One joy of studying history, especially the 20th Century, is to see how life has changed. To my great satisfaction, our daughter Karyn has a fondness for the subject and especially the aspect of it that shows how people lived then versus now, particularly as reflected in popular culture.

As some folks know, I still collect sports and non-sports cards. I believe in the adage that he who dies with the most baseball cards, wins.  Such cards and related ephemera are a great reflection of the times when they were produced and a deep insight into the real history and culture of their eras.

Recently, I acquired a reprint set of the first issue of football cards, which included 35 National Football League players and the immortal Knute Rockne, who had coached at Notre Dame and shaped much of the early game.

The original set, produced in 1935 by the National Chicle Co. of Cambridge MA is too expensive for a non-corrupt former elected official, because it includes the most valuable football card ever, number 34 Bronko Nagurski, as well as number 9 Rockne.  They can command five-figure prices in near-mint condition.  My reproductions, easily distinguished from the real items, cost a few dollars.

Among other things, all the players are pictured in actual football poses, not with fur coats, bling and shades as some stars have been in recent years. The front sides are art, not photographs, and they use very bright colors, attractive compositions and simple designs with football backgrounds.

The text on the back of the cards, written by Eddie Casey, then coach of the Boston Redskins and formerly Harvard, shows how real sports and life were then as compared to today.

A few things really struck me.  The first was the line in Nagurski’s biography on the back that said: “A product of the wheat farm country, he stills works the soil between action on the football field and professional wrestling mat.”  This is a great example of a feature of many cards even into the middle-1950s: the discussion of the player’s off-season job.

Their pay was so modest that many had to hold an off-season job for a decent living.  Quite the opposite of the sometimes multi-million-dollar guaranteed levels even for rookies in some professional leagues now and the long-term contracts with mid-eight-figure annual pay for some stars.

After baseballer Carl Furillo won the National League batting crown in 1953, he returned to his winter job as an elevator repairman for Otis Elevators, according to one of his cards.  Perhaps more than any other fact, that illustrates what I mean about life being real then.

Another item is that the text on the first 27 cards is essentially a tutorial for kids and adults on how to play certain positions and actions, as depicted by the player on the front. From all aspects of kicking, passing, receiving and handling the ball both in the open field and when plunging into the line to the need for defensive ends on kickoffs to stay in their lanes and turn the ball carrier to the middle of the field, etc.

These cards were meant for real fans of the time, not for kids ripping open packs to find a rare insert or special card.

A third aspect of how real everything was then is the height and weight statistics.  Only one of the 35 players tipped the scales above 220 pounds (number 11 Turk Edwards at 250) and none were taller than 6’ 3.”  Some colleges today have all their starting linemen at 300 pounds plus.

Perhaps the most endearing thing is that coach Casey knew his football, as shown in the final text on Nagurski: “He is as much a tradition to [his alma mater] Minnesota football today as Red Grange is to Illinois.”

The text on the next card ends: “Now, reaching the end of his professional career as a player he is following the footsteps of Red Grange in becoming an assistant coach to the bears.”

Illini fans then and now have always known that Grange was the greatest college football player ever.

Now, if only my daughter Karyn would develop a taste for card collecting.

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Ron Knecht is a contributing editor to the Penny Press - the conservative weekly "voice of Nevada." You can subscribe here at www.pennypressnv.com. His column has been reprinted in full, with permission. 

Former Dallas Cowboy QB1 now CBS announcer Tony Romo blew minds and drew national headlines due to his uncanny “future reading” ability during the AFC Championship Game as he kept calling plays before they happened, during the Patriot’s victory over the Chiefs (37-31). And now he’ll be calling Super Bowl LIII (53).

Romo was so impressive that CBS immediately offered him a huge raise for him to return as a broadcaster for CBS because NFL teams were actually exploring the possibility of having Romo return to the league as QB. But … I don’t know about that. I mean, Romo is really great as a broadcaster and fans love him but as QB1 he was … well, he was good. Not great. But good. He was a starter for ten years, threw for 35k yards and went 78-49 in the win/loss category and was 50% in the playoffs (never made it to the Super Bowl). So, he was good. But he wasn’t THAT good. I mean, it’s not like he could predict the future during his games, as he appears to be doing as a broadcaster not only the AFC championship game but with numerous games in the past few years (go YouTube “Tony Romo predicts the future”). Which is precisely what the Onion joked about last week with their: “Tony Romo Realizes He Should Have Used Ability To Read Defenses Back When He Was Still Playing.”

But not everyone is as impressed with Romo’s ability to read the game and seemingly predict the future. Former NFL tight end and now writer, Nate Jackson wrote “Let’s All Calm Down about Tony Romo” for Deadspin.com. In it he writes:

“Romo’s predictions were mostly about the Patriots’ offense, and almost all in the second half and overtime. He had a firmer grasp on the Patriots’ offense than he did on the Chiefs’. It seems safe to assume, based on his lack of “predictions” when the Chiefs had the ball, that Romo did not know what plays they would run any more than the rest of us did. This is because the Patriots’ offense is more predictable … As any football game wears on, the playbook shrinks. This is typical of any game: as the thing starts to shake out, a game plan that can be hundreds or thousands of plays shrinks to five or 10 bread-and-butter options. These are plays that are working. Plays that everyone knows. Plays that can be communicated with hand signals. Simple plays. Effective football plays. Recognizing this is not prescience, this is just science.”

This are fair points and Jackson's entire article is good; you should read it (linked above). So, I don't know if Romo is predicting the future or just calling predictable plays but I do feel he was a pretty good QB1 and is a very good announcer (even Nate Jackson agrees with this). This will be his first, but probably not his last Super Bowl appearance.

Sadly, the appearance will not be, as he one day no doubt hoped, as a player, but still. 

The NFL (at least the announcing booth) seems to be in good hands.  

It’s the end of the college football season with Clemson taking a resounding victory over favored Alabama.  The year also produced a financial bonanza for top tier football schools all over the country. ESPN has paid some 7 billion dollars for the rights to telecast just seven games a year over the next 12 years. Television revenue has doubled for major college football programs over last year. Stadiums are expanding and ticket sales are at an all-time high. So let’s ask this question-is it all about the money?

Initially, college football and other athletic programs were supposed to be extracurricular activities; a break from the rigors of taking classes and qualifying for a degree. No more. Just absorb the words of Cardale Jones, a recent quarterback for national championship powerhouse Ohio State. His message on Twitter complained: “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.”

Maybe Cardale has a point. For many colleges, it’s all about the dollars and winning football games. My old friend and University of North Carolina football coach Mack Brown summed it up this way: “When you hear college presidents and athletic directors talk about character and academics and integrity, none of that really matters. College football is growing closer and closer of being like the NFL.”

When it comes to priorities, my home state’s football powerhouse is a case in point. Louisiana colleges are in a financial free-fall, with new budget cuts being imposed yearly. LSU has seen its state-funding cut by over 40% in recent years. The endowment of the state’s flagship university is one of the lowest of any major colleges in the country. In the most recent edition of U.S. News and World Report’s college rankings, LSU weighed in at a lowly 129th in the nation.

But when it comes to football financial rankings, the Fighting Tigers are high on the list. In the recent Forbes rankings of the most valuable football teams, LSU comes in at number 4, with a current value of just under $100 million, and a football profit last year of $47 million. Coach Ed Orgeron is paid $3.5 million plus performance bonuses and endorsement fees. One of his assistants is paid $ 2.5 million. To compare athletics and academics, the University’s top remunerated professors receive an annual salary of $78,000.

Most Wall Street hedge funds would love to see blue chip stocks increase at the rate of college football revenue. Schools like LSU are paid over $12 million by companies like Nike, just to wear the company’s logo. But to make that kind of money, the football team has to be a winner. And to win, even the top academic schools often cut corners.

My alma mater, The University of North Carolina, consistently ranks as one of the top academic universities in the U.S. But the alums want a football winner. In recent months, press reports documented that for the past 18 years, thousands of athletes, primarily football players, have taken fake “paper classes’ with no attendance and no work performed.

And just what do these athletes receive? Only enough to cover the basic college expenses — room, food, tuition and books. No pocket money to go to the movies, no gas money, no extras whatsoever. So we have college athletic programs raking in millions on the backs of talented, disciplined, hardworking athletes, without sharing the revenue with those responsible for generating it.  Such a system is ill-defined at best and hypocritical at worst.

Fifty-six years ago, I was lucky enough to attend the University of North Carolina on an athletic scholarship. I was given a housing and food allowance that exceeded my costs, as well as “laundry money” that allowed for weekend dates, gas, and a few frills above the basic scholarship outlays. What I received then was equivalent to some $300 in pocket money if the same were allowed today. But the NCAA tightened up the rules, and college athletes get less today than athletes like me received some years back.

The system in place brings in millions of dollars for those that run the football program, but allows our young college athletes to be exploited, and the exploitation is being committed by their adult mentors.  What a deal-your body in exchange for a pittance of basic expenses.

Something is definitely wrong with the way college football is run. But with all the money coming in, don’t expect much to change. After all, we only care about winning.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

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Jim Brown is a guest contributor to GCN news. His views and opinions, if expressed, are his own. His column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show, Common Sense, each Sunday morning from 9:00 am till 11:00 am Central Time on the Genesis Communication Network.

I don’t need to tell you that the College Football Playoff (CFP) needs to expand to include at least eight teams. You and everyone else already knows that. But you might not know why it's taken 150 years for college football's power elite to even consider adopting a college football playoff worthy of the most popular collegiate sport and its most loyal fans.   

There were probably college football fans calling for a playoff back in 1978, when Division I-AA (now the Football Championship Subdivision, or FCS) was formed and debuted a four-team playoff. While Alabama and USC shared the Division I-A (now FBS) national championship, Division I-AA crowned Florida A&M champions following a four-team playoff. Division I-AA enjoyed 36 years of certainty while Division I-A named co-champions five times, but the four-team Division I-AA playoff wouldn't last for long, and for the same reason the CFP can't remain a four-team playoff for long.   

