Lions Rebuild

 After my incredible and ground breaking vision in rebuilding the Chicago Bears yesterday, The NFL's reigning GILFOY (Grandmother I'd Like to own my Football team Of the Year) Martha Firestone Ford has also hired me to rebuild the hapless Detroit Lions as a passion project. So here we go folks, I don't even need to fire anyone because Martha already did that.

1. Time to Move on from Matthew Stafford.

    As much as it sucks to move on from the best Quarterback the Lions have had since Bobby Layne, it's probably time for a clean break from all sides. Stafford will be 33 by the start of next season, and with 2 years and $59 Million in cap hit over the next two years, this is probably the last chance to move on from him and recoup anything close to adequate value. Sure, the Lions would only open up $14,000,000 in cap space and would have to eat $19,000,000 in dead cap, but that's definitely better than committing $33,000,000 to a team that's about to begin a rebuild. Stafford is past his prime, and would likely end up being cut after this upcoming year anyway, barring a significant restructuring. I think it's time for both sides to move on. No Detroit fan could possibly be upset with Stafford going to a legitimate contender before his career and body continue to deteriorate before our eyes, and I believe with the upcoming QB Changes, it shouldn't be that unrealistic to expect a late first round pick or an early second round pick for the former pro bowl QB. 

The Patriots, Saints, Steelers, 49ers, Colts, and Buccaneers all have significant question marks at the QB position going forward, an elite roster surrounding them, and none of those franchises are going to be in a position to select a QB towards the top of the draft this year. I don't think any teams would relinquish a first round pick this year for an aging QB, but considering his contract will likely be a bargain once the Lions eat the dead cap, I don't think a second and a third rounder split between this year and next year is that unrealistic. For the sake of the rebuild, let's trade him to the Colts this year for Jacob Eason, a third round pick this year, and a second round pick next year. This removes a massive cap hit, gives the Lions a decent but unspectacular QB with decent potential to fill in as a stop gap, and helps start to rebuild their draft capital. 

2. Try and trade Jamie Collins, Desmond Trufant, Danny Shelton, and Justin Coleman.

    None of the 4 are bad players, in fact, all have played pretty decently this year. But at the same time, all 4 were given relatively bigger contracts than market value indicates from Patricia and Quinn in order to try and save their jobs. None of the contracts are remotely cuttable Pre-June 1st designation, so the best bet in order to save some more cap space is to find a trade partner for a couple of the aging veterans to give more playing time to younger players. Jamie Collins should be relatively movable since the Lions would have to eat a chunk of dead cap to move him, but would still open up some more space and would probably net a 5th or 6th round pick. 

Coleman and Trufant are moveable as well, but Coleman is a bit of a longer term deal which could be a bit of an issue. Trufant is also going to carry a $10,000,000 cap hit to whichever team trades for him, but with it being the last year of his deal, it shouldn't be too hard at all for a contender to extend Trufant out a little bit without sacrificing too much flexibility. Let's say between Shelton, Trufant, and Coleman, the Lions pick up another 4th or 5th round pick and save an extra $15-20,000,000 in cap space. 

Sure, we'd have to eat between $10-15,000,000 in dead cap, but we're an abysmally constructed roster right now, so we'll use our inability to contend next year as an asset to eat dead cap and possibly accrue more assets to continue to open up our books next year. But none of these players are really cuttable, so if we can't unload them, they're sticking around one more year.

3. Marvin Jones, Everson Griffin, Kenny Golladay, and Duron Harmon are free agents: Let them walk.

    As unappealing as it is losing a talent like Kenny Golladay, the former 3rd round pick is due a big contract coming up soon, and with his inability to stay healthy this year, I'd rather let him walk and try and accumulate compensatory picks the following year rather than try and trade him on a franchise tag. The difference between the Bears and Lions predicaments with their WRs are pretty similar, but Allen Robinson is quite a bit better than Golladay and I think it would be easier to find a team willing to sacrifice a valuable draft asset AND give him an extension. Golladay has a few more question marks surrounding him, and is probably a better bet of obtaining value in the compensatory route. 

Marvin Jones and Duron Harmon will both probably get contracts from other teams and Griffin is a dark horse possibility as well. As long as the Lions avoid big money free agents (We will), and instead focus on bargain bin signings of veterans who were cut, we should be able to accumulate somewhere in the ball park of a 3rd and 5th rounder next year, or potentially two 4ths.

 Now that compensatory draft picks are tradeable, it gives us more bullets in the holster to revamp this roster and clear up cap space for when we have the ability to make more moves. It'll suck a bit, but I'd expect Golladay to get a 4-5 year deal in the ballpark of $16-$18,000,000 a year, or a 2-3 year deal worth $22-$24,000,000 a year. Either way, the guarantees will be hefty, and since we're moving on from the Quarterback position, I see no reason to throw hefty guarantees towards a luxury item that will be drastically underutilized comparatively. 

