If you're not on the "Drue Chrisman Needs to Wear No. 0" train yet, now's the time to climb on aboard.
— Drue Chrisman (@DChrisman91) April 28, 2020
Song of the Day: "Everything" by Michael Bublé
Word of the Day: Chicane.
STEAL OF THE DRAFT. You'll be shocked to hear this, but anonymous Big Ten coaches who were terrorized by K.J. Hill for four years think that he was the steal of the draft.
1. K.J. Hill, Ohio State WR (Los Angeles Chargers, seventh round, 220th pick)
“Competitive spirit. He ran precise routes. You don’t break the receiving record at Ohio State by chance. He’s a baller. Don’t let the 40-time fool you.”
I'm sure the coaches who tried and failed every year to stop this guy from achieving a record-breaking career were as shocked as you were to see team after team decide that he actually wasn't good at football.
"Yes, he's the arguably most productive receiver in the history of a school that saw Cris Carter, Michael Jenkins, Santonio Holmes, Terry Glenn, David Boston, Michael Thomas, and Terry McLaurin. But his 40 time is a tenth of a second too slow!"
From this point forward, every new hire at Eleven Warriors will be judged strictly on their words-per-minute typing ability. Nothing else matters.
THE RETURN PLAN. Sports played a pretty undeniable role in the shutdown of the country, and they'll play a pretty undeniable role in the re-opening as well.
A representative from The White House spoke to members of all the major sports leagues – including the NCAA and the College Football Playoff – and the reported conversation was rather encouraging.
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby represented the CFP on the call, which he said lasted over an hour, and he said that Dr. Brian Hainline was on for the NCAA.
“They just told us what they knew, and told us they were anxious to help in any way they could,” Bowlsby said. “We learned that there were likely going to be a lot more tests available, both the antibody tests and point of contact tests, which was a good thing for all of the pro guys and colleges.
“They said the number of tests was going to go up dramatically in the coming months,” Bowlsby added when asked if he was told that schools would be able to test every player and coach. “They thought we were going to have the necessary tests to do what we needed to do.”
Bowlsby said there are still “too many unknowns” to determine when the fall season might start.
“Getting the best information from the most authoritative source is always a good thing,” he said.
Increasingly, folks seem to be talking about a fall football season in terms of "when" and "how" as opposed to the "if" that we got even just a few weeks ago. I appreciate the hell out of that mood swing.
J.K., ALL DAY. It's tough to call someone a steal in the second round of the NFL Draft, but when he's the best back in the draft and he's the fifth running back taken, then some thievery certainly went down.
Nobody knows that better than the unlucky folks forced to play against him for three years.
Interesting (at least to me): Sixth-round LB Cam Brown, out of Penn State, said on #NYG conference call that when asked the best player he faced, he said Ohio States J.K. Dobbins, now a Raven.
— Kimberly Jones (@KimJonesSports) April 28, 2020
p.s. Brown sat in his car for Zoom conf call because he was in middle of a workout.
Brown was on the receiving end of the decision to run Dobbins 36 times against the nation's top rush defense. It wasn't pretty by any means and there were Buckeye fans across the country pleading for Ryan Day to throw the damn ball, but it's gotta be demoralizing as hell to be completely unable to stop him as the nation's best rushing defense when you know damn well what's coming every single play.
It's a crime Dobbins fell as far as he did in the draft. And as punishment, the rest of the league has to watch in vain as he and Lamar Jackson do terrible, terrible things to the NFL for the foreseeable future.
YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. We've all been led to believe that a change to the NCAA's name, image, and likeness rules would allow for a return of the greatest video game on Earth that we've all been without for going on seven years.
Folks, we've all learned a valuable lesson – never trust the NCAA to do something completely right.
I would not characterize it that way. What I would say is the recommendations, as I reviewed them, dont address group licensing which is the key to the video game issue. Its also really complicated and something the NCAA would rather not touch, IMO https://t.co/hazqWS5AId
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) April 29, 2020
I'm going to be completely frank with you – this is the only part of this entire rule changing process that noticeably affects my life in any way. That's not to say I don't care about it aside from that, but regardless of my personal thoughts on the matter, my life will be almost completely unaltered by Pete Werner's ability to appear in a Safelite Auto Glass commercial.
But that video game...
There's a teleconference slated for 9 a.m. to discuss the potential changes to the NCAA's name, image and likeness rules. Dan and Colin will be present and I've instructed them to ask about the very important video game.
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. Samantha Smith changed the course of the Cold War at 10, by 13 she was dead... The fascinating story of Murph the Surf... What if someone with your name was a GITMO inmate?... A journalist allegedly spied on Zoom meetings of rivals in hilariously dumb ways... A man wearing a gorilla costume accidentally entered the wrong home and scared a six-year-old girl... Puma's latest shoes look just like Adolf Hitler...
