This song is like a fastball; don’t think just throw. The beat and production on this are so sick that it’s best not to overthink it here. Just turn the volume up as loud as possible and let this track do its thing. Oh and a feature from my dude Aminé never hurts.
ESPN – The Jacksonville Jaguars are expected to sign Tebow, 33, to a one-year contract later this week or next week to play tight end, a position he never played in high school, college or his previous three-year NFL career, a source confirmed to ESPN. A deal has not been agreed upon at this time. Once he signs, he will be reunited with Jaguars coach Urban Meyer, who coached Tebow at Florida and won a pair of national championships with the Gators.
Tim Tebow is approaching Cosmo Kramer levels of winning at life with this latest endeavor. Tebow has lived a life of unimaginable success in all facets of life, the ultimate jack of all trades master of none.
He was a five star QB recruit coming out of high school, won two national championships and a Heisman trophy at Florida, was a 1st round draft pick in the NFL, won a playoff game, moved on to broadcasting where he became a consistent face on ESPN covering college football, then tried his hand at professional baseball and made it to Triple-A, then married a legitimate Miss Universe, and now he will join the Jaguars 5+ years after the last time he strapped on a helmet, oh and he’ll be doing it as a tight end.
Truly a fantasy camp of a life.
Despite all that I love Tim Tebow, but I can understand anyone who might gag at the Captain America resume and truly absurd life this guy has lived. With that being said Tebow switching to tight end is something he should have done nearly a decade ago when the Patriots cut him after the pre-season in 2013. I admire a guy sticking to his guns and saying fuck that I’m a quarterback, but at some point we all have to realize our strengths and acknowledge our weaknesses and play the hand we’re dealt. Tebow looks to be in pretty good shape, but pretty good shape is not exactly NFL tight end shape and he’ll be 34 before the season starts, which is ancient in the NFL. So we might see some flashes but ultimately wonder bitterly what could have been if Tebow had been less stubborn back in the day. Maybe he could have been a reliable weapon for Tom Brady and the Patriots behind Gronk in two tight end sets. Who knows?
Either way it’s a smart move by the Jaguars though because they aren’t signing Tebow to be a backup tight end (they have 5 TE’s on the roster already), no they’re signing him to be a player-coach and to help install Urban Meyer’s team culture for his former University of Florida coach. Meyer is taking a huge gamble (mitigated mightily by having a once in a generation QB prospect in Trevor Lawrence) by jumping from the comfy confines of his college football success to the NFL. Just ask Nick Saban, arguably the greatest college coach of all time, how the NFL worked out for him. So Meyer is looking around for any advantage he can find and familiarity is one of the biggest advantages there is. If his former protege in Tebow can act as another coach on the field and help get other players to buy into Meyer’s system, then it’s absolutely worth the roster spot.
Plus as a guy who has dealt with an absolutely absurd level of attention and scrutiny in his career (hell, people went to Double-A baseball games just to watch him strike out), Tebow can help take some of the spotlight off of and help mentor Trevor Lawrence. Not to mention Tebow is originally from Jacksonville where he is a living legend so with that and Meyer in charge, it’s the perfect situation for him. If Tebow is effective in his role it would not surprise me at all to see him transition into a full-time coaching role as early as next season since this is only a one year deal.
But as a guy who purchased a Tim Tebow No. 5 Patriots t-shirt at the Allston Star Market in 2013, I’m just excited to see my guy back in the league.
We are 𝗕𝗢𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗡.@nikediamond x Red Sox pic.twitter.com/R8ZX27VUff
— Red Sox (@RedSox) April 6, 2021
I’m not going to overthink it and get too verbose. These are sick, plain and simple. Granted if you’re not from Boston these probably look like some failed Easter Peeps yellow cross promotion. But hey, if you know you know. What’s more, the Red Sox never do stuff like this, which is fair considering the logo and the team colors comprise one of the most recognizable and historic brands in the world. It is nice to switch it up every once in a while though and for better or for worse that’s exactly what a partnership with Nike will deliver.
Obviously these are an homage to the Boston Marathon, which is a legitimate holiday around here turned fierce display of local pride after the Marathon bombings back in 2013.
I was a huge fan of the BOSTON B-Strong jerseys the Sox wore, immortalized by David Ortiz’ “This is our fucking city” speech, when they returned to play after that tragedy.
