Could the last man chosen in last April’s NFL draft be the first rookie quarterback to lead his team to a Super Bowl? That’s the Brock Purdy question.
Purdy, the 262nd pick in the 2022 NFL draft and the San Francisco 49ers’ third-string QB much of this season, has started the past two games—both taking place in the past five days— for the Niners due to injuries to Jimmie Garoppolo and Trey Lance. San Fran has won both games, versus Tom Brady and the Bucs and Geno Smith and the Seahawks, decisively.
Of course, the Niners, once 3-4, were winning before Purdy took the helm. Last night’s 21-13 victory in Seattle was their seventh straight. With the recent addition of Christian McCaffrey and the All-World tight end George Kittle, Purdy has access to some of the most potent weapons in the league. This could be the beginning of a Cinderella story for the erstwhile Mr. Irrelevant.
ELON Does Not bELONg
He claimed it was “only like 10% boos”
Been a difficult week for the world’s second-wealthiest man. Booed lustily when he took the stage at a Dave Chappelle show in San Francisco (what was you thinkin’, Dave?), then seeing shares of Tesla hit a 52-week low this morning, and being called out on Twitter—the company he wildly overpaid for this year to the tune of $44 billion—for being a thin-skinned hypocrite after he permanently suspended a few journalists for tweeting out his “assassination coordinates,” i.e., location.
Dude appears onstage at a show with the current world’s No. 1 comedian and he’s worried that people might know where he is?
I can't believe this. Elmo lost the game, so he just destroyed the board and started a new game. He's literally 5 years old. pic.twitter.com/iQc1dUcu8h
It’s not about whether or not you agree with Musk’s politics. It’s about whether or not you allow someone to be a hypocrite. Last night on Twitter, responding to the barrage of criticism about his permanent suspension of journalists from the NYT and CNN, Musk decided to create a poll to let Twitter decide what their fates should be. But then when the poll was going against him, he Kari Lake’d it and took it down. Money cannot buy you happiness, or respect. At least not from people who respect themselves. Musk has learned that lesson more expensively than anyone in history, no?
Thompson Twins
One of the joys of college basketball, back in the day, was that it opened a window for fans as to who next year’s top NBA rookies would be. The 1979 NCAA championship game, after all, was an early peek at next season’s Rookie of the Year battle between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson (alas, the game itself was kind of a dud).
It’s no longer the case. The consensus No. 1 overall pick is Victor Wembanyana, a seven-foot teenager from France. Okay, but he’s a unicorn. What about players born on American soil? Well, that’s also a problem. Twin brothers Amen and Ausur Thompson, 6’7″, are both considered at worst top seven picks in next June’s draft (some have Amen going as high as No. 2) who grew up in Florida. Neither attend college, as they went directly from high school to the Overtime Elite League. The sibs will turn 20 at the end of January. And you likely will not see them play until next autumn. The three names mentioned above would be three top players in March Madness. But, they’re all earning more money doing what they’re doing. Hard to argue against that.
France will meet Argentina in Sunday’s World Cup final, which means that Ligue 1 club Paris St. Germain has already won the title. How come? Because each squad’s premier player, respectively Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi, toil for PSG.
Only eight different countries have ever won the World Cup. Seven of them were in Qatar the past month (sorry, Italy). Two of them advanced to the semis, with Morocco and Croatia hoping to crack the code of eight. Instead, we have defending champion France and two-time (1978, 1986) champion Argentina, hoping to secure Messi’s place as, at-worst, the second-greatest player in history. In fact, it’s probably already secured.
The last five World Cups have been won by five different countries, which would extend to six should Argentina win Sunday. We believe Mbappe is the best player in the world right now, but Argentina seems to have the sense of urgency and history on their side.
Aspirational vs. Actual
It was a few years ago now; we were all committed to improving ourselves. Maybe we decided upon this after a Joaquin Phoenix awards show speech, or once we donned Covid masks. We were going to save the Earth, and ourselves.
