antoniobrown

Opt out? Cop out?

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Is opt out the new cop out?

Ben McDonald, former Baltimore Orioles pitcher turned SEC Network analyst, feels strongly that when it comes to a football bowl game that it is.

His Friday tweet read, “Hot topic again!  Players that opt out of bowl games!!  Can we please call it what it is?  Nobody opts out…they Quit! They quit on their teammates, coaches, and university!  That’s the bottom line.  Here’s the dirty little secret…they will do it at the net level too!  GM’s beware!”

Before the 2020 season started in year one of the coronavirus, the NCAA allowed a player to not play, not lose their scholarship, and not lose any eligibility if they felt like sitting beat possibly catching the dreaded illness.  Sounded reasonable then.

But, opting out now has spread like the Delta variant did in early 2021.  Running second team?  Opt out.  Coaches running you too hard?  Opt out.  Running from a girlfriend?  Opt out.  Running to a new coach at a new school?  Opt out.  NIL money better across the way?  Opt out.

Opting out and heading to the transfer portal is as easy as Alabama beating Rice.  Just say the word.  Heck, if you don’t like how your season is going, opt out.  If your coach gets fired, opt back in.

The counter to the complaint is that coaches leave for greener(read that as money) pastures all of the time. Players aren’t getting paid to play, so why shouldn’t they as well?

The counter to the counter is that now players are getting paid to play in addition to a paid-for scholarship.  Note, scholarships are paid for, not free.

So what is their obligation?  Where does the NCAA(if it exists in three years) draw the line?

The genie is out of the bottle.  And, it has granted too many wishes.

The landscape of college sports is changed forever.  That is until the next change moves it in another direction.

But back to McDonald’s rant, we go.  If you’ve toiled for a team, why leave before a bowl game?

Well, if the star QB is likely to get drafted you say “why should he risk injury, curtailing, or hurting his chances of getting the big bucks?”  When then does playing make more sense than not?  Maybe quit three games into the season?  Six?  Nine?  Before the bowl?  Why play in all-star bowls?  Why play ever?

Matt Corral played.  He barely avoided serious injury.  It meant something to him.

Ah, but if you’re in the playoffs (Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, Cincinnatti) those are meaningful games says the current sentiment.  Opting out of those would be moronic and you’d be labeled a quitter.  Hmm.  Where to draw that pesky line?

Skip the meaningless Continental Tire Bowl last Tuesday in depressing downtown Detroit and who cares?  Maybe your teammates care that you don’t?  If they don’t maybe they shouldn’t be on the team either?

Since there are plenty of “I’s” now in “team,” where oh where do you draw the line?

The NCAA took Bob Barker’s advice years ago and got neutered.  But it could grow a pair and put stipulations into the scholarship offers and NIL restrictions/ opportunities going forward if it chose to.

You’d have to play to get paid.

You certainly do at the next level.

Old Ben McDonald once threw 159 pitches in an NCAA regional final in early June to get his baseball team to the College World Series. He was drafted two weeks later in round one.

He knows a thing or 159 about loyalty.  And, he didn’t get paid a dime to do so.

 

Six Questions.

Posted on by boom booms room staff

As we exit this week, thankfully, we leave you with a few(6) questions to ponder.  We’ll call this blend of politics, sports, and current events our Six Shooter for now. Perhaps this name is offensive.  Does Six Pack sound better?  Suggestions for a better name for this new feature are welcome.  But, make them good, or they will likely hit the round file.

We’ll keep it short as we, much like you, would prefer to put this week behinds us ASAP.  And, to the points to ponder we wander.

  1. In the age of media overkill, can we kill any future stories before they are printed or spoken about Antonio Brown?  The entire NFL is taking a pass on Antonio catching a pass for them.  Can the media pass?  Colin Kaepernick is holding on line two.
  2. Is Adam Schiff related to Pinocchio?   He has to be.  His ability to stare cameras in the face daily and lie right through his pearly whites has reached yet another level.  Jacob Chaffetz, the respected and recently retired Senator from Utah wrote a piece expressing his desire to see Shifty Schiff removed as House Intel Committee Chairman.  It’s from the right, and right here if you want a quick read.
  3.  The Packers are 3-1.  Their defense is better, much better, than in years gone by.  But, something doesn’t look right.  Aaron Rodgers, with last night’s game as another example, doesn’t look like Rodgers of old.  What’s wrong?  New OC?   He couldn’t get along with former HC Mike McCarthy either.  Or, as Rodgers told the world a few years back after a tough loss, “everyone needs to just chill.”
  4.  What’s more impressive, the way Joe Biden’s hair plugs have taken root, or how strong Nancy Pelosi’s Poly Grip held up this week after several press conferences?  Throw in Trump’s orange face tint and you have three very vain people at the center of the US political universe.
  5. Lamar Jackson, DeShaun Watson, and Patrick Mahomes are tomorrow’s (and some of today’s) NFL.  Ben Roethlisberger and Drew Brees are both injured and both may return to HOF form.  Rodgers and Rivers continue on.   But, is there any doubt, ANY doubt, that Tom Brady was yesterday’s, today’s, and likely tomorrow’s NFL?  Story lines about the NFL abound yearly.  You have to fill lots of Al Gore’s virtual world daily.  But, when the season gets long in the tooth, long in the tooth Tom seems to always be the story that matters.
  6. Thursday on CNN’s “OutFront,” 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) called on President Donald Trump to resign from the White House over the “whistleblower” complaint regarding Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  Can someone tell CNN, and then CNN could be kind enough to tell Beto, that someone’s opinion who is polling at less than 1% doesn’t really matter?  BBR is calling on Beto to resign.  Wait, he doesn’t have a job to resign from.

