THE PALLILOG
There's no getting around it, a broader problem still exists for the NFL
Feb 4, 2022, 9:41 am
Brian Flores is going all-in. Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images.
It’s our first weekend since August devoid of football games of any meaning whatsoever. The Pro Bowl is as big a waste of three hours as exists on the sports calendar hence certainly does not count. Let’s hope our calendar isn’t devoid of Major League Baseball games into a good portion of the spring. Owner-player negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement have made incremental progress at most. Major League Baseball seeking to add a federal mediator to the talks can’t hurt I guess, but the players have to agree to it. If no deal is done by the end of this month, uh oh. There’s already no way that spring training starts on time.
The NFL still commanded the top sports news slot of the week. The top two really, and boy it took a doozy to relegate Tom Brady's retirement to the runner-up slot. Fired Dolphins’ head coach Brian Flores lit a powder keg in filing a class action lawsuit against the Dolphins, Giants, Broncos and whole NFL over alleged racist hiring practices. The NFL clearly has systemic racism in its history. It doesn’t take white sheet and hood wearing pure evil to be racist, or at least racially insensitive or improper. As society continues dealing/not dealing with what is probably an eternal problem of race issues, sometimes it’s hard to fairly redress an individual problem (that may or may not exist) even though a broader problem obviously exists.
If the Texans hire the utterly unqualified Josh McCown to be their head coach, is that racist? No. Laughable, but not racist, unless someone has specific evidence to the contrary. It would however speak to the overall problem of an ol’ boys network of opportunities that grossly disfavors minorities. That said, the notion that because roughly 70 percent of NFL players are black a similar percentage should be NFL head coaches, is silly. But one out of 32? In the 1960s Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously addressed pornography by noting that while he couldn’t specifically define it, “I know it when I see it.” In this case “it” is systemic racism. Painted end zone slogans and helmet decals notwithstanding.
It would seem illogical for Flores to just make up allegations that Miami owner Steve Ross offered him 100-thousand dollars per loss in 2019. There is a difference between “tanking” for draft positioning and ostensibly asking for games to be thrown. Ross of course denies everything. So the one thing we know is that Flores or Ross is a liar. If Flores is proven to be the untruth teller, his career would be rightfully destroyed. If Ross is proven to be the untruth teller, he could face criminal charges.
College football
Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher sure poured it on thick this week when getting all worked up over suggestions that NIL deals had anything to do with the Aggies’ historically fantastic recruiting class. He all but challenged fellow SEC head coaches to a fistfight. Of course the NIL situation helped the Ags. It’s the new landscape of recruiting. It’s a good thing for the program that A&M’s massive and wealthy alumni base has rabidly embraced the system. Come on Jimbo, it’s the same backbone that has you with a 90 million dollar contract.
Eric Gordon on the move?
The NBA trade deadline arrives Thursday. Rockets’ general manager Rafael Stone should not overvalue Eric Gordon as a trade asset. Gordon is a solid pro shooting the ball very well this season. He’s also 33 years old with 19 and a half million dollars guaranteed for next season. The Rockets definitely don’t owe it to Gordon to deal him to a contender, but holding out for a good young starter or multiple first round picks in return would be an over-ask. How aggressively to shop Christian Wood is a more interesting question.
While the Rockets enter the weekend with 15 wins in 51 games this season, the Houston Cougars have 19 wins in their 21 games played. Wednesday night while the Rockets were snapping their franchise worst tying 11 game home court losing streak, the Coogs were winning their 37th straight at the Fertitta Center. Over the last four seasons (counting this one as the fourth), Kelvin Sampson’s squads are a spectacular 103-18. This Sunday UH plays at Cincinnati, the Bearcats do pose a mild upset risk.
Buzzer Beaters:
1. It worked I guess, but to try and boost its chances it was pretty sad that U.S. soccer chose to schedule a February 2 World Cup qualifying game against Honduras outdoors in St. Paul Minnesota.