When it comes to determining a champion, a four-team playoff is only more right more often, not most right most often. The NCAA even realized this and remedied it rather quickly. In just its fourth season, the Division I-AA playoff was expanded to include eight teams. The very next season the playoff expanded to include 12 teams, and in its ninth season, the playoff grew to 16 teams. Now the FCS Playoff field starts with 24 teams. Meanwhile, in its fifth season, the CFP remains a four-team playoff despite FBS co-champions being listed in the NCAA record book last season, further frustrating fans longing for an NCAA-sanctioned, FBS playoff and national championship game.

The FBS remains the only NCAA sports division for which it does not sanction a yearly championship event. While North Dakota State University got one of those iconic NCAA National Championship trophies and another banner to hang in the Fargodome for winning the FCS Playoff in 2017, Alabama did not. The Crimson Tide took home the CFP National Championship Trophy, of course, and the NCAA did list them in their annual record book as a national champion—along with the undefeated University of Central Florida Knights, who were ranked number one in the country according to the Colley Matrix, a mathematical system used as a “selector” of national champions since 1992. It’s the same method that ranked Notre Dame ahead of Alabama despite losing the BCS National Championship Game 42-14 in 2013 because Notre Dame’s strength of schedule remained superior to Alabama’s if you ignore chronological order of the games.

Why and how it took the FBS so long to follow the FCS to the football playoff promised land is mindless, stubborn tradition that’s resulted from a messy start to the sport’s history. That tradition is responsible for the repeated failures of the NCAA to determine a champion upon which most can agree. Tradition is tunnel vision that limits innovation. The NCAA attempted to improve upon fatally flawed methods of selecting national football champions, and every time a new method of selecting champions was adopted, that method’s success was measured relative to its predecessor instead of relative to a possible playoff. And since the predecessor always stunk, the NCAA grew more and more content with simply being better than it was rather than the best it can be.

The Origin of the “Mythical National Championship”

Since colleges were almost exclusively developing and growing the gridiron game, we can forgive them for almost half a century’s worth of inconclusive seasons over the sport’s first 67 years. Six teams shared the national championship in 1921, and 49 seasons ended without a "consensus" champion. But to be fair, there were a lot of other things to work out first—like the rules of the game and how to safely play it. Had football’s founding fathers known we’d still be changing rules and still not know how to play the game safely over a century later, they might have addressed the issue of 49 seasons basically ending in ties. But crowning the right champion wouldn’t be a problem much longer if football kept killing kids.

In 2000, Rodney K. Smith wrote for the Marquette Sports Law Review that “in 1905 alone, there were over eighteen deaths and one hundred major injuries in intercollegiate football. National attention was turned to intercollegiate athletics when President [Theodore] Roosevelt called for a White House conference to review football rules. … Deaths and injuries in football persisted, however, and Chancellor Henry MacCracken of New York University called for a national meeting of representatives of the nation's major intercollegiate football programs to determine whether football could be regulated or had to be abolished at the intercollegiate level.”

The result was the formation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association (IAA), later renamed the NCAA in 1910, when the organization went about creating national championship sporting events for collegiate sports—all except football—which is why it was dubbed the “mythical national championship” way back in 1923.

Even when there were so few colleges fielding football teams, scheduling enough games to determine an outright champion was impossible given travel difficulties let alone injuries and deaths to players. So, naturally, white men who thought they knew college football started ranking teams. Both football polls and Bowl Games predate the founding of the NCAA. The earliest college football poll dates back to 1901, when All-America originator Caspar Whitney and Charles Patterson published their rankings in The Sun. The first Rose Bowl was played in 1902 before 8,500 people, so college football was already popular prior to “organized” collegiate athletics. The NCAA was formed in an attempt to save the sport from being banned due to injuries and deaths that resulted from playing the game. 

The NCAA didn’t seem to mind that a system, however flawed, was already in place to determine collegiate football champions, and it still doesn’t mind the mythical end to the season of its sport generating more revenue on average ($31.9 million) than the other 35 collegiate sports combined ($31.7 million). The majority of NCAA revenue might come from its more-than-$700-million deal to broadcast its men’s basketball tournament, but when every conference gets its share based on its teams’ performances in The Big Dance, it still only accounts for 10 percent of revenues for Power Five conferences.   

Starting in 1936, multiple polls and mathematical ranking systems would determine college football’s consensus national champion. From 1936 to 1949 there were just two unanimous college football champions, with four teams receiving a number one ranking from at least one official selector in the inaugural season. Some selectors still acknowledged by the NCAA predate the Great Depression, but the one it employed in an attempt to give fans the national championship they wanted resulted in more controversy, not less.

B(C)S

The BCS was immediately met with criticism in its inaugural season of 1998 that forced a change to the system. One-loss Kansas State, the third-ranked team in the country, was denied participation in BCS games in favor of Ohio State (ranked fourth) and Florida (ranked eighth). The “Kansas State Rule” assured the third-ranked team a spot in a BCS game. It was used eight times in the 15 BCS seasons. 

The BCS was so inconclusive that only its final season ended without controversy according to the “Bowl Championship Series controversies” Wikipedia page. A Quinnipiac survey conducted in 2009 found that 63 percent of 1,849 respondents were ready to do away with the BCS, and a subcommittee in the United States House of Representatives even approved legislation that would make it illegal to promote a national championship game if it didn’t result from a playoff. It never became law obviously, but it likely motivated change.      

FBS Kicks BCS Off the ’ship

The BCS was so bad that in 2014 the FBS was content starting where FCS did in 1978 rather than implementing the 24-team playoff model FCS was employing at the time. It made sense for FBS to keep it simple at the start, having failed to crown a consensus national champion in five seasons since the FCS Playoffs began.

The NCAA never showed an interest in captaining a Division I-A college football championship from the start, and that hasn’t changed. The CFP National Championship is captained by those whose plundering funds the NCAA's institutions. The Power Five conferences and their 64 institutions (independent Notre Dame makes 65) get 75 percent of the $608-plus million annual installment from ESPN.

The remaining 25 percent is “shared” with the 57 crew members of the five “other” FBS conferences and three independents, none of whom’s schools stand to earn more by actually playing in the CFP or even winning the national championship, making it as monetarily mythical to members of the American Athletic Conference—like the UCF Knights—as the treasure they’d find captaining an actual pirate ship.

The trip to the CFP is all-expenses-paid, however, with $2.16 million per game played going to each conference represented in the game. Some FCS schools also get drippings of $2.34 million. In 2016, the FCS generated almost $4.5 million in revenue but had over $17 million in expenses, so every little bit helps.

ESPN would willingly renegotiate the $7.3-billion, CFP broadcast deal that runs through the 2025 season (2026 Bowl Games) for the opportunity to broadcast more games. The contract won't hinder expansion of the CFP. Some things that might thwart expansion include the addition of too many games, allegedly making the other bowl games less appealing to viewers, keeping student-athletes away from their families during the holidays, and increased injury risk. And the CFP in its final form won't likely grow to include 24 or even 16 FBS teams since the difference between the top FBS teams and the 16th-ranked FBS team is so vast, while the FCS enjoys a bit more parity despite its own dynasty that rivals Alabama's dominance of its division.   

Nothing in the 150-year history of blue-chip, college football has been done in a timely fashion. The FBS has proven to innovate off the field at the pace the National Football League (NFL) adopts college football innovation on the field. The FBS is finally emerging from the tunnel of tradition, leaving the BCS and the rest of the BS behind them. They're still blinded by the light at the end of the tunnel, having just emerged from a sea of money. But when their eyes adjust to the light and their pockets adjust for inflation, they'll discover the light at the end of the tunnel was really the FCS blazing the trail to the college football playoff promised land. 

As a Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Twins season ticket holder, I have plenty of personal experience when it comes to overpaying for season ticket packages because of lofty playoff hopes. This year, though, it was the Twins and not the Timberwolves that put a paltry product on the field, even with Jimmy Butler inevitably being traded before the NBA Trade Deadline on February 7 at 3 p.m. EST.

The $539 I paid for a 10-game, flex season ticket package for the Timberwolves’ 2018-19 season was a relative steal compared to the $760 I paid for a 20-game, flex season ticket package with the Twins’ for the 2018 season. Neither is the cheapest season ticket package available that assures you playoff ticket priority, but sometimes the seats are the only thing that make a Twins game worth watching, whereas the Timberwolves have an ample amount of visiting teams with players and even coaches worth watching.

Picking the games I’ll attend each season is like a holiday. I determined which dozen games I wanted to see moments after the NBA schedule was released, and I chose most of my Twins games on the same day. But instead of cutting Russell Westbrook, Paul George, and the Oklahoma City Thunder along with Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks from my 10-game package, I was choosing baseball games based on promotions like Dollar Dog Day (Wednesdays) and $5 Kids’ Meal Day (Sundays). Here are the games I chose (number of tickets in parentheses) to see during the Timberwolves’ 2018-19 impending dumpster fire sale of a season.

Oct. 29, Lakers (1)

Nov. 14, New Orleans (1)

Dec. 1, Boston (1)

Jan. 6, Lakers (1)

Jan. 18, San Antonio (1)

Feb. 13, Houston (2)

March 29, Golden State (1)

March 30, Philadelphia (1)

April 1, Portland (1)

April 9, Toronto (1)

The NBA has so much to offer in opposing teams that choosing to attend 10 of 41 home games (24.4 percent) is easier than finding a similar percentage (24.7 percent) of baseball home games worth watching. Seeing LeBron James twice is a no-brainer, as is Anthony Davis once. The Brad Stephens-coached Boston Celtics are absolutely worth the price of admission regardless of whom they’re playing, as are Gregg Popovich’s San Antonio Spurs. James Harden and Chris Paul visiting in a rematch of last season’s playoff matchup I had to see at least once. Golden State as a whole is another no-brainer. That roster could feature five All-Stars if DeMarcus Cousins returns to form. Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons are worth watching, as is Kawhi Leonard, regardless of whom they’re playing. Portland is very well-coached, Damian Lillard is fun to watch, and an April 1 matchup could have playoff implications. Even if the Jimmy Butler-less Wolves aren’t in the playoff picture, they could play spoilers down the stretch. I even got a free ticket to the home opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers, which thanks to Jimmy Butler drama, was a must-see game.

