CHRIS PICKS: WEEK 5

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by Chris Corbellini

 

Week 5 Picks: Who’ll stop the Rams?*

(“And I wonder/Still I wonder/Who’ll stop the Rams…”)

Goff and Gurley sell tickets, but does anyone want a piece of Ndamukong Suh?

Vegas likes the Rams, I like the Rams, NFL Twitter likes the Rams, and people who put in the extensive film work like the Rams. They are rolling. All that movement and bounce on offense could play to sell-out crowds at Lincoln Center. So, should we just go ahead and skip the regular season and playoffs and crown LA your Super Bowl 53 champions already?

Maybe. BetOnline has them at +350 to win the Super Bowl, with the Patriots, fresh off a Thursday night win against the Colts, in second at +700. If the mark of an NFL powerhouse is exceeding expectations one year earlier than expected — and remember, this is Year 2 of the Sean McVay Experience — then perhaps our eyes aren’t lying to us, and we are seeing the beginning of something special. It was easy to enjoy LA’s offense against the Vikings on national TV in Week 4 — Goff looked like an NFL MVP, answering every test question McVay called for him with a pearl of a throw, and let’s not forget he’s the second-best player on his offense.

Yeah, the Rams look like the perfect sunny-day team at the quarter pole. Still, the Chiefs are off to a 4-0 start with Patrick Mahomes completing passes left-handed, the Patriots could have another run in them with Edelman back, and the Eagles aren’t completely sure what they have with a healthy Carson Wentz yet, they just know it’ll work in the long run. The league is in good position, Trump’s tweets be damned, with all the young QBs excelling and Brady playing well into his 40s. September was fun. Cinematic, even, with the Rams re-inventing the Fun Bunch.

Now we wait to see if the chill and injury uncertainty of October and November will be enough to knock LA back from Super Bowl contender to playoff contender. What impressed me most last week on GamePass was how hard the Vikings DBs were drilling Rams WRs, and yet that bunch kept hopping back up. Maybe, I thought. Maybe these guys have the stuff of champions. Which is not exactly fair to the rest of us bracing for winter – LA is the City of LeBron, Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout, Malibu beaches, 70-degree New Year’s Days, In N Out, the Another Day of Sun montage, and so many beautiful people just off the bus, asking for the address of the nearest Netflix show to star in. Santa Monica even has a damn Dunkin Donuts now on Wilshire.

Go away, LA.

Home team in caps. William Hill odds, as of Friday afternoon.

Rams (-7.5) over SEAHAWKS

A Todd Gurley game. He’ll remind everyone he can slice between the tackles, too. Seahawks safety Earl Thomas is gone, flipping the bird to management as he was carted off the field last week, and don’t think for a second his teammates didn’t absorb that. To beat the Rams, you need to rally around that effective-but-horseshit “we’ll shock the world” storyline, and prove you are better than the record indicates. I see none of that with Seattle yet. The Seahawks are weak at spots on the defensive line, and linebacker Austin Calitro, one of the lowest-rated players on Pro Football Focus this week, will surely be targeted as well.

I’m sure there will be a couple of false start penalties due to Seattle’s 12th man. And the Seahawks will shorten the game some, focusing on those talented receivers and giving up as little as possible vertically. So, Gurley will be given a chance to go all Beast Mode, and while he’ll feel every one of his 25+ touches afterward, it’ll still add up to a winning, 100-yard day.

Vikings (+3) over EAGLES

“Hey, what about us?” is another motivational tactic NFL teams use, and I see the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles wholeheartedly embracing it … after they lose this week. I wanted to pick Philly here, but changed my mind earlier today after watching the Vikings-Rams film. There’s just something about the zip of Cousins passes, and the nasty edge that Stefon Diggs has after he catches the ball, as if to say: Thielen’s my guy, but I’m out to prove I’m number one.

