Seriously, screw those teal-wearing cockweasels (no offense to WakeZilla).

Miami lost its 2023 first-round draft pick and 2024 third-round for violations of league policies related to the integrity of the game.  Majority owner Stephen Ross lost $1.5 million and is “suspended” until mid-October.  Minority owner (haha, not that kind of minority, of course) Bruce Beal was fined $500,000 and cannot take part in league business this season.

Ostensibly, this punishment was for multiple instances of improper tampering with Tom Brady while he was under contract with the Patriots and Bucs, as well as contacting Sean Payton’s agent this year just before he quit in New Orleans.

That’s a lie.

The real focus of the investigation was former head coach Brian Flores’ allegation that Ross offered him $100,000 for every loss in 2019, and was angry when the team won its final two games to drop from first to fifth pick in the 2020 draft.  The investigation acknowledges that Ross made the offer, but found that it “was not intended or taken to be a serious offer, nor was the subject pursued in any respect by Mr. Ross or anyone else at the club.”

Yes. They went full Young Fronkensteen

Of course, Ross is an owner.  Calvin Ridley got crucified because betting puts the integrity of the result on the field in jeopardy.  A team owner instructing and incentivizing a head coach to lose is the same thing writ 10000x larger.  It’s literally fixing the game, and it deserves a permanent ban.  But as we’ve seen from Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft and Dan Snyder, the league will go to any lengths to avoid any meaningful discipline of an owner.

Seriously- how pissed is Jerry Richardson that he bailed out over allegations that Dan Snyder would laugh at?

Moreover, “convicting” and punishing him for it would be acknowledging a stain at the highest level of the game.  But they also can’t let Ross continue to piss in the league’s punchbowl, and that’s the real reason anything came of this.  The league doesn’t give two shits that they flirted with Tom Brady or Sean Payton. It cares that he said the quiet part loud.  The NFL is still part of the pre-2016 American political culture, where you can hold horrific and repulsive beliefs as long as you use the correct coded language:

“[O]n a number of occasions during the 2019 season, Mr. Ross expressed his belief that the Dolphins’ position in the upcoming 2020 draft should take priority over the team’s win-loss record.”

Now we don’t bother- we just make political ads where candidates shoot pictures of their opponents and call gay people names. But the NFL is a more genteel business, or at least the owners don’t want to live on their yachts while Congress tries to subpoena them over corruption in the game.

So they smacked Ross as lightly as they could while still making the point.  How can we tell this? Because even Roger Goodell, the League’s lapdog, came out and drew attention to it:

“An owner or senior executive must understand the weight that his or her words carry, and the risk that a comment will be taken seriously and acted upon, even if that is not the intent or expectation. Even if made in jest and not intended to be taken seriously, comments suggesting that draft position is more important than winning can be misunderstood and carry with them an unnecessary potential risk to the integrity of the game. The comments made by Mr. Ross did not affect Coach Flores’ commitment to win and the Dolphins competed to win every game. Coach Flores is to be commended for not allowing any comment about the relative importance of draft position to affect his commitment to win throughout the season.”

That’s about as strongly-worded a public rebuke as Goodell is capable of when an owner is involved.  Usually he sticks to generalizations- here he named names and actually praises Flores. He probably got hit on the nose with a newspaper for showing even that much backbone.

*Sir Lewis Hamilton is now part of the new ownership group of the Denver Broncos.  I mention this only because I’m going to inflict an F1 post on you soon, and I wanted to establish the connection.

NOT NFL NEWS

That’s right, kids- it’s the MLB Trade Deadline! That time of year when the 20 teams that aren’t really trying get to publicly declare that fact by giving up any current star in order to get “a slew of promising prospects”.  Of course, any of these promising players who actually pan out will, in turn, be traded at the 2026 deadline. Normally I would decry this ethos of “just play mediocre ball and collect your revenue share” but at this point I’m beginning to turn on the fans.  Yes, MLB has structured it so that even teams that don’t draw crowds can still be disgustingly profitable (at least as appreciating assets). But zero attendance still hurts the bottom line, and helps remove the Stadium Grift from the table.  As a sports fan with an allegiance to a particular team, the actual commodity you are buying is Hope.*  And the Miami Marlins? The Pirates? The Orioles? The Diamondbacks? They are not selling Hope.  They are not even selling counterfeit Hope (a.k.a. Delusion). So why the hell are you giving them your money and headspace?

*The exception to this seems to be European football, where what you are actually buying is membership in a social group.

Anyway, here are some “highlights” of the day:

– Juan Soto and Josh Bell are headed to The Whale’s Vagina in exchange for more players the Washington Nationals can trade away in 3-6 years.  We are in a place where an owner trying to sell a team makes it more attractive by not having any stars. Fascinating.

San Diego is swinging for the fences in a fairly traditional way. .

The return…well the return doesn’t really matter, does it? They got their championship three years ago and no one cared. Soto had three post-seasons of team control left, and this was a declaration that they don’t intend to try for at least that long.  They’ll keep churning the roster until 2028, when they will declare Nationals Park hopelessly outdated and threaten to move to NoVA.

-The Most Glorious El Béisbol Cardinals cemented their division through a brilliant strategem: having the Brewers trade All-Star closer Josh Hader.for a non-All Star closer, plus some young guys and a one-year wonder two years later.  The Cardinals also bolstered their left-handed pitching.  CHAMPIONSHIP!

EDIT: Cardinals fleeced the Yankees for a quality starting pitcher, Jordan Montgomery (heretofore The Full Monty). All it cost them was Harrison Bader, owner of the worst hair in the league.  DOUBLE CHAMPIONSHIP!!

-The Twins made some moves. That just feels weird…

-Tommy Pham, notorious fantasy-football red-ass, was shipped from Cincinnati to the Red Sox.

-Eric Hosmer, Fox News spouse, was originally part of the Soto deal and actually tried to torpedo it. He had a limited no-trade clause, and the Nationals were one of the ten teams on his Fuck No list.  Presumably they tried to get him to waive it, and presumably he told them to fuck off.  He was subsequently shipped to Boston (with San Diego eating a large part of his $44 million remaining salary) either as a penalty for trying to fuck the Padres over, or as a form of witness protection.

WHAT TO WATCH:

Your life, slowly ticking away.