There aren’t as many premium games in baseball. In 2018, I saw just about every premium game the Twins played, including every game they played at home against the eventual champions, the Boston Red Sox (3). I saw every game they played at home against the American League runners-up, the New York Yankees (3). I also saw six (6) of the seven games the AL Central Champion Cleveland Indians played at Target Field (two Twins home games were played in Puerto Rico). Add a three-game set against the Los Angeles Angels and baseball’s best player, Mike Trout, and I still have eight games left to choose. (I had tickets to all three games against Houston at Target Field, but that was through a separate ticket deal for April games.)

My hypothesis is that the NBA offers fans of its worst teams the best value when it comes to their cheapest season ticket package because of the vast array of entertaining and exceptional teams, players, and coaches visiting. But let’s do the research and find out the best value for the cheapest season ticket packages for sports’ worst teams.

NHL

Ottawa Senators, 10 games, $600

The Senators were the second-worst NHL team in the 2017-18 season, and at $60 per seat per game, their cheapest season ticket package leaves a lot to be desired. This might simply be due to the Ottawa market, which is no doubt more interested in the sport of hockey than that of the worst team in the NHL last season, the Buffalo Sabres. While Ottawa doesn’t have an NFL team to compete with the Senators, neither does Buffalo, really.

Buffalo Sabres: 5 games, $183

This is a smoking hot deal to see five premium games you can customize. I chose late season matchups against Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Toronto, and Washington. Those are fantastic matchups featuring the best offensive players in hockey: Steven Stamkos, Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews (who should be healthy by March 20), and the Stanley Cup Champion Alexander Ovechkin.

The Sabres also offer the smallest percentage of games (12.2 percent) you can purchase to qualify for playoff ticket priority. Buffalo’s other awful pro sports team isn’t nearly as friendly to your pocketbook and won’t even sell you a season ticket package if you live outside Western New York.

NFL

Buffalo Bills: 10 games (2 preseason), $400

In a live chat with Buffalo Bills season ticket representative Sarah Beth, I was told the cheapest season ticket package was $400 for this season, but they are no longer selling them. I could purchase single game tickets, but not a season ticket package for next season.

Cleveland Browns: 4 games, $200

As of Wednesday, October 31 at 5:30 p.m. EST, you could see MVP candidate Patrick Mahomes and the equally electrifying Tyreek Hill and Kareem Hunt along with the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs running Andy Reid’s schemes for $50. Then you could catch Julio Jones making Matt Ryan look better than he is for $50. Then Cam Newton and Christian McCaffrey visit Cleveland, and the final game of your four-game, season ticket package ensuring playoff ticket priority is capped by another wide receiver making his quarterback look better than he is. A.J. Green and Andy Dalton come to town.

Even though most of the games won’t be close, you could argue that four of the most entertaining players playing professional football right now (Mahomes, Newton, Jones, and Green) could all be seen for $200. The Cavaliers couldn’t do better than that simply because they’re a worse team than their crosstown, gridiron counterparts.

NBA

Cleveland Cavaliers: 1 game, $500

The Cavs aren’t selling season ticket packages anymore, and the sales rep couldn’t look back at prices from games already played. But if you want to know how much it would cost to see LeBron visit with his Lakers from the cheapest seats in Quicken Loans Arena, it’s $460 to $500. And that wouldn't even qualify you for playoff ticket priority.

Atlanta Hawks: 11 games, $448

For the 10 best games on the Hawks’ schedule, including the Golden State Warriors and LeBron’s Lakers, plus one more for free at a total under $450, Atlanta offers its fans immense value. For $91 less than I paid to see the same opposing teams visit the newly renovated Target Center, Hawks’ fans can secure their playoff ticket priority, but more importantly, member access to the soon-to-be-renovated State Farm Arena, featuring suites with golf simulators and a barbershop where you can get a shave and a haircut while watching the game.

MLB

Baltimore Orioles: 13 games, $228

The Orioles’ Sunday season ticket package featured a game against Boston, the Yankees, Astros, Indians, and Angels, but also featured games against Texas, Tampa Bay (2), Miami, and Minnesota. There’s value in allowing fans to pick the games they want to see, but paying less than $18 per game is relatively affordable. The Twins’ “Pick 10” package runs $220 and features just three premium games. Baltimore’s Sunday package features four premium games for $8 more.

Miami Marlins: 10 games, $130

The Marlins’ “Variety,” “Saturday,” and “Sunday” plans run at least $130, but I could only find a single seat in the cheapest section for the weekend plans. The variety plan, which most likely provides admission to the best games, was not available in any of the cheaper sections of Marlins Park. If we assume, however, that Miami’s Sunday package offers a similar percentage of premium games as Baltimore’s 13-game package and Minnesota’s 10-game, flex plan, then we can expect to see three premium matchups out of the 10. At $13 per seat per game, it doesn’t get any cheaper to secure playoff ticket priority in any league, but you have to watch the Marlins. At least they got rid of that hideous home run sculpture, though.

Ranking the Cheapest Season Ticket Packages for Sports’ Worst Teams

1. Buffalo Sabres: 5 of 5 premium games at $36.60 per game

The price per game might not be as low as baseball or basketball can offer, but the freedom to choose your own games ensuring every one of them is a premium matchup makes Buffalo a go-to town for hockey. My editor in Toronto, Dan Szczepanek, said trips to Buffalo are a Toronto tradition. “It was always cheaper to drive two hours to Buffalo to watch the Leafs and Sabres, get a hotel, and spend a few days than it was to see the Leafs in Toronto.” The fact that you can establish playoff ticket priority for a measly $183 makes me want to buy a Buffalo Sabres season ticket package, and both of my teams are in the Western Conference.

1. Atlanta Hawks: 11 of 11 premium games at $40.73 per game

Again, the percentage of premium games offered in the Hawks’ cheapest season ticket package make up for the higher price point per seat. Even if the Hawks operate the same way the Timberwolves do and make your free game the home opener, that was against Dallas and third overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, Luka Doncic, whom Atlanta traded for Trae Young at fifth overall and a future first-rounder. If you haven’t seen Doncic play, I assure you, he and Deandre Jordan make for premium entertainment.

1. Cleveland Browns: 4 of 4 premium games at $50 per game

It’s not all bad in Cleveland. Even with LeBron leaving and both the Browns and Cavs firing their head coaches in a 24-hour time period, you can still get premium entertainment from the teams and players visiting FirstEnergy Stadium at an affordable price. Even while Buffalo was in town, it would have cost twice as much for the same seats at U.S. Bank Stadium.

1. Ottawa Senators: 10 of 10 premium games at $60 per game

Ottawa is the last of our worst teams to provide incredible value when it comes to choosing the quality of opposing teams in their season ticket package. At $60 per game, it’s a bit pricey per seat, but the assurance of seeing the best opposing players in the NHL makes $60 worth every penny.

1. Miami Marlins: 3 premium games out of 10 at $13 per game

While just 30 percent of your games are against playoff-caliber competition, you’re paying $13 to see a baseball game. You can’t get a beer and a hot dog at a ballgame for $13.

1. Baltimore Orioles: 4 premium games out of 13 at $17.54 per game

While the Orioles’ cheapest season ticket package has a marginally higher percentage of premium games than Miami’s, the $17.54 price point per seat is more than it ought to be given their .290 winning percentage last season. The beauty of Camden Yards can’t compensate for the collosal incompetence of baseball played by Orioles at Oriole Park.

1. Buffalo Bills: 2 premium games out of 10 at $40 per game

Since preseason games can’t be considered premium games, and the Bills are so bad the best game on their schedule annually is a visit by Tom Brady and the Patriots, there’s really nothing to like about being a Bills season ticket holder. The Jaguars were the other “premium” game on the Bills’ schedule this season, and we’ve seen how far they’ve fallen.

Seems my hypothesis was wrong. The NHL, not the NBA, provides the best value to fans of its worst teams when it comes to their season ticket offerings. The NBA is a close second, however, and the Cleveland Browns coming in third was a pleasant surprise. Baseball and the Buffalo Bills, however, have a long way to go to make their cheapest season ticket packages more appealing to fans of the sports’ worst teams.

With cannabis now legal in Canada, I thought I’d help sports fans prepare for the circus that is the first day of cannabis legalization. If you’re going to be playing sports or watching them live or on TV, this comprehensive guide provides the perfect pot strains for enhancing your sports experiences.

Pot strains don’t just get you high in varying degrees. Some strains are relaxing and help relieve pain, inflammation, even depression—perfect for postgame pain and blues after a loss. Some strains are uplifting, energetic, and facilitate creativity, which might be nice prior to your recreational flag football game. Now that you can legally purchase cannabis in Canada (some places), our readers in Canada might find this insight helpful in pairing pot with their favorite sports.

I’ve done the first day of legal cannabis sales before. I was there in Denver, Colorado covering the first legal purchase of recreational marijuana in the United States in 75 years for The Leaf Online. Before the dispensary opened its doors to the public, members of the press packed the pot shop to capacity to witness and report history. Coloradans and out-of-state visitors to whom I spoke happily braved the cold New Year’s Day morning in 2014, forming a line that spanned the length of the street. One older couple said they were “hippies from Indiana and just had to be here.” I was surprised to find anyone who drove further than me just to be there. That couple eventually bought something, though. By the time the press conference was over the line wrapped around the block, and I had a deadline to meet, so I drove 1,400 miles round-trip to spend 36 hours in Denver in the first days of legal weed sales and not get high.

You’re going to be spending a lot of time in line if you plan to make a purchase on Opening Day, so it’s best to have an idea of what you want before you get to the pot shop as to not hold up the line for other cannasseurs. Most stores will have their menu of goodies available on their website, so check that out before choosing a retailer. Just give it a quick look to see if they have what you want. You’ll have plenty of time to investigate further while standing in line.

So what do you want, and who am I to tell you? Well, my cannabis credentials have been earned over 12 years of regular consumption for both medical and recreational purposes. I had a medical cannabis prescription for two years in Montana, during which I used indica strains to alleviate back pain resulting from degenerative disc disease and used sativa strains to get my indica’d ass off the couch and take advantage of the moments I was pain free.

I wrote two bills to legalize and tax cannabis in Montana, familiarizing myself with the medical cannabis industry and its regulatory structure in so doing. My work obviously connected me to like-minded people throughout the state who smoked me up and introduced me to countless strains. If it’s a strain grown in Montana, I’ve probably smoked it at some point. I’ve also made recreational, or as we advocates now call it, “adult-use” purchases in Colorado, Washington, and Nevada.

