The cost of it all

 Every once in awhile you see why NFL players get paid what they get paid, and it's never pretty. If you're squeamish -- or if you have a soul -- it might even make you briefly wonder why you watch.

Last night, in the second quarter, was one of those once-in-awhiles. Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa got hit, and his head bounced off the turf like a Superball. His arms went rigid. He called for his head coach, Mike McDaniel. After lying on the field for 10 minutes, the medical boys gingerly loaded him onto a stretcher and carted him off.

"I could tell it wasn't the same guy I was used to seeing," McDaniel said later. "It was a scary moment."

Of course, a few moments later, he said Tua had been checked out, and it was "nothing more serious than a concussion."

Nothing more serious than a concussion. 

Now, you hope McDaniel didn't mean that the way it sounded. You hope he was only speaking in the context that at least it wasn't something worse. But after all the years and denials and reluctant window-dressing concern from the league about concussions and the sad ends they often bring about, it was an unfortunate -- and damning -- thing to say. 

In this particular instance, those six words at least revived the suspicion that Tua was concussed five days ago but returned to the field anyway, saying, nah, man, it was his back. After all, the Fins were locked in a death struggle with the Bills, and they kinda needed their QB. So if it was nothing more serious than a concussion ...

Doubtless this is unfair. It's the product of demon social media, which sprouts conspiracy theories (and the odd creatures who concoct them) like a fallow field sprouts ragweed every August. So, yeah, maybe Tua did nick up his back, even if it sure as hell looked like a concussion.

And if it was, then consider last night was some sort of karmic payback. And the Fins would be in a heap of trouble, because if Tua had entered the concussion protocol on Sunday, he wouldn't have been around to get stretchered off the field Thursday.

In any event, it was a moment that reminded us once again how frighteningly violent professional football is, and why those who play it deserve their extravagant salaries. Because the cost of it all, potentially, carries a far greater price.

Chasing ghosts ... and goblins

 Sixty-one left the joint in a hurry, rocketing off Aaron Judge's bat before falling to earth 394 distant feet away. In their VIP seats above the Yankees dugout, Roger Maris Jr. hugged Judge's mom. All around them, Toronto's Rogers Centre Stadium howled.

It has been some chasing of ghosts these past few weeks, and just the thing baseball needed. The next one Judge hits -- and he has seven more games to do it -- will lift him beyond the past and back into the now. But for one more night, Roger Maris hovered close, and baseball's crowded yesterdays were as touchable as ever.

So I guess this is as good a time as any to talk about not only ghosts, but goblins.

I bring this up not because I have an instinct for ruining vibes, but because, a few nights ago, someone brought it up to me. I got to talking with another baseball fan about Judge and Maris and the Chase, and how no one had hit this many home runs in a space of years. And then the goblin reared its vile head.

"Wonder if it's possible Judge could be juiced?" this other baseball fan said, or words to that effect. "No one's even suggested it, but ..."

But, yes, this is the ugly legacy of the Steroid Years: Baseballs start jumping off a guy's bat with rarely seen frequency, and sooner or later someone's going to raise a question -- or, rather, THE question.

I've come to accept that Barry Bonds' 73 single-season home runs and 762 lifetime dingers are the official records now, a product of their time just as every other record is the product of its time. If Bonds (and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and all the rest) were juiced, so were a whole lot of others during the Steroid Years -- and that includes a fair number of the pitchers off whom they hit all those home runs.

So, a level playing field, more or less. It's rationalizing, I get that, but you come to terms with things however you can.

This does not mean I don't resent the way the juicers skewed the way we see things. I do. I hate that whenever a man chases baseball's ghosts these days -- two decades and change after McGwire and Sosa and Bonds and all the rest -- the goblins come with them.

And so when The Question surfaced the other night, I reacted with scorn. This is partly because I refused to entertain it; it's also because Aaron Judge is a 6-foot-7, 282-pound monster, and so when he hits the round ball square it's going places. And consequently he's been making people's jaws drop with his power forever.

So he gets it honest, and I think it's absurd to suspect otherwise. If you're the size of an NFL tight end and the bat looks like a toothpick in your hands, why would any of us need to suspect otherwise?

And yet ...

And yet, thanks to the Steroid Years, someone somewhere always will.

Damn the juicers. Damn them all.

NASCAR, in eclipse

 One of the three or four greatest drivers in the history of American stock car racing effectively retired the other day, and the sounding brass of our daily media clamor barely uttered a whisper. Aaron Judge kept chasing Roger Maris and Tom Brady kept breaking tablets and college football kept being wonderful, and, oh, by the way, did you see where Jimmie Johnson is hanging it up?

You didn't? 

Well, he is. Johnson, who won seven NASCAR titles before leaving the sport a couple years ago to give IndyCar a try, announced the other day that he's stepping out of racecars for good, mostly. He'll still strap in for select marquee events, but other than that, he's officially done, at the age of 45.

I'm trying to think of any other athlete so accomplished in his or her sport retiring with such an absence of occasion. Remember the sendoff Serena Williams got at the U.S. Open a few weeks back? And all the tributes that attended Roger Federer's retirement announcement a couple weeks later?

Jimmie Johnson's announcement was a blip in the news cycle by comparison, there and gone so fast you wondered if you'd heard it right. So Tennis 2, NASCAR 0 on the Q-rating scale even here in America, and when did you think you'd ever see that?

That NASCAR does not have a sliver of the broad commercial appeal it once did is ground that has been well-worked, and the Blob will not plow it again here. Suffice it to say the lack of stir over Johnson's announcement illustrates once again just how much into eclipse the sport has passed.

Twenty, 25 years ago NASCAR was such a booming concern its poobahs briefly entertained the notion it was about to become America's fourth major sport, after football, basketball and baseball. This turned out to be a delusion, but it was touchable enough that for a time it didn't sound that way. Even those not disposed to derangement bought into it.

But now?

Now it can't whip tennis. Now we're already one round deep in the NASCAR playoffs, and who knew?

I didn't. And I'm a gearhead from way back. 

And yet, if I hadn't looked it up, I couldn't have told you that three of the first four playoff races have been won by non-playoff contenders. I couldn't have told you that some dude named Tyler Reddick won Sunday at Texas, and that it was his third win this season. And I couldn't have told you that, four races in, Joey Logano is your playoff leader.

What I could  have told you  (because I noticed it when it happened) is the Bristol night race, once one of NASCAR's marquee events, aired on a cable channel a week ago. And that the first four playoff races have all been on cable. And, yes, that Jimmie Johnson, who won those seven titles and 83 races in 20 NASCAR seasons, is retiring as a full-time racer.

 Now you know.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 3

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words -- a more juvenile version of children's Golden Books, and of which critics have said "Keep your children away!  Far, far away!", and also "Crazed parents are banning 'Huck Finn,' but not THIS?":

1. "Juvenile? I'll show you JUVENILE!" (Bills offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey, throwing a tantrum worthy of a 3-year-old as time ran out in a 21-19 loss to the Dolphins)

2. "Butt punt? I'll show you a BUTT PUNT!" (Dolphins punter Thomas Morstead, after, yes, punting the football into the backside of one of his blockers)

3. "Horrible? I'll show you HORRIBLE!" (Bears quarterback Justin Fields, after completing 8-of-17 passes for 106 yards, with two interceptions, a pair of fumbles and a couple of throws that might have landed in Lake Michigan)

4. "Hey, but at least we won!" (Bears fans, after Chicago somehow still managed to beat the Texans 23-20)

5. "Great! Now even our wins feel like losses!" (Other Bears fans)

6. Meanwhile, Broncos 11, 49ers 10!

7. "Great! Now we ALL feel like losers!" (Everyone in America who watched)

8. "Ha!" (Homer Simpson, whom everyone in America could have been watching instead)

9. "Double ha!" (Ravens QB Lamar Jackson, who ran for 107 yards and a touchdown and threw for 218 yards and four more scores in a road win over the Patriots -- thereby proving once again that the gurus who said he'd never be an effective NFL quarterback have packing peanuts for brains)

10. "Oh, come on! What'd we do THIS time, God?" (Deflated New Yorkers, after a weekend in which the Jets lost, the Giants lost, and Aaron Judge failed to hit No. 61)

A eulogy for the unmissed

 So the NFL has finally announced it is killing the Pro Bowl, aka The Greatest Spectacle In Groin Pull Avoidance. This would seem to call for a few brief remarks.

Eulogy for the Unmissed, you can call this. Requiem for Kinda-Sorta Football. And no matter what the late great Dan Jenkins used to say ("Don't write me nothin' that rhymes"), rhyming not only will be allowed but encouraged.

So, here goes ...

"Pro Bowl, We Hardly Watched Ye"

Strike up a song now, but don't make it moody.

Make it instead

All Hawaiian and fruity.

Like shirts with pineapples, 

And papaya and ‘nana.

