The Sports Curmudgeon

The NFL is clearly the top dog when it comes to pro sports enterprises in the US, but the NFL has suffered a pair of losses in courtrooms this week demonstrating that it is not nearly invincible.  Since the following will deal with legal matters, I need to offer the standard disclaimer; I am not an attorney and my comments here are not to be taken as authoritative in any sense of the word.

Jon Gruden filed a lawsuit against the NFL several years ago claiming that the leaking of some of his emails with an NFL employee led to his being fired by the Las Vegas Raiders as their head coach.  The NFL contends that such a dispute would be handled by the NFL’s closed arbitration process; Gruden wants it out in open court.  The league had a ruling in its favor until this week when the Nevada Supreme Court heard the case en banc and ruled 5-2 that the case would not be heard in the NFL’s arbitration process but that it could proceed in open court.  Even more interesting to me is the statement by the Court in its ruling that the NFL’s arbitration process is “unconscionable”; that statement cannot be welcome along Mahogany Row at NFL HQs.

I have been in favor of hearing this case in court since the filing because there are potentially some salacious details that could be exposed in such a proceeding.  The NFL said it would appeal this ruling to the US Supreme Court and that leads to my uninformed misunderstandings on the matter:

• Many cases that are heard by the US Supreme Court deal with issues of constitutionality.  I cannot point to a part of the US Constitution that favors arbitration over a trial in disputes involving a pro football league.
• Many  cases that are heard by the US Supreme Court deal with issues of Federal Law and adherence with Federal Law.  Once again, I cannot think of a Federal Law that may have been violated by the ruling in Nevada that will be appealed.

If the US Supreme Court refuses to take the Gruden case or if the ruling there goes against the NFL, the league would face a choice.  It could reach a settlement with Jon Gruden, or it can go through a public trial – – with disclosure circumstances.  At least for now, Gruden seems not to be particularly interested in a settlement.  Earlier this week after winning in the Nevada court, he said:

“I’m looking forward to having the truth come out, and I want to make sure what happened to me doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

That does not sound like someone looking for a payday settlement.  In fact, Gruden also said this week that he would really like to get back into coaching at the collegiate level.  Speaking to the Georgia team – presumably at the invitation of Georgia coach, Kirby Smart – Gruden said he very much wanted to get back to coaching and would love to do so in the SEC.  There are chapters yet unwritten in this matter …

The other setback for the NFL is in a similar vein.  Brian Flores and co-plaintiffs have sued the NFL and three individual teams claiming racial discrimination in hiring.  Again, the NFL claimed that this had to be adjudicated in its arbitration format; this week, a US Court of Appeals ruled that at least some of the claims made by the plaintiffs should move forward in the court system.  That ruling by the Court of Appeals confirmed a ruling by a US District Judge about 2 years ago regarding the venue for settling this dispute.

Once again, the league must not be happy with commentary contained in the ruling of the court:

• The Court said that the NFL’s constitution which sets up the arbitration process “contractually provides for no independent arbitral forum, no bilateral dispute resolution, and no procedure.”

And …

• “ … it [the NFL’s arbitration process] offends basic presumptions of our arbitration jurisprudence” because the final decision is to be made by the NFL’s “principal executive officer.”

Here is my takeaway from the above.  If this ruling is affirmed – or allowed to stand – by whatever appeal the NFL makes wherever it makes it, the entire legal foundation for the NFL’s arbitration process is called into question for just about any future confrontation.  Once again, I doubt that anyone was popping champagne corks along Mahogany Row at NFL HQs when this news arrived.

Moving on …  About a month ago, MLB Commish, Rob Manfred, said that he thought the Minnesota Twins would be sold and that the deal would close sometime later this season.  I and some other commentators thought that the Twins’ housecleaning at the trade deadline – – trading away 10 players from their 26-man roster – – was a way to clear the books for the new owner(s).  Not so …

Yesterday, the current owners of the Twins – – the Pohlad family – – announced that they would take on two limited partners but that the Pohlad family would retain control of the Twins’ franchise.  As of yesterday, the two new limited partners were not identified and as of yesterday there is a segment of the Twins’ fanbase that is not happy.  Some have suggested boycotting the team and that would not be good news for the Pohlad family or the new limited partners.

• Twins rank 23^rd in home attendance in 2025 – – 22,721 fans per game
• MLB average attendance in 2025 is 29,301 fans per game

Finally, here is some food for thought from Mark Twain:

“God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports ………

 

 

Last week I wrote that the Colorado Rockies – – despite their horrific record in 2025 – – were drawing above the league average in attendance.  What I said there was:

“I don’t know what sort of marketing magic the Rockies have conjured up, but despite the despicable record by the Rockies, they draw more than the average attendance for all of MLB which is 29,200 fans per game. “

Well, I received a missive from “the reader in Houston” with more than a dozen “bullet points” that contribute to those attendance figures including:

“They are the only MLB team around for almost 1,000 miles with maybe one or two exceptions like KC or Phoenix, so people come from all over the area, including states like Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming; western Kansas, New Mexico.”

“The ballpark is in a very good location with pretty good weather once May comes around.”

“The ballpark has the best background sky in baseball.”

“It’s a hitter’s ballpark often with homers galore and chicks dig the long ball.”

“Denver is a great sports town period (try getting hockey or basketball tickets).”

“You might come up with more reasons, but the bottom line is no matter how lousy a team is, if it’s easy to get to a stadium in a great location and the price is right, why not?”

In addition, he passed along some historical data that I was unaware of:

“The Rox still have the MLB regular season attendance record of 4,483,350 (Bears Stadium sat over 70,000), which was established during their initial season in 1993, which will probably stand for a long time because most stadiums today, even if full every game with the exception of Dodger Stadium (56,000) could not hit the Rox record attendance.”  [Aside:  Did not recall the 1993 stats.]

“The franchise has broken almost every attendance record except for consecutive sellouts. Even when they stink, they were still in the Top 10 most years in attendance average, though in recent years their attendance due to losing records and no big-name stars has trended down into the middle of the pack.”

“The Rox do have relatively poor TV ratings because of their recent losing ways, and though Coors is a great ballpark, there is nothing really magical about it.”

And now you know … thanks to “the reader in Houston”.

