Here Come The Mariners

By : Mike Rifkin

The Seattle Mariners currently hold the third Wild Card spot in the American League looking to break the longest current playoff drought in the four major sports. The Mariners have not made the playoffs since 2001. But the Mariners have made moves where they are thinking in the long term, not just about 2022.

Over the weekend the Mariners announced they have signed starter Luis Castillo to a five year 108 million dollar contract extension. Since the Mariners acquired Castillo from the Reds at the trade deadline he has a 3-2 record with a 3.34 ERA. Adding Castillo to a rotation that added last year’s CY Young Award winner Robbie Ray who signed a five year 115 million dollar contract over the winter. Ray is 12-10 with a 3.60 ERA and is currently eighth in the AL with 201 strikeouts. The Mariners rotation then fills out with young pitchers Logan Gilbert and George Kirby. Gilbert leads the team with 13 wins and a 3.29 ERA. Gilbert also has 170 strikeouts. Kirby in his rookie season has seven wins, a 3.30 ERA and 124 strikeouts. 

Offensively the Mariners are led by AL Rookie Of The Year frontrunner Julio Rodriguez. Rodriguez has 27 home runs, 73 RBI, 25 stolen bases, and a slash line of .280/.342/.502. Earlier this season Seattle signed Rodriguez to a massive 12 year contract extension worth 210 million dollars, but with incentives could be even more money. The Mariners are currently 10th in MLB in home runs with 184. Led by Eugenio Suarez who like Castillo was acquired from the Reds leads the team with 31. The Mariners have six players currently who have double digit home runs and a few who are right there. 

With the rotation that is signed long term and an offense that can mash. Overall the Mariners have a young nucleus and are starting to make waves in the American League. Don’t be surprised to see a World Series take place in Seattle soon.

Week 3: Cincinnati Bengals at New York Jets

By Ross Mazin

This is the Sunday afternoon game I’ve been looking forward to all season. Both teams are looking for their second win. The home crowd will be really into the game.

Let’s start with the home team in the New York Jets. They are coming off a thrilling win against the Browns last weekend. They trailed by 13 points with less than 2 minutes left. Joe Flacco had 26/44 for 307 yards and had 4 touchdowns. Rookie Garrett Wilson had over 100 yards and his first two touchdowns. 

Now with the visitors in the Cincinnati Bengals. They are coming off an ugly loss to the Cowboys.  Joe Burrow was 24/36 for 199 yards and a touchdown. They are now 0-2 on the young season The offensive line that they thought they had fixed has struggled once again

My prediction is Jets 22- Bengals 15

Matchup Of The Greats

By : Lawrence Lang

Heading into Sunday the Packers got a nice bounce back win after they beat the Chicago Bears in Sunday Night Football 27-10 moving to 1-1 on the season heading into week 3. Overall the Packers looked a lot better then they did in week 1. The combination of the run game with Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon looked great getting 192 total yards rushing between the two. The receiving game looked great as well, getting a total of 234 receiving yards and two touchdowns and Aaron Rodgers looked like he was back to his old self going 19/25 234 passing yards and two touchdowns.

Now for Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers things are looking rough for the Packers. Wr’s Randal Cobb and (R) Chrstian Watson are both questionable for the game along with TE Marcedes Lewis and LT David Bakhtiari and WR Sammy Watkins is out for Sunday’s game. If  Bakhtiari, Cobb,Lewis and Watson are ruled out by Sunday’s game it means the Packers are going to have to rely on Back up LT Yosh Nijman and WR’s Amari Rodgers, Romeo Doubs and (R) Samori Toure will have to step up and help Allen Lazard who will probably be the #1 for the game if Cobb were to be ruled out.  If anything this would be a great time to try and maybe pull an OLD SCHOOL playbook and do the run game plan like  Vince Lombardi did with the Packers in the 60’s. Jones and Dillion are a great one two combo that is one of the best in the league when it comes to one two combos for the run game. 

For The Buccaneers they have their own injuries and a suspension that is affecting their roster. First for injuries RB Leonard Fournette is questionable along with WR’s Russell Gage and Breshad Perriman. TE Cade Otton, and LT Donovan Smith are doubtful. WR Chris Godwin, and LDE Akiem Hicks are ruled out for the game, and WR Mike Evans is Suspended for Sunday’s game. He is serving a one game suspension for his involvement in last Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints when he got into an altercation with Saints Cornerback Marshon Lattimore. If these WR’s were to be ruled out for Sunday’s game The Bucs just added WR Cole Besealy from the active roster for Sundays game. They would also have Jaelon Darden and Kaylon Geiger available for Wr’s. Julio Jones is also questionable for the game after missing last week. Another case in point where we could see a run game type offense because of the situation they might be in come Sunday’s game time. 

