by John Walters

“One, two!” A Medium Happy 67th to the Boss.

Starting Five

Sartorially, at least, the genius does not jump right out at you

1. The Best of Belichick

What the Tom Brady suspension has done is offer a platform for Bill Belichick to demonstrate just how superior he is to his supposed peers. Week 1, at Arizona, a team many believe will make it to the Super Bowl next winter, and the Pats win with no Brady and no Gronk. Week 2, an easy home win versus the Dolphins but 2nd-string QB Jimmy Garoppolo is injured. Last night, down to third-string QB Jacoby Brissett, the Pats shut out the Houston Texans, who entered Gillette Stadium 2-0.

No wonder Jacoby Brissett handed the football to a coach who already owns four Super Bowl rings after scoring his first TD. He knows: this four-game stretch, and yes the Pats will start 4-0, is Bill Belichick’s Pet Sounds. His 5th Symphony. He’s Verbal Kint and every other NFL coach is Chazz Palminteri’s character from The Usual Suspects.

2. “What? No F*ck%n’ Ziti?”

Kudos to Sheffield for not “disrespecting the Bing.”

Props to Rolling Stone pop culture maven Rob Sheffield for endeavoring to compile a list of “The 100 Greatest TV Shows Of All Time” in which “All Time” equals “Since 1950.” Man, are we human beings overly self-absorbed.

Anyway, you can argue with the order but the Top 10 is pretty solid: The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Mad Men, The Twilight Zone, Saturday Night Live, All In The Family, The Daily Show.

One man’s contrarian opinion, 1 to 10: Mad Men, Seinfeld, Late Night/Late Show with David Letterman, The Sopranos, All In The Family, The Twilight Zone, Breaking Bad, The Wire, Cheers, The Office (U.K.).

Oscar and Felix should have been in the Top 25

Kudos to Rob for putting the British The Office so high (No. 21) and for not forgetting the one-year wonder that was My So-Called Life.

What did the list not include that it should have? The Carol Burnett Show, Extras, Frasier, The Cosby Show (it’s not the shows’ faults that Kelsey and Bill are such horrible human beings), Entourage, SCTV, The Newsroom (come at me, Emily Nussbaum!), The Brady Bunch (c’mon, who doesn’t quote it or know it?),

3. Twitter For Sale

Why @twitter?

1 personal learning network
2 the best realtime, context rich news
3 democratize intelligence
4 great place to promote others

— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) September 23, 2016

Shortly after 9 a.m. David Faber (who never ages) reported on CNBC that he is hearing rumors of an imminent sale of Twitter. Perhaps a little bird told him? How reliable a reporter is Faber? In the moments before he mentioned it, TWTR was down 71 cents in pre-dawn trading on the bottom-of-your-screen crawl. Less than 30 seconds later, TWTR was up $3 to $22-and-change.

Rumor has it that SalesForce.com and/or Google are interested in purchasing TWTR. It’s not about profitability. It’s about the scope of the service. Always has been.

4. Stupid Is As Stupid Does

When the “Taking a Knee” doc (I’m putting a moratorium on using “30 For 30”) eventually airs about Colin Kaepernick and what his national anthem protest has incited, these tweets and video clips all from just yesterday will be used….

Here’s San Francisco 49er coach Chip Kelly deftly handling long-time Bay Area curmudgeon Lowell Cohn who is not asking questions as much as he is lecturing Kelly.

Here’s Seattle Mariner catcher Steve Clevenger…

#Mariners say they are “looking into” controversial tweets coming pitcher Steve Clevenger’s account screencapped by @cablebox666: pic.twitter.com/RcWNdqflGV

— Jon Humbert (@jonhumbert) September 22, 2016

Here’s North Carolina congressman Robert Pittenger telling BBC News Night that African-Americans “the hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not.” Now, to be fair, Pittenger was also decrying welfare and the perpetual state of misery if being on welfare is your de facto mode of survival, and there he has a point. But the utter insensitivity and tone-deafness of saying that because people are protesting a black man being shot (by a black cop) is mind-boggling.

