Tag: Opinion

Public Menace Aaron Rodgers somehow voted most inspirational by his Jets teammates

Hopefully Aaron Rodgers can inspire the Jets while actually doing something inspirational next season

Aaron Rodgers genuinely seems like one of the worst people to be around. Seriously. I cannot imagine hanging out with this dude.

Just picture it: You’re sitting in a bar kicking it with Rodgers and, suddenly, he starts bringing up 9/11 theories while you’re just trying to figure out if you want to go with the local IPA or a nice lager.

The dude constantly lies. We know this. He’s done it quite literally all season long. He’s told us — and his Jets teammates, by the way! — over and over again that he’d be back this season because of some miraculous torn Achilles recovery he discovered. Wrong. He didn’t. And the Jets haphazardly waited on him and completely tanked the season.

That’s who Aaron Rodgers is, man. At his core, he’s just a guy who will say or do anything to stay in the spotlight no matter if he believes it. We’ve seen it over and over again.

Yet, somehow, despite being a public menace to just about everyone, the dude was voted by his Jets teammates as most inspirational, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Apparently, the team just loves the guy. Robert Saleh says so, anyway.

“I’ve said it a million times: He loves his teammates, and his teammates love him,” coach Robert Saleh said. “He’s so intentional with how he approaches everybody in the building. He’s very thoughtful in the way he does things, and he’s a tremendous human. He’s really well deserving of this award.”

And left tackle Duane Brown says he’s inspired by Rodgers’ diligence in his torn Achilles recovery.

“It’s inspiring, man,” left tackle Duane Brown said. “That’s one of the most difficult injuries to come back from. To see his recovery, even without being on the field, has been remarkable. And the attitude he has — I’m sure the day-to-day isn’t easy, but he doesn’t complain about it.”

That’s fascinating. Look, we don’t know what goes on behind closed doors with the Jets. Maybe Rodgers is actually a great teammate to those guys. Maybe, just because he’s a menace to everyone else, he’s pretty cool to them? Who knows!

Could this also just be another thing the Jets are doing to massage their quarterback’s ego? Sure! Maybe. I have no idea. None of us do.

Regardless, I hope he feels appreciated. Especially after costing one of his teammates a job with the farce he put on for everyone.

The only AP voter to rank UCLA over South Carolina in the top-25 poll explains why

One voter believes that UCLA has played a slightly tougher schedule than South Carolina.

January often feels like the midway point for the college basketball season. After two full months of games — and as conference play begins in earnest — stars have emerged to help the contenders separate themselves from the pretenders.

On the women’s side, there are just seven undefeated teams left. We can break them down into two categories.

Three of those teams are greatly exceeding expectations and taking advantage of schedules that are a bit softer than those of the other unbeatens. But nonetheless, they enter 2024 with zero losses. They are: West Virginia, Oregon State and TCU. A round of applause for those three.

The other four are teams that more recently have established themselves as powers in women’s basketball. They’ve been tested. They’ve played tough schedules. They have signature victories. They should compete for their respective conference titles, and they’re now expected to make deep runs in March.

Those teams are: Baylor, N.C. State, South Carolina and UCLA.

For the past few weeks, the 36 voters on the Associated Press Top 25 Poll have agreed that South Carolina was the nation’s top team. And of course, there’s good reason for that. The Gamecocks have marquee wins over Notre Dame, Utah and North Carolina, and they rank first in the nation in offensive and defensive rating, according to HerHoopStats.

What Dawn Staley is doing with South Carolina this year is incredibly impressive. She lost all five starters – all of whom were WNBA Draft picks – from a team that won the SEC and went to the Final Four last year, and the Gamecocks still look like juggernauts in the sport with players like Raven Johnson, MiLaysia Fulwiley and Kamilla Cardoso leading the way.

But this week, I diverged from the rest of the AP voters.

I put UCLA at No. 1.

After the Bruins beat rival USC on Saturday – a previously unbeaten team armed with Freshman of the Year frontrunner Juju Watkins – I felt compelled to take a closer look at the resumes of UCLA and South Carolina.