4. Test the market for Kerryon Johnson. 

    Injury prone and a year away from his deal expiring, now would be a good chance to unload him on the cheap to a contender trying to add weapons for another run at a Super Bowl. I think there's a good chance the Lions could get a conditional 5th or 6th rounder depending on his health and how many games he plays, and with Deandre Swift as the new bellcow, I don't want to spend any money extending an injury prone Kerryon Johnson. He could be a good fit to replace Mark Ingram as a bulkier change of pace back with JK Dobbins in Baltimore, or a replacement for the wildly inept Leonard Fournette in Tampa Bay. I think either team would gladly part with a 7th rounder next year that becomes a 6th if Kerryon can play 10-12 games. 

5. Free Agency Of The Bargain Bin Variety:

    We're not going after any big ticket items this free agency after the massive contracts given out by the last regime to save their jobs. We're going to play the long term game and sign very cheap contracts from veterans that were cap casualties. I'd target aging veterans to shore up the depth and provide quality veteran leadership on a team trying to rebuild a culture as well as former highly drafted prospects that didn't pan out. We're going to try and find a couple diamonds in the rough from talented players that were in poor situations and were underutilized or misutilized in their last stop. 

There are plenty of bargain bin success stories, like Shaq Barrett, Jamie Collins, Ndamukong Suh and Robert Quinn who all took extremely team-friendly, short term deals and helped make their organizations significantly better. Players that may become cap casualties, and would in turn, allow them to be signed at a lower number than usual without sacrificing compensatory capital: Brandon Graham, Kareem Jackson, Malik Jackson, Kevin Zeitler, Kawann Short, AJ Bouye, Brandon Williams, and Riley Reiff. None of those players are outstanding, but they're all very solid and getting a couple of them on team friendly deals could help establish a veteran presence for a team that'll have quite a few rookies contributing.

6. Draft: We'll see?

    The Lions are in an incredibly tenuous situation in terms of where they're picking in the upcoming draft. At 4-7, the Lions currently sit in 9th in the draft order, and there's almost no shot of picking in the top 2. So they can pick anywhere from 3rd-16th in my opinion. Based on the remaining schedule, there's a good chance that if the Lions lose on Sunday, they'll lose out. 4-12 should be enough to pick 4th or 5th, while 5-11 could drop them down to the 6-8 range.

 If the Lions have the 4th pick, they should be in position to get one of Justin Fields, Trey Lance, or Zach Wilson if Cincinnati remains ahead of them. It would also put the Lions in great position to trade down and accumulate blue chip draft chips now and in the future, before being able to survey the landscape and figure out where they're going at the QB position. 

I wouldn't hate taking a top QB prospect now, but I'd much rather try and get a  bookend corner to play with Jeffrey Okudah. Patrick Surtain looks like an absolute stud and Caleb Farley looks great too. If the Lions win a game or two and aren't in the QB sweepstakes, it wouldn't be the worst thing to grab a defensive lineman/edge rusher, and spend rounds 2 and 3 trying to add young pass catchers to develop for the next franchise quarterback we acquire. Let's just say we get a pass rusher, another solid young corner, and a high upside WR. I'll call that a win. Trade Downs are always a good strategy, but with such a question mark at the Quarterback position, we have to wait and see what we're left with.

7. If we do Trade Down.... Prioritize next year.

    In the case of a trade down in rounds one or two, we're going to put a slightly higher emphasis on getting some draft capital next year. Maybe we've already picked up a pick or two in trades, so after comp picks are tabulated, we should be going in with 11-12 draft selections without trades. So it could be a really good chance to sacrifice a little bit of value now for a lot more next year. That way if we're a quarterback away, we can push some chips in to make sure we acquire our guy.

 And if Sam Howell, Spencer Rattler, JT Daniels and Mac Jones aren't our kinda guys, we can roll it over one more year and wait for that draft class. We just can't reach on a guy and set ourselves back even further. At the very least, we'll have a mediocre but average QB and a very strong roster. 

8. Coaching Hires?

    I'm going a little off track, but I'm a big fan of Brian Daboll, especially since we're moving on from Stafford as our long term answer. He was instrumental in the early Patriots dynasty as a wide receivers coach, was the Jets QB Coach for Mark Sanchez's best two years and their AFC Championship game appearances, he was Nick Saban's OC and was the man who pushed for Tua to play, and then he's worked wonders with Josh Allen in Buffalo. Sign me up for Daboll. 

Bears Rebuild:

Folks, I just got off the phone with George Halas's ghost himself, and he told me that he was hiring me as the Bears New GM, as well as reminding me to stop taking cold medicine before deciding to stay awake for Sunday Night Football. So here's what I'd do to turn around the Monsters of the Midway:

1. Clean house. Fire everyone and their mothers. This feels like an organization that needs a deep cleaning from top to bottom. Everyone on the football side of things at least, because the last thing we're going to do is get rid of all the ushers and vendors and sales people that bust their dicks for this garbage franchise and aren't getting paid hundreds of thousands, if not millions to absolutely suck. Nagy+Ted Phillips+Pace+Literally everyone whose ever made a decision is gone.