Since I love to cook and bake, I experimented with multiple cannabis recipes because eating it was so much more effective on my back pain. My friends and I made Mint Cheeba Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, Literal Laughy Taffy, cakes, cookies, and, of course, brownies. I still love to eat edibles on an off day, but when I was introduced to waxes, sugars, and shatters, I knew I’d seldom smoke again.

Smoking anything, cannabis included, is bad for your lungs. While there’s no rat poison in joints (yet), simply burning the cannabis flower will result in you inhaling tars, and if you have a back problem like me, a seemingly insignificant cough can aggravate that nerve pain and kill your buzz. That’s why I mostly vaporize concentrates.

Concentrates are concentrated Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive substance in cannabis, in resin form. I’ve seen shatter that’s 98 percent THC, which means you could work on the same gram of shatter for weeks and hardly make a dent. Concentrates are for veteran tokers, though, so when I recommend them, it’s with the assumption that you have run the gauntlet yourself and have graduated to a more healthy and effective means of cannabis consumption.  

Now that you know that I know what I’m talking about, here are the perfect pot pairings for playing and watching sports live and on TV. If I haven’t tried a strain, you’ll find a link to Leafly to learn more about it.

Cannabis Strains for Playing Football

Tangerine Man, Trainwreck, Purple Urkle

Snoop Dogg’s Tangerine Man is a strain I’d love to try before a flag football game. It supposedly “pairs wonderfully with daytime physical activity.” Of course, I’d probably eat it to preserve my lung capacity. Maybe at halftime I’d pile on a Trainwreck taffy or two, a hybrid that provides an uplifting, energetic boost while also treating pain. Postgame pain is best treated with Purple Urkle, which will relax every muscle in your body and eventually bring satisfying sleep.

Cannabis Strains for Watching Football Live

Lemon Jack, Light of Jah, Grape Ape

My first Minnesota Vikings game at U.S. Bank Stadium was an overwhelming experience. My buzz from vaping some sativa pregame had mostly worn off by the time the Vikings took the field, which nearly made me weep tears of joy. I think my next game I’ll eat some Lemon Jack. “Like a strong cup of coffee, Lemon Jack is a daytime strain,” and it apparently makes you talkative, which is an important part of being a good football fan. You need to make noise when the opponent’s on offense.

At halftime I’d keep the energy and stress management going with Light of Jah, which I’ve actually smoked but never eaten. It’s a long-lasting high, so eating it should get you through the second half no problem. Postgame I’d smoke or vape Grape Ape to relax and manage any stress resulting from a poor performance by my boys in purple.

Cannabis Strains for Watching Football on TV

Lemon Jack, Jock Horror, Grape Ape, Jack Herer, Green Crack, Durban Poison, Super Lemon Haze

I wouldn’t stray too far from the pot pairings for watching football live except instead of eating cannabis I’d probably vape it simply because I can. Lemon Jack to start with Jock Horror at halftime to enhance your halftime appetite and Grape Ape postgame seems reasonable. If you’ve got things to do besides watching football after the game, substitute Jack Herer, Green Crack, Durban Poison, or Super Lemon Haze for Grape Ape.

Cannabis Strains for Playing Baseball

Super Silver Haze, Sour Diesel, Green Crack

My co-ed softball team in college was named Bozeman Toast because most of us were toasted for every game. It did not enhance our performance, but it made the game more fun, especially playing in rain and then sleet and then snow in the mountains of Western Montana.

We always smoked sativas before a game. I remember Super Silver Haze and Sour Diesel both being employed often in those days. They are energetic strains that foster creativity and will have you smiling even if you misplay a ball in right center that you try to undo with a dive into a puddle that leaves you soaked and clears the bases.

The best game we played that season was when we came across some Green Crack. We scored 16 runs and lost. It was the rain/sleet/snow game, during which I saw our center fielder make the best catch I’ve seen while on the field of play. It was on a sinking line drive she got a great jump on and dove for at the last possible moment. Green Crack, as you can imagine, is an ultra-uplifting, energetic strain that facilitates focus rather than creativity. You might not have as much fun playing the game as you would with Super Silver Haze or Sour Diesel, but you’ll be alert out there and light on your feet.

Cannabis Strains for Watching Baseball Live

Strawberry Lemonade, Cracker Jack

No pregame pot party is going to get you through a baseball game, which is where edibles come into play. The high from eating cannabis lasts much longer than smoking or vaping it. I remember having a bunch of Strawberry Lemonade shake that I used to make butter for cookies and ate a couple before a Minnesota Twins game that made for a most euphoric evening. Strawberry Lemonade is a sativa/hybrid mix, so it’s both uplifting and relaxing. Eating it, though, provides an hours-long body high that makes your cold, plastic chair feel like your favorite recliner at home.

I also enjoyed some sativa-dominant cookies I bought before a game at Safeco Field in Seattle, and we had some five-milligram lozenges to stimulate the buzz for hour three of the game. It was a quick one, as Felix Hernandez barely bested Phil Hughes in a pitching duel. I believe that was the year Hughes set the MLB record for strikeout-to-walk ratio, but King Felix put up a zero to his one. We got so sick of the King’s Corner chanting “K” on every two-strike count (there were a ton), we started screaming at no one in particular, asking what all these Spanish-speakers wanted. “¿Que hora es? Is it the time you want? What?”

We had fun despite the loss, but we didn’t realize that the five-milligram lozenges we were eating were actually two, five-milligram lozenges stuck together, so my buddy, who’s a pot novice, got sick after the game from mixing too much booze with too much cannabis. Don’t do that. In fact, don’t drink any alcohol while using cannabis. Frankly, it’s a waste of booze.

If you’re eating edibles for the first time, go slow to start. Then, if you feel like your buzz could be better and you can handle it, eat a bit more. Like alcohol, your weight, activity, and whether or not you’ve eaten or drank alcohol recently effects your body’s absorption of THC.

If I could consume any cannabis I wanted before a baseball game, I’d try eating Cracker Jack. It’s an intense sativa combining two of my favorite strains: Green Crack and Jack Herer. Around the fifth inning, I’d sneak into the bathroom and take a few vapor puffs of any sativa. Baseball stadiums are more bag-friendly than other arenas, so I generally always have my vaporizer with me in it’s little, book-like case. After the seventh inning stretch I’ll take another trip to the bathroom for another sativa boost. Sativa, sativa, sativa…got it?

Cannabis Strains for Watching Baseball on TV

Durban Poison, Northern Lights, Blue Cheese

The beauty of watching baseball on TV in a place with legal pot sales is when you get to the third inning and feel like taking a nap until the seventh inning stretch, you can reach for an indica and set an alarm for an hour. Don’t be the guy who falls asleep at the ballpark. Baseball doesn’t need you advertising the lack of activity in the game. There are plenty of strikeouts already doing so.

I enjoy an indica-dominant hybrid when watching baseball at home, but usually start the game with a sativa. Durban’ Poison has been one of my favorite sativa strains since I first discovered it a few years ago during a vacation in Colorado. The sugar crumble concentrate keeps my body and mind uplifted even if the Twins do not. If they fall behind early by a lot, I’d reach for Northern Lights or Blue Cheese and get comfortable. If I fall asleep and miss something, I can always rewind. Sometimes I sleep right through until they air the replay, which is even better because I don’t know the score or outcome.

Cannabis Strains for Playing Basketball

Durban Poison, Jack Herer, Green Crack, Kelly Hill Gold, GSC (formerly Girl Scout Cookies)

I wouldn’t recommend smoking or even vaping anything prior to playing basketball. You’ll be hacking up a lung within minutes. Instead, eat some high-energy sativa like Durban Poison, Jack Herer, or Green Crack pregame. At halftime, pile on an indica-infused edible to help manage cramps, inflammation, and muscle spasms. While I’ve never tried it, Kelly Hill Gold seems to be the perfect pot strain for playing the second half of a basketball game. Not only does it help manage pain, stress, cramps, inflammation, and muscle spasms, it’s an energetic indica, which is rare (it’s the only one I found). A postgame puff of Girl Scout Cookies (now known as GSC) will have you feeling fantastic (it really does taste great), and it’s half-sister Cookies Kush seems to be great for pain before bed. Use CBD oil on any specific pain.

Cannabis Strains for Watching Basketball Live

White Widow, Pineapple Express, Lemon Haze, Sour Diesel, Durban Poison, Bubba Kush, Northern Lights, Chocolope

It doesn’t take much to get up for a basketball game. Besides hockey, it’s probably the most entertaining sport I watch live on a regular basis. I think it’s the energy of the crowd and speed of the action that gets me. Basketball was my first love, so it’s easy for me to enjoy. I ride my bike to Target Center for around a dozen Timberwolves games every season, and before I hit the pavement I like to vape a calming hybrid like White Widow or Pineapple Express. If all I have is sativas, Lemon Haze and Sour Diesel are adequate alternatives.

I like to calm my nerves pregame because by halftime I know I’ll be incensed. I usually just grab a Coca-Cola and munch on the trail mix I brought with me and let my buzz dissipate at halftime. The crowd is my intoxicant in the second half, but postgame I’m either subsidizing my euphoria with Durban Poison if we win or treating my minor depression with Bubba Kush or Northern Lights if we lose. Chocolope is the perfect pot strain after a loss in a day game because it’s energetic, uplifting, and helps you handle stress and depression.

Cannabis Strains for Watching Basketball on TV

Jock Horror, OG Kush, God’s Gift, LA Confidential

Watching basketball makes me hungry as hell, so when I’m watching at home I stuff my face. I don’t feel so guilty when I’m watching Duke University men’s basketball because I’m usually pacing the entire game. I seldom sit down and am usually bouncing with the Cameron Crazies during a Duke game. It’s sad really, but not much could make you sad with a bit of Jock Horror. I’ve never tried it, but I’ve tried just about all of its parents, and apparently it’s most notable side effects are maximum munchies, dry eyes, and dry mouth. Since you’re in the comfort of your home with the fridge and Clear Eyes just steps away, side effects be damned.

At halftime I’d switch to a hybrid like OG Kush just to make sure I’m still able to sleep well after the game. An indica like God’s Gift or LA Confidential will help with fourth-quarter stress and assure you sleep like you just played a basketball game instead of watching one on TV.

