Morning, how are you feeling, Cowboys fans? More on that in a moment. Business and all.
› Rushmore of best sports nicknames with a U.S. state in them: Georgia Peach (Ty Cobb), Kansas Comet (Gale Sayers), Louisiana Lightning (Ron Guidry) and The Flyin’ Hawaiian (Shane Victorino). Sorry, Minnesota Fats, Jersey Joe Walcott.
› Rushmore of Pee Wee — Pee Wee Reese, Pee Wee Herman, R&B and blues legend Pee Wee Crayton, and peewee football.
› Rushmore of “Mother” in titles — Mother Goose, Mother Mary, Mother Teresa and “Mother” by Danzig. With apologies to the A-T-L’s own Mother’s Finest.
› Rushmore of Sean Connery — all the Bonds, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “Untouchables” and “The Hunt for Red October.” “One ping only, Vasily.”
Rules, friends. Here’s Hargis on the Baylor School RB1 who is completely bona fide. Wow.
More rules. Paschall gets the skinny on Georgia-born UT players returning to the A-T-L for the season opener.
To a loaded mailbag.
From more than one of you
Micah Parson-to-Green Bay thoughts?
Gang,
Not sure I can recall a better player in his prime in the hard-cap NFL being traded.
Not cut or leaving in free agency but straight-up traded. Parsons is the 5-to-1 favorite to be NFL defensive player of the year.
Wow, and how are you feeling in the Dallas locker room right now when clearly the best player on your roster was not getting his dollars, and they shipped him to Green Bay?
I understand the move for Green Bay. If you think you are in a position to win, such chips to win now and how many truly elite defensive difference-makers have been trade-available at the age of 26 or under? But can you really think as a franchise that any non-QB is worth $47 million per out of a salary cap of $279 million?
Moreover, though, is how comfortable can you be as a Dallas sports fan right now?
The Mavericks dealt Luka Dončić for pennies on the dollar.
The Cowboys fired up the “rebuild” red-light with the Micah Parsons deal.
Who’s next? Are the Stars going to trade Paige Bueckers? Will the Rangers trade Corey Seager? Maybe they could send the statue of Nolan Ryan to the Mets for a bag of chips, a bucket of balls and two used fungos?
Trading franchise players is tough, and the avalanche of viewpoints is something along the lines “Wow, what the Hell is Jerry Jones doing in Dallas?”
Well, to offer at least some balance, in terms of this deal:
Parsons is an All-Pro defensive Swiss Army knife. But Dallas finished no better than 16th in NFL defensive rankings with Parsons being a Reggie White-level sack artist in his four years.
And you get a Pro Bowl defensive tackle, two first-round picks and $47 million in cap space. That could be five Pro Bowlers for one All-Pro in reality.
Look, Green Bay is much better for 2025 and ’26 and should be on everyone’s shortlist as a true Super Bowl contender.
I can see some methods to the madness of dealing Parsons.
From Michael P
Jay, man, you have done a lot of football preview stuff this month. I have enjoyed it.
What’s the one team you think no one is talking about that could find a way into the CFP this year?
Keep up the good work.
Michael,
Thanks, and thanks for spending your time around these parts.
These numbers caught me off guard a bit.
Odds to make the playoff from the ESPN AllState prediction machine (which may be on the fritz)
› Texas 87%
› Georgia 75.6%
› Alabama 71.4%
› THE Ohio State 68.9%
› Penn State 66.6%
› Notre Dame 55.5%
› Oregon 51%
› Tennessee 43.4%
› Texas A&M 38%
› Clemson 37.2%
› Miami 37.1%
How does Tennessee and Texas A&M have better odds than the two clear-cut favorites in the ACC?
As for your question, I am on Missouri’s win total over 7.5 heavily. That could be a 10-win schedule, and 10 wins in the SEC gets you to the playoff bubble.
And I think we will see tonight that the swing factor for Auburn is enormous. A loss tonight, and Hugh Freeze could be out of work by Halloween. A win tonight could be a springboard to 10 wins.
God bless college football.
From Tim,
Jay, the first college football game played this year was Kansas vs Fresno State last Saturday. Typically, they opened the broadcast with the play-by-play guy discussing the game with the color guy. Play-by-play was Tim Brando, but he could also be mistaken as the color guy by the amount of black shoe polish he had in his hair. This wasn’t a Grecian Formula gradual change from last year, this was from aging gracefully to a 25-year-old’s jet black. If he’s ever caught in a rainstorm, expect to see an oil slick
Why do they hold on so long? Chris Berman, James Brown (CBS halftime), Nick Saban, etc., look foolish and need to let it go and admit they are getting older. I swear we understand.
Tim
This made me laugh. Which is worse — the jet-black Quickie Lube hair decision or the fluorescent-over-the-top, glow-in-the-dark dental treatment?
And the images of Saban from his time as the Browns DC to his glam shots now show he is aging backward like Benjamin Button.
And visor tip to the Chris Fowlers and the others that just let time work.
Side note: I look in the mirror and see dirty blonde hair. When I get my hair cut, the lady at Great Clips is a magician about only cutting my gray hairs. Like every single time.
From Spy
And with the Travis-Taylor nuptials in the offing, you know what I’m thinking?
Candlesticks.
So help me, if they get married on Hampton Island though, I will call every string I can pull to have a B-2 strike mission called in.
Spy
And you, Larry Hockett, should remember me.
Better ad-libbed moment, Hockett coming to the mound and delivering the “Candlesticks always make a nice gift. Maybe find out where they are registered and get a place-setting or something. Let’s get two.”
Or, Carl Spackler’s “What an incredible Cinderella story! This unknown, comes out of nowhere, to lead the pack at Augusta. He’s at the final hole. He’s about 455 yards away, he’s gonna hit about a 2-iron, I think. Boy, he got all of that. The crowd is standing on its feet here at Augusta. The normally reserved Augusta crowd going wild … for this young Cinderella who’s come out of nowhere. He’s got about 350 yards left, he’s going to hit about a 5-iron, it looks like, don’t you think? He’s got a beautiful backswing … that’s — oh, he got all of that one! He’s gotta be pleased with that! The crowd is just on its feet here. He’s a Cinderella boy. Tears in his eyes, I guess, as he lines up this last shot. He’s got about 195 yards left, and he’s got a, looks like he’s got about an 8-iron. This crowd has gone deadly silent … Cinderella story, out of nowhere, former greens keeper, now about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac– it’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!”
Gotta go Spackler, right?
Have a great weekend, friends.