This could also be the last time we see AR and TB face each other since this could be Brady’s last year in the league. Yes there’s a chance at the playoffs where they could face one another but that’s not the case right now. It will be interesting to see what the QB’s game plans will be come Sunday time if they are both out with their top WR’s but that’s the fun part about these two they always find a way to get the job done when it’s game time. Rodgers and Brady both have the accuracy to get the ball to their  receivers and it’s just on the receivers to catch the ball cause if they find you open you better catch it cause if you drop it it’s on you and you will hear about it from your head coach but you will definitely hear from your QB. 

Sunday’s game should be interesting regardless it will just be fun to watch two of the greats go at it one more time.

Bills Titan Up

By: Lawrence Lang

The Buffalo Bills easily cruised to a 2-0 start to the season after a Monday Night Beatdown on the Tennessee Titans winning 41-7 in their home opener. 

The Bills got the party started early with a 12 play drive for a touchdown. The touchdown occurred when quarterback Josh Allen completed a pass to fullback Reggie Gilliam for an 11-yard touchdown. 

The Titans would respond right after with their own touchdown with a nine play drive ending in a Derrick Henry two yard touchdown run. After this it was all Buffalo the rest of the night. 

The Bills would add a field goal and one more touchdown before the half. Allen’s second passing touchdown happened after he completed a two yard pass to Wide receiver Stefon Diggs to put the Bills up 17-7 at half time. The clincher of the game was after quarterback Ryan Tannehill threw his second interception of the game being picked off by Linebacker Matt Milano for a 43 yard touchdown return making the score 41-7 and sending Highmark Stadium and Bills Mafia into PANDEMONIUM!!!.

The Bills looked deadly in this game. Allen was 26/38 and had 317 passing yards and four touchdowns, three of which went to Diggs who had 12 receptions and 148 receiving yards. The Bills run game was a little underperforming but still managed to get over a 100 total rushing yards 53 of which came from James Cook on 11 carries. Plus that #1 defense stepped up big time not only picking off Tannehill two times also sacking him two times plus forcing three fumbles two of which they recovered. 

This is definitely a statement win for the Bills especially after what happened last time they faced the Titans when Henry lit them up all by himself. They shut down Henry this time only allowing him to get one touchdown and holding him to 25 rushing yards on 13 carries and that’s a statement shutting down one of the best right now in the league. 

The Bills will look to start the season 3-0 when they head to Miami to take on their division rival Miami Dolphins who are coming off their comeback against the Baltimore Ravens where Tua Tagovailoa went and had himself a career day going 36/50 469 passing yards six touchdowns and two interceptions. They way both teams are playing we could be in for a high scoring affair in Miami.  

Guard-ing The Central 

By : Mike Rifkin

We are coming down the stretch of the Major League Baseball season the Cleveland Guardians have made a massive statement. Starting last Thursday the Guardians had nine games against the Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox the two teams trailing them in the AL Central. All the Guardians did in the nine game span was go 7-2. They lost a makeup game to the White Sox at home, before taking four of five from the Twins at home and sweeping the White Sox on the road ending their season series with both. The Guardians went 13-6 against the Twins and 12-7 against the White Sox. Amed Rosario hit .376 with four home runs and 19 RBI’s against the Twins. Jose Ramirez hit .263 with two home runs and six RBI against Minnesota. Ramirez drove in 15 runs against the White Sox despite hitting .217. Rookie Steven Kwan, who should get a lot of consideration for Rookie Of The Year hit .329 against the Twins and hit .363 against the White Sox. Triston Mckenzie who has had a really solid season for the Guardians went 2-0 with a 2.16 ERA in four starts against Chicago. Ace Shane Bieber went 2-0 with a 2.05 ERA in four starts against the Twins.

Every expert had the White Sox run away with the division. The White Sox were banged up all year and never really got going, the Twins were in first place the bulk of the year, but the Guardians eventually took over and with their recent surge the Guardians now have a seven game lead over the White Sox and 10 game lead over the Twins. The Guardians magic number to clinch is at five. Unless something awful happens the Guardians will win the AL Central and once they do in my mind Terry Francona should win his third American League Manager Of The Year. Especially after having to step away last season citing health reasons, but with Francona at the helm the Guardians are on the cusp of another postseason berth.

