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thatscalledtoughlove · 4 years

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Didn’t Want to Fall in Love - 4: The Wandering Traveler

The final class on Friday afternoon left me in desperate need of a drink. Unfortunately, Tony had arranged for another date with a girl he’d met on one of his several dating apps, leaving me without a ride. I considered asking Justin if he wanted to accompany me to a fancier restaurant for dinner but realized that after what I’d done to him the week before, it would seem too much like a date and might give him the wrong idea.

And so, I decided to take the ten-minute walk from my college campus to the pub I’d gone to with Paul on our first date. A sign hung right above the door, made of dark oak wood. The Wandering Traveler, a building older than my great grandparents with the furniture inside helping to prove this fact. Underneath the name of the place it said it’d been established in 1896. At least the food itself had been modified over the years.

A few heads glanced up when I walked in, immediately looking back down at the drinks in their hands once they saw a young woman with a scowl. I’d mastered the expression during my teenage years, learning quickly that people tended to leave me alone if I looked angry at all times.

After I’d ordered a simple rum and coke, I took a seat at the end of the bar, checking my phone for messages I knew wouldn’t be there. To my surprise, I had one from Justin and two from Tony.

Justin asked if I wanted to meet up for lunch on Monday between classes, while Tony promised to be home before midnight. He’d finished class by two, giving him just enough time to go home and get ready for his dinner date at six. I’d been at the school until ten to six and hadn’t noticed his texts until thirty-five minutes after they’d been sent.

I messaged back that he didn’t have to worry about me and joined the other patrons of the bar in staring into my glass.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?” The voice took me by surprise, nearly making me spill my drink.

A familiar face smiled back when I looked up, the warm brown eyes one of the only pleasant memories from my date on Monday. “Yeah, go for it,” I said, downing the rest of my drink. I winced at the burn of alcohol at the bottom. I’d learned over the years that very few people drank because they enjoyed the taste.

“Hey, you’re the woman from the other night, aren’t you? You had a date with the guy who basically told me to screw off.” He smiled when I looked at him, shrugging his coat off and setting it on the stool to his right. I felt terrible when I realized I’d forgotten the waiter’s name.

It took a lot of effort to even smile. “Yep, that’s me.” When he continued to stare, I realized he must be waiting for me to introduce myself properly. I turned my whole body to face him and extended a hand. “I’m Izzy. You’re Zeke, right?”

He laughed, taking my hand. Once we let go, he shook his head. “No, but you were close. It’s Zachariah. Zack for short. It’s nice to have a real talk with you, Izzy.”

“Shit, I’m sorry. Names have never been my strongest skill. So, what’s your story, Zack? What brings you to The Wandering Traveler if you don’t have work?”

“I don’t really know anyone here, so I tend to spend most of my spare time checking out different parts of the city. All my family and friends are up north.” He motioned for the bar tender and ordered another rum and coke for me and one for himself. “What about you? Was that guy from the other night your boyfriend?”

I nearly choked on my drink laughing. “Paul? No way. He was a one-time deal. My best friend is out on a date and I had a long day, so the most logical thing to do is get a drink.”

We lapsed into silence for a few minutes. My phone received a message halfway through the silence, but I chose to ignore it. If Tony had something important to tell me, he would call. And Justin always took hours to answer, so he could wait.

Although I had no desire to speak at the moment, I figured it might be interesting to learn more about this waiter who sat beside me sipping on his drink. Neither of us seemed good at making friends. Maybe we could build a friendship on that unfortunate similarity.

“Does that mean you’re from Canada?” I asked, keeping my eyes trained on my glass. It was the second of many more drinks to come.

Zack cleared his throat, seemingly surprised that I wanted to continue the conversation. “Sure am. I moved here just a few months ago. I had a hard time trying to find a job, so I was lucky enough to see the hiring sign outside two weeks ago.”

I raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “You moved here before securing a job?”

His face didn’t turn red, despite him looking embarrassed. “I’ve never been one to really think things through before taking action. My older brother says that’s going to be my downfall someday, but then again I’m not the one who moved to an entirely different continent.”

“Sounds like running off to other countries runs in the family.” I had no idea how to react to a stranger telling me about his life. I’d always thought these kinds of encounters only happened in cheesy romance films.

Zack grinned, another laugh slipping out. For some odd reason, my heart picked up speed a bit. I looked away again. The pub would fill up some enough with more people looking to release the stress of the week. Hopefully it didn’t get as busy as I’d seen it on other nights.

“Tell me about yourself, Izzy. I feel we’ve talked about me enough. What’s the story with you and your date from the other night?” He ordered more drinks, and I accepted the next one with a polite smile, thanking him.

“We met on Tinder,” I said, already embarrassed just admitting it. “Which wasn’t my idea. I have my best friend Tony to thank for that one. He pressured me into signing up for online dating.”

More people had come in since we’d started talking, their separate conversations joining ours, the volume of noise in the room steadily increasing. The drinks continued, Zack and I quickly losing track of who bought who the next one. Neither of us seemed to mind.

We stopped mid-conversation again, downing a few more rum and colas before the drinks started to change with every new order. After I’d lost count, he turned back to me, apparently still remembering where the conversation had left off.

“Wait, so are you in college or something? How old are you?” Zack looked better when his hair wasn’t smoothed down with gel. It looked so soft I wanted to reach out and touch it.

I resisted the urge, forcing a nod as another drink appeared in front of me. “I’m in my third year right now. And I’m turning twenty-two in September. What about you? What made you want to move to this boring old city?”

He pushed his glass away, resting his elbow where it had previously been. “I dropped out of university after one term. It just wasn’t for me. And I don’t know, I wanted to experience adventure in a different country, but I didn’t want to go too far away. I’m also turning twenty-two in September. On the eighteenth.”

An obnoxious laugh slipped through my lips and I slammed my hands down on the bar counter. “No way! I’m four days older than you!” We both started to laugh, deciding to move to a table to order some food to balance out the amount of alcohol we’d had.

The food tasted a lot better after I’d had numerous drinks, and I found myself revealing more and more about myself to Zack as the night went on. He didn’t seem to mind, telling me stories about his life back home in Canada.

Apparently, he came from a small town in central Alberta, but had gone to a university in British Columbia, where his family moved when he was sixteen. Just like me, he’d never experienced a real relationship and hadn’t had his first kiss until the summer after he’d dropped out of university, after a brief encounter with a girl at a concert.

I confessed that I’d shared my own first kiss with Tony, and that there had once been a time briefly after that where we considered getting together. A secret no one from our group of friends knew except the two of us. Yet, after not telling another soul for five years, I somehow felt comfortable enough to share it with this man I hardly knew. Or maybe it was just the buzz I felt after over an hour of drinks.

“What is your greatest fear?” Zack asked after downing another drink, his cheeks flushed. “Everyone has one, so you can’t say you don’t.”

It took a minute for me to think about one, after I’d spent so many years telling myself I had nothing to fear anymore. After a long pause, I sat up straight and made eye contact with him. “Love.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Love?”

“Mhhm.”

“How can your greatest fear be love?”

I sighed, slouching in the booth. Even Tony had never heard a real explanation from me why I feared relationships so much. “If I tell you, do you promise you won’t laugh at me?”

Zack pressed one hand to his heart and held the other up, as if taking an oath. “I promise I won’t laugh.”

“Okay, well, I used to think of nothing else besides love. I spent every waking hour reading romance novels or watching movies with the cutest couples. Everywhere I looked, I saw love. Then, one day, I realized that that kind of stuff just doesn’t happen in life. And it crushed me.” I noticed him watching me and suddenly felt too exposed. “That’s it, I guess.” He didn’t need to hear the rest of the story.

“There has to be more to it than that. People don’t just start to fear love for no reason.”

I waved him off, deciding that this would be my last drink before I switched over to water. “Well, it happened to me.”

Zack leaned on the table, his face inches away from mine. I could tell from the glimmer in his eye that he was well on his way to a hangover in the morning, just like me. “Want to know what my biggest fear is?”

Shrugging, I downed the rest of my drink: another rum and coke. The burning had long ago stopped, replaced by a constant warmth that radiated from the inside out. It was the best part about drinking. That buzz I got once I overcame the initial sting.

“I fear not finding love.” I raised an eyebrow and he laughed. He had the kind of laugh that made people around pause. The guffaw that, the moment you heard it, you had to laugh even if you had no idea what was so funny. “I mean, we live in a society where your very identity revolves around relationships. How many friends you have, the number of people you’ve kissed or slept with, we’re nothing without other people.”

The conversation seemed to be headed in a serious direction, but I was so far gone I no longer cared. I sat up straight, resting my elbows on the table and leaning into them. “That, my friend, is bullshit. No one defines us but ourselves. Are you seriously telling me a person is nothing but their relationships?”

“Seems like it to me. Just take a look around at the world today.” He swept his hand out to the tables around us as he said this, nearly knocking his glass off the table.

I laughed, grabbing it and placing it near the wall to my left. “You’re wrong. You are what you love, not who loves you.”

“That’s some real philosophical thinking. Did you learn that in school?” He finished his drink and motioned the server over.

“Nope, it’s from a Fall Out Boy song.” He frowned, turning back to look at me, and I laughed. “It’s a pretty great song. You should look it up. Save Rock And Roll.”

Zack nodded, though I had a feeling he would forget all about this conversation by morning. If either of had another drink, I was certain we would end up on the floor of the pub passed out.

When the server came to our table, I requested two glasses of water, ignoring the protests that came from Zack. He stuck his bottom lip out in a pout when I glanced back at him.

“Why do you fear not finding love?” I asked, taking a sip of water once the two glasses arrived. Tony would not be happy when he discovered what I’d decided to do with my Friday evening.

Speaking of Tony, I hadn’t bothered checking if he’d left any messages on my phone. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind for hours. His date would likely be over by now.

Zack cleared his throat, pushing some of his blond hair out of his face. His eyes almost reminded me of whiskey. The comparison made me laugh, given our current circumstances, and I started to laugh. Several heads turned in our direction.

“How can you not fear being alone forever? My ultimate dream ever since I was a kid was to someday get married and start a family.” He noticed the judgemental look I gave him and frowned again. “Okay, Miss Afraid of Love, what is your ultimate dream?”

“That’s easy.” I set my glass of water down on the table and sat back, crossing my arms over my chest. “I want to own an art gallery. And sell my own artwork in it.”

Now it was my turn to receive a judgemental look. I glared at him, opening my mouth to defend myself, when my phone started to ring. Tony’s name appeared on the screen, accompanied by a picture of him wearing a ‘bad boy’ outfit for Halloween two years earlier.

Without excusing myself from the table, I answered the call, standing and walking a few feet away from where Zack watched with curious eyes. He motioned for the waiter again when he thought I wasn’t watching.

“Hello?” I grimaced when I heard myself speak. “What’s up?”

“Holy shit, Iz, are you drunk?” Judging by the sound in the background, I guessed he had just finished dropping off his date.

Although I knew he couldn’t see me, I shrugged. “Maybe. It’s not big deal, there’s plenty of people around.” My words sounded more slurred the more I tried to think of logical things to say.

“Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”

“I’ll be fine! Zack’s here with me.”

Tony’s car started in the background on his side of the line. “Who’s Zack? Isabelle, tell me where you are right now, before I use the find my friend app or whatever it’s called.”

He wasn’t exaggerating about it. Tony was the type of person to hunt down a friend if he thought they were in trouble or hunt down whoever hurt them if things took a turn for the worse. Especially when it came to me. Not that I blamed him, I had the tendency to get myself into trouble a lot.

“Fine, I’m at The Wandering Traveler.” I could feel a headache starting to form and regretted that last drink. Well, I regretted the last three drinks.

Someone honked a car horn on Tony’s side. “Stay in the pub, I’ll come in to get you. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Dad.” I started to laugh, thinking about when he called me Mom a few days earlier.

Tony did not find it as humorous.

“I’ll be there in less than ten minutes. Stay put.” And with that, he hung up. I sighed, turning back to the table where Zack still waited.

“Who was that?” he asked, downing another glass of water. The appeal of alcohol seemed to have worn off for us both. “Your best friend?”

I nodded, feeling completely sober for a brief second when I looked through my phone and realized I had six missed texts from Tony. It also happened to be quarter after midnight. I’d been here for six hours.

As promised, Tony showed up a few minutes later, his face set in a scowl. When he saw me, he let out a loud sigh. “Come on, Iz, we’re going home.”

“Why don’t you join us for a bit? Let loose.” I tried to grin, but my temporary giddiness was quickly fading. The thought of curling up in bed seemed great.

“Hey, I remember you!” Zack’s voice rose above the rumble of chatter and everyone turned to him. He flushed red and sunk lower in the booth. “You’re the guy who picked her up the other night. I just wanted to let you know that it was no big deal. Totally my fault for not looking before I stepped onto the road.”

The color drained from Tony’s face and he grabbed me by the arm. “We’re leaving. I think it’s time for you to go to bed.” He said this while looking at Zack.

Resigned to the fact I couldn’t stay any longer, I mumbled bye to Zack and allowed Tony to guide me from the pub. We kept quiet the whole ride home. As we parked outside the apartment, my nerves started, and I glanced at my best friend.

“Sorry.”

He shook his head, turning the car off, turning to look at me. “What’s wrong with you? What would you have done if I hadn’t called? That guy would’ve probably taken you home!”

“Oh, please, Zack’s not like that. He’s a nice guy.” I couldn’t say that with certainty, but my instincts told me it was true.

“Whatever, I don’t want to talk about this right now.” Tony got out of the car, slamming the door so hard it surprised me he didn’t shatter the window. “You know, you can be real dumb sometimes, Izzy.”

I ignored the pain of his comment, having learned after over a decade of friendship that sometimes the best answer was to not answer at all. He would get over it in the morning. Tony wasn’t the kind to hold a grudge.

He left me alone in the living room once we got inside, slipping into his bedroom without a word. I listened for the sound of steady breathing before moving to my own room. After I changed into some comfier clothes, I came back out and headed to the easel in the corner of the room.

An unfinished painting from a week earlier remained. Not trusting myself to complete it in this drunken state, I set it on the floor and grabbed a blank canvas. I had no idea what I wanted to paint, I just knew that the jumble of thoughts in my head had to find some form of escape.

Before I knew it, I’d created a mess of color. The painting was of nothing, but I sat and stared at it for a long time before moving, strangely mesmerized by my drunken creation.

It wasn’t until Tony entered the room at six in the morning to tell me to go to sleep that I realized I’d left my backpack at the pub.

#my writing #original writing #writblr #writers on tumblr #original story #q

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junker-town · 4 years

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6 winners and 5 losers from Day 2 of the NFL Draft

AJ Epenesa, Jonathan Taylor, and Xavier McKinney were all Day 2 picks in the 2020 NFL Draft.

The Ravens’ running game got better, Carson Wentz is on notice, and Roger Goodell needs a nap.

Day 2 of the 2020 NFL Draft is over, and 74 more college stars saw their pro dreams come true. Players coming from programs ranging from LSU and Ohio State to Lenoir-Rhyne and Dayton heard NFL commissioner Roger Goodell call their names to shove them off on their NFL journeys.

The ripples of Friday night’s decisions won’t be fully understood for at least a decade as early-round picks fizzle and overlooked prospects rise to the top of the NFL. Even so, we can gather a pretty good idea of which players, teams, and college programs are celebrating a little bit harder than others as the draft nears its halfway point.

So who looks best after a quick glance in the rear view mirror? And which teams may need to stick their landing on Day 3?

Winner: Every team that got a first-round talent on Day 2

On Thursday night, 32 elite football players were welcomed into the NFL fraternity. But the amount of sheer talent that was still waiting to be drafted was incredible:

One personnel director calls this “the deepest second round in the last 25 years.” He believes there are 20 players available tonight that could have been first-round picks; there usually are 7-10. “There will be as many starters in this round that there are in the first round.”

