Random Thoughts Thursday

 It just occurred to me last night that I was probably getting close to my anniversary of starting this blog. Then I checked this morning and it was August 12, I missed it! So happy anniversary to Lohensports! I haven't really marketed this blog or tried to make it pretty, it's been more for fun and to just see if I could get better at writing about sports. After a year of doing this, I can confirm that it is fun! Maybe one of you can tell me if I'm getting better haha. In seriousness though, if you're a consistent reader here then thank you that's pretty cool! I have a lot of sports takes so having an online diary to share them has been pretty nice.

Ok now to the random thoughts. I am going to make these up as I go because I honestly don't have many today! I skipped yesterday with a busy day and today I am going to the Jays game in the afternoon so I don't have much time to pump this out either. It'll be a quick one I just didn't wanna miss too many days in a week, that'd be a disaster!

Mark Shapiro

This one is barely about sports, just an observation. I saw a video making the rounds on social media the other day of Mark Shapiro walking through the 500 level of the Rogers center during a Jays game. The fans in the packed stadium cheered as he walked up the stairs, one guy gave him a high five in the isle. By the time Mark sat down the entire section was chanting "MARK SHAPIRO!" I just thought that was hilarious. If you surveyed the fans like 6 months ago even they'd all be calling for his head. He whiffed on all the big name free agents and built a defense first team around Vladdy that was pretty boring and frustrating to watch, we hated the guy. The guys he brought in this year have honestly barely contributed as well. The most notable acquisition was Santander who has barely played and was awful when he did play. Gimenez is another guy who has missed half the season and hasn't hit well outside of a 2 week hot stretch to start the year. I don't wanna say Mark has nothing to do with this team's success, but the reason we all love this Jays team is because they came out of nowhere. Almost all of the guys we called up figured it out all at once, it has been awesome but very lucky. Even a guy like Tyler Heineman is hitting .339 on the season, not a single person on earth would've projected that even Tyler's own mother. Anyway, not hating on Mark, he filled the system with these guys, but it's just funny how fans are. Toronto isn't actually a hard place to play in if you look at it. Show up and win and you'll be a legend forever, even if they hated you for years before that. 

NFL is Right Around the Corner

Ok I am STRETCHING for content here I have no idea what to write about today. I would do a whole NFL prediction post but we'll save that for next week when I have a better lay of the land outside of my Steelers. What I will do here in Random thoughts is just go over some teams who aren't the Steelers that I am most excited to watch this season. The first one is my second fav team the Bills. Poor Josh Allen and the Bills always seem to have an awesome season where they look like contenders only to be thwarted by Mahomes and the Chiefs in the playoffs. They are supposedly better this year with Josh Allen coming off an MVP looking to prove it on the biggest stage. If it isn't my Steelers I really hope it's their year this time. The Commanders were my favorite NFC team last year because Jayden Daniels is a similar player to Lamar Jackson except he doesn't play for the Ravens so I'm allowed to like him. I can't wait to see his year 2 development, although it looks like star receiver Terry McLaurin isn't going to be there for him this year. Nobody in the history of football has ever been excited about watching the Jaguars, until me this season. I just want to see this Travis Hunter experiment play out I think he's one of the more interesting athletes of my lifetime. If you don't know he's a rookie who wants to play on both offense and defense as a WR and CB. It's yet to be seen if he's going to even get the chance to do that, but I hope they let him because come on it'll be fun. Football needs its very own Shohei Ohtani. Finally I can't wait to see if the Lions can recapture what they had last season. Defenses are generally a short lived thing, the Lions had an awesome one last year that got derailed by injuries right at the end of the season. If they can hold it together they can be contenders again which is rare for the Lions in my lifetime. 

That's all for today, really short one but I'm stretching for ideas here and I am also busy so give me a break lol. Until next time!