins was a mix of all of them.)
As an entity, SI was the dream place that a lot of us in this industry viewed as the pinnacle destination.
It’s sad. And understandable with the way the industry as a whole has changed so rapidly and radically in recent years.
As for covers, well, we’d have to take all the swimsuit issues off the board, right? That could be a whole different discussion altogether. (And remember all the hate mail that came to the Letters to the Editor after the swimsuit issue? These days, that’s nothing.)
My Rushmore of covers has to start with the U.S. hockey team from the Miracle on Ice. There was Brandi Chastain celebrating the women’s World Cup. Dwight Clark’s The Catch and, personally, the one with Len Bias that said “Death of a Dream.”
And that’s leaving off several great ones with Tyson and the “Death of a Champion,” one with Dale Sr. as well as Mary Lou Retton and the one with Jordan that had the headline “A Star is Born.”
Great question. Sad to see.
From Jules
I’m not a huge country music fan but I went to see Reba when she was here bc she’s an icon. And it was fantastic. The only show I’ve seen that compared was Elton John. Would be a tossup between those two. What’s your favorite, Jay?
Jules
Great question.
Prince in the Fox was the best concert I’ve ever seen. Willie at Chastain was right there as a close two. Bruce was amazing at the place that used to be called Lakewood in Atlanta. George Strait has been aces every time we’ve seen him.
Elton is on the list of folks we’d like to see.
Billy Joel in Atlanta was fun, too.
From Alejandro
(Speaking about kids sports movies earlier this week) “The Sandlot” is a big one for my generation. “Air Bud” is far left on worst ones, right?
Dro –
Such a great mini-Rushmore to counter the mini-Rushmore from earlier this week.
Kids sports movies, the George Washington of this one, the father of this category is “The Bad News Bears.” In truth, there are like five to eight overarching movie themes total, and in terms of sports, there’s really only three: Historic movie about some unbelievable story, the Rocky model and “The Bad News Bears” model.
Think how many kids’ movies follow the BNB model? Hodge-podge collection of kids no one wanted – and they did it long before audience data pointed toward all-race, all-gender inclusion and the certified inclusion of a ‘big-boned child who will play catcher, center, or goalie and be the target of wisecracks and at least one food joke/KFC bucket prop – down-on-his-luck coach, improbable uniting moment, run toward the championship game.
It’s kids sports movies color by numbers. And it rarely fails. The rest of the kids sports movies Rushmore is “Little Giants,” “The Sandlot” and “Kicking and Screaming.” (We did not view “The Karate Kid” as a ‘kids sports movie,’ for those that suggested it.)
But when it does, it fails horribly. Worst kids movie Rushmore? Yes, “Air Bud” (and all of its spin-offs) is there. So is “Ladybugs,” the last “Mighty Ducks,” and the “Sandlot” sequel.