Month: January 2021

The Washington Football Team are playoff bound as the NFC East champions after beating the Eagles 20-14 on Sunday night in what was, fittingly, a hideous football game.

The final quarter of play saw some hilariously bad play, thanks in large part to the Eagles pulling Jalen Hurts from the game and inserting, not Carson Wentz but Nate Sudfeld into the game. Sudfeld responded with two turnovers late to kill any chances of Philly to upset the Football Team and ruin their hopes of a getting a higher draft pick in one of the most blatant examples of tanking you’ll see.

This was upsetting, chiefly, to Giants players and fans who needed a Philly win to make the playoffs after having held on to beat the Cowboys earlier in the day. The G Men were all at home watching with baited breath and when Pederson swapped Sudfeld in for Hurts, well, they couldn’t believe their eyes.

Golden Tate was the most vocal as he lobbed various theories at the wall as to why the Eagles would so blatantly tank the final quarter with the game on the line, taking it as the Eagles simply hate the Giants more than the Football Team.

Hurts didn’t have a great passing night, but he had accounted for the Eagles only scores of the game with two rushing touchdowns. Given how long it took for Philly to make the switch to Hurts, you would think maybe they would want to get him as many game reps as possible, particularly in a close game like that one, but their eyes were on the draft (and keeping Hurts healthy) going forward and so, we got Sudfeld action. Maybe making matters worse and twisting the knife on the Giants was this explanation after the game from Eagles coach Doug Pederson.

Eagles fans won’t care and Football Team fans will be grateful as they now play host to the Bucs on Saturday night for playoff action. Whenever we get our first Giants-Eagles game next fall, though, expect there to be some extra juice on the New York side after what transpired on Sunday.

Sunday morning many people logged onto Twitter dot com to find that the online discourse had become focused on “Bean Dad.”

The basic gist, for those unaware, is that John Roderick, a musician and podcaster, took to Twitter to oddly brag about refusing to show his 9-year-old daughter how a handheld can opener works for six hours after he instructed her to open a can of baked beans in order to eat. It was very strange and led to a lot of folks dunking on “Bean Dad” for what simply amounts to bad parenting by blaming your young daughter for an inability to do something when you are the one in charge of teaching them such things.

Beyond that, however, it led people to dive into Roderick’s old tweets which brought up some really ugly and racist stuff — as well as rape jokes. That led to his podcast co-host, Ken Jennings, defending his tweets, including some he has about Jews and, in turn, potentially tanking his own career in the process. Many Jeopardy! fans had already called on the show to not make him the new host as is expected once the show goes through its revolving guest host process — which starts with Jennings this month.

Jennings, who had an entire tweet thread last week about everyone needing to be better towards others and apologizing for some offensive things he’s said in the past, would soon try and just ignore everything by tweeting videos of hummingbirds outside his window. James Holzhauer, who will join Jennings and Brad Rutter on ABC’s new trivia show The Chase, decided to back Jennings’ character on Twitter himself after the backlash arrived for Jennings.

Holzhauer later recognized that he too may have made a mistake by coming to Jennings’ aid and noted that Rutter might end up the only one gainfully employed by simply not tweeting, with Jennings trying to join in on the fun.

The damage may be done, however, at least for Jennings, as his swift defense of his podcast host seemingly failed to recognize that maybe this wasn’t a situation to do that — particularly given how ugly some of the tweets are. Roderick has since deleted his account, but the screenshots live forever and people have continually sent them to Jennings in the replies — Warning: they really are awful.

One day celebrities might learn that some things are indefensible, no matter how much you like someone, and that it’s not “cancel culture” out to take someone down when the person in question refers to “mud-people” and has a significant number of anti-Semitic and homophobic tweets over the period of a number of years. That’s just calling out what someone has said themselves and you don’t have to defend that.

You could, say, choose to condemn it and even say you’ll address it on your podcast with them if you really want to give them a platform to defend how they’ve changed, but going on Twitter to insist that this thing he’s said over and over isn’t consistent with their character is not the move. Alas, Jennings has made the worst choice possible and Holzhauer dipped a toe in the pool thinking it was fun and games only to come to find it very much isn’t.