Adam Thielen, the pride of Mankato State…

Of course, judging by Thielen’s targets, he’s No. 1. He has 56, which also leads the NFL. This may be a good thing for Diggs this week – according to Pro Football Outsiders the Eagles are 31st in the league against the No. 2 receiver. I think he’ll be the difference-maker in Philly.

Titans (-5.5) over BILLS

Don’t overthink this, Tennessee. Make this a fourth straight victory, fly under the radar while the rest of us concern ourselves with KC and New England, and fly home healthy. On third and longs you have just one weak link, a linebacker, and that can be disguised with pressure. So, go for the shutout, and give Derrick Henry an ego boost with a 25-carry afternoon.

Redskins cover (+6.5) against SAINTS


Ooh. This one. Me gusta. Neither is lacking in motivation, with both playing to stay in first place in their respective divisions. And they look so evenly matched – the Redskins are coming off a bye week and are more balanced than people realize, while the Saints offense is a track team at the Superdome, with Kamara deciding he’ll run anchor leg the rest of the season – so I see Washington covering. I could also see this one stretching to OT (say, tied at 21), and if it does, Drew Brees will pick away at Washington and get his offense in position to win it by a field goal.

Brees needs 201 yards to overtake Brett Favre (71,838) and Peyton Manning (71,940) to be the most prolific passer in the NFL’s history. That seems inevitable, but perhaps the Saints will get crafty and use that milestone as a decoy on Monday night. They could put it all on Kamara’s back between the 20s, with returning back Mark Ingram punching in one or two TDs during goal-line situations. In fact, if Brees has to sling it all night that could be a bad thing for New Orleans – as it may indicate that Alex Smith is tearing up the Saints D (which is ranked 29th in DVOA). Again, I do see the Redskins covering here. This should be another fun one.

My own Brees story: I finally met him last November in New Orleans, first at the team facility and then at gorgeous City Park, where he was coaching his kids’ flag football teams. It was a perfect Friday night with high school football being played in two different spots, and youth soccer and flag taking up the rest of the park’s many fields. My film crew and I initially got lost — driving at night in that park there was so much inky blackness, followed by pockets of street lights illuminating little kids playing sports and eating pizza with moms and dads, with whistles and cheers and the occasional high school band playing in the distance when the home team scored. You just … felt it. Americana. This was the family New Orleans so few tourists ever see as they guzzle hand grenades on Bourbon Street.  We just had to find our guy and shoot it.

It didn’t take long. At the epicenter of all of it was Drew Brees, smiling and cheering on the kids.

.

A future Mayor, if he wanted to be.

At the facility, I thought he was relentlessly positive, as QBs tend to be. Even if a team is winless, the upbeat mask must go on (someone forgot to tell Jay Cutler). And Brees so has that. But there was no faking the gregariousness he showed on that City Park field to friends and strangers alike. That guy is real. New Orleans feels it. He was New Orleans. He is New Orleans.

You can argue he was the bronze medalist of NFL QBs for years, behind Brady and Manning but ahead of everybody else, and stuck around long enough to sit on the gold medal stand as the league’s all-time leader in passing yards. For a long while, he seemed destined to be in the Warren Moon/Jim Kelly/Dan Fouts strata of future HOFers who were so fun to watch and yet didn’t win a Super Bowl – and then he finally pulled it off, dueling with a native son of New Orleans, Manning, to win the city its first NFL championship.  And perhaps the NFL Films shot you’ll remember most is of him holding his baby son aloft as the confetti fell and he had won a title. It’ll certainly be the shot they show last during his Hall of Fame presentation.

But to me, I’ll remember him best from that perfect night in City Park, high-fiving kids and chatting with fellow parents as if he were a landscape architect from Metairie. The only thing that distinguished him from everyone else was a compression sleeve on his right arm – a right arm that soon will have thrown for more yards than any other player in pro football history.

Last week: 1-3
Overall: 4-9

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Starting Five

Sham On Us, Shame On You

Wow. The FBI handed in its report at 2 a.m. on Thursday morning and while it wasn’t written in Crayola, it appears that Lenny Briscoe would have been unable to unearth more information before the first commercial break than the Bureau did.