Bouncing Back

By : Mike Rifkin

After getting beat by a division rival in week 1, the Packers responded by beating a division rival in week 2, defeating the Bears 27-10. Aaron Rodgers who last season claimed “he owned the Bears” was 19-25 for 234 yards and two touchdowns. But to be an effective offense the Packers need to utilize their running backs and on Sunday night that’s what they did. Aaron Jones 170 total yards and two touchdowns ( 1 rushing, 1 receiving). In the loss to the Vikings Jones had eight total touches, compare that to Sunday night where he had 18 touches. AJ Dillon had 19 touches for 67 yards. It was also a welcome return to the lineup for Allen Lazard, who missed week one with a ankle injury, he had two catches for 13 yards and a touchdown. The Packers as a team ran the ball for 203 yards and averaged 5.3 yards per carry.

For Chicago Justin Fields was 7-11 for 70 yards and an interception. He did have a rushing touchdown and came very close to a second one. Fields was sacked three times by the Packer defense. Chicago did run for 180 yards and averaged 6.7 yards per carry. David Montgomery had 122 yards and averaged 8.1 yards per carry. The Bears went seven plays for 71 yards and scored a touchdown on their opening drive, but after that were held to a field goal the rest of the game. See a lot is made of the Packers young receivers and how their connection with Aaron Rodgers is developing, but who is Justin Fields throwing to? The Bears need to figure out who on the outside will make plays for their quarterback. Next week the Bears will play the Houston Texans and former coach Lovie Smith. While the Packers take a trip to Tampa Bay and play Tom Brady and the Bucs. 

Week 3: San Francisco 49ers at Denver Broncos 

By : Ross Mazin

This edition of Sunday Night Football should definitely be an interesting one. Both play in markets that are already saturated with baseball, hockey and basketball. The owners of both teams aren’t much better. 

Let’s start with the home team in the Denver Broncos. The days of John Elway and Peyton Manning are gone. The new leader is Russell Wilson. The Broncos last game against the Texans was quite a barn burner. Russell Wilson was 14/31 219 yards a touchdown and an interception. In both of their first two games the Broncos offense has scuffled including going 0-6 in the Red Zone. If Denver wants to be the team they hope to be Russell Wilson and New head coach Nathaniel Hackett have to get on the same page. 

Now let’s look at the San Francisco 49ers. In their 27-7 victory over the Seattle Seahawks, Quarterback Trey Lance broke his ankle and was replaced by Jimmy Garoppolo who went 13-21 for 154 yards and two touchdowns ( 1 pass 1 rush). The Niners might be getting All Pro Tight End George Kittle back this week he has missed the last two games with a groin injury. Through two games the Niners defense has given up the fewest yards per game. Prediction:  49ers win 25-10 over the Broncos . Russell Wilson will have 125 rushing yards.

Battle Of The Unbeatens

By : Mike Rifkin

On Sunday in Miami the undefeated Dolphins will take on the undefeated Buffalo Bills. Miami is coming off an impressive 42-38 comeback win over the Baltimore Ravens. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa threw for 469 yards and six touchdowns. Tua in three career starts against the Bills has struggled, he has a 56.4 completion percentage with a touchdown and four interceptions. The Bills defense will once again be without star Cornerback Tre’davious White who is still recovering from a torn ACL. The Dolphins have to get the ball in their playmakers hands Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle have been sensational in the first two games of the season. Hill is very familiar with the Bills, in five career games (regular season and playoffs) he has 37 catches for 446 yards and a touchdown. 

The Bills are coming off of back to back beat downs of the defending Super Bowl Champion Rams and the Tennessee Titans who were the number one seed in the AFC last season. In those two games the Bills have a +55 point differential. Josh Allen has straight up owned the Miami Dolphins defense in eight meetings he has 21 touchdowns, five interceptions and a passer rating of 106.8. Allen also has 430 yards rushing and four touchdowns. The Bills defense currently is second in yards allowed, sacks and fourth in turnover differential through two games. Free agent addition Von Miller has two sacks and has really opened things up for the rest of the Bills pass rush. While Tre White is out the Bills still have the best safety tandem in the NFL with Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde. 

The Bills have won seven consecutive meetings against the Dolphins. This is an opportunity for the Dolphins to send a message to the rest of the AFC that they are a real contender. This is a massive game in Miami.

TWIW – This Week In Wrestling 9/12 – 9/16

By Jeff Knapp

From new rivalries brewing to title changes and debuts this was a busy week and we got it covered on This Week In Wrestling.