And here’s Kathy Miller, a former Trump chair woman for Mahoney County in Ohio, telling a reporter, “I don’t think there was any racism until Obama got elected.” I mean, she knows she’s on camera and she’s saying this…

5.  Vin Sanity

Two Fordham Prep alums seated with a Hackley Prep alum

As the hagiographies and tributes to an unparalleled 67-year career in broadcasting pour in for Vin Scully, I urge you to read this outstanding piece by Keith Olbemann. Wonderful.

Music 101

I’m Going Down

I was compiling a list of Springsteen songs yesterday—I do this about once a month…no reason—and this little gem from Born In The U.S.A. popped up. I doubt it makes anyone’s Top 10 list for Springsteen songs, but it’s such a tight tune, and Max Weinberg’s drumming  at the beginning is impeccable. This is a throwaway song for The Boss, where for anyone else it’s in their Greatest Hits collection.

Remote Patrol

Stanford at UCLA

Saturday 8 p.m. ABC

As our college football-loving friend Borat would say, “Sexy time!” Josh RosenRosen and Christian McCaffrey are given their prime-time Heisman stage in the Rose Bowl. It’s time for Jim Mora to win a game that matters in Westwood, but the Cardinal are just a wrecking ball.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 55th birthday to Catherine Oxenberg….

Starting Five

The Last Don II

Huckster, showman, bloviator, serial swindler of OPM with bizarre hair…and Donald Trump. At yesterday’s rally in Cleveland, here’s what boxing promoter Don King had to say: “If you’re poor, you are a poor negro — I would use the n-word — but if you’re rich, you are a rich negro. If you are intelligent, intellectual, you are intellectual negro. If you are a dancing and sliding and gliding nigger– I mean negro — you are a dancing and sliding and gliding negro. You’re going to be a negro ’til you die.”

Later, at a Fox News town hall at an African-American church that was closed to journalists (suck on that irony for a moment), Trump was asked what he would do to curb crime in predominantly black areas, and he said he would consider using “stop-and-frisk” on a national basis. That’s no relation to “stop-and-Fisk,” where officers halt African-American youths and compel them to say hello to a retired American League catcher.

2. Citi Haul

Ender Inciarte’s catch was the final play of a three-game sweep by the Braves

*The judges will also accept “Ender’s Game”

The Mets headed into this week with an 80-69 record and the Atlanta Braves, who have the worst record in the National League, arriving at Citi Field for a three-game series. They were atop the N.L. wild-card standings. Now, on the first day of autumn, the Let’s Go’s are looking back ruefully at a three-game sweep by the Braves and are in a dead heat with both the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants: all are 80-72 with 10 games remaining.

Last night Yoenis Cespedes came to the plate with the Mets trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth. With two on and  two out, he lined a shot to right center that looked as if it was headed out, but Ender Inciarte of the Braves robbed him with the catch above.

Oh, and ace Jacob deGrom is lost for the season.

3. Today’s Sermon

If you haven’t read it, here’s Drew Magary’s takedown of Trump voters in GQ yesterday. Now, as much as I enjoyed it in the moment, I think there’s a trend happening this week that will only benefit the GOP candidate. In just this week alone, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert and now Magary have unabashedly F-bombed the GOP candidate and/or his supporters in essays, written or oral, to their audiences.

It’s getting to that point of…what? Desperation? Vitriol? Hostility?

Allow me a tepid take here: The moment Trump won/Clinton lost the election was when, on national TV, Jeffrey Tambor proclaimed that he hoped “I will be the last cisgender to play a transgender” on TV. I mean, I live on the liberal UWS and I was sitting there thinking, “Cisgender? You mean, like, ‘man’?”

I mean, we get it: Diversity. Great. There’s just something a little off-putting about an entire nation being scolded about its obstinacy towards transgender folk when, honestly, most of us don’t know any. Tambor might as well have gotten up there and stumped for more almond milk at the Starbucks in Brentwood.

(While we’re at it, there’s something so obnoxious about the Malibu Liberals crowd: people who choose to live in an area that is at least 95% white and affluent telling the rest of us how to interact with one another across racial lines. It’s like when your Catholic priest gives classes on sexual relations in marriage.)

When you constantly scold the largest segment of the population (Caucasian) that everyone else’s lives matter, or that you’re not allowed to present a contrarian view in matters of race or sex based not on the view itself but simply because of your #WhitePrivilege, well, what do you think is going to happen? You’re going to get a lethal backlash. And the man who is reaping the rewards of that backlash is Donald Trump.

