JosephC

MLB and the TV networks don't think so. Put the Dodgers in the World Series (preferably against the Yankees) every season and the sport completely healthy and operating just as intended.

Minimum fine for that in Wisconsin is $150. State law allows up to a $500 fine, so certain localities can issue tickets for that amount.

I couldn't agree more. He only played roughly 40% of the defensive snaps in 2023 and that dropped to 33% this past season. Add on the "electing himself team captain" foolish stuff. If a team came and offered me a 5th round pick for Alexander + 7th round pick...that is a deal that I would make.

First off, to address some other posts, I will vouch that overthecap is the best and most accurate site to check for this information. Also, OTC's effective cap space does not contain a cushion. Effective cap space definition is just above the table. It's the NFL salary cap minus combined salaries of players under contract (including dead money) minus the projected cap numbers of the rookie class minus enough minimum salaries to bring the roster to 51 players. I used 41 million instead of 38 million because in a free agent discussion, every free agent added will bump a minimum salary off the total (Packers have 39 players under contract + 8 draft picks so 4 minimum salaries at 840k each to get to 51 = 3.36 million...roughly the difference between the 41 million I used and OTC's 38 million effective cap space). There is no reason to split hairs over 3 million anyway, as something as simple as draft day trades will end up altering the numbers.

Overthecap has the Packers cap room back up to 51 million with the rookie pool at just slightly under 10 million. So it's probably safe to assume about 41 million is available. With the way contracts are structured, one can probably figure a "significant" non-QB contract will have a first year cap number of 8-10 million. I wouldn't hesitate to run that number down to 10 million and then start restructures if more cap space is needed. A Tom extension would be priority #1. As far as free agents, first few guys I would look at are CB-Carlton Davis, WR-Tee Higgins and WR-Amari Cooper. Very good chance I would get priced out on the receivers though. Justin Jefferson's first year cap number is only 8 million, but there are a couple 40 million dollar years later on in that contract. Really hard for me to give that type of deal to a wide receiver not named Calvin Johnson or Julio Jones or someone else in that incredible production/production/production/size/speed category. Higgins and Cooper are good, but they are not in that league. I've always liked Chris Godwin dating back to his Penn State days, but the injury stuff scares me.

Are the dumb-dumb Ohio State fans still volunteering to give the Badgers Ryan Day?

Are the dumb-dumb Ohio State fans still volunteering to give the Badgers Ryan Day?

Even if the receivers were playing great, it would still be a priority because after 2025 both Doubs and Watson are free agents. They raised some eyebrows this last draft when they took Monk who pretty much projected as a pure center. From what I hear, Myers is nothing special...I think the Packers were already thinking they were parting way with Myers after 2024 and wanted to have a guy they liked already in the pipeline, Packer unrestricted free agents after 2026 that have played over 30% of the snaps in 2024 (at least according to overthecap, so if this info is wrong, blame them not me)- OT - Rasheed Walker (99.1%) OT - Zach Tom (98.5%) LB - Quay Walker (78.2%) * WR - Romeo Doubs (63.4%) WR - Christian Walker (57.0%) EDGE - Kingsley Enagbare (45.5%) LS - Matt Orzech (33.8%) IDL - Devonte Wyatt (33.4%) * I'm assuming, as first round picks, the Packers have the option for an additional year on Walker and Wyatt.

Following the Teoscar Hernandez signing, Cot's has the Dodger's 2025 luxury tax payment at $105,242,098. They current project the Brewer's opening day payroll to be $101,250,727, and currently there are 8 other teams that have an opening day payroll projection lower than the Brewers. MLB completely broken at this point.

Both lines are terrible. The defensive line gets a "passable" grade pass rushing, but are terrible against the run. I don't think the starting offensive linemen are very good to begin with, and they've had a lot of injury problems there and have had some guys on the field that have looked no better than practice squad material. And their highly touted wide receiver and defensive back groups, seems like their are a few selfish whiners mixed in there...guys who should be better than they are and flat out quit a few weeks ago and have likely dragged the entire team down. There are obviously massive culture issues there. Guys who were complaining about Eberflus...who you would figure would come out with their hair on fire and really play hard to show that Eberflus was the problem...first game with Eberflus gone was the 49ers game, and San Fran put a 300+ yard performance on in the first half while the Bears had 4 yards. NFL team...4 yards in a half...right after the players helped push the head coach out the door. I would expect a 300+ yards versus 4 yards in a half of football if I was watching the Georgia Bulldogs play the Weber State Wildcats. That should never, never happen in the NFL game.

...and there are 6 teams that currently have a worse winning percentage.