Senator Dick Durbin…

Senator Jeff Merkley…


So the GOP (and Jeff Flake) got what it wanted—political cover— failing to interview any corroborating witnesses and then claiming there was no evidence of corroboration. The old white chauvinist males are satisfied. America’s females are wholly frustrated and disappointed. It sounds like every liaison between a Republican pol and his mistress (or wife) of the past 50 years.

2. Labor Days

Taking what they’re giving/Cuz we’re working for a living

The unemployment rate, it was announced this morning, fell to a 49-year low. It’s at 3.7%, the lowest since December of 1969. We’re not informed enough to provide the collateral effects or reasons behind this, we just know that we’ll be working two jobs all day between now and Sunday night. That’s good, right?

3. Weaponizing Victimhood

Trevor Noah on Trump and white male victimhood. Noah: “Trump knows how to wield victimhood to the people who have the least claim to it.”

Noah brings up a point that we also made in a tweet last night, which is, “How many men have been falsely accused of a sexual assault versus how many women have actually been sexually assaulted?”

We hate to say this, and this is us, not Noah speaking here, but if Kavanugh is confirmed and Trump’s “males are the real victims” strategy wins the day, then we totally condone violence. Seriously. Women, if any man sexually assaults you, shoot him in the…you know where. Do it. Because that’s your only chance at justice.

4. A Tale Of Two Editorials

So White House Chief of Manipulation Bill Shine likely phoned his old boss at NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Wall Street Journal, and got his “client” Brett O’Kavanaugh some space on yesterday’s Op-Ed page. O’Kavanaugh went with the “That Guy You Saw Up There Isn’t The Real Me” approach, or as our Twitter pal Rebekah Howard put it, “Clean-up on aisle 3.”

The tag-line:

“Yes, I was emotional last Thursday. I hope everyone can understand I was there as a son, husband and dad.”

Oh, we understand, Brett. This morning The New York Times, piling on to what just about everyone who has passed the bar in the past 25 years has advised, put out its own editorial titled “How Brett Kavanaugh Failed (And Why The Senate Should Vote To Keep Him Off The Supreme Court).”

As we were mulling this last night, we thought about what the Supreme Court has long represented. Unlike a Senator or governor or even the President, all of whom are elected and thus whose office owes itself to the whims of the people (who are all too often idiots), the Supreme Court justice is nominated, confirmed and appointed. He or she is the closest thing we have in America to the Pope. For all of our life “be on the Supreme Court” is analogous with someone who has the highest, most unimpeachable character or integrity.

Brett O’Kavanaugh fails that test.

We recall a few weeks back Jeff Flake actually stating, out loud, that O’Kavanaugh’s volunteer coaching of a basketball team tells him that Brett has character. Hell, we spent three years volunteer coaching basketball teams and our kid wasn’t on it.

I’ll tell you what, as a man his age, seeing someone like Brett O’Kavanaugh being nominated for the Supreme Court really tells me: If I’d known the bar was this low, I might have pursued a different career path.

5. The Girl With The Sword In The Lake*

*This is the one Stig Larsson book the judges have not read

Last July in Sweden, eight year-old Saga Vanecek pulled this sword, believed to be 1,500 years old, from the bottom of a lake. Saga was actually born and raised in Minneapolis; her family relocated to Sweden last year (take us with you). She’s a fan of the Minnesota Vikings, but now also Vikings in general.

Music 101

Sugar-Coated Iceberg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQRSInpxUJw

Founded by lead vocalist Ian Broudie, formerly of Big In Japan, the Lightning Seeds of Liverpool sounded like an ’80s band but actually did most of their damage in the 1990s. This song came out in 1996, off the Dizzy Heights album.

Remote Patrol

Baseball Four-pleheader!

