The Buscher

Some of the more reputable "insiders" on the Big Blue Interactive boards have weighed in. Like anything else it's total speculation but those guys have been alarmingly accurate with Giants draft buzz back to 2017 or so, they get it right most every year not just with the Giants but with whatever teams they have ramifications for with trades and seemingly do have an actual front office connection somewhere. So grain of salt of course but fun to share anyway as it's a bit against the grain from what most others are saying: -Probably the biggest takeaway from their own digging is that Drake Maye is not anywhere near as high on the boards as the media thinks, at least among the teams most often projected to be drafting him. -The Pats supposedly have both Nix and Penix rated higher than both Maye and McCarthy. They feel Maye's too inconsistent and McCarthy's got too small a sample size. To that end, they'd take Marvin Harrison Jr. if they stayed at 3 but ultimately they are likely to trade down as the offers to get a QB there will be ridiculous. -The Vikings and Giants both have McCarthy over Maye and both have put out smokescreens on interest in Maye that they've sussed out. They both want to get to #3 and the Giants' pick swap would be higher but the Pats want to load up specifically for this draft, not next. So the Vikings' 2 first rounders is almost certainly gonna win out especially since they'd still be able to land one of their preferred QBs later in the 1st round. - If their intel was wrong about the Pats and they stay put and take anyone but McCarthy, the Giants do feel confident they could trade up to #4 for the Cards for him. The Cards don't want to fall out of the range of the top 3 WR and the likely cost to trade for the Giants would be the pick swap, their 3rd round pick, and next year's 2nd rounder. -The Giants don't agree with the Drake Maye/Josh Allen comps. Josh Allen was raw and didn't really have a QB coach. Maye had the coaching and so they view his inconsistencies with a lot more red flags, as do the other teams apparently. Neither the Vikings nor Giants are concerned about McCarthy's sample size because of the prevailing thought that Harbaugh handcuffed him. He didn't need to do more than what the team around him required. -All told the Giants believe the top 5 picks will be Williams to CHI, Daniels to WAS, McCarthy to MIN, Harrison to ARI, and Nabers to LAC. If it plays out like this they will likely trade down especially if another team really wants Maye or Odunze. They like Odunze and would take him if nobody was willing to go up to #6 but they feel they'd be better off stockpiling more picks and taking another WR from a deep class later. --- My thoughts: I've said all along I'll trust Schoen and Daboll until given a reason not to. Personally I really would love Drake Maye and I think just drafting him would guarantee both guys get job security for a while. But if they don't think he's going to live up to the hype, so be it. But if it plays out like this and the offense is still a trainwreck and Maye looks serviceable, they should be gone. They cannot afford to stay in this QB black hole any longer.

Those are so fucking boring. Not ugly, just boring. Other than the tiny traces of purple there's nothing that shows any Queens character at all. I honestly think the Yankees having a stick up their ass about City Connect played a part in this design. They have all but said they aren't ever going to do one. And so MLB wanted the Mets to come up with something generic that could be marketed to all NYC baseball fans instead of something unique or interesting. Meh.

On YouTube and probably an alternate ESPN feed. The regular guys (Kiper etc) will presumably be on the main ESPN feed. And I'll be watching on NFL Network as I normally do. Belichick's saltiness in press conferences is a combination of A) not liking having media obligations in general, he's the coach and wants to spend his time watching film, planning etc....B) never wanting to give the media any information his opponents could run with which is why he avoids answering most questions and C) the biggest one, the media often asks really dumb bullshit I've posted it before but when someone asked him about why long snapper is its own position and they don't just have a regular player doing that job, his eyes lit up and he went on a 12-minute filibuster about the history of the position. Anything to do with football history he loves discussing. He was brilliant on the NFL 100 coverage a few years ago, knew everything there was to know about every player on that list. I watched his appearance on McAfee yesterday and he was again really forthcoming and insightful because he has no team to protect, he's going over his scouting theories, his thoughts on the new special teams rules etc. He's super affable when he's actually talking about football. I know he probably will try to latch on to the Eagles or Cowboys next year to get the Shula record but part of me hopes he realizes it's just way more fun to be a media guy and stays there.