And lots of rum punches

For Pete Carroll’s cabana.

Hey, look, it's ol' Peyton,

Throwing a pass.

It floats through the air like combustible gas.

I wonder who'll catch it,

Or who'll even try?

Or will he look up

And say, "My, what a sky!"?

Oh, Pro Bowl, oh, Pro Bowl,

We'll miss you, my boy.

Bill B. in a lei, 

And A. Reid eating poi.

And as Brady fades back,

And says "Guys, touch me not,"

Some dude in Mom's basement

Will say “So NOW what?”

Wait ... what?

 And now the part where the Blob would tell you it told you so (kinda), if the Blob were not too classy a Blob to tell you it told you so.

"But Mr. Blob," you're pointing out now. "You just did."

Yeah, well ... never mind that.

Remember instead what the Blob said JUST YESTERDAY about the Chiefs and the Colts -- and if you can't, I'll helpfully recycle it here: 

Now, I'm not in the Colts locker room. But I would think hearing all that for a solid week might make them a little snarly. So I'm guessing they're gonna come out chippy as hell today. And I'm guessing, when it's all said and done, the Chiefs are going to feel damn lucky to get out of Indy alive.

Hear that? "Lucky to get out of Indy alive." So I stuck the landing on that prediction, except for one small detail.

I never imagined they actually wouldn't get out of Indy alive.

I never thought the same Colts team that got floor-waxed by Jacksonville a week ago would hang an L on the lordly Chiefs, but they did. Slowed down Patrick Mahomes and the gang just enough. Put together an epic 16-play, 76-yard drive that ate up eight minutes of the fourth quarter and ended with Matt Ryan hitting rookie tight end Jelani Woods from 12 yards out for the win.

On that drive, Ryan completed 9-of-11 passes. He quarterback-sneaked for a first down. Derided in a number of quarters (including this one) as a senior citizen who was past his prime, he senior-citizened the hell out of  'em.

And, sure, the Chiefs spent an inordinate amount of time gifting this one to the Horsies. Travis Kelce dropped six points in the end zone on a throw he usually catches  in his sleep. The Chiefs got away with a two-point conversion (to Kelce again) that probably never got to the end zone. And they had the Colts stopped on their winning drive when Ryan was sacked for an 8-yard loss on third-and-6 at the Colts 39.

But Chris Jones said something uncharitable as Ryan lay on the ground ("Medication time, Grandpa!" is the Blob's guess), and that drew a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct that handed the Colts an automatic first down. Matters proceeded apace from there.

So what do we make of it all?

You got me. Either the Colts are the laydown artists they showed us in J-ville, or they are what they showed yesterday: A team with some gumption and (maybe) more talent than they frequently show.

As usual in these matters, they're probably somewhere in between. Personally, I still don't think they're very good. I think they're exactly what their record says they are: A 1-1-1 football team that'll win some they shouldn't and lose some they shouldn't, and tie the rest.

Next week they get their old nemesis the Titans, who were awful in their first two games and then, like the Colts, somehow hauled off and beat the Raiders yesterday. Who knows what happens when they play each other.

"You mean you're not gonna tell us, Mr. Blob?" you're saying now.

Not a chance. Why push my luck?

Today's Stupid Prediction Tricks*

 (*Like David Letterman's Stupid Pet Tricks, only stupider)

The Blob has never been good at the crystal ball thing. As a seer, I almost always wind up getting seared.

Like, one time I picked Marco Andretti to win the Indianapolis 500, which was really dumb because everyone knows Indy treats the Andrettis the way a kitten treats a ball of yarn. I've actually picked Purdue to make the Final Four a few times, for the love of (Boilermaker) Pete. Numerous other examples of fluff-brained prognosticating exist.

This does not discourage me, however. Like Charlie Brown and the football, I remain unfazed by past experience. And so here are a couple of predictions I'll make about the near future:

* The Colts and the Chiefs will engage in a bitter struggle today.

Look, I get it. The Colts are the Colts. The Chiefs are the Chiefs. Patrick Mahomes is gonna carve up the Horsies like Dr. Mallard conducting an autopsy on "NCIS."

But the Blob believes professional pride still exists, and it further believes it can be a powerful weapon. After that sidewalk splat in Jacksonville last week, the Colts have been hearing from everyone (including me) how pathetic they are. How they're a bunch of losers with a vaudeville act for a coach and GM. How their offensive line is worthless, their receivers are worthless, and how their quarterback, Matt Ryan, should be in assisted living somewhere, watching Turner Classic Movies and waiting for his afternoon fruit cup.

Now, I'm not in the Colts locker room. But I would think hearing all that for a solid week might make them a little snarly. So I'm guessing they're gonna come out chippy as hell today. And I'm guessing, when it's all said and done, the Chiefs are going to feel damn lucky to get out of Indy alive.

* Notre Dame is not going to suck as bad as we thought.

I say this because the Irish went down to North Carolina yesterday, and they came back with both a W and an identity. The W was by a 45-32 score. The identity was Keep It Simple, Stupid, And Hit Somebody In The Mouth.

This first volume in the Marcus Freeman collection is never going to dazzle you, but what can do is ground and pound you. Freeman's got a three-headed monster at running back (Chris Tyree, Audric Estime and Logan Diggs), a terrific tight end (Michael Mayer), and a quarterback (Drew Pyne) who will never make you forget Joe Montana or Terry Hanratty, but who can throw it a little. 

So they're gonna run the football, and Pyne will do enough to keep defenses honest. Could work.

It did yesterday, at least. Estime rumbled for 134 yards and two scores in 17 carries. Tyree added 80 yards and a six in 15 carries. And Diggs lugged it 10 times for 50 yards.

That's 42 carries and 264 yards among the three of them, which works out to 6.2 yards per attempt. In between, Pyne threw for 289 yards and three touchdowns, and Mayer caught seven balls for 88 yards and one of those scores.

This does not mean Notre Dame is going to haul off and win the rest of its games. The Blob is not that much in the Domer tank.

But it does suggest the Irish will win most of them. And if you think that will be underachieving for this particular edition, you really are in the Domer tank.

* Oh, yeah. And Aaron Judge will hit No. 61 today.

I don't know why I think this. I just do. Call it a hunch.

Of course, I'm no good at those, either.

One more milestone

 This is some dalliance baseball is having with history, as the chill of autumn kicks weary summer to the curb. The other night, Aaron Judge caught the Babe at 60 dingers, and sometime this weekend he might catch, and then pass, Roger Maris.

And in Los Angeles last night?

In Los Angeles, Albert Pujols, perhaps the quietest transcendent player in baseball history, transcended another rarely glimpsed milestone.

He clubbed career home run No. 699 off Andrew Heaney in the third inning, and then sent No. 700 on its flight in the fourth, launching a hanging slider from Phil Bickford into history. Baseball has only seen three other men do that, and their names are Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds.

Nos. 699 and 700 also got Pujols to 2,208 career RBI, second only to Aaron's 2,297. And he now has breached the 1,400 extra-base-hit mark, joining only Aaron and Bonds.

This makes Pujols, at 42, a generational great, one we sometimes fail to appreciate because there is so little flamboyance to him. For 22 seasons he’s produced excellence with such consistency he’s made it seem routine, as if excellence were a thing that simply rolled off some metaphysical assembly line. And so it was easy sometimes to forget what we were seeing night in and night out, and summer to summer.

The usefulness of No. 700, then, is to remind us what we've been seeing all these years.

We hadn't seen it, after all, in 20 years, when Bonds breached the 700 plateau. Before that, it had been 29 years since Aaron did it in 1973. And before that, it had been 39 years since the Babe did it.

In other words: We got to see a man do something last night that had only happened three other times in 88 years. Three times, in further other words, in a period eight years longer than the time between Fort Sumter and Pearl Harbor.

Savor it, boys and girls.

Queen to queen's level WTH

 And now, because the Blob is a full-service Blob, some news from the world of chess, which sounds boring but is in fact weird in a way chess hasn't been since the late Bobby Fischer and his demons were ganging up on Boris Spassky.

"Wow, that's some sentence, Mr. Blob," you're saying now.

Thank you.

"It wasn't a compliment," you're saying.

Well ... but wait 'til you've heard the latest.

The latest happened September 19 in the Julius Baer Generation Cup, when world champion Magnus Carlsen abruptly got up and walked away after just one move against 19-year-old American Hans Niemann. Vanished, Carlsen did. Took a powder. Am-scrayed.

Everyone was left slack-jawed by this Fischer-level bizarreness from Carlsen, and Carlsen never really explained himself. But chess insiders speculated he did it to call attention to the cheating allegations that have followed Niemann since he beat Carlsen in a match on Sept. 4.

This broke Carlsen's 53-game winning streak, and raised more than a few red flags because Niemann was a virtual nobody in the world of top-level chess. Niemann's explanation was that he made a lucky guess about what opening Carlsen would use.