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 24, 2020

So many names who were expected to be drafted in the first round — and might have been in any other year — remained on the board. Safety Xavier McKinney was a popular mock draft pick for the Cowboys or Dolphins. So was cornerback Kristian Fulton to the Raiders, edge A.J. Epenesa to the Patriots, cornerback Jaylon Johnson to the Vikings, OT Josh Jones to the Dolphins, and WR Denzel Mims to the Packers, among others.

Other players who could’ve sneaked into Round 1 included safety Antoine Winfield Jr, OT Ezra Cleveland, and even running backs D’Andre Swift, Jonathan Taylor or J.K. Dobbins. (Please, no debates about the value of a first-round running back right now.)

All of those players were available heading into Day 2. Teams like the Colts (Taylor, Michael Pittman Jr.), Cowboys (Trevon Diggs, Neville Gallimore), Giants (McKinney), Bills (Epenesa), Jets (Mims), and Cardinals (Jones) were the ones to benefit most.

Winner: The scary as hell Ravens running game

No team had more rushing yards than the Ravens in 2019.

Lamar Jackson earned MVP honors by becoming the first NFL quarterback to ever eclipse 1,200 rushing yards. He was joined in the Baltimore backfield by Mark Ingram, who racked up 1,018 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns. Oh, and don’t forget about Gus Edwards, who averaged 5.3 yards per carry.

That unstoppable ground game somehow got even better Friday when the Ravens added J.K. Dobbins with the 55th pick.

Dobbins rushed for at least 1,000 yards in all three of his seasons at Ohio State. In 2019, he became the first Buckeyes running back ever to have a 2,000-yard season. That’s something Eddie George, Ezekiel Elliott, Archie Griffin, and many other great running backs didn’t accomplish.

Baltimore definitely didn’t need Dobbins’ help. Unfortunately for the entire AFC, he’ll make the Ravens — who are putting together an excellent draft — even harder to stop.

Loser: Carson Wentz

Aaron Rodgers landed on our list of Day 1 losers because the Packers drafted Utah State quarterback Jordan Love. But at least that pick made some sense. Yes, Green Bay could’ve provided Rodgers with the help he needs to win a Super Bowl, but he’s 36 and the Packers need to consider life after his retirement.

That logic can’t be applied to the Eagles’ pick, though.

Wentz is 27 and has five seasons left on his contract. It’s hard to figure out what exactly the team was thinking when it drafted Jalen Hurts in the middle of the second round. While Philadelphia knows all about the benefits of a quality backup quarterback, there were plenty of better ways to improve the roster.

Instead, there’s legitimate reason to question Wentz’s future with the franchise. A team doesn’t draft someone in the second round unless it foresees that player being a long-term fixture.

Winner: Drew Lock

The Broncos’ 2019 second-round pick gave them a lot of reason to be optimistic last year. Lock finished his rookie season 4-1 as a starter with seven touchdowns and three interceptions.

On Thursday, Denver gave him some help by picking Alabama receiver Jerry Jeudy with the No. 15 pick. Unsurprisingly, Lock was happy about it:

— Drew Lock (@DrewLock23) April 24, 2020

The Broncos didn’t stop there, though. In the second round, they Penn State receiver KJ Hamler with the 46th pick. Lock was excited about that too:

— Drew Lock (@DrewLock23) April 25, 2020

Suddenly, Lock has a quite the arsenal. Jeudy and Hamler are joining an offense that already had receiver Courtland Sutton and 2019 first-round tight end Noah Fant. Adding center Lloyd Cushenberry in the third round was just the icing on the cake.

Winner: Good dogs

A fully virtual NFL Draft promised us one very important thing: a lot of good dogs on TV. But the first day was a little bit disappointing. While Giants coach Joe Judge talked about how well-versed his golden retriever Abby is about the 2020 class, she didn’t make a single appearance.

Fortunately, there was a much larger dog presence in Day 2. Bill Belichick even turned into one:

No wonder the Patriots dominated the last two decades.

Loser: Tom Brady

Thursday was a great day for Touchdown Tom, with the Buccaneers moving up one spot in the draft order to secure Iowa offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs. It’s a good thing they did, because the rest of the NFC South spent Friday loading up on players to take Brady down.

First, the Panthers took Penn State edge rusher Yetur Gross-Matos with the 38th pick. He made it clear what his immediate NFL goal is for the 2020 season.

Yetur Gross-Matos: I want to sack Tom Brady.

— Jourdan Rodrigue (@JourdanRodrigue) April 25, 2020

The Atlanta Falcons were next when they picked Auburn pass rusher Marlon Davidson at 47th overall. The All-SEC defensive lineman will likely line up at defensive tackle in Dan Quinn’s defense, which added Dante Fowler Jr. earlier in the offseason.

New Orleans got in on the pass rush party too. After not picking in the second round, the Saints traded away a 2021 third-round pick to move up and take Wisconsin edge rusher Zack Baun at 74th overall.

Brady got some help of his own in Day 2. The Buccaneers added running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn in the third round (and safety Antoine Winfield Jr. in the second round, which probably only reminded Brady of how old he is). But that didn’t do much to change the fact that he’s clearly in the crosshairs of the other NFC South teams.

Loser: Aaron Rodgers, again

Rodgers didn’t get his first-round wideout. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; borderline Day 1 talents like Tee Higgins, Laviska Shenault, Denzel Mims, and Michael Pittman Jr. were all on the board to begin Day 2. With a little luck or another trade up the draft board — like the club did to select Rodgers’ possible replacement, Jordan Love — one of those players would be the next big addition to the Packers’ receiving corps.

Green Bay got none of those players. It got a Boston College power back with 21 collegiate receptions to his name (AJ Dillon) and a third-round tight end out of Cincinnati who had 92 catches and 1,117 receiving yards ... in four years with the Bearcats (Josiah Deguara). Instead of getting an immediate boost to his passing game, Rodgers got a couple of lottery tickets who may not make his offense any better.

Winner: Matt Hennessy

The former Temple offensive lineman didn’t just get drafted with the 14th pick in the third round Friday night by the Falcons. As the 3.14 pick, he also won a shit load of pizza.

As the 78th pick, Matt Hennessy gets free @pizzahut for a year. As the 2020 Pizza Hut Pi Pick

— vaughn mcclure (@vxmcclure23) April 25, 2020

That’s an award that should only go to offensive linemen. Congrats on the pizza, Matt.

Loser: Roger Goodell’s gas tank

The commissioner’s doing more work than usual during the draft. In a typical year, Goodell would only announce the first-round picks. The other rounds have recently been handled by trash-talking NFL alumni (who could forget Drew Pearson roasting Philadelphia?), animals, and league representatives other than Goodell reading the picks.

But this year Goodell has to read off all the selections and it seems to be wearing him out. Just look at him by the time the back half of the third round rolled around.

Roger Goodell is exhausted pic.twitter.com/TYHRjV5F8A

— SB Nation (@SBNation) April 25, 2020

There’s another 149 draft picks coming Saturday. Is Goodell going to make it?

Loser: QB Jake Fromm

Fromm had to go through the first two nights of the draft without hearing his name called. What’s even worse is that there was a camera in his living room that captured him having to wait in agony:

We still don’t understand why Fromm declared for the NFL Draft this year. He had three OK seasons in Athens, but he was also coming off his least efficient year and failed to impress at the NFL Combine.

If he had returned in 2020, his team could’ve still won the SEC East division and he would’ve gotten a chance to his boost his NFL resume with a bounce-back year. Sure, maybe he didn’t want to come out in 2021, the same year as Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and Ohio State’s Justin Fields (aka Fromm’s former backup). But he’s already seen five quarterbacks go ahead of him this year. Who knows how much longer he’ll be waiting alongside his generically handsome family.

Winner: Tight ends

There were six tight ends taken in the first rounds of the last three drafts. That streak ended this year, when zero tight ends went off the board on the first night of the draft. It wasn’t a shock, by any stretch. But it confirmed what many already thought about the positional group: It’s the weakest of the draft class.

The second night of the draft was another story. Now, as many tight ends (five) as quarterbacks have been selected through two nights of the draft.

Tight ends started making their comeback one-third of the way through the second round, when the Bears took Notre Dame’s Cole Kmet with the No. 43 overall pick. (Did the Bears need a tight end? Probably not.)

The third round is where things really started to pick up, though. Four different tight ends heard their name called by an increasingly sleepy Goodell: UCLA’s Devin Asiasi, Cincinnati’s Josiah Deguara, Virginia Tech’s Dalton Keene, and Dayton’s (yes, Dayton!) Adam Trautman.

Two of them, Asiasi and Keene, have been the Patriots’ only two offensive draftees so far. Belichick might not be done, either, with players like the highly athletic Albert Okwuegbunam and “Randy Moss is my dad” Thaddeus Moss still available on Day 3.

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asreoninfusion · 7 years

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Vampire AU Chapter 4

.....

..... I’m sorry. This is nothing but exposition. Literally. Just. Five pages of exposition. It’s got a whole heap of world-building elements, but this fic has been so poorly planned on my part (i.e. not planned at all) that all of that got shoved into this one chapter. >>;;;

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Zack called during Cloud’s lunch break the next day. It was not the most coherent of conversations, since Zack started by apologising profusely without even explaining why.

“—and I know it’s such a pain, I really wanted to hang out with you more as soon as possible, but it’s just this thing’s come up, and I’m sorry, I swear. I’ll make it up to you when I get back, but they don’t even know how long—”

“Zack,” Cloud had interrupted. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

Nothing worthy of such a tirade, that was for sure. Zack just had a mission out of town, and would be gone for at least one or two nights. It was unfortunate timing, because that would take it into the weekend and Cloud had really wanted to spend more time talking with Zack and getting some answers. But it was hardly the first time Zack had been sent off, and it wouldn’t be the last. At least it wasn’t weeks this time.

The fact Zack had been making such a big deal out of it actually helped Cloud handle it better. It kind of stung that Zack was leaving so soon, even though Cloud knew full well it wasn’t his fault. Zack complaining about being tempted just to ditch the mission made Cloud laugh and put things into perspective. It was Zack’s damn job, and he had told Zack as much.

“I’m not going anywhere, moron. I’ll be here when you get back.”

Zack shipped out before Cloud finished work, so Cloud had just gone home to his own place. It felt a little weird – Friday nights had almost always been the one time he put aside to see Zack, no matter how busy the rest of the week had been. It was quiet without him.

Cloud hardly minded quiet. He would’ve killed for it back in his army days. But with quiet came the unfortunate habit for his brain to overthink.

Around Zack, everything seemed so straightforward. Cloud felt like Zack would always have his back, no matter what. So even if he didn’t know all the answers right then, between himself and Zack they’d solve any problem the world threw at him. He didn’t know everything about what being a vampire meant, but Zack did, and he knew Zack would tell him, piece by piece between games and food and kisses. Or more.

The longer Cloud was without Zack’s reassuring presence, the more he began to doubt.

He didn’t know what being a vampire meant; he’d barely scratched the surface. Sure, he knew a whole fucking lot thanks to his little obsession, but that was about fictional shit. His interest had previously only been an idea. Maybe something to turn into an incredibly hot roleplay with a lover. When it came to the reality of it, he was suddenly in over his head.

That was another thing. The sort of thing that made Cloud lie in bed and pull the pillow over his head, wishing he could smother his embarrassment out. It was one thing to have a fetish centred around a fictional concept, but if they weren’t fictional after all—there were real people who were vampires and Cloud had just fetishized the shit out of them as a group without even knowing—gods. He felt like the stupidest, most thoughtless pile of shit on the planet.

Worst of all was he hadn’t even changed; he still thought of Zack, Zack’s fangs, how it felt when they grazed against Cloud’s skin, and he still got as turned on as ever. Fuck.

Cloud rolled over aggressively, burying himself into the covers as if he could make himself disappear. He needed to stop thinking about it. There was nothing he could do about his actions thus far; all he could do was try to do a lot better in the future.

With nothing else to do on a Friday night at such short notice - and never having been much of one to go out anyway - Cloud had ended up staying in and going to bed early. He was regretting that course of action now, because it only resulted in longer to lay awake while his brain replayed ‘101 moments you hideously embarrassed yourself and made everyone hate you’.

“Fuck you too, brain,” Cloud mumbled into the pillow.

But maybe even that was better than the other worry that gnawed at his gut. Because then, on top of all that, there were the others. The other vampires who Zack was with. He didn’t even know how many, just that Zack seemed to have been talking in the plural.

He wasn’t going to judge. There had been a guy in his old unit who had a polyamorous relationship; they’d all been privy to that development, whether they’d liked it or not. Things hadn’t been working out between him and his girlfriend – they were so in love, but working for ShinRa just didn’t leave enough time for him to see her as often as she needed him to. Feeling shitty as hell but understanding, he’d actually helped her set up other dates, one of which was with a good friend of his. They’d hit it off. But rather than ending things and moving on with the new relationship, they’d come to an agreement to make it work with all three of them.

Most of the unit had given the guy tons of shit for it, assuming the girl was just with this new dude and keeping him hanging around for fun. But Cloud admired him. He’d fought tooth and nail for that relationship, and he’d ended up with something that worked for all parties involved. Cloud could tell he was so much happier after it all got sorted.

So, no. It didn’t bother Cloud that Zack had other lovers. But… he wanted to meet them, at least. Be on good terms with each other, be friends. Maybe they wouldn’t ever hit it off as anything more, but that was okay. To Cloud, it felt important to know about the other people who played such a significant role in Zack’s life.

He’d talk to Zack about it when he got back. Maybe then he could shake his vague feeling of unease about the whole thing.

It was a plan; or the start of one, at least.

That just left one last burning question in Cloud's mind. Or perhaps not so much a question as an entire topic. Everything about vampires, Cloud wanted to know. Had Zack always been a vampire, or had he become one somehow? How did that work? He clearly didn’t have a problem going out in the sunlight or eating garlic, where all those myths just bullshit? Was his enhanced strength and speed anything to do with being a vampire, or was that just from having been in SOLDIER before? What did ShinRa know about vampires, and what was their beef with them? What about the supposed ‘vampire threat’ Zack – and others, Cloud presumed – got sent out to combat occasionally?

It was fucking exhausting just thinking about it. He couldn’t even blame Zack for not having told him – there was so much Cloud needed to know, it would take forever to talk it through. They’d do it, though, piece by piece.

Of course, Cloud couldn’t get any direct answers until Zack got back. But, he wondered… a lot of stuff out there was just the cycle of movies and books regurgitating the latest trendy incarnation of vampire lore, but Cloud knew of one or two places that might have some more relevant information. If he got a feel for what to expect, it might make that conversation with Zack faster and less one-sided. If nothing else, they could laugh over how wrong everyone was.

Yeah, he decided. He’d do that tomorrow.

By the time Cloud’s brain had finally stopped overthinking enough to let him sleep, it was already the early hours of the morning. That was probably the reason why he woke up a lot later than he’d intended the following day.

Cloud blearily informed his alarm clock that it was a piece of shit (though, of course, he was the one who had set it specifically not to go off on the weekends). After a quick bowl of cereal, a shower and getting dressed, Cloud headed out to the station.

Did he need to go to the library to do his research? No. He had a laptop and a phone that both would have been entirely capable, but… Zack had him getting paranoid. Cloud was absolutely not meant to know about the whole vampire thing, and he could get Zack in serious shit if anyone found out he had told Cloud.

He knew it was stupid. What were the chances anyone was gonna be checking his internet activity? Sure, his wifi was provided by ShinRa - a bonus they provided alongside the subsidised apartments they offered to their staff (it was the only way any of the lower level workers could afford to live above the Plate). That didn’t mean ShinRa was watching all the information that went through the network.

Whatever. It was nice to go out somewhere on his day off anyway.

Cloud hadn’t been to the library in a long time; it was pleasant to watch the familiar building roll into sight as the train approached. It really had been years.

