Football
March 26, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this month, the National Football League decided to go ahead with its free agent signing period even though other sports were shutting down due to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. Unlike the playing of actual games, free agency required no physical contact. Every part of the the process could be performed remotely except for physical examination of the free agents, and that could be deferred. Nonetheless, some claimed that going
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March 19, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Last weekend, I wrote about whether the NFL should proceed with free agency. I thought it should. Some football writers thought it shouldn’t. Awarding big contracts to players during a time like this would be a “bad look,” they argued. The NFL went ahead with free agency. Football fans had something fun to read and think about during these somber days. Teams communicated remotely with players and their agents. Physical
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March 15, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The NFL “league year” doesn’t begin when the regular football season starts. Nor does it begin with the Hall of Fame pre-season game or the opening of training camps. The NFL deems its “league year” to start when the scramble for free agents commences. That’s scheduled for tomorrow with the beginning of the “legal tampering” period. Hard core NFL fans look forward to this day every year. This year, with
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January 31, 2020 — John Hinderaker
First of all, the game should be good, and the teams are relatively new to the national spotlight. (“What do the Super Bowl and the Democratic presidential field have in common? No Patriots!”) I am not one of those who think the commercials are more interesting than the game; on the contrary, to the extent I watch them, I often find myself scratching my head over what product or service
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January 19, 2020 — John Hinderaker
The national champion LSU Tigers–I would say, the unbelievably talented LSU Tigers–visited the White House on Friday. Star wide receiver JaMarr Chase tweeted this; I know about it because it is all over Twitter, with 104,000 likes and 22,000 retweets, and one of my daughters pointed it out: It’s an exciting day in the White House. #GetTheGat @SubtweetShawn3 pic.twitter.com/UtgRBP5fxQ — Ja’MarrChase (@Real10jayy__) January 17, 2020 I think President Trump will
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January 15, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Before the start of the college championship football game on Monday night, a collection of all-time college great players was onstage at the New Orleans Superdome. Nearly all of them were running backs, including Archie Griffin, Barry Sanders, Herschel Walker, Earl Campbell, and Jim Brown. There were also descendants of Gale Sayers, Red Grange, and Jim Thorpe. Missing, of course, was O.J. Simpson who may be the best college running
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January 6, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I’ve been a fan of Kirk Cousins since his days at Michigan State and a big fan since the Washington Redskins drafted him in the fourth round of the 2012 draft, ostensibly to back up Robert Griffin III, their number one pick that year. I say ostensibly because there’s reason to believe that Washington’s coach, Mike Shanahan, envisaged Cousins, not Griffin, as his long term starter. Doubting Griffin’s ability to
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December 27, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
For my money, the coolest football nickname ever belongs to one-time Buffalo Bills wide receiver Elbert Dubenion. He was called “Golden Wheels.” Come to think of it, his real name has to be one of the coolest ever, too. Dubenion died yesterday at age 86. His death occurred on the 55th anniversary of the Bills’ victory over the San Diego Chargers in the AFL title game of 1964. Jack Kemp
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December 23, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The punchline to this joke was supplied 20 years ago by a soccer fan I met on my way to a match in London: American football, you get up, get dressed, and go to the game. English football, you get up, get dressed, get drunk, and go the game. Twenty years later, I’m not sure the joke applies. The difference may now reside in where you get drunk. In American
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December 5, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Redskins were one of the teams that attended Colin Kaepernick’s workout in Georgia last month. Their attendance was hard to explain because signing Kaepernick made no sense for the team. But now, the Redskins have made a signing based (at least in part) on what they saw during the Kaepernick workout. The Skins signed to their practice squad one of the wide receivers to whom Kaepernick threw passes.
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November 17, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
During a recess late in a trial where the plaintiff alleged he had been fired due to his race and/or his age, a federal district court judge said to his law clerk: Sure, this guy was discriminated against. But he wasn’t discriminated against because he’s black and he wasn’t discriminated against because he’s over 40. He was discriminated because he’s an a**hole. It might well be the case that, a
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November 16, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Paul noted a couple days ago the very public “workout” publicity stunt of Colin Kaepernick, which was scheduled to go off at 3 pm eastern time today at Atlanta Falcons stadium. But suddenly this morning Kaepernick complained that the media were being overly restricted, and suddenly moved the event to a local high school and delayed the start time. ESPN reported about an hour ago: Colin Kaepernick’s NFL workout is
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November 14, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
In my post yesterday about Colin Kaepernick’s upcoming NFL workout session, I confessed to not knowing the NFL well enough to opine on whether it makes sense for a particular team to sign Kaepernick. However, there’s one team I know very well — the Washington Redskins. There is no good reason for the Redskins to sign Kaepernick. They have won just one game this season and, in an optimistic scenario,
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November 13, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The National Football League has decided to hold a workout for Colin Kaepernick this coming Saturday. It invited all 32 NFL teams to attend. A number of them have already said they expect to send representatives to the session. According to various reports contained here, these teams include New England, Denver, Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, and the New York Giants. Kaepernick says he’s excited and ready to go. I’m against denying
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October 17, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Two years ago at this time, we (and many others) were writing about the decline in television viewership of the National Football League. Back then, the NFL was reeling from controversy sparked by some players kneeling during the National Anthem. The League’s critics included President Trump. Two years on, players are no longer kneeling, Trump is no longer criticizing, and NFL viewership is on the rise. According to Pro Football
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September 30, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the 1919 World Series, the one that was fixed. Eight members of the Chicago White Sox (or was it really just seven) threw the Series so crooked gamblers could cash in on a Cincinnati upset win. Cincinnati did win the best of nine series, five games to three. Harry Stein has a good account of it in this article for City
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September 6, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Jim Langer died late last month at the age of 71. Langer was the center for the great Miami Dolphins teams of the 1970s, including the unbeaten 1972 team. Langer played defense at South Dakota State. He was not selected in the 1970 draft, which lasted 17 rounds, but he signed with the Cleveland Browns as a free agent. They promptly cut Langer, but Don Shula picked him up and
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