So let me stay with the Rockies for one more item today.  Last weekend the Rockies and D-Backs had a game that ended with the Rockies on the short end of a 13-6 score.  The game was in Arizona, so those loyal Colorado fans were not able to see this one in person.  As the D-Backs came to bat in the bottom of the fifth inning, the score was tied at 3-3.  The first two Arizona batters produced routine outs.  Paraphrasing King Louis XV of France:

“Après cela, le deluge …”

The next nine batters for the D-Backs hit safely.  There were no errors or walks or catcher’s interference instances tossed into that stretch; nine straight batters hit safely.  Those nine hits produced eight runs leading to the D-Backs comfortable margin of victory.  Another stat from that game also explains that margin of victory; the D-Backs were far more efficient with their hitting on that day:

• D-Backs scored 13 runs on 17 hits.
• Rockies scored 6 runs on 16 hits.

Quick update here.  The Rockies’ record this morning is 32-88 which projects to a final record of 43-119 giving them a “2-game lead” in the projection over last year’s woeful White Sox.  The Rockies’ run differential is a staggering minus-326 and they could surpass the MLB record from 1932 of minus-349 for a season.

Moving on …  I was sports grazing recently and ran across a Cards/Cubs game in St. Louis; that alone was enough to get me to put down the remote and hang around for a while.  In addition to things happening on the field, what I noticed was the large number of empty seats in the stands in St. Louis AND the significant fraction of the people in attendance wearing “Cubs’ Blue” and not “Cardinals’ Red”.   I made a note to try to explain this “aberration” as I labeled it.

Well, maybe it isn’t that much of an aberration after all.  I have in my mind that Busch Stadium is filled to overflowing with people wearing red-and-white whenever the Cardinals take the field.  The Cardinals were always at or near the top in home attendance and usually had the stadium at capacity whenever a big game or the rival Cubbies were on display.  Not so in 2025 …

• The Cards average BELOW the MLB average home attendance in 2025
• The Cards average about 2500 fans BELOW the Rockies in 2025.
• In the NL, only the Reds, Nats, Pirates and Marlins draw fewer home fans in 2025.

The Cards have been in the playoffs in six of the last eleven seasons but have tended to make early exits once there.  They won 100 games in 2015 but have only gone north of 90 wins twice since then.  Back in “the teens”, the Cards home attendance was always more than 40,000 fans per game peaking at 43,712 per game in 2014.  In 2025, home attendance is averaging only 28,767 which is a drop of 34.2% from that peak.  Even more telling than those raw comparisons, is a peek at the secondary market for tickets to Cards’ upcoming games.  What used to be a hot ticket – – something scalpers sold around the parking lots for three figures – – can now be had for as little as $25 on StubHub.

The 2025 Cards are 61-61 this morning, which is hardly an electrifying record, but the Cards are only 4 games behind in the race for the final Wild Card slot in the NL playoffs; these are not the woebegone Rockies even if this is a “disappointing season” for Cards’ fans.  I have not been to the Cards’ park in person in decades, so I have no way to assess the “fan experience” at Busch Stadium, but I have difficulty accepting that it was a positive experience as recently as 2023 when the Cards averaged 40,013 fans per game and now in 2025 it is as pleasant as a root canal.

Finally, since today has been about baseball – – at least tangentially – – I’ll finish with this from Jim Bouton:

“Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

A week or so ago, there was an article in the NY Times that made this argument:

• MLB should never have a salary cap, and the union should never allow it because it would denigrate the legacy of Curt Flood.

Nevertheless, I plan to suggest here that the upcoming CBA negotiations between MLB and the MLBPA should consider a new structure that includes a salary cap.  I do not think that denigrates the legacy of Curt Flood; the fact that his refusal to be traded away as a piece of chattel property led directly and exclusively to the free agency that exists in all major US sports cannot be changed.  No one else can ever claim that central position on the current status quo.  And just as baseball specifically – – and pro sports in the US more broadly – – needed to evolve from the model that existed in the 1960s and 1970s, so too can there be room for evolution from the current MLB model.

In terms of a financially successful sporting entity in the US, one needs to look no further than the NFL.  It has a salary cap; owners make a ton of money and players earn a ton of money.  The reason those statements are both true is that the NFL earns 2 tons of money and it is shared.  One could also use the NBA as an example of a sports entity where a salary cap exists and both owners and players reap benefits.  So, what sort of model might make sense for MLB and why?

Every NFL fan knows about “the cap” and “cap room” and the ceiling on player salaries that exists for every team.  What many do not know is that the NFL’s CBA also includes a “salary floor”.  It is an amount of money that every team MUST spend on player salaries, and it is there to prevent a team owner from taking the shared revenue money and pocketing most of it.  The salary floor is also a way to add to the competitive balance of the league and competitive balance is usually a positive contributor to total revenue.

The NFL’s salary floor is not a fixed number as is “the cap”.  For reasons that I cannot explain, the negotiators arrived at a formula for figuring out the teams’ salary floors:

• Every team must spend at least 89% of the seasonal salary caps on player salaries over a four-year rolling period.
• For the NFL’s fiscal  years 2020 – 2024, the total salary cap was $870.9M so the salary floor for those four years had to be in excess of $775.1M for each team.
• The NFLPA gets to audit the books regarding salaries and if a team were to fall short of spending for the floor, it must make up the difference in cash to the union who then distributes the money to players who were on the team roster during the years of the “under-spending”.

It may not be exactly accurate for every team; but for the most part, NFL teams have to pay the players on their rosters in 2025 less than a total of $279.2M and more than $$248.5M.  That is a very narrow window as compared to the disparity of player salary expenditures by MLB teams according to these figures for salaries committed to players on the 26-man rosters at Spotrac.com:

• Mets – – $298.0M
• Phillies – – $248.7M
• Dodgers – – $245.5M
• versus
• Nats – – $37.9M
• Marlins – – $36.7M
• A’s – – $31.4M

A salary cap and a salary floor would probably benefit MLB as an enterprise – – providing that the owners do as NFL owners do and share a significant chunk of total league revenue – – and a greater number of players will benefit as well because lots of “low-spending” teams will need to open up their wallets significantly.