2. The Winter Olympics are underway in China. Were you aware?
3. Winter Olympic sports I’d love to try: Bronze-curling Silver-bobsleigh (wait, it’s not the bobsled?) Gold-luge
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Astros lose tight one despite brilliant outing from Hunter Brown
May 15, 2025, 10:29 pm
It’s a fun series between the Astros and Rangers through the weekend in Arlington, but by no means is it a critical series. It would be nice for the Astros to not lose three out of the four games (or obviously all four) to their upstate rivals. The Astros have lost their last five road series, dropping two out of three games in each of them. As with the Astros, pitching has been the strength of the team for the Rangers thus far. After the humdinger Hunter Brown-Jacob deGrom mound matchup Thursday night, the Rangers give the ball Friday to Nathan Eovaldi with his earned run average at 1.78, then Saturday it’s Tyler Mahle with his even more sparkling 1.47 ERA. Heading into Thursday play, the Mariners having lost five of their last six games meant just a game and a half separate first from fourth place in the American League West. The Astros, Rangers, and Athletics are all right there. Only the Angels are inconsequential.
Star power!
There is an asterisk to attach but Jeremy Pena is making a real charge at becoming a first-time All-Star game selection. Among American League shortstops, the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. is clearly the best. The clear number two in the pecking order coming into this season was the Orioles’ Gunnar Henderson, who is on fire after a slow start that began with him missing seven games on the injured list. Athletics’ rookie Jacob Wilson goes into the weekend batting .350 and amazingly has struck out just nine times in 164 at bats. Rangers’ stud Corey Seager being on the injured list with a balky hamstring for the second time this season helps the Astros this weekend and likely frees up an All-Star spot.
Now to that aforementioned asterisk. Pena has been sensational so far, indisputably the Astros’ best everyday player. We just need to see more staying power of performance before fully slotting Pena in the top tier of shortstops. Pena’s four-hit game Wednesday night hiked his batting average to .315, his OPS to .840. Well, last year Pena put head to pillow the night of May 15 with his batting average at .333, his OPS at .830. The rest of the season Pena hit .240 with a meager .653 OPS. That Pena drew a paltry 18 walks over his last 114 games. 2025 Pena has showed markedly better plate discipline. He’ll never be a high walks-drawn guy but incremental improvement matters, and can bear fruit in other ways.
Fruitless continues to describe an awfully high percentage of Christian Walker’s plate appearances. 2023 Jose Abreu was better (2024 Abreu was not). Plenty of season still remains for a turnaround, but more than a quarter of the season is gone and it’s not as if Walker is trending in the right direction. In three games against the Royals he went zero for 12 with seven strikeouts. With his final whiff, Walker reached the 50 strikeout “milestone” for the season in his 154th at bat. Feeble and lousy are fair characterizations of a .208 batting average and .625 OPS, magnified for someone batting clean-up most nights. Starting play Thursday 13 big leaguers actually had struck out more than Walker so far this season, among them only the Pirates’ Bryan Reynolds carries a lower OPS. Walker has been even worse with runners in scoring position, batting just .171, with a sub-abysmal 20 strikeouts in 41 at bats.
Using Baseball-Reference's Wins Above Replacement statistic, the Astros’ three worst non-pitchers this season are Walker, Yordan Alvarez, and Jose Altuve. Those are the three highest paid players on the team. Altuve’s extended funk has him hitting .202 over his last 27 games with a .538 OPS. Altuve was dropped to second in the batting order basically at his request. It has not sparked him. If Altuve doesn’t pick it up, manager Joe Espada will have to consider dropping Altuve several more spots down the lineup. Alvarez is at 11 games and counting missed with a muscle strain in his right hand. He will not be approaching the career-high 147 games played last season.
Relief pitcher Tayler Scott was a revelation last season. Before joining the Astros at age 31 Scott had a big-league ERA of 9.00 in 46 innings scattered over three seasons. So it was pretty much out of nowhere that the only South African pitcher in MLB history posted a scintillating 1.36 ERA into early August before fading and winding up with a still stellar 2.23 mark. The clock struck midnight on his Cinderella story this year though, and with the Astros needing to open a roster spot this week, Scott was designated for assignment.
Book it!
Longtime Astros’ broadcasting stalwart Bill Brown has authored several books. His latest is Wartime Athletes, which tells the stories of athletes across a number of sports who served in the U.S. military during various wars. If you know anything about Bill Brown, you know each story was meticulously researched and makes for an interesting read. I’m no Oprah when it comes to the power of suggestion for reading material, but Wartime Athletes is worth your time and/or is a worthy gift for someone else.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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