++>>recommended Super Bowl 2021++>>: Chiefs vs Buccaneers Live On Reddit
After two weeks of anticipation, Super Bowl 55 is finally here as the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs will take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa, Florida. Watch Super Bowl Online Watch Super Bowl Online Every aspect of Super Sunday will be analyzed in great detail, from the national anthem to the halftime show to the television commercials that will run during the game. The two teams met on this same field during the regular season, with the Chiefs holding on for a 27-24 victory. This time, the stakes are much higher, with the Lombardi Trophy on the line, as well as potential bragging rights in the battle between generational quarterbacks in Tom Brady of the Buccaneers and Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs. Since the game is being played as the COVID-19 continues to rage across the country, both teams will have travel plans and logistical processes unique to this season. Attendance will be limited to 25,000 fans, 7,500 of which will be vaccinated healthcare workers. USA TODAY Sports will have live coverage of the game and all the happenings from Tampa, and we've also answered some key questions about the matchup for anyone looking for last-minute information: How to watch Super Bowl 2021 from outside your country If you find yourself away from home for whatever reason and want to watch your regular Super Bowl coverage from abroad, then you'll need to use a VPN. This will help you access streaming services and channels back in your country of residence, helping you avoid geo-blocks so you can watch your preferred coverage from anywhere - and giving you an extra layer of online security for good measure. 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Sky will also be showing Super Bowl 55 in 2021, and for anyone who already subscribes to it and has one of its Sky Sports packages, it's another great option. If you prefer Sky Sports' NFL coverage, you can also get it contract-free courtesy of the broadcaster's Now TV offshoot. But before you sign up for anything, just remember you can also watch Super Bowl free in the UK with the BBC! Kick-off time for Super LV has been confirmed and it's a11.30pm GMT UK start time. Outside of the UK? British residents out of the country for Super Bowl LV can catch the big game just the would at home with the help of a quality VPN as per our guide above. FAQ: can I watch Super Bowl in 4K HDR? watch super bowl free live stream ireland How to watch a Super Bowl 2021 live stream in Ireland NFL fans in Ireland have two options for watching Super Bowl LV this Sunday - and they're the same as they are in the UK. Both Sky Sports and the BBC have coverage of the big game, but unlike in the UK mainland and Northern Ireland, the BBC isn't a free-to-air terrestrial channel in Eire. Instead, it only comes as part of pay TV packages like those offered by Virgin and Sky - and worst of all, iPlayer is geo-blocked in the Republic so you can't get a free Super Bowl live stream online, either. Or can you? 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Our latest 2021 testing reveals that our No.1 pick, ExpressVPN, is currently working with Kayo Sports and 7mate. super bowl live stream mexico Super Bowl live stream 2021: how to watch Super Bowl LV online in Mexico The NFL has been making a real push south of the border, with Mexico City normally hosting a selected NFL game each season. It follows that the sport is huge there, so you've got a variety of TV options to watch Super Bowl in Mexico. These include ESPN, Fox Sports, Televisa and TV Azteca.. Of these, our basic Spanish tells us that for anyone after a FREE Super Bowl live stream in Mexico should be able to find what they're looking for courtesy of Azteca 7, which can be watched in a browser online, or via the appropriate TV Azteca app. Not in Mexico? Don't miss the passion of your local commentary just because you're abroad - instead, try using a VPN to access you favorite Super Bowl coverage wherever you are in the world this Sunday. watch super bowl germany How to watch Super Bowl free online in Germany: 2021 live stream details Germany boasted five NFL Europe teams at one point, so it's little surprise that American football is huge in the European nation. Its popularity means that German fans can watch Super Bowl LV free on terrestrial channel ProSieban - either on TV or on the network's online streaming platform. Not in Germany? You can tune in to your local coverage from abroad simply by adding a VPN to your software roster and following our guide above. super bowl (Image credit: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) All you need to know about Super Bowl LV in 2021 The 2021 Super Bowl takes place on Sunday, February 7 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Florida. The 65,000+ capacity stadium will welcome a limited number of fans to the game as the US continues to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the league now having confirmed that around 20,000 will be in attendance at Super Bowl LV, with a number of tickets reserved for key workers. The start time for Super Bowl LV is set for 6.30pm ET/3.30pm PT (5.30pm CT) in the US. Globally, that means the Super Bowl time is: Australia Super Bowl time: 10.30am AEDT (Monday, February 8) India Super Bowl time: 5am IST (Monday, February 8) Japan Super Bowl time: 8.30am JST (Monday, February 8) Germany and Europe Super Bowl time: 12.30am CET (Monday, February 8) Mexico Super Bowl time: 5.30pm CST New Zealand Super Bowl time: 12.30pm NZST (Monday February 8) South Korea Super Bowl time: 8.30am KST (Monday, February 8) UK and Ireland Super Bowl time: 11.30pm GMT Where is the Super Bowl on TV? America's three main broadcasters - CBS, Fox, and NBC - alternate rights to air the Super Bowl each year. In 2021, it's the turn of CBS to air Super Bowl LV. As per our guide above, if you don't have it on cable, then it has a dedicated streaming-only platform, CBS All Access, that will sort you out in time for the big game. Folks in the UK arguably have it best, though, as the Super Bowl is 100% FREE to watch on the BBC and its companion iPlayer streaming service. Provided you're located in the UK (and you should also be in possession of a valid TV license), registration takes just a few seconds and only asks for basic details like a working email address. Anyone in either country can also access their usual streaming service to watch Super Bowl 2021, no matter where they are in the world. With a top-quality VPN in your huddle, you can simply relocate your IP address back home and enjoy the big like you normally would from the comfort of your living room. New TV for the big game? See our roundup of the best Super Bowl TV sales When does Super Bowl pre-game coverage start on Sunday? Don't think about doing anything else on Super Bowl Sunday, because CBS is on-air live from Raymond James Stadium from 11.30am ET/8.30am PT, making for a whopping seven hours of Super Bowl pre-game coverage on the channel. Super Bowl 2021: full schedule and TV guide While Covid has forced the NFL to make a number of changes to the usual Super Bowl Week schedule in 2021, most of the usual events and formalities are going ahead in one way or another. Super Bowl Media Day, for instance, became Super Bowl Opening Night on Monday, February 1 and saw select players interviewed over Zoom - not the usual circus that ensues at the start of the week. Here's a complete Super Bowl 2021 TV schedule for the big weekend: Saturday, February 6: NFL Honors 2021 at 9pm ET/PT on CBS Sunday, February 7: Super Bowl LV pre-game coverage from 11.30am ET/8.30am PT on CBS Sunday, February 7: Puppy Bowl XVII from 1pm ET/10am PT (2pm/11am paw-off) on Animal Planet US Sunday, February 7: Kitten Bowl VII at 2pm ET/11am PT on Hallmark Channel Sunday, February 7: Miley Cyrus presents TikTok Tailgate concert at 3pm on TikTok and CBS watch puppy bowl 2021 live stream (Image credit: Animal Planet/Discovery+) How to watch a Puppy Bowl 2021 live stream - and what is the Puppy Bowl? Super Bowl build-up wouldn't be the same without the Puppy Bowl, a pawsome pre-game tradition now in its 16th year - so we're on Puppy Bowl XVII, officially. It sees 70 adorable pups compete in a two-hour long event pitting Team Ruff vs Team Fluff. The event is co-hosted and the teams 'coached' by two of America's least likely BFFs, Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. A one-hour long pre-game show will recap the highlights of Puppy Bowls past from 1pm ET/10am PT, while the game itself 'kicks-off' at 2pm ET/11am PT. TV coverage is on Animal Planet, which if you don't have via cable, can be streamed using either the Discovery+ platform (from $4.99 a month, 7-day free trial) or an over-the-top cable replacement service like FuboTV (from $64.99 a month, 7-day free trial). The reason the Puppy Bowl has captured the nation's imagination is that in addition to being so darn cute, it also features adoptable dogs from shelters all over the country, so if you get tired of the usual talking heads pre-game coverage, be sure to tune in! Sadly, the Puppy Bowl doesn't seem to be available internationally, even in countries like the UK where Animal Planet is available. But anyone from the US currently abroad needn't worry as they can try our No. 1 rated VPN 100% risk-free for 30-days and tune in just like they would at home. super bowl 2021 live stream half time show the weeknd (Image credit: Michael Kovac/FilmMagic) Super Bowl 2021 Halftime Show: who's performing at Super Bowl LV? Following in the footsteps of a sensational performance by Shakira and J-Lo last year that was watched by some 104 million people (and received over 1,300 complaints), The Weeknd has been confirmed to headline the 2021 Super Bowl halftime how. It's expected to go down as the longest halftime show ever at 24 minutes, with Jay-Z and Roc Nation responsible for production of this year's entertainment. For more details, check out our full guide to the 2021 Super Bowl halftime show. Super Bowl 2021 odds and predictions The Kansas City Chiefs are currently installed as the heavy favorites to lift the Lombardi trophy for a second straight season. With arguably the league's most gifted QB in Patrick Mahomes under center, its best TE in Travis Kelce menacing opposing defences, and deadly skill players like Tyreek Hill able to break out for a big play at any time...it's easy to see why. The Bucs are the underdogs, having emerged from the NFC Wild Card picture with big wins over the Saints and Packers to get this far - and few would put another upset past them with GOAT Tom Brady under center. The combination of home field advantage and Brady being Brady somewhat mitigates Tampa's otherwise heavy underdog status, even if the 22,000 fans expected to attended is well below the normal 65,000+ capacity of Ray Jay. Still, while Tampa are a team brimming with the kind of confidence you get when you're led by TB12, most pundits are joining Vegas and the bookmakers in predicting a Chiefs win - though most have it down to be a close game that's likely to come down to the final possession.
The yearly beating of french clubs in european group stages has come to an end with two teams getting out (Paris in Champions League, Lille in Europa League) and the other three (Marseille, Rennes and Nice) managing to earn a whopping combined total of 7 points in 18 matches. Congrats to them. This weekend, the Ligue 1 teams started a little marathon of four matches in ten days before the winter break with an exciting Marseille-Monaco on saturday and a climactic Paris SG-Lyon on sunday night.
Appetizers
On the day it was announced that Mediapro, the new broadcaster of Ligue 1, was giving up for default of payment after only four months, the opening match of the matchday, usually the symbol of a festive weekend, was an appealing Saint-Étienne-Angers. Yes, Saint-Étienne-Angers. 0-0. Next.
Marseille made a statement in the race for the podium, beating Monaco, a direct rival, 2-1 on saturday afternoon, their sixth straight win in the league. Despite a larger possession and more chances throughout the game, the monégasques conceded two early goals from the Benedetto-Thauvin duo who exchanged assists with each other to get that early lead. After the loss in Lille to another european aiming team, Monaco concedes another loss, a definite halt after climbing up the rankings in the past weeks.
Lens-Montpellier was expected to be a pretty entertaining fixture and it was indeed. Even though the southerners took a healthy lead in the first 30 minutes, their opponents from the other side of the hexagon came back thanks to a lucky goal and a penalty. In the middle of the second half, Gaëtan Laborde, usually assister, gave Montpellier the three points and a fifth victory across their last six matches (the other one being the loss last week against PSG).
The clash between the teams-that-play-in-red-and-black-and-that-ashamed-the-whole-country-in-Europe resulted in a win for Rennes away in Nice with a goal from Mbaye Niang at the end of a game easily controlled by the Bretons. Despite a managerial change, Nice is still struggling to get back in form, their last win dating from a month and a half (same for Rennes before this one).
Speaking of teams that hadn't won in a long time, Lorient was part of this not really prestigious club until this sunday where they dispatched Nîmes 3-0 at home. The Merlus (Hakes in english) were finally rewarded for their quality of play and their lack of efficiency (six matches in a row without scoring). Nîmes on the other end continues to fall and hit the 18th place, synonymous of a playoff spot.
