Doug Baldwin’s simulated football-pooping cost him $11,025. Marshawn Lynch repeatedly gave money back to league in fines for not speaking with the media. Free speech is a good thing and should be defended in nearly every instance, and in Lynch’s case, I clearly see the point he is making.
But Baldwin’s pantomime loo break turned out to be expensive enough to beg the question,” What's the price of art?”
In this case, it was 11 grand, and it wasn’t very good art. Hope it was worth it.
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The Super Bowl That Won’t Die, well, won’t die. In this case, Bill Belichick explained on his weekly radio show (of course he did it on his weekly radio show) why he didn’t call the time out America demanded of him before Malcolm Butler’s reputation-making interception.
“We put our goal-line defense in probably around the same time they were sending in their multiple receiver group, and that's kind of what we wanted to be in there, to make sure they didn't run the ball in,” he said on WEEI. “I'd like to think had they tried to run the ball against our goal-line defense, with three receivers on the field -- we couldn't ask for any more than that in terms of trying to stop the running game. We saw that match-up and we certainly gave some consideration to taking a timeout there and leaving some time on the clock. I don’t know if that would have been a bad thing to do. It might have been a good thing to do. But it just seemed like in the flow of the game that we were OK with where we were.”
In other words, he played a hunch based on years of experience and a serious set of brass ones. The best coaches get to do that.
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In other post-Super Bowl news, Dallas Cowboy Joseph Randle was busted for weed after police responded to a domestic violence call at a hotel.
In other post-Super Bowl news, Indianapolis Colt D’Qwell Jackson was arrested for punching out a pizza delivery man in a fight over a parking space.
In other post-Super Bowl news, Green Bay Packer Letroy Guion was arrested for possession of less than a pound of weed, a gun and over $190,000 in cash.
Not to judge, but combating boredom seems to be increasingly difficult for the modern football player.
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The Cleveland Browns have apparently been caught texting the sidelines during games this past year, and among the potential sanctions are a suspension for general manager Ray Farmer, who was texting quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains about quarterback play, personnel decisions and second-guessing; lost draft picks or fines.
Me, I’d support Farmer being suspended –- from a stadium overhang. I mean, second-guessing your coaches? That’s OUR job, you swine.
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Jim Boeheim will be everywhere this March, now that Syracuse has announced a postseason ban for its basketball team as a reaction to an ongoing NCAA investigation. In other words, if you liked him before, he’ll be on all day every day for some network during the NCAA Tournament. And if you didn’t, he’ll be on all day every day for some network during the NCAA Tournament.
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Baseball Prospectus has projected the 2015 baseball season so you don’t have to bother. It has both the Giants and A’s at 84-78, with the A’s out of the playoffs and the Giants hosting San Diego in the Wild Card game. As for the Kansas City Royals . . . they get to have the third-worst record in baseball, so if you decided for some ill-begotten reason to hate the Royals, you get to luxuriate in the notion that imaginary standings weren’t kind to them.
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Speaking of BP, its new annual book, which is thick enough to crush your hamster, is out, and here are the important thoughts on the Giants from Grant Brisbee of SB Nation and McCovey Chronicles, and the A’s from Philip Michaels, whose worked for a lot of things.
First, Brisbee: “It’s elegant and oafish at the same time. The 2014 Giants won the World Series and I’m not sure how they did it. They did it because of talent, unless they did it because of luck. It’s Schrodinger’s Championship, everyone. Just don’t open the box, and we’ll all have a much greater understanding of all of this.”
Now, Michaels: “It’s hard to approach the coming season without sensing a 2007-8 vibe to the whole affair. The A’s came off a postseason run in 2006 . . . and returned much of the same cast of characters, but neither their heralded youngsters nor their seemingly canny free-agent signings panned out and they finished 18 games out of first place. Soon enough established stars were peddled as part of the latest round of rebuilding for a better tomorrow. That tomorrow wouldn’t come until 2012.”
So Schrodinger’s Cat meets despair. Yay team!
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Oh, and there’s this on a noteworthy Dodger, from Molly Knight. “What can be said about (Clayton) Kershaw that hasn’t already been said about bacon, sex and baseball?”
Drop your laptop, Knight, and walk off stage right. You win the afternoon.
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And finally, here’s to National Signing Day. Hope all the people out there who made up lists of four-star, five-star, nine-star and all-galaxy recruits they never saw play will be keeping track of the four-star, five-star, nine-star and all-galaxy players they never saw play who end up having their scholarships pulled because of next year’s crop of four-star- five-star, nine-star and all-galaxy players they never will see.
In other words, National Signing Day is a total and utter creepshow and always will be.
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