Historical shenanigans

 This decision is now final, and their place in our nation's history is no longer up for debate.

-- Secretary of Defense/War/Whatever Pete Hegseth, on Wounded Knee

And with that, another coat of whitewash gets slapped on our national narrative.

(And, yes, before you start, I am wandering away from the Sportsball enclosure again. The standard procedures apply.)

Anyway, this time the whitewashing brush reaches all the way to a snowy field of frozen corpses in South Dakota, where on the next-to-next-to-last day of 1890 a detachment of U.S. Army forces, backed by four Hotchkiss cannon, opened fire on a Lakota encampment to which the Army had escorted the group the day before. Before the killing was done, anywhere from 230 to 300 Lakota -- most of them women, children and disarmed men -- lay dead.

Army casualties were 25 killed and 39 wounded, most by friendly fire. Nineteen of the soldiers were later awarded the Medal of Honor for their part in the day's festivities.

Which is where Hegseth and the Regime come in.

Last week they declared an investigation into the merits of those 19 Medal of Honor winners null and void, ruling that the recipients would retain those medals. Hegseth, ever the loyal mouthpiece, said the previous administration's investigation -- aimed at preserving the high ideals of the MOH, and what's wrong with that? -- was more about "political correctness" than "historical correctness."

Well, of course he did. These people are nothing if not consistent, not to say consistently wrongheaded.

"Historical correctness"?

The Regime has been hard at work leaving that in the dust since seizing the levers of power nine months ago, and they've made some fair progress with it. In some cases the whitewashing has been all but literal, like removing the famous photo of the scarred back of a slave from the Smithsonian; in some cases, acolytes of the Regime, like the meathead head of public education in Oklahoma, have decided certain historical un-pleasantries are not fit for Our Children to contemplate.

Such as, in Oklahoma, the murderous 1921 burning of Black Wall Street in Tulsa by an angry white mob. The meathead in question decreed that, yes, you can teach it, but only if you make it clear race had nothing to do with it.

No, really. He said that.

In like fashion, the Regime has decided slavery is too much discussed in our national history museums, which accounts for the removal of the aforementioned photograph and other energetic scrubbing. This of course ignores the clear truth that slavery is and always has been one of the singularly defining threads in our history -- from the founders' inability to reconcile its contradictions, to the breaking apart of the nation over it, to its shadow legacy of Jim Crow and the atrocities committed to keep that shadow legacy alive.

These  matters, and the legacy of the "brave soldiers" of Wounded Knee (as Hegseth characterized them) are still very much open to debate, no matter what the Secretary of Defense/War/Whatever says. History is like that, you see. It is layer upon layer upon layer, and the peeling back of each reveals fresh insights that spark, yes, eternal debate.

So it is with Wounded Knee, where Hegseth's interpretation of "historical correctness" sounds more like historical shenanigans. The so-called "Battle of Wounded Knee," after all, was a straight-up massacre of a people reduced to begging for scraps from a government that had all but erased them from the earth. That they were in any way capable of fighting a "battle" against that government was beyond laughable.

And those 19 Medal of Honor winners?

Hardly Audie Murphy or Alvin York or Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, or any of the other recipients across the decades who brought distinction to the military's highest honor. The soldiers of Wounded Knee, conversely, were mostly officers and men spooked by a native dance craze (the Ghost Dance) into believing a pitiful band of Lakotas was somehow planning an armed uprising.

Of such unreasoning fear is born the slaughter of innocents.

It was carried out that shameful day not by heroes, but by scared men who were products of a time when native Americans were regarded as something less than human. The scared men likely weren't all monsters, in other words, but they certainly weren't Medal of Honor material, either.

No matter how much the Regime tries to shenanigan history.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 4

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the astonishing Blob feature of which critics have said "I'm astonished you can be this silly week-in and week-out," and also "You're still doing this? I'm astonished!":

1. "Wait, the Bears won this game? That can't be right!" (Raiders fans, and probably Bears fans)

2. "Wait, our guys beat the Colts because AD Mitchell dropped the ball before crossing the goal line and a 53-yard Jonathan Taylor touchdown got called back because of a completely unnecessary hold? I'm astonished!" (A Rams fan)

3. "I'm not! I'm just pissed!" (A Colts fan. OK, so probably a bunch of Colts fans)

4. "Wait, this was a Monday night game? I thought you said TUESDAY!" (The astonished Bengals, who went missing in a 28-3 Monday night loss to the Broncos)

5. In other news, rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart and the Giants beat the Chargers; the Packers tied the Cowboys; Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers beat the Vikings in Dublin; and the Struggling Chiefs floor-waxed the Even More Struggling Ravens 37-20 as Patrick Mahomes finally emerged from seclusion.

6. "A tie? A freaking tie?" (astonished Packers and Cowboys fans)

7. "Wait, we got floor-waxed by the Struggling Chiefs?" (astonished Ravens fans)

8. "Yeah, but you're Struggling more!" (not-so-astonished Chiefs fans)

9. "Jaxson Dart? Wasn't he that one Ferengi in 'Star Trek The Next Generation?'" (astonished Chargers fans)

10. "Jaxson Dart? Greatest Giants QB since, I don't know, Joe Pisarcik, maybe!" (astonished-but-would-never-admit-it Giants fans)

Cruds alert!*

 (*Last of the season. Promise.)

The baseball season wrapped up Sunday, and now it's on to the playoffs this week, where the Yankees open against the Red Sox because it's like a national law that the Yankees and Red Sox have to play each other at least three times every two weeks.

Also, the Cubs open against the Padres. Also the Tigers, who blew a 10-game lead in the last month and lost the AL Central title to Cleveland, open at ... Cleveland.

First, however, the aforementioned last Cruds Alert of the season, in which both the Colorado Rockheads and Chicago What Sox managed to finish as winners of a fashion, and the Blob has decided it needs to make a fashion statement.

Let's begin with the Rockheads.

Who lost their last six games to easily secure the not-coveted title of Worst Team In The Majors (And Maybe The Minors, Too). The 'Heads finished the season with a 43-119 record, which is demonstrably awful but NOT historically awful. This is because they won two more games than the 2024 Chicago What Sox, who WERE historically awful.

So crack open a magnum of Cold Duck for them. When you only finish 50 games out of first in your division and 37 out of next-to-last, it seems the thing to do.

Speaking of the What Sox, those hardy souls finished 60-102, dead last again in the AL Central by 10 games (and 28 out of first). However, the 60 wins represented a 19-win improvement over last year's catastrophe. So crack open, I don't know, a warm Old Style or something for them.

Meanwhile ...

Meanwhile, my very own Pittsburgh Cruds were practically a rousing success by comparison. They finished 

Yeah, they finished dead last in the NL Central again, but only by seven games (26 out of first). At 71-91, they were a staggering 28 games better than the Rockheads, and five games better than the last-place team in the NL East, the Washington Nationals.

So not only were the Cruds not the worst team in the National League, they weren't even the second-worst team.  So they had that going for 'em.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, I can't decide) they finished last again even with the most remarkable pitcher in baseball taking the hill for them every four or five days. That would be Paul Skenes, who became the first pitcher ever to have back-to-back seasons with an ERA below 2.00 and 10 strikeouts per nine innings in at least 100 innings.

This time around, Skenes had 1.97 ERA and 214 punch-outs. But because he played for the Cruds, his won-loss record was just 10-10.

That makes Paul Skenes not just a diamond in the rough, but a diamond in a steaming pile of chronically awful awfulness. And it's prompted the Blob to start thinking about having a T-shirt made in his honor.

FREE PAUL SKENES, it will say.

Rebuttal

 Give our American lads this much: They made a bunch of headline writers change horses in mid-stream.

Presumably they had "Bloodbath At Bethpage" all ready to go, and then the Americans finally got on the stick. Or on their sticks, as the case may be.

Trailing the Europeans by seven points after the first two rounds of the Ryder Cup golf tournament, our lads mounted a stirring comeback in Sunday singles, winning six of the 12 matches to turn an embarrassing rout into ... well, not a win, but at least a less-embarrassing loss. Europe won 15-13, prompting the aforementioned headline writers to hop off the "Bloodbath At Bethpage" pony and go with something else.

"Better Luck Next Time At Bethpage," perhaps. "Yeah, But At Least Scottie Beat Rory At Bethpage," maybe. Or how about this: "Rebuttal At Bethpage."

This is a reference to the week our Fearless Leader had, which was the usual run of buffoonery and toy-throwing, only better. First F.L. got stuck on an escalator with the missus at the United Nations; then his teleprompter fritzed out. Then, as only he can, he cry-babied about it to the assembled Nations, as if it were their fault (It wasn't).

Then, to top it off, he launched into a braggy lecture about how the United States of America was the bestest country in the entire history of countries, and how it was all his doing, and how every other country was loser trash by comparison. Needless to say, it struck JUST the right tone for an address to representatives of a bunch of those other countries.

(A brief aside: So how does one get stuck on an escalator, anyway? If it stops, you just climb it like an ordinary set of stairs. Which makes me wonder if some irreverent flunky or Secret Service type was secretly thinking: "Ah, geez, Mr. President, quit whinin' and move your fat ass.")

(But that's just me.)

Anyway, after Fearless Leader showed the rest of the world what a bunch of douche nozzles we are, he hurried over to Bethpage Black, where America's most amazing 79-year-old golfer strode with solemn purpose to the first tee with Bryson DeChambeau. Huzzah, 'Merica!

DeChambeau and the rest of the 'Merican team proceeded to spend the next two days getting kicked around by those inferior Europeans.

Which is where the "Rebuttal At Bethpage" comes in.

Because just a few days before at the U.N., Fearless Leader essentially said this: "Your countries all suck."

"But not at golf," Rory and the Europeans might have responded, hoisting the Ryder Cup on American soil.

Boom.

Saturday's America*

 (*Title of the late, great Dan Jenkins' compilation of pieces about college football. Just so you don't think the Blob is committing plagiarism or anything)

Anyway ...

Anyway, I'm borrowing Jenkins' title because Saturday's America was what we had yesterday, and it was once again more proof that Saturday's America beats Sunday's America every day and twice on, well, Sunday. Or Saturday, actually. Or ... oh, hell, you know what I mean.

Saturday's America?

That's what you have when the No. 3, No. 4, No. 5 and No. 8 teams in the nation all go down in the same week.

It's what you have when No. 3 (Penn State) and No. 5 (Georgia) go down at home.

It's what you have when Virginia knocks off  Florida State, and Oregon beats Penn State, and Ole Miss beats LSU, and Alabama beats Georgia.

It's what you have the weekend's biggest clash -- No. 6 Oregon vs. No. 3 Penn State is 3-3 at the half, and then 17-3 in favor of Oregon with 11 or so minutes to play, and then 17-17 at the end of regulation after Drew Allar leads two Nittany Lions' scoring drives in those last 11 minutes.

