Week 2 Review and Clippers Embarrassment- Marty K’s Unfiltered Sports Takes Episode 8

Week 2 Review and Clippers Embarrassment- Marty K’s Unfiltered Sports Takes Episode 8

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Welcome to Marty K's Unfiltered Sports Takes, where opinions and facts intersect. This is yours truly, Marty Kaiser. Be there. Happy Tuesday, everyone. This is Marty Kaiser here with our latest edition of Marty K's Unfiltered Sports Takes. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Let's start off. We're going to go over a couple of uh interesting topics today. First thing is let's go over week two of the NFL. The last game just was last night, so we'll start off with that. The Los Angeles Rams played against the New York Giants yesterday. The Giants were coming off a really good game one victory over the Dallas Cowboys, and the Rams were humiliated by the San Francisco 49ers in their game in Australia. One of the things that was obvious with the Rams effort is, as I mentioned during my podcast prior to week one's games, travel was going to be a big thing. The Rams and the 49ers took radically different approaches. The 49ers traveled a week in advance to get their bodies and mental state acclimated to Australia because it is about an 18-hour plane flight. The Rams chose to do something a little bit more unconventional and they flew in kind of the day before. Figured they'd get out there and play their game before all the travel-related items kicked into their bodies and then more like a quick business trip. Well, it was obvious from the way the game played that the Rams were wrong. The 49ers had a lot more energy, they played much better, and it was a one-sided game. So coming into week two, everybody was curious how the travel would affect both teams' reacclamation, the 49ers and the Rams. I won't spend much time on the 49ers. They played the um probably the worst team in football on Sunday, the Miami Dolphins, and the 49ers just blew them out. So enough said on that game, but they the travel didn't affect them at all. The Rams, on the other hand, had more time, so to speak, because they they hadn't spent all that time in Australia. And fortunately for them, they were ready to play last night. Uh they defeated the um Giants pretty handily 28-7. Two points of big news in that game. Uh the biggest thing was Jackson Dart, the Giants up-and-coming star second-year quarterback. Uh, suffered a knee injury uh early in the game. He got sandwiched and he got a direct blow on his knee area. Uh so the final prognosis has to come in. It looks like it might be a medial uh strain on the knee. And if that's the case, I would speculate from what I hear and from what I've seen in previous injuries. He'll probably be out about um, I would guess four weeks, give or take, but we'll just have to see on that. It could be worse if they find additional knee damages. They haven't uh done the MRI yet, that's going to be today, so we'll probably we'll definitely know more before our next uh podcast. On the Rams side, their star receiver Puka Nakua was out, but they have another really great receiver, Devonta Adams, who's been a star for years. He had an excellent, excellent game. He had uh eight catches for uh, I think 160 yards, two touchdowns, and he was the main uh focal point of their game yesterday. He had a great game. He's about 33 years old now, but he can still play at a very high level. Got tremendous uh quick moves within the first five yards getting off the line of scrimmage, and he's got excellent hands. So the Rams hopefully are back for their fans. The Giants is going to be waiting see depending on Dart's condition. Jameis Winston, you could tell he's not getting practice time. He he did not look good last night. Uh he's normally got a very accurate and he's a he's got a very good arm, but he just was completely off yesterday and he he played poorly. So we'll see how the Giants do in Dart's absence. Uh the next game I wanted to go over was actually last Thursday night's the first game of the week was the Detroit Lions against the Buffalo Bills. Uh two high-powered offenses, two teams in the same division, two teams that are picked to go a long ways this year. The Bears had set a record opening day for points scored, 59 points, led by their star quarterback Caleb Williams. Uh they have kind of a Maverick young coach Ben Johnson who uh improved the team dramatically last year, and he's been on the record this year in saying the Bears want to set every scoring record uh that's been uh accomplished previously in the NFL. So he kind of set himself up as a target. So um I'm sorry, I'm I'm jumping around here. Let me let me backtrack. The Lions played the Bills. I'm ahead of myself with the Bears here. So the Lions played the Bills. Uh the