When Cloud had first arrived in Midgar and joined the army, he’d never intended to stay there. His goal was SOLDIER. But he failed his first attempt to get in, and before he had a second chance the whole SOLDIER project was shut down. He drifted for a bit; to the logistics department first, then the engineering corps.

That was when he’d sought solace in the library; they were provided with basic training, of course, but Cloud had found a love in working with mechanics, and wanted to devour far more information than the army provided. He’d finally found something he excelled at. And excelled enough that he’d been picked out for an internship in the ShinRa’s general engineering department.

He’d been working in the engineering department since. Instead of just maintaining the equipment the military used, Cloud now got to play with anything from cutting-edge robotics to the mako reactors. As well as a few side projects of his own.

Although it had been a while, not much had changed. Cloud found himself drifting fondly to the non-fiction section; in particular, the shelves that housed the library’s books on mechanics. And of more immediate concern, the small study room behind that section that also housed a pair of computers for library patrons to use.

The room was empty, as Cloud had been counting on. Being small and out of the way, a lot of people didn’t know about it, or perhaps simply couldn’t be bothered to go all the way up to the third floor just to sit in a glorified cupboard to study.

Cloud slid into the computer seat and logged on.

The first thing he wanted to check was ShinRa’s official stance. Zack had said they viewed vampires as the ‘bad guys’ – why? They kept Zack employed, what was the difference between him and anyone else?

There was nothing on ShinRa’s own site. Just a generic statement about protecting the population from monsters, environmental disasters, and other threats.

Searching specifically for news articles featuring ‘ShinRa’ and ‘vampire’ as keywords turned out to be a little more useful. The oldest article was from five years ago, asking for ShinRa’s comment on a sudden surge in attacks in Midgar that were being attributed to vampires. The PR spokesman denied there being any such thing as vampires, suggesting instead that these were simply another vaguely humanoid monster that panicked victims were mistaking as something else. ShinRa would protect, as always.

Cloud noted the date down. Surge of vampire attacks – that could be relevant to something.

The newer articles didn’t seem to have anything of relevance. Cloud skim-read through a few; the only difference seemed to be that, over time, the PR department had picked up the public’s colloquial term, and now used ‘vampire’ themselves as a word to refer to the sort of monsters that preferred to kill by ripping their victims throat out with their teeth.

Attacks dropped to a steady rate, no more than any other kind of monster (human or otherwise) around, and the idea mostly faded from the public consciousness.

Next line of enquiry, then. What were these supposed ‘vampire’ monsters? ‘Cause they sure didn’t sound a damn thing like Zack. Or any of the types of vampires generally popularised by the media. (Cloud knew a lot about those ones – ahem.) In fact, the monster thing was new; Cloud couldn’t really find any mention of it at all anywhere between really, really old myths and then the reports starting five years ago.

Hesitantly, Cloud checked some of his old forum haunts. The awkward, hideously embarrassing forum haunts. That was… ahh. Cloud swallowed. A few minutes of clicking around turned into almost half an hour, but he determined one thing; that was nothing with any actual news there, that was for sure. These were the kind of vampires he was more familiar with. There were written stories, stills taken from movies, art of various characters, nothing more than that.

He could feel his face heating up, though. Just some of those picture, fangs sinking into flesh, seeing the blood well up beneath them… Fuck. Why was he like this?!

Cloud quickly clicked away, glancing behind him even though he was alone in the room. A whole fucking decade and he still hadn’t escaped his embarrassing vampire phase. And probably wasn’t ever going to now.

Anyway. There was one last site he particularly wanted to check – the reason he’d been so particular about not doing this anywhere he could be traced to. AVALANCHE. It was just a conspiracy theory website, but it had proven correct before. Namely, when SOLDIER had been shut down.

Cloud had been desperate for information. Of course he had been, his dream had just been fucking shattered. And on ShinRa’s end was nothing but radio silence. For literally months. All that had been issued was a generic statement about SOLDIER no longer running, but other departments being fully functional and ready to defend Midgar as much as ever.

So Cloud had turned to other places. Rumours had been rife, of course. But AVALANCHE was the one place that had come out with a statement and stuck to it, claiming there had been a mass desertion. Another year later, Cloud met Zack, an ex-SOLDIER, and that was confirmed to be true. Though even then, no one knew the reason for the mass desertion. Zack hadn’t elaborated beyond a tight-lipped; “ShinRa was doing some fucked up shit. They were right to get out.”

Of course, the problem was, AVALANCHE was incredibly anti-ShinRa. Even though Cloud wanted nothing to do with the rest of the organisation, just flicking through their ‘news’ page could get him in serious shit. Especially since he worked with goddamn mako reactors.

Best just find what he needed and get out.

He searched their archives for vampire stories and theories. Every hit was within the last five years; nothing older than that. That matched up to the other date Cloud had got, claiming a surge of vampire attacks around then.

The predominant theory AVALANCHE put forward was that ShinRa themselves were involved. The timing was almost too coincidental… the vampire attacks started almost exactly the same time SOLDIER was shut down. The one group of elite fighters who would be able to handle monsters like that, gone right when they were needed.

The hairs on the back of Cloud’s neck stood on end. He hadn’t even realised… he had been so preoccupied by everything going on with SOLDIER that he had barely registered the whole vampire/monster thing at the time, something that was fairly unusual for him. Normally just the mention of vampires made him sit up and pay attention, but having his life goal destroyed before his eyes had put a bit of a dampener on his enthusiasm for things at that particular point.

He hadn’t realised those events had been so close…

AVALANCE often stipulated that monsters in general were caused by exposure to mako. The feral ones had those mutations, those distinctive eyes. These vampires were monsters, but so much more humanoid. Were they too the product of mako exposure and mutation, but on people?

The SOLDIER process had involved using mako as an enhancement agent, Cloud knew that much. What if it had… gone wrong somehow, for some of them?

For all of them?

“Zack…”

Cloud had enough information. His blood felt like it was running cold, and he was cursing himself for doing this at a time when Zack wasn’t around. Because oh, boy, did he have questions now. Even if it was just a yes or a no answer, he needed to know. Was there a link with SOLDIER?

If there was… Cloud wondered about Zack’s other lovers, the other vampires; had they been SOLDIERs once as well? Why were some like Zack, still human, while others had become monsters?

Cloud logged off the computer, his history automatically erased by the system.

The wait for Zack to get back was going to be torture.

#info duuuuump #vampire au #my writings

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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

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The Weekend Warrior 4/9/21: VOYAGERS, THUNDER FORCE, HELD, THE POWER

Well, things certainly picked up last week, didn’t they? We finally had a relatively big hit with Kong vs. Godzilla, and by that, I mean that it made more in its first five days than most of the other pandemic releases have made during their entire theatrical runs. Sure, it’s great start and a good sign for the recovering theatrical economy, but it’s just a mere start. It will be a long time before theaters can be safe for larger crowds of 50% or more and that’s probably going to be needed to counter-balance the cost of keeping these theaters open. L.A., which reopened after NYC, seems to be going that route, while Cuomo still seems to care more about other businesses and artforms. It’s been a month since NYC theaters opened at 25% capacity or 50 people tops, and other theaters and venues are opening with up to 150 people, so I’m not sure what Cuomo is waiting for. It’s fine, even if it’s the same old shit we’ve been dealing with for a year.

The widest release of the week is Neil Burger’s original sci-fi thriller VOYAGERS (Liongate), starring Colin Farrell, Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp and Fionn Whitehead (from Dunkirk), and this is an interesting high-concept movie that feels a bit like “Lord of the Flies” in space. Set in 2063, Farrell plays a counselor put in charge of a group of bioengineered teens shot into space in order to populate a new world hundreds of light years away, a trip that will take them 90 years. Things soon start to go wrong as the kids learn that the “blue” drink they’ve been taking is meant to repress their emotions and urges so that they don’t have so much sex that the cramped ship becomes overpopulated before they get to the new earth. Two of the teens, Sheridan’s Christopher and Whitehead’s Zack, discover this info about the “blue” and decide to stop taking it, and then other stuff happens.

Voyagers is definitely a fairly high concept space movie that you’re likely to appreciate more if you don’t know too much about what happens as it goes along. Colin Farrell has a decent role as the mentor and overseer of these bioengineered kids in space, but at times, it goes into fairly expected places once the kids start getting off the “blue,” creating a conflict between Christopher and Zac, especially since both have their eye on Depp’s Sela.

Of course, comparisons will be made to the fairly recent outer space movie Passengers, mainly due to the long space travel trip, but this is more about a lot of young people cramped into a spaceship and testing out their muscle as they start getting physical in more ways than one. The look and feel of the film is partially what makes the film so intriguing, as it seems to be influenced by films like George Lucas’ THX-1138 or of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey, but this is a far more primal film rather than one that necessarily tries to be cerebral.

Although the performances are a little flat, possibly as a deliberate decision, the film does build to a fairly satisfying climax and ending, and I quite enjoyed Neil Burger’s exploration of more literary science fiction and world building than other films of this ilk.

As far as box office, I wish I was a little more confident in the movie, although I don’t even know if this will get released into 2,000 theaters by Lionsgate, and there’s still that relatively huge Godzilla vs Kong, which is likely to drop 55% or more in its second weekend but that’s still a second weekend of $14.5 million, which isn’t attainable by Voyagers. I figure this will be shooting for second place with around $4 or 5 million just based on the genre and lack of much else for young people in theaters.

You can also read my interview with Neil Burger over at Below the Line

Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer star in Ben Falcone’s new superhero comedy, THUNDER FORCE, which will stream on Netflix starting Friday, and while I’m under embargo until then, there isn’t a ton that I can say as you read this. McCarthy and Spencer play Lydia Berman and Emily Stanton, two very different people we meet when they’re young girls living in a world where people who have powers are known as Miscreants, and they dream about having powers themselves but as teens, they have a falling out. Many decades later, they reconnect and Emily has a teen daughter Tracy (Taylor Mosby) and the two end up taking part in an experiment to get super powers themselves, sort of. Thunder Force hits Netflix on Friday and hopefully I’ll have a review to share just as it goes live.

MINI-REVIEW (Coming Soon!)

We have quite a bit of horror this week, including HELD (Magnet Releasing), the new thriller from the directors of The Gallows and its sequel, Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing. The movie stars Jill Awbrey, who also wrote the script, as Emma Barrett, a woman in a marriage that’s having problems but is really put to the test when she and her husband Henry (Bart Johnson) decide to spend a romantic weekend away and end up trapped in a luxury home by a malevolent voice commanding them to do whatever he tells them.

I was really hoping to like this one because I was hoping for it to be an original take on the home terror genre, but it opens with a fairly ugly date rape sequence that doesn’t seem to do much for the story when it’s introduced. At first, I thought that maybe that’s an important set-up for what’s to happen later, but it’s actually a bit of a skeevy red herring. This story really begins when Awbrey’s Emma arrives at a luxurious house and waits for her husband to arrive. The first night they’re there, a mysterious man in a leather mask visits them and actually changes Emma into a different night gown. Once the couple realizes that they were drugged and something happened to them while they slept, a voice over an intercom starts to make demands on them, giving them massive shocks when they disobey.

There’s so much potential in this premise but the fact is that neither Awbrey nor Johnson are particularly good actors, and while I’ve never actually seen The Gallows, I wasn’t particularly impressed by Cluff nor Lofing as directors either. They do a fine job with creating the proper mood and environment but there’s aspects to the movie that feel so skeevy that it was really hard to get into much of this.

While Held isn’t violent enough to be considered “torture porn” perse, there’s something quite voyeuristic about it that I found disturbing and not in a good way that a thriller might make you feel uncomfortable. The situation gets worse and worse, almost painful to watch at times, leading to a pretty awful Stepford Wives rip-off of a twist that really seems to come out of nowhere.

While Held might start off like it another one of those #MeToo revenge thrillers, by the end, it becomes far clearer that this was not a particularly well-thought premise that just goes downhill as the filmmakers try to prove themselves to be far more clever than they actually are. The whole thing just feels kind of ugly and unpleasant.

While we’re into the horror section of this week’s Weekend Warrior, streaming on Shudder starting Thursday is Corrina Faith’s THE POWER, a period horror film starring Rose Williams as Val, the newest matron at a big scary hospital during wartime in London when power is being shut off at night to conserve energy.

This very eerie horror film already has a pretty daunting setting by being set in one of those old hospitals during wartime, where there isn’t a ton of things going on but when the power goes out, things start getting crazy as Val starts seeing and experiencing things in the dark, only really having a gas lantern to light her way.

I wasn’t really familiar with Rose Williams, but she gives an amazing performance as a seemingly innocent matron who is particularly scared of the dark and who gets thrown into so many horrifying incidents that she goes through this remarkable transformation from the introduction until the end. There’s also a great group of characters around her, including the evil blonde Babs (Emma Rigby), a bully from Val’s past (a real c-word) and a number of creepy male characters with seemingly lecherous intentions. Another level is brought to the mix by the young girl named Saba (Shakira Rahman) who Val bonds with and tries to protect from whatever malevolent spirit is haunting the hospital.

Faith’s debut feature is quite an achievement, and it certainly feels like she and Williams are two women to watch, because they’re destined to do interesting projects in the future. In the meantime, this is another great offering by the horror streamer that’s really been delivering the goods the past two years. (I also point out how much I loved the score by Gazelle Twin, who also scored the Blumhouse/Amazon horror film Nocturne.)

I haven’t had a chance to see Oliver Hermanus’ BAFTA-nominated MOFFIE (IFC Films) yet, but it’s definitely on my radar as a film set in 1981 South Africa as the white minority government is in a conflict on the southern Angolan border. Nicholas Van der Swart, like all white boys over 16, has to spend two years of compulsory military service to defend the Apartheid regime from “die swart gevaar” (the so-called black danger) is at its height but Nicholas must face the brutality of the army as he makes a connection with his fellow recruit. Definitely gonna try to watch this when time permits, although this coming weekend, there are four awards shows I’m covering for Below the Line.

On Sunday, I watched this amazing independent coming-of-age film called GIANTS BEING LONELY (Gravitas Ventures), written and directed by Grear Patterson, which played at the Metrograph as part of its Live Screening series, plus it will also be released via digital download this week. It stars brothers Jack Irving and Ben Irving as small-town football heroes Bobby and Adam, both of whom have caught the eye of Lily Gavin’s Caroline, but both boys have family issues, Adam whose father (Gabe Fazio) is the coach, and Bobby who is sleeping with the coach’s wife. It’s a pretty amazing movie that reminded me of early Richard Linklater, because it’s so raw and honest in dealing with young people in a small town that goes into some really dark places as it goes along. It’s now available via DVD, Blu-ray and On Demand.

Also, fans of Leos Carax’s Holy Motors will get to see the movie as part of the Metrograph’s Live Screenings program from now through next Tuesday. ($5 a month for a digital membership!) Also playing at the Metrograph until Monday is Michael and Christian Blackwood’s doc Monk (1968) about Thelonious Monk, which is running until Monday and then followed by Monk in Europe starting next Tuesday. Orson Welles’ The Stranger will start streaming Monday for a week On Demand as part of the Metrograph’s “Welles Monday.”

As mentioned last week, New York’s Film Forum is also reopened, and I watched Fellini’s La Strada this past Sunday, which has been extended until April 15. Hitchcock’s Rear Window will also play for a week starting Friday, while Pedro Almodovar’s The Human Voice and A Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and the doc The Truffle Hunters will continue in the theater, as well as the Film Forum’s terrific Virtual Cinema programming, which has added Eric Rohmer’s A Tale of Springtime.