Do transgender people deserve to go to the bathroom where they feel comfortable? Of course. Does everyone deserve to be treated with respect, regardless of the color of their skin or religion or sexual orientation? Of course. There’s just this militancy to it all now that there didn’t used to be, and, you know, I really wish Norman Lear were still making sitcoms to show people how to be liberal while retaining a sense of humor about it all.

4. Between Two Ferns 

I haven’t even seen this yet, either, but I figure it’s at least worth one of our five daily items, no?

5. The Afterlife

A close friend sent this yesterday. It’s from a play that he saw. Pretty self-explanatory:
 

Music 101

You Light Up My Life

Today is Debby Boone’s 60th birthday. In 1977, with both disco and punk roaring all over the place, this saccharine ballad (from a film of the same name that you never want to see, trust me) hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts and, like a low-pressure system that won’t leave the vicinity and keeps everything humid and sticky, remained there for ten freaking weeks! That was a record at the time. This may help you understand why “The Pina Colada Song (Escape)” was a hit in the same decade. Debby is Pat Boone’s daughter, which makes her kind of the Robin Thicke of the Seventies without all the twerking.

Remote Patrol

Texans at Patriots

8:25 p.m. CBS

Watt’s App

I don’t even much like the NFL and I’d watch this game (if I weren’t moonlighting at mixologist gig). J.J. Watt and a distinct possibility of Gronk on the same field? Plus Jadeveon Clowney and Will Fuller? C’mon, now. Both the Texans and Pats are 2-0 as the latter will likely start third-string QB Jacoby Brissett. Houston’s 3rd-string QB is either Tom Savage or Brandon Weeden, FYI.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 66th to the man who was too wise to grow up, Bill Murray

Starting Five

Pitt Stop

First Hiddleswift, and now Brangelina? This is why I always refer to them separately as William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman, as opposed to MaHuf. If you haven’t heard, Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce from Brad Pitt. They have six children.

2. Warren (Says Her) Piece

I hope Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf knows a good proctologist, because he suffered quite the ass-chewing while being grilled by a Congressional subcommittee on Capitol Hill yesterday. One senator rightly asked Stumpf, after he claimed he first learned about fraud within his company in 2013 even though 1,000 employees had been fired for committing fraud two years earlier, in 2011, “Why doesn’t this prove that a company like yours is not only too big to fail, but too big to manage?”

But it was Elizabeth Warren who seriously ripped him a new one, telling Strumpf that he should resign and referring to his stewardship as “gutless leadership.”

3. The White Knight of Queen of Katwe

The most popular professor in Chapel Hill….

This is my very close friend Tim Crothers. More than a decade ago, this UNC alum living in Chapel Hill was a regular in soccer coach/icon Anson Dorrance‘s near-daily afternoon roller hockey game. The two developed a friendship.

That led to Tim writing a critically-acclaimed biography of Dorrance, The Man Watching.

That led to Dorrance lobbying Tar Heel hoops coach Roy Williams on Crothers’ behalf for him to write a bio on Williams, which he did, titled Hard Work.

That led to Tim giving a talk at a local seafood restaurant in Chapel Hill on St. Patrick’s Day, 2010, where a man showed him a newspaper clipping (the man had tossed it in the trash three times, but then thought better of it each time and retrieved it) about a young girl from the slums of Kampala, Uganda, who was an international chess champion.

That led to Tim writing a story about the girl, Phiona Mutesi, for ESPN the Magazine, which entailed him traveling first to Uganda and then Siberia, which was nominated for a National Magazine Award, which led to his book, The Queen of Katwe, which has led to the Disney release this Friday in select cities of the film, Queen of Katwe.

One of my favorite things about my friend is his dry and self-deprecating sense of humor. When I spoke to him a week ago, he told me that they’d had a screening of the film in Chapel Hill recently. However, the way films and TV shows are now sent out is they send a link that you can download, but it comes with a password. Well, the theater was given the incorrect password and the movie was delayed. Tim was asked to stretch, to do a Q&A with the crowd during the delay.

He did that for 10 to 15 minutes, but they still had no password. So someone suggested Tim go out in the lobby and sell/sign a few books. He did. He was doing that for half an hour or so when someone approached and said, “You know, they started the movie about 10 minutes ago.” That’s kind of a writer’s life in a nut shell.

