Sydney's Sports Stories

"If you ain't first, you're last"- Ricky Bobby

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The Game is now just a Game

The University of Michigan and the Ohio State University, a rivalry that carries weight no matter where you travel in the Nation. This is a game between the two of the first collegiate athletic departments in the nation starting in 1897 and has been held every year since 1900. The game has always been intense until here recently. 

The Game as it has become to be known has become kind of uneventful and blow outs here recently. The last 20 years of the game Ohio State has won 17 times and 8 straight. The game while circled on the schedules of both teams has pretty much become just a foregone conclusion. Michigan has had teams close in terms of talent to Ohio State but have not been competitive in the game. Can you really call a game a rivalry if it has been one-sided and unexciting to watch. 

Now this may not carry much weight if it was coming from an Ohio State fan and using it as a way to diss the Wolverines, but I am a Michigan fan. I despise the day when it comes and hate the weeks leading up to the game knowing it is going to be a letdown. It’s really unfortunate that this game has become so one-sided, especially with them being led for the majority of the latest losing streak by a coach that has constantly evaded NCAA infractions at his previous institutions (Utah & Florida), and while at Ohio State his final year was marred with Spousal Abuse and Neglect from members of his staff. The value of the game has been cheapened and until it can be competitive again the rivalry should be just called a game.

Photo Credit: MLive.com

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The right to bear helmets

Myles Garrett was suspended indefinitely this past week after a melee during the Thursday Night Football tilt between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns. While spats are not uncommon when it comes to division rivals and entire season efforts are on the line, this one was more violent than those we have seen in recent memory. Myles Garrett used his Mason Rudolph’s helmet as a weapon trying to strike him in the head. While, I would never condone using your helmet or your opponents helmet as a weapon, but it has become more evident that Myles a normally docile and composed man was provoked. 

Myles while known from his appearances on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” he is kind of an introvert and quiet, the artistic type that listens to smooth jazz and old mo-town. That is what is so disturbing about this incident that Myles Garrett this smart-even keel man utterly snapped and violent. While the game of football is violent this was a rarely crossed threshold that recent memory, one must look at the seconds before the skirmish, We see Mason Rudolph the Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback on the ground with Garrett on top of him from a hit he took on the play. Rudolph attempting to pull the helmet off of Garrett thus provoking him and Rudolph attempting to kick Garrett in a delicate area. Once the two are separated Garrett grabs Rudolph's helmet and seems to be walking away from the fight. Then Rudolph charges towards Garrett when the helmet swinging incident insues. 

As a result multiple players were fined thousands of dollars, and players were suspended. Garrett is going to be suspended for the remainder of the season at a minimum but considered indefinite and could extend into next year. Maurkice Pouncey was suspended for 3 games for protecting his quarterback, and one other browns player was suspended for one game based on his implications in the altercation. Finally, the most shocking was that the aggressor of the whole incident Mason Rudolph only received a fine for his involvement. So as Myles Garrett is not playing for the remainder of the season Mason Rudolph will be under center next week and try to right the Pittsburgh Steelers into a Potential Wild Card Spot.

Photo Credit: AP News

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Learning a little more

This week is about learning a little more about why I write what I write. Below you will find questions and my answers. 

Q: What was your goal of writing this sports blog? How did you want to accomplish this goal

A: As someone who grew up around sports and being involved in the sports medicine aspect of it. I felt as though I could give a unique perspective as not someone who was an athlete but was surrounded by athletes. I really wanted to try to bridge that gap from casual viewers of games to know the underlying story lines of the athletes and the teams. I really think that my experiences can lend to that extremely well.

Q: What got you passionate about sports? Why did you want to talk about the underlying story lines of your blog.

A: Well for me sports is a family thing, I have my mom who has been a die hard Michigan Wolverines fan that really introduced me into the sport of football, and really the sporting world. But after that introduction I found the experience, the ups and downs, the edge of your seat moments to be completely intoxicating. To know the strategy of the game, and the execution could ultimately lead to the happiness or in some cases the depression of hundreds of thousands of people. The passion I have is shared by so many and its almost like you are apart of a clan, a tribe, or a family of your favorite teams.

Q: What are your future goals for the sports blog? What is it that Sydney Brown has not accomplished yet that she wants to do?

