Tag: 2020

Steelers’ HOF safety returning to Pittsburgh in Week 11

2020 Hall of Fame inductee S Donnie Shell has been confirmed to be in attendance for Pittsburgh’s Week 11 contest against Baltimore.

Plenty of familiar faces have returned to the city of Pittsburgh this season to watch their former team and participate in pre-game tailgate activities with fans. Former Steelers such as WR Antonio Brown, RB Le’Veon Bell, and K Jeff Reed have all attended the Terrible Tailgate—an amazing fan-organized tailgate experience for the Pittsburgh Steelers. 

On social media, the Terrible Tailgate has announced that on November 17th, Week 11’s home game versus the Baltimore Ravens, the game will feature an extra special guest for fans to meet—2020 Hall of Fame safety Donnie Shell. 

While initially teasing the mystery HOF guest, the Terrible Tailgate provided fans with exactly who the Steelers legend in question is through the ticket sales information.

Shell was a vital part of the legendary Steel Curtain defense in the 1970s, helping the team win four Super Bowl during his tenure with the team.  Donnie ‘Torpedo’ Shell was one of the hardest-hitting safeties the NFL has ever seen, and is beloved to Pittsburgh fans all over the world.

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Looking at the Lions radical roster overhaul from the 2020 finale to now

Looking at the Detroit Lions radical roster overhaul from the 2020 finale to now, where only 2 starters remain with the team and almost no defensive players are still in the NFL

When the 2020 season ended and Lions owner Sheila Hamp kicked off the franchise overhaul, the team was in a very bad place. Radical changes needed to happen to everything, from the front office to the coaching staff, right down to almost every player in the starting lineup.

It took a little time, but that humiliating end to the Bob Quinn/Matt Patricia regime (they were fired before the end of the 2020 season) is but a distant memory in Detroit. The Lions are coming off the best season in the Super Bowl era and first-ever NFC North division title in 2023.

To get an idea of just how far the franchise has come, it’s worth a look back down to the bottom of the barrel that was the 2020 campaign. That year finished with a 5-11 record and a point differential of -142, the worst for any Detroit team since the 2009 season that kicked off a prior, failed rebuild.

This was the starting lineup in the final game of the 2020 season, a 37-35 loss in Ford Field to the Minnesota Vikings. First, the offense and where they are now

2020 finale – offense

QB – Matthew Stafford (Rams)

RB – D’Andre Swift (Bears)

TE – T.J. Hockenson (Vikings)

LT – Taylor Decker (Lions)

LG – Jonah Jackson (Rams)

C – Frank Ragnow (Lions)

RG – Oday Aboushi (FA)

RT – Halapoulivaati Vaitai (FA)

WR – Marvin Jones (retired)

WR – Mohamed Sanu (retired)

WR – Jamal Agnew (FA)

Decker and Ragnow, the Lions’ first-round picks in 2016 and 2018, respectively, are the only offensive starters still in Detroit. Both are coming off exceptional 2023 campaigns.

Detroit traded away Stafford, Hockenson and Swift–all before the 2023 season. Jackson left as a free agent after the ’23 campaign, in which he was the Lions’ regular starting left guard. Vaitai was on injured reserve in 2023 and is presumed to be retired, while Aboushi was not on any roster last season.

Of the depth players who saw action in that 2020 finale on offense, only Dan Skipper remains with the Lions. The reserve OL left Detroit for two other teams in the stead but returned, too. In fact, no other Lion who appeared on offense in that game was with the team after the 2022 season.

Defense

Spoiler alert: None of the players here are left in Detroit. In fact, only two of the starters were still with the Lions in 2023–and neither started last year.

DL – Danny Shelton

DL – John Penisini

DL – Nick Williams

OLB – Romeo Okwara

OLB – Christian Jones

LB – Jahlani Tavai

LB – Reggie Ragland

CB – Darryl Roberts

CB – Amani Oruwariye

S – Duron Harmon

S – Tracy Walker

As of July 6th, only Tavai (Patriots) and Oruwariye (Jaguars) are on any NFL rosters, though Walker is a free agent still looking. Nearly all the other defensive players have retired.

Reserve LB Jalen Reeves-Maybin is still with Detroit, though he spent one season with the Houston Texans before returning to the Lions. Reserve safety C.J. Moore missed the 2023 season due to a gambling suspension and was released, but he’s now efforting a return on the Lions roster for 2024. Of the other reserves from that game, only Will Harris (now in New Orleans) was with the Lions after 2021.

It’s no wonder the 2021 season was a rough one for Detroit. Pretty much everything except the core offensive line had to go–and did. GM Brad Holmes, head coach Dan Campbell and their staff had almost nothing to work with on defense, and needed to move on from valuable offensive players like Stafford and Hockenson for the greater good.

