LouisEly

28 points in the last 25 minutes. That's pretty good. The positives: Backup QB is not a concern Should have only given up 3 points, and MTSU had to make some perfect passes on the sideline to get most of their yards Mahlman looks adequate at LT, Mandell looked a lot better this week. Defenses will not be able to load up on the run nor crash down on where the RB is going Discipline - no penalties despite four different OL Don't recall any WR drops Still concerning: Backup center/IOL blocking Playing a little too much cushion/off the ball, too many times runners got 4-5 yards before being touched

There have been very good linemen recently, but most of them are from Catholic families and went to Catholic schools (Flanigan, Strebig, Schrauth) and when Notre Dame comes calling it's really hard to say no. Hinzman went to Ohio State, no shame in losing that recruiting battle. Schrauth and Hinzman started in the national championship game last year, so hard to say that they made bad choices. Some of the other good linemen didn't grow up in WI and moved to WI in high school (Roy, Harbour) so they didn't have the emotional attachment to UW. UW was just another school near some place where they lived at some point in their life. We know that by 2022 Chryst was basically half-arsing it especially with recruiting. Chryst left the cupboard bare. Only one OL in the 2023 class (Durand) and he transferred, and only two OL in the 2022 class (Brunner, Nelson who has been hurt pretty much the whole time). Three OL in two years. That's not on Fickell. Fickell had to bring in five OL in both the 2024 and 2025 classes, The only one who isn't a true or redshirt FR is Heywood and he's out for the season. People can say they should have gotten players in the portal (and they did), but I'll say that any good upperclassmen are going to enter the draft and not the portal. The upperclassmen in the portal are going to be 7th round picks/UDFAs at best. Four of the five OL in the game yesterday were different than the prior game. Some guys in new positions (Mahlman, Mandell), some guys starting for the first time (Cubberly, Kodanko). That was obvious as some guys missed some blocking assignments in the first half, but in the 2nd half they started to figure things out. MTSU was selling out on the run, and UW made adjustments in the 2nd half. 28 points in the last 25 minutes of the game is something to build off of.

This is the explanation. IIRC, they said that Yelich initially tweaked/felt something on his double against Arizona, which would have been on 8/27, before the 9/1 callup. So the Brewers likely knew that Yelich might need some time off before they made the decision on who to call up on 9/1, thus why Bauers is there and Hoskins isn't.

Aside from what @sveumrules posted four hours before this, when it comes to bench players the Brewers historically seem to place positional flexibility as a high priority. With Bauers being able to play corner OF (and pinch-run), my guess is that trumps a little bit of OPS in the Brewers eyes.

Another weak jobs report. Not just that it's lower than expected, but the fourth weak jobs report in a row. Revisions showed a net loss of 13K jobs in June. Wholesale trade and manufacturing saw declines of 12K for August. Unemployment ticked up to 4.3%. I took pretty much a flat 10% across the board trim on my holdings (a little more on S&P 500 and NVDA, and of course, sold them at the lowest point of the day) and put it in bonds. Yes, the markets are pricing in three cuts for the rest of the year but... the reason for the three cuts has me worried. And we're in September and October, historically the two worst months for selloffs. Wondering if I should be trimming more like 25%. Or more.

I think the answer is that there just wasn't much to choose from. Paulson Adebo missed as many games as Hobbs has over the last 4 seasons, including coming off of a major injury that ended his season last year, and he got almost $35M guaranteed (and, IIRC, all he had done at the time was run on a treadmill). 30-year-old Jourdan Lewis got $20M guaranteed over 3 seasons. We're living in an era where 15 guards have gotten over $20M guaranteed. $16M guaranteed is kind of the going rate for an average starter with some risks.

And that it's his back is probably much better than if it was his arm.

Gasser threw 45 pitches on Wednesday, so he likely won't be ready until Sunday.

It will likely be Grant Anderson coming off of the IL. Gasser threw 45 pitches on Wednesday. Patrick threw 71 pitches yesterday. Gasser likely won't be available until Sunday considering that he's coming back from major injury.

Small numbers of innings pitched, but: Payamps 2025 FIP (prior to this game): 4.50 Yoho 2025 FIP: 7.44 It reveals he may use analytics.

So, the Brewers are now past the stretch with the Blue Jays and the Phillies and the Cubs gained... ... exactly one game in the standings. And lost a half game over the last 10 games. And lost a half game over the last 27 games.

So is playing every day. I'd rather they get some rest now than have nothing left in the tank when the playoffs start.

The other Contreras brother?

7-pitch inning is just what the doctor ordered.

Makes total sense given that the Brewers are 16-4 against the other five division leaders. They probably still think that Tyler Alexander and Elvin Rodriguez are still pitching for the Brewers.

If people watched enough games of all of the other teams, they would likely come to the same conclusions. They just don't watch other teams.

The Brewers have shown that they prefer shorter outings so that relievers can go 2-3 days in a row to longer outings. Whether that's right or wrong, I don't know.

That'll do

There's a reason why the Phillies signed Walker Buehler, and it's not because he's good.

That also relates to the Lions biggest weakness - IOL. Pressure up the middle flushes Goff out of the pocket. Not only gets him running, but gets him running to one side of the field effectively cutting off the other side of the field and the WRs on that side of the field. Then have X lurking on the back end ready to jump the route and snag a floater.

14-10 gets them to 99 wins. Cubs need to go 21-4 in September to get to 99 wins. Every pitching staff is tired this time of year.

Mike Gundy calls out Oregon's NIL "budget": https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/46133353/spend-win "I think Oregon spent close to $40 [million] last year alone," Gundy said. "So, that was just one year. Now, I might be off a few million." Lanning: "We spend to win." Well, Lanning isn't denying that Oregon had $40M to spend. Reminder, Oregon is now in the Big Ten.

It's from 2020, so I'm not sure why it was posted.

Brock WilkenCooper PrattLogan HendersonRobert GasserJeferson QueroJesus MadeLuis PenaMarco DingesLuke AdamsBraylon PayneAndrew FischerBishop LetsonJosh AdamczewskiColeman CrowBlake BurkeTyson HardinLuis LaraTyler BlackBrett WichrowskiEthan Murray Next five - Yoho, Meccage, Knoth, Boeve, Ebel

Preseason is over. First up is the Lions. Lions had a lot of moving pieces in the offseason. Two new coordinators, their All-Pro center retired after the draft leaving them very thin and inexperienced in the IOL, and while Hutchinson is back, the rest of their DE rotation is nothing special. Will Parsons be ready to play? Will either team be ready to play?