Here are the facts:

  • UCLA has four wins this season over currently ranked AP Top 25 teams (UConn, Florida State, Ohio State and USC). South Carolina has just two (Notre Dame and Utah) after North Carolina fell out of the poll this week.
  • If you want to judge teams by where they were ranked when the games occurred, fine. UCLA beat two top 10 teams (No. 7 UConn and No. 6 USC) while South Carolina has only topped one (No. 10 Notre Dame).

Simply put: I think UCLA has played a tougher schedule.

I’ve also seen both of these teams play in-person this season: South Carolina three times, and UCLA once at the Hall of Fame Showcase at Mohegan Sun. To me, the Bruins looked like the better team. Kiki Rice, Londynn Jones and Charisma Osborne make for a dynamic backcourt trio, and Lauren Betts controls the paint and protects the rim in a way that few players can, which is why the Bruins are No. 1 in rebounding rate at 63.4%.

I also believe that UCLA’s best win – take your pick of either a neutral site triumph over UConn or a home victory over USC – is better than South Carolina’s best win, which is probably the Gamecocks’ season-opening shellacking of Notre Dame. Two months into the season, the Irish – fresh off an upset loss to Syracuse – don’t look as good as the Huskies or Trojans.

Further, I don’t think South Carolina has done much yet to make a convincing argument as to why it is leaps and bounds better than UCLA. The Gamecocks rose to the top spot in Week Two simply because they had the best Week One victory after the preseason top two – LSU and UConn – lost to Colorado and N.C. State. Some voters selected Iowa as No. 1 in Week Two, but they too joined the folks voting for the Gamecocks in Week Three after the Hawkeyes lost at home to Kansas State. South Carolina essentially became No. 1 by default and kept winning. The Gamecocks deserve credit for those victories, but it doesn’t mean that their place atop the sport is inarguable.

A big topic of conversation in women’s college basketball in recent years is the increased amount of parity. That’s still true this season. South Carolina doesn’t seem unbeatable, and neither does UCLA. Neither does Baylor or N.C. State. We could very well enter March with zero unbeaten teams.

At the halfway point in the season, there’s room for multiple teams to get No. 1 votes.

Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco’s firings were long overdue, if not too late

Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco should’ve been let go of a lot earlier.

The Chargers cleaned house on Friday after parting ways with GM Tom Telesco as well as HC Brandon Staley. This comes on the heels of an embarrassing 42-point loss to the Raiders on Thursday Night Football.

JoJo Wooden and Giff Smith were promoted to interim GM and HC respectively. Wooden has been the Director of Player Personnel since 2013. Giff Smith has served various roles from 2016-2023, including defensive line and outside linebackers coaching stints.

Before moving on to coaching and GM candidates for replacement content, it’s time to truly look back on the Telesco-Staley era as it comes to an end. After having plenty of cap space in 2021, a stud quarterback on a rookie deal, and plenty of big names on the roster, the Chargers sit here today with nothing to show for it. The Telesco-Staley era was defined by “all in” promises with more flash than substance.

Let’s start with Telesco. With a relatively slim playoff resume and mediocre regular season success in his 11 years, it was past time for him to go. Dean Spanos and Chargers’ ownership could not willingly let him hire a fourth head coach. His last shot was Staley.

Frankly, he got the opportunity to hire a third coach because of the selection of Justin Herbert in 2020. Had that not happened for this organization, I think it’s safe to say that he would’ve been gone sooner. But the Chargers wanted to keep some sort of structure at the top to bring along their rookie QB. At the time, there was a core of the fanbase and media that believed Telesco should’ve been relieved of his duties with Anthony Lynn after 2020.

And it’s clear that is the direction the franchise should’ve gone in. Telesco has struck out on finding requisite depth for the team in the draft. He’s spent all of the teams’ financial resources and their future capital on poor investments. The Chargers are $42 million over the projected cap in 2024. That stems from four max contract restructures for a losing season and J.C. Jackson dead cap money.

The retention of drafted players over the Telesco tenure was generally bad. Consistently, guys like Kyzir White and Drue Tranquill left the team on the cheap after their rookie deals while the Chargers would choose the worse team-building plays instead.

Letting Telesco manage another season would’ve been untenable. To be honest, the short-term damage he’s inflicted on the team in 2024 is enough to deal with. It was well past time to go.