The MLB average salary expenditure for the 26-man rosters at the moment is $115.0M  thirteen of the thirty MLB teams are above that average and seventeen teams are below it.  If as a starting point, one says that the average salary cost per team should not go up or down, and that there would need to be a 10-15% gap between the cap number and the floor number, that would mean the putative 2025 figure would be:

• Cap is approximately $121.9M
• Floor is approximately $108.1M

With the floor as stated above, fifteen teams – – half of MLB – – would need to increase their expenditure on player salaries.  Obviously, that sort of team disruption cannot be condoned meaning that there would have to be a ramping up period to achieve better salary equity across the league.  [Aside:  By the way, some of the more penurious owners may not want to spend in such a narrow window and might choose to sell their franchise to the delight of their fans.  Just saying …]

I do not think this sort of contemplation tarnishes Curt Flood’s legacy, nor does it do anything to negate his confrontation of baseball and its “reserve clause”.  To the contrary, what he did was to set in motion the change that happened to MLB in the 1970s which generated the economic conditions that exist today which can be optimized once again.  Thomas Edison invented the light bulb; the fact that we use LED bulbs today does not change that fact nor does it demean Edison and his work.

Finally, these words from Curt Flood succinctly summarize the basis of his fight with MLB:

“I’m a human being I’m not a piece of property. I am not a consignment of goods.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

With the College Football Preview for 2025 in the rear-view mirror, I spent some time yesterday thinking synoptically about things I will want to write about regarding the upcoming NFL season.  There is a rather consistent correlation in pro football:

• The “better teams” tend to have “better than average QBs”.

It can be very challenging to figure out if an “average QB” is going to have a career year upcoming which might translate into a surprisingly good year for the team.  Recall that Jeff Hostetler, Mark Rypien, Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson have all been the starting QB on a Super Bowl Champion squad.  All the above is intended to explain how my mind was processing info yesterday afternoon.

• Barring injury, I need not worry about teams like the Bills, Chargers, Chiefs, Commanders, Eagles, Ravens etc. getting positive play from their QBs.
• Barring a miracle, which teams are going to do poorly in 2025 simply because their QBs will be outplayed by most of their opponents?  That is an important question and one that is not easily answered.

As I thought about those teams with problematic QB situations, I came to separate them into two categories – – Potential Trouble and Almost Assuredly Trouble.  I’ll start with Potential Trouble:

• Colts:  Both Daniel Jones and Anthony Richardson have shown flashes of ability to date; both have also shown that those flashes are separated by periods of malaise such that neither has been able to establish himself as a solid #1 QB in the league.  Can one of them emerge this year as “the man”?  If neither shows up in that mode, there is no reason to expect help further down on the depth chart from Riley Leonard and/or Jason Bean.
• Jets:  Justin Fields is in the spotlight here.  The Jets will rise and fall with his production.  Behind him are Tyrod Taylor, Adrian Martinez and Brady Cook.
• Seahawks:  Sam Darnold had a wonderful year in 2024; that was the first and only year he was anything better than “merely satisfactory” at QB.  Was that an indication that he has “figured it out” or was that a “one-off aberration”?  Behind Darnold on the depth chart are Drew Lock and Jalen Milroe.
• Titans:  They were a question mark even before Will Levis needed season-ending shoulder surgery.  They have the overall #1 pick from last year’s Draft which will create a tsunami of hope for Titans’ fans.  Sometimes that first pick turns out to be a Joe Burrow or an Andrew Luck or an Eli Manning and all is well in the neighborhood.  And sometimes, that first pick turns out to be a JaMarcus Russell, a Sam Bradford or a Jameis Winston.  The jury is out …
• Vikings:  JJ McCarthy has never taken a snap in a real NFL game.  Behind him are Brett Rypien and Max Brosmer.  The Vikes think McCarthy is the real deal; but if he is not …

            The five teams with Potential Trouble at QB for 2025 are also teams that can be surprisingly positive in the upcoming year.  The next category – – the Almost Assuredly Trouble teams – – ought to be in the mode of battening down the hatches and hunkering down for the next 20 weeks or so.

• Browns:  There is a saying in the NFL: if you have two QBs,  you don’t have a QB.  Well, the Browns currently have SIX QBs on their roster, and they may be hard pressed to find a bona fide starter in that mix.  Forget about Deshaun Watson, he is on IR and is rehabbing an Achillies tendon injury.  Maybe he can be physically available late in the season and maybe not.  The other five QBs on the roster – – in alphabetical order because no other ordering makes sense to me – – are:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Joe Flacco:  He was a Super Bowl MVP – – in 2012.  He is 40 years old.  Flacco will not be an embarrassment on the field; he is too savvy for that.  At the same time, his best years are in the past.
            2. Dillon Gabriel:  A rookie from Oregon.  I did not see him as a top-notch QB in last year’s draft – – but what do I know?
            3. Tyler Huntley:  He has been a competent backup QB in the league but has never made me think he was a “starter in waiting”.
            4. Kenny Pickett:  The Browns will be his third team in three seasons.
            5. Shedeur Sanders:  I did not think he was the top QB in last year’s Draft, but I would start him if I were the Browns simply because he seems to me to have the potential to be better than any of the other QBs on this list for 2025 and beyond.  Put him out there and see if he can produce …

• Saints:  This situation looks to me to be a certified hot mess.  When Derek Carr retired due to a shoulder injury sustained last season, the Saints had no real answer as to who was the “next man up”.  Jake Haener and Spencer Rattler took turns under center, and neither was impressive to be as polite as possible.  The Saints took Tyler Shough in the second round of the Draft; Shough may emerge as the starter there but there are warning signs galore around his candidacy for the job:
  • • He is a rookie AND he is 25 years old.
    • He played at 3 different schools over a 7-year period from 2018-2024.
    • He has an “injury history” in his college career – – collarbone, shoulder and ankle.
• The fourth QB on the depth chart for the Saints is Hunter Dekkers – – an undrafted free agent out of Iowa State and Iowa Western.  The Bible says that the Lord will separate the wheat from the chaff in the final days.  In the NFL, Training Camp is supposed to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak.  I fear that the Saints’ QB situation is all chaff…

Finally, hear this from legendary NFL coach, Don Shula:

“Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

College football opens its season in less than two weeks.  On Saturday, August 23^rd at Noon Eastern Time, Iowa State and Kansas State will play in Dublin, Ireland; that will be the first of approximately 700 Division 1-AA football games for the 2025 season.  This game is a particularly attractive one for a season-opener.

