The coaching merry-go-round has already started in the NFL.
Two coaches (Jay Gruden, Ron Rivera) were dismissed in-season, and less than 48 hours after San Francisco claimed the NFC West in beating Seattle, two more were bounced.
As expected, Pat Shurmur was bounced by the Giants after 2 seasons, going 9-23. You had to know things were bad when the Jets, after losing the annual pre-season game, avenged the loss in the regular season while going 3-1 against the NFC East, and that Gang Green had a better overall record than Big Blue. Rivera, the defensive genius who ran out of magic in Carolina, is interviewing for the Washington job, rather than give the Giants a sniff.
However, management has more faith in GM Dave Gettleman, hence retaining him for another year. For now.
Update, 4:04 pm (ET): Rivera has been hired by Washington, and will bring former Oakland & Jacksonville coach Jack Del Rio with him.
In Cleveland, Freddie Kitchens was sacked after one full season as head coach. You'll recall he replaced Hue Jackson in 2018. The only positive is that the Browns didn't finish in the basement of the AFC North (Cincinnati did). The Browns are an improving team, even if they do have some problem children giving the organization some black eyes (we're looking at you, Myles Garrett).
Everyone assumed Doug Marrone was done in Jacksonville. Nope. The Khan family decided to retain Marrone for 2020. Shad Khan runs football operations while son Tony hob-nobs with his wrestling pals as a partner in All Elite Wrestling. Between the two of them, though, there's enough confidence to believe Marrone can get the Jaguars back on the right track, a couple of years removed from the AFC title game.
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Wrestling fans have one less outlet for their fix.
AXS-TV, which was home to New Japan Pro Wrestling, the revived Women of Wrestling, and Impact, is now under the control of Canadian-based Anthem Sports & Entertainment, which runs Impact Wrestling. The network announced that they were severing their ties with New Japan, meaning that if you were planning on a viewing party for, say for example, Wrestle Kingdom, taking place January 5, and assuming it would air on AXS on January 11, you're, unfortunately, S-O-L.
Under Anthem, Impact Wrestling has transformed into must-watch programming, even though some of the same creative minds (i.e. Scott D'Amore) are back working for the promotion in backstage roles only. However, AXS is a premium channel here in the home district, so we look at excerpts on YouTube when we can.
Where Anthem has made a mistake is not even trying to negotiate any sort of a working agreement between Impact and New Japan, even though several wrestlers on the Impact roster, such as Michael Elgin, have appeared for New Japan in the past (Elgin left New Japan when he left Ring of Honor). New Japan fans will have to rely on Fite-TV & New Japan World until New Japan can make a deal with a new American broadcast partner.
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We all know they treat college football like a religion in the south.
They also go stir crazy when a native son ends up playing for a rival school in a neighboring state.
Case in point: Travis Etienne, star running back for defending national champion Clemson, and his mom have gotten death threats from LSU fans ahead of the title game, taking place January 13. The Etiennes live in Louisiana, and Travis, apparently, is being branded a traitor by the natives in Cajun Country. One anonymous idiot suggested that the Etiennes had 24 hours to pack up and leave Louisiana. Nothing doing.
LSU coach Ed Ogeron, for his part, admitted that they fumbled the recruiting process with Travis Etienne, such that by the time he'd made a full visit to the LSU campus, his mind was made up, in Ogeron's opinion.
To sum things up, some of these jerks had to have looked up the Etiennes' phone number online in order to contact them to post death threats.
"Now, that's not nice!"
Yep, the good ol' boys gone way wrong down Louisiana way get the Dunce Caps this week. Collectively, they're as dumb as a man can come, but they don't care. With Alabama, long the standard bearer for the SEC, out of the picture, the Cajun Crazies think LSU has been anointed as the next national champion. As ESPN's Lee Corso would say, however, not so fast, my friends. There's still a game to be played, twelve days from now.
After a record-setting performance vs. Oklahoma four days ago, LSU QB Joe Burrow, the Heisman Trophy winner, doesn't need these clowns throwing shade on the big game, just because they're a few fries shy of a Happy Meal.
Lesson learned: It's never a good idea to be on your cell phone when drunk, which is probably when these idiots made their hollow threats.
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