For Staley, he leaves Los Angeles after three years on the job. He finishes 24-24 after 9-8, 10-7, and 5-9 seasons. While Staley showed promise in his first season, his downfall primarily occurred for a plethora of reasons. After promises to build the offense around Justin Herbert and “throw that sh*t downfield”, the Chargers’ head coach never fully figured out the offensive staff/personnel side of the ball. From Joe Lombardi to Kellen Moore, one thing remained consistent on offense: football that was never fundamentally sound.

And when the Chargers did manage to score 30 or 40 points, Staley’s defense managed to give up more. Herbert bailed out the former Chargers’ head coach in a number of games. Staley harped on the lack of complementary football all year and it presented itself in largely every game LA played. Even some of their wins were relatively ugly.

Staley’s defense and special teams combined units ranked bottom 10 in EPA in every season he was the head coach. Simply put, he was hired as a defensive coordinator who never fixed the defense. LA’s unit was plagued with poor tackling fundamentals, bad player development, and convoluted personnel decisions on gamedays. While Staley had good ideas in theory like the style of defense he intended to play, it was the execution of the concepts that were lacking.

Truthfully, there are plenty of more platitudes and moments I could mention on why both Staley and Telesco are finished in LA as we sit here today. But what’s more pressing is the future. While the Chargers will likely still be a hot destination with Herbert viewed as a top franchise cornerstone around the league, the damage has been done. There’s the cap situation. There’s deep player unhappiness rooted in the current situation. There probably will be a decent amount of turnover with not just coaching personnel, but many of the Chargers’ franchise figure players who have been present over the last half decade or longer.

Staley was hired by Telesco to make a run and build off the Herbert window. But whatever GM and coach pairing is hired next will be brought in to clear the wreckage “all in” venture that completely collapsed.

COLUMN: All Jayden Daniels needed was the right situation

Jayden Daniels’ career took some turns, but he ended up right where he needed to be.

On August 29, 2019, [autotag]Jayden Daniels[/autotag] started his first college football game. He was a true freshman at Arizona State and one of the top quarterback recruits in his class.

Head coach Herm Edwards was looking to usher in a new era of Sun Devil football and Daniels was at the center of that plan.

In that first start, facing Kent State, Daniels was under pressure behind a bad Arizona State offensive line. But he was steady. He totaled three touchdowns and nearly 300 yards, completing 62.4% of his passes and protecting the football.

Arizona State won 30-7 and the Daniels era offered ASU fans new promise.

There were some freshmen struggles, but overall, it was a good debut year for Daniels.

But then things got messy. The pandemic disrupted the sport and Daniels played just four games in 2020. The situation at ASU deteriorated as recruiting violations took center stage and the NCAA rolled into town, forcing several staff changes.

Daniels couldn’t settle down and in 2021, he posted the worst performance of his career, throwing 10 picks and averaging just 183.2 pass yards per game.

Following the 2021 season, Daniels hit the transfer portal. He ended up at LSU, a key piece of Brian Kelly’s rebuild.

2022 wasn’t perfect, but Daniels delivered in big moments, particularly in LSU’s home upset over Alabama.

It was finally starting to click for Daniels, and it led to higher expectations in 2023.

Could Daniels make that jump? Could he go from a good quarterback to one of the best in the country?

Short answer: He did just that.

Daniels was special. There aren’t many other ways to describe what he did this year. You watched it and you knew it was different. That’s it.

The way he threw the graceful deep balls, the way he effortlessly weaved his way through defenders when he took off to run. You couldn’t game plan for it. He took over games in ways no other player in America did.

Daniels took a gamble at LSU. He was coming to a program in the midst of a rebuild with a first-year coach. The QB room was crowded and the starting job wasn’t a given.

But he finally got that stability. The entire offensive staff stuck together. LSU returned its leading receiver and five starters on the offensive line. Under better circumstances, Daniels flourished.

And on Saturday night, he won the Heisman, joining LSU legends [autotag]Billy Cannon[/autotag] and [autotag]Joe Burrow[/autotag]. And like Cannon and Burrow, he’ll go down as one of the best to ever do it.

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The Heisman never should have been this close

Jayden Daniels is going to win the Heisman, but it never should have been this close.

The battle for the Heisman was a two-horse race down the stretch.

Caleb Williams began the year as the favorite, before giving way to Michael Penix Jr., who remained the front-runner through October.

