floydnimrod

100% serious question: Does there exist a fan of an NFL team that likes their team's playcalling? I don't think I've ever heard it be complemented in my entire life. If everyone's "bad" at it, is anyone bad at it?

Ugh. I was genuinely pumped yesterday when the Toronto news first came out. This was the most boring option all along.

While understandable, I think any coach that tries to promote their team after their championship game should have to say which teams they think should not be in the playoff.

As someone who can only listen to their team on the radio, I also found myself listening to Benetti and Steve Stone because they were a great pair and fun to listen to. I'd say Benetti might be my favorite broadcaster across any sport (along with Kevin Brown and Adam Amin). I feel like Detroit needs a whole new both based on reviews from last season so we'll see who he's paired up with.

ESPN just wrote a whole article on the "Too Small" gesture, which I feel is equally as dumb. NBA players seem to be the most unoriginal people on planet earth and they're so damn corny all the time.

While I agree with all of this, as someone who is likely never attending an MLB playoff game, I do love meaningful afternoon baseball in the middle of the week. Makes the work day easier. The only half decent thing about the Covid sports schedule to me was that there were NASCAR races on Wednesday afternoons. It was great. More weekday afternoon sporting events* *as someone who's watching from home

I've come around on the Phillies. Outside of the Dodgers and Astros (their only redeeming quality is Dusty Baker) they were the only other playoff team I didn't want to win. Their uniforms are so blah and I find their ballpark boring visually. I routinely forget they even exist. But I've always liked Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber. As someone who wanted the Braves to win the last series, it all flipped when Bryce Harper did the stare down. That was pure magic.

I want Gonzaga to in it every year haha. Selfishly I didn't want FAU or SDSU in the Final Four because I don't like not knowing any players on the championship teams and can't remember the last time that happened for me.

FAU is a fun team/story, but I can't stand their uniforms. The Navy aways have the vertical striping pattern seen on Miami FL's uniforms (one Adidas template), but the shorts have a diagonal stripe that in no way matches what's on the jerseys (a different Adidas template used by a lot of smaller schools). I have no idea how this happened and whoever was in charge of making this decision didn't see how awful it looks.

I run a Pool where you draw teams but the only thing that matters is if they cover the spread (gives everyone a chance no matter what team they draw) and between this and the Alabama/TXAMCC games, some last-minute buckets made a few teams change hands. Also, I don't think there's a March Madness announcer (very few in general, actually) that I don't like, but they already confirmed Ian Eagle will be taking over the Final Four calls next year on TV. It's not a bad choice, but him being younger than Harlan kinda bums me out, hopefully he can do the Super Bowl when Nantz gives that up? (Harlan doing the Masters would be something though I'd think Andrew Catalon takes that over as he's already on the broadcast.) Unless I have a monetary investment in the network I'm not sure why I'd give two :censored:s about the ratings. I root for basketball, not how many other people are watching the same game I'm watching.

Do you feel like when you're attending the first/second rounds (especially the first) that you're missing out on all the other games? I've always wanted and have had the opportunity to attend the first weekend but I was always afraid I'd get four duds and miss 12 exciting games. I went to the Final Four once and obviously wasn't missing any other games so that worked out.

Only slightly due to the transfer portal, there's been a lot of turnover in season this year. Texas gets a new coach midway through the year and still almost becomes a #1 seed. Kansas gets a #1 seed then their coach has a health scare. Arkansas has one of their best players leave the team for a bit, and now he's back and they look really good. Creighton has their best player miss a lot of time early on, then they fight back through the Big East, and are, at their healthiest, a lot better than their seed suggests. Xavier looks great for most of the season, then Freemantle goes down with an injury. He's likely their fourth best player but the dropoff between Freemantle and Hunter isn't as big as the dropoff between Hunter & Edwards. Tennessee looks good all season then Zakai Zeigler gets injured. TCU looks fun for most of the season, then Mike Miles gets hurt. They get him back then their best big man leaves the team as soon as the Big 12 tournament starts. Also, Gonzaga, Baylor, and Michigan State have had relatively quiet seasons for their programs and they're all there in the second round. March Madness continues to be the best sporting event around. What a fun time. "[College] Basketball is my favorite sport." - Kurtis Blow

March Madness doesn't even have it's own thread here.

I find it funny that ESPN pretends every year they have the bracket selection show. They used to have something the hour after the real one on CBS, but only in the last handful of years to they try to have one going at the same time that runs on like a 10 minutes delay.

Howell was a rookie last year (he had a great career at UNC). He was on the team all year. Heinicke had to play because he was the guy that got them to the playoffs that one time. Wentz the guy with committed money. Howell was just the odd man out. Rookies come along at different speeds.

