Is ET Coming Home or What?

Wilbanks, , 1 Comment

The long running saga between Earl Thomas and America’s Team began on Christmas Eve of 2017. After beating us in a virtual playoff game in Week 16, the native Texan ran through the Cowboys tunnel to catch Jason Garrett and ask him to ‘come get me’ once Seattle ‘kicked him to the curb’…

(Side Note: That game was the beginning of the end for Dez in Dallas. Here are his full highlights from the game)

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Trade rumors were buzzing when he held out the entire 2018 offseason and camp. Dallas offered a 2nd round pick, but Seattle demanded both a 1st and 3rd. That was way too much for a pending free agent, so Dallas declined.

ET was not pleased, and he made his feelings known against us in Week 3 in the form of two interceptions and a bow…

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It looked like the saga was over for good last summer when Baltimore opened the bank for ET in a way that Dallas could not afford.

The Ravens were awesome and ET got cockier and cockier about his team as the season went along. He said that the Ravens, and not the Niners, were guaranteed a Super Bowl spot. He also trash talked the Pats defense for not wanting to tackle Derrick Henry…

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Anyways we all know how that worked out. Despite the choke job vs Tennessee, ET still looked to be in a good spot to wind down the prime of his career with Baltimore. Then shit got super real over the summer.

In April, his wife held him up at gunpoint when she raided an orgy that he and his brother were hosting in Austin.

Early in camp, he got kicked out of practice after getting into an all out brawl with fellow starting safety Chuck Clark. Fighting in football practice is not a big deal, but it was the latest in a string of problems ET’s had with his teammates.

They had already grown sick of him last year because he kept to himself in a tight-knit locker room, called out DT Brandon Williams for not playing through injury in their Week 4 loss to Cleveland, and skipped all the team workouts this offseason (even though he reported to camp in great shape).

The straw that broke the camel’s back was him releasing a video of the pre-fight coverage breakdown on Instagram, and sharing private practice intel to the public is a big no no.

https://twitter.com/RonVista52/status/1297571214207016961?s=20

The Ravens ‘leadership council’ requested he be released, and now he’s a free agent.

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Dallas was the top team to sign him after he got released, but it’s been almost three weeks and he’s still unemployed. Is ET coming home or what?

Obviously Jerry Jones would love for that to happen, but contrary to popular belief he is not the real decision maker in Dallas. He is a spokesman while his son Stephen runs the football operations with massive delegation to Mike McCarthy and Will McClay.

McCarthy does not seem too keen on signing ET, likely because of his relationship with Seahawks GM John Schneider going back to their Green Bay days. As it stands now, sources keep telling journalists that the Cowboys have no interest and all the ET rumors are bullshit.

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That being said, safety is definitely our biggest question mark going into the season. The current starter at free safety is Xavier Woods, who can play in both spots and has very high ceiling potential. Last year however, our scheme got exposed and he struggled along with everyone else on defense.

In the strong safety spot, we had hopes for HaHa Clinton-Dix, but he disappointed in camp and got cut. That leaves the starting job to special teams journeyman Darian Thompson – not good.

We did sign Brandon Carr recently, who is a solid old vet and could be dependable. There’s also been a lot of noise about playing Cheetoh at safety.

I’m cool with rolling with those guys to start the season and seeing how things work. McCarthy has proven trustworthy to this point, and we don’t need entitlement culture seeping through.

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If anyone struggles though, Earl Thomas needs to get a call. Kevin Sherrington wrote it best: allow some time for Thomas to humble up, see how our current personnel works under live bullets, and bring him in on an incentive deal if we need him.

If that happens, it means Super Bowl. America’s haters are just gonna have to…

Is ET Coming Home or What?

Game 1: Stars Shut the Mouths of Cocky Vegass Knights in Gritty 1-0 Shutout

Wilbanks, ,

In the Colorado series, the Stars had to go against their norm and push on offense to have a prayer of outscoring the high powered Avs. We didn’t necessarily race up and down the ice, but rather played high and aggressive with forechecking to bring the physicality to the offensive zone.