Then Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy had his brief moment, but over the last month, the debate narrowed in on [autotag]Jayden Daniels[/autotag] and Bo Nix.

Daniels and Nix rank first and second in nearly every key passing stat. Daniels leads the country in ESPN’s QBR and PFF grade, with Nix sitting second. The same could be said for passer rating and total touchdowns.

Both rank top 10 in yards per attempt and completion percentage, while combining for just seven picks over 762 attempts.

But Nix and Oregon remained in playoff contention, while Daniels and LSU picked up their third loss the first week of November.

Oregon’s success as a team kept Nix atop the odds board for a while, while Daniels’ name faded after leaving the Alabama loss in concussion protocol.

Nix entered conference championship weekend as the favorite. He would get his chance to lead Oregon to a Pac-12 title and playoff appearance while Daniels sat at home.

That’s not how it went. The Oregon offense got off to a slow start and Nix had a few rough series. Throughout the night, Daniels’ stock took off, shooting up the odds board. And when the dust had settled, Daniels was the heavy favorite, now -1400 to take the award home.

But it never should have been this close. It never should have come down to Oregon winning or losing on championship weekend. This was always Daniels’ award.

If the Heisman is about the most outstanding player, there was never another case. It’s fine if a voter wants to use team success as a measure on their ballot, but if that’s the case, then let’s not pretend it’s an individual award.

Daniels was far and away the most outstanding player in the sport. His national lead in yards per attempt is over a yard more than the next guy. The difference between Daniels’ and Nix’s PFF grade at one and two is the same difference that separates Nix and Williams at two and 15. His QBR is the second-best ever tracked by ESPN.

By this point, you’ve heard all the numbers. You’ve seen him play. Daniels didn’t need a Heisman moment on the national stage to win this thing, because he was good enough week in and week out to produce at a level rarely seen in the history of this sport.

It’s looking like Daniels is going to win this thing, but it never should have come down to the result of the Pac-12 title. It never should have been this close.

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Aaron Rodgers said his unlikely return hinges on the Jets’ playoff chances so you won’t see him this season

Aaron Rodgers’ “return” has been all about attention? Shocking!

Because he is Aaron Rodgers — a relentless attention-seeker who moonlights as a future Hall of Fame quarterback — we can never quite avoid him in the news. The man last took snaps in early September and remains a consistent fixture in headlines because he would seemingly enter a fugue state if he left the spotlight for a solitary moment.

Rodgers has kept himself relevant by continually hinting that he could legitimately return from an Achilles tear in just over a few months. Never mind that, per WebMD, the typical Achilles tear recovery time for an average human being with bog standard ligaments and tendons is 4-6 months at full activity (though it can take up to a year to return to full strength). No matter how he might deny it, Rodgers — who turns 40 in early December — is still a normal human being with the same fragile ligaments and tendons as the rest of us.

Nevertheless, this nonsense story persists because Rodgers knows how to play puppeteer with NFL media (which includes me writing this story about it, I know). During a Tuesday episode of the Pat McAfee Show, Rodgers professed that his (unlikely) return from an injury named after the fatal flaw of a Greek warrior rests on how he continues to heal moving forward.

Perhaps more importantly, Rodgers said part of his (again, unlikely) return hinges on where the Jets stand in the AFC playoff push. Dearest readers, the Jets are currently 4-7 and in 15th place in the conference. Tim Boyle is their starting quarterback. They score less than 15 points a game and remain a massive burden on their impossibly loyal fans.

Put another way: see you in September 2024, Aaron!

The Jets’ hopes of turning the 2023 campaign into a memorable one likely ended when Rodgers’ Achilles snapped in Week 1. Frankly, it is remarkable he has managed to keep some of the limelight despite everything. That is talent, no matter how grating it can be. But even Rodgers has to know Gang Green is terrible without his services and will already be a sinking ship by the time he considers “returning.”

Shout out to the awful Jets.

They’ve probably kept us from talking about the secondary part of Rodgers’ life — playing professional football — until next fall. Well, that is until Rodgers drops another soundbite about how he’s “thinking” about something and everyone drops what they’re doing to listen.

Texas A&M AD Ross Bjork said Aggies football ‘is not an 8-4 job’ and is only fooling himself

Believe in yourself the way Ross Bjork believes in the Aggies’ potential

Give Ross Bjork credit for this: He’s not backing down from a fight with reality.