Also, now available via digital is Michael Carnick’s THE FORBIDDEN WISH (Conduit Now), a two-hander drama that follows a young man named Isaac (John Berchtold) who visits an Ethiopian born rabbi named Nate (Sammy Rotibi) on the eve of Yom Kippur, Isaac wanting Nate to read him the Mourner’s Kaddish. I have to say that part of me really hated this movie because Berchtold just isn’t as strong an actor as Rotibi, but the writing itself is quite wearisome and not great, although it did grow on me as the scene between the two gets more dramatic and emotional. Still, it’s hard not to imagine this more as a filmed stage play then an actual movie, and maybe I just didn't understand what Carnick was trying to say with this meeting of two men from different backgrounds.

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video this Friday is the new horror anthology series, THEM, which I haven’t watched yet but hearing mixed things. Hope to write more about this once I get a chance to watch.

Other films out this week include Charlene Favier’s #MeToo drama Slalom (Kino Lorber), which will play at the Quad Cinema in New York, and Khyentse Norbu’s Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache (Abramorama), which will be available digitally.

That’s it for this week. Next week was supposed to be the release of Warner Bros’ new Mortal Kombat movie, but that was delayed a week, which means the only wide-ish release is Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth (NEON), which premiered at Sundance earlier this year.

#TheWeekendWarrior #Voyagers #THunderForce #Held #ThePower #Movies #Reviews #Streaming #BoxOffice

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viraljournalist · 5 years

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Real or not? Even the Dodgers' rookies are out of this world

New Post has been published on https://viraljournalist.com/real-or-not-even-the-dodgers-rookies-are-out-of-this-world/

Real or not? Even the Dodgers' rookies are out of this world

Let’s admit it: When your name is Will Smith and you’re playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the shadow of the “Hollywood” sign that sits up in the Santa Monica Mountains, it’s going to be difficult to divert attention away from that other guy named Will Smith, who also works in Los Angeles.

Well, this is a good way to do it. The Dodgers’ Smith pinch-hit with two outs and two on in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game with the Colorado Rockies on Sunday and delivered a three-run walk-off home run to send Dodger Stadium into a fever of joy:

WEST SIDE WALK IT OUT. pic.twitter.com/DqNiS8QoZS

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 23, 2019

Smith, a rookie catcher drafted 32nd overall in 2016 out of Louisville, had played in six games with the Dodgers earlier this season, hitting a walk-off home run for his first major league homer to beat the Phillies on June 1. He had just been recalled before the game to replace injured David Freese. With Matt Beaty on second base, Rockies manager Bud Black elected to intentionally walk veteran Russell Martin to have Scott Oberg instead face Smith.

Oops.

These walk-off home runs have become standard fare in L.A. It was the third game in a row the Dodgers hit one to sweep the Rockies — and all three were hit by rookies, Beaty taking hero honors on Friday and Alex Verdugo in the 11th inning on Saturday.

Two rookie walk-offs wasn’t enough?

HOW ABOUT THREE? pic.twitter.com/c7NmPCilrL

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 24, 2019

Remember when the #Dodgers were the first team in MLB history to have rookies hit walk-off homers in two straight games? That’s so yesterday. pic.twitter.com/g5K4mwlS4Y

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 24, 2019

WOW!!!!!! UN.REAL!!!!!! IS THIS REAL LIFE?!! #WalkoffsAreFun

— Enrique Hernández (@kikehndez) June 23, 2019

The Dodgers became just the sixth team to hit walk-off home runs in three consecutive games, joining the 2013 Rangers, 2004 Tigers, 2000 Royals, 1999 Diamondbacks and 1998 Tigers, and the first to do it with three rookies. (In fact, they were already the first team to have rookies do it in two consecutive games.)

What a weekend at Dodger Stadium as the team improved to 54-25. The New York Yankees have been hot, but the Dodgers are clearly the best team in baseball right now, with the best record in the majors, in the much tougher league, as they head to 55 wins in the first half.

This weekend not only showcased the Dodgers’ depth of the 40-man roster, but also showcased why they’re headed to a seventh straight division title — with maybe the best team of the run, even better than the 104-win team of 2017. Consider the astute drafting:

— The Dodgers took Smith as a supplemental first-round pick (acquired for losing Zack Greinke as a free agent). They liked his defense at Louisville, but his bat has been good enough to allow him to advance quickly — he’s hit .291/.397/.609 at Oklahoma City. In the same draft, the Dodgers selected infielder Gavin Lux with the 20th overall pick and he has become a top-30 prospect, hitting .310 at Double-A Tulsa. Given that several of the top-10 picks from that draft have struggled, getting Lux and Smith late in the first round looks like a steal.

— Verdugo was a second-round pick in 2014 out of a high school in Tucson, Arizona. Many teams saw him as a pitcher with his low-90s fastball, but he wanted to hit and the Dodgers liked him in that role as well. Verdugo would have played regularly for a lot of teams last season, but had to wait his turn. The trade of Yasiel Puig and injury to A.J. Pollock opened up playing time this year, and Verdugo is hitting .302/.352/.489.

— Beaty was a 12th-round pick in 2015 from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, not exactly a baseball powerhouse, but he hit .382 his junior season with more walks than strikeouts. He has hit .308 in his minor league career (he missed most of last season with a torn thumb ligament) and has made himself more valuable with his ability to play first base, third base and left field. He’s hitting .333/.352/.478 in 69 at-bats.

When you’re not picking high like the Dodgers, it becomes more difficult to build through the draft, but they’ve added depth and built one of the top farm systems by crushing those late first-round selections (Walker Buehler is another example) and finding other gems later in the draft (such as Cody Bellinger in the fourth round).

You won’t believe this, but more crazy stuff happened with the Mets: The Cubs beat the Mets 5-3 on Javier Baez’s three-run homer off Seth Lugo in the bottom of the eighth:

Javy, PLEASE.

Javy, THANK YOU. pic.twitter.com/aHA1oAZprI

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) June 23, 2019

Baez’s home run came off an 0-2 sinker from Lugo — well, it didn’t sink enough as he probably wanted to bury it in the dirt — and while 0-2 is usually an out for most hitters, Baez isn’t a normal hitter:

All MLB hitters in 2019 On 0-2: .152 AVG/.397 OPS After 0-2: .165/.464

Javy Baez in 2019 On 0-2: .314 AVG/1.057 OPS, 4 HR (35 AB) After 0-2: .296 AVG/1.076 OPS, 9 HR (73 PA)

— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) June 23, 2019

Anyway, the Mets. Too often, they just can’t get out of their own way. Lugo has actually been the team’s best reliever this year, so that wasn’t the crazy thing that happened. After the game, tension escalated in the clubhouse when manager Mickey Callaway cursed out Newsday beat writer Tim Healey, and then pitcher Jason Vargas, in the words of Daily News writer Deesha Thosar, “took steps toward Healey looking for a fight before the two were separated by a handful of people.” The confrontation with Callaway resulted when Callaway walked past Healey following his postgame news conference and Healey said, “See you tomorrow, Mickey,” which the manager interpreted as the reporter being sarcastic. Callaway turned back to Healey and spewed out a string of words not suitable for print here.

The Mets issued a statement after the game: “The Mets sincerely regret the incident that took place with one of our beat writers following today’s game in the clubhouse. We do not condone this type of behavior from any employee. The organization has reached out and apologized to this reporter and will have further discussions internally with all involved parties.”

Is this a big deal? Probably not. Hey, maybe Vargas stepping up for his manager can even be viewed as a little team bonding. Or maybe it’s the just the beginning of the final disintegration. Callaway may already be on edge after the team fired pitching coach Dave Eiland and bullpen coach Chuck Hernandez a few days ago, and this certainly isn’t going to please management. While Sunday’s loss was painful, the series against the Cubs wasn’t a complete disaster as they split four games. Still, the Mets fell to 37-41 and they haven’t won a road series since early April. It’s time for the Mets to beat up on some opponents, not reporters.

Phading Phillies: Heck, the Mets aren’t even the biggest disaster in the NL East right now. The Marlins beat the Phillies 6-4, completing a series sweep and extending the Phillies’ losing streak to seven. Jordan Yamamoto picked up his third win for the Marlins in three career starts and Miami pounded out 16 hits. The Phillies have lost 16 of 22 and dropped nine games to the Braves in the standings in that spell.

2 Related

Phillies fans let out a chorus of boos when Roman Quinn popped out to end the game.

As Scott Lauber wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer, this is not what owner John Middleton paid for in believing the Phillies had constructed a World Series contender. They’ve been outscored 43-15 in the seven-game skid. “It’s not good,” Bryce Harper said.

There are few Phillies who might be expected to perform better — Harper, for starters, although his high strikeout rate suggests he’s not going to suddenly go on a big binge. J.T. Realmuto and Jean Segura have been minor disappointments. The back of the rotation has been awful, but most teams have struggled with the backs of their rotations. The Phillies really just look like a .500 team and I don’t see much reason to expect them to go 20 games over .500 the rest of the way. Indeed, FanGraphs currently projects a final record of 81-81. Next up: four games at home against the Mets. It feels like an important series for both teams.

Run of the day: The Pirates beat the Padres 11-10 in a wild extra-innings game (Kirby Yates finally blew his first save of the season), but check out Fernando Tatis Jr. scoring on an infield pop-up. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen this before:

Fearless Fernando.@tatis_jr • #FriarFaithful pic.twitter.com/nkoKJPqnVE

— San Diego Padres (@Padres) June 23, 2019

If you didn’t watch the entire replay, Tatis was ruled safe upon review. This kid is absolutely electrifying and is hitting .323/.387/.571 after going 2-for-4 with two walks Sunday. He probably missed too much time with his hamstring injury to warrant All-Star consideration, but he is fifth among NL shortstops in WAR and two of those ahead of him (Trevor Story and Corey Seager) are currently on the injured list. Maybe the point isn’t that Tatis deserves to be on the All-Star team, but he has certainly played like an All-Star when healthy.

Verlander avoids the sweep: It wasn’t a fun trip to the Bronx for the Astros as the Yankees took the first three games of the series — running Houston’s losing streak to seven, their longest since a seven-game skid in June 2015. On Sunday, Justin Verlander finally turned things around, holding the Yankees to three runs on four hits in seven innings, and the Astros’ lineup smashed four home runs. One of those came from Yordan Alvarez, his seventh in 12 games:

Yordan + Yuli = Cuban connection! #TakeItBack pic.twitter.com/cOOFRgiBLI

— Houston Astros (@astros) June 23, 2019

OK, seven bombs in his first 12 games is amazing. He’s the fourth to do it, joining Trevor Story (2016), Trey Mancini (2016-17) and Dino Restelli. What, you’ve never heard of Dino Restelli? Me neither.

He hit seven home runs in his first 12 games for the Pirates in 1949 — and just six more in a brief major league career that was over in 1951. Just a fluke? Probably, although one issue was he wore glasses and they would constantly fog up in the East Coast humidity. (He kept a bright red bandanna in his back pocket to clean his glasses, a habit that apparently ticked off opponents.) Early in his career, after a glasses-cleaning timeout, Ewell Blackwell hit Restelli in the back of the neck. One theory says Restelli was never the same after that.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure Yordan Alvarez will have a much longer career than Dino Restelli.

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The Cowboys Are Now Fully Dak Prescott’s Team. He Says He’s Ready

OXNARD, Calif. — The excuses might as well be right there for Dak Prescott, sitting on the coffee table in this spacious Residence Inn guest room. He could tell you that his NFL sophomore slump was thanks to Dez Bryant and Jason Witten getting older. Or to some moving parts along the offensive line. Or to Zeke Elliott’s suspension. Or to the fact that expectations were out of whack coming off his starry rookie campaign. The now-firmly-installed face of America’s Team reached for none of those. And that’s probably why the people around Cowboys camp talk about him like they do. “It was me,” Prescott told me on Saturday, without a second of hesitation. “It’s just about being more consistent. I simply was trying to do too much last year. And as I was trying to do too much, I was getting away from my simple reads. I was maybe passing by my second read to try to get to my third read, or skipping over one or two, trying to get to the big throw early, rushing things. “I was wanting to make that big play, I was wanting to do the spectacular. coach Mullen told me when I was in college, a lot of being a quarterback is making a lot of unspectacular plays that don’t necessarily look great but turn out to be the right thing. And so I think in Year 2, I was simply trying to do too much.” In some ways, the 2018 Cowboys will need more from Prescott, and he knows it. But it’s probably not in the ways you’re thinking. That’s what he learned going through last year. The idea of taking over after losing a big name or two, and trying to be more as a quarterback? He’s been through that, and now, as he sees it, is when his growth will come through taking an approach counter to all of that. “I have bigger and higher expectations for myself than anyone else does or ever will, so for me it’s not trying to live up to expectations,” Prescott continued. “But you want to win, and you want to make that play to win. It’s that, trying to win on every throw, I got myself out of position. Sometimes you want it too much. You look at some of my interceptions, it’s simple as that.” So his hope is that his place as a player will, in a way, shrink. Conversely, his place on the team will have to grow, and we’ll explain that.