Over in the WWE & NXT, we saw Priest and Balor try to recruit Matt Riddle into the Judgment day. It was to no surprise that didn’t so well because Matt declined and ended up in a match with Finn that he lost due to outside interference from the rest of Judgment Day. After the match, Seth Rollins came back down to stomp a defenseless Riddle. Although Rollins turned down a rematch, he seemed to welcome a future retaliation from Riddle in the coming weeks. 

Logan Paul returned to the WWE and had a massive what if, that was him challenging and defeating Roman Reigns for the Championship. This match is supposedly going to happen at the next Crown Jewel PPV in Saudi Arabia, but there is no official word yet. This brought down the entire Bloodline, minus Reigns. After Paul Heyman was unable to get through to Logan, Honorary Uso, Sami Zayn tried to get through to him and was punched in the face for his troubles. This set up a match with Ricochet that he eventually lost oddly enough due to Jey Uso. 

This week we had plenty of other great in ring action. 

Nikkita Lyons & Zoey Stark defeated Arianna Grace & Kiana James with Lyons’ split legged pinn that has the entire WWE universe wanting more. 

Bayley defeated Raquel Gonzalez thanks to outside interference from the rest of Damage Control, but before things could get out of hand, a returning Shotzi came down to make the save in an apparent face turn. 

It’s not every week that we get to see a championship change hands and this week we had 2 of them, The 1st one was on Raw when Iyo Sky & Dakota Kai AKA Damage Control defeated Raquel Rodriguez & Alyiah to become the new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions in their rematch when it was brought to light that Alyiah pinned Dakota the previous week when she wasn’t the legal participant. 

The 2nd title change happened the next night on NXT when, in his return from injury, Solo Sikoa defeated Carmelo Hayes in one of the best matches in the current version of NXT to become the new NXT North American Champion.

Johnny Gargano defeated Chad Gable in his RAW debut

Speaking of debuts, The Super Diva Quincy Elliott pinned Sean Gallagher very easily after connecting with what can be described as a Banzai drop.

Fallon Henley pinned Lash Legend in a very quick match 

Solo Sikoa retained his NXT North American Championship on Smackdown against Madcap Moss

Bianca Belair(c) vs Sonya Deville in an Championship open challenge match

The D’Angelo Family lost in a match they thought would be an easy win when they assumed Cameron Grimes would be alone, but he had a partner come down to assist him, one he did NOT want. It was the master manipulator, Joe Gacy. Grimes refused to tag him in, but Gacy eventually got into the match and proved to be the difference maker and was the one who got the pin fall. Will Grimes grow to trust Gacy, who possibly has an alliterative motive, or will Gacy show his true colors before that happens? 

Edge defeated Dominik Mysterio by DQ, but that came at a huge price when the Judgment Day tried to destroy Edge’s left knee with repeated chair shots to that knee.

Pretty Deadly retained their NXT Tag Team Championships against The Creed Brothers in a steel cage thanks to the help of Damon Kemp when he came down and handcuffed Julius Creed to the top of the steel cage. 

And finally in a match with the biggest consequence, in which the winning team will be the next to challenge The Usos for the Tag Team Championships. The Brawling Brutes (Butch & Ridge Holland) defeated vs Hit Row (Ashante “Thee” Adonis & Top Dolla) vs the New Day vs Imperium (Ludwig Kaiser & Giovanni Vinci)

aew

The biggest news coming out is that after defeating Sammy Guevara and Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson will both represent the Blackpool Combat Club as they fight next week in NYC for the vacant AEW World Title.

We found out that Stokely Hathaway and his stable that includes W. Morrisey, Ethan Page, The Ass Boys among others are called The Firm and they are also a stable on retainer for MJF whenever they are needed.

The in ring action was all in CAPITALS this week and AEW settled into the capital of NY, Albany.

Jungle Boy locked in his Snare Trap submission on Jay Lethal for the victory

Powerhouse Hobbs continued his dominance and as somebody to be reckoned with as he easily defeated local wrestler Matt DeMartino 

Darby Allin responded to Matt Hardy’s challenge on Dynamite and proved why he was one of the forming pillars of AEW when he defeated Matt with his Last Supper finish for the 1-2-3.

The newish look Penelope Ford defeated Willow Nightingale via submission with an Indian death lock

Ethan Page pinned the very nice, very evil Danhausen after hitting the ego’s edge

AEW Tag Team Champions had another fight on their hands by the way of lucha great and former tag champions and 2/3s of the AEW Trios Champions, the Lucha Brothers.

In other tag team action, Serena Deeb & Dr. Britt Baker DMD defeated Athena & AEW women’s champion Toni Storm. 

Is there tension with Britt and Jamie? After the match, Jamie came down and took the steel chair away from Britt and didn’t allow her to use it on Toni. How will the good doctor keep this team together or has that ship sailed?