 2. Move on from Mitch Trubisky and Allen Robinson. Mitch is a really cool dude, and he's far from the biggest issue with the Bears right now. But he's certainly not the answer, and with his contract expiring this season, the Bears almost certainly are going to have to offer him a pretty lengthy extension or move on from him this offseason. In my opinion, the damage is done, and there's no coming back from this. Robinson will be a much more gutting blow, but the star wide receiver is disgruntled after not receiving an extension yet, and rebuilding teams probably shouldn't spend $75,000,000 on a wide receiver when cap space is already incredibly tight. We'll franchise tag Robinson and try to trade him similarly to what the Texans did with Jadeveon Clowney, just hopefully with a slightly hire return. 

3. Clear up more cap space by trading and cutting veterans. The Bears salary cap flexibility is currently sitting between dire and a word worse than dire. They currently only have $2,700,000 of spendable cap space this offseason, which means there's really no other option than to start blowing it up and rebuilding. 

First, Akiem Hicks is one of the best interior linemen in football. But he's also 31, going into the last year of his deal, and is represented by Drew Rosenhaus. It's his last chance to get a significant contract, so I think I'd rather trade him and try and recoup a 2nd or 3rd round pick on him, and also save about $10,000,000 in cap space. 

We're just going to flat out cut Jimmy Graham, Bobby Massie and Charles Leno. That would save us another $20,000,000 in cap space, which lets us get a little more frisky. 

 Next to go is Kyle Fuller. Fuller is a very good corner, but he's also 28 and will be heading into the last year of his deal. I don't think tying this roster down with aging, and expensive players is the way to go, so unfortunately we're going to move on from him. Due to some mid level ineptitude from Ryan Pace, we're going to have to eat a chunk of dead cap this year and a bit more next year, but it'll save us $11,000,000 this year alone and could recoup a 4th or 5th round pick for the veteran corner.

 It'll be nearly impossible to move Robert Quinn this offseason, but there's a potential out for his contract next year, so we'll let him play it out and deal him by the trade deadline if we're not in the divisional race. 

We're keeping Khalil Mack, unless someone offers at least a first round pick for him. Other than that, these moves would open up around $50-$60,000,000 in cap space after another few restructurings. 

4. Trade down in the draft. The Bears are currently projected to pick 14th in the upcoming draft, but with the teams recent skid, games that seemed winnable against the Texans and Lions now look much tougher. I think the Bears finish the season 7-9, which should get them a draft selection in the 8-11 range. The Bears roster is running on bare bones when it comes to young, exciting, players with cap efficient contracts due to trading significant draft capital to acquire Khalil Mack, trading up for Mitch Trubisky, and trading for Nick Foles. The Bears already have too many wins to be in the running for a top 3 pick and a shot at Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields, and I'd rather try and take advantage of a team trading up for one of the remaining quarterback projects and try and net another 2nd round pick and a couple cursory mid rounders. If the Bears had the #9 pick, they could probably exchange it for a package like pick #18, #50, and #120 according to the pick value chart that many teams use. Obviously it takes two to tango, but I think if the Bears were to be able to acquire a couple more picks in the second-fourth rounds, they can rebuild the depth a little bit quicker and assemble a roster that's capable of turning it around soon. 

5. Draft Smart: As for the draft itself, I'm really not a huge proponent of draft culture. I think that the organization and the fit matters a lot more than what a prospect does in underwear or how much potential you think he could have from a small sample size in college. Just using a quick mock draft simulater, I was able to take Trey Smith, Rashawn Slater, Kary Vincent, and Jamie Newman in the first 3.5 rounds. Trey Smith and Slater can help revamp a declining OL, Kary Vincent is a DB from LSU and I like DBs from LSU, and Jamie Newman is a flyer at the QB position. We're more than a QB away, so right now I'd rather focus most of our resources on building up our offensive line before we throw a high pick to the wolves. Jamie Newman was very productive at Wake Forest, grad transferred to Georgia, and then left before the season started. I think a guy like him is worth a third or fourth round pick in the hopes of uncovering the next Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson, or Kirk Cousins. We're not expecting much from him, but if we're going to suck next year, I'd at least like to suck with someone with more potential than Nick Foles before taking the Franchise QB the following year. 

6. Oh yea, I'm hiring Matt Eberflus as head coach. There's no rhyme or reason to this, other than he's a defensive minded guy with strong midwest connections, and I he's helped develop great defenses everywhere he's been. But plenty of coaches would be well qualified for this role, I'm just throwing a dart here. Fuck it, his name is fun to say. 

