Brady-gate 2.0

Welcome back to our weekly pick 'em game. Once again, we’re putting five $20 gift cards up for grabs for anyone who can correctly pick the winners of five games on the weekend.  

Shoutout to last week’s winner Andy F, who went 5 for 5 picking last weekend's NFL slate. Spend your prize money wisely (or don’t, it's your call). 

Send this link to your friends, co-workers, distant cousins…we don’t care, just let everyone have some fun. 

Click here to lock in your picks for this week. 

🤦‍♂️ Just when you think the Chiefs can’t get any more unlikeable, their players wear “Free Rashee Rice” T-shirts. Imagine acting like your teammate’s been unfairly punished after he nearly killed four people drag racing his sports car. Oh, and after he crashed his Lamborghini and caused a six-car pile up, he fled the scene. 

• Not only did he not get prison time, he was only given a 6-game suspension from the NFL. A real righteous cause to fight for. Keep it up boys. 

👩‍❤️‍👨 Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner were apparently dating the same girl during the U.S. Open. Something tells us they didn’t know this was happening before they played each other in the finals. If they did know about it, this is quite literally the plot of the movie Challengers. 

⚾️ Grand Slams stole the show in baseball this week. The A’s Nick Kurtz (also known as Big Amish) hit a casual 493-foot grand slam this week, the longest homer of the season. It feels like this guy does something even more absurd every week. 

• Meanwhile, Giants catcher Patrick Bailey became the first player in MLB history to hit a walk-off inside-the-park home run and a walk-off grand slam in the same season.

🏈 Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel gave possibly the worst post-game press conference in NFL history. To quote the man himself: “Um, to win games you have to win the game, umm, not lose the game… honestly. And that, that is how you lose the game.”

🇮🇹 The Jets just signed a sponsorship deal with Parmesan cheese. This sounded made up, but we can confirm it’s true — Parmigiano Reggiano is the newest partner of the New York Jets. Now all they have to do is go out and sign New Jersey’s own Tommy ‘Cutlets’ DeVito and they’ll be an Italian super team.

🐶 Kyler Murray has an early candidate for psycho Instagram post of the year. The Cardinals QB posted a picture of himself petting a dog while wearing a Michael Vick jersey. In case you weren’t around for this, Michael Vick — who was one of the best quarterbacks in football 20 years ago — was arrested for hosting a dog fighting ring at his house. 

It’s a pretty bad look (and he apologized for it) but it’s still not as stupid as the Chiefs’  free Rashee Rice shirts.

Tom Brady has 7 rings, a $375 million deal with Fox, an ownership stake in the Raiders, and apparently, the NFL’s permission to spy on his opponents every week. 

Breaking it down: Cameras caught Brady sitting in the Raiders’ coaching booth during their 20–9 loss to the Chargers on Monday, notably with a headset on and tablet in hand. He sure didn’t look like any other minority owner sipping Dom in the executive suite — he looked like he may as well have been in Geno Smith’s ears calling plays. 

So what’s the big deal? People are saying Brady’s gig at Fox — where he gathers as much first-hand info about the teams he’s covering every week — is a pretty major conflict considering he’s now showing face in the coaching box on gamedays. 

• Brady’s broadcasting job wouldn’t be a problem if he was a passive owner, but this guy is meeting with the Raiders coaches 2-3 times a week to go over film and game plans.
  

• Brady can easily use what he picks up in those production meetings to get inside info on players for trades or free-agent signings down the line. He can get a read on which assistant coaches are difference-makers and try to lure them away to the Raiders.

The rules around this are a mess. He can apparently Zoom into meetings with other teams coaches, but he can’t be in the facility. He can interview players off-site, but not at the team hotel. 

• No other franchise has an owner sitting right in the middle of one of the biggest games every single week of the NFL season with a backstage pass to teams’ game plans. 

Takeaway: The NFL has always been entertainment first, sport second. But letting Brady straddle the line between broadcaster and owner feels less like good-natured theatre and more like the football equivalent of insider trading. 

What’s next: Brady will be calling the Bears-Cowboys game this weekend, just one week before the Bears play his Raiders. If you want to steer into the skid, we’d recommend betting on the Raiders next weekend.

The biggest parlay of the week comes courtesy of @LittyKitt89, who nailed an 8-legger Wednesday night by taking pretty much everyone in the league to get a hit. Take Aaron Judge to get 1.5 bases? He’ll get you 9.

Check out the full parlay here.

🎞️ On this day in 1947, Jackie Robinson took home Rookie of the Year honours in the same season he broke Major League Baseball’s colour barrier. Jackie went on to win the MVP two years later, get named to six straight All-Star games, and win a World Series in 1955.

That same World Series gave us his famous steal of home. The clip is worth watching just to see Yankees catcher Yogi Berra lose his mind after he’s called safe. 

Alright, that’s enough yelling for one Friday.

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