But now for the weird part, to once more paraphrase Seth Maxwell in "North Dallas Forty".

A Reddit post suggested Niemann might have been cheating with (and there's no other way to say this) a vibrating anal probe. Lots of people have discounted this, but the Blob won't, because it's much too deliciously freaky. I mean, can you imagine? Shoving some sort of, um, mechanism up your kazoo to win a chess match?

Bzzzt! Queen to queen's level two, Hans-o-nator!

Yikes. Queen to queen's level WTH is more like it.

"You know, Mr. Blob, it's possible Niemann might not be cheating," you're saying now. "It’s possible Carlsen might just be a sore loser."

Oh, please. What fun would that be?

Age of explanation

 Bears quarterback Justin Fields did some clarifying yesterday, and that was big of him, because it wasn't necessary. What he said Sunday about Bears fans, although it really wasn't about the fans, was obvious if a bit mudded. And also true.

Naturally, the world of social media didn't see it that way.

 What they saw was another opportunity to make something a Thing, and to create Controversy from spit and baling wire. That's because Things and Controversies are their meat and drink. Things and Controversies generate hits. Things and Controveries generate Exposure, and Exposure is the coin of the realm on the interwhatsis.

And so when someone asked Sunday if getting clocked by the Packers yet again was more frustrating for the fans and players because it was, well, the Packers, Fields said it was more frustrating for the players because they put the work in to beat the Packers. The fans, he said, did not.

This immediately became this whole "Fields says fans don't put the work in!" Thing, with an implied "Fields disses fans!" subtext. Which was ridiculous.

Anyone with a working brain cell understood what Fields was saying, and that he was as right as ham-on-rye. My own brain cells don't work as well as they used to, for instance, but I can't remember a fan ever sitting in a film room watching tape of an upcoming opponent over and over.

Or running a particular offensive package over and over in practice. Or fighting through a double-team in a drill, or running the Packers pass routes for the defensive backs, or staying up until zero dark thirty concocting a scheme that might at least cause Aaron Rodgers a moment's pause.

Show me the fan who did all that, and I'll admit Fields was wrong when he said the fans don't put in the work. I'll wait.

Sure, fans shell out their hard-earned dough to watch the Bears soil themselves on a regular basis. They walk in from Soldier Field parking (now located in Winnetka, I hear) for games. They tweak a shoulder or a hammy summoning the beer man.

This being the age of extraneous explanation, however, Fields was compelled to explain yesterday. He said he wasn't implying Bears fans didn't work hard at whatever jobs they do. He was only referring to "work regarding the game on Sunday, winning the game."

Well, duh. 

That is, "well, duh" for those of use who weren't trying to drive traffic to some Twitter/Instagram/blogger site.

It's how the world spins these days, after all. And Fields, to his credit, gets that completely.

"Some social media sites, they quoted my quote and they got a big buzz out of it," he said yesterday. "So, of course they did a great job of doing that. Of course social media is going to do that."

Of course.

Chasing history, right on time

 He caught the Babe as autumn beckoned, and that was perfect timing on a couple of levels. Next-to-last day of summer,  ninth inning in the Bronx, the Yankees trailing Pittsburgh -- and here came Aaron Judge with his cudgel, launching another into the September night.

That was No. 60 for Judge in this season of seasons, and it kept the pinstripes alive in a game they would ultimately win 9-8 over my Cruds. And now Roger Maris is there for the taking, too, in a summer when a game that clings to its history like no other desperately needed an Aaron Judge to evoke it.

It's a game for nuclear sluggers and nuclear arms with very little nuance these days, devoid of so much of the art that makes it fascinating. The hit-and-run, the steal, the bunt, the chess match of advancing the runner: If you want to see much of that anymore, check out the Little League World Series every August. The tykes do it all better than the big-leaguers these days.

MLB is a home run or a whiff these days, and games that endlessly drag their feet. It's why baseball experimented with a pitch clock in the minors this summer, and why the majors will institute it next summer. They're also getting rid of the shift, because batters can't go to the opposite field anymore and MLB has decided it won't compel them to learn. So one good thing, and one bad thing.

In the meantime, we have at least gotten the Summer of Judge, and a stirring of ghosts. Telling the old Babe Ruth stories/myths, for the millionth time. Pulling out "61*", with Barry Pepper as Roger Maris, and watching it one more time. Imagining what Judge's monument will look like in Yankee Stadium, after he clubs No. 62 and becomes the Yankees' single-season home-run king.

Marveling at the way baseball, a game of numbers, so often finds the whimsy in them.

The next homer Aaron Judge hits, after all, will be No. 61.

Roger Maris is the last, and still the only, American Leaguer to hit 61.

He did it 61 years ago.

In the summer of 19 ... 61.

A synergy to delight in, as summer turns to fall.

A few brief thoughts about NFL Week 2

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the unrelenting Blob feature of which critics have said "Relent, for God's sake! Relent!", and also "Yes! Think of the children!":

1. "I'm glad my children weren't here to see this!" (Browns fan, after watching the Browns Browns it up in an especially Browns-y way, blowing a two-touchdown lead to the Jets, at home, in the last 1:22, to lose 31-30)

2. "Maybe my children will see the Bears beat the Packers!" (Bears fan, after the Bears lost to the Packers because of course they did, only this time on Sunday Night Football because for some reason the league and network suits still think this is an historic rivalry)

3. "Your children? How 'bout your GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN? Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!" (Aaron Rodgers, who's now 125-0 or something against the Bears)

4. Meanwhile, in New York, the city came to a standstill to marvel at the Jets and Giants both winning on the same day since Jimmy Walker was Hizzoner and Lucky Luciano was ventilatin' wise guys who got too wise for their own good.

5. OK, so it's only been since Nov. 28 of last year. And the city didn't come to a standstill  Sunday, unless it was to marvel at Aaron Judge hitting his 58th and 59th home runs.

6. "Fifteen yards for illegal use of facts!" (Some annoying NFL zebra)

7. "Yeah, maybe the NFL won't do anything about Daniel Snyder, but watch THIS." (God, turning the Lions into Lions, then watching them shred Snyder's Washington Commanders with their ferocious teeth and claws)

8. "Now watch THIS!" (God, again, turning Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa's arm into a flaming sword of righteousness that smites the Baltimore Ravens with six touchdown passes, including four in the fourth quarter of a come-from-behind 42-38 win)

9. "How did I get so damn old?!" (Tom Brady, 68, angrily throwing a tablet on the sideline as he struggled early against the goldang Saints)

10. "Dammit! No, I'm not your Grandpa, you sonofabitch! And I'm not due back at assisted living for tapioca time!" (Brady, 82, angrily starting a brawl by going after the Saints' Marshon Lattimore, presumably because Lattimore made a crack about Brady's age)

Horseshoe blues

 As pathetic as that was today ... the distance is not that far.

-- Frank Reich

And so now an exercise in rhetoric, involving longitude and latitude and other measurements of how far "far" is.

To wit: When Frank Reich says the distance is not that far for his 2-year-old's rendering of a football team, what does he mean, exactly?

That the distance between the 2-year-old's artwork and Rembrandt is from here to the corner?

From here to Iowa?

Argentina? The rings of Saturn? The neutral zone between us and the Romulan Empire?

These are the sorts of things a man says right before they offer him the blindfold and the cigarette, and don't think Jim Irsay isn't leaning that way after watching his Indianapolis Colts -- Frank Reich's Colts -- drop a big steaming load in Jacksonville for the second time in eight-and-a-half months. This was supposed to be the turnaround game for the Horsies after that unappealing tie in Houston last week, and what happens?

Matt Ryan throws a pick into double coverage on the Colts first possession. Trevor Lawrence goes 7-for-7 and takes the Jaguars to the house on Jacksonville's first drive. A 24-0 Jaguars shutout ensues.

All sorts of nuggets got trotted out in the aftermath, like how it's still been eight years since the Colts won in J-ville, and how the Jaguars last three shutout wins have come against Indy. Also, the Horsies' high-priced spread of an O-line let Ryan get sacked five times and get hit another six, which contributed to Ryan's three-pick, 195-yard, 34.0 rating day.

Lawrence, meanwhile, was 25-of-30 for 235 yards and two scores. This was not merely a reflection of how helpless the Indy D was; it was also an indication that Lawrence is going to be a damn good NFL quarterback before it's all said and done. Write it down for easy mocking later if it doesn't happen.

The upshot of all this is these are not the palmy days in Equineville, especially with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs coming in Sunday. Reich didn't help matters with his "distance" comment, nor by declaring postgame that "we're going to evaluate everything."

Astute observers immediately asked why they didn't do that during the offseason, and if not, what the hell they were doing otherwise in the eight months between the Jacksonville embarrassments. 

