Armadillo Sports
Thursday’s 6-pack
Hardest 2023 NFL schedules, based on 2022 win %ages:
— Philadelphia
— Miami
— New England
— Dallas/Giants
— Jets
— Buffalo
This is before we know when teams play each other.
Quote of the Day
“It’s not who you play, it’s when you play them.”
Bud Grant
Thursday’s quiz
Who was the first head coach, other than Vince Lombardi, to win the Super Bowl?
Wednesday’s quiz
LA Rams’ owner Stan Kroenke also owns the NBA’s Denver Nuggets.
Tuesday’s quiz
From 1988-90, the A’s played in three straight World Series; losing two of them; they played the Dodgers, Reds and Giants in those series.
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Thursday’s Den: Nobody asked me, but…….
— Three other NFL games I’m looking forward to seeing when they’re played:
Chargers made OC Joe Lombardi a scapegoat when they blew that big lead and lost a playoff game to Jacksonville; Lombardi surfaced in Denver with Sean Payton, and is now a division rival of the Chargers. Those two games this season should be interesting.
Raiders DC Patrick Graham was passed over for the Giants’ head coaching job when the Giants hired Brian Daboll last year; Daboll worked wonders with Daniel Jones, hard to argue with Big Blue’s decision to hire Daboll, but you know Graham will be fired up when the Giants visit Las Vegas this fall.
— Used to be that in the NFL, if the visiting team was in the NFC, that game would almost certainly be shown on FOX, with AFC games on CBS. This will be the first year without that arrangement, which might be why the schedule seemed to take longer to put together this year.
— I’m on the airplane flying from Chicago to Las Vegas Monday, and a flight attendant asks me if anyone had ever told me that I look like Christopher Lloyd, the actor. I laughed and said no.
Christopher Lloyd is 84; I’m a lot younger than 84. I did like him in Taxi, though.
Last year in Las Vegas, a lady stopped me in a casino and asked me for my autograph; turns out she thought I was Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm. I’m a lot younger than he is, too.
Oy.
— Marlins 5, Arizona 4— Miami is 19-19 this season; 12-0 in one-run games, 7-19 in all the other games.
— Texas 4, Seattle 3— Mariners’ offense is struggling; Julio Rodriguez is hitting .205- this week they dropped him from leadoff to 6th in the batting order.
— This is how much baseball has changed in the last 40 years; the late Vida Blue threw 220+ innings in nine different seasons.
Last year, Sandy Alcantara (228.2 IP) was the only major leaguer to throw more than 205 IP.
— Lebron James’ son announced that he’ll play basketball at USC in the fall; now comes word that DJ Rodman, Dennis Rodman’s son, is transferring from Washington State to USC, who figure to get a ton of TV time, at least for the one season Bronny James will be there.
— RIP to Denny Crum, the great basketball coach; he led the Cardinals to two national titles and six Final Fours.
RIP to Joe Kapp, the only QB ever to lead his team to a Rose Bowl, Grey Cup final and a Super Bowl. He also coached Cal the day they beat rival Stanford in the Stanford Band game.
Cal hasn’t been in the Rose Bowl since Kapp played for them there in the late 50’s.
— If you’re the basketball coach at VCU, part of your contract says that if you bolt the Rams for greener pa$ture$, then your new school has to play a home-and-home with VCU, which is why the Rams have a home-and-home coming up with Penn State.
Personally, I think VCU is a better basketball job than Penn State, but no one asked me.
— There is a darts tournament near the hotel where I’m staying; ton of people walking around the hotel in very loud, very ugly shirts and for once, none of them are me.
— Kansas City Royals are averaging 7 runs a game in nine games this month, but they’re still only 4-5 in those games.
— Was watching The Price Is Right the other day; some lady had the last bid, trying to become a contestant on stage. She bid a dollar more than the previous high bid and she won.
Wonder if anyone has ever kept track of how often that tactic has worked? Show has been on TV for 50 years; would be fun to know that.
— There is only major league baseball game scheduled for the timeslot when the NFL is releasing its schedule tonight. Funny how that works out.
