Celebrating The Sports Equinox & Saying Thank You
Monday is heaven for sports fans with quite the mouthwatering lineup on offer. Plus, expressing my gratitude for your show of support and love. Oh, and a mini rant on the freaking Jets...
Happy Sports Equinox Monday!
I have always said that October is the best month to be a sports fan, and today is really the sparkling jewel in the crown.
Today marks the 31st Sports Equinox in history, and the only one this year. We have all four major sports in action, including a World Series Game 3, Monday Night Football, 11 NBA games and eight matchups in the NHL. Oh, and we’ve also got a handful of playoff games in the MLS too. So, all in all, today is, quite literally, nirvana for sports fans.
As such, tonight is exactly why you need a multi-screen setup. At the time of writing this, I have the Knicks game on my phone (thank you iPhone 15 for having a giant screen), MNF on the big screen, Panthers - Sabres on the iPad and I’ll shortly be firing up Game 3 of the World Series on another screen. If I were to die later tonight, I’d go quietly into that long goodnight contented, that’s for sure.
However, if you are a Jets fan like me, even a mouthwatering buffet of sports action can’t take the sting away after Sunday’s absolutely disgusting debacle against the Patriots. I mean, holy crap, this team is an absolute dumpster fire. And maybe even that is being too nice at this point.
Everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong for the Jets. Despite supposedly having a slew of talent on the roster, the season is over and we’ve only just hit Halloween. My God. What a stinking pile of hot garbage. And, I’m sorry but, at this point, ownership needs to go, the GM needs to go, the entire coaching staff needs to go and Aaron Rodgers also needs to pack his bags and leave town. The Jets have remained the biggest laughing stock in all of sports and the whole Aaron Rodgers experiment will go down as one of the great disappointments in all of sports.
This franchise is an absolute unmitigated disaster. Period. And the entire organization needs tearing down to its studs. A complete rebuild is now the only way forward. What an absolute embarrassment.
I can’t believe I allowed myself to be hoodwinked into thinking that this season was going to be any different to all the other piles of steaming crap we’ve had to suffer through. I can’t believe I’m now consigned to another year of not paying any attention to my football team from November onwards.
At this point, you may as well just fold the franchise. I’m open to applications for jumping on board with another team’s fandom. Man, the Jets have just taken a huge steaming poo on the floor and I am beyond pissed. Yet another damn wasted year.
Anyway, before I give myself a heart attack, I’m going to save my sports ramblings for a little bit later on because I have a lot to say about a lot of different things.
For now, however, I want to take a minute to say thank you.
I want to express how thankful I am to every single person who has reached out over the last week or so. I have received an outpouring of love and support ever since I opened up about my mental health struggles over the past few months (I’ve linked the articles below). It is always a little scary opening up and allowing yourself to be that vulnerable on a public forum, but the reaction has been nothing but positive and supportive.
You guys really are awesome.
I’ve always promised to be open, honest and raw with you all, and I will continue to operate in that way going forward. We are one big family here, and you’ve certainly had my back throughout what has been a really difficult time. And, as I outlined before, it is still very much an ongoing process and I’m still navigating a few things here and there. I’ve taken a few days in the wake of opening up just to gather myself, get back to a sense of normality and also catch up on some things before we really dive back in and get the train back on the tracks here. I’ll go into more detail on this in a later post, but I’ve been working on content plans and tweaking the mission statement for how I want to proceed here at The Steele Sports Bar. Believe me, I think the best is yet to come and I’m beyond excited about the future here. And, as always, if there is anything you want to see me write about, or if you have a specific idea for a topic or subject matter you want featured on the site, reach out to me in the comments below.
In the meantime, I also want to express a boatload of gratitude for all of our new subscribers. Despite the fact I’ve hardly been active for the best part of two months, we’ve continued to see continual growth with the audience base just continuing to get bigger and bigger. I mean, the past two weeks alone we’ve had a ton of new subscribers sign up and choose to become part of what we’re trying to build here at The Steele Sports Bar. It really is awesome to welcome so many new faces and it really does mean the absolute world to have your support.
Again, it has been a difficult and weird few months, but I’m more driven than ever to get back on the horse and return to writing and talking about sports on a daily basis. It is go time now and I can’t wait to repay all the faith you have shown in me. Let’s go and build an absolute sports juggernaut together…
As far as bandwagon jumping, the only marketing I can do is for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and I'm not sure I'm willing to do that...
The Aaron Rodgers trade was a colossal overpay as soon as it happened. It doesn't take a genius to see that giving up a first round pick for a man who ranked 24th in EPA/Play in 2022 was a bad idea. Unless Aaron was going to get on the steroids like Tom Brady did, and improve immensely at age 40+, I feel as if that trade has worked out as well as it possibly could've actually. Looking at this year's rankings, Aaron ranks 18th in EPA/Play this year. That's a healthy improvement, and that's after a horrible Achilles injury. If expectations were higher than this for Aaron Rodgers, they were unrealistically high in my opinion. Aaron has not been the issue here.
The real disappointment has been the rest of the offence, the rush game being the worst part. Braelon Allen is one of the worst running backs in the entire NFL, and Breece Hall gets rushing yards over expected just 36% of the time. Both are in desperate need of replacement. Maybe Tyler Allgeier (who is a better RB than Bijan Robinson. LOL Atlanta) is available. This impossibly bad rush offence has left the pass game to do everything itself all season, which leads us to the next disappointment.
There are no great receivers on this team. Davante Adams used to be great, but isn't anymore. The exact same sentence can be said about Garrett Wilson. Both receivers are merely good now, which still makes this an okay supporting cast. It's better than Washington's, and look what that offence is doing right now, but if you have a mediocre QB and a really poor rush game, the receivers need to be better than what the Jets have. That's the only way to win, and they weren't able to put the talent together.
It's a shame the Jets are out of it so early, because that defence (even if it's not what it once was) deserves better than this.