"I know, Mr. Blob!" you're saying now. "Telling us their receiving corps was peachy keen, and therefore they didn't need to wet a line in the free agent pond!"

Well, that's one thing.

"Overpaying their overrated offensive line?"

That's another.

"Fondly reminiscing about last Christmas Day, the last time they won a football game?"

That, too, no doubt.

In any event, the Colts are looking right down the barrel of 0-2-1, and Frank Reich -- and GM Chris Ballard, who put this mess together -- are looking at an all-expenses-paid trip to Pink Slip City. Maybe not this week, but it's coming.

After all, Irsay's patience was worn out in January, when he called a come-to-Jesus meeting with Reich and Ballard after the last Jacksonville loss. Changes were promised. Vows to never again get blown out by Jacksonville were voiced. And then ...

And then, for eight months, the Colts apparently changed nothing and honored no vows.

It's September now, see, and we're in the last swallows of summer. And the Colts are still getting blown out by Jacksonville.

The fall is coming. In more ways than one.

Hail, yes. And no.

 You love college football because it's the home office for Stuff Happens, like tiny Centre College beating mighty Harvard back in the ancient days, and Notre Dame playing to ties in not one but two Games of the Century (Army in 1946; Michigan State in 1966).  Also, the hero quotient is very high.

Nebraska's Johnny Rodgers with the punt return against Oklahoma in 1971. Billy Cannon's punt return against Ole Miss on Halloween night in 1959. And all those Hail Marys -- from Colorado quarterback Kordell Stewart's 64-yard throw to beat Michigan in the Big House in 1994, to the most famous of all:  Doug Flutie-to-Gerard Phelan as Boston College stunned Miami in 1984.

The Hail Mary is a straight-out-of-your-backside deal that's also a sort of product stamp for the college game, and we love it so. It's the kind of desperation that makes college football so endearing, embodying as it does the child-like faith of alums that somehow the dear alma mater will find a way, whether it's through a Hail Mary that works or one that - whew - doesn't.

Yesterday we got one of each flavor.

In South Bend, the echoes waited until the final seconds to awaken, as Notre Dame thrashed around against a Cal team that returned only eight starters from a 5-7 campaign last year. By the time the clock got skinny the Irish were only up a score, 24-17, and Cal quarterback Jack Plummer was leaving it to the gods with a desperate heave.

For a couple of seconds, Plummer's prayer pinballed off a thicket of hands in the end zone, and for a heart-stopping instant a Golden Bear had his mitts on it. Then the ball hit the ground, and Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman finally had his first W.

Whew.

Meanwhile, against the glorious backdrop of the Blue Ridge in western North Carolina ...

Well. Appalachian State did this.

It was Stewart-to-Michael Westbrook and Flutie-to-Phelan all over again, and it was one more piece of evidence that God must have done his undergrad work at App State. First the Mountaineers go out to Texas A&M and knock the swagger out of the Aggies; then they come back home and shock Troy with a little manna from heaven.

Hail, no, in South Bend. Hail, yes, in God's country.

Hail college football, either way.

What football will never redeem

 Brett Favre is in a heap of trouble, and not the kind he used to turn into miracles during his improvisational gunslinger period. He's in the kind of trouble that lands a man in the Graybar Hilton.

What accumulating evidence suggests, see, is that he got a former governor of Mississippi to divert state welfare money into Favre's pocket to help build a new volleyball center at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi. It also happens to be where his daughter played, yep, volleyball.

This is misappropriation of funds on an arrogantly brazen level, and frankly revolting besides. It reveals not only a lack of respect for the law on the part of both Favre and the former guv, Phil Bryant; it reveals a lack of basic human decency as well.

One only hopes both wind up with a good long time to contemplate that in cell block D.

One also hopes that, once and for all, no one ever again confuses athletic prowess for virtue again. Most of us were disabused of that notion long ago, but the people who bring us our games (and not-so-subtly shill for them) continually pound that drum.

 Just look at Favre make chicken salad out of chicken doo-doo again! And, you know, he's a great guy, too, visits sick kids in the hospital, donates his time to a whole pile of worthy causes! Why, just look at the new volleyball center he helped build at his alma mater, Southern Miss. How's THAT for giving back?

That sort of thing.

But the tally is in and the results overwhelmingly suggest Favre is simply a bad guy, no matter how many scrapes he got the Packers out of. We already knew he was a disgusting perv who sexually harassed a New York Jets sideline reporter, Jenn Sterger, with lewd texts. Now, apparently, more texts have incriminated him as a straight-up thief besides.

A cannon arm and all the sleight-of-hand football heroics in creation will never redeem that. As has been made obvious yet again.

Another royal exit

 It's been a lousy month for royalty, and, no, we're not talking about the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the ascension of King Charles III, her personality-averse son. Seriously, if beige were a person, King Chuck would be him.

But enough about the inconsequential royals. Let's talk about the royals who matter, and who have better groundstrokes to boot.

Let's talk about Serena Williams, the queen of women's tennis and its GOAT, who announced she was gravitating away from the game last month. And now let's talk about Roger Federer, the king who won 20 Grand Slam titles and presided over the men's side with such elegance and grace, and who yesterday announced he was retiring from the game at 41.

It probably wasn't a surprise, given that Federer, plagued by injury in his later years, hadn't played in a tournament since Wimbledon 15 months ago. But somehow it was a surprise, anyway, because Federer's effortless dominance created the illusion that he would play on forever, gliding around the world's tennis courts for all eternity.

If he wasn't the GOAT he was certainly among the top three, the other two being his contemporaries, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. Later generations will someday be slack-jawed that three such transcendent talents, all with at least 20 Slams to his name, played at the same time. Theirs is surely the greatest era in the history of men's tennis, Connors and McEnroe and Borg and Sampras and Becker and all the rest notwithstanding.

Federer was the classic stylist among the Big Three, a man who seemed to move around the court on a cushion of air while exhibiting strokes that should have hung in the Louvre. Every swing of the racquet was a Monet; every rally a Blue Period. 

And off the court?

He was the champion's champion, a true gentleman in a sport that still fancies itself a gentleman's pursuit. The fierceness of the competition has often belied that -- Connors? McEnroe? Hello? -- but Federer melded fierceness with elegance in a way that was uniquely his.

So here's to ya, Rog. Tennis may see another like you someday, but you'll always be the prototype. Everyone hereafter will just be an imitation.

'Dog chow

 Went down to the alma mater last weekend to watch my Ball State Cardinals play the dog-ass Western Michigan Broncos, and like most geezer alums my reaction was "Where was all this s*** when I went here?"

Because, listen, Ball State football is big time now. Gleaming new football complex. Gorgeous new indoor practice facility. And next year, they play two SEC schools back-to-back, including a NATIONAL CHAMPION.

That would be 2021 CPF champ Georgia, who just added BSU to its schedule after it was forced to drop Oklahoma. The Cards play at Sanford Stadium next Sept. 9, after opening at Kentucky. And you know what this Ball State '77 grad thinks of that?

It's gonna be one hell of a slasher film.

Fountains of blood. Shrieks and moans and "Oh, God, please NO!" moments of sheer terror. Disemboweling and organ removal.

Hard "R" rating.

Look. I know I'm supposed to think this is a GREAT OPPORTUNITY and  TERRIFIC NATIONAL EXPOSURE, and all those other buzzwords the slaughter-ee trots out to justify the impending slaughter. But I've seen too much football in my life to fall for that. 

All I'm hoping is this doesn't turn into Day 1 at the Somme.*

(*Look it up)

And also that they bring enough stretchers with them. 

And also that, at some point, Kirby Smart has a sudden attack of compassion and starts sending in the student managers.

Because, listen, folks, it's not gonna be pretty. It would be different if the Cardinals would be coming to Athens off a nice warmup tilt with Bemidji State or someone. But they'll be coming off a game at rising SEC program Kentucky, who'll presumably road-grade them, too. 

This makes me a little angry, honestly. 

Sure, I'm smart enough to know Division I football costs money, and I know consequently schools the size of Ball State are always looking at potential revenue streams. And I'm sure the guarantee money they get to be a live sacrifice two weeks in a row will help greatly in that area. 

But I'm a hell of a lot more concerned with what it'll do to the players.

I hope they don't get beat up so badly they do what they did last weekend, which is blow a nine-point lead in the third quarter and lose to the dog-ass Broncos, 37-30, because their defense couldn't get off the field and their offense couldn't stay on it.

God willing, that won't happen next year. God willing, those first two games don't cost the Cardinals the rest of their season. Because you know what I'll think if they do, professional cynic that I am?

I'll think Ball State is a lot more interested in money than it is in winning conference titles.

I know. Revoke my diploma.

NBA handles its business

Today we present another example from one of America's top growth industries, Rich Guys Behaving Like Turds, and compare and contrast how two massive corporations deal with it.