Indians-Astros

2:05 p.m. TBS

Rockies-Brewers

4:15 p.m. FS1

Yankees-Red Sox

7:32 p.m. TBS

Braves-Dodgers

9:37 p.m. FS1

Do you realize that this year’s Cy Young winners will not be in the postseason? But you can still catch Justin Verlander, Corey Kluber, Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw on the hills. Plus,  it’s overlapping baseball. Two games on simultaneously from 4:15 until at least 10:30.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Starting Five

The A Train Stops Here*

*The judges are here to tell you that actually, it doesn’t, though the D and the 4 do.

For the past three months, the Oakland A’s were baseball’s en fuego grande. Billy Beane’s team, with baseball’s lowest payroll, was 34-36 on the morning of June 16. They went 63-29 the rest of the way, but could never quite catch the Yankees in the AL wild card home-field advantage chase (they came as close as one game back on September 13).

Hechavarria, whom the Yanks acquired on the last day of August, went skyward to rob the A’s of a double in the 7th.

Last night in the Bronx, that seemed to make all the difference. Luis Severino had, unlike last year, an unadventurous top of the first, then Aaron Judge smacked a two-run laser to left as the Yankees’s second batter. The Bombers broke it open in the sixth on a Judge excuse-me double followed by an Aaron Hicks triple, followed by a Luke Voit triple off the top of the wall in right.

Yanks 7, A’s 2. We Want Boston!

2. Swift, But Is It Justice?

Give us your vaginas!

Since when does anyone in the federal government hand in their homework on time, much less nearly two days early? The FBI, which pursued the Bart O’Kavanaugh case with the dogged zeal of, well, Scooby Doo entering a haunted amusement park, submitted its findings last night. Mitch McConnell and his crew are determined to get gratification as soon as possible no matter how much resistance the other side puts up. Does that at all sound familiar to you, Dr. Ford?

Meanwhile, we’d advise you to read this from Drew Magary in GQ from the summer. For those of us bitching about Trump, the painful truth is that he’s only the symptom. The people are the problem. We’re all living in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

3. Pray For Scottsdale

By sundown on October 2nd the Phoenix area had already witnessed its second-wettest October on record, thanks to nearly three inches of rain pelting the desert in the month’s first two days. Remnants of Hurricane Rosa, which struck the northern coast of Mexico on the Pacific side, the storm left—and we’re not kidding—a golf course or two between Hayden and Scottsdale Roads under water.

Locals will whine that Rosa is just another unwelcome, undocumented Mexican visitor.

Locals know this as the Green Belt, a narrow park that includes a golf course and bike trail that was built, knowingly, in a flood plain. So when Arizona gets its 100-year floods, which occur every decade or so, you get pictures like the one above.

4. Operation Eichmann

Banner (left) and Klemperer in Operation Eichmann (1961)

So maybe you’ve seen or read about the Oscar Isaac film Operation Finale, which was just released and traces the true story of Nazi war criminal and fugitive Adolph Eichmann. It stars Ben Kingsley as the bad buy.

Two nights ago we flipped over to TCM, as we always do, and they were airing a film from 1961 titled Operation Eichmann. It’s the same character, the same story. So what, you ask? We’ll tell you so what…

The man in the title role was Werner Klemperer, whom you may recognize better as Colonel Klink from Hogan’s Heroes. But what really got our attention was a dinner scene in which Eichmann/Klink is coldly discussing with one of his sergeants how he prefers gassing Jews because “it is so clean” a method of extermination. As ghoulish as that sounded, and remember this is only 16 years after the end of World War II, the actor playing the sergeant in that scene was John Banner, whom you know better as...Sergeant Schultz.

Banner and Klemperer playing Nazis for laughs

That’s right: only four years before Hogan’s Heroes’ 1965 TV premiere, Klink and Schultz were playing Nazis straight. And discussing the Holocaust as two people would ridding themselves of termite infestation (Banner’s Rudolph Hoss explained that he liked gassing because it did not negatively impact the morale of his soldiers).

