Football helmets are funny because—and this isn’t true, but it’s close enough to being true that we can get a little giggle out of it—they’re excellent at inflicting concussions and terrible at stopping them. The grand joke at the center of football is that the sport has a brain damage problem and, simultaneously, players are wearing things that would have been the best weapons on the market in the middle ages.
I think we need more of them.
Video came out today of Anthony Edwards swinging and/or throwing a chair around in frustration after seeing his season end last night against the Nuggets. That chair hit two Nuggets employees mid-swing–and/or–throw. This, just six months after Davante Adams ran over that cameraman in Kansas City with his body. Clearly, we have a societal problem with athletes exiting the field of play in a manner that leaves everyone around them safe, and Greg Sankey raising the punishment for field-storming isn’t going to save us. No, taking a home game away from Texas A&M isn’t going to keep our hot dog vendors safe. What we need is more helmets.
To be clear, again, this isn’t about protecting noggins. These helmets are not to make sure that the elderly ushers wearing them get out of the stadium without suffering traumatic brain injuries. Well, they are, but not in the protective sense. They’re a deterrent. Because just as you or I are unlikely to hit Davante Adams with a folding chair because he is big and strong and scary, Anthony Edwards would think twice about truck-sticking the child with the big circle mopbroomtowel were that child wearing a helmet. Helmets are terrifying. Helmets are awe-inspiring. Helmets are fun. I’m not totally convinced that the NFL’s primary calling card on its rise to national dominance hasn’t been helmet shininess. Leave a sampler platter of them in front of the student section at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium and you’ll see safety go through the roof. (Also shininess. I know that was a non-sequitur but we need to address the shininess.)
Do Any NBA Social Media Teams Know About Maisie Peters?
A truth over here in our world is that Maisie Peters is incredible. The Next Big Thing in popular music, liable at any moment to drop a Call Me Maybe-level bop, combining Taylor Swift’s talent with stereotypical British cleverness. Anyway, she’s got a song from a few years ago called “Stay Young” (rare song where the acoustic version and the original are different from each other but both great), and whenever Trae Young has a good game I naturally sing “Trae Young” to myself for a second but it feels off, because Trae Young just doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who listens to Maisie Peters. Who’s the kind of guy who listens to Maisie Peters? Well, it seems to be adolescent women, primarily, mostly in England, but also me. And a guy I know from Connecticut who loves musical theatre. Gregory. Good guy. Always looks like he just heard a great secret and can’t wait to share it with someone. He likes cows, too. Great guy, now that I think about it more.
Trae Young not being a Maisie Peters guy wouldn’t be a problem if the Hawks social media team were Maisie Peters people and also had a long leash (necessary because Maisie Peters is still The Next Big Thing and not yet The Big Thing). But one of those two things isn’t true. Which means: No Maisie Peters on NBA socials.
Which team would fix this? Which would right this wrong? The Seattle Kraken. But, of course, the Seattle Kraken aren’t an NBA team. They’re an MLS team masquerading as an NHL team. In the NBA, I’m not sure we have any options. None of the current teams fit the bill, and assuming the next expansion teams are the resurrected Sonics and someone in Las Vegas, neither of those sounds like a good bet. Really, we need a hockey player (or a baseball player—baseball loves power pop) with a name that rhymes with Trying.
Rodgers’s Rebuttal
Well this was mean. I spent a lot of time yesterday writing about how little of a reaction I was having to Aaron Rodgers’s departure, and then he went and wrote me a very nice note.
Not me alone, of course, he also was clearly writing to the guys in the equipment room, but still: Nice note.
This is the thing with Aaron Rodgers. Every now and then he does exactly the thing you want him to do. Every now and then he’s exactly the guy you want the star quarterback to be. Thank goodness he said the thing about making Zach Wilson’s life heaven today so I could bury my confused emotions with snide laughter again.
Reverse! Reverse!
Texas and Michigan were going to play each other in 2024 in Austin and 2027 in Ann Arbor. Then…get this: They switched. Now, they’re going to play in 2024 in Ann Arbor and 2027 in Austin.
This is a good thing, I think. For me, I mean. Who cares about if it’s good for Texas or Michigan? There’s a good chance I’ll be done driving rideshare in 2027, so I won’t have to drive Michigan fans.
NIT History: Dave Odom
We’re hitting the basics of NIT History these days, telling you about Flavor Flav yesterday and now moving on to Dave Odom.
Dave Odom is the Pedro Martinez of NIT coaches. Is he the best of all time? It’s hard to say confidently. Over one small stretch of time, though? Goodness.
It took a while for Odom to figure things out. For seven straight years in the 1990s, his Wake Forest teams played in the NCA* *********t. The man went his first eleven seasons as a head coach without even making an NIT (he did make the NIT quarterfinals as an assistant at Virginia in the 80s). But in an eternal lesson in not giving up, Dave Odom did not give up. In 1998, he finally made the NIT. In 2000, he won it. And when he moved on to South Carolina, he achieved immediate success, making the NIT Championship three times in five years and winning the last two, only the second back-to-back titles in NIT history.
Dave Odom made the NIT six times as a head coach. He made the NIT Championship four times. He won the NIT three times. He did all of that within a span of nine seasons, and he won all three titles in a seven-year span. It was unlike anything we’ve ever seen in college basketball, and it’s likely unlike anything we’ll ever see again. Dave Odom? He was something special.
Today, Odom works with the Maui Invitational, or at least he did as of a few years ago. For a while there, he was also involved with the NIT in an administrative and/or hype capacity, but I don’t think he is anymore. His son, Ryan, is a head coach now himself, but his most noteworthy coaching accomplishment was making the 2022 NIT at Utah State. Besides that, he has really accomplished nothing. Nothing at all. Ryan Odom has made one NIT and the rest of his head coaching career has gone without note.
But hey, Ryan. We’ve got good news. For a long time, your dad hadn’t even made one.
Burnley Won It All
They did it. Burnley is the champions of the Championship.
What do we do now?
The answer, of course, is that we’ll be back in the Premier League next season, but we already knew that. Really, I think we just do the UCF thing and poo-poo whoever wins the EPL.