Tom Cruise (Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee) wanted answers from Jack Nicholson (Colonel Nathan Jessup) in A Few Good Men.  Nicholson told Cruise that “you can’t handle the truth.”  Truth be told this, once again, wasn’t America’s finest week.  Enjoy the weekend escape, and let the games begin.

Ten Piece Nuggets- Sports at Random

Posted on by boom booms room staff

This AM we gladly serve you our ten piece nuggets from sunny Orlando.   Actually it’s only going to be a few nuggets shy of ten.   One, it’s Lent.  Two, the Keto diet, being all the rage, makes us want to slim down a bit.   Three, we have a plane to catch back to our world headquarters in foggy, soggy, and cloudy H Town.

If we didn’t know better we might investigate who switched Portland and Houston’s spot in the continental 48.

Time ticks.  Time for nuggets.

  1.  We took in some Bay Hill Arnold Palmer Invitational golf on Saturday.   It’s a beautiful, well maintained, difficult track.   Arnold had/has quite a thing going here.
  2. Last year’s winner Rory McIlroy roared to within one stroke of the lead by nightfall Saturday.  His 31 back nine in last year’s final round made him yesterday’s strong favorite to repeat.  Plus the competitor’s resumes paled by comparison.
  3. But, starting in the final group Sunday, Rory forgot to roar.  Francisco Molinari started the day five back and won by a clear two strokes with a sizzling 64.   A closer look at McIlroy when he starts the final round in the last group is eye opening.   He’s only converted one of those golden chances at victory.  And, he’s been there sixteen times.  Rory needs a dose of Alex Baldwin’s character in Glengarry, Glen Ross.  A.B.C.  Always Be Closing.
  4.  The Will Wade LSU basketball mess is, well, a mess.  His refusal to meet with his bosses to discuss the taped and leaked conversation with yet another basketball “handler” was the impetus to the dreaded indefinite suspension purgatory.   It says here that he has coached his last game at LSU. Too bad too as he turned the worst, two years ago in the SEC, team into a first place finish.
  5.  He was the best coach for the money that LSU could buy.  Unfortunately some of his players sound like they were the best Wade could buy as well.   College basketball is a dirty business.  Now LSU is warming the water to wash their hands of it.
  6. So Antonio Brown, a Pittsburgh Steeler, and nearly a Buffalo Bill, is now an Oakland Raider which soon will be the Vegas Raiders.   He cost the Raiders a third and fifth round pick and a lot of dough too.
  7. Didn’t Oakland trade Amari Cooper for a first round pick midseason?   So, net net they have an older drama queen wide receiver that is quite expensive and a one minus a three and a five.   Sounds like Jon Gruden is spinning his wheels to us.
  8. Expensive wide receivers don’t win championships.  Value does.   Like it or not, and we like it, Pittsburgh puts team ahead of individual talent.  We read an analysis of the trade that spoke to the Steelers being the big loser in this.   We think quite the opposite.
  9. We aren’t big NBA fans.  But.  But, in the span of about nine days the Houston Rockets have beaten the Warriors, the Raptors, and the 76ers.  And, two of those three were road games.   That’s pretty impressive.
  10.  Meanwhile, every time we look at ESPN we get this incessant Lakers and LeBron  gibberish.  At least they can let the Antonio Brown story go now.  Disney owns ESPN.  It’s always a show about a character with them.
  11.  Ok, ok.  It was ten nuggets after all.  We don’t like dieting anymore than you do. And please excuse the no feature picture.   Our editor is busy taking pictures with Mickey Mouse.  It’s always a show about a character with him.