Well, let’s see what transpired today:

• Trent Williams’ rights weren’t traded from the [Redacteds], so instead he chose to report, ending his holdout.
  • NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero noted that the left tackle is due $5.824 million in base salary for the rest of 2019 (plus $15,624 for each game he’s active).
• The Falcons kicked kicker Matt Bryant to the curb.
  • Signing 2017 Charger Younghoe Koo to a likely game-to-game contract.
• The Patriots released kicker Mike Nugent, presumably for infecting Bill Belichick with Cat Scratch Fever.
  • They have no backup, as Nugent was signed when Stephen Gostkowski went on IR in Week Five.
• The Rams sent Aqib Talib, his injury & his contract to the Dolphins, plus a 5th-round pick, in exchange for a 7th-round pick in 2022.
  • The Dolphins basically bought a fifth-rounder to pay the balance of Talib’s $4.2 million contract this season.
    • The Rams’ pick was originally Baltimore’s in 2020.
  • Borrowing again from Tom Pelissero of NFL Network, the Dolphins’ ‘strategy’ seems to be this:

The #Dolphins paid Ryan Tannehill a $5M bonus to facilitate a trade that got them a 4th-round pick.

They paid Robert Quinn a ~$1.1M bonus to facilitate a trade that got them a 6th-round pick.

Now they'll pay Aqib Talib ~$4.2M to get a 5th-round pick.

Negative assets –> assets https://t.co/SejT0S4OIB

— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) October 29, 2019

Other NFL News:

• Everyone fires the Whis – Ken Whisenhunt has been released from his Chargers OC job.
  • It’s clear Anthony Lynn is trying to shake things up in an easily winnable division.
    • The Chargers currently sit third in the AFC West, but thanks to the Chiefs’ rough patch, they are only three games back.

• Andy Dalton has been benched, in favour of rookie Ryan Finley.
  • That lucky bastard gets a bye week to prepare for a Week 10 matchup with the Ravens.
  • According to Bengals coach Zac Taylor,
    • “This is not an easy decision to make. We’re not 0-8 because of Andy. Andy has worked harder than anyone else in this building to help us win football games. [It’s j]ust a decision I made.”

• Major League Football, a league that tried to start up in 2016 but aborted that attempt, is aiming to start in April 2020.
  • Just after the XFL season ends!
  • According to PFT, MLFB plans to launch with six teams, with a season opening not long after the next draft.
    • In a sign that it just, maybe, might possibly actually begin play, they purchased all of the AAF’s equipment – saving $2.0 million versus buying brand new.
  • No word on when they might have a player draft.

General noise:

The death knell for Deadspin might have begun today. With their corporate overlords extolling a “stick to sports” edict, the site has spent a majority of the day engaging in self-immolation – reprising old stories; encouraging boycotts of online advertisers; publishing pithy observations. They haven’t published anything since 1:00PM ET. It’s not going to be as swift as when KSK decided it was finished, but it is a lot more public, as people are using social media to make various & sundry points about the state of modern online journalismism. It’s been noticed by quite a number of “traditional” news sites like the Washington Post & New York Times.

This was all set off yesterday, according to The Daily Beast, with a memo from G/O Media editorial director Paul Maidment, advising

“To create as much great sports journalism as we can requires a 100% focus of our resources on sports. And it will be the sole focus,” Maidment said. “Deadspin will write only about sports and that which is relevant to sports in some way. Where such subjects touch on sports, they are fair game for Deadspin. Where they do not, they are not,” Maidment wrote. “We have plenty of other sites that write about politics, pop culture, the arts, and the rest, and they’re the appropriate place for such work.”

According to CNN, G/O Media is currently owned by private equity firm Great Hill Partners, which bought the properties from Univision, where they had been known as Gizmodo Media Group. Most of the sites that are currently part of the portfolio were part of the group originally known as Gawker Media, which went bankrupt after wrestler Hulk Hogan sued the company in a lawsuit bankrolled by billionaire Peter Thiel.

In response, people have been finding out corporate overlords kinda suck. Deputy Editor Barry Petchesky was fired Tuesday for “not sticking to sports,” he announced in a tweet.

https://twitter.com/barry/status/1189224064788979712

And management has responded in kind.

Statement from G/O Media editorial director Paul Maidment on the backlash from Deadspin staffers, which led to the firing of deputy editor Barry Petchesky pic.twitter.com/qVywhOFTKK

— Kerry Flynn 🐶 (@kerrymflynn) October 29, 2019

That’s where things stand at the time I put this to bed. I don’t know who among the Kommentariat cares, but I figured it was interesting enough to synopsize here for discussion tonight.

Tonight’s sports:

• MLB:
  • World Series: Game 6: Not-Expos at Astros – 8:00PM | FOX / Sportsnet
    • Astros up 3-2.
• NHL:
  • Lightning at Rangers – 7:30PM | NBCSN
  • Oilers at Red Wings – 7:30PM | Sportsnet1
• MLS:
  • Los Angeles FC vs. Seattle Sounders – 10:00PM | ESPN / TSN
• NBA:
  • Mavericks at Nuggets – 9:00PM | TSN2

Not a lot on, but most of it looks pretty good. Here’s hoping the Astros can put things away tonight. Looking forward to the MLS footy matchup when I get home from school.