Which NFL team is the biggest surprise so far?
We’re through the first two weeks of the season and we’ve got some intriguing developments across the league!
The AFC West might have the two biggest surprises so far. The Las Vegas Raiders are 2-0 and the Los Angeles Chargers are 0-2. I doubt few were predicting that before the season started.
I’d say the Tampa Bay Bucs starting at 0-2 qualifies as a surprise, but the NFC South is bad enough that Baker Mayfield will likely lead Tampa back. The Houston Texans are also 0-2, but given they were facing the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals to start the season.
Kawhi Got Away With It
Right now, things are looking pretty good for Kawhi Leonard. The NBA star agreed to a two-year, $115 million contract extension with the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday, including a player option for the 2028-29 season. The 35-year-old, who’s now under contract for three years, is expected to finish his career with the Raptors.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Clippers,and their fans, are left with a team that Leonard pretty much destroyed.
Following the NBA’s investigation into the Clippers and Leonard for violating salary cap circumvention rules when the team signed him to an extension in 2021, Clippers owner Steve Ballmer was suspended for one year, the Clippers were ordered to forfeit five first-round draft picks and they were fined $30 million, among other penalties.
WHat about Leonard you ask? He got a $700,000 fine, which is a petty slap on the wrist, as well as having his uncle and former agent, Dennis Robertson, banned from all business dealings and league activities for five years.
Leonard wasn’t suspended. HIs trade to the Raptors went through. So, now he gets a fresh start alongside a team that he carried to a championship in 2019.
Not too bad. Leonard gets to move forward while his former franchise will struggle through mud for the foreseeable future, an unfortunate situation for a team that has never won a championship while sharing a city with the 17-time champion Lakers.
It’s unclear how much Leonard knew when he profited from no-show sponsorship deals involving Ballmer and the Clippers. What we do know is Leonard signed a four-year, $28 million sponsorship deal with Aspiration and was given $20 million of equity in the company. He also signed a deal with Boingo, Daktronics and Lockton, per the NBA’s findings. Leonard had to physically sign those contracts. So he knew, in my eyes.
Instead of being mired in scandal, Leonard is going to be focused on carrying a franchise that hasn’t made it past the first round of the playoffs in the last six years back to relevance.
The same can’t be said about the Clippers, whose fans are the biggest losers in all of this.