• It is a conference game.
• Both teams appear to be contenders in the Big-12 this season.
• Both teams are ranked in the Pre-season Top 25 coaches’ poll.
• There is a “rivalry element” at work here; the match-up is known as “Farmageddon”.

The proximity of that kickoff suggests that it is time for my annual College Football Pre-Season Analysis.  Unlike the NFL Pre-Season offering here, this will be a one-off rant with far less specificity than for the pros.  Before getting into the substance here, let me make a few things clear:

• There are more than 130 Division 1-AA schools that play football.
• I cannot pretend to have anything specific to say about most of them; so, I won’t even try.
• In fact, I cannot confidently name all the teams in some of the minor conferences like C-USA.
• Ergo, much of what is here will be like an overview.

I’ll begin with an alphabetical list of some coaches who could find themselves on a hot seat this year:

1. Luke Fickell – Wisconsin:  The Badgers had been to a bowl game every year from 2002 until 2023.  Last year Wisconsin was 4-7.  They have a tough schedule this year – – see below, it may be the toughest in the conference – – but fans are not going to be happy with another 4-win season…
2. Hugh Freeze – Auburn:  He has been at Auburn for two years with a record of 11-14.  His predecessor there – Bryan Harsin – was there for two years and posted a record of 11-14.  Both coaches had conference records of 5-11 and both coaches took one team to a minor bowl game – – and then lost that minor bowl game.  ‘Nuff said…
3. Mike Gundy – Oklahoma State:  He has been the head coach in Stillwater, OK since 2005.  His teams have won or tied for the conference championships twice; he has taken the Cowboys to a bowl game in 18 of the 20 seasons he has been there.  However, in 2024 Oklahoma State posted an overall record of 3-9 and a conference record of 0-9.
4. Brian Kelly – LSU:  The Tigers will probably win at least 9 games this year, but Brian Kelly said he went there to win national championships and that sets the performance bar a lot higher than 9 or 10 wins.
5. Mike Norvell – Florida State:  This will be his 6^th season at the helm for the Seminoles.  His overall record there is 33-27; in 2023 the Seminoles were 13-1; in 2024, the Seminoles were 2-10.
6. Brent Venables –  Oklahoma:  His teams have been to bowl games in all three seasons he has been at Oklahoma, but in his first year in the SEC his conference record was 2-6 and the team overall record was 6-7. His overall record at OU is a piddling 22-17 – – not in line with the “glory days” of Sooner football.

            Last year, I identified Nebraska as my “sleeper team”; the Huskers made it to a bowl game.  This year, I will give you another “sleeper team” to look out for:

• Georgia Tech – ACC: After 3.5 sub-par seasons under Geoff Collins, the Yellow Jackets turned things over to Brent Key.  In Key’s first two full seasons there, the team has gone 7-6 and has gone to a bowl game both years.  Last year, it took 9 overtimes for Georgia to prevail over Georgia Tech and Tech has its starting QB back for another season.  I think Tech will be a tough out in 2025.

            I want to say something about schedules – and no, it is not about how SEC schools schedule too many cupcake games out of conference.  The expansion of the college conferences way beyond what they used to be makes for unbalanced scheduling.  For example:

• The ACC has 17 teams – – and Notre Dame as a part-time participant.
• The Big-12 has 16 teams
• The Big-10 has 18 teams
• The SEC has 16 teams

There is no way for conferences to produce a balanced schedule when they are that big.  And the unbalanced nature of the scheduling can put a sheen on a team with a gaudy record that may not be completely deserved.  Let me pick on Indiana from last season:

• The Hoosiers finished the regular season at 11-1 – – second in the Big 10 to Oregon – – and got an invitation to the CFP.
• Three of the eleven wins were out of conference against “less than fearsome opponents” – – Florida International, Western Illinois and UNC-Charlotte.
• In conference, Indiana did NOT face Oregon or Penn State or Illinois or Iowa.  Other than Ohio State, their conference foes all lost at least 5 games last year.
• In their CFP game against Notre Dame, they were outclassed.  Do not be fooled by the score of that game – – 27-17 – – the Hoosiers scored two late TDs that were meaningless.

There is no one to blame here; Indiana only played the teams that the schedule makers and the computers operated by the schedule makers put on the opposing sidelines.  But the fact that by chance Indiana got to play mediocre teams week by week produced an “11-1 team” that was not nearly as good as an 11-1 record might have suggested.  What is important is to realize that this thing that is called “Strength of Schedule” is important even if it cannot be measured/quantified nearly as accurately as one might want.

By the way, we saw that same thing happen several years ago when Liberty University finished its undefeated season and met Oregon in the CFP.  That game was painful to watch; it was almost as lopsided as would have been a game between Liberty and a high-school squad.

Having tried to make a case for using “Strength of Schedule” to diminish expectations for some teams with records that look enticing, let me switch to the opposite and say that there are a couple of teams this year that have what look to be very difficult schedules.  In this case, I think there are several teams whose records might make the teams look weaker than they really are.  Consider:

1. Arkansas:  The Razorbacks went 7-6 last season but their schedule for 2025 looks more difficult.  This year they will face Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Texas A&M, LSU and Texas.
2. Florida:  The Gators surprised some folks finishing 8-5 in 2024.  The 2025 schedule is no walk in the park, however with LSU, Miami, Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia, Ole Miss and Tennessee on tap.
3. Purdue:  Yes, I know; Purdue was awful in 2024 finishing the season at 1-11.  And this year, the schedule includes USC, Notre Dame, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio State, Washington and Indiana.  The Boilermakers might finish 1-11 again even if they are a better team than last year’s team.
4. Wisconsin:  This schedule is part of the reason I put Luke Fickell on the hot seat list above.  The Badgers get to face Miami, Alabama, Michigan, Iowa, Ohio State, Oregon, Washington and Indiana.  Ouch … !

            I used Indiana above as an example of why Strength of Schedule matters.  So, the obvious question is:

• What is the outlook for Indiana in 2025?

Well, the schedule is a bit more difficult this year as compared to last year.  After three opening out-of-conference games against Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State, the Hoosiers draw Illinois, Iowa and Oregon back to back to back.  Early November has Indiana facing Penn State and Wisconsin on successive weekends.