She’s currently slumped on the couch devouring french fries from McD’s
And so a two to three years ago here were some stock prices of some aspirational companies: Beyond Meat (BYND) at $234, Peloton (PTON) at $171 and Tesla (TSLA) at $402. Meat-free burgers, home-spinning and electric vehicles. Today BYND opened at around $11 per share, as did PTON while Tesla is just above $150 (that last stock price has much more to do with its founder’s obsession with Twitter).
In the same time frame, shares of McDonald’s (MCD) have more than doubled, from $122 to $272. Human nature is a safe bet. Alas.
Heisman Sham
Jason Henderson (42) averaged 15.5 tackles per game this season for ODU. The next-most prolific tackler in the country averaged 10.6
We’re in kind of a rush, so forgive us if we just copy and link our tweet-thread from earlier this morning…
A couple notes on Heisman voting, which fascinates me. Here are some of the players who did NOT finish in Top 10 in voting: nation’s leader in receptions (Charlie Jones), in rec/gm (Xavier Hutchinson), in rec TD (Nathaniel Dell), in rushing ypg (DeWayne McBride), in yards per…
… carry (min. 100, Donovan Edwards), in tackles per game (Jason Henderson; 50% more PER GAME than next-best in nation), in sacks per game (Jose Ramirez), TFL/gm (Durell Johnson), INT (Marcus Fuqua) or in FG (Joshua Karty, 18/18). Not arguing that any of these guys were “Most…
… Outstanding Player” in country, but again, zero finished in Top 10. Also, did you hear any of these names (except maybe Donovan Edwards) on either 3-hour pregame show? B/c u did hear the names of all the guys in Top 10. Now think about how politics/ads work.
Football coach Mike Leach, gone too soon at the age of 61. Lawyer, innovator, iconoclast, polymath, rebel. Leach was all of the above.
When Leach joined Hal Mumme’s coaching staff at Iowa Wesleyan in 1989, only two of the previous 17 Heisman Trophy winners had been quarterbacks (and one of them was spritely unicorn Doug Flutie). In the past 17 years only two Heisman Trophy winners have been running backs. That’s no coincidence.
Leach and Mumme—and let’s give due credit to Mouse Davis, Bill Walsh and John Jenkins—looked at the rectangle that is a football field, studied the rules governing play and how offensive players can be positioned, and solved it as a physics problem. More to the point, they used soccer as a guide (whether they realized it or not). Knowing that the Bo Jacksons of the world were not coming to play for them, they could not rely on brute force. So, as skilled soccer teams do, they took advantage of spacing. Spread the defense out.
Soccer, and also warfare. Before World War II, wars were won on the ground. Beginning in World War II and since, air superiority usually dictates who wins a war. Leach was not a military historian for nothing.
Growing up in the 1970s, I’d never heard the terms “five-wide” or “empty backfield” or “trips right.” Leach and Mumme helped revolutionize the sport, and it’s never going back.
He drops that ball before crossing plane. But it was a different era. https://t.co/JeemJMiSox
Like just about every scribe who encountered Leach, I chrerished him because he enjoyed discussing, and unraveling, issues that had nothing to do with football. He was refreshing. However, it needs to be said that in my few meetings with quarterbacks who played for him, they were not quite so fond. One, they let it be known that Leach basically relied on the upperclassmen QBs to teach the younger QBs they playbook and the details. And also, that he could treat his players like chattel when unhappy. Probably like plenty of coaches. But, coming from someone who came off to the media as such a renaissance man, the image of him behaving like Junction Boys-era Bear Bryant is off-putting.
A memory I want to add: on the night that Leach had quarterback Connor Halliday attempt 70 passes (completing 49, a cool 70%) in Pullman, Halliday set the FBS record with 740 passing yards. Yet, in the game’s final minute, with Wazzu trailing 60-59, Leach opted to play it safe, calling two run plays inside the 5 (to run out clock) before marching his kicker onto the field for what should have been a chip-shot game-winner. He missed the kick. Wazzu lost to Cal by one (Cal’s QB was Jared Goff; Halliday never played a down in the League).
A truly colorful character, though. And one of a kind.