Penn State then went ahead in overtime, and Oregon tied it, and then Oregon went ahead in the second overtime, and finally the Ducks sealed it 30-24 when a former Purdue standout (Dillon Thieneman) intercepted Allar to end it. 

Saturday's America?

It's what you have when both quarterbacks -- Allar and Oregon's Moore -- do heroic things under suffocating pressure, and Moore prevails by throwing for 238 yards and three scores and picking up a game-on-the-line first down with his legs on fourth-and-1 in overtime.

None of this, of course, even gets into what Ty Simpson and Alabama did, which is snap the nation's longest home winning streak (33 games) by beating No. 5 Georgia 24-21 in Athens. Or what No. 11 Indiana did, which was beat pugnacious Iowa 20-13 in Iowa City on a 49-yard Fernando Mendoza-to-Elijah Sarratt touchdown pass with 1:28 to play.

And how about what Ole Miss did in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium?

Knocked off No. 4 LSU 24-19, that's what. Did it behind a 6-foot backup quarterback with a storybook name (Trinidad Chambliss), who threw for 314 yards and a touchdown and ran for 71 more yards on 14 carries. Added one more chapter of lore in the 114th renewal of a rivalry that goes back to 1894.

You know who was president then?

Grover Cleveland.

Know what was happening on Sunday afternoons in the fall?

Nothing, because the NFL wouldn't be born for another quarter of a century.

Saturday's America wins again.

An official mess

 It's starting to look like the Phoenix Mercury vs. the Las Vegas Aces in the WNBA finals -- the Mercury lead top-seed Minnesota two games to one in the best-of-five semis and the Aces are up 2-1 on the battered Indiana Fever -- and I, for one, am anticipating a real slugfest.

As in, a Mercury player slugs an Aces player. An Aces player slugs a Mercury player. A good old-fashioned "West Side Story/Anchorman" rumble ensues; Brick materializes out of nowhere with a grenade.

And, yes, OK, I'm being facetious. But how can you not be when you're talking about the WNBA?

The spotlight turned on the league by Caitlin Clark last season was supposed to highlight the skill and precision of the basketball the women are playing these days, but instead the spotlight illuminated the glaring incompetence of the league's officiating. It's not quite the WWE, but at times it's come damn close. The only thing missing some nights is a top rope for players to leap off of and land on poor Caitlin.

And, yes, OK, again I'm being facetious, but not by much. The playoffs are supposed to be any Sportsball league's showcase, but to the WNBA's dismay its playoffs have only showcased coaches being dragged off practically foaming at the mouth over the heinousness of the officiating.

Enter Cheryl Reeve of the Lynx, who wasn't foaming at the mouth but did have to literally be dragged away last night at the end of the Lynx's 84-76 loss to Mercury, in which Lynx star Napheesa Collier suffered an ankle injury while being stripped of the ball by Alyssa Thomas of the Mercury.

Not long thereafter, Reeve marched into the postgame and ... well, unloaded both barrels.

"If this is what the league wants, OK, but I want to call for a change of leadership at the league level when it comes to officiating," she said. "The officiating crew that we had tonight, for the leadership to deem those three people semifinal-playoff worthy, it's f***ing malpractice."

And also: "We were trying to play through it, trying not to make excuses. But one of the best players in the league (Collier), she had zero free throws and she had five fouls. She had her shoulder pulled out and finished the game with her leg taken out."

And also: "I can take an L with the best of them. I don't think we should have to play through what we did."

After which Reeve left the room without taking questions, with this benediction: "They're f***ing awful."

 Now, lest you think this was just fine whine from a coach on the brink of elimination, hers is hardly an isolated opinion.  A couple of nights before, Aces coach Becky Hammon -- after a win, mind you -- blasted the officiating too, saying the level of physicality that was being allowed would never be tolerated in any other league. Clark was fined last week for criticizing the officials. And so on and so forth.

Of everyone, Clark probably has more personal insight into the WNBA's officiating problem than anyone. Although claims that she was being targeted because she was white or straight or out of simple jealousy have been grossly overblown, she has gotten knocked around as much as anyone. This season she played just 13 games, and was finally sidelined for the season because of two groin injuries. 

She has plenty of company. Just check out the Fever's half of the boxscore from last night's loss:

Damiris Dantis DNP-CONCUSSION PROTOCOL

Chloe Bibby DNP-LEFT KNEE INJURY

Sydney Colson DNP-LEFT KNEE INJURY

Sophie Cunningham DNP-RIGHT KNEE INJURY

Aari McDonald DNP-RIGHT FOOT

Caitlin Clark DNP-RIGHT GROIN

Yikes. George Pickett had a shorter casualty list.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Fever soldier on, for one more game at least. Ditto the Lynx. Ditto, I suppose, the game officials -- who called just 14 fouls on the Lynx and 15 on the Mercury last night, in a physical 40-minute game.

Methinks Cheryl Reeve might have a point.

And Becky Hammon. And Caitlin Clark. And a whole bunch of others.

Fixin' a flat

 Comes now the time of year when America says "Oh, yeah, NASCAR, is that still going on?" and all sorts of hand-wringing commences in the sport's corporate offices because DAMMIT WE'RE STILL HERE, and also FOOTBALL ISN'T EVERYTHING, YA KNOW.

Except it pretty much is, ya know.

Seen the TV numbers from the latest playoff race in Loudon, N.H.?

I don't have the exact figures, but lemme tell you, they ain't pretty. Apparently, like 12 people watched.  And nine of them thought they were dialing up the Bills game.

This has launched the almost annual discussion about what NASCAR can do to not disappear into the ether after Labor Day, followed by the almost annual inevitable conclusion: Not a hell of a lot. Facts are facts, and the fact is football is the 2,000-pound gorilla standing bestride Sportsball World like a Colossus holding a black hole that swallows everything else. 

Still, NASCAR tries. This time around, the bright idea gaining traction is to scrap the whole playoff system and go back to the Time Before when Matt Kenseth locked up the title by mid-September. In other words, do a complete reset and go back to a 36-race season decided by points instead of a 26-race regular season and a 10-race playoff.

Let me tell why that's doomed to fail, too.

It's because NASCAR's problem is simple, but it's also unfixable: Its season is too damned long. Absurdly long. In fact no other major American sport -- not even the NBA and NHL, whose seasons span entire epochs -- has a season as long as NASCAR's.

It begins with the Clash the first weekend in February, and ends in Phoenix the first weekend in November. That's nine months to you and me, kids. 

Nine months. Not even the director's cut of  "Heaven's Gate" was that long.

By contrast, the NBA's regular season runs from October to mid-April; ditto the NHL regular season. That's seven months and change. Last season, the playoffs for each began April 20 and April 19, respectively. They ended June 22nd and June 20th, respectively.

That's two months.

NASCAR?

Its playoffs last two-and-a-half months.

The solution, obviously, is for NASCAR to go on a serious diet. The Blob's suggestion is a 20-race regular season and a four (or five) race playoff. That's 24 or 25 races, and everyone's off the stage by Labor Day.

It's what IndyCar does, wisely, because for all its blockheaded legislatin' it understands  it's going to disappear like D.B. Sweeney as soon as football starts up. So it wraps up its season, crowns a champion and gets out of the way before that happens.

NASCAR needs to do that, too. But NASCAR is not going to do that because lopping 11 races off the schedule means lopping off all the revenue that comes with them, too. And even if the ratings do a swirly once college and pro football enter the room, less money across those 11 weeks still beats NO money every time.

So, basically, NASCAR is stuck.

Its season is way too long, and the suits running the sport -- most of whom we can assume are at least smarter than a bag of hammers -- undoubtedly know that. But economics are economics, and bidness is bidness.

You can't fix a flat if you're unwilling to change the tire. Home truth.

Rivalry weak

 God bless that Lane Kiffin. You might think the head football coach at Ole Miss is a trifle slow on the uptake, but some guys never even get to the uptake and by gumphrey you can't say that about ol' Lane.

The other day, see, the SEC rolled out its reworked future football schedule, and someone asked Lane about it at the weekly SEC teleconference. And what Lane said is it's good the new sked preserves the annual Egg Bowl rivalry game against  Mississippi State and other traditional rivalries like the LSU game, but some other conference matchups left much to be desired.

Like, for instance, Ole Miss vs. Oklahoma.

"Really disappointing," Kiffin characterized that. "We don't have anything in common with them or our fans, so that doesn't make any sense at all."

To which the Blob would say: Well, look who just showed up.

Of course Ole Miss-Oklahoma doesn't make any sense. It makes no more sense than Army vs. Alaska-Anchorage. But in case Kiffin is just now noticing (kudos on finally catching up to the uptake, Coach), college football stopped making sense awhile ago.

It stopped making sense when Nebraska joined the Big Ten and stopped playing Oklahoma every year, because Nebraska-Oklahoma actually has some history to it while Ole Miss-Oklahoma, as Kiffin pointed out, does not.

It stopped making sense when Texas-Alabama became a conference game, and Michigan-USC became a conference game, and Stanford-Florida State became a conference game.

It stopped making sense when the Big Ten and the SEC got their own TV networks and decided, hell, if we've got our own TV networks we must be a bigger deal than everyone else, and so we should BE bigger, numerically and in every other way. Rivalry games? Intriguing inter-conference matchups between established powers that almost never see one another except in bowl games? Geographic footprints?

Buncha sissy stuff. Who needs it?

Well ... I guess Lane Kiffin, for one. And me.

See, here's what college football loses when conferences become money-grubbing monsters like the Big Ten, SEC and (to a somewhat lesser exent) the ACC: Identity. And by that mean a unique identity. The Big Ten no longer has a Midwest identity that plays the game with a bullheaded Midwest ethos. The SEC no longer is southern football in its purest form.  The ACC, the Big 12 ... they all play the same game with the same motivation: To make a pile as high as an elephant's eye.

If Maryland and Rutgers and UCLA and USC are Big Ten schools, in other words, no one's a Big Ten school anymore in the traditional sense of the word. If Texas and Texas A&M and Oklahoma are SEC schools, no one's an SEC school. And if two west coast schools can become members of the Atlantic Coast Conference ...

Well. That's just more homogeneity, to the detriment of the college game. It means there's no longer anything distinctive and wonderful about Midwest football or West Coast football or Southern football or even Eastern football; it's all just football. And it makes the bowl games and intersectional clashes a hell of a lot less fun.

Oklahoma-Ole Miss?

Lane Kiffin is right. Won't be a lot of reminiscing going on in the Grove about that storied rivalry on game day in Oxford.

Hey, C.W., you 'member the time Archie dropped four sixes on those sorry-ass Sooners back in '69?  Had us a good ol' time THAT night, I tell you what. 'Course I ain't even gonna mention what happened a couple years later, when Jack Mildren 'n' Greg Pruitt 'n' them came to town and whipped our butts ...

