🏈 Tubz Unfiltered - Volume 140
Whole Lotta Sportz; Tupperware Goes Bankrupt
Happy Tuesday Wednesday, y’all!
I saw Post Malone in concert over the weekend. Generally speaking, people with neck and/or face tattoos give me pause in the sense that they make very questionable life choices while seemingly being somewhat immune to pain. Post Malone is the lone exception to that rule. Homie put on a helluva show. Sick beats.
P.S. No Extra Bubbles this week - I’m outta soap.
🏆 SPORTZ 🏆
OHTANI IS HIM
Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani is from a different planet. In a season where his best friend traded in a wide array of clothing for an orange jumpsuit and lost all freedom in the process, Ohtani has mashed baseballs and stolen bases at a historic rate. He has produced the first season of 50 home runs and 50 steals in MLB history, achieved in monumental fashion against the Miami Marlins Thursday afternoon.
He finished 6-for-6 with 3 ding dongs, five extra-base hits, two stolen bases, and 10 RBIs.
Since RBI became official in 1920, only one MLB player has had, over the course of his entire career (same game or not),
a game with 10+ RBI
a game with 6+ hits
a game with 5+ XBH
a game with 3+ HR
a game with 2+ SB
That one player is Shohei Ohtani. He did all of it today.
Before Wednesday night’s contests, Ohtani currently sits 5th in the MLB in Wins Above Replacement (8.5). He has not played a second in the field. Not only that, the highest WAR for a Designated Hitter in a single season is 7.0, achieved by Edgar Martinez in 1995. Ohtani is clearly going to shatter that mark.
CFB WEEK 4 RECAP
BYU 38 Kansas State 9: This recap is not so much about what happened on the field, although in the brief period that I watched, the Fightin’ Mormons had an insane punt return. Instead, let’s hone in on what happened off the field — another fan making an outlandish claim on the internet, only to actually own up to it (potentially)!
Kansas St. fan (SaintBillSynder on Twitter/X) tweeted that if the Wildcats lost to the Fightin’ Mormons, he would “shove a beefy 5 layer burrito up my ass.” Normally those things come OUT of your rear, although in a different form, after being consumed, but when you’re confident about your team winning, no body part or act is off the table. BYU was in on the joke, too — surprising because, well, it is BYU — tweeting “Live Más” after the dub.
Mr. Saint will allegedly pay his debts — a Mexican food aficionado colonoscopy, some are calling it (not me) — on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. I will not be tuning in or watching any replay.
UNLV STARTING QB SITTING OUT DUE TO NIL FALLOUT
The NCAA is the Wild Wild West nowadays, and this is the latest example of that. UNLV starting QB Matthew Sluka announced Tuesday night that he will sit out for the rest of the 2024 season. “I committed to UNLV based on certain representations that were made to me, which were not upheld after I enrolled,” according to Sluka’s statement released on Twitter.
Sluka’s NIL agent, Marcus Cromartie (a Badger alum, who majored in agricultural business and life sciences communications and likely did not receive Academic All-Big Ten honors), told ESPN’s Pete Thamel: “Sluka was verbally promised a minimum of $100,000 from a UNLV assistant coach for transferring there. None of that money was paid, per Cormartie. Once Sluka enrolled there, there was no effort by the UNLV’s collective to formalize a contract at that amount. The only money Sluka has received from UNLV, per Cromartie, is a $3,000 re-location stipend for his move. Cromartie said there was never an ask for more money after UNLV's hot start, only the initial amount he was promised up front.” Cromartie told Yahoo!’s Ross Dellenger, “nothing was signed.” Problemo Numero Uno. Free piece of advice, especially when it involves $100k: Get everything in writing.
The CEO of the UNLV collective said, and I’m paraphrasing based on reporting by Dellenger, “We never had a deal for $100k. We paid him $3k for relocation fees and were discussing a monthly payment of an additional $3k. Since Cromartie wasn’t registered as an agent in the State of Nevada, we told him to kick rocks and speak with the coaching staff until Cromartie became registered.”
The CEO of Cromartie’s agency didn’t know that players can negotiate NIL deals before enrolling at the university. Problemo Numero Dos.
UNLV released a statement — again I’m paraphrasing: “Buddy boy, who completed 43.8% of his passes through three games (he also had six passing TDs and 1 INT), came to us and wanted more money. We don’t want to break NCAA rules or state laws, so we told him, ‘too bad, so bad.’ He then proceeded to hit the road.”
Who knows where the truth lies? As always, it’s probably somewhere in the middle. But rest assured, this fiasco won’t be the last one. Hopefully, collectively bargained agreements — think NFL/NFLPA — come sooner rather than later so that we can say goodbye to the Wild Wild West.
Read the article here.
NFL WEEK 3 RECAP
JETS 24 Patriots 3: And just like that, Aaron Rodgers is back to being Aaron Rodgers. The ayahuasca enthusiast turned in a vintage performance on Thursday Night Football, fitting balls into tight windows as he finished 27-of-35 for 281 yards and two touchdowns with a passer rating of 118.9. New England’s offensive line will get QB Jacoby Brissett and/or Drake Maye a first-class ticket on the CTE train at this rate, sadly; they allowed seven sacks in the loss.
PACKERS 30 Titans 14: In the Year of our Lord 2024 (or is it Year 2024 of our Lord? Not sure), Green Bay might have an actual defense? It is early, but defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley is undoubtedly a massive upgrade over mouth breather, Joe Barry. The defense finished with eight sacks, two interceptions (including a pick-six), and a forced fumble. On the other side of the ball, the wizardry of HC Matt LaFleur and QB Malik Willis was on display for the second consecutive week. One example of LaFleur’s wizardy was the Emanuel Wilson receiving touchdown. WR Bo Melton came in motion, Willis faked a handoff to him from the shotgun, and Wilson peeled out on the opposite side for a 30-yard score. Through three weeks, Green Bay leads the NFL in “Explosive Play Rate.”