We’ll have to wait and see if anything comes of this from any of Jennings’ TV show partners in the form of an official statement, but at the very least, the man who was at the peak of his popularity and seemed a near lock to take over a rather cushy gig on the ever-popular Jeopardy! has now put that in, no pun intended, jeopardy by defending some truly abhorrent tweets.

The Golden State Warriors have got off to a rough start to the season at 2-3, most notably getting blown out in their first two games of the season on national TV. They were again routed at the hands of the Blazers on Friday after two wins over East bottom feeders in Chicago and Detroit, and the online discourse turned its attention to one Stephen Curry.

There was a lot of talk on social media over the weekend (and really since the first two losses to start the season) about the two-time MVP and calling into question whether he was capable of putting up those tremendous performances we became accustomed to on a bad team where he is the central focus.

The answer from Curry came on Sunday when he erupted for a career-high 62 points in a 137-122 win over Portland in the second game of their mini-series at the Chase Center. Curry was 18-of-31 from the field, 18-of-19 from the free throw line, and 8-of-16 from three-point range on Sunday as the chef made his triumphant return — and made quite a statement — to get Golden State back to 3-3 on the season. Curry got started early, going off for 21 points in the opening quarter as it seemed he had a bit of a fire lit under him.

He didn’t quite keep up that same pace, but still dominated the game, leading the Warriors to a runaway win thanks to some preposterous, vintage Curry shots from way downtown, where it didn’t matter how aggressive the closeouts were, the ball was going up and it was going in.

His last three was the best example of that, as he hoisted from almost out of bounds on the left wing over a hard contest, finding nothing but net and launching him into an airplane celebration to the delight of his teammates.

Steph’s splash brother Klay Thompson enjoyed the performance and welcomed him to the 60-point club on Twitter, while actual brother Seth likewise enjoyed the show in Philly.

It was a sensational performance, one that should quiet some of the chatter around him. He came into the night averaging 26.4 points on some rough efficiency (42 percent from the field and 32.1 percent from three) but put all that behind him for a scoring performance for the ages on Sunday. He’ll surely mention that the win was the most important thing on the night, but you know he had at least heard some of what folks were saying and whether he’ll admit it or not, it had to have felt really good to quiet all of that in this way against a good team like Portland.

Remember Quibi? It’s been just over a month since the short-form streamer ended its too short life, having been felled in part by arriving during a pandemic, when few were in need nor in the mood for 10-minute “bites.” But there’s been one burning question: Where do the shows that did go live go next? Shows like Dummy, their reboot of The Fugitive, and their acclaimed continuation of Reno 911! currently live in limbo, in a kind of streaming oblivion. But they may have a home soon enough.

As per The Wall Street Journal, talks are happening with Roku, the much-loved smart TV app that allows easy access to the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, the Criterion Channel, and — now, finally — HBO Max. That said, the deal could still fall through. But if it doesn’t a bunch of orphans will have shelter, although presumably without the option to toggle between horizontal and vertical displays, being that Quibi content was supposed to be watched on a phone.

Quibi bowed in April of 2020, about a month into the widespread quarantine that became necessary after COVID-19 began its still out-of-control rampage across the globe. The service underperformed right out of the gate, and it didn’t get much better in the ensuing months, when people were often parked on their couch, staring at their giant TVs, afraid to go outside, much less wait in long lines. That’s where Quibi could have flourished, and maybe it would have in a different, better timeline. But at least the many who never downloaded the app will be to see if any of those shows, divvied into 10-minute “bites,” were any good.

(Via WSJ)

The NFL Playoffs are all set with the exception of the NFC East, which is being decided on Sunday Night Football as a Washington Football Team win would secure them the division, while an Eagles win gives it to the Giants who won earlier in the day over Dallas.