The Texas A&M athletic director has dug a deep trench as he embarks on a search to replace Jimbo Fisher as the head coach of his football team. Despite 75 million reasons to keep Fisher around a bit longer, the ever-growing list of big-brand programs in need of a new coach and the rather thin market for the schools who do need a replacement at the top, Bjork remains undeterred in his quest to watch this all blow up spectacularly in his face by setting unreasonable expectations.

There are not a ton of high-profile coaches out there looking to jump to Texas A&M right now. Which means he’s going to have to pick from a group of rising names in the sport and hope he guesses right.

First Bjork tried to speak with Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell about the gig. And, never mind the fact that Campbell played his college ball at Texas A&M before spending a decade in the NFL, coaches simply don’t leave young Super Bowl contenders for a mid-tier SEC job.

Campbell, in the nicest and most relatable way possible, turned his alma mater down the way most of us do when they call asking for more money.

“I know some people there and I love my school,” Campbell told reporters in Detroit. “That’s my alma mater and I want to do anything I can to help them but coach for them.”

It would be malpractice if Bjork didn’t at least attempt a phone call with his employer’s most sought-after alumni. Sure. But in case anyone thought that was just a set up to lower expectations in College Station, Bjork is here to remind us all that, no, he’s very serious.

It is at this point I must point out that Bjork has been the athletic director for three FBS schools. From 2010-2012, Bjork was at Western Kentucky, where he inherited head football coach Willie Taggart, who never finished with more than seven wins in a season with the Hilltoppers.

From 2012-2019, Bjork was at Ole Miss. There he inherited head football coach Hugh Freeze, defended him until the bitter end and ultimately replaced him with Matt Luke when Freeze could no longer remain in control.

Notably, Luke was the interim coach at Mississippi after Freeze was forced out. He went 6-6 that fall with the only conference wins coming against Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Mississippi State. That was enough to convince Bjork to drop the interim tag and anoint Luke to navigate the program through the fallout of the NCAA’s investigation into Freeze. Luke was fired after three seasons. The six wins in his first season was the highest mark he’d reach there.

By then Bjork was already at Texas A&M where he inherited head football coach Jimbo Fisher.

Do you see where this is going?

Bjork is now leading his first real coaching search for a college football program at any level. There are no looming NCAA punishments to hold him back. No shortage of money to spend on his guy. No extenuating circumstances. Just the ego of a fanbase who believes they should be competing to national titles every year.

Which means all the pressure is on Bjork to nail this. Comments like his “8-4” jab will only make it harder on himself.

All of which is to say, in the new era of the SEC, where Texas A&M will have to contend with Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, LSU, Tennessee and Ole Miss, the Aggies could do a lot worse than routinely going 8-4.

Bjork should know, since that’s been the average record at Texas A&M for 12 years now.

Martellus Bennett accused the Bears of shamelessly selling 1985 nostalgia in candid rant

Martellus Bennett thinks the Bears are happy “selling the past” to their fans. He’s absolutely right.

Martellus Bennett might have been a Pro Bowl-caliber tight end in his NFL heyday, but he’s likely most known for telling it like it is. He’s a man who is never afraid to speak the truth and say what’s on his mind out in the open. That’s why his latest (kind of random?) rant about the Chicago Bears hits particularly close to home.

On Sunday, the Bears might have endured easily the most embarrassing loss of the Matt Eberflus era. Despite a game that they controlled for roughly 57 minutes over the rival Detroit Lions — where they held a 12-point lead with just about three minutes remaining — the Bears lost. Through nine NFC North games, the meat and potatoes of any bog standard NFL schedule, Eberflus’ iteration of the league’s charter franchise remains winless in its division. (Note: The Bears have not won a division game since Thanksgiving 2021, a.k.a. almost two full calendar years.)

It seems this Bears defeat lit a fire under Bennett, who played three seasons in Chicago from 2013 to 2015. He took to Twitter to accuse Bears leadership — namely, owner George McCaskey and any oaf lackey he pays to tell him “yes” — of brazenly selling nostalgia to the Chicago fanbase for years. (Note: The “try-hard-on-defense and hustle” Eberflus is McCaskey’s fourth head-coaching hire since 2013. They are on track to fire him and hire a fifth in January 2024.) Rather than play a brand of modern football that is conducive to winning in the 21st century, Bennett said the Bears are content with mass-marketing a bygone era of when they were great and were the NFL’s gold standard because that would interfere with what they perceive as the organization’s tough guy “brand.”