7. Keep longterm financial flexibility in the hopes of building up the roster to the point that it can become a favorable destination for a free agent QB at the twilight of his career or allows the team to trade up for a rookie passer using the additional cap space to build around them similar to the Seahawks, Eagles, and Rams with Wilson, Wentz, and Goff. Badabing baby, that's a gold mine.

The Dark Knightengale Rises

"For only the second time since July 26, there is not a single #MLB game already postponed because of COVID-19, and weather permitting, it would be the 1st time since opening weekend there will be a full slate of games."- Bob Nightengale on twitter. Folks our dastardly hero The Dark Knightengale has struck again. Just mere minutes after tweeting the report that no games were getting canceled, Astros-Mets was postponed because of a hurricane. As disappointing as missing baseball is, it's still quite a feat for the Dark Knightengale to consistently get these reports wrong as soon as possible. It's almost as if he's playing all of us, and enjoying a nice little laugh. He's not the hero we deserve, rather the hero we need. While he may be more Joker than Batman, it's important to understand that Bob Nightengale's reverse jinx is one of the strongest substances on earth. Many people talk about what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and while science nerds have been debating it for centuries, I am here to tell you that the real answer is that Bob "The Dark Knightengale" Nightengale is both the immovable object and the unstoppable force. Whereas many reporters focus on the unimportant things, Bob-O focuses on getting it wrong so that we he can get it right. A man so immune to clowning that he actually prefers toying with us mere twitter morons from his castle on top of a mountain. He is the puppet master and baseball is the puppets. He is the only one with the power to save us with his reverse jinx, and I would like to shine a light in the sky to signal to our fearsome ally that the sport needs help. Please help us Dark Knightengale, you're our only hope.

Cubs Salvage My Sanity, Drop 2 of 3 to White Sox

I missed the Cards vs. Cubs recap. They won 3 of 5 against the Corona-Birds, there's your recap. Onto this weekends action. It's a well known fact the White Sox lineup is absolutely loaded with young and exciting talent, they have a really nice balance of good veteran bats and electric young talent up and down their lineup. That's what made this weekends crosstown series so interesting, the Chicago Cubs, while being the team that has underachieved the past couple of seasons, have successful executed a full on blow it up rebuild that resulted in them winning a World Series, get to take on the Chicago White Sox, who are entering year one of expecting to be competitive after a full tear it down rebuild. Obviously the storyline of sharing the city and who is king of the city and blah blah blah make this fun and intriguing. This is the first time since 2008 that both of these teams are legitimately competitive and that's what makes this so fun. Enough babbling, lets get into what happened.

GAME ONE - White Sox-10, Cubs-1

The Cubs had big dick Jon Lester starting for them and he started like the 58 year old accountant with the smallest package gym locker room instead. This was actually a pretty bad match up for Lester from the jump. It was a perfect storm of ugly for Jon as he tried to take on a Sox lineup that absolutely MASHES left handed pitching and he had a bad night hitting his spots (leaving a 90 MPH cutter over the heart of the plate to Luis fucking Robert is probably not going to work out), this resulting in him giving up 8 earned runs in just 3 2/3 innings of work, thats not great. This was really a beatdown from the jump as the Cubs never got into it with an offense that is sputtering as a whole, but especially against left handing pitching as they could get nothing going all night against Dallas Keuchel. They got their asses whooped by a good team, shit happens.

GAME TWO - White Sox-7, Cubs-4

This was a good matchup for the Cubs. They trotted out the calm and cool Kyle Hendricks and he was a professional as usual. He made a mistake and gave up a bomb to Luis Robert, gave up a few more weak knocks before the modern day Babe fucking Ruth, Jose Abreu, hit a his 3rd of 800 home runs for the weekend. and the Cubs could not get anything going offensively....... again. It actually felt like it couldn't get more infuriating but it someone did (more on that during the Sunday game). But not to bore you with the details but the bullpen shit the bed and the offense had a bunch of fake rallies and the Cubs lost 7-4. 

GAME THREE - Cubs-2, White Sox-1

This felt better. The Cubs had that bad bad man Yu Darvish on the bump to face the RED HOT White Sox and he was spectacular again. Yu went 7 Innings, gave up one run on a mistake pitch the the white hot Jose Abreu, but other than that was just about untouchable as he struck out 10 and gave up only 1 walk. As for how good Yu was, the offense was equally that bad. Now, before any Sox fans that read this chastise me, Dylan Cease has awesome stuff, and he's going to be an awesome pitcher, but he was all over the place. Fastballs down the gut, sliders hanging, he struggles with his location at times. And the fact the Cubs could only manage to squeak 2 runs out of this game was pathetic. They were able to get runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out in the 4th and load the bases with 0 (zero) outs in the 5th and scored exactly 0 runs both times. That's actually fucking embarrassing. It's like they just get up there with the bases loaded and just wanna fuck around and play tummy sticks. I mean holy fuck, I can only handle so much. Thankfully Kyle Schwarber saved the day with a 2 run shot before Craig Kimbrel and Jeremy Jeffress made us shit our pants for 2 innings.