The result was five goal games in all four of our wins; a huge turnaround from the 2nd lowest scoring offense in the league during regular season.

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In game 1 against Vegass, the Stars got back to our dominant defense and goaltending ways through a gritty 1-0 shutout. The neutral zone was clamped down shut, and if the Knights ever did find their way into the o-zone, the Dallas defensive bunker was impenetrable.

It’s hard to tell if we set out to use these tactics from the beginning or if the plan was to just lock down once we got a lead. The reason? Our goal came on our very first shot, just two and half minutes into the game…

Maybe we would’ve opened up more going forward if Vegass had ever equalized, but they didn’t. They didn’t even come close. Five total high danger scoring chances (including power plays) and zero total goals. It was a masterpiece.

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A lot of people are pointing to the fact that the Knights were tired after playing back to back games 6 and 7 vs the Canucks. I’m sure that affected the game, but I have no sympathy.

Vegass gets a huge break all season by playing an easy schedule in the easiest division in hockey, while we have to grind it out in the hardest division every year. Also, don’t get pushed to seven games vs Vancouver if you don’t want to be tired.

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When it comes to fatigue throughout the entire course of the series, Vegass should have the advantage. Mainly because of their goalie situation, as backup Theo Fleury looked very much like the Fleury that put the expansion team on his back and carried them to the finals two years ago.

Dobby was even better, as he stopped 100% of his shots and allowed ZERO rebound attempts.

In any given game, I’ll feel comfortable rolling with Dobby. However, he is a small goalie and depends on reflex skills that might wear down over a series.

I hope Bishop can snap out of whatever funk he’s in, or Vegass might get a leg up with fresh top-notch goalies. That’s why getting game 1 was so huge for us.

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After taking out assistant captains early on in our first two series, we got right back at it and targeted Mark Stone…

This was the best hit of the game though…

Now to Vegass’s credit, none of their players are out for the series yet. Good for them for being tougher than the Flames and Avs. Still, it was quite nice to see a team that was so visibly cocky for two series before this end up looking tired, quiet, and scared all night on Sunday.

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A couple other notes…

Heiskanen is so, so good. The Athletic’s Sean Shapiro just released a nice writeup on how his 21 year old play measures up to old legends in their primes.

One gif can’t do him justice, but there’s so many things like this that he makes look so easy. It doesn’t show up in the box score, but he’s already breaking records in that aspect anyway.

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The Avs were cheating against us all last series. It looks like Vegass won’t be able to and that might be huge. Finally, interference is being called again…

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We win three out of six and we’re in the finals. Game 2 tonight. Let’s fucking go.

Game 1: Stars Shut the Mouths of Cocky Vegass Knights in Gritty 1-0 Shutout

Saints vs Brokovich in Labor Day Weekend Screw Jobs

Wilbanks

Over Labor Day Weekend, the sports universe got a chuckle out of two of the most inexplicably hated institutions in sports – the New Orleans Saints and Novak Brokovich.

The Saints were on the verge of acquiring Jadeveon Clowney before getting railroaded by the NFL for the billionth time in the past decade…

Later, the NFL tried to smear the Saints in retaliation by pretending that they were getting duped by the Ravens and Jags. I don’t believe that for a second.

I get there are salary cap and league parity ramifications etc, but this was a clever idea that would’ve allowed for a more efficient market. The problem with the idea was that the Saints came up with it.

The league just has it out for New Orleans and I guess it will never end. Bountygate bullshit, tampering with championship games, calling offensive PI on everyone but Saints playoff opponents last year, and the list goes on…

There’s a couple reasons for this. (1) Gayle Benson conned her way into NFL ownership because she’s cool as shit, and NFL execs are intimidated by that. (2) Sean Payton became a Parcells guy after getting fired by the Giants and is therefore enemies of the Jets and Giants fans in the NFL front office.

It will all blow up in their faces soon enough. The NFL should’ve done more to protect Jameis from slander. Instead, their nemesis the Saints just lucked into landing a possible goat-in-training. (Currently fact checking the book, and it’s all checking out so far).

