Another week and I am still disinclined to have sports continue on a normal trajectory. I feel I am in the minority. Fan X sent me a link about opening baseball ASAP. We know where his thoughts are. But I will get to that topic in a bit.
This was a week with much going on. The NFL schedule came out on Thursday. Some flexibility reportedly exists, should the league have to await October to be cleared to play. Or course, flipping the first four games means January games and, bite my tongue, February playoff games with the Super Bowl moved to later February or early March. I can just imagine games at Met Life Stadium, Green Bay or in Kansas City during the tough Winter months. If those are the venues, let there be no fans attending any of the games. Please!!
The New York Jets have the second toughest schedule before the season begins. Prognosticators believe that NYJ will go 7-9. There are three jaunts to the West Coast for games against Seattle, the Rams and the Chargers. Sam Darnold and company must play in Kansas City against Pat Mahomes and the Chiefs. The other road contest besides the three divisional road games is in Indianapolis. New York opens the season in Buffalo on September 13 and ends the season in early January at New England. There is no Tom Brady meeting on the 2020 schedule. There are two Monday night games—one versus Denver in October and one over Veteran’s Day weekend when the Patriots make their annual trek in. And the home opener has the San Francisco 49 ’ers traveling East to play the Jets.
For now, team facilities are still locked. The NFL has ambitiously set out a plan to start activity at team headquarters if the particular state permits such. Both New York teams train in New Jersey. The Bills are subject to whatever restrictions are in place in New York. Plus there are two teams in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco, subject to some of the strictest restrictions in the United States. Those restrictions might not be relaxed any time soon.
Sticking with the NFL for a few more moments, the sports world sadly mourns the passing of the legendary Don Shula, who coached the Baltimore Colts and the Miami Dolphins in the Super Bowl. Shula was known for his no nonsense approach. It was quite successful.
Even if his heavily-favored Colts team lost to Joe Namath and the Jets in Super Bowl III, his Dolphins team made history, which includes the only undefeated team in NFL history to win the Super Bowl and record a perfect mark. He and his players are so proud of that achievement.
Shula helped produce Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Johnny Unitas, Bob Griese and Dan Marino, all with differing styles, were successful with Don Shula as their coach. No wonder Shula is the winningest coach in NFL annals, with only one losing season in his storied career. He put the Miami Dolphins, a struggling expansion team born in the 1960’s, on the map with his take no prisoners approach that placed Shula in the pantheon of NFL head coaches.
There is one anecdotal story about Don Shula. He is 1-0 lifetime against Bill Belichick. Shula had no patience for Belichick and his ways. By referring to the Patriots skipper as “Belicheat” and openly rooting against the Tom Brady-led undefeated teams, it showed that he played by the rules and remained highly competitive up to his death.
Plus, I liked his steakhouse outside of Cleveland. Not too pretentious.
Sadly, the mother of the Johnson brothers who own the New York Jets and a great philanthropist, Betty Wold Johnson, died at age 99. She fondly called the Jets players her “grandchildren.” By all accounts, she was a phenomenal woman.
We have endured virtual NASCAR, Secretariat winning a virtual Kentucky Derby and Will Ferrell crashing a Seattle Seahawks Zoom meeting, impersonating TE Greg Olsen. ESPN is promoting the hell out of South Korean baseball; I am not interested.
In other NFL news, former Cincinnati Bengals QB Andy Dalton, displaced by Joe Burrow, was released and signed on as a backup in Dallas. Sportswriters and TV personalities are advising Cam Newton to not become a backup when he is signed as a free agent. Marshawn Lynch said his people are talking again with the Seahawks. Logan Ryan, a DB out of Rutgers, knew his time in Tennessee was over when the team assigned his number to a recent draftee. Plus the four International games on the 2020 schedule have returned to the United States due to the pandemic.
Brett Favre became embroiled in a Mississippi scandal when he took $1.1 million for a no-show speaking engagement through an indicted former state official. Favre is returning the money. It must be nice to easily return $1.1 million dollars. He faces no charges.
Then there was the story about Pete Rose. Groundskeepers in Montreal claim that Rose, the disgraced all-time hit leader, corked his bat while he was with the Expos. If that is true, he certainly does not deserve to be in Cooperstown.