A: Well its funny to think about but I really want to step outside the world of football that I seem to be living in right and touch on different sports. I want to study different games and understand the nuances of it all and open my blog up to different readers, with different sports interest. Additionally, I would like to step outside of the pro game and touch on what is happening at the college level. There have been some outstanding stories that have come to fruition in just the last two weeks; The NCAA allowing athletes to be paid for likeness and name, Chase Young widely regarded as the best player in college was suspended for accepting and repaying a personal loan, or P.J. Fleck getting a 7 year extension days prior to beating the #4 ranked Penn State Nittany Lions. I just do not want to be pigeon-holed to being a pro football writer with so much more happening.

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The Emergence of Lamar Jackson

Lamar Jackson is quickly taking the NFL by storm and putting up constant performances that are quickly entering him in the MVP conversations. His rise to notoriety is proving Draft Pundits wrong and completely redefining how the quarterback position could be played in the Modern day game. He has lead his team to beating the undefeated New England Patriots on Sunday Night Football. This was the statement win the naysayers were waiting to see.

With the win over the patriots he has led his team to division leading record and a 2 game lead on the season. Many members of the media said Jackson would only make it as a wide receiver or a running back, which is a stereotype that seems to be tagged to black athletic quarterbacks. We have seen this happen before with Braxton Miller, Terrelle Pryor, Devin Gardner all excellent quarterbacks in college but relegated to a wide receiver because of their athletic prowess. But we are seeing Lamar Jackson be a successful passer, while using his athletic gifts to being on pace to break the NFL record for rushing for a quarterback. What he has done this season is reminiscent of a quarterback that came before him Michael Vick, and the one before Randall Cunningham. He alone is quickly changing the preception of dual threat quarterbacks in the league. While leaning further into his gifts he is paving the way for the next generation of athletic black quarterbacks.

Photo Credit: USA Today

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1, 2, 3 strikes they’re out and a trip to the World Series.

The end is near as World Series baseball comes into play on Tuesday October 22nd. Leading up to this teams have fought for that top spot. In a long series of games we have finally reached our two teams.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. ST. LOUIS CARDINALS

In just a short 4 game sweep, the Washington Nationals beat the St. Louis Cardinals. The Nationals have won the NLCS division and are headed to the world series. The only concern with the Nationals sweeping the Cardinals is that the Nationals have been known the loose a time or 2 after sweeping a team. The main concern is that the Nationals pulled off their win too fast and will have too much down time and won’t be prepared for the big first game. 

THE NEW YORK YANKEES vs. THE HOUSTON ASTROS

In a longer stint of games the Astros beat out the Yankees. This series went into 6 games. The Yankees came out strong in their first game and slowly dwindled through the rest of the series. The Astros ending the series in game 6 becoming the ALCS champions. The Astros held strong leads over the Yankees for most of the series. The Astros have recently won a world series back in 2017. They have also won multiple division titles over the past few years.

IN THE END EVERYTHING MATTERS

On October 22nd we can look forward to the first game of the World Series. As the Astros and Nationals battle head to head we look forward to an evenly matched series. As mentioned earlier the Nationals have time against them. Their down time over the last week is a major concern. The Astros may have the upper hand. The Astros are starting Gerrit Cole who hasn’t lost a game since May 22nd. Overall, the series seems to be an even match. Lets hope its entertaining enough to last longer than 4 games. 

Photo Credit: Fox News and CNN

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99 problems and a referee is one

Well it is the buzz around the horn, ESPN, Fox Sports 1, Radio, TV, Podcast all of them are talking about the egregious screw ups that happened on the Nationally Televised game between the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions. Now everywhere you will hear about specific examples of blown pass interference, illegal hands to the face, or missed holding calls that the green bay offensive tackles seem to get away with each week.

I want to talk about the larger issue here that the NFL will be facing, something that is just below the surface of the regular flag calls and non-calls. The NFL has a referee problem, in the following areas: Talent, Retention, and Tampering.

The first two can be easily attributed to them undervaluing their officials, and not developing new talent to take the place of an aging referee population. The lack of a feeder program for officials and mentorship for up and coming officials.

The other issue is that the league’s top officials are being poached by the networks and being offered more money for doing the same amount of work. Each week on the broadcast we hear from Dean Blandino, Joe Steratore, and others that were once the top officials for the league. Also it is worth noting that these officials are not full time officials many have regular 9-5 jobs like everyone else and just referee for the most profitable pro sports league in the world.

