Sports Then and Now

It’s right around the corner, and before you know it the NFL season will be upon us. There is nothing better than the fall when football returns, and Sundays are taken up with cheering, talking trash, and biting on your fingernails. With the NFL, the anticipation is not as good as the arrival, but it’s still fun to make predictions about what might happen in the coming season. Here are some bold, and maybe not so bold, prognostications heading into another exciting fall and winter of NFL football. 

Ezekiel Elliott Bounces Back In A Big Way

Last year was a rough one for the Dallas Cowboys, and Elliott was a big part of that. He’s won the rushing title twice already, even though he’s only 26 years old. However, last season he struggled, gaining fewer than 1000 yards and averaging only 4.0 yards per carry. To some, he might be considered washed up. However, there are plenty of reasons why he might bounce back and even win the rushing title yet again this year. 

To start, Dak Prescott will be back under center once again after a catastrophic injury early on in 2020. He’ll be throwing to their three-headed monster of a receiving corps, with Amari Cooper, Ceedee Lamb, and Michael Gallup. The ability to air it out will open up a lot of space for Zeke, allowing him to do what he does best. Plus, the Cowboys play in the weakest divisions in the league. This means that they should be able to win a lot of games. When they are in the lead, Elliott will get the ball a lot to run down the clock and lock down the wins. It should also be noted that Elliott had a very similar season in 2017 to the one he had in 2020, and he bounced back and won the rushing title the very next year. 

Julio Jones Takes The Titans To New Heights

If Julio Jones hasn’t been the best receiver in the NFL since he came into the league, he’s at least been in the conversation. With the Falcons, he was an instrumental part of one of the best offenses in the league year in and year out. Now he finds himself on the Tennessee Titans after requesting a trade in the off-season. 

Being a legal gun owner can save your life. However, it’s important that you understand the importance of gun safety as soon as you decide you want to own one. It’s especially important if you have small children in your home.

In 2019, six percent of the gun-related deaths were deemed accidental or preventative. To avoid hurting yourself or someone you love, it’s best to practice proper gun handling.

Practice Makes You Comfortable

Everything from driving a car to cooking becomes easier when you have practice. Regularly practicing your gun handling from the time you leave the gun store will make you comfortable with your guns. Be sure to practice handling both a loaded and unloaded gun. That way, you’ll feel comfortable cleaning and using your gun when necessary.

For example, you should practice dry firing at least once a week. Dry firing is the art of doing everything you’d do with a loaded gun without loading it like maintenance and adding rounds. Live firing, which involves actively using your firearm, should be practiced at least once a month.

Consult an Expert

Some guns are better suited for beginners compared to others, and it is important to find the right weapons to learn gun safety with. Visit a gun store and ask what kinds of guns are best for beginners. Seeking advice from a professional will allow you to find a simplistic firearm that will not require too much maintenance. Once you have a little more experience under your belt, you can return to the store purchase some more advanced guns.

Football is the most popular sport today, with around 3.5 billion followers; second is cricket with 2.5 bn fans and hockey in 3rd position. There are tens of thousands of professional football clubs on a worldwide scale, and people yearn to place a bet on them on their favourite football betting sites. Here in this post, we will unveil some of the most popular clubs in the world today.

We placed the clubs on our list based on a number of variables. Titles won, social networking follower counts, sponsorship partnerships, and worldwide TV viewing statistics are just a few of the considerations.

Real Madrid

Real Madrid is, without a doubt, the most popular football club on the planet. It has the largest fan following in the sport. Whilst Real Madrid has a long and illustrious history; it is also among the most successful clubs in football. Real Madrid has won a total of ten European titles and other significant awards during its history. In addition, the squad holds the record for most La Liga trophies won. Real Madrid also received 42.35 percent of the voting for FIFA Club of the Century. It is very well-known on social media, with the team having the most followers.

Arsenal

Arsenal is the FA Cup’s most successful team. The squad has won 14 FA Cup championships thus far. In addition, Arsenal has 13 Premier League championships to their credit. Arsenal is a well-known football club based in Islington, London. Kroenke Sports and Entertainment own Arsenal Football Club.

