BBTV

Also when 49ers were whining about "we'd have won if Purdy didn't get hurt", that neglects the fact that the OL is part of the team, and couldn't protect him, so while the injury shouldn't have been expected, was a highly-possible outcome of a great pass rush going against a lousy line. The 49ers probably wouldn't have won, but the blame goes on the OL, not on Purdy's injury.

There are times where injuries are flukes and legitimately bad luck. But when you bet your season on a guy with a pretty extensive injury history and don't have the depth behind him, you can't blame a loss on an injury since that was risk that the team consciously took. Eagles potential HOF RT Lane Johnson just went out with an ankle. His backup blows While he's never hurt his ankle, he's missed games each of the past few years (though he came back to play last playoffs with a torn abdomen). If that costs them, I can't say "yeah but Lane.."

Hey, if the 49ers didn't want the referees to be a factor then they should have gotten up by 50.

1. Cousins won't waive his no-trade clause... especially to go to a clown show like Arizona. 2. Has a mid-season QB trade worked out? Not that the playbook rocket science (despite what these workaholic coaches would have you believe), but I'd imagine it'd take a few games to get the "feel" of the receivers and their tendencies, and to (again, for lack of a better word) get the "feel" of how the line plays, etc. and he's never going to win anything... but trading assets for another QB who's also not capable of wining anything is a net loss for AZ. Probably best for them to part ways and absorb the dead money (or whatever the penalty is) and hope there's someone in the org that can develop into the next Purdy, or hope they're in position to draft a true franchise QB that values winning over video games.

If we care about run differential, which leads to changing the way games are managed and played, then let's play the bottom of the 9th even when the home team is leading. If you care about run differential then you don't care about injuries or unnecessarily burning players out, so what's a meaningless half inning? Good teams winning by more runs than less good teams is only logical, but eliminates a lot of context. Your team and all your $ could be spent on pitching, and therefore you're winning 100 games but mostly by 2-1, 4-2 or 5-3 or something like that. That doesn't make that team any worse than a team that wins 100 games by scores of 8-4, which is why it's settled on the field. We're not having this conversation if the Phillies and DBacks weren't playing in the NLCS (and if the Phillies hadn't made it last year despite being #6.) I don't know anything about the DBacks other than few people really care about them, but last year's Phillies were the best or second best since June 1, and this year's were 2nd or 3rd in the same timeframe (albeit behind the Braves, who's talent was clearly poorly managed and not built to win playoff series'.) Maybe the Braves shouldn't manage better once it's clear they're winning the division, or take a few "scheduled losses" since they can afford them. *I hate the very notion of "scheduled losses", but it's very much part of most pro sports in 2023 so it can't be ignored.

The two thousand eight Phillies were the World Series Champions, not the two thousand and eight Phillies.

Maybe just keeping the Kobe jerseys but adding the "showtime shadow" to the white numbers, and then maybe a purple shadow to the wordmark (for the sole reason of making it juuuust different enough to warrant the change) and dropping the side panels would have been the way to go. The down shadow looks bad, as do the purple uniforms with all the black. There had to be other solutions to moving on from the Kobe look without looking like the Great Value version of the Showtime team.

Yeah I don't get it. It's not the worst look in the league - by far - but it's bad, and there's no reason for it other than the players like it and convinced the owner to allow it. To a man (the women don't seem to even notice, let alone care) my friends (the ones that do notice) always ask about the green pants whenever they wear black (which I think has only been 2... maybe 3 times.)

Now that I've gotten to "know" him (not personally, obviously), I'd root for him to get a ring no matter what team he was on. Dude is legit one of the best humans that I've ever seen in pro sports. He's also the most clutch player I think I've ever seen, one of (if not the) toughest players I've seen, a great teammate, and probably the second best position player the Phillies have had in my lifetime (I'm not sure if he'll pass Mike Schmidt due to Schmidt's defense, but he's certainly more beloved than Schmidt was up until close to the end.) He's a genuine maximizer (or is it "multiplier"?) in that he makes all of his teammates better. Roll your eyes if you want, but I'm pretty hard on athletes, and especially when it comes to (in many cases) character. This Phillies team is without a doubt the most likeable in my lifetime, I'm not sure there's a guy that any fanbase can legitimately hate for reasons other than general "sports hate" (which we all have about good players on other teams.) Don't get me wrong - if Seranthony Dominguez blows a high-leverage situation and it costs them a series, I'll be all over his ass (same with some of their other jabroni relievers), and I'm sure I'll be cursing Topper at some point during the next series (or two, if they're fortunate enough to beat AZ), but that's just "sports hate". This team is so likeable that even if they lost, they'd get a pass with the fans, unlike completely unlikeable teams like the Sixers. Same for this year's Eagles - not just because they're good, but to a man, they're awesome in the community, awesome with fans, don't get arrested*, and (lead by Jason Kelce) connect with fans like no other team (probably even more than this Phillies team.) *the Jalen Carter thing is a thing, but it's truly debatable how big a thing, and technically he was a college "lol student" when it happened, and he's been a model since... though eyes are on him incase there's another thing. He's probably the one controversial guy.

