Your “Touching Draft Week Touching” Monday Evening Open Thread

Three days from now Cle-Town is Draft Town! It’s also when Roger Goodell starts getting all handsy with guys who can’t say no. ESPN has a breakdown of the draft-night hug’s origin story. Because everything is a thing now, I guess.

NFL Nuggets:

• Sean Lee retired today after 11 calendar years in the league.
  • He played in 118 games, and missed 58 due to injury.
    • Going by “calendar years” is more honest an assessment than saying “seasons”.
    • Big Daddy Drew agrees with me.

https://twitter.com/drewmagary/status/1386726134763634697

• I’m sure Goodell loves this: Chiefs’ backup TE Sean Culkin has announced he will become the first NFL player to convert his entire salary to Bitcoin, according to tweets from Sean Culkin.
  • The Chiefs aren’t paying him in Bitcoin; he’ll convert the cheque each week.
    • If he makes the roster out of camp, he’s scheduled to earn $927,000 in 2021.
      • At the 12:30pm PT value of $53,944.29, that will work out to 17.184 Bitcoin, assuming zero fluctuation over the course of an 18-week season for a currency that was worth $10,000 per unit back on July 28.
  • Things he’ll have to do first:
    • Make the team – he’s currently their projected #3 TE.
    • Not puss out when it takes a dive.
      • “This for me is a long-term play, a generational play. The more research I did and the more I zoomed out, I didn’t necessarily link volatility to risk… Long term, it’s a stored value. What makes Bitcoin so intractable is its scarcity. Over time, it’s deflationary by nature. If you look at history, it appreciates over time.”

• The first player to take advantage of the relaxed League rules on jersey numbers – Patrick Peterson.
  • He signed as a free agent with the Vikings back in March, so it’s a new team for him, so there’s no back inventory of jerseys he has to buy up to compensate League vendors.
    • He will wear #7, the number he wore at LSU.
      • It’s a bit of a blessed/cursed number, having been previously worn by quarterbacks Randall Cunningham, Christian Ponder, and Tarvaris Jackson, and kickers Fuad Reveiz, Rick Danmeier, and Morten Andersen.
  • Because the number was currently worn by backup QB Nate Stanley, Peterson arranged the exchange by donating new pads to Stanley’s old high school.

To acquire #7, Peterson will donate new shoulder pads to the Menomonie High School football program, @Njstan4’s alma mater.

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) April 25, 2021

Finally, the 49ers have shown off their 75th anniversary commemorative patch, which will be worn on their jerseys all season.

It looks very nice, and will look good in closeups the 75 times Jimmy Garoppolo has to dust himself off after being sacked this coming season.

Tonight’s sports:

• NHL:
  • Carolina vs Dallas – 7:30pm | NBCSN
  • Anaheim vs LA Kings – 10:00pm | Sportsnet
• NBA:
  • Phoenix vs New York – 7:30pm | NBATV
  • Cleveland vs Toronto – 7:30pm | TSN4
  • Dallas vs Sacramento – 10:00pm | NBATV / TSN5
• MLB:
  • Chi. Cubs at Atlanta – 7:00pm | ESPN / TSN
  • NY Yankees at Baltimore – 7:00pm | Sportsnet1
• WWE:
  • Monday Night Raw – 8:00pm | USA / Sportsnet360

On a personal note, I’d like to thank Make It Snow and Buddy Cole for emerging from their dens & gracing the Oscars Open Thread last night. It was good to see you both, and I hope this encourages you, and others – Moose, Beastmode, et cetera – to come back and/or keep coming around more often, now that the site issues have been resolved. The site is better when the regulars are around & contributing.