Hometown Broadcasting Sports Friday 5/29/20
29 May 2020 Sports
Packers coach Matt LaFleur is pushing back against the idea that Green Bay was looking for a replacement for Aaron Rodgers in the draft.
LaFleur said that the Packers just ended up with Love because he was the best player left on their draft board after some other players were selected, and not because they were specifically ready to move on from Rodgers.
“It was just one of those situations where there were a couple guys targeted that had just previously been picked and Jordan was the next guy on the board, and so we went with the best player at the time,” LaFleur said on ESPN Radio in Wisconsin.
But that explanation flies in the face of the fact that the Packers traded up in the first round to draft Love. It’s one thing to see a player fall in your lap and draft him, but it’s something else to trade up to draft a player. That suggests not only that the Packers wanted Love specifically, but that they wanted him badly enough that they didn’t want to wait and risk some other team drafting him before their pick came up.
Rodgers remains the Packers’ starting quarterback for now, and LaFleur wants to keep him happy. But the reality is, the Packers wouldn’t have traded up for Love if they expected Rodgers to play out the remaining four years on his contract
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As NFL teams gradually reopen their facilities, the league has extended its work-from-home window.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced Thursday the league’s virtual offseason has been extended two more weeks. The program previously was scheduled to end Friday.
His latest memo included an interesting wrinkle, though: Coaches could be back in facilities as soon as next week.
Such a scenario could create an environment in which coaches are leading meetings from the team facility while players are still joining via video call. It also could be laying the groundwork for the return of players to facilities beyond the two-week extension. The memo noted that the league is working with the NFL Players Association “on developing protocols that will allow at least some players” to return to facilities before the conclusion of the offseason program.
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The fourth-and-15 alternative to the onside kick was not approved during Thursday’s virtual meeting. NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported that ownership tabled the proposal for further discussion.
The proposal would have given teams an alternative to the onside kick in an effort to retain possession after a score. The rule would have provided coaches the option to attempt one untimed down to convert a fourth-and-15 from their own 25-yard-line. If the play failed, the opponent would have taken possession at the dead-ball spot.
The NFL has been looking at ways to improve the odds for a trailing team to retain possession late in games after the onside kick has been neutered in recent seasons due to rule changes that help make kickoffs safer.
Pelissero also reported that owners approved a report from the league’s competition committee that included a plan to test in the preseason expanded booth-to-official communication with certain objective information. This comes after Wednesday’s news that the two “sky judge” proposals had been withdrawn.
While the fourth-and-15 rule was tabled, owners did make several other changes:
A bylaw change increased the number of players who could return for injured reserve from two to three per team.
- Made permanent the expansion of automatic replay reviews to include scoring plays and turnovers negated by a foul, and any successful or unsuccessful point-after-try attempt.
- Expanded defenseless player protection to a kickoff or punt returner who is in possession of the ball but who has not had time to avoid or ward off the impending contact of an opponent.
- Teams are prevented from manipulating the game clock by committing multiple dead-ball fouls while the clock is running. The rule will eliminate the ability for teams to drain clock while in punt formation with more than 5 minutes remaining on the game clock, which became more prevalent this past year.
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The Major League Baseball Players Association expects to counter MLB’s economic proposal by the end of this week with a plan that includes more than 100 games and a guarantee of full prorated salaries for the 2020 season, sources familiar with union discussions told ESPN.
The disagreement over economics has ratcheted up in recent days after the league’s first proposal Tuesday rankled players. On multiple phone calls Wednesday, players essentially pledged to ignore the league’s proposal and instead offer one of their own, according to sources familiar with the calls.
Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer, one of eight players on the MLBPA’s powerful executive subcommittee, tweeted Wednesday that the significant pay cuts in the league’s proposal would not be accepted and the union would remain committed to players receiving their full prorated salaries.
MLB’s proposal called for pay reductions on top of players’ already prorated salaries, which would be scaled to reflect the number of games played. In MLB’s 82-game proposal, Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout would be paid less than $6 million, compared to the $19 million-plus he would receive prorated. Although the pay cuts would be less severe for a large swath of lower-paid players, the union’s rancor was clear and immediate.
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Meanwhile, hundreds of minor league baseball players were cut Thursday and hundreds more are expected to lose their jobs as the sport grapples with the near certainty that the minor league season will be canceled, sources told ESPN.
Team officials said a vast majority of the players likely would have been released toward the end of spring training even if baseball hadn’t been halted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to sources. But the cuts en masse, which could wind up numbering more than 1,000, nevertheless reverberated around the game, sources said. Released players expressed fear that their careers would be over, and those whose teams hadn’t yet made cuts prepared for a tenuous next few days, sources said.Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said he would inform Minor League Baseball if and when players would be allowed to join affiliated teams. He has yet to do so. Even with no players available, teams acting as if the season is over and one team renting out its stadium on Airbnb, Minor League Baseball president Pat O’Conner has yet to speak publicly and acknowledge the foregone conclusion for 2020, and the fallout from it.
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The Boston Marathon will not be run in 2020,. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh made the announcement Thursday. It will be the first time in its 124-year history that it is not held through the streets of the city.
The race had initially been postponed from its annual date on Patriots Day, which fell on April 20 this year, to Sept. 14. The race draws at least 30,000 runners from around the world and hosting it during the COVID-19 crisis is “not feasible” this year, Walsh said. Runners will have their fees refunded.
The Boston Athletic Association will instead hold the race virtually. Those who were registered for the 2020 race have the opportunity to participate in the virtual event between Sept. 7 and 14.
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Jamari Smith, an Alabama high school basketball and football standout and incoming freshman at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, drowned Wednesday afternoon at a Lee County lake, according to AL.com. He was 18 years old.
Smith reportedly graduated from Lee High School earlier this year and was a member of its 2020 Alabama state champion basketball team. He had also signed to play football at UAB as a wide receiver. The local coroner reported Smith had been swimming with friends in the lake until he became tired and went under. His friends reportedly called 911 when they were unable to find him. His body was soon found underwater in the lake and rushed to a local hospital, where efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. He was reportedly declared dead in the emergency room of East Alabama Medical Center at 6:05 p.m.
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The deadline to apply for this year’s Wisconsin elk hunt is Sunday. Wisconsin’s efforts to reintroduce elk started in 1995. 25 years later, there are two herds, one near Clam Lake in Northern Wisconsin, the other in Jackson County in Central Wisconsin.
“We started with only 25 elk and we now have about 300 elk in the northern population and about 100 elk in the central population, so things are slowly but surely starting to take off a little bit,” says DNR Big Game Ecologist Kevin Wallenfang.
In 2018, the state launched it’s first limited elk hunt, with 5 tags going to Wisconsin hunters and 5 tags to Native American tribes. The DNR used that same formula last year, meaning 20 tags have been issued over the first two years. 19 of the 20 hunters successfully harvested a bull elk.
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