Yeah. Ain't happenin'.

More's the pity.

Trigger happy

 The what-have-you-done-for-me-lately crowd has had a banger of a week so far, and I'm not sure what to make of that. No, actually, I am.

What I make of it is twofold:

1. "Lately" sure seems to be getting sooner and sooner these days.

2. Where's the fire?

I say this after the WNBA's New York Liberty fired head coach Sandy Brondello and Oklahoma State sent longtime head football coach Mike Gundy packing within 24 hours of one another. Two worlds; same itchy trigger finger.

In New York, Brondello coached the Liberty to the WNBA title just last season, and the Liberty were back in the playoffs again this season. But she's out.

In Stillwater, Ok., Gundy, an Oklahoma State alum who's the winningest coach in school history, hadn't had a losing season since 2005 before last year. Just two years ago he went 10-4; four years ago, he coached the Cowboys to a 12-2 mark, coming within literal inches of the Big 12 title -- a fourth-down run that barely missed the pylon -- and a possible berth in the College Football Playoff.

That team went on to beat No. 5 Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. It was one of nine Oklahoma State teams in the Gundy regime to win nine or more games.

But he's out, too.

Mainly this is because Gundy's Cowboys fell off the table after 2023, going 3-9 last season and losing 11 straight to FBS opposition between 2024 and 2025. The Cowboys were 1-2 when the school announced Gundy's firing the losses were a 69-3 embarrassment to Oregon in Eugene, and last weekend's loss at home to Tulsa.

The university cited the significant investment it had made in Gundy's program after last season, and the clear lack of results after three games, as the reason it was pulling the plug on Gundy in his 21st year at the helm.

The key phrase there, at least for the Blob: "After three games."

Which is to say, when a school elects to fire a coach three games into a 12-game season, the clear and logical message is it's declaring that season a wash. And when, in Brondello's case, an organization fires you less than a year after you delivered a championship, the clear and logical message is you've for some reason decided to start over.

The Blob's response in both cases: Why?

Why fire Gundy after three games, while in the same breath declaring you're going to honor the rest of his contract? What's the point? If you've decided to give up on this season anyway (and Oklahoma State pretty clearly has), and you're going to keep paying the man, why not let him finish what he started?

Especially since for two decades he delivered Oklahoma State a pile of wins and, oh, by the way, a not-inconsiderable pile of bowl and ticket money. Some gratitude.

And the Liberty?

Again, the question is "why?" Why are you starting over when you've already got a championship team? What's the thinking behind that?

Well, we didn't win the title again this year, so screw it. Let's dump the coach and bring in a fresh pair of eyes. And maybe an entirely new system. This team obviously needs it.

I'm sorry, but ... what?

Also, one more time: Where's the fire?

Cruds, er, choke alert!

 Hey, Detroit! So how 'bout those Tigers, huh?

Sorry. That was cruel.

It was cruel because the Tiges lost to Cleveland last night, 5-2, after their formerly peerless ace Tarik Skubal blew a 2-0 lead in the sixth inning and the Guardians hit him for a five-spot. It was a hell of show, boys and girls. The Detroits went full-on Colorado Rockheads in the sixth, handling the baseball like a grenade while Skubal A) made a throwing error, B) hit a batter, C) threw a wild pitch, and D) committed a balk.

After which the Tigers outrighted him to Williamsport, Pa.

OK, so not really. What they did do is drop their seventh straight game, lose to the Guardians for the fourth straight time, and scooch over to make room for Cleveland, which is now tied with the Tiges for first in the AL Central.

This is an epic collapse, in case you haven't been paying attention. The Tigers have been cruising atop the division since, I don't know, Ty Cobb was beating up black people or something. They had a 15 1/2 game lead on July 8, a 10 1/2 game lead on the first of September and a 9 1/2 game lead two weeks ago. But since then?

Since then they've been backing up so fast the loudest sound in Tiger Stadium these days is beep ... beep ...beep.

Of course, Cleveland's greatly assisted that process by winning 16 of their last 19 games. The Guardians are 9-1 in their last 10, while the Tigers are 1-9. The Guardians are on a roll; the Tigers look like they're toast.

Somewhere the Georgia Peach must be cussing and throwing things and foaming at the mouth, just like the old days. And somewhere else, Gene Mauch, whose 1964 Phillies famously blew a 6 1/2-game lead with 12 to play, must be sighing and saying, "Oh, dear."

He feels your pain, Detroit. He surely does.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 3

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the surprise-filled Blob feature of which critics have said "How about a surprise disappearance?", and also, "I got your surprise right here, pal.":

1. "Super Bowl tickets now on sale at the box office." (Packers front office before Sunday's game against the lowly Cleveland Browns)

2. "OK,  so, never mind, then." (Packers front office, after the Packers lost to the lowly Cleveland Browns)

3. In other surprising news, the Bears crushed the Cowboys as Caleb "I Do Not Either Suck" Williams played like a real quarterback; the Panthers shut out the Falcons 30-0 a week after the Falcons floor-waxed the Vikings in Minny; the Buccaneers beat the J-E-T-S Jets-Jets-Jets on a walk-off field goal to stay unbeaten; and the Steelers beat the Patriots, who turned it over five times.

4. I'm sorry, what? It's Tuesday morning and the Patriots just turned it over again?

5. "How come THOSE Falcons didn't show up last week?" (The Vikings)

6. "No worries, guys, we're playing the Bengals this week." (Carson Wentz -- Carson Wentz! -- who quarterbacked the Vikings to a 48-10 blowout of the sad, sad Cincinnati Bengals)

7. "God, we are so sad." (The Bengals)

8. Meanwhile, the Chiefs!

9. Finally won a game!

10. But it was only the Giants, so, you know ...

Mortality 4, Hockey 0

 Remember the other day, when the Blob opined that God must have a mad-on against hockey -- and goaltenders in particular -- because Ken Dryden and Eddie Giacomin went to their reward within a week of each another?

"No," you're saying now.

Well, I DID. And now it turns out God still has a mad-on against hockey (and goaltenders), because Bernie Parent is dead.

Passed in his sleep the other day at the age of 80, and, geez, Lord, what's up with that? Three Hall of Fame 'tenders in less than a month? This is not the kind of roll we were talking about when we prayed "Please, God, get on a roll" in church last Sunday.

This time around it took the man who backstopped the rowdy Philadelphia Flyers of the 1970s, whose leaders were guy with no front teeth (Bobby Clarke), and a guy nicknamed the Hammer who liked to rearrange people's faces (Dave Schultz), and another guy everyone called Cowboy (Bill Flett). Therefore you will not be surprised to learn that America came to know them as the Broad Street Bullies.

And it was a goalie named Bernie who was their backbone.

In 1974 and '75 he won the Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe and Vezina trophies back-to-back, which is a hell of a double trifecta. The Flyers were the first expansion team to win Stanley, and Bernie was one of the main reasons why.

And now he's gone, called home to that big goal crease in the sky. May he and Ken and Eddie stand shoulder-to-shoulder for all eternity at the pearly gates. Ain't no shady characters gettin' past them.

Giddy-in' up

 Look, I know it's stupid early. I know the NFL season lasts so long Zephram Cochrane will invent warp drive and meet up with the Vulcans before it's over (rando "Star Trek" reference). And I know we're only three games into it, which means ol' Zeph probably isn't even born yet.

But holy Tom Matte, Batman. What the heck is up with these Indianapolis Colts?

They won again yesterday, cruising past the Titans in Nashville 41-20, and now they're 3-0 and everyone else in the AFC South is landfill, and golly gee willickers and heavens to Murgatroyd besides. Is it possible they're actually, you know, a pretty damn good football team?

So far they've handled the Dolphins, Broncos and Titans, and even though the combined record of those teams is 1-8, attention must be paid. Daniel Jones is playing quarterback like he just discovered it ("So THAT'S how this is supposed to work!"). Jonathan Taylor leads the league in rushing with 338 yards, averaging 5.6 yards per tote. And Jones leads the league in QBR, has thrown for 816 yards and three scores with a completion rate of almost 72 percent, and has yet to throw a pick.

Yesterday he was his usual -- I guess we can say "usual" after three games, right? -- efficient self, completing 18-of-25 throws for 228 yards and a touchdown to Michael Pittman Jr., who caught six balls for 73 yards. Fellow wideouts Alex Pierce and Josh Downs chipped with four catches for 67 yards and two snags for 34 yards, respectively. And Tyler Warren, a rookie tight end who doesn't play like one, caught three passes for another 38 yards.

And on the other side of the ball?

Kenny Moore II set the tone early, baiting the Titans' No. 1 draft pick Cam Ward into a pick six three plays into the game. The Horsies went on to smoosh the Titans' run game (86 yards), hold them to five first downs on 14 third downs, sack Ward four times and make eight tackles for loss.

A couple of exciting historic stats for FOCs (Friends of the Colts): 

1. The Colts are 3-0 for the first time since 2009, when Peyton Manning was still upright and rolling.

2. Jones has QB'ed the Horsies to 103 points in the first three games, and did Peyton ever do that? No he did not. In fact, no Colts quarterback -- not even Mike Pagel -- has ever done that since the team moved to Indianapolis 41 years ago. 

"What the hell, Mr. Blob?" you're saying now.

Couple of things.

One, JT hasn't gotten hurt yet, and when he's not hurt he's still one of the best and most versatile backs in football. Two, Daniel Jones is not playing for the Giants anymore. He's playing for the Colts, who, unlike the Giants, have an offensive line that gives him at least a second or two to breathe, plus a roomful of wideouts who can get open pretty much whenever they feel like it. Plus Tyler Warren.

This will do wonders for an NFL quarterback you assumed was trash. It's doing wonders for Jones, certainly, who was trash until he came to a place where guys get open and there's plenty of 'em. Just look what happened to Baker Mayfield -- who suddenly became a pretty damn good QB once he went over the wall and escaped Cleveland for Tampa.

I'm not saying that's who Daniel Jones is. But I'm not saying he's not, either.

In any case, we're three games in and the Colts are giddy-in' up. I suppose you could get all spiritual here and say this is Jim Irsay pulling some mystic strings out there in the Great Beyond, but I prefer to think it has more to do with the wide receivers, a healthy JT and an offensive line that doesn't leave its quarterback looking up at the sky on the regular.

What I think all that means is the AFC South is Indy's for the taking. But then I've always been a cockeyed optimist.

Gettin' better

 So remember that scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where the peasant says a witch turned him into a newt?*

(*Obligatory periodic "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" reference. Because this is my Blob, and in Blob World, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is a masterwork of the comedic craft)

Anyway, everyone looks at the peasant who said this, because he's clearly not a newt.

"I got better," he explains.

Thought about this last night while I was watching Notre Dame's Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price run wind sprints through the Purdue defense. 

