EL BARRIO, EL FALLS: I got the text that Replacement Matt had refused to replace last night. I thought to myself how has he managed to constantly escape this sports blog, hotel California, know as MTM productions. He has to share his secret with the rest of us. At least with Ward, you can’t seem to break free of this place, like a battered wife, he/we keep coming back. So I got my regular work done and looked up and it said 2am. I decided this would one of my fresh of the presses morning pieces. With that said here is the menu for today: Playoff Bound NY Jets, NY Rangers Draft Pick, Israel Folau.
Playoff Bound NY Jets: I am going the full DJ Eberle and saying the Jets will make the playoffs, weird looking new uniforms and logo and all. A lot rests on the arm of young Sam Darnold. It is very well possible that he could regress, but I don’t see it. Sitting out those 3 games due to an injury really help his development, which is why I felt he needed to sit out the first half of the season. Anyway, he seemed to have grown in the final part of the season. He still has a bit of gunslinger in him so his INTs will be higher than most people like to see but so was Brett Favre. It would help if with the 3rd pick the Jets got a pass rusher or trade down a bit and find a lower and grab a couple, in case one doesn’t work out, while bolstering the other parts of the defense. Regardless, Adam Gase did look like he was hyped up on adderol or something at the press conference but he will be even more hyped up when leads the Jets to a first round exit.
Rangers Draft Pick: The NJ Devils <spit!> beat the odds to get the number 1 pick in the NHL draft, the Rangers also beat the odds to get the second pick. Could this be the league working hard to make sure the NY area squads are halfway decent so the fans roll in. Possibly but if they were doing that for the Rangers, how do you explain the decade long failure of Edmonton East. The good news is the Rangers scouting team can focus on the second round and lower because the first round takes care of itself. First round they will choose whoever NJ doesn’t chose. The top two players are small USA center Jack Hughes, who is currently 17 but when he was 16 put up 116 points in USA Hockey’s program, or 18 year-old Finnish Elite League big winger who broke the league’s record for U18 players playing at the top level and had 22 goals and 16 assists in 45 games. The Rangers will be fine with either way so, I say the scouts can just ask Joisey to send them the notes on who they don’t pick.
Israel Folau: If you haven’t heard of him, he is one of the best rugby players in the world. He actually excelled at the 13 man version, left for more money to play Aussie Rules Football (which is insane because you usually have to play that growing up to be any good but he went on to be pretty good in it), then came back to 15 man rugby. Izzy is apparently a good god-fearing Christian and is now in hot water for his above post on Instagram. I am a bit meh on it. Mainly because he is an Australian of Tongan decent and Mormon. Tongans are deeply religious and we all know Mormonism is one of the strictest religions. I am not gonna join the parade of condemnation because this is the kind of thing that religious conservatives scream about when they cry they are being oppressed. So you want to have that view, have it. Don’t sanction him or fine him, let him be. I like that other players have spoken up to disagree with him, it can be fine if two players are having a disagreement on philosophy, I just don’t want the organizations to get involved. Finally having coached New York City’s only gay rugby team, the Gotham Knights, I learned a lot about the Gay community in my time with them. There are guys there that I genuinely call good friends and some I view as family. If they can’t get into Izzy’s version of heaven, that’s fine (not sure I could anyway, looking at that list), I don’t want to. I will just go down to hell with them and some of my old teammates and drinking buddies (they were headed there anyway.) It will likely be more fun anyway. Which leads me to this song, that expresses how I feel.
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