January 17, 2022
Welcome to the MLK edition of Monday Morning Coffee! We start with some NFL Football, where the Cowboys collapsed like they usually do in playoffs yesterday. Nice work Mike McCarthy. That was the most Mike McCarthy way to lose a game. Meanwhile the Eagles will probably now ask the Sixers to include Jalen Hurts in any Ben Simmons trade given how awful he looked. Travis Kelce looked like a better quarterback than Big Ben, as the Chiefs dismantled the Steelers. The Bengals took down the Raiders, but the referees were a disaster, and are going to have to polish off their LinkedIn profiles. Josh Allen went into beast mode for the Bills, and did everything he can to send Bill Belichik into retirement. I’m sure Bill has thought about those New Years resolutions by now.
Meanwhile the Rams and Cardinals will go at it tonight at SOFI. I think it’s total crap that this game is on Monday, because the winner will be at a disadvantage on a short week. However, if the Rams do win tonight, they should feel good about the fact they won’t have to go to Green Bay next week, since the 49ers took care of the Cowboys. As for tonight though, the pressure is on Matt Stafford to take care of the ball, and perform. Jared Goff would win this game. Jared Goff got the Rams to the Super Bowl and almost won. Matt Stafford was brought here to take the Rams to the next level, so a first round loss would be considered a failure. Other than that no pressure at all.
To the NBA where the Lakers are still a disaster in every way. We’re halfway through the season. This team is what they are: old and mediocre. I think Russell Westbrook is the first player to actually be able to stop both Anthony David and Lebron James. He’s that bad of a fit! Now there’s talk about Myles Turner or Jerami Grant being traded to the Lakers. Neither one of those guys will move the needle and make the Lakers good enough to be true title contenders. Especially not for the cost to acquire them. I also keep hearing about a lack of effort. That may be the case in some instances, but this team isn’t even that good when they have been healthy. Don’t be fooled. Effort or no effort, this team doesn’t have the depth, or the defense to be what we thought they would be.
So the Bruins made the ridiculous decision to extend Chip Kelly’s contract. Don’t you just love this country? You can fail upwards and make millions of dollars. In this case, this is nothing but a bad marriage on both sides between two people that looked around and couldn’t do any better. Martin Jarmond apparently does not have UCLA Football on his priority list. This is still very much a basketball school.
Speaking of basketball, UCLA Basketball is finally back in action after some trouble with COVID. However, the Bruin defense got gashed by Oregon last week. I’m going to chalk this one up being a little rusty and not playing some elite level competition for some time. However, the Bruins are still pretty damn good, and they’ve shown it against some elite competition already this season. It’s also nice to see Peyton Watson getting some more playing time and starting to look like a real contributor.
Leave it to the LA Times to take a story about the National Championship game and turn it into some homer piece about USC Football. What a joke….”this could be us?” We get it, USC has the potential to become a powerhouse again with Lincoln Riley coaching them. However, there is a lot of work to do before that happens. In fact, they should probably start by locking up a quarterback. I’m not sure what the hell is taking Celeb Williams so long to make a decision since he’s boys with Lincoln Riley.