I highly urge you to read every piece of this rant, of which I will share a few key excerpts. (Note: There are some NSFW language elements.) Indeed, Bennett told not one lie about a franchise that used to own the NFL’s throne every year but is now content with so much less.

Yes, yes, YES.

As a Chicago native, I can’t tell you how often former 1985 Bears are paraded around local media. This is something that I suspect the Bears as an organization appreciate. They seem to believe that a good defense and running game (and nothing else) is how a football team should be built (because that’s what they can sell) despite never having a 4,000-yard passer. And I have no doubt they adore seeing someone like the legendary Dan Hampton pontificate on the late local news any chance he gets.

I’ve heard Bears coaches criticize their own players on live television so much of late. And that’s just in 2023. There’s something to be said about blaming a lack of execution. That’s fine. That happens. But when that lack of execution happens every week, that’s more on the coaching failing to get its message across than anything. But the next Bears coach to express a modicum of self-awareness will be the first in a long time.

These tweets probably speak to me the most from this rant. The idea of the Bears winning with tough defense and a solid running game is essentially a meme among the younger members of the fanbase (like myself). It’s something we joke that only our fathers could genuinely appreciate. I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that the Bears love selling this brand of football to older people because they think they’re not comfortable getting with the times of a team with a legitimate personality and a vertical passing offense. The Bears don’t want to alienate these fans at the risk of losing the foundational support they provide … that they’ve already lost. Go figure.

And I agree with Bennett. I’d venture to guess that the Chicago Cubs or Chicago Blackhawks are demonstrably more popular with the city’s youth than the always-bumbling Bears. How could you possibly build up loyalty and admiration in a fanbase if all you do is lose in the most uninteresting fashion every week? News flash: kids need positive memories to love their sports teams. Crazy, I know! The modern Bears, as constructed, usually provide none.

So, here the Bears are, at another franchise crossroads.

They will very likely finish in last place in the NFC North for the second straight season. It will be their seventh losing campaign since 2014. They have not won a postseason game since January 2011. And try as Justin Fields might; they are still searching for that mythical franchise quarterback. McCaskey could, of course, elect to blow it up and find a new head coach and general manager to steer the Bears back in the right direction. Heck, he probably will.

But there’s the rub. As Bennett professes, the people who run the Bears have a different idea of the “right direction.” I personally can’t wait until they hire another conservative-minded goober who loves running the ball, playing disciplined defense, and ignoring the most important position in the sport. Paying attention to and helping the quarterback does not align with the Bears’ brand of being overzealous bullies (who never win anything). It never will.

It is that archaic mindset which will inevitably only bring them more failure.

What’s next for Matt McMahon and LSU men’s basketball?

LSU dropped a buy-game to Nicholls last Friday night. What’s next for the program?

After opening the year with a 106-60 win over Mississippi Valley State, LSU’s year took a turn last Friday, dropping a home buy-game to Nicholls State.

Head coach [autotag]Matt McMahon[/autotag] wasn’t shy about expressing his frustration. He began his press conference by saying he was out-coached for 40 minutes.

“For whatever reason, I didn’t have our team ready to play in the first half,” he said. “They just spaced us out, whipped us off the dribble. We struggled to communicate defensively and credit to Nicholls State, they made us pay every time.”

McMahon didn’t stop there. Growing animated, McMahon described getting to play at LSU the opportunity of a lifetime.

“The price of admission for that is you come out and play your tail off every second you’re on the floor, and you compete, and you show some passion and some heart. And I didn’t get it done. I didn’t have them ready to play that way,” McMahon said.

McMahon is in Year 2 with the Tigers. He took over a program in turmoil after nearly the entire team transferred following the firing of [autotag]Will Wade[/autotag]. McMahon’s had to rely on transfers the last two cycles to fill a roster.

He’s an accomplished coach who won 25+ games on three occasions in his seven years at Murray State. But so far at LSU, the Tigers have yet to turn the corner.