The first massive corporation, the NBA, just suspended for a year its Rich Turd, Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver, and fined him $10 million. This after the NBA's investigation discovered Sarver was doing class stuff like repeating the N-word when quoting others, and pulling a staffer's shorts down in an employee meeting, and making lewd comments to female employees.

The second massive corporation, the NFL, is still letting Daniel Snyder own the Washington Commanders, despite abundant evidence he knew about (and perhaps participated in) rampant sexual misconduct in the workplace, including  but not limited to basically pimping out the team's cheerleaders to wealthy contributors.

Conclusion: The NBA handles its business. The NFL does not, despite all its pious jaw-flapping about standing tall against domestic violence and mistreatment of women and what-not.

Point, NBA.

Goin' old school

 So I'm looking at this photo of the new logo that will adorn the Cleveland Browns home field, and again I'm in my grandmother's kitchen. It's 1966, 1967. I'm holding a seat cushion. On it are all the logos of the NFL teams, arranged by division.

I don't know where Grandma Smitty got it. But this was pre-merger, so all the logos can fit on a seat cushion. There are the Bears and Vikings and Packers and Lions in the Central Division; the 49ers and Rams and Falcons and Colts in the "Coastal" Division. And in what was then called the "Century" Division ...

The Giants and Cardinals and Steelers and Browns.

Whose logo was a brash elf with a football tucked beneath his arm.

Which is to say, Brownie the Elf has been around for awhile. Like, since 1946.

Now Brownie the Elf will be back where he belongs, and the Blob is putting its hands together. Bravo, Browns, for goin' as old school as old school gets. And not only that, doing it in a hilariously ginormous way.

I mean, just look at him. You can probably see him from space, right? Opponents who reach the midfield area will be looking right into Brownie's huge glaring eyes. They'll run smack into that brutal stiff-arm, or get smooshed by that giant foot.

I love it.

Now if only all the teams would go back to the UNIS they wore in 1967 ...

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 1

And now the little anticipated return of the NFL In So Many Words, the hardy Blob perennial of which critics have said "Good God, what's that smell?", and also "Hardy! Why does it have to be hardy?":

1. "Good God, what's that smell?" (Broncos fans after watching their team lose two fumbles at the 1-yard line and bungle a final drive in which it had three timeouts and yet somehow burned the clock down to nothing, leading to a missed 64-yard field goal attempt and a 17-16 loss to the cruddy Seattle Seahawks)

2. "Good God, what's that smell?" (Colts fans after watching their team bungle its way to a 20-20 tie with the cruddy Houston Texans)

3. "Good God, what's that smell?" (49ers fans after watching Trey Lance, the quarterback to whom Niners management seems pathologically attached, slosh around in the rain in a 19-10 loss to the Bears)

4. "That smell? It's the sweet smell of success, baby!" (Bears fans, apparently unaware their team only beat Trey Lance)

5. Meanwhile, Patrick Mahomes!

6. Still leads Josh Allen in commercials, and also is still Patrick Mahomes. See: 44-21 over the Cardinals.

7. "Hey, what about me?" (Josh Allen, after the Bills thrashed the defending Super Bowl champion Rams 31-10)

8. "Ha! Hahahaha HA!" (Browns fans, after their team beat the revenge out of Baker Mayfield and Carolina)

9. "Ha! Hahahaha HA!" (Vikings fans after their team beat Aaron Rodgers and the Packers like a dozen egg whites)

10. "Good God! What's that smell?" (Aaron Rodgers, re his receivers)

Lollygagging in Lincoln

 Distinguished alumnus Scott Frost lost his job at the University of Nebraska yesterday, and it wasn't because he didn't cut a big enough check. It was because he couldn't win a football game his Cornhuskers were favored to win by three touchdowns.

Less than 24 hours after Georgia Southern came into Lincoln and beat Frost's team 45-42, he was out, finished at Faber (to coin a phrase). The man who quarterbacked Tom Osborne's last national championship team a quarter century ago -- and who was supposed to bring back the glory days as head coach -- instead went 16-31 in four seasons and change. He also lost 22 of 27 one-score games.

So Nebraska pulled the plug. On September 11, which makes the Blob wonder if the issues in Lincoln extend beyond the guy wearing the headset.

This is not a defense of Frost, who not only couldn't win the big ones but couldn't win the little ones, either, and especially the close ones. But if athletic director Trev Alberts and the rest of the Nebraska hierarchy were so unhappy they'd choose to pay Frost $15 million to go away in September, why not do it last December? Why not start over right then and there instead of lollygagging into another season?

Look, I'm sure associate head coach Mickey Joseph, who's now the interim head coach,  knows his football. But turning the program over to an interim three games in is basically flushing the season. Almost an entire fall will be cast adrift, with players spending almost three months wondering A) who the next head coach will be, B) how they'll fit into his program, and C) what "B" means for their future in Lincoln.

The transfer portal may never get a more strenuous workout.

And the fans who paint Memorial Stadium red every Saturday?

Welcome to lame duck season.

Instant reaction choices for today*

(*Indianapolis Colts division)

Thaaat's right, folks, in its continuing mission to serve the public, the Blob this morning unveils a new concept: NFL Instant Reaction Vending. Insert coins/bills, pick the reaction that sounds good to you, and it will immediately get stuck between the glass and the dispenser and refuse to fall, thereby stealing your money in traditional vending-machine style.

This morning, the subject is the Indianapolis Colts 20-20 season-opening tie with the Houston Texans. Let's go!

Selection A1: "Hey, at least we didn't lose a season opener for the first time in a decade!" 

Selection A2: "Crap, we still haven't won a season opener in a decade!"

Selection B1: "Wait, I thought Matt Ryan WASN'T gonna be Carson Wentz 2.0." (After Ryan threw a pick and lost a fumble to help the Colts get down 20-3)

Selection B2: "OK, so maybe he WON'T be Carson Wentz 2.0." (After Ryan led the Colts to three scores in the fourth quarter to salvage the tie)

Selection C1: "Remember when we had a kicker who didn't miss 42-yard field goals for the W?"

Selection C2: "I think his name was Adam something."

Selection D1: "Jonathan Taylor did Jonathan Taylor things, Michael Pittman caught nine balls for 121 yards and a score, and eight players had at least two catches as Ryan spread the ball around. Maybe we're not gonna suck again!"

Selection D2:  "Geez. We couldn't beat a team we outscored 62-3 and beat twice last year with Carson Wentz. We're gonna suck again."

Selection E1: "Hey, but at least we get Jacksonville next week. Jacksonville never beats us, right?"

Selection E2: "Oh, yeah. Right."

Selection E3: "We're gonna suck again."

They were Marshall

 You want to quote Matthew McConaughey here. Come on, you do, right?

You want to quote that requisite movie pregame speech, the one he made playing Jack Lengyel in "We Are Marshall". All that stuff about the bigger, stronger, better opponent, and rising from the ashes, and laying their hearts on the line? It's perfect, right?

Because it's Sunday morning now and the scoreboard still reads Marshall 26, Notre Dame 21, a reverse "Rudy" if ever there was one. If you're Notre Dame and you're ranked eighth in the nation and you're at home in that vault of lore called Notre Dame Stadium, you don't lose to Marshall.  You don't lose to a movie script.

Hell, no. If you're Notre Dame, you write the movie scripts. What must Rockne 'n' them be thinking?

"That Notre Dame could use a quarterback?" you're saying now.

Well, yes. There's that. Between Tyler Buchner and Drew Pyne, the Irish have about three-quarters of one. And that's a problem.

Another problem: If you're Notre Dame, you don't get bullied up front by Marshall. 

But they did, and Buchner threw a couple picks, including a pick-six that pretty much sealed it for the Thundering Herd. And then Pyne came on and threw another in a mere six attempts, and that was that.

Bring on the hindsight crowd, who this morning are all saying they told us Notre Dame shouldn't have gone with emotion and hired a guy with no head coaching experience. And that Marcus Freeman is Gerry Faust 2.0 -- great person; in over his head. And that Jack Swarbrick should have promised Brian Kelly the Golden Dome to keep him in South Bend.

This of course ignores the fact Kelly didn't want to be there anymore. And that he practically sprinted to his car and laid down rubber peeling out of the Gug parking lot back in December.

What the Blob thinks is Marcus Freeman has made the kind of history no one wants to see at a place where they cling to history like a barnacle to a frigate, and that's not good. If you count the bowl game the Irish lost after Kelly bailed, Freeman is the first coach in the school's history to start his tenure 0-3. Saying the bowl game counts as a separate piece because Freeman was merely the interim then is just splitting hairs.

However.

However, it's way too early to start second-guessing Freeman's elevation. A couple of wins will quiet that drumbeat, and there are wins to be had up ahead. If there is a body of evidence that Freeman's over his skis here, it's not yet conclusive.