James D. Smith via AP In this week’s jam-packed MMQB, we’re going to take you through my August tour, with a look at Philip Rivers’s future, a wider-ranging peek into Rams camp, an explanation of the Browns’ quarterback decision-making, the culture Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch are building in San Francisco, and some info on Odell Beckham and the officiating of the helmet rule as the Bears and Ravens staffs saw it. But we’re starting with Prescott and his place within the league’s flagship franchise, and how the change there was signified by a phone call he got on May 1. On the line was Jason Witten and, whether it was intended that way or not, it became a passing-of-the-torch moment for a quarterback who was three months shy of his 25th birthday. “It came out that he was retiring and he spent that week—I’m thinking about it, I’m figuring out what I’m going to do,” Prescott said. “And it was then when he called me, two days before his actual retirement speech, he was like, ‘I’m making it official.’ We had a heart-to-heart about how great it was playing with each other, and he encouraged me to be that guy.” There was a reason why that talk hit Prescott a certain way, too. “Witt handled things in the locker room, off the field, on the field, he was the ultimate leader,” Prescott said. “He shaped me, shaped some other guys in the locker room to be that leader. , he was telling me, You’re that guy, you can be that guy, go be that guy. I’d credit a lot of the steps I’m taking to be a leader to Witt. It was great.” It was also necessary, which Prescott knew well before that conversation. With the departures of Witten, Bryant and others, the Cowboys were left with just three players on the roster over 30—linebacker Sean Lee, kicker Dan Bailey and long-snapper LP Ladoucer. Star-studded as it is, the entire offensive line is 27 or younger. Elliott’s only 23. And as Prescott said, Witten cast a long shadow as a leader. Just the same, it wasn’t unnatural. There was no question that Prescott was capable of taking charge, a belief Jason Garrett and the staff had going back to intel they got in the spring of 2016 from Mullen’s staff, and one that was solidified in the Dallas locker room right away after Tony Romo got hurt that August. Garrett always had Romo address the offense before games, and he had no problem plugging Prescott in to do that. “Saturday night, his first game, he stepped up there and talked for about five, 10 minutes and it was as smooth as can be, as confident as can be, and guys realized he was for real,” All-Pro guard Zack Martin said. “Rookie, Week 1, opening with the Giants on Sunday Night Football, it was like he had been doing it for 10 years. He’s just got it. I don’t really know what ‘it’ is, but he’s got that ‘it’ factor as a quarterback.” This offseason, though, he realized he had to get to a point where he’d be a little more vocal in the room, a little more willing to tell teammates truths that might not be so comfortable—an approach that, after talking to Witten and thinking on it, he believes may have helped last year. “We went 9-7. A lot of teams would pay to go 9-7 and be one game out of the playoffs, but it was a sh---y year for us,” he said. “The way things went down, there were things we could’ve fixed as leaders on and off the field. And going into Year 3, I’ve just said to myself, ‘I’m gonna do everything the right way.’ If I see something I don’t like, I’m gonna say something about it. If it causes conflict, well, it causes conflict.” That brings us back to his play, and Prescott knows that walking the walk remains the most vital piece of talking the kind of talk he’s planning to come the season. So he took me through two examples of what precipitated a year-over-year drop in passer rating (104.9 to 86.6), TD-INT differential (23-4 to 22-13), completion percentage (67.8 to 62.9) and yards per attempt last year (8.0 to 6.9). • On a third down in the second quarter against the Eagles on Nov. 17, Prescott was pressured, and rather than play it safe and take the sack or throw it away, he threw the ball up to Bryant, who broke deep on a double move. In his words, all it took “was a fair catch” for corner Ronald Darby, so much so that, if you watch the play, Malcolm Jenkins could’ve picked it off too. • Against the Chargers the next week, down 22-6 in the fourth quarter, and on a first down in the red zone, Prescott took the snap and had room to scramble right. Instead, he turned to his left and threw against his body to Cole Beasley. Without his body behind throw, he didn’t quite get everything on it. Desmond King picked it off, and went 90 yards for the game-sealing pick-six. On the former play, Prescott failed to cut his losses. On the latter, he declined to take what was there. On both, devastating blows were delivered by the opponent, when the quarterback could have lived to see another throw. That Prescott is so up front about what he did wrong on those plays is part of why, when you watch the Cowboys in camp, you might not see anything that jumps off the practice field about the quarterback. In his words, this summer’s been for focusing on “basics,” emphasizing going through his reads, and making the right play, even if it’s not the big one: “Trying to get there faster … Is it there? … Do I want it? … Boom, boom, boom, boom.” And his teammates can see the work he’s doing, too, which is part of why everyone here sees him as having such rare ability to lead. “That’s just who he is,” Garrett says. “He just has an amazing way of coming to work everyday with just an incredible spirit—‘We’ve had success, OK, here we go, that’s behind us, we gotta keep going to the next one.’ And similarily, if things don’t go well, he’s very accountable—‘I didn’t do a good job, I should’ve made that throw. I’ve got to play better.’ “He’s a great example for me as a coach, and a great example to his teammates, about how to go about it. The approach he takes is remarkably good. It’s beyond his years. He’s really an impressive guy, and we’re lucky to have him as our leader.” Will Prescott rebound, and make up for the big-name losses, with Elliott, that line and a new defensive core around him? I don’t know. But one thing that’s obvious here is that coaches and teammates are behind him, and it’s just as obvious why— because he’s behind them, and accountable to them too. It showed again when I asked if, with the old guard mostly gone, he feels a heightened sense of responsibility. “I definitely feel a responsibility, playing the quarterback position, ever since I was moved to the position in middle school,” Prescott said. “I’ve always felt like there’s responsibility that comes with being the quarterback. You’re the face of the team. You’re the leader of the team. And a lot of the time, wins and losses depend on what you do. Of course, there’s a responsibility level there. “ And he’s certainly embraced it. • THE MORNING HUDDLE: Get The MMQB’s newsletter, in your inbox first thing each Monday through Friday. Subscribe today. For However Long It Lasts, Philip Rivers Is Loving It Tom Brady has long said he wants to play until he’s 45. Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers told me last week, “Minimum is 40.” And others, like Drew Brees, have made mention of a belief that quarterbacks can play well into their 40s. That’s why I was surprised when, the other day in Costa Mesa, I asked Chargers QB Philip Rivers how much football he has left, and he didn’t give what has become the stock answer. “I’m super excited about a handful more years,” Rivers told me. “I don’t have a number in my head. I laugh when I hear Drew, Brady’s already 41, when I hear them say mid-40s, I go, ‘Y’all can have that. I have no desire to get there. One thing I am thankful about is I know what I’m gonna be doing when I’m done. I’m gonna be coaching high school football somewhere, maybe the very next season.”

Tom Walko/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Rivers turns 37 in December, so a handful more seasons would actually get him a couple years into his 40s. But that wasn’t really his point. “It could be two, my contract’s up in two, but I’d like to get in that new stadium,” Rivers continued. “Could it be four, five? I don’t know. I feel good. I don’t want to hang on, but I don’t feel like I’m there by any means right now. I want to stay aware, so when it does become that, I’ll know. And it’s a two-sided deal—they have to want me to still be here when it gets to that.” Now for where Rivers stands going to this season. None of the Chargers coaches want to say there’s momentum carried over from last year, but all the guys I talked to conceded there’s a lot to build off of, based on how the team that went through a move, spent half its offseason as a sort-of about-to-be-evicted tenant of San Diego, played in a stadium often filled with visiting fans, started 0-4 and managed to get to 9-7. Rivers feels it too, to be sure. Anthony Lynn being back for a second year doesn’t hurt. Nor does the development of 2017 first-round wideout Mike Williams within the offense—he could replace some of what Hunter Henry brought to the table—or a growing offensive line that adds center Mike Pouncey. As much as anything, and as much as he doesn’t want to call playing quarterback in the NFL easy, Rivers says he can let the game come to him more than he ever has, which has made everything easier. “I felt like last year was probably as consistent as I’ve been in four or five years,” he said. “Steady is the word that comes to mind, not trying to do too much, taking care of the ball but making a bunch of big plays. We made a bunch of big plays. It wasn’t playing scared, but it also wasn’t trying to will us to win. Trust everyone else.” And he’s doing that from a leadership standpoint, too. Where in the past Rivers might have pushed and prodded teammates, he’s now just as content to pass that torch to young vets like Melvin Ingram—which has allowed him to soak in being player, while he still is one. “I’m trying to enjoy every part of it,” Rivers said. “Norv told me back when he was here, gosh, five, six, seven years ago, that there’s going to come a time, and it happened to Fouts, when all your guys are going to be gone and you’re still playing, and it can be a little bit of a transition. Me and Hardwick and Gates, all these guys, it hits you because that’s one of my favorite parts of being a teammate, just being one of the guys. “I feel like after 15 years, you understand things like the coaches do, so you can coach and help them, but I want to be one of the guys. I don’t want to lose that.” You watch the way Rivers bounces around the practice field, and you definitely get the feeling he hasn’t lost that, even if doesn’t want to do this forever. The Rams Try to Stay Ahead of the Curve There’s a lot going on at Rams camp. You have the Aaron Donald holdout. The offseason haul of Ndamukong Suh, Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib and Brandin Cooks. Year 2 for Sean McVay in L.A. Year 3 for Jared Goff in the NFL. Todd Gurley coming off an Offensive Player of the Year season, and signed to a massive contract extension. Expectations are high—and on the day I was in Irvine, those expectations looked justified in the efficient, high-energy, quick-paced practice McVay and his staff ran. At least for now—and no one’s lost a game yet—the Rams looked hyper-organized and effectively blended together. But what struck me was how the team was focused on getting ahead of potential potholes. Here are three I think worth looking at …

Chris Williams/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images • First, there was a real acknowledgement that the players may have caught some teams off-guard last year with McVay’s innovations on offense. Goff mentioned to me that all the motion and formationing and movement in the scheme crossed defenses up last year. He expects the teams on the Rams’ 2018 schedule to be more prepared this time around. Which means it’s on McVay, Goff and company to keep it moving. “The tape’s out there,” Goff “That’s number one. Number two, we’ve evolved. We’ve tried to implement new stuff. This guy’s pretty smart over here , and he’s come up with some good stuff. And we’ve got some new wrinkles that should give teams fits. That starts with him, the dialogue he has with all the other coaches, and then with us giving him feedback on what we’re seeing, he’s very, very good in listening to us. “He’ll listen to anybody, and any sort of feedback we can give him he loves. I thought last year we were always evolving as the season went on. It felt like teams were always one week behind on what we were doing offensively.” • Second, and this plays off that notion, McVay hasn’t wasted time to troubleshoot anything he can. It may be picking up something to evolve the offense one day, and picking up something else to maintain the culture he’s established the next. To that end he’s tapped into new relationships with people like Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, Celtics coach Brad Stevens and L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti to try to continue to innovate. And from all that networking, McVay says the best advice he’s gotten is, “There’s power in saying, ‘I don’t know’, and let’s figure out a way to collaborate together and find the best approach for our players, and for our team. And fortunately you’re in a situation where you have a lot of people you can lean on. You feel so fortunate to be surrounded by our coaching staff, with a lot of veteran coaches that have done a great job, that have been through experiences that I just haven’t been through.” • Third, there’s clearly confidence here. You can see it in the way McVay carries himself on the field, and the way his coaches are teaching and correcting on the fly, and in how the players are competing. GM Les Snead told me the difference between last year and this year, is evident in that belief – “What we earned last year, which Sean couldn’t give in a team meeting or with a great speech, is confidence.” And all the same, McVay’s monitoring it. “We’ve talked about it—‘Like the confidence, like the swagger, but make sure it doesn’t border on arrogance,’” McVay said. “It’s understanding you have to earn that confidence every day. Previous success helps you have that confidence, but also continuing to work. We talk about it every single day. Our whole process is committed to that daily improvement, getting one percent better.” Of course, every team that comes off a playoff year and has an aggressive offseason like the Rams did is going to feel good in August. And plenty fail to live up to expectations. Which, give them credit, is something these guys seem pretty aware of. • THE MMQB’S TRAINING CAMP REPORTS: Broncos | Steelers | Eagles | Colts | Ravens | More Baker, the Browns and the Aaron Rodgers Model I always have a hard time believing teams when they draft a quarterback in the first round, then say that they plan to redshirt him. The idea—taking pressure off the kid, giving him time to learn, etc.—sounds good. It almost never gets carried out. I’ve used this stat here before: From 2008 to ’17, 27 QBs went in the first round. Only two, Tennessee’s Jake Locker and Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, weren’t eventually given the job as rookies. So the Browns saying that Tyrod Taylor is their starting quarterback is one thing. Actually keeping Baker Mayfield on the bench is another. But after visiting Berea this week, I have a little bit of a better understanding why both coach Hue Jackson and G.M. John Dorsey have been so steadfast about that stance. For Jackson, it starts with the experience he had starting Cody Kessler as a rookie in 2016, and DeShone Kizer last year.

