Hey y’all! It’s Ian.
It’s always a good newsletter when you can mention Peppa Pig in the first sentence.
Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills quarterback, and Peppa Pig, position unknown (‘ve always seen her as a fullback, personally), starred in a Paramount+ ad to promote the NFL playoffs last week, along with Jim Nantz, Tony Romo, Tracy Wolfson, Optimus Prime, Scourge the Decepticon, and an incredibly creepy 3d Dora The Explorer.
Because why not?
The best moment? When Scourge’s arm cannon freezes, Peppa asks him if he tried turning it off and on again. Scourge screams at her, and Nantz just says “Wow. Just folding under the pressure!”
Also, at the beginning, Josh Allen says, “Hey Peppa, go long!” and then proceeds to NUKE a throw maybe 200 yards away, forgetting that Peppa was right next to him. Everyone treats this as normal for some reason.
My point is, if he couldn’t throw accurately to a check-down pass in a casual game, should we really have expected him to play that well in the AFC Playoffs?
Just sayin… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ok, so this week we’ve got some NFL playoffs talk, NBA team comparisons, and the And-One but first, we’ve got the honorable mentions.
RIP Dejan Milojevic, Warriors assistant. Like, seriously, this is awful. I know I joke and jest a lot in my writing, but there are no jokes here. At a small team dinner, Milojevic suffered a sudden and fatal heart attack. They couldn’t revive him and he passed last Wednesday. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Natasa, and their children, Nikola and Masa.
Congrats Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara Vanderveer! This happened too late for me to write about it, but she became the all-time winningest coach in NCAA history (male or female) sunday, passing Mike Krzyzewski, with 1,203 (and counting). Absolute legend.
The Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards made the dumbest trade of all time last Sunday, when they sent Marvin Bagley III, Isaiah Livers, a 2025 second-round pick and a 2026 second-round pick to the Washington Wizards for Danilo Gallinari and Mike Muscala. The thing is though - this rapper for rapper in NBA history! Marvin “MB3Five” Bagley for Mike “Mikey Jaws” Muscala? My only question - is Mike going to start battle rapping now that he’s in Detroit?
In honor of the halfway point of the NBA season, which recently passed, I’m going to assign one random thing to some teams for absolutely no reason. No more explanation needed.
LA Clippers - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: Four individually great band members, coming together, through hardship and sin, to become one of the greatest supergroups ever (nobody is beating The Travelling Wilburys). These guys were as great as they were dysfunctional, but at their best they were unbeatable. It’s best to just enjoy them without thinking about why they broke up (because David Crosby wouldn’t stop shit-talking other band members’ girlfriends). Just call them Harden, Westbrook, George and Leonard.
Oklahoma City Thunder - The cast of “Scott Pilgrim vs The World”: Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a movie about a guy who fights people for the rights to an Amazon delivery girl. That same guy is also in a band called - wait for it - “Sex Bob-omb (yes, like the Mario enemy). It’s a weird movie. And it’s also an awesome movie. The best part of the movie, hands down is the cast. Michael Cera, Aubrey Plaza, Brie Larson, Anna Kendrick, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans. In 2007, they were all young and upcoming stars, and they were (and most of them still are) awesome. The shy, smooth Canadian Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the aggressive Amish big man Chet Holmgren, and the ridiculously happy Jalen Williams have the Thunder (all under 26 years of age) primed for a deep playoff run.
Orlando Magic - 2020s Disney stock: At the beginning of the 2020s, Disney stock was at an all-time high. It reached its all-time high in early 2021, fueld by Disney+ and Avengers: Endgame (and the pandemic, I guess). Since then? It’s down 54% and Bob Iger is turning into the most insufferable man in business. They’re still a big company, but it hurts to know it could have been so much bigger. The Magic’s win over the Celtics and their 9 game win streak was that all-time high, and since then, they’re 8-15. Plus, they’re sponsored by Disney.
Houston Rockets - Those E-Trade commercials, the ones with the babies: Everyone on this team is a child, playing an adult’s job.
