The Buscher

Eh, I think if you need to invent a gimmick to incentivize players to play hard early in the season/give fans a reason to care about early season games it’s more of a sign that the season was too long to begin with especially when over half the league makes the playoffs. The appeal of the FA Cup and other sort of in-season tournaments is that hundreds of teams from different leagues can qualify. The in-season tournament still felt to me like a bunch of regular season games with a flashier title.

The 3 point contest and Steph vs Sabrina were the only good parts of All Star Weekend. In general the 3 point contest feels like the only thing players actually like to do and take somewhat seriously. The skills contest is a lot of screwing about. The problem with the dunk contest is there’s really nothing left, everything has been done. So it’s a lot of “I’m gonna jump over this dude” or “I’m gonna wear an outfit” or whatever. Jaylen Brown was getting booed for doing normal dunks without gimmicks and the judges were rewarding him for it. The game itself was, as always, a parody of real basketball. Tuned out after 5 minutes. At least the Saturday stuff was meant to be fun, I feel much the same way about the All Star Game as I did about the Pro Bowl. Skills contests are more fun than a fake game. The stupid in-season tournament finals being in place of the All Star Game would be an improvement.

Kenny Smith's takeaway being that Sabrina should've shot from the WNBA line when she literally tied what all of the male shooters did in their first round sure was something. Some guys need to have the mics taken away.

The Padres are moving Xander Bogaerts to second base one year into an 11-year deal where they were paying him star shortstop money. Yikes.

Nah he was healthy, just tired. Problem was I was in the bottom of the 5th inning and I was batting. Had I been the pitching team I probably could've just brought an arm in cold to at least get out of the screen. Might turn off the warming up of pitchers as a precaution. Feel like CPU bullpen management is unrealistic enough as is, who cares about warming them up.

Dakota Johnson’s entire press messaging for this was pretty much “this movie is trash and what we were expected to do to make this shows there’s a terrible problem in the industry” Not really surprising it’s being reamed. It would’ve been shocking if it were good.

After struggling like hell to hit for a couple of weeks I get off to a 9-1 start in the 5th inning of a game including 4 dingers. But my pitcher had a pretty high pitch count through 5 and was tiring. Go to the bullpen menu to warm up a reliever. And there’s no back button. I can’t press circle to go back. No way out. Completely stuck. No choice but to turn off the game, losing my offensive explosion. I know games glitch sometimes but crap like this makes me actually want to put the game back in the box for a while. Bare minimum I’m setting it to beginner hitting next game because I want my stats back

If you're into futures bets, the odds for the Chiefs to make it a threepeat at +750 look pretty tempting. For a Super Bowl champion team they have pretty limited cap issues, the biggest impeding free agent they have to keep is Chris Jones and it's tough to imagine they won't eventually be paying him and possibly tagging Sneed. Mahomes has also signaled he'd go the Brady route of contract restructuring if he has to. Figure in the draft they'll get Mahomes another weapon and then shore up the defense for anyone they couldn't keep. There's never been a Super Bowl threepeat but no QB has ever looked as automatic in big spots as Mahomes has. The game seems to slow down to Easy mode for him when they're down late. If ever a QB was built to make history it's him. It's tough to give money to the sportsbooks a year in advance but if you believe the Chiefs are unlikely to have as lackluster a regular season as they did by their standards, you're not going to get better odds on them than right now.

Yeah that’s right. Fanatics has deals with a bunch of the leagues now and they give the leagues equity in the company, leaving little incentive for them to make a quality product. The skeptic in me also wonders if the smaller names on the back is meant to open up more advertising space.

Damn, they came up with a better cast than mine

Not liking what I've seen out of the Spring Training uniforms. Seems to be a leaguewide thing. The logos and lettering look flat instead of stitched on, which is what you'd see in a knockoff jersey. Also the names on the back seem to be smaller and more scrunched together. Just looks very cheap. Hope it's just a spring thing and not a trial run of how the regular season uniforms will look.

Yeah I've definitely noticed it. It's kinda taking me out of things. When there's a casting change it's one thing. It still trips me up a bit when I hear Dr. Hibbert or Carl but I'm OK with it because they properly gave those roles to Black voice actors and that's worth hearing a long familiar voice go through a slight change. But now everybody's voice sounds different and it does seem like a pretty predictable outcome given the mileage on their voices and the age of some of the cast. I never agreed with people who for years have yelled for the show to go off the air because "the best years were long ago" but what I did fear was that it would stay on to the point where the vocal changes got a bit jarring. Julie Kavner sounds like she's in pain doing the Marge voice, it makes me sad.