After a great start of the season, Metz is starting to struggle a bit, suffering a fifth match without a win, this time in Strasbourg, at the end of a high-scoring match (for Ligue 1 standards at least). Bronn and Nguette successively gave Metz the advantage but they were answered respectively by Simakan and Thomasson.
Three days after throwing the first place of their Europa League group at Celtic Park, Lille had the opportunity to reclaim another top position in the case of a misstep from PSG at Lyon. And they did the job with a splendid strike from Jonathan Bamba and a rocket of a header from José Fonte. After a solid first half, Bordeaux was dominated quite heavily throughout the last 45 minutes and despite a recent good form couldn't avoid the loss.
The most anticipated match of the week (arguably of the whole season even) unfortunately didn't provide the most entertaining spectacle. Lyon's domination in the first half was rewarded by a goal from Kadewere following a disastrous misunderstanding between Kimpembe and Paredes. With only one shot on target during the whole game, the parisians were barely able to provide any danger towards Anthony Lopes. With that win, their first at the Parc des Princes since 2007, Lyon takes the second place, ahead of their opponents of the day.
With 0,48 penalty per match, Ligue 1 tops the rankings among the top 5 leagues in Europe (ahead of Premier League with 0,47 and Bundesliga with 0,45). Another seven of them were whistled this weekend.
1-2 Champions League group stage 3 Champions League qualifiers round 3 4 Europa League group stage 5 Europa Conference League play-offs 18 Relegation play-offs 19-20 Relegation to Ligue 2
Stade Brestois : Le Bilan didn't talk about Brest yet, not in length at least, and it's a mistake because the team has certainly been one of the most interesting to follow this season. You just have to look at the table to understand what kind of team it is. With seven wins, seven losses and no draw, the 6th best attack and the 3rd worst defense of the league, the bretons, led by the former Dijon coach Olivier Dall'Oglio, have gambled everything on entertainment in a safer Bielsist way. And it works. Of course they have conceded a lot of goals, of course they have yet to play Paris, Lyon and Montpellier but as they have shown in the past, much like their english counterparts, they are not afraid of big teams. They beat Lille 3-2, Monaco 1-0 and lost 3-2 a match they should have won against Marseille. With four wins in the last five matchdays, the brestois have given themselves a large cushion so that they don't have to think yet about an eventual return in Ligue 2. Oh yes, we didn't mention it yet, they got promoted only last year.
Downwards
David Guion : After correctly predicting the dismissals of Patrick Vieira and Christian Gourcuff in the past two weeks, Le Bilan has basically become the equivalent of the Washington Post of french football, no less. Pulitzer, here we come. Anyway, there's another man whose job is more and more in danger. And it would be by far the saddest of the three if David Guion was showed the door. Not that it wouldn't do good (the way Reims has been playing for a long time now is quite shocking) but what he has done for the club in the past three seasons must not be overlooked. For his first year in Champagne in 2017-2018, Guion led Reims to a Ligue 2 champion title (getting the UNFP best Ligue 2 coach trophy in the process), followed by an 8th place, then a 6th place (though the season was stopped early) and a first participation in a european competition in almost sixty years (stopped early in playoffs against the modest MOL Fehérvár). Sadly, this season has not been good for David Guion and his team. At all. Reims curretnly sits at the 19th place, has not won in the last five games and does not seem to have many assets to get back on track. Their reputation of a solid defensive team has disappeared and it would be unrealistic to ask Boulaye Dia (8 goals already) to carry the entire attack by himself for the whole season. Even worse, Reims president said he wouldn't oppose a departure from his striker. If he does indeed leave, Reims would need a miraculous replacement to save themselves from a sure relegation. Paris Saint-Germain : We may not get a lot of opportunities to have PSG in this category so let's not waste this golden one. Indeed, Paris has struggled lately in the league. With 4 points taken out of the last possible 12, already 4 losses in 14 matchdays (more than Lyon, Lille and Marseille combined), Paris has logically let go its top spot, reclaimed by Lille, their opponents on next sunday. In fact, PSG had not lost four times this early since 2009-2010, a season in which they ended 13th and Jean-Eudes Maurice had regular play time. Of course Paris won't finish 13th this year, they still have the best attack and the best defense of the league but it's clear that the crucial european matches against Leipzig, Manchester United and Istanbul Başakşehir have put an emotional and physical toll on players already tired since the end of Champions League this summer. One thing is certain though : for the first time since 2017, the league title is in play.
I am very, very happy. With our different systems, we have an element of surprise that we didn't have last year. It's harder for the opponents to prepare their match and it's interesting for us. Emotionally, it was very hard with the end of the european adventure. So to do a performance like that, I say bravo to the team.
Morgan Schneiderlin, Nice midfielder :
We have to keep this collective spirit, we take fewer goals but we score less or not at all, it's hard to win matches. Believe me, the fans are disappointed but we, the players, are the first to be affected by this situation. We are keen to rectify all this before the break. We don't want to spend a season playing nothing, getting bored. We're going to do everything we can to win on Wednesday.
Christophe Pelissier, Lorient coach :
It is a success both offensively and defensively. It's a perfect evening. It's a relief because it was a burden not to score, not to be rewarded. We must savour it and recover well. This victory allows us to be in the running, with 4-5 teams (Strasbourg, Nîmes, Reims, Dijon). We have a mini-Championship (for survival) where we have to perform well. We have to win that championship.
Thomas Tuchel, Paris coach :
We saw a very mentally tired team. I had the impression that the last sequence (Manchester United - Montpellier - Basaksehir) was too much for us. We missed even some easy passes. It's the fault of all of us, me first, the team. It wasn't serious enough, we must have enough quality to win every match. That remains my responsibility, that's clear.
Rerel, Paris supporter but football connoisseur first and foremost :
You give money to Arsenal, they turn it into shit.
Next matchday
Wednesday 16/12, 19:00 Dijon FCO - Lille OSC Montpellier Hérault SC - FC Metz Angers SCO - RC Strasbourg Nîmes Olympique - OGC Nice Stade de Reims - FC Nantes Wednesday 16/12, 21:00 Paris Saint-Germain - FC Lorient Olympique Lyonnais - Stade Brestois Stade Rennais - Olympique de Marseille AS Monaco - RC Lens Girondins de Bordeaux - AS Saint-Étienne Thanks a lot to Hippemann and NotMeladroit for all the clips and the tables ! For more news about the best league in the world (except for the other four) and to improve your french, come and subscribe to /Ligue1. All feedbacks are welcome ! Previous matchdays : Season 2020-2021 M1 - M2 - M3 - M4 - M5 - M6 - M7 - M8 - M9 - M10 - M11 - M12 - M13 Season 2019-2020 M12 - M13 - M14 - M15 - M16 - M17 - M18 - M19 - M20 - M21 - M22 - M23 - M24 - M25 - M26 - M27 - M28
Team:DenverBroncosDivision: AFC West 2019 Record: 7-9 Divisional Finish 2nd place higherthantheRaiders!
Team Stats
Offense:
Category
Value
League Rank
Total Yards
298.6 YPG
28th
Yards Per Play
5.0
26th
Rushing YPG
103.9
20th
Yards Per Rush
4.1
21st
Passing Yards
194.7 YPG
28th
Yards Per Pass
6.7
T-21st
Total Touchdowns
28
T-30th
Rushing Touchdowns
11
T-22nd
Receiving Touchdowns
16
32nd
Scoring
17.6 PPG
28th
Pass Completions
312/504 (.619)
20th
Third Downs
64/202 (.317)
30th
First Downs Per Game
17.4
29th
Possession Average
29:21
21st
Sacks Allowed
41
T-16th
Turnover Differential
+1
T-13th
Penalties
110
19th
Penalty Yardage
912
18th
Defense:
Category
Value
League Rank
Yards
337.0 YPG
12th
Yards Per Play
5.4
T-13th
Rushing Yards
111.4 YPG
16th
Yards Per Rush
4.2
T-13th
Passing Yards
225.6 YPG
11th
Yards Per Pass
7.1
14th
Touchdowns
31
T-4th
Rushing Touchdowns
9
T-5th
Receiving Touchdowns
19
T-5th
Scoring
19.8 PPG
10th
Pass Completions
348/537 (.648)
24th
Third Downs
79/211 (.374)
13th
First Downs Per Game
19.1
T-9th
Sacks
40.0
T-17th
Forced Fumbles
9
T-26th
Fumble Recoveries
6
T-26th
Interceptions
10
T-25th
Penalties
121
29th
Penalty Yardage
1,041
T-28th
Coaching Changes
Title
2019
2020
Head Coach
Vic Fangio
Vic Fangio
Offensive Coordinator
Rich Scangarello
Pat Shurmur
Defensive Coordinator
Ed Donatell
Ed Donatell
Special Teams Coordinator
Tom McMahon
Tom McMahon
Quarterbacks Coach
T.C. McCartney
Mike Shula
Running Backs Coach
Curtis Modkins
Curtis Modkins
Wide Receivers Coach
Zach Azzanni
Zach Azzanni
Tight Ends Coach
Wade Harman
Wade Harman
Offensive Line Coach
Mike Munchak
Mike Munchak
Assistant Offensive Line Coach
Chris Kuper
Chris Kuper
Offensive Quality Control Coach
Chris Kragthorpe
Justin Rascati
Offensive Assistant
Rob Calabrese
Rob Calabrese
Defensive Line Coach
Bill Kollar
Bill Kollar
Linebackers Coach
Reggie Herring
Reggie Herring
Outside Linebackers Coach
Brandon Staley
John Pagano
Defensive Backs Coach
Renaldo Hill
Renaldo Hill
Defensive Quality Control
Nathaniel Willingham
Nathaniel Willingham
Defensive Assistant
N/A
Chris Beake
Special Teams Assistant Coach
Chris Gould
Chris Gould
Head Strength & Conditioning
Loren Landow
Loren Landow
Assistant Strength & Conditioning
Anthony Lomando
Anthony Lomando
Assistant Strength & Conditioning
Cedric Smith
Cedric Smith
Assistant to the Head Coach
Rob Grosso
Mike Hiestand
2019 ushered in a new era for the Denver Broncos: The Don of Fangio. After exiling Vance Joseph to the desert, the Broncos brought in the longtime defensive coordinator for his first ever shot as Head Coach. The season got off to a rough start as the Broncos fell to 0-4 before limping into the bye week at 3-6. Injuries took their toll on the Broncos early and often, but with Fangio's guidance and some late season lineup changes, the Broncos finished the year 7-9. After ending the season on a high note, Fangio is back for his second year in Denver. Gone is Rich Scangarello, whose experience as the QB Coach in San Francisco had fans excited about the potential of the Broncos offense. As the season wore on, Scangarello's offense failed to live up to the hype. Whether it was ineffective quarterback play, poor game scripts, or too many weird sweeps to the tight end, the Broncos finished last in several key offensive categories (28th in Yards Per Game, 28th in Scoring, and 26th in Yards Per Attempt.) Scangarello was fired at the season's end and replaced with Pat Shurmur. Shurmur's stint as the Head Coach of the New York Giants was a wash, as the club won nine games in his two years. However, Shurmur's aggressive, down-the-field offense seems a better fit for sophomore quarterback Drew Lock. Shurmur bringing in his guy Mike Shula as the Quarterback Coach should help him learn the offense and take the next step in his NFL progression. On defense, Ed Donatell returns to helm a unit that finished 10th in Scoring and 12th in Yards Allowed. One notable hire in this coaching group is John Pagano, who is here to boost the pass rush on a defense that finished with 40 sacks, nearly the league average. ST Coordinator Tom McMahon is still around, despite another middling year from special teams. Maybe new punter Sam Martin will help with that.
Free Agency: Arrivals...