Boston Celtics - The Tesla Cybertruck: Nobody likes it, nobody wants it, nobody needs it, and yet nerds in basements who worship Joe Rogan brag about it (on Elon Musk’s racist social media, no less). The ugliest and dumbest popular thing of all time. Why are you so good, Celtics?! It’s annoying you are so good because you are no fun. Be fun please.
Golden State Warriors - That god-awful CGI Lion King remake: Shame to see something that was once so great reduced, to John Oliver as a talking bird for god knows why. (This cast was strangely stacked in a way I didn’t remember - Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, BEYONCE??!!!! Movie still sucked tho) Why is Chris Paul on this team? Why is Klay Thompson so depressing? Why is Brandon Podzemski so cool? Why is Jonathan Kuminga their 2nd best player? Why does Steve Kerr hate DJs? Why are their jerseys so bad? Why does Bob Fizgerald suck so much? NOBODY KNOWS!!!
San Antonio Spurs - Kendrick Lamar’s Section.80: Kendrick Lamar’s Section.80 is almost unlistenable. Not because it’s especially bad, but when you consider every other album in his catalogue, it just seems so, so much worse. But there are a few - two, maybe three songs in there - where you can see his vision, his promise, his potential. A.D.H.D. is pretty good, and HiiiPoWeR is geniunely good. Compared to nearly every other Spurs team, this is one of the worst. But, you can see the vision of this Spurs team, the promise, the potential - its name is Victor Wembanyama.
Minnesota Timberwolves - Bob Ross: Perfect and everyone loves him. Perfect and everyone loves them. Minnesota Timberwolves, you are my everything.
Atlanta Hawks - Teezo Touchdown: Teezo Touchdown is less a rapper than a social outcast, someone who brings odd bits of joy and despair to an otherwise gray society. Or he’s just a weirdo. I don’t know what he is. I don’t know what this Atlanta Hawks team is either. I just know, that like Teezo Touchdown, they suck at what they do.
Man, are the 2023 playoffs awesome or what?! Just the fact that the Lions are in the NFC championship should be enough, but 3 of 4 games were great!
On Sunday, the Detroit Lions fended off the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 31-23. Lions QB Jared Goff, aka this guy -
- was exceptional - 277 yards, 2 touchdowns, no picks, but that’s really the only thing that separated these two teams? The weird thing about this game was how close the stats were, because I can tell you, watching the game on TV, it felt like the Buccaneers were getting shut down. But:
Total yards: TB 408 - 391 DET
Passing yards: 319 - 277
Rushing yards: 89-114
Time of Possession: 28:00-32:00
Just weird stuff.
Also Sunday - the Bills and Chiefs played. Yes, Taylor Swift was there, but the real show-stopper was Jason Kelce, recent (maybe?) retiree. He sat in his brother Travis’ suite for the game, and it was glorious.
He was plastered for the entire game, completely drunk and shirtless. CBS constantly cut to the booth, because why would they not (Taylor Swift was there), and in the process constantly caught Jason Kelce doing dumb stuff and it was awesome.
Okay, now to the football - the game was close, with the Chiefs winning 27-24, but it was more how the Bills lost than how the Chiefs won. Bills kicker Tyler Bass missed a 44-yard field goal that would have tied the game. And yes, it went wide right.
After the game, Josh Allen, who did not field any questions about if his Paramount+ commerical performance (0% completion percentage) had anything to do with it, instead simply said that, quote, “loosing sucks”. Yes it does, Josh. Yes it does.
There were games on Saturday, too. In the early game, the amazingly fun Houston Texans fell to the Baltimore Ravens. The Texans loss marks the end of a fantastic rookie season for their quarterback, C.J. Stroud. Usually rookie quarterbacks are very bad, but C.J. Stroud is very good, and very fun. He threw for 4,100 yards (4,000+ yards is a very good season for quarterbacks) and had an absurd 4.6 touchdown/interception ratio. Coming out of college, people thought he was very dumb, but turns out he is not that dumb, and also everyone is kind of dumb in college.