By losing its first match to Saudi Arabia, 2-0, in the group stage, World Cup favorites (at least to advance to the semis) Argentina put itself into knockout round mode for the rest of its stay in Qatar. Lose another match and go home. So of course the Argentines, with aging (35) but still magical star Lionel Messi, have rattled off five straight wins since.
Yesterday’s 3-0 defeat of Croatia in the semis guaranteed the Argentine squad a spot in the final (likely versus defending champions France). It was only last Friday when Argentina trailed the Netherlands 1-0 with less than four minutes remaining in extra time. Once again, they rescued themselves from termination (ironically, last Friday, just as Grant Wahl was about to collapse in his seat while watching them).
And if you’ve ever wondered what all the hubbub about Lionel Messi is, this play goes a long way to clarifying it. Arguably the greatest soccer player ever (we put only Pele above him), Messi has only missed out on a World Cup win to secure his legacy (something the Federer to his Nadal, Cristiano Ronaldo, has never won, either, and now never will). He’s one victory away.
France, by the way, may have the current top player in the world, Klyian Mbappe, who is Messi’s teammate on the Ligue 1 squad Paris-St. Germain.
Grant Wahl Update From The Most Reliable Source
This morning Dr. Celine Grounder, the widow of Grant Wahl, took to substack to pen a thoughtful and incisive update on news surrounding her late husband. You may read all of it here, but I’ll excerpt these sentences (bold type mine):
Grant died from the rupture of a slowly growing, undetected ascending aortic aneurysm with hemopericardium. The chest pressure he experienced shortly before his death may have represented the initial symptoms. No amount of CPR or shocks would have saved him. His death was unrelated to COVID. His death was unrelated to vaccination status. There was nothing nefarious about his death.
Bond Agent
For the feminist—or misogynist— on your Christmas card list (and doesn’t that cover just about everyone?): Bonnie Garmus’ novel, Lessons In Chemistry, which has been named by many a critic as Fiction Book of the Year.
It’s the tale of Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant and serious and determined woman trying to make her way in the world as a chemist in the Eisenhower era. Garmus adorns the book with fanciful characters (a dog who knows 981 English words, for example) and our main critique is that almost every character is two-dimensional. Nearly all the men are villains and all the women saints (just as in real life, you say?)
For the MH staff, reading a book that goes in depth about chemistry and rowing hit close to home, though we have no experience in being a single mom and barely any more in being a magical chef. But it is an entertaining read, and the story only improves in the second half. Plus, how often does a novel pain a vivid picture, using metaphor, on the differences between covalent, ionic and hydrogen bonds (we wish Emil Hofman had thought of this)? We picture Emily Blunt in the title role, but that remains to be seen. We think.
Schlub Hub*
*The judges will also accept “SBF Now SOL” but not “Samuel Bankman-Caged”
Samuel Bankman-Fried (SBF), the be-shorted kingpin of what not long ago was arguably the most visible cryptocurrency exchange on the planet, was arrested yesterday in the Bahamas. He’s only 30, but we imagine SBF is going away for a long, long time.
What happens when a bunch of over-educated nerds who overdosed on The Social Network and The Big Short and failed to realize that they were cautionary tales get their hands on billions of dollars before any of them has gotten married or changed a diaper or even purchased a home in the U.S.A? You’re looking at it.
In short, SBF’s exchange, FTX, was inveigling venture capital firms to invest millions and millions of dollars (no one did their due diligence… where’s Ryan Gosling’s Jared from Deutsche Bank when you need him???), then handing that money over to Alameda Research (a sister company SBF had founded and made his slam-piece CEO of), which would then invest in FTX (using FTX’s own $$ you see) to pump up the price of its stock. That’s not healthy. Or legal.
The New York Times, being The New York Times, took the occasion of SBF’s arrest to pen a fashion essay about what his wardrobe, and that of the precocious and obnoxious GenZ-eniuses who populate Silicon Valley, says about his business acumen and ethics. You may or may not hate it.