They'll never win anything with this dork as their coach, and a QB that needed a "watch film" clause in his contract will never win anything. Then again, a team that would even give a huge contract to someone that immature will never win. "shoo shoo shoo" "Be who you are, but understand I'm looking for killers". LOLWUT?

I'm a little torn on this. First - I hate when people say "oh" instead of "zero", especially when doing technical work since there's a very significant difference, even if I know what they mean. I also hate it when giving phone numbers, since it's literally a zero and not an O. I'm not going to lead the fight to change the "6-1-oh" area code to "6-1-zero", but I'll enlist in the army if someone else does. So let's carry that over to years, where it also should be "zero" and not "oh". If we were being formal (which nobody actually does), 1902 is "one thousand nine hundred two". But of course nobody is going to say that, so it's nineteen oh two, which is wrong, but I guess rolls off the tongue better than nineteen zero two, which is also wrong, because if we're breaking it into blocks (I'm tempted to say bytes, but that doesn't make sense here), nineteen is fine, but the zero is unnecessary and would only need to be there if literally writing 1902, since we use base 10 math. If 19 and 02 are in separate blocks, I think you could get away with nineteen two and it's just as valid as any other way of saying it. Therefore, I do think the "02" contains a leading zero, since if we're only referring to the right side of the two blocks of "19" and "02", there's no need for the 0, as only the 2*10^0 part is necessary, and the "zero" or "oh" is superfluous. On top of that, people say "oh two", which is objectively wrong, so just get rid of the "oh" part. I'm hereby advocating that if not including the century, we just say the number, so it'd just be '2 for 1902 or 2002, '9 for 1909 or 2009, etc. Come at me.

Difference between last and this year is that if they play the Phillies, the Phillies have home field. The Astros were the one team that seemed to be immune to the CBP advantage (after getting got in game 3) so that's not nothing, but it should be a better series this year than last (not that a 6-game series can be called "bad" like a 5 or 4 gamer can.)

My uninformed wager would be Eagles in black pants. I really hope I'm wrong. EDIT: for betting folks, may want to take the Jets this week due to the number of Eagles who are out (mostly defense.)

I can tell you about another fan base that's been unhealthily angry about coordinators for the past three years. One of said coordinators is now the biggest dbag HC in the NFL, while the other seems to finally be learning how to call plays. Jonathan Gannon might get stabbed if he walks into the wrong neighborhood (actually, football-related stabbings only happen in SF, but he'll get a good tongue lashing). The ironic thing is that the stats were good! It's just the optics and the sliminess of the man that rubbed nearly everyone the wrong way

There's valid arguments on both sides of it. Let it go.

This is... a take, I guess. A bad one. You're not going to risk injuring a pitcher that you may pull in a laugher just because you need to improve the run differential. You're not going to aggressively steal in the 9th up 10-3 just to improve differential Why even keep track of wins and losses? Each "game" is just a portion of a long-ass run-scoring season. There would be no point to watching games because you're just hoping your team "wins" by 8 runs, and it's a bummer if they "win" by 1. It's absolutely not a better indicator of who's better than who. The objective is to win the game, not to win by x runs. And if you eliminate wins/losses, then there's just no point. Nothing personal, but this is the legit worst hot take I've heard in a long time.

I got early access to the 2024 style guide, and here's their silver and black (for sleeve stripes only - still no black uniform): And then for pants and merchandise: The numbers remain unchanged.

