u/Ok_Demand7901

Clearly the best player in the country and on record-setting statistical pace this season. There's people who at the time in '97 thought Peyton Manning should've won. DaVonte Smith won when others were backing his teammate Najee Harris (even though he wasn't even a finalist) or Trevor Lawrence and it also occurred in a shortened COVID season. Travis Hunter had people believing Ashton Jeanty should've won.

I'm not old enough to have experienced the discourse of Tim Brown in '87 or Desmond Howard in '91.

We have 3x winner Argentina, 2x winner France, and 1x each winners Spain and England left for this year. Spain is the last first-time winner winning it in 2010. Before that you have to go back to France in 1998.

Who will be the next country to be a first time winner? Netherlands has come close making the finals 3 times and winning one Euro. Portugal has won a Euro relatively recently but furthest they’ve been in the WC is a 3rd place finish in the 1960s. Croatia made a final in 2018 but that seems like more an aberration and they’re unlikely to produce a player the level of Modric. Morocco seems to be in the midst of a golden generation and made the semis in 2022 but they got pretty thoroughly dominated by France this year. Belgium had a 3rd place finish in 2018 but they seem to have aged past their golden generation.

For further reference, only 8 countries have ever won. In addition to the 4 remaining semifinalists this year, Brazil has won 5x, Germany and Italy each have won 4x, and Uruguay has won 2x.

The Giannis trade is inevitable but I’m surprised the Ayatollah isn’t rushing for this opportunity. Does he really want to take on only the $300 billion and rights to the Straight of Hormuz? You’d think he wants to exchange some of that cash for a proven commodity.

I only loosely follow hockey and love the playoffs. But from what I know:

• Favorable expansion draft rules that set them up to be good Day 1 (can also argue other teams didn’t study the rules enough)
• Not only good year 1 but outside 1 year, have been consistently contending in their first decade of existence
• Preferred destination for FAs and stars looking to be traded as they play in a warm weather locale with no state income tax.
• Constantly aggressive in a league where hard cap usually cripples teams after a few years. Have managed to stay good despite re-tooling multiple times.
• Make sometimes controversial and surprising decisions to move on from coaches
• Viewed as league darlings and villain team for fans. Then yesterday happens where they’re stripped of a pick for not speaking to the media so idk if you can argue the league darlings part
• Have become Vegas’ preferred team, which seems crazy for a desert tourism town that has one of the most famous NFL brands in town and has NBA and MLB incoming + WNBA, F1, and UFC. Perhaps as simple as first mover advantage?

Part of me wants to compare them to the Rams of the McVay/Snead era but the major difference there is the Rams’ success is very clearly tied to 1 head coach.

For the hockey heads out there, is there any other team like them and what we’ve seen this first decade? I find them to be a fascinating case study of how a modern franchise is run.