Lions came off a game one victory uh where they squeaked by New Orleans. Their defense didn't look good, but their star running back Jamar Gibbs had a great game. And then the Buffalo Bills had a nice first game, too. And uh they were led by their star quarterback Josh Allen. They had played against um the Carolina, excuse me, um they had uh had had an excellent effort. And Josh, Josh Allen, by all accounts, is probably the top quarterback in the NFL. So they played the Bills this week. This was the initiation of the Bills' brand new stadium. And uh the game was um an interesting game, a lot of offense. The game was never in doubt. Buffalo always had control of this game, and Buffalo defeated them 41 to 31. So very high-scoring game. Uh Josh Allen personally accounted for five of the six touchdowns that the um Bills had, and he played excellently. He spread the offensive round, and even though they don't have a star receiver, uh, all their players were very productive. And they also have a star running back in James Cook, who had another big game. The Lions defense definitely is very questionable, has a lot of holes in it. They can definitely score, but their defense looks at this point like it may be a problem for them. If they don't pick the defense up, the Lions may have problems making the playoffs because they're in a really strong division. Uh they have Minnesota and they have Green Bay as well. And uh, of course they have the Bears, so they're in a really tough division. So now let's move on to the Bears. The Bears came off that record 59-point win. Everybody was all agog about them, talking about how awesome their offense was, their quarterback Caleb Williams, etc. They played against the Minnesota Vikings, excuse me, and Minnesota is led by their, believe it or not, the defensive coordinator, uh, Brian Flores. He's a maverick, he does a lot of creative defenses, a lot of high pressure blitzing. So everybody was curious to see how he would match up with Ben Johnson. Another factor in this game was played during a regular uh heavy rain, so the field conditions weren't optimal. Long story short, Brian Flores definitely put Ben Johnson in his place in this game. Uh the final score was 9-3, all field goals. Unfortunately, what really exacerbated and put the Bears at a big disadvantage. Uh Caleb Williams was injured in the game, uh, suffered also a leg injury. At this point, it looks like it's just a hamstring. The speculation is he'll probably be out somewhere between two to four weeks. It's especially troublesome for him because he's a quarterback that relies on his running ability and escape ability in the pocket. So he's more prone to re-injure a hamstring. So if they're smart, they should wait until his hamstring is fully healed. Because if you get a hamstring injury re-aggravated, you can be out a lot longer. But props to Brian Flores. Another phenomenal game of defensive coaching. Now, one thing I did want to mention, I'll be a little bit controversial with this. You know, Brian Flores is suing the NFL now for discrimination against African American coaches because he doesn't feel his personal situations from some of the other coaches are not getting a fair shake at jobs. I tend to agree with Brian Flores, and I think the reason he hasn't gotten a new job is a combination of he's got this lawsuit against the NFL, plus he's an African American uh coach, and I think they're at a disadvantage when they're looking at things. Uh so you know to me, it's a the guy out of everybody that's applied for jobs, he should be the first guy that gets a new job. So uh the NFL is pretty much a network of a bunch of rich white guys, let's face it. And just in our culture in general, whether you're white or black, there's definitely a comfort level when you employ people that you have more commonalities with. And there's nothing more obvious than the NFL. It's like a good old boys' network. So I hope that Brian Flores gets a head coaching job next year because between his own creativity, intelligence, and the tutelage he had under Bill Belichick in New England, he's a tremendous coach. And his defensive players just love playing for him. The next game I'm going to go over is the hometown team, the Tampa Bay Bucks. Uh, they had a disappointing first week loss to Cincinnati. And they were playing at home this week against Cleveland, who's like a bad team with a uh terrible organization, and at this point a bad quarterback into Sean Watson. Anyway, long story short, the Bucs had a poor effort. Baker Mayfield, who just signed a big contract with the Bucs, played poorly again. The Bucs were up 16-6 in this game, a home game against a bad team, ended up losing 23-19. Mayfield so far has played two poor games this year. The Bucks, as usual, their coaching leaves a lot to