The Buscher

I would've survived another week had I remembered to claim Andrews..... (weird how I can still talk with my severed head sitting in the basket)

Playing against my friend in our fantasy league, it's an IDP league and it was coming down to him having Aiyuk and me having Cam Bynum. Seeing Bynum seal the game with 2 picks was pretty fun, helped take the sting out of getting guillotined.

There’s a reason Dusty Baker has never won a Game 7. Season on the line and you leave a random like JP France hung out to dry?

A win! An ugly win, but a win!

USC have easily one of the worst defenses I’ve ever seen.

Death. Taxes. Jose Altuve raking in the playoffs.

Foster Moreau drops a game-tying TD in the end zone. Oof.

Hook Justin Jefferson and JaMarr Chase blowing past a bunch of Romanian dudes to my veins.

The D-Backs have already announced that Game 4 will be a bullpen game rather than pitch Zac Gallen on short rest. The same Game 4 that will very possibly be an elimination game. So yeah, they're basically just throwing in the towel.

Not gonna lie, made me kinda happy to see him fail in a big spot again. Got really sick of Mets fans defending Scherzer earlier this year when he was getting rocked every 5th day. "He had the lowest ERA of his career last year", he also missed 10 starts and was absolutely horrible in the 2 that mattered most. He shows up in Atlanta the final weekend of the year, the Mets win a division and get a bye (not that it would've definitely mattered, but still, would've been nice to not blow a 10.5 game divisional lead in what was the best regular season Mets club of my lifetime). And then of course the complete no-show he had against San Diego. I mean at his age, decline is totally normal. But what I really couldn't stand was that he had a new excuse every 5th day for why he was pitching poorly. A blister here, a slight shoulder tweak there, all while he insisted he was ready to pitch effectively. The act got old.

I usually do my waiver claims on Tuesday night and totally forgot. I might’ve thrown like $5 on Andrews whoops. I believe I would’ve been outbid for Pollard.

This Phillies club is everything I wish the Mets were. Annoys me so much this team couldn’t be anywhere other than the NL East.

I’ve not dig into the data but you really have to think the number of underclassmen declaring for the draft will steadily decrease every year. You’ll always have a few no-doubt first rounders who make the jump. You’ll have some guys who even after a career year are projected to go in the middle rounds and just take the plunge anyway with seemingly nothing left to prove at college. But the incentive to leave early has never been less. We also have to be coming up on the end of the COVID-era eligibility exemptions too, so I’d expect the number of “old” NFL rookies we’ve had in recent years to go down as well.

The Marlins informed Kim Ng that they intended to hire a President of Baseball Operations above her, effectively meaning she was getting demoted after leading the Marlins to their first full season playoff berth in 20 years. She rightfully told them to fuck off and they've now parted ways. Presumably she'll be searching for a job as a #1 in somebody's front office, Boston jumps out to me as a realistic landing spot. If she does come in as a #2 it'll at least be because she's got a good rapport with the #1 and will have a signficant role + at least the expectations will be there going in. To just blindside her with a de facto demotion like this is a real slap in the face.

Hard to believe I went from surviving a week 1 beheading by the narrowest margin to being one of the highest scoring teams every week. Raheem Mostert has been a godsend.

Lions are very much the team I'll be pulling for out of the NFC. Likable and a great story. Would love to see them somehow get to the SB and play the Bills or the Bengals or something. It's not very often that a Super Bowl between two teams that have never won it before is actually in play. Though the Dolphins are almost 50 years removed from one so I can throw them in there too.

Giants hang in there for a gritty game while also keeping the tank intact. A rare close Sunday night loss that doesn’t ruin my night.

Bill Simmons thinks Belichick will end up with either the Chargers or Commies. Chargers would seem to be an attractive landing spot for him because of Herbert. If I’m the Chargers though I tell Belichick he’s strictly a coach now, not a GM like he is in New England. Also, if the coaching record really does mean a lot to him, it’s probably frustrating as hell to Bill to know Andy Reid’s actually on a trajectory to pass him anyway. If he decides to coach for the entirety of Mahomes’ career he’s got a minimum of 10 wins a year for the foreseeable future, often many more especially with the playoffs.

Wooooo Eagles lose! Stellar job by the Jets defense.

They just overturned a Hurts non-TD into a TD despite there being zero conclusive evidence that he broke the plane with control of the ball. BRB gonna go check the odds on a 17-0 season.

When they started settling for the FG I had a feeling he was gonna miss it. Browns defense is great but it’s not often that a SB contender looks THAT bad offensively. I fear the Eagles will buzz them down in January.

Browns defense is very legit but these are some absolutely bogus calls on the Niners defense in this final drive. Very much going to wind up handing the game to Cleveland.

The whole thing about baseball is that you’re supposed to live and die with your team for 6 months, 7 months if you’re lucky enough to go to the World Series. But that investment of time would in theory make winning a World Series feel like the sweetest payoff. With this playoff structure as is there’s very little reason to pay attention before the last month, month and a half. It’s basically the NHL regular season but with double the games. Just gotta sneak in and be hot at the right time. Can’t really say that about the NBA because low seeds toppling high seeds is extremely rare.

Daniel Jones is officially out for this week. Unsurprising given the combination of the neck injury and the fact that the Giants will be missing their starting center as well as likely their top THREE offensive tackles. Tyrod Taylor will get the start and with his own injury history it should surprise nobody if Tommy DeVito makes his NFL debut at some point on Sunday. Coaches often try to spin positives or portray any game as winnable. Daboll didn’t do that today. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a coach sound so dejected. Like there is zero viable path to victory. It’s gonna be a three hour primetime bloodletting and everyone knows it. Somehow this feels even worse than the Joe Judge era.