Indiana coach, Curt Cignetti, has a gaudy record that could serve Indiana well during those difficult scheduling stretches.  He has been a head coach since 2011 and has worked his way up the coaching ladder quickly and successfully.  Consider:

• 2011-2016  Indiana University of Pennsylvania  53-17
• 2017-2018  Elon  14-9
• 2019-2023  James Madison  52-9
• 2024 – present  Indiana  11-2
• Combined coaching record is 130-37  win percentage = .778

I think Indiana will be an interesting case study for a program turnaround over the next few seasons.

The CFP will remain as a 12-team tournament field for 2025.  I believe that is already too many teams and that there will be too many uninteresting games in the early rounds of the tournament and I also believe that makes no difference when it comes to the decision to expand the field ultimately to 16 teams.  Money is the driver not quality of the product on the TV screen.  With the existence of only 4 major football conferences and the need for 12 teams in the CFP field, there will necessarily be non-conference champions receiving invitations.  That is a mathematical certainty.

Due to the importance that has come to attach itself to the CFP games and the CFP champion of course, the fact of “winning the conference” has been diminished.  Concurrently, the conference championship games are only there as a way for conferences to determine their champions for a season.  So as “winning the conference” has become less prestigious, one has to wonder why – – other than revenue – – schools schedule those conference championship games in early December.

Back when the CFP was only 4 teams, a game between Alabama and Georgia for the  SEC Championship had a double meaning – – the SEC Championship AND a slot in the CFP.  Now with 12 teams in the CFP it is possible for both teams to get an invitation meaning the “prize” for winning that game is the diminished conference championship.

• [Aside:  In 2024, the CFP Final game did not involve a conference champion.  In fact, the conference champions were eliminated quickly in the tournament; the ACC champion (Clemson) was eliminated by Texas in the first round of play.]

Pre-season polls are interesting even though they rarely “get it right”.  This year the focus is on Texas – – ranked #1 in the pre-season – – and their new QB, Arch Manning.  If  you have read this far into this screed on college football, you already know the Arch Manning story all too well.  If he gets a hangnail at any time during this upcoming season, you will hear about it from a minimum of a dozen outlets.

I will be interested to see what UNC does under the tutelage of Bill Belichick.  I will not be interested in any more stories about Belichick and his arm candy girlfriend.  The Tar Heels were 6-7 last  year …

I will be interested to see how Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes respond to the loss of Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter.  Colorado was 9-4 last year and 7-2 in the Big-12 Conference …

I will be interested in following the Big-12 race this year.  Last year, four teams finished with a record of 7-2 in the conference; they were Arizona St., BYU, Colorado, and Iowa St.  Three other teams finished at 6-3 in conference; they were Baylor, TCU and Texas Tech.

I will be interested in two other coaching stories this year – – beyond the Bill Belichick/UNC situation:

1. Rich Rodriguez is returning to West Virginia where he enjoyed a lot of success before flaming out elsewhere.  Can he “go home again”?
2. Sherone Moore (Michigan) will serve a two-game suspension in the middle of the season stemming from the sign-stealing incidents from several years ago.  Is that the end of the story or are there more shoes to drop?

Naturally, I would lose a significant portion of my credibility as a curmudgeon if I did not look for a disaster team for 2025.  I mentioned Purdue finishing last year at 1-11 with a tough schedule on tap for 2025 but let me not ignore another team going into this season off a terrible year in 2024.  That team would be the Kent State Golden Flashes.  Last year, Kent State pulled off this trifecta of recognition:

1. Winner of the Brothel Defense Award giving up 44.1 points per game
2. #1 Seed in the SHOE Tournament imagined here every season
3. The only Division 1-AA team to go winless for the season

The head coach there was Kenni Burns – – no relationship to the filmmaker, Ken Burns or Major Frank Burns from M*A*S*H – – until he was fired in April of this year after spring practice.  His record in two years at Kent State was 1-23 and that single victory came at the expense of Central Connecticut State in 2023.  As I understand it, a school investigation showed that he obtained loans from a school vendor that paid off a judgement against Burns obtained by a bank thereby creating somehow a conflict of interest situation.  [Aside:  Sorry; that’s the best I can do with a situation that is not clear to me at all.  What is clear to me is that when faced with a “conflict of interest situation”, the 1-23 on-field record did not provide a whole lot of cover for Coach Burns.]  Kent State will play this year with an interim head coach as it carries out a “national search” for a permanent head coach.

Before I go, let me take a stab at eight Futures – – win total wagers – – for this season:

1. BC UNDER 6 wins
2. Ga Tech OVER 7 wins
3. Purdue UNDER 3.5 wins
4. Stanford UNDER 4 wins
5. Texas OVER 9.5 wins
6. Texas Tech OVER 8.5 wins
7. UMass UNDER 3.5 wins
8. UNLV OVER 8.5 wins

Finally, these from legendary college football coach, Bear Bryant:

“Winning isn’t everything, but it sure beats anything that comes in second.”

And …

“No coach has ever won a game by what he knows; it’s what his players know that counts.”

And …

“In a crisis, don’t hide behind anything or anybody. They’re going to find you anyway.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Bert Bell used to own the Philadelphia Eagles back in the franchise’s infancy and he is credited with “inventing” the annual Draft as a way to increase competitive balance – and thereby entertainment value – in the new pro football league.  That concept has been adopted by most US professional leagues, and I have argued here before that the idea is theoretically good but practically of marginal value.

One glaring problem is the propensity of teams that are bad enough to “earn” a top draft pick finding a way to draft a guy who simply cannot play at the pro level.  Let me refresh your memory about some humongous NFL Draft busts from the recent past:

• Ryan Leaf – – Chargers – – 1998
• Matt Leinart – – Cards – – 2006
• Trent Richardson – – Browns – – 2012
• JaMarcus Russell – – Raiders – – 2007
• Akili Smith – – Bengals – – 1999

By the way, I have no interest here in picking on the folks who draw up draft boards for NFL teams; this happens elsewhere too:

• Anthony Bennett – – Cavaliers – – 2013
• Markelle Fultz – – Sixers – – 2017
• Kwame Brown – – Wizards – – 2001
• Darko Milicic – – Pistons – – 2003
• Adam Morrison – – Bobcats – – 2006
• Michael Olowakandi – – Clippers – – 1998

The explanation usually given for such a sour turn of events is that scouting and projecting player performance is not a science; it is more akin to an artform.  And maybe that is the case and maybe that will be the case forever.  Except …

• Maybe avoiding huge “Draft Busts” is beyond the normal skill set of the people who wind up making Draft decisions – – but what about Artificial Intelligence?