Besides, it's not like he's Jimbo Fisher down there at Texas A&M.

Who lost to Appalachian State yesterday, after everyone got all excited (and Nick Saban got jealous) about Jimbo's killer recruiting class.

Appalachian State!

Why, no one's made a movie about them.

So there's that, Domers.

That day again

 It is the morning of mornings again, and again we stop to remember, and to mourn, and, if we are at all the humans we aspire to be, to take the proper lessons from it. September 11, 2001, was a knife's edge of history, and we became a different nation that day. In good ways and, in far too many ways, in bad.

To commemorate, the Blob offers something I wrote in 2016, after a visit to the Twin Towers memorial. I've updated it to reflect our current reality, but otherwise everything in it is as relevant now as it was then:

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- We went to where it happened on a clear morning in August, the kind that brings up an ache even 21 years after that murderous September day. It is a lush, contemplative place now, with shade trees and benches and the two reflecting pools, water spilling down the sides like silver murmuring embroidery.

Two pools, two peaceful footprints where the towers stood that day. And around them the names etched in smooth slanting steel, all those names, all those lost and blameless souls.

Pretty soon, the names are all you see.

Pretty soon, the lovely twin footprints fade. So does the triumphant rise of One World Trade Center, glittering in the sun just north of the north pool. The world narrows. You look down. And you find yourself reading off the names as you walk slowly around the pools, wondering who they were, what their lives were like, how it can be that you keep walking and walking and walking and the names never seem to end.

The names are Diaz and Bachman and Vicario, White and Miller and Lee. There are Morrises and Singhs and Benvenios, Doanys and Bonnetts and Roaches. And, yes, names like this, too: Mohammed Shajahan.

Which is to say, hate is ecumenical.

Hate killed Christians and Jews and, yes, Muslims, that day. It killed whites and blacks and Asians and Hispanics. It is a lesson we need to remember this day, a home truth to which we need to hold fast especially in this ugly, riven time, when unprincipled outliers use fear and loathing and blatant falsehoods to con the easily conned.

One of the most stubborn of those falsehoods: That we can make ourselves safe from all future 9/11s by re-making America in the image of a particularly noxious brand of Christian faith,  instead of acknowledging the harder truth that those who killed so many on 9/11 are  not adherents to any faith. They are simply barbarians whose only God is death.

And so making Muslims an Other because the barbarians claimed it as their faith, as the more reprehensible among us tend to do, is a fool's enterprise that only demeans America and what it stands for, making it safer only in the sense that it makes us less American. America is an idea to the barbarians, and there is only one way to kill an idea. That's by making its defenders diminish it themselves.

But 9/11 should have taught us the folly of that. It should have taught us that our enemies are enemies of all of us, not just Judeo-Christians. If that were not so, our enemies would not have killed so indiscriminately that day, would not even now be persecuting and killing Muslims far more prolifically than they do anyone else.

The names, all those names upon names, are our witnesses to that.

A peek at the future

 I don't know if we saw what American men's tennis is going to look like for the next decade or so last night. But I do know it at least looks like something now.

Frances Tiafoe did not beat Carlos Alcaraz in a men's U.S. Open semifinal in New York, and he wept because he didn't. He needn't have, but you know what they say about supreme effort. The more supreme, the more bitter defeat goes down.

Because, listen, for almost four-and-a-half hours, he and Alcaraz put on a show, and the country watched in a way it hasn't watched in awhile, America being as chauvinistic as any nation when it comes to its sporting tastes. Give us an American to root for, and we'll watch; give us a Swiss, a Spaniard and a Serb, and we'll pay only cursory attention even though the Swiss (Roger Federer), the Spaniard (Rafael Nadal) and the Serb (Novak Djokovic) have made their era the greatest in the history of the sport.

Three players, playing at the same time, with 20-plus Grand Slam titles each. We may never see anything close to it again.

Ah, but Tiafoe ...

He's something we haven't seen since the days of McEnroe and Connors and Agassi and Sampras and Roddick: An American man who can play the game off its feet.

An American black man, to take it a step further.

When Tiafoe stepped on the court last night, he was the first black American man to play in a U.S. Open semifinal since Arthur Ashe half a century ago. Half ... a ... century. And what did he do?

Pushed a 19-year-old phenom many think is the future of men's tennis to the wall.

In the end Alcaraz won 6-7. 6-3, 6-1, 6-7, 6-3, and even other athletes in other places stopped to watch. Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce tweeted about it, out there in Kansas City. Russell Wilson weighed in from Denver. NBA star Bradley Beal from D.C. And Chris Evert -- who tweeted "you made us proud," at Tiafoe, which is a bit like being knighted by the queen.

He deserved all of it. And, at 24, he should have lots of chances to deserve it all again.

Consider his story: This is a young man who learned the game at a tennis facility where his dad, an immigrant from Sierra Leone, was the maintenance man.  Lived in a converted office at the facility for awhile. Taught himself the game with whatever equipment was lying around. Didn't have a racquet of his own until he was 12 years old.

Then came the U.S. Open, where he upset Nadal, made history and turned the event into an Event with his heart and passion.

Can't wait for the second act.

A queen's due

We fought a revolution once to ensure we would never have a throne, a crown, a scepter or any of that other royal hoo-ha. Down with the divine right of kings and queens, you know, and up with presidents who only behave on occasion as if they have some divine right.

And yet, two-and-a-half centuries after the late unpleasantness with England, we still can't quit Buckingham Palace.

This became apparent when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passed at Balmoral yesterday at 96, and Americans reacted with almost as much grief as Britons. It reflected not just our continuing fascination with the English royals in general, but respect for both her unprecedented 70-year reign and apparent unfailing grace. 

This included the inhabitants of Sportsball World.

Professional soccer in England was suspended in total this weekend, of course, and so was Scottish rugby. The PGA also canceled play today at the BMW tournament in Surrey, England.

And in America, meanwhile?

Well. There was a moment of silence before the season-opening NFL game between the Bills and the Rams, for starters.

Reggie Jackson sent his condolences. Billie Jean King. The Pro Football Hall of Fame. The University of Maryland. On and on.

The thread connecting them was that they'd all either briefly met or had some fleeting association with the Queen in her long life. She left an impression in those encounters, clearly. And just as clearly it was a good one.

So maybe the best tribute to her is not simply a pro forma nod to her throne, but a heartfelt admiration for the person who sat it for so long.

The Blob discovered this yesterday, when it observed on another social media platform that, even though Americans aren't supposed to care about kings and queens, Elizabeth's death would be the lead item on every news outlet in the country that evening. And would dominate the front page of every American newspaper that hasn't yet been pillaged by hedge fund vandals.

All I meant by that is monarchies are not our thing as a nation. But at least one person clapped back: "Who says we aren't supposed to care as Americans? F that I'll honor and respect that badass woman."

As well that person should.

As should we all, and by all evidence do.

And now, your "Meh" NFL Preview

 The NFL season kicks off tonight in L.A., where the Buffalo Bills take on the defending Super Bowl champion Rams in a clash that might be a potential Super Bowl preview, but probably won't be.

In any case, it'll be Josh Allen vs. Matt Stafford, the Bills D vs. the Rams D, a Thursday night lidlifter unlike the usual Thursday night fare. Which by October will be the beat-to-shite Cardinals vs. the beat-to-shite Titans or whatever.

But later for that. It's the start of a shiny new season, and the Blob, though only a "meh" NFL fan, will acknowledge that by offering its "Meh" NFL Preview, which consists of a series of questions the coming season will presumably answer.

* Will the Bears be any better, or will they be as unwatchable as ever?

(Probable answer: Door No. 2.)

* Will the Packers go 13-4 and then gag in the playoffs again?

(Probable answer: Of course.)

* Will Tom Brady, at some point, be crushed into a pile of nutrient-rich dust, like Rojan did to Yeoman Thompson in that one Star Trek episode?

(Probable answer: Perhaps.)

* Will his already decimated offensive line fail him, only to be bailed out by the Defenders of Tom, aka the NFL game officials?

(Probable answer: What do you think?)

* Will the Jets and Giants combine forces so that New York has at least one football team that doesn't totally suck?

(Probable answer: Couldn't hurt.)

(Other probable answer: Though they'd still suck anyway.)

* Will Jacoby Brissett play out of his mind for 11 games, so that the Browns will look even dumber when Deshaun Watson comes back and they have to defend benching a guy having a terrific season for a guy who hasn't played a down of football for more than a year-and-a-half?

(Probable answer: Unlikely. But wouldn't that be great?)

* Will Matt Ryan recapture his youth, and will the Colts be MUCH IMPROVED this season, maybe even a SUPER BOWL CONTENDER?

(Probable answer: Oh, for God's sake, people. Get a grip.)