I could see that. For whatever it's worth, Scott Hanson has said that he thinks 5-6 games is an ideal RedZone window. He knows people love the idea of the Octobox or even 9-10 games but 5-6 games still gives you a lot to flip to without it being too overwhelming for the producers, plus they're less likely to just totally ignore a game like they are when there are a lot on at once.

Yeah they'd have to re-configure the network agreements I'd guess. NBC has a lot of power with being able to pull any game except for one of FOX and CBS' protections but now you've got Monday night flexing and Amazon in there too and I'm sure it all just really comes down to who is willing to pay the most for better bumping rights. Maybe in a 20-week schedule you give each of the 5 networks (Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN, Amazon) 4 weeks where they get a guaranteed locked in pick for games. 4 weeks where they get the #2 choice, etc. The NFC on FOX/AFC on CBS thing quietly got shunted to the side a few years ago so maybe it'll be a free for all. Of course, knowing the NFL they'd put execs from all 5 networks in a room and make the game selection its own special broadcast on the NFL Network.

40 Years of WrestleMania showcase mode is 21 matches in length which feels lazy at a glance but isn't too hard to explain away considering they did basically this same showcase 10 years ago so they'd be having you replay the same matches with the same cinematics. There's definitely a few token repeats for the more "iconic" stuff but from the looks of things heavy emphasis was put on Mania matches from the last 10 years. Unsurprisingly no Lesnar shown, he'd presumably be in a few of the 21 matches unless the 21 matches is a lower number than planned if he got scrapped. Stuff like Eddie/Angle is in too which they couldn't do a decade ago.

There's a belief that a big to-do for the league this year is to try to work with (aka ultimately bully) the union into an 18-game schedule this offseason with an eye toward beginning it in 2025. They'd need to work out the logistics of how to handle it. An idea I've heard often is stretching the regular season calendar to 20 weeks with 2 byes per team, cutting down to 2 preseason games and maybe early season expanded rosters. People have always joked that the day after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday. If the league can set the schedule in a way to make the Super Bowl be the third Sunday in February, it finally would be.

Shanahan said he wanted to ensure they'd get the ball a 2nd time in sudden death which I'd understand except I think the scenarios where it would've played out that way are a lot less than he thought. If they managed to have the Chiefs at 4th and long in FG territory then maybe they send Butker out to tie it and go to sudden death but anything remotely close they were gonna go for it. And, as Chris Jones said, they were always going for 2 if it came to it. Because of course they would, when you have Mahomes you'd rather win or lose with him out there. I don't care how tired the defense was, putting Mahomes in an situation where he was in automatic 4-down territory was never going to end well.

It's been a thing throughout sporting history that the best players over time wind up getting additional help from the refs. In some ways it's human nature. If it's a close call, wouldn't you assume one of the best players in the league was probably right? The NFL takes it even further with the way they protect QBs but it's other sports too, it's why the best NBA players will get favorable foul decisions, why the best MLB pitchers might get an extra inch on the strike zone, etc. Over time, these players definitely start to figure out they get some more wiggle room that others don't have. But it's always sort of an unspoken thing. Where a lot of people "turned" on Mahomes was when he moaned about the offsides call in the Bills game in December. His comments very much made him sound like someone who expected preferential treatment he'd gotten used to and was annoyed he didn't get it.

Say it every year but the lamest tradition in sports will always be the owner getting to hold the trophy first

Mahomes has officially entered GOAT territory. Needs to win a few more to pass Brady but it’s extremely possible. This team is scary in January.

I thought we were gonna avoid it but nope, another year of having to hear a Zach Braff/Donald Faison T-Mobile singing ad all year. I give up, bring on the alien invasion.

Well as least the Kennedy campaign is now broke after that ad

Most of my betting money today is on the Chiefs. Don’t feel too good about them right now. That said the last couple of weeks I’ve been emotional hedge betting against them because I’m sick of them so if they lose, I’m OK with it.

Dre Greenlaw with possibly the most depressing SB injury of all time.

There’s my first lost bet of the night (albeit a free one). Thought Carl Weathers was gonna push it fair.