5. Divers Drown

Remember all the attention that cave-bound Thai soccer team received back in June? Fortunately, all 12 boys and their coach survived, though one diver did perish attempting to save them.
Well, this weekend in Malaysia, a half dozen rescue divers drowned in a vain attempt to save a teen who had fallen into a disused mining pool while fishing. The divers apparently were caught in a whirlpool and their equipment was flung off them. The teen is still missing. It’s odd how feel-bad stories don’t receive as much attention as feel-good stories when it comes to rescues.

Music 101

Have You Seen Her?

 

The Chi-Lites never garnered the acclaim that similar early ’70s soul acts such as The Temptations and The O’Jays did. This 1971 release from the Chicago act was their first hit, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard charts. And here they are lip-synching it on Soul Train.

Remote Patrol

NLDS Doubleheader

Rockies-Brewers

5 p.m. FS1

Braves-Dodgers

8 p.m. MLBN

I like to pronounce it like “tornado” even if that’s wrong

That’s correct: They’re going to play ball at Miller Park during happy hour and later in Los Angeles during rush hour. Advantage, Brewer fans. If you don’t know much about Christian Yelich or Nolan Arenado, here’s your chance to watch two men who should or will soon be MVPs. The latter is a five-time Gold Glove winner at third base.

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 14 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


He wasn’t exactly lying, it’s just that he knew the truth and chose not to share it. Bart O’Kavanaugh’s going to make such an upstanding Supreme Court justice.

Starting Five

Tuesday night (actually Wednesday morning)

1. Successive Celebration Rule

Let’s raise a lukewarm Hamm’s to ol’ Rule No. 7: Last night, actually earlier this morning, the Colorado Rockies became the second visiting team in as many days to celebrate on the infield at Wrigley Field. As our friend Cecil Hurt tweeted, “Wrigley Field’s infield is now available for weddings and bar mitzvahs.”

Monday afternoon: The Brewers win the NL Yeast

What a bad October for the Cubs: two homes games in which they score one run each game. And now they’re out. You can talk about The Hug, or Gore’s swinging errantly at ball 4, or how the Rockies scored the winning run on a trio of consecutive two-out singles, or how this was, in terms of innings (13), the longest elimination game in Major League history.

Arenado, Baez: Theres’ NO HUGGING in baseball

Us? We just doubt you’ll ever see two different visiting clubs celebrating on the same team’s infield on consecutive days.

2. Human Filth


You had to expect this, right? Donald Trump, at a rally in Mississippi, demeans the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. This is vintage “Grab ‘Em By The P*ssy” Trump. The real Trump. This is how he feels about any woman who would dare to disrupt a man’s power game.

We will give him this: he’s an excellent performer when he’s focused. Ted Cruz couldn’t deliver that oration. Little Marco couldn’t. Jeb? Child, please. Obama could’ve, he just wouldn’t focus his energy on calling a woman who comes forward with a sexual assault allegation “really evil people.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuAUI_0knfk

Our friend and weekly MH contributor, Chris Corbellini, posted this video from Talladega Nights last week. Even though the movie is 12 years old, watching it we realized this is who we are as a country: Half of us are Chip, and the MAGA crowd is Ricky Bobby, Cal, his wife and sons, Walker and Texas Ranger. Watch and tell us different.

3. Feeling Queasy on Sulawesi*

*The judges won’t even consider accepting “It’s Not Easy Being Sulawesi”

Last week, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, inciting a tsunami that killed more than 1,400 people. Think about that number. Then, a day or two ago, a volcano erupted. No wonder people create gods.

And here I am on the East coast bemoaning humidity or subway delays. It’s all relative, yo.

4. The Ballad of Fred and Donald

So yesterday The New York Times came out with the latest “This Will Blow The Doors Off The Trump Presidency/Campaign” story (what are we up to now, 413?), alleging massive tax fraud that began with Donny’s dad, Fred Trump, and continues to this (yawn) day.

For your sake, we read the piece. Items:

— Starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day, DonaldTrump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges. As Stephen Colbert wondered aloud, ” “So, let me get this straight: At one point, Donald Trump was an extraordinarily wealthy toddler. And today? He is still that.”

