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Welcome back to The MMQB’s Bad Takes Week, a quadrennial (for now, I guess?) follow-up you didn’t know you needed. To offer a quick refresher: Back in the summer of 2019, we decided to round up our worst takes and dish them out for public consumption. Now, largely because it’s July, we’re doing it again.
We all have bad takes. That one idea we just know would improve our world, but is way too complicated to actually pull off. The contrarian argument that maybe begins as a performative defense of a silly idea but morphs into The One Hill You Would Die On.

Welcome to Bad Takes Week, where MMQB staffers have been asked to expand upon some of their worst football takes. Keep an eye out for more of these throughout the week, and every story is posted here.
Here’s an idea so lucrative, and so disadvantageous to player health and safety that I’m shocked the NFL hasn’t come up with it yet on its own: We need to double the NFL preseason, not cut it in half.
Welcome to The MMQB’s Bad Takes Week. I’m your opening act, Conor Orr.
To have a truly bad take, you have to feel it a little bit in your soul.

Netflix released its new docuseries, Quarterback, last week, and it has quickly become a hit thanks to all the cool mic’d-up moments and behind-the-scenes stories it has told about Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins and Marcus Mariota.
One of the best mic’d-up moments came from last year’s Jaguars–Chiefs playoff game when Mahomes injured his ankle in the first half and had to go into the locker room to get an X-ray.

Let’s start the week with an over play tonight!
The Yankees head to Angel Stadium tonight, and the game total is set at eight runs.
I’ve got a lot of reasons to like the over even though both offenses are missing key players, so let’s start with reason number one: Luis Severino.
Since returning from the IL, Severino has not looked sharp. Across 42 innings pitched this season, he has an ERA of 7.35, and Statcast says his xERA is 7.01. Across his two starts in July, Severino has an ERA of 18.90. No, that’s not a typo.

Former Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt blamed the death of George Floyd for making illegal payments and breaking NCAA rules.
Pruitt was fired and exited Knoxville as a disgraced coach after multiple NCAA violations, which included handing out cash in bags.
Ultimately, the NCAA handed down its punishment last week. Tennessee was fined $8 million, Pruitt was hit with a six-year show-cause penalty, wins were vacated and 28 scholarships will be cut over five years in response to more than 200 infractions.

Let’s rank the best rookies at 2023 NBA Summer League.
NBA Summer League is mostly for the sickos. Every year, basketball diehards flock to Las Vegas (as well as other leagues in Salt Lake City and California) to watch young players on the periphery of the NBA audition for a final roster spot. Summer League teams typically feature a wide mix of talent, including rising second-year players, G League mainstays, and career-long journeymen.

Photo by Joe Brady/Getty Images
In a virtual race this weekend, the F1 champion took matters into his own hands for a little revenge
Max Verstappen is a two-time Formula 1 Drivers’ Champion, and is well on his way to a third-straight title.
But that does not mean he is above a little revenge on the track, the virtual track that is.
F1 was off this past week, but the Red Bull driver was still behind the wheel, taking part in an iRacing event with his Team Redline group.

Austin Killips became the first transgender cyclist to win an official Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) stage race earlier this year, specifically, a women’s race.
Thanks to the cycling governing body’s recent announcement that transgender athletes (biological men) can no longer compete in women’s events, Killips is voicing their frustrations.

The new pitch clock rules in Major League Baseball have made games a lot faster but they’ve also led to some pretty questionable calls that have left players and fans angry at the umpires and the league. 
That happened again in Sunday’s Padres-Phillies game when San Diego’s Rougned Odor got called for a mind-boggling violation during an at-bat in the twelfth inning. The automatic strike led to an 0-2 count and he would go on to strike out. 
Phillies pitcher Jeff Hoffman stepped off the mound to stop a runner from going to third.

The Southeastern Conference Media Days that open Monday in Nashville will have a major void this week.
Mississippi State coach Mike Leach and his pirate techniques of football and life will be missed. Leach, one of the most colorful and interesting coaches in SEC history and a passing game savant, passed away last Dec. 12 after complications from a heart condition. He was 61.