Hear Me Out...NBA wading into troubled waters

When the Jags Jalen Ramsey requested a trade at the end of Week 2, all the NFL guys lost their minds and were claiming the NFL was turning into the NBA. Obviously, it was an overreaction because there are plenty of cases with NFL superstars demanding a trade. It’s just a superstar thing.

It was weird that Hall of Famer Steve Young, who was one of the first to go in on this NFL-NBA comp, forgot about Joe Montana demanding a trade after the Niners chose him over Montana. Just goes to show recency bias is a real thing. 

Anyways, of the two leagues, the NBA is closer to being the NFL than the other way around. And this is mostly due to the NBA’s new tampering punishments that are going to put them in a tough spot if they actually have to enforce them.

It’s just like the NFL with Roger Goodell and his Hardy boy attitude with investigations. All it has done is led to one gaffe after another. And now the NBA with commissioner Adam Silver, are putting themselves in the same position of investigating things that are out of their element.

A quick refresher on what brought these changes to the NBA, basically, there were a lot of superstar free agents up for grabs this offseason and some high-profile teams lost out on those superstars, and that’s why we have new tampering punishments.

So the Celtics, Lakers and Knicks lose out on this year’s major free agents and now we have dumb tampering punishments that no one is going to be able to prove. For a league that loves to be ahead of the curve and/or innovative, this is probably the dumbest move the NBA has made since changing the game ball over 13 years ago.

How are Silver and the gang going to enforce these punishments? They’re not going to have a Magic Johnson shouting to the heavens about Paul George on Jimmy Kimmel Live! situation fall into their laps every time. 

These harsher punishments feel like lip service from the NBA but say they do start cracking down on tampering. All they’re going to do is make this go even more underground. No one will drop a dime on anyone because you know if they do, they’re blackballed from the league, whether they be an agent or someone in the front office person. They’ll go from working in the NBA to managing an insurance branch.

The relationships between agents and front office are deep and intertwined and to prevent tampering, you’d have to blow the whole thing up. If the league is that serious about eliminating tampering, make it so that all deals have to go through the league office. Agents would no longer have to the ability to talk with teams without the league being present or knowing about said talks.  

Now, no team would ever agree to that because it would limit their ability to tamper. 

This summer was an outlier and honestly not that bad, but because it happened to the wrong people, it’s this supposed huge problem. It’s like here in Wyoming, when the 4A schools want something changed, even though it doesn’t benefit and kind of hurts the 3A, 2A or 1A schools, it gets done and everyone else has to live with it.

The tampering thing is way overblown and the result of a few poor sport front office executives. But if the NBA is serious about cracking down on this tampering it’s only going to lead to botched investigation after botched investigation. 

NFL WEEK 3 AND EMMY THOUGHTS

AB

So it turns out Antonio Brown is not well and needs help. I hope he gets better soon and wish him the best. 

I MIGHT BE WRONG 

Daniel Jones tore it up in Week 3. I made fun of the Giants for taking him at No. 6 overall because statistically, he was the worst QB of the 2019 class. I might be wrong about Jones entirely. 

Taking him at No. 6 is still easy to make fun of because other than the Giants, there wasn’t a team who was going to take him in the first round. At worst Giants GM David Gettleman could have spent the sixth pick on LB Josh Allen and still taken Jones with their No. 17 pick. The Giants defense is trash and Allen would have helped that unit out. But I’m not going to complain because Allen has been a beast for the Jags this season.

If Jones can sustain this I was clearly wrong about him but let’s see him play against defenses that are not playing soft zone for the entire second half.

CAM’S DAYS NUMBERED IN CAROLINA

Washed away in all the Daniel Jones hype, was how good Kyle Allen looked for the Panthers. And of the new starting QBs in Week 3, I thought he was the best. I get that Arizona isn’t the hardest of defenses to burn but the throws and reads he made were impressive. His second TD pass to TE Greg Olsen was terrific. His first read was to Curtis Samuel out in the flat which was covered-ish. He could have forced it but instead went to his second read, which was Olsen running along the back of the endzone and delivered a perfect ball with pressure in his face.

If Allen keeps it up, Cam, sadly, might be done in Carolina. 2020 is the final year of his deal and the Panthers could cut him with only $2 million accounting toward their cap space. I don’t think they’ll do that but I think they’ll trade him and there will be a market for him. Looking at you Chicago.

PACKERS OFFENSE

Everyone is desperate to create a divide between Aaron Rodgers and head coach Matt LaFleur. Rodgers accidentally brushes against LaFleur and it’s, “Watch Rodgers viciously hit coach Matt LaFleur!” Rodgers yells at LaFleur during the game, even though this happens all the time with star QBs and head coaches, “Rodgers berates LaFleur on the sideline; LaFleur files HR compliant against star QB.” Rodgers high-fives LaFleur after a win, “Rodgers passive-aggressively congratulates coach after third-straight victory.” It’s all very dumb. 

The Packers offense is coming along and going to take off soon enough. Once it does, all you’re going to be hearing is how do you beat the Packers?

KITCHENS

Legitly, Freddie Kitchens might get fired before Washington’s Jay Gruden. Sunday night vs. the Rams was a disaster. The draw and fourth-and-long was dumb, running all fly routes when your line can’t block for longer than two seconds is a head-scratcher but the worst of his bad decisions was wasting a timeout.

Somehow with all the flubs the Browns were only down seven and had the ball at the Rams four-yard-line with 37 seconds left and all their timeouts. What does Kitchens do? He burns a timeout and draws up a terrible play. 

If the Browns don’t burn that timeout, Baker doesn’t have to force that throw that got picked off. They turn the ball over on downs and still have a shot at winning the game, slim but it’s still something. 

THE EMMYS

GoT winning Best Drama this year is another hit to the Emmy’s rep. The greatest show in TV history, The Wire, only picked up two nominations for Best Drama and never won. 

I love Game of Thrones, it’s one of my Top 10 All-Time favorite shows, but they did not deserve to win Best Drama. The season was a mess after the second episode. Visually it was spectacular but narratively it was so forced and rushed it brought the entire season down. I loved how they ended it, with exception to Bran, but getting there wasn’t good or satisfying from a show that had set such a high bar. 

Season Eight of GoT was basically a high-rent Michael Bay production. And even though you’re high-rent Michael Bay, you’re still Michael Bay.