Player
Position
Contract
Shelby Harris
DE
1 year, $3.25 million
Jurrell Casey
DE
2020 7th round pick (to TEN)
AJ Bouye
CB
2020 4th round pick (from SF trade)
Melvin Gordon
RB
2 years, $16 million
Graham Glasgow
OG
4 years, $44 million
Nick Vannett
TE
2 years, $5.7 million
Jeremiah Attachou
OLB
1 year, $1.5 million
Jeff Driskel
QB
2 years, $5 million
Jacob Bobenmeyer
LS
2 years, $2.3 million
Sam Martin
P
3 years, $5.7 million
Shelby Harris wound up re-signing with Denver after having less interest on the market than anticipated. The talented defensive end comes back on a cheap "prove it" deal to play opposite Jurrell Casey. The longtime anchor for the Titans defensive line was sent to Denver for a measly seventh-round pick in a move that freed up a good chunk of cap space for Tennessee. The Broncos got another steal via trade in cornerback AJ Bouye. After an up-and-down career in Jacksonville, the 28 year old corner hopes to have something of a comeback season in Fangio's zone coverage scheme opposite Bryce Callahan. Former Chargers RB Melvin Gordon is here now, too, replacing Devontae Booker (and maybe Royce Freeman. Who knows.) When healthy, Gordon is a terror on the football field and should give the Broncos the pass-catching ability and goal line punch that Freeman and Lindsay couldn't quite find last year. Do I love that he has the 8th highest guaranteed RB salary this season? No. Will I ever forgive him for wrecking shop against Nebraska in 2014? Also no. Former Lions guard and noted BIG BOY Graham Glasgow is the latest free agent to play on Denver's offensive line. Glasgow has missed one start in the last three years and should bring some much needed stability to the offensive line. Nick Vannett is here now, for some reason. The Broncos have a thing for Big Ten tight ends and I truly can't wrap my head around it. Jeremiah Attachou is back as a depth piece behind Von Miller and Bradley Chubb. Jeff Driskel follows our aforementioned BIG BOY over from Detroit to back up Drew Lock. Jacob Bobenmeyer replaces longtime long snapper Casey Kreiter. I don't know much about him, but he's a long snapper, and that's enough for me. Punter Sam Martin signed with Denver after eight years in Detroit, hoping to break the punter curse that has plagued the Broncos since the departure of Britton Colquitt several years ago.
...and Departures
Player
Position
Team
Will Parks
Safety
1 year, $1.6 million (PHI)
Connor McGovern
C
3 years, $27 million (NYJ)
Chris Harris Jr.
CB
2 years, $20 million (LAC)
Derek Wolfe
DE
1 year, $3 million (BAL)
Andy Janovich
FB
Traded to CLE for 2021 7th Round Pick
Will Parks got a chance to play for his hometown team this offseason. After seeing the contract details, many were confused as to why Denver let Philly Will walk, but the versatile safety was fighting for playing time behind Justin Simmons and Kareem Jackson. Connor McGovern got a decent payday from the Jets and will be a welcome addition on a line that has struggled to defend Sam Darnold (and Trevor Siemian. And Luke Falk.) The writing was on the wall for shutdown corner Chris Harris Jr. after Denver cashed in on the firesale in Jacksonville and scooped up AJ Bouye. Harris eventually signed a contract with the Chargers, who are not even the best soccer team in LA. Derek Wolfe was in a similar situation when the team landed Jurrell Casey in a trade with the Titans. Wolfe now joins Calais Campbell and Brandon Williams in the Ravens new and improved defensive front. Andy Janovich... I can't even talk about this, man. WHYWOULDGODLETTHISHAPPEN
2020 Draft Class
Pick
Player
Position
School
1.15
Jerry Jeudy
WR
Alabama
2.46
KJ Hamler
WR
Penn State
3.77
Michael Ojemudia
CB
Iowa
3.83
Lloyd Cushenberry
C
LSU
3.95
McTelvin Agim
DT
Arkansas
4.118
Albert Okwuegbunam
TE
Mizzou
5.178
Justin Strnad
LB
Wake Forest
6.181
Netane Muti
OG
Fresno State
7.252
Tyrie Cleveland
WR
Florida
7.254
Derrek Tuszka
DE
NDSU
It wasn't exactly a secret that Denver was looking to add a receiver in this year's draft. After months of reports that Denver was high on speedster Henry Ruggs III and rumors of a trade up into the top ten picks, Denver stood pat at the fifteenth pick and ended up with the best WR prospect in the class. Jerry Jeudy is a master route runner with excellent YAC ability, and will give the Broncos offense a true #2 behind last year's breakout star Courtland Sutton. Denver had the choice between Jeudy and CeeDee Lamb at Pick 15, and really couldn't have gone wrong with either. Jeudy was considered by many to be the most pro-ready receiver in the draft, and he now has the opportunity to prove that statement correct in Denver. The Kansas City Chiefs have put the league on notice: speed and field-stretching ability are a must in the new NFL. Enter KJ Hamler, who the Broncos picked in the second round of the NFL Draft. Hamler was a star for the Nittany Lions, racking up 906 yards and 8 touchdowns in his last season. He had 12 drops in 2019, which is some cause for concern, but he's got speed for days and can take the top off a defense without breaking a sweat. Between Hamler and Jeudy, the Broncos brass showed their faith in sophomore QB Drew Lock, who now has two talented rookies to sling the ball to. Despite having inferior corn, Iowa has conistently managed to pump out NFL-worthy talent. Cornerback Michael Ojemudia is no different. Ojemudia has excellent size (6'0", 199 lbs) and was a crucial part of the Hawkeyes zone defense. Ojemudia is also a solid tackler, which is a non-negotiable if you're hoping to start in a Fangio defense. I wasn't sold on Ojemudia at first (I was pulling for Mississippi State corner Cameron Dantzler at this point in the draft), but his tackling ability and success in a scheme similar to what Fangio likes has made me a hopeful that the former Hawkeye can have some success in a secondary that was begging for talent last season. Everyone gets hung up on Jeudy (and for good reason!) but my favorite pick in this year's draft was Lloyd Cushenberry in the third round. Cush was a star for LSU en route to their Natty win this past year. He's a better run blocker than anything else, but he kept Heisman winner and honorary Cajun Joe Burrow clean all season, and should be able to do the same for Drew Lock in 2020. Cush will likely end up starting Day 1 at Center for the Broncos, filling the void left by new Jets center Connor McGovern. McTelvin Agim was a pick that had me scratching my head, but I've since come around on it. The defensive tackle was a rare bright spot on the Razorbacks defense. Agim has killer burst off the snap and good agility for someone who clocks in at 307 lbs. This pick was made with an eye on the future -- Shelby Harris might be leaving after this season, after all -- but Agim has both the chance and the skill to make some noise up front for the Broncos defense. A quality defense and an affinity for Italian beef (citation needed) wasn't all Vic Fangio brought over from Chicago. Denver grabbed Albert Okwuegbunam in this year's draft, adding yet another tight end to an already crowded room. Albert O. is more of a receiver than a blocker, which is honestly fine. He's got great hands and is big enough to catch balls beyond the reach of the defender. He joins a tight end group that consists of Noah Fant, Jeff Heuerman, Nick Vannett, piles of bone meal, and whatever is left of Jake Butt. For years, it feels like Denver has struggled to find even a solid inside linebacker. Fifth round pick Justin Strnad is the latest player to attempt to fill the void left by the departures of Danny Trevathan in 2016 and Brandon Marshall in 2018. It’s no secret that John Elway doesn’t like spending big money or draft capital on inside linebackers, hence the Day Three selection of Strnad, but that’s not necessarily indicative of his talent. Strnad is rangy tackler who showed excellent athleticism during his time at Wake Forest. Denver’s ILB cupboard is pretty spare: Alexander Johnson had a bit of a breakout year for the Broncos last season, but behind him is run-stuffer Todd Davis and Josey Jewell, who will likely be fighting for a roster spot this season. Strnad should bring some much needed athleticism to a unit that desperately needs it. Every year, there are a handful of rookies who fall two or three rounds due to injury concerns. Fresno State guard Netane Muti is no different. The former Bulldog missed most of his 2019 season with a Lisfranc injury after missing much of the previous year with a ruptured Achilles. When healthy, however, Muti is an aggressive and athletic blocker in the run game and has the power to punch defenders off the line of scrimmage in pass protection. Denver’s offensive line is set, but Muti gives the team a talented depth piece with starting upside if he can stay healthy. After selecting Jerry Jeudy and KJ Hamler in the first two rounds, Denver sprang for another wideout late in the draft. Tyrie Cleveland played in 46 games at Florida, starting 26 of them. Cleveland has good hands and an excellent catch radius, but his lackluster route running and struggles to get separation showed on the stat sheet. He’s a developmental receiver that will push depth players like Fred Brown and Juwann Winfree for a roster spot. As is tradition, the Broncos spent a draft pick on a pass rusher, namely defensive end Derrek Tuszka. As a senior in 2019, Tuszka racked up 48 tackles and 13.5 sacks for the Bison. Tuszka finished his career in the lesser Dakota with 133 tackles and 29.5 sacks. Some will likely consider the talent of NDSU’s opponents a knock against Tuszka, but he’s a talented end who will be a good developmental player for the Broncos.