So it’s cool to see the Sox tapping into a huge part of the Boston culture for a new alternate. A lot of these City Edition jerseys in the NBA have already become kind of forced, but I would say Nike hit the nail on the head with the first of its City Connect MLB jerseys.
Representing more than a team. pic.twitter.com/F0yvahwzOd
— Red Sox (@RedSox) April 6, 2021
The stenciled lettering on the chest is a slick callback to the Marathon finish line and I love the pinned bib on the sleeve too, real nice touch there.
Now the Boston Marathon may not be happening on Patriots Day again this year due to Covid, but the Sox are still playing at 11:05 am so we can all still down some Bud Lattes before noon as we slowly resume some semblance of normalcy.
Just like that the Red Sox fall to 0-3 and are already chasing a losing record less than a week into the 2021 season.
Nathan Eovaldi and Tanner Houck looked great in the Red Sox first two games of the season, which was super encouraging to see. Eovaldi struck out 4 in 5.1 innings giving up just 1 run and only got pulled because of the analytics (rather than his performance) and the fact that you don’t want your injury prone 1A starter throwing 120 pitches on Opening Day. Houck was also dynamite as he struck out 8 in 5 innings and surrendered just 2 earned runs. Obviously Eovaldi is an injury waiting to happen and Houck has thrown 22 innings in his entire career so the optimism here is fragile. Oh and in the last game of the opening series Garrett Richards did exactly what we all knew he would do and got shelled giving up 6 earned runs in just 2 innings.
I’m not about to freak out but getting off to a fast start is more important than you think. Just about every time the Sox have had a losing record in April over the past decade they’ve missed the playoffs. Do you realized that despite their massive achievements (two World Series titles since 2013) the Red Sox have missed the playoffs 7 out of the last 11 seasons?? This is no time to start slow because the Sox have shown they cannot dig themselves out down the stretch.
Now there is reason for some optimism here. If Eovaldi (injury prone) and Houck (young and unproven) can be a solid No. 2 and No. 3 and if Eduardo Rodriguez can come back and be the ace the Red Sox expect him to be, then the team’s pitching staff could be…I’m gonna say it…pretty good. At least in the sense that you only need 3 starters to get through a playoff series. Now, I say ace with a small “A” until E-Rod shows he can return to and improve upon his 2019 form (19-6, 3.81 ERA) after a year plus missed due to Covid and now dead arm etc.
That’s before you even start to think about Chris Sale coming back from Tommy John. The team has been very tight lipped about the time table for his return, but mid-late summer would make sense based on when he got the surgery. I’m not pinning my hopes on another guy coming off Tommy John, but if the Sox are in contention by late summer then the return of Sale could be a huge shot in the arm for this team.
The biggest disappointment of this young season though has without a doubt been the offense. Say what you will about the absolute disaster of historic proportions the 2020 Red Sox were, but they still finished 2nd in Hits, 5th in Total Bases, 3rd in batting average, and 8th in Slugging Percentage in all of baseball last season. So we know if nothing else this team can hit. So to get swept by the Orioles with little to no production from the lineup was ugly. Sure it was the first series of the year with temperatures just above freezing at times, but to score just 5 runs in 3 games against the Orioles and the corpse of Matt Harvey is concerning.
The Sox have no time to dwell as they’re right back at it tonight against the defending AL champs, Tampa Bay. With Nick Pivetta and Martin Perez starting the first two games of the series though the Sox will need to finally get the offense going if they want to avoid really falling into an early season hole.
Here.
— Red Sox (@RedSox) April 2, 2021
We.
Go.#OpeningDay pic.twitter.com/2L0lpcyqsQ
Hope everyone was prepared to ugly cry on this Good Friday Opening Day because Dustin Pedroia just made it super dusty up in here. This isn’t just another mindless hype video; this is a guy who is talking from the heart about never taking the game for granted. Go out there and bust your ass and play like a champion because the game can be taken from you at any moment. Nobody know that better than Dustin Pedroia.
With that being said, Opening Day is here baby!
