bukie

Today's highlight photo:

Sure, now you start handing out tips.

The White Sox should now turn to a veteran coach, someone who's been there before and knows the ins and outs of the franchise. Someone like Tony LaRussa.

This might be my favorite photo of Katie Ledecky's Olympic accomplishment today:

US Olympic soccer advances to the quarterfinals to play Morocco, while group winner France plays Argentina. Egypt beat Spain earlier today to win that group, so the US ends up on Spain's half of the bracket. Final 8 look to be 2 UEFA (France, Spain), 2 CONMEBOL (Argentina, Paraguay), 2 CAF (Egypt, Morocco), one AFC (Japan) and one CONCACAF (USA)

Sloan goes 55th to Seattle.

Still no prep arms drafted yet, seems like teams are very gunshy this year.

Every year I watch the draft on TV and every year I get annoyed when the announcing team questions a top 10 pick based on the current status of the franchises major league team. This year "Does it make sense for the Pirates to draft a prep player when their roster is so close to competing for a playoff spot?"

I believe the logical term is "regression to the mean"

I think a lot of it has to do with his inability to ever lose graciously, always dragging out matches with injury timeouts and wasting time when things weren't going his way. Especially earlier in his career before he was winning 90% of the time, he had a penchant for quitting matches he was losing instead of finishing them out.

As disappointing as this tournament has been for USMNT fans, I do admit it's always funny to see Panama get throttled when their CONCACAFing horsefeathers doesn't work against a quality opponent.

Every time this argument comes up, the answer is the same. USA sports prioritizes football, basketball and baseball over soccer for sure, and depending on the area of the country, throw in hockey, lacrosse and volleyball as well. Most kids play soccer at 6-8 years old, but the majority of them focus on a more common/lucrative sport after that. India has a billion people, and their soccer team is awful. Cricket is best in the world, though.

Five thoughts: The US was the better team in the first half, slowed eventually by Uruguay just throwing themselves at US players with no consequence. This refereeing was the worst I've seen at a major competition, ever. Referee was well out of his depth from the start, made a few baffling decisions that I've never seen before, just unforgiveable on this stage. The US was not the better team the last 45 minutes, could not get a rhythm going. It should be an indictment on Berhalter how bad this team is at converting offensive chances. 3 goals with 6 goals expected, just constant at not taking advantage of chances they get. This game was the best they played, but they cost themselves with the performances the prior 2 games. No room for error in this one and they made errors and the officiating made errors, and at the end they didn't create enough shots to win.

Haji Wright with a couple awful first touches in dangerous areas since he's come on.

That should be offside...

Best hope at this point is that Panama fades to Bolivia...

USMNT the better team in the first half, but the referee has been atrocious and they can't get actual shots.

I mean, two years ago Argentina lost their opener to Saudi Arabia and still won the World Cup.

Fortunately for them, bad and lucky is enough to finish 2nd in that group.

If Argentina doesn't sleepwalk tonight against Chile, Canada has a real shot to advance through this group.

I completely forgot that 2026 World Cup qualifying was underway, what with the US, Mexico and Canada already qualifying as hosts. With the expansion to 48 teams, every federation gets extra representation. So now, CONCACAF gets 3 teams on top of the 3 hosts, plus 2 additional playoff spots. So, effectively, the entire Hex now gets to go to the World Cup.

If the playoffs started today, the Cubs would be WC3.

Early UDFAs:

That is the case. They traded up in a sense to get Booker (they traded the Bills for the pick they traded to them before for Ryan Bates, but this time the Bills get a 4th next year).

My Bears draft snap thoughts/analysis: 1-1: Caleb Williams, QB USC - Easily the best QB prospect in a QB heavy draft (that teams made even more QB heavy by reaching on QB picks worse than a fantasy draft). Still yet to be seen if this round of coaching staff can maximize his abilities, but he's already endeared himself to the team and the franchise, and there's effectively an entire offense in place for him already instead of hanging him out to dry for two years. Love the pick and the situation. 1-9: Rome Odunze, WR Washington - Top tier WR prospect, one of 6 blue chippers in the draft, old high school buddy of Caleb Williams, they hoped to play together, took a picture together getting off the plane on thew ay to the draft, and everything fell into place with the QB frenzy to leave him available for the Bears, and they didn't overthink it. 2-40: Traded for EDGE Montez Sweat - They effectively used the pick to upgrade their defense, and with the extension, it's effectively the same as it would be to draft an edge rusher, except this one's already playing at a Pro Bowl level. No complaints. 3-75: Kiran Amegadjie, OT Yale - A huge OT physicality that lacks technique, seems like a Poles special. Bonus that he grew up a Bears fan and has been wanting to play for the Bears his whole life. Even already has a relationship with Eberflus and told him a year ago he'd be playing for the Bears. Depth at OL is always good, and developing offensive tackles might be the best thing about Poles overall, so this is a good depth pick at worst. 4-110: Traded for WR Keenan Allen - One of the best slot receivers in the game, and paired with DJ Moore and the Odunze pick allows him to be that slot receiver. Injury concerns cause a bit of hesitation, but it's at worst a one year flyer on a high level WR target, and if they don't extend him then that probably means Odunze developed faster than expected and this year was really special. 4-122: Tony Taylor, P Iowa - Drafting a punter is typically a puzzling decision, especially with limited picks overall, but a few things are intriguing...first, this is the best punting prospect in a long time that was effectively and unironically the best offensive weapon on a Big Ten champion. Secondly, this draft really had a dearth of talent depth, and if you can get the chance to get by far the best player at a given position, it's worth a flyer. It would be nice to have a punting game that's a weapon instead of a penalty on special teams. 5-144: Traded for C/G Ryan Bates - I don't know exactly how special Bates is, but it provides depth at guard and center, and that was the weakness of the team's offensive line in recent years, because as soon as Jenkins went down with injury, the middle of the line was an instant sieve, so using late-round draft capital to bolster OL depth is a solid play, especially with this lack of depth in the draft. 5-144: Austin Booker, EDGE Kansas - Bears traded back into the draft (to get the same pick they traded away for Bates) to snag a potential steal in the late rounds, someone with potential that slipped in the draft. At worst, it's defensive depth for a line that is probably the biggest weakness on the team right now. At best, it's a steal of a pick for the 5th round in a thin draft. 6-184: Traded for OL Dan Feeney - Hey, they can't all be winners. Waste of a pick on a guy who really didn't help the team all that much, then left in free agency. 7-231 - Traded for WR N'Keal Harry - Yep, two clunkers overall. At least they've since upgraded the WR corpse to the point where this mistake doesn't end up long lasting. So to sum up, their draft capital this year was spent on the top QB, a top tier college WR, a top tier NFL slot WR, a Pro-Bowl EDGE, a toolsy OT prospect, OL depth, an undervalued EDGE prospect, and Robo-Punter, while taking a swing and a miss with 6th and 7th round picks for OL and WR depth.