Love ran for 157 yards and two touchdowns in 19 carries. Price ran for 74 yards and three scores in just nine totes, and took a kickoff to the house for a fourth score. The Irish washed the Purdues 56-30, and as far as I know, Love and Price might still be running. Depending on which direction, I figure they're close to either Kokomo or Kalamazoo by now.

To sum up, the Irish ... got better.

There was plenty of doubt about that wafting around South Bend last week, after Texas A&M surfed through the Notre Dame defense to take down the Irish 41-40 on a last-second touchdown pass. It dropped the Irish to 0-2 to start the season, both losses coming against ranked teams by a grand total of four points.

Nonetheless, sporadic instances of people's hair catching on fire were observed. The Irish defense was trash. The defensive coaching staff was trash. Head coach Marcus Freeman ... OK, so he wasn't trash (he did, after all, coach the Irish to the national championship game last season), but remember how he lost to freakin' Northern Illinois last year?

In other words, there was a lot of grumbling. And then Purdue came to town, and the Boilermakers didn't have Bob Griese or Leroy Keyes with them this time, and they had a bulldog of a new coach (Barry Odom) still trying to imprint his bulldoggish-ness on virtually an entirely new roster. And Notre Dame ... got better.

Now, the Boilermakers didn't lay down like last year, and Ryan Browne did some decent quarterbacking for awhile there, and it was still a tight 14-10 game five minutes into the second quarter.  

But then Price busted a 21-yard jaunt for six on his first carry, and then he ran nine yards for another score, and then he returned that kickoff for another score. Purdue kept pace for awhile -- it was 35-23 at halftime -- but the Irish piled on three more scores in the third quarter, and the D shut down Purdue's workhorse Devin Mockobee (14 carries, 16 yards), and without a run game Browne and the Boiler offense were toast.

By the end of the third quarter, it was a 56-23 blowout. Purdue got one more score in garbage time, giving Domerville an opportunity to gripe some more about the defense this week (Thirty points! Thirty points to PURDUE!).  But the thing was done.

Will this launch Notre Dame on a run to 10-2, like it went 13-1 after the loss to Northern Illinois last season?

Maybe, although you might want to circle Notre Dame vs. Syracuse in late November as a potential toe-stubber.

If they make that run to 10-2, will the Irish make the CFP again?

Pretty good chance they will, it says here.

Will the Irish faithful still be grumbling about the defense if they do, albeit less loudly?

Come on. Like that's even a question.

Rocky Mountain medium

 You probably missed it because of all the FOOTBALL FOOTBALL FOOTBALL out there these (FOOTBALL!) days. But on Friday the worst team in Major League Baseball, your Colorado Rockheads, achieved something that undoubtedly unleashed mad celebrations all along the Front Range.

They won a baseball game!

OK, so even the Rockheads have won a few baseball games this lost season, but this one was different. This one was significant. Because by beating the lowly Angels 7-6, the Rockheads reached the 42-win plateau (if 42 wins in September actually constitutes a plateau). This means the '25 Rockheads will not supplant the '24 Chicago What Sox as the cruddiest baseball team of the modern era.

The What Sox, see, finished 41-121 a year ago.

The Rockheads, by virtue of Friday's stirring victory, now can only finish 42-120 at worst.

So crack open a warm Hamm's or Blatz or Carling Black Label, and raise a huzzah to our noble lads from Denver. Forty-two dubs ain't exactly a Rocky Mountain high, but it's maybe a Rocky Mountain medium. Kinda. Sorta.

Salut!

Asked and answered

 Well, now. I guess that takes care of THAT.

Can Indiana play?

Yes, Indiana can play.

Are the Hoosiers for real?

Yes, the Hoosiers are for real.

Are they still unbeaten and untried?

Well ...

I mean, Illinois tried. The Illini did. They just got tsunamied.

By 53 points, they got tsunamied. The final was 63-10, and, listen, I'm not gonna be That Guy. I'm not gonna be the prisoner-of-the-moment guy who watches the Hoosiers treat the ninth-ranked team in the nation like it was Directional Illinois instead of For Real Illinois, and decides this Indiana team is GOING TO THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF again this year.

On the other hand, I'm not gonna say they won't, either.

What I will say is when you pile up 31 first downs and 579 total yards against another ranked Big Ten team, and out-rush it 312 yards to 2, and hold it to nine first downs and 161 total yards while sacking its quarterback five times ... people will talk. They'll take notice. They'll say, "Gee, either Indiana is really, really good, or Illinois is nowhere near as good as it was cracked up to be."

Because truthfully there was probably a bit of the latter at work last night, too. 

On the other hand, these are the same Illini who went down to North Carolina a couple of weeks ago and rinse-cycled Duke -- a legitimate team from a legitimate Power 4 conference -- by four touchdowns a couple weeks ago. The same Duke, by the way, who rinse-cycled previously unbeaten North Carolina State 45-33 last night.

So, you know, Illinois isn't exactly Kennesaw State, either. Or Old Dominion or Indiana State, either.

Those were the three warm bodies with whom Indiana opened the season, leaving it an open question as to just how good Curt Cignetti's second Hoosiers edition was. Needless to say, that question was more than asked and answered Saturday night.

Because here was quarterback Fernando Mendoza pretty much doing to Illinois what he did to Indiana State last week, completing 21-of-23 passes for 267 yards and five touchdowns.

And here were Elijah Surratt and Omar Cooper Jr. catching 15 of those throws for a combined 170 yards and three of the five sixes.

And here were Khobie Martin, Kaelon Black and Roman Hemby lugging the pill a combined 36 times for 261 yards and three more scores. Martin (12 carries for 107) and Black (10 for 89) both averaged a percentage point under nine yards per tote.

It all added up to another milestone deal for Cignetti, who was his usual obnoxious self in the postgame, saying Indiana broke the Illini's spirit. It likely did no such thing, but you can get away with that sort of bloviation when you laminate someone 63-10.

Also when you become the first Indiana coach to beat a top-ten team in Bloomington since the Bucket game in 1967, when Harry Gonso, John Isenbarger and Jade Butcher did their thing for John Pont against No. 3 Purdue. That's 58 years to you and me, kids.

So what's next for the lineal descendants of Gonso, Isenbarger et al?

Next week they're at Iowa, which handled Rutgers 38-28 on the road yesterday. Then they're at No. 6 Oregon. Later on they get No. 2 Penn State in Happy Valley. So we shall see what we shall see.

One thing's for sure now, though: It oughta be some quality entertainement.

The Big Reveal

 Your undefeated and untried Indiana Hoosiers welcome Illinois to Bloomington tonight for a primetime tilt, and at last, finally and unequivocally, we'll find out if they can actually play. 

This is because the 19th-ranked Hoosiers are not playing a team they paid to come get their heads kicked in, but someone in their own tax bracket. The Illini, after all, are also undefeated, and ranked ninth. It'll be the first time Indiana and Illinois have faced one another as ranked teams since 1950, when Harry Truman was president and football players were named Deno and Milford and Merritt and Elie. 

There've been a lot of dry years since for the Hoosiers and Illini, and but lately. Indiana, of course, went 11-1 in Curt Cignetti's first season and made it inside the College Football Playoff ropes a year ago. The Illini put up a 9-3 record in Bret Bielema's first season in Champaign and then beat South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl to get to double digits in Ws.

So far this season, the Illini are also largely untried, although they did laminate Duke, an actual Power 4 school, 45-19 on the road. In their other two games, they smooshed a pair of directionals (Western Illinois and Western Michigan) by a combined score of 90-3.

Needless to say, all this feasting on lesser mortals has resulted in some impressive numbers for both of tonight's pugilists. The Hoosiers, thanks in large part to blowouts of outmanned Kennesaw State and Indiana State, are averaging 52 points and 591.7 yards per game. Illinois is averaging 45 and 405.7.

Both are ranked in the top 15 in the country in points and points allowed per drive. Neither has played a team ranked higher than 65th by whatever formula the slide-rule boys use to determine who's good and who's not.

Which makes tonight a bowl game, sort of. 

Ladies and gents, welcome to the Big Reveal Bowl. Or the Maybe Bowl, if you prefer.

As in: Maybe Indiana and Illinois really are as good as all that. Maybe at least one of is not. Stay tuned.

The chill

(And so again the Blob feels it necessary to stray from its Sportsball enclosure because the guards were asleep. You know the drill: Hall pass, library, return when the Blob begins griping about his cruddy baseball team again).

Once upon a time I had an English teacher who thought Martin Luther King Jr. got what was coming to him.

It was the morning after MLK was gunned down in Memphis, and I was a seventh grader at Village Woods Junior High, which is what we called middle school back then, children. Time has done what time does -- blurring details, thinning memory -- but what I remember is this teacher asking us if we were saddened by King's death. And when many of us said yes, he replied something to the effect that MLK was a troublemaker and this was the fate of all troublemakers.

Now, I don't know if he meant that the way it sounded. I didn't then, and don't now, know anything about this teacher's political leanings, or any racial animus he might or might not have harbored. So it's possible it was not a negative reflection on MLK at all, but just a weary acknowledgment that the world is a cruel place and especially so to people who stir things up.

However.

However, it didn't come off that way. Especially to a classroom of seventh graders -- including one (me) who uttered a snort of contempt and drew a withering teacher's stare in response.

Anyway, what brings this all back is what happened at Ball State University this week, where an administrator was fired for not being properly devastated by the cold-blooded murder of right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk. This was deemed unacceptable to Indiana governor Mike Braun, attorney general Todd Rokita and their legion of online snitches, who've sworn to purge the state of teachers who either publicly "celebrate" Kirk's death or have spoken of it with any sort of nuance.

This is how Suzanne Swierc, BSU's director of health promotion and advocacy, found herself on the street this week.

She was fired for calling Kirk's death "a tragedy" on her personal Facebook page, and that she "can (and does) feel for his wife and children."

Then she went on to invoke that old devil nuance by saying his death was a reflection of what he sowed. "It does not excuse his death, AND it's a sad truth," she wrote.

Which it is. Or which it could be more than reasonably argued, at least in the world before the current Regime.

There, it's a fireable offense. There, no deviation from the Regime's party line will be tolerated, and those who violate that will be cast into outer darkness.

Sorry. I tend to get a bit overwrought when the jackboots start marching.

In any case, Ball State eighty-sixed Swierc, because Ball State is a state institution and thus compelled (or feels it's compelled) to carry water for its bosses in Indianapolis. And it was all very legal, especially in a right-to-work state like Indiana where you can fire an employee for wearing the wrong tie if you so desire. You don't have to have, you know, a reason.

You might be expected to come up with a more defensible reason than Ball State did, however.

In its official release the University said it went strictly by official guidelines, which state that a public institution can justify a dismissal by applying a two-part test to determine whether or not an employee's speech disrupts the workplace. The release went on to say the University determined Swierc's post did exactly that.

