NFL Nuggets:

• It’s after the holiday, so let’s see who got paid today:
  • Kareem Hunt, who got a two-year, $13.25 million extension from the Browns.
    • Given his $3.25 million salary for this year, it works out to a $6.625 million cap hit each year.
  • DeAndre Hopkins got a two-year extension worth $54.5 million from the Cardinals.
    • It means he’s in the desert for a total of five more years, and for that he gets $42.5 million guaranteed, and the Cardinals get an average $18.8 million cap hit.

• It’s not paid, but it is representation of a sort: Colin Kaepernick is back in Madden.
  • According to The Undefeated, he is the top free-agent quarterback in Madden 21, with an 81 overall rating. His rating places him among the elite quarterbacks on Madden ’21 and in the top 15 of the video game’s 111 total quarterbacks.
    • In his negotiation with EA Sports, Kaepernick requested that his player in the game wear an Afro, versus the cornrown he sported in Madden ’17.
  • Aside from the obvious MAGA-gamer issues that people will rightly ignore, there is the small issue about why he wasn’t available until after all teams had set their 53-man rosters.
    • There will be expected questions about his rating being higher than half the current starting QBs, but it’s harder to rationalize forcing him into a lineup now that the starters have been cemented into place.
      • Also, it’s the only article on PFT with its comments turned off.

I just want to use my time here today to pay a small tribute to a Pacific northwest broadcasting legend and personal friend, Robert “Bob” Robertson, who died Sunday aged 91. He joins his wife Joanne, who died in 2011 & to whom he was married for 59 years, in the Great Hereafter.

He had a real sportsman’s resume for a broadcaster. Bob Robertson broadcast WSU football for over 50 years (589 games) & basketball for 23 years, Mariners minor league affiliates for over 25 years – including a Mariners stint after Dave Niehaus had his heart attack, and soccer in Seattle & Portland during their NASL days. In his early days, after he gave up on playing pro baseball after one season, one of his first jobs after college was at Notre Dame.

A tribute to his longevity is that he called every Wazzu QB from Tom Roth at the beginning to Gardner Minshew by the end.

The thing I always take away from his resume is that he was one of the last baseball re-creationists. Sports Illustrated did a story about him & that art back in August 1991. Give it a read if you have been a long-time follower of the game.

He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame (broadcast wing) in 2004.

Also, he was a good friend of Keith Jackson, and this site has a link to their legendary halftime interview from the late-2000s.  He once said I had a very comparable “OHHHH……..DOCTOR!”

His traditional broadcast sign off was, “Always be a good sport; be a good sport all ways.”

If you are from the region, you’ll know, and now miss, his voice.

Tonight’s sports:

• NHL:
  • Dallas vs. Vegas – 8:00PM | NBCSN / CBC / Sportsnet
    • Game 2 – Dallas leads 1-0
• NBA:
  • Miami Heat vs. Milwaukee Bucks – 6:30PM | TNT / TSN4
    • Game 5 – Heat lead 3-1
  • Los Angeles Lakers vs. Houston Rockets – 9:00PM | TNT / Sportsnet360
    • Game 3 – series tied 1-1
• MLB:
  • Yankees vs. Blue Jays – 6:30PM | Sportsnet1 / MLBN
  • Dodgers at Diamondbacks – 10:00PM | Sportsnet1 / MLBN
• Wrasslin;:
  • WWE NXT – 8:00PM | USA
    • They used to be Wednesdays against AEW, but consistently lost the ratings battle, so this is their calculated retreat.
      • They says it’s “due to US Open tennis coverage”, but Vince would never admit any defeat.

This is my last regular post for a while. With the season starting up Thursday, we will resume with Scotchy’s previews & oversight of the Live Blogs on game days. Hopefully, if he’s still willing, Joliet Jake will continue with his Wednesday AEW Open Threads. That leaves me with Tuesdays & Saturdays. I hope you’ve enjoyed me trying to keep things going this offseason, but let’s get this season under-the-fuck away, and hope we survive to its conclusion.