The league was not waiting for the winner of the NFC East to be decided before they published the now 6-game Wild Card Weekend schedule — which they’re calling Super Wild Card Weekend — releasing the full slate in the second quarter of the Sunday Night game.

Saturday, Jan. 9
Indianapolis Colts at Buffalo Bills, 1:05 pm (CBS)
Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks, 4:40 pm (FOX)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Giants/Football Team 8:15 p.m. (NBC)

Sunday, Jan. 10
Baltimore Ravens at Tennessee Titans, 1:05 p.m. (ESPN)
Chicago Bears at New Orleans Saints, 4:40 p.m. (CBS)
Cleveland Browns at Pittsburgh Steelers, 8:15 p.m. (NBC)

There aren’t a ton of surprises, as the Colts-Bills game leads things off in the Saturday early afternoon game, with Ravens-Titans earning the Sunday early game. Also no surprise are the NBC selections for their primetime games, as they’ll tap into the Tom Brady/NFC East money train on Saturday and also pick up the Steelers-Browns game that features the first Browns playoff game in 18 years.

Sorry, Game of Thrones, but there’s one dubious championship you no longer rule. When its run ended, so did its long reign as the most pirated show on television. According to Torrentfreak (as caught by Entertainment Weekly), that honor now goes to The Mandalorian, Disney+’s first Star Wars show and so far the crown jewel in its streaming empire.

But people weren’t only about illegally obtaining the adventures of Pedro Pascal’s good-ish bounty hunter and his adorable Baby Yoda (er, Grogu). Silver goes to The Boys, Amazon’s renegade superhero show, while bronze goes to Westworld, HBO’s increasingly convoluted take on Michael Crichton’s 1973 movie, which got it all done in one hit and a less successful sequel, both featuring Yul Brynner. Rounding out the top were Amazon’s Vikings, CBS’ Star Trek: Picard, Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty, AMC’s The Walking Dead, HBO’s The Outsider, CW’s Arrow, and CW’s The Flash.

There are a couple interesting takeaways here. One is that all of the top three shows only featured eight episodes this season, and the others didn’t have much more. Also worth noting is the plethora of different streamers, with only HBO, Amazon, and CW claiming more than one show in the top ten. That suggests some Streaming Wars exhaustion, as though a number of people aren’t even attempting to collecting them all. And there’s still more streamers en route. In the meantime, congrats?

(Via TorrentFreak and EW)

The New York Jets finished the season at 2-14, picking up the 2nd overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft in the process, and that closing record is actually a major improvement after starting the season 0-13.

Still, after such a dismal season in which the New York offense once again failed to ever get off the ground consistently, the writing was on the wall for head coach Adam Gase. The rumblings out of the Meadowlands began earlier this week that Gase’s tenure as coach was done after their game against the Patriots, and sure enough, late Sunday night the Jets made his firing official.

Gase went 9-23 over two seasons in New York, as the Jets regressed from a 7-9 team his first year to the 2-14 disaster that was this season. Sam Darnold never took the step forward expected or at least hoped for in Gase’s offense and for a coach whose calling card was supposed to be a creative, imaginative, and, most importantly, explosive offensive attack, what the Jets produced over two years simply didn’t match up. With the 2nd pick, the Jets seem likely to make a new quarterback the face of their franchise to pair with a new coach, as they’ll have their pick of Justin Fields, Zach Wilson, or Trey Lance come April.

As for Gase, he’ll almost assuredly find himself back as an offensive coordinator somewhere in the near future, but one would think this will be his last head coaching job for at least a little while. The Jets, meanwhile, will join the Falcons, Lions, and Texans on the coaching market, with others possible to join the fray, and one would expect New York to be like so many others and add Chiefs OC Eric Bienemy and Niners DC Robert Saleh to the top of their wishlist, but they’ll have to expand their choices beyond those two as they are the hottest commodities on the market.

