The Buscher

One of my Pats fan friends: “I’m not saying the investigation shouldn’t happen, but these accusations only came out when he signed with the Pats, should’ve waited for more information to release him.” Did they want the Pats to wait for Brown to kill someone? Christ.

I definitely think the Yankees are going the distance. They've had a comical amount of injuries yet still won 100 games and are in the race for the top seed in the AL. Royals, Cubs, Astros, and Red Sox in recent years all just gave me the vibe of "this is their year" throughout the course of the season and that's how I feel about the Yankees.

It’s time for the Titans to pull the plug on Marcus Mariota.

The only time I can recall actually going out of my way to listen to them was the day after Super Bowl 42. They'd just spent two weeks talking at length about how the Giants had no shot and then had to turn around and spend five hours eating crow and taking calls from Giants fans who wanted to rub their noses in it.

There's a pattern of Francesa being a toxic personality. All of the other on-air personalities at WFAN hate him. The Knicks and Rangers won't talk to him anymore. Darrelle Revis hung up on him mid-interview years ago and his relationship with the Jets never recovered. A-Rod and other Yankees personalities give priority to Michael Kay's show if they want to get information out there. The Mets stopped talking to him for a few years. Mickey Callaway goes on every week but who knows if he will still have a job in three weeks. Eli cancelled his weekly spot. Shurmur cancelled his weekly spot. Phil Simms and Troy Aikman used to be regular guests for years and they don't go on anymore. He and Chris Russo go back to hating each other every few years. Dude's a joke.

Domingo German placed on leave for investigation into a potential violation of MLB's domestic violence policy.

Fully expecting another nuclear-sized Mike Francesa rant on the Giants today as Pat Shurmur announced that he was cancelling his weekly radio spot with him. People who defend Francesa are going to paint it as the Giants trying to duck criticism and not be held responsible but I don't buy it in this case. The only person who gets anything out of that radio spot is Francesa. This past Monday's spot was literally just 10 minutes of Francesa telling Shurmur that he's done a bad job and the team is terrible while Shurmur didn't really have much to say in response. We already know the team is terrible, this isn't a shocking revelation. People acting like the Giants are in the wrong for cancelling is more symptomatic of what a trash fire sports journalism has become. What other coach would be expected to go on the air every week and allow themselves to be berated? Let alone by a loudmouth who has never played a down of football in his life.

Raekwon McMillan of the Dolphins has said that after a perfectly clean hit on Brady (no flag), he was told by a referee to “stay off Tom”. Brady has been the most pampered QB in the league for years but I’m kinda shocked the ref would actually admit to it verbally.

Every day I read about another team breaking their franchise record for single season home runs. Not to mention the NL, AL, and leaguewide records all being broken. Feels like these records barely mean anything with how much they’ve doctored the baseball.

Dellin Betances spent the entire season rehabbing a shoulder injury. He finally made his season debut on Sunday, striking out two Blue Jays and celebrated with a little hop off the mound. Torn Achilles, season over.

Kenny Stills wouldn’t be on the Texans if their racist ass owner didn’t die.

The "Steelers are bringing in Michael Vick for a workout" news was just a Schefter tweet from 2015 that people were recirculating as new.

He’s already been fired.

The early feeling the Giants beat writers get is that Eli doesn’t want to be traded. He and his wife have four kids under the age of eight and he doesn’t much want to uproot his life at this stage of his career especially when he already has two rings. I could see the team offering him the chance to take some snaps in the second half of their final home game so the crowd can say goodbye to him, but he doesn’t seem like somebody who would want that. I’d be surprised if he didn’t retire after the season. I know a lot of Giants fans have crapped on Eli for years because they waited far too long to start thinking about the future. But I think whatever bitterness the fans have for him will be gone by 2021 when they bring back the 2011 team for an anniversary celebration.

It’s been a long time coming. The outrage over Eli’s benching in 2017 wasn’t because people were mad about Eli getting benched as much as who he was benched for. Had they played Davis Webb (who yes I know sucks now but as a third round rookie it made sense to try him) they would’ve avoided backlash. There was literally no value in playing Geno Smith. But the worst thing they could’ve done was what they actually did: attempt to apologize to Eli by massively overcorrecting and trying to build the whole franchise around him again. Records-wise this season is still going to suck. But you hope in 14 games that Jones gives you confidence about being the QB of the future. And if he does, then you can daydream about drafting Chase Young and using all of the cap space that’s being freed up to load up the defense and maybe make this not be the painfully long rebuild Giants fans fear it will be.

As good as Minkah is, if Rudolph bombs there’s no way that can be considered a good trade. If the Steelers turn into a bottom 5 team this year, the Dolphins could wind up keeping Tua and Jerry Jeudy together.

Pat Shurmur said in his postgame press conference yesterday that it wasn't yet time to consider a quarterback change. This morning? He said it was certainly fair to consider moving to Jones, refused to commit to another start for Eli and said a final decision will be made by Wednesday. My guess before the season was that Jones' first start would come Week 7 at home against the Cardinals. The Giants will have been coming off of a Thursday night trouncing in New England and he'd have had extra time to prepare. Never thought they'd potentially make the move this soon, but if they do it it's the right call. It's not like a QB move is going to change the fact that the defense is horrendous...but it's flat out impossible for an Eli-led team to make up any sort of substantial deficit. He can't extend plays and doesn't have any more arm strength, and as a result the passing game is one-dimensional. Every 3rd and long is a check-down pass well behind the sticks. Teams can focus entirely on stopping Barkley, and then when they fall behind by a few scores they can't even use Barkley...meaning their #2 pick from last year is incredibly limited in the impact he can actually make. By no means will Daniel Jones magically make the defense play better. Hell with the current state of the receivers, I don't know he'll have anyone to throw to. But there's absolutely zero upside to continuing to throw Eli out there. If the team is going to suck regardless, you may as well see as much of Jones as you can. Honestly I think Shurmur and Dave Gettleman would've preferred to straight up release Eli after the draft and avoid any QB controversy, but John Mara's unending love for Eli overruled them. Another interesting thing about the potential timing of this move is that after the latest loss, Eli fell to .500 for his career as a starter. Ever since winning his second ring, "is Eli a Hall of Famer?" always seems to cause heated debate online. And so the prospect of him closing out with a .500 record feels like the most fitting thing ever.

Luke Falk. 6th round pick last year, just signed off the practice squad today. On WFAN today they were pretty much lamenting about how terrible of a year it’s going to be to have to cover football in the NY market. Week 2 and football season is already over.

Ben is officially out for the season.

Welp, RIP Saints season. Additionally, this means there will be no dramatic chase between Brady and Brees to pass Peyton’s TD record. Also a chance Brady passes Brees in career yardage too, but he’d need to average 266 yards a game over the final 14 with a bunch of early season games that will be over by halftime.

Roethlisberger might need elbow surgery. So between Ben and Brees there’s two contenders whose seasons are already in serious trouble.

How on earth does a non-Giants defense leave someone THAT wide open on 4th and long with the game on the line?

JOE FLACCO IS THE GREATEST QUARTERBACK IN NFL HISTORY

It’s early in the season picking the Broncos to be the 9-7 team that squeaks out a surprise Wild Card berth was ill-advised. I thought Flacco would at least look competent with a change of scenery but, yeesh. And I didn’t realize Drew Lock was on IR.