The Cubs head to Detroit team that I know has some fun young arms, so naturally the Cubs probably won't be able to touch them. First pitch is 6:10 pm CST tomorrow night.

My Old Nemesis Curt Schilling Is In Deep Shit

 

My old nemesis Curt Schilling has recently been linked in connection with Steve Bannon's Build The Wall Group that got him arrested. I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a judge, I'm at best a common criminal with a penchant for petty theft. None of this super intense federal shit, so I'm not going to pretend like I understand any of it. 

I have a code, I only steal and nick stuff from big corporations and only when I'm especially bored or needing attention, but my old nemesis Curt Schilling is fucked. That stupid chudsky fucked up the second he made an eternal enemy out of me. Folks, Curt Schillings bloody sock is only the 3rd biggest fraud he's committed, along with bankrupting the literal state of Rhode Island and what appears to be federal fraud. I don't know, I'm not going to read the case or figure it out in any stretch of the imagination, but I will be vehemently rooting for Curt Schilling to end up in prison with a die hard Yankees fan that lost millions of dollars on the 2004 ALCS

This was tweeted about 2 weeks before Curt was fired from ESPN for being a racist douchebag. Many people have called me the puppet master. The man pulling the strings at ESPN, one of the most powerful influencers in sports media, and others have called me an Azz Clown (Sp). To me, I'm not a puppet master. I'm the hero twitter needs, but doesnt deserve. I'm the Dark Knight of Twitter, and Curt Schilling is my Joker. And like the Joker, I expect Curt to die of an overdose within 4 years. Fuck Curt Schilling and fuck his stupid face, I win. 

This Absolute Legend Is Back On His Bullshit:

 

    Take a good long look at the picture. This man is our new overlord, and a champion of reasonable men everywhere. This absolute legend's name is Elliot Shorr-Parks and folks, I guess we should start calling him Elliot Whore-Barks, because he's got women barking in pleasure after he lays down that A1 hog game on them. This is the face of a man that would cuck you with your girlfriend, and there's nothing you can do about it. But that's besides the point, yesterday ESP tweeted that: 

 "I could maybe score a touchdown. I could luck into a home run. I could probably get two points in an NBA game. I could play hundreds of games of hockey and never, ever score a goal. It looks impossible."

    This is the time of things I would say in the middle of a Bipolar break from reality. In between feverishly researching the clearcut links between the small business owner that declined my month expired coupon for $1 off a sandwich and Jeffrey Epstein, and forgetting that my toilet is clogged before shitting in it, I would also probably say a similar thing as ESP. 

There seems to be a running trend of people thinking they're more athletic and more talented than they are. The average person could maybe, and I say MAYBE get a base hit off of a major league pitcher. Over 162 games and an average of 4 at bats a game, I think that enough people could time it up well enough by game 90-95 to throw their bat across the strike zone to put a tiny little single over the 2nd baseman. But no one, especially not the Notorious ESP could actually expect to put enough of a whack on a journeyman relievers slider to hit it 350 feet over the fence. There's no chance of the home run, but I respect the effort.

Next, I don't believe he could score a touchdown either. ESP probably thinks that he could punch in a 1 yard touchdown out of a goal line set, because he'd never get off the line against any NFL Corner. Regardless, I think that he'd probably get mashed into a pile of dust by a blitzing Khalil Mack, and he'd be out of the game with a broken neck pretty soon. People forget how strong NFL players are, and even from the one, this little slut isn't reaching pay dirt.

Lastly we have the NBA. ESP thinks he can get a bucket, and I don't hate the optimism. 82 games, all he has to do is be left open enough once for the ball to go through the basket. But so much of the NBA is about getting open, and even the laziest of defenders are going to be locking up ESP. You can almost guarantee that he's not getting the ball, so if you lock him down, you get to spend less energy on defense. Even if he did get the ball, the shot is getting blocked before it even releases out of his hand. No chance our 5'7 manlet is getting the ball over Brandon Clarke's outstretched arms, much less Giannis or Anthony Davis coming to close out. I guess if you gave him 10 open 3's a game, he may make 1 or 2 in a season.

I would actually say the NHL is the easiest to score a goal in, because if he gets knocked unconscious, it's easier for his NHL teammates to bank in an empty netter off of the size of this lads forehead. Corralling it against the boards? Nah, throw it off this asshole's landing strip of a forehead and call it a day.

Sorry Elliot, you may be the big swinging dick of beat writing twitter, you may be up to your neck in hot snatch, and you may be cucking me, but you will NEVER be an athletic success in any major sports league. You dumb bitch.

Mitch is BACK

In case you missed it, here is 2017 #2 overall pick Mitch Trubisky dropping an absolute dimeball to All-Pro (and definitely not overpaid) Tight End Jimmy Graham.