"... Our administration evaluated the impact of the significant disruption to the University's mission and operations and the effect of the post on her ability to perform her work in her leadership position," the release said, in a masterwork of handbook-speak.

And to which the Blob -- a 1977 graduate of Ball State, by the by -- says this: Oh, balls.

Tell me how, precisely, Swierc's post was a "significant disruption" of her ability to (what did she do again?) promote and advocate health issues. Tell me how, again precisely, a post entirely unrelated to her job made it difficult for her to do that job. Explain yourselves -- or to put it in more educational terms: Show me your work.

This is the problem, see, with all this deadening of free expression by the Regime and its compliant acolytes. Unless they get dragged into a courtroom which might or might not be presided over by their fellow travelers, they never have to show their work. They never have to prove any of what they claim; they only have to claim it. They never have to explain, in this instance, what they mean by "celebrating" Charlie Kirk's heinous murder, or "justifying" it, because they're in charge and only they get to determine that.

Even if it's total eyewash. Even if no rational person could consider a specific opinion "celebrating" or "justifying."

Suzanne Swierc's specific opinion, for instance.

Once upon a time I had a history teacher who insulted his female students in the crudest way possible.

He said, once upon a time, that the reason prostitution was such a hard dollar in the city where he worked is because they got too much competition from "the amateurs" at the school where he worked.

That city was Muncie, In. And that school was Ball State University.

As far as I know, this teacher was never so much as reprimanded, though by all rights he at the very least should have been. (And might have; again, memory is tricky). Of course, social media was years in the future then. Of course, we weren't the nation of grimy snitches we've become.

And of course, the Regime wasn't running things with an iron fist, imposing its version of reality on thoroughly cowed institutions of higher learning and television networks and news organizations.

Where I live here in northeast Indiana, the mercury's supposed to top out at 86 degrees today. But you know what?

I feel a chill in the air. A most definite chill.

Early-onset carnage

 We've got the Dolphins at the Bills tonight in the NFL's weekly Let's See What Happens When We Make Teams Play Two Games In Four Days extravaganza, and the best thing you can say about that is both starting quarterbacks are still upright.

Josh Allen is doing Josh Allen things for the unbeaten Bills. Tua Tagovailoa went 26-of-32 for 315 yards and two scores for the Dolphins last week, but the 0-2 Fish still lost at home to the Patriots because apparently that's who they're going to be this season.

But, hey. At least they're not the Bengals, who have to get along without Joe Burrow for the next three months because he mangled his toe bad enough to require surgery.

Ditto the Vikings, who lost J.J. McCarthy to a high ankle sprain for an indeterminate length of time Sunday.

Ditto the Jets, who lost Justin Fields perhaps for the season with a concussion. Ditto the Washington Commanders, whose precocious star Jayden Daniels is day-to-day this week with a knee sprain. And ditto the 49ers, who already had lost Brock Purdy by week 2 and are hopeful he'll be good to go this week. 

So two weeks into a season that lasts longer than the director's cut of "Gone With The Wind", five QB1s have already gone on the shelf or partly on the shelf. Makes you wonder where we'll be 16 weeks from now, when the NFL finally and reluctantly says "OK, that's enough games I GUESS" and calls it a season.

I figure either Virgil Carter or Ken Anderson will be suiting up for the Bengals by then.

And where's Richard Todd these days, speaking of the Jets?

Paging Joe Kapp. Paging Joe Kapp. The Vikings need you to come down from your celestial abode, lower your head and run over a linebacker or two.

And bring Sammy Baugh's heavenly spirit with you. The Commanders aren't the Racial Slurs anymore, but they're still Slingin' Sam's old team.

I exaggerate for effect, of course, but if the league's going to lose or partly lose five starting quarterbacks every two weeks, that means all 32 starters are going to be in the MASH unit by season's end. This is highly unlikely to happen, of course, but the prospect of tuning in Colts-Texans in week 18 and seeing Riley Leonard squaring off against Graham Mertz still exists.

Look. I get it. It's the NFL, giant humans crashing into one another like Mack trucks at 70 mph. Owies are going to happen. Ligaments will tear. Muscles will pop like balloons. Joints will come unjointed.

But the annual carnage season starting so early, and including five quarterbacks, must surely be disquieting for the NFL's boardroom set. QBs being the league's most valuable asset, rule czars have bent over backwards to all but bubble-wrap them.

You can still touch a quarterback, but you can't, you know, TOUCH HIM. You can't hit him above the chest. You can't hit him below the chest. You can't throw him to ground in a disdainful manner, or plead gravity if you land on top of him, or hit him really really hard when he's not looking.

 And of course, you absolutely cannot -- cannot -- accidentally touch his helmet, because the zebras will dust for fingerprints to make sure. 

And yet.

And yet, two weeks in, the quarterback trauma unit is already filling up. 

It's gonna be a long season. Keep your phone handy, Slingin' Sam.

Dodging the point

 Perhaps I'm just a hair slow on the uptake. I have been accused of such. It is not an accusation devoid of evidence, regrettably.

So I'm reading this story about Tom Brady being caught on camera wearing a headset in the Las Vegas Raiders' coaching booth Monday night, and how the NFL rolled out a statement saying it was fine, A-OK, he didn't violate any league rules. This is because, as a man with a minority stake in the Raiders, there are restrictions about what he can and can't do.

The league said being in the coaching booth with a headset on wasn't a can't-do. So no problem-o.

This is where I said, "Yeah, but ..."

Yeah, but what about Tom's other gig? You know, the one for which Fox is paying him $375 million over the next 10 years?

The league didn't address that. And the story I read didn't mention the (to me, anyway) sketchy optics of a part-owner pal-ing around with the help in the coaching booth when he's also being paid a good chunk of change as an NFL broadcaster. 

At least until well down in the buried-lede section, that is.

"As a broadcaster, he gets access to other teams' players and coaches that other owners do not have, raising concerns about a conflict of interest," the story finally mentioned, nine paragraphs down.

Well, NO S***, SHERLOCK.

"Concerns about a conflict of interest"? Well, I sure would hope so. There should be concerns, because it is a conflict interest. A great big steaming pile of a conflict, especially when Tom Brady the partial-owner-who's-also-a-broadcast shows up on Monday Night Football wearing a headset in an NFL team's coaching booth.

To me, that's the story here, not that Brady may or may not have violated any rules as a partial team owner. I didn't think there was anything egregious about that, although the league clearly thought it was egregious enough to release a statement. No, the egregious part is Fox paying TB12 major jack to cover the NFL while also being a part of the NFL.

A part made glaringly obvious by what happened Monday night. Or so it seems to me, Mr. Slow-On-The-Uptake.

The less slow, after all, will point out that the NFL initially allowed Brady to work for Fox only with certain restrictions, many of which it's since relaxed. They'll also point out, by-the-by, that the league pays the networks a truckload of cash to broadcast the games, which by extension advances the NFL brand. It's a symbiosis that makes crusty old journos like me queasy, but we are after all relics of a prehistoric time when conflicts of interest were something to be avoided, not enthusiastically embraced.

The networks and the leagues threw all that over the side years ago. Ditto the Meathead Brigade steering the national tour bus right now, whose conflicts are many and brazen. The day when they were a black mark for a public servant is as over as zoot suits and rumble seats.

In which case, reserve me a seat in your '37 DeSoto. Because I think everyone dodged the point on Headset Tom, and I ain't changin' my mind.

As a broadcaster, he gets access to other teams' players and coaches that other owners do not have, raising concerns about a conflict of interest.

The NFL recently relaxed some of its restrictions for Brady in that role, including allowing him to take part in production meetings -- when a broadcast crew meets with that game's head coaches and key players -- this season. He must take part in those meetings remotely, and he isn't allowed to attend practices at team facilities.

Mortality 3, Hockey 0

 I don't know if the good Lord's hot at hockey, or if he's just a Maple Leafs fan who's mad at the game because the Leafs keep choking in the playoffs. But lately he sure has been kicking around the Sport of Kings (the Los Angeles Kings, that is).

Why, just look at what's happened in the last two weeks.

Lonnie Loach, local Fort Wayne Komets legend and the guy who scored maybe the most important goal in the franchise's 74-year-old history, was taken from us by cancer at the way-too-soon age of 57.

A couple of days later, cancer also took Ken Dryden -- arguably the greatest goaltender in the history of the game, and certainly the greatest for the nine years he backstopped the mighty Montreal Canadiens in the 1970s. Apparently the Big C was being even more of a jackwagon than usual that week.

And just today, a week after Dryden passed ...

Comes now the news that Eddie Giacomin has died at the age of 86.

If you don't remember Eddie G, hop a plane to New York and you'll get an education. Rangers fans remember him well there, and not just because no Ranger has worn his No. 1 since 1989, when the club retired it. It's the least they could do for the prematurely graying goalie who wore the Ranger blue for 11 seasons, finished up with the Detroit Red Wings and retired after the 1977-78 season with 290 wins and 54 shutouts in 610 regular-season games.

Nine years later, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Probably shouldn't have taken that long.

So, not quite three weeks, three hockey leges gone. Mortality 3, Eddie Shore 0, some such thing.

Please, Lord. Root for someone else. Hockey needs a break.

A few brief thoughts about NFL Week 2

 And now another edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the ecumenical Blob feature in which the lowly rise and the mighty fall, and of which critics have said "How 'bout you FALL down these stairs?", and also "How 'bout I RISE from this chair and smack you in the chops?":

1. A week after 65-year-old Aaron Rodgers threw four touchdown passes against the Jets and folks in Pittsburgh were saying "See, he can so be 29 again," he throws two picks, puts up a 58.0 quarterback rating and gets outplayed by Sam Darnold in a two-touchdown loss to the Seahawks.

2. "Ah, I knew he was washed." (Folks in Pittsburgh)

3. "Hey, look! We beat the Chiefs again!" (The Eagles)

4. "Yeah, but it was only the Chiefs. THE 0-2 CHIEFS." (America)

5. "Ya know, Caleb Williams played pretty well this week." (Bears fans)

6. "Ya know, I threw five touchdown passes this week and we rose from last week's humiliation to pound the Bears into a shapeless mass, 52-21." (Lions QB Jared Goff)

7. "Great. Now someone ELSE owns us." (Bears fans)

8. In other news, the Cowboys needed a 64-yard field goal and overtime to beat the not-really-all-that-big Giants; the winless Dolphins lost to the unbeaten Patriots in Miami;  the Falcons (the Falcons!) beat up the Vikings as Minnesota QB J.J. McCarthy (the New Franchise Quarterback!) threw two picks, fumbled three times and put up a quarterback rating of 37.5; and Cincinnati's impeccable Joe Burrow suffered a might-as-well-be-season-ending injury.

9. "Oh, no! Poor Joe Burrow!" (America)

10. "Woo-hoo! Now I get an ENTIRE SEASON where I don't have to be perfect every week for this sorry-ass franchise to win!" (Joe Burrow)

Wait ... what?