Now the final point will make me sound like I need to be wearing a tin foil hat, and telling the truth about the secrets of Area 51. But I think after some of the recent events that league has experienced with the Saints and now the Lions should the league start looking at potential gambling implications and how their refs are handling the games?

I know it sounds extremely farfetched but the NBA has already experienced this with their officials actually impacting the game to hit points spreads and fixing them for the mafia, this has been covered in great detail in this article by Scott Eden of ESPN (See Below). With the many states legalizing sports gambling the chances for impropriety and unethical behavior is growing. I truly believe that NFL going forward needs to be treading this water carefully.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25980368/how-former-ref-tim-donaghy-conspired-fix-nba-games

Photo Credit: Bleacher Report

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So long, Joe

As baseball season comes to a close, many team are fighting for that spot to play in the World Series. Once teams start to fall from that top spot a lot of cuts start coming along to different organizations. One of the biggest cuts so far this season is the Chicago Cubs manager, Joe Maddon. Maddon has been with the Cubs for 5 years. In that 5 years he has led the Cubs to multiple victories. Under Maddon’s reign the Cubs had 4 straight playoff appearances, 3 straight NLCS (National League Championship Series) appearances, Maddon won manager of the year in 2015, and finally the Cubs won the World Series in 2016. This year the Cubs didn’t make it to the playoffs which was disappointing to the organization. When news broke that the Cubs had let Maddon go it wasn’t a surprise to many. Theo Epstein, President of the Cubs organization, and Joe Maddon had mutually agreed that Maddon wouldn’t be returning to the team in 2020. Maddon hopes to continue managing at another organization for the 2020 season. The Cubs currently stand without a manager. There are rumors going around that David “Grandpa Rossy” Ross, who is a former catcher for the Cubs, is interested in taking that manager roll.

Photo Credit: CBS Sports

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The Antonio Brown Saga

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about what Antonio Brown’s legacy would be after his release from the Raiders, and signing with the Patriots. Antonio had a promising debut with the New England Patriots in week 2 against the Miami Dolphins where he went for over 130 yards receiving and caught a touchdown. With his skill set he had all the makings to be the best wide receiver the league had ever seen. But he seems to be the only person standing in his own way. He just recently had a second sexual assault allegation put against him and he was released from the New England Patriots. After his release rather than showing any humility and saving face, he lashed out at his second accuser in a string of borderline incoherent text messages. To top it off he has even taken to Twitter to criticize the owners in the NFL, Robert Kraft, and his accusers, and eventually announced that he would no longer be playing in the NFL. His actions remind me of a fired employee, that says they quit when their friends asked why they no longer work there, even though they know they were a terrible employee. It appears as of now Antonio’s legacy has already been written and stained by his own poor judgement. As a fan of the NFL, this is a sad chapter of a promising start, coming to a seemingly woeful and questionable end.

Photo Credit: USA Today

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Eddy “Dinero” Pineiro

For fans of the Chicago bears today they are feeling vindicated. They are feeling absolved from a heartbreaking loss that is echoed by the two words uttered from Chris Collinsworth’s voice “Double-Doink”. Last year in the NFC wild card game of the NFL Playoffs the Chicago Bears were sent home in a heartbreaking fashion. Their who at the beginning of the 2018 NFL season was thought to be the rope to pull them from their pit of kicking misery that they have been in since the release of fan favorite Robbie Gould. Cody Parkey was the savior from Florida and he quickly displayed he was not the man we thought he was and wildly inaccurate, actually hitting the uprights of the field goal post multiple times. It became wildly obvious he would be the downfall of this team. On that cold January night in the NFC wild card game he truly outdid himself and managed to miss a 43 yard field goal and hit the left upright and the crossbar as time expired on the clock to bounce the Chicago Bears from the playoffs. To add insult to injury the day after destroying the hopes of the Midway, Cody Parkey went to New York to appear on Good Morning America to talk about his missed field goal. To fans it seemed like he was wearing it as almost a badge of honor. To the organization they were also upset by his performance and post game antics. They decided they would rather pay him the remainder of his contract money to not play for them. He was so bad that the Chicago Bears agreed to pay Cody Parkey $5 million dollars to just not work their anymore. This left the Bears with the heartburn of not winning in the playoffs, and having to endure longer into the pit of kicking misery that the South Beach Savior was supposed to be their life line.