.@TheJimmyGraham is settling riiiight in. 🏈💥 pic.twitter.com/lEU8XKyipQ

— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) August 16, 2020

Mitch has had his ups and downs as the Quarterback of the Chicago Bears and after coming off a year in which he struggled mightily (while other quarterbacks drafted after him succeeded wildy), he has some competition with Big Dick Nick Foles breathing down his neck. But this single throw from skelly in a practice in no pads tells me Mitch is ready to win the QB job and take the next step for the Bears. Road to 16-0 start with Mitch. 

ESPNs New Monday Night Team: Booger Out

 

    ESPN announced their new Monday Night Football broadcasting team, and unfortunately Booger McFarland didn't make the cut. When Booger wasn't advocating spiking the ball on 4th down in the playoffs, he was saying such platitudes like "Khalil Mack isn't athletic enough to beat offensive linemen anymore". Booger was a pretty fun announcer, but he never should have been given that much responsibility. I personally always thought he was just a placeholder for when Peyton Manning became the MNF Guy after Eli retired, but I guess Manning is going to hold off on that a little more. Booger and Tess are OUT. Now in we have:

Steve Levy: Steve Levy's well coifed hair and perfectly tailored suits make him a perfect fit for ESPN's most glamorous position. He's worked his way up the ranks in ESPN, which either means he's incredibly talented, or has been around long enough to know exactly how many dead hookers are buried on ESPN's main campus following insane coke fueled parties by ESPN executives. Either way, Levy knows how to play the game, and I expect a pretty good season from our well dressed Picasso. Grade is a B+

Brian Griese: Former NFL Journeyman Quarterback Brian Griese takes home the coveted analyst gig, and while a lot of people might question Griese's addition to the team, I would like to remind people that this is National Champion Brian Griese, and Super Bowl Champion Brian Griese, and "3-0 Against Ohio State Brian Griese". The former Michigan Quarterback lead his Wolverines to an undefeated championship in 1997, and most importantly, he kept his backup Tom Brady on the bench. I can't wait to have BG regale us with stories on how he used to make Tom Brady clean his cleats or get donuts for the QB room, or have sex with the ugliest groupie. Just normal hazing stuff that people do with their backups. Grade: A+ (Never lost to Ohio State, won title)

Louis Riddick: The Chronicles of Louis Riddick continue with him landing a very coveted post as the third man in the MNF booth. The scrappy safety carved out a career on basically grit, and then became the Eagles director of player personnel before being run out of town by football guru Chip Kelly who led the Eagles to multiple successful seasons of missing the playoffs while Riddick became an on air personality for PCespn (shoutout Clay Travis the GAWD for opening my eyes). Riddick is cool, and I like him and he also never lost to Ohio State in college, so I'll ive him an A+ as well.

All in all, a solid booth, and just what ESPN needs to hold out until they land Peyton Manning or another big name quarterback. Because it's coming. 

Cubs get Nighengaled, Drop 3 of 4 vs. Milwaukee Brewers, Cubs vs. Cards Preview

I just wanna get one thing off the ground here, I fucking hate the Milwaukee Brewers. No fanbase has acted so high and mighty over the better part of three seasons without winning shit than the Brewers, expect probably Yankees fans. Cardinals fans are right up there too but they just remind me of an old guy that sits around and bitches about iPhones and talks about the good ole days. Maybe I'm a salty bitch because they actually have literally been better than the Cubs the past of couple of seasons, maybe I'm just pissed that outside of Christian Yelich they're a team of replacement level to slightly above replacement level players that seem to have big, fluky years then drop off the face of the planet Earth, looking at you Eric Thames and Jesus Aguilar. Whatever.

The Cubs came into the weekend with the best rotation in baseball and coming off a series in which they scored 14 runs in 2 games against an Indians club that hadn't given up 4 runs in a game all year up to that point. Then this happen.

The #Cubs (12-3) running away with the NL Central with 5 1/2 game lead. They have an .800 winning percentage. No one in #MLB even has .700 winning percentage. Magic Number: 39

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) August 13, 2020

This may actually the worst thing to happen to the Cubs in 2020, they got fucking Nightengaled. I went from being pissed about bad ABs and Willson Contreras all of a sudden forgetting how to lay off a breaking ball to getting furiously red with rage when I saw this reappear on my timeline Sunday. It's just poetic how Bob tweets this and the Cubs are 1-3 since and have lost 3 straight by one run.

I feel better now that I got to vent. It's baseball, it's a game that makes you want to pull your hair out. If you would've told me in Mid-July that the Cubs would be 13-6 at this point in the year I would have been through the roof. Time to pack it up and move onto to the next series. Circling back to the Cardinals, they come to town for 5 games in three days at Wrigley. I guess the Cubs will be visitors for a couple of them as they are trying to make up the fuck ton of games since their irresponsible escapades that put the whole team on the Corona IL.  Nothing would make me feel better after this weekend than taking at least 4 of these 5 games from the Cards and that starts with taking 2 games today starting at 4:15 local time. Kyle Hendricks, dragged his 88 mph tossing balls all over the Cards in 2019, starts game 1 and after that we have no fucking clue who throws the rest of the games for the Cubs and neither do they. 

