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Weekend winners
Luke List. The Baylor School grad delivered a 43-foot, 1-inch bomb for birdie to win a five-man playoff Sunday to land his second career PGA win. It was a much-needed hot streak for List, who netted $1.48 million by winning the Sanderson Farms event on the PGA’s fall schedule. It was some kind of putt and it pushed List’s career earnings north of $14 million according to Sportrac.com. Well, provided he did not invest with former Baylor School teammate Jonathan Frost, that is.
The 49ers. Any questions? Egad, what a dominant performance over the visiting Cowboys on Sunday night. Actually there are some questions: Is that the best roster 1-53 in the NFL? Do the 49ers have the offensive and defensive front runners for players of the year in Christian McCaffrey and whichever Bosa they employ? Also, is Brock Purdy Tom Brady 2.0? Discuss.
And while we’re here, Bearddawg and everyone who tried tell the Falcons that passing on Jalen Carter was going to be a monster mistake. Forget defensive rookie of the year, he’s pointed toward defensive player of the year in his first season with the Eagles. Jalen Carter went DT v. DT against Mr. Aaron Donald, who most believe to be the best defensive player of this generation, and Carter was light-years more impressive.
And one more with those barking Dawg lovers, Carson Beck looked like him on Saturday as Georgia steamrolled a Kentucky team that the week before steamrolled a Florida team that steamrolled Vandy on Saturday.
Dillon Gabriel. Wow, big-time winner for the former UCF transfer who led Oklahoma to a thrilling Red River Rivalry triumph over Texas. Now remember that the former team for Gabriel, who played himself into the Hesiman chatter, went to Kansas and got pistol-whipped.
Weekend losers
Mario Cristobal. Not taking a knee — and running the ball, which led to a fumble, which allowed Georgia Tech to score on the last play for a 23-20 upset — cost his formerly unbeaten team a chance to contend for the playoff. It cost them what should have been a surefire home win — albeit far from impressive — over Georgia Tech. And then his post-game shuffle was almost as egregious. That was such bad coaching, I think Miami could make a strong argument to fire him for cause.
Braves. And the Dodgers. And the Orioles. C’mon, guys. More on that in a moment.
More specifically, Clayton Kershaw. Man, the social media themes of Reggie being Mr. October, Jeter being Mr. November and Kershaw being Mr. April thru September have been everywhere after another playoff meltdown for the Dodgers lefty.
Bill Belichick. OK, the Brady or Belichick debate is more dead this morning than it was when TB12 lifted a Lombardi with the Bucs. Heck, let’s peep the stats: Belichick without Brady on the roster — 79-88 in the regular season, including 1-4 this year with the last two losses by a scant 72-3. Maybe even more telling, Belichick’s career playoff record without TB12 on the roster is a far-from-eye-catching 1-2.
Sean Payton. The Broncos coach ran his pie hole about the previous regime and Denver, even calling the Jets and offensive coordinator Nathanial Hackett, the “winners of the off-season.” The the Jets went to Denver — without Aaron Rodgers — and slapped Payton’s crew around for 60 minutes Sunday afternoon. If Brady was propping up Belichick, Brees helped transform Payton from an above-average OC to a fringe Hall of Famer HC.
MLB fix
Major League Baseball enjoyed a resurgence in 2023.
Fans returned to the ballparks. TV numbers were up. Interest spiked compared to recent apathy.
Maybe it was the historic feats of Acuña or Shohei. Or even the brilliance of the Dodgers or the consistency of the Astros. Maybe it was the youth-led turnarounds of the D-Backs or the Orioles.
Most notably, though, it was the rule changes that sped up play, encouraged more steal attempts and eliminated the shift which jacked the league batting average from .243 in 2022 to .248 this season.
The rule changes have rightly received a lot of praise.
Now, after fixing the regular season, the MLB powers that be need to look at making the post-season more fair. And more rewarding for the teams that delivered the best performances over the 162-game marathon.
