How a lot wooden might a woodchuck ignore if a woodchuck might ignore wooden?
Glad you requested.
The query on many followers’ minds — I depend for no less than two of them, given my psychological state of late — instantly after Rams famous person defensive lineman Aaron Donald was flagged for trying to choke a Cardinals opponent throughout their playoff recreation two Monday nights in the past, was easy however important:
Would Donald be suspended from Sunday’s recreation in opposition to the Buccaneers?
In spite of everything, he’d been fined $10,300 for attempting to strangle Packers offensive lineman Lucas Patrick in Week 12. (Think about the QB who tries to name an audible with no trachea.) And he’d had various prior penalized episodes of not enjoying properly with others.
For an added ingredient, Donald wears a Roger Goodell-issued “Cease Hate” message on the again of his helmet. That actually would have added some present to the inform.
So it was only a matter of when the NFL — even with pandering, gutless, selectively blind Goodell on the wheel — would announce its sanctions in opposition to Donald.
However the week handed with no phrase. Certainly, Sunday, in its 1-hour-long, 10-contributors Rams-Bucs pregame, NBC would handle this, present us the newest.
However not a phrase. We heard, close to the highest, that Donald shall be a significant factor resulting from his greatness. Then, in a pandering, banal “interview” with Mike Tirico, Donald was advised that he’s a really particular participant. Even when he simply may be a grimy one. His conspicuous “Submit-Play Strangler” instincts by no means got here up.
But, there was time to incorporate — shock! shock! — a lighthearted chat with TV’s newest in a collection of wrongly presumed favorites, Odell Beckham Jr.
Then on with the sport. And extra, “Gee, that Aaron Donald is nice” stuff, this time from Cris Collinsworth.
Solely late Saturday afternoon, the day earlier than Donald would play versus the Bucs, did NFL Community’s Ian Rapoport tweet that Donald had been fined a mere $500 extra — $10,800 — for his second assault of a stay esophagus.
That largely closeted information arrived 5 days after Donald’s newest oxygen-obstructing episode, as if the NFL didn’t need anybody to know.
Thus, what would have and may have been close to the highest of NBC’s pregame present “To Do” record in service to viewers, went completely ignored. Suspension? Goodell’s NFL and TV companion NBC apparently most well-liked that you just forgot the entire thing.
Oh, and Cease Hate.
Fox crew on hearth in Tundra thriller
Fox’s 49ers-Packers on Saturday was loaded with sturdy information, overture to last curtain.
Earlier than the primary play from scrimmage, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman plainly mentioned that this recreation could be decided by particular groups — and that presaged hassle for Inexperienced Bay.
Gin! A blocked area aim and a blocked punt later, the Niners have been upset winners.
As for the ultimate play — a winning Robbie Gould field goal — Buck and Aikman have been fast to notice that in arctic situations, holder Mitch Wishnowsky pulled down a excessive snap and touched it down completely. Good catch by all three.
Pardon the Interpretation: Nonetheless can’t resolve if the weekend’s video games made for excellent, thrilling, comeback soccer — as we have been advised — or dangerous soccer made thrilling by “stop defenses” amongst different strategic teaching failures.
Apparently all NFL gamers should meet with the approval of NBC’s Cris Collinsworth, as in, “I actually like” this man, and “I’m actually impressed” by that man. Does he ever hearken to himself?
You want to vote Barry Bonds into the Hall of Fame? Knock your self out. Simply clarify three issues:
1) How was he capable of hit 317 house runs between ages 35 and 42?
2) Why did his head swell to the scale of a seashore ball then recede to regular dimension after he retired?
3) What number of clear gamers have been disadvantaged of MLB careers by drug cheats?
Reader Steve Arendash succinctly captures the Bud Selig/Donald Fehr drug period with this: Sammy Sosa is the one participant with three 60-home run seasons. But, he by no means led the league in any of these seasons.
Voting for PED cheats, and people logically suspected of being cheats, appears a extremely rationalized resolution to scale back the Corridor of Fame to irrelevance, if not infamy.
And I wouldn’t belief David Ortiz so far as I might throw him.
CBS’ James Lofton is the Jim Spanarkel of soccer analysts. Or is Spanarkel the …? Anyway, each are underutilized and unappreciated by shot-callers for talking relevant widespread sense.
Working Niners-Packers for Westwood One Radio, Lofton mentioned that each time a participant performs considered one of these post-play, self-aggrandizing demonstrations, he eats into the play clock earlier than the following play, putting his crew in useless danger.
Was he allowed to say that?
Each time the Buccaneers performed on TV right here this season, we have been advised that their defensive coordinator, Todd Bowles, is extremely certified to be a head coach.
But we noticed him as the top coach of the Jets for 4 seasons, and he usually appeared misplaced and bewildered, particularly at crunch time with clock administration.
Dan Fouts, with CBS on the time, mentioned Bowles’ selections and indecisions left him “flabbergasted.”
Powerful to determine if the Knicks have a expertise deficiency or a crew deficiency. There doesn’t see to be a plan, a technique. Each recreation seems just like the spin of a wheel, a group of drifters, alone collectively, a number of 3-point photographs thrown in.
Odell is up-front about ‘Me U.’
Naturally, Odell Beckham Jr. needed to exploit his beginning lineups face/voice time to attempt to steal the highlight by performing like a jerk. He recognized his school as “Him College.” Although he may’ve went with “Me U.”
He wasn’t going to say LSU, as his school excommunicated him for conspicuously handing out money to gamers after a nationwide championship recreation — the identical recreation after which he crashed the locker-room celebration, stealing the scene from those that performed by performing like an attention-addicted jerk.
NBC, naturally, gave him a look-away move. Its pregame had already decided for us that all of us love him.
Tennis followers are upset with ESPN. Once more. The community has nearly ignored the excellent and stunning singles and doubles play of American Danielle Collins on the Australian Open.
Reader Peter Wunsch: “Was ESPN even conscious that it had an American participant they might present to an American viewers? Or are they clueless?”
ESPN confirmed some in a single day matches on tape delay, however ignored Collins’.
However that’s commonplace ESPN. It doesn’t care about good tales, the desires and desires of the precise audiences it beckons, or the sports activities it purchases. It cares about huge names, and solely huge names — for good or dangerous causes. Was Alex Rodriguez employed to be ESPN’s voice and face of MLB for something higher?
Suckers Alert: Add Shaq O’Neal to the forged of celebs and athletes paid to hustle the general public to lose their cash playing on sports activities. O’Neal’s one other who in any other case would starve.
Clark Gillies was easy to root for — on and off the ice. The mark of the person. As a participant, he visited a disabled younger man in a Lengthy Island rehab heart, then stayed in contact. A mensch.
*Each time the USOC or IOC points a warning to rivals on methods to hold clear of presidency “operatives” who shall be of their midsts — seen and unseen — I ask why and the way China was issued the approval to host these Winter Olympics. Nike and LeBron James have something to do with it?
Reader Mark Dantonio on the unintended overuse and misuse of replay guidelines: “For many years, now, ‘Getting it proper’ means now not attending to get pleasure from it.”