That’s the beauty of baseball. It’s something about Opening Day taking place in the beginning of spring as winter is finally beginning to thaw and flowers are starting to slowly blossom. Sure it’s 34 degrees right now, but we all know it’ll be sunny and 70 before too long. Not to mention the cold dark hell we’ve all gone through over the last year, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. This is exactly why people say baseball is more romanticized than any other sport. I know the Red Sox in all likelihood are going to suck this year, but after another miserable Boston winter I have hope for better days ahead.
I originally intended to watch Zack Snyder’s definitive edition of Justice League in multiple viewings due to its ungodly 242 minute runtime. But I have to admit, once I got going it sucked me in and I ended up banging out the entire #SnyderCut in one sitting because it delivers big time.
The difference between the Joss Whedon theatrical release (which some people that are more clever than I have dubbed Josstice League) and the Snyder Cut is night and day. Granted it’s twice as long, but it’s broken up into six parts (not including the prologue and epilogue) which lend some credence to the rumors that HBO Max considered releasing it in weekly installments rather than all at once. Now if you’ve never seen the theatrical release you may just think this is a four hour masturbatory act from Snyder and I wouldn’t necessarily fault you for that assumption, but this just may replace Blade Runner’s Final Cut as the definitive example of a Director’s Cut.
So we all know by now that DC was trying to replicate the massive success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which continues to run laps around DC with the also massive success of WandaVision on Disney+. However, this is 13 years in the making with the first Iron Man coming out all the way back in 2008 followed by The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America THEN the first Avengers movie.
The biggest misstep DC made was releasing a very strong Man of Steel movie, an OK Batman vs Superman movie (that I often forget Wonder Woman is actually in), and then immediately jumping into Justice League with the addition of Aquaman, the Flash, and Cyborg. With only two of the six characters fully developed it was kind of a tall task to jump straight into team movie, introduce a new villain, and then bang it all out in 2 hours. Now I’m not saying you need to painstakingly recreate every single character arc because we all know Bruce Wayne’s parents were gunned down in front of him as a kid, and Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben was killed because of Spider Man’s carelessness. We don’t need to see that explained all over again, but Batman, Superman, and Spider Man are the three biggest superheroes in the entire history of the comic book genre. Not everyone knows the back story of Aquaman (all my knowledge is from the Vinny Chase movie in Entourage), the Flash (unless you’re a big CW fan), or Cyborg (best known from the cartoon Teen Titans, IMO).
In the original theatrical version all three of those characters get put on the back burner so you never really have time to care about them. With the opportunity presented by a four hour movie, Snyder really dives into the back story of all three, particularly Cyborg, and gives you a reason to want to see these characters succeed. Plus it also does a much better job teasing the Aquaman and Flash standalone films.
It’s hard to get into too much detail as to why the Snyder Cut is so much better without spoiling a lot of what made the cut so enjoyable so I encourage you to watch it before Twitter spoils it. I can say that the quippy Joss Whedon dialogue got axed, the motivations of many characters have changed (for the better), Darkseid is actually, ya know, in this movie, and gone is the unsightly red sky plastering the final act in the original. The new cut is overall darker (both visually and thematically), more violent, more serious, and is even rated R (yay F bombs!). So it is much truer to Snyder’s original version. But to be fair even if he had finished the movie originally, Snyder would have never been allowed to release a four hour R-rated tentpole superhero flick. So while what he has accomplished here is huge, it’s important to keep in mind that he was able to move the goal posts a bit, a luxury which he or Whedon would not typically have had.
I cannot believe how different this movie is after Snyder allegedly filmed only four minutes of additional footage in his reshoots. Granted Snyder had a whole series of DC films planned for what was dubbed the Snyder Verse so there was a lot left on the cutting room floor that he was able to just pick back up. There are also tons of easter eggs and threads (like what actually happened to Robin) that are finally pulled on here just to tease viewers in the name of fan service.
Now comes the inevitable question of “what if?” What if Joss Whedon never came on board and Snyder had been able to finish his original vision? Would the DCEU have never collapsed on itself and would we already be discussing Justice League 3, the Ben Affleck standalone Batman film, and a potential Jared Leto Joker spinoff? DC has to have known (hoped?) this would be the case and provide new life to an IP that was on ice after critical and commercial indifference. It is kind of a bummer because Snyder fully pulls back the curtain to show us what he was working on and we’re unlikely to ever see that vision realized. The new Knightmare dream scene that is towards the end of the movie (rather than earlier on in the original) is a perfect example of this. But hey, I never thought the internet would ever be able to bully a major studio into investing tens of millions of dollars into a reshot, recut version of a failed tentpole film, and here we are.
