Good news on the NFL front for those who bleed Green, with two familiar names in the headlines.
Per northjersey.com the Giants used "a standard elevation for rookie defensive end Niko Lalos, who will likely be an option to take (Kaden) Smith's snaps on special teams." (Smith, a tight end, is sidelined this week because of COVID.)
Find Niko Lalos' Giants bio HERE and his Dartmouth bio HERE.
The Giants (3-7) visit the Bengals (2-7-1) today at 1 p.m., returning Lalos, who grew up in Ohio, to his home state.
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And this headline from the Cleveland Browns SBNation website Dawgs By Nature (LINK):
Callie Brownson will make history on Sunday
Brownson will fill in for tight ends coach Drew Petzing, becoming first female position coach in league history.
Brownson, of course, got her start at the college level working for Buddy Teevens at Dartmouth before moving on to the Buffalo Bills and then the Cleveland Browns.
Find another story about Brownson's own battlefield promotion HERE.
TEs coach Drew Petzing will not travel to Jacksonville to coach in Sunday's game.
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) November 28, 2020
Petzing's wife, Louisa, gave birth to the couple's first child early Saturday morning
📰 » https://t.co/ZqJL3GFWb8 pic.twitter.com/fUpquM9kOg
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The craziness is getting, well, crazier.
With all four of their quarterbacks out because of COVID concerns – including their practice squad QB – the Denver Broncos are turning the reins over to a practice squad wide receiver!
Kendall Hinton started two games as a freshman quarterback at Wake Forest and then served as a backup before spending his senior season catching passes, not throwing them. That's what got him an NFL practice squad slot. Now he's slated to start at quarterback for the Broncos in the first NFL game he'll have played in. (LINK)
Ath the college level, Florida State yesterday had a game called off on game day for the second week in a row. (LINK)
FBS games postponed or canceled this fall: 105 and counting.
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If you shake your head at what's happening in the NFL and college ranks, The Colorado Springs Gazette has a column that offers a defense for playing high school football in that state. It is headlined His name is 'Q,' and he's the answer to why Colorado needed fall high school football (LINK)
The column, which has a Dartmouth angle, is concerns Alexisius “Q” Jones, a Fountain-Fort Carson running back with a 3.85 GPA. From the story:
If the NFL season collapses Sunday due to COVID-related issues, bummer. But they are millionaires who will be OK. If the college season crumbles before the playoff, that stinks. But they are getting an expensive education for free at prestigious universities, and Alabama.
High school football, though? High school football is bigger than high school football. High school football is different. It’s a turning point of a lifetime, and a gateway to a blessed one.
And . . .
Q needed a fall football season. Had to have it. He didn’t play his junior year due to a leg injury. So he didn’t have film for college coaches from his junior year, and it wasn’t until Q erupted as a senior as the state’s leading rusher with almost 250 yards per game, that colleges came calling. Air Force recently offered a scholarship. Dartmouth offered a scholarship. That’s the caliber of academic institutions we’re talking about with Q, and if this fall football season doesn’t happen, they don’t come calling.
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EXTRA POINT
With much appreciated help from That Certain Nittany Lion '16 (who was smiling after yesterday's PSU win at Michigan) we pulled the '84 VW camper into the garage yesterday and then spun it sideways to allow enough room for our two cars to still escape the northern New England winter snows.
A year ago we drove the V-dub into the garage and made a ridiculous number of forward/backward moves to inch it into place, not an easy thing to do with a four-speed manual transmission and no power steering. It took forever.
This year we jacked the bus up and slid inexpensive automotive dollies under each wheel – which would have been a lot easier if I had remembered that two of the four wheels on the dollies had locks on them, and that having all the dolly wheels facing the same way before lowering the bus onto them is critical. Think your shopping cart at the market ;-)
Because I forgot about getting the dolly wheels lined up we had to jack all four VW wheels back off the dollies a second time. When we finally had the bus in place we had to jack it up a third time to pull the dollies out, lest they start to sag under the weight of the camper during the long winter. Come spring we'll reverse the process . . . but I promise you I'll check the wheels on the dollies first.
Huge thanks to TCNL'16, who got quite a workout cranking the strange VW jack up and down each of the four wheels three times.
