Last week, the Browns showed incredible heart by battling back from a 24-13 deficit in the fourth quarter to tie the game and put themselves in position to win outright, only for their brand-new kicker Cody Parkey to miss 46-yard field goal attempt (his third miss of the day) as time expired.  The Browns, of course, being the Browns, lost in overtime.  As has been reported several places, the Browns elected to sign Cody Parkey over recently cut Bears veteran kicker Robbie Gould because the latter was simply too expensive.  This from a team with the lowest payroll in the entire NFL.  Brown on, you crazy chocolate diamonds!

And now onto Pete Carroll’s conspiracy hour.  This week: Donald Trump’s microphone!  This one has been bugging me all day, and since I assume you’re all drunk by now and won’t remember this in the morning, I thought I’d share my thoughts.  Here’s the basic sequence of events:

1. Trump gets slaughtered in the debate.
2. The following morning (after learning that, freeped online polls notwithstanding, he lost the debate) he declares there were issues with his microphone.
3. Five days later, the debate commission “agrees”, cryptically stating “there were issues regarding Donald Trump’s audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall.”

There’s nothing so much fun as replacing one conspiracy theory with another, so here’s my take on the subject.

1. The signal from his microphone is going to be headed into a mixing board.  So if there was something wrong with the actual physical microphone, the issue would have shown up everywhere (auditorium feed, monitor feed, and most importantly, the television broadcast feed).
2. If there were problems with the feed from the mixing board to the auditorium speakers, or a problem with the speakers themselves, it would have affected BOTH of the candidates.  But for argument’s sake, let’s say that it *did* affect only Trump.  Why didn’t anyone who was in attendance say anything during or immediately after the debate?  Why was Trump the only one who noticed the phenomenon – and more importantly, HOW would he have noticed this phenomenon if he wasn’t in the audience himself?
3. If there were problems with the on-stage monitors (those speakers on stage directed at the performers so they can hear themselves), again it makes little sense that the issue wouldn’t have affected both candidates equally.  But again, for the sake of argument, let’s say that it only affected Trump.  Then he would have been the only one able to hear it.  And so how is it possible for the presidential debate commission to confirm there was an issue?

I think, using the expression “Trump’s Razor” as coined by Josh Marshall at talkingpointsmemo.com, that the stupidest explanation is probably the correct one.  In this case, I think Trump told the presidential debate commission that unless they admitted there was something wrong with his microphone, he would boycott the next debate.  And since it would look very, very bad for them if he did (regardless of his reasons), they agreed.

So what’s going on tonight?  College football?  Binge-watching Luke Cage?  Stay safe out there, and make sure you get a good night’s sleep – football starts early tomorrow!