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What are you following this week? Weekly sports round-up thread
Once more, with feeling.
I liked the responses I saw last week and was interested to read everything, so please don't feel your contribution goes unappreciated. Again, feel free to chime in with any ideas or suggestions about this thread, and please try to keep spoilers out of top-level comments.
I'm just sad about mookie. I guess it's nice to see him doing well in the world series, but trading him rather then extending him is one of the worst baseball moves I've ever seen. Shame on Henry and the rest of the ownership group
Context for those out of the loop, please (i.e. me)?
The Boston red Sox traded away their best player Mookie Betts last off-season. He's arguably top 2 player in the major leagues, helping the sox win the world series a couple years ago. He was a home grown player, drafted by the sox and a fan favorite. An incredibly talented player who is fun to watch not just because of his skill. He's always having fun playing the game which makes watching more enjoyable.
The team had good reason to trade him. He only had 1 year left on his contract, then he's a free agent and can sign wherever he wants. By trading him they were able to get something in return instead of letting him walk. Being that caliber of a player, he was due to get a ridiculous contract. The sox were already paying luxury tax because they were over the salary cap, so they weren't in a great position to give him the contract he could get on the market. The sox traded him to the LA dodgers, and he signed a contract extension before his contract ended. 12 years, $365 million.
So essentially John Henry decided to trade everyone's favorite player because he wasn't going to get enough millions to add to his billions. I thought I was over it but watching mookie play in the world series last night kinda suck. So anyway fuck John Henry who is also the owner of Liverpool to tie into your champion's league comment.
Wow, interesting. It's the first time I've heard anything negative like that about John Henry as an owner. My understanding (primarily through the Liverpool lens, tbh) has always been that he's prudent, not greedy. Although I have heard recent talk that FSG has been one of the primary protagonists behind the latest push for a money-spinning European soccer super league under the banner of the type of franchise system common in US sports but unknown to soccer.
I don't get the contract extension bit though. Wouldn't LA have been able to offer him that much more dough if he ran it down (I'm assuming they'd have had some sort of backroom negotiations beforehand)? Or was it a public perception thing to keep fans onside?
It's a controversial issue with Henry. A lot of people think that it's crazy to sign someone to a 12 year deal, as you'll still be paying a player a large sum even on their decline. But to me that's just part of the cost of having a player like that. A lot of people agree the sox had to get under the luxury tax. I just can't feel bad for the billionaire that needs to shell out a few extra million for his team. I can't really imagine having that much money and wanting more still. It would be amazing to own a baseball team and letting them go to shit in the name of profits bewilders me. The sox were one of the worst teams in baseball. I gotta think it's more profitable to put a contender out there, but plenty of people want to go to fenway Park for the experience and don't even care much about the games. Owners will get paid if the team sucks. But if they let it go too long people will lose interest. I barely watched games this season for the first time in a long time because they were so bad.
Contract extension was what I was hoping the aox would do with mookie. It allows the team exclusive rights to negotiate with the player. If he becomes a free agent he can talk to other teams and potentially create a bidding war. The red Sox offered Mookie an extension way below his market value so of course he turned it down. The dodgers gave him something close to what he wanted so he took the deal. Especially given the uncertainty of covid, it good for both parties to lock down a deal.
I miss Mookie :(
The Champions League is back this week! Kinda hard to make reasonable predictions about this season because things are surely going to be affected by COVID, but I'm interested to see where the inevitable upsets will come... and I have a hunch it'll be group H - PSG, Man United, RB Leipzig, and Basaksehir.
Very excited that the Champions League has returned.
I will be watching the Raiders game this Sunday. I became a fan of the team when I went to my first Raider game like 6 years ago.
... and of course the first upset would inevitably happen to my team. An understrength Shakhtar Donetsk, missing 10 players out of a 25-man squad due to injuries and positive COVID tests, made the trip to Spain anyway and beat Real Madrid 2-3. Madrid went three goals down in the first half and almost rallied to tie the game late, but the Ukranians(/Brazilians) held on. The Clasico against Barcelona is tomorrow in the league, Madrid better better figure something out quick.
It is a good time to be a Chiefs fan (the Kansas City Chiefs are a team in the NFL). They notched a good, solid dubski this week against the Buffalo Bills, another team with a solid roster and promising future. I've been a fan for a while, but barring last year's Super Bowl run, I think this current state might be the best I've ever seen the Chiefs.
The Chiefs won the Super Bowl last year, and usually this is accompanied by what's known as a "Super Bowl Hangover" the following year, in which important players leave the team, and the rest of the league spends the entire offseason dissecting film of what made the SB winner so good in the first place. The Chiefs, though, have yet to suffer any SB Hangover ill effects. They currently sit at 5-1, three of those wins coming against quality opponents in the Bills, Ravens, and Patriots. It is absolutely a homer take, but I really believe the Chiefs have the best complete roster in the League right now, and almost every Chiefs starter would start on the majority of other NFL rosters. Before they lost to the Raiders last week, I was unironically expecting a perfect 16-0 season. Alas, football is hard, and winning each regular season game is damn near impossible. Regardless, my hopes remain high.
I feel KC is a bit more beatable than last year. Like you said, teams will take losses in the NFL but the raiders? Bleh. I think the pats came closer than they should've considering the qb situation. The D holding the chiefs to 6 in the first half was very unexpected. Also that Buffalo game could've turned the other way if that fumble didn't get called back (obviously the right call but shows you how close it was). And that's with Allen having a subpar game. Although maybe this is just me dreaming that the chiefs won't be so dominant again.
Yeah, I had been feeling bad about how close that Pats game was until the Pats lost to the far inferior Broncos during their next game. Chiefs also had a close win against the Chargers, although Chiefs-Chargers games are always very close (Lynn's Cover 3 is so effective against the Chiefs' misdirection, they what I think is a top 3 secondary in football, esp with those fast safeties). Raiders are better than people think they are; they've also beaten the Saints and Panthers, two decent teams, and kept it competitive vs the Bills. But yeah, these Chiefs ain't the 2007 Pats; they're a very good team, but not worldbeaters.
One potential reason they look less beatable: Mahomes hasn't had to be himself really. In 2018 and the 2019 playoffs, his defense was bad enough that Mahomes had to go out and do incredible things each and every drive just to keep the team in the games. This year, the Chiefs defense is probably a top 10 unit, and so Reid is way more willing to just go and burn off the clock with runs and short passes. Although Mahomes is still taking as many attempts as usual per game, he's taking deep shots waaaay less. His average depth of target this year is a full yard shorter than it was last year. The OLine has also taken a major quality hit-- did you know that Mahomes has scrambled more times in this year's 7 games than in all of last year's 14?
Interesting. I wonder what's causing him to scramble more. I was wondering if teams had figured something out to slow him down (analyzing tape like you mentioned) which seems unfathomable based on the shear amount of weapons, and insane talent he has. They are still doing enough to win and are now adding Bell so it's going to be tough for anyone to stop them in the playoffs. Titans will be a challenge. I wish they were playing in the regular season, but maybe my boy TB12 can give them some trouble next month. Bucs D looks real deal recently.
Thursday Night Football between the Giants and Eagles was a much more enjoyable game than I would expect from teams with 1-5 and 1-4-1 records, respectively.
Just watched the Khabib fight. Holy shit, he is on a completely other level. The takedowns and transitions to the submission looked so easy. I dont know many of the new guys but i think even GSP in his prime would struggle with Khabib. I still think GSP may have jabbed fucked him like Koscheck but we'll never know.
I hope he can stay retired if that's what he wants.