I really want to kick down the doors at DC right now and give them the Herb Brooks Miracle speech about great opportunity. That’s what you have here tonight, boys. I’m sick of hearing about what a great cinematic universe Marvel has.
Through their own failures DC has accidentally stumbled into an amazing opportunity here with the multiverse. They can finally stop trying to replicate the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It didn’t work, it happens. With the multiverse DC can simply make all of these random one off films and individual stories with different actors and just punt on a shared universe until they decide to bring everyone together again. It’s something DC has already test run on its various TV series with the Crisis on Infinite Earths event where they even brought back my dude Tom Welling for a brief Superman cameo. If rumors about the upcoming Flash standalone movie are to be believed then DC is really going to lean into that exact mindset with the multiverse as multiple Batmen are allegedly set to appear in the film.
Watching the Snyder Cut is a trippy experience because even the opening minutes are entirely different from the original version with previously unseen footage. I felt like I had Alzheimer’s because in my head I know I’ve seen Justice League multiple times but now it’s…different.
Admittedly, my viewing of the Snyder Cut may be seen through rose colored glasses after 3+ years of the internet lobbying for and then somehow actually getting a completely recut and reshot version of beloved IP. And it worked! Now do Game of Thrones.
Only person that I’m up against is me
I’m hella humble, don’t mistake, that shit is weak
Show my daughter if she fall, it’s cool, just get back on your feet
I’m here to give you all these tools and then my life will be complete
Show you what you dream is true and what you want in life and reach
And now I gotta take a look at me and practice what I preach
You are who you wanna be
And now I gotta take a look at me and practice what I preach
Lute is an artist out of Charlotte that signed with J. Cole’s Dreamwork label back in 2015, which probably explains why I like this track so much. Humble, hard working, and motivational all wrapped up in some slick rhymes, check out Lute’s “Life” and the powerful visuals that only a year like 2020 could truly inspire.
FOREVER A PATRIOT pic.twitter.com/QSBOJBs4uy
— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) March 17, 2020
I can’t believe it’s already/only been a year since Tom Brady officially announced he was leaving the Patriots after 20 seasons. Less than a week later Boston Mayor Marty Walsh officially shut down the entire city and so began the worst year of all of our lives. Coincidence? I think not. Since then so much has happened including the absolutely apocalyptic global pandemic, every professional sports league pausing and resuming games, we had perhaps the most virulent Presidential election of our lifetime, rioters stormed the Capitol, Zoom became more common than brushing your teeth, everybody is going on their 2nd straight birthday in quarantine, oh and Tom Brady won yet another Super Bowl except this time for a different team. That all happened in just the last 365 days.
I actually just finished the excellent Patriots book by Jeff Benedict, The Dynasty, and while it definitely does have a friendly slant towards the Kraft family, it still may just be the most complete historical retelling of the entire Tom Brady/Bill Belichick/Robert Kraft era in New England. Benedict’s book does a superb job navigating through all of the drama, hearsay, history, the highs and the lows of the past 20 years and it really is nothing short of amazing the levels of success this franchise reached.
“The New England Patriots of the Tom Brady era are in the pantheon of greatest sports dynasties. No team in the twenty-first century formed a deeper emotional connection with its fans–or aroused more passionate disdain from opposing fans–than the Patriots under Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady. Together they created a golden era of football that started in the year of the 9/11 terror attacks and continued for two decades. If the Patriots’ dynasty had behaved like its football predecessors in Green Bay, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco, the run in Foxborough would have ended much sooner, perhaps as early as 2010 or 2011. But Kraft’s biggest achievement as an owner was keeping Belichick and Brady together for so long. They needed each other to reach heights that had previously seemed unimaginable.”
Well put.
Here’s what I wrote a year ago today about Brady officially leaving the Patriots.
I can’t believe the day has finally come. Tom Brady is leaving the New England Patriots. Despite days, months, and even years of preparing for this it still doesn’t feel real. I feel like Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s day off right now: catatonic.
