Thursday Night Observations

I got up early today, so the 40-minute version wasn’t yet available, and it was Panthers-Bears, so I felt the scant six-minute highlights were sufficient. In fact, I was wondering whey they included a muffed punt recovered by the return man, until I realized they had to fill the time with *something.*

I had three interests in this game: (1) Panthers +3.5. When I made the line 5.5 early in the week, that was assuming Justin Fields were starting. Once he was out, I pivoted to the Panthers in my home pool; (2) D’Onta Foreman in three leagues. I had him benched, but activated him at the last minute once Khalil Herbert was ruled out; and (3) That Chuba Hubbard not do much since he was the guy in the Steak League I subbed out for Foreman. So this game went more or less perfectly for me, though I would have liked to see Carolina win outright to help the Giants toward the No. overall pick.

• It’s obvious Bryce Young over C.J. Stroud was a mistake, now it’s only a matter of the magnitude. Is it merely Greg Oden over Kevin Durant or Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan? Or worse? (The blond woman the linked scene is Panthers GM Scott Fitterer.)

• Adam Thielen got 10 targets at least, but meager per-target production. And that was the only semi-relevant Panthers offensive player as their only TD was on a punt return TD.

• Foreman is a poor man’s Derrick Henry, and that’s peak Henry. Right now, it’s close. I imagine Herbert will get worked in when he returns, but at best I imagine it’ll be a timeshare.

• It was nice to see Cole Kmet and DJ Moore have modest games, as I have zero shares of either.

• There was a 54-yard FG made in this game, but Eddy Pineiro couldn’t hit the 59-yarder to tie the game.

. . .

I don’t want to jinx it, but not only did I wake up to the Thursday Night game going almost perfectly, but also to this:

It’s only November 10th, and our oldest team in the league will get hurt (and rested) as the season goes on, but I’m really enjoying the NBA season so far.