Let’s see now, the place did I depart that $22 million?
I do know it’s right here, someplace. My sock drawer? Night time desk? Nope.
Did I give it to Jon Rahm? Nah, he’s not in it for the cash.
Oh, that’s proper! Now I keep in mind. I blew all of it playing on sports activities!
It was an enormous story that made only a transient, small splash as per the NFL’s stats, standings and draft picks-obsessed, no-hard-questions-asked league-compliant media, however final week 31-year-old Amit Patel, an worker within the Jacksonville Jaguars’ finance division, was charged with stealing $22 million from the group over 4 years to gasoline what his lawyer characterised as “a critical playing habit.”
Sure, $22 million is only a few {dollars} past a gentle habit.
So how might the Jags, over 4 years, been so negligent as to overlook thousands and thousands of lacking thousands and thousands whereas Patel lavished purloined items on himself — a apartment, a brand new vehicles and jewellery — amidst his hours spent accruing unfathomable playing losses?
Did he plan to pay it again, 20 bucks per week? Or win again $22 million to interrupt even?
How do you use an accounting division that may’t even account for itself?
The excellent news for the NFL, Jags and Roger Goodell is that Patel reportedly blew most of it betting with FanDuel and DraftKings, each NFL-licensed bookmakers, thus the NFL can revenue from a few of Patel’s losses the subsequent time their licensing agreements are up for renewal.
Not that Goodell’s watch is understood for vigilance, however Patel was not the Jags’ CFO. He was what has been described as a midlevel administration worker who stumbled upon the group’s new bank card system that allowed him the keys to the dominion.
That is consistent with Goodell’s administration type as nobody at or close to the highest of the NFL appears to know what the hell is happening — beginning with opening kickoffs and video games adjudicated by a guidelines e-book that has the sustaining readability and rigidity of an Etch A Sketch.
And the one NFL betting lock is that there can be a drunken brawl amongst clients — Eagles’ misanthropes vs. Cowboys’ senior juvenile delinquents was this week’s principal occasion — permitting Goodell’s “good funding,” double-billed patrons choices: Step across the blood, purchase a luxurious suite, throw just a few fists of their very own or keep dwelling — so long as they make loads of bets.
It was maybe a tribute to Goodell’s management that, after the Giants intercepted a Packers’ move on Monday, the protection gathered in the long run zone, the place the classless collect for TV closeups, to carry out one other spontaneous (rehearsed) group skit, this one among them taking pictures craps.
We finish this newest spitting-into-the-storm session with a query from reader Rick Lewis:
Sunday’s FanDuel “Identical Recreation Parlay Particular” was Rams-Ravens — “parlay” is the home’s well mannered time period for “sucker.”
“Followers” had been invited to guess the Ravens, laying 7.5, root for Rams’ WR Cooper Kupp and his QB Matthew Stafford to have large stat video games and for Ravens’ QB Lamar Jackson to attain a dashing TD.
Lewis: “How on earth can anybody get pleasure from that sport in the event that they guess this? Root for the Ravens but in addition root for Stafford to have a superb sport and, I suppose, go deep to Kupp?
“What do you root for if the sport is shut? First-and-goal so Jackson can run one in? You want them to win by greater than a area purpose. My head would spin.”
On prime of being a regular sucker guess, it was a particular contradictory realities guess, like Goodell’s declare that PSLs are “good investments.”
However why would Goodell or his merry band of group homeowners and large league-certified sports activities books care? You’re now not speculated to root for a group. You’re speculated to root on your cash.
Karma rears its ugly head after all-about-me showboating
Saturday on ESPN, Missouri at Kansas. KU’s Okay.J. Adams ends a Missouri breakaway with a block from behind. It was considerably simple because the Mizzou man slowed, by no means noticed him coming.
Nonetheless, Adams stop enjoying to thump his chest in self-approval then gave a sustained all-about-me imply mug to the adoring crowd. In the meantime, Kansas performed 4 on 5 on the offensive finish.
However the ESPN duo, Tom Hart and Fran Fraschilla, the latter we all know to be a straighter shooter, had been too busy gushing their approval of Adams to notice the flip-side. Once more, it’s that form of hole, don’t-believe-what-you-see pandering that’s making sports activities unbearable among the many right-minded.
Showboaters misplaced at sea: Sunday, Chiefs’s WR Rashee Rice caught a brief move then rose and did a kind of drained all-about-me first-down gestures. Quickly, Rice would fumble the ball to the Payments in Buffalo’s 20-17 win.
Identical sport, closing play. Chiefs’ WR Kadarius Toney, a self-absorbed ache within the arse as a shortly expendable first-round Giants choose, caught a downfield lateral then did a Deion Sanders strut into the top zone. He’d gained the sport!
However the TD and the sport had been misplaced to Toney lining up past the road of scrimmage, a straightforward name to make and difficult one to disregard regardless of Patrick Mahomes’ postgame tantrum.
Moms, don’t let your infants develop as much as be court-stormers: Regardless of the clear, current and confirmed hazard of court-storming it continues to be practiced then authorised by school basketball TV yahoos who don’t need to danger the ridicule of younger, silly e-mailers, bloggers and clever guy-packed web sites.
Final week on the shut of Northwestern’s four-point dwelling win over No. 3 Purdue, college students rushed the court docket, an act much less spontaneous than compulsory as the sport clock was stopped, the end result now not doubtful, effectively earlier than the storming.
However they stormed anyway. Two sprinting males, presumably college students, tripped and fell to the court docket, however shortly rose to keep away from being trampled.
Quickly, too, will come the day when an agitated visiting participant coldcocks a court-stormer into the intensive care unit.
A fond reminiscence of Erskine
A latest merchandise right here concerning the passing of Carl Erskine’s son Jimmy, who, with the Erskines’ love and conviction, lived a proudly productive and unusually lengthy life with Down syndrome till passing final week at 63, stoked the embers amongst many old-timers who fondly recall Carl, now 96, as probably the most neighborly and nice of Brooklyn Dodgers pitchers.
Longtime Day by day Information sportswriter Invoice Farrell, now retired, recollects masking a Brooklyn School seminar that includes MLB commissioner Bart Giamatti, a physicist and Erskine. The subject: Do fastballs rise?
After Giamatti and the physicist performed pepper with the query, Erskine: “I can undoubtedly verify {that a} fastball rises — particularly when struck by a Louisville Slugger.”
Not that we had been shocked, however each play name in Sunday’ Texans-Jets was shouted by Kevin Harlan prefer it was the stretch run within the Kentucky Derby. Annoying and insulting. …
Saturday’s Military-Navy was not carried by a single native radio station, AM or FM. Unhappy. …
School Athletics Builds/Reveals Character Recreation of the Week: North Dakota St. 108, Oak Hills Christian School (Minn.) 14. …
On a weight loss program? Wanna move on the Tommy Cutlets? Reader Ken Ferber, impressed by Iron Butterfly, suggests the “In A Backyard DeVito” salad.