GREG COTE'S RANDOM EVIDENCE BLOG: MIAMI. SPORTS. AND BEYOND
1) It's FRIDAY-SUNDAY, MARCH 18-20. 2) Visit BIG GAME: THE MUSICAL for Le Batard Show's latest venture -- which includes a song by me and reached No.1 on iTunes chart! 3) Join me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Follow the Greg Cote Show podcast separately on Twitter, Instagram and now TikTok, too! 4) In The Previous Blogpost (ITPB): Hot Button Top 10, new Greg Cote Show podcast.
Two notes: I was in with Le Batard Show on Thursday this week; check out today's show podcasts. Hot Button Top 10 has the Sunday off. HB10'll be back next week!
GREG COTE SHOW PODCAST: NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!: Our 12th episode of 2022 and 103rd overall is out now! A new pod drops each Monday morning at 7 ET on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, Stitcher, Megaphone, iHeart -- wherever you pod, and of course at MiamiHerald.com. Find all 103 we've done so far HERE, free. In our newest pod, we welcome two special guests: JT Daly, production mastermind of the new Le Batard Show musical, and Joey -- the Babe Ruth of American jai-alai. (They are pictured). Hit up GCS2212 for the full story on the new ep. Thanks as always for the support, pod family. Please listen, review and follow. Our pod simulcasts on Sirius XM every Mondays 5-6 p.m. ET). And watch for our weekly YouTube previews of latest episode HERE.
A PERSONAL NOTE, AND THANKS: I am honored to have been again named by Associated Press Sports Editors as a national Top 10 columnist for 2021 in '22 judging. The four nominated columns that won us the APSE distinction: Inter Miami’s David Beckham and Qatar a budding, avoidable controversy / Hall of Famer Jimmy Johnson knows biggest victory happened in own family / Scorned, but does he deserve empathy, too? Behind who Aubrey Huff became and Miami Dolphins sabotaging Tua, season with misguided interest in Watson
DOLPHINS' MOVES GET HELP FOR TUA, BUT IT ISN'T ABOUT SURROUNDING CAST ANYORE. IT'S ON HIM: The kind folks on social media are snipers taking dead aim, as always. They are having fun making fun of the Miami Dolphins’ offseason. The theme in the Twitterverse seems to be that, while the rest of the NFL percolates with exciting major trades and big free agent signings, Fins general manager Chris Grier has picked a hell of a time for a long nap and forgot to set the alarm. It isn’t true. Well, not entirely, anyway. Miami entered the weekend having made 16 offseason transactions. Only Houston (17) had made more, followed by Detroit with 14 and the Jets with 12. (Ah, the company we keep!). The problem is the Dolphins, trying to make the leap from consecutive winning seasons to playoff-good, have made mostly gentle ripples amid the cannonball splashes all around them. Russell Wilson is in the AFC now, immediately vaulting Denver ahead of Miami in the sportsbooks. So is the best receiver in football, Devante Adams, doing the same for Las Vegas. Von Miller is now in the same division, further tipping the East Buffalo’s favor. ESPN’s latest free agent rankings have the top six most-improved teams all from the AFC, none of them Miami. Tsunami stuff is happening relative to the Dolphins’ strategic (and cost-effective) fine tuning. What I do like is that most of the notable moves have been aimed at building around and/or protecting third-year quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. For our full latest column, visit Dolphins' Moves Help Tua, But It Isn't About Surrounding Cast Anymore. It's On him.
WHY DO WE LOVE MARCH MADNESS THIS MUCH? LOOK TO PSYCHOLOGY. BUT FIRST, LOOK IN THE MIRROR: This is the closest we get in sports to sheer rhapsody, right? The next few weeks. Especially the next few days. We see a pristine, untouched NCAA Tournament bracket as we would a breathtaking sunrise, or a first born in a nursery. It is a document almost holy, the very proof of possibility. The words leave our lips like prayer. March Madness. Done with the pointless perfunctory of the play-in games, the final 64-team field tips off Thursday for the men and Friday for the women, and this year it feels especially big because we are welcoming back an old friend: Normalcy. Two years ago March Madness was swallowed up whole, canceled altogether by the mushrooming COVID pandemic. It felt almost blasphemous to erase our annual communal worship, maybe the only religion we can all agree on, but for many of us it was the first hard reality. ‘Whoa. This coronavirus [bleep] ain’t playin’.’ Last year the Madness returned, but only sort of, confined to in and around Indianapolis and played before very limited crowds. Now? (Cue Dick Vitale). WE’RE BACK, BAYBEEEE! For our full recent column, visit Why Do We Love March Madness This Much? First, Look In The Mirror.
