Normally, this is top 10 Tuesday but with so much going on and me missing Friday’s post, I figured this would be fitting. Don’t worry there will still be plenty to cover for 5 for Friday so you get a double dose this week. This is one of the better weeks of sports with March Madness and NFL free agency in the same week along with a few other sports shenanigans so lets dive in!

The good old Tampering period

The NFL cracks me up for many reasons but one of my favorite things is the 2 day “legal” tampering period. This is the one of the only times you see the words legal and tampering used together. The NFL is basically saying free agency doesn’t start until Wednesday, but go ahead and start signing people anyway. I mean we won’t really sign them until Wednesday…wink, wink. This is pretty much how the NFL does most of its financials. We have a salary cap that you must stay under…wink wink. We are going to pay a guy a bunch of money but most of it will never see it ways on the salary cap and a good portion will never see its way to the player either…wink, wink. Anyway, it is good fun for all of us. Also, if you are Aaron Rodgers you can tamper all you want apparently including telling the team you might be going to who to sign. More on that in a minute.

The Raiders moved on from Derek Carr to get a slightly lesser, more injury prone version of Derek Carr

In a classic Raider move, they ran off the guy who had been loyal to them for years (most of them bad) to get Jimmy G to come play quarterback for them. Jimmy G has a pretty outstanding win/loss record but that was due to a few games with the Patriots and the rest with the 49ers who for the last 4 years everyone has said has the best roster in the league…besides quarterback. Jimmy G is so good that the 49ers spent a ton of trade capital to go up and get Trey Lance. But Jimmy G is going to be reunited with Josh McDaniels who failed miserably in Denver and now is failing in Las Vegas. The Raiders are stuck with him because they don’t have any money and can’t buy him out because they are already paying a few other coaches they fired. So now they will have a lesser version of Derek Carr for 8-10 games next year before he gets injured.

Aaron Rodgers taking his weird to the big city

Reports have come out that Rodgers to the Jets is a done deal. Now that it has been leaked out, I am confident that Rodgers will drag this out as long as possible or even return to the Packers. He is even recruiting people to the Jets so it would be even funnier if they signed a bunch of players he wants and then he turns around and says…nah, I’m good. I’m gonna stay in Green Bay. Although, I think the Packers are over it. They are looking for their quarterback to put in a little more effort, like show up to practice and stuff like that. I know pretty demanding. I don’t think returning to the Packers is even an option at this point. So now it is go to the Jets or retire. Pretty much all the other teams are out. Dude is 39 years old. Also, he is high maintenance. He is weird. And he doesn’t win in the playoffs. The best part is he is following in Favre’s footsteps. Favre was debating retirement for several years until at age 39 he went to the Jets. Now Rodgers is doing the same thing. We should fully expect Rodgers to play for the Vikings in 2024. And then after retiring he will make awkward jean commercials and then several years later be a part of state welfare scandal. Just expect a lot more weird things in between all those things. Maybe Rodgers should go back to his darkness retreat and just stay in there.

The Chiefs have a new tackle

Jawaan Taylor is now a Chief. We couldn’t agree on a contract with Orlando Brown so we moved on…quickly. This is one of the things I love about Veach. We moved on from Frank Clark. We moved on from Eric Berry and Justin Houston. We moved on from Fisher and Schwartz and the honey badger. The list goes on and on. Now, they are saying they are going to move Taylor to left tackle which does concern me a little bit. He has never played left tackle. In four years with the Jags, he always played right tackle. He also only played right tackle in college. But hey, who am I to question Veach. Brown and Wylie didn’t give up any sacks in the Super Bowl. In case you missed it, they even put it on a t-shirt. Brown always makes the pro bowl. But statistically neither of these guys were very good. At one point in the middle of the season, they were 1 and 2 in pressures allowed. They did get better as the year went on. However, it isn’t like Mahomes went untouched in the Super Bowl. There are several reasons that Mahomes didn’t get sacked. Most of our plays were quick throws and runs. Mahomes is very good at avoiding pressure. And finally, the field was total crap and the Eagles defensive ends were falling every where. Brown and Wylie played pretty well but neither are great players. Taylor on the other hand, allowed the 3rd least pressures of any tackle in the league. Taylor is basically the opposite of Brown, better at pass blocking than at run blocking. Good news for us, we don’t really like to run anyway. This is at worst an even trade off. I am betting we will be happier with Taylor than we were with Brown.

