🔥 Silent Shedeur

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.  

Send this link to your fantasy group chat, distant cousin, your boss…. whoever you want. 

Click here to lock in your picks for this week. 

🚩 The NFL is starting its own pro flag football league. With flag football making its way into the Olympics, the NFL is planning to roll out new men's and women’s leagues right before the LA games. Surely it’ll pay just as well as Tom Brady’s Saudi Arabian flag football exhibition. 

⚾️ Mason Miller just threw grossest best pitch in baseball history. In a do-or-die playoff game for his Padres, Miller dotted a 104 mph fastball on the corner to strike out Carson Kelly in one of his two scoreless innings of work. Not only was the location perfect, it was the fastest pitch ever thrown in the postseason. Is that good? 

🦴 MetLife’s turf claims another victim. Giants star wide receiver Malik Nabers tore his ACL this week playing on the infamous artificial turf in New York. In the last five years, Nabers, Aaron Rodgers, Nick Bosa, and five other players have torn an ACL or Achilles on the MetLife turf.

• You’d think it would be cheaper for the NFL to put in some grass instead of letting star players blow out their knees every season. 

🍾 The MLB postseason clinch celebrations were outrageous. It’s still stupid that teams pop champagne without winning anything these days, but there were some solid celebrations across the league. The Guardians were chainsmoking darts, the Reds had guys hammered doing impressions of their manager, and Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman even had a flamethrow going for Toronto’s celly.

• Maybe not the best idea to play with a literal flamethrower right before the playoffs, but dudes will be dudes. 

📱Jaxon Dart trolled Justin Herbert before beating the Chargers. The rookie QB — who looks like the child of a youth pastor and an Abercrombie store model — decided to post (and quickly delete) a photo of Herbert’s girlfriend Madison Beer the day before their game. Might be a bit slimy, but you can’t argue with the results. 

🤕Pittsburgh Steelers QB3 got mugged in Ireland. Imagine going all the way to Dublin, not sniffing the field, and then getting robbed on a night out at the bars. That’s as tough a road trip as you can have. Oh, and he had to fly coach on the flight home. 

🤦‍♂️ There’s making an error, and then there’s throwing a live ball into the outfield seats. Giant’s outfielder Jung Hoo Lee forgot how many outs there were and, after catching a fly ball, tossed the baseball into the bleachers, giving the Rockies two free bases. That’s one hell of a way to close out your season.

Shedeur Sanders still hasn’t learned the lesson he should’ve after sliding to the fifth round of the draft: Keep your mouth shut.

In the age of social media, what you say and do in front of a camera is just as important as hitting the gym or watching film. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone that understands this less than Sanders. 

In case you missed it, Shedeur held one of the weirdest, most childish press conferences the NFL has ever seen.

When he was asked about Dillon Gabriel being named the Browns’ new starting QB, Sanders mimed his responses. He literally pretended to talk without making any noise.  

Analysts, coaches and former players rolled their eyes. Jason McCourty called it “unprofessional,” which is actually putting it lightly. 

And the weird mining is just the tip of the iceberg with Shedeur. 

• He already got pulled over for speeding, he told the Ravens not to draft him because he didn’t want to play behind Lamar, and his draft interviews were apparently so terrible that he slid from the first round to pick 144.
  

• He also said the other week that he’s already better than many starters in the NFL. Confidence is fine, but this is just downright delusional. If he was half as good as he thinks he is, he’d be playing. 

Now, he’s under heat for how little, or how quietly, he works with the scout team. One radio host claimed he doesn’t even run scout reps anymore. That doesn’t exactly scream “trying to earn a job” to the coaching staff.  

Before you chalk this up to rookie missteps, consider that the quarterback is supposed to be the face of the franchise. Every tweet, every interview, every gesture is magnified. Sanders’ stunts aren’t him “showing personality”. They’re red flags.

Takeaway: Shedeur’s dad Deion loved to run his mouth and pull antics off the field too. The only difference? He wasn’t the 3rd string QB on the worst team in football. He backed it all up on the field.

@jardedl22824 hit our biggest parlay of the week, cashing in on a little playoff baseball and pre-season hockey. Gutty call to take Shohei not to homer the night after he went deep twice. Respect. 

Check out the full parlay here.

🎞️ On this day in 1977, one of baseball’s GOATs, Hank Aaron, took his last-ever at bat. Hank was a 25-time All-Star (casual), a World Series champion, and an MVP. He also won three Gold Gloves, two batting titles, and famously broke Babe Ruth’s MLB record for career home runs.

Alright, that’s enough yelling for one Friday.

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