There are a lot of celebrated sports writers and sports writers-turned-talking heads out there. Tim Crothers and Steve Rushin are the two best that I know of. They’re the real deal. The story of Phiona Mutesi is a true underdog tale, but so then is the story of Crothers, whom SI  laid off in June of 2001 (along with two other hacks, Bill Nack and Leigh Montville, as well as yours truly), but he has recovered quite nicely.

4. Scranton-Wilkes Barre Tops El Paso

You are not going to derail the Railroaders

Not sure why there’s so little fanfare for the championship game of the highest domestic level of baseball outside the Major Leagues, but you probably did not hear that the Scranton/Wilkes Barre Railriders defeated the El Paso Chihuahuas last night in the AAA Championship Game. S/WB’s Chris Parmalee hit a three-run homer before the Railriders made their first out in the first inning, and those were all the runs they needed in the 3-1 victory. S/WB are the Yankees’ top affiliate.

Sanchez is now just six home runs shy of being the Yankees’ home run leader this season, despite having made his debut in early August

Also last night, S/WB alum Gary Sanchez hit the game-winning homer for the Yanks at Tampa Bay. That’s Filthy Sanchez’s 17th homer in just 43 games, tying him for the most home runs in that opening span in MLB history (he had 10 in 73 games with S/WB this season before being called up in August).

Also, Boston’s David Ortiz hit his 36th home run in Boston’s win at Baltimore. That breaks Dave Kingman’s record for the most home runs by a player in his final season, which makes everyone in Boston implore, “WHY must this be your final season, Big Papi?”

5. Skittles Skam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0qCXXTo5iw

Here’s Stephen Colbert dismantling Donald Trump, Jr.’s Skittles meme…

Music 101

Smoke On The Water

There’s a classic rock tune whose opening riff you can play on the guitar after just one lesson, and this tune by Deep Purple is it. If someone wants to call this 1972 tune the birth of heavy metal, I’m not sure I’d disagree (though Jimmy Page and Ozzy Osbourne might). The tune peaked at No. 4 in the U.S. and that is, as the deejays at KUPD-FM in Phoenix used to say, “the blazing guitar of Ritchie Blackmore” you are hearing. Vocals by Ian Gillan.

(Listen to the comments by the former band member [not sure which this is] after the song; very funny.)

Remote Patrol

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

TCM 8 p.m.

This 1963 comic bouillabaise, the Cannonball Run of its era, is loaded with Hollywood funny men of the time: Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Jerry Lewis, Don Knotts, Phil Silvers and Dick Shawn. But it also has Jimmy Durante, Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney and Peter Falk. Everyone is vamping here, just having a good time and basically playing themselves before I assume hitting The Sands or The Desert Inn for happy hour.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 82nd to Sophia Loren (the best)

Starting Five

Just the latest example of the Trump brand of sly wink-wink racism

Birther of a Nation

A few videos from the past few days related to the GOP nominee and why his birtther movement, followed by his blatant attempt last Friday to turn the tables on what is an obvious truth: he started the birther movement and, given numerous opportunities to disavow it between 2011 and last week, he continued to use the “Well, some people are saying…” jab, which is his way of being the Second Hand News Guy from SNL (“I don’t know, Colin; that’s what I hear…”), in order to smear President Obama.

Anyway, these videos speak to it better than I am able to:

And this. One of Seth Meyers‘ best moments thus far. He’s not interested in video-bombing  red carpet interviews with Mario Lopez at the Emmys’ (If you haven’t seen it, watch as Mario is interviewing James Corden and then Jimmy Fallon jumps in to upstage it all; some of you will think that’s Jimmy being hilarious and playful; I kinda think Jimmy is a lot smarter than that. He craves attention and he may not like that Corden has covers on GQ and Rolling Stone recently, or that Jimmy is better at this viral YouTube thing than he is. It’s all kiss-kissy at the interview, but I kinda think Corden was pissed and that Fallon’s old SNL co-workers, Tina and Amy, rolled their eyes if they witnessed this; Jimmy has to be the center of attention; always).

