Tag Archives: new england

Rob Gronkowski retired to avoid a trade to the Detroit Lions

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We’re trying our best to bring you positive news from the sports world during these times that also are trying, but it’s tough to find the energy to put a positive spin on this one. As penance, the group’s laughter at the end should be the Lions’ new fight song for at least as long as it takes them to win a playoff game.

(HT: Fredi The PizzaMan)

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Super Bowl LII Preview

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[I lied. We do have the resources to produce a preview of Super Bowl LII, and it begins right after this sentence. -ed.]

Well it’s time for the Super Bowl again. Do you like the Super Bowl? It’s ok if you don’t because none of this really matters. Whether the New England Patriots or Philadelphia Eagles win, nothing about the world will really change! There will still be all sorts of good stuff happening, and also all sorts of bad stuff. That’s just kind of the way life works. It’s important to keep perspective, but also to enjoy things like the Super Bowl if that’s something you’re into. Even if you don’t enjoy football it’s fun to go see your friends and hang out! You should always treasure the time you get to spend with your friends and family, even if it’s when you’re doing something like watching the Super Bowl and you don’t really enjoy football. But if you do enjoy football then it’s even better because you get to hang out with your friends AND watch a sport you enjoy.

Anyway there’s going to be football that happens. I am writing this on a phone so there won’t be any fancy tables or anything. The Patriots have Tom Brady who has won more than one Super Bowl (can’t fact check the exact number right now, sorry). They also have Rob Gronkowski aka Gronk. I like how Gronk lives his own life and doesn’t need validation from anyone. I think we could all learn a lot from Gronk about being our best selves and not caring about what other people think of us. But it’s important not to treat alcohol the way Gronk does. Alcohol is best enjoyed in moderation, and you should never let anyone tell you that you need alcohol in order to have a good time. Also Gronk is very big, so what might be an ok amount for him to drink might not be an ok amount for you or me! Anyway those are the two Patriots players I know. Their coach is Bill Belichick and he is always very grumpy, however he is very good at his job. I think he would be a good coworker because even though he’s not very personable he gets stuff done and doesn’t seem like he makes extra work for other people.

On the other side are the Philadelphia Eagles. What I like about Philly is how their fans are very crazy and do all sorts of stunts like driving an ATV up the art museum steps. How fun! I know one Eagles player: Nick Foles. He plays QB but I am like 90% sure that another guy used to play QB for the Eagles earlier this season. I think he got hurt or maybe he’s using his PTO. The Eagles have both an offense and a defense, like the Patriots. I’m not sure if they have special teams because to be honest I have not watched more than five minutes of Eagles football this year and most of that time I was browsing Reddit on my iPad. I don’t know the name of the Eagles coach or whether he is grumpy.

Anyway that’s the rundown on both teams. The line is NE -5 and the over/under is 48. Take the Pats and the under, I say. It’s fun to gamble a bit, but also only in moderation! If you win money you can buy some products from the brands you see advertising during the game. Gotta love brands. Where would we be without them? What’s your favorite brand? Maybe drop us a note in the comments. I really like Brooks, personally. I always buy their shoes!

Final Score: Patriots – 22, Eagles – 5

Sports Law Roundup – 9/22/2017

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aslr

I used to write the sports technology roundup at TechGraphs, an internet website that died, and now I am writing the sports law roundup at ALDLAND, an internet website.

Here are the top sports-related legal stories from the past week:

  • Dominican politics: A court in the Dominican Republic has convicted former MLB player Raul Mondesi on charges of political corruption in connection with his activities as mayor of San Cristobal, his hometown. The court sentenced Mondesi to eight years in prison, fined him the equivalent of $1.27 million, and barred him from holding public office for the next ten years. Mondesi, the 1994 National League rookie of the year, earned over $66 million in his thirteen-year career mostly spent as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Reports indicate Mondesi embezzled funds while serving as mayor of San Cristobal.
  • Penn State child abuse: A court dismissed a defamation lawsuit former Penn State University Graham Spanier filed against Louis Freeh, the former FBI director who investigated the the Jerry Sandusky sexual assault scandal inside PSU’s football program and produced a report of his investigation that named Spanier and served as part of the basis for subsequent criminal charges against Spanier. In June, a court sentenced Spanier to two months in jail and eight months on house arrest following his conviction on a misdemeanor count of child endangerment. That conviction, the judge in Spanier’s defamation case explained, barred the defamation claims, although he observed that Spanier could revive the case if an appellate court reversed his criminal conviction.
  • Three on three on three on three: Ice Cube’s (real name: O’Shea Jackson) Big3 Basketball, a popular three-on-three basketball league for former NBA players with an FS1 television deal, responded to a lawsuit from new rival Champions League by filing a lawsuit of its own alleging that Champions League defamed Big3 by falsely telling investors that the reason Champions League had not yet launched was because Big3 has blocked its players from joining Champions League. Champions League’s previous suit against Big3 alleged that Big3 violated agreements to allow players to play in both leagues.
  • NFL head injuries: A Boston University study on the brain of Aaron Hernandez concluded that Hernandez had “stage 3 CTE.” Initial reports indicated that Hernandez’s family intends to file suit against the NFL and the New England Patriots and, on Thursday, Hernandez’s now four-year-old daughter, Avielle, filed an action against those entities. Her complaint alleges that negligence by the league and team resulted in a loss of parental consortium. Related filings state that she is seeking $20 million. The complaint further states that Hernandez had “the most severe case of [CTE] medically seen in a person of his young age” by the Boston University researchers. According to the complaint, there are four stages of CTE, with stage 3 typically being associated with players with a median age of death of sixty-seven. Hernandez was twenty-seven when he committed suicide.
  • OSU trademark: Oklahoma State University and Ohio State University have settled their conflict over the use of the “OSU” trademark, with both universities agreeing that they may use the mark nationwide. The dispute initially arose after Ohio State sought a trademark for “OSU” and Oklahoma State submitted an objection to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office claiming that it held rights to that mark. Under their agreement, each school will not use “OSU” in connection with the colors or mascot of the other and will use “Ohio State” and “Oklahoma State” in promotional materials to help avoid confusion. The agreement also includes a non-disparagement provision precluding the schools from using phrases like “wannabe OSU” or “copycat OSU.”
  • Beverly Hills Ninja Bikes: Make Him Smile Inc., a company that owns the intellectual property rights associated with late comedian Chris Farley, sued the Trek bicycle company over its marketing of a “Farley” bicycle designed with fat tires and a fat frame. Trek, the plaintiff alleged, paid nothing for trading on Farley’s name and likeness. The complaint seeks $10 million in damages.

Sports court is in recess.

Waive that flag: The NFL returns with zebras on parade

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The NFL’s back, and oh man is it boring. Last night’s Chiefs-Patriots game, the first of the 2017 regular season, should have been exciting. Kansas City hung close with the defending champions in Foxboro until they pulled away later in the fourth quarter. What should have been a compelling contest instead dragged. The third quarter alone took nearly an hour. Even if the NFL has eliminated the touchdown-commercial-PAT-commercial-kickoff-commercial sequence, the penalty flags literally are getting out of hand too often.

The last five minutes of the third quarter was comprised of fifteen plays from scrimmage. Officials threw flags on seven of them.

KC NE 09072017 3Q

If it seems to you like penalty flags are on the rise, you aren’t wrong. From the NFL Penalty Tracker, a website I just found:

nfl penalty flag data 9-8-17

The 2017 data comes from one game, of course, but the referees were significantly more active last night as compared to an average game last season.

Another interesting point in that penalty-flag data is the jump in total flags beginning in 2014. It isn’t immediately obvious to me why that happened (here‘s a list of rule changes heading into that season), so I’ll just quote from my Super Bowl XLVII preview post:

Call it the Efficient Breach Bowl. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Seattle defense is so successful against the pass, in part, because they just don’t care about being penalized for pass interference. They know that officials won’t call PI on every single play (and the number of penalties called in the playoffs is significantly lower than during the regular season), so they take their lumps with a few flags over the course of a game, disrupting receiver routes all the while. In a follow-up article in advance of the Super Bowl, the Journal suggests that Denver may look to combat Seattle’s aggressive secondary through so-called “pick plays,” in which receivers run routes designed to shed defenders by drawing them into collisions with another player. Though subject to recent controversy following a play in the AFC Championship game that resulted in a game-ending injury for New England corner Aqib Talib, picks or “rub routes” are not necessarily against the rules. As The MMQB’s Greg Bedard explained, the key question is whether the offensive player initiated the contact or whether the contact was incidental: “within one yard of the line of scrimmage, anything goes . . . but beyond that one-yard buffer it is illegal for an offensive player to initiate contact with a defender.”