 And now to introduce a new Blob feature "Wait ... What?", which may or may not be an entire series or just a made-for-TV movie depending on whether or not the circumstances call for it, or how fast the Blob gets bored with it:

* Wait ... what? You mean the Indianapolis Colts might actually be, you know, good?

Beat the Denver Broncos 29-28 on a walk-off field goal by Spencer Shrader because -- irony alert -- the Broncos did a Colts thing. Which was, get tagged for a penalty that erased Shrader's initial miss from 60 yards and moved him 15 yards closer. The 45-yarder was true and the Horsies beat the other Horsies while fans in Denver no doubt gnashed their teeth and threw salsa and clam dip at their TV screens.

* Wait ... what? You mean Daniel Jones -- DANIEL JONES! -- might actually be good, too?

Two starts, two wins. Racked a 107.0 quarterback rating after a 23-of-34, 316-yard day. Threw one touchdown pass and no interceptions. So far this season he's completed 71 percent of his throws (45-of-63) for 588 yards and two scores, and has yet to throw a pick. His season rating so far is 111.1.

"But, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "What about how crummy he was with the Gi-"

Shhh.

* Wait ... what? You mean Tennessee's running another play?

Aw, you bet. Ball's on the Georgia 19 with seven seconds to play. Thirty-six yard field goal, or thereabouts, for the win, which would be the Volunteers' first against the Bulldogs in the last nine meetings.

But, noooo!

Tennessee coach Josh Heupel decided to run one more play instead. No, I don't know why. Some short circuit in the cranial region, I assume.

Anyway, the Vols line up, get stuffed on a run into the line, and ... get flagged for illegal procedure. Ball is moved back five yards, making it a 43-yard attempt for kicker Max Gilbert instead of a 36-yard attempt. Gilbert pushes the 43-yarder wide right, the game goes to overtime, and Georgia beats Rocky Top for the night straight time, 44-41.

Oopsie.

* Wait ... what? You mean Mickey Mantle's in the news AGAIN?

Sure is, boys and girls. Just a handful of days after Yankees slugger Aaron Judge passed Joe DiMaggio on the Pinstripes' career homer list, leaving only Babe Ruth, Mantle and Lou Gehrig ahead of him, Cal Raleigh of the Mariners his 54th homer of the 2025 campaign. This got Mantle's name in print once more, because Raleigh's latest jack broke the Mick's record for most home runs in a season by a switch hitter.

Two keyword mentions in a week. Not bad for a guy who's been gone for 30 years.

And last but not least ...

* Wait ... what? You mean the Colorado Rockheads only need one win in their last 12 games to avoid tying the 2024 Chicago What Sox for the most losses in a season in the modern baseball era?

You better believe it, bubba.

The Rockheads have lost their last two and eight of their last 10, but on Friday they beat the San Diego Padres 4-2 and much joy was heard throughout the land. That's because it was their 41st win of the season, which means they can do no worse than tie the '24 What Sox, who finished 41-121. And if they can go 1-11 to end the season, they they can officially lord it over the What Sox forever and ever, so phooey on you.

"Plus, we got mountains!" the Rockheads will no doubt add.

Art, meet life

 God bless that John Daly. He is a man of the people. He is as normal as normal gets -- if, that is, "normal" is a grown man who wears Garanimal-style pants and a Devil Anse Hatfield beard, and travels around hitting golf balls at places far too refined for the likes of him.

See what he did the other day?

Went full Chili-Dip Chuck in an actual for-real PGA event. Channeled one of them-there movie stars. Made life imitate art.

What Daly did was, on the par-5 12th hole at Minnehaha Country Club in Sioux City, S.D., card a 19. No, that is not a misprint. And, no, that was not the old lady in "Caddyshack" playing the hole, the one who keeps swatting her ball into the water while saying "Whee!"

It was John Daly. Professional golfer.

Who hit his tee ball into the rough, and then proceeded to knock his next seven shots into the water hazard on the 12th. When he finally cleared the water, his ball found another patch of rough. Eventually, on his 17th hack, he reached the collar of the green, then got it up and down for his 19.

"Dee-yam, Martha, come look at this!" you can imagine Chili-Dip Chuck saying, taking another swig of his Natty Light. "John Daly played that hole just like I woulda! We are  brothers under the skin, ya can't tell me otherwise!"

Well, of course he is. He's also Kevin Costner from "Tin Cup", who played a driving-range pro who blows the U.S. Open because he stubbornly keeps hitting balls into the water on the 72nd hole trying to prove he can clear it.

Who's that sound like?

Aw, you bet it sounds like John Daly. In fact it sounds exactly like the John Daly who, back in 1998, carded an 18 on a par-5 in the Bay Hill Invitational by hitting a 3-wood into the water six straight times.

"Gee, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Why didn't he club up?"

I dunno. Why didn't Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy club up in the movie?

"'Cause he was tryin' to prove something, dummy!" Chili-Dip Chuck would no doubt reply. "Just like ol' John Daly! Hell, I'd have done the same thing, and I'm not even a pro or a movie guy!"

For sure. Oh, and one last thing: Daly finished the round with an 88. Which means he somehow shot a halfway decent 71 on the other 17 holes.

Let's see art imitate that.

A Doomerville too far

 Mid-September in South Bend, Indiana, and the saints already are rending their garments. Saint Lou of Holtz is saying he's scared to death of Rice (again!). Saint Frank of Leahy is moaning, "Oh, lads." And Saint Knute of Rockne is wondering if it's time to make up another story about George Gipp.

Heard the news?

 It's mid-September, and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame are 0-2.

Lost on the road at Miami. Had two weeks to prepare for their home opener against Texas A&M, and lost again.

This means Domerville is now Doomerville, or something akin. Or maybe it doesn't.

Consider, first of all, that the Irish lost by three on the road against a Miami team that's now ranked fifth by the Associated Press. Consider, also, that they lost by one at home last night to another ranked team when A&M quarterback Marcel Reed threw a touchdown pass on fourth down with 13 seconds to play.

So what does this mean?

It means Notre Dame, at the moment, is not quite as good as it was a year ago. It means the Irish aren't quite as deep in certain places, particularly on defense, and that they're breaking in a redshirt freshman at QB1,and that the combination of the two are going to make it a lot harder to beat teams like Miami and Texas A&M, both of whom brought experienced quarterbacks to the table with Swiss-knife skill sets.

None of this should shock have shocked anyone. But of course it will, because it's Notre Dame, and because the Irish blew two 10-point leads at home last night, and because when you're ranked as high as sixth in the notoriously value-thin preseason polls, you're supposed to be better than that. Also, again, you're Notre Dame.

Except sometimes you're not. Or at least you're not that Notre Dame, the one that rode a crushing ground game and a suffocating defense to the national title game nine months ago.

And so Not That Notre Dame traveled down to Miami, which was waiting with Chip Beck, last seen starting at quarterback for Georgia. And then they came back to Notre Dame Stadium to face 16th-ranked A&M, which had Reed, a sophomore who threw for 1,834 yards and 15 touchdowns and ran for 547 yards and seven sixes last year  as a redshirt freshman.

Last  night, Reed averaged 5.3 yards per carry on seven totes and threw for 360 yards and two scores, including the clutch pitch to tight end Nate Boerkircher to pull out the 41-40 win.

Notre Dame quarterback C.J. Carr, meanwhile, was 20-of-32 for 293 yards and a touchdown to running back Jeremiyah Love, who once again carried the bulk of the offensive load: 94 yards and a touchdown on the ground; four catches for 53 yards and a touchdown as a receiver.

Carr, meanwhile, made some big throws. He also missed a few, and threw a pick. Still, the Irish churned out 23 first downs and 429 total yards, which should have been sufficient for the W had the D been able to stop Reed and Co.

Alas, it couldn't. The Aggies dinged the Irish for 488 total yards, averaging 7.07 per snap. It pushed Notre Dame around up front, where Le'Veon Moss gashed the Irish for 81 yards and three sixes on 20 carries. And the A&M wideouts absolutely flamed the Irish secondary -- particularly Mario Craver (seven catches, 207 yards, one score) and KC Concepcion (four catches, 82 yards).

Conclusion: Notre Dame has enough weapons on offense. It doesn't yet have enough on defense.

Other, less gloomy conclusion: It's still going to be good enough to beat everyone else on its schedule, starting with Purdue next week. USC might give the Irish pause, but the Trojans don't come to South Bend until Oct. 18. Ditto Arkansas on the road in two weeks. Ditto, I don't know, North Carolina or Pitt or Syracuse, none of whom the Irish play until November.

Call this Doomerville a Doomerville too far, in other words. At least right now. Remember, in the meantime, last Sept. 7, when Doomerville was up in arms after the Irish jacked around and lost to Northern Illinois in their 2024 home opener.

Notre Dame never lost again until the national championship game.

Cupcakin'

 High school football came to Memorial Stadium in Bloomington last night, or at least it seemed so. Those were Friday night lights, after all, America's Institutions of Higher Earning horning in on someone else's turf again. And Indiana University's opponent ...

Well. Far be it from the Blob to besmirch a fine academic institution by calling it Indiana State High School. But the way Curt Cignetti's Hoosiers wolfed down its latest MRE (meal ready to eat), again, made it seem so.

The final score was 73-0, and that's not the half of it. Actually, it sort of is the half of it, because the Hoosiers led 45-0 at halftime and their starters were all but done for the night.

Quarterback Fernando Mendoza, after all, had already passed for five scores and run for another, completing 19-of-20 throws against the helpless Sycamores. Khobie Martin was on his way to a 109-yard rushing night on just 11 carries, just shy of a first down per tote. Omar Cooper Jr. was on his way to a four-touchdown, 10-reception, 207-yard receiving night. 

By the end, Indiana had gobbled up 33 first downs and 680 total yards, 379 in the air and 301 on the ground. Indiana State, meanwhile, had wheezed out just five first downs, 38 yards passing and 77 total yards. The Hoosiers averaged 12.6 yards per pass and 8.1 per rush; the Trees averaged 1.9 yards per pass and 1.3 yards per rush.

You know that scene toward the end of "Stand By Me" where Kiefer Sutherland and his  hoodlum friends beat up on poor Gordie and his grade-school buds? 

That's kind of what this was like. Either that or beating your 6-year-old nephew in basketball.

And, yeah, OK, we all know the economics involved in it. In return for getting tossed around like Raggedy Andy, Indiana State cashed a fat check to keep their athletic department in clover. And Indiana got another feel-good W, although how the Hoosier could feel good about dunking on nephew Joey is a question only they could answer.

The skinny is, they're now 3-0, and none the Hoosiers' three victims has been Ohio State or Texas. Or even Northwestern or Rutgers. Which means we really don't know, a quarter of the season in, if they're actually any good.

