Author: Aidan Joly

By Aidan Joly

The NFL released the schedule for the 2019 season on Wednesday night, and here are the top 10 games that I’m looking forward to for this coming season.

Packers at Bears, Week 1, Thursday, September 5

For the first game of the NFL’s centennial season, the league went away from a tradition of having the defending champions play the first game of the season. Instead we will see two classic franchises kick off the season at Soldier Field. The Week 1 game between the two teams last year was fantastic, with Aaron Rodgers throwing for three touchdowns in the second half after suffering a knee injury earlier in the game to lead Green Bay to a 24-23 victory. Plus, it’ll be the first game that Rodgers has not had Mike McCarthy as his head coach with the debut of Matt LaFleur.

Steelers at Patriots, Week 1, Sunday, September 8

These two teams tend to see each other every year at one point or another. This year it’ll be in the first Sunday Night Football game of the year and it’ll be another chapter in the Ben Roethlisberger vs Tom Brady story. Now that Le’veon Bell is officially gone and Antonio Brown is off to Oakland, it’ll be interesting to see how big of a role that JuJu Smith-Schuster will have to take in the new Pittsburgh offense.

Saints at Rams, Week 2, Sunday, September 15

It’ll be an early-season rematch of the NFC Championship game in Los Angeles. The NFC title game ended in controversy with the no-call pass interference that led to the Rams getting to the Super Bowl with a 26-23 overtime win, so you can best bet that the Saints will really want to win this game to get their revenge. The NFL expanded instant replay technology during the offseason to include calls like the one that proved costly in the playoffs. Along with all of those storylines, it’s a star-studded game that should be one of the best games of the season.

Browns at Jets, Week 2, Monday, September 16

If you said this would be one of the top games of the season two years ago, I would have laughed you out the door. Both of these teams have re-tooled in big ways and are bound to be really good for years to come. Last year’s matchup was the coming-out party for Baker Mayfield, who led the Browns to their first win in over 600 days. Plus, it’s the return of Odell Beckham Jr. to New York, and it’ll be interesting to see who will have the bigger role on their new team, Odell or Le’veon Bell with the Jets. The battle of young quarterbacks between Mayfield and Sam Darnold will not be the last time you see it, either.

Browns at Patriots, Week 8, Sunday, October 27

The Bill Belichick bowl! Belichick was fired by the Browns in 1996 and they have never been good since then, and now he will face them for the first time with them being a real threat in the AFC. Plus, if the Browns start the season hot, this will be a huge midseason test for them to see if they are for real or not for the second half of the season.

Packers at Chiefs, Week 8, Sunday, October 27

The game on Sunday Night Football the same day is bound to be a great one as well. It will feature two of the high-flying offenses in the league and will be old-school in Rodgers versus new-school in Patrick Mahomes. If Mahomes comes out on top of this game, it could be seen by those in NFL circles as a passing of the torch in who will be the best quarterback in the NFL for years to come. It’ll be a primetime showdown for sure.

Chiefs vs Chargers, Week 11, Monday, November 18

Mexico City missed out on seeing an instant classic last year as the Rams beat the Chiefs 54-51 in one of the best shootouts in recent memory after Estadio Azteca lost the game due to poor field conditions. However, the city will get another chance to host a game with these two good teams coming down to the country in a primetime Monday night game. Mexico City is 1.5 miles above sea level and the Rams trained for the game in Colorado Springs to get used to the altitude, so it would not be shocking to see one or both teams do that as well. If you like offense, this will be a fun game for you.

Chiefs at Patriots, Week 14, Sunday, December 8

We will see another conference championship rematch late in the season with these two squads. Last year, the Patriots came out on top with a 37-31 overtime win and went on to win the Super Bowl. They also met in the regular season last year in October, with the Patriots winning a 43-40 thriller. Because it is this late in the season, it’s bound to be a crucial game looking into the postseason. The Chiefs are one of the few teams in the AFC that can play with the Patriots, having won two of their past five meetings. This is sure to be a great game as usual when it’s these two teams and possibly one of the final meetings between Brady and Mahomes.

Steelers at Jets, Week 16, Sunday, December 22

This game will be must-watch television as Bell faces his former team at MetLife Stadium. It’s sure to be a good game late in the season with Darnold against Roethlisberger, and both teams could very well be in the playoff push late in the season, so it could potentially be a game that shapes what the AFC playoff picture could look like.

Chiefs at Bears, Week 16, Sunday, December 22

It’s a classic offense versus defense battle with the Chiefs and all their weapons on offense and the Bears with a tough defense that can stifle great offenses. For example, they gave up only six points to the Rams in their matchup last December. However, it’s tough for a team to have a great defense two years in a row as they went 12-4 last year, but they are most likely going to be in the picture again this year and will try to take advantage of a mediocre NFC North again.