The Seahawks won that Super Bowl (if you can name the MVP of that game without looking, I’ll send you some ALDLAND merchandise), so it isn’t unreasonable to speculate that other teams would mimic their aggressive defensive approach beginning in the next season, thereby triggering more penalty flags leaguewide, but I haven’t looked at an offensive/defensive breakdown of those numbers in the table above.

For years, people have been predicting that football would end as a result of its potential for dangerous, lasting injury, including brain injury, but we need to consider the possibility that a different and more immediate market force– boredom– might trigger its decline even sooner.

Sports Law Roundup – 4/14/2017

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aslr

I used to write the sports technology roundup at TechGraphs, an internet website that died, and now I am writing the sports law roundup at ALDLAND, an internet website.

Here are the top sports-related legal stories from the past week:

  • Aaron Hernandez: This afternoon, a jury acquitted Aaron Hernandez, who played tight end for the New England Patriots and Florida Gators, of charges that he murdered two people in Boston in 2012. Hernandez already is serving a life term without parole for a 2013 murder. Despite the acquittal on the murder charges, the jury did convict Hernandez on a firearm charge.
  • St. Louis Rams: The City of St. Louis has sued the NFL and all thirty-two of its teams for losses related to the Rams’ departure to Los Angeles in 2016. The suit alleges that the team failed to make a good-faith effort to stay in St. Louis before leaving in violation of league rules. According to a public statement by the city’s mayor, the city spent a substantial amount of public money in the hopes of keeping the team, and it did so in reliance on the expectation that the team would comply with NFL team-relocation rules.
  • Baylor sexual assault: Earlier this year, a former Baylor student sued the university because, she alleged, she was the victim of a group rape committed by two football players in 2013 that the school ignored. She also alleged that football players were responsible for numerous other crimes “involving violent physical assault, armed robbery, burglary, drugs, guns, and, notably, the most widespread culture of sexual violence and abuse of women ever reported in a collegiate athletic program.” She further claimed that, between 2011 and 2014, thirty-one Baylor football players committed a total of fifty-two rapes, including five gang rapes. Now, the judge overseeing the case has largely denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss, narrowing the plaintiff’s emotional distress claim but otherwise allowing her case to proceed, calling the allegations “disturbing.”
  • Volleyball sponsorship: Kerri Walsh Jennings, who won three Olympic gold medals for the United States beach volleyball team, is suing the Association of Volleyball Professionals for breach of a sponsorship contract. Walsh Jennings alleges that AVP still owes her $150,000 on a $450,000 agreement despite her compliance with all of the contract’s terms. Part of the backdrop of this dispute may be another dispute between Walsh Jennings and AVP over whether she will play in AVP’s 2017 professional tournament.
  • NFL memorabilia: What purports to be new evidence in two 2014 lawsuits against Eli Manning, Steiner Sports (a memorabilia company with which Manning has a formal relationship), the Giants, and a team equipment manager alleging that the defendants worked together to sell collectors “game-worn” items that were not, in fact, game-worn emerged this week in the form of an email exchange between Manning and the equipment manager. In it, Manning requests “2 helmets that can pass as game used,” and the manager responded that he “should be able to get them for tomorrow.” The collectors who filed the lawsuits contend that this exchange proves that Manning knowingly provided Steiner with “fraudulent” items to sell to fans. The team now says the email exchange was taken out of context, and that its release now constitutes an attempt to defame Manning.

Sports court is in recess.