And so although I'm well aware of what Indiana State got out of last night, I'm at a loss to tell you what Indiana did. Did any of this cupcakin' in its first three games prepare the Hoosiers for the rigors of the Big Ten, which begins for them next week against Illinois? Might at least one tilt against someone with reasonably equitable talent have perhaps been more beneficial?

You grow your football team on competition. Like Wonder Bread, it helps build strong bodies 12 ways. Also it's part of a balanced breakfast, and a bunch of other marketing slogans I can't recall at the moment.

What I will remember is this: Last year it was the Hoosiers' arch-enemy Purdue who invited Indiana State in for an early-season paycheck game. The Boilermakers pruned the Trees 49-0.

The next week they lost to Notre Dame, 66-7. And proceeded to go 1-11 in Ryan Walters' final season.

Not sayin'. Just sayin'.

Sublimely ridiculous

 Aaron Judge sent two more baseballs fleeing Yankee Stadium in terror last night, and now he's in monument territory as far as horsehide abuse is concerned. Which is to say, a couple of days ago he passed Yogi Berra (Yogi Berra!) on the Yankees career home run list, and last night he tied Joe DiMaggio (Joe DiMaggio!).

That means only Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig are still ahead of him. Each of whom, Joe D included, has his own personal monument in Monument Park out there beyond center field in the Stadium.

So, yeah, Judge is communing with the statuary now. And he's got a lot of tread left on the tires to commune even further with it.

That's your sublime baseball happening for the week, boys and girls.

And the most sublimely ridiculous happening?

Well, that would be what my Pittsburgh Cruds accomplished the other day.

"Ohhhh, no," you're saying now. "Not the stupid Pirates again. Not-"

Ah, dummy up. Here's a hall pass. Go on down to the caf and grab yourself a big ol' plate of Tuna Surprise.

(The surprise: Does not contain tuna.)

Now where were we?

Oh, yeah. My Cruds. Being sublimely ridiculous.

See, while Aaron Judge was hangin' with all those magisterial Yankee ghosts, the Cruds were achieving their own landmark. With a 2-1 loss in extras to the lowly Orioles, they assured themselves of yet another losing season. It will be their seventh in a row and ninth in the last 10 years.

That is some epically chronic cruddiness (or chronically epic cruddiness) right there.

You don't put up that kind of sustained failure without a ton of want-to, and lord knows cheapskate owner Bob Nutting and his guys have want-to to spare. Consider, for instance, that they have the most dominant pitcher in baseball right now (Paul Skenes), and they still manage to keep losing. Right now they're in the middle of a six-game skid  that's left them nineteen games under .500, 25 games out of first in the NL Central and eight games out of next-to-last.

Skenes, on the other hand, is killing it. In 30 starts and 178 innings this season, he has an MLB-leading 1.92 ERA, a National League-leading 203 strikeouts, and just 38 walks. Opposing hitters are batting just .193 against him.

His won-loss record in those 30 starts?

9-9.

How long before he and his agent start lobbying for someone -- anyone -- to get him the hell out of P-town?

It hasn't happened yet because the Cruds actually decided to pay him not long ago, and also because Skenes isn't the complaining type. But metaphorically speaking, Skenes continuing to pitch for the Cruds would be like Sandy Koufax pitching for the early-'60s Cubs or Senators instead of the Dodgers: A waste of genius.

But enough sad tales. There's too much sadness in the land right now as it is.

Let's go watch Aaron Judge chase some more monuments instead.

The bloody boomerang

 Unavoidably, now, and with ineffable sadness, his own words come back on him. You reap what you sow, and everything right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk sowed in his young life led, perhaps inevitably, to its end.

He lived by the tenet that living by the gun in America was worth a few dead schoolkids  here and there, and then he himself died by the gun. The irony is cruel and stark and almost perfect in its symmetry.

It was, in fact, just after answering a college kid's question about mass shootings that a rooftop sniper squeezed off a shot and Kirk's neck began to spew blood. He died not long after -- a martyr to the truth on one side of our national divide, and a soulless bully getting his just desserts on the other.

I won't subscribe to either, because the former is the product of delusion and the latter presumes the personally unknowable. I don't know, in other words, if the demagoguery upon which Kirk built a comfortable life was genuine or simply a profitable business model. All I do know is it exploited that aforementioned divide, feeding on all its fear and loathing and blindness and hate.

Sad way to make your bones, casting the marginalized in our society -- immigrants, the homeless, transgenders and gays, "wokeness" -- as depraved, evil predators responsible for the nation's ills.  That was Charlie Kirk's gig, and what a waste of a bright young life. In a tragedy that spreads out and out in concentric circles, that is the seminal one.

And that's what this is, a tragedy. It's the tale of a young man who sent a bloody boomerang out into the world, never imagining he would be its victim. It's the tale of a young man who could have done something affirming with the life God gave him, but chose a different path.

You reap what you sow. And the worst part of all this is what Charlie Kirk sowed continues to bear fruit. Not even his assassination -- a horrific act of political violence that never solves anything and has been the undoing of more than one great empire -- has taught us a damn thing.

Almost immediately, after all, the MAGA crazies took to the Magic Interwhatsis to rail that the Democrats and the media must be made to pay for Kirk's death, that they're all evil creatures who must either be exterminated or brutally suppressed.

And on the other side?

Not a few arch observations wondering where all this right-wing outrage was when a Democratic legislator and her husband were gunned down in Minnesota, and when schoolkids and grocery shoppers and church-goers die at the hands of yet another locked-and-loaded nutjob. A legit question, perhaps, but hardly the time to be asking it.

 Meanwhile, on the day after, we again commemorate what fear and loathing and hate wrought on Sept. 11, 2001. And on the Magic Interwhatsis this morning, I ran across a short video that suggested, not for the first time, that the reason WNBA star Caitlyn Clark has been "targeted" (quotation marks mine) is because she's not gay.

Which implies those depraved gays are out to get us, just like Charlie Kirk said.

When will we learn? When?

I think it's worth (it) to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.

- Charlie Kirk

Crabby old fart alert!

 "Because it's NEWS, Vincenzo! NEWWWS!"

-- Carl Kolchak, ace reporter

Look, I don't know if Deion Sanders can coach his way out of a paper bag, or if his kid Shedeur and Travis Hunter just made him look like he could.  I also don't know if he's the most objective guy to analyze media behavior in these here 2020s, seeing how he's spent most of his life either basking in its blandishments or warring with it when the blandishments didn't come.

(Cue clip of Deion dumping a bucket of ice water on TV analyst Tim McCarver back in the day, after McCarver wasn't properly fawning in his commentary.)

However ...

However, when the guy's right, he's right, dammit. Even if he's only partly right.

The other day, it seems, he went off on These Media Types Today, sounding not unlike a certain crabby old fart with whom I am sort of familiar. At issue was a report by Pete Thamel that a kid named Ryan Staub was going to start at quarterback for Deion's Colorado Buffaloes against Houston this weekend. Even though Deion admitted Staub had been practicing with the No. 1s all week, he thought Thamel jumped the gun a tad.

Then he said this: You know, in today's media, we don't care about being right anymore. We just want to be first. And there's no subjection to you when you're wrong. Nobody says nothing. You just go with it. I'm not saying that's the case (here), but that's where we are in the media. Nobody gives a darn about being correct and being right ... I would love to have the integrity we once had with media.

OK, first off, as a crabby old fart who once dabbled in journalism: I'd love to have that, too, Deion.

Of course, I'd also love to have integrity on Wall Street and in the billionaire class and in the corporate medical industry and in law enforcement and the DOJ, and mostly in the Meathead Brigade that runs our American show these days.  But one insurmountable task at a time.

Of integrity in media, I'll say this: There's both less than there should be at times, and more than those who've been conditioned to hate and distrust the media believe.

Truth is, America -- or at least its power elite -- has always had a contentious and queasy relationship with the free-press part of the First Amendment, because the closed door is the power elite's bedrock and a free press, if it's doing its job right, exists almost exclusively to kick closed doors open. Sunlight may be the best disinfectant, but the folks at the top of the pyramid are as notoriously allergic to it as a dirty kid is to soap and water.

It's why they spend so much time, effort and money to brand the free press as untrustworthy and dishonest, because doing so keeps that closed door shut tight on whatever griminess they're up to behind it.  The Meathead Brigade and its Fearless Leader are hardly the first to take that low road in America, only the latest and most openly totalitarian. Killing the messenger in our allegedly free society -- or at least de-legitimizing him -- has a rich and shameful history.

Which does not mean, again, that Deion is entirely wrong when he says the media cares more about being first than right. With what constitutes media having become extremely sketchy in the Techie '20s, the chances of getting it first and wrong have grown exponentially. And some of those who do that really don't seem to care all that much, or even understand why they should.

But say NO ONE gives a darn about being correct and right?

That's where Deion and I part company. Not that he'd ever know it.

In my scribe days, see, I worked with plenty of people who gave a darn about being correct and right. I know plenty of people who give a darn about it now. They also work their asses off to get it correct and right, even if some of them are young and crabby old farts like me are supposed to believe the young don't know squat from squadoosh.

Sorry, but not this crabby old fart. I know better. And I know they're in turn encouraged (i.e., "threatened within an inch of their lives") by editors who give a darn, too, just like I was. They also understand why: That Getting It Right is the most valuable coin in the realm for a news entity, because if you get it wrong too often you become worthless in the public mind as a disseminator of information. You become ... untrusworthy.

You become, in essence, exactly what those with a vested interested in discrediting you with the public say you are. And therefore you make their job easier, and whatever skeevy stuff they were doing away from the public eye easier to hide.

Does the media get stuff wrong?

Sure it does. Especially when, as previously noted, it's more concerned with beating the competition to the punch than making sure the punch lands with accuracy and authority.

However.

However, do they get it wrong deliberately, as the Meathead Brigade continually insists to an increasingly credulous audience? Do they actually sit around in newsrooms (or in front of their laptops at home, this being 2025) and say, for instance, "OK, what kind of lies can we spread about President Trump these days? And, sports, how are we coming with that Aaron Rodgers Is A Space Alien piece?"

Hardly ever. Or at least the legit news outlets don't.

No, most of the time when a legit news outlet screws up, it's because whoever was in charge that day was either careless or a chronic numbskull or just, you know, human. To be honest, there's more than the usual quota of the latter two in most newsrooms. 

You can choose to believe that or not. You can choose to believe "legacy media" is a shameless disseminator of propaganda and deliberate falsehood because it reports stuff you don't want to hear. You can, like Deion, believe it has no integrity whatsoever, and every ink-stained grunt out there is a con man and a liar.

Give me a heads up before you say so, though. Just so I know when to shake my head and laugh.

