Lohensports

 What a week of football once again! Whenever it's the Steelers bye week I always have such a relaxing time enjoying the games. With basketball in full swing too, I've barely had time to watch anything other than sports! I can't complain. Lets get into week 9: Josh Allen Owns The Dolphins You knew it was going to happen too. I feel bad for Dolphins fans really, they went from Tom Brady to Josh Allen owning their division without a chance to even catch their breath first. The Dolphins played well in this one, Tua got going early and they jumped out to a lead going into the half. The second half was a back and fourth affair, both teams traded chances marching down the field and scoring. Then came the final few minutes, my favorite part of football is: "oh did they score too early?" The answer is yes. Down 27-20 with time dwindling, the Dolphins executed a masterful drive to score a touchdown with a minute and 38 seconds left on the clock. Josh Allen is one of if not...

 Happy Monday! It was a great weekend of football, albeit without my Steelers, but we'll get to that after the Monday nighter tonight when Baker hands KC and Mahomes their first loss of the season. Today is about something near and dear to me. As many of you may have seen, the Raptors hung Vince Carter's jersey in the rafters, retiring number 15, the first jersey retirement in franchise history. The ceremony was awesome, and even better that it happened with franchise legend DeMar DeRozan in the building playing for the visiting Kings. Somewhere in the 4th quarter, Drake hopped on the broadcast, as he frequently does. Drake, feeling betrayed by DeRozan appearing in the Not Like Us music video, said that if the Raptors try to retire DeRozan's jersey, he'll climb up there and tear it down himself. This really didn't sit right with me. Real ones know DeMar's impact on the city and fanbase and won't pay much attention to these comments, but I've already seen...

 Short one today! Sorry for the late post, I had actual work that gets me paid to do today (shocker).  I wanted to take a quick moment to shout out Ochai Agbaji, mostly because I was super low on him coming into the year and up to this point he's proven me so wrong. At first glance, Ochai's numbers don't jump off the page, averaging through 4 games 11.8 points, 1.4 assists, 5.2 rebounds, 1.2 setals and 0.8 blocks per game, but the impact Ochai is having throughout the game has to be highlighted. Last season Agbaji was a pretty good defender, but absolute zero on offense. When he cut he wasn't able to finish at the rim, he had a bad handle and no moves to get by guys, his jump shot was streaky to non-existent. He was reasonably ignored by opposing defenses whenever he was out there. The story has changed this year, Ochai is making so many smart cuts and has really improved his finishing at the basket. In transition, Ochai is making the smart, correct play each time wheth...

One of these days I will write a Raptors game reaction piece. I thought about doing one for the Nuggets game today, but it's so far away and out of my memory now so I figured I'd just take a big picture look at the team so far. Before I get into that, just quickly on the Nuggets game, how many times have you seen a game like that before? A young, scrappy team out-hustles the older veteran team all game only for the veteran team to slow it down and execute better in the last 5 minutes to steal the victory. The Nuggets have a 3x MVP on their side it's no accident that they're better down the stretch, good learning moment for the young Raptors. Anyway, lots to talk about! This team is young, fun and competitive even with all the early injuries.  New Bench Mob In the glory days of Raptors basketball the Raptors would churn out these productive bench players that seemingly came out of nowhere. Guys like Norman Powell, Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam, Delon Wright, Greivis Vasqu...

 What a night in sports it was last night! I was feeling a bit overwhelmed flipping between the Raptors and Steelers last night, both games were just so good it was hard to turn away. Ultimately my Raptors fell short in a classic young team loss. Easy to get out executed down the stretch when you're going up against a 3x MVP and champion in Nikola Jokic. Anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about, we're here for the Steelers! Oh man what a great win in what was looking like an all time trap game candidate. The Steelers didn't win this one pretty, but they got the job done and honestly that's Steelers football baby. There were also a ton of mind boggling instances of Giants football which I will certainly get into. Offense Clicking When Tomlin made the call to sub in Russell Wilson for Justin Fields last week, I like a lot of fans was pretty baffled. We have all been proven wrong. Wilson isn't doing anything super crazy out there and he didn't again...

 I have to say, I am battling with 2 loves at this point. With basketball starting, I found myself watching more of that than football on football Sunday which felt dirty and wrong. Usually the Steelers play Sunday which would get me into the football mood for the rest of the games, but with them playing Monday I ended up catching only little glimpses of games for no reason other than just wanting to watch basketball. Sorry if these thoughts are disingenuous everyone.  Hail Mary  It's so rare in the NFL that a game ends in a successful Hail Mary. There's just such a low probability especially when every single person in the building knows what's about to go down. Yesterday the Commanders moved to 6-2 on the season in a game ending on a Jayden Daniels 60 yard Hail Mary touchdown in what can only be described as a classic Bears loss. Not much to break down on that one, just a cool play. Daniels got a full 10 seconds to run around in the back field before absolutely launchin...

 Short one today, I am tired from my long top 20 players post from yesterday, just exhausted. Really though, the joy of writing about the Raptors is lessened by a 30 point loss on opening night I can't lie. I could rant, but it's a rebuilding season so if I get caught up on every loss it's going to be a long ride to March. Anyway, believe it or not there was some good that came out of this game. There was tons of bad as well but for the sake of positivity, lets only focus on one:  The Bad: Scottie Barnes Rough outing for Scottie. To be perfectly fair, Evan Mobley can make a lot of guys look bad, he's one of the best defenders in the league especially against power forwards like Scottie. The issue is, a trend dating back to last season as well is beginning to form. If Scottie doesn't get it going in the first quarter, his intensity and focus drops off a cliff. He starts to sulk and his energy level is noticeably lower. This was ok when Scottie was a young player play...