This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.
Good morning, Winners! Welcome back to the Morning Win. Thanks so much for rocking with us today. We appreciate you.
If you haven’t heard, Madden is adding Saquon Barkley’s incredible reverse-spin-hurdle-whatever we’re calling that thing into its game.
That’s probably a pretty cool thing for most people. I’m sure a lot of you who play Madden are thinking, “Wow! I get to do the awesome Saquon Barkley move! This is great.” And, you know what? If that’s you, I’m happy for you.
But, unfortunately, today I’m here to rain on your parade. Let me tell you why this actually isn’t that great.
MORE ON MADDEN: Madden is a pretty fun game these days, even if it feels incomplete at times.
None of us have ever seen anything like this before. Barkley had never done anything like that before. Nobody has. It was an incredible athletic feat that might legitimately be a once-in-a-lifetime thing because of how serendipitously it occurred.
He didn’t even mean to do it. Here’s what Barkley told Whistle Sports about how it happened:
“What really happened was, I was going to hit a double spin. I aborted it. When I spun, I went to spin again, and I just, like … It’s probably going to take away from how cool the play is. I thought he was going low, so I thought ‘I’ma cool if I just jump up. But my body kind of took over.”
First of all, that sounds awesome. How the body and mind work in concert is endlessly fascinating to me. Someone should write a book on the psychology behind this move by itself. I’d buy ten copies.
But, anyway, back to the point, this is exactly why I don’t think it belongs on Madden.
Yes, it’s a video game move in the sense that it’d be perfect in an arcade game like NFL Street. But in Madden? Guys. Come on. Barkley didn’t even know he was going to do this. Doing it in the game would probably feel awesome, but some stuff just feels better left alone.
This is like somebody adding the Slip-N-Slide to NBA 2K. Would that be awesome to see? I guess. Does it make sense? Absolutely not.
The move will be unique to Barkley in Madden, so it’s not like everyone will be able to do it. But good luck to all of you out there playing against the Eagles in online competition. The game can already be cheesy enough as is. This only adds another thick layer of cheese to the pot.
Maybe I’m being the fun police here. Maybe this is something people will thoroughly enjoy and I’m worrying a bit too much about the sanctity of a video game. Maybe I just don’t want to see my linebacker reverse hurdled over when I’m playing online.
Regardless, you can catch me in franchise mode doing my thing. I will not be subjected to this foolishness.
Caitlin Clark is NOT Unrivaled
Hate to say we told ya so, but we did tell ya so. As it turns out, Caitlin Clark will not be joining the Unrivaled basketball league. At least not this season, according to the latest reporting.
Basically, Clark has stuff to do this offseason. And she’s taking a bit of a well-deserved break from basketball. Here’s what our Meg Hall wrote about this a month ago:
“Technically, Unrivaled has yet to fill its 30-athlete roster, leaving room for additional WNBA players to join, but I do not expect Caitlin Clark to be on that list. Why? She needs rest.
Caitlin has not had an entire offseason to do what she wants — rest, play golf or otherwise. Joining Unrivaled drastically cuts into her time to recuperate from what has at least been a nearly 12-month-plus grind. Since easily September of last year, she has been going almost non-stop and hasn’t had longer than a few weeks just to be Caitlin.”
That’s spot on. As much as we’d all love to see Clark playing here, it doesn’t make a ton of sense for it to happen. At least not now.
Salute to Geno
Geno Auriemma officially became the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history on Wednesday. Good on him.
He passed Stanford great Tara VanDerveer, who broke Mike Krzyzewski’s record last season. Auriemma’s 1,217th win puts him at the top of the ladder.
It’s been an incredible journey to watch. Geno has been very, very easy to hate at times considering how unapologetically hard-nosed he’s been throughout his career. His beef with Pat Summitt didn’t help, either.
But there’s no denying his dominance. His winning streaks are unbelievable. His resume is unflappable. He’s coached dozens of incredible players into the pro ranks, including more than a few Hall of Famers.
He’s got a legitimate claim as the greatest coach of this generation, like him or not. At the very least, you’ve got to respect that.
MORE GENO: Five photos of Auriemma celebrating his new all-time wins record.
Quick hits: Thanks for the memories, ATH … Eli Manning is a Hall of Famer … and more
— Around the Horn will be coming to an end next summer, Cory Woodroof writes. This sucks.
— Robert Zeglinski has one big stat that makes Eli Manning (an eventual) lock for the Hall of Fame.
— Here are our staff picks against the spread in the NFL for Week 12. Choose wisely.
— This ESPN mock draft actually doesn’t have Travis Hunter as the No. 1 overall pick. Here’s Charles Curtis with details.
— Meg Hall ranked the Unrivaled rosters from Sneaky Good to Title Contenders.
— Speaking of Unrivaled, here’s everything you need to know about the league.
That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading. We appreciate you. Have a great Thursday. Peace.
-Sykes ✌️
