Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – NFL GAMES – The AFC and NFC Championship games will be played on Sunday and, to some degree, it feels like both games could end up being letdowns.  Denver has to play New England with Jarett Stidham at quarterback.  Stidham has thrown only 197 career passes in the NFL and none at all since 2023.  So, it feels like a game New England won’t lose unless they are stupid and make enough mistakes to just hand it over to the Broncos.  In the NFC, the Seahawks put RB Zach Charbonnet on IR and Sam Darnold is not healthy as he was a limited participant in practice all week.  With the Seahawks at full strength, their game with the Rams has all the makings of a classic but I think the Rams are well positioned here to win this going away.

3 – UFC 324 – The first card of the year ended with a real banger as Justin Gaethje scored a unanimous decision over Paddy Pimblett in a five round brawl.  Pimblett showed incredible heart and should have been knocked out several times but he stayed in it despite a couple of infractions against him that went uncalled (one eye poke and one shot in the crown jewels).  Pimblett won the third round and rallied in the fifth but Gaethje had inflicted a lot of damage in rounds 1, 2, and 4 and that was enough to come away with the win and interim lightweight title.  From here, you have to think Gaethje will fight Arman Tsarukyan while Pimblett’s next opponent may be along the lines of Dan Hooker, Max Holloway, or even Charles Oliveira.  Ilia Topuria is atop the weight class but he’s on an indefinite leave for personal reasons.

4 – MORE UFC – The co-main event/undercard isn’t without controversy.  Sean O’Malley was awarded a decision over Song Yadong and while O’Malley had a strong finish to the fight by winning the last 90 seconds or so, the reality here is that Yadong won the first two rounds on a lot of observers’ scorecards (including mine).  The commentating from Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier was also very pro-O’Malley but you can only prop a fighter for so long.  O’Malley has already lost to Merab Dvalishvili twice and while he does have a win over champion Petr Yan that dates back to 2022, that was also a very close fight that could have gone either way.  Personally, I’d like to see a Merab-Yan rematch and O’Malley face Cory Sandhagen.  I’d also be okay with a Merab-Song fight.  Lots of possibilities there.

5 – NCAA FOOTBALL – Indiana defeated Miami for the NCAA Football Championship and Hurricanes QB Carson Beck is under a bit of fire for poor sportsmanship as he skipped shaking hands following the game.  One opinion on that as to why could be that Beck was hurt as he appeared to take a big hit late when there were only two or three plays left in the game.  The other thought process for me is that handshakes aren’t an actual requirement anyway.  Yes, it’s nice to congratulate the winning team and be a good sport and it’s not a great look but maybe Beck issued a private congratulatory message after the fact.  In the heat of a big battle like that, it’s actually not the worst thing in the world to just walk away and wear off the loss before giving a genuine compliment to the winning side.

6 – SENS SANDERSON – Ottawa Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson took some criticism for a postgame interview last weekend where he said his goaltender needed to make more than 10 saves if the team is expecting to win a hockey game.  If Sanderson is going to be criticized for this, all interviews with players need to come to an end immediately.  What’s the point of talking to them if there is a canned acceptable response and anything other than that is going to result in people losing their minds?  Just use AI and attribute it to Sanderson and have the robot say they need to play a full sixty minutes and that they also need to help out their goalie.

7 – CFL SALARIES – CFL free agency is upon us and despite diminishing attendance in just about every centre, the league has announced an increase in the salary cap, citing revenues that are $10-million more than the baseline established in 2024.  The Commisioner put out a statement saying, “The energy around our sport has never been stronger.”  If you have been a frequent reader of my column, it’s no secret that I’ve been claiming for a couple of years now that actual bums in the seats has minimal impact on the amount of money professional sports teams are making and this salary cap increase would seem to further back that up.  I do have some questions about the coach salary cap but nobody seems to talk about that anymore so maybe they just quietly did away with it now that Chris Jones isn’t running a team?

8 – MLB – Hard to believe but pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training in a little more than two weeks.  The Dodgers, with their infinite amount of money to spend, are favorites to win the World Series for the third year in a row and I’m not sure why anyone in the NL West would even bother to try and field a competitive team.  After all, they don’t lose anyone from their championship team plus they go out and add more.  If they don’t win, Dave Roberts and everyone above him should be fired.

9 – TENNIS & POLITICS – I am not an avid tennis watcher anymore but my social media feed still seemed to be full of some jerk reporter doing interviews and trying to catch the players in a ‘gotcha’ moment by drilling them with ridiculous questions about American politics.  Apparently this individual works for The Athletic and I’ve been a paying subscriber to that service for as long as it’s been around.  But, that is about to come to an end unless this dufus is sent packing.  

10 – NBA & POLITICS – The NBA has never been shy about injecting politics into their game.  Remember George Floyd?  Well on Saturday, the league canceled a game in Minnesota as a response to the danger happening in Minneapolis with regards to ICE and protesters who have clashed over the federal government’s attempt to rid the area of illegal people and illegal activity.  Maybe it is dangerous but the NHL played a game in Minneapolis/St.Paul last night and it appeared to go off without a hitch.  I’m not going to comment a lot on what’s going on other than to suggest if you are an American citizen and not engaging in criminal activity and just minding your own business, you probably have a 99% chance of never encountering an ICE agent.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)