be desired. Todd Bowles should be the first coach on the chopping block this year. Uh they they collapsed down the stretch last year. So for the last 11 games, the Bucks are 2-9. And um they've got two, their personnel is better than that. Uh Todd Bowles, who's supposedly a very good defensive coach, their defense has just played poorly now for two years. So if they don't start picking it up immediately, I don't expect him to survive past the midweek point, the mid-year point of the NFL season. So keep an eye on that. Another big game that I wanted to mention from an injury standpoint, where the Washington Commanders played against the Dallas Cowboys. That's a big rivalry game. Uh the Cowboys, as you know, have a great offense led by Dak Prescott and their two-star receivers, C.D. Lamb and George Pickens. Um, the Commanders are led by their third-year quarterback Jaden Daniels. Now, Jaden Daniels was hurt a lot last year, and there's all there's been a lot of concern about his durability because he's he runs a lot and he's kind of a slight frame. Anyway, he had one of the injuries he suffered last year was a dislocated elbow that caused him to miss the last seven games of the year. So he was having a really good game against the Cowboys this year. And the last play of the first half, one of his offensive linemen tripped him. Uh he tried to put his hand down to catch his balance, and he ended up what looks like he's dislocated his elbow again. So they're going through a lot of tests and different medical opinions. It doesn't look good. I would anticipate he'll be out for at least six weeks, if not more, which will put the complete kibosh to the uh commander's season. They probably wouldn't have been that good this year anyway. But uh if he can't play for a good bit of the year, they're pretty much done. Because even though their backup quarterback Marcus Mariota is a pretty decent player, they have some uh injuries and mediocrity in their offensive line. Um and their personnel is just you know not as good as some of the other teams. This is another coaching candidate that if they don't recover and let's say play at least 500 football this year, I believe Dan Quinn will be terminated also. Uh another game that I wanted to mention of interest was the um Sunday night game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Indianapolis Colts. As you probably know, Pat Mahomes had toward ACL last year and was coming back off of that, so this was the second game back. He looked okay in his first game, but rusty and a little bit tentative. Uh but this game against the Colts was an offensive battle. Uh the Chiefs ended up winning 33-30, and a couple things are obvious. Number one, the Chiefs made a big acquisition in the offseason. They tried, they signed a Super Bowl MVP, Kenneth Walker, from Seattle, and he's had two big games. And it looks like the Chiefs are trying to strive for a more balanced offense and run the ball more. Historically, Andy Reid has been more of a passing attack, and he hasn't had a good running attack for a long time. The second thing, Pat Mahomes looked way better this week. He looked like his old self. He was throwing some long passes and some real mid-level darts, and he still can run the ball when he needs to. So the Chiefs won a closely fought game uh in overtime. So it was a good effort on their part, and uh props to Mahomes for making such an effective comeback. And so that's about it in a summary of the NFL. The things that are obvious in the NFL are a couple things. Injuries still have a play a big thing. We're in week two already. We had Jaden Daniels hurt, we had Caleb Williams hurt, and we had Jackson Dart hurt. Three of the star young quarterbacks all suffered significant injuries, and this changes the landscape and the direction of all three teams if they're out for any length of time. Regarding the strongest teams in the league, at this point, you'd have to say in the NFC, the two teams that look strongest, it's early on, of course, are two teams in the NFC West, uh the San Francisco 49ers and the defending Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Supersonics. In the AFC, it's early on, of course, but I would say your two strongest teams. One is definitely the Buffalo Bills. They're off to a 2-0 start. They have a new coast, and they look like they have a little bit new what I would call a bounce to their step. And the second team are the team that suffered last year but up until last year had a lot of great years consecutively, are the Kansas City Chiefs, led by Patrick Mahomes and their veteran but effective coach still, Andy Reid. So those are the teams to keep an eye on right now. It's still early on. We'll probably get a better feel for the direction of this season in another two weeks. That'll basically be