Current AI models learn by reading and agglomerating “knowledge” from a broad set of sources.  In doing that AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini or CoPilot can easily compete and defeat humans in trivia contests.  But suppose a team hired a cadre of elite AI coders – – a Coding Cadré of “CC” – – that developed a player model based not on comments by observers but on measurables demonstrated by actual successful pro athletes.  Granted, I have no idea how the members of “The CC” would measure competitiveness levels or emotional stability for potential draftees, but they might be able to use micro-measurements of successful players’ on-field action(s) to build models that may compare apples to apples.

NFL Players go through a standard set of drills at the NFL Combine.  Someone somewhere decided that those drills were the “correct” means to measure the basic skills needed to play effectively in the NFL.  I submit, respectfully, that the truncated list above demonstrates that not to be the case.  Remember, all those players running a 40-yard dash and doing a standing broad jump are performing without any opposition.  Such is never going to be the case on the field in an NFL contest.  Perhaps what is needed is far more precise measurement and correlation analysis of data that never shows up in the game box scores.  For example, in MLB, people now measure the spin rate of each pitch; no one did that in 1980; are there analogs for football and basketball that remain untapped in 2025?

For example, look at highly successful NFL QBs and ask how close do defenders have to get to those QBs before they begin to abandon the pocket and “scramble”.  Does that measurement correlate with anything else that might be measured such as the time each QB needs to move his arm through a throwing motion?  And are either of those measurements or a combination of those measurements indicative of completed passes?  To be clear, I am NOT suggesting those measurements are of any value in building an AI Draft Model, but I do wonder if there are a series of measurements that might make the “Draft Process” a lot more “science-like” and less of a “crapshoot”.

Here is a measurement I would use as a starting point for offensive linemen, defensive linemen and edge rushers:

• How fast do those players react to the movement of the ball by the center to initiate a play?

I am talking about measurements in the hundredths of a second here.  Who gets “off the ball” most quickly because in the extreme, that is a success strategy for those position players.  So, I might begin by asking “The CC” to find correlation among that measurement and other measurements in highly successful linemen that could then be applied to potential draftees using game films where there are opponents out there trying to thwart the potential draftees’ intentions.

Maybe all this is fanciful; maybe this is beyond AI capability.  Nevertheless, it might be a more interesting use of AI as compared to creating fake videos of a political candidate having carnal relations with a goat.

Finally, lest one gets carried away with my rosy projection here for AI involvement, take into account this from neuroscientist, Vivienne Ming:

“AI might be a powerful technology, but things won’t get better simply by adding AI.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

If you peek at the MLB standings this morning, you will probably notice that five of the six divisions have a close race going on at the top; only the Tigers with a 6-game lead in the AL Central should feel slightly comfortable in their leadership.  In the AL West, the top of the division involves three teams – – Astros, Mariners and Rangers – – within 4.5 games of one another.  But here in Curmudgeon Central we don’t stop there; we like to look at the bottom rungs of divisions where we focus first on the Colorado Rockies who could still set a futility record in the 2025 MLB season.  As of this morning, the Rockies project to a final record of 43-119 which is only 2 games better than last year’s woeful White Sox performance.

Earlier this week, the Rockies lost their 83^rd game of the season meaning that in the first week of August with about 2 months left to go in the season, the Rockies had guaranteed a losing season for the franchise.  They celebrated that “accomplishment” by losing a game by the score of 15-1.

Baseball is a funny game; even outstanding teams have off days and wind up getting clobbered.  Many people consider the 1927 Yankees to be the greatest team of all time; that was the year that Babe Ruth hit  60 home runs and Lou Gehrig drove in 173 runs.  In the 1927 season, the Yankees record was 110-44 with a run differential of +376; the Yankees outscored opponents by an average of 2.44 runs per game in that season.  And yet …

• One day, the Washington Senators shut out the Yankees and won that game by a score of 13-0.
• Lopsided losses happen to all teams.

But back to the 2025 Rockies …  They have had more than a couple of lopsided losses in addition to that 14-run deficit earlier this week:  The Rockies have lost games by scores of 21-0 and 18-0 and 17-2 in addition to this week’s shellacking.  The Rockies run differential – – with two months left to play – – stands at minus-316.  In the modern era for MLB since 1900, the record for the worst run differential in a season stands at minus-349 (Boston Red Sox in 1932).

• Even if the Rockies fail to eclipse the White Sox performance from last year for the worst record ever, the Rockies are poised to take the 1932 Red Sox out of the MLB regular season record listings.

One might look at this wretched season for the Rockies and expect that their attendance has cratered like the team record – – but not so.  So far in 2025, the Rockies rank 15^th in home attendance; they draw 29,646 fans per game.  How amazing is that?

• Ignore the attendance figures for the A’s and the Rays; they are playing in minor league parks where the Fire Marshall would not allow 15,000 fans to cram into the facilities.
• The Marlins average 13,039 fans per game – – and Miami’s metro area is a bigger market than Denver’s.
• The White Sox average 17,755 fans per game – – and Chicago is a bigger market than Denver.
• The Pirates average 19,065 fans per game – – but Denver is a bigger market than Pittsburgh.
• The Twins average 22,101 fans per game – – and Minneapolis/St. Paul is about 3 times the size of Denver.
• The Tigers – – division leaders no less – – average 28,864 fans per game – – and the two market cities are approximately the same size.

I don’t know what sort of marketing magic the Rockies have conjured up, but despite the despicable record by the Rockies, they draw more than the average attendance for all of MLB which is 29,200 fans per game.  I doubt that it is because the Rockies are better at home than they are on the road this year; that is technically true – – and meaningless:

• Rockies at home are 16-42
• Rockies on the road are 14-42

As I continued to peruse the bottom rungs of MLB divisions, I noticed that the 2025 White Sox are a significant improvement over the 2024 squad.  Here we are with two months left to play in the 2025 regular season and the White Sox have already won more games (42 of them to be exact) in 2025 than they did in all of 2024.  No other team can make that statement.

