STACKHOUSE’S 10 MONDAY THOUGHTS
1 – NFC CHAMPIONSHIP – We will never really know if Brock Purdy could have run the table as a last round rookie quarterback. Purdy was injured on the first series of the game after completing his first three passes and the game was, essentially, over before it even began. Injuries happen, but it just felt we were all robbed of seeing something special. Yes, Purdy looked rather ordinary against the Cowboys and it only stands to reason the games are going to get progressively harder. But, I do know Purdy would not have taken so many delay of game penalties and the Niners would have had a better chance with him in there than what they did with Josh Johnson, who also got hurt–forcing Purdy back into the game to just hand the ball off for the entire fourth quarter. It was not a good game.
2 – NINERS QUARTERBACKS – When was the last time a San Francisco quarterback wasn’t hurt? Purdy, Jimmy Garoppolo, Trey Lance, Nick Mullens, Colin Kaepernick, and Alex Smith all have missed significant time since 2012. Before that, Jeff Garcia started to breakdown and Steve Young was forced into retirement before him. Not to mention Joe Montana. So this is a 49er thing when it comes to quarterbacks and their lack of durability.
3 – AFC CHAMPIONSHIP – I’ll admit I’m a Bengals fan and a huge fan of Joe Burrow so perhaps I’m not looking at this fairly. But, this game felt like the fix was in from the moment the officials blew dead a play that would have forced the Chiefs to punt in the fourth quarter. The play after that, Mahomes was sacked but yet another flag was thrown for defensive holding. It seemed that if there was a call to be made against the Bengals, it was going to be whistled. I’ve got nothing wrong with calling it tight, but then there was a missed hold on Skyy Moore’s punt return that set up the final drive and there was a hold on the final offensive play that sprung Mahomes for the big run that was aided by a soft unnecessary roughness out-of–bounds.
4 – NFL CREDIBILITY – There is a lot of money in pro sports for us not to discuss the possibility of games being fixed. Especially when it comes to the NFL. It’s an economic monster and yet there are still games that have calls that are not just questionable, they are mind bogglingly horrible. I have a hard time believing some of these are just ‘mistakes’.
5 – SUPER BOWL PREVIEW – We’ve got two weeks to pick it apart, but I’m going with the team that has the best quarterback – Kansas City. I’m also going with the team that has the best defensive player – Kansas City (Chris Jones). The Eagles have had a great year but they got two big breaks getting to the Super Bowl: they only had to beat Daniel Jones (who has improved to be sure, but he’s still not upper echelon) and a Niner team that really didn’t put a QB on the field at all.
6 – RUSH WIN – Before Saturday’s game, I was thinking the Saskatchewan Rush are going to have to look at finding a new game breaking scorer. Mark Matthews has had a Hall Of Fame career, but he’s starting to show his age. The slowdown is gradual, but he’s yet to have a dominating game. Well, he’s now had that dominating game. Matthews fired four goals and eight assists in a 15-10 win over Las Vegas Desert Dogs. Suddenly, you look at Matthews’ points per game totals and he’s right there near the top of the NLL. I have, officially, postponed any further thoughts of Matthews needing to, perhaps, pass the torch.
7 – FURTHER RUSH – Robert Church scored five and finished with eight points while rookie Austin Madronic netted a hat trick. Madronic is the player to watch for the future. The first round pick is improving with each passing game. Ryan Dilks returned from injury layoff and his presence can’t be understated. Overall, however, the Rush came out a little dopey. The Desert Dogs built a 4-2 lead after one before the Rush went on an 8-0 run in the second to put the contest out of reach. Alex Buque’s goaltending has been, at times, spectacular. He’s billed at over 300 pounds but he moves like he’s 185.
8 – BANNERS – A friend of mine mentioned to me during one of the television timeouts that it would be nice to have the Rush banners a bit more visible from the rafters. I’m not sure if there is anything that can be done about it, but they do seem to be tucked in up high and not nearly as easily seen as the Blades ones.
9 – BEDARD IMPACT – I guess prior to the World Juniors nobody knew Connor Bedard plays for the Regina Pats. Attendance since the World Juniors has spiked and it has to be 100% because of Bedard. No wonder they didn’t trade him. Who cares about future competitiveness when you can put money in the bank today? Bedard, at the time of this writing, has 42-goals and 43–assists in 34-games. It’s not fair. Gary Bettman can lie until his nose reaches an infinite length, but the reality is that if teams are not tanking for Bedard, they are complete fools.
10 – RANGERS PRIDE NIGHT – The New York Rangers backed off some of their virtue signaling for Pride Night as the players wore their usual jerseys in warm up and did not use rainbow tape on their sticks despite a promotion that indicated otherwise on both counts. They did make a significant financial contribution, as promised. The overwhelming majority of the public doesn’t care. Only those who write for an irrelevant publication called The Hockey News seem to be upset about it. I see these leftists firing criticisms at the NHL several times a day and yet I wonder why they continue to work in the industry since they hate it so much.
(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)
#10
With the woke virtue signaling getting sickening at this point do you know who I have a renewed appreciation for?
Harold Ballard. There was recent documentary on him. People can say what they want. His name is on the Stanley Cup. He also did his charity in silence. When he died in 1990 he left his $75m estate to charity.
Contrast that with these Woke pukes…..not one of them, not a single one does a thing for the movements they rail on about.
People have finally figured out this Era is stupidity and these virtue signatures are losers.
Mahomes deserves an academy award for that flop on the sideline, flag was way late too.
With regards to #9 you can’t have it both ways. You’ve been on here for years now whining about attendance issues. It’s either mandates, cost, blah, blah, blah. I’ve been in Regina just short of 50 years. There is a core group of individuals (myself included) that will attend Roughriders and Pats games without question. I’ve been abused by both organizations and happily so. When the game starts it’s just fun to be at the event and I’ve been to a lot of them. The Regina Pats did not keep 17 year old Conor Bedard to do nothing for the… Read more »
I think it’s fair to give credit where credit is due. The fans have come back to Pats games. I do think the pandemic sucked the enthusiasm out of sports attendance for many. I’ve written quite a bit about that but now that the Pats are getting people in the barn again, you think I should just ignore it and keep beating the same argument? Or would it make sense to acknowledge the change?
Your delusional if you think they’re getting out of the 1st round , a combined 2 wins 9 losses against Winnipeg, Red Deer , and Moose Jaw, Winnipeg blew the doors off them in each of their meetings. They’ll get 2 extra gates .
3-11 Including Saskatoon.
If you were actually going to “fix” an NFL game, the highest risk, most public and most transparent way to do it would be messing with the refs. Too many cameras, too many people involved. I’m not buying it.