Good morning. Filling in for Doc, who will be back soon.
The Baltimore Ravens and Denver Broncos delivered some of the best beef through four weeks of the National Football League season when the Broncos said they didn't like what the Ravens did at the end of Baltimore's 23-7 win Sunday.
Some background and a quick refresher: It's very rare for any NFL team with a lead of more than 10 points to not take a knee in the last five seconds of a game. The Ravens needed a few rushing yards to continue a streak of consecutive games with at least 100 team rushing yards. (They did so with Lamar Jackson's final five-yard carry, extending their streak to 43 games and matching a record few knew about held by the Pittsburgh Steelers of the mid-'70s.)
The Broncos' sideline reacted:
And head coach Vic Fangio had this to say:
"I thought it was kind of bulls---. I expected it from them,'' Fangio said. "Thirty-seven years of pro ball I've never seen anything like that ... but it was to be expected, and we expected it. ... Because I just know how they operate, that's just their mode of operations there; player safety is secondary."
WHAT'S RICH is about one year ago, you may recall that Ravens defensive coordinator Don "Wink" Martindale seemed very unhappy when Bengals head coach Zac Taylor chose to kick a 38-yard field goal with 37 seconds left in the game to avoid a shutout in the Ravens' 27-3 win.
Martindale had this to say days later about his reaction to the field goal: "He knew what it was because it was awful quiet when I yelled it across the field. There are some people that take that as a victory. We'll see. We'll have plenty to talk about the next time we play them."
Wouldn't you love to know whether the end of that game crossed Martindale's mind while his team was inching past that 100-yard rushing mark at the end of Sunday's game? And is there any better beef than end-of-game etiquette beef?
BAKER MAYFIELD IS PLAYING with a partially torn labrum (per ESPN)? You don't say?
First Bengals-Browns meeting is one month from today.
IT'S NICE FOR THE UC BEARCATS AND THEIR FANS to have college football talking heads like Kirk Herbstreit talking about how they deserve serious College Football Playoff consideration as a Group of Five team. It's really nice to see star quarterback Desmond Ridder getting the love he deserves via interviews with the likes of ESPN's Scott Van Pelt and FOX's Joel Klatt.
Ridder with SVP via Twitter:
Ridder with Klatt:
Ridder shows remarkable maturity and says exactly what you want him to say if you're his coach. Roll your eyes all you want at the cliché but you don't want your star quarterback doing anything other than focusing on the task at hand, which is beating Temple on Friday. And then UCF, Navy, and so on. Let everyone else obsess over whether Oregon lost, who's still unbeaten in the Big 12, etc.
IT'S ALSO NICE TO SEE XAVIER FANS ROOTING FOR EDMOND SUMNER. The guy bounced back from a torn ACL in his left knee while he was at XU and has slowly but surely increased his scoring and playing time throughout his four seasons with the Indiana Pacers. He tore his left Achilles last month, and the Pacers announced Wednesday that they traded Sumner to the Brooklyn Nets, which were expected to waive him.
Sumner, who played for the Musketeers for parts of three seasons from 2014 to 2017, is only 25. We already knew he'll miss the upcoming season recovering from the torn Achilles, but it'd be great to see him back in the NBA the following season.
From Sumner via Twitter:
From the Pacers:
WHICH FORMER LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL, XAVIER OR UC STANDOUT HAS IMPRESSED the most in this week's NBA preseason action?
Probably former Aiken High School standout Carlik Jones, who scored 13 points in 14 minutes off the bench Wednesday in the Dallas Mavericks' 111-101 win against the Utah Jazz.
MLB'S DIVISION SERIES SHOULD BE FUN. Dodgers vs. Giants. Dusty vs. La Russa. It's tough to pick against the Giants when they won 107 games, but can they get past the Dodgers without Brandon Belt? I don't even know who wins the other NLDS or either of the ALDS. Toss-ups.
TUNE O' THE DAY:
This might still be Coldplay's best song. And it's somehow 10 years old, which I can't believe.
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