Finally, today’s search for anything positive to say about teams that are stinking it up in MLB for 2025 reminds me of an old joke that distinguishes an optimist and a pessimist:

• Put an optimist boy and a pessimist boy in a closed room full of horse sh*t.
• The pessimist boy will just sit there and bemoan his fate.
• The optimist boy will dig furiously in the manure figuring that there must be a pony somewhere in there.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Many times, I employ the disclaimer that I am not an attorney when I discuss legal matters.  Today, I want to be clear that I am also not a physician.  The topic is the shooting last week at NFL HQs in NYC; the working hypothesis for investigators here is that the perpetrator wanted to get into NFL HQs to do some shooting there but instead got on the wrong elevator to the upper floors.  According to police, the shooter – – now dead himself – – had a “history of mental illness” and that he had a note on his person indicating he had a beef with the NFL because he suffered from CTE.

In that simple paragraph above, there are triggers for several vocal segments of society spring-loaded to push their narratives:

• We have to do more to treat people with mental health issues,
• We need to have stricter gun laws
• CTE is caused by football and CTE is awful, ergo, football is awful.

Yes, we do need to do more in terms of therapy for folks who are mentally ill.  There were fewer of those sorts of folks out and about in society when it was legal to commit adults to “mental institutions” prior to their being convicted of crimes; if I recall correctly, that practice was ruled out by the courts in the 1960s or 1970s.  Mental health issues are much more difficult to diagnose without the cooperation of the “patient”; it is not like chicken pox where the “patient” presents with red spots all over his/her body.  And, sadly, lots of mentally ill people do not present themselves to competent medical professionals.

I am ambivalent about the idea of “stricter gun laws”.  The ineffectiveness of the current gun laws in terms of keeping the weapons out of the hands of mentally ill people makes me wonder if such a goal is achievable.  At the same time, anything that might separate guns and people who are mentally ill would be a good thing for society.  Frankly, I think the main issue here is that the two sides of the “gun ownership issue” are so dug into their positions that meaningful compromise has become extinct.

It is the third narrative above that really bothers me, however.  CTE – Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy – is a brain condition where there are “abnormal protein deposits” found in the brains of dead people who suffered “repeated brain trauma” while alive.  CTE is even more difficult to diagnose than “run of the mill mental illness” because as of today, the only way to know if a person had CTE is to wait for him/her to be dead and the brain of the corpse to be analyzed.  My amateur reading about CTE says that there is debate within the medical community of experts about the causal relationship between “repeated trauma” and a diagnosis of CTE.

Please do not take my uncertainty about CTE and causality as a way to accuse me of fostering some sort of conspiracy theory wherein the NFL – – in conjunction with the Trilateral Commission and the Illuminati of course – – are keeping a lid on understanding here because CTE serves a nefarious purpose on their parts.  However, CTE is a convenient excuse for erratic behavior since the only way to deny its existence would be for the shooter in this case to be rendered “unalive” so that his brain can be excised and examined.  I certainly do not know if the shooter had CTE – – and I suspect that he did not know that he had CTE but in whatever erratic construct of the universe existed in his mind, CTE was his preferred excuse.

Now let me go waaay out on a limb and talk about CTE and four other “neurodegenerative conditions” that are more well understood:

1. ALS:  It presents with pronounced motor symptoms and few psychiatric symptoms.  It can be detected by brain imaging but can only be confirmed post mortem.
2. Alzheimer’s:  It presents with mild motor impairments and few psychiatric symptoms.  It too can be detected with brain imaging in living patients.
3. Huntington’s:  It presents with definite motor symptoms and usually depression.  Importantly, this is a genetic condition that can makes the condition diagnostic in living beings.
4. Parkinson’s:  It presents with definite motor symptoms, but psychiatric involvement is rare.  It can be conclusively diagnosed in living beings.

            We are not in medical school here; so, what’s the point of all this?  These “other” neurodegenerative conditions” can be diagnosed in living persons; CTE cannot as of now.  So, I think it is important not to get out ahead of science-based understanding of what CTE is; what it is not; and what causes it to happen.

CTE is a medical term for a condition that had a street definition long before anyone thought of describing something as “neurodegenerative”.  When I was a kid, people referred to some retired boxers as being “punch drunk”.  Their words were slurred; they moved less fluidly than other people their age; they might have memory issues or flights of fancy.  Common folks who had never studied medicine chalked that  up to “too many blows to the head”.  Lyndon Johnson once said he thought Gerald Ford had played too much football without a helmet; LBJ did not mean that as a diagnosis or as a compliment.

CTE is a real condition – – but it may not be nearly as widespread as one might think because there may be sample bias in the brains donated for pathological analysis.  That is why I am not one to jump on the bandwagon of CTE, being endemic to the population of anyone who ever played football – – or soccer for that matter.  Let science march on …

I do wish, however, that there was a magic wand somewhere that someone would wave about and magically keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people.  So, let it be written and so, let it be done…

Finally, let me close with this adage:

“Don’t let your mind make your body believe that it must bear the burden of your mind’s worries.”

`But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

It was about 60 years ago when Bob Dylan sang:

“The times, they are a-changin’ …”

That is clearly the case here in Curmudgeon Central.  For the first two decades of these rants, comments on any aspect of the WNBA were few and far between and usually dealt with the lack of live audiences or TV audiences for the league’s contests.  Just two weeks ago, the WNBA was the topic of an entire rant and today it will be the lead topic.  The times are indeed “a-changin’ ”.

Twice in recent days, WNBA games have been interrupted by someone in the crowd throwing a lime-green dildo onto the court as the ball was in play.  In at least one of the instances, the perpetrator was arrested.  I did not see a report of the charges against that individual but I can only hope that it was some sort of littering ordinance that he/she had violated because it would be frightening to learn that lawmakers there had gotten to the level of specificity in the law that dildo throwing was specifically banned.

This situation leads to several speculations if you have a slightly twisted view of “what might come next” …

• Imagine if a couple of fans had thrown sesame bagels on the court in the midst of WNBA games.  The teams would institute screening procedures to make sure than fans are not “smuggling in” sesame bagels.  Thwarting dildo smugglers with a search procedure might be a bit more difficult.
• Dildo manufacturers might seek to flood the market with lime-green items.  Obviously, the WNBA is not going to grant them licensing rights naming one of the manufacturers as the “Official Dildo of the WNBA”, but the marketing thrust could be:
  • • “We can’t say we are the Official Dildo of the WNBA, but our green monsters have been in play at WNBA games more than any other dildo.”