a quarter of the season will be completed at that point. And then you'll be able to see where the cream's rising or where the cream's not rising. So that's it about the NFL. Again, they'll have games on Thursday, Sunday, Sunday night, and Monday, so there's no shortage of football. Uh transitioning to Major League Baseball. We're in the last week of the Major League Baseball season. So at this point, I would say the Los Angeles Dodgers are still a slight favorite to repeat. The big thing with the Dodgers are always injuries. Shohei Otani, their superstar two-way player, uh, has been hurting. He's hoping to be back by the end of the season or the playoffs. The question is, will he be back and will he be rusty? It appears at this point that they're probably not going to pitch him in the playoffs just to um save the wear and tear because he had some injury issues. Um they still have other great pitchers, but the the whole question with their pitching staff is will they stay healthy? Right now they've they still got some great starters. They got Tarek Scuble, who they acquired from Detroit. He's a superstar pitcher. They've got Tyler Glasnow who's back from injuries and has pitched well lately. They've got Blake Snell, a former Cy Young winner. Uh Blake had made a couple really effective starts, but he got pulled out of his last start early on, so we'll have to see how he does. And then they've got a couple other young pitchers that are effective pitchers. So we'll see. But the Dodgers have been there and done that, so they're going to be tough. The other big team in the National League right now is the Milwaukee Brewers. They've had a tremendous year. They've been a tremendous team for the last few years, but they always fall short in the playoffs. The reason that this year may be different for them, they've got a superstar pitcher, a young pitcher, and Jason, Jacob Mizerowski. So he gives them arguably the best pitcher in the National League right now. So we'll keep an eye on them. Their problem historically is they haven't hit in the playoffs. They've got a lot of good on-base hitters, but they don't really have a lot of power in their lineup. So we'll have to wait and see with them. The American League's quite interesting. It's really a grab bag. We've got the hometown team who's really overachieved this year, Tampa Bay Rays. They've been led by their manager of all things. Um Cash, Kevin Cash has just done a phenomenal job of juggling their players. And their star third placeman, Junior Camonero, who's probably going to lead the league in home runs. They've got a lot of what I call role players who have maximized their abilities due to the effective ways of Kevin Cash managing the team. They've got a couple solid starters, but they're not superstar pitchers. Uh this year their top two starters have been Nick Martinez, who they acquired in the offseason, and Dennis Rasmussen, who was coming off ACL surgery a couple years ago and has pitched very effectively. They have Bubba Baker, who's been their um top relief pitcher, and right now is leading the league in saves. He's kind of a guy that nobody ever heard of, and he's had a phenomenal year for him. Uh so we'll have to wait and see. I'm hopeful that the Rays can continue this. Who's the biggest threat to the Rays? I would say uh if I had to give you my opinion, it's one of two teams, and that'll be the winner of the New York Yankees, Boston, Red Sox uh wild card uh game. They're the I think they're the two biggest threats to the Rays. The Yankees arguably are the best team in the American League, but they've had a lot of injuries this year. Right now they're still dealing with Aaron Judge, who's their superstar slugger. He was out a good bit of the year, came back, and then he had a calf injury about a week ago. So he's iffy for the playoffs. If he's not in the lineup, they're not going to go through and win the playoffs. If he is in the lineup, then they've got a pretty good shot to uh get to the World Series. Reason being, they've got the top pitching staff, certainly in the American League. They've got three what I call top-of-the-line starters. They've got um Garrett Cole, they've got um uh Freed, and they've got their um star young pitcher Cam Schleter. They're all tremendous pitchers. Uh and they've they've got a you know solid depth in the bullpen. They've so we'll we'll see how the Yankees do. The Boston Red Sox are uh have had a miraculous turnaround toward the midseason, they were like the worst record in the American League, and they've turned it around and been one of the hottest teams the last half of the year. They have a lot of young players, uh, not as many what I would call starred players or known players, but they've got a balanced team, they're hungry. Um they fired their coach in the