2020 Season Predictions
Week 1: vs. TEN (W) The Broncos get a tough matchup to open the season when the Titans come to town for a late Monday night game. Tennessee is coming off a season that ended in a loss in the AFC Championship. The Titans return most of their starters from last season on both sides of the ball, with Derrick Henry and a newly extended Ryan Tannehill leading the offense. The two teams met last season in a game that Denver won 16-0, just before Tennessee ripped off a series of wins that earned them a 9-7 record and a playoff spot. Broncos newcomer Jurrell Casey will be eager to show his previous team what they’re missing, helping propel Denver to a close home win in their first game. Broncos 24, Titans 23 Week 2: @ PIT (L) Denver’s first road test is likely the toughest one on their schedule aside from @KC. The Steelers finished 8-8 last season with their defense doing its best to overcome the early season loss of Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben should be back this season, with newcomers Eric Ebron and Chase Claypool giving the offense some more firepower. The Broncos should be greatly improved on offense this year, but an early road game against a top five defense in 2019 is likely too much for Denver to overcome. Steelers 27, Broncos 17 Week 3: vs. TB (W) Open your heart to the snake oil peddler, Tampa Bay. Tom Brady joined the team during free agency, with wrestling star and cruise ship aficionado Rob Gronkowski following close behind. Brady’s pursuit of a seventh (!!!) Super Bowl win brought him to Florida, where he’ll be spearheading an offense that includes talented wideouts Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Denver is the only team Brady has a losing record against – he is 8-9 overall and 4-7 when playing in Denver. Look for that trend to continue this season when the Buccs come to town. Despite the best efforts of Brady’s offense and a defense led by former Bronco and 2019 sack leader Shaquill Barrett, Denver gets another win at home over the future Hall of Famer. Broncos 27, Buccaneers 24 Week 4: @ NYJ (W) The Jets are one of three AFC East teams who finally saw their long nightmare come to an end when Tom Brady left for the greener pastures of Tampa Bay. Sam Darnold is still a young and talented QB. Former Broncos C Connor McGovern and rookie OT Mekhi Becton were brought in to give the Jets QB some much needed protection, and rookie WR Denzel Mims is aboard to help stretch the field. However, the team is still coached by Adam Gase, and thus will continue to fall short of their potential ceiling. This matchup has all the makings of a classic Broncos trap game, but Denver should be able to get a comfortable win on the road. Broncos 23, Jets 13 Week 5: @ NE (L) As mentioned above, the Patriots will be beginning a season without Tom Brady for the first time in nearly two decades. Enter sophomore QB Jarrett Stidham and recent signing Cam Newton. The Pats are reportedly big fans of Stidham, but when a talent like Newton comes around, he’s not going to ride the bench if he’s healthy. New England’s defense finished the 2019 season as the best in the league and retained most of its starters. If you can believe it, the weapons at Newton’s disposal are probably better than those he had during the run up to Super Bowl 50. On paper, one would hope that Denver could squeeze out their fourth win of the year. However, a second consecutive road game against Bill Belichick and the vaunted Patriots defense is too much for this young team to handle this early in the season. Newton gets a modicum of revenge against Denver after becoming Von Miller’s son in early 2016. Patriots 24, Broncos 16 Week 6: vs. MIA (W) After two trips to the east coast, the Broncos return to the Mile High City to try and get back in the win column. Despite being one of the worst teams to take the field in 2019, the Dolphins head into 2020 with a completely rebuilt roster. Free agents Jordan Howard and Matt Breida have come to keep Ryan Fitzpatrick from being the team’s leading rusher for a second year, while Shaq Lawson and Byron Jones have come to South Beach to shore up the league’s worst defense. Rookie tackle Austin Jackson will be battling for a starting spot, but will he be protecting Fitzmagic or rookie phenom Tua Tagovailoa? The Dolphins figure to be a better team in 2020, but a road game in Denver isn’t quite winnable for this team yet. Denver moves to 4-2 in a game that isn’t as close as the score would have you think. Broncos 30, Miami 17 Week 7: vs. KC (L) Denver went into the draft looking to match Kansas City’s speed on offense; a wise decision, considering that speed won the team its first Super Bowl since the moon landings. Patrick Mahomes is now the highest paid athlete of all time, having recently signed a deal that will keep him in the AFC West’s collective nightmares for another twelve years. The Chiefs were quiet in the offseason but woke up one morning and bought themselves a gun in rookie RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire. This Broncos team is better than the one that lost both matchups with KC by a total score of 53-9, but a game against the reigning champs isn’t quite winnable for Denver yet. This one gets away from Denver early. Chiefs 31, Broncos 23 Week 8: BYE Week 9: @ ATL (W) A midseason Bye is a plus for any team, especially one coming off a loss to a division rival. The timing couldn’t be better for Denver, who travels to Atlanta in Week 9 to take on the high-powered Falcons offense. Atlanta swapped Devonta Freeman and Austin Hooper for Todd Gurley and Hayden Hurst in the offseason and added former Ram Dante Fowler Jr. to bolster their pass rush. I can’t really get a bead on this Falcons team, they could win twelve games or five, and neither would be terribly surprising to me. Denver comes out of the Bye strong and lets the defense do its job in a tight victory. Broncos 27, Falcons 24 Week 10: @ LVR (L) Introducing your Las Vegas Raiders, who will certainly be just as good as the Las Vegas Golden Knights in their first season. In fairness, the Raiders didn’t have a terrible offseason. They addressed their longtime problem at linebacker by picking up Cory Littleton and Nick Kwiatkowski in free agency. Maliek Collins and Prince Amukamara join Richie Incognito in Jon Gruden’s attempt to build Huskers West. Rookies Henry Ruggs III and Lynn Bowden Jr. hope to give the offense some juice. (Is Bowden the best QB on the team? Perhaps!) Jason Witten is here, for some reason. Unfortunately, Denver gets caught sleeping in this one, as Oakland Las Vegas puts it all on black for a home win. Raiders 24, Broncos 20 Week 11: vs. LAC (W) Sorry, Chargers, you’re on the receiving end of this home win. LA enters the 2020 season with a shiny new quarterback in Justin Herbert, former Broncos CB and fan favorite Chris Harris Jr, and rookie ILB/the entire Oklahoma defense Kenneth Murray. It wouldn’t surprise me if Tyrod Taylor starts the year for the Chargers, but barring any surprises, I expect Herbert to be trying to charm defenses into submission by Week 11. Despite having the most hype uniforms in the league, the Chargers lose a road game as a Melvin Gordon TD run seals the deal. Broncos 34, Chargers 17 Week 12: vs. NO (L) The Saints come marching in for the Denver’s toughest home game yet. Hall of Fame QB and pyramid scheme enthusiast Drew Brees has maybe one or two years left to win another ring, and this Saints team is in a good position to help him do just that. Rookie OL Cesar Ruiz gives the Saints an impenetrable offensive line, perfect for giving Brees enough time to find Michael Thomas or former Bronco Emmanuel Sanders down the field. Alvin Kamara is healthy again, which should scare everybody who is not a Saints fan. Denver’s hot and cold streak continues as the Saints take this one. Saints 28, Broncos 24 Week 13: @ KC (L) Sorry, Denver fans, but until the Broncos actually beat the Chiefs, I’m penciling every game in as a loss. Especially during a road game late in the year. With any luck, Denver won’t be playing this one in a blizzard. Denver keeps this game closer than their previous matchup, but that’s not enough of a bonus to take the win this week. Chiefs 31, Broncos 27 Week 14: @ CAR (W) NORTH CAROLINA, COME ON AND RAISE UP. Denver travels to the newly statueless Bank of America Stadium to take on a Panthers team that looks poised to chase the first overall pick. Teddy Two Gloves defected from the bayou to start for the Panthers, replacing new Patriots QB Cam Newton. Christian McCaffrey is coming off a year where he played his way into a massive payday. Rookies Derrick Brown and Jeremy Chinn hope to give a boost to a defense that was only better than Miami’s in 2019. Denver gets back in the win column as Carolina continues its quest for Trevor Lawrence. Broncos 34, Panthers 16 Week 15: vs. BUF (W) Denver returns home to take on a staunch Buffalo team that was a few weird plays from an overtime victory against the Texans in the playoffs last season. The Bills added Stefon Diggs to their receiving corps and snagged rookie AJ Epenesa to add to an already terrifying defensive front. Quarterback Josh Allen, who played his college ball just up the road in Laramie, should be able to throw the ball roughly two miles in the thin mountain air, but this game ends up being a low-scoring affair that is decided by the defense. Buffalo Bills, telephone bills, automo-bills, doesn’t matter. Denver’s defense grinds out a win at a chilly Mile High. Broncos 19, Bills 13 Week 16: @ LAC (W) After a tough and wintry outing against Buffalo, the Broncos get a bit of a vacation to Los Angeles to take on the Chargers once again. The outcome is the same, but even the Chargers can have a little home field advantage, as a treat. Denver gets a win and is on a hot streak heading into the last week of the season. Broncos 27, Chargers 23 Week 17: vs. LVR (W) After a bad weekend in Vegas earlier in the season, the Broncos host the Raiders in the regular season finale. Denver is rolling and the team’s first playoff berth since 2015 is on the line. Denver gets a commanding lead early and never really looks back. Oakland mounts a late rally, but a long Phillip Lindsay run keeps Denver ahead and runs out the clock on a winning season. Broncos 31, Raiders 24 It’s a tough schedule, but Denver’s hardest games are at home this season. They aren’t unseating Kansas City anytime soon for the division crown, but I’ve got the Broncos finishing 10-6 with a shot at the playoffs.
Shurmur’s New Offense
Pat Shurmur became the latest coach to join the Broncos earlier this year. After several years of rotating offensive coordinators (Rich Scangarello in 2019, Bill Musgrave in 2018, and a combination of Musgrave and Mike McCoy in 2017), Denver decided to take a chance on Shurmur. As mentioned earlier, Shurmur’s two years as the head coach of the Giants was less than inspiring. Denver didn’t hire him for his head coaching abilities, though. Rather, they brought Shurmur in based on his ability to squeeze good-to-great seasons out of his quarterbacks as an offensive coordinator (see Nick Foles in 2013 and Case Keenum in 2017.) Shurmur’s offense could not be more different from the scheme that Denver ran last year. I’m not sure what Scangarello’s offense would have looked like in its second year; Shurmur doesn’t get as cute with his skill positions pre-snap, but he will motion receivers inside on play-action and for run blocking. This offense is also much more vertical and aggressive than the scheme we saw Denver roll out in 2019. The Broncos ran a lot of plays out of 12 and 22 personnel last season, a holdover from Scangarello’s experience in San Francisco. Shurmur, on the other hand, uses a lot of spread concepts to stretch the defense. Lock should have plenty of options downfield as Shurmur's scheme opens up the back of the defense. Shurmur’s offense does not rely heavily on the use of fullbacks. (We miss you, Andy.) However, Shurmur still likes to run plenty, generally out of a zone scheme that got even Latavius Murray 842 yards and 8 touchdowns in 2017. Despite the impending shift to a more modern spread offense, the Broncos should still be running the ball plenty with their three solid RBs.
Projected Roster
QB: Drew Lock, Jeff Driskel RB: Phillip Lindsay, Melvin Gordon, Royce Freeman, LeVante Bellamy WR: Courtland Sutton, Jerry Jeudy, KJ Hamler, DaeShon Hamilton, Tim Patrick, Diontae Spencer TE: Noah Fant, Jeff Heuerman, Albert Okwuegbunam, Nick Vannett OT: Garett Bolles, Ju’Wuan James, Elijah Wilkinson OG: Dalton Risner, Graham Glasgow, Netane Muti C: Lloyd Cushenberry, Patrick Morris DT: Mike Purcell, McTelvin Agim, Christian Covington DE: Shelby Harris, Jurrell Casey, Dre’Mont Jones, DeMarcus Walker OLB: Von Miller, Bradley Chubb, Malik Reed, Jeremiah Attachou, Justin Hollins ILB: Alexander Johnson, Todd Davis, Justin Strnad, Josey Jewell CB: AJ Bouye, Bryce Callahan, Michael Ojemudia, De’Vante Bausby, Duke Dawson, Davontae Harris SS: Kareem Jackson, Trey Marshall FS: Justin Simmons, Douglas Coleman K: Brandon McManus P: Sam Martin LS: Jacob Bobenmeyer Practice Squad: Brett Rypien (QB), Shakial Taylor (CB), Josh Watson (LB), Malik Carney (LB), Derek Tuszka (DE), Tyrie Cleveland (WR), Zimari Manning (WR), Douglas Coleman (SS), Essang Bassey (CB), Hunter Watts (OT)
Players To Watch:
Drew Lock, QB This feels like cheating, but that doesn't make it any less true. It took a while to get him into the starting lineup, but Drew Lock showed enough in his five starts to earn a vote of confidence from both Elway and the coaching staff. Granted, the bar wasn't set terribly high by either Joe Flacco or Brandon Allen, but the team brass spent the offseason building an offense around the second-year signal caller. Rookies Jerry Jeudy and KJ Hamler give a massive boost to the passing game, while Melvin Gordon provides a powerful threat in the running game. For the first time in several seasons, the Broncos offense looks like a strength rather than a liability. All Lock needs to do is deliver.
Garett Bolles, OT This is truly a make-or-break year for Bolles. The team declined to pick up his fifth year option this past spring, and the 2021 draft class has some quality tackles that could come in and replace Bolles on day one. The hope is that another year under the tutelage of OL mastermind Mike Munchak can help break Bolles of some of his old habits, not to mention having a quarterback who can move around in the pocket and avoid pressure (Bolles allowed pressure once every 46.8 pass rush snaps through the last five weeks of the season.) The one good thing anyone can say about Bolles is that he has remained healthy during his three years in Denver, but if he can't clean up his technique, don't be surprised to see Samuel Cosmi or Alex Leatherwood starting in his place next year.
Shelby Harris, DE Harris re-signed with the Broncos last spring after his market dried up -- rumor had it that he was headed to Indianapolis before the Colts made a late trade for DeForest Buckner. Harris was incredibly productive for the Broncos the last couple of seasons, especially after moving back to his more natural position of defensive end in Fangio's scheme last season. Look for Harris to have a massive chip on his shoulder as he builds on a 2019 campaign where he totaled 6 sacks, 49 tackles, and 9(!!!) passes defensed.
Bryce Callahan, CB No, really, can someone keep an eye out for him? I haven't seen him anywhere.
