Crabcake

Ravens signed a starting caliber OT yesterday for $5m/year and just brought back Za’Darius Smith for around $9m/year. EDC ain’t playing around this offseason. Three signings, all in crucial areas of need, all for under market value.

I see what they were going for. But still, yikes.

This uniform is automatically better than the Mandies' away uniform because it correctly involves both of the team's primary colors. Washington's road uniform doesn't do that. Seriously, we need to put the "worst uniform in the league" discussion to bed when it comes to the bone uniforms. They were never worse than Arizona's and they're certainly not worse than Washington's now.

Ravens lock down Marcus Williams for 5 years/$70 million. I'm pretty frickin' stoked. We haven't had a ballhawking safety in his prime since Ed freakin' Reed. $14 million/year is already under market value for a safety, nevermind the fact that he's only 25, the market will only increase during the length of his contract, and the contract is frontloaded anyway if we need to get out from under it. EDC man. What a legend. Now just go and get us some pass rush and we might be in business, provided our practice facility doesn't become the equivalent of the Injured Reserve Cheers bar from The Draw Play like last year.

Fine might have been a stretch, but it would at least challenge the Cards for #31 set in the league. As it stands they're #32 by a country mile.

That is the sentence that should terrify baseball. Because it is becoming increasingly obvious through a combination of factors, some of which MLB can control (marketing itself to young kids) and some of which it can't (the rules baked into the game that simply cannot be changed if you want to still call the sport baseball), that baseball is not the sport of the modern era. The modern sports fan has a lot more reasons to spend money on, talk about, and care about basketball than baseball. The NFL is on a completely different plane and the NHL is still too much of a niche sport to threaten MLB right now (and if the NHL does ever threaten MLB for third place, it will be because MLB has done nothing to save itself from free falling, not because the NHL suddenly shot up in popularity). But MLB is getting laughed out of the gym by the NBA for second place. I personally am not a huge NBA fan, but I know way more NBA stars (and their personalities, and their skillsets) than MLB stars. I'm too cheap to buy either, but if I had to pick between buying a Giannis jersey or a Mike Trout jersey I'm taking Giannis 10 times out of 10. That. Is. A. Problem. Especially for someone like me, who grew up a bigger Orioles fan than Ravens fan and led the Orioles to 4 straight World Series in my backyard. MLB is bleeding adult fans and doing nothing to replace them. They're irrelevant in 15 years if they don't do something soon.

It’s better than Rodgers, Wilson, or Watson (heck it’s even better than Jimmy G), but like you said, it’s the Steelers. They haven’t had a losing season in a decade-plus. They could probably make the playoffs with a wooden board at QB. The utter competency that they consistently show is so maddening. The day the Steelers suck again will be the most joyful the NFL has been in a long time.

I’m concerned that that’s a sneaky-good move for the Steelers.

They should try getting Peter Drury and Jim Beglin across the pond for an NFL game or two. I'd rather listen to them than Burkhardt/Olsen.

I think Ian Eagle is a fine announcer, but he runs into the trap of using the same inflection all the time for his calls. It's better than Joe Buck at his worst, when he undeniably delivered even the most incredible NFL moments in a monotone that was so boring it was difficult to believe (FWIW he has gotten exponentially better since that era of his career), but when you use the same inflection all the time, it comes across as inflection for inflection's sake, or in a much simpler way: insincere. I'd still rather listen to Ian Eagle than Spero Dedes or whatever nameless announcing team Fox trots out as its #4 for that week. At least I can recognize Ian Eagle and pick his voice from among a crowd.

Wentz doesn’t move the needle in D.C. He failed with one of the better situations for a quarterback in this league: an excellent running game, a dominant O-Line, serviceable pass catchers, and a solid defense. He was about as insulated as he could be, and while he was pretty good at times, I think this past year pretty conclusively answered the question of whether we’ll ever see prime 2017 Carson Wentz again. He is what he is at this point, and his wild inconsistency and penchant for terrible decision-making is only going to be amplified in Washington. Also I wonder if Eagles fans are still calling for Howie Roseman’s head after the highway robbery he got away with last year.

Remember when dropping cable TV for exclusively streaming services actually saved you money? God I hate the new streaming era.