Nick Cammett/Diamond Images/Getty Images “I’ve had two players here in the past who’d never played in the National Football League, and we put them out there,” Jackson told me. “That didn’t do anybody any good. So why take a guy who we know is going to be our future and put him in that situation? We understand how hard it is to play in this league, how much you need to know, what your supporting cast has to be for you to have success. “Why put him in a situation where maybe he wouldn’t flourish? That would make no sense.” At that point, I brought up to Jackson his experience coaching Andy Dalton, a Year 1, Week 1 starter who made the playoffs his in first five years in Cincinnati (though Jackson didn’t get back to Cincinnati until Dalton’s second year). The Browns coach nodded and reminded me he was also the Ravens quarterbacks coach in 2008, the year Joe Flacco got Baltimore to the AFC title game as a rookie. This, as he sees it, is a different situation. The team he has now carries the baggage of 1-31 with it, and Mayfield is the fifth quarterback taken in the first round in the New Browns era, following Tim Couch, Brady Quinn, Brandon Weeden and Johnny Manziel. “It’s the makeup of the team,” Jackson said. “When I was in Baltimore, you’re talking about Ray Lewis and Ed Reed and Haloti Ngata and Terrell Suggs and all those guys on defense—that was a different team. Here, quarterback’s gotta drive the train right now. Let’s be honest about where we’re coming from. That’s a lot of pressure, a lot of things would have to go right for him. So why do that, why force that?” And then there’s Dorsey’s experience. He drafted Mahomes last year with the intention of sitting him. Dorsey was in Green Bay for the three years Aaron Rodgers spent sitting and waiting for his time. So he can paint a picture of the benefit—and he did for me, raising a hypothetical where a safety creeping into the box can force a quarterback to adjust in a split second, and throw out his best-laid plan on the fly. “Aaron actually demonstrated that when he got in there, that he could do that. He couldn’t do that his rookie year,” Dorsey said. “Understand the speed of the game, it slows down for you. You understand the concepts the defense is trying to run into you. He’s under new terminology. It takes time to digest that type of information.” Only time will tell if the Browns stick to their guns on this one. For now, and through a week of camp, they haven’t budged much, even as Mayfield’s play has improved. “We needed somebody to come in our locker room who’s been an NFL player, who’s won games, who understands what we’re trying to accomplish right now, today, and start to lead this organization away from where we’ve been,” Jackson said. “We got the right guy in Tyrod. We drafted the right guy for the future of the organization, there’s no question in my mind about that.” … OF THE WEEK TWEET Had a moment with #Rams defensive coordinator @sonofbum today. Me: “C’mon, I know you’re not really playing Fortnite.” Wade (deadpan): “Hey look, I’ve got a good squad.” — Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) July 29, 2018 I honestly wish I saw this tweet before I saw Wade Phillips on Wednesday, because this basically confirms that the Rams’ DC, at 71, is more with it than I am, at 38. QUOTE “When I played, crime went lower in Baltimore. It’s like nobody needs to be mad now. It’s like everybody wants to be happy and celebrate.” — new Hall of Famer Ray Lewis. Look, I don’t want people to think our site is picking on the guy (ICYMI: Our man Robert Klemko wrote insightfully on Lewis the other day). But this isn’t the first time that Lewis has placed the NFL in society as a crime-fighting force. And here I’ve been thinking we all just get to cover a kid’s game. CLIP If this is a personal foul they need to erase the safety position pic.twitter.com/vBvak4AojK — Jac Collinsworth (@JacCollinsworth) August 3, 2018 More on this in a minute. MEME The NFL next season if theses tackle rules stay the same. pic.twitter.com/A0PeZ8KpsZ — Cole Thompson (@MrColeThompson) August 3, 2018 Like I said … we’ll get to the helmet rule in the Takeaways. S/O to … The Jets for giving 6-year-old cancer survivor Gio Toribio a moment he won’t soon forget – Toribio took a handoff from Josh McCown and went 50 yards for a touchdown at Saturday night’s annual Green and White Scrimmage at Rutgers. Toribio was diagnosed with lymphoma two years ago, at 4 years old, and declared cancer free in 2017, a few months before he met Jets linebacker Darron Lee. The two have grown close, and that’s facilitated a growing relationship between the young fan and his favorite team. As for the touchdown meant to Lee, after the scrimmage, he said, “It meant everything. Everything’s been through, he’s the ultimate warrior in my eyes. Like I told everyone before, he’s my hero.” My wife works in cardiac ICU at Boston Children’s, and so I’ve heard first hand what these sorts of uplifting experiences can mean for kids who are going through incredibly difficult times. So credit to the Jets, and Lee, for providing Gio with one. He’s a cancer survivor. And now Gio’s going the distance on the field, too. What a run! #GioStrong pic.twitter.com/ellgkINxDu — New York Jets (@nyjets) August 5, 2018 OFF-FIELD ISSUES 1. Because I’m pretty vocal about my alma mater, I’ve been asked plenty about what’s going on at Ohio State this week. And I’d say this—I hope my school is as thorough as possible, gets to the truth and reacts by doing the right thing. It should go without saying that getting to that point over the next week or two should be a bigger deal for everyone involved than winning football games. 2. I’ve learned from covering the NFL that it’s best to be patient and wait for facts before coming to conclusions in domestic violence cases. I think we all underreacted in the Josh Brown case two years ago, and then his ex-wife’s journal came to light. Conversely, a lot of conclusions were drawn in the Rueben Foster situation before they should have been. We knew way more about Greg Hardy and Ray Rice months down the line than we did initially. All evidence that making immediate sweeping judgments is probably a bad call. 3. I don’t blame the Nationals for gauging the market for star outfielder Bryce Harper. They’re hovering around .500 and stand to lose him for nothing after the season, and he has an agent who takes everyone to the market. Even if he’s a 26-year-old ubertalent whom you should probably just hand a blank check to. 4. I’ll admit it. I think Very Cavallari is hilarious, and I’ve missed it the last couple weeks on the road. That show is exactly what FOX saw in Jay Cutler, and the Cutler you see when his guard is down. Here’s a text I got from one of his old coaches got while I was watching it a couple weeks ago: “I told Cutty he’s going to be a way bigger star than Kristin! That’s who he is every day.” 5. In a weird way, I bet the NFL is kind of hopeful that LeBron James has become Donald Trump’s new piñata to swing at. For obvious reasons. TEN TAKEAWAYS 1. We’re going to have more on the Niners next week (I think), but since I did spend Sunday there I figured it’d be worth passing along something from their camp. And while I was there, I couldn’t help but remember how misunderstood I felt Kyle Shanahan was a few years ago, which is why I did a story with him on in in 2016. “I don’t think a lot of people know me,” he said then. “There are misconceptions. I know it’s not all great. But I can’t control it.” Amazing how quickly those have melted away. The culture in San Francisco couldn’t be much better than it is, which has a lot to do with the partnership between Shanahan and G.M. John Lynch. It’s also why Lynch believes his team is ready to handle expectations well beyond those of most 6-10 teams. “One of Kyle’s great strengths is that he’s honest with these guys,” Lynch told me. “What you put on tape is going to be talked about. He’s not dressing guys down. When they’re doing well, he’ll praise them and show why they’re doing well, and use it as education. When they need to pick it up, he’s very effective at doing that. It’s authentic and it’s real. Not that you need to knock them down, but he does a real effective job of keep things real.” Truth is, through some tough times, Shanahan’s always been himself. And that’s benefitting him now. 2. I know you guys love the intel on rookies. So here’s some underground info I picked up talking to coaches and personnel people at the six camps I was at this week. The Browns are convinced their first four picks (Mayfield, Denzel Ward, Nick Chubb, Austin Corbett) are direct hits, but the guy to watch might be fifth-round linebacker Genard Henry. Heard more than one person call him a “b---h” for the offense to deal with, in a good way for the defense. … Colts sixth-rounder Deon Cain has been spectacular. Some off-field issues, and a subpar 2017, caused him to fall, but there’s an internal belief he’s a second-round talent—and it’s shown so far. … Rams third-round OT Joe Noteboom is already in the mix for playing time at guard and tackle, as is fifth-round LB Micah Kiser. … Chargers fourth-rounder Kyzir White played safety at West Virginia, but L.A. drafted him to play linebacker, and he’s since looked like an ideal athletic fit in Gus Bradley’s defense, while putting on about 10 to 15 pounds of solid weight. … Cowboys second-rounder Connor Williams has taken all first-team snaps from the day he arrived at right guard, and third-round receiver Michael Gallup has flashed his potential, but fourth-round DE Dorance Armstrong has been the real revelation through the first week of camp, positioning himself for a role in September. … Niners second-round pick Dante Pettis will contribute right away in the return game. The acumen for football and natural intelligence he’s shown (FWIW, he had a high Wonderlic score) is giving him a shot to carve out a serious role on offense too. 3. OK, so now to the helmet rule. From what I heard, the Ravens believed two of the three calls against them were officiated correctly, with the outlier being the one against Bennett Jackson that we showed you (via Jac Collinsworth) above. The Bears coaches, for their part, were expecting more calls as the officials work their way through the new rule—and didn’t get a good look at the kind that’ll occur inside the tackle box, which they believe are going to be the drive killers/starters to result from the change. And the concern for staffs coming out of the Hall of Fame Game is that it’s hard for the officials to call the rule in real time, which leads to fear on their part that they’ll miss violations and get downgraded. We’ll see what kind of feedback the league gives Baltimore and Chicago this week. 4. A sign of how good the Eagles feel about EVP Howie Roseman and coach Doug Pederson: Those extensions through 2022 weren’t really extensions at all. Philly did new five-year deals with two, which is a nod to the job they’ve done in building a championship outfit over the last 31 months. 5. I think analytics are a very useful tool for NFL teams, but Corey Coleman’s failure to make any dent in Cleveland is probably a good example of relying too much on numbers. He ran a sub-4.4 40 at his pro day, and was incredibly productive at Baylor—he notched 74 catches for 1,363 yards and 20 touchdowns in 2015. It was a priority for Cleveland to find guys who could get in the end zone, and Coleman clearly showed he could in Waco. But on the flip side, there were questions about his football IQ coming out of a simple offense, and his route-running ability, and that’s why there are more than a couple teams that aren’t very surprised at how his time in Cleveland ended, with Sunday’s trade to Buffalo for a bag of pylons. • TEAM PREVIEWS: ANDY BENOIT’S 10 THOUGHTS ON ... The Bears | Bucs | Texans | Giants | More 6. One other thing to take from Cowboys camp: Ezekiel Elliott’s in a very different place than he was before. Watching him move in drills, it was clear he had more of a hop in his step than we saw last year. And when I asked Zack Martin about it, he didn’t want to compare this year to last, but said he absolutely sees an edge to the Elliott of 2018. “It has jumped off the tape how he's been practicing, Martin told me. “He's been kind of a quiet professional, maybe more than normal this year, like he’s on a mission. Shoot, he went through so much last year, and I can't imagine how that was, all that weight on his shoulders. So he's coming in determined this year to get after it and have a big year.” 7. I wouldn’t be totally shocked if Paxton Lynch isn’t a Bronco by the end of the summer. When I was turning over rocks before the draft, word was that the team would have viewed each of the four quarterbacks at the top as an upgrade over Lynch, their 2016 first-rounder, even if they didn’t see all of them as worthy of the fifth pick (I believe Sam Darnold is the only one they would have considered). To me, that’s a sign that they’ve recognized their mistake. And so if 2017 seventh-rounder Chad Kelly, who was injured last year, continues to show progress, there could be a decision to make there. 8. Full disclosure: I still haven’t gotten to watch the Hall of Fame speeches, since I was with the Cowboys until late on Saturday, then flew to San Jose to see the Niners Sunday morning, then drove to the Raiders camp in Napa after that. But one thing that caught my attention: Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft making the trip to see Randy Moss go in. Before Moss got to New England, I always thought he was a guy who got by on raw ability, which would make him a funny fit as a Patriot. And I remember after he arrived—I was a Patriots beat writer at the time—how Belichick kept explaining how intelligent and evolved Moss was as a player. Proof positive was how Belichick and Josh McDaniels moved Moss around. It’s very difficult to learn one receiver position in that offense. If you can get them all down, you’re pretty sharp. And Moss was. 9. I’ve continued to get great feedback on how Odell Beckham has carried himself at training camp. He looks healthy to the staff and is on board with Pat Shurmur’s program. Doing a contract will, to be sure, be challenging. The team could make the argument that it has him at about $45 million (his fifth-year option, plus two franchise tags) over the next three years, while he can point to the exploding receiver market (his draft classmates Sammy Watkins and Brandin Cooks are both making $16 million per) and ask for a lot more. That’s why the good feeling between the new Giants regime and Beckham is, at least, a necessary starting point as the sides seek a middle ground. 10. Johnny Manziel deserves a lot of credit for doing what a lot of other quarterbacks have refused to, in going to Canada to try and pump life into his career. And I’m not giving up on him yet. But that was pretty ugly the other night. FIVE-DAY FORECAST We’ve got a full slate this weekend! And like you guys, I’m looking forward to seeing the first-round quarterbacks go. So all eyes will be on MetLife Stadium, as Mayfield and the Browns will visit the Giants on Thursday night, and Sam Darnold and the Jets host the Falcons on Friday night. Meanwhile, Josh Allen and the Bills get the Panthers at home on Thursday, and Josh Rosen and the Cardinals host the Chargers on Saturday. And we get a second look at Lamar Jackson on Thursday with the Rams wrapping up a week in Baltimore. What do you want to watch? In each case, it’ll be interesting to see if the coaches get the first-year guys reps with the 1s. That can be a tell that they’re at least toying with the idea of starting the rookie right away—and we know that three of the five teams (Jets, Cardinals, Bills) have been open about the idea of doing that. And here’s a stat to file away: The last time there wasn’t a rookie quarterback starting in Week 1 of a season was 2007. That was the year JaMarcus Russell went first overall. See you guys next week. Question or comment? Email us at [email protected]. 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365footballorg-blog · 6 years

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Armchair Analyst: Your complete guide to the Week 12 MLS slate

May 18, 201812:16PM EDT

Nobody reads ledes anymore, right?

Into the weekend we go:

Friday Night

Toronto FC vs. Orlando City SC

8 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

In last Sunday’s column I caused quite a stir by putting TFC in their own tier because, despite their record, I think they’re fine. You, my beloved and gentle and maaaaaybe not entirely rational readers, think otherwise. Some numbers provided by Opta back up my point.

Team GD xGD GD-xGD Toronto -6 1.57 -7.57 Philadelphia -6 0.5 -6.5 Vancouver -8 -2.92 -5.08 Columbus 7 11.68 -4.68 D.C. United -6 -1.98 -4.02 LA Galaxy -5 -1.1 -3.9 Chicago -4 -2.85 -1.15 Atlanta 12 12.75 -0.75 Montreal -12 -11.69 -0.31 Seattle -4 -4.1 0.1 Minnesota -8 -8.11 0.11 LAFC 6 4.92 1.08 Orlando 4 2.57 1.43 San Jose -2 -4.04 2.04 RSL -8 -10.14 2.14 NY Red Bulls 12 9.7 2.3 Colorado -2 -4.45 2.45 Portland 0 -2.71 2.71 NYCFC 5 2.17 2.83 Houston 5 2.1 2.9 Sporting KC 11 7.32 3.68 FC Dallas 5 1.18 3.82 New England 4 -2.37 6.37

The point stands for most players and teams who are either vastly underperforming or vastly overperforming their expected goals: Eventually they regress/progress back to the mean. Eventually those looks – like Marky Delgado’s against Chivas, or Tosaint Ricketts’ against Seattle, or Jay Chapman’s against New England – start falling. And as the defense gets healthy (expect to see Chris Mavinga and Gregory van der Wiel in central defense this weekend) and they get the disastrous Ager Aketxe out of central midfield, there will stop being the types of defensive breakdowns that buried them in the first half against the Revs.

So my official stance is that TFC are fine, and they will have the bonus of going against an Orlando City team that’s without Yoshi Yotun (yellow card accumulation) and Dom Dwyer (lower body injury) Friday night. That’s not fine for the Purple Lions.

If TFC lose or even draw this one then come back here and feel free to dunk on me and them. That said:

I also think TFC will be fine, but right now almost half of all opposition shots are on target. That’s… not great. pic.twitter.com/1USqQefvCB

— Rob Lowe (@LoweDownStats) May 18, 2018

Make sure you give Rob some credit when you do so.

Saturday Slate

NYCFC vs. Colorado Rapids

1 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

As Ben Baer wrote earlier this week, NYCFC have played – by far – the toughest schedule in the league. Seven of their 11 have been on the road, and many of those have been against the league’s best teams (the likes of Atlanta, Sporting and RBNY). They have performed beyond admirably, taking nine points from those seven games.

At home they’re an absolute wagon at 4-0-0 with 11 goals scored and just 2 conceded. The House that Lampard Built™ has treated them well.

As for the Rapids…

This chart also shows that, with a -5.8 xGD, #Rapids96 haven’t been very good at creating good chances while preventing the opponent from getting good chances. 19th in the league. And the 3.8 GD-xGD means we’ve been lucky. So big warning: regression ahead for Colorado. https://t.co/yO0m5FhKpp

— Rapids Rabbi (@rapidsrabbi) May 18, 2018

They have just one of a possible 12 points on the road thus far, and while their back five is, in theory, suited toward walling off the final third on a small pitch, the reality is that teams have pretty easily been able to shoot the gaps between Colorado’s wingbacks and wide central defenders. Look for David Villa to drift out left and get on the ball in that channel with runners ahead of him – in particular Ben Sweat underlapping to post up on the edge of the box.

Portland Timbers vs. LAFC

3 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

LAFC have lost a good deal of their explosiveness in the last few games following the injury to Marco Ureña. The Costa Rican center forward never scores, but his hold-up play and movement drag opposing defenses around and allow guys like Carlos Vela, Diego Rossi and Latif Blessing to hit gaps that otherwise don’t really exist.

Even without him, though, LAFC have been damn good. They’re in the midst of rewriting what’s possible for an expansion team:

.@LAFC’s 10-game start and where it ranks among @MLS expansion teams:

– 20 points (1st) – 22 goals (1st) – +6 GD (2nd behind 1998 Fire)

— Paul Carr (@PaulCarrTM) May 14, 2018

Saturday’s trip to Portland will be a different kind of test for them, as the Timbers have found themselves over the past month by dragging numbers behind the ball and trying to bottle the game up. They’re toggling between a 4-3-2-1 and a 4-2-3-1 but the point of how they play each is the same: Put and keep numbers in Zone 14 to protect the backline, and defend deep so that guys like Diego Valeri and Sebastian Blanco get the ball on the run.

It’s obviously working, as the Timbers are on a run of three straight shutout wins for the first time in their MLS existence.

FC Dallas vs. Vancouver Whitecaps FC

4 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

I will always feel that the Red Bulls won the Tim Parker for Felipe + cash trade because 1) If you have a pair of mid-20s domestic center backs (who are good) to build around, it makes constructing a balanced roster so, so much easier; and 2) TAM grows on trees.

That said, Felipe’s been excellent. The diving/after-the-fact fouls/outright dirty play of league’s most despised player (he’d win it with like 90% of the vote, folks) often overshadows the fact that he remains a very good soccer player, and his ability to conduct the game has boosted the once moribund ‘Caps attack over the past month.

They really have figured some stuff out in central midfield, and while he’s not a true No. 10, he hasn’t really needed to be. To my eye he’s the catalyst behind better overall attacking play in recent weeks:

Date Expected Goals 28/04/18 2.93 12/05/18 2.84 17/05/18 2.32 05/05/18 1.99 10/03/18 1.49 04/03/18 1.24 08/04/18 1.18 17/03/18 0.86 25/03/18 0.86 21/04/18 0.64 31/03/18 0.45 14/04/18 0.29

Yordy Reyna isn’t a true No. 10 either, but he looked like it the other night in a disappointing 2-2 home draw against San Jose. If those two guys can in a groove and stay on the field, then Vancouver will have finally found their attacking Plan B and won’t be so reliant upon long-balls and crosses. It’s an “if” since the sample size is not large right now, but it’s been promising.

The problem with the ‘Caps – and yeah, this goes back to the Parker thing – is that their defense has been outright bad. They got beat over the top on San Jose’s first goal. They got beat up the gut on San Jose’s second goal after Efrain Juarez decided “maybe nah, running’s hard.” They gave up one against Houston when they simply didn’t track Tomas Martinez, and another when they were slow to a deflected ball at the top of the box.

Can’t play like that at home against struggling teams and expect to win. Play like that on the road against an FC Dallas team that’s finding something close to their 2016 form? Yeah… not gonna end good for the ‘Caps unless they clean it up.

New England Revolution vs. Columbus Crew SC

7:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

We’ve sung Gregg Berhalter’s praises up and down for his ability to get tap-ins for his center forwards over the years. He deserves it – a parade of guys have had their best years when playing for him in his system.

But it’s not all the system. This really is a precise, deceptive and patient run from Gyasi Zardes:

He gets into Johan Kappelhof’s head so early with the threat of the back-post run, then angles near post and forces Kappelhof to commit. At which point he jams on the brakes and lets him fly right by, then plants himself in the perfect spot for the one-touch finish. And let’s dap Niko Hansen the hell up for his 60-yard run and assist.

I really love that goal.

The Revs have been successful this year in large part because they’re not giving up goals like that. They’ve done an exceptional job of 1) high pressing other teams into useful turnovers, and 2) only rarely getting turned around and running back at their own goal. If you’re going to beat them, it’s going to be by packing them into their own end and forcing individual mistakes (which can and does happen, though Matt Turner bails them out all the time).

Anyway, New England’s gonna come out and try to press Zack Steffen into a mistake. If Columbus are able to play through that press and get on the run a little bit, there will be many goals in this game.