The Baltimore Orioles of the 1960s and early 1970s boasted a roster busting with stars from top to bottom. While Brooks and Frank Robinson were the two best players on the team, the most imposing figure was a 6-foot-4, 240 pound first baseman who hit towering home runs and picked throws out of the dirt with ease. It was that player, Boog Powell, who became a favorite to many young fans, including myself.

It is hard to believe that today is the 80^th birthday for one of the great sluggers of his era and we at Sports Then and Now want to wish a Happy Birthday to one of our all-time favorite players.

Given the super-sizing of professional baseball players in recent decades, Powell’s size may no longer seem all that special, but in the 1960s and 1970 when most players were shaped like string beans, Powell was hard to miss. With tree trunks for arms that looked even larger when wearing the Orioles tight fitting gray uniform top, he spent more than a decade launching mammoth home runs and playing first base for the Baltimore Orioles.

A fair-skinned giant with reddish hair, Powell looked like a farm boy from the Midwest, but actually was born in Lakeland, Florida and grew up in the Sunshine State. Though his given name was John Wesley Powell, he earned the nickname “Boog” as a kid due to his mischievous nature. He seemed to always be getting into something and became known as Booger, as in, “What’s that little Booger doing now?” The nickname was eventually shortened to Boog, probably around the time he got big enough to beat the snot out of anyone who would dare call him Booger.

Powell’s prowess on the baseball field was evident from an early age. In 1954 he was part of the Lakeland Little League squad that played in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Signed as a free agent by the Baltimore Orioles in 1959, Powell quickly made his way to the majors. He led the International League in home runs in 1961 and made his major league debut that September.

The next season he became the starting leftfielder for the Birds and was an important reason the Orioles were steadily moving from perennial doormat to contender in the American League. Powell blasted 25 home runs in 1963 and the following season hit 39 homers and led the American League with a .606 slugging percentage despite missing several weeks with a broken wrist.

The Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Month is a former NFL wide receiver know as “Mr. Clutch” for his penchant for making big receptions at crucial moments of the game. After waiting for more than 30 years, he is finally earning his rightful place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a member of the 2021 Hall of Fame Class.

During his decade with the Dallas Cowboys, Drew Pearson had a habit of making the big catch at the right moment to help the Cowboys time and again snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

The favorite target of Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach, Pearson was widely recognized as one of the great receivers of his era. Though at the time of his retirement many expected Pearson to easily breeze into the Hall of Fame, his enshrinement was derailed by changes to the game which artificially inflated receiver stats and made the numbers he produced during a time when wide receivers weren’t catching 100 passes a season seem inferior.

With 17 enshrinees in the Pro Football Hall of Fame among players, coaches, and executives who spent their whole careers or made their primary contribution with the franchise, the Dallas Cowboys have always been well represented in Canton, Ohio. This coming weekend of Aug. 7-8, three more primary Cowboys and a fourth who spent only one season in Dallas will be enshrined in the hallowed hall where their busts and bios will be preserved forever. These four Cowboys are part of 19 individuals who will be officially inducted this year. Dallas is one of several franchises with multiple enshrinees this year. Other franchises with multiple inductees who have at least some ties to them include the Pittsburgh Steelers, Indianapolis Colts, Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders, Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, and Green Bay Packers among others. Both the classes of 2020 and 2021 are being inducted this summer due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that forced the 2020 enshrinement to be cancelled. The two classes total 28 inductees, nine who were elected posthumously. Special video tributes of these nine will be shown between the live speeches during the two enshrinement ceremonies. Each of them were enshrined in a separate ceremony on April 28 at the Hall of Fame.

Jimmy Johnson, Harold Carmichael, Cliff Harris, and Drew Pearson are the four former Cowboys being inducted this weekend who played or coached in Dallas. Harris and Pearson played their entire careers with the Cowboys and were teammates for much of the 1970s when Dallas appeared in five Super Bowls and won two. Johnson made his mark as head coach of the Cowboys for five seasons from 1989-93 leading them to the franchise’s only back-to-back Super Bowl Championships following the 1992 and ’93 seasons. Johnson also was the head coach of the Miami Dolphins from 1996-99. Carmichael played only one season for Dallas which came in 1984, his final season as a pro after playing 13 years for the Philadelphia Eagles.