1) It's SATURDAY, APRIL 11. Hang in, stay apart and eventually we rise together! 2) Our new Greg Cote Show podcast is now separately on Twitter and Instagram! Follow the show on both platforms at TheGregCoteShow. 3) In The Previous Blogpost (ITPB): Hot Button Top 10, Greg Cote Show podcast Episode 6, Song of the Day & more. 4) Join us on Twitter.com/gregcote. Also on Facebook and Instagram.
Latest 'Back In My Day' (No Live Sports!): It aired on Tuesday's Le Batard Show on ESPN Radio. Dan hated it. I liked it and many others did, too, based on reaction. Find it HERE at about the 21-minute mark.
GREG COTE SHOW PODCAST: EPISODE 6 OUT NOW!: Our new Miami Herald podcast, "The Greg Cote Show With Greg Cote," debuted in early March and the new Episode 6 is out now! You can find a new Greg Cote Show out every Monday on Apple, Spotify or wherever you do your podding, and of course at MiamiHerald.com. Find all six episodes we've done so far right here. Please listen, subscribe, rate and review! Our podcast is a variety show, sports and non-sports, 3-0-5 and national, fun and (when necessary) serious. In Episode 6 we endure mockery in a new edition of "Greg Doesn't Watch Movies," and chat up Hurricanes AD Blake James about coronavirus, football, Manny Diaz and expectations: "We need to win the Coastal every single year." Check it out now HERE!
THE NEW PIE CHART OF QB POSSIBILITIES FOR A DOLPHINS FRANCHISE THAT BETTER GET IT RIGHT: The snake-bit Miami Dolphins have been among league leaders in unlucky for 20 years, augmented by a sad parade of bad decisions and ill-fated coaching hires. Now — even as the Fins have the most picks including three in the first round and fans dare dip a toe into the optimism pool — the upcoming NFL Draft is somehow the latest example of how "Can’t Catch A Break" should be this franchise’s official motto. Think about it. 1) They spend all last season in deftly orchestrated "Tanking for Tua" mode, trading their best players to accumulate a stockpile of draft picks while losing enough to accrue the No. 5 overall pick. Brilliant! Except the Cincinnati Bengals out-tank the Dolphins, get the No. 1 pick and the rights to draft grand prize quarterback Joe Burrow of LSU. 2) Miami still has a great chance to draft the originally coveted Tua Tagovailoa of Alabama. OK, good! Except he sustains a hip injury late in his college career, the most serious but hardly the only issue that makes some wonder warily about his health and durability. 3) Tagovailoa appears fit and ready to go as the draft nears. The player’s doctor says he is "extremely pleased." The agent says, "Tua is fully cleared and ready to compete without any restrictions." Tua himself: "I’m 100 percent right now." Great. What a relief! Except the coronavirus/COVID-19 threat that has changed everything these days prevents teams from personally visiting with and giving team physicals to prospective players in advance of the April 23-25 draft being held in Las Vegas with no fans; thus Miami must trust what others are saying and videos of Tua throwing. So, yes, to your list of things that have made the Dolphins snake-bit, you may now add: Global pandemic. For our full latest column -- including a pie chart likelihood of what Miami will do with its first pick -- please visit A Pie Chart of QB Possibilities For Dolphins. Top candidates Tagovailoa (right) and Justin Herbert are pictured.
WHY BASEBALL'S BIZARRE PLAN TO RESUME GAMES WOULD BE UNFAIR TO PLAYERS: Sports is feeling its way through this thing, arms stretched out and small, hesitant steps in a pitch-black room. When to resume and how? Fans? No fans? Leagues plot their resumption awkwardly, inconsistently, with no template or map to rely on. Clemson’s Dabo Swinney (who flew his private jet 
to Florida for vacation in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic) says he has "no doubt" college football will start on time with packed stadiums. ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit says he would be "shocked" if the college or NFL seasons were played at all. Somebody is way wrong. Nobody can be sure of anything right now. The Summer Olympics, Wimbledon and the British Open all cancel for the year and postpone entirely until 2021 — but now Major League Baseball and commissioner Rob Manfred (pictured) are considering a plan to resume games in May? Somebody is way wrong. Nobody knows anything. Unprecedented circumstances. No neat end-date to when COVID-19 will no longer be a threat to kill us, or perhaps recur if we all get back to normal too soon. In a pitch-black room, one is never quite sure what the next step should be. Commerce is in play. It can become a money vs. health issue. President Donald Trump wants desperately to "reopen" the country and reignite a sinking U.S. economy, while his medical advisers are more cautious in saying the stay-at-home edict is saving lives. We find the same conundrum in sports — with baseball now the prime example with its controversial new plan to resume games soon, with all 30 teams playing in the Phoenix area, with no fans. Baseball in a bubble. To read our full recent column, please visit Why MLB's 'Phoenix Plan' to Resume Games Is Unfair to Players.
