While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com
Deja vu, all over again: “This season, I hate to say it, might as well be over already. I have shown myself to be a less-than-sterling guesser of the winners of games during the first two weeks, but one thing that takes no guessing is that the Browns are in serious, serious trouble.
What was expected to be — perhaps — a 2-0 start to the season, or possibly 1-1, has dissolved into a nightmarish case of deja vu wherein the Browns led both of their games at halftime, 14-10, and then both weeks managed to get shut out in the second half and to have lost two games by a total of five points.
So near yet so far.” [Richard Bauer/SB Nation]
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On “Hot Wad’s” signing: “I do wonder though, why he didn’t jump all over the opportunity to start here earlier and sign a couple months ago. The skeptic in me thinks that maybe he didn’t think his game would translate over the course of an 82 – game season playing 30 plus minutes a night, and maybe he thought we’d be seeing a heavy dose of Moon and Graham by the All Star Break. It’s probably more like he was just doing what every other pro athlete in the world would do actually, in waiting it out for the best offer.” [Stepien Rules]
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Speaking of, who should be the Cavs’ starting small forward this season? [Numbers Don't]
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Your Buckeye Hoops update: “Thad Matta is burning up the recruiting trails again, and legally (looking at you, Calipari). The guy is simply one of the top coaches in the country, and I don’t think I would take anybody over him right now. I know what argument some fans will make…”John Calipari has vacated more Final Fours than most coaches will ever get to.” This is true, and call me old fashioned, but I love a guy who runs a clean program and does nothing but win. It wasn’t long ago that Jim O’brien ran this program into the ground, committed some violations himself, and then sued the school. So appreciate Coach Matta while he is here.” [Inside the Shoe]
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Jim-jam, still mashing taters: “So … how much longer should [Jim Thome] play? Thome’s wife and young son and daughter live back in Chicago, and he misses them. His body—well, there are good days and bad days. He wonders how much longer it makes sense to keep playing, and so he asks Joyce. She knew how much he loves baseball. She would tell reporters the story of little Jim pulling white rocks from their driveway in Peoria, Ill., and pounding them, one after another, into the woods with his aluminum bat. Joyce understood that Jim never really changed, and why even now, after playing more than 2,300 games, with 1,676 walks behind him (most, by far, among active players) and with 2,394 strikeouts to forget (only Reggie Jackson had more), he still has the same urge to go out to a driveway and hit rocks.” [Joe Posnanski]
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And finally, the Baltimore Ravens are, conveniently, trying out former Browns DB Coye Francies this week… [Aaron Wilson/National Football Post]
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(Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