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However, the bigger atrocity in my opinion is what happened to Novak Brokovich…

Are you serious with this petty bullshit in the US OPEN for chrissakes? Come ooonnnn…

Brokovich is a sad tale in sports because he clearly has a good heart and tries to say all the right things to be loved, but he will always be hated.

Right now, the reason d’jour for hating Brokovich is the tournament he held in the middle of quarantine. The New York Times has the full details; it’s hard to read it all and still think of him as a bad person.

He had some primitive ideas on vaccines and science, but that doesn’t make him alone in this world by any means. Also, the key word is ‘had’ as he clearly backtracked on his statements after learning more.

I’m not one to judge someone from a poor and war-torn country for not being educated. I’m definitely not going to judge someone’s well-intentioned philanthropic events in said poor and war-torn country.

It would be nice if other tennis fans said the same, but that would be harder than admitting the real reason he’ll never get a break – they’re just mad that a tall Serbian bro ended up being better than prissy little Swiss boy.

Saints vs Brokovich in Labor Day Weekend Screw Jobs

Stars +205 vs Vegass – Bookmakers Are High for a Third Straight Series

Wilbanks, , 1 Comment

Show of hands from all my readers and be honest here y’all… Who among us has ever actually enjoyed a trip to Vegas?

Ohh hmm for some reason I don’t see any hands just like every other time I’ve ever asked this question. It’s almost like VegASS is the most overrated city in the world.

Apparently they have the most overrated hockey team in the world too because the Knights are -250 to beat us in the conference finals. I’m starting to sound like a broken record here but… what the fuck Vegas?

I understand that Vegas teams get inflated odds because of all the local tickets. And yes, this is still better odds than they gave us for the Avs. But it is still insulting and I’m having none of it.

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The Avs were the best team in the league and I still thought their price was way too high going into that series. I was proven more than right when we nearly gentleman sweep’d em before accidentally forfeiting that game 5.

The Knights on the other hand just barely escaped a seven game series against the freakin Canucks. “Yeah but they murdered the advanced stats etc etc.” Oh, great… What an accomplishment dominating possession against the freaking VANCOUVER CANUCKS.

Vancouver has been one of the worst teams in hockey over the past several seasons, with some slight improvement this year due to a weighted schedule against the easiest division opponents by far. Vegas gets the same benefit by the way.

There are five, possibly six teams in the Central division that could win the Pacific easily. Remember last year when everyone thought Calgary was good? Haha, that was funny.

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The biggest hurdle to the finals was Colorado and we just cleared that with flying colors. Making us heavy underdogs to the west coast teams is absolutely disrespectful and for the third straight time this postseason, we’re gonna have to make bookies regret it.

Fuck Vegas. Fuck their bookies. And fuck their shitty expansion team.

Stars in 6

Stars +205 vs Vegass – Bookmakers Are High for a Third Straight Series

Game 7: Stars Finally Finnish Beating That Avs

Wilbanks, , 1 Comment

I have to give Joe Sakic credit here. He hasn’t beaten us in a Game 7 yet, but he keeps getting closer and closer each time. Back in 1999, we beat the Avs asses 4-1 in the deciding game. The next year in 2000, Ray Bourque came this close to pushing us to overtime…

Now as the Avs GM, Sakic actually did extend us all the way to OT in Game 7, and he very nearly beat us. Unfortunately for him, we had a Finnish secret weapon who scored a game winning hat trick in his second ever playoff game.

Holy. Fucking. Shit. Thank god Jere Lehtinen tipped us off about this kid. Thank god Cogliano, who two years ago had the NHL iron man record, wasn’t healthy enough to play Friday.

Cogliano did serve us well before leaving, as he took out Avs defenseman Conor Timins with this hit in Game 6. It was the final bit of injury depletion that we desperately needed every single bit of.

But in Game 7, we needed the Finnish scorer more and boy did he deliver. Thank the fucking lord.

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This was an emotional game for me to say the least. I started watching on my phone at a funeral and eventually found myself chain-smoking outside an OKC Hooter’s during the OT intermission.