Let's face the facts, Indiana is not a bad team but they are not a team that should be in a playoff. They are the poster-child for why 18 team conferences are just stupid. Indiana's conference schedule in 2024. Big 10 record in parenthesis @ UCLA (3-6) Maryland (1-8) @ Northwestern (2-7) Nebraska (3-6) Washington (4-5) @ Michigan State (3-6) Michigan (5-4) @ Ohio State (7-2) Purdue (0-9) And the out of conference schedule was Florida International (4-8), Western Illinois (not even a 1-A school and finished 4-8) and Charlotte (5-7). Very weak in-conference schedule and then got the extra home game on top of that. 66% of their conference opponents could only win 1/3 conference games or less. I'm not going to try and talk up Bucky, because they were not a good team, but Wisconsin is at least 7-5 with that schedule and I don't think an 8-4 is out of the question. Indiana finished ahead of Ohio State in the Big 10 standings this year. I remember the days where there were 10 teams, 8 games played so everybody missed 1 conference opponent. We used to talk what a great advantage or disadvantage that 1 miss would be. But look at the system they have now. Complete joke, just like everything else that has happened with college football over the last decade.

I think that all depends on the ratings in the college football videogame. https://www.patspulpit.com/new-england-patriots-social-media-video-podcasts/2024/12/19/24324917/jets-owner-nixed-major-trade-immensely-stupid-reason-jerry-jeudy

I had no idea that the NBA TV ratings have dropped as much as they have. https://www.nysun.com/article/nba-cup-final-faces-uphill-battle-to-end-slumping-tv-ratings

Terrible news. Would rather see the Brewers and MLB foot the vast majority of this bill. The Bucks arena was such a huge cash cow for the city and county that all the dumb-dumbs that live there now have the joy of paying a 7.9% sales tax. Maybe with this new baseball stadium, we can get that number over 10%. At least this tweet was nice enough to say the government is picking up the entire 500 million dollar tab, which is probably much more accurate than the previous taxpayer = 400 million, Brewers/MLB = 100 million lie that was sold to us earlier.

The experts I work with (seriously, people who watch A LOT of football and have opinions that I trust) did not have great things to say about Edwards. One said, if Locke is a "D," Edwards is probably a "C-." Other opinion was, "I don't ever remember seeing O'Neil play, but I'm hoping he can beat out Edwards because that guy is nothing special." I thought Reiger looked the most interesting on paper. Then did more research and, from what I understand, he was expected to play last year after having a knee injury from 2023, but then developed complications and missed all of 2024. That doesn't sound good. Parker Peterson seems to be the big "get" so far. Have to admit that the additions seem pretty underwhelming to me.

Cots has the Cubs about 61 million away from the luxury tax threshold after this move. If their goal was to stay under the luxury tax, they either didn't need to move Bellinger or they have a couple big moves happening. Any word on where Alex Bregman may be headed? Roster Resource currently projects Matt Shaw as their starting third baseman. Shaw is a former 1st round pick but his selection was so recent that he is not on the 40-man roster yet.

As of this morning the Badgers have 77 scholarship players, so room for 8 transfers (there could be late signings from high schoolers, but I wouldn't anticipate any). And while all the outgoing transfers have probably made their intentions known, we could always lose a couple more early entries to the NFL draft. There obviously can be position changes between now and the fall, but right now Joe McNamara projects as following- https://wisconsin.rivals.com/news/football-projected-scholarship-distribution-1 QB - 3 (2 true freshmen) RB - 5 WR - 10 (1 true freshman) TE - 7 (2 true freshmen) OL = 16 (5 true freshmen) DL = 7 (3 true freshmen) ILB = 6 (2 true freshmen) OLB = 9 (3 true freshmen) CB = 7 (3 true freshman) S = 5 (3 true freshman) Special Teams = 2 One QB, multiple defensive linemen and defensive backs all look to be significant and equal priorities. Some pretty alarming numbers as those spots.

Why do the projections at Fangraphs have Cortes at <1 WAR for 2026 (Fangraphs DC = 0.5, Steamer = 0.8)? Is he injured? Was it likely he was heading to the bullpen in 2026?

Gastineau was all about self-promotion and trying to get the spotlight on him. When he made a sack he would have these ridiculous celebrations where he'd jump around and throw his arms around, and this was in an era where an elaborate TD celebration was a guy simply spiking the ball. Gastineau would only play for sacks, if a running back was going towards him, Gastineau would generally just stop and let the back run right by him. If "selfish player" was in the dictionary, Gastineau's picture would be right next to it. It was even known back then that all of his teammates disliked him. It was a completely dick move for Favre to do what he did, because IMO that was a selfish move that disrespected his own teammates. Mark Tauscher and Bubba Franks work their tails off to block that guy and then Favre goes and gives him a freebie. It must be pointed out that was all Strahan got thiat day, as Tauscher put on a dominating performance. Packers went up and down the field and eventually just took the fourth quarter off, as they had a 34-10 lead at the end of the third.