First, in a sport like baseball, where the daily grind becomes as dependable as Brian Snitker’s postseason malaise, making the top two teams in each league take a week off is a detriment.
This is not football, where the extra “week” of rest is coveted. This is baseball, where a week off acquires more rust than cheap metal left in a San Francisco rain storm.
Look at the results, the three best teams in baseball — the Braves, the Orioles and the Dodgers — are bagel-and-4 after the extended break(down).
Not sure if the solution is going back to one-game wildcard play-ins rather than three. But I am sure more condensed postseason schedules — even if it means playing games against the NFL — must be implemented.
Yes, the Phillies are hotter than south Macon asphalt in August, but how is it possibly fair to the Braves — who waxed Philadelphia all year and rolled to more than 100 wins and beat the Phillies by double-digit games in the NL East — to play once over a nine-day span.
Moveover, if the baseball-applicable argument that the extra week allows teams to get their pitching staff in order, these extra off days have allowed the Phillies to have their pitching staff in order as well.
Zach Wheeler very well could pitch the wildcard opener and Games 2 and 5 of the divisional series on normal rest. That’s not an incentive for the Braves or a hindrance to Philly.
Same goes with the D’Backs, who aim to take a 2-0 lead over the NL West champion Dodgers.
And while we’re looking fairness and tweaks, the MLB playoffs do not have a March Madness-style bracket set-up, so why not use the NFL model of re-seeding the playoffs after each round, because in the NL, the 1-seeded Braves got the 4-seeded Phillies, while the 2-seeded Dodgers got the 6-seeded Diamondbacks.
Granted it may not matter since the lower seeds are in command of each series, but fair is fair and being the best from April to the end of September should still matter, even into October.
Just ask Clayton Kershaw.
This and that
— Falcons played, Falcons won. Nice game-winning drive for Desmond Ridder. Titans played, Titans lost. Maybe the Colts should have traded Jonathan Taylor when they had the chance.
— So there are still circulating reports that Patrick Cantlay wanted to be paid for his Ryder Cup performance and that was the genesis of the de-capped debacle late last month. OK, does that mean the other dudes who went hatless are in favor of being paid? If it’s a “for your country thing,” why are the PGA of America staff paid while the players are not? I don’t want them to be paid. This feels like one of the only times money is not important in professional golf, but is NBC paying their analysts? Is the club charging for tickets? Are the TV and radio broadcast partners charging advertisers? The romance of big-time sports is a forever changed landscape, and it makes me think of the great line from “North Dallas Forty” (which is likely the best football movie not named “Little Giants” ever made): “Every time (the players) say it’s a game, you tell us it’s a business, and every time we say it’s a business you try to convince us it’s a game.”
— If you are curious, our Jay’s Plays went 0-1 in MLB, 3-2 in college football and 2-0-1 in NFL picks. And yes, 5-3-1 continues to make money. The Fab 4 picks (college only), went 4-3, splitting on Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, missing Ole Miss-Arkansas over and hitting Alabama, LSU-Mizzou over and USC over.
— You know the rules. Here’s Paschall’s SEC wrap column. Yes, the front-runners in the East and the West are quite predictable at the halfway point, and I know Bama was on the road last Saturday. But if that Bama team played that Georgia team in the Dome, welp, Dawgs are a 12-point favorite. And when was the last time a Nick Saban coached team had that many pre-snap penalties?
— Question for the group: Is Rusty Wright’s program the epitome of two steps forward, one giant gut punch back?
Today’s questions
Weekend winners and losers. Go.
As for multiple choice Monday, let’s go here: What is the result of this Braves-Phillies series?
— Phillies sweep.
— Phillies in four.
— Braves in four.
— We’re going all five, baby.
As for today, Oct. 9, let’s review.
On this day in 1926, NBC was formed.
John Lennon would have been 83 today. Imagine what he could have done if he had not been killed.
If NBC had a Rushmore outside of Rockefeller Center, who would be on it?
Go and have a little fun today.