I realized that the last time I watched an important Dallas game at Hooter’s, it was the Game 6 loss of the Mavs/Warriors we believe series. I was about to really hate the establishment of Hooter’s and I was also about to fall into a deep abyss of depression.

Thank god things turned. Who knows if I would be here writing this today otherwise. Here’s how crunch time went down…

Are. You. Fucking. KIDDING ME JAMIE BENN! Highest paid player on our team by far, and will be for a long time, and he fucking chokes for us.

Next eight minutes I think about his albatross contract and wish we had cut him the minute he scored that goal against the USA in the Sochi games.

LIFE!!! Ohhh my god praise the lord we’re alive again!

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Dkjlsdalkfjapj!!! Sweet sweet Denis that was wiiiiidde open!

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No funeral.

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Holy shit holy shit holy shit HOLY SHIIIIIIITTT!!!! We didn’t even win the face-off and we scored TEN SECONDS LATER!

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Fuuuuuuccckkk everybody!!!! Life is awesome! I love life! 

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Game 7: Stars Finally Finnish Beating That Avs

We Have a Handful of College Football Games to Bet on Today

Wilbanks1 Comment

Believe it or not, it’s only been about a month since American sports came back. August was just the appetizer portion of this heavenly sports buffet, and now it’s time for some main courses. Conference finals, pennant races, EPL, and most importantly God’s greatest gift to America – FOOTBALL.

Technically, the first Saturday of college was last weekend with an FCS matchup. There was a team from the Southland conference vs a team from the ‘Ohio Valley’ conference and the southerners were easy money. Today is the first Saturday of FBS college football and there’s some alright games to bet on.

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Army -3.5 vs MTSU

Army is currently pounding the shit out of MTSU right now and that -3.5 was way too easy. I’m not sure why it’s taking too long for people to figure this out, but service academies are low key the best teams to get behind these days.

We’ve transitioned to a new era in America where previously all football players learned the wishbone in middle school, and now nobody learns it ever. Triple options are easy to defend if you’ve seen it enough times, but service academies are a problem because now most opponents are seeing it for the first time in their lives.

One interesting thing to note is that Army has had ZERO positive covid cases since they’ve started training, and they fully monitored all the transportation of MTSU to keep West Point safe. Pretty good discipline by the service academies.

It’s too late for this game, but now that I know I’m on a heater I’ll share the rest of my picks…

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SMU -24.5 at Texas State

SMU broke out last season under first year coach Sonny Dykes, who previously coached at Berkley and LA Tech and is very underrated. He brought in a ton of transfers, including Texas QB Shane Beuchel, and stormed out to an 8-0 record and #15 ranking through October.

This newfound SMU success brings a dilemma to Dallas football fans. On the one hand, SMU students are annoying as fuck. There’s fun rich, and then there’s douchey rich. SMU students epitomize the latter.

On the other hand, inflated egos is part of what made Dallas the capital of the football universe. Fuck it. Until they start sucking again, I’m riding the Pony Express.

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North Texas -22.5 vs Houston Baptist

The North Texas Mean Green have somewhat of a cult following in Dallas. They get a lot of pub locally because of the morning show of the legendary sports radio station 1310 The Ticket, as two former roommates of the university co-host the show.

UNT has sucked for most of its history, but they got really good in 2018 with a midget QB named Mason Fine. Last year, they fell off a bit as Fine had injuries, but head coach Seth Littrell still has the program more relevant than ever.

We’re gonna believe in the Mean Green, and say things like “let’s SEE UNT win a game today” as we post those tickets.

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Memphis -18 vs Arkansas State

Memphis is the current king of the AAC, which is the most under appreciated conference in football. They will have a new head coach, as offensive guru Mike Norvell departed to Florida State (and nearly caused a player mutiny).

Ryan Silverfield is the new man in charge and it’s TBD on how that affects Memphis. He was the assistant head coach for Norvell, so there should be continuity and I’m riding the Tigers until further notice.

