Weekend winners

Your Atlanta Braves. That’s six straight wins. And if you are backing the Braves offense on a day-in, day-out basis, your bankroll won the weekend too. This team is doing work and has the second-best record in the bigs behind Tampa.

John Rhys Plumlee. The former Ole Miss standout pulled a Deion Sanders over the weekend and went 2-for-3 for the UCF baseball team before sprinting from the dugout and heading to the stadium to play QB for the UCF spring game.

Matt Fitzparick. The reigning U.S. Open champ was money over the weekend and won the RBC Heritage over Jordan Spieth in a playoff.

The 12-year-old’s travel softball team, which won a tournament in Cleveland on Saturday. She got two wins on the mound — nine innings, two earned allowed, 12+Ks — as they rolled through the bracket unbeaten in three games. And everyone returned home somewhere between 1-2 Sunday morning.

Lakers in particular; NBA postseason in general. Now that was some excellent basketball. Especially from the Lakers, who worked Memphis in Game 1 to claim home-court advantage in that first-round series. Sunday was especially pleasing with three Game 1 upsets, LeBron making sure we remember who LeBron is, and Kawhi Leonard looking like the dude that somehow got an NBA title to Toronto all those years ago.

Weekend losers

NBA regular season. Wow, the difference in the product of the regular season and the postseason is staggering and clearly apparent. There was defense this weekend. There was hustle. There were no “load management” references. We got basketball, from the best players on the planet. That game, played at that level by men of that skill-set is amazing to watch.

NBA injuries. If Ja Morant is out a few games, the Grizz better start looking for the panic button. Same goes with Giannis and the Bucks. As for the knee-jerk reaction of some national media folks who are upset at players taking a charge and then causing the weekend injuries to stars like Ja and Giannis, please stop talking. Seriously, I saw at least two folks arguing that the charge should be removed from basketball.

The nightmare shooting at a birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama, that left left four dead and almost 30 injured. At a teenager’s birthday party. Man we need real conversation about changes in our approaches to guns on a multitude of levels, but you know what else this is an absolute exclamation point on? The sentence, that no one gets into fist fights and/or knows how to lose a fist fight, as crazy as that sounds. I was in more fights growing up than I should have been. Won some, lost a few. But scenarios that used to be two dudes throwing hands, one guy winning, and one guy losing, not becomes the OK Corral. What a senseless tragedy.

Tennessee baseball. The Vols went to Arkansas and got worked. Moreover, they were at times their own worst enemy with a river of Ks and a slew of Es.

Activists in New York looking to make weight discrimination against the law. I wish I had made that up. Man, we can’t keep guns out of schools — or sweet 16 birthday parties — but we need to make “fat shaming” illegal? Makes all the sense in the world.

Oakland A’s, and especially their fans. Losers of four straight, the Athletics are 3-13. They could be eliminated from the playoffs before the kids go back to school in early August. On top of that, attendance is in the toilet and there’s a very real chance when MLB looks at expansion, if the final choices are Vegas, Nashville and either a San Antonio or a Charlotte, two of those could get a new franchise, and a third may get the relocated A’s.

Teams that are ignoring basic NFL draft logic. I love the draft. You know this. We will get back to our divisional draft discourse Tuesday. And maybe this is all smoke and mirrors in the final two weeks of lies and smoke screens. But if you are not prepared to recognize Jalen Carter’s amazing skill set and impact, you are doing it wrong. Plus, if you are thinking Bijan Robinson is worth a top-10 pick, then you simply do not understand the value and the process. In terms of Robinson, who is the best RB in the NFL? Where was he picked. Thank you. Of the top 20 NFL rushers last year, four were first-round picks, and one of those was QB Justin Fields. Of those 20 rushers, only two — Saquan Barkley and Christian McCaffery — were top-10 picks.

Spring forward

So there was a slew of spring football activity over the weekend.

There is no sporting event, at least no sports event to which I pay casual attention to, that is less suited for the “Weekend winners, weekend losers” debate than spring football.

Yes, every game has a winner and a loser. Well, other than soccer. They draw there on occasion. I know this because I watch “Ted Lasso.”

But in spring football, if you’re like Florida and play tremendous defense, well, a pessimistic or pragmatic fan could bemoan, “Our offense stinks.”

The Auburn defense could be great at pressuring the QB and Auburn could be in great need of finding a QB who can handle pressure all at the same time.

It’s one of the many reasons why I support the idea of playing other teams in spring games. As much as the truly die-hard Orange folks watched and rewatched UT’s spring game on Saturday, how much more interesting would it have been if the Vols wrote a six-figure check to the Mocs to have them come up there for an actual football game?

Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have watched UT-UTC on Saturday. Or Georgia-Kennesaw State. Or Texas-North Texas. Or any number of match-ups.

But there was still football, and while a whole big part of the country is wondering what it will take to get Arch Manning in the transfer portal — yes the portal is open again for two weeks, so keep hitting refresh on your browser, gang — after Texas named Quinn Ewers its QB1, there were some talking points from Knoxville and Athens, especially.

For the Vols, well, first, here’s Paschall sharing some of the good news from Saturday’s scrimmage. The race to replace Hendon Hooker has some talented candidates.

In truth, one of the biggest things I took from the what I saw from Knoxville was that this is the deepest UT roster in several seasons. Kudos to Josh Heupel and his crew for that.

For the most part, as Paschall told us in Sunday’s paper, a number of precautionary moves to sit banged-up starters made the action relatively hard to translate to the 2023 projections.

As for the defending two-time national champions, Georgia’s search for Stetson Bennett’s replacement appears to be down to a choice between Carson Beck and Brock Vandagriff.

OK, first, that QB showdown very easily could have been the names in the dual between QB1s in the annual Baylor-McCallie showdown right? (And not ton be outdown, the cat in a distant third to replace Stetson Bennett is Gunner Stockton. Buckets Kirby, that’s a whole lot of guys named like villainous rich characters that James Spader would have loved to have played in a John Hughes 1980s movie, no?)

Bewck’s stats were eye-popping, but no one expects the Georgia discussion to be finished well into August. That said, Gunner could be eyeing the portal, no?

This and that

— Talking about winning the weekend forever. Jimmy Buffett is a billionaire, yes, billion with a B. Just like his brother Warren, I suppose. That’ll buy a few cheeseburgers in paradise, no?

— You know the rules. Here’s Paschall on UT putting a wrap on spring practice.

— Former star right-hander Trevor Bauer made his return to baseball over the weekend in Japan.

Today’s questions

Weekend winners and losers. Go.

Multiple choice Monday will go a little something like this:

What is your favorite song by billionaire beach-ballad-belting Jimmy Buffett?

— “Margaritaville”

— “Come Monday”

— “Pirate Looks at 40”

— “Son of a Son of a Sailor”

— Other (specify).

As for today, April 17, let’s review.

“Game of Thrones” debuted on this day in 2011. Man, wish the final season was better. And there is a strong argument for “Red Wedding” as the single best TV episode ever created.

Jennifer Garner is 51 today. Ben Franklin died on this day in 1790. Fine American, ol’ Bennie.

Daffy Duck premiered on this day in 1937. Think we have done a Duck Rushmore before.

Marquis Grissom is 56 today. Rushmore of most underrated Atlanta Braves players. Does Brother Marquis, Marquis my brother make that one?

Go.