A few brief thoughts about NFL Week 1

 And now the thrilling return of The NFL In So Many Words, the thrilling Blob feature that provokes thrilling overreaction from critics -- such as, "This is the worst thing that ever happened in the history of the entire world!", and also, "It's an extinction event!  Aieee!":

1. And speaking of extinction events ...

2. The Ravens!

3. Thought they could ... thought they could ... thought they could ... couldn't. 

4. "Hey, watch me make a 15-point Ravens lead disappear!" (Bills QB Josh Allen)

5. "Hey, watch me make an 11-point Bears lead disappear!' (Vikings QB J.J. McCarthy)

6. "Hey, where'd our 15-point/11-point lead go?" (The Ravens and Bears)

7. In other news, the Packers whupped the Lions; the Cowboys tried really hard to beat the Eagles, the Chiefs beat, er, the Chargers beat the Chiefs; and the Colts, with Daniel Jones suddenly playing like either Dan Fouts or Bert Jones, laid an almighty woodsheddin' on the Dolphins.

8. "Woo-hoo! We're goin' to the Super Bowl, baby!" (The Packers, the Cowboys, the Chargers, the Colts)

9. "Woo-hoo! Daniel Jones is a GOLDEN GOD!" (Colts fans)

10. "Wait ... what?" (Daniel Jones)

A-Aron strikes back

 I don't know what Aaron Rodgers was saying under his breath at the end of Steelers 34, Jets 32 yesterday, but I bet there was a much-more-than-zero chance it was what Steve McQueen said at the end of "Papillon."

Hey, you bastards! I'm still here!

Right?

I also bet there was a much-more-than-zero chance he was making a few less cinematic pronouncements, such as Bleep you, Jets. Or maybe, Can't play anymore, huh? BLEEP YOU.  Or, maybe-maybe, Here's a four-touchdown hoagie to munch on, losers. BLEEP YOU WITH MY 136.7 QUARTERBACK RATING.

"Gee, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "I sense a bleeping theme here."

Well, sure. I mean, Rodgers wouldn't be human if he didn't take a certain vicious pleasure in showing up the Jets, who all but declared him washed when they parted company after last season. The guy may be a weirdo, but he's not that weird.

OK. So maybe he is.

But you have to think it was a prime neener-neener-neener moment for him when he took the Steelers right down the field on their first possession and stuck it in the end zone with a throw to Ben Skowronek -- the fabled (or not) geezer-to-Fort-Wayne connection.

At any rate, that was only the beginning of the in-your-face-ing of the Jets. Rodgers went on to finish 22-of-30 for 244 yards and three more sixes, and didn't throw a pick. Only got sacked a couple of times. Finished with that aforementioned 136.7 QBR.

Neener. Neener. Neener.

Also, A-Aron is BACK, baby!

"Yeah, but what about next week, Mr. Blob?" you're saying now. "And the 147 weeks of the interminable NFL season after that?"

Ah. Yes.

That is the question here, as it is every time someone lights it up in Week 1. Has 41-year-old A-Aron discovered a magic portal to his youthful greatness? Or is he just a 41-year-old who had a day?

"Oh, come on," some yinzer is no doubt saying, taking another swig of his Iron City. "Leave us enjoy this for five minutes, why doncha?"

Fine. But then I'm going to take a look back at last year's Week 1, and you know which NFL quarterback had the best day?

Tua Tagovailoa of the Dolphins, who threw for 338 yards and a score against the Jaguars and had a QBR of 101.0.

Know what Tua did the rest of the year?

Played just 10 more games and finished 21st in passing, just ahead of 36-year-old Russell Wilson, Bryce Young and Drake Maye.

In other words: Stay tuned.

Cheap Thrills Week

 Your Indiana Hoosiers beat the mortal stuffing out of poor Kennesaw State yesterday, 56-9, a week after they kinda-sorta beat the mortal stuffing out of poor Old Dominion, and you know what that tells us about Curt Cignetti's team?

Exactly nothing.

OK, so not nothing, but pretty close. New quarterback Fernando Mendoza threw four touchdown passes Saturday, so that was good. Elijah Surratt caught three of them, so that was good, too. And the Hoosiers outscored the Kennesaws 35-0 in the second half, scoring on five straight possessions.

So that was also good, I suppose. Of course, it was a little like scoring on five straight possessions against the cardboard cutouts the citizens of Rock Ridge used to fool Slim Pickens and his gang in "Blazing Saddles," but, still. Pretty, pretty good.

This is not to single out the Hoosiers for being unbeaten and untried, mind you, because that indictment fits a lot of Power 4 teams right now. Purdue, for instance, is off to a 2-0 start as well after doubling up Southern Illinois 34-17. This means, on September 7, the Boilermakers have already doubled their win total from a year ago.

And never mind that Southern Illinois is not, you know, Real Illinois, or perhaps even Real Rutgers. Also never mind the W follows on the heels of last week's 31-0 splattering of my alma mater, Ball State.

Which got splattered again Saturday by Auburn, 42-3, in another human-sacrifice-for-dollars game. Those of us who have diplomas from BSU will take comfort in the fact that at least the Cardinals scored this time, a sure sign they're improving.*

(*Sarcasm Alert) 

Thing is, in defense of IU and Purdue, this was Cheap Thrills Week for a lot of Power 4 teams. (Notre Dame, the state's other football biggie, had a bye. Reportedly, the Irish were supposed to play the The Little Sisters of the Poor Only Littler And Poorer, but canceled the game because they figured Bye would more boost their strength of schedule.) 

At any rate, there were some truly ridiculous matchups. Ohio State batted Grambling around like a ball of string, 70-0. Florida State edged East Dillon, er, East Texas A&M 77-3. Alabama played with its food against Louisiana-Monroe, 73-0; Texas Tech paved Kan't, er, Kent State, 62-14; Utah tracked mud all over Cal Poly, 63-9; Tennessee staked out East Tennessee State on an anthill, 72-17.

Oh, and Arch Manning, whom everyone declared a generational talent before declaring he was the WORST GENERATIONAL TALENT EVER in that 14-7 loss to Ohio State?

Threw for four touchdowns and ran for another in Texas' 38-7 goring of its live sacrifice, San Jose State. So there, sort of.

"But ... but ... what about South Florida upsetting Florida, Mr. Blob? Or the Ohio University Bobcats upholding the honor of the MAC by taking down West Virginia?" you're saying now.

Only proves that if you play Payola For Patsies often enough, the football gods are going to say "Why the hell are you playing these guys?" and allow These Guys to take a bite out of you.

Otherwise ...

Otherwise, except for the dough (which admittedly is not inconsiderable), what does East A&M get out of being a hot lunch for Florida State? Or Grambling for lying down on the white line and letting Ohio State run over it? Or my alma mater's athletic department for telling the football program, "Quit whining and get your asses down there with the lions. It'll only hurt for awhile, and we need the cash."

And thus the East A&Ms, Gramblings and Ball States wind up with 0-2 starts and, presumably, longer casualty lists than they would have otherwise had this early. 

And what do the Power 4s get out of all this comic opera?

Beats me. Ask Minnesota, which dragged a directional school (Northwestern State) up to Minneapolis so the Golden Gophers could enjoy a 66-0 meal. Or ask Nebraska, which brought Akron in so Big Red could pelt the poor schmucks with corncobs, 68-0.

I fail to see how any of these mismatches advances the development of the muscle programs. Yeah, Purdue is 2-0 under new head coach Barry Odom, but what does that mean? Yeah, the Mendoza-Sarratt connection was dazzling for IU, but against whom? 

I will say this, though: Oregon beat someone 69-3 yesterday, and it wasn't the Oklahoma Institute of Learning How To Type Fast. It was Oklahoma State, a supposedly legit Big 12 school. So at least the Ducks had something to quack about.

Unless.

Unless, of course, that really was the Oklahoma Institute of Learning How To Type Fast, and part of the deal was dressing up as Oklahoma State so everyone would think the Ducks were really, really good.

Instead of, you know, just pretty, pretty good.

Down for the count

 Caitlin Clark officially announced Thursday night she was done for the season, and there goes that fairy tale finish. The force of nature that put the WNBA on the national radar  a year ago chose, along with her team, the force of nurture. 

In other words: Take the rest of the season off, kid. Heal up. Don't hurry back on our account, because our account ain't as hefty as we hoped it would be.

No, it's not. What began with some fairy-tale ruminating -- Can Caitlin lead the beefed-up Fever to the WNBA title in her second year? -- has devolved into a quiet and mostly mundane reality: This Fever team isn't going much of anywhere.

After Clark went down for good on July 15 (although no one knew it would be for good at the time), and her enforcer/sidekick/provocateur Sophie Cunningham went down with a season-ending knee injury, the air went out of all those lofty hopes. Those injuries and a spate of others, the defection of DeWanna Bonner, and head coach Stephanie White's odd periodic absences have resulted in a win-a-couple, lose-a-couple season in which the strobe-lit Fever has become just another .barely-above-.500 basketball team.

They'll likely still make the playoffs, because they still have players: Kelsey Mitchell, Natasha Howard, Aliyah Boston, Lexie Hull. But they're more and more looking like a first-round bow-out, same as last year.

Do you rush Clark back for that?

Absolutely you do not.

So she's done for 2025, and, meanwhile, the league goes on without her drawing power and, frankly, without all the racially-charged they're-pickin'-on-Our Caitlyn noise. Down in Dallas, Paige Bueckers is having a Caitlyn-esque rookie season; if she's not quite the phenomenon Clark was a year ago, she's proving every bit her on-court equal. Aja Thomas and Brianna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu are still around. And Angel Reese is still stirring things up as the semi-official Lightning Rod of Chicago.

In the latest episode of What Angel Craziness Is This, she voiced her frustration in the Chicago Tribune with her miserable Sky, saying the team had to get better players and that they "can't rely" on point guard Courtney Vandersloot to come back from an ACL tear "at the age she's at."  This undoubtedly landed with a booming thud in the Sky locker room, and it got Reese suspended by the ballclub.

So the WNBA still has that going for it, I guess.

As for Clark, her sophomore season wasn't so much a sophomore slump as a sophomore wash. Plagued by both left and right groin injuries and a quad strain, she played in just 13 games, averaging 16.5 points, 8.8 assists and 5.0 rebounds. But she shot just 36 percent from the field and under 30 percent from the 3-point arc, where she made her rep as the Step-Back Logo Three Girl.

In this truncated season, unfortunately, she was more the Step-Back Logo Brick Girl. Or the Damn, She's Hurt Again? Girl.

It was both dismaying and shocking, considering she'd been injury-free at Iowa and in her spectacular rookie season in the Dub. The Blob's pet theory, which is likely as full of sawdust as most pet theories, is that what happened to her this season might have something to do with how hard she worked in the gym to bulk up during the offseason. More muscles, more muscles to strain or pull or tweak.

And, no, I'm not a doctor or a physical therapist or a trainer. I don't even play one on TV.

Sadly, Caitlyn Clark won't be playing a Genuine Phenomenon on TV anymore this year, either. It's the smart play. It's also, needless to say, a damn shame.