Seems fitting for 2020, "fuck it, we'll figure it out.

Go Cubs... Cards Suck

JIM BOYLEN FIRED AS HEAD COACH OF THE CHICAGO BULLS

OFFICIAL: Boylen relieved as Bulls head coach.

— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) August 14, 2020

 

The entire city of Chicago right now @barstoolchicago pic.twitter.com/0tjQVIfuA1 https://t.co/C1nqGVO9ku

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) August 14, 2020

When the Bulls brought in Arturas Karnisovas on board in April to head up the Basketball Operations of the Bulls, I think just about everyone and their brother expected Boylen to be removed from his position swiftly along with all the other changes that happened around the front office, that did not happen. Instead, the front office underwent sweeping changes and Boylen remained put. As the saga dragged on throughout the summer we heard Boylen release a couple of statements all along the lines of him saying he would be "blindsided" if he was let go as head coach.

These same sentiments were echoed in reports that Jim Boylen has had full support from ownership and Jon Paxson (who isn't making basketball decisions anymore). This made me about 99.7% sure Boylen's toe head would be back strolling the sidelines next year. Well we found out this morning I was dead wrong, Jim Boylen has officially been let go by the Chicago Bulls and I think this is probably Zach Lavine when he woke up and heard the news.

Bulls fans rn: pic.twitter.com/ie4aJDLp2Z

— p (@pg13sav) August 14, 2020

With Boylen now gone it feels like all the STINK from the Gar/Pax era has officially been washed away, AK now gets the opportunity to go through a real hiring process and pick his own guy for the job.

Arturas Karnisovas makes the change on Boylen and will start a search right away for his replacement. Among many expected to be considered: Denver assistant Wes Unseld, Jr., former Brooklyn coach Kenny Atkinson; Toronto assistant Adrian Griffin; Bucks assistant Darvin Ham. https://t.co/SxGYny4Biy

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 14, 2020

Woj mentions these four names here and there will be a blog later on detailing each candidate and who my preferred selection would be for the job. Until then, I need to go wilt away in corporate America for the next 6 hours. Go Bulls. 

Heyward, Rizzo's Chains Carry the Cubs to a Two Game Sweep in Cleveland

The Cubs returned to Cleveland to take on the Indians on a Tuesday and Wednesday night for the first time since... you guessed it, April of 2018 when they split a two game series with the Tribe. Not what you were thinking? Whatever, here's what happened

GAME ONE

Game one we saw Jon Lester do what Jon Lester does and the offense carried by none other than... *checks notes*... Jason Heyward??? Yes idiot Jason Heyward. The Cubs used a big 6th inning to scratch across 5 runs and sparked by a big 3 run yabo by J-Hey. It would be smooth sailing after that. The teams best offensive player Ian Happ added a couple knock and an RBI. Who gave up on this guy after 2018? Couldn't be me, he's unreal and it makes me and many other Cubs fans very glad we will now RARELY get a start from Albert Almora ever again. The Bullpen threw 3 clean innings with Tepera looking solid again and Colin Rea coming in for the last couple of innings. Rea looked sharp, if the Cubs can get some productive innings out of him in this condensed here that would be a massive help to a struggling bullpen. Rea has been a starter in the MLB and was solid before injuries derailed his career. Remember when he got traded to the Marlins for a game, got hurt, and then sent back to the Padres? That was weird. Cubs win 7-1

GAME TWO

Holy Fuck Anthony Rizzo comes out rocking bike chains that would make Rick Ross proud. I mean talk about the Italian Stallion, one of the most obnoxious chains I've seen on the Diamond in a while; and it gave him the power to rope one right over the right field fence to get the scoring going in the first inning. Kyle Hendricks did what he does best, worked quickly and efficiently while throwing a whopping 88 mph. Speaking of The Professor, the Cubs got another Solid outing out of him. 6 sharp innings only giving up one and only getting himself into a bit of a jam in the 5th but working out of it only giving up the one run then. The Cubs got another couple of RBI's from Jason Heyward this game and somehow is the teams RBI machine. Bote added a 2 RBI single as well to add some runs in a crooked 5th inning in which the Cubs plated 3. Oh yeah, KB is good too. He's gotten off to a bit of a slow start but has put together a bunch of good ABs and today drove one WAY out of yard to get in a nice groove. They would go on to get a crun across in both the 8th and 9th inning for insurance and the bullpen gives up one run in 3 innings of work and YOUR Chicago Cubs improves to 12-3 with a 7-2 victory over the Cleveland Indians.

Overall two very well played ballgames in Cleveland after four days off. Onto the Brewers for four games at Wrigley where they can really put a strong grip on the rest of the NL Central this weekend.