The news hit me as most news hits us nowadays, on Twitter, Friday night. My former SI colleague, Grant Wahl, had died while covering the Argentina-Holland quarterfinal at the World Cup in Qatar. Surprise, if not shock. And yes, your thoughts race as to why and hopefully you’re experienced enough to wait and let the facts, as they emerge, tell the story. A few quick thoughts on Grant, whom I always liked and with whom I was always friendly, if not a close friend:
• Of all the memorials and tributes I’ve read thus far, no one has mentioned something most obvious: the way Grant looked. And I write that because Grant pretty much looked exactly at the age of 48 as he’d looked at the age of 24 (or about the age when we first met). I recall a conversation the two of us had in my office once where he told me that he’d started going bald as an undergrad at Princeton and that “when my mom saw a photo of me with my hair falling out, she cried.” Grant told the story with a laugh and to be honest, I always thought Grant looked terrific, handsome, with his shaved skull. It was a tad unusual for someone in his twenties, but with Grant’s clean, Germanic features, his appearance mirrored his intention: like stainless-steel countertops in a busy midtown restaurant kitchen, Grant’s appearance provided the hint that this was a work surface, that there was no room for silliness or idle amusements.
Also, the look— I mean it, Grant barely looked any different in photos from Qatar as he had his first year at Sports Illustrated—also made him appear ageless. Timeless. It worked for him.
• In the spring of 1998, Grant and the fellow Princeton alum with whom he shared an office, L. Jon Wertheim, co-wrote an investigative piece, “Where’s Daddy?”, that created tectonic shifts at the NBA’s league offices, in SI’s relationship with Larry Legend (Bird), and in the 18th floor “bullpen” at SI, where young fact-checkers (a.k.a. reporters) all amicably (most of the time) competed against one another to be the baby tortoises who made it from the nest to the surf before being gobbled up by preying avian creatures.
The piece, an idea that the two had hatched themselves, was executed to perfection. Wertheim has a law degree, and you can marvel at the investigative work that the duo did as they combed paternity suits that had been served to a number of NBA players. True story: at a certain point some editor noted that all of the players involved were, well, not white. So it was determined that for balance they should find/add a white NBA player. That’s how Larry Bird, whose situation was not quite, “Let’s meet up at my Four Seasons suite and knock boots,” was added to the story. Bird, I believe, has not spoken to SI since. About that I may be wrong, but I know he didn’t speak to the mag for quite a long time after.
Anyhow, for two fact-checkers to produce a bonus piece (the internet would call it “long-form”) and also one that, in a pre-web era, went as viral as something could in those days, was remarkable. I was already a staff writer by then, but all of us who had yet to achieve senior writer status were put on notice. These two youngsters were about to move to the front of the line. Wertheim, as you probably know, is now the No. 2 guy at SI while also being a correspondent for 60 Minutes.
There’s been plenty of chatter about his LeBron James cover story (“The Chosen One”) from 2002 or 2003. And yes, it deserves mention. But “Where’s Daddy?” is the story that launched Grant’s (and Jon’s) career.
• Grant had an ingratiating goofy laugh. At least when I knew him. He was friendly. Grant was as ambitious as anyone I met at SI—and that’s saying something—but he was also unpretentious and that goofy laugh helped make him less, well, Princetonian. I remember running into him at the Olympic women’s gold-medal match in Athens in 2004 and we had a wonderful chat. We both marveled at how lucky we were. A few years later, before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when my job was to write copy for Mary Carillo and to come up with our segment ideas for our show, I pitched “The Grant Wahl of China,” in which Grant would visit our studio to provide soccer insights and wisdom on the two Olympic tournaments. Grant loved the idea and was all in on doing it. Mary and I had done silly stuff (in terms of naming segments) for our show in Torino at the 2006 Winter Games, Olympic Ice, and the show had been critically and popularly acclaimed. Alas, our producer in Beijing did not quite share our slightly irreverent senses of humor (curiously, she too was a Princeton alum) and I had to inform Grant that it would not come to pass. I believe that’s the last time we spoke.
