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Doug Gottlieb Blames Millennials for Andrew Luck Retiring, Torrey Smith Dunks on Him

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So as you are probably aware, Andrew Luck has indeed retired at the age of 29. The guy has dealt with a ton of injuries over the years and Luck himself inferred that he just couldn’t live his life the way he wanted to with the constant injuries, pain, and subsequent rehab so he decided to call it a career. No shame in that at all. Unless you’re Doug Gouttlieb and oh what a glorious dickhead Gottlieb is here.

You don’t even want to know how many stolen credit card jokes people were able to shoehorn into Gottlieb’s mentions, but Torrey Smith one shot KO’d him here.

The Twitter equivalent of the Conor McGregor Jose Aldo fight; over in 10 seconds.

Then Troy Aikman came in to straight up eviscerate Dougie.

Its bad enough to rag on a clearly broken down and conflicted Andrew Luck for retiring from the only thing he’s ever done because of things beyond his control. But then to lay it at the feet of millennials because its another thing we ruined? What a moron. Thats what Gottlieb does though, stirs the pot and just drops outlandish takes to generate some buzz. Rob Parker, Gottlieb, Max Kellerman, and Chris Simms must all get together once a month to drink wine coolers and drunk dial Skip Bayless asking for guidance.

The tweet is in bad taste, but its also just ill informed as more players retire younger and younger rather than continue to give themselves brain damage. Luck was been sacked 174 times in his career and has suffered injuries ranging from a concussion to lacerated kidney, partially torn abdominal muscle, torn rib cartilage, not to mention all the shoulder injuries that had him unable to THROW. Andrew Luck isn’t a dummy, the guy graduated from Stanford. So he knows how many NFL athletes play until their body gives out on them and deal with the consequences for the rest of their lives. Just like I said when Gronk retired, if you want to retire early with your health in tact then good for you.

Take a seat, Gottlieb.

#RushHourRap – Logic – Homicide ft. Eminem (video)

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I don’t know what kind of obscure demographic/psychographic research you have to cross into as a fan of watching YouTube music videos, Rap, Logic, and The Sandlot…but shit thats me. Either way, the song is fire flames, but this music video shouldn’t work. It looks like a drunk MadLib on paper. So we’re going to have a music video that features zero artists performing with Squints from the Sandlot rapping and Eminem being played by Chris D’Elia while he raps in a murder cabin. 

That sounds like someone watched Em’s 3 AM video while high and then tried to recreate it for a student film with C list actors, but IT WORKS. Doesn’t hurt that the song bangs and oh ya Squints is a dead fucking ringer for Logic. Like Bobby might want to keep Squints on retainer for mall autograph sessions or to be his fall guy.

Patrick Mahomes Links Up With Troy Polamalu for Commercial; Also, There is Zero Percent Chance Patrick Mahomes Knows Who Troy Polamalu Is

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This is where I’m starting to show my age as a rapidly aging millennial like some sort of reverse Benjamin Button. Patrick Mahomes is a stud, a Madden cover athlete, and a guy that almost stopped Tom Brady from returning to yet another Super Bowl, but he’s only 23. Troy Polamalu is one of the greatest defensive players in the history of the game, but he’s only 38 years old (side note: how many retired athletes look at TB12 and wish they stuck to QB?) and retired after the 2014 season, 3 years before Mahomes was even drafted, and well past his prime of the late 2000s.

My point being, unless Mahomes was a Madden fiend there is a very real chance he doesn’t even know who Troy Polamalu is. Video games are the only reason I can name the top 30 soccer players in the world from 2009-2010. I like soccer, but Xbox and booze fueled FIFA tournaments are so burned into my brain that I still hear “Schweinsteiger!” in my head any time I watch a game.

…well after doing the math, Polamalu was the best safety in the game and NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2010, when Mahomes was 15 so if he was watching ball in high school it lines up, but doesn’t make me feel any better about being 30.

This Dabo Swinney Baby Tiger Illustration is the Cutest Damn Thing I’ve Ever Seen

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This Dabo baby tiger illustration from ESPN is the cutest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen. So pure, so simple, yet so dead on. Its from a story ESPN published today on how Dabo built Clemson into a monster of a program. Dabo is such a chill dude that probably would befriend a baby tiger, both on their path to global domination. I love Dabo and am a huge Deshaun Watson guy, but I’m not necessarily a Clemson stan and even I want to frame this picture.

Dabo so hot right now, Dabo.

 

Christmas Came Early, the XFL Team Names and Logos are Here

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So the XFL announced the names of every team and unveiled their official logos today, which is pretty exciting considering its August 21st and the Patriots are still playing fauxball.

February 2020 cannot come soon enough. The Patriots will be coming off their 4th Super Bowl title in six years after repeating as champs and then we can coast into Vince McMahon’s little football experiment. The AAF failed because it was financed and run by people who had apparently never run a business a day in their lives. Vince has been running one of the most successful entertainment organizations ever for the past 30+ years. If nothing else the man knows how to put on a show.

