December 20th, 2024 - Philadelphia 76ers vs Charlotte Hornets

The Machine poured in a fair amount of points on this night in December! Good stuff indeed! It's taken awhile for The Machine to find his footing in that department but maybe this is the start of something great! Oh yeah and the Sixers WON!

• 15 Points, 4 Rebounds, 5 Assists
• A Teammate Grade

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🌎My Thoughts on the Sports World Today🌎

In the real world, football is less than TWO WEEKS away! Let's take a glance at the nearly always competitive AFC North!

The Cleveland Browns have potential I feel, decent defense, well coached. They just struggle to find a QB, like infinitely. They had one in Baker Mayfield but got a little greedy and tried to hit it big with Deshaun Watson and well, that's been a nightmare. It must be incredibly depressing watching Mayfield ball out in Tampa. The Browns do have a ton of QBs at their disposal at the moment. Joe Flacco had a nice comeback year with the Browns a few years ago and they have two rookie QBs competing on top of that in Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders. The Browns could literally have any type of season in 2025-26. It likely won't be great but, they have good coaching and defense, and that's usually a great start.

The Pittsburgh Steelers look locked in to having another mildly above average season. I mean, a lot of teams would be glad to have their success I guess. But considering the Steelers' great expectations and their lack of playoff success, it's just been extremely boring and anticlimactic over the past decade and a half. They added Aaron Rodgers, D.K. Metcalf, and Jalen Ramsey which are solid signings for sure. With a good defense as they normally do, maybe this team can be a little better. I imagine they'll find their way into a Wild Card spot but I'll believe it when I see it in terms of playoff success. It will be interesting to watch Rodgers and Flacco compete against Burrow and Jackson though! This year will be wild to look at years from now. If Rodgers could somehow look good in this division it actually could enhance his legacy, and that would be a curveball I didn't see coming.

The Cincinnati Bengals are a scary team entering the 2025-26 season. They are very live dark horses to win this division. There are two concerning issues this team has entering the season but if those problems can be managed even slightly, this team could win a Super Bowl. They need to not be terrible in the beginning of the year and just have like a top 20 defense and this team could be scary. Also, maybe a slightly better run game but that's not as urgent. Joe Burrow will win a ring before his career is over, I think. It could be this year who knows. This team is weird but when they are on, they are ON POINT.

The Baltimore Ravens are elite for sure. Either the Bills or Ravens will be the first team not named the Chiefs to win a Super Bowl out of the AFC, probably. I mean this team is just stacked at pretty much every position. They just need to figure it out in the playoffs. They have everything a championship team needs. Lamar Jackson is a Hall of Famer if he can have like three more elite seasons. He's arguably already a Hall of Famer. They also have a Hall of Fame running back in Derrick Henry already who everyone says is about to slow down, but so far he simply hasn't.

The Bengals or Ravens are winning this division. I'd give the Ravens a 65 percent chance, the Bengals a 32 percent chance, the Steelers a 2 percent chance and the Browns a 1 percent chance LOL.

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In the UFC, Johnny Walker got a good win the other day. Walker is a streaky, entertaining fighter. He's still in the prime of his career and so it's plausible he could have one last legit run in him, we shall see.

Aljamain Sterling also got another really good win vs Brian Ortega and man, it may be unpopular to some but I do consider Aljamain Sterling an all-time great. The guy defended the Bantamweight Belt three times against legends, and is now winning fights against very respected featherweights like Calvin Kattar and Brian Ortega. I think it's very possible for him to win the belt at featherweight. The guy just wins and really does not have a glaring weakness, at all.

Also, random thought but I know MMA emphasizes damage and well, fair enough. But also, I think people should consider like, if two fighters were in an empty room, who could survive, or like if you were in the woods alone versus the opponent, who would walk out? I think if fans looked at it that way they'd respect grappling and takedowns a bit more.

The sports world never sleeps, till next time!