Weekly Update – Week of April 27, 2020 (COVID Week 7)

Baseball – MLB: Red Sox get minor punishments. Rumors of return

Basketball – NBA: Workout facilities starting to open.

Football – NFL: Bengals chose Joe and drop Andy. Bucs see reunion of Brady and Gronk. Overall draft feelings.

Golf: Still set to start in June!

Olympic Sports: Gym coach banned for 8 years. Golf pushes back Olympic qualifying dates.

Baseball:

• The Red Sox were punished for their part in the sign stealing scandal but it was very minor. They lost a 2020 2^nd round draft pick and the 2 guys mainly responsible have been banned from the 2020 playoffs (Replay Op JT Watkins and Alex Cora).
• Rumors are swirling when sports are set to return but nothing is as interesting as baseball. The latest rumor is that the MLB would be split into 3 geographically based conferences and would resume play in July (with preseason games in June with no fans). The conferences changing to geographical closer games so that involves less travel for the athletes. TBD still but its fun to speculate.

Basketball:

• Good news for fans – some NBA facilities are starting to open up for workouts. No news yet on when the league will start back up but it’s a start.

Football:

• The Bengals got the #1 draft pick and chose QB Joe Burrow from LSU – no surprise here. But that also lead to the release of Bengals QB Andy Dalton, who had been with the team for 9 years. His overall record with the team was 70-61-2 as a starter. Looks like the Bengals wanted a franchise QB with a fresh start and freeing up some $40MM on the salary cap helps too.
• The Bucs are investing in this next year. They added another powerful weapon to go along with their stud QB Tom Brady, by trading to get his buddy – TE Gronk!
• Also no surprise, in our sports deprived world, the NFL draft hit record numbers of viewers. One thing the draft didn’t do well in? Diversity. It was on full display due to the draft being virtual just how old white man dominated the league is. But I did like the boo’s they pumped in for the commish. Bill’s dog even got some spotlight.

Olympic Sports:

• Maggie Haney, former US Gymnastics Olympic coach, has been banned for 8 years for abuse both verbal and emotional on athletes. Among the accusers was 2016 Olympian Laurie Hernandez.
• Golf has officially pushed back their Olympic qualifying deadline to June 21^st for men and June 28^th for women, both in 2021.

What To Watch This Week:

• Basketball

  • Sun 5/3 – The Last Dance Episode 5 & 6 @ 7pm on ESPN