Cubs Update (8/10): This Team Is Good

 Goooooood morning,

The Chicago Cubs are good at baseball. After disappointing ends to the previous two seasons of Cubs baseball, that resulted in losing a game 163 at home for the division title then losing the wild card game at home in 2018 and then the team all together missing the postseason last year and somehow winning 2 less games than Mickey Calloway's Mets. The team elected to move on from future Hall of Fame manager Joe Maddon and brought in a man that will melt the heart of every single mom in the north suburban Chicagoland Area. That brings this bad boy to the first part of this recap... the good.

THE GOOD

The Culture: Not to go total dumb meatball fan, but it does feel like the culture around this team has changed. In this very fucked up COVID year where these teams are playing in front of no people, this Cubs team shows up every day like that travel team that annoys you to no end but comes out like they're all on steroids and mercy rules you 22-0 in 5 innings and before you can even get you're second AB in you're on your way home with a Reese's Cup Blizzard dripping on your jersey. David Ross is the largest reason for this shift in culture; but the buy in from the player, especially the captain Anthony Rizzo, has to be recognized. These guys have talked a lot about their disappointments the past couple of years and so far they're playing like they meant that.

The Starting Rotation: These guys are pitching their their absolute dicks off. The tone was set opening day when the most underrated pitcher in the league came out and dragged his 88 mph throwing nuts all over the Milwaukee Brewers with a complete game, 3 hit shutout. Yu Darvish struggled a bit in his first start but since then has looked like the guy we saw in the 2nd half of last year. Jon Lester has been Jon Lester, no surprises. Now for the 2 very pleasant surprises, Tyler Chatwood and Alec Mills. Mills has been awesome. He's similar to Hendricks in that he does not throw with a ton of velocity and mixes in a big slow curveball and a disgusting change to compliment his 90 mph fastball. He looks like he could be your Family's accountant but then comes out and goes 6 scoreless before he heads home for his strict 10 pm bedtime to be up to balance the books by 8:00 am. As for Chatwood, he's pitching like a guy who's fighting for an opportunity to be a big league pitcher again after this season. He has been bad as a Cubs' starter in his time here, and was okay as a relief pitcher this year. But this year he looks like a new pitcher. The biggest reason for this change is his command. Tyler Chatwood has always had the 2nd best "stuff" on the pitching staff, bullpens included. The ball jumps from his hand and bounces all over the place. This year his BB% is down tremendously and his K% is up a ton as well. Even with him getting his tits blown off in Kansas City the last time out, his xFIP is still down at 2.40 which is good enough for 10th in all of baseball. He probably cannot keep up this pace but they are encouraging signs nonetheless.

The Offense: Long story short, these guys showed up this year. Circling back to David Ross again, one stark difference we've seen from Joe Maddon to him is lineup consistency. David Ross has had the same 1-5 of Bryant, Rizzo, Baez, Schwarber, and Contreras. The most lineup flopping he does in the 1 through 5 is flipping Willson and Schwarber. Rossy is making sure his 5 best hitters will get the most PAs on the team, no more of Albert Almora as the Lead-Off hitter. This team ranks top 10 in just about every major offensive category and thats probably where they should be and settle in for the duration of this year.

Ian Happ: He's been so awesome he deserves his own category. He has been the best offensive player on the Cubs this year. After being optioned to AAA last year to begin the year, he came up towards the end of July and played like his hair was on fire. He was one of the best offensive players down the stretch for the Cubs and that has continued this year. He is the Center Fielder and the fact I will rarely ever have to see Albert Almora starting again makes me happy.

THE BAD

Albert Almora: He stinks. The fact Nico Hoerner got a recent start in center over him vs.  a lefty should speak volumes about what David Ross thinks of him at this moment in time.

THE UGLY

The Bullpen: Ohhhhhh boy are they fucking bad some would say, ugly. They are up there with the worst bullpen ERAs in the game. It's a bullpen made up of a very expensive closer who is just been straight up terrible, and then a bunch of random guys that you've never heard of. Rowan Wick has been good after a strong year last year and Jeremy Jeffress has been a pleasant surprise (although his diminished velocity could give cause for concern further down the road). Other than that, it's a bullpen made up of old average veterans that have been as average as ever for forever, and a bunch of young guys that can't seem to figure it out (looking at you Dillon Maples). It's bad. The COVID year also makes it hard to want to deal for big time arm because the season could literally be closed down any day, it's just going to be extremely difficult find value at the trade deadline. Maybe you can grab a rental vet for cash or perhaps make a move for a controllable arm. It's a hard spot but what we know is this group of guys currently just is not getting it done. Despite this, they're still 10-3.

There it is, my (not so) in-depth look at the Chicago Cubs so far in 2020. The Cleveland Indians are on deck Tuesday in what will be the Cubs first game since Thursday since that dumb organization in St. Louis can't get a handle on protocols to make a year happen. Hopefully Zach Plesac got sent home in enough time to not spread COVID around before the Cubs get there.