And I don’t have the video yet, but this is what Bono said to CBS’ Charlie Rose this morning when asked about Trump: “Look, America is the best idea the world ever came up with…but Donald Trump is potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America.”

2. This Is What I Was Alluding To Above…

Is it me? Listen to what Jimmy says as he approaches: “You get first? I’ve been doing it longer.” And though there are hugs and laughs, here is what Corden says, “It’s all about this guy (meaning Fallon).” Yup. And look at the painted-on smile Mario is wearing at about the :28 mark as he says, “Finds this very funny, apparently.” No one calls out Fallon on what an insatiable egomaniac he is.

3. The Best of Carson

Wentz is 2-0 for the Eagles

So that No. 2 overall pick, rookie quarterback Carson Wentz, was an efficient 21-34 as the Philadelphia Eagles took down the Chicago Bears on the road, 29-14. As extremely loyal MH reader Jacob Anstey commented yesterday, Wentz is the second rookie QB to start in the NFL this season (Dak Prescott) and there could be four by week’s end (Jacoby Brissett of the Pats and Cody Kessler for the Cleveland Browns).

As you know, the QB who has yet to start, who has yet to play, is No. 1 overall pick Jared Goff of the Los Angeles Rams. The same Rams who have Todd Gurley at RB but have yet to score at touchdown through two games.

4. The Genius of 9/11

This is the answer

Look. I’m sure many of you are sick of reading anything on here that isn’t related to sports (Notre Dame) or pop culture (Taylor Swift). But as the Madness of the Trump Movement escalates, I feel compelled to share this.

Hate them though you will, the masterminds of 9/11 must be looking up from their present state and grinning at how much better their plan worked than even they could’ve conceived. The plan was to knock out the World Trade Center and a few other iconic structures, sure, but it was far more to incite a war between cultures and to recruit other Muslims, usingAmerican hostility and vainglory against America. The more times people listened to an Alan Jackson song (“And I’m Proud to be an American…”), the more a schism would form between us and them. Between U.S. and them.

The attacks of 9/11 were horrific, of course, and the people who committed them and any of their abetters in the Arab world should have been taken out. But if our leaders at the time had understood game theory better, if they had read The Art of War (Rule No. 1: Know Your Enemy), they might have gotten beyond their “LET’S SMASH THAT BUG!” mentality and understood what was actually best for America.

What was better for America would have been to invest in alternative fuels, so that the Middle East would be less economically viable. What was better for America was to not invade Iraq, which had as much to do with 9/11 as North Korea did, and had a murderous tyrant as its leader, like North Korea, but unlike North Korea, has valuable oil reserves, but instead to surgically take out the men (Osama Bin Laden) responsible.

ISIS is a product of the Iraq War; of that there is no doubt. The instability in the Middle East is also partly a product of that war. If you want to talk to me about how we liberated a people, then why aren’t we liberating the people of Saudi Arabia? Their government is cruel and authoritarian and denies its people human rights daily.

And sure, there are Muslims who hate America, and of course their hatred is as much a result of their utter sense of inferiority in the modern world (name all the great Muslim inventors, artists, athletes, etc., in the past 100 years) as it is anything else. It is irrational.

But so is ours. What the Iraq War did, among other things, is create thousands of disabled military vets, and Gold Star families, and pain for people who volunteered because they believed in our just cause. And so it’s heartbreaking to suggest that this was a sham (or to mention how much Dick Cheney profited from the war) and you’re considered unpatriotic if you are.

The argument goes, How dare you show disrespect to the veterans for questioning their sacrifice. But nobody is questioning their valor and everyone does appreciate their sacrifice. But the greater good is to recognize what they were fighting to protect and preserve, such as liberty and free speech (and, sure, the 2nd Amendment, too). And if we as a nation can’t have a candid discussion about whether that war was just us falling into their trap by inciting a greater cultural divide, if we’re supposed to simply bow down and say, “We LOVE our military because they protect us!” without any exploration of the consequences of that military action, then we’re not much better than any other militarized nation.

And so now here we are in 2016, with nearly half the country supporting Trump, blindly treating ISIS as if it’s the Zika virus. As if we should just spray and be done with them. Not understanding that our greatest weapon against religious demagogues is not to isolate and demonize tens of millions of people for the actions of a few Skittles, but to be the beacon of freedom and liberty that so many aspire to be a part of. Does that mean every terrorist will disappear tomorrow? Of course not. But Islamic Jihad is not a country; it’s an idea. You don’t conquer it with conventional weapons; you conquer it with a better idea.