I had a pretty good time listening to the score out of Chicago this morning. Even though they will acknowledge that the offensive and defensive lines are terrible, the result of this game was really due to Shanahan coaching circles around the new head coach/offensive playcaller and new defensive playcaller. For some odd reason, I am thinking that if Shanahan took the field with the Bears roster, then he is the one who would have taken the beat-down. I honestly, 100% believe that if the Georgia Bulldogs had walked out on that field yesterday, that they would have managed more than 4 yards of offense in the first half. Lots of really gutless Bears players to complain behind closed doors and get the head coach fired, and then not show up for the following game.

That's crazy (not bad, just crazy). McIntosh looked at Fickell, Aranda, Leonhard and Leipold to replace Chryst, and now the Badgers are interviewing an offensive coordinator whose last two jobs were under Leipold and Aranda. His bio is still up on the Kansas website, long history as an offensive line coach. Coached at LSU under Les Miles and at Virginia Tech under Frank Beamer.

I didn't think they released the all-conference lists until after the conference championship game. Wow, what an ugly list for Wisconsin. One 3rd teamer. I guess one has to take into consideration the ridiculous number of teams in the conference. But still, one 3rd teamer...makes me feel like I am a Purdue fan, Apparently, I picked the right year to stop going to and watching games altogether. The Huber thing is funny because the media seemed to talk about Nelson, Mahlman and Brunner, but I never heard much about Huber. The fact that Nelson, Mahlman and Brunner were 4-star recruits, and Huber was a transfer, probably played a role in that. But I agree, considering Huber played that well, then Wedig and Barrett were not significant losses. I still see Paez and Johnson being pretty big losses, especially after reading quotes from Fickell about lacking enough big bodies (especially at end where Johnson would have been a big help). Still can't believe Johnson left Madison and wound up in the situation he did. Since NFL teams just draft guys based on workout numbers now, these projections may change dramatically, but as of today...Nic Scourton appears to be a round one lock and probably slightly better than 50/50 to go in the top half of round one...Shemar Stewart looks to be a round two or very early round three pick...Shemar Turner is probably late round three or round four....DJ Hicks, 2023 class, #3 at Rivals, #11 at 247sports. I'm probably biased on Jordan Turner because I thought he had shown pretty good improvement the more he played here and was disappointed to see him go. It's nice to see that he seemed to do well at Michigan State.

To sum up the losses, I was as excited as probably anybody over Nick Evers, but he sure doesn't look like anything special as he ended up splitting time at UConn and ended up with a 5/5 TD/INT ratio. Burkett started at a lower level but the stat line is pretty unimpressive. Wide receiver, big losses there. Have to believe that Dike, Bell and Lewis would have made this team much better, even with questionable QB play. Rucci is another 5 star bust. It will be interesting to see if he just stays home or if he transfers again (or if Franklin boots him back into the portal). I'll be interested to see if Wedig gets some all-conference mentions (Big 10 OL is deep enough where I don't think he gets all-team type honors, but maybe an honorable mention). From what I've read, it doesn't sound like Wedig or Barrett would have been starting ahead of Nelson, Mahlman or Brunner. Maybe if these guys would have stuck around, the Badgers would have had an upgrade at RG? I really don't know much about Joe Huber, as I didn't read much of anything positive or negative about him. The stat sheet on Paez is nothing special, but he was a starter and was playing the nose for LSU. Seems like he was a pretty big loss as I wasn't hearing very much positive stuff about the Badger defensive front six. Rodas Johnson picked the wrong team to go to, as A&M have 3 defensive lineman that look to be taken within the first 5 or so rounds of the upcoming draft, and the 4th one is a 5-star sophomore who was the #1 DLman in his class according to both 247 and Rivals). Jordan Turner was a pretty good player for the Badgers and appears to have been the biggest individual loss the Badgers had. Have to believe he would have been a significant help to the defensive front. Defensive backs, really didn't appear to lose much there.

DB - AJ Tisdell - Incarnate Ward = 12 games, 45 tackles, 1 interception, 7 pass breakups DB - Amaun Williams - Concordia = ???, I checked five different schools named Concordia, and did not locate Williams on any roster. Also could not locate him using general internet searches CB - Michael Mack - Ohio = 12 games, 12 tackles, 1 tackle for loss I think that is it for the guys who transferred out last year.