I have now proven conclusively that I never passed Marketing 101 in school …

Both incidents have involved road games for the Golden State Valkyries – – one in Chicago and the other in Atlanta.  I am not trying to justify the incidents; throwing stuff on the court of an ongoing basketball game is dangerous and might cause a serious injury to players or officials; the WNBA has a “Fan Code of Conduct” in place that specifically forbids throwing anything onto the court and says that “guests who throw objects will be immediately ejected from the arena.”  In another part of the Code of Conduct it says that guests who violate the Code of Conduct:

“… “will be subject to penalty including but not limited to, ejection, without refund, revocation of their season tickets, and/or prevention from attending future games.”

Believe it or not, these two incidents are not ground-breaking.  Buffalo Bills’ fans have thrown dildos onto the field on several occasions when the Bills have been hosting the New England Patriots.  In 2018, after the Pats had scored a TD during a Monday Night Game, Bills fans threw “at least three” dildos into the end zone.  What the Golden State Valkyries and the Buffalo Bills have in common remains a mystery to me.

Switching gears …  MLB Commissioner, Rob Manfred, said recently that he was confident that a sale of the Minnesota Twins was imminent.  Perhaps that explains why the Twins traded away 10 players from their 40-man roster at the Trade Deadline last week?  The Twins acquired “prospects” galore meaning their minor league system is full to the brim with hope for the future.  Meanwhile the beneficiaries of the Twins largesse were:

• Blue Jays – – two players
• Phillies – – two players
• Astros, Cubs, Dodgers, Rangers, Rays and Tigers – – one player each

The Twins tossed in the towel on the 2025 season; the team was below .500 at the Trade Deadline despite having a higher than usual payroll for 2025 (Opening Day payroll was $144M).  Perhaps the housecleaning was done to clear the books for whoever the new owner might be.

And before I leave baseball today, the Boston Red Sox are on a tear, they have won 6 in a row and are 8-2 in their last 10 games.  The Sox have moved into second place in the AL East and are within 3 games of the Blue Jays.  Meanwhile, the Yankees are in a funk having lost 4 in a row and going 4-6 in their last 10 games.  The AL East race might be interesting after all.

Finally, here is an observation by George Carlin:

“A crazy person will beat nine people to death with a steel dildo, but he’ll be wearing a Bugs Bunny suit at the time.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

About 10 days ago, I got an email from a reader and frequent commenter here; he uses the screen ID, TenaciousP.  He asked if was going to write about Christian Wilkins and I responded that I did not think so because I did not see much to comment on at the time.  Well, that was then and this is now.  So let me do a reset for folks who may not be nearly the Oakland/Los Angeles/Las Vegas Raider fan as TenaciousP most definitely is:

• In 2024, the Raiders signed Wilkins as a free agent offering a contract reported to be 4 years with a total value of $110M with $57.5M fully guaranteed and another $27.25M conditionally guaranteed.  That is a big deal for a DT and Wilkins is a top shelf DT when healthy.
• Last season, Wilkins played in 5 games and suffered a “Jones fracture” in his foot that had him miss the rest of the season.  The injury needed surgery which was done, and Wilkins was involved in rehab.
• The injury had not healed as anticipated and the Raiders’ doctors said that a second surgery was needed; Wilkins demurred and chose to continue rehab.  Training camp was about to open, and he was still unable to practice.  The Raiders put him on the “PUP List” – – the “Physically Unable to Perform List.”
• The Raiders then released Wilkins and have deemed that those “conditional guarantees” worth $27.25M are null and void.  Obviously, the NFLPA chose to fight for Wilkins’ voided guarantees on his behalf; that is what unions are supposed to do.

Here is where I get into deep yogurt.  When a team seeks to nullify “guarantees” in a contract, the team has to specify why they seek to do so.  There are some obvious reasons:

• The player cannot fulfill his obligations under the contract – – say if the player is in jail or is dead.  Pretty obvious situation there …
• The player does not fulfill his obligations under the contract – – say if he does not report to Training Camp or refuses to dress on game day.  Pretty obvious situation there too …
• The player cannot fulfill his obligations under the contract – – say if he is suspended by the league for violating the Substance Abuse Policy.  Less obvious that the items above but not too difficult to deal with …
• The player engages in “conduct detrimental” to the team and its unity.  Now we are in the highly debatable area of contract interpretation where I am indeed over my head.

Did Wilkins’ refusal of that follow-up surgery lead to his inability to play for the Raiders and therefore is his lack of ability to play due to some sort of breach of the terms?   I suspect that the Raiders can find a half-dozen doctors that would support their assertion that was the case AND I think that the NFLPA can find a half-dozen doctors that would support the assertion that continued rehab was a prudent course of treatment.  The NFLPA has a nice sound-bite on its side here because back in the Spring, Raiders’ head coach, Pete Carroll, said that Wilkins was working hard to recover.  Here is some of Carroll’s comment:

“This has been a difficult recovery and he’s done everything he needs to do.  He’s been here every day. He’s here early, working hard, but we’re still working it, and he’s not ready to get back out. We’re in the midst of a long, challenging process here. So, fortunately there’s a lot of time, and we’re going to take every bit of it. We’ve really tried to be really diligent about the way we’ve worked it and the way we’ve monitored it and all of that, and he’s really been on board the whole time. But it has been challenging.”

Granted, Pete Carroll is not a doctor, and his comments have nothing to do with the medical issues in the matter.  Nonetheless, it would seem difficult for the Raiders now to claim that Wilkins is a slacker who refused to do what was necessary to heal his foot.

And if that were not enough controversy/oppositional behavior, Adam Schefter reported last week that there was an incident in the Raiders’ facility recently where Wilkins “playfully” kissed a teammate on the forehead and the teammate took offense.  So …

• Does that constitute “conduct detrimental”?
• Was the “playful kiss on the forehead” a “one-off” incident or is there a pattern of “other stuff” at work there?

I have not read a report that says what the Raiders claim as the basis for voiding those conditional guarantees so I have no idea what the arbitrator in the case will have to deal with.  I am confident, however, that it will not be an open-and-shut case on either side.  I am confident that the arbitrator will earn his/her fee on this one.

So, a shoutout to TenaciousP here.  All I can say is, better late than never.

Finally, the mention of the “playful kiss” here reminds me of a great observation by H. L. Mencken:

“When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………