On this day: NBA suspends season following Rudy Gobert’s positive COVID-19 test in OKC

What was your initial reaction to the Thunder’s home game against the Jazz being postponed?

On this day three years ago, Oklahoma City set off a chain reaction that led to the United States essentially shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On March 11, 2020, the NBA postponed the Utah Jazz vs. Oklahoma City Thunder game due to Rudy Gobert testing positive for COVID-19. Gobert was the first known NBA player to test positive for the virus.

Later that night, the league suspended its season. In the following days, sport leagues throughout the country followed suit. They either suspended or canceled their seasons.

The Thunder entered that date just one game behind the Jazz for a top-four seed in the Western Conference standings. It was billed as a critical game for OKC’s chances of earning homecourt advantage in the playoffs with roughly a month left in the regular season.

The league resumed its season five months later on July 30 in a bubble environment at Disney World in Florida. The Thunder were one of the 22 teams invited to the bubble, and teams weren’t allowed to leave it until their season concluded.

The league scheduled eight regular-season games for all 22 teams and also introduced the play-in tournament concept during the bubble.

The Thunder’s season ended in a Game 7 loss of their first-round series against the Houston Rockets. The only Thunder players remaining from that roster are Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Dort.

Following their exit, the Thunder blew up their roster and shifted to development mode. Chris Paul was traded to the Phoenix Suns. Steven Adams was traded to the New Orleans Pelicans. Dennis Schroder was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers and Danilo Gallinari signed a deal with the Atlanta Hawks. The Thunder also changed head coaches, going from Billy Donovan to Mark Daigneault.

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How many offensive snaps have the Dolphins lost this offseason?

How many offensive snaps have the Dolphins lost this offseason?

The Miami Dolphins have the opportunity this season to take a major step forward in their production and play — the team is loaded with young talent and appears to have upgraded significantly at a slew of positions across the roster. Entering into Year 3 of the Chris Grier & Brian Flores era leaves the Dolphins with their most gifted roster yet; but also affords the team with a new opportunity with something they haven’t had much of thus far into the team’s rebuilding effort:

Continuity.

The Dolphins spent the first 18 months of their season churning the roster to try to find diamonds in the rough amid an evaluation season in 2019. But now the team appears to have identified some long-term cornerstones and stocked the roster with hand-picked talent. That doesn’t necessarily mean the team is going to retain every player from here on out, but the mass exodus of talent appears to have come and gone.

So with that in mind, how much did the Dolphins lose offensively this offseason? Improved play here is a big point of emphasis for Miami this year: finding more consistent and productive play when they’ve got the football. The continuity should help.

Miami, excluding transactions mid-season, lost nearly 3,100 offensive snaps (3,073). Those departures include:

  • iOL Ted Karras – 1,067 snaps
  • OG Ereck Flowers (trade) – 856
  • QB Ryan Fitzpatrick – 496
  • WR Isaiah Ford – 374 
  • RB Matt Breida – 151 
  • RB DeAndre Washington – 77
  • OT Julie’n Davenport – 52

This list does not, of course, include players like Chandler Cox, Jordan Howard and Antonio Callaway, who where cut before the end of the regular season. If you’re willing to exclude the departures at guard and center between Karras and Flowers, Miami’s losses from a snap perspective are quite negligible. The team transitioned away from QB Ryan Fitzpatrick mid-season and his departure, which was very much imminent, may arguably be the biggest shift and change for the team.

The Dolphins will need to find competent play at center but should feel good about their effort to upgrade Flowers; who was a first-year free agent addition but a limited player that Miami did well to fill the role in 2020 before being traded back to Washington.

How does 3,100 snaps lost stack up to the league? Some teams, including the Detroit Lions, Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs, Las Vegas Raiders and Houston Texans, lost in excess of 4,000+ snaps this offseason as of April. So while there’s plenty of change, it isn’t nearly up to the peaks of others across the league.

Texas had the best year of athletics in the nation for 2020-21, here is where each team finished

Texas’ athletic program was the best of the best for the 2020-21 season.

Under athletic director Chris Del Conte, Texas’ athletics department as a whole has seen exuberating success. As of recently, they’ve shown why Texas is one of the top institutions both athletically and academically.

In 2018-19, the Longhorns finished fourth in the Learfield IMG College Director’s Cup standings, which is a competition that is based off how all collegiate sports teams finish their season.

That was their highest finish in the national all-sports rankings since 2005-06, but Del Conte and the program have hit a new high. For the first time ever, the Longhorns have won the Director’s Cup. In doing so, they have also become the first school outside of Stanford to win it since 1994.