UPCOMING NFL DRAFT WILL OFFER BLUNT VERDICT ON MIAMI HURRICANES' TALENT LEVEL: Miami will be a center of attention like never before in the upcoming NFL Draft, holding three first-round picks picks like a poker player holds aces — only the 22nd time in 85 drafts that one team has had that triple play. And it’s a first for the Dolphins, who last had even two first round picks way back in Don Shula’s 1992. Meanwhile the other Miami — the one that used to dominate NFL Drafts as a gushing pipeline to the pros — will be largely silent once again. The Miami Hurricanes have become mostly a nonfactor to pro scouts who once swooned over the talent that bloomed every year out of Coral Gables. It is cause and effect, the most accurate reflection of the overall downturn of a Canes program that won the last of its five national championship in 2001 and has spent two decades trying to rediscover its mojo. College football fans and Your Friend the Media spend way too much time analyzing a school’s annual recruiting class and believing grades and rankings, when in fact they are closer to a guess than gospel. A far greater gauge of how successful a college team has recruited comes not in the summation of the 18-year-olds arriving, but three years later when they are 21-year-olds put under the NFL microscope. Pictured: Shaq Quarterman, who was a four-year starter at UM, but whose draft grade suggests he'll be a late-round pick. For our full recent column on the Canes' very modest outlook in the April 23-25 draft, please visit NFL Draft Will Offer Blunt Verdict on Canes' Talent.
FEATURED OTHER MOST RECENT COLUMNS:
NFL Draft, Tiger 'n Phil Not A Good Look Right Now
Ultimate All-Time South Florida Major Sports Trivia Challenge
Sports Should Stop Pretending It Will Resume Anytime Soon As Coronovirus Rages
How a Longtime Herald Sport Writer Came to Own a Top Contender in Saturday's No-Fans Florida Derby
In Midst Of Pandemic, A Horse Race
Time for NBA, NHL to Shut it Down, End Seasons
Backlash Over NBA Coronavirus Testing Mirrors Growing Anxiety, the New National Mood
Le Batard Show Deals with Coronavirus-Related Upheaval
Dolphins' Most Important Rebuilding Is Yet to Come
Brady Leaving Patriots for Tampa. Will Belichick Be Proved Right In Letting Him Go?
Desperate Fans Turn to NFL After Reality Of First Weekend With No Games
Miami Sports Now Utterly Engulfed By Coronavirus Threat -- But Precaution Is Justified
It's Dominate Or Bust For Dolphins GM Grier Over Next 6 Weeks
Select additional recent columns: Repentant Cheater A-Rod Slams Astros With Lesson On How to Handle Their Own Scandal / Inter Miami Is Market's Sleeping Giant As Home Opener Nears / As NFL Free Agency & Draft Near, All You Need To Know About Dolphins' QB Situation / Beckham, Inter Miami Survive To Finally Reach Opening Week / Jeter Arrives At Camp, Calls Marlins 'Layered With Talent' / Dwyane Wade, His Transgender Daughter And A Lesson In Love / Why Marlins Aren't Pursuing Puig All About Change In Ownership / and Pressure On Marlins for Big Improvement Now -- and It's About Time / It's Time For Anonymous Lone Voter Who Denied Jeter To Step Forward / Heat And Gloriously Impatient Riley Win In Trade For Iguodala / Return Of Ed Reed, Even If Mostly Symbolic, Leads Surge By Canes Football / Poor Dolphins Finally Getting Rid Of Brady Only to Have Mahomes Take His Place / Our two-part series: How One Man Long Forgotten Changed Everything For the Miami Dolphins and How Shula Made Dolphins Perfect and Made Miami Matter, And the Coach Today at 90 / Kobe's Death Sends Sports World Reeling, But Immortality Is His / Jimmy Johnson's Biggest Triumph? Knowing When To Quit -- And Why / and Announcing Miami Dolphins' 2010-19 All-Decade Team.
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Visit Greg Cote Column Headquarters, and revisit this blog often because it updates regularly. The Associated Press Sports Editors 2018 writing awards ranked the blog's author a Top 10 national sports columnist in the major-outlet category. Author of 'Fins At 50,' available on Amazon. Regular co-host on the Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz on ESPN Radio and ESPNews. Follow on Twitter @gregcote; also on Instagram and Facebook.And check and our new The Greg Cote Show With Greg Cote podcast HERE and listen, subscribe, rate and review for free!
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