Philadelphia Union vs. Real Salt Lake

7:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

RSL are starting to do some nice things in attack:

They are also dislocated all over the place through central midfield and central defense, which is/has been problematic. They keep getting drilled during the final 30 minutes of just about every game they play, including against 10-man D.C. United last week (RSL were fortunate to hang onto a 3-2 home win).

What is left to say about Philly? They look like they know what they’re doing most weeks, and while they have some weaknesses at the back that are typical of young teams, their attack should be better than it is. It’s just that pretty much nobody’s finishing.

San Jose Earthquakes vs. D.C. United

10:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

The Quakes went to a 5-4-1 at Vancouver on Wednesday and got themselves a very nice result. It doesn’t change the fact that their backline has been leaky and left back has been something close to an open wound all season long. Teams are able to go at whoever’s out there and find both time and space to cause problems.

Keep an eye on center forward Danny Hoesen in this one, by the way. He now has goals in three of his last four games.

As for D.C. United… who knows? Winger Paul Arriola is maybe going to play as a No. 8, there are injury concerns in a few spots, Lucho Acosta threw a fit when subbed last week, and the defense is a weekly disaster.

Sunday Slate

Minnesota United vs. Sporting KC

2 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

Young Harrison Hamm wrote a very nice debut article for the nerds over at AmericanSoccerAnalysis. Go read it.

I’m gonna pull out one of the clips he used and highlight it:

And also, here’s Minnesota struggling to press: pic.twitter.com/82PJNn4AP3

— Harrison Hamm (@harrisonhamm21) May 15, 2018

Minnesota’s problem, from Day 1, is that they allow teams to build into spots between the lines, and allow teams to use that to create running lanes off the ball. Obviously they have other problems as well, but the biggest one is just that they’re easy to play against. They allow you to get into a rhythm and pull them apart.

SKC have become a “rhythm” team over the past year in large part because of how they use their fullbacks. Though both Graham Zusi and Jimmy Medranda will overlap if you give them space, both are more likely to stay a little bit deeper, basically on the same latitude as d-mid Ilie, and spray possession-oriented passes. Sporting thus have three deep-lying fulcrums to conduct the game, while other teams usually use only one.

Both those guys will actually pinch into central midfield as well, which leaves SKC vulnerable to wide counters – a big reason why they’ve struggled defensively at times this year. But they’re doing something different and, frankly, better than in years past. And it’s working.

Chicago Fire vs. Houston Dynamo

4 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

Which Fire team will show up this week? The one that plays a 3-5-2 with Bastian Schweinsteiger as a sweeper? The 4-3-3, possession-focused bunch we’ve seen from time to time? A sort of 4-5-1 team that man marks all over the field? Other?

Chicago’s got some pieces and have mostly held their season together by treating every game as if it’s the knockout round of a tournament and they’re the underdogs – i.e., they try to focus on taking away the opponent’s biggest strength. But sooner or later they’re going to have to start building a foundation of “here’s who we are and what we do well” and so far they haven’t. My guess is you will start to see frustration start to boil over for some of the veterans in coming weeks.

If Houston get a result here – and they’re entirely capable of that – the time for frustration would be now.

Atlanta United vs. New York Red Bulls

7 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

Here’s Bobby’s take on how to beat Atlanta United, who are leading the Supporters’ Shield race. Read it.

Also read this:

Non-penalty goals + assists per 90 minutes leaders (min. 300 minutes). Some interesting names on here. pic.twitter.com/eDaIAxDK5X

— Ben Baer (@BenBaer89) May 15, 2018

It’s hard to overstate just how good RBNY’s attack has been. They’ve mostly been going against bottom-half-of-the-table foes, but the two good teams they’ve faced – Club Tijuana in the CCL and NYCFC two weeks back – they absolutely murderized.

Expect to see Miguel Almiron float out left a ton. The way to beat the Red Bulls is to hit the space vacated by their overlapping fullbacks and punish them for playing such front-foot soccer.

Monday’s Matinee

Montreal Impact vs. LA Galaxy

3 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

Montreal have taken three of the last 21 points on offer and are on track to post the worst single-season defensive record in MLS history.

Judging by how much firepower each of these teams have, and how much each defense has struggled, this one could – maybe even should – end up being a 4-3 game.

One more thing to ponder…

Happy weekending, everybody.

Series:

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survivor-switzerland · 7 years

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Closing statements

Congratulations to the final three once again. Whatever you say here in your closing statement is the absolute last chance you get to persuade the jury to vote for you to win. Good luck to each of you.

Dom

Hi there everyone! Okay so for my closing statement, I’m going to go off of what the response was about Ian calling bullshit on my opening statement! For the first part regarding the Ben vote, I had no reason to go to Ian and tell him who I was going to vote. It’s not that I wasn’t pushing hard for Ben to go, it was that I didn’t trust Ian at all. I had no idea who was in what alliance and where they were going to vote. So I stuck to the people I trusted which turned out to be a majority. Brett has even said that I was a huge part in Ben going home. As for “he didn’t do much in the early stages of the game” what was I supposed to do when I didn’t go to a single tribal until episode 7. I never had the opportunity, before Renee got voted out, to make a bold move and show that I was playing the game early on. I think this quote is complete and utter bullshit. From day ONE, I was fighting my ass off to talk to people to give myself a better position in the game. I knew less than half of my tribe so I came into the game already in a minority. So I worked on it. I worked on it hard and I finally was able to put myself in a position where I felt I could do a lot of damage in the game. If that isn’t doing much early on in the game, then Ian just contradicted himself. It’s not fair to say that I didn’t do anything when he did the same thing that I did. So, I don’t think what he said about me “not doing much” can’t be used here. As for the Tyler part of his answers, maybe try reading Luke’s answers. He even confessed that it was me. Luke and Brett were a crucial part of it, sure, because they voted with the plan. But the plan never would’ve happened unless I would’ve spoken up about it. I think I gave myself the correct amount of credit and I think I deserve to claim that move as my own. As we can see from Ian’s response, he still hasn’t claimed a single move as his own. He didn’t do anything spectacular other than win immunity challenges. Anyways, I think I played the best game I could. I played my heart out and gave it my all. I think the jury should vote for me because I was willing to make moves throughout my entire game. I fought my ass off to make sure I wasn’t being voted out. I took huge risks which paid off and I feel like I deserve it. I never had safety in the game. I had to fight and use my little competition abilities and try to keep myself safe. I was safe for most of premerge so I wasn’t able to prove that I was a force to be reckoned with. When the merge finally hit, I knew I couldn’t rely on my competition skills (because i literally don’t have any). I had to rely on my strategic and social abilities. I think I deserve to win. I was always in on the votes and I wasn’t afraid to make a big move. I hope that you, the jury, sees that I deserve to be where I am and that I deserve to win over Ian. I feel as though I outplayed him and outsmarted him. Some of you may disagree but that’s how I feel. Anyways, I have nothing but respect for Ian and Ashley. You guys played great games. Whoever wins, congratulations.

Okay so i finished writing this a little bit ago (i’m too lazy to find a spot to put it in the big paragraph so here you go) but I just read that in Ian’s response to Tyler, he said I had limited connections and wasn’t in a power position at the start of merge. I’m sorry but this is absolutely false. Throughout the merge, I had connections with a majority at one point or another. This includes Ashley, Brett, Luke, Jev, Nick, Ben (to an extent, mostly at first merge vote i believe), and somewhat with Tyler but not as much. These connections are the ones that helped me to make two MAJOR moves throughout the merge. The connections I had with Ashley, Brett, Luke, and Jev were the key to getting the Tyler blindside to work. I was able to pull off a successful blindside on Tyler using these 4 as my connections. With the Ben blindside, I was able to use my connections with people such as Nick, Brett, and Ashley to get Ben out. The same thing with the Zack vote. Zack in this game was cutthroat, genuine, kind, strategic, smart, loyal, methodical, likeable, fun, and overall a really good person. I had heard things about him before this game and I want you to know Zack you’re fucking awesome. Anyways back to what i was saying. Zack had to go and I used my connections to make sure he was voted out. So, Ian, for you to say that I had “limited connections” is super unfair because I had a majority of the people talking to me. I think it’s fucking bullshit that you said that. Anyways, once again respect for you both good luck.

Ian

Hello jurors!! My opening statement was extremely long so I'm going to make this short and sweet because you're all probably tired from reading all of our responses.

***In terms of Tyler's Question I didn't place myself in the rankings. I would put myself at 6th in the ranking of players so.***

Coming into this game, I had one thing to prove to myself and that is to show to myself that I was no fluke. Standing here in front of you all has proven that I am not one. I didn't have the luxury of having pre-existing relationships to aid me in the beginning of this game, but I pushed through it regardless of that disadvantage. I built my game through the ground and up. My social game WAS NOT garbage because I was the person that people showed their idol clues with and when people tried to take me down, the people I was with didn't budge. I made relationships and connections with the right people that aided me throughout the entire game. I made decisions based on a strategic point of view and every decision I made was well thought out. I have won three immunities during the span of this game and that final immunity win was something that I pushed myself to my limits. Winning this game would absolutely mean a lot to me because this was a story that started a year ago that I want to give it the ending that I wanted.

Thank you jurors for your time and I hope that I was able to convince you that I deserve the title of Sole Survivor amongst the three of us!

AshleySarah

Hello jury family !!! I just want to first say thank you again to our hosts for making such a great game. The three of you went above and beyond to make this game so outstanding. I know that most of you have already made up your mind as to who your vote is going to. I know for me I usually have a good idea as well by this point. My parting words to you are this - make sure that you vote for the person to represent us in the best possible light. The winner should be pure and deserving of the title without any doubt they belong in the winners circle. The runner up may not seem important falling just short of the goal but they should at least have a game that hasn't been tarnished by putting others down or using votes for their personal agendas. With that I bid you goodbye and I look forward to seeing you in the reunion chat.

And with that the power now officially shifts to the jury. You have until 10pm est Friday June 23rd to cast your vote. You must cast your vote in your host chat after which you will be removed from jury and will be added to the reunion. Please do not discuss your vote with anyone else, including other jury members. This is a personal decision and we would like to keep it as unbiased as possible.

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/05/26/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-52617/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 5/26/17

Here we are, on the verge of a 3-day weekend, which means nobody’s gonna read this thing. Still, “the show must go on”…

Well, the week was filled with spider news, as last Friday Sony announced that Tom Hardy will star in a Venom film. If you’re not “in the know”, Venom is a Spider-Man villain comprised of an alien symbiote suit and Peter Parker’s professional rival, Eddie Brock. Sadly, the film’s not meant to cross over with Spider-Man: Homecoming or any bit of Tom Holland’s portrayal. I’m starting to think Sony’s deal with Marvel Studios is actually a bad thing, as it seems like Spidey’s addition to the MCU is to the detriment of his expanded universe to which Sony still owns the rights. I don’t really care about a Venom without a Spider-Man. To add to that, yesterday, Sony announced a film starring Spider-Man supporting cast members Silver Sable and Black Cat, to be directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball). I really don’t think there’s much to say about these characters without the possibility of a Spider-Man cameo. I get where Sony’s coming from; they have all these characters, so they might as well do something with them. That said, earlier talks made it sound like they were building their own Spider-Man-centric film universe, but since the MCU deal went through, Spider-Man no longer seems to be part of the equation.

Meanwhile, the Licensing Expo was this week, and we got our first look at the poster for the animated Spider-Man movie, starring Miles Morales. Apparently it was created by a child. Maybe a Make-A-Wish kid? Seriously, that thing is terrible.

youtube

It wasn’t all bad Spider News, however, as we got the third trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming. They’re basically giving away the movie at this point, but I’m still a guaranteed butt in a seat. A lot of people are having issues with it, but I kinda like that this is basically Iron Man 4. I really didn’t need a new Spider-Man, so throwing Tony Stark in there is a good way to get me interested. I mean, I liked Tobey Maguire. I liked Andrew Garfield. I’m sure I’ll like Holland, but I’m kinda tired of the Spider-Man revolving door. Now that he’s tied into the MCU, I hope the Holland casting sticks. Then again, we’ve had three Hulks already, so…

This poster, however, is horrendous, but endearingly so. I mean, it’s really bad Photoshop, but I still kinda like it. It’s busier than Times Square at rush hour, but I love it in all its ugliness. It looks like it should be airbrushed on a denim jacket at the mall.

Across the aisle, things aren’t going so well for the DC movie slate, either. First up, Doug Liman has dropped out of directing the Justice League Dark film due to his commitment to Lionsgate’s adaptation of the young adult series Chaos Walking. In case you didn’t know, Justice League Dark would focus on the more mystical DC Comics characters, like John Constantine, Zatanna, Deadman and others, battling supernatural threats – ya know, like the kind the Suicide Squad had no business fighting. I’ve got no interest in this, but that’s ’cause I don’t really like magic. If they manage to get Swamp Thing into the movie, though, I think it’ll increase its appeal. Right now, though, they’re just a bunch of magical nobodies coasting on the Justice League name which might not even hold any power if that movie fails this Fall.

In sadder news, Zack Snyder bowed out of Justice League post-production work to spend time with his family as they grieve the loss of his daughter, Autumn, to suicide. It was revealed that Joss Whedon was brought in to finish the film, which now has fans cautiously optimistic. Just last week, there were reports that there had been so many reshoots that the film was basically a different movie from what was originally shot. It’s possible, however, that these reshoots were part of Whedon’s plan. It’s really unfortunate what the Snyder family is going through, and it’s deplorable that some folks are making jokes about the situation.

In other movie news, it was revealed that Tom Cruise’s upcoming film, The Mummy, will kick off a Universal Monsters cinematic universe called Dark Universe. I bet they stayed up real late to think of that one! Anyway, Russell Crowe will portray Dr. Jekyll (who also appears in The Mummy), Javier Bardem will play Frankenstein’s monster, and Johnny Depp will play The Invisible Man. The next film in the franchise will be The Bride of Frankenstein, to be released on Valentine’s Day of 2019. Ya know what’s funny? DC’s Justice League Dark film was also going to be called Dark Universe. Somebody’s gonna have to lawyer up!

In TV news, it was reported that Hamilton scribe and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, will voice Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera AKA Gizmoduck in the upcoming DuckTales reboot. Cabrera? Really? He’s even brown now to go along with the name change. I know some folks are gonna have an issue with this. Hell, I even kinda have an issue with it. But if they’re gonna inject some diversity into Duckburg, I guess I’d rather them do this than, say, Launchpad McQuack-Jenkins.

While we knew that Bobby Moynihan was leaving Saturday Night Live, just hours before the season finale it was revealed that Vanessa Bayer would also be leaving. Then, Monday morning, it was reported that Sasheer Zamata would also be leaving the show. I’m really gonna miss Vanessa, as she definitely grew on me. Her characters have this adorable aloofness to them that I’ve come to enjoy. She’s got a big future playing the best friend in romantic comedies ahead of her. Sasheer was simply underutilized. She was always in the background of sketches, or only had a line or two. I hear that she really shined in the writers room, coming up with sketches like Black Jeopardy. I feel like SNL will merely be a footnote on her resume, as she goes on to bigger things, like Noël Wells and Jenny Slate.

Last week, I had the pleasure of joining some of my favorite people on the Nerd Lunch podcast, where discussed some of the greatest pop culture deaths. Nobody was safe, from Santa Claus to Michael Knight! And I finally got to join my pal Vincent (@RobotsPJs) on a podcast, which has been years in the making. We had a great time, and I think you’ll have a great time listening to it, so check it out!

Song of the Week

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This week, I’ve got “It Ain’t My Fault”, by Brothers Osborne. Not only are they local boys, but I love the fact that this song/video has layers. Read the title and then watch the video. They’re trying to tell us something – the same kind of thing that sank the Dixie Chicks all those years ago. My how times have changed!