We all knew this day was coming, but it still sucks to see the end of an era. I don’t fault Brady, especially if he did get a massive payday somewhere else and the Pats offered him peanuts. Can’t blame the guy for wanting to make market value after taking discounts his entire career. Especially if the Patriots and Belichick wanted him to sing for his supper just to lowball him again.
Then? Then Brady immediately proved Belichick and any remaining doubters wrong as he won his 7th Super Bowl only this time with an entirely new team. It only made it crystal clear that if the Patriots had put a better supporting cast around Brady that he could still be an elite, championship winning quarterback. So yes, I still have a lot of hard feelings about how it all ended, but everything ultimately runs its course and that’s what inevitably happened here. If you are one of the few fans out there who blames Brady for leaving then I highly recommend you read The Dynasty because that guy gave everything he had, which led to a legitimately heartbreaking final meeting with Robert Kraft.
Tom Brady may be living it up down in Tampa Bay, but now and forever, that’s my quarterback.
As a longtime Bill Burr fan and someone that owned Jerry Seinfeld standup CDs back in the 90s when those were a real thing, I was pretty skeptical of this going in, but my god this guy nails it.
Bill Burr telling classic Seinfeld bits: The Luge. pic.twitter.com/Xcv5w54Be5
— Jake Does Celebrities (@JakeDoesCelebs) March 8, 2021
Stand up comedy has always been one of my favorite things to watch, not just because it’s a comedy show that makes you laugh, but because of the sheer level of talent it takes. It’s just downright impressive to watch anyone at the top of their field and comedy is no exception.
They say the No. 1 fear of the average person is public speaking. Now I’m not exactly a JFK level orator, but I’d say I’m more worried about my next flight crashing than I am about speaking in front a crowd. With that being said I can’t even fathom how good of a public speaker and storyteller you have to be to become a successful comic. I mean of course the jokes are important, but when you really drill down it’s not the jokes that make the difference. It’s the timing, the delivery, the ability to tell long, winding stories and then bring it back all while keeping a crowd engaged and entertained.
Jerry Seinfeld of course is a perfect example of that. I actually had tickets to see Seinfeld live for the first time in my life last year before ya know COVID shut down the entire goddamn world. His stand up act is considered squeaky clean by today’s standards and is a lot of observations on mundane parts of every day life. Except it’s not so much the content of the joke that kills, it’s the way he delivers the jokes with his timing and storytelling. That is some world class talent. I mean I can still recite his entire bit on sinks in airplane bathrooms or Halloween costumes as a kid.
Here’s to the world opening back up as soon it’s safe so we can all grab some drinks, sit down at a club, and just watch stand up comics go to work once again.
I love Colin Cowherd, he’s one of the best in the business at what he does, but this guy on Twitter predicting Colin’s response to a wacky Baker Mayfield story is hilarious, yet telling. Maybe it’s time to punch up the script a little bit. Anyways Baker Mayfield claims to have seen a UFO the other night. Maybe he did, maybe he was high as a kite, I don’t know. But this fake Colin Cowherd quote in response to the UFO story made me laugh out loud.
“I just don’t like my franchise quarterback having alien encounters in the offseason. You know where you don’t have UFO sightings? The film room. Why do you think you don’t hear Tom Brady going X-Files? He’s watching tape. I mean, cmon Baker.” pic.twitter.com/aDQtivROyM
— McNeil (@Reflog_18) March 4, 2021
Now here’s what Cowherd actually said just a few hours later…
So, Baker Mayfield saw a UFO…
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) March 4, 2021
"Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw & Tom Brady have never seen aliens. I would prefer my guys don't talk about it." —@ColinCowherd pic.twitter.com/B31yHxJvxP
Too easy, Colin.
It’s the backwards hat debate on steroids. Cowherd railed against Tony Romo for years and said he would never win a Super Bowl because he wore his hat backwards. That’t it. That was the pillar of the argument. CEOs don’t wear backwards hats vis a vis Tony Romo was a bum according to Colin. Anddd that’s where I get off.
At least Tom Brady was there to provide a little levity like a social media marketing snake in the grass just waiting for the perfect moment to strike and grab some retweets.
How do you know I’ve never seen aliens Colin? https://t.co/j4ycqKQdDV
— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) March 4, 2021
The 300s 