I'm not sure how regional/memorable this thing is but I used to go to the Adidas Tent Sale every fall when it stopped by Turfway Park here in northern Kentucky. I started going back when they had the NBA deal and tried to find and buy the strangest sports shirts they had. I found a bunch of, while not too obscure, but strangely specific shirts and my mom made them all into a quilt, which also includes a Seattle Sonics 1995 Inaugural Edition Season shirt? I think it was just for the rebranding? Because it makes no sense whatsoever. I can't upload pictures for some reason but I also managed to find: A Utah Valley University 2012 Great West Basketball Tournament Champions shirt A Maritime College Basketball Shirt (I've never tried to figure out where this was located) A 13-0 Notre Dame Football National Champions Shirt from 2012 (a year in which they were neither of those things)

But you can't make a tired point unless you take it out of context

The weird part about the post is they talk about lefties and righties and then show the picture using a bunch of pitchers who will never bat. The dumb part of about the post is that it's happening. (I speak for a small number of Reds fans/Cincinnati natives when I say: please take as many shots at Pete Rose as possible. That guy is a butt.)

I think Cassius Stanley in 2021 was in the G-League at the time of his participation. I know he played around 20 NBA games that year, but I can't remember if they were before or after the contest.

I've been waiting for Mac McClung to have an NBA moment. And this counts! I also really like that Jae'Sean Tate was throwing passes to Kenyon Martin Jr. for his first attempt. They're teammates now and they're dads were college teammates at Cincinnati. Also, yes, the Dunk Contest has been meh the past year or two, but every year that happens people want to shut the whole event down, because god forbid we don't have a take on everything that happens, even if we don't really watch it. This was a good dunk contest! And they'll continue to happen before, after, and around bad ones. We didn't shut the Super Bowl down after the 49ers beat the broncos 55-10 or the Seahawks beat the Broncos 43-8 (unintended Broncos pile on, yeah!). It's fine. Sometimes events are duds, and it doesn't have to be this big statement because we have nothing better to do.

As a Bengals consumer in Cincinnati my Facebook and Twitter are out of control. There should be a mandatory hourlong wait period to grow up before posting.

I feel like I'm pretty decent at recognizing NFL referees faces but I have never seen this main guy before in my whole life. Are crews restricted to one conference during the regular season? Is he an NFC guy?

Most times I've ever watched any sport with other people, or at the venue itself, somebody says this same exact thing like they invented calculus. Sometimes, if people like Jim Nantz weren't tremendous at their job, I wish we could just watch sports with no sound but the game audio. No announcers, and more importantly, no noise from anyone else in the room thinking their a broadcaster giving us golden nuggets like "the playcalling!" or "Halftime adjustments!" at any given moment.

Very happy the Eagles made the Super Bowl. I don't know what it is about the 49ers but I found that whole team completely boring, almost forever. Anytime they've ben in the Super Bowl I wish someone else was there instead. I only rooted for a small number of teams harder than I did for that Eagles team with TO & McNabb to win the Super Bowl. I also often forget that the Eagles won the Super Bowl a few years ago because 1: I feel asleep in the third quarter and 2: I don't think there's another city other than Philadelphia where I routinely the forget about their teams existence (the Phillies) or their teams' success (the Phillies & Eagles). Even though I just said I wanted that mid 2000s Eagles team to win, I sometimes think my mind's playing tricks on me that they were actually in the Super Bowl. If you asked me every day of the week when the last time a Philadelphia team was in the championship game in any major sports, four of those days I'd probably say the 2000-01 Sixers. Side note: as someone who loves the Teal Eagles and their current number font (I'm not from Philly nor do I care about the team so my opinion doesn't matter) I keep getting hung up on how much their new wordmark matches nothing else about their brand. I'm just waiting for new uniforms for them with big chunky Chargers-style numbers (but less curvy).

Kevin Burkhardt is like the over simplified "game manager" moniker that we give to quarterbacks. He knows his role and lets Olsen do his thing, which has helped him be good. In a way I can't explain, he has "studio host energy" and he's great at that during the World Series. I don't think even he imagined he'd ever being calling the Super Bowl on a national television level, much less this soon. Volunteering myself as the one goober who does watch based on who is announcing. Can't say that I really hate any of the current teams at any network, but if it's not my team and I have the choice of to see Kevin Harlan's or Ian Eagle's games I'm tuning in there. I even started tuning into MNF for the first time in over five years because Buck & Aikman were over there. When I found out I couldn't watch Reds games due to the wonderful bankrupt network they play on that no one in town see, I got MLB TV for free and chose to watch Orioles & White Sox games because I find Kevin Brown and Jason Benetti to be some of the best around and an absolute joy to listen to. (I will admit that baseball announcers are much more a part of the event than football announcers are given the amount of down time.)