N.B.A. Hopes for ‘as Close to a Normal Season as Possible’
The first team to take up residence at the N.B.A. bubble in July was one of the first to be assigned a road trip last week. The Orlando Magic on Thursday afternoon boarded a team flight for the first time since March and made the short journey to Atlanta to jump-start a season like no other.Upon arrival, Orlando’s 47-passenger contingent — including two coronavirus testers — was divided up and ushered onto four separate buses to maximize social distancing. Players were reminded to avoid the hotel gift shop and crowded elevators and were instructed to stay on the hotel property, apart from visits to a nearby Whole Foods Market.“I don’t know if it’s going to be like that all season long,” Orlando’s Evan Fournier said in a phone interview. “I still don’t know what I’m really allowed to do. I guess that’s what the preseason is for.”Dress rehearsals, for a league adjusting to new realities, are indeed underway. Tuesday marked Day 5 for the N.B.A.’s rapid-fire exhibition schedule — with a countdown clock in the bottom left-hand corner of NBA TV, the league’s official channel, offering repeated reminders that next Tuesday’s opening night for the 2020-21 season is fast approaching.As Fournier noted, N.B.A. teams are trying to make road life as restrictive as possible, hoping to keep their traveling parties safe with the coronavirus still surging across the country. It’s way too soon to say the league’s measures are working, when leaguewide travel has just begun, but Fournier sounded refreshingly hopeful when we spoke, saying he feels safe given the players’ daily testing, combined with as many old bubble practices as teams are able to replicate now that they’re on the move.The French guard joked Saturday on Twitter, in his native language, that he was getting sick of himself after three days in the same Atlanta hotel room, but Fournier left little doubt in our chat that he was “super happy” to be back on the court for two games against the Hawks.“It’s so much better than just being in the bubble, in my opinion, because we actually get to travel and play in real arenas,” Fournier said.You can understand the sentiment. Everyone who plays and works in the league knows that the restricted-access village erected by the N.B.A. at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., was by far the safest way to conduct business and finish the 2019-20 season, but no one wanted to do it again because of the mental-health toll exacted by long stays behind Disney’s gates, cut off from the outside world.So the N.B.A. will try to do it this way, with nearly 160 pages of safety guidelines for teams to follow to try to keep the coronavirus from infiltrating practices and mostly fan-less arenas, even as the increasing (and at times farcical) ineffectiveness of college football and basketball in combating the virus suggests that major disruptions are looming. The N.F.L., without a bubble, has likewise had countless troubles.A month ago, as the draft and free agency approached, I wrote about how strange it was to see and hear so little public concern about the daunting challenges that the N.B.A. would face this winter, when medical experts were rightly predicting an alarming spike in Covid-19 cases. Not much has changed in the weeks since — James Harden’s uncertain future in Houston gets far more coverage from the basketball media than health issues — but I do get it. The virus has been a constant in our lives for nine months. Many have grown weary of worrying.It was thus so tempting, starting Friday night, to get swept up in the basketball as the preseason began. Training camps landed a little later on the calendar than usual, but this, after all, is the time of year for just that — for all teams and their fans to dream before the games start counting.John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins have looked healthier and livelier than the Houston Rockets, who are otherwise soaked in the drama of the disgruntled Harden, could have hoped. Golden State’s Stephen Curry returned from his own injury woes with a new trick shot that he flung from the empty stands at Chase Center during pregame warm-ups and that may have topped every past trick shot in a career full of them. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving had majestic moments together in their long-delayed debut as Nets teammates. Talen Horton-Tucker, who turned 20 on Nov. 25, looked as dangerous as Los Angeles Lakers insiders have whispered for months he would be when he got a chance to play real minutes. Zion Williamson, too, was back to his wrecking-ball best Monday night in the New Orleans Pelicans’ exhibition opener.Thursday’s Minnesota at Dallas preseason game is the first I will have the chance to attend in person. Members of the news media are not allowed to get anywhere near the floor or the two teams, as we used to, but I don’t think I will be able to stay home after getting Fournier’s description of the State Farm Arena scene for the Magic’s 116-112 victory over the Hawks in the teams’ Friday exhibition.“It was really fun, actually,” Fournier said. “I didn’t really pay attention to the empty seats. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s just because I was so happy to be out there.”Where I live, in the same city as one of the game’s loudest optimists, talk about the coming season tends to be even more bullish, in contrast to my typical fear-the-worst anxiety, which I am once again struggling to stifle. Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks’ owner, is a self-professed vaccines “geek” who has been reading everything he can as a mass vaccination campaign begins to roll out nationwide. Last week on SiriusXM NBA Radio, Cuban said it was “my personal belief” that there would be a “huge snap back” in March or April “where most of the people in the country will have had access” to coronavirus vaccination “if they wanted it.”Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, has predicted that most people will be able to get the vaccine by late spring or early summer, and that those with no underlying conditions could be vaccinated by the end of March or beginning of April. Seemingly taking his cue from such projections, Cuban told SiriusXM that he thinks “things are going to get really fun” in N.B.A. arenas in the second half of the season, provided that the league’s rush to start before Christmas to satisfy its television partners proceeds into the spring with no serious setbacks.When I reached Cuban on Tuesday, he insisted that the Mavericks’ mantra is “safety first, safety second and safety third.” He also confirmed that he would be at American Airlines Center on Thursday night, which will be Cuban’s first opportunity to watch his team in person since the viral clip of his stunned in-game reaction to news of the season’s suspension on March 11.“So far, so good,” Cuban said. “The most important aspect is that the players and staff that are traveling are treating each game as a self-imposed bubble. We won’t be able to eliminate cases and outbreaks, but if we can minimize them, then hopefully it can be as close to a normal season as possible.”UpdatedDec. 23, 2020, 8:46 p.m. ETThe Scoop @TheSteinLineYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at [email protected]. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: Congratulations on 35 years in the business, and I wish you many more. My question is basically which parts stand out most to you in the evolution of N.B.A. basketball into a global, 24/7 machine? I remember being at university in the 1990s, watching the game of the week with the lads and using newspaper box scores for our little fantasy league with made-up rules. How things have changed. — Heath Melrose (Brindisi, Italy)Stein: N.B.A. players are among the most recognized (and closely followed) athletes in the world. It hasn’t always been this way. I know I’ve said it before, but the ever-growing interest in those individual personalities and a perpetually insatiable appetite for N.B.A. transactions are the standout changes for me.Apologies if I have shared this remembrance in the newsletter and just forgot, but the signal to me that the N.B.A. had truly entered a new era was a seemingly minor trade in January 2007 that sent Earl Boykins from the Denver Nuggets to the Milwaukee Bucks.Chris Ramsay, one of my ESPN.com editors at the time and the son of the legendary former Buffalo Braves and Portland Trail Blazers coach Jack Ramsay, told me that my story on the trade generated several hundred thousand page views. The trade deadline was more than a month away, but the appetite for a transaction headlined by a reserve guard was an early hint of how the landscape was changing.As for your mention of fantasy basketball, I make similar comments to my 14-year-old son, Aaron, every weekend while watching him breezily manage his first fantasy football team with all these new-age phone apps that do all the math for you. Not sure I would have made it through high school if I’d had a phone with push notifications to distract me.Q: Oscar Robertson will always be in my top six. — Ken Paul (New York Times senior staff editor)Stein: Ken got a good chuckle out of me with this response to a section of my recent piece on Diego Maradona that mentioned the contentious greatest-of-all-time debates in soccer and basketball.I listed Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson and Wilt Chamberlain as the N.B.A.’s top six contenders for G.O.A.T. status — while acknowledging that there may not be a consensus on those finalists.Ken’s note promptly validated the suspicion that my top six might not be your top six. So did the email protest I received from one of our newsletter regulars, David Machlowitz of Westfield, N.J., asking why I included Magic but not Larry Bird.Just imagine what will happen if James wins his fifth ring this season by leading the Los Angeles Lakers to a second consecutive championship. That would give us some real G.O.A.T. tension at the front of the N.B.A. line as well as the back.Q: There has been talk of expanding rosters to deal with the Covid-19 situation. The N.B.A. will probably be affected even more by the coronavirus than the N.F.L. because there are so many more games per week, so wouldn’t everyone benefit if rosters were bigger? — Heber Costa e Silva (Brazil)Stein: There was some behind-the-scenes support in November for N.B.A. teams to be allowed to sign four players to two-way contracts this season rather than two, which would have essentially enabled teams to carry 19 players instead of 17.That push was ultimately rejected, but the league did eradicate the old 45-day N.B.A. limit for players on two-way deals. Players holding two-way contracts can be active for 50 of a team’s 72 games this season and will each earn a uniform $449,155. The league is also expected to formally announce later this week that teams will be allowed to dress 15 players per game this season, up from the usual 13.Two-way players are thus widely expected to stay predominantly with their N.B.A. teams in 2020-21 — which, of course, is one of the daunting variables that G League officials have to factor in as they continue to discuss the best format for their season.Numbers Game3Holdouts are rare in the modern N.B.A., but the Houston Rockets’ duo of James Harden (two) and P.J. Tucker (one) missed three days of training camp combined to convey varying levels of dissatisfaction with the team. Harden wants to be traded; Tucker wants a contract extension.5Five of the last eight offer sheets to restricted free agents have gone unmatched by the incumbent team. This includes the Knicks’ four-year, $71 million offer sheet to then-Atlanta Hawks guard Tim Hardaway Jr. in July 2017 and, more recently, Atlanta’s four-year, $72 million offer sheet to Bogdan Bogdanovic that the Sacramento Kings declined to match.4Although Milwaukee’s acquisition of Jrue Holiday is widely regarded as a clear upgrade to the Bucks’ backcourt because of his two-way prowess, Holiday’s résumé includes only limited playoff experience. He has reached the postseason four times in 11 N.B.A. seasons and advanced to the second round just once each with Philadelphia and New Orleans.15-and-5Fred VanVleet averaged 17.6 points and 6.6 assists per game last season and just received a four-year, $85 million contract from the Raptors. The last undrafted player to average at least 15 points and 5 assists for an entire season, according to Basketball Reference, was also a Raptor: Toronto’s Mike James averaged 20.3 points and 5.8 assists in 2005-06.3The Washington Wizards now have Twitter accounts in three different languages after adding a Hebrew feed to publicize the exploits of their Israeli first-round draft pick, Deni Avdija. In addition to its main English feed, Washington launched a Twitter account in Japanese last season for the first-rounder Rui Hachimura.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to [email protected].