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

Fresh off playing nurse Claire Temple in the Marvel Netflix shows, Rosario Dawson is in talks to play Dr. Cecilia Reyes in the X-Men spinoff film New Mutants. Just go to medical school already, Rosario!

Twin Peaks made its triumphant return for those of you who are fans. Based on the ratings, that’s not many of you…

The Get Down was canceled by Netflix after one season.

Chicago Justice was canceled by NBC after one season.

The Ben 10 reboot was renewed for a second season at Cartoon Network.

SpongeBob SquarePants was renewed for season 12 at Nickelodeon, taking it through its 20th anniversary.

Trial & Error was renewed for a second season at NBC.

The Black-ish spinoff, College-ish, received a 13-episode order on Freeform.

TruTV’s Impractical Jokers will enter national weekday strip syndication this Fall.

The bodies haven’t even gone cold and they’re already announcing a reboot of the Resident Evil franchise, this time produced by James Wan (Saw).

Tom Holland has been cast as young Nathan Drake in the film adaptation of the Uncharted video game.

In the realm of musical sequels that no one asked for, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! will be released July 20th, 2018.

Elizabeth Banks is producing a Charlie’s Angels reboot, scheduled to be released June 7th, 2019.

Tom Cruise announced that a Top Gun sequel is planned to begin filming next year. Fat Val Kilmer is waiting by the phone.

TJ Miller is leaving HBO’s Silicon Valley at the end of the season.

Surprising no one who’s been paying attention, Power Rangers continues the trend of just adding “Super” to the title of its latest incarnation’s second season with Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel

The Boss Baby 2 is a-coming, March 26th, 2021.

Sophia Bush is leaving Chicago P.D. after last night’s season finale

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In the UK, there’s an annual event called Red Nose Day, where they’ve been raising money to end child poverty for nearly 30 years. Launched by the nonprofit Comic Relief, the event has since raised over $1 billion globally. The event came to the US in 2015, where you can buy a red nose at Walgreens for a dollar, with the proceeds going to the charity. One of the co-founders of Comic Relief happens to be Richard Curtis – writer and director of one of my favorite movies, Love Actually. Now, a lot of people hate the film because it gave way to Garry Marshall imitations like Valentine’s Day and New Years Eve. You know, those schlocky romantic comedies with an ensemble cast where all the storylines converge at some point. I don’t care, ’cause I happened to like those movies, too, but I especially like Love Actually.

Well, to celebrate this year’s Red Nose Day, Curtis reunited most of the cast of Love Actually to give us a 15-minute sequel to the film, called Red Nose Day Actually. We get to catch up on the characters 13 years later, and I have to say that I was smiling the entire time. It was great seeing those characters again, from Bill Nighy’s Billy Mack to Hugh Grant’s Prime Minister. I could’ve done without Rowan Atkinson’s meticulous shopkeeper, but it was even sorta nice seeing him again, too. You feel old as shit, though, when you see little Sam, who’s now 26 years old. I think his segment made me the happiest of all. Or maybe it was seeing Jamie and Aurelia and their kids. Or maybe it was seeing Martine McCutcheon again (why doesn’t she get more work stateside?!). I don’t know. I loved the whole damn thing.

The special originally aired in the UK in March for their Red Nose Day, but they’ve gone to great pains to keep it off the internet. Yesterday was the US’s Red Nose Day, and a new version of the short aired last night on NBC. Ya know, they should really have everyone celebrate on the same day worldwide, but what do I know? Anyway, I actually missed the NBC version because of things, but I was intrepid enough to find the UK version online. This morning, however, NBC posted it on their website so I was able to compare and contrast. The only real difference is that the UK version cut out the Laura Linney update, with Patrick Dempsey as her husband. It was a nice aside, but I guess British audiences don’t know who Dempsey is, so they didn’t miss out on much. Anyway, I wish more movies would give us short reunion updates, maybe on anniversary edition Blu Rays or something. It was nice to get just a taste of what everyone’s been up to, without them being burdened by a full film that would be more than likely fall short of the original. If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go watch this thing a few more times, but it’s safe to say that Red Nose Day Actually had the West Week Ever.

#Country #DC #Knight Rider #Marvel #Movies #Power Rangers #Race #Syndication #Television #Video Games #West Week Ever #X-Men

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365footballorg-blog · 6 years

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Armchair Analyst: Your complete guide to the Week 8 MLS slate

April 20, 201811:24AM EDT

Eight, eight, I forget what eight was for.

Let’s go.

Friday Night Feature

Sporting KC vs. Vancouver Whitecaps

9 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

Is Kei Kamara the best player in the league? No, of course not. But he might be one of the most important players in the league, because his skillset is what gives Vancouver’s attack their shape and ability to function. Kamara is a rugged, committed, large and athletic center forward. The ‘Caps love to play long through him, and early in the season that’d been pretty successful.

He was out last week, and he’ll be out this week as well as the next several with a groin injury. Playing without him left Vancouver pretty stumped in their dispiriting 2-0 home loss to LAFC. Here’s a map of their incomplete passes from that game:

Notice how many of them are long-balls right up the gut or crosses toward the general vicinity of the penalty spot? That’s Kamara’s territory, and his backup, Erik Hurtado, is not the same type of forward nor the same type of threat. He wasn’t able to win those balls, and thus Vancouver were reduced to a walk-it-up approach that gave LAFC plenty of time to keep their lines tight and build a wall about 35 yards from goal. The ‘Caps had no answer, and managed just one shot from inside the box and eight overall despite attacking pretty desperately for the final half-hour.

So it’s fair to say they lack ideas without Kamara.

Being on the road this week is probably a relief for Vancouver, especially against a Sporting team that will 1) press high (though nowhere near as high and hard as they used to), and thus 2) leave space in behind for the likes of Hurtado, Alphonso Davies and Cristian Techera on the counter. We saw them get roasted by Will Bruin and the Roldans in exactly that scenario last week.

Saturday Slate

Montreal Impact vs. LAFC

1 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

The Impact play just their second home match of the year, and their first at Stade Saputo. LAFC, meanwhile, play the finale of their six-match, franchise-starting odyssey. They’ve won three of their previous five, including three of four against Western Conference foes. That means they’re officially playing this game with house money – whatever happens here (injuries excepted), it’s been a successful road trip. Full stop.

Montreal have had much less success in the early going. They countered their way to back-to-back wins over Toronto and Seattle last month, but have been blown out in two straight and are still… I’m gonna be charitable and call it “questionable” at the back. Victor Cabrera in particular has struggled, Rod Fanni came off injured against the Red Bulls and man does it feel like this team is always just scrambling like mad back there. That’s compounded by a midfield who’ve yet to find any sort of rhythm or ability to control the game with possession.

It’s early days yet. Remi Garde is still adding pieces, juggling formations and lineups (my guess is he goes away from the 5-3-2 in this one and into a 4-5-1 with Ignacio Piatti as a false 9). But it’s not been a promising first two months, and the hope in Quebec is that with a home-heavy schedule coming up, Montreal finally get their legs under them and start living above the playoff line.

Houston Dynamo vs. Toronto FC

3 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

Houston have left points on the table just about every week via careless defending and their own poor finishing. They should not do so this weekend against what’s sure to be a backup-laden TFC team.

As was the case with Colorado vs. the TFC reserves last weekend, this is a pass/fail proposition. I do not care how well they play at this point – we all know they play well. They have to win.

New York Red Bulls vs. Chicago Fire

3:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

A friendly reminder of what the Red Bulls do to a soft and disorganized defense:

Those third-line passes – ones that eliminate multiple defenders in a zonal scheme – are murder. And New York are both fearless and ruthless about hitting them.

I honestly don’t know what the Fire do here. I don’t think they can keep playing Bastian Schweinsteiger as a sweeper, and it’s probably past time to give someone else the minutes Tony Tchani’s been getting, as he hasn’t been at all effective on either side of the ball.

The last time these two teams met, which was in last year’s playoffs, the Red Bulls won 4-0. I wouldn’t be surprised if Saturday’s scoreline was similar.

Columbus Crew SC vs. New England Revolution

7:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

My colleague Bobby Warshaw laid out the case for Diego Fagunez in his column on Thursday. The operative take is “They have a small and funky sample size.” New England have played an inordinate number of games either on the power play or the penalty kill, and just twice on the road, and etc. etc. etc., so it’s hard to get a real feel for where, exactly, they are overall.

I will say that my early opinion is so: They are organized and committed when playing front-foot defense, which they showed best in their 2-2 home draw against NYCFC. They were organized and dangerous when playing purely back-foot defense and hitting on the counter, which they showed in their 2-0 win at Houston. And they’ve looked kind of clueless when trying to build from the back – unable to string passes together, inattentive to runners and prone to “hey I forgot to check my shoulder, oops!” lapses – which killed them last weekend in their 1-0 home loss to FC Dallas.

I think that means New England have two good ways to play, which is more than most teams at this point. But I’m not quite certain of that just yet.

As for Columbus… they’ve hit the woodwork seven times in seven games, including five in the last three weeks. Not coincidentally they’re 0-3-0 in that span. The underlying numbers still like them, though, and so do I. They might not get it right this weekend (watch for the Revs to try to turn Zack Steffen over), but they’ll be fine in the long run.

Orlando City SC vs. San Jose Earthquakes

7:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

Jason Kreis was finally happy with the “defensive mindset” of his team in last weekend’s 2-0 win at Philadelphia. Part of that, from where I sat, was simply getting Cristian Higuita into central midfield and sliding Will Johnson over to right back.

Higuita – who came on at d-mid the half-hour mark when right back RJ Allen was injured, thus sliding Johnson over – is a pure destroyer in front of the defense and an unadventurous passer of the ball. He adds almost nothing to the attack, but he rarely gets out of position, never tries to do too much, and generally speaking seems to have no illusions with regard to his strengths and weaknesses as a player.

Johnson is not that guy. He tries to cover a ton of ground and often does so to the detriment of his team’s defensive shape. His ideas with the ball are often excellent but his execution is often lacking, which leads to giveaways that the Purple Lions aren’t equipped to handle. And while he’s definitely a tough tackler, he’s definitely not a backline shield because his instincts are always to hunt rather than protect.

I would hope, for Orlando City’s sake, that Johnson stays at right back this week and either Higuita or Uri Rosell partners Yoshi Yotun deep in the 4-2-3-1.

The Quakes, by the way, have not been good. As with Garde’s team and Friedel’s it’s too soon to really judge what Mikael Stahre is doing, and I will say that the 4-3-3 they played last week showed some promise in terms of the team’s ability to create overloads then switch the field of play, spreading the opposing defense out:

Not a lot has gone right for the Quakes but the 4-3-3 they played last week showed some promise in terms of their ability to create overloads then switch the field of play, spreading the opposing defense out. pic.twitter.com/dYXN26mMjX

— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) April 20, 2018

But they’ve been sloppy at the back – waaaaay too sloppy at the back – and have not shown an ability to get in behind any defense they’ve played against. They’re already three points below the playoff line, and this game starts a stretch in which they play four-of-five on the road. It’s entirely possible that by the time that stretch is over, the Quakes will be trying to dig themselves out of a big old ditch.

FC Dallas vs. Philadelphia Union

8 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

I’ve covered Dallas in each of my last two Sunday columns so I’ll leave it at this, here: I hope Cristian Colman starts again, and not just because he’s capable of some wildly amusing stuff. I just think FCD look much more dangerous with him on the field.

As for the Union, here is midfielder and team captain Alejandro Bedoya talking to Matthew De George of TheAthletic.com about the team’s over-reliance upon crossing the ball:

“We had a meeting today and that’s one of the things that I brought up. I said I’d like to mix it up more in not just being too predictable in terms of getting it to feet and getting it wide, cross, repeat,” Bedoya said Tuesday. “I’d like to stretch the defense, maybe get the wingers to make those outside-inward diagonal runs in behind the defense so we can play the balls in between the center backs or in between their outside back and the center backs.”

Borek Dockal could make some of those runs as well, for what it’s worth. Anthony Fontana did in the opener and he got himself a goal out of it.

Real Salt Lake vs. Colorado Rapids

9 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

RSL got destroyed last week at NYCFC, losing 4-0 to the Cityzens. Their lack of coordination through central midfield and dislocation between their lines of midfield and defense has been catastrophic early-on this year, but there are also more contained, individual issues. Why, for example, does right back Adam Henley do… whatever this is on this particular sequence?

This is unreal from the RSL defense – look at how lost Henley is, how they don’t track or pass off runners, etc. This team looks like it’s in preseason. #NYCvRSLpic.twitter.com/qav4gNWkpS

— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) April 12, 2018

I have no idea.

Colorado haven’t been great, but they’ve played with more clarity than the Claret & Cobalt, and that’s paid off with a totally respectable 2-1-2 record through five games with a fast-and-direct attack that’s generated nine goals. If RSL decide to play on the front foot here, if they decide to say “hey, we’re at home, we’re technical, let’s use the ball and carry the game” but are as sloppy and inattentive as they’ve been through the season’s first seven weeks, Dominique Badji will repeatedly get into space and roast them.

LA Galaxy vs. Atlanta United

10:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

So LA switched to the 4-4-2, with both Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Ola Kamara up top last week against the Fire. It was not the prettiest thing in the world but the general idea of “let’s just get our guys into the box and overwhelm a less physical backline” was the right one.

You could imagine the same thing would be on tap against the Five Stripes, who have one of the smaller backlines in the league. And fair enough – it’s always been a pretty decent strategy to attack Michael Parkhurst in the air. But if you’re going to do that, 1) you’re probably going to have to push your fullbacks up, and 2) then you have to figure out how to account for all that space said fullback left behind them.

Atlanta United are sitting deeper than they did last year and inviting teams further forward because they are just murder in space. Here ya go:

Ashley Cole and Rolf Feltscher are going to have to be very clever on Saturday night or Josef Martinez is going to score this exact same goal two or three times.

Sunday’s Double-header

Seattle Sounders vs. Minnesota United

4 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

Ozzie Alonso came back last week and was awesome in a 30-minute cameo. Clint Dempsey and Kelvin Leerdam are now un-suspended. Will Bruin is healthy, as are Chad Marshall and Roman Torres.

There are still absences, and will be all year (get well, Jordan Morris). But this is something close to the Best XI that Seattle can play for the first time since last October, and I for one am eager to see whether the early-season disaster they inflicted upon their fans was an injury- and suspension-hit mirage or an actual sign of things to come. Their attacking performance last week at Kansas City suggested it was probably more of the former than the latter.

I am also eager to see more of the Darwin Quintero show for MNUFC. He was fun as hell in his MLS debut last week and should make that team better while, at the same time, probably making them more vulnerable defensively. And really, who doesn’t love goals?

Portland Timbers vs. NYCFC

6 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info

NYCFC have been the best team in the league thus far in 2018 (though the underlying stats don’t really show it, I’m trusting the eye test here more than xG). The Timbers have been…

How suboptimal, you ask?

PTFC’s -8 GD in 76’-90’ is the worst GD (or even GA) of any team in MLS in any interval.

PTFC’s -8 GA in 76’-90’ is as many or more goals than 12 teams in MLS have allowed ALL SEASON. #RCTID

— Chris Rifer (@ChrisRifer) April 17, 2018

I think there are obvious fitness issues here, but there are also sub issues. Timbers head coach Gio Savarese has repeatedly tried to sit on leads so far in his MLS tenure, and when you have a questionable backline the idea of “hey let’s give up the ball and let the other team attack” just isn’t a very good one. Once a team becomes passive and lays back, they need a dominant central defensive presence. Portland do not have that.

One more thing to ponder…

Roomba-pong is the sport of the future.

Happy weekending, everybody.

MLSsoccer.com News

Armchair Analyst: Your complete guide to the Week 8 MLS slate was originally published on 365 Football

#Analyst #Armchair #complete #Guide #slate #week

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