By Aidan Joly

It goes without saying that the free agent system in Major League Baseball is broken. Contract extensions are coming fast and furious this spring. From veterans like Justin Verlander to rookies like Eloy Jimenez to superstars like Mike Trout, everyone is signing deals to stay loyal to their teams.

The one I want to discuss came on Thursday afternoon, when Atlanta Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies signed a seven-year, $35 million extension that will last him through the 2025 season with club options for 2026 and 2027. So, at best, that’s a nine-year, $46 million deal.

That is insanely cheap for a player of his caliber.

Albies is only 22 years old and already has an all-star appearance under his belt. He’s a power hitting, up-the-middle type of player that is sure to become one of the best players in baseball very soon. In his first full big-league season last year, he had a 3.8 bWAR in his age-21 season. According to Baseball Reference, players that that number can be compared to at that age include Cal Ripken Jr., Joe Morgan, Ron Santo, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Correa and Roberto Alomar, among others. That’s not a bad list to be a part of.

Last year, Astros second baseman Jose Altuve, who Albies can be compared to a little bit as to current players, signed a five-year deal that is worth $151 million. For those keeping score, that’s a difference of $116 million for two players that play the same position and are probably 1-2 for the top second basemen in the league.

It makes sense that the two sides would want to get this deal hammered out. The Braves are probably set to win for a while with a young core of Albies, Ronald Acuna, Dansby Swanson, Sean Newcomb, and others players working their way up through the minors. Plus, he is very close friends with Acuna, who signed his own extension worth $100 million earlier in April. Because of the fact that you can’t become a free agent until after you hit six years of service time in the majors, he would have to have had arbitration after the 2020 season, where he would have been set for a big payday, even if it was only for a one-year deal.

Putting this deal into some other terms, Jimenez’s deal earlier this year was for six years and $43 million, coming before he made his debut for the White Sox. The Phillies made a similar deal for Scott Kingery last spring, signing him to a six-year deal worth $24 million before he played a big-league game. Plus, Kingery was nearly two and a half years older than Albies when he signed the deal. Another player with that same age difference is Indians infielder Jose Ramirez, who signed one of the most team-friendly deals in March of 2017 for five years and $26 million, with options that could make it seven years and $50 million. For a guy like Albies who is slated to become one of the best players in the league to get this type of deal is laughable.

However, these team-friendly deals make sense in a way. Ramirez and Albies are two of many big leaguers that came to America at 16 years old from all parts of the world to play. Albies came to the Braves’ organization from Curacao at the age of 16, signed for $350,000 and made essentially nothing in the minor leagues, so he wants to get this deal done now to get guaranteed money, so it can’t be taken away from him because of potential injuries or underperformance.

This is a bad deal for him, but a good one for the Braves. I think this is a major representation of that the free agent system is broken with a good number of players still unsigned now about 15 games into the season and that players are now more willing to stay with teams for a long time, even if they don’t get the money that you would get in free agency.

By Aidan Joly

The games for the college basketball season came to a close on Monday night, but that does not mean the storylines have come to an end. Here at the start of the offseason, these are my favorite head coach hires so far.

Fred Hoiberg to Nebraska

After the debacle that was the firing of Tim Miles by the Nebraska administration, they got a home run hire in Hoiberg. This is a guy who should not be looked at as a failed NBA head coach, but someone who turned around the program at Iowa State from 2010-2015. He won four NCAA Tournament games in four appearances, and won the Big 12 tournament twice, something that is obviously really difficult to do in that conference. He’s from the area, and he’s a name that recruits will recognize, which helps. It will be a tough task to turn around a program that has made the tournament only once since 1998, but I think Hoiberg could be the guy to do it.

Buzz Williams to Texas A&M

This was the worst-kept secret in college basketball. Williams comes from Virginia Tech and was finally the coach who got them nationally-relevant, getting them to the second weekend for the first time in 52 years. Texas A&M is a program where you have to compete with a high-level football program, but Williams has done that successfully with the Hokies. Billy Kennedy had a level of success making the Sweet 16 in 2016 and 2018, but never did anything past that. The Aggies have players with potential, especially Savion Flagg, so now it’s time for Williams to take that next step.

Nate Oats to Alabama

The fact that he signed a six-year extension with Buffalo and jumped ship to Alabama two weeks later is a little curious, but if there was a time for Oats to leave, it’s now. The entire core at Buffalo this year were seniors in CJ Massinburg, Nick Perkins, Jeremy Harris and Dontay Caruthers, so Buffalo is bound to take a sizable step back in 2019-20 after winning NCAA Tournament games each of the past two years. Buffalo is easily the best program in the MAC, but moving to the SEC is obviously quite the jump. He will have to compete with Nick Saban but Oats is a guy who has won at all levels of basketball, so he is a coach that has a lot of potential in his first power-conference job.