* Will Patrick Mahomes do more Patrick Mahomes things? Will Aaron Rodgers claim Flintstone vitamins cure COVID, and that Hunter Biden's laptop proves Joe Biden is a hologram and he's actually the Emperor Palpatine? Will Russell Wilson spend the season secretly laughing at Pete Carroll? And will the Patriots somehow win 10 games even though their team right now looks like a football-shaped cowpie?

(Probable answers: Yes ... wouldn't put it past him ... of course ... oh, hell, why not?)

Enjoy the season, folks. And good luck with your fantasy team, the Fightin' Upon Further Reviews.

How it isn't done

 Caught a snippet from Brian Kelly's presser yesterday, mainly because it's all over the interwhatsis now. And what I'll say about it is maybe not what you'd expect from an old retired sportswriter.

In the snippet, see, Kelly is kinda-sorta chastising some members of the media for being late. He told them there's a $10 fine for each infraction, and at the end of the season he'll use the proceeds to throw the media a party, latecomers included.

Now, clearly, he was joking. Not very well, because Kelly is not now and never has been known for his stand-up routine. He's no Lewis Black, nor even Louis Holtz.

That's the only thing I've got to explain why one reporter fired back in, shall we say, a non-reciprocal manner.

"Maybe if you'd win I'd be on time," the reporter snapped.

Not cool. Not cool at all.

Look. The Blob holds no brief for Brian Kelly, a carpetbagger who fled Notre Dame and headed south because LSU threw a wad of cash at him. Losing to Florida State on a blocked extra point was just the man getting his, in the Blob's opinion.

But that doesn't mean he also deserved that reporter's wisecrack.

That was simply sophomoric. And unprofessional. And every sportswriter I know will tell you that.

We tend to stick together, we Knights of the Keyboard (as Ted Williams once sarcastically dubbed us), bound by the slings and arrows of outrageous deadlines and truly stupid stuff that only seems to happen to us. And we have a code, even if sometimes it doesn't look like it.

Ask the right questions, that's part of it. Avoid the five-part question, the off-point question, the what-the-hell-was-that question (Best example: The reporter who asked West Virginia quarterback Major Harris before the 1989 Fiesta Bowl what percentage of the Notre Dame mystique would be a factor in the game. Harris looked at her like she had two heads.)

Also, don't knowingly steal another reporter's question. Also, don't grandstand. 

Which is to say, don't be a dick.

The reporter in Louisiana the other day was being a dick. 

 Maybe she thought she was being clever. Maybe she thought Kelly was being serious, and therefore a dick himself. Hard telling what she thought, if anything.

All I know is she gave fuel to the crowd that loves to feel persecuted, and believes the media is among the primary persecutors. Who think the free press is "the enemy of the people," as a certain former president once said. And who'll use one reporter's boneheadedness to tar an entire profession.

And that's a lot of crap.

Here's the truth: I worked the sportswriting gig for 38 years, and in all that time I ran across very few dickish types. The vast majority of us were just trying to do the job as best we could. Sometimes we succeeded; sometimes we didn't so much. But most of us at least knew what the job entailed, and that there was a right way to do it and a wrong way.

Which is why I imagine when that reporter popped off the other day, at least a few other reporters in the room gave him the side-eye. Or thought, "Dude." 

Know how I know this?

Because I've done it myself. Because more than a few colleagues have done it. And because one late Saturday afternoon in Notre Dame Stadium, some drunk slipped past the gendarmes into the postgame presser, and started firing bizarre questions at then-Notre Dame coach Bob Davie.

One of the Notre Dame beat writers immediately started asking some questions of his own.

"Who are you?" he asked the drunk. "Who do you write for?"

"I write for the student paper," the guy replied, or some such thing.

"Bulls**t," the beat writer said -- and then had security remove him.

And that, friends, is how it's done. As opposed to how it isn't.

A low blow from Down Under

 Women never like to admit this (some women, that is), but chauvinism is not gender specific. It's a door that swings two ways, even if most of the time it admittedly only swings the one.

Which is a long-way-around-the-barn way of saying the Old Man Shaking His Fist At Clouds is always presented as exclusively male, and that's unfair. Sometimes Old Women shake their fists at clouds, too.

May we enter into evidence one Margaret Court, who is 80 years old and wants to know why These Kids Today are so darn disrespectful.

The doyenne of Australian tennis reminded us the other day that she won 24 Grand Slams, one more than Serena Williams, whose exit from the tennis scene in New York last weekend brought the tennis world to its feet, not to say to tears. Hailed as the GOAT of women's tennis and a splendid representative of her sport,  she went out fighting in a three-set loss to Ajla Tomljanovic in which she fought off five match points before losing.

And then Dame Margaret opened her mouth.

Her reaction in an interview with the Daily Telegraph was to crab that she's never gotten her due as the all-time Grand Slam champion, particularly from Serena. She admires Serena, she says, but Serena has never admired her. She said Serena also showed bad form in not doing more to acknowledge Tomljanovic, herself an Aussie.

As John McEnroe once said: You cannot be serious.

But she was, and then she kept talking to prove it. A conservative Christian of the ilk that  loves to play pretend martyr, she said Australia has never accorded her the acclaim she deserves because of her Christian beliefs. Her countrymen and women didn't like that she opposed gay marriage in Australia, and so they've snubbed her because of it.

Left unacknowledged, as always, is the fact she's used her religious beliefs to snub  Australians of whom she disapproves, too. And in a far more hurtful way.

Undeterred, Court went on to claim tennis was a much tougher go in her day, which largely happened during the amateur era. Serena had it easier, she said, and besides, Serena played longer. Plus, Court won Grand Slams after she married and had a baby, and Serena didn't.

"Players today don't honor the past of the game," Court groused, apparently missing the Serena/Billie Jean King lovefest in New York last week.

"The honor has not been there for what I did do," she said.

"I would love to have played in this era. It's so much easier," she also said.

Altogether now: Back in MY day ...

And then the usual anecdote about walking two miles, uphill, in waist-deep snow, just to get to practice.

Shake that fist, Margaret. Shake it good. 

Lovely craziness

Hey, ever'body! Watch this!

-- God

OK. So God did not say that last night. 

Deities do not care who wins college football games, no matter what some folks in South Bend, Indiana, might think. Deities have bigger concerns, like why they gave free will to some of the boneheads who worship them. Therefore it's fairly certain God was not wearing Florida State garnet-and-gold last night and waving a little pennant with Bobby Bowden's picture on it.

("I just like that guy," our heavenly Father did not say. "He's got some stories.")

So, no, all that goofiness that went on in New Orleans last night was not God punishing Brian Kelly, LSU coach and apostate, for leaving Notre Dame for another school. It was just college football being college football.

In other words, it was both stupid and glorious, and it had America grabbing its head in disbelief and cheering mightily at the same time.

Hunter S. Thompson used to refer to certain types of American insanity as "bad craziness." Well, this was lovely craziness.

It started after Florida State scored with nine minutes to play to take a 24-10 lead. LSU responded with a five-minute scoring drive of its own, and with 4:07 left, it was 24-17. And then ...

Well. And then everything went to Padded Cell City.

The Seminoles got the ball back, made a first down thanks to an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, and then had to punt. Malik Nabers of LSU fielded it at the 8 -- and immediately fumbled it right back to Florida State.

Game over!

Uh, no.

Treshaun Ward ran it down to the 1 on two carries. Then he yakked it up on his third carry when the Seminoles unaccountably ran a pitch play and Ward bobbled it. LSU recovered, and then ...

And then marched 99 yards in 11 plays in the last 1:20, scoring on Jayden Daniels 2-yard pass to Jaray Jenkins as time expired. All that remained was to kick the extra point to force overtime, an--

Uh, no.

A Tiger up front missed a block, Shyheim Brown roared through to get a hand on Damian Ramos' kick, and suddenly the Seminoles were celebrating wildly, having somehow won 24-23 after they spent half the fourth quarter giving it away.

"Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "What sort of damn fool would run a pitch play on the 1-yard line?"

Good question.

"Also Mr. Blob, why didn't Kelly nut up and go for two points and the W against a Florida State defense that was clearly gassed, having been on the field for all but three of the last nine minutes? A defense that had just given up an 11-play, 99-yard drive on top of a 15-play, 75-yard drive?"

Another good question.

Answer: It's college football.

Sometimes it's sublime. Sometimes it's ridiculous. And ain't that beautiful?

Lore goes wanting

 For the better part of three quarters in Columbus last night, the ghosts were walkin' again. Wayne Millner was again catching that pass from Bill Shakespeare. Joe Montana was drinking chicken soup and leading an epic comeback in that icebox they called the Cotton Bowl. A bunch of gold hats were getting in Earl Campbell's way, and, down there in the desperate Sugar Bowl darkness, Tom Clements was throwing out of the end zone to Robin Weber.

And then ...

And then, well, lore ran out of gas.