first third of the year, and the guy that's replaced them has done a really good job. So I think if the Red Sox get by the Yankees in the uh playoff game, they could give the race play. Problems because they play a lot like the Rays. They're kind of a low-scoring, scrappy team. And so those games are going to be close, and uh it's really gonna depend upon the relief pitching. So we'll wait and see. I definitely think going into the World Series, whoever comes out of the National League at this point in time should be favored. So that's it about baseball. Last but not least is the National Basketball Association. I mentioned this in our last um podcast, and this was about the uh Los Angeles Clippers. They they pretty much went to jail. What I mean is, as you know, they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They were trying to circumvent the salary cap with a lot of creative illegal activities to hide money. Um and accordingly, their owner got fined $30 million, Steve Ballmer. Their president of basketball operations got suspended for six months. Their number two person, their basketball organization got a year suspension, and they lost four number one draft picks, which is a huge penalty. Um and they had already they traded their star player, uh Kawhi Leonard. So they're really they're gonna go through some rebuilding. Uh, the thing that I wanted to mention is a recap to that, the Clippers had been trying to deny these charges, especially Steve Ballmer. He gave this impassioned question and answer like he was not guilty, and blah, blah, blah. And Steve Ballmer is one of the richest men in the world. He's the uh part one of the founding partners in Microsoft. So the guy's got more money than everybody that we know combined. Um but anyway, after the penalties came out, and after he started uh getting all mouthy and saying, you know, he's gonna take legal action and blah, blah, blah. He ended up backing off and saying he would accept the penalties and move on. He still said that there was he didn't agree with the the what had transpired, but that he wasn't gonna make a big issue about it. It just shows that he knows he was guilty. They had plenty of anecdotal evidence along with firm evidence and emails, testimony from key people, etc. It was completely obvious that they had done this. And the thing was they didn't really have to do it because the player tried to blackmail them to get more money, Kawhi Leonard. And when he did the same tactic with other teams when they were competing for his services prior to the 2021 season, none of the other teams went for it. And if the Clippers had held firm, he would have had a sign with somebody. Uh he's just, you know, now he's an example of player greed. The guy's making 40 plus million a year, and he's an injury-prone player that had a long-term guaranteed contract. Yet he and his representatives were trying to squeeze more money out of the grape. He got fined a very minimal amount of money. He pretty much got away with this, and now he got traded to a team that he gets a fresh start with that really wanted his services. So he suffered very little, but he he left the Clippers in really bad state. Not that the Clippers didn't deserve it, but Kawhi Leonard should have gotten more penalties, in my opinion. The NBA didn't want to fight against the NBA Players Association, so that's why they backed off going after him. So that's all for now. So, sports fans, you've got the NFL, you've got Major League Baseball's playoffs, you've got the NBA that'll be starting soon. So you're in sports lovers heaven. Last but not least is fantasy football. Now that with all these injuries, you have to recalibate. I myself had Jalen Daniels as one of my quarterbacks, or Jaden Daniels as one of my quarterbacks in football. Fortunately, I had drafted another good quarterback in our fantasy draft. So I have um Purdy, the quarterback of the 49ers, who's a really good quarterback. But for those of you that don't have quarterback depth, see who's available in your league. Um, depending on how your demand and supply go. Tyler Schuff on New Orleans would be a good replacement quarterback. If there was no real top quality starters are available, uh, you could go with Marcus Mariota, who's going to be filling in for Jaden Daniels. Or another quarterback that may be worth uh playing for a while if he's still available in your league, is Kirk Cousins for the Raiders. He started off pretty good this year, and he'll probably be in the starting lineup for at least four to six weeks before they consider putting their first round number one player picked as the quarterback replacement for him. So that's all for today. Enjoy your sports. If you do a lot of outdoor activities, make sure you hydrate, use sunblock, and this is Marty Kaiser out.