TJ Otzelberger to UNLV

UNLV is an extremely tough place to win at. But Otzelberger’s previous job, South Dakota State, is also a tough place to win at. Otzelberger did that in his three years at the helm for the Jackrabbits, getting to at least the NIT in each of his three seasons, and got to the NCAA Tournament twice, and won 70 total games in his three years, including a mark of 35-11 in conference play with the help of one of the best mid-major players in the country in Mike Daum. He’s still a young coach at the age of 41, too. It might be a struggle at first but I can see him getting the Runnin’ Rebels back to the tournament, a place where they have not been since 2013.

Jamion Christian to George Washington

As someone who has followed the program at Siena for almost 15 years, Christian bolting from the Saint after one year at the helm came as a pretty big shock to me. I figured he was a climber since he left his alma mater in Mount St. Mary’s to take the job at Siena about a year ago, but he totally changed the culture for Siena in one year, getting them 17 wins (not to mention one of them being over the Colonials) and an appearance in the MAAC semifinals. He landed the eventual MAAC player of the year in Jalen Pickett and got Mount St. Mary’s to a pair of NCAA Tournaments out of the NEC in six seasons. The Atlantic-10 is seem as a nice step up from the MAAC, and will take over a struggling program in DC that won all of four conference games this season.
PS: I like Siena hiring Carmen Maciariello to replace Christian, too.

Ron Hunter to Tulane

I’m a huge fan of Ron Hunter in general, so I’m happy that he can take a step up from Georgia State, which is a program on the rise. Hunter is on the second half of his head coaching career and is 55 years old, but is still a high-energy guy that wears his emotions on his sleeve. Who can forget him crying in the press conference with his son RJ after they got bounced in the second round in 2015? And that was after he fell out of the stool when he made the buzzer-beater in the first round to beat Baylor. Tulane has not been nationally relevant in years, but this seems to be a great place for Hunter to shine. He did everything he could in the Sun Belt, and this is a good challenge in a conference that has the likes of Houston, Cincinnati and UConn.

Casey Alexander to Belmont

Alexander jumps from Lipscomb to Belmont, two schools which are separated by less that two miles. He will be replacing a coaching legend in Rick Byrd, who spearheaded the Bruins for 33 years and won 713 games with the school, and finally won his first NCAA Tournament game this season, albeit a game in the First Four, but that doesn’t matter. A win is a win. Alexander is a former Belmont assistant under Byrd from 1995-2011 before taking the head coaching job at Stetson and eventually Lipscomb, so he’s a guy who knows the program and its values well. He got the Bisons to its first NCAA Tournament last year, and were the runners-up in the NIT this year. If not for the selection committee, Lipscomb could have made the tournament this year as an at-large. Now, it’s a small step up from the Atlantic Sun to Ohio Valley, but I feel that Alexander will stay around for a while and continue Byrd’s legacy.

(I was having problems on my laptop for the last few days trying to figure this out, so I just decided to do this on my phone.)

I arrived at WJMC on Sunday afternoon and  was ready for an amazing week. I had already talked to people who we’re going, and I was really excited to meet them after months of talking to them every day. When I saw them for the first time in one of our dorms, I was greeted with hugs from all of them, and I knew I was going to be okay, I was a little nervous before. After meeting them, we all had to go downstairs and do the campus tour, which we obviously did all together.

We had the opening speaker at dinner, Tina Rosenberg, who made a great speech introducing us to different forms of journalism and what we can do with it. It was a great speech, and the food was good. After dinner, we had our first color group meeting, where I got to meet some more people that I would be spending most of my time with over the week.

On Monday morning, we got to listen to a speech from Hoda Kotb, where she talked about her career in journalism and her struggles in the beginning. A few things she said that I found very interesting; “You only need one person to believe in you.” Also, I particulary liked, “If you survive any bad thing in your life and if you are still standing at the end, you get four words: You Can’t Scare Me.”

After that, we took the bus ride to the Newseum in Washington DC, which has been one of my favorite parts of the trip so far. The exhibit from the 9/11 attacks was moving to me, and there are a few pictures from that on my twitter page. I also got to see a piece of the Berlin Wall, and other artifacts from other huge events in history. One part of the Berlin Wall that I found interesting was that on the West Side of the wall, there was graffiti on it and on the East Side there was no marks on the wall at all. Just a thing I found interesting, makes you think.

When you’re in DC, you have to see the monuments. We did that last night, and I got to see the Washington and Lincoln Monuments, as well as the World War II memorial site. That was very cool to see.

When we got back to the dorms, my group of friends and I decided to order a pizza. It got there and we all ate it together, and that has been by far the best part of the week so far. Fifteen people from all over the country talking and enjoying eachother’s company over a pizza. That made me realize that Friday will be a tough day for all of us. We’ve made some new friends along the way as well.

We’re currently on our way to the National Press Club, where we will hear some speeches by some political journalists, with the highlight being Brian Lamb. I can’t wait to see what today and the rest of the days here in Washington hold!

-Aidan

This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.