LSU tipped off conference play last year with a win over a good Arkansas team, putting the cherry on top of an 11-1 start. But that was followed by a 14-game losing streak, and LSU finished last in the conference.

This team is supposed to be improved. Even after the loss to Nicholls State, LSU ranks top 70 in KenPom and BPI. It ranked outside the top 150 in both when last year ended.

The Nichols loss shouldn’t necessarily change anyone’s outlook on the program or McMahon’s capability to lead it. I remain a believer in what McMahon has done over the course of his career and acknowledge the challenges of his current position.

It was a tale of two halves on Friday night. LSU was outscored 44-25 in the first half before flipping the script in the second and outscoring Nicholls 41-24. LSU led by three with under a minute to go, but Nicholls got the final word with a late three to reclaim the lead.

LSU was 3-19 from behind the arch while Nicholls was 12-30. The Colonels also shot over 90% from the free-throw line. Efficiency from deep and at the line is a recipe for an upset and LSU caught Nicholls on a good night.

The pressure’s now on. This is a team with an outsider’s chance at making the NCAA Tournament. In that position, every single game matters. LSU needs to play like it.

McMahon’s passion after the loss was promising. He took accountability and acknowledged his team’s shortcomings. The players probably noticed it too.

LSU faces its toughest opponent yet on Thursday when it faces Dayton in Charleston. The Flyers rank 67th in KenPom and will serve as a measuring stick for LSU.

A win and the Tigers are trending up again.

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The NFL’s explanation for what constitutes roughing the passer just makes it more confusing

The NFL’s roughing the passer explanation is all vibes and all garbage.

No major American sports league seems to understand its rulebook less than the NFL. What’s a catch? No one knows! Can the ground cause a fumble? Sure, why not? Whatever floats your boat!

These days, the most egregiously inconsistent application of NFL rules might be roughing the passer. Every single week, it feels like we have multiple instances of highly questionable roughing calls based on nothing but fostering safety “vibes,” not creating actual safety. The NFL has now, more or less, confirmed it essentially goes with the flow with a rule that is flat-out impossible to legislate with good precedent while giving defenders zero breathing room.

On Thursday, the league’s football operations department released a video that was supposed to clarify what actually constitutes roughing the passer. The obvious intent was to keep loyal fans informed. The clip achieves none of its goals.

From noting that roughing the passer is based entirely on a ref’s split-second opinion to saying “defenders may initiate contact no more than one step after the throw in certain situations” — like, what on earth? — it’s all complete malarkey. Worse yet, this ambiguity about what defenders can and can’t do from impossible momentum-filled positions only diminishes textbook defensive play.

The NFL’s bizarre interpretation of roughing the passer doesn’t actually take quarterbacks out of harm’s way. It just confuses everyone and lowers the quality of play. All this reeks of a league trying to make the game “safer” on a surface level that serves no one, especially when the goal should be to provide clear and concrete ways to improve players’ safety.

I don’t want to sound too much like an Old Man Yelling at a Cloud, but this is opaque garbage. It explains nothing. Provides clarity on nothing.

Some of the plays the league uses as examples feature picture-perfect form tackles taught at the youth level to play football responsibly — if that’s even possible. And somehow, large grown men are supposed to defy the laws of physics and stop at a “red light” one millisecond after driving 100 miles per hour. Oh. Try to picture how that would work out in real life while on the road. Hint: not great!

I hate to say it, and I know it’s conflicting, but at a certain point, you’re accepting a Faustian bargain by watching any level of football. It is an inherently dangerous game, making what the league is asking with roughing the passer even more silly.

I appreciate any initiative that ostensibly negates some of the danger of football while maintaining the game’s sanctity. If earnest, it should be applauded. The NFL’s roughing-the-passer standard does not do that. Not even close.

The league’s precedent seems more about letting quarterbacks do whatever they want and, somehow, potentially rewarding them with the ability to lose but re-gain special protections in the face of tough defense. Either the quarterback is a runner outside the pocket or he’s a protected player the whole time. Pick a lane. But the league is a football conglomerate trying to save face (and money) by eliminating all risk of injury to quarterbacks, seemingly the only position that matters to the powers that be.

Congratulations, NFL. You have somehow diminished your product while simultaneously making another rule seem even more Byzantine.

(Slow clapping) Bravo.