I’ve used this example before, and you may laugh at it because the gravity of “chopping off people’s heads” is much different than stealing all the Christmas decorations in Whoville. But Dr. Seuss was a very, very smart man, probably smarter than most if not all of the people at the U.N. assembly this week. But there it is: the Grinch envied the freedom and love of one culture (Whoville), so he committed a terrorist attack. And what did they do in retaliation? They didn’t attack him back. They remained true to their guiding principles, to the spirt of the holiday that they were celebrating. They locked hands, formed a circle, and reaffirmed what they were about. And the Grinch eventually got the picture.

If you think I’m too much of a simpleton for making that analogy, that’s fine. Yes, ISIS fighters are much more wicked and deadly, but the principles are the same. Remember that Jesus guy you all supposedly love so much and worship in between attending gun shows and Trump rallies? He conquered the world without ever lifting a hand in violence. He understood: nothing defeats a bad idea quite like a better idea.

And, finally, I hope people wake up and stop treating global politics as if it’s a football season. “America First” is not something any Founder ever said or thought. There are no rankings. America is about freedom and liberty and equality. It’s not about world dominance. Donald Trump is trying to persuade people that Americans are the only people in the world who matter; we’re not.

What we do or how we act isn’t implicitly right because it’s what we are doing, or because what we want. There are moral and ethical absolutes, and it doesn’t begin with DOING WHAT’S RIGHT FOR AMERICA. Because honestly, if that’s the way this country had always operated, we’d still have slavery. There’s a reason Abraham Lincoln is almost universally recognized as our greatest president. It’s because he fought for a greater purpose than what was politically or economically expedient at the moment. The idea that Donald Trump could hold the same office as Abe Lincoln, well, it’s quite depressing.

–THUS ENDETH TODAY’S SERMON

5. Where Everybody Knows His Name

In case you missed it, Bill Murray tended bar in Greenpoint (a section of Brooklyn, directly across the East River from the U.N.) last Saturday night. He was helping out his son, Homer, who was opening up a new bar/restaurant there, 21 Greenpoint.

Music 101

Good Morning, Starshine

Think back to when you were a really little kid. You’re in the backseat of your family station wagon, dad and mom in the front seat. Everything is pretty much as good as it can be. Maybe you’re heading to Carvel. Or going to the beach. And there’s a perfect song to accompany that mood. That’s what Oliver’s 1969 hit is for me. This hit No. 3 that year, two years after it was first introduced in the 1967 musical hit Hair.

Remote Patrol

Giants at Dodgers

ESPN2 10 p.m.

So this happened last night:

And this happened two years ago:

A reminder that Madison Bumgarner was SI’s “Sportsman of the Year” in 2014. The Giants are currently six back of the Dodgers and in a tie with St. Louis for the second wildcard spot. As you know, SF has won the World Series in the last three even-numbered years prior to this one.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 71st to Randolph Mantooth, the hunkier half of Gage & DeSoto

Starting Five

Jackson has accounted for 18 touchdowns in three games and is second in the nation in rushing

Lamarvelous!

Were Lamar Jackson and Louisville ready for their closeup versus No. 2 Florida State on Saturday? The 6’3″ sophomore from Boynton Beach, Fla., accounted for 362 all-purpose yards, four rushing touchdowns and a passing touchdown in a 63-20 beat down of the Noles.

To be clear, Louisville’s defense was just as good, with five sacks and two forced turnovers. The score was 63-10 until late in garbage time.

It was a long afternoon for the FSU freshman….

The Cards are now a solid No. 3 and face two Top 10 teams on the road (Clemson in two weeks and Houston in November). It’s early, but Lamar Jackson is now the Grange Award frontrunner and the Cards control their playoff destiny. Coach Bobby Petrino, when he gets off the motorcycle, HE’S GOOD!.

2. Let’s Hang On To What We Got*

*The judges will also accept, “When A Mic Drop is a Ball Drop”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFSClH8hPyU

First it was Ray-Ray McCloud of Clemson last week (above)….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA72a0gg5ms

Then, last Saturday night, versus No. 3 Ohio State, Joe Mixon of No. 14 Oklahoma did the same thing at the end of a 97-yard kickoff return (for some bizarre reason, replay officials never even looked at it and Mixon got away with it).

