An End to “Fake Football”, Options for Fall Sports, Ayton Time…

Best news of the week was the NFLPA voting to play no preseason games in 2020. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is worse on the sporting calendar than fake football at full price in August. Putting a valued work force in harms way for games that don’t count is nothing more than a money grab by the Owners. The NFL is a game of attrition. Suffer a slew of season ending injuries in August and weeks 1-8 of the regular season, forget about it. Keep a roster relatively clean and hover around  5-5 before Thanksgiving, you’ve got a shot. Here’s hoping the NFLPA digs in and we never see August fake football games again…

The best plan to have a high school sports season in Arizona, is pretty simple. School must get  started in the classroom and online by early August. Start of workouts  by the end of this month . If we’re just talking football, cut the regular season schedule back to 7-8 games with no fans in the stands. There’s going to be players, coaches, referees, support staff(bus drivers, trainers, chain gang, etc)  who will test positive during the season.  What will the protocol  be for the individual and team ? What about liability? Reasonably answer the last two questions and I believe a season will happen…

The option of moving around high school sports to different seasons should be discussed by the AIA and coaches. The idea of “well, this is how we’ve always done it”, doesn’t fly when a pandemic is happening and schools can’t  even open on time. The one’s that sit with hands in pockets like nothing should be considered shouldn’t be in a position of leadership. So, I was glad to get.a few texts last weeks saying “you’ve stirred up a hornets nest by publishing the proposed season changes  for Texas high schools” , I never said “this is what should happen”.  If someone is looking into something, let’s talk about the merits. Nothing more, nothing less. Flipping softball, baseball, and track make sense on the surface, but the whole club sports business model would be impacted, which is how many coaches in those sports make ends meet. If it were only as easy as, “well the players are in shape and ready to go because they just finished up their summer club schedules” . But it’s a bigger mountain than a mole hill…

It was just last month we were hearing about high school football parents from California shopping their kids around Arizona looking for a landing spot. Now, I read this past week of a quarterback from Cali transferring down to Alabama so he can get in his games. If our state continues to be on fire with the virus, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear of some players leaving here in the coming weeks…

Deandre Ayton has ALOT more to prove in the Suns restart than Devin Booker…

I wonder how many baseball players really don’t want to play a truncated season. Major Leaguers are creatures of habit more than any other professional athletes. The rhythm of spring training starting in mid-February followed by 162 games, a pennant race, etc, has been turned upside down. I’m skeptical that we will see usual teams and star players do what’s expected…

When was the last time Kyler Murray went to a battling cage, took grounders, or fly balls?…

If you’re Bobby Hurley have you already moved on from Remy and Verge?  Sure, they could return to the program with open arms, but in this day and age of transfers, you have to have Plan B and Plan C. Any good coach can’t simply wait around and then say in the middle of next season, “well, we had to wait on Remy and Alonzo and when they didn’t return, man we were in TTTrouble”. 

If you are someone who has “thoughts and prayers” as part of your makeup, the Queen Creek football program could use some of your time today..