N.B.A. Hopes for ‘as Close to a Normal Season as Possible’
The first team to take up residence at the N.B.A. bubble in July was one of the first to be assigned a road trip last week. The Orlando Magic on Thursday afternoon boarded a team flight for the first time since March and made the short journey to Atlanta to jump-start a season like no other.Upon arrival, Orlando’s 47-passenger contingent — including two coronavirus testers — was divided up and ushered onto four separate buses to maximize social distancing. Players were reminded to avoid the hotel gift shop and crowded elevators and were instructed to stay on the hotel property, apart from visits to a nearby Whole Foods Market.“I don’t know if it’s going to be like that all season long,” Orlando’s Evan Fournier said in a phone interview. “I still don’t know what I’m really allowed to do. I guess that’s what the preseason is for.”Dress rehearsals, for a league adjusting to new realities, are indeed underway. Tuesday marked Day 5 for the N.B.A.’s rapid-fire exhibition schedule — with a countdown clock in the bottom left-hand corner of NBA TV, the league’s official channel, offering repeated reminders that next Tuesday’s opening night for the 2020-21 season is fast approaching.As Fournier noted, N.B.A. teams are trying to make road life as restrictive as possible, hoping to keep their traveling parties safe with the coronavirus still surging across the country. It’s way too soon to say the league’s measures are working, when leaguewide travel has just begun, but Fournier sounded refreshingly hopeful when we spoke, saying he feels safe given the players’ daily testing, combined with as many old bubble practices as teams are able to replicate now that they’re on the move.The French guard joked Saturday on Twitter, in his native language, that he was getting sick of himself after three days in the same Atlanta hotel room, but Fournier left little doubt in our chat that he was “super happy” to be back on the court for two games against the Hawks.“It’s so much better than just being in the bubble, in my opinion, because we actually get to travel and play in real arenas,” Fournier said.You can understand the sentiment. Everyone who plays and works in the league knows that the restricted-access village erected by the N.B.A. at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., was by far the safest way to conduct business and finish the 2019-20 season, but no one wanted to do it again because of the mental-health toll exacted by long stays behind Disney’s gates, cut off from the outside world.So the N.B.A. will try to do it this way, with nearly 160 pages of safety guidelines for teams to follow to try to keep the coronavirus from infiltrating practices and mostly fan-less arenas, even as the increasing (and at times farcical) ineffectiveness of college football and basketball in combating the virus suggests that major disruptions are looming. The N.F.L., without a bubble, has likewise had countless troubles.A month ago, as the draft and free agency approached, I wrote about how strange it was to see and hear so little public concern about the daunting challenges that the N.B.A. would face this winter, when medical experts were rightly predicting an alarming spike in Covid-19 cases. Not much has changed in the weeks since — James Harden’s uncertain future in Houston gets far more coverage from the basketball media than health issues — but I do get it. The virus has been a constant in our lives for nine months. Many have grown weary of worrying.It was thus so tempting, starting Friday night, to get swept up in the basketball as the preseason began. Training camps landed a little later on the calendar than usual, but this, after all, is the time of year for just that — for all teams and their fans to dream before the games start counting.John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins have looked healthier and livelier than the Houston Rockets, who are otherwise soaked in the drama of the disgruntled Harden, could have hoped. Golden State’s Stephen Curry returned from his own injury woes with a new trick shot that he flung from the empty stands at Chase Center during pregame warm-ups and that may have topped every past trick shot in a career full of them. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving had majestic moments together in their long-delayed debut as Nets teammates. Talen Horton-Tucker, who turned 20 on Nov. 25, looked as dangerous as Los Angeles Lakers insiders have whispered for months he would be when he got a chance to play real minutes. Zion Williamson, too, was back to his wrecking-ball best Monday night in the New Orleans Pelicans’ exhibition opener.Thursday’s Minnesota at Dallas preseason game is the first I will have the chance to attend in person. Members of the news media are not allowed to get anywhere near the floor or the two teams, as we used to, but I don’t think I will be able to stay home after getting Fournier’s description of the State Farm Arena scene for the Magic’s 116-112 victory over the Hawks in the teams’ Friday exhibition.“It was really fun, actually,” Fournier said. “I didn’t really pay attention to the empty seats. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s just because I was so happy to be out there.”Where I live, in the same city as one of the game’s loudest optimists, talk about the coming season tends to be even more bullish, in contrast to my typical fear-the-worst anxiety, which I am once again struggling to stifle. Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks’ owner, is a self-professed vaccines “geek” who has been reading everything he can as a mass vaccination campaign begins to roll out nationwide. Last week on SiriusXM NBA Radio, Cuban said it was “my personal belief” that there would be a “huge snap back” in March or April “where most of the people in the country will have had access” to coronavirus vaccination “if they wanted it.”Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, has predicted that most people will be able to get the vaccine by late spring or early summer, and that those with no underlying conditions could be vaccinated by the end of March or beginning of April. Seemingly taking his cue from such projections, Cuban told SiriusXM that he thinks “things are going to get really fun” in N.B.A. arenas in the second half of the season, provided that the league’s rush to start before Christmas to satisfy its television partners proceeds into the spring with no serious setbacks.When I reached Cuban on Tuesday, he insisted that the Mavericks’ mantra is “safety first, safety second and safety third.” He also confirmed that he would be at American Airlines Center on Thursday night, which will be Cuban’s first opportunity to watch his team in person since the viral clip of his stunned in-game reaction to news of the season’s suspension on March 11.“So far, so good,” Cuban said. “The most important aspect is that the players and staff that are traveling are treating each game as a self-imposed bubble. We won’t be able to eliminate cases and outbreaks, but if we can minimize them, then hopefully it can be as close to a normal season as possible.”UpdatedDec. 23, 2020, 8:46 p.m. ETThe Scoop @TheSteinLineYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at [email protected]. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: Congratulations on 35 years in the business, and I wish you many more. My question is basically which parts stand out most to you in the evolution of N.B.A. basketball into a global, 24/7 machine? I remember being at university in the 1990s, watching the game of the week with the lads and using newspaper box scores for our little fantasy league with made-up rules. How things have changed. — Heath Melrose (Brindisi, Italy)Stein: N.B.A. players are among the most recognized (and closely followed) athletes in the world. It hasn’t always been this way. I know I’ve said it before, but the ever-growing interest in those individual personalities and a perpetually insatiable appetite for N.B.A. transactions are the standout changes for me.Apologies if I have shared this remembrance in the newsletter and just forgot, but the signal to me that the N.B.A. had truly entered a new era was a seemingly minor trade in January 2007 that sent Earl Boykins from the Denver Nuggets to the Milwaukee Bucks.Chris Ramsay, one of my ESPN.com editors at the time and the son of the legendary former Buffalo Braves and Portland Trail Blazers coach Jack Ramsay, told me that my story on the trade generated several hundred thousand page views. The trade deadline was more than a month away, but the appetite for a transaction headlined by a reserve guard was an early hint of how the landscape was changing.As for your mention of fantasy basketball, I make similar comments to my 14-year-old son, Aaron, every weekend while watching him breezily manage his first fantasy football team with all these new-age phone apps that do all the math for you. Not sure I would have made it through high school if I’d had a phone with push notifications to distract me.Q: Oscar Robertson will always be in my top six. — Ken Paul (New York Times senior staff editor)Stein: Ken got a good chuckle out of me with this response to a section of my recent piece on Diego Maradona that mentioned the contentious greatest-of-all-time debates in soccer and basketball.I listed Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson and Wilt Chamberlain as the N.B.A.’s top six contenders for G.O.A.T. status — while acknowledging that there may not be a consensus on those finalists.Ken’s note promptly validated the suspicion that my top six might not be your top six. So did the email protest I received from one of our newsletter regulars, David Machlowitz of Westfield, N.J., asking why I included Magic but not Larry Bird.Just imagine what will happen if James wins his fifth ring this season by leading the Los Angeles Lakers to a second consecutive championship. That would give us some real G.O.A.T. tension at the front of the N.B.A. line as well as the back.Q: There has been talk of expanding rosters to deal with the Covid-19 situation. The N.B.A. will probably be affected even more by the coronavirus than the N.F.L. because there are so many more games per week, so wouldn’t everyone benefit if rosters were bigger? — Heber Costa e Silva (Brazil)Stein: There was some behind-the-scenes support in November for N.B.A. teams to be allowed to sign four players to two-way contracts this season rather than two, which would have essentially enabled teams to carry 19 players instead of 17.That push was ultimately rejected, but the league did eradicate the old 45-day N.B.A. limit for players on two-way deals. Players holding two-way contracts can be active for 50 of a team’s 72 games this season and will each earn a uniform $449,155. The league is also expected to formally announce later this week that teams will be allowed to dress 15 players per game this season, up from the usual 13.Two-way players are thus widely expected to stay predominantly with their N.B.A. teams in 2020-21 — which, of course, is one of the daunting variables that G League officials have to factor in as they continue to discuss the best format for their season.Numbers Game3Holdouts are rare in the modern N.B.A., but the Houston Rockets’ duo of James Harden (two) and P.J. Tucker (one) missed three days of training camp combined to convey varying levels of dissatisfaction with the team. Harden wants to be traded; Tucker wants a contract extension.5Five of the last eight offer sheets to restricted free agents have gone unmatched by the incumbent team. This includes the Knicks’ four-year, $71 million offer sheet to then-Atlanta Hawks guard Tim Hardaway Jr. in July 2017 and, more recently, Atlanta’s four-year, $72 million offer sheet to Bogdan Bogdanovic that the Sacramento Kings declined to match.4Although Milwaukee’s acquisition of Jrue Holiday is widely regarded as a clear upgrade to the Bucks’ backcourt because of his two-way prowess, Holiday’s résumé includes only limited playoff experience. He has reached the postseason four times in 11 N.B.A. seasons and advanced to the second round just once each with Philadelphia and New Orleans.15-and-5Fred VanVleet averaged 17.6 points and 6.6 assists per game last season and just received a four-year, $85 million contract from the Raptors. The last undrafted player to average at least 15 points and 5 assists for an entire season, according to Basketball Reference, was also a Raptor: Toronto’s Mike James averaged 20.3 points and 5.8 assists in 2005-06.3The Washington Wizards now have Twitter accounts in three different languages after adding a Hebrew feed to publicize the exploits of their Israeli first-round draft pick, Deni Avdija. In addition to its main English feed, Washington launched a Twitter account in Japanese last season for the first-rounder Rui Hachimura.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to [email protected].
Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives. • PREVIOUS • 1987 FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE: The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82
”This is horrible, Gorilla.” These words open the issue this week, because Wrestlemania IV is in the books and, well, it was not pretty. Dave is flabbergasted by how bad a show it was, wondering if this was a dream or a nightmare that he hasn’t woken up from. Wrestlemania III was the best wrestling production of all time. It may not have had the best card, but it was entertaining all around and the fans loved it. It set Vince up as the king of wrestling, all-powerful over the business. He’s still the king, but he’s definitely not all-powerful, and Crockett absolutely kicked Vince’s ass on March 27. Financials will take time to come in, and of course McMahon will win that measure, but we can flash back to January 24 for an analogue: The Royal Rumble won even though the Bunkhouse Finals made more money.
Preliminary info Dave has gotten from phoning cable companies and hearing from fans at closed-circuit site is that Wrestlemania interest was down by nearly half of last year’s. The buyrate for ppv could be as low as 6 percent, half of WWF’s expected 12% and still way down from last year’s 10.3%. Even so, the PPV gross would be $10.8 million, of which WWF can expect no more than $3.5 million, plus an estimated $2.3 million from a minimum 175,000 (last year had 375,000) at closed-circuit and a live gate of about $ million and an undisclosed site fee from Donald Trump for putting on the show. The early (and I mean early, don’t get attached to these numbers) overall estimate is a total gross of $14 million, with WWF netting maybe $6.5 million, a far cry from the $18 million they were predicting their take would be. How much was because Crockett ran the Clash? How much was because WWF just has been less interesting? It’s hard to say, but Crockett hurt McMahon way more than anyone could have anticipated.
As for the shows themselves, just absolute night and day between them. Crockett’s Clash was a really solid show. It wasn’t as polished a production and only had 30 minutes of wrestling in the first 90 minutes of the show, though this was to allow Sting/Flair to work without commercial breaks so it was an overall benefit. The matches, minus the barbed wire one, were all good. The crowd was into it. Two excellent matches. Probably best to never let Steve Williams talk again, though. The Jim Cornette and Eddie Haskel bit was great and made Bob Uecker and Gene Okerlund look worse than they were. Meanwhile, Wrestlemania made Starrcade 1987 look like Starrcade 1985, and that’s too nice to say even. WWF’s guys, rather than working harder because it was Wrestlemania, opted to phone it in instead because Wrestlemania itself would carry the day. Even Jesse Ventura had no good lines and coasted while Gorilla was like soundbites of his Wrestling Challenge commentary.
Anyway, Dave breaks down the major problems for WWF, as he sees them. 1) Hogan - he’s too over, to the point he overshadows everything else and by booking him as just one of the guys in the field, they completely devalued their star attraction. And instead of putting Randy over at the end, which they need to do if they’re going to try and have him be even close to as over as Hulk has been, they put Liz and Hulk over. “It’s like Randy can’t even order a taxi cab unless Liz tells Hulk to flag down the cab.” 2) Hindsight is always 20/20, but Trump Plaza was a terrible venue for a Wrestlemania, and the crowd just wasn’t a wrestling crowd, so they were not invested at all. 3) Steroids. Dave supposes he’s probably the most hated person in the world among the heavy steroid users in the business because of all the nicknames he gives them, but in all seriousness it was embarrassing to watch so many guys get blown up in a minute or two to where they couldn’t even pace out a five minute match. Like, take out the health issues, take out any sense of blame on the guys, Dave says. The tournament was embarrassing. It wasn’t funny to see the guys fail like this. It was just sad. 4) The tournament as a concept flopped. It gave fans no specific issue to focus on because belts in modern wrestling just don’t mean anything to fans - the real draw is the big personalities, and WWF proved it with this show: the only matches anyone cared about were the ones with Hogan and, to a lesser extent, DiBiase and Savage. 5) Spoilers. Too many people knew the outcome, and giving Savage the title is almost a mistake after you’ve given so many spoilers of your own show. ABC News did a report the morning after, saying “Randy Savage was the winner at Wrestlemania, but of course everyone knew it since the WWF magazine had printed the result three weeks ago. The WWF claims the magazine report was simply a typographical error.” Anyway, Dave is sick of people blaming him for their wrestling promotions not being able to draw fans at live shows when they aren’t interesting enough. Newsletter subscribers are maybe 0.002% of the viewing audience - if all Dave’s subscribers quit watching nobody would notice in the viewing numbers. Meanwhile, the fans who read newsletters are probably the most dedicated and put more money into the business than the “marks” do and will be the ones stubbornly holding on to the end if the business somehow were to die. So don’t blame Dave if your show sucks and your creative is bad and you give away your finish weeks ahead of time and don’t even bother changing it.
