March 12, 2019

SportsFilter: The Tuesday Huddle:

A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.

posted by huddle to general at 06:00 AM - 16 comments

Trent Brown has gone from the Patriots to the anti-Patriots. The Raiders are clueless when it comes to money management. They've handed out landmark amounts of money to Gruden, Carr, Antonio and now Trent while enduring severe periodic cash crunches.

Hopefully, this continues long enough to doom Mark Davis, and eventually the league will have to administer the team until a new owner can be found.

Actually, since Davis only holds a controlling interest on a contractual basis not a percentage basis, maybe the league can strong arm him into accepting relegation to minority owner status so a competent majority owner can come in, sift through the rubble and guide the team forward.

posted by beaverboard at 10:21 AM on March 12, 2019

Thought about that AB deal a bit more ...

So AB was pissed in Pittsburgh because he had become 2nd option on pass plays to JuJu Smith-Schuster. He's also 31 and achieved Platinum Diva status a few years back when he decided he didn't need to stay with the team or attend practices and team meetings.

Last year the Raiders traded Amari Cooper and at the time I thought Dallas was getting fleeced as Cooper was a 2nd or 3rd option for the Raiders. Cooper did quite well in Dallas and looks like he is trending upward .. and he's only 24.

Question here is what the hell is Gruden doing? The Raiders are nowhere near being even competitive let alone a playoff team and he's giving big money to a guy who is either at or more likely beyond his prime. Signing AB would be troubling at best even on a team considered a contender. Appears to be a worst to first or bust gamble.

posted by cixelsyd at 11:10 AM on March 12, 2019

If Raiders were cheaping it out, Tampa Bay Rays style, waiting for the Vegas move I could understand it. But throwing out dollars like t-shirts, WTF?

posted by billsaysthis at 11:54 AM on March 12, 2019

I think part of their messed up math is that they are banking on projected revenue from the first few seasons at the Vegas stadium, which they seem to think should be just enough cash and will arrive just in time to prevent them from bursting into financial flames due to the contract decisions they've made up to this point.

If any of the stories claiming that they traded Khalil Mack mainly because they didn't have the means to pay him what he wanted are true, then Davis and Gruden are beyond hopeless.

posted by beaverboard at 12:19 PM on March 12, 2019

NHL investigating use of homophobic slur during Lightning-Leafs game, meanwhile in Salt Lake City ....

posted by tommybiden at 12:51 PM on March 12, 2019

Maple Leafs' Morgan Rielly did not use homophobic slur: NHL

posted by tommybiden at 01:59 PM on March 12, 2019

Is this how Snoop Dogg's kid got to play football for UCLA?

posted by NoMich at 02:28 PM on March 12, 2019

Maple Leafs' Morgan Rielly did not use homophobic slur

NHL's crack audio team has determined that Reilly called the ref a "maggot".

posted by cixelsyd at 02:46 PM on March 12, 2019

NHL's crack audio team has determined that Reilly called the ref a "maggot".

This is even worse. Morgan Reilly is an insectophobe. Shameful behavior this. Maggots are very useful in preventing infection in wounds.

posted by Howard_T at 03:08 PM on March 12, 2019

Is this how Snoop Dogg's kid got to play football for UCLA?

How about Lori Loughlin's daughter being set up to attend USC but she doesn't want the academic experience, she just wants the partying and game days...

...but her father says they want to get her into a school other than ASU.

Yo Dad, don't mess with destiny.

posted by beaverboard at 04:23 PM on March 12, 2019

NHL's crack audio team has determined that Reilly called the ref a "maggot".

In previous incidents, the NHL agreed that Reilly had referred to opponents as "gas holes" and "other suckers", and one linesman as a "sock clucking son of a ditch".

Story checks out.

posted by tahoemoj at 04:28 PM on March 12, 2019

meanwhile in Salt Lake City ....

He gone (for life)

posted by tommybiden at 05:14 PM on March 12, 2019

I believe he also called a guy a mountain forker once

posted by kokaku at 05:28 PM on March 12, 2019

The Rielly thing is a prime example of people leaping to conclusions.

Less than an hour after the game ended, someone had acquired the Tampa Bay broadcast, the Leafs broadcast, and conclusively proved that:

1) That while Rielly says "Fucking..", he definitely isn't the one that says the next word.
2) That the next word wasn't "faggot", but "rag it".

"Rag it" is the term in hockey for wasting time/controlling the puck, which is what the Tampa Bay bench yelled at the player going into the corner to get the puck. They wanted him to wait for the other players to get into the zone because the Leafs took an ill-time line change and stranded Rielly by himself to defend.

Video #1 (listen with ear phones)

Video #2 : where you can hear the bench follow up with "Rag! Rag! Rag!"

It's also ridiculous because if a player actually yelled that at a ref/linesman during a game, he would have immediately gotten (at least) a misconduct penalty. In this case, the official that it was supposedly directed towards didn't even flinch or look at Rielly when the yelling occurred.

Rielly's press conference after the NHL ruled that no slur, by anyone, was said on the ice.

posted by grum@work at 06:20 PM on March 12, 2019

The Rielly thing is a prime example of people leaping to conclusions.

Honestly, I had zero idea what, if anything, Reilly said to the ref, and my post wasn't intended to imply that he used the particular slur in question. I just wanted to point out how ridiculous it is to conclude that he called someone a "maggot". I can see how the audio bled together to combine "fucking..." and "rag it," two actual commonly-heard phrases on the ice. I've never once heard someone call another player a maggot.

I spend a significant amount of time around rinks and on the ice and, sadly, calling someone a "faggot" as a slur is far more common than I would like (which is not at all). I've told a couple of teammates that I'd appreciate them finding a better way to chirp than to blast out homophobic slurs; one caught himself, the other continues.

posted by tahoemoj at 02:23 PM on March 13, 2019

Sorry if I misled folks here, the maggot line was a joke. I listened to the audio and only heard "fucking" while Reilly was looking at the ref. Pretty sure the "fucking" came from Reilly but the "..got" may have come from elsewhere .. it was just before Tampa scored.

In future if I post something and grum replies please take his word. He provides us with facts; my comments are almost always opinions.

posted by cixelsyd at 11:09 PM on March 13, 2019

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