• The truth, hopefully, will emerge about the why of Grant’s passing at such a relatively young age. He obviously looked fit enough. What I can say from experience, from working at five Olympics or from spending extended time covering college football’s bowl season or even one March Madness in an RV with two colleagues, is that it’s quite possible to beat up your body covering such special events. Weeks of not enough sleep and too little exercise and the constant pressure to report and to write add up to the type of stress that can age you 10 years in three weeks. Too, Grant was at a point in his career in which he was literally working for himself so there may have been a feeling that there was no possible way to do enough. Grant Wahl working for Grant Wahl could translate into a workaholic nightmare. I’ll reiterate, it’s too early to know. But most of us sportswriters put ourselves, or are put through, those insane hours for weeks at a time when we are in our late twenties or thirties. Grant was in his late forties. I don’t know what happened; I can only say that three weeks of covering an international sporting event, much less the signature event in your chosen field, and then heaping on top of it the not-sticking-to-sports intrepid writing and reporting that Grant was doing, well, it’s a lot.
• I gave plenty of thought to Grant’s life, his career, and his untimely passing this weekend. What returned to me again and again is that here was someone who died doing what he loved (in a lighter time you’d write that it would’ve killed him to not know who won that Argentina-Netherlands matchup, but, you know…) and spent his entire adult life doing what he loved. And traveled the world doing it while being compensated extremely well for a sportswriter. Grant is gone far too soon, of course, and my heartfelt sympathies go out to his lovely wife, Dr. Celine Grounder, and his brother, Eric. Celine was a frequent presence at our SI hoops games back in the day and she stood out not only because she was smart and beautiful and kind but also because none of the rest of us had a girlfriend or wife. And here she was in residency but she still found the time.
Grant pursued his dreams, worked hard to achieve them, and was rewarded with a life that likely surpassed even his expectations. Be sad that he is gone; but also know how extremely fortunate he was. Grant certainly did.
Finely Aged Brandi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpNqR-ff_TQ
If you missed Brandi Carlile’s performance on Saturday Night Live this weekend, it was an all-timer. The Seattle-born and raised musician knocked it out of 30 Rock and into orbit with her delivery of “The Story,” an original that was actually released back in 2007.
Carlile, 41, has long been that artist that most of us know we should be following more closely. I’d put her on my map a few years back as an act I desperately hoped to see in person because of her authenticity and her rare, rare talent. When I saw how she devoted so much space and energy to paying tribute to Joni Mitchell at last summer’s Newport Jazz Festival, it only fortified those feelings.
Saturday night, then, served as a long, long overdue national lovefest for Carlile. How had she never before appeared on SNL? And I LOVED that she opened with “The Story,” her “Born To Run.” The song is a classic; you can imagine Patsy Cline or even Dusty Springfield singing this in the Sixties and it becoming an all-timer in the female musical canon.
Sure, “The Story” is now a teenager but most of America had never had the privilege to hear it live and this song more than deserved its moment in the spotlight. I thought about all those years Carlile has toiled, in smaller venues and with much less fanfare (and income) than far too many of her fellow female brethren. She’s a musician, not a brand, after all. I imagine she’s thought of that many times herself. Watch that moment at about 2:32, the break after the guitar solo. Brandi takes a moment to look down and let forth a gigantic smile. That’s validation, long overdue.
You see the smile that’s on my mouth It’s hiding the words that don’t come out And all of our friends who think that I’m blessed They don’t know my head is a mess
Perhaps it’s my age, but far too many musical acts on SNL greatly disappoint. Last weekend, the musical act was the high point of the show.
One more item: the guitarist and bassist are the Hanseroth twins, Phil and Tim, and they’ve been with Brandi since pretty much the very beginning. Now the three of them, and their families (spouses, kids) all live on a big farm an hour or so outside of Seattle. How very Neil Young of her. But then, you can see Neil’s influence in her music. That grunge guitar solo sandwiched between two ethereal high-pitched verses brimming with insight and pathos… where have we heard that before? (Try, “Down By The River”).