This off-season for the Bears news around them was entirely quiet except for one position, that's right the Kicker position. The Bears took a completely unorthodox approach to finding their new kicker. They invited over 10 kickers to compete for the job. They used the haunting memories of the 43 yard “Double Doink” and a strange set of circumstances to identify and find their new kicker. During the final stages of the competition Chicago made a trade with the Oakland Raiders for a young unheralded kicker named Eddy Pineiro who also hails from Florida. Oakland agreed to send the strong legged kicker to Chicago for a conditional seventh round pick (meaning that if he did not make the team for Chicago he would not cost the bears the seventh round pick). This trade was for proverbial peanuts in the NFL, meaning he would not cost anything if he was not very good. Piniero was cast aside, given away for nothing that gave him a chip on his shoulder as he stated in interviews and it gave him the swagger that Chicago adored. He eventually went on to win the kicking competition beating out the other 11 kickers.

Since wining the kicking job Eddie Piniero has been perfect in the first game and the second game. However, it was what happened with one second on the clock and 53 yards from the goal post that absolved the city of Chicago, cast a life ring into the pit of despair they have toiled in for 5 years. He hit a game winning field goal to lift the Chicago Bears over the Denver Broncos. This type of clutch effort is not something the team has seen since the years of Robbie Gould, Paul Edinger, and Kevin Butler. But for the time being it seems all wrongs have been righted for the Bears, and they finally have the Special Teams Ace they have hungered for. The legend of Eddy “Dinero” Pineiro is growing and the young confident kicker is Chicago’s golden child among the ranks of Toews, Kane, Baez, and Mack until his next kick.

Photo Cred

Top- NBC Sports 

Bottom- AP Photo/David Zalubowski

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The Antonio Brown Saga

The story throughout all of the preseason and training camp has not been the story of the un-drafted rookie defying the odds and making the game day 53 man roster. But instead it has been dominated by the absence of many high profile starters. Whether that because of players not showing up because of money and contract terms, or young superstar retiring in their prime. But the most peculiar of the off season stories has been of the Oakland Raiders star wide receiver Antonio Brown.

Antonio was disgruntled with his previous team and forced his way out of Pittsburgh via a trade to the Oakland Raiders. Oakland gave the Steelers a 3rd and 5th round pick for a 31 year old wide out, as well as making him one of the highest players in the league. He stated he wanted to go to a “winner” organization and had many suitors from a new home besides the Raiders including the New England Patriots. The marriage between the team and the player started out as many do in the Honeymoon stage and they were both boasting about being together on social media. 

Reports came out that Antonio Brown suffered frostbite on his feet from a cryogenic therapy mishap. Where he neglected to follow instructions on proper use of the therapy and caused him to miss portion of training camp. 

Once that was healed he was met with another setback refusing to play without a helmet that had been banned by the NFL and filed three grievances and lost and left training camp. He was fined for his absences from camp and missing team meetings that he took to Instagram to complain about the fines and how the Raiders were trying to paint him into the villain. 

While all of this was going on social media was set ablaze of people trying to find a reason for his actions and why his seemingly illogical actions sent him to giving up $29,000,000.00. The explanations ranged from him having CTE (the neurodegenerative disease that has been a hot button issue for former players) after a vicious hit from his now teammate Vonteze Burfict, Conspiracy of collusion between him and members of the patriots, to mental illness (similar to that had plagued former players like Brandon Marshall and Johnny Manziel). 

What I truly believe is the reasoning behind Antonio Brown's actions are he is selfish and justifiably that way. Everyone close to him have stated that his demeanor and attitude changed after taking the vicious from Burfict that was mentioned earlier. I believe that this was the first time he realized how delicate his career was in the NFL. 

After he was knocked out of the game by Burfict, the game did not stop, the team did not flounder, and the game rolled on. He figured out he was replaceable, exchangeable, not bigger than the game itself. As young stud athlete who had not been injured prior to that hit, it changed his perspective. From that point on he decided he was not going to be a team player but look out for his own legacy and his career. 

Unfortunately, his actions to getting what he wanted to play for a winner like New England has cheapened his legacy. He left large amounts of money to chase championships and made himself look foolish in the process. As of Monday he is a member of New England Patriots and only time will tell if his legacy will be remembered by his actions this summer or if he will be remembered as one of the best ever to play his position.