Seattle did good inasmuch as they got more in return than what Russ is worth at this point imo, but they also just traded away the only thing keeping them relevant. The difference between a less-than-100% Russ and any other option was massive last year and will be even more massive this year, with Russ back to full health and a subpar (from what I understand) QB draft class. We’ve been saying the Broncos were a QB away for 2 years now. Time for them to back it up.

I’d honestly agree with this, or at the very least not reject it out of hand. Nantz & Romo are #1 unless they’re doing a Chiefs, Steelers, or Cowboys game, in which case they drop to #1,000 because Tony Romo becomes NFL-fan-Twitter levels of insufferable. Nantz is good and always has been but sometimes struggles to rein Romo in when he goes off on his tangents. But overall they have good chemistry together. I still hold that Joe Buck is the most overhated announcer in sports today, even allowing for the fact that he’s 100x better as a baseball commentator as opposed to football. Aikman is just kind of meh to me honestly. His voice definitely grates on you after a while. As I’ve already stated, I feel like Al Michaels is past his prime, and Cris Collinsworth is, well, Cris Collinsworth. He’s the worst parts about Madden in the booth with absolutely none of the charisma or likability to make up for it. I think Steve Levy might be the worst play-by-play guy in the NFL. Riddick and Griese are tolerable.

I think there’s a middle ground with Trubisky. Does he deserve 100% of the blame he gets? Of course not. Did he drag the Bears kicking and screaming to any meager success they had during his time there? Again, of course not. He’s a below-average quarterback whose stock and expectations were blown way out of proportion by NFL draft scouts and “analysts” who are throwing darts as much as the random schmuck in his mom’s basement doing a mock draft for kicks and giggles.

It’s going to be a long time before ESPN can find anyone that can touch Tirico and Gruden. I don’t think we knew what we had with those guys until we lost it. The fact that Levy/Riddick/Griese was probably one of ESPN’s better booths in the post-Tirico era tells you all you need to know about the downfall of MNF.

Also because I feel like Al Michaels is distinctly past his commentating prime at this point. The man’s voice is the definition of iconic and it’s never really hard to listen to him commentate a game, but he’s lost a lot of excitement over the last couple years. There are plenty of SNF games that he commentated very dryly.

This collection of logos feels like it belongs on an oversized, rubbery vinyl/plastic sign hanging up in a local indoor sports facility that smells not-so-vaguely like sweat and hasn’t updated its decor since the 90’s.

You're the man, man! Thanks much.

SLICK ICY FIRE

Every time you think this franchise can't top itself, it somehow manages to find a way to crap its pants a little harder and a little more messily. Truly incredible. The Commanders are one of the most storied franchises in the history of the league, but any NFL fan born from 1995 on knows the team only as a laughingstock. It's truly impressive how bad of an owner Snyder is. He's Gretzky-levels above his competition when it comes to bad owners. I've said it before but I'll say it again: I genuinely feel bad for my friends who have to root for this sorry excuse of a franchise.

I honestly was surprised when I found out there was such a debate regarding Matt Stafford, cause I thought we all kind of agreed what he was: a good-to-very-good QB with obvious flaws in his game that were amplified due to the fact that he had the extreme misfortune of playing for the Detroit Lions. In terms of his HOF candidacy, I really couldn’t give a rat’s behind about it, because Hall of Fame cases in both football and baseball are pointless. Cooperstown voters vote in who they want based on whether they like a guy or not, while Canton swings the complete opposite direction on the pendulum by making the proverbial “Hall of Very Good” an actual thing.

I’m happy cause I was rooting for the Rams all night, but honestly I feel kinda dirty about it now after the fact. The Bengals were clearly the better team tonight, but the Rams pulled a length-of-the-field drive out of their butts when they needed it most (aka Cooper Kupp putting the team on his back and dragging them across the goal line) and the Bengals O-Line couldn’t hold long enough when it mattered most. I do feel bad for Shiesty and the Bengals cause for the most part they’re a young, likable team. If they weren’t a division rival I would’ve been decked out in black and orange tonight. At the same time though, if you decide to line up the literal human embodiment of burnt toast Eli Apple 1-on-1 against Cooper Kupp on the goal line with the game on the line, you kind of deserve what’s coming to you.

We should add a “!!” reaction for posts like this where we just agree wholeheartedly with everything that was said.

I do hate to see Donald and Ramsey get a ring. But man am I stoked for Stafford, Kupp, and OBJ. Cooper Kupp is that dude. Should’ve won the MVP.