Cannabis Strains for Playing Hockey

Jack the Ripper, Dragon’s Breath, Harlequin

Playing hockey hurts. Most of us aren’t playing full-contact football, so hockey is about as hard and painful a recreational sport you can play. That’s why we’re breaking out the high-THC strains. A Jack the Ripper cookie prior to puck drop will keep you energized and focused while treating your pain throughout the first period and into the second. It’s generally more than 20 percent THC, so be careful not to overeat it or you could end up “disoriented and paranoid.”

About midway through the second period a Dragon’s Breath edible will help you manage your fatigue and provide a lift for the third period. Postgame vaping of Harlequin is the ultimate pain reliever with a CBD/THC combination that won’t put you to sleep or over intoxicate you.

Cannabis Strains for Watching Hockey Live

Super Green Crack, The Cough, Silver Haze, Headband, Bruce Banner

I can’t remember what specific strain or if it was even advertised on the bag of cookies my buds and I ate before watching the Minnesota Wild take on the Avalanche in Colorado, but I know it was a sativa that made us very focused on the game. And I never knew the strain of the shake I used to make Cocoa Canna Butterscotch Chip Cookies for when the Avs visited Minnesota, but I know it made us giggly as schoolgirls at a slumber party. It was fantastic, and the fact the Wild won in a shootout made it that much more fantastic.

So before puck drop I’d recommend eating some Super Green Crack or The Cough. Both have had me crying laughing, and hockey can be one of the funniest sports. People falling down is always funny. Eventually, though, you’ll want to come back down to Earth. Some Silver Haze edibles midway through the game will actually clear the haze while maintaining the euphoria. My postgame pot of choice after a hockey loss would be Headband for its ability to combat elevated stress levels and depression, even headaches, which can result from screaming at referees and cheap-shotting opponents. After a win, or anytime in my personal experience, Bruce Banner hits the spot.

Cannabis Strains for Watching Hockey on TV

Durban Poison, Green Crack, Super Lemon Haze, Jack Herer, Chocolope, Harlequin, Pineapple Express, Cinderella 99, Aliens OG, ML Ultra, G13, Cheese

Hockey’s probably my favorite sport to watch on TV. It demands my attention, so I oblige by vaping Durban Poison or Green Crack or Super Lemon Haze or Jack Herer or Chocolope or Harlequin. Whatever sativa I have on hand tends to be one that retains most of my focus faculties.

If it’s a day game and I want to accomplish things afterward, some Pineapple Express is perfect for the third period. It leaves you ready to take on a creative project. The third period of night games are best accompanied by Cinderella 99, a dreamy, euphoric, stress-reliever. My preferred pot postgame would be Aliens OG, but it’s not to be taken lightly. It’s one of the most potent strains of weed out there at up to 28 percent THC. MK Ultra would be second, and G13 would be a distant third. For you beginners out there, try some Cheese and forget to call me in the morning.

Despite the Land of 10,000 Lakes losing the second-winningest NBA franchise to a place with roughly as many lakes as Lakers in uniform, Minnesota has managed to become a mini-Mecca of American sports entertainment. In the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., you can see the Minnesota Twins and St. Paul Saints play professional baseball, watch one of the best women’s professional basketball teams, see one of the best American football teams and catch the Loons playing Major League Soccer—all in a three-day weekend. The same cannot be said for a much larger and more diverse market in Miami, and their respective histories of stadium funding and construction might have everything to do with it.

Minnesota’s Mini-Mecca of American Sports Entertainment

In April of 2018, Minnesota had four professional sports teams in action for the first time ever, two of which were in the playoffs. The “Minneapolis Miracle” at U.S. Bank Stadium on Jan. 14 served as a coming out party for Minnesota sports on the national stage. Relative to the “big four” sports leagues, the Minnesota Lynx quietly collected Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) championships in four of the past eight years. Despite it being the top league of its kind in the world, a dynastic WNBA team hardly nudged the needle gauging national interest.

However, adding a team from MLS, widely considered the fifth-best soccer league in the world, was such a good idea Vikings owners Mark and Zygi Wilf got written permission to pursue the opportunity when seeking approval for construction of U.S. Bank Stadium. The bill passed by the Minnesota Legislature in May 2012 included a clause allowing the Wilf’s to pursue an MLS franchise to play in their new stadium for up to five years. That’s not how it went down, but the Minnesota United Football Club (MNUFC) group fast-tracked its way to an MLS franchise regardless, while a larger, more soccer-friendly population in Miami is still waiting.

The addition of MNUFC makes the Twin Cities one of just 10 markets with franchises in all five of the major, American, professional sports leagues—the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Baseball (MLB) and MLS. Minneapolis-St. Paul is just the sixth market featuring teams in each of the five major, American, professional sports leagues while also supporting a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) franchise.

You might be wondering how the roughly 3.5 million residents of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and the modest reach of its 15th-ranked media market manage to support seven professional sports teams including the independent league St. Paul Saints baseball team. But what makes it possible now has a lot to do with what’s happened in the past.

When the roof of the Metrodome collapsed for a fifth time in 2010, its deflation left Minnesotans deflated. The amount of air Minnesotans collectively sighed over the thought of paying for another stadium would have raised the roof of the Metrodome. The residents and visitors of Hennepin County had just contributed $350 million, or 63 percent of the funding for Target Field’s construction through a county-wide, 0.15-percent sales tax hike. The timing couldn’t have been worse for the Wilfs, but at least the Twins didn’t give Twin Cities’ residents a reason to resist stadium construction like Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria did in Miami.

Jeffrey Loria’s Wake is Drowning Miami’s MLS Hopes

Miami, a city with almost twice the population as the Twin Cities and a diverse population prime for MLS action, has a worse media market ranking than Minneapolis-St. Paul (16th-ranked). But the proximity of sports media competitors in Tampa-St. Petersburg (13th-ranked) and Orlando (18th-ranked) isn’t the reason for the struggles of David Beckham’s MLS investment group in Miami.

Like the Metrodome, the Marlins former home was an all-purpose stadium not meant for baseball. And like Target Field, Marlins Park had support of Miamians—as long as they didn’t have to pay for it. Despite both of these teams being guilty of fielding uncompetitive rosters for years, they both had two, relatively recent World Series Championships to ease the pain somewhat. The Marlins’ 2003 championship spurred the City of Miami to propose the construction of a baseball-only stadium next to the Miami Orange Bowl.

Miami-Dade County was more forthcoming with funding than the City of Miami, proposing a $420-plus million stadium at the Orange Bowl location. But the State of Florida and City of Miami resisted, sparking rumors of the Marlins relocating just as Loria’s last team, the Montreal Expos, did prior to Loria receiving (he didn’t put a dime down) ownership of the Marlins from then-commissioner Bud Selig to replace Loria’s failed business. This didn’t help soothe the anxiety of fans who saw their championship roster disappear over the course of two very bad seasons.

On Feb. 21, 2008, MLB COO Bob DuPuy threatened that if a decision wasn’t made with regards to funding a stadium for the Marlins that very night, it would be “the death knell for baseball in Miami.” Hours later funding was approved by the City of Miami and the County Commissioners for a $525 million home for the Marlins. The plan called for Miami-Dade County residents to flip just $50 million of the bill, with $297 million coming from tourist taxes. The City of Miami would incur $127 million in stadium-related costs.

The finalized deal, however, was for a $634-million stadium, 80 percent of which would be publicly funded. With interest compounding over 40 years, the actual cost to the county to repay the $409 million in bonds would be roughly $2.4 billion. The combined expenses incurred by the city and county for the construction of Marlins Park total $2.61 billion through 2049. Loria just sold the team for $1.2 billion, claiming a loss of $141 million, which would not only allow him to avoid paying the five percent of the sale's proceeds to the public that was agreed upon, but entitle him to the $50 million held in escrow for the city and county.

https://twitter.com/SuttaCBSMiami/status/959488388155035648

Like Loria’s Expos, the Twins were an alleged target for contraction for low revenue generation and the inability to get a new stadium built. But Govornor Jesse Ventura and the Minnesota Legislature did manage to agree on a ballpark funding proposal, and the Twins played the 2003 season and six more in the Metrodome. Target Field construction didn’t begin until May 2007, but Hennepin County taxpayers hardly noticed the 0.15 sales tax increase and probably thought it was worth it upon seeing the completed structure. It showed in the sixth-ranked attendance during Target Field’s inaugural season.

The same cannot be said for Marlins Park, where despite its shiny new digs and dancing marlin statue, the Marlins christened their new ballpark by finishing 18th in attendance.

When it comes to the Wilfs building the best stadium experience in sports, they have the Pohlads and Target Field to thank. Had the Twins saddled the county with billion-dollar debts or built a lemon, U.S. Bank Stadium might have been built for the Las Vegas Vikings. The environment the Pohlads left the Wilfs was as squeaky clean and inviting as the windows that had to be replaced on U.S. Bank Stadium because birds kept flying into them.

The Wilfs didn’t build U.S. Bank Stadium quite as clean and easy as the Pohlads did Target Field. Through infrastructure expenditures and other stadium-related spending, both the state and city have exceeded their respective $348-million and $150-million contribution limits that are called for in the state law governing the stadium deal. Also, Minnesota House Republicans want to spend $26 million in the stadium’s reserve fund, reserved in case the state is unable to pay its share of the stadium debt, to build veterans homes. But the Wilfs didn’t leave a wake like Loria’s.

While Beckham and his investors must now convince Miami voters to let them build a billion-dollar MLS soccer and commercial complex before the midterm elections despite it costing taxpayers nothing, MNUFC will move into its new, privately-funded stadium in St. Paul next season, it's third in MLS. Again, Loria’s wake has altered all boats in its path, regardless of the boat’s size or the size of its passengers’ pocketbooks.

MNUFC’s Allianz Field cost just $190 million, so not only did the MNUFC ownership group bring MLS to Minnesota swiftly but thriftly. The MNUFC group didn’t even have to put out any golf cart fires.

In December 2013, Miami-Dade County commissioners voted unanimously to allow Mayor Carlos A. Giménez to negotiate with David Beckham’s group of investors looking to bring MLS to Miami. Almost five years later, the hopes and dreams of David Beckham’s Miami MLS investment group are in the hands of understandably skeptical Miami voters, and they have to spend $35 million to clean up toxic soil and another $25 million to the city for park and walkway projects.