—Trump’s parents, Fred and Mary, were able to transfer more than $1 billion to their children and avoided paying the 55% tax rate. Their rate was closer to 5%. You got a problem with a 55% tax rate? So do we. But the law’s the law. Of course MAGA will just proclaim that the Trumps are smart on one hand while insisting that a first-time drug offender be cuffed and imprisoned (now, if the Trumps had tattoos…).

We love this. Because the Times realizes that most people won’t take the time to read their exhaustive special investigation, they’ve gone Reddit on themselves and added a story titled “11 Takeaways from The Times’ Investigation of Trump.” It’s like, here, read this Cliff’s Notes version of our own story.

5. What Is Gwen Jorgensen Thinking?

You remember Gwen Jorgensen, the certified public accountant-cum-triathlete who won gold in the triathlon in Rio? Now Jorgensen, 32, has transitioned to the marathon with aspirations of a gold medal in Tokyo. Seriously.

There’s just one problem: She’s never run a marathon.

That changes this weekend as Jorgensen, a Wisconsin alum who lives in America’s Dairyland, ventures south to race in the Chicago Marathon. It’s a flat, fast course.

Music 101

I’m Amazed

My Morning Jacket, 2008. Rolling Stone and the rock critics couldn’t have loved this song any more if Radiohead had released it. The Kentucky band’s signature tune.

Remote Patrol

A.L. Wildcard

Athletics at Yankees

8 p.m. TBS

The Yanks and A’s knew they’d meet in this game since late August; it just became a matter of where. After stumbling much of July and August and for half of September, the Yanks finally look solid again, having won the last four season series they played. The A’s are red-hot and have been for months. The venue tonight may make all the difference.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Starting Five

A Star Is Born

Those of us who follow the college football knew about Pat Mahomes II, the son of a Major League Baseball player (and what was his name?). At Texas Tech he was the reason Baker Mayfield had to transfer and only two years ago he threw for an astounding 734 yards against Oklahoma (Mahomes rushed for 85 in that loss, giving him an FBS single-game record 819 yards of total offense).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdnUr9eaH0k

Last night was Mahomes’ national coming-out-party, as he led the Kansas City Chiefs to a victory in Denver on MNF that included a sweet eluding-Von Miller toss using his left hand late in the fourth quarter. Mahomes has guided K.C. to a 4-0 start (only the Rams are also undefeated) and has the league’s top QBR rating, having thrown 14 TD passes and not a single pick. No NFL city has better fans than Kansas City. None. This will be fun to watch.

2. Chugging Along*

ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian called Yelich “the best player in baseball” yesterday. Mike Trout’s out there like, “Where is the love? Where is the love? Where is the love, the love, the love?”

*The judges will also accept “NL Yeast” and “New Milwaukee”

The Milwaukee Brewers are going to be our feel-good team of October, aren’t they? One foresees Marquette alum/scribe supreme Steve Rushin heading out to Milwaukee for an epic profile on Wiscy native Craig Counsell, the team’s manager and a good Catholic lad from Notre Dame, and the rest of the gang, from Christian Yelich (the second coming of Ted Williams, right down to his southern California roots) to Lo Cain (“He don’t lie, he don’t lie, he don’t lie”) to the octogenarian mascot, Bob Uecker.

The Brew Crew, five games back on September 2, beat the Cubs in Game 163 at Wrigley to win the NL East yesterday, 3-1. Then it was back up I-94, past the Mars Cheese Palace, back home to await a Thursday Game 1 in which they may very well find themselves facing…the Chicago Cubs. That would be epic. Not good for a sportswriter’s frequent flyer miles, but epic.

3. Y’all >>>>> Yale

You know, maybe Yale isn’t all that prestigious or worthy after all. I mean, double-Yalie Brett Kavanaugh more and more comes off like a tool. Rory Gilmore graduated from there and ten years later she was unemployed and basically homeless. Law school grads Bill and Hillary are unemployed and, according to our current president, she is a loser.

