TIOPS DAILY FIVE
Rumblings, Musings, Opinions
1. The Pittsburgh Steelers could miss the playoffs because two knuckleheads couldn’t lay off the reefer. Martavis Bryant pending four game suspension is because of a failed drug test (marijuana) and what should have everyone in the organization furious is Bryant obviously can’t kick the problem as this wasn’t the first time or he would not have been in the program in the first place.
In fact, Bryant has either failed four drug tests to receive the four game suspension or failed to cooperate recently with the administered testing which would immediately slap the four game suspension after previously failing three tests.
There’s some out there who say drinking alcohol makes you more impaired than smoking marijuana, but no matter what side of the aisle you’re on, it violates the NFL’s substance abuse policy and whether it should be or not, it remains illegal in Pennsylvania by the way.
Teach Bryant a lesson, the Steelers should suspend him an additional four games for stupidity. Just like they should have cracked down (conduct detrimental to the team) on Le’Veon Bell themselves last season where the worst thing that happened to Bell was the organization ignoring him at the team annual luncheon.
2. Antonio Brown was spot on today with a couple of comments regarding Bryant:
— “You have to be highly professional in the way we carry ourselves off the field and on the field.” –
— “I’m never surprised. This is the NFL” —
3. The Pirates (77-49) moved 28 games above .500 with a 2-1 win over the Marlins tonight. It was just the Marlins but this is how the Pirates would love to draw it up just over a month from now in the wildcard game:
Get a big hit (Pedro Alvarez home run), Standout plays in the field (Aramis Ramirez, Jordy Mercer), Gerrit Cole goes 7 1/3 innings and then Tony Watson, Mark Melancon take over from there to close it out.
Cole now 15-7 on the season, snapped the longest winless streak of his career, allowing one run and five hits in 7 1/3 innings, striking out four and walking none.
In Cole’s career the Pirates are 23 games above .500 (45-22) when he pitches.
4. Groundball-Gerrit tonight! Cole struck out just four but worked into the eighth inning, keeping his pitch count under 100 (95) on the night. The Marlins hit into 11 groundouts vs Cole.
5. “I want to be a fourth-line guy, power forward. “Hit as many bodies as I can and deter a guy from taking a run at the 90,000 stars on the team.”
Those were the comments from Tom Sestito Wednesday to the Penguins official website
The narrative is slowly starting to die that a heavyweight/goon can deter teams taking runs at star players as less and less jobs are out there for guys like Sestito.
The reality is Sestito can’t deter liberties being taken at the likes of Sidney Crosby because you can only put a player like Sestito out there for five to six minutes a game. If heavyweights like Sestito want to try to keep a role in the NHL, instead of fighting the other teams tough guy when Sidney Crosby gets mulled in front of the net and pushed around, go run the oppositions star player and break a stick over his back next time.
I was going to say there’s need to be more Rick Tocchet’s around in this era, but on second thought, even Tocchet couldn’t deter Mario Lemieux getting pounded by the likes of Darius Kasparaitis.
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So it was the reefer? Oh well. Read pot or PED’s yesterday. I guess I’d rather have them test positive for pot…still sucks though.
D said reefer! Awesome!
Littering and?
The whole deterrent conversation is getting to the point of ridiculousness, the people that still think fighting deters players either hasn’t seen a hockey game in the last decade or has no comprehension of what they are watching. I have and always will be a proponent of fighting in hockey for it’s entertainment and excitement but think it’s anything more than those 2 things is just comical and shows a great lack of understanding the game.
These quotes from Ryan Wilson’s article yesterday couldn’t more on point. “Fighting didn’t deter Trevor Gilles from using Eric Tangradi’s head as a pinata. It didn’t stop Milan Lucic from running over Ryan Miller. It didn’t stop Matt Cooke from blindsiding Marc Savard. It didn’t stop Brooks Orpik from running over Jonathan Toews. It didn’t stop James Neal from kneeing Brad Marchand. It didn’t stop Shawn Thornton from sucker punching Brooks Orpik. It didn’t stop Dustin Byfuglien from running Steve Downie over after scoring a breakaway goal. It didn’t stop Steve Downie from kneeing Sidney Crosby or prevent Downie from… Read more »
kind of why I think Wilson is mostly BS
Please elaborate on how anything RW said is incorrect thus making it BS.
Just think how many more examples there would be if fighting was banished!!!! (sarcasm)
Those are specific examples of why having a “deterrent” on your team doesn’t equate to shit. How is that BS?
LMAO… several examples of self-policing not doing a damn thing. Nearly everyone involves a big money, big ticket player and you are still unwilling to believe? There is a word for this… it’s called denial. These guys have not been a deterrent since the 80s really… and even then it wasnt one guy… it was several goonish type guys on a single team that kept things honest. This is something teams can no longer afford to do unless those guys can actually play hockey.
yeah about deterents. just tell that to mark messier or graves. and this stuff still goes on today this isnt just a 90s thing. Here’s a quick hockey story that goes well with this. In the 1992-93 season, the Rangers were targeting Mario Lemieux with great frequency. One year earlier, Adam Graves broke Mario’s hand with a slash, you’ll recall. So, after a cheap shot against Mario in a game in the following season, Rick Tocchet calmly skated up to Rangers captain Mark Messier and said, “Mark, if you guys touch Mario, I’m coming after you. Just so you know.”… Read more »
Ya… probably a coincidence… and not a playoff game which is where the Graves slash occurred
As D pointed out, in ’93 Kaparitis was all over Mario… where was Tocchet then?
So wait after an entire year of hounding Mario and Graves breaking his wrist in a Finals game what was actually done? You’re suggesting that a conversation the following season after he had already been mauled for and entire year and assaulted in a playoffs game made all the difference and deterred something???
Tocchet was also on the team during the ’92 playoffs should how was he not able to deter Graves from breaking Mario’s wrist in the first place??? At team that had Tocchet, Loney and Caufield not only wasn’t able to deter Graves from taking a cheap shot at Mario but there was also no retribution in game 3 when Graves was allowed to play before being suspended for 4 games. This is hands down one of the all time most comical statements on TIOPS.
Has it been confirmed that the failed test was Marijuana? There were a lot of conflicting reports out there yesterday but most said it was for something other than weed, Aderol seemed to be the most popular opinion.
Lol weed is more important than making millions to play football.
I was going to say there’s need to be more editors around this article, but on second thought…
I thought this article was about beerman? Smoking weed? More to come morons