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Enjoy your football!

We Have a Handful of College Football Games to Bet on Today

Game 6: Well Uhh, Shit…

Wilbanks, ,

I’m at a loss of words. We are really on the verge of the worst Dallas sports meltdown since the Mavs 06 Finals. Easily one of the worst of all time.

That game 5 forfeit might just haunt us forever. Dear god am I worried.

A few notes of positivity since it’s not over yet…

1. Partying like it’s 1999 is not a complete experience without a game 7 beatdown over the Avs.

2. The Islanders and Knights both blew 3-1 leads too, so at least we’re not alone in this. If we do win today, game 1 for our conference finals opponent will likely be their third game in four days. Advantage us. (Or at a very minimum, we won’t be disadvantaged from fatigue)

3. The Avs got even more banged up. Their captain Gabe Landeskog is questionable today, as is defenseman Conor Timmins. This is on top of the Calvert, Johnson, Donskoi, Grubauer, and Francouz injuries.

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So can we beat up a depleted team that’s likely starting the shitty old Leafs backup again? I certainly hope so. If not, no funeral

Please god make it something like this…

Game 6: Well Uhh, Shit…

Marte the Marlin Has Arrived!

Wilbanks

By my calculations, it took exactly one night for new Marlins OF Starling Marte to notch himself a full WAR.

What a deadline prize. Now it’s the fish doing the hauling instead of being hauled. Marte has a $12M option for next year that the Marlins are buying too. No more being cheap.

We cleaned the slate and are now barreling forward with a team that’s both in playoff position and has a top 5 farm system. RE2PECT The Process indeed.

To get Marte, we gave up a solid starter and a solid prospect starter – Caleb Smith and Humberto Mejia, respectively. The D-Bags may be happy, but they also suck at trading.

The Marlins are stacked in pitching, so we are certainly happy trading two spares for a win already.

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One of the reasons we are stacked is the starter tonight. Yep, it’s Sixto Clock. He’s had one start since I raved about his debut. It was his first full start and it came against the first place Rays…

Seven innings pitched, no runs, ten strikeouts, ZERO fly balls. What a legend in the making.

That changeup is just so filthy. It’s either a swing-and-miss or a ground ball. Combine that with a 100mph fireball and we’ve got something special on our hands. Lol philly.

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The fish didn’t just buy at the deadline. We also did an awesome job of selling. Second baseman Johnathan Villar went to Toronto in exchange for one of the best power hitting OF prospects in baseball – Griffin Conine. He’s the son of ‘Mr Marlin’ Jeff Conine.

Villar is good, but Isan Diaz is coming back from the covid list to replace him. Isan was one of the top prospects in the bigs last year, so hopefully he produces.

If he ends up sucking, we have another option in Jazz Chisholm. He was our #3 prospect going into this season, ahead of Sixto at #4. He has the potential to be one of those rare power hitting shortstops. He’s in the lineup tonight and I’m all excited to get jazzy at Sixto Clock.

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OTHER NOTES:

-DeGrom started four straight games against us. FOUR! What the hell, Mets? Can you pitch him against someone else for once?

Fortunately we scraped out a comeback win for his last start on Monday. It was an off day trip to Queens for a makeup game in the middle of a long homestand. Gutsy victory.

Trevor Rogers, another badass prospect recently added to the rotation, got the win. He’s moving to the bullpen to be a setup man for our badass closer Brandon Kintzler, who is 8/8 on save opps.

-Only the Dodgers have a better road record than our 14-7. Nobody has a worse home record than our 2-8. That home record is gonna regress, and it started with last night’s win to double our tally.

-It is now September 2020 and the Marlins are above .500 with a drivers seat to a playoff spot. They’re stacked with pitching and have never lost a playoff series in their two-title history. Watch. Out.

Marte the Marlin Has Arrived!

Revisiting the Time Patrick Mahomes’s Girlfriend Instagrammed Her Stepdad’s Death

Wilbanks

The coolest thing Pat Mahomes did with his new half-a-billion dollar contract was buy part of the Royals. The lamest thing he did was buy his girlfriend an engagement ring.