Meanwhile, have you been to New Haven??? It’s a city located along the Long Island Sound that didn’t have the foresight to build up the area right along the water into an attractive commercial/tourist spot. Instead, it’s simply the intersection of interstates 95 and 91. Sure, the pizza’s fantastic and Toad’s is a good place to see an up-and-coming musical act, but after that? Ew.

As we like to say here at MH, New Haven is No Haven.

Go to a southern state school. Have fun. Eat better food. Cheer for a real football team. Meet people who’ve heard of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. It’s better down south.

4. You Can’t Buy Class

Maybe the Seattle Seahawks should just never vist University of Phoenix Stadium or whatever they’re calling it (currently State Farm Stadium….can’t they just name it Tillman Arena and be done with it?). First it was Darren Bevell’s boneheaded call in Super Bowl XLIX. Now another form of bird at a Cardinals game from safety Earl Thomas after he broke his leg in his first game back this season.

None of us know what happened in the locker room or front offices, but this much is known: Thomas, 29, has earned $55 million in his nine NFL seasons, six of which were Pro Bowl campaigns. A few years ago the Seahawks and Thomas agreed to a four-year deal worth $40 million in which more than $25 million was guaranteed. He was reportedly the best-compensated player at his position in the NFL.

Then, in 2016, Thomas broke his leg. In the preseason he was holding out, looking for a contract extension. The Hawks refused to give him one because, let’s face it, he’s 29 and damaged goods. He was not traded. He held out but each week he did he was forfeiting a $500,000 game check.

We’re sure Thomas, a vaunted member of the Legion of Boom, did a ton for the franchise during their Super Bowl era. And we’re just as sure that the Seahawks did plenty for him. Thomas should check how many millennials who don’t work at nearby Microsoft or Amazon earn what he does. He is a gifted athlete who was paid a sum commensurate with his gifts.

But then when he got hurt he was looking for a way to extend that payday into his mid-thirties. Sorry, not gonna happen. Thomas said, and this is worth repeating, “I’m investing in myself.”

And that’s fine. But so are the Seahawks. And why would they throw more money at a piece that is past its prime? We get that Thomas is pissed off, but at the end of the day he may as well have been flipping that bird at a mirror, or no one at all.

5. Man Behaving Badly

Here’s your president at the White House Rose Garden yesterday. At least he didn’t say, “Get back in the kitchen, dearie.”

If Cecilia Vega had been on her toes, the appropriate comeback would have been, “Like you with your tweets?”

And here’s Trump going after CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who also doesn’t know her place…


Watch that second clip and take note: Trump demeans, unapologetically, two female reporters within two minutes, but when he coughs he says, “Excuse me.” Because that’s what needed to be excused.

Oh, and this is as close as Deborah Ramirez was willing to get to Brett Kavanaugh after college…

Music 101

Shallow

Before the movie (A Star Is Born) blows up, before the song blows up, here it is. True fact: A good friend and former roommate of ours used to teach high school English and direct the school plays here in Gotham City. One year his female lead was a girl from Sacred Heart named Stephanie Germanotta: Lady Ga Ga. We read one critical review of this film where they referred to it as Ga Ga Land. That’s good. Wish we’d have thought of it.

If this song doesn’t win the Oscar, we’ll eat Kanye West’s MAGA hat…

Remote Patrol

NL Wildcard Game: Rockies at Cubs

8 p.m. ESPN (AND ESPN2)

The Cubs will trot out the Lester of two evils….

For the analytics junkies, ESPN2 will air a “Statcast Edition” which will include a constantly evolving percentage odds of your ever getting la*d if you’re the type of person who watches Statcast Editions. Meanwhile, how enjoyable would it be to watch the Cubs lose at home two days in a row to two different teams to be eliminated from the postseason after having a five-game lead on Labor Day weekend? Let’s go, Continental Divides!