Speed kills

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 a slate of five games over the long weekend. 

Five players who nail all of their picks will get a $20 gift card of their choosing sent straight to their email. Don’t be afraid to send this link to your group chat, there’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition. 

Click here to lock in your picks for this week.

🏈 Micah Parsons is a Green Bay Packer. The Cowboys have just got rid of the best defensive player in football. The return? Meh. The contract? pretty aggressive ($47 million a year is wild for a non-quarterback). But still, the fact that the most valuable sports franchise in the world let a player like Parsons walk over money is embarrassing. 

• Even Jerry Jones’ Netflix PR puff piece isn’t going to save him from rioting Cowboys fans after this one.

✂️ Its roster snipping season at NFL camps. QB and Italian icon Tommy “Cutlets” DeVito was cut by the Giants, RB Cam Akers was let go by the Saints, and former Pro Bowler WR Hunter Renfrow was snipped by his hometown Carolina Panthers.  

• According to journeyman QB Ben DiNucci — who was just cut by an NFL team for the seventh time — the airport beer on the way home makes all the disappointment worth it.

⛳️ Keegan Bradley doesn’t give himself a Ryder Cup spot. Despite having a great season (and being peer pressured to pick himself by the President), the U.S. Captain decided not to put himself on this year’s Ryder Cup team. 

• For a guy that still has an unpacked suitcase in his closet from the last time he was in the Ryder Cup in 2012 (which he says he won’t open until he makes another team) this seems like a blunder.

🍸 The real winner of the U.S. Open is the tournament’s $23 signature cocktail. The Honey Deuce cocktail single-handedly made almost $13 million last year, over four times more than the champions received in prize money. 

• Apparently, one of these cocktails is sold every 1.5 seconds within the U.S. Open grounds. No wonder the crowd was acting like they were at a College football game. 

🏈 If you’re in the market for a new fantasy football punishment for your league, here are 15 solid ideas for the 2025 season. Our personal favourite: Having to go on a date in public with a doll seated across from you. 

• Anyone that’s looking for some edgier (borderline illegal) ones, there’s no shortage of options.
  

✋ Shohei Ohtani gave a heckler a high-five after destroying a baseball. There’s something that will always be hilarious about an out-of-shape dude, drinking beer, and eating nachos telling an athlete how terrible they are at the sport they’re paid millions of dollars to play professionally. I guess the only way to respond is hitting a ball 110mph into the bleachers. 

🏎️ Cadillac picks a couple grizzled vets to lead its new F1 team. The American team will roll into Formula One with a very old driver duo of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez. Minus the rookie driver, this is eerily close to the plot of the F1 movie (if Valtteri Bottas looked more like Brad Pitt). 

• For non-racing fans, this is like if the NFL added a new team and Ben Roethlisberger came out of retirement to lead it. 

🤦‍♂️ Someone please save Bill Belichick. The Hall of Fame coach and his 25-year old girlfriend Jordan Hudson have filed a trademark request for the term “Gold Digger”. I guess there’s something to be said for being self aware. 

Josh Naylor, a 235-pound first baseman who ranks 532nd out of 546 MLB players in sprint speed, is suddenly stealing bases like he’s Usain Bolt with a pair of fresh cleats.  

Over the past month, he’s swiped 11 bags — as many as speedsters Elly De La Cruz, Jarren Duran, and Pete Crow-Armstrong combined — and he’s been caught only once since April (it was trying to steal home, because why not?).

• Naylor now has 22 steals this season, the first time a player under six feet and at least 235 pounds has ever cracked 20.
  

• He has more steals this year than Shohei Ohtani, who in case you forgot, stole 59 bases last year. 

What’s his secret? He runs like someone strapped a fridge on his back and slipped a melatonin into his gatorade, but he’s mastered timing. He finds patterns in pitchers, picks his spots and has the nerve to turn the jets on when he thinks he’s got the base stolen. 

• There’s something to be said for Naylor looking unsuspecting on the basepaths. When a speedster like Bobby Witt Jr. is on first base, pitchers and catchers are always on high alert. With Naylor, his lack of speed kind of serves as camouflage.
  

Why it matters: Naylor is proving that you don’t actually need to be that fast to steal bases in Major League Baseball. He’s run on Gold Glove catchers, swiped third base five times, and has a 92% success rate on the year. For a guy who looks more like he should be stealing fries off a teammate’s plate than bases, it’s equally hilarious and impressive. 

If you want to talk about a fun storyline, Naylor and the Mariners start a series tonight against Cleveland, the team that his little brother Bo is the catcher for. If you think for one second that Josh isn’t going to test his little brother's throwing arm, you’re probably an only child.

@Archie167 proved this week that, sometimes, simple is better. No hit totals, no strikeout overs, just straight up spreads and moneylines. There’s no way they weren’t sweating out that Red Sox game on Wednesday night.

Check out the full parlay here 

🎞️ On this day in 2004, Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher took home his 5th straight Formula One Drivers Championship with a 2nd place at Spa. Schumacher went on to win a record seven drivers championships, 91 races, and 155 podiums.

Truly one of the fastest people to ever get behind the wheel.

Alright, that’s enough yelling for one Friday.

Got a hotter take? Think we missed something? Want to argue that the Leafs are actually cursed by a 1932 ghost?

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Forward it to a friend who lives for the group chat debate.