Facemasks on helmets for UT, UGA
I don't understand it to be honest.
We all want to be done with this right? We want our lives back, right?
Restaurants with friends. Church with loved ones. Ball parks with kids.
And college football games with fellow followers and hated rivals alike.
But far too many are ignoring the steps. And now the tens of thousands - and if they are good more than a hundred thousand at Neyland - college football fans around the Southeast are going to be allowed into the games without any requirements or masks.
Who knew 'stadium' was the latin word for super-spreader. Kudos to LSU - and the Saints for that matter - for requiring proof of vaccines or a documented negative test. Both of those venues are saving lives.
In Knoxville and Athens, announcements Wednesday were the opposite, and the open-door policy for Sanford Stadium barely requires pants.
Beyond the common sense of all of this, here's another question: How are the teams - be them college or NFL - all-but demanding their players get vaccinated but fans, who could come in contact with players or a player's family member or loved one, aren't.
We'd have a chance to kick this thing if we got politics out of it.
Nichols out
Rachel Nichols is all-but-done at ESPN.
The former host of almost all of the NBA studio programming, including the daily NBA-centric show "The Jump," has been removed from all NBA-related shows. She has roughly a year on her contract, but considering the NBA brand she has built for herself, this move by the Worldwide Leader is akin to keeping Kirk Herbstriet on contract but not letting him cover or discuss college football.
So it goes, and man, what a harsh end for a pretty benign comment made more than a year ago.
Nichols - who was unaware there was a camera recording her conversation - made some observations to a friend about Maria Taylor and ESPN's decision to have Taylor host the NBA Countdown pregame show in 2020. Taylor replaced Nichols in that role.
"I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world - she covers football, she covers basketball," Nichols said in a recording which was leaked to the New York Times earlier this summer. "If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity - which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it - like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away."
Taylor went ballistic about the comments and refused to work with Nichols before leaving for NBC Sports when her ESPN contract expired.
In my view Nichols biggest shots were at ESPN, but that clearly did not bother the network or its brass since the powers that be in Bristol knew of Nichols' comments when they were made in the bubbled NBA postseason in 2020.
Nichols' quick demise with the Mothership has only transpired when this dirty laundry was aired, so it's not about the act as much as it is about folks knowing about it.
Hope she finds a future gig. And/or saved her money.
NFL props
The final weekend of the preseason starts Friday. The three-game preseason slate is still strange to me. So too is the conversation and predictions of teams going 9-8 rather than 8-8 or 13-4 rather than 12-4.
But maybe that's just me.
What's not just me is the itch for predictions and gambling advice. Here's an interesting story of a bettor who put $19,000 on the Packers to win the Super Bowl at the Bellagio over the weekend. At 14-to-1 odds, the bettor would win $266,000.
That's a truly super Bowl win.
Side question: What's the biggest wager you ever made? Discuss. The Packers are as good a pick as any I suppose.
Thoughts? (If you are wondering, almost 20 percent of all bets to win the Super Bowl at BetMGM are on the Bucs . So there's that.)
This and that
- Memphis landed Emoni Bates, the top hoops recruit for the 2022 cycle. Bates reclassified and will enroll this week. He joins Jalen Duren, another 2022 elite recruit who enrolled early, in a star-studded class. Side question: How much is Penny Hardaway using the NIL stuff to his advantage? Side question on the side question: Which coach in history would have maximized the NIL deals the best? I'll start with Jerry Tarkanian in Vegas. Can anyone top that?
- Speaking of ESPN and the NBA, saw some interesting details on the deal the network promised the league in its most recent TV negotiations. ESPN is required to generate 750 hours of NBA-focused programming beyond pregame shows and games. That's two hours a day. And when the deal was done LeBron and the Heat were reaching Jordan-levels of TV numbers. Now? The last two NBA Finals averaged 4.1 and 5.2 ratings shares.
-You know the rules. Here's Paschall on UT quarterbacks, which seem to be fine fellas.
Today's questions
Did Rachel Nichols get canceled?
Would wearing a mask stop you from going to a college football game? Would a lack of requirements stop you from going to a college football game? As for today, Aug. 26, let's review.
On this day five years ago, Colin Kaepernick kneeled. Yes, five years. Wow.
Wanna feel old? Macaulay Culkin is 41 years old.
Rushmore of best movies with a child (under 12) as the lead? Because I think "Home Alone" is there. Go, and remember the mailbag.