This was not going to be another evening demanding statuary for the sons of Notre Dame. Marcus Freeman's first game as head coach was not going to be an epic takedown, on the road, as a 17-point dog. Reality was going to set in, or descend, or whatever it is reality does.

And the reality is, Ohio State is just that much better than Notre Dame. Just took the Buckeyes awhile to show it.

Took 'em, finally, until there fewer than 20 minutes to play in the game last night, at which point Notre Dame led 10-7. Forty-plus minutes football, and the gold hats had held an offense expected to turn scoreboards into pinwheels to a measly touchdown. How was that for an entrance for Mr. Freeman?

Unfortunately, less noticeable was that the Irish offense wasn't lighting any sparklers, either. They couldn't run the football. Tyler Buchner, the new QB, looked serviceable in the first half, and somewhat less so in the second. The avalanche was about to commence.

The numbers t'weren't pretty. 

From the time Ohio State took possession on its on 30 with 4:52 to play in the third, it ran 30 plays to Notre Dame's, um, eight. It had the ball for 15:31 to Notre Dame's 4:29. It gained 185 yards to Notre Dame's 29.

And of course the Buckeyes scored twice to win the game, 21-10.

They got the go-ahead score with 17 seconds to play in the third quarter on C.J. Stroud's 24-yard pass to Xavier Johnson, a fifth-year former walk-on. It was one of the first real openings Stroud had all night, and he had the Irish to thank for it: They unaccountably brought a blitz and left a freshman DB on an island against Johnson.

After that, the Irish ran five plays and punted.

After that, Ohio State went 95 yards in 14 plays, chewing up half the fourth quarter and grinding down the weary Irish D with some stellar Woody Hayes three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust-ing:  Ten of the 14 plays in the drive were Stroud handing the ball to TreVeyon Henderson or Mylan Williams, and Williams lugged it five straight times to finish it off from two yards out.

Game. Over. Lore, over.

Or just deferred, perhaps.

Listen. Overselling Notre Dame is an American cottage industry, but if last night revealed nothing else, it's that Notre Dame will have a fair amount of gumption going for it this year. That's because Freeman, pretty clearly, is a gumption guy. He's, like, chock full of gumption. And so you figure his football team is going to play that way.

Now, how does that translate to Ws?

We shall see. The offense is not going to wake up any echoes, nor even the scoreboard operator; its best weapon is tight end Michael Mayer. Buchner, at least not yet, is not Montana or Hanratty or Rice or Theisman, all those ringing names. And the running game wheezed out an average of 2.5 yards per carry last night.

"But Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "They're not gonna be playing Ohio State every week. They'll get better in a hurry when Marshall rolls in next week."

True. And after that, there's beatable Cal and North Carolina, which almost lost to Appalachian State. And, down the road, UNLV and Navy and Boston College, which lost to Rutgers yesterday. 

Gumption alone will win most of those. The rest will come, at least to the extent it's capable.

Conclusion: The Freeman Era didn't open with a W. But it showed enough to make you think there are more than a few on the way.

Which is all anyone who's not an unreconstructed Domer expected this season, right?

Expansion thoughts

 You knew this was coming. Elephants aren't real good at sneaking up on folks, and the expansion of the College Football Playoff was, if not the elephant in the room, then the elephant that was making the walls shake as it clumped down the hallway.

Of course they were going to expand the thing, just like they expanded the NCAA Tournament back in the day. An Only Four wasn't enough. There needed to be a Final Four, and you can't have a Final Four unless you have a Preceding Four, or Eight, or whatever.

The CFP committee decided on a Preceding Eight. Which seems right, at least four now.

For now, beginning in 2026 if not sooner, it'll be a 12-team playoff that will include the six highest-ranked conference champions and six at-large teams. So, you figure it'll be the champions of the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, Whatever's-Left-Of-The-Pac-12 and the odd Mountain West, AAC or C-USA champ.

The at-large teams will be Notre Dame and five more SEC schools.

And, OK, so the Blob is being snide here. But how can you not be when it comes to college football these days?

Because, listen, by 2026 (or before) there may not be six conference champs to put in this show. The Big 12 and the Whatever's-Left-Of-The-Pac-12 may have merged by then. The ACC (including Notre Dame) may have been swallowed up by either the Big Ten or the SEC or both. It may get to a point where the 12-team playoff includes two conference champs and 10 more SEC, er, at-large teams.

Or maybe the MAC champ gets in. How sweet would that be?

("No," says all the Big Ten schools who routinely get upset by MAC schools every year)

The situation, in other words, is still fluid. What's not is how a 12-team playoff will shake out in the end, which won't look much different than the current Only Four playoff.

I mean, you can expand the whole deal to 32 teams, and it's still gonna be Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State (or Michigan) and your random Texas A&M, Clemson, Oregon or a 10-2 Notre Dame in the Final Four.

"So what's the point of expanding, Mr. Blob?" you're asking now.

 Yeesh. After all this time, do I really need to explain that?

Perhaps a musical interlude would help. 

Charity, thy name is Purdue

 ... in which we begin with the obligatory morning-after answer to the obligatory morning-after question: 

No, I do not know what Jeff Brohm was thinking in the fourth quarter.

No, I do not know why Purdue kept throwing the football when it should have been bleeding clock, other than it's Purdue and they're Quarterback U. and so maybe it was just habit.

No, I do not know why Aidan O'Connell wasn't handing the ball to his running backs, who were averaging four yards a crack on the night and that's a first down every two-and-a-half carries by my calculation, and I'm not even that good at math.

And finally ...

No, I do not know why Purdue lost to Penn State in its season opener last night, 35-31. Because Purdue shouldn't have.

The Boilermakers led early and then had a minute-long brain fart that put them down 21-10 at halftime, and then O'Connell did what he does in the third quarter, taking the Purdues home twice to regain the lead. It was a champion's response to the dumbassery at the end of the first half, and it should have held up.

But it didn't, of course. And Brohm's curious playcalling in the fourth quarter is largely to blame.

As much as he loves to sling it around, and as good as O'Connell is at doing it, Sean Clifford and the Nittany Lions beat him 14-7 in the fourth quarter and stole a game it had no business stealing. This is because Brohm left the front door unlocked by not showing at least a little faith in his run game.

King Doerue and the gang didn't do a lot but they did enough, combining for 78 yards on 20 carries. That's not Woody or Bo ground-and-pound, but the Boilers didn't need Woody or Bo. All they needed to do, once O'Donnell hit one final laser to Charlie Jones for a first down at the Purdue 41 with just under three minutes to play, was run it just well enough to gulp down the seconds.

Instead, here was the sequence thereafter:

Doerue runs for four yards.

Penn State timeout.

Purdue timeout.

Incomplete pass to stop the clock.

Incomplete pass to stop the clock again.

Punt.

And so Penn State gets the ball at its own 20 with 2:22 to play, an eternity. Eighty yards and eight plays later, with 57 seconds to play, Penn State was celebrating the go-ahead touchdown that was also the winning touchdown.

Charity, thy name is Purdue.

Also, as someone who's been following Purdue football since I was a kid, another classic example of Purdue Purdue-ing it up. There must be something in the air in West Lafayette.

Other than the football, that is.

Which shouldn't have been.

Age is a number

 So there's a little left in me.

-- Serena Williams

Or to quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "But I'm not dead yet!"

And so to last night in New York, where Serena, the GOAT, got into the expectations and chewed them all up again. Beat No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit in the second round of the U.S. Open in three sets. Won the first set with an ace; got smoked 6-2 in the second set; sucked it up and smoked Kontaveit 6-2 in the third set.

Kontaveit should have had the edge in a third set. She's 14 years younger, after all. But she's not the GOAT.

No, that's Serena, and she reminded us once again that when you're the GOAT, age is just a number. So here she was, 40 years old now and doing the auld lang syne thing, winning a 2-hour, 26-minute match and pulling women's tennis along with her, same as ever.

A record crowd of 29,959 streamed into the National Tennis Center to watch her match. An average 2.7 million more watched on ESPN. And Celebrity America turned out as if it were a heavyweight championship fight.

Tiger Woods was there. Dionne Warwick. Spike Lee and Gladys Knight and actors Zendaya and Anthony Anderson.

Afterward, athletes from other sports all over the country weighed in on the Magic Twitter Thingy.

"Not done yet @serenawilliams" -- Steph Curry

#(Three goat emojis) #serena" -- Patrick Mahomes

"The Greatest. #ThankYouSerena" -- Allyson Felix

"SERENA!!! @serenawilliams" -- Russell Wilson

"Serena! Amazing! #USOpen" -- Manu Ginobili

"#Serena" -- Khris Middleton

On and on. 

You know when you've reached a place few others ever have or ever will?

When you turn other athletes at the top of their sports into slack-jawed fanboys and girls.

And when you're still doin' what you do long past the time convention says you should be doin' it -- and bring a whole country to its feet in the process.