Samoa Joe retained his ROH TV Title against one of his toughest opponents while in AEW, Josh Woods when he connected with his Muscle Buster finisher.

It was 2 big nights in the NY capital, and next week it will be even bigger when AEW crowns a new world champion. 

From Albany, NY we now head southwest to the big D and by that I mean Dallas, Texas for Impact Wrestling. 

Who was going to make the biggest Impact? That’s tough to say, we saw current X-Division Champion and possible top 10 wrestler of the year in my opinion, “Speedball” Mike Bailey who defeated Mascara Dorada (who had a few year run in the WWE as Gran Metalik) with his Ultimate Weapon finisher.

The others who made an impact were the Motor City Machine Guns who apparently sent the Good Brothers a loss in the final Impact match before presumably going back to Japan.

Now, getting back to Mike Bailey, he will face Delirious at Victory Road for the X-Division championship and his opponent at Bound For Glory after that will be determined at Victory Road in a Triple Threat Revolver 3 way elimination gauntlet match with AEW’s Kazarian, Impact’s Kenny King, Trey Migiel and Mia Yim, AAA’s Laredo Kid & Black Taurus (also is in Impact’s Decay stable) and New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Yuya Uemura and Alex Zayne.

Speaking of Black Taurus, he and fellow Decay member Crazy Steve defeated the team of Moose and Steve Maclin, who just couldn’t get on the same page. With that said, good luck to them when they try to beat Sami Callihan.

Also in action this week we saw Killer Kelly easily defeat an outmatched Alisha Edwards, Mickie James kept her winning ways and her career going when she pinned Hyan 

The Impact Wrestling Tag Team Championships were on the line when The OGK of Mike Bennett and Matt Taven of Honor No More got the win over Impact World Champion Josh Alexander & Rich Swann. This was a match I thought should have been the Impact main event. 

From arenas and halls to now the studio, for some NWA action. Tag teams seem to be on the rise and tag team action started things off this week on Power when Pope & Kratos defeated Question Mark (Rodney Mack) who some referred to him as Question Mack & KC Roxx 

Things got heated when Matt Cardona interrupted WWE hall of famer Bully Ray and set up a match in which Bully will have to find a partner and face the duo of Mike Knox and VSK.

In a Queen Bee match Max The Impaler, Natalia Markova, & Angelina Love defeated Roxy, Ella Envy, & Kenzie Paige, then Max went on to defeat Natalia Markova, & Angelina Love and received the Queen Bee crown then Max immediately stomped the crown into the mat.

In the main event, the NWA World Television Champion, Tyrus defeated Mims and left the ring without his title. Does this mean he’s going to relinquish the championship in order to face Trevor Murdoch for the NWA Worlds title? 

A very busy week in the world of professional wrestling. Thank you for reading This Week in Wrestling.

Tua Legit Tua Quit

By : Mike Rifkin

With 14 seconds left in the Fourth Quarter Tua Tagovailoa connected with Jaylen Waddle on a seven yard touchdown to give the Dolphins a 42-38 win over the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. For Tagovailoa he threw for 469 yards and Six Touchdowns, both a career high. The Six touchdown passes tied a franchise record with Dan Marino and Bob Griese. The four fourth quarter touchdown passes tied an NFL record. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle both had 11 catches and two touchdowns. Hill had 190 yards and Waddle had 171 yards. Tua was accurate on Sunday and pushed the ball down the field, something Dolphins fans have wanted to see. 

At two separate points during the game the Dolphins trailed by 21 points. Miami outscored Baltimore 35-10 in the second half including 28 in the Fourth Quarter. The Dolphins trailed from the opening kickoff when Devin Duvernay returned it 103 yards to give the Ravens an instant 7-0 lead. 

Lamar Jackson had another sensational game passing for 318 yards and rushing for 119 yards and four total touchdowns. Lamar went over 100 yards for the ninth time in his career which passed Michael Vick for the most in NFL history. Both Rashod Bateman and Mark Andrews had over 100 yards receiving and a touchdown in the loss. Ravens coach John Harbaugh said after the game “Never did you think we were going to have that many balls thrown over our head. That just can’t happen. That’s not OK. I don’t care who’s back there.” Marcus Peters was playing his first game off ACL surgery he had last season and Marlon Humphery battled a groin injury all week. When healthy this is the best cornerback duo in the league but the Dolphins receivers speed gave them fits in that second half. 

Next week the Dolphins play their AFC East rival Buffalo Bills at home while the Ravens go to Foxborough to play the Patriots.