A solid basketball player at Wake Forest has decided to leave the school, transferring to the University of Kentucky, one of the basketball blue bloods. Wake’s coach queried the wisdom of going to Kentucky to graduate and leaving a prestigious school like Wake where his upcoming degree was worth more. He said so with “no disrespect” to Kentucky.
As a postscript, the NCAA is looking to make the existing transfer rules easier. I guess that is a formality, because a heck of a lot of players get waivers and do not have to sit out the mandatory one year presently enforced.
Some other notable events include a Skins match to benefit the American Nurses Foundation involving four of America’s top golfers. The NCAA has found much egregious conduct occurred within the basketball programs at Louisville and Kansas. Coaches Rick Pitino (now at Iona, who claims they anticipated this and stand by their man) and Bill Self will have a lot of answering to do.
Sixty basketball coaches have divided into Team NY and Team NJ and have made videos with encouraging words to students, players, and those on the front line. C. Vivian Stringer, the Rutgers women’s head coach and Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, is an imposing figure in her video.
People have taken up running and walking during the stay at home period. Virtual poker games are the rage. Yet sports fans long for information about when baseball is going to begin, what is happening with the NBA and NHL.
I know that to fill some of the void, I listened to a podcast called J.B & Goldwater out of the Low Country in South Carolina. Darren Goldwater is a play-by-play broadcaster who lives there. He is also the son of my wife’s cousin. The show gives a different perspective to those outside of the immediate area they live in. Pretty darn enjoyable. Check it out if you have some free time. 12:00-2:00 P.M. Monday thru Friday.
Some NBA players have entered gyms under strict conditions. This means very little at the moment. Until the curve is really flattened and there is demonstrative proof that they can open without compromising the health and well-being of so many others, what is happening with the NFL schedule is just a tease.
Baseball has come up with a plan that allows for 10 team divisions and 8 game home stands against the same opponent. How would you like to be the Yankees and draw Max Scherzer twice on a trip to DC? I get that they are trying to salvage a season with limited or no fans—teams are hemorrhaging concession and other money.
Fan X would be all for this. Alas, we won’t have enough safety measures in place to make this realistically work. The fact that the dates keep being pushed back for the start of the season, with a new training period, the shortening the MLB Draft to only 5 rounds, and the pushing back of the NHL and NBA Drafts from their original dates highlight the problems inherent in making a go of a new reality for professional sports. For the Brooklyn Nets, they have to decide if injured star Kevin Durant should make his team debut after his post-NBA Finals surgery and risk aggravating his rehabilitated Achilles Tendon or do they opt to wait until the 2021 season for him to wear a Nets jersey?
I don’t like the Dolphins proposal to let 15,000 fans into Hard Rock Stadium for home games. How can they do that and not endanger people, no matter how far apart they may be seated and whatever other so-called precautions they take?
Two sane people spoke this week on college athletics. Val Ackerman, the Big East Commissioner, bluntly said that there will be no Big East sports unless students are on campus. Mark Emmert, the head of the NCAA, said fall sports are likely a no-go if campuses aren’t open.
This counters the idiocy of Penn State Head Football Coach James Franklin who said that the Big Ten should go forward and play even if some schools aren’t having students on campus or if there are certain schools which cannot play because of state government edicts. That kind of mentality exists in the SEC and the Big 12. Let’s see if those schools have successful openings and if they try to go forward with fall sports without students on campus.
Take a step back, people. Hey Fan X—I miss baseball, college hoops, Steph Curry and the Jets. I am going to be 70. My wife and I are high risk. I would choose not go to a game under these conditions. And to play the games without fans serves what purpose other than to remove some lethargy for a short while?
COVID-19 has invaded the White House. No place is really that safe. Why tempt fate—even with no fans?
This is risky business.
Hope you had a great Mother’s Day. Maybe next year we can actually hug our children again without fear of infection. Got to go watch The Last Dance and Run. I can’t read about the claim that Zion Williamson and his family took money from numerous sources including Duke…
Why can't you recognize that dook gave money to Zion ? Makes perfect sense to me.
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