I was cautiously optimistic about this announcement because these expansion leagues always seem to have the WORST team names. (Looking at you, Atlanta Legends)

So how’d Vince do? Lets break em down.

Houston Roughnecks – First off, I absolutely LOVE the Roughnecks logo, an excellent shoutout to the Oilers of the old days. We have an early favorite folks.

Dallas Renegades – Obviously you have to put at least one team in Texas considering high school football games in Texas draw bigger than some professional teams. The name Renegades screams expansion team though, weak name. Give me something spicy.

LA Wildcats – This sounds like the name of the Rams’ cheer squad. Boooo

New York Guardians – Meh. They’re a silent New York Guardian, a watchful protector, a dark knight that will probably lose a bunch of games by the sheer fact of being too close to the Knicks/Jets/Giants/Mets.

St. Louis BattleHawks – I have no idea what a BattleHawk is, nobody does really, but I fuck with it. Bad ass name.

Seattle Dragons – Any time a new team pulls the ole reliable “Dragon” name off the shelf, I can’t help but go back to Papa Giorgio’s hilarious story of how the Islanders came to have a bastard dragon for a mascot.

Tampa Bay Vipers – I will say the name Viper has come back into vogue thanks almost entirely to one Oberyn Martell before he (spoiler alert) met his untimely demise. Plus its Florida so encountering a pack of Vipers is a very real possibility. Vipers are OK by me.

DC Defenders – Alliteration! Decent idea, but poor exectution. What are they defending? Are they defending Vince McMahon’s idea to launch a bootleg football league for the second time in 20 years? Are they the Marvel Defenders? Prop bet idea: What gets cancelled quicker? The Defenders on Netflix or the DC Defenders of the XFL?

Now I just have to decide which team to stan for so I would like to announce that my XFL fanhood free agency period has officially opened. Let the bidding commence.

Rugby Player Turned 49ers Punter Just Laid the Wood on a Punt Returner

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We’ll probably never see another mammoth like Sebastian Janikowski out there, but we may start to see more “athletes” kicking with the influx of former players like Mitch Wishnowsky here. That is music to my ears because I live for kicker/punter tackle highlights. Its such a disrespected position that you know every kicker is a bottle of pent up rage just waiting to explode on someone.

Roll the Polish Cannon highlights!

The NFL is Partnering With Jay-Z On the Super Bowl Halftime Show and I am IN

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Washington Post – The NFL is forming a partnership with music mogul Jay-Z in a deal that allows him to help manage entertainment ventures tied to league events and is closely connected to the league’s community activism efforts.

The partnership will make Jay-Z, whose given name is Shawn Carter, and his Roc Nation agency a co-producer of the Super Bowl halftime show. It does not contain a provision for him to be the halftime performer, he and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said.

“He was very quick to say that he does not want this to be about him performing, that it was broader than that,” Goodell said in an interview. “It quickly went beyond that. Do I hope he’ll perform in the Super Bowl sometime in the next several years? Yes. But I think we’ll all know if that time comes. He’ll know in particular.”

Roc Nation will choose entertainers who will perform in televised NFL promotional spots throughout the season. Carter said he believes Roc Nation will have freedom under the partnership to produce the kind of entertainment that it wants.

The Super Bowl halftime show has been a snoozefest since Janet Jackson threw her titties into Justin Timberlake’s hand all those years ago.

Ever since then the NFL basically overcorrected and trotted out some of the most boring halftime shows ever. In the years post titty-gate we got Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, and The Who, which are all good, wholesome bands, just not anyone I want to see headlining the biggest entertainment night of the year. At least in recent years they’ve started to bring back artists that are under 50 years old again.

Last year though was definitely some old white producer trying to appease everyone with Travis Scott, Big Boi, and Maroon 5 while still somehow pleasing no one.

So this morning I hear the news that the NFL has gone back to the big guns (and probably dumped an 18-wheeler full of cash on his front lawn) and partnered up with Jay-Z for this year’s halftime show. While it makes it pretty clear he won’t be performing any time soon, getting S Dot Carter to produce the league’s halftime show and its musical entertainment as a whole is a HUGE win for the NFL. Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint 1/2/3, The Black Album, Kingdom Come, hell even the American Gangster soundtrack still BANGS to this day. Thats not even counting all the collabs he’s done over the years like Collision Course and Watch the Throne, which are all-time albums. Now obviously I left out most of his more recent work…but those albums aren’t without their mega hits. I actually went to the Jay-Z/Timberlake show at Fenway a few years back and the Holy Grail beat drops just as hard today. To be perfectly honest I never heard a ton of 4:44 because I’m not a schill and I’m not paying for Tidal just to get Jay’s album, but The Story of OJ is without a doubt a jam. Long story short, I have high hopes for Jay-Z and Roc Nation leading the entertainment wing for the NFL moving forward.