Super Bowly Preview

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You’ve heard all the go-to Super Bowl “storylines” 1,000 times by now, including the one about how everyone playing in the game used be on the Cleveland Browns or something. With less than an hour to go until kickoff (6:30 pm, FOX), here are a few appetizers before we all get into the heavy stuff:

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#Jimbo

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  • No Super Bowl preview is complete without a season recap from the folks at Bad Lip Reading:

People have to understand: I felt like it was my fault, like it was my responsibility, that the Falcons franchise had been set back. And if Matt had been a bust … then my guilt over the harm I’d caused the city would have only grown worse. So, yeah, I’m human. It hurt when the Falcons drafted Matt. And for a while there, for sure, I was envious of Matt’s position. But Matt being such a success — that’s been a joy for me. For me, that’s been relief. It’s been peace of mind.

And the same thing goes for this MVP season of his (he’s got my vote), and this amazing Super Bowl run (I’ve got the Falcons winning, 23–16). Joy, and relief, and peace of mind. And that’s what I mean, when I say that Atlanta is family. Family isn’t just about when it’s good for you, or when it’s convenient, or when the love comes easy. Family is about when the love comes no matter what.

  • Rembert went to Houston and found all the Falcons fans in town for the big game:

  • The strongest and rightest take:

Enjoy the game!

Super Bowl XLIX Preview

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It’s like Publix, but more restrictive. Unless Bdoyk drops by to rep her Patriots, we’re going to be light on the Super Bowl previewing for this season. Part of the reason I think it’s hard for impartial fans to be excited about this game is that the ancillary trappings finally seem to have swallowed the game itself. Ray Rice. Adrian Peterson. Deflated balls. The media on Marshawn Lynch not wanting to talk to the media. The NFL making like 1Ls on a torts exam trying to concoct some way to fine Lynch for his media day appearance. Head injuries and premature player deaths. Even the abysmal NFC South. To say quite possibly the least, this hasn’t been the most fun or intriguing NFL season.

As a result, ALDLAND’s Super Bowl XLIX preview will consist of the following:

Get excited.

The Super Bowl starts at 6:30 pm on Sunday.

The Lions could have the best rush defense in the NFL…

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…ever.

The award for the fewest rushing yards allowed by a team in a regular season goes to the 2000 Ravens* anchored by linebacker Ray Lewis. The Ravens allowed a paltry 970 yards on the ground to pick up an impressive 12-4 regular season record. Oh, and this same defense went on to win Super Bowl XXXV as well.

The Lions are nearly on track to break this record.

Let’s take a look at the numbers. Through 13 games, the Lions have allowed 817 yards on the ground. The three remaining regular season games are against repeat foes; in fact, they are against all of the other teams in the NFC North.

The last time the Lions played the Vikings, Bears, and Packers, Detroit’s defense gave up a meager 69, 13, and 76 yards respectively. If we can expect a repeat performance then the Lions are set for 975 allowed rushing yards on the season – just five more than the NFL-best 2000 Ravens.

Of course, teams change throughout the season. Let’s look at some trends. The Lions do better at home than away: about 25% better than average when home and 25% worse than average when away. This isn’t too surprising. We can also look at how the Lions defense has done lately. In the last three games (Patriots, Bears, Bucs) the Lions have done better than their average, even when accounting for the fact that two of those games were in Detroit. On the other hand, all three of the latest teams rank in the bottom half of the NFL in rushing production this year, coming in 21st, 26th, and 31st, respectively, so perhaps a slight boost in recent statistics shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

On the other side, Minnesota has been doing worse than average rushing the ball lately (7% off their season average in their last three games), Chicago has been doing much worse (in part due to the Lions of course) (47% off their season average in their last three games), and the Packers have been up lately (35% over their season average in their last three games).

Could the Lions do it? Maybe. It looks like they will be about right on track. I would probably estimate a little bit more than 970 yards allowed on the ground.

And who knows, maybe Rodgers takes a knee on the last play of the Lions regular season (hopefully because the Lions are already up by 28) and that takes Detroit to 969 rushing yards allowed.

*Other teams have allowed fewer rushing yards in a season, but since the move to a standard 14 game season in 1961, no team has done better per game than the 2000 Ravens.

ALDLAND Podcast

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ALDLAND is back on the podcast track after a month-long break. Holidays kept us down, but they could not keep us away forever, and so we are back to talk NFL playoffs and NFL coaching changes. Expect podcasts to be more weekly from now on.

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