Anyway, Wrestlemania preliminary numbers time. About 540,000 homes on PPV, plus 195,000 through closed-circuit, as far as the U.S. goes. They did just 95 closed-circuit sites in the U.S., 39 of which had less than 2,000 capacity. No word on Crockett’s ratings, but if they hit a 5 on TBS that’s about 2 million homes.
So all that said, time to look at the Wrestlemania card. Good production, particularly the opening graphics, but not as far ahead of Crockett as last year now that they’ve upped their game. Battle royal started hot and quickly became your standard boring battle royal. The Hart/Badnews angle at the end saves the match from a dud and gets it half a star. DiBiase vs. Duggan was real slow for a five minute match, and Duggan no longer resembles the worker he was in UWF/Mid-South just a couple years ago. Very little heat. 1.5 stars. Muraco vs. Bravo gets half a star, and both were blown up by the double clothesline like they’d wrestled a hard 20 minutes, but the whole match was under 5. Valentine vs. Steamboat saw Valentine look tired and old, and just not have his famed longevity anymore. Good finish, solid work even with the timing issues. Steamboat coming out with his son and being able to be lost in the moment of just being a proud father was “a tremendous sight” for Dave. 2.25 stars. Savage vs. Reed got a pop for the finish but nothing else, really. 1 star. One Man Gang vs. Bam Bam Bigelow wasn’t good. It was obvious how bad Bigelow’s knee was, and that takes away his agility, which is the thing that sets him apart. Dave says this is a -1.5 star match in a vacuum, but considering Bam Bam’s condition he’s not going to rate it that low and calls it a dud instead. Rick Rude vs. Jake Roberts was a 15 minute draw and Dave hated it. He hated Rude’s tights, the many long rest holds, the fact that there just weren’t any moves in there to pop the crowd, and the fact that the crowd chanted boring. Worst match of the year candidate. -2 stars. Ultimate Warrior blew up before he entered the ring for his match with Hercules and the match was bad. -1.5 stars, and Dave says it was worse than Rude vs. Roberts, but gets a better rating for knowing when to be done quick and not overstaying its welcome like the other match did.
Wrestlemania continued, because holy shit that was a really long paragraph and we needed an intermission. Round two saw Hogan and Andre go to a double disqualification to start off. Andre could barely stand by two and a half minutes in. Lots of shenanigans, Virgil took a nasty suplex on the floor where Hulk didn’t protect him at all, but there’s a glimmer of a future face push for him at least. Maybe his father’s a plumber, Dave quips. Half a star if you ignore the posing at the end (dud if you count the posing). But really, the crowd came to see Hogan pose. DiBiase vs. Muraco had no heat but decent action for its short stay. 1.5 stars. Savage vs. Valentine was good, well-paced with good action. 2.5 stars. Beefer vs. Honkytonk Man amazed Dave since neither was over at all when both usually are decently over. Sherri Martel made more noise than the entire audience. Loads of shenanigans, Beefer’s new haircut makes him look like a Davey Boy Smith with less wrestling ability, dud. Islanders and Heenan vs. Koko and the Bulldogs had some decent comedy and started okay, but got boring quick. 1.25 stars. Savage vs. One Man Gang was watchable but the finish sucked. Half a star. Demolition vs. Santana and Martel was solid throughout, although the crowd seemed on Demolition’s side. If the crowd had been responsive this would have been a really good match rather than just pretty good at 2.5 stars. DiBiase vs. Savage saw the crowd missing “two top-flight guys trying to work a good match” because they were watching the entrance waiting for Hogan. Savage sends Liz to get Hogan, Hogan evens the odds, Savage wins, Hogan must pose. 2.25 stars. Once round two started, the show was pretty decent, Dave thinks, just the first half of the show wasn’t RestholdMania, but Rigor Mortis Mania.
Over in Crockett Country, it’s a whole different story. They drew 6,000 fans to the Greensboro Coliseum, and all six thousand were champing at the bit for the show, which created a great energy that the wrestlers fed on for their matches. Rotunda retained the TV Title against Jimmy Garvin in the amateur rules match with a one-count pin, pinning Garvin a minute into the second round. 2.5 stars. The Midnight Express beat the Fantastics by DQ to retain the U.S. Tag Titles in a classic Memphis style brawl that was so action packed the cameras missed a lot of it. Dave gives them 4.25 stars, saying the action earned it 4.5, but the overused finish with the over the top rope throw and the referee reversing the decision lost it half a star, but then the post-match action with Corette lashing Bobby Fulton’s back with a belt got it back a quarter star. Dusty and the Road Warriors (the Rhode Warriors, I almost typed) beat Warlord and Barbarian and Ivan Koloff in a real short barbed wire match, and Dave notes the resemblance between Dudty wearing facepaint and a black t-shirt and Dump Matsumoto (with the notable difference that Dump is prettier). Ivan was bleeding after 20 seconds and Dusty after 90. Dave hates these matches - everyone gets all cautious and careful and stays in the center of the ring, so nothing really happens. 1 star. Luger and Barry Windham beat Arn and Tully for the NWA Tag Titles. Good match all around, 3.5 stars. Flair and Sting had a 45 minute draw for the NWA Title in a match of the year candidate. Slow pace to start, but the heat kept up and they weren’t dull and Flair sold the hell out of every rest hold. Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone did fantastic work on this, particularly Ross who sold the intensity and importance of the match, which was critical for the first half (if only he were still able to do that today). There were supposed to be three judges, but there were five people at the table, only two of them didn’t vote, so no idea what the point there was. Anyway, Patty Mullen (Penthouse Pet of the year and who had been on Ric’s arm the night before on tv) picked Flair. Gary Juster, former NWA promoter, voted for Sting. Sandy Scott then ruled it a draw, and nothing came of the judging gimmick which made it utterly pointless. 4.75 stars
During Clash of the Champions, after the first match, there was an ad on TBS for the WWF 900 number advertising play-by-play for Wrestlemania. WWF managed to get an ad on TBS during Crockett’s big special, and that’s hilarious. They also ran the first ad for the new Four Horsemen vitamins, which was hilarious but unintentionally so, and Dave thinks they aren’t going to sell a lot of those vitamins.
Last week Dave teased a big story, and it’s that Crockett has been negotiating with Ken Mantell of World Class Dave didn’t give any details beyond the tease last week because he was hoping to get more before press time. He promises to never note a major story the way he did again without giving more details up front, because he expected more details to break before he had to print copy but it didn’t. Anyway, negotiations have been ongoing for ten days and there are conflicting reports. Crockett’s goal is taking over World Class the way they did Florida, getting the valuable channel 11 time slot on Saturday nights in Dallas. They’re going to need Fritz on board to complete the deal, though. If it does go through, Kerry and Kevin will have guaranteed work and a push in the NWA, but neither really seems to want the travel, so they’d likely get a deal for local stuff and maybe occasional work in St. Louis. The bottom line everyone needs to consider, though, is that Mantell and Michael Hayes may be the most creative bookers anywhere right now, but they aren’t turning WCCW’s business around and it just may not work out that they can. Dave doesn’t expect a deal done now, but he thinks Mantell and Hayes may give themselves until May to see if their hard work will pay off before considering any offers.
An example of that creative booking is the WCCW title change on March 25 in Dallas. Hayes was at ringside with Kerry while Black Bart and Buddy Roberts were for Parsons. Iceman King Parsons is one of the least likely champions in wrestling history, and the match wasn’t particularly good, but the finish saw the lights go out after Terry Gordy came down, at which point Bart and Roberts used flashlights to blind the fans in the front row so nobody could see what happened. When the lights came back on, Kerry was knocked out in the ring, Hayes was bleeding on the floor, nobody knew who hit whom, and Parsons pinned Kerry to win the belt. They even had Kerry carted out on a stretcher. Dave doesn’t think (and actively prays against) Parsons will hold it for long. Hayes looks like the best prospect (nope. It’s going back to Kerry in May at the Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions). Also, I just learned that King Parsons is his real legal name. I always thought combining Iceman and King was a weird combo of gimmicks, so that solves a mystery for me.
Eddie Gilbert is leaving Memphis to book for Continental beginning April 10. Continental’s business is bottoming out and it’ll be interesting to see if Gilbert and Missy can get things going there again like they did in Memphis. This also puts Memphis in some dire straits, since the Gilberts were basically all their storylines and they were drawing triple what they had been by giving the Gilberts such big spotlight, so they’re in trouble.
Lanny Poffo, brother of WWF Champion Randy Savage, has a book coming out called Wrestling with Rhyme. It’s a book of poetry coming out in late April and will be available at Walden Books. Man, I remember when Walden went out of business. It was a sad day for me.
The only news Dave has from Japan right now is that Bruiser Brody beat Jumbo Tsuruta for the International Title at Budokan Hall on March 27. Tenryu also retained his PWF Title against Hansen.
Roddy Piper’s latest project is a new film going into production called They Live.
A correction on the Bruno Sammartino stuff. WWF isn’t trying to ban Bruno from using his name. They’re trying to ban him from using the trademarked nickname “The Living Legend” in contexts outside WWF. There’s a lot of talk about his radio interview , and some excerpts in the mail section of this issue.
There’s a film in the works about former Olympic and pro wrestler Chris Taylor. Taylor was a 450 lb wrestler from Iowa who won bronze in the 1972 Olympics and died in 1979. A book about him called “The Gentle Giant” is being adapted into a film, currently called “Lean On Me.” That does not wind up being the title, and I can’t find a movie based on him so this might have gotten scrapped. In other biopic news, no word from Hollywood on any upcoming Hulk Hogan movie.
WWF went up to the number 4 slot in the syndicated ratings for the week ending Feb. 28. They had a 10.6 rating, an increase on the previous week. Crockett’s network fell to number 9 with a 7.6.
Paul E. Dangerously firing Joe Pedicino, Gordon Solie, and Boni Blackstone on Pro Wrestling this Week aired this past weekend. It was fantastic stuff, and Paul has cemented himself as one of the top managers in the business. This is all part of a reformatting of the show to a 30 minute format with Pedicino and Patrick Schaeffer (who was the mastermind behind Global doing an IPO to build up a million dollars of operating capital) at the helm, with Schaeffer as the heel commentator.
Crockett had a big angle taped on March 21 that they aired this past Saturday, involving Magnum T.A. Magnum was doing an interview when Tully and J.J. came out, then Barry Windham came out and Tully popped Windham with a hit, then hit Magnum. J.J. was behind Magnum and helped Magnum gently go to ground, then Dusty barged in with a baseball bat and swung for the fences on Tully, then knocks out Jim Crockett without realizing who he’s swinging at when Jim and David Crockett and Rob Garner try to restore order. Jim Cornette did a tearful interview about his “good friend Jim Crockett” and Magnum even bladed, though that last didn’t make it to tv. Later on, Magnum came out and hit Tully with a bat in a match to cause a disqualification. Dave loved the concept here at first because you have to imagine Magnum hates being on the sidelines and wants to be involved to some extent and this gives him something to sink his teeth into. At the same time, “the idea of beating up a cripple, which unfortunately is the reality of the situation” is just kind of pathetic. That said, it’ll draw, and it’ll let Dusty (with Magnum in his corner) push himself as top star once again, and it may even be enough to put heat back on Dusty vs. Tully. Dusty will be suspended for 120 days come Saturday’s tv (taking us into July - will we see the Midnight Rider face Flair at the Bash, Dave wonders), Dusty will return as the Midnight Rider with Magnum at his side, and he’ll likely get the U.S. title in the tournament they’re going to hold in May.