Willis, who many thought was one of the worst quarterbacks to ever step on an NFL field before arriving in Green Bay (slight exaggeration, but not by much!), finished with a 120.9 passer rating and became the fifth quarterback in franchise history to have a passer rating of at least 120.0 in consecutive starts, according to Wes Hodkiewicz. The others? Lynn Dickey, Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and Jordan Love. Pretty decent company. I’m calling my shot now: this team is going to make it to the NFC Championship Game and lose in devastating fashion, aren’t they?
PANTHERS 36 Raiders 22: There was a lot of talk around the sports media water cooler that Carolina failed QB Bryce Young, that they had a worse infrastructure than the Texas power grid during cold weather. Well, QB Andy Dalton dispelled those assertions momentarily as he was slingin’ the pill all over the yard against Las Vegas, becoming the first quarterback this season to throw for 300+ yards and 3 touchdowns in a game. He even made WR Diontae Johnson look like a world beater, who finished with a career-high 122 receiving yards.
I know Dalton is a ginger, which knocks him down a peg in some eyes, but the TCU product has quietly put together an impressive NFL resume. He currently sits 26th in career passing yards (38,830) and 25th in passing touchdowns (249).
COLTS 21 Bears 16: Indy QB Anthony Richardson might throw the best deep ball in the entire league, but the man is terrible at the short and intermediate throws. He threw two more interceptions in this one and finished with an abysmal passer rating of 39.0. Chicago QB Caleb Williams played decently well, but the offensive system is so bad; so bad in fact that offensive coordinator Shane Waldron must be huffing Galaxy Gas before games.
Case in point, late in the second quarter, they ran a speed option to the short side of the field on fourth and goal from the Colts’ one-yard line that went for a big loss, capping off a 16-play, 6:39 drive that ended with zero points. The offense also has no rushing attack. I’m sure Chicago fans are not overreacting.
RAVENS 28 Cowboys 25: Dallas’ defense is broken, highlighted by the fact that it has the worst run defense in the league by a wide margin. The unit allowed 274 (!!) yards and three touchdowns on 45 carries. Offensively, they can’t and didn’t pick up anything on the ground, which shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise because they did not invest anything into the position over the offseason. (Yes, I know they signed Zeke, but he’s like Chris Webber on the Warriors — way past his prime.)
EAGLES 15 Saints 12: So maybe New Orleans’ offense isn’t the Greatest Show on Turf 2.0 after all. Philadelphia should have won this game going away, but HC Nick Sirianni made some questionable fourth-down decisions yet again, and QB Jalen Hurts threw an INT in the end zone. Nevertheless, the wins all count the same. RB Saquon Barkley scored a 65-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter, and TE Dallas Goedert caught a 61-yard pass late in the fourth on a crossing route where two New Orleans defenders ran into each other, eventually leading to the final touchdown.
RAMS 27 49ers 24: Los Angeles had no business winning this game. It was without WRs Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua (I think some OL were out, too) and trailed by two touchdowns with under seven minutes left in the third quarter and by ten early in the fourth quarter. Their last three drives: field goal, touchdown, game-winning field goal, set up by a 38-yard punt return and a subsequent pass interference penalty by former Packers linebacker Devondre Campbell (not surprised, massive liability in coverage).
Despite the loss and not having TE George Kittle and WR Deebo Samuel, QB Brock Purdy proved he’s more than a system quarterback. The third-year gunslinger was 22/30 for 292 yards and three touchdowns, all caught by Jauan Jennings (11 receptions for 175 yards), who looked like the love child of Randy Moss and Calvin Johnson. RB Christian McCaffrey missed his third consecutive game and “is seeing a specialist in Germany regarding his Achilles tendinitis,” according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. I would imagine he’s gonna be in a Das Boot for the foreseeable future.
🤓 BATH TIME READING 🤓
The Tupperware Trap
Tupperware filed for bankruptcy last week. Say it ain’t so. Those puppies were indestructible and probably one of the reasons why they went bankrupt — how often would people buy new Tupperware (besides when they accidentally left it behind at a social gathering and said, “Ahh, screw it. Sharon can keep it.”) This Atlantic article poses other reasons why the company went belly-up.
For Tupperware—a product once so successful that its name has become a generic term, as with Band-Aids and Kleenex—being first wasn’t enough.
Tupperware is one of a batch of 20th-century brands, including Xerox and Polaroid, that created a product that defined their field but then struggled to compete with imitators. As the late billionaire businessman Eli Broad (himself a proud “second mover”) wrote in his 2012 book, The Art of Being Unreasonable, the companies that follow an innovator get to benefit from the customer base that the innovator has identified, and can learn from their predecessor’s mistakes.
Tupperware’s competitors have pulled ahead by making either higher-priced glass containers that appeal to sustainability-minded consumers—and look chicer in the modern fridge than old-school Tupperware—or cheaper, lighter alternatives. Tupperware, it seems, got stuck in the middle: It didn’t meaningfully modernize its design, but it also wasn’t all that cheap.
Tupperware also didn’t sell products at traditional retailers such as Target or on Amazon until 2022, instead sticking with the direct-sales approach that first put it on the map.
If you chuckled and/or enjoyed it, make sure to forward it to others and/or share it on social. Any corrections, omissions, suggestions, etc., send 'em my way. Much love. -Tubz