How dominant was Texas sports throughout the 2020-21 season? The Longhorns recorded three NCAA Championships, the most by Texas since the 1989-90 season. On top of that, they took home 13 Big 12 conference titles.

If you were to add in Texas’ football program from the 2020 season to the list above, who although underwhelmed from an expectations standpoint, it’d be another top 25 finish at No. 19 overall.

With the baseball season ending just days ago, we now know where each respective Texas program finished amongst their peers for the 2020-21 season. Let’s take a look at where each program finished the season and played a large part in Texas winning the Director’s Cup.

Roy Philpott: Notre Dame’s goal ‘is to not be an ACC football member’

Another media figure believes Notre Dame’s independence is safe.

The more time passes, the less likely it appears the proposed College Football Playoff revamp will push Notre Dame toward a conference. After initial speculation that ACC membership was coming, more recent talk indicates that the Irish will keep their independence. Among the latest to join that chorus is Roy Philpott of ESPN. Appearing on the podcast “Gramlich and Mac Lain”, Philpott expressed confidence that the Irish do not wish to join the ACC for football:

At first glance, it’s still crazy to think the Irish willingly would give up the opportunity to ever have a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff. However, further study of the situation shows that they might not have been so tone-deaf in their approach to this after all. It’s become more obvious that 2020 was an anomaly and not a precursor. Normalcy is making its way back, and that includes an independent Notre Dame.

Roy Philpott: Notre Dame’s goal ‘is to not be an ACC football member’

Another media figure believes Notre Dame’s independence is safe.

The more time passes, the less likely it appears the proposed College Football Playoff revamp will push Notre Dame toward a conference. After initial speculation that ACC membership was coming, more recent talk indicates that the Irish will keep their independence. Among the latest to join that chorus is Roy Philpott of ESPN. Appearing on the podcast “Gramlich and Mac Lain”, Philpott expressed confidence that the Irish do not wish to join the ACC for football:

At first glance, it’s still crazy to think the Irish willingly would give up the opportunity to ever have a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff. However, further study of the situation shows that they might not have been so tone-deaf in their approach to this after all. It’s become more obvious that 2020 was an anomaly and not a precursor. Normalcy is making its way back, and that includes an independent Notre Dame.

Seahawks waive DE Marcus Webb to make room for TE Cam Sutton

The Seattle Seahawks waived defensive end Marcus Webb with an injury designation to make room for the signing of tight end Cam Sutton.

Following reports of signing tight end Cam Sutton, the Seattle Seahawks have waived defensive end, Marcus Webb.

Webb received an injury designation, but his injury is unclear at the moment. The Seahawks already had 90 players on their training camp roster, so they had to release someone to make room for Sutton. Unfortunately, Webb turned out to be the victim.

Webb went undrafted in 2020 and did not see any playing time for the Seahawks during the season, so he certainly looked expendable on paper.

Sutton also went undrafted and spent time with the Panthers before the 2020 season, but they waived him in training camp.

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Each player that Texas football added, subtracted via the transfer portal recently

A full list of each player that the Texas Longhorns have added or subtracted via the NCAA transfer portal recently.

The Texas Longhorns have been active in the NCAA transfer portal recently. Continue reading “Each player that Texas football added, subtracted via the transfer portal recently”

Mohamoud Diabate could be poised for monster junior season

Mohamoud Diabate started six games in 2020, but his production wasn’t quite where the team hoped. In 2021, that could change significantly.

Name: Mohamoud Diabate

Number: 11

Position: Linebacker

Class: Junior

Height: 6’3″

Weight: 221 lbs

Hometown: Auburn, Ala.

High School: Auburn

Twitter: @MDiabate11

2020 statistics:

TOT SOLO SACK FF INT
67 33 1.5 2 1

Overview:

Originally a four-star recruit out of Auburn, Alabama, Diabate spurned the hometown Tigers to sign with Florida in the 2019 recruiting class. He saw a lot of action as a true freshman, appearing in all 13 games for the Gators and starting one at linebacker. He notched 18 tackles and 4.5 sacks, and he secured an SEC Freshman of the Week award for a three-sack performance in the win over Vanderbilt.

He entered the 2020 season poised to play a major role, and he did, starting six of Florida’s 12 games and appearing in all of them. His total tackles skyrocketed to 67, though he only managed 1.5 sacks. Heading into 2021, he should be one of UF’s starting linebackers, likely taking the weakside spot beside starting middle linebacker Ventrell Miller.

His production as a sophomore may have been a bit of a disappointment, but he should be a centerpiece for next year’s defense.

Video:

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