The thing you should know about the Ravens - they were named after a poem, and they are the best team in the NFL. Their offense, led by 2019 MVP (and likely 2024 MVP) Lamar Jackson, is unstoppable, and so is their defense, led by like 6 dudes who are the best at what they do (Jadaveon Clowney, Roquan Smith, Kyle Van Noy, Patrick Queen, Kyle Hamilton), is also unstoppable. So, uh, good luck beating them.
In the late game, the San Francisco 49ers narrowly held off Jordan Love’s Packers, 24-21 (ask me if I thought that would happen before the season). Love was pretty bad this game (194 yards, 2 interceptions), and it’s weird because people thought he would be bad this season, just not in the playoffs. People thought the Packers would suck because of Love, is my point. In the regular season, he was incredible! 4,159 yards and 32 touchdowns? What??? NFL.com had him picked to be the 26th-best QB this year before the season started! THEY HAD HIM BEHIND KENNY PICKETT.
Even weirder was that the quarterback on the winning team arguably was even worse than Love this game - Brock Purdy, Mr Irrelevant himself, who has been amazing this year, was really bad this game (59% completion percentage), but the Niners still won, because of a late-game interception by Dre “I have the Coolest Name in the NFL” Greenlaw. Just weird stuff.
Before I go, it’s both National Aiden Day and National Pedro Day, and I gotta say - not that many Aidens or Pedros in sports history.*
I mean, for Aidens, there’s Aidan Hutchinson, DE for the Detroit Lions and 2x 8+ sacks guy. He’s the Lion’s best defender right now, but not sure if he should count because of the A instead of the E? There’s also:
Aidan McDonough (Hockey), a one-time left winger for the 2023 Vancouver Canucks who played in 6 games and scored one goal,
Aidan O’Connell (Football), one of the greatest quarterbacks in Purdue history and one of the worst quarterbacks in Las Vegas Raiders history, and
Jace (middle name Aidan) Avina (Baseball), a minor-league prospect (he’s a centerfielder) for the Yankees who hit .233 last year for the single-A Carolina Mudcats. Also, he’s an unranked prospect.
Uh, what’s going on Aid(e/a)ns????? Besides Hutchinson, your best player is Aidan O’Connell and two guys who haven’t played in their (major) leagues in at least a year.
Thank goodness the Pedros are much, much better. Obviously, there’s Pedro Martinez, one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He’s a Hall of Famer, a 3x Cy Young Winner, an 8x All-Star, a 5x ERA winner, and one of the best pitchers in Red Sox history. From 1997-2003, he was as good as any pitcher has ever been over a six-year stretch. That seems to be some sort of trend, because every single good Pedro here is a baseball player (except two guys**). For example:
Pedro Alvarez, 2013 All-Star and Silver Slugger for the Pittsburgh Pirates who led the league in both strikeouts and home runs, and dudes who do that are ALWAYS awesome,
Sid Monge (born Isidro Pedroza Monge), 1979 All-Star for the Cleveland Guardians (nee Indians, but that’s racist), who once let a 53-year old get a hit (granted, it was Minnie Minoso, but still),
Dustin PEDROia, 4x All-Star and 2008 AL MVP, plus a 2x World Series winner, who often referred to himself as “Laser Show” for some reason, and
Pedro Ramos, 1959 All-Star pitcher for the Washington Senators who led the league in (1. earned runs allowed 1 time, (2. hits allowed 2 times, (3. batters faced 2 times, (4. home runs allowed 3 times, (5. losses 4 times, and, of course, (6. batters hit once. He is hilarious and amazing and my new favorite player of all time.
But, despite all of that, there is one man, one legend, who is the greatest sports Pedro of all time: Pedro Guererro, a 5x All-Star 1st baseman for the Dodgers in the 80s. The thing you should know about him: He was born in San PEDRO de Macoris, Dominican Republic.
Thanks for having me, it’s been a blast.
-Ian
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.