1. J.J. Watt got a ton of deserved credit when he went above and beyond to raise an enormous amount of money for people affected by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Watt has done a slew of other admirable charity work during his years in the NFL.
However, J.J. Watt does not limit his charitable efforts to people who are victims of terrible circumstances.
Watt has now turned his charitable efforts toward the NFL gambling community.
The backstory: During the Cardinals’ game against the Rams last week, Watt recovered what should’ve been a fumble and touchdown. However, BIG SHOCK, the refs screwed up and said it was an incomplete pass and blew the play dead.
This cost one of Watt’s Twitter followers $1,000 on a three-leg parlay because he had bet that Arizona would score a defensive touchdown.
Watt saw the tweet and, incredibly, told the fan he would pay out the bet.
Watt wasn’t kidding. He actually sent $1,000 to the guy. In a very nice twist, the bettor took Watt’s $1,000 and threw in $1,000 of his own and donated it to Watt’s foundation.
I don’t want to ruin this wholesome, feel-good story with my thoughts on it from the degenerate gambler viewpoint, but, holy cow, do I hope this becomes a trend.
For example, Josh Allen and his center should really take care of anyone, like myself, who bet the Bills in a teaser last week.
But let’s not lose sight of what this is all about: J.J. Watt is a pretty cool dude.
2. This week’s SI Media Podcast features a conversation with ESPN’s Joe Buck. A ton of topics were covered during our interview. Among them:
• The difference between working for ESPN and Fox
• Why he thinks Fox let him go to ESPN
• Differences between calling games on Sunday afternoon and Monday night
• Whether he missed calling the World Series this year.
• Whether he was aware that many fans missed him on postseason baseball coverage
• A funny encounter with Tony Romo
• Whether Tom Brady will ever call an NFL game for Fox
• The fascination fans have with broadcasters
• Al Michaels mocking terrible Thursday Night Football games
• Baseball fans being rougher on him than football fans
• Being home on Thanksgiving for the first time in 20-plus years
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.
You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.
3. There has been this narrative on Twitter the past couple of weeks regarding LeBron James often telling little white lies. The Rams’ Jalen Ramsey brought this up to LeBron on Thursday night during an alternative Thursday Night Football telecast, and LeBron has seen the tweets.
4. I think booing is dumb. I also think it’s dumb to get worked up about an athlete getting booed. No athlete is above getting booed by wacky fans. I’ve seen/heard Derek Jeter get booed. It’s all absurd. Last night, Packers fans actually booed Aaron Rodgers.
Rodgers, who always has a lot to say about everything, didn’t have much to say about getting booed.
5. Good read here for those of us anxiously awaiting news on where NFL Sunday Ticket will land when its deal with DirecTV ends after this season. It does not seem like AppleTV is a sure thing at all.
6. Charles Barkley and Ernie Johnson talking about Chuck getting a tattoo is excellent content.