Although it does sound like HOVA has been paying close attention to the Ginger Hammer’s actions in recent years (i.e. Supreme Court cases for equipment violations, but wife beaters and child abusers getting off scot free) and doesn’t expect completely smooth sailing.

“I anticipate that there will be a lot of — with any big organization, in this building right here we have internal problems. Anything that’s new is going to go through its growing pains. We put what we want to do on the table. The NFL agreed to it. So we’re going to proceed with that as if we have a partnership.”

I’d be remiss though if I didn’t mention and laugh out loud at the hypocritical nature of this entire partnership as the Carters very publicly turned down the halftime show last year and chided the NFL for its handling of Colin Kaepernick.

I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt though that he wants to make some real changes by getting inside the NFL, rather than just criticize it on twitter, but at the end of the day Hov isn’t a businessman, he’s a business, man.

Dread It, Run From It, Pirates’ Joe Musgrove’s Infinity Gauntlet Glove Arrives All the Same

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Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same.

Despite having all 6 Infinity Stones at their disposal, Joe Musgrove and the Pirates are still in last place and 13 games out of the playoffs.

This is an A+ glove design though and just goes to show how much more exposure MLB could gain amongst younger viewers if they just lightened up a little bit. Obviously this glove would never fly in a real game, but Musgrove was allowed to break it out for Players Weekend. Normally Players Weekend is basically just an excuse for the MLB to act like a couple wild and crazy guys…

…by putting nicknames on the back of team jerseys.

That is of course unless you are a humorless stiff who hates fun like the Yankees’ Brett Gardner, who simply put “Gardner” on the back of his Players Weekend jersey.

He’s probably a fun guy to talk to at parties.

Anyways, if MLB would relax some of its stuffier rules, let players express themselves, and oh maybe chill out with the Gestapo social media policy that takes down every video that makes its way onto the internet, then they would be on to something. I will say, as bad as MLB is at social media, no one is worse than FIFA. I’ve only gotten two C&D’s in my Twitter career and they both came from FIFA after tweeting out videos of players scoring and celebrating. The horror.

 

Oakland A’s Sign a Fan After Seeing Him Throwing HEAT in Stadium Speed Pitch Challenge

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USA Today – Baseball fan Nathan Patterson lit up the speed-pitch radar booth at Coors Field a few weeks ago while attending a game with his brother. Now, he has signed a contract with a Major League Baseball team.

Patterson casually threw a 96-mph fastball at a Colorado Rockies game July 15, and on Thursday, the Oakland A’s made his dream come true as the 23-year-old signed a contract with the club.

The backstory makes Patterson’s journey even more epic. He played high school baseball but never pursued it in college, but he started taking baseball seriously again last August. He originally caught the A’s attention at a Nashville Sounds game (the team’s Triple-A affiliate at the time) when he threw 96 mph there as well…He was injured in a car accident in December and needed surgery. But Patterson was resilient, kept training and stayed sharp in a rec league.

This is literally a movie plot except if you tried to get this made they’d laugh you out the fucking door saying we already made this movie.

As much as the hater in me wants to knock a guy for falling ass backwards into a major league contract (and he’s clearly over the line)…

Despite all that, you can’t lie this is impressive AF. You ever try one of those speed pitch radar booths at a game? Incredibly humbling. Everyone likes to think they’re just a tick below a professional athlete (“yea well I played varsity my senior year in high school but wanted to focus on my studies in college”) until you get in front of the radar gun and can barely top 60 mph. Thats not even fast enough to be considered a knuckleballer in the pros so for you to be crow hopping and blowing out a shoulder just to hit 62 mph ain’t gonna cut it.

So props to this guy for coming out of the clouds to earn a contract with the A’s and, at least for a little while, getting out of the rate race that is cube life.

Rick Porcello Hulk Smashed a Couple TVs Last Night

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So I was minding my business, half heartedly watching the Red Sox game last night. I stepped away for a few minutes and I come back to see the Sox down 5-0 as Eck and Dave O’Brien are discussing how Rick Porcello just Hulk Smashed two TVs in the dugout.

If thats not a microcosm for this entire letdown of a season then I don’t know what is.

I also had a similar reaction to Porcello when I heard that Dave Dombrowski didn’t do a goddamn thing at the trade deadline AND had the balls to say teams were calling HIM about Red Sox relievers.

I said the same exact thing after last year’s incredible run to the World Series, while this is all great, I worry it will embolden Dombrowksi to make zero improvements to the bullpen again in 2019. And thats exactly what he did. Let Kimbrel walk, let Joe Kelly walk, basically hoped Matt Barnes (6 blown saves and 4+ ERA), Steven Wright (injured again), Tyler Thornburg (released), or Ryan Braser (demoted to Pawtucket) would somehow morph into a major league closer. With the backup plan currently being to take the guy you just gave an $67.5M contract to be a starter and throwing him in to join the Closer by Committee gang. Hey, it may work like it did last year or it may flame out spectacularly with the defending World Series champs outright missing the playoffs.

Smash away, Rick. Smash away.