People don't easily forget when they've been swindled by billionaire owners of sports teams to pay for the construction of stadiums. Just ask anyone living in Cincinnati. They were swindled twice, and Miamians aren't going to let that happen. Beckham's group might be promising a privately-funded stadium, but everything, from taxes to fast food, gets more expensive when there's a new stadium to fill.

For those of us who are football enthusiasts, we may be at an advantage when it comes to relationships. Makes sense….when things go sour with our partner we turn to football. When we get sidelined we wait for a signal to get back on the field. And we instinctively “suit up” before each encounter to protect us from the blows we may incur.  So the question arises, do football fans fare better in relationships?

We know the field

Before any play, we need to position ourselves correctly on the field. Being too close to the “end zone” when you’re supposed to be yards away can give you a severe penalty.

So we start at the line of scrimmage and respect the “neutral zone.”

An infraction of this space could again inflict a costly penalty.  There’s a time and a place when beginning a play and entering this zone is allowed.

True our goal is to get to the end zone but it will take some strategy, finesse, and opportunity.  Some good drives will get you a long way, and patience and persistence is key.

We study our competition

Before any play we size up our competition.  Some may block your advance but most you can overcome.  As long as you know your routes and can keep other players at bay, you have a chance of advancing.

How do we fumble?

Holding a ball loosely and carelessly could cause it to easily fall into another player’s hands.

But if you hold it too tight it may squeeze out the first opportunity it gets. A proper cradling, warmth, and protection may be the right recipe.

We need to rely on others during a fumble

Losing the ball is devastating and someone else can pick it up and run with it. It takes your buddies to help you regain possession so you can start over.

Treat your partner right and don’t lose them to begin with.

We are always prepared for an interception

The field is fluid and players are out there watching, waiting to grab your ball and take advantage of the yardage you acquired.

Always be mindful of your position and don’t take your possession for granted.

We adapt when we’re in the red zone

Although the red zone is not officially marked on the field, we understand it to be the 20 yards closest to the end zone, or time during a relationship where you can either advance to your goal or fail miserably, losing all the time and work you put into the relationship. Being too aggressive may cause a fumble, interception or even injury.  Being too chill could prevent you from ever making a touchdown.

So us football folk know how to stop, huddle, and plan,  hopefully resulting in the ball sailing into the end zone without a hitch.

So if you’re in the dating scene and find yourself getting encroached, needing to scramble, or facing a blitz, watch some football and learn how to treat your date right. It might get you a whole new set of fresh downs…….

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Daliah Wachs is a guest contributor to GCN news, her views and opinions, medical or otherwise, if expressed, are her own. Doctor Wachs is an MD,  FAAFP and a Board Certified Family Physician.  The Dr. Daliah Show , is nationally syndicated M-F from 11:00 am - 2:00 pm and Saturday from Noon-1:00 pm (all central times) at GCN.

I, thankfully, didn’t watch all of the Week 2 matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers on Sunday. That’s the case more and more these days, when in the past I’d hardly miss a second of a Vikings game. Rookie kicker Daniel Carlson, who the Vikings selected in the fifth round of the draft five months prior to waiving him Monday, missed three field goals to waste a valiant, 13-point comeback led by new quarterback Kirk Cousins in Green Bay. I stopped watching after the first two series of the second half with the Vikings down 20–7, and I couldn’t be happier with that decision given the resulting tie.

The Problem with Place-kicking in Football

It bothers me that games featuring more than 100 athletes too big to be able to run as fast as they do repeatedly colliding into each other to obtain property like they’re at war are often decided by the least athletic of the 53 players on National Football League (NFL) rosters. NFL kickers are like generals sitting a comfortable distance from enemy lines sipping on Gatorade awaiting a request for an air strike from their foot soldiers taking heavy fire only to bomb their own troops on occasion.

Last season, 22.5 percent of all NFL games (including the postseason) were either decided by three or fewer points or featured scoring exclusively by kickers. Almost a quarter of regular season games played in 2016 were decided by three or fewer points. Between 2003 and 2015, 27.9 percent of games were decided by three or fewer points. As of this writing, 25 percent of 2018 NFL games have been decided by a field goal or less, and the average margin of victory in the NFL continues to fall. Whether it’s one in five or one in four games decided by kickers, one game decided by the least athletic player and the player seeing the least playing time is one game too many.

There were more field goals attempted and made last season than in any other time in the history of professional football, according to Pro Football Reference. The result was 3,664 points scored by kickers in 2017, or almost an even third (32.96 percent) of all NFL scoring. That’s an increase in kicker-exclusive scoring of 5.65 percent over the last 50 years.

Kickers have been ruining the game of football at all levels, especially youth levels, since the game’s inception. Finding someone who could kick and punt the ball were always the hardest positions to fill on our youth teams, and while kickers have gotten better over the years according to FiveThirtyEight, the problem of kickers over-influencing outcomes and under-entertaining fans has worsened with the implementation of longer point-after attempts and uneventful kickoffs.

Instead of stand-still kickoffs that were implemented this year, punters should simply punt the ball as they would on a free kick after a safety. Their teammates wouldn’t get a running start to protect players’ health, but free kicks would result in fewer touchbacks and a higher potential for kick return touchdowns — once the most exciting play in the sport now all but extinct. Most importantly, though, free kicks would make place-kickers entirely unnecessary.

My research found kickers were the exclusive scorers in six NFL games last year, and the touchdown-to-field-goal ratio has declined by almost an entire touchdown per successful field goal since 1975. While these ridiculous roughing-the-passer penalties will assuredly increase the touchdown-to-field-goal ratio, achieving the all-time high of 2.5 touchdowns scored per successful field goal converted is not probable unless kickers are removed from the game.

Solving Football’s Place-Kicking Problem

The more fourth-down plays there are in games, the more intriguing those games will be. Games’ outcomes need to swing on one play every series instead of one play every half. Football is not providing enough moments of perceived momentum shifting from one team to the other. Without place-kicking, fans would be on the edge of their seats more often, as the Dan Bailey bailout would be unavailable to the Vikings or anyone else, forcing coaches to utilize more forward passes — the play that saved American football from extinction and made it the behemoth it is today. There would also be fewer breaks in the action for commercials, but what’s the best option for solving football’s place-kicking problem?

Removing place-kickers from the game doesn’t necessarily mean field goals have to go away. While I think goal posts unnecessarily obstruct the views of fans, we don’t have to tear them down (although it’d be cool if they were moved behind the fans so they could go home with souvenir footballs). They are a symbol of the sport after all, and what would college students do on Saturdays after a big win if they couldn’t tear down the goalposts? They’d probably be at higher risk for alcohol poisoning if they didn’t exert that effort.

If the NFL wanted to continue employing place-kickers and make games more exciting, it could simply make field goals worth two points instead of three. How a field goal is worth more than a safety is disrespectful to defenses everywhere, even though your offense gets the ball back after the defense scores a safety. While kicking was highly emphasized when the game was conceived, the field goal’s point value decreased from five in 1883, to four in 1904 and three points in 1909, three years after what many believe to be the first legally completed forward pass.

After more than 100 years without a change to the field goal’s point value, I’d say we’re long overdue. But lowering the point value of a field goal does not affect the risk in attempting a field goal, which is the actual problem. Kicking is a bailout in football. Both punts and field goal attempts bail out an offense incapable of scoring touchdowns. I’ve got no problem with punters. I’ve seen punters make plays, but I’d prefer to watch the NFL’s place-kickers play soccer if they’re capable of running and kicking a moving ball. Removing place-kickers from football would enhance the intrigue of games by forcing coaches to be more creative and take more chances on both sides of the ball. That brings me to Rule 1 of football re-imagined without kickers.

“All teams must attempt a two-point conversion after scoring a touchdown.”

That’s where games should be won and lost — in the trenches between lineman at the goal lines. The men risking the most should determine the outcomes of games, but field goals wouldn’t necessarily have to disappear. They could just be altered. The NFL simply needs to make the field goal attempt a less enticing option for coaches — make the bailout riskier.

I recommend the NFL adopt something like the drop goal in rugby, where a player can drop the ball on the ground and kick it through the uprights on any down. The quarterback could avoid a sack and dropkick the ball through the uprights on second down for three points. That might be a big enough change to eliminate field goals altogether, but punters would eventually get the hang of drop-kicking to make it a less riskier option. It’s not as though they have much else to do during practice.

To up the ante even further, the ball’s placement on the field should depend on how close you get to the goal line. The closer a team gets to scoring, the more difficult a drop goal attempt should become. That’s why I recommend the hash marks running down the middle of a football field get wider and wider as they get closer and closer to the goal line. This might even be enough to keep place-kicking in the sport while minimizing kickers’ control over games’ outcomes.

An American football field is 160 feet wide. NFL hash marks are 70 feet, nine inches from the sidelines. That’s where they’d remain between the 40-yard lines on each side of the field because 50-plus-yard field goals are hard enough. At the 39-yard line, however, the ball would be placed on the hash mark 69 feet, nine inches from the sideline closest to the completion of the previous play. At the 38, the ball would be spotted on the hash mark 68 feet, nine inches from the nearest sideline, and so on. At the one-yard line, the ball would be snapped 31 feet, nine inches from the sideline nearest the last completed play. This would result in some new, creative formations, more fourth down plays as well as some drop goals attempted from truly amazing angles. This would make “four-down territory” even larger, increasing excitement even if it results in less scoring.

Counteracting a Potential Decrease in Scoring

While we’re not eliminating a third of all scoring in football, points will be harder to come by in the game without kickers. A point-after attempt and two-point attempt have almost the exact same expected value, so forcing teams to go for two would result in almost the exact number of points as point-after attempts. But field goals alone accounted for 23.37 percent of points scored in 2017, and teams won’t be trading those field goals for drop goals or touchdowns at a 1:1 or even 1:2 ratio. That said, an effort should be made to counteract a potential decrease in scoring by providing more scoring opportunities.

Football and rugby are unique in that they offer multiple means of scoring points. You only score in baseball when you touch home plate. You only score in basketball when you put the ball through the hoop, and you only score in soccer and hockey by putting the ball or puck in the net. Scoring in football involves either kicking the ball through goal posts or taking it across a goal line (or downing it there in the case of a safety). But why stop at two means of scoring points? That brings me to Rule 2 of football re-imagined without kickers.

