How bad will things have to get for a former dynasty before they get better?
Plus, the wild card race is getting wild.
New England’s Long Road Back
What Happened: Brandon Aiyuk is officially staying in San Francisco, but the fallout from his stand-off with the Niners is still spreading.
Over the weekend, Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated reported that the New England Patriots offered the receiver “the strongest monetary offers in just about every way”, which were not enough to persuade Aiyuk to accept a deal to head east.
Why It Matters: The Pats enter this season with a projected win total of 4.5 wins on most sportsbooks, so obviously there isn’t much optimism around the former dynasty.
But even with Bill Belichick gone, a coach who famously won a lot and notoriously took the fun out of that success for many players, and replaced by a guy who was in the league fewer than 10 years ago in Jerod Mayo, the Pats don’t seem to have the allure needed to bring in major talent aside from the draft.
It’s telling that Aiyuk spurned New England’s overtures, even with the biggest bag on the block on offer. 2024 will be important for the Patriots to show signs of life (Drake Maye when?) or the team will continue to struggle attracting talent.
What Weâre Watching Today
US Open –Â No one feeds off crowd energy more than #20 Frances Tiafoe, and he’ll have most of Arthur Ashe Stadium behind him when he takes on #9 Grigor Dimitrov at 8:15 PM ET tonight. A top-10 women’s match between #7 Qinwen Zheng and #2 Aryna Sabalenka in the night session is also not to be missed.
Red Sox at Mets (7:10 PM ET) –Â Both of these teams are outside the playoffs looking in entering play tonight. Only the Mets (0.5 games behind Atlanta for the final NL wild card spot) can change that here, although Boston is just 4.5 games from the third AL spot. The Mets took the first game of the series and have their best starter in David Peterson going tonight.
The Look Ahead
Chris Sale STRIKEOUTS – Fading the current favorite for NL Cy Young honors doesn’t feel great, exactly, but it makes sense to us. Chris Sale has a line of 8.5 strikeouts for his start against Colorado today, a line he hasn’t hit in two straight starts. Considering the 153.2 innings he’s thrown this season is more than he threw from 2020-2024Â combined, it’s fair to wonder if fatigue is starting to set in on the 35-year old’s left arm. We’d go under on this play.