The Oregon State Athletic Commission held a public hearing on March 18. Topics mostly stuck to safety concerns such as cleaning the mats, barriers at ringside, security, mats on the floor by ringside, etc. A lot of wrestlers were there, along with Billy Jack Haynes and Don and Barry Owen. Most of the wrestlers were negative about the Owens’ promotion, with only Tony Borne and Art Crews saying anything positive. Borne testified against the idea of using mats outside the ring, saying it’s not going to help as much as it hurts the visual effect of a spill to the floor. He also said the commission’s drug testing proposal went too far by including painkillers and marijuana on top of cocaine. The commission indicated they’ll be looking at action like the use of chairs in the future and potentially issuing fines. They also clarified their stance on blood: hardway is good, blading is bad. It’s pretty absurd to say that the more dangerous way of getting color is good but blading is bad, but this whole blood thing has become a thing for commissions around the country because blading sounds absolutely insane to people outside the industry, and even Dave has mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, blading is a minor safety issue at best, especially compared to rampant steroid and drug use and nasty bumps. On the other, Dave’s not sure fans are really drawn by excessive bleeding either, and probably actually turns off a large number of potential casual viewers. It doesn’t hurt if kept rare, but it doesn’t help if half the matches have it. And more dangerous to the wrestlers in a blood match than AIDS (they’re more likely to get that from outside activities) is scabies, which Owen’s wrestlers had an outbreak of not too far back. Rip Oliver said he’s gotten scabies four times since July and wound up giving it to his wife and kids on top of it. The outbreak led the Commission to pass a ruling against wrestlers working while they have communicable diseases and that they must notify promoters.
Eddie Gilbert vs. Jerry Lawler on March 21 drew 6,000 fans for Memphis. Gilbert won in what’s being hailed as a great match (and Dave’s heard their match the week before was even better). On tv on March 26 Gilbert acted like he was going to throw fire at Lance Russell, which got Lawler out from backstage in his first tv appearance in a month. They wound up brawling into the parking lot and Gilbert slammed Lawler on the hood of a car, shattering the windshield.
Scott Rechsteiner, using the ring name Scott Steiner, debuted as a babyface in Memphis recently. No mention of peaks or freaks yet.
Some random trivia about AWA Tag champ Paul Diamond. His real name is Tom Boric, and he was born in Winnipeg, you idiots, on May 11, 1961. He played soccer for the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the old North American Soccer League and was drafted sixth in the 1980 collegiate draft by the Calgary Boomers, before getting traded to Tampa in 1982. He stayed until the NASL folded, which is when he got into wrestling.
Anyway, Diamond and Tanaka won the belts because the Midnight Rockers wanted $500 a week guaranteed to stay and Verne doesn’t believe in guaranteed money. They don’t appear to have left yet.
[Continental] Looks like Eddie Gilbert is replacing Robert Fuller and going to be sole booker.
[USA] The other spinoff from the old Continental promotion ran its first big show in Knoxville, drawing a $10,000 gate. Previous sellouts there hit $27,000, to give an indication of relative value there. Not a lot to report about this. Moondog Spot is there as “The Dog.” He’s not a big dog. He’s not a little dog. He’s The Dog.
WCCW drew 1,700 on March 25 for their Dallas show, where Kerry dropped the title to Parsons. The other main event had Michael Hayes vs. Buddy Roberts, and Roberts kept trying to apologize for hitting Hayes, but Hayes wasn’t going to let it slide. Terry Gordy did a run in and broke things up, and told Hayes they sold Angel of Death’s contract so they can all be friends again. Hayes walked out on Gordy, though.
[WCCW] Fabulous Lance keeps getting booked for shows but hasn’t returned. His agent still doesn’t want him to be a heel because it’ll cut down his opportunities for tv and modeling work.
To illustrate how bad business is for World Class, here’s the biggest gate they drew out of three shows last week in Mississippi: $783.
A man named David Peschel of Washington, New Jersey is suing Randy Savage for a million dollars. He alleges that Savage punched and bodyslammed him when he got out of his car at a light to ask Savage for his autograph. He describes Savage as 6’4” and 280 lbs, prompting Dave to ask if this was maybe a different Randy Savage.
Rumor has it that Angelo Poffo put a $1 bet on the Wrestlemania tournament. Apparently, his bet was on Ted DiBiase.
According to a sumo journal in Japan, Futuhaguro is 99% certain he won’t go into pro wrestling. Koji Kitao will debut near the end of 1989 in the AWA, so I’ll put my dollar bet on the 1% chance.
Reader Mike Rodgers attended the Oregon commission hearing on March 18 and writes about his take. The commission is making big improvements to safety that he thinks are great, but thinks they’re overstepping by wanting to legitimately fine wrestlers who use foreign objects or chairs, and says they don’t understand “that promoters do what they can to fill up arenas.” Banning the blade but not blood is just going to increase the chance of legitimate injury, and it’s part of the proof that the commission really isn’t smart to what wrestling really is about.
We get a really long letter on Bruno’s radio interview. The writer taped the second hour and is hoping to get tape of the first hour. But before getting to the good stuff, he first wants to note that lying and silly gimmicks didn’t start in 1984 (was Gorilla Monsoon really from Manchuria? Didn’t Bruno employ gimmick wrestlers when he booked Pittsburgh? How about when he’d blade and claim to have spent the night hospitalized receiving transfusions) and that Bruno’s not really got a leg to stand on for “wrestling must be credible and it is an insult to the fans’ intelligence to lie to them.” Fans knew then just as they know now that it’s a work, but that doesn’t matter - you watch the show because it’s entertaining and you want to see the magician do their tricks. Also, the writer weighs in that the real story with the Main Event will be told by the demographic breakdown rather than the overall rating. In other words, is Hulk Hogan the Demo God? Anyway, after all this preamble, we finally get some quotes from the interview:
Bruno denies blading happened in his day but says “today, nothing would surprise me.”
Says he’ll never work for the NWA. “I wouldn’t touch it with a 50-foot pole.”
He breaks kayfabe on George Steele and says he’s been a teacher for years.
He thinks Bobby Heenan is a “dud and a disgrace” to wrestling.
He compliments Ric Flair as a guy who can give you an exciting 30 or 40 minute match, but the NWA “have an awful lot of bizarre nonsense in there that, to me, is no good.”
He says David wanted to be like him and he tried to warn David that these days they aren’t interested in “guys who just want to wrestle” but he’ll be going to Japan where they appreciate that better.
He didn’t like doing commentary. He just clocked in, did his job, and left as soon as he was done. He was very uncomfortable and unhappy doing it.
Bruno says WWF didn’t really have anything great to generate interest in the tournament for Wrestlemania.
A caller asks if his wrestling was all real, and Bruno says “Well, it was in my day, at least I thought it was.
We get a letter that feels so much like it could have been a post here on /SquaredCircle when Dave rated Omega/Okada 6 stars that I’m posting it in its entirety. Be warned, it is long, kind of racist, and absolutely bonkers, but that’s not unfamiliar around these parts. It gets the headline “Sick of praise for Japan.”
I get so sick of the way that people talk about Japanese wrestling. There’s no question it should be covered extensively in the Observer because it is a significant part of the wrestling world. However, when you start printing letters that criticize the American society and the jazz scene, then you are going way too far. Anyone who thinks the Japanese never forsake quality for showmanship is full of it. The rock group KISS has enjoyed phenomenal success there because of their wild appearence [sic] and stage show. In fact, when they stopped wearing their makeup in the United States, they waited almost two years to do the same in Japan because they knew they wouldn’t be accepted there without it. And what about the movie industry? Do you think Godzilla movies are popular because of great acting? As a student, I find teachers constantly comparing the American intelligence with that of the Japanese. I’m sure that the wrestlers love being compared to Japanese wrestlers as much as I love being compared to Japanese students. The Japanese do well at everything because they become obsessed with it. For them, it’s a matter of pride. If they screw up, it’s not only a mark on themselves but also on their entire family. You may think that’s great, but it puts a lot of pressure on everyone. They spend hours studying and I’m certain spend hours learning wrestling skills and have no time for themselves. Cut the North American wrestlers some slack. They’re just trying to make a living and preserve their bodies in the process. Look at what trying to wrestle like the Japanese did to Tommy Billington. Everyone would love matches filled with nothing but high spots, but working them is a great way to destroy yourself in a hurry. Now there is no excuse for total duds like Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant either, but there are many non-Japanese who can hold their own without going crazy about it. I wonder how many Observer readers can honestly say that they work as hard at their own jobs as the Japanese in the same profession do. If they do, then I think they would quality [sic] as workaholics. If there is anything wrong with our society, it’s the lack of national pride, which is so evident in the pages of the Observer. You seem to hate everything that wasn’t imported from the other side of the world. I have absolutely nothing against the country of Japan or Japanese wrestling, but I don’t think it’s up to a bunch of wrestling fans to dictate what’s wrong with our country just because they prefer the Oriental style of wrestling. I think the Observer is great, but I’d like to see you stick to writing about wrestling instead of how rotten our way of life is. I’m sure that’s what a Japanese journalist would do.
Anyway, Dave responds to that letter, giving the writer only 4 stars because it’s not in the literally-only-opened-a-couple-weeks-ago Tokyo Dome:
DM: Have I ever written about how rotten our quality of life is or done any cultural comparisons between the U.S. and Japan except to where it pertains to the wrestling business? If I lived in Japan and made a comparison of the quality of the football product and wrote the U.S. product was superior, I hope people wouldn’t take it as an indictment against an entire society.
Lastly, it’s about that time of year, I guess, because we have letters arguing about whether Dave should include GLOW coverage or not. Two letters this week on that theme, the first noting what the writer calls a progression in the letters calling for more coverage of women’s wrestling. First were the calls for more coverage of “conventional” women’s wrestling. Then the calls for GLOW coverage. Then POWW. Guess the next will be coverage of the apartment house wrestling scene, the writer supposes. The other writer claims to speak for 90% of subscribers and says Dave would offend that much of his readership if he covers GLOW and POWW and says that if you even consider GLOW to be pro wrestling, you’re incapable of understanding what makes a match good or not. This one asks if Dave’s going to be asked to cover mud wrestling next. There’s no misogyny problem in wrestling fandom. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Back to news, the Kentucky Athletic Commission has put up some new rules. There are to be guard rails around the ring now. Throwing an opponent over the top rope will result in a fine or suspension. Ditto for any referee who doesn’t immediately stop the match for it. The top rope rule is now state law, as insane as that sounds.
Dave should have national numbers next week, but in Atlanta Clash of the Champions drew an 11.7 rating, with the FlaiSting match hitting 14.5 National numbers will not be nearly that high, but hitting that 5 Dave mentioned earlier that would mean 2 million viewers doesn’t seem so far fetched anymore. Clash beat the NCAA tournament on the networks in Atlanta. TBS is reportedly looking to do another in prime time on a Wednesday early in the summer.
Stampede set up an angle where Johnny Smith (kayfabe Davey Boy’s cousin or brother or something) argued with Diana Hart Smith, which got Owen out to defend his sister. Davey Boy was supposed to come in after Wrestlemania to work with Johnny, but Vince put the kibosh on that. There were also considerations for some Stampede guys to participate in the Crockett Cup, but politics (Vince) made that a no-go. So it’s probably no coincidence that when Owen did the job for Hercules it was just outside Greensboro. Anyway, the real takeaway is that Owen is probably coming over to WWF by the end of the year.
NEXT WEEK:Clash vs. Wrestlemania poll results, Clash ratings and Wrestlemania buyrate, an assload of mini headlines because news is apparently thin next week, and more
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