My issue with that mock is if the Giants don't get a QB in the first 2 rounds they really shouldn't draft one at all. Nothing against Michael Pratt but it feels like a developmental project QB is a waste of a pick given the other needs on the roster. You draft a guy you know you are playing next year or you don't bother. The top 6 QBs (Caleb, Daniels, Maye, JJ, Penix, Nix) are all guys that I could buy taking with the express intent of playing this season. Realistically the latter 3 are the only ones they have a chance at getting and I have different reservations on all of them. But I could at least see the vision. The rookie is either starting week 1 or sitting for a brief time while Lock plays. But the other ripple effect is they drag out Jones' rehab with a plan on making him inactive all season and getting out of that contract. Mid-round QBs rarely ever work out. Again nothing against Pratt, Rattler, etc but if you draft one of them you're still banking on Daniel Jones playing week 1. And when he inevitably gets hurt again you're not only throwing your QB project into the fire before they're ready, but you're also completely screwed for 2025 cap-wise since Jones has an injury protection clause that will trigger. You can only avoid this by taking someone where you can justifiably bench Jones from the jump. I'll never root for the Giants to lose. Winning is always way more fun in the moment than losing. But the Tommy DeVito run, while a lot of fun, undoubtedly screwed this franchise.

The 2020 recruiting class was pretty transformative. Of the top 5 players in it you had Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink, and Kamilla Cardoso going in the top 3 of the draft 4 years later with Angel Reese 7th. Paige Bueckers, had she declared, would've been in the top 2 most likely. Not too many recruiting classes where the top names all completely lived up to the hype in college. Hopefully they all see success at the next level and get some more exposure for the league.

The Knicks being the 2 seed is awesome. The Knicks possibly having to play the Heat in the first round gives me the heebie jeebies. Lots of bad history with that team including last year.

Mets DFA Julio Teheran just days after signing him to a $2.5 million contract. Without context it just sounds funny and like Cohen really doesn't mind setting money on fire even more than people thought. Pretty sure this was always the plan though. The guy the Mets wanted to be the 5th starter once Megill got hurt was unable to pitch the game they needed him to because he both wasn't lined up to pitch it and not enough time had passed since he was optioned to AAA before the season. So they sign Teheran, he pitches 2.2 innings against Atlanta and looked bad but he got them as far as he could while he ramps his own workload, then DFA. If someone claims him they have to take his contract they probably won't care but know it's very unlikely. So in all probability they've just paid a big league salary to him to go to Syracuse as emergency depth which they'll likely need as pitching injuries have already piled up early in the year.

I'm a few weeks behind on Curb but I've already seen FB posts giving the general synopsis of the finale plot and it's pretty much what I assumed it would be within the first 2 or so episodes into this season. And completely fitting. Gonna miss this show.

UConn back to back national champs! What a tournament. Play the good teams close in the first half and then just completely beat them into submission in the second half.

With Shane Bieber going down for TJS and Spencer Strider getting an MRI, MLBPA is blaming the pitch clock for the injuries. It might not help but I doubt it’s the singular reason. Nearly 3 years ago, Tyler Glasnow cut a promo where he blamed the sticky stuff crackdowns. He thinks MLB doesn’t seem to realize you need substances to grip the balls with how inconsistent the baseball are now with all the changes made. He admitted to using sunscreen and rosin for most of his career, not for spin but for grip. These were legal substances but to avoid risk of being thrown out he pitched a start with no substances, had to grip his fastball and curveball far harder than he ever has in his career and woke up the next morning with soreness in areas he’s never been sore in before. Gripping the ball harder like that engages far more arm muscles on top of what you’re already doing with pitching. Feel like that’s way more likely a culprit than the pitch clock.

Yeah now seeing other angles it was definitely the right call. Still feels like refs often let things like that fly in the closing seconds but ah well. I don’t think anyone’s taking down South Carolina anyway. Not a total loss for UConn either as they got the #1 recruit for the 2024 class today.

Refs pretty much just rigged the end of UConn/Iowa to get Caitlin Clark into the finals.

Sadly it feels like KB might already be washed. It feels like player primes last longer now than they used to with all the changes to sports science, conditioning, analytics helping guys make adjustments with age, etc. At 32 and in the ultimate hitter's park you'd think he should have a few more productive years but the real problem is it seems like his bat speed is toast and it's basically impossible to succeed in MLB without that. If he's got a nagging injury causing the lessened speed hopefully he can work through that but if this is just who he is now that's quickly become one of the worst contracts in the sport.

Diggs' production took a bit of a dive in the second half of last year. Obviously the Bills have some concerns over it but I feel like it's more of a by-product of the Bills not having other weapons making it easier to gameplan against Diggs. Well, my dynasty team sure hopes Diggs adjusts well to Houston.