“Award one point for each sack or tackle for loss.”

Awarding one point for sacks and tackles for loss would almost replace every point scored by NFL kickers. Based on 2016 totals, there were 1,118 sacks and 2,218 tackles for loss, totalling 3,336 potential points. Kickers accounted for 3,669 points in 2016, and spreading those points around to players playing and sacrificing most makes for a more democratic game. And frankly, defensive players deserve to score more.

Defensive players seldom score, especially big defensive players. An offensive lineman can at least declare himself eligible and catch a touchdown pass. Defensive players have to either force a fumble, pick it up and run into the end zone, grab an interception and run into the end zone or tackle the ball carrier in their own end zone for a safety. And now that defensive players have to defy physics and somehow stop more than half of their body weight from falling on the quarterback during a sack, their team should at least get a point if it’s likely the sack will result in a 15-yard penalty and automatic first down for the offense.

While this rule might result in more coaches challenging the spot of the ball, I’d rather watch a replay of a quarterback sack or tackle for loss to determine if the ball carrier reached the line of scrimmage than watch a kicker come on the field and make or miss a kick sandwiched between commercials. And the NFL is far past due for placing sensors on the ends of the football and on the players’ knees and elbows to determine the exact location of the ball when the ball carrier is down by contact. But that’s another Grandstand Central story for another day.

Imagine the Vikings just scored a touchdown to tie the Packers with no time left on the clock and only the two-point conversion left to be played. With this rule, either team could win or lose the game right there at the goal line. The Vikings could either convert the two-point attempt to win or take a sack or tackle for loss to give the Packers the win. Green Bay could also intercept the ball or recover a fumble and return it for two points as well. That’s a whole lot more exciting than bringing a kicker onto the field to attempt an extra point converted 94 percent of the time in 2017. It’s also more indicative of which is the better team.

Unless the NFL takes place-kicking out of the game, I’m boycotting the league upon the end of Cousins’s tenure with the Vikings or if the Vikings win the Super Bowl — whichever happens first. And I’m not just saying that because of the Vikings’ rich history of kicking woes in big games. They are the franchise who had a kicker who shall not be named go an entire season without missing a kick only to miss one that would have sent them to the Super Bowl. More recently, they had a kicker who shall also go unnamed miss a 27-yard field goal that would have extended their playoff run in 2016. I just can’t bring myself to pay attention to the game of football anymore. The kickers keep kicking my attention elsewhere.

So you’ve been asked to fill out a fantasy football league at the office, but the last time you played fantasy football Colin Kaepernick was your quarterback. Your disinterest in fantasy football shouldn’t stop you from filling out your office’s league or make you the fantasy equivalent of the Cleveland Browns, like I was that year Kaepernick was my quarterback.

Kaepernick wasn’t bad. He was the 72nd-best fantasy football player in 2013, according to Pro Football Reference, and that’s about where I drafted him, if not later. I was done in by injuries and mediocre running backs and flex players, and since my Vikings only started the season marginally better than my fantasy team (1–7), there wasn’t much reason for me to pay attention to the National Football League (NFL) come November.

But that was before Kaepernick first protested racial injustices during the national anthem, providing the spark that started the President’s furious fingers tweeting and Jerry Jones’s Johnny Walker-fueled, fire-breathing mouth moving, engulfing the NFL in controversy for the entirety of yet another offseason.

The new anthem resolution adopted by NFL owners despite an official vote never taking place and without considering the input of NFL players has received backlash from both players and fans, forcing the league to finally invite the players to the negotiating table. The NFL and NFL Players’ Association (NFLPA) hope to find a solution that appeases the owners, players and fans, which means, given the pace at which the NFL handled Deflategate and the anthem matter thus far, there won’t be a consensus until after the 2021 collective-bargaining agreement is negotiated during a likely lockout.

That means we’re in for another year of players protesting racial injustices during the national anthem, which is just fine by me. Not only do my Vikings have a quarterback under 40 with two good knees and a better-than-okay arm, but NFL players are going to continue protesting during the national anthem — an anthem the NFL exploited for compounding profits by selling it as an advertisement to the Pentagon that doubled as a patriotic advertisement for the league, attracting patriotic fans to the sport. Players weren’t even required to be on the field for the anthem until the NFL sold it to the Department of Defense in 2009, with taxpayers flipping a $5.4-million bill between 2011 and 2013 and another $6.7 million when the National Guard bought the “rights” to the NFL national anthem performance from 2013 to 2015.

Kaepernick didn’t profit from his protests during the national anthem like the NFL did exploiting it. His stance, or more aptly, lack thereof, has cost him mightily, but his woke moves off the field, like donating more than $1 million to 41 charities despite being unemployed, are more impressive than anything he did (or will do) on the field. So those of us more interested in players’ “reality” contributions than their fantasy contributions have a reason to play fantasy football this season.

If you’re like me, you might not be willing to do a bunch of research to try and win something as inconsequential as a fantasy football championship, especially when office bragging rights are the only reward. But you’d like to draft a team that will give you a reason to follow football when your favorite team falls from relevance. That means you can’t go 0–16 like my Kaepernick-led fantasy football team back in 2013.

You’d also like your fantasy team to consist of players you like and respect while also having some success throughout the year. Winning a fantasy football championship with a bunch of woman-beaters and performance-enhancing drug users isn’t all that impressive or entertaining. But winning a fantasy football championship with a roster of advocate-athletes using their celebrity to raise awareness for issues important to them would be worth watching and worth bragging about around the office for the next year. “Remember that time I drafted a bunch of protesters and beat the pants off your thoroughly researched fantasy team?” bears repeating for years if not decades.

I’m here to tell you that a fantasy football roster consisting exclusively of players who have protested racial injustices during the national anthem or have otherwise made woke moves and spat woke game off the field could win a fantasy football championship in any format. There are enough NFL player-protesters out there to draft a competitive, All-Woke fantasy football team.

Not only can your All-Woke fantasy football team win it all, it can do so despite all the efforts of your fantasy league owners who hate protests during the anthem (unless they collude with each other, of course). The “Woke Mofos,” “Advocate Athletes” or “Trump Sons-a-bitches” can win in spite of the limitation of drafting only “woke” players and provide entertainment to woke football fans an unwoke fantasy roster cannot.

For those of us who would rather draft our fantasy football teams with our hearts than our heads but don’t want the misfortunes of our favorite teams rubbing off on our fantasy teams, here is a strategy for woke fans to draft a competitive fantasy football team they can respect and enjoy following during the 2018 NFL season.

All-Woke Fantasy Football Draft Strategy for 2018

We’ll assume your league consists of at least 12 teams, so draft strategy for the following players considers 12 players in each round of the draft. Rankings are based on ESPN’s top-300 lists.

Round 1: Draft Your Woke RB1

Early-round option: Todd Gurley II — RB — Rams

Mid-round option: Alvin Kamara — RB — Saints

Late-round option: Kareem Hunt — RB — Chiefs

If you’ve got one of the top two picks in your fantasy draft, go ahead and draft Los Angeles Rams running back Todd Gurley II. He’s the second-ranked, fantasy player in both PPR and non-PPR formats and has been one of the most vocal advocate-athletes, calling for all NFL players to have fully guaranteed contracts and locking arms with former teammate Tavon Austin during the national anthem in Week 17 of the 2017 NFL season. Austin won’t likely be protesting during the anthem this season, as he is now a Dallas Cowboy.

If your first-round pick is between three and seven, consider drafting New Orleans Saints sensation Alvin Kamara. He was one of nearly 200 NFL players to protest racial injustices during the national anthem in Week 3 of the 2017 NFL season, and is projected to be fourth amongst running backs and 26th overall in receptions for those of you playing in PPR formats.

If you’re drafting at the bottom of the first round, Kansas City’s Kareem Hunt awaits. He too was one of the 200 who protested in Week 3 of 2017 and is ranked eleventh overall in both PPR and non-PPR fantasy formats.

Round 2: Draft Your Woke RB2 or WR1

Early-round option: Leonard Fournette — RB — Jaguars

Mid-round option: Michael Thomas — WR — Saints

Late-round option: Mike Evans — WR — Buccaneers

If you’re drafting at the top of the second round, you could do worse than Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette. He took a knee during the national anthem in front of 100,000 London fans at Wembley Stadium on Sept. 24, 2017, and he’s remained in the locker room during the anthem thus far this preseason. Fournette is a workhorse in an offense with an inconsistent quarterback, so he might outperform the RB1 you drafted in the first round.

If you’re drafting near the middle of the second round, Tampa Bay wide receiver Mike Evans is the 22nd-ranked player in both PPR and non-PPR formats. He’s another Week 3 protester from 2017, as is Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce, who would be an okay selection at the end of the second round.

Round 3: Draft Your Woke TE1 or QB1

Early-round option: Travis Kelce — TE — Chiefs

Mid-round option: Aaron Rodgers — QB — Packers

Late-round option: Zach Ertz — TE — Eagles

Kelce would be an even better pick atop the third round of your fantasy draft if he falls that far, and he likely will. His average draft position is 26.5 in all ESPN formats, and his ranking is 24th overall in PPR formats and 29th overall in non-PPR formats. With little depth for woke players atop the third round, Kelce would be an ideal target.

Round 3 isn’t too early to draft the NFL’s most woke quarterback, Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers hasn’t protested during a national anthem, but he has been the most outspoken of NFL quarterbacks on political issues. He’s the 58th-ranked player in PPR and 56th in non-PPR, but has been going 27th overall in ESPN drafts on average. Don’t be afraid to use a third-round pick on the most-woke quarterback in the draft, because he’s also the best quarterback in the draft. If you miss out on Rodgers there isn’t much depth when it comes to woke NFL quarterbacks.

If Aaron Rodgers doesn’t fall to you, Philadelphia’s Zach Ertz hasn’t protested during the national anthem, but he did stand up to Fox News after it used photos of him and teammates praying before games for a story about player protests during the national anthem, calling it “propaganda.”