Then later on Saturday night Cal running back Eric Enwere did it at the end of a 55-yard touchdown run versus Texas with the Golden Bears only leading 50-43. This one was called back, as was the Clemson play.

This crisis of idiocy did not begin this month. Remember Kaelin Clay of Utah last year versus Oregon?

Is it going too far to suppose that the men with the talent and speed to make these plays are a double-edged sword? Part of their upside is their immense belief in themselves (and speed), but the other end of that is that they need to mic-drop the football and bask in adulation? Those of us SMH’ing at them would never have the talent to do what they do.  Cultural Divide Debate Embrace in 3…2…1….

3. Is Network TV Dead?

Sterling K. Brown

Grand total of Emmy winners from the four major networks—ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC—in prime-time TV: One, Regina King, Best Supporting Actress, Limited Series, ABC, for American Crime.

The cable/streaming nets ruled, and the biggest story is that it’s not even a story any more.

The Emmys finally got it right (I didn’t hear the words “Modern Family” once) as Veep won for Best Comedy, Game of Thrones for Best Drama, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver for Best Variety Talk, Key & Peele for Best Variety Sketch, Kate McKinnon for being Kate McKinnon and The People Vs. O.J. Simpson for Best Limited Series. Three actors from that series—Sterling K. Brown (Chris Darden), Sarah Paulson (Marcia Clark) and Courtney B. Vance (Johnnie Cochrane)—deservedly took home Emmys and there was much talk of chains being rocked, while Paulson ended her acceptance speech by paying tribute to Clark, who was in the audience. I’m embedding my own tweet here, but….

Sarah Paulson wins. It took 21 years, but Marcia Clarke and Christopher Darden finally won in Los Angeles….

— Medium Happy (@jdubs88) September 19, 2016

Great Moments: Besides Paulson’s speech, Matt Damon walking onstage to troll host Jimmy Kimmel, Kimmel’s mention of Johnnie Cochrane “looking up” from wherever he is, Andy Samberg being Andy Samberg, and the reunion of Sipowicz and Simone.

By the way, returning to the original point of this story, the most celebrated prime-time shows currently on CBS, NBC and ABC (via ESPN) are prime-time NFL telecasts…and Empire. Just so you know….

4. Non-Bronx Bomber

This is Ahmad Khan Rahmani, the man who planted three bombs in New York City and New Jersey over the weekend. No one was killed. Rahmani is a loser (to be clear, the death toll had no impact on whether he was a loser or not). Just another alienated, disaffected person who wants to blame someone else for his inferiority. He’ll be caught soon. Or dead. (UPDATE: Captured before noon)

5. Lost In Boston

Ramirez hit the game-winning three-run walk-off on Thursday, and then another three-run homer and the game-winning solo shot on Sunday night

The Yankees entered the ninth inning at Fenway Park on Thursday night with a three-game lead and a chance, with three more outs, to be just three games out of first place (and two back in the wildcard). Masahiro Tanaka, the AL ERA leader, had pitched seven innings of one-run ball. Then Boston struck for five runs and the Yankees lost all four games to the Red Sox (they blew four-run leads in the first and last games of the series).

It’s not officially over for the Bombers, but it sure feels over after that nut punch of a weekend at Fenway. Hanley Ramirez went Manny Ramirez on the Yanks, going 9 for 16 and hitting four home runs in four games. I’m ready for it: Gimme a Cubs vs. Red Sox Fall Classic.

Music 101

Woodstock

In which Joni Mitchell explains why she was unable to attend Woodstock—a TV commitment in NYC; she reveals that she watched it on TV, too—but then just went ahead and wrote a classic song about the concert event of the decade epoch that she was unable to attend even though she was only about 2 1/2 hours away (helicopters, anyone?). Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, her pals whom she’d been playing with in Chicago the night before, made more hay with this tune, but it’s Mitchell’s song.

Remote Patrol

The Tonight Show

NBC 11:35 p.m.

A few days after having Donald Trump as his guest, host Jimmy Fallon welcomes Hillary Clinton. Egg Roulette, anyone?