The two chain restaurants successfully applied for a total of $30 million in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program.
The New Orleans Saints will once again be led by quarterback Drew Brees, who decided against retirement to return to New Orleans on a two-year, $50 million deal.
The Saints are also insistent that they have their quarterback of the future already on the roster in the form of 29-year-old Taysom Hill, who they signed to a two-year, $21 million extension (with $16 million due at signing) on Sunday to show their commitment to him.
Compensation update: Taysom Hill’s two-year extension with the Saints is worth $21 million, including $16 million fully guaranteed at signing, plus $1 million more in performance incentives, per source. So it really is a one-year, $16.3M extension.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 26, 2020
Not only have they now committed $71 million to those two quarterbacks for the next two seasons, it’s also been widely reported on Sunday morning that Jameis Winston will be joining their quarterback room on a one-year deal to take over Teddy Bridgewater’s role as the nominal backup to Brees.
Sources tell Yahoo Sports the #Saints are finalizing a 1-year deal with free agent QB Jameis Winston. New Orleans hopes to continue maximizing Taysom Hill’s versatility on gameday while mitigating some risk in exposing Drew Brees’ backup to injury.
Story: https://t.co/srblaQWfhI pic.twitter.com/D2jNWL2446
— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) April 26, 2020
By doing a 1-year deal with the Saints, Jameis Winston would get to learn and be around Sean Payton, Drew Brees and others. He would fill the role that Teddy Bridgewater did in last season before he left for Carolina. With no other staring jobs, it would be an ideal landing spot.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 26, 2020
The #Saints are expected to sign FA QB Jameis Winston to a 1-year deal, as @CharlesRobinson said, as the former No. 1 overall pick is taking a less lucrative contract to learn from coach Sean Payton & Drew Brees.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 26, 2020
It’s interesting that Sean Payton and company insist that Hill is the future, but in possible absences of Brees, they insist on having a different quarterback playing backup. As Charles Robinson of Yahoo notes, the idea is to mitigate the issues caused by possible injury to Hill, who plays all over the field (and on special teams) and as such has a higher injury risk than any other backup in the league. It also allows them to keep him in that role, even when Brees is out, although it certainly raises questions about how they plan to use Hill once Brees does retire if they aren’t giving the heir apparent regular snaps in a situation where Brees is hurt.
In any case, the Saints are investing heavily in this year’s quarterback room and it will be interesting to see if Jameis can use this opportunity to grow as a player and parlay some time in New Orleans into another starting job in the future, a la Bridgewater.
From musical artists to doctors, the entire world has been affected one way or another as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. One group in particular impacted is the education system, as students all across the world have been sent home from their respective schools and left to finish the academic year from their homes. As a result, key moments like prom have been canceled or are likely at risk of being canceled. Looking to give these students a chance to somewhat live out their prom as normally as possible, Kyle comes through with a new idea.
Sharing a flyer on his Instagram page, Kyle announced the Super Duper Prom by sharing a throwback picture from his own prom.
“You are cordially invited to the Super Duper Prom April 29 (SuperDuperKyle Day) we’re giving you the prom you deserve so ask that special someone to be your date!” he said in the page’s caption. “Hosted by yours truly on IG Live. This is gonna be a night to remember.”
Kicking off Wednesday night at 7PM PST, attendees are asked to “get creative and put together your best quarantine outfit.” Kyle will serve as a judge for the prom outfits and hand out cash prizes for the best one. The first-place outfit will win $5000, the second-place outfit will win $1000 and the third-place outfit will win $500. Music for the prom will be provided by DJ Jadab0o and special guests will also make appearances during the night.
Bless Kenan Thompson for understanding that a world without sports is hungry for just about any sports-related content right now. The latest episode of SNL At Home featured Thompson doing his best to entertain a sports world largely on hold while COVID-19 ravages the known world, with the longtime Saturday Night Live star starring in three sports-related sketches to fill the void.
The first was Charles Barkley appearing on What’s Up With That to tell a Michael Jordan story apparently cut during The Last Dance. Thompson later donned a pair of gloves and got some golf clubs out to play OJ Simpson, who is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic just fine. Except for the moments that make him very… mad.
Later on, Thompson himself reprised his role as retired Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz. Thompson’s version of the Red Sox slugger is obsessed with obscure foods and full of sponsorship opportunities, and none of that changed with the SNL mainstay stuck at home. Thompson has played Ortiz like this for years, including in 2014 where a trip to the White House to celebrate the Red Sox winning the World Series was mostly about the “big lunch” the team had.
The same was the case earlier in the current SNL season, which saw Thompson play Ortiz after he was shot in the Dominican Republic. Now that Big Papi is at home, though, it was up to Thompson to play Ortiz making a Big Dominican Lunch for himself.
“How you gonna are a big lunch in quarantine?” Ortiz asked. “You gotta learn to improvise.”
Ortiz then made “a very simple dish based on things lying around the house.” Though according to some context clues and rough Spanish translation, Ortiz apparently has monkey paws and dolphin tongues lying around to make for lunch. The sketch is big on hyperbole, but the weird sponsorship deals are what really steal the show.
Ortiz says the sponsorship list starts with an “exploded can of beans,” and his hand sanitizer ad is really what stole the show.
“Have you been washing your hands like a thousand times a day. well then you’re in pure hell,” Thompson said, grimacing. “Pure Hell: why is my skin just like a bunch of dust?”
Papi also broke out his “seven meat sancocho,” which he claims PETA called “a genocide.” It was an extremely weird sketch, of course, but clearly a character that Thompson loves to play. And in a world where actual sports aren’t really happening, it was a welcome distraction to watch Big Papi cook for a bit.
Sarah Wayne Callies appears on this week’s second episode of Friday Night in with the Morgans, the weekly show in which Jeffrey Dean Morgan and his wife, Hilarie Burton, chat among friends for the comfort of AMC viewers. In last week’s episode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Supernatural co-star shared the story of how he introduced Burton and JDM, and in this week’s episode, they have Michael Cudlitz (sporting a full pandemic beard) and Sarah Wayne Callies.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Sarah Wayne Callies did not cross paths on The Walking Dead, but apparently, they are working together on a podcast that Sarah Wayne Callies is writing and directing called Aftershock. Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Stranger Things‘ David Harbour will provide voice work on the podcast.
In any respect, one person that Callies, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Michael Cudlitz all have in common is Andrew Lincoln, who worked with all three in the course of the series. Sarah Wayne Callies also describes Lincoln as “one of the most capable people on television. He can do anything. He can speak in any accent. He can make things look easy. He can sweat and still be sexy.”
However, according to Callies, there is one thing that Lincoln cannot do, and that is drive.
“Because he is British.” Callies continues. “He’s from London, so he didn’t have a driver’s license until five minutes before he came to Georgia.” This ended up in a mishap where Lincoln had to drive a cop car in reverse, and he didn’t really know how to drive in reverse. “He went reverse in that shot in, like, honestly I think it was 40 miles per hour,” Callies says.
“You can see in the shot that Jon Bernthal gets out of the car sh*tting himself. I have never seen Jon more scared,” Callies laughs. You can actually see that shot below.
Friday Night in with the Morgans continues to air on Friday nights on AMC.