ARMADILLO REPORTS

Hobart

Senior Member
#2
Tuesday’s 6-pack
Interesting spreads for Week 15 in NFL:
— New England @ Miami (-2.5)
— Seattle (-5) @ Washington
— Chicago @ Minnesota (-3)
— Jacksonville @ Baltimore (-13)
— Cleveland (-3.5) @ NJ Giants
— Philadelphia @ Arizona (-6.5)
Americans who have died from COVID-19: 300,904
PLEASE wear a mask (over your nose/mouth) when you go out.

Quote of the Day
“(The Vikings) were kind of gearing towards a run-heavy (offense) at that time. I didn’t know it going in. I didn’t know it was going to be that way. They only would allow me to do so much. In my eyes, it wasn’t going to be in the best interest of my career.”
Buffalo Bills WR Stefon Diggs, on why he asked out of Minnesota

Tuesday’s quiz
Who was QB for the Baltimore Ravens, last time they won the Super Bowl?

Monday’s quiz
Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen played his college football at Wyoming.

Sunday’s quiz
Carolina Panthers’ owner David Tepper is wealthiest owner in the NFL; he is worth $13B.

Posted onDecember 14, 2020
Leave a commenton Tuesday’s 6-pack, Quote, Quiz of the Day
Tuesday’s List of 13: Nobody asked me, but…….
13) Baltimore 47, Browns 42:
— Lamar Jackson was in locker room (cramps), came out when his backup got hurt and tossed a 44-yard TD pass with 1:51 left that gave Baltimore a 42-35 lead
— Tucker kicked 55-yard FG with 0:02 left for the win.
— Ravens scored six TD’s on their first ten drives.
— Ravens won eight of last nine games with Cleveland.
— Jackson threw for 163 yards, ran ball for 124 yards.

— 20 points were scored in last 1:51 of this wild game.
— First time since 1922 there were a combined 9 rushing TD’s in a game.
— Mayfield threw for 343 yards, two TD’s.
— Browns gained 493 yards, had 33 first downs, but lost.

— Spread was Ravens -3; there was a safety on the last play, with ton of laterals, that made Baltimore backers the winners.
— One of the strangest and most entertaining games in NFL history..

12) Marquette 89, Creighton 84:
— Marquette made 12-21 on arc; they played only seven guys.
— Both teams scored 1.25+ points/possession.
— Creighton was 14-32 on the arc, 14-26 inside arc.

11) Rutgers 74, Maryland 60:
— Rutgers hasn’t been in NCAA’s since 1991; this looks like the year.
— Ron Harper Jr scored 27 points for the winners.

10) Felt bad when I saw that Gus Malzahn was fired as football coach at Auburn, then I read where his buyout is $21.45M, that’s million, with an M. Now I’m envious of the freakin’ guy.

Fact of the matter, Auburn is a bad job until Nick Saban retires, because you ain’t going to beat Alabama enough to satisfy whoever it is that makes decisions at Auburn. Malzahn was 68-35 at Auburn, 39-25 in SEC games, 2-5 in bowl games.

15 years ago, Malzahn was football coach at Springdale HS in Arkansas; now he can get a TV gig, kick back, count his money and see if he wants to coach again.

9) If you think college football coaches are overpaid, check this out; found this on the Interweb a few days ago— these are all college presidents, whose win/loss records aren’t published:

— Former Bryant U President Ronald Machtley made $6,283,616 in 2017.
— Former Johnson & Wales President John Bowen made $5,363,616 in 2017; he retired the next year.
— RPI’s President is Dr Shirley Jackson; she made $5,155,038 in 2017. RPI is an engineering school in Troy, NY, across the river from Armadillo World HQ.
— U of Pennsylvania’s President Amy Gutmann made $2,390,315 three years ago.

Must be nice.

Back to Malzahn for a minute; he is one of six coaches who has beaten Nick Saban three times as a head coach (no one has beaten him 4+ times):
Lloyd Carr, Malzahn, Les Miles, Joe Paterno, Joe Tiller, Tommy Tuberville

Active coaches with 2+ wins vs Saban: Hugh Freeze, Miles, Dabo Swinney

7) Washington Huskies pulled out of the Pac-12 football title game because of COVID-19 issues in their program; Oregon takes Washington’s place, will play USC Friday night in LA.

6) Frank Gore Jr scored on a 73-yard TD run for Southern Miss Thursday night, in the Golden Eagles’ 45-31 win over Florida Atlantic. Whats remarkable about this is that his father is still playing in the NFL; not a lot of 37-year old running backs still carrying the ball.

5) Las Vegas Raiders fired defensive coordinator Paul Guenther after the Raiders got drilled 44-27 by the Colts Sunday. Las Vegas allowed 37.5 ppg in its last four games, and right now is on the outside, looking in at the playoff picture.

4) Nebraska Cornhuskers are 2-5 this season, their 4th consecutive losing season; this is the first time since 1956-61 that Nebraska’s football team has had four years in a row under .500.

