By Nick Brinkerhoff
As Father’s Day 2022 is about to wrap up, I sit here watching the end of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. It’s only hours after Matt Fitzpatrick won the US Open, narrowly beating out Will Zalatoris who missed forcing a playoff by a few blades of grass.
The author of this piece (hey, that’s me!) is still trying to cope with the pain of losing a +2700 Zalatoris ticket. As one of my favorite radio personalities in New York, Joe Benigno, used to say, “BRO! OH THE PAIN!”
But then it hit me. The NBA season came to a close earlier this week as the upstart Celtics magical run ended with a stinging loss in Boston to the old guard, the Warriors. In February the upstart Bengals magical run ended with a stinging loss in Los Angeles to the old guard, or at least the older team, the Rams.
In the NHL though, the Avalanche are on the verge of capturing a commanding 3-0 series lead over the back-to-back Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning. That’s where it clicked for me on this fairly empty Sunday night for sports. There was no Carrie Underwood singing on Sunday Night Football on NBC, but just the chill in the air like a late September night. Nothing to distract me but my own thoughts.
As humans, we often form bonds with our elders, it’s just natural. We live for those experiences, the stories, the connections. The future can be so exciting, but so can the past. Thankfully in sports, we can have the best of both worlds.
Remember the old days, or maybe the current ones, where you played games with an older or younger sibling, a mother or father? All you wanted to do was beat them, at all costs. Failing to finish in first was failing. Period. No moral victories.
So as teams made noise like the Celtics and Grizzlies in the NBA Playoffs, the Rangers in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and Bengals in the NFL Playoffs, it reminded me of something just like that. The children of their leagues just wanted to finish first. But then they ran into their elders. The fathers’ won again.
“Maybe next time kiddo.”
Eventually they mess up, like we all do. Maybe they misjudge how tall you are now and whack your head on a carousel. Concussion protocol!
Maybe they unknowingly skip the bathroom line in the parking lot at an NFL game, leaving you to deal with a mob of angry drunk people at 11 a.m.
Or maybe, just maybe, they are not technologically savvy to the point you get a phone call one day asking if you can pick them up another charger to leave in the car for their new phone. However, before you answer, there is that concerned sound on the other end, worrying you cannot buy a charger without having their car in your possession. As if cars need to be fitted for a charger. Yeah, that kind of slip up.
The NHL’s Lightning may be in the midst of that now, a changing of the guard potentially. We know the Celtics and Bengals couldn’t do it.
For fear of going on too much longer, I decided to give you a look into my brain, minus the chaos and endless thoughts, on who I believe may just be the 2022 NFL season’s version of the child finally beating the older, more experienced competition.
In this exercise, we head to a few places, but first here are the qualifiers. They have to be a young team and one with little-to-no playoff experience is a bonus. A short list, but an important one regardless.
Ideally, I wanted a team with longer preseason odds, but the Chargers are just too good to pass up. They have youth, both on the roster and coaching staff, plus very little playoff experience combined with years of heartbreak and ineptitude. The best price for them at this moment is at +1600 on FanDuel. Feels like a great pick there.
They have quarterback Justin Herbert, who I believe has an argument to make this season as to why he is the best quarterback in football. That’s a story for a different day though. He has plenty of weapons to work with and an improved defense.
Herbert also hopefully has a head coach, Brandon Staley, who realizes he isn’t playing Madden this season and decides to punt every once in a while. This is coming from someone who personally loves chaos and aggressiveness in NFL games, but let’s tone it down a tad.
Our next stop lands us in Cincinnati. What? You thought I’d skip this team? They just suffered the ultimate competitor heartbreak. There is no way you can convince me that quarterback Joe Burrow did not immediately request a rematch as soon as the clock hit zero.
“You better not leave this room! I need a rematch!”
The Bengals should be asking themselves all offseason long, “Why not us?”
They have the quarterback, an improved offensive line, a capable defense, and a coaching staff that has shown it won’t implode when the lights get bright. Cincinnati was a few plays from a storm cloud of orange and black confetti raining down on them at SoFi Stadium. Yet, this team is widely available at +2200 to win the big game in February. Even non-believers have to take a chance on that.
The final stop of our tour pains me to some degree, but once again, I promised complete objectivity. So let’s head down to Miami and visit the Dolphins.
Now, full disclosure, I am not a believer in Tua Tagovailoa as an NFL quarterback, especially not at the level that receiver Tyreek Hill is. In my opinion, Hill has only made his quarterback’s job more difficult this season, by placing the ultimate amount of pressure on his shoulders. I mean, can we tone down the Patrick Mahomes comparisons please?
Regardless, NBA and Celtics fans wanted coach Ime Udoka fired in December. They were ready to blow up the team because it didn’t work. Oddsmakers didn’t believe either, listing Boston at +4000 preseason to win the NBA Finals. The fact that they lost doesn’t matter here. They got to the Finals. And once you get there, anything can happen.
The Dolphins are also listed at +4000 to win the Super Bowl. They have a head coach, Mike McDaniel, who just got plenty of experience under Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco. They spent wildly in free agency. They have a very good secondary. And most importantly, they have incredible speed on offense.
As NFL fans know, speed kills, especially when the offense might as well double as track stars in their downtime. You don’t have to be a believer in Tagovailoa to know how dangerous this team can be. Look, I don’t feel great about it either. But this is a young team with virtually no playoff experience and plenty of gamebreaking talent. Only a biased writer, unlike myself, would completely dismiss this team. Full disclosure. That really hurt to write.
Point is, while we see teams like the Chiefs, Buccaneers, Rams, and Packers make up four of the top five teams on oddsmakers boards, it’s hard to not give those young teams with better value more of a look. For reference, the Bills missed out on this list solely because the +700 odds range is not enough for me to tie up my money for the next eight months.
Eventually, that changing of the guard takes place. The older teams won’t be proud parents, but instead disappointed competitors. However, it’s hard to not root for the youth.
Seeing their success is like watching the puppy finally learn how to walk up the stairs. A proud moment. A feel good story.
In the meantime, we can still appreciate teams like the Warriors and Lightning, admiring the greatness they display every time they take the floor or ice. But everyone loves a good underdog story, especially when they are that youthful team that isn’t supposed to be there.
So as we wrap up the one day of the year where fathers are celebrated, just know you don’t have to wait until 2023 to show more love and appreciation. Maybe one day you’ll be on the other end, if you aren’t already.
But, for now, we can all unite behind the Chargers, Bengals, and Dolphins as teams that could make us very rich individuals so next year’s gift is bigger and better than ever before.
To all the fathers out there, Happy (now-belated) Father’s Day. May the jokes be endless and may your lawn, just like your wallet, always be green.