A few general thoughts from SU on a Monday morning :

1. It is quite a story in Washington where the Commanders have gone from having to start Taylor Heinicke at quarterback to Jayden Daniels who can be in place for the next 15 years if he stays healthy. Washington had several choices last season in the draft but clearly made the right one. So many teams (as in most) seem to fan on these picks, and it takes several years to recover from that. You have to feel for the Lion fans but there defense was decimated with injuries and they got exposed over the weekend. Too bad as they were a great story this year. No one wants to see the Chief in the Super Bowl again. SU feels like the Bills have what it takes to pull the upset.
2. The rich get richer. First, the Dodgers won the sweepstakes for Roki Sasaki, and now they have signed the best remaining free agent reliever, Tanner Scott, for $72 million over 4 years. The Dodgers are clearly the preferred destination for the top Japanese players now, and have a core in place to woo any future stars. Their payroll must be way over the revenue cap now ($375 million and counting) but ownership doesn’t care. The math has to work and any penalty they are paying is offset by the extra revenues from all the playoff games. It’s been a long time since a World Series winner repeated but this may be the year.
3. The Yankees are just another team now. First, they lost out on Sosa and now on Sasaki. Hal Steinbrenner has the money but only if he sells the Yankees. He has a cap on what he is willing to spend and sure, it’s a lot higher than just about anyone else. But it’s clear that not every player wants to be in the spotlight of New York, and there are other choices out there. The Yankees will field a formidable lineup in 2025 but they are still a bit unathletic, a bit lacking on defense and we know they can’t run the bases. SU is still waiting to see who is playing 3rd base. Surely it’s not going to be DJ LeMahieu??
4. The Australian Open has a great men’s quarterfinals match early tomorrow morning between Alcaraz and Djokovic. That side of the draw is stacked for this tournament, and the winner will likely need to beat Zverev in the semis and Sinner in the finals. A tall order. You have to figure that Sinner has a great shot at defending his title from last year. Nice showing by the young Americans as some new names broke through to the round of 16. SU will be interested to see if the Andy Murray coaching gives Djokovic the extra few points to pull what will be an upset over a high-performing Alcaraz in this tournament.
5. It’s time for the NCAA to change replay reviews in college basketball games. SU caught the Michigan – Northwestern game yesterday which easily exceeded 2.5 hours. There were SO many replay review in this game for flagrant fouls, tipped balls, etc. SU says put in the NBA rules where the coaches get a couple of challenges for the game and that is it. Plus down the stretch, stop with the reviews of every tipped ball. What is ridiculous is that there are plays throughout the game where the naked eye sees the ball deflected out and you know what happened. Sometimes the frame by frame review shows some finger nail that while technically correct, would never have been called that way in the rest of the game with the naked eye. Games are not lost in the last 2 minutes but rather by all the plays that happened before then. This is supposed to be entertaining. Speed it up!
6. College football finals tonight. SU read a story that the Ohio State team had a 3-hour players and head coach meeting about a week after they lost to Michigan where it was very intense, tears were flowing, things were said, and Ryan Day said he had let the team down. Not sure what that means exactly as he has about a 95% winning percentage at Ohio State in his career. Clearly, that meeting spurred the team to a very high level of play. Apparently, he has received death threats over that loss and had to pull his kids out of school for a while. This is way over the top. Perhaps social media makes it easier to spread the hate (OK, not perhaps, it makes it easier to do and anonymously) but in the end, these are college athletes and not paid professionals. Well, OK, they are well paid in some cases with a lot of money but you get my drift here. Time to tone it down. This is not the NFL.
7. SU continues to enjoy watching the Knicks but they are clearly a player short from competing for an NBA championship. KAT was a great addition but SU believes the loss of DiVincenzo is still felt. Mitchell Robinson will return at some point but he can just as easily get hurt again. Let’s see if they can pick up someone at the trade deadline to help them make a more meaningful run come playoff time. Otherwise, it’s a likely 2nd round loss again.

Hey, if you’re not working today, and have a few points to make, this is your chance. The floor is open.