TOM BRADY'S COMEBACK ISN'T ABUT ONE MORE RING. IT'S ABOUT HOLDING ON TO WHO HE IS: The two words he used to explain his comeback surely were not intended to be funny, but were nonetheless as Tom Brady announced his return to the NFL from his Twitter and Instagram on Sunday night. “Unfinished business.” Seriously? One could argue no athlete in the history of competition has retired with his business so completely and emphatically taken care of. I mean, seven Super Bowl rings, most ever. Career records for passing yards and touchdowns. Across all sports this is the grand marshal of the G.O.A.T. parade. Not since God created heaven and earth in six days has anyone earned a rest more than Brady. So, are we getting a bit greedy here, Tom? What is the unfinished business, exactly? A perfect season with nary an incomplete pass? Brady coming back to play (at least) another season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after a whole 40 days’ ‘retirement’ invites poking a little fun. What about that yearning to finally have more time with the wife and three growing children? Kids getting on your nerves that fast? Giselle hectoring you to get off your butt and mow the lawn? In announcing his retirement on February 1, Brady said his “100 percent competitive commitment” was no longer there. Some time during the past six weeks he must have found it, along with loose change, under the sofa cushions. Kidding aside, Brady pivoting on retirement is good not only for the Bucs but for the NFL and sports at large. This is a transcendent person of historic heft. Michelangelo. Sinatra. Hepburn. Jordan. Gretzky. Brady. He will turn 45 as training camp opens. Preposterous to say, and another element of his greatness: His game may be closer to prime-quality than anything creaking with age. For our full recent column, visit Tom Brady's Comeback Isn't About One More Ring. It's About Holding On To Who He Is.
Other most recent columns: The Moment Spoelstra Joined Miami Heat's 'Inner Circle' And Became Riley's Next Coach / Brittney Griner Is Lost In Russia Because Of Low WNBA Pay -- And NBA Failing To Help / and Larranaga, Meier Enjoy Resurgence Of Miami Hurricanes Basketball as March Madness Nears. Also: Le Batard Show Anoints Chris Cote To Save Jai-Alai / Tom Brady. Miami Dolphins Part Owner? Why It Could Happen and Why Derek Jeter-Marlins Marriage Fell Apart, Ended In Divorce.
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ARCHIVES
Other most recent columns:Players Are On Right Side In Labor Dispute, But MLB Has Far Bigger Problem To Fix / Mickelson's Support Of Saudi Tour Mirrors Sports' Blind Eye to Human Rights / Top 15 Figures (Non-Athletes) In Miami Sports History / Who Dolphins, With Windfall To Spend, Should Target In Offseason To Fix Offense Fast / Hall of Fame Keeps Saying No, But Zach Thomas Keeps Feeling Gratitude / and McDaniel Overcame Much In Own Life, Now Must Overcome Dolphins' Turmoil And Win.
Other recent columns: An Inside Preview Of Le Batard Show's Upcoming Musical. Yes, Musical / The Lesson For Dolphins in Rams-Bengals Super Bowl Result / Ranking Flores/Ross Bombshell Among Biggest Dolphins Scandals / Ross Should Be Done As Fins Owner if Flores Allegations Are True / The G.O.A.T. We Never Saw Coming: From 199th Drafted To History, A Salute To Tom Brady / Like Him Or Don't, Antonio Brown Not Always To Blame -- And Wasn't In Bucs Divorce / Ortiz Makes Hall, But Final Denial Of Bonds, Clemens A Shame on Voters, Baseball / Mahomes-Allen Air Show A Reminder How Much Better Dolphins And Tua Need To Be / Time Is Right (But Running Out) For MLB to Reinstate Pete Rose /'There Was A Pall On Us': The Panthers Season That Would Not Be Derailed / No-Vaccine Is Your Right. But There Are Consequences as Djokovic Was Reminded / State Of Miami Sports: Every Major Team, Graded Top To Bottom / Dolphins Firing of Flores The Unjustified Travesty Of A Clown-Show Owner / Canes Land Grand Prize In Cristobal, So No Excuses Left. New Glory Days A Must and 50 Years At the Herald For Me -- And a Lifetime Of Gratitude.
