Tantric Football Tuesday! Tuesday Open Thread

I suppose it should be called Edging Tuesday, as it has nothing to do with any purifying spiritual practice.  If anything, it is soul-destroying– football so very close and yet so very, very far away.  How did we shorten the preseason by a game and still have to wait until September Goddamned Ninth to get Real Football?  And that’s being generous, given that it’s Tampa versus Dallas. Fucking NFL monkey’s paw…

At least there was some Interesting NFL News today! It was roster cut-down day, and the big news of the day was the surprise release of a big name in the QB World. That’s right: Garrett Gilbert is no longer a Dallas Cowboy.

Oh, and the Patriots released former MVP and projected starter Cam Newton. That too.

It’s not terribly surprising that Newton was displaced as starter by Junior Bible Salesman-in-Training Mac Jones. Jones had a decent preseason and is a soft (both in abs and malleability) piece of dough for Belichick and Josh Fuckhead McDaniels to mold into The Next Brady.

What was surprising is that they released him outright. The backup situation is bleak- Hoyer Country is 35 years and 250,000 miles old, and Jarrett Stidham remains Jarrett Stidham. Moreover, there are enough quarterback-hungry teams that a former MVP on a cheap contract ($1.5 million for the acquiring team) would probably have garnered a sixth-round pick.

There is the inevitable speculation that Newton’s COVID status- persistently unvaccinated- had something to do with this decision. Cam, if you recall, was the first major player who went down with COVID last year. Some opined that he looked tired and listless after coming back. So much like Lamar Jackson, you’d think he would be first in line for the jab. Unfortunately, much like Two-Times Jackson, Cam decided the pointy thing scared him more than the dying-on-a-ventilator thing.

Others suggest this was a move of respect- that Belly wanted to give Newton the chance to pick his next situation.

My jaundiced view is that cutting Newton was a dominance move by Belichick, part of his “grumblegrumblenomanisabovetheteamgrumble” schtick. Maybe COVID factors into that. It is somewhat astonishing how much of the quarantine list has been made up of above-average or star players. Some back-of-the-envelope math put approximately 153 unvaccinated players in camps last week out of 2560ish. That veteran leaders like Newton, Cousins, Jackson, Wentz, Ryan Kelly, and Star Lotulelei would chose to go unvaccinated randomly seems unlikely. Perhaps they feel their jobs are sufficiently secure that they can spend stretches in quarantine without losing their roster spot, while the average camp body knows that if they miss time, there are three other guys waiting in the parking lot.  If Bill wants to shake that attitude, he did a fair job of it by cutting Newton.

So begins another round of speculation about Where Cam Will Land. It largely echoes last year’s same discussion- Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas, Dallas- but with the notable additions of Houston, Minnesota and Philly. Houston desperately needs a quarterback if Watson gets suspended, but no one seems to have any definitive guess on whether that will happen this year or next. Additionally, Easterby just finished his pissing contest with Watson; it seems unlikely that he would want to bring in an outspoken high-personality guy to disrupt the theocratic paradise he is building. The Eagles seem more likely, because they are flailing for any potential solution at QB. Minnesota has been mentioned because they have no one behind Cousins, and he is the second best odds to miss time due to COVID after Cole Fucking Beasley. But having an unvaxxed backup seems like a curious insurance policy for Captain Dingleberry.

My bet is the Raiders.

Other notable cuts and roster issues:

-Devonta Freeman cut by Nyew Orleyons

-Josh Rosen still held hostage by the Atlanta Falcons. The man is 24 and on his fifth team. Tremendous.

-Ex-Bill Stephon Gilmore, Saint Michael of Thomas and Packers left tackle David Bakhtiari will miss at least six games after beginning the season on the physically-unable-to-perform (“PUP”) list. Is there another name that is simultaneously more demeaning and cuter?

There’s the faint trace of a slightly interesting Non Football Sport today in Queens. We are seeing the real-time development of a potentially world-shattering grudge-match to rival India-Pakistan, Iran-Iraq and my sister versus her mother-in-law.  No, it has nothing to do with the visiting Marlins; rather it is Mets Fans versus Mets Players.  Met dysfunction is nothing new- #LOLMets is a thing for a reason.  Fans (particularly fans in shitheel self-important areas like the Tri-State) booing their teams when they underperform is nothing new.  And players taking exception is nothing new.  But the majority of a team’s players actively engaging those fans by giving thumbs-down gestures to the home crowd (essentially counter-booing) when they do something moderately productive seems like a new development.

Frankly, there are no heroes in this story.  Owner Steve Cohen publicly humiliating his players on Twitter shows exactly how you can be very smart and very rich and yet incredibly, deeply stupid.  The players are benefiting from the third-highest payroll ($198 million) in the league, and are finding new and impressive ways to suck.* The fans are a bunch of blowhard pricks who manage to curate an undeserved sense of superiority AND a massive inferiority complex, who buy into the most toxic aspect of capitalism: that because you give someone else money, you are entitled to treat them like garbage if the whim strikes you. Given the overlap in Mets/Jets fandom, it is only by God’s grace that there’s not a designated Citi Field gate for shouting “Show us your tits!”

*The fact that each of their players makes at least half a million dollars per season does not mean they are not real human beings with real emotions. However, the pro game only exists because of people’s irrational emotional attachments, and it’s foreseeable that dealing with angry customers may be part of the job.

I feel bad for Javier Baez. He seemed like a decent dude even when he was on the Cubs, and sending him and cash to the Mets for a minor leaguer who just had major surgery seems like a giant Dick Move.  At least he is a pending free agent, which means as soon as October hits, he can

UPDATE: Baez and Francisco Lindor have apologized for their thumbs-down gestures. Both state that they did not mean to offend anyone, which is such a transparent lie that it does not actually qualify as a lie. Kevin Pillar has been silent. No doubt Mets fans will be swift and gracious in moving on from this.

Since we had actual #Content today, I will be skipping my planned Obscure Movie segment featuring Feds. Feds was sort of a Police-Academy-meets-Buddy-Cop-meets-nascent-Girl-Power-Movement film. Rebecca De Mornay back when she was in the Fergie Jenkins era of her career- losing her fastball, but still painting the corners like a pro. The guy from Krull. It’s largely forgettable, but I grew up enjoying it, so fuck off.