WATERCOOLER CHAT: PACK CAME BACK, ORIOLES NON LOSING SEASON, DWIGHT HOWARD
FOOTBALL
Thursday kicked off the NFL’s first Thursday night game. In year’s past, the Thursday night games didn’t start until Week 8, but since everybody in the nation seems to love football and it’s a ratings juggernaut, the NFL decided why not just have it every Thursday. Thursday night, it was the Bears visiting the Packers. The Bears looked terrific in Week 1, while the Packers lost to the Niners (in Lambeau) and simply couldn’t afford to go 0-2. The Pack needed a win badly.  Thanks to tremendous play by the Packers defense, the Pack sacked Jay Cutler 7 times. That gave Aaron Rodgers all the help he needed to start racking up the score. Green Bay even scored off a fake field goal — that shows you how much they were firing on all cylinders last night. The Bears looked pretty awful, and clearly have a lot of work to do if they want to be the Super Bowl contender everybody says they are. Green Bay 23, Chicago 10.
BASEBALL
After a 14 inning amazing game against the Tampa Bay Rays, the Orioles got a bloop hit in the 14th inning from Manny Machado to give the Orioles the winning run. With this win, the Orioles swept the Rays (an accomplishment in and of itself), and more importantly secured their first non-losing season since 1997. That is a huge accomplishment for a team that has been less than exciting for more than 10 years. Now, they’re in first place and will do their best to hold off the Yankees and the Rays over the next 20 games. It won’t be easy, but the O’s have their sights on a World Series.
BASKETBALL
Finally, in the NBA, all the buzz in Los Angeles is around the theoretical super team they formed with Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, and most importantly Dwight Howard. It’s almost overnight that they became favorites to win the title. But, now it’s being reported that Dwight Howard might not be ready for the start of training camp. Sure, that may seem harmless to some, but Howard did just come off a major back surgery, and back surgery is not to be taken lightly. First it’s late to training camp, and suddenly you’ll see reports that he’ll be out the first few games of the season. That will not make Lakers fans happy. But, for now, it’s only training camp, and Lakers fans remain optimistic that Howard will be healthy and still be the beast he was in Orlando.