3) College football coaching changes:
— Arizona fired Kevin Sumlin
— As we talked about, Auburn fired Gus Malzahn
— Illinois fired Love Smith

2) Word leaked out over the weekend that the Cleveland Indians will change their nickname soon, but apparently not this coming season. Lot of money involved in choosing that next nickname; do it right and if the team contends, they will clean up financially selling apparel with the new logo(s) on it.

Problem is, the Indians seem to be dumping salary; Carlos Santana already left town, and Francisco Lindor may be the next one traded away. Losing teams don’t sell many souvenirs.

1) If you bet over on the Kansas City Chiefs’ season win total the last eight years, you would’ve won all eight bets, that’s how good a coach Andy Reid is. Hard to exceed expectations every year, really, really hard.
 

Hobart

Senior Member
#4
Wednesday’s 6-pack
Annual salary the next six years for Giannis Antetokounmpo:
2020-21— $27.5M
2021-22— $39.3M
2022-23— $42.5M
2023-24— $45.6M
2024-25— $48.8M
2025-26— $51.9M
Americans who have died from COVID-19: 302,046
PLEASE wear a mask (over your nose/mouth) when you go out.

Quote of the Day
“I don’t see a snowball’s chance in hell that spring training can start with protocols in place. I think there will be significant pressure for players to get the vaccine first before they go to spring training, and if that has to be moved back to April and play 130 games, so be it. But to have 162 games, and start spring training at the normal time without players being vaccinated, that’s just crazy.”
Unnamed owner of a National League team

Wednesday’s quiz
Where did the Oklahoma City Thunder call home, before moving to Oklahoma?

Tuesday’s quiz
Joe Flacco was QB for the Baltimore Ravens, last time they won the Super Bowl.

Monday’s quiz
Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen played his college football at Wyoming.

Posted onDecember 16, 2020
Leave a commenton Wednesday’s 6-pack, Quote, Quiz of the Day
Wednesday’s Den: Mid-week musings……..
13) There was a cool story on the Interweb this week about Miami Heat assistant coach Anthony Carter, from back in his playing days.

Summer of 2003, Carter OK’d a $4.1M option to keep playing with Miami, but his agent screwed up and never notified the Heat by the June 30 deadline, so he wound up signing with San Antonio for $750,000 instead. Not good.

The agent has integrity though, and worked a plan to make sure Carter got the $3M+ he lost out on. Apparently, that payment plan was just completed, and Carter finally has the money, It is an unusual story in that player/agent are still good friends, despite the blunder.

12) An offshoot of Carter leaving Miami was that it created cap space for the Heat to acquire Lamar Odom, who the next summer was part of the package Miami sent to the Lakers when they got Shaquille O’Neal. Without the agent’s screw-up, maybe Shaq is never in Miami.

11) This offseason was very short for NBA teams, but Oklahoma City Thunder made 11 trades since last season ended, with 24 players either passing through the Thunder roster, or winding up in Oklahoma this season. OKC also has a ton of draft picks over the next five years.

10) Toronto Raptors will be playing home games in Tampa this season, much like the Blue Jays played home games in Buffalo last summer. Not an ideal situation, but Tampa in the winter is a solid alternative to always being cold.

9) Alabama 83, Furman 80— Paladins led by 16 in first half, by 10 at halftime, but Alabama caught them down the stretch. Furman was 15-36 on the arc, shot 65% inside the arc, but they missed nine of their last ten shots.

Furman has a nice team; they’ll be a problem for someone in March Madness.

What is a paladin, you ask? A paladin is a knight renowned for heroism and chivalry.

Illinois 92, Minnesota 65— Gophers came to Champaign 6-0, but got spanked badly here by an Illini squad that has already played four top 100 teams. This was Minnesota’s first game against a top 100 opponent.

Two things after watching Furman/Minnesota tonight:
a) Veteran mid-majors with strong continuity will be very dangerous; they’re TEAMS
b) Teams need to go thru the wars of playing tough opponents, in order to get better. Beating up on stiffs doesn’t make you that much better.

7) Rutgers hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1991, but they probably will this year; they’re #20 in the KenPom rankings, the highest they’ve been in the 20 years KenPom has been on the Interweb.

6) Virginia Tech 66, Clemson 60— 5-1 Clemson has three wins on neutral floors, but they lose their first true road game of the season. Hokies outscored Clemson 25-12 on the foul line.

5) Underrated fact: Jim Plunkett, Roger Staubach are only two QB’s who won the Heisman Trophy and also won a Super Bowl.

4) Vanderbilt hired Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator Clark Lea as its new football coach; Lea is a Vandy alum, so that makes even more sense.

3) Major League came out in 1988, Bull Durham came out the next year, and here it is 2020 and I still can’t decide which movie I like better.

2) NFL officials are throwing too many intentional grounding flags; the better QB’s are also getting more leeway on those calls. No one pays to watch the officials.

1) Baseball doings:
— C James McCann gets $40.6M over four years from the Mets.
— OF Hunter Renfroe gets $3.1M from the Red Sox, for one year.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
45,257
Messages
145,863
Members
1,846
Latest member
BitterChimp