Please take a break from posting your complaints every single GD time you click "submit reply". You complain and are negative about everything without offering anything that could possibly lead to a discussion about whatever you're upset about this time. This is true. There's no difference between teams that sweep and then have to wait 3 or 4 days before the LCSs start, and then the layoff is even more if you sweep the LCS. It's a weak excuse, and like you said, I'd take the bye 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. You have to build your team to win series', not a season. The Braves pulling away was the best thing that could happen to the Phillies (who were 7 games under .500 for a while because of how lousy Turner was till August). It allowed them to experiment with some rookies and batting orders, test bullpen guys in different roles, and invest more in said bullpen, so that when playoffs came around, they could manage games completely differently than they did in the regular season. Dave Dombrowski said as much - we're building to win 5-7 game series', and Topper has said that he basically has a playoff strategy that's different than the regular season (and people who have watched the team know what I'm talking about.) They may not win the WS, but to imply that a team that's made it to back-to-back NLCS' and is the favorite to make it to back-to-back WSs (not that anyone's overlooking AZ by any means) is a fluke result of a flawed playoff system is idiotic. As CCSLC's CTE expert, I'd say that's the opinion of someone that's probably in advanced stages. EDIT: and honestly, was Phillies over Braves really an upset? The Braves themselves were whining about reseeding because they didn't want the Phillies, and multiple players (including Strider) have said that the crowd atmosphere is so hard to play in that he legit thinks they should either go back to 2020 where there's no fans (and he wasn't joking) or at least ban lower-bowl fans.

What exactly is political about showing support for the LGBT community? It's not like he's wearing tape that says "no national healthcare!"

As a receiver, what's the learning curve? I think that's the easiest position to step into from college. It's not like defense where you're seeing schemes and facing mismatches and some of the positions play very differently than college, or QB who's facing disguised coverages that he's never seen (and learning a playbook). Receivers run the routes they're told. It doesn't really matter too much what coverage they see - they run the route they're told, and maybe audible mid-route if something goes totally sideways. It's the one position (besides maybe RB) that's exactly the same in the pros as it is in college.

Absolutely, though in MLB's case, a top team would probably rather play a best-of-7 series against the next best team rather than a best-of-5 where there's a little more randomness or less room for error. If I'm the Braves right now, I'd much rather play the Phillies in a best-of-7 than 5. I don't think any of the other leagues have a playoff format where each round increases in length like MLB's that goes from 3-5-7-7 (or 0-5-7-7 if you're the #1 or #2.)

Didn't Ohio State have a helmet with a really thick stripe a few years ago? I vaguely recall it, but maybe not. Either way, maybe a thicker stripe would help that Browns helmet. And maybe numbers on the sides, just to make it a little less white. It's already not a genuine throwback, so why not?

The main thing I don't get about the playoff schedule is how they come up with game times. There's no way a playoff game should be starting at 5:07 PM. It's not an east-coast / west-coast thing, since the same situation is happening today and it's 6:07 / 9:07 for the start times, but for some reason they bumped the Phillies up to 5:07 on Wednesday (but then 6:07 again on Thursday). It's like MLB goes out of its way to make things as hard as possible on fans. I think last year the Phillies/Cardinals opened the WC round (or maybe it was game 2?) at 2PM, which was simply awful. I'm not sure how that adds any more TV viewers than simply taking advantage of all the available cable networks in the evening, since (while I haven't looked at the numbers), I imagine the eyeballs on screens would net out to be similar (maybe even more, since I'd wager that most fans of an NL team are watching even a single inning of whoever a team like the Twins is playing in the WC round, and vice versa).

I guess they like having a simple bracket and sticking with it, like the NCAA tournament. It's more conducive to gambling pools, though I don't know anyone that does brackets for MLB like many people do for NCAAB. I can't think of any other great reason for it. I know the Braves dog fans (when not "chopping" and throwing trash all over the outfield) have been whining about reseeding, and I happen to agree that the top seed should always have the "easiest" path (though how'd that work out last year?) A couple of years ago when they were debating the new format, I could swear that one of the ideas that made it to the finish line was having the two teams with byes actually select their opponents, which would have created all kinds of fun. Imagine if that system was used in other sports and there was a playoff "draft"? The top NFC seed could draft the Vikings as their opponent (for the guaranteed win), the #2 seed could draft Dallas (LOL), and so on an so on.

If the Vikings stopped wearing uniforms that they lose in, they'd have to play naked, and then eventually without skin.