This can’t be serious.... Praying before games with my teammates, well before the anthem, is being used for your propaganda?! Just sad, I feel like you guys should have to be better than this... https://t.co/kYeyH2zXdK

— Zach Ertz (@ZERTZ_86) June 5, 2018

Ertz also donates money to youth football programs in need, including a youth football team in Camden, N.J., where the Whitman Park neighborhood’s per capita income is lower than 97.6 percent of American neighborhoods, resulting in 85.3 percent of children living in poverty. Most recently, Ertz and his wife, Julie, donated $10,000 to Philadelphia’s Kensington High School after all of their football equipment was stolen. Ertz’s average draft position is 33.9 as of this writing.

Round 4: Draft Your Woke WR2, RB2 or QB1

Early-round option: Demaryius Thomas — WR — Broncos

Mid-round option: Josh Gordon — WR — Browns

Late-round option: Jay Ajayi — RB — Eagles

Demaryius Thomas’s average draft position has been around 41, making him a good target atop the fourth round. He’s more likely to fall in non-PPR drafts than in PPR formats, as he’s ranked 34th overall in PPR leagues and 39th overall in non-PPR leagues.

Since Cleveland’s Josh Gordon hasn’t been on the field to protest we can’t hold that against him. Although he’s struggled passing drug tests, he’s taken the time and made the effort to learn about his addiction issues, which is an honest attempt at getting woke. Gordon’s comeback is indicative of his wokeness, and he led the league in receiving playing just 14 games with Cleveland quarterbacks heaving balls in his general direction. He’s the 39th-ranked player in PPR formats and 34th-ranked in non-PPR formats but has been selected at around 50th overall in snake drafts.

At the bottom of the fourth round you’ll find Philadelphia running back Jay Ajayi, whose average draft position is also 50th. Round 4 is also your second-to-last chance to draft the NFL’s most-woke quarterback, if Rodgers is somehow still around.

Round 5: Draft Your Woke RB2, WR2 or QB2

Early-round option: Marshawn Lynch — RB — Raiders

Mid-round option: Emmanuel Sanders — WR — Broncos

Late-round option: Deshaun Watson — QB — Texans.

If you don’t get your RB2 in Round 4, Oakland’s Marshawn Lynch should be available atop and possibly in the middle of the fifth round. He’s continued to literally sit out the anthem and should get plenty of goalline opportunities, even though he’s not that good in those situations. He still running through mofos’ faces, though. Lynch had more rushing yards after contact than rushing yards from scrimmage in a game against the Dolphins last year.

If you have your RB2 but are missing your WR2, Denver’s Emmanuel Sanders is ranked 57th in PPR formats and 54th in non-PPR formats. Keep in mind, though, that his average draft position has been 74th thus far.

Round 5 is likely your last chance to draft the most-woke quarterback with an NFL job. It could also be your first chance to draft the next most woke quarterback in Deshaun Watson. Watson’s entire team protested the remarks of their owner, Bob McNair, during the national anthem. He’s been going around 52nd overall in ESPN drafts.

Round 6: Draft Your Woke RB2, WR2 or D/ST

Early-round option: Duke Johnson Jr. — RB — Browns

Mid-round option: Duke Johnson Jr. — RB — Browns

Late-round option: Marquise Goodwin — WR — 49ers

If you didn’t get Lynch or Ajayi or Fournette, Cleveland’s Duke Johnson Jr. could be selected atop the sixth round and could stick around into the middle of the round.

Niners wide receiver Marquise Goodwin, who knelt with Eric Reid, Eli Harold and Louis Murphy throughout the national anthems last season, could be available at the end of the sixth round, but has been drafted 77th on average, so target him atop the seventh round if you can.

Round 7: Draft Your Woke WR2 or D/ST

Early-round option: Marquise Goodwin — WR — 49ers

Mid-round option: Jaguars — D/ST

Late-round option: Jaguars — D/ST

Besides Goodwin, there isn’t much for woke players available in the seventh round. It’s a great place to score a bargain QB2 if your league’s owners don’t value the position, with Newton and Watson ranked 78th and 81st, respectively.

The seventh round isn’t too early to start thinking about defense and special teams. The Jacksonville Jaguars feature seven defensive players who knelt during the national anthem in Week 3 last season, and six are regular starters. Jacksonville’s average draft position has been around 73rd overall, which actually places them atop the sixth round, but who in your league is going to draft a defense after filling just their RB1, RB2, WR1, WR2, and QB1? Make sure there aren’t any Jacksonville fans in your league and the Jaguars D/ST should fall to you in the seventh round.

Round 8: Draft Your Woke TE1 or FLEX

Early-round option: Jordan Reed — TE — Washington Racial Slurs

Mid-round option: Jamison Crowder — WR — Washington Racial Slurs

Late-round option: Josh Doctson — WR — Washington Racial Slurs

If you didn’t nab Kelce in Round 3 and went with the most woke quarterback instead, Washington Racial Slurs tight end Jordan Reed should be targeted atop the eighth round. Reed was one of the nearly 200 NFL players who protested during the anthem in Week 3 of last season. He’s ranked 90th in both PPR and non-PPR formats.

If you got both Kelce and Rodgers, Round 8 should be used to draft a FLEX player. Either of Reed’s teammates Jamison Crowder or Josh Doctson are good selections in the middle or end of the eighth round or atop the ninth. Doctson is considerably more valuable in non-PPR formats, going from 94th overall to 82nd overall.

Rounds 9–10: Draft More Woke FLEX Players

Ninth-round option: Kenny Stills — WR — Dolphins

Tenth-round option: DeSean Jackson — WR — Buccaneers

Along with Crowder and Doctson, consider Miami’s Kenny Stills, who knelt during the national anthem as recently as Week 17. Consider drafting Tampa Bay’s DeSean Jackson in the tenth round.

Round 11: Draft Your Woke Patriots Players

Early-round option: James White — RB — Patriots

Mid-round option: Patriots — D/ST

Late-round option: Patriots — D/ST

The most woke defense in the NFL by the numbers belongs to the New England Patriots. Twelve of their active players on defense knelt during the anthem in Week 3 last season, and eight of them are starters. Their average draft position has been 126.8 thus far.

If you’ve already drafted the Jaguars’ defense and special teams units, there is an RB3 to be had in James White, also of New England. He’s ranked 123rd in PPR leagues and has been drafted around 128th in ESPN leagues.

Rounds 12–13: Draft Your Woke D/ST2

Twelfth-round option: Broncos — D/ST

Thirteenth-round option: Brandon Marshall — WR — Seahawks

The Broncos have eight defensive players who protested in Week 3 last year, all of whom started at least one game last season. Their average draft position is 136.9 — the middle of the twelfth round.

It doesn’t hurt to have a pair of defenses on your roster. Sometimes you can win a matchup thanks to one of your defenses having a favorable matchup, and having two defenses doubles your odds of that happening. They can be nice trade chips, too, so target defenses early because there’s only 10 of them that are any good.

Round 13 is when you start taking flyers on comeback players like Seattle’s Brandon Marshall, who caught only 18 balls in five games with the Giants last year after suffering an ankle injury requiring surgery. It was the first time in Marshall’s career that he played less than 13 games in a season, so he’s been reliable in 10 of his 11 years in the league. He’s also just two years removed from leading the league with 14 touchdown receptions and is getting an upgrade at quarterback, leaving Eli Manning for Russell Wilson.

Round 14: Draft the Most Woke Kicker

Early-round option: Stephen Hauschka — K — Bills

Mid-round option: Stephen Hauschka — K — Bills

Late-round option: Stephen Hauschka — K — Bills

The last pick of your draft is almost always reserved for your kicker, although the best kickers have been coming off the board as early as Round 9. Lucky for us, the most woke kicker will be available in the final round of our fantasy football drafts.

Buffalo’s Stephen Hauschka has gone undrafted in most ESPN snake drafts, but finding a woke kicker is damn near impossible. Hauschka has at least said intelligent things as a result of having intelligent discussions with his former teammates in Seattle. He also has a powerful leg. He hit seven of nine field goal attempts from 50 yards or more last year, and Buffalo will likely attempt even more long field goals this season. If your league awards extra points for long field goals, Hauschka could be the difference between a win and a loss in head-to-head formats. His struggles with point-after attempts shouldn’t be a problem given how few touchdowns Buffalo will score this season.

Keep in mind that this is only a guide. Nearly 200 players protested racial injustices during the national anthem in one weekend last season, so there are plenty of players not listed here who are woke and worthy of consideration. These are just the top-ranked advocate-athletes my research revealed, but there’s probably someone out there who isn’t protesting during the anthem but making woke moves off the field worthy of All-Woke fantasy consideration.

We should be taking fantasy football about as seriously as I intend to in our Grandstand Central league. I’ve already devoted more time doing research than I wanted, but at least I now know it’s possible to draft an All-Woke fantasy football team without reaching too far for advocate-athletes. Thankfully, drafting a competitive fantasy football team and drafting players you can respect and for whom you can proudly root aren’t mutually exclusive, so draft a team of Kaepernick copycats before they’re blackballed or the anthem goes away entirely. Enjoy watching players who understand their profession doesn’t define them…who understand their advocacy is more important than the game they play and way more important than the fantasy games we play. Fantasy sports are all so ridiculous, so get ridiculous and rep your wokeness.

Update: Draft and Week 1

My fantasy football draft didn’t go as well as I would have liked. Yahoo Sports gave me a draft grade of “B.” It didn’t get off to a great start, as my first-round target Alvin Kamara came off the board right before I selected at seventh overall. Ezekiel Elliot was still on the board, but being a Dallas Cowboy and chest-grabber of women, I chose New York Giants rookie Saquon Barkley with my first-round pick, who helped the Advocate Athletes to a Week 1 win over 3 Pats 1 Kupp, 156.70–146.65. In fact, the Advocate Athletes could have been the top-scoring team in the Granstand Central fantasy football league in Week 1 had I started the right tight end.

My second-round pick Mike Evans assisted the Athletes to a Week 1 win, but third-rounder Aaron Rodgers defied biology to truly carry the Athletes. Demaryius Thomas outplayed his projection, as did Kenny Stills — my 11th-round steal. My backup tight end Jared Cook is already my starting tight end with Delanie Walker out for the season, but Cook was the top tight end in fantasy points Week 1. That should continue with Derek Carr’s apparent fear of throwing to anyone else on his team.

This was originally published at Grandstand Central.