I feel so sorry for the neighboring restaurant patrons. Mahomes’s new fiancé definitely had no problems staying calm, mature, and not the least bit annoying when she finally got that ring she’d been working for her whole life…

Usually it is pretty stupid for an athlete to skip on the dream life and get engaged so young. It makes me think less of a player when it happens. For example, I knew Baker Mayfield was gonna suck last year when he decided that one rookie season was long enough to be single and he got married at 24yo like a loser.

With Mahomes on the other hand, it’s a bit different. I’ve heard from enough Chiefs and Tech fans over the years to understand that this is a pretty good arrangement for him.

He’s still allowed to sleep with other bitches as long as he’s discreet enough to not embarrass her publicly. She’s been with him since high school and has basically served as his life secretary for all these years.

He also has a dad that played pro baseball, and while his dad wasn’t particularly famous, the family experience still keeps Mahomes from becoming a fame whore himself. It’s part of what made Eli so great at being a NYC QB. These dudes don’t care about banging Carrie Underwood and Jessica Simpson; they just wanna ball out in playoff games.

So good on Patrick Mahomes for making his life secretary happy and maybe setting up a nice little family together. I hope it all works out!

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However the point of this post is not to muse on about some athletes marriage. No… I bring this up because it’s as good a time as any to revisit what might be the most bizarre social media post in the history of the Internet.

It came from her Instagram account on the day of Week 10, 2018 when the Chiefs hosted the Cards. It was a pregame photo with the explanation that she saw her stepdad collapse right afterwards and escorted him to the hospital. Accompanying photos show a first person view of her arriving at the hospital behind her mourning mother, and then an embrace of all three’s hands at the deathbed.

It’s still up and everything too…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqDyz8Oh5YO/?igshid=d6jc4qrn7m6n

Listen I’m not here to judge any person for the way he or she mourns. Everyone does their own thing and there’s no reason to care about something so personal for someone else when it doesn’t affect you in the slightest.

I’m just saying, this is a very public mourning in a manner I haven’t seen before. It’s interesting that’s all.

Revisiting the Time Patrick Mahomes’s Girlfriend Instagrammed Her Stepdad’s Death

Inter Miami Gets First Ever Win; Somehow Suarez Is Spurning Us?

Wilbanks,

May be a bit belated as MLS has taken a backseat to playoff sports, but I would be remiss to not cover the very first win of the future most famous franchise in the world.

It happened two Saturdays ago against Orlando City SC, who were runners up in the ‘MLS is Back’ tourney. Always good to beat your rivals.

Here is the play of the game. Beautiful cross from Ben Sweat, beautiful header by Julian Carranza, and most of all beautiful commentating from the legendary Ray Hudson…

The ultimate game winner came from our star Mexican Designated Player Rodolfo Pizarro. He celebrated by going into the stands and posing with a cutout of a lady fan. Pretty tight…

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I wrote a couple weeks ago about our open offer to Suarez and how dumb it would be for him to turn us down. At the time, he wanted to eke out one more year at Barca, but the new manager is cleaning house and he’s looking for a new team.

Instead of immediately moving to Miami and taking up the opportunity of a lifetime, Suarez is trying to move to Turin and play for Juventus. What the fuck?

Don’t get me wrong, Juventus will be awesome with him linking up with Ronaldo and Dybala. He might get them that elusive Champions League trophy and be a hero in Italy. But that probably won’t happen. They just lost to Lyon, they’re old as shit, and their best midfielder just signed with… us!

In fact, chances are Suarez is part of a colossal failure where Juve fails to win Serie A for the first time in ten years. The reason? Serie A got good again last year for the first time since that streak started.

Why bother with Italy, Suarez? If/when it doesn’t work out, you’ll be closer to 40 than 30 and regretting the chance you passed up at becoming a Miami icon. Come to Florida, keep speaking Spanish, live a dream life and make some history. Fuck Italy bro.

Inter Miami Gets First Ever Win; Somehow Suarez Is Spurning Us?