The Daily Huddle (12/22)

Welcome back to the Daily Huddle, a quick recap of the world of sports that I deem important from the day. There were a few events that I had interest in on this fine Tuesday and I'll get in to the NBA, some English Soccer and I'll recap Monday Night Football from yesterday since I posted the Huddle before that game kicked off. So, let's get right in to it!

NFL/Monday Night Football Recap

On Monday, the Bengals pulled out a win against the Steelers. I don't think very many people outside of Cincinnati really gave the Bengals much of a chance for that game, but they did it. The Steelers have been trending the wrong way as this season is coming to a close and they played in a stinker last night. Unfortunately, Eric Ebron got hurt and Derek Watt got hurt, there may have been others, I was only half paying attention to the game because it was not very fun to watch.

The two biggest takeaways for me in this game were that I won my bet. In yesterday's Huddle I said I was on the OVER at 40.5, and, even though it didn't play out the way I wrote in that blog, the over did in fact cash as the Bengals won it 27-17. The second takeaway is that JuJu might have to stop doing TikTok's on the logo before every game. If you weren't following this story, or you're not huge on social media or TikTok, JuJu Smith Schuster does a TikTok dance on the 50 yard line logo of the opposing team before the game. I'll post a video in this blog somewhere to show you what I mean. The problem with that little gimmick is that JuJu got ABSOLUTELY ROCKED as he tried to reel in a pass from Big Ben and he fumbled and it was just plain embarrassing.

I couldn't seem to embed the video of JuJu dancing on the logo because it's on TikTok and they don't allow that option, but here is a link to it.

https://www.tiktok.com/@juju/video/6908858736589212933?lang=en&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6906956499677283846&is_from_webapp=v2

Aaannnnnddd here's the video of JuJu getting lit up like a Christmas tree on Monday night.

Steelers Coach, Mike Tomlin, said he will have to talk to JuJu about his dancing stuff and hopefully JuJu does it again next week and gets hit-sticked again.

Soccer

The one and only Manchester City played Arsenal today in the Carabao Cup Quarter-Final match and took home the win with a final result of 4-1. As I have mentioned before, I am by no means a soccer expert or anything like that, I just happen to like watching and I liked a few of the players on Man City so I decided they would be my club to root for. I don't think that the Carabao Cup is too big of a deal for most soccer fans, but I guess any trophy a club can win is a good thing, so I'd love to see City win it all. Gabriel Jesus scored our first goal in the third minute, followed by Mahrez in the 54', Foden in the 59' and Laporte in the 73', with Lacazette for Arsenal heading a goal in the 31'. Ederson, Man City's starting keeper for the Premier League matches did not play today, but Steffen didn't have much work to do as Arsenal only got two shots on target. Foden's goal looked like he was offside after a replay, but I guess the Carabao Cup is so unimportant that they can't get VAR to check that, but hey, I'll take it. Mahrez scored off a free kick from about 20 or so yards as he curled it around the wall straight into the keepers hands and Runarsson (Arsenal's keeper from today) just misplayed it as it came off his hands and into the back of the netting. I was happy to see two of my favorite players, Aguero and Walker, check in late in the match and, as I said, it is always good to see a win for Man City.

City's next match will be this Saturday against Newcastle, and I am looking forward to it.

NBA

The NBA is back baby! I am a big basketball fan and I love the NBA and it is officially back. There were two games tonight, the Nets hosted the Warriors and beat up on them from the start. Kyrie Irving lead all scorers with 26 tonight. Joe Harris had 10 with two 3s keeping him under his 3pt FG total of 2.5 which of course I bet the over on. It was exciting to see Durant back out there, he had 22 points tonight which is a good night for his first game back in a while. He's always been one of my favorite players to watch and I'm glad to see him back out there. The Nets had the lead for I think 46 of the 48 minutes or something like that, and it was not even close once Kyrie and KD had 20 of the teams first 23 points. The Nets are going to be scary this year and could potentially win the East.

As I write this, the Lakers and Clippers are at half time and the Clips have a small lead of 2 points. If I had decided to bet this game, I was planning on taking the Clippers plus the 2 points. I had a feeling this game would be closer, especially after the Nets had such a blowout win. I know the two games don't have anything to do with each other in reality, but in my head there was just no way that both games were close or both games were blowouts. Kawhi Leonard currently leads all scorers with 13 while Anthony Davis and Lebron James are right behind him, both with 10. I expect this game to stay close the rest of the way, but I think that the Lakers will come back and win this one for some reason.

That's all I have on that game for now, in tomorrow's Huddle I will recap the second half.

Final Thoughts

I am looking forward to more NBA basketball tomorrow as the Celtics get their first game against the Bucks. I don't feel great going in to this just because the Bucks are pretty nasty and Giannis is an absolute animal, but I'll be wearing my green and white hoping that Tatum and Brown can carry us to victory. Other than that game and some forgettable college bowl games, I don't think too much exciting is going on so tomorrow's Huddle will likely be a short one.

See ya tomorrow for another Daily Huddle!