NERDS AROUND TOWN

Nerds Around Town: Andrew Luck, the Dallas Cowboys and MCU news

Aug 14, 2019, 6:33 am

ART BY JESUS RODRIGUEZ

Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio and Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio show at www.nerdthugradio.com!

We're halfway through it, are you where you want to be this week?

GOOD DEED OF THE DAY

Last week while talking about the Gulf Coast Blood Center, the good people reached out to me and pointed me to another awesome thing they're doing so I thought I'd bring it to your attention now. The Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center is working with Team Liquid through the year and eligible people can win an Alienware Aurora Computer valued at $800. The campaign is called Heal For Real, and I like it. Get involved today.

PRETTY IMPRESSIVE

The MCU and Samuel L Jackson did something really impressive this year. Between Captain Marvel, Endgame and Spider Man: Far from Home, they passed $5 billion dollars in one year for one franchise. Spidey breaking a billion is even more important for the future of the MCU because Tom Holland's contract and the Spider-Man agreement were structured for three Marvel movies (Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame) and three Spidey movies, but the sixth Spidey movie only gets made if the Far From Home film broke a billion, which it now has. Technically Sony gets the Spidey money so Disney can't cheer too loudly however, Samuel L Jackson can crow as loudly as he'd like because he was in all three films, which is an even more impressive run. He was in three movies that totaled $5 billion dollars at the box office in one year. Now that's one bad man…

DALLAS WOES

The Dallas Cowboys are dangerously close to either being a pretty good team for a long time or starting over in two years. Amari Cooper, Dax Prescott and Zeke Elliot all have two seasons left before they are free agents or one of them is tag eligible. News broke yesterday that Dax was allegedly asking for $40 million a season, the spin was then spun that he's actually asking for between $33 and $35 million, which is still WAY too high for him. Allegedly, Jones has made offers to all three that makes them top 5 in pay at each of their positions, which is already too high for any of them. They all need each other to work and even then they aren't Conference Champion good with all three of them at this point, but maybe there's a chance if all three stay together. Zeke is in Mexico, Dax wants too much money, and Cooper to his credit has remained silent in all of this but Jones is hesitant to pay these guys the record-breaking money it sounds like they are all asking for. So where does Dallas go from here is they either lose all three or keep all three. It would be a mess if they re-sign Cooper but lose the other two.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF ANDREW LUCK

The Colts have just proven that you can take a great, once a decade type quarterback and in just six short seasons ruin him. They now have no clue what is going on with his body and he will probably be a week to week or month to month kind of guy every season until he just can't take it anymore. He either has an odd bone spur/growth in his lower leg near the ankle or a calf injury that is causing issues with his high ankle. They aren't sure. Considering he's already missed one whole season for a shoulder issue that essentially forced him to start over from scratch building up his arm strength and throwing again and he's now right in the middle of a five year, $140 million contract, The Colts can't get this wrong and need to take extra special care of the only good thing in their entire organization.

NOT THAT YOU ASKED

The Youngblood drama just hasn't stopped. Terrific Productions, the company with control of the Youngblood property has been invading Twitter and just acting like a child with a remote control, just all over the place. He's publicly making offers and asking people to track down Alan Moore, retired comics legend, and that no demand is too crazy to entertain. He's tweeting big time writers at Marvel and DC and offering to help them develop at his new company and he's openly courting disaster by saying he believes he can get to a million copies in sales. This is starting well.

Feel free to check out my brand new comic book Another Day at the Office or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help people struggling with cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.

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THE LEFT TURN

NASCAR: Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400 preview

Photo via: WikiCommons.

This week the NASCAR cup series heads to the world center of racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, for the inaugural fourth of July version of the Brickyard 400. This is unprecedented for NASCAR considering over the course of 50 years they are usually in Daytona around this time. While this move was met with a lot of criticism from fans, there is a positive to come from this move though, as the sport will hold their first doubleheader with Indycar. This has been talked about for many years and now it has finally come to fruition. Another new facet of this weekend will be the Xfinity Series running on the road course configuration. This could very well lead to the cup series transitioning from the oval to the road course next season should everything go well when the Xfinity series does it. It will definitely be an interesting weekend.

Last week, Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin dominated the first-ever doubleheader at Pocono. The two drivers finished first and second in both races with Harvick taking race one and Hamlin winning race two. Both of these races came down to pit-road strategy as Harvick was able to eke out a victory by taking two tires and fuel while his teammate Aric Almirola took four. The next day Denny Hamlin pretty much had the whole field covered as he went on to claim his fourth victory of the season. Overall, the idea of two races in a weekend went over well but for the racing itself, it was hard to watch. One of the main issues I had was how the drivers didn't have to shift this week. In my opinion, that was what made this track so unique. It was an oval that had road course characteristics and it usually produced some pretty good finishes. Hopefully this will be addressed when the new car makes its debut in 2022.

One of the big stories going into this week is the announcement a couple of weeks ago that NASCAR will be moving their all-star event to Bristol Motor Speedway. Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a whirlwind of news from the Bubba Wallace story at Talladega, to the doubleheader races last week. A lot of this has put this announcement on the back burner but this is a huge story. The race will be held on Wednesday, July 15th as NASCAR continues with midweek races. This is the first time since 1986 that the race will not be run at NASCAR's home track in Charlotte back when it took place at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The format will be pretty much the same as all the winners from 2019 and 2020 will all have an automatic birth into the race while the rest of the field will run in the open event the day before. The main event will feature four stages including a 15 lap closer around one of NASCAR's most popular race tracks. I think this move was long overdue and I hope that they continue with it in the future. Don't get me wrong, there isn't anything wrong with the race at Charlotte but I think a change of pace would be welcomed. I look forward to seeing how this turns out.

As we move on to Indy this weekend, the driver I have winning is Kurt Busch. This weekend will be the 2004 Cup Series champion's 700th career start, and he's won just about every race that there is to be won except this one here at the Brickyard. This week, that is going to change. It hasn't been the most consistent season for the Vegas native, but he still sits tenth in points and right in the thick of the playoff battle. This track isn't his best as he currently has a 19.42 average finish, including a dismal 30th place finish last year. But this week, I think he gets back on track with a victory as he starts second. The veteran has flown under the radar this year, but he has definitely shown spurts where we think he is going to break-out. He also has runs where it seems like him and his team are mid-pack, but there aren't many drivers out there that have the experience he has. And a talented driver like him always finds a way to bounce back. Look for Kurt Busch to take the #1 Monster Energy Camaro to victory lane.

All stats and information used in this article are brought to you by the good folks at driveraverages.com and Racing-Reference.com, the best websites for all NASCAR stats.

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