Playboi Carti made quite the splash the week before Christmas when he revealed that his long-awaited sophomore album, Whole Lotta Red, would come out on Christmas Day. The follow up to his 2018 debut album Die Lit has been anticipated by fans for all years, and when a social media conversation with Travis Scott about what seemed like an album collab stirred the pot, fans were thrilled to get new music from the young rapper. So much so, that they’ve pushed his record to a No. 1 debut on the Billboard chart, a first for Carti.

Though Playboi might not be getting as hot of a reception from critics, and the mother of his child and ex-girlfriend Iggy Azalea flamed him up over a canceled Christmas trip to see his son, the album streams and sales are there. And that’s not too shabby a way to kick off the new year. Whole Lotta Red features collaborations with Kid Cudi on “M3tamorphosis” — which was also accompanied by a video on the night of the album release — and Kanye West on “Go2DaMoon.”

Luckily for Carti, Taylor Swift’s Evermore dropped down to the No. 2 slot for this week after spending two weeks at No. 1, giving him the distinction of topping the chart.

It’s been nearly two long months since the 2020 presidential race was called for Joe Biden, and to no one’s surprise his predecessor, Donald J. Trump, has not allowed a peaceful transition of power. Instead he’s filled the courts with dozens of failed lawsuits and insisted, baselessly, on voter fraud. The majority of Republicans have gone along with it thus far but, on Sunday, some of that support belatedly started eroding away. As per The Washington Post, a forceful letter demanded Trump concede was made public, one signed by such GOP heavy-hitters as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Those who signed the joint missive happened to all be former U.S. defense secretaries; the others were James Mattis, Mark Esper, Leon Panetta, William Cohen, Chuck Hagel, Robert Gates, William Perry and Ashton Carter. It was released mere days before Congress is scheduled to formally confirm Electoral College votes — a process that is being challenged by a number of Republican lawmakers, many of them steadfast supporters of the outgoing president. But though that effort is almost certainly doomed to fail, the letter from former vice president Cheney et al. did not mince words:

“Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.”

One alarming part of the letter concerns fears that Trump would coax the military to help him overturn the election results. The signees stressed that doing so — which is also unlikely — “would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory.”

Sunday was a big day for big-time Republican names to come down hard against Trump’s continued attempts to unlawfully serve a second administration. Lindsey Graham, a onetime Trump critic who become one of his minions, tweeted Sunday that while he looks forward to hearing any real objections to the Electoral College votes that will be submitted on Tuesday, he stated sharply that they “will need to provide proof of the charges they are making.

Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who ran as a vice presidential candidate opposite Mitt Romney in 2012, losing the position to incoming president Joe Biden, also denounced Republican attempts to spread unproven discord about November’s election.

Will this soften Trump’s increasingly desperate and convoluted attempts to overturn an election he lost by over seven million votes? Probably not. After all, the news comes the same day The Washington Post also dropped audio of him asking Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to falsify election results in his favor — a smoking gun, essentially, proving illegality. So his post-presidential life is not exactly looking rosy.

(Via The Washington Post)

Prince’s estate has a new issue on its hands, as the IRS reportedly said it undervalued its value by 50% — which amounts to about $80 million. As a result, the government agency says they are now owed more than $32 million by the late musician’s camp. According to the Star Tribune, the estate’s administrator, Comerica Bank & Trust, submitted documents that said they were only valued at $82.3 million, rather than the $163.2 million amount the IRS later determined the number to be. As a result of the gap, the IRS is seeking an additional $32.4 million. The IRS has also placed a $6.4 million “accuracy-related penalty.”

However, Comerica and its lawyers at Fredrikson & Byron in Minneapolis deny the IRS’ claims and say the documents were accurate. They have also asked a tax court to hold a trial in St. Paul, kicking off a process that would prolong the settlement of the estate and possibly create more legal fees at the expense of Prince’s heirs.

There have been many issues since Prince’s 2016 death. Estimates of his net worth have gone as low as $100 million to as high as $300 million. Prior to the IRS ruling, Comerica sued the IRS this past summer according to the Associated Press and claimed their calculations were filled with errors.

(via Star Tribune)