Mondays are perfect days for Hot Sports Takes!<\/p>\n
Yeesh. Once Rex Ryan took the Bills head coaching job, this officially became the dreaded tough road opener against a team with a great defense and something to prove<\/em>. Which is an actual NFL game description. A loss wasn\u2019t out of the question, but getting worked over, totally owned, and blown out was unexpected. I only saw the first quarter because of soccer so can\u2019t make any broad assessments. Hopefully T.Y. Hilton will not miss much time. Hopefully that D-line can get things figured out. Hopefully Luck will be sharper playing indoors. Fortunately, the Colts play in a terrible division. Unless…<\/p>\n is for real. Man, what a pro debut! He\u2019s not doing that every week, for sure. But suddenly the Tennessee games aren\u2019t two automatic W\u2019s on the schedule for the Colts.<\/p>\n Mr. Manning looked terrible. Many of the same issues we saw late last year: his throws often looked weak and off-the-mark. Even the good balls sailed on him. You can\u2019t panic about a single game in the NFL. And with his track record, he deserves more time before we begin penning his playing obituary. But he did not inspire much confidence yesterday. Fortunately he has great receivers, a great running game, and a fantastic defense supporting him. He doesn\u2019t need to put up 35 every week to win. But if you\u2019re a Broncos fan, you\u2019re already sweating the playoffs.<\/p>\n I did not stay up to watch the end of the Giants-Cowboys game (or watch much at all), but I had to laugh when I read this morning of the Giants out-Cowboying the Cowboys. I\u2019ll give Dallas this: pretty much every game they\u2019re in is entertaining and has something you\u2019ve never seen before. With them apparently rubbing off on the opponents, that doubles the fun!<\/p>\n I did not watch much of the SNF game because I got sucked into the US Open men\u2019s final. It was far from a classic, but it was still terrific TV.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t watch nearly as much tennis as I did a decade or more ago. The US Open was always a fun part of the first couple weeks of the college school year. We\u2019d watch a match, then run down to the campus courts and get a few games in before the lights shut off at 11. As much as I hate to admit it, the dearth of highly ranked American men keeps me from really enjoying the sport.<\/p>\n Still, the Djokovic-Federer match was fun viewing, notably because the huge crowd was trying to push Roger to victory. The rapid swings in the match were what kept me glued to ESPN. One moment Djokovic seemed poised to blow out Roger, the next Federer had completely stolen the momentum. In the third set Federer was points away from taking a 5–4 lead only to see it quickly slip away. And then down 5–2 in the fourth set, Roger roared back to make it a nervous finish for Djokovic. Not quite Federer-Nadal at Wimbledon, but it was fun to watch.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s totally crazy to me that Djokovic had 10 grand slam titles. I know he\u2019s been good for years, but 10 already??? I don\u2019t think his game matches Federer in his prime, and perhaps even Sampras\u2019. But he has a really good shot of passing Federer\u2019s grand slam record before he\u2019s done.<\/p>\n Time to panic. Or at least ramp those post-season expectations way back. A month ago they were the World Series favorites after adding Cueto and Zobrist. Today, I\u2019m not sure they win two games in a playoff series. Fortunately there are still three weeks to play, and hopefully get Cueto and everyone else right again.<\/p>\n All three girls are finally in real competition. An update on their escapades later this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mondays are perfect days for Hot Sports Takes! Colts Yeesh. Once Rex Ryan took the Bills head coaching job, this officially became the dreaded tough road opener against a team with a great defense and something to prove. Which is an actual NFL game description. A loss wasn\u2019t out of the question, but getting worked over, totally owned, and blown out was unexpected. I only saw the first quarter because of soccer so can\u2019t make any broad assessments. Hopefully T.Y. Hilton will not miss much time. Hopefully that D-line can get things figured out. Hopefully Luck will be sharper playing indoors. Fortunately, the Colts play in a terrible division. Unless… Marcus Mariotta… is for real. Man, what a pro debut! He\u2019s not doing that every week, for sure. But suddenly the Tennessee games aren\u2019t two automatic W\u2019s on the schedule for the Colts. Peyton Mr. Manning looked terrible. Many of the same issues we saw late last year: his throws often looked weak and off-the-mark. Even the good balls sailed on him. You can\u2019t panic about a single game in the NFL. And with his track record, he deserves more time before we begin penning his playing obituary. But he did not inspire much confidence yesterday. Fortunately he has great receivers, a great running game, and a fantastic defense supporting him. He doesn\u2019t need to put up 35 every week to win. But if you\u2019re a Broncos fan, you\u2019re already sweating the playoffs. SNF I did not stay up to watch the end of the Giants-Cowboys game (or watch much at all), but I had to laugh when I read this morning of the Giants out-Cowboying the Cowboys. I\u2019ll give Dallas this: pretty much every game they\u2019re in is entertaining and has something you\u2019ve never seen before. With them apparently rubbing off on the opponents, that doubles the fun! US Open I did not watch much of the SNF game because I got sucked into the US Open men\u2019s final. It was far from a classic, but it was still terrific TV. I don\u2019t watch nearly as much tennis as I did a decade or more ago. The US Open was always a fun part of the first couple weeks of the college school year. We\u2019d watch a match, then run down to the campus courts and get a few games in before the lights shut off at 11. As much as I hate to admit it, the dearth of highly ranked American men keeps me from really enjoying the sport. Still, the Djokovic-Federer match was fun viewing, notably because the huge crowd was trying to push Roger to victory. The rapid swings in the match were what kept me glued to ESPN. One moment Djokovic seemed poised to blow out Roger, the next Federer had completely stolen the momentum. In the third set Federer was points away from taking a 5–4 lead only to see it quickly slip away. And then down 5–2 in the fourth set, Roger roared back to make it a nervous finish for Djokovic. Not quite Federer-Nadal at Wimbledon, but it was fun to watch. And it\u2019s totally crazy to me that Djokovic had 10 grand slam titles. I know he\u2019s been good for years, but 10 already??? I don\u2019t think his game matches Federer in his prime, and perhaps even Sampras\u2019. But he has a really good shot of passing Federer\u2019s grand slam record before he\u2019s done. Royals Time to panic. Or at least ramp those post-season expectations way back. A month ago they were the World Series favorites after adding Cueto and Zobrist. Today, I\u2019m not sure they win two games in a playoff series. Fortunately there are still three weeks to play, and hopefully get Cueto and everyone else right again. Kid Sports All three girls are finally in real competition. An update on their escapades later this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[67,70,21,169],"class_list":["post-5518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-football","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-us-open"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13952,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5518\/revisions\/13952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMarcus Mariotta…<\/h3>\n
\nPeyton<\/h3>\n
\nSNF<\/h3>\n
\nUS Open<\/h3>\n
\nRoyals<\/h3>\n
\nKid Sports<\/h3>\n