Select other columns: Dolphins Win, Finish 9-8, Now Must Commit To Build Around Tua / Why Saban 'What-If' Still Haunts Miami 15 Years later / No Playoffs And No Idea Yet On Tua Worst Possible Way For Dolphins To End Season / Revealing My 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot / UM Legend Frank Gore Talks NFL Future, Cristobal, Boxing As He Prepes For Ring Debut / Tua Keeps Showing Dolphins How Silly They Were To Doubt Him So Soon / UM And Blake James Parted Ways With Class -- Which Butch Davis Didn't Get From FIU / Quenneville Rightly Sacked as Panthers Coach Over 2010 Chicago Scandal / As Dolphins' Dysfunction Surrounds Him, 10 Ways Tua Is The Unluckiest Man On Earth / State of the Art: Heat, Miami's Best-Run Franchise, Sails In Opener / 'Time to Hunt': Cats' Hyped Season Off to Wild, Winning Start / Dolphins Fans, Ex-Players Gather For Emotional Farewell to Don Shula, Father of the Glory Days / If Sports Had A Spine, Kyrie Irving & Other Anti-Vaxxers Wouldn't Be Playing / Kyle Lowry Must Channel 'Doctor Of Greatness' If Heat Is To Chase NBA Title / Fairy Tale With Wrong Ending: Remembering Jose Fernandez 5 Years Later / Miami Herald's 2021 NFL Team Rankings: You Won't Believe Where Dolphins are / Why Dolphins, Canes Should Be Taking Lead In Requiring Fans To Be COVID-Vaccinated / An Appreciation of Udonis Haslem As He Re-Ups For 19th Heat Season / College Football and FSU Lose a Treasure In Passing Of Bobby Bowden / Biles' Withdrawal For Mental-Health Reasons Merits Empathy, Not Scorn / Where Dolphins Rank Among Teams With Longest Championship Droughts / Hot Seat Scale: Ranking Miami's Biggest Coaches By Most to Least Job Security / May Sha'Carri Richardson Be Last Victim Of Olympics' Archaic Marijuana Rules / 'I'm D'Eriq King For College Hunks Hauling Junk!' It's Strange New World in College Sports / Nassib Coming Out As Gay NFL Player A Milestone In Sports History / Fate Snatched Basketball From Chris Bosh. His new Book Is Part of His Journey Of Healing / Where's Tua? Ranking Our Top 15 South Florida Pro Athletes 25 And Younger / Pythons, Peppers, Pirate Flag Raised. Inside Le Batard's 24-Hour Triumph / Le Batard Bet On Himself And His Audience -- And Won Big / Justice For George Floyd Helps Heal Our Shaken Faith, But Fight For Equality Goes On / In History And In Hearts, Howard Schnellenberger Will Matter For All Time / Women Keep Accusing Deshaun Watson of Sexual Misconduct. But Will It Matter to NFL? / Reality, Loss, Comeback: How Sports Has Been Guiding Light In America's Awful Past Year / Beckham's Resolve Tested By Tumult As Inter Miami Nears 2nd MLS Season / Time-Travelling To 1960s And Childhood, When The Baseball Card Was King / Doesn't Matter If Tiger Woods Never Wins Again. We Are Lucky He's Alive / Marlins Hit History-Making Home Run With Kim NG Hire As GM / In a Pandemic-Battered Season For FIU, Butch Davis' Love Of Coaching Survives / Don Shula, 1930-2020, R.I.P. / What Shula Meant to a Father & Son. The Boy Was Me.
Revisit this blog often because it updates regularly. The Associated Press Sports Editors writing awards again this year ranked the blog's author a Top 10 national sports columnist in the major-outlet category. Greg is also a regular on the Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz.
Finding Greg: Twitter. Instagram. Facebook. Columns. Podcast. Podcast on Twitter. Podcast on Instagram. LeBatard Show. Book: Fins At 50. Songs: Letting Go (audio only) and The Ballad Of 1440 (with video).
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