Brewers Just Keep Bouncing Back

 It wasn't that long ago, early July in fact, when the Milwaukee Brewers stumbled into the All-Star break on a three-game skid -- to the pathetic Pittsburgh Pirates, no less.

Oh, the gnashing of teeth and renting of clothing that followed. "Woe is us" was the feeling of many, loud and clear, that the 59-37 Brewers, with a six-game lead on the Chicago Cubs, were dropping like a stone. Can't possibly keep winning at a .6146 pace and will fade down the stretch.

Let's see....the team has gone 32-19 since the break, a winning percentage of .6275. They just completed a tough 16-game schedule with a three-game sweep of those Cubbies, going 11-5 and stretching that lead to 10 games. That's with 15 to play before the regular season wraps up.

We've come to expect the playoffs with Milwaukee, and an early exit. This season will be different, as manager Pat Murphy has a young team (look around: Luis Lara is 21, Jackson Chourio 22, Cooper Pratt 22, Jacob Misiorowski 24 and still learning how to pitch).

Here we sit with 15 games left and already in the playoffs for the eighth time in nine season. Time was, just finishing .500 was cause enough to break out the bubbly.

Keep the Brewers healthy, sort out some pitching issues, and this team is looking at a long playoff run. Will it get to the World Series? Anything can happen in playoff baseball.

Anyone for giving Murphy the NL Manager of The Year award for a third straight season? There's a lot of hands in the air to reward a guy with a limited payroll and a young team.

Brewers are currently eighth in the National League in attendance, 12th overall, averaging 33,814 fans on the year as 2,536,079 have shown up to cheer. 

Bucky Needs To Be Competitive At Lambeau

No doubt about it. When the Wisconsin Badgers take to the not-so-frozen turf of Lambeau Field Sunday night against Notre Dame, they better bring their A++ game. At least avoid a blowout stomping from the team from South Bend.

Have never been much of a fan of the Whining.....er, Fighting Irish, with a fan base that always seems to feel entitled. But the Irish come to Green Bay as a team that may well challenge for the national championship. That is, if you believe the pre-season polls. That's a gripe I've had for years, that any poll done before, say, October 1st is a waste of time.

But I digress. This is a big game for Coach Luke Fickell if he wants to right the ship and get Badger fans excited again. Thus far, it seems like it's been "meh, show us" from Badger Nation. The head coaching seat at The Camp is getting hotter and hotter.

Under the Sunday Night Lights at Lambeau, a national audience. Doesn't get much better.....although, let's pause.

Just HATE that colleges have made the move to Friday nights. That should be the night reserved for high school football, a time for schools to shine. Yet the almighty dollar crept in and colleges moved to Fridays...and Thursdays...and Wednesdays...well, pretty much every night.

Too late to put that genie back in the bottle.

Got curious looking through the 2026 Lindy's Sports NFL magazine, wondering how many players with Wisconsin ties there were going into training camp.  Turns out it's 21, though the bulk of those pretty much pre-date Luke Fickell teams/recruits. The list includes six linebackers, surprising since for a long stretch under starting with Barry Alvarez, Wisconsin was something of "Running Back U".

There's also a pair of former Badgers on NFL staffs, as Jimmy Leonard is the new defensive coordinator in Buffalo (and perhaps the Badger coach in waiting?) and Scott Tolzien is the quarterbacks coach in New Orleans

Speaking of NFL assistants brings to mind just how those staffs have grown. In 1960, Vince Lombardi's second season in Green Bay, he had four assistants to deal with a 38-man roster. By 1965, he had five assistants and a 40-man roster. By 1970, staffs had grown to eight. In 1990, the NFL introduced practice squads, then expanded to 53-man game day rosters in 1993. 

Today, most teams have 26 coaches or so, dealing with 53 game day players and a 16-man practice squad -- 17 if the team uses the International Pathway Player exemption.

The NFL FINALLY called it quits on the Pro Bowl. About damn time...

Begun in 1951, the 75-year-old "game" had run it's course. In the 1950s and 1960s, when players weren't making much and were working off-season jobs, getting named to the Pro Bowl was a big deal financially.

Today, not so much. The NFL tinkered with the game the last few years, trying to give it some new life. It got to be a joke watching players sorta play defense.

The league will still name Pro Bowl 88 players, but will have a banquet or whatever to honor them.

A name from my past continues to be in the NFL, with this his 20th season as a player or coach. Karl Michael Dunbar (Karmichael MacKenzie Dunbar II)  is the defensive line coach for the New York Jets. He's held similar positions in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Chicago.

I knew him while Sports Editor for the Opelousas Daily World when he played for Plaisance High School, where football Coach Murphy Guillory once told me "He's 6-5, 235 and he's not afraid to lay the pads on ya!" He went on to play for LSU, was an eighth round pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers, spent three seasons with the New Orleans Saints and two more with Arizona. When he retired, his first coach job with with Opelousas High School.

Good athlete. Nice kid. As a senior, he was voted by coaches to the St. Landry Parish (not church--that's the Louisiana version of county) basketball team the Daily World sponsored.