Your “We FINALLY Got To The Fireworks Factory” Tuesday Open Thread

Cutdown Day NFL News:

• Drew Brees may not support Kaep, but Jim Brown sure as shit does. Also,
  • The SFPD union president wants to meet with Jed York, or anyone frankly, which sounds like a fantastic idea.
  • Rodney Harrison thinks Kaepernick is “not black”.
  • Jerry Rice chose Twitter and “All Lives Matter” as his forum for rebuking Kaep’s stance.
    • Oh, and stuff like this is now proving why most people should not have social media accounts

https://youtu.be/1kjYBRy8l7U

• The Redskins – Bucs game has been moved from Thursday to Wednesday to avoid coming up against a tropical storm.
• Tebow had his baseball showcase today. According to the LA Times, “scouts queried agreed that Tebow is likely to be signed and assigned to the lower levels of the minors, perhaps high Class-A or Double-A, as a corner outfielder.” He’s already been offered a spot on a Venezuelan Winter League team.

  

• On the topic of elite athletes, actual elite athlete Michael Phelps considers Joe Flacco a elite quarterback.

Notable cuts: (si.com seems to have the best overall list)

• Seattle: Brandon Browner
• San Diego:  Zach Mettenberger
• Cincinnati: Brandon Tate
• New England: Terrence Knighton
• Philadelphia: Reuben Randle
• Denver: Britton Colquitt

Finally – oh God, I’m sorry Vikings fans.

No fireworks for you.

According to Howard Eskin of Fox 29 Philly, an eye witness said Bridgwater’s “leg snapped and his knee was flailing around.”

GAH!

Zimmer said the 23-year-old had to be sedated before undergoing an MRI at the hospital.

GAH!!

Ambulance arriving here at Winter Park for Teddy Bridgewater. pic.twitter.com/3efsByQP0M

— Ryan Shaver (@RShaverSports) August 30, 2016

GAH!!!

Let’s examine this from a therapy angle…

So you’re starting the season with Shaun Hill.

You know that’s not going to last, but who will the Vikings sign to turn what could have been 11-5 but now looks like 5-11? Good thing Tebow’s baseball tryout was today, because that removes the weakest possible option. There’s the usual suspects, and whomever the Jets dump after next week. I’ll leave it to you guys to speculate in the comments, but please try to limit the buttfumble gifs.

Possibly the only thing worse than sports fan forums and movie spoiler sites are wrestling “dirt sheets”. If it’s “still real to you”, trying to figure out what your favourite promotions are doing is an essential part of continuing to follow the product. But they are awful predictors of what is on the horizon, because promotions are relentless in protecting their brand – something the Rog can admire. Wrestlers and front office folks actively feed disinformation to their community, both to gauge whom they can trust, and to discover where their internal leaks are coming from.

Last night, however, for wrestling fans, we finally got some validation for our continuing fandom:

The powers that be in the WWE made the conscious decision to move John Cena – “the face that runs the place” – off of RAW, and that has opened up the program (nay, the promotion) to other options. This makes it more exciting as a fan, because the recent predictability brought on by corporate preference for certain stars is now absent.

The “RAW” brand of WWE put its major championship belt on Kevin Owens, a ‘hefty’ Canadian from rural Quebec who falls so far outside the normal Vince-approved physique that it looks like the promotion gave the belt to the winner of the Colts Fan Club annual gravy chug.

From a fan perspective, it’s fantastic. Because he’s only been with them for a couple of years, he has no real baggage or alliances he has to maintain. It opens up a world of match possibilities, especially with other members of the current NXT Generation filling the WWE ranks. And, it will present actual competition to “Monday Night Football”, which might have been the ultimate reason why they went in this direction, especially if the scheduled matchups prove by October to be duds. Vince LOVES ratings, and if he can tweet about beating football – the XFL still burns inside him – then he’ll give people what they (currently) want.

Tonight’s sports: slim pickin’s

• US Open – continuing coverage – ESPN – 7:00
• MLB:
  • USA – regional coverage only
  • Canada – Blue Jays @ Orioles – 7:00 – Sportsnet
• WWE: Smackdown LIVE! – 8:00 – USA

Drew’s WYTS today was the Packers. Give it a read and speculate about what their chances in the division are like now. RODGERS DRINKS YOUR TRAGEDY!