Another night, another dominant performance from Purdue’s 7’4″ Canadian tower, Zach Edey. The junior from Toronto, the tallest player in Big Ten history, scored 23 points and grabbed 18 rebounds as the Boilermakers easily handled Hofstra, 85-66, to move to 9-0.
It’s early December but Purdue has soared from unranked in the preseason to No. 4 in the nation in Week 5. On a neutral court on Thanksgiving weekend Purdue toppled then No. 6 Gonzaga by 18 and then No. 8 Duke by 19. There’s not another current Top 10 squad remaining on the Carbombs’ schedule.
If Purdue, and Edey, stay healthy and upright, look out. He’s a Bill Walton retro model in an age where seven-footers wanna face the basket and jack threes. Edey has yet to attempt a three in his three seasons. He’s in the top four nationally, though, both in points per game (23.2) and rebounds per game (13.3).
Brittney’s Back—And NewsMax Is Mad
We woke up to the news that Brittney Griner had been released from a Russian penal colony after 249 days in captivity, the beneficiary of a prisoner swap between the U.S.A. and Russia. The Russkies got Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer in return. And not a few people are upset that a former U.S. Marine, Paul Whelan, still wastes away in a Russian jail cell. Whelan was arrested in 2018 and accused of spying.
You cannot please everybody. That’s the job of president. Twitter is really angry or really relieved, depending upon whom you follow. Now, who lands the first BG exclusive interview? Our money’s on Holly Rowe, then Robin Roberts.
You are among the more than 600 college football players who entered their names into the transfer portal on Monday. But, bad news: you’re not Cade McNamara or even Drew Pyne or some other high-grade talent sought by a bevy of schools. What to do?
Why not devote a week of your life to playing in The Portal Bowl? It’s structured similarly to the Senior Bowl, with scouts/college recruiters having open access to your practices. They also may conduct one-on-one interviews to get to know you better. It’s like a Match group event. Then, on Saturday, you play in front of whatever fans show up and also on, say, ESPN2 or FS1 or even the Pac-12 Network.
If you consent to play, you are guaranteed $20,000 no matter how much you play. But you play at your own risk. We’ll stage the game in mid-December, like this Saturday or next, either in Arizona or Florida or even (our wish) at the Los Angeles Coliseum, which is seriously underused after USC’s final home game each autumn.
What’s not to love?
Gilgeous-Alexander The Great
Remember when the Thunder were one of the worst teams in the NBA last season and landed the No. 1 overall pick, Gonzaga freshman seven-footer Chet Holmgren? And remember when Holmgren suffered a season-ending foot injury playing in a summer league game with a bunch of established NBA stars? Well, all is more than OK in OKC thanks to a refugee from the Los Angeles Clippers.
Fifth-year guard Shae Gilgeous-Alexander is not just having a terrific season, he’s having an All-NBA First Team season. SGA, who is 6’6″ and like the aforementioned Zach Edey hails from the Toronto area, is averaging 31.1 points per game, third-best in the NBA. That’s 7 ppg better than last season, his previous career-high. And while the Thunder are not soaring, they are 11-14. Not bad for a player the Clippers gave up on after his rookie season in order to land Paul George, the Half-Beatle.
Tanking: The Texans, Crypto and Elon
A few items (besides us) that were doing far better early in 2022 as compared to now:
Bitcoin: Nearly $51,000 a coin the day after Christmas; currently just under $17,000. But then, all of crypto in general, including Sam Bankman-Fried, who could be going away to prison for a long time unless President Biden arranges a prisoner swap with XTF.
Elon Musk: Not only did he overpay egregiously for Twitter ($44 billion), but shares of Tesla have cratered from $402 last January 4 to $170 today.
Carvana: Shares were at $274 in mid-December of 2021 but were at $3.55 yesterday.
The Los Angeles Rams: Playing in SoFi Stadium (a company whose stock has gone from $17 per share a year ago today to $4.57 today), the Rams won the Super Bowl. They’re now 3-9, in last place in their division, and they just signed Baker Mayfield, who went from Heisman winner and No. 1 overall pick in 2018 to being released by his second NFL team last weekend.