Broncos spending money…again

The Broncos have made several moves and they have all been solid. But the funniest part is living here and hearing about how great the roster was for 4 or 5 years and they were just missing the quarterback. Last year they traded and paid a bunch of money for their missing piece and now all of the sudden none of the other pieces are any good. I have no doubt that Sean Payton will make them a functioning team again. And I am sure all offseason on my drive to work I’ll hear about how the Broncos are now just as good as the Chiefs. After all, it is the time for paper champions. At least they have some new material to talk about.

49ers Signing Sam Darnold

The 49ers signed another great defensive line player because that is what they do. They also are signing Sam Darnold as insurance since Trey Lance and Brock Purdy are both coming off of surgery. I fully expect Sam Darnold to trip and tear his ACL immediately after signing.

Bills, Bengals, Eagles are getting worse

It is early but arguably our 3 biggest competitors to a repeat have all gotten worse so far. They have all lost several defensive players and so they will have to rebuild that side of the ball. The good news is it can be done. We did it last year. The bad news is most teams can’t do it because they don’t draft that well and they don’t have Andy Reid and Pat Mahomes. All of this is good news for me.

March Madness is upon us!

The madness is here! I have to admit I love the tournament although it is arguably the dumbest way to determine a champion. I mean why does the 3rd best team from the Mountain West even get a shot at winning it all? But it is what it is. So just as Free agency slows down, basketball picks up. And to make it even better, Mizzou doesn’t suck and is in the tourney. I think we have a great shot to win at least one game. In all seriousness, I think we could make a little run. We don’t quit and we can shoot the 3. If we are on we can beat just about anyone. Unfortunately our weakness is rebounding and playing against good big men. Hopefully there aren’t any of those in the tourney this year. I don’t pay that much attention to college basketball but I will be tuned in this weekend. If Mizzou loses, I’ll be cheering for the field against any teams that have k and u in them. (You know who you are, kansas and Kentucky).

Tiger Woods teaches us all a new way to break up

In other news, Tiger Woods broke up with his girlfriend. That isn’t really all that newsworthy and it happened a while ago. But what we didn’t know was how he broke up with her. Apparently his staff tricked her into thinking she was going on a big vacation. Once they got her out of the house they permanently locked her out. Now different reports are saying that they had already broken up but they had a deal that she could live there for a certain duration. Either way this is crazy and hilarious. I mean not for her. But for you and me it is pretty funny. I guess this is what happens when you don’t take a hint. I’m no relationship expert but if someone breaks up with you, they typically don’t want to keep living with you. And I guess if they really won’t take the hint, you lock them out of your house. But talk about your highs and lows. Hey I’m going on a sweet vacation! Oh, wait, I’m locked out of my house and not going on vacation. That is a quick turn around of emotions. One thing is for sure, if my wife says she is surprising me with a vacation, I’ll be skeptical from now on.

NBA Players upset about having to show up to work

For several years now, players have been taking games off to rest up and in theory be better overall and late in the season. But it keeps getting worse. Charles Barkley called them all out recently and now the league is even considering implementing rules that make players play a certain percentage of games. I don’t go to or watch NBA games. But if I paid top dollar for tickets and then showed up only to find out that all the best players weren’t playing, I’d be pretty upset. I guess we are sort of used to it in baseball, but they play 162 games a year, not 82. Also, you play a game for a living. Most of us have to go to jobs we think are “eh” most of the time. We don’t do the one thing we dreamed of doing as little kids. And we have to show up 5 days a week. Granted, some of us might not work very hard at those jobs but we still have to show up. Anyway, I don’t know who’s fault this trend is but I’ll just go ahead and blame LeBron.

Tune in on Friday for the 5 for Friday as I’ll have more thoughts from NFL free agency, the tourney and we will see if Aaron Rodgers can make a decision and if Tiger Woods has locked any other girlfriends out of his house.