Kelley Levis Gets Nasty In Nashville, Rodney Harrison Calls Zach Wilson Trash, Angry Mike Tomlin & Tim Wakefield Memories
Kelley Levis showed up more than Joe Burrow did yesterday in Tennessee, and I'm still REELING from an absolute bloodbath in Buffalo.
Frankly, I don't know why. I've been on this rock long enough to know Buffalo is where Dolphins fans' hopes and dreams go to die. Always. Never fails. Thank God it happened in Week 4 this year, though. Got it out of the way and now we get the terrible Giants and Panthers to beat up on for the next few weeks.
Speaking of the Giants ... have ya'll seen the Monday Night slate tonight? Seahawks-Giants. Brutal. I mean, just an awful, awful game. Joe and Troy deserve better. At least you-know-who won't be in the stands anymore. I hope.
We get it, NBC. She was there. We get it, NFL. She's good for clicks. Please, for the love of God, make it end.
Whew. OK, I needed to get all that off my chest before we jump into an October Nightcaps. I'm good now.
What a weird Sunday in the NFL. A lot of blowouts. Order was restored, for now, in the AFC. And hey, even Zach Wilson looked ... good? Not according to Rodney Harrison, but definitely according to Cris Collinsworth.
Here's what we have on the menu for today, and it's gonna be a quick one because A) I simply can't give you my all after a Dolphins loss to Buffalo, and B) Tim Wakefield died yesterday and I'm still sad about it.
We'll talk Tim in a minute -- I was at his 200th win, you know.
We'll also talk Will Levis' sister, Kelley Levis, getting dirty in Tennessee, and then check in with Rodney Harrison AND Buck Showalter. What a duo!
That's good enough for now. I'm sure there will be other things, but they haven't come to me just yet. Don't worry, they will.
Pour a shot and light a cig for Tim Wakefield, it's a Monday Nightcaps!
Kelley Levis lights up the Bengals
I'll start with Will Levis' sister because I need a pick-me-up today. As do the Bengals, because buddy, they STINK.
How bad is it? Resident Bengals fan Joe Kinsey is DONE with whiny Joe Burrow after yet another clunker yesterday.
Yikes. I mean, Joe's right. I don't know what the deal is right now, but the current downfall of Joe Burrow and the Bengals offense is stunning to watch. I keep waiting for them to look normal again, and they instead appear to be getting worse.
Anyway, all that to say Will Levis' sister, Kelley, was on the sidelines to watch her brother's team crush the Bengals to dust.
Welcome back, Kelley!
Rodney Harrison calls Zach Wilson hot garbage
Thanks for checking back in, Kelley! Been too long. Just a matter of time until Will gets his shot. Hang in there!
Speaking of backup quarterbacks, Zach Wilson had a weirdly good game last night. I see the sports world is BACK on the Zach Wilson can be good train. That always ends well!
Cris Collinsworth basically called him a Hall of Famer last night. Seriously, it was too much. At one point I seriously thought Cris had some sort of futures bet on Zach winning X amount of games this season because he was rooting for him that hard.
Having to sit through Tony Romo obsess over Josh Allen during the day and then Cris faint over every Zach Wilson completion last night made for quite the Sunday. A lot of fun.
Anyway, Rodney Harrison QUICKLY brought us all back to earth in the postgame show by letting everyone know his thoughts on the young QB:
Buck Showalter goes out with a bang
Rodney! What a couple damn strays from the ex-Patriot. Is he wrong? Eh. Probably not. Let's be real. Zach Wilson has most definitely been garbage. Trying to get a current player to take that bait was a wild swing, but you have to respect the effort on Rodney's part.
Also, what are the odds an upcoming apology from Rodney? -20000000? I mean, that's what we do in today's world. When you piss off Twitter, you immediately have to apology. This has Ryan Clark written all over it.
I'd bet the house on it if I hadn't already done that on Pat Mahomes throwing at least two touchdowns last night.
Like I said, it was a great Sunday!
Speaking of miserable days, let's check in on Buck Showalter telling the media he's been canned and then getting annoyed as hell when they all started tweeting about it (1:05 mark):
Let's now check in with the Bears, Steelers and Pats!
Not a great year for Buck and the Amazins'. I'd say it's gonna get better next year but we all know it won't. If you're not first, you're last, Buck. You know that!
As I said, yesterday was a pretty brutal day a couple NFL teams. The Dolphins got stuffed in a locker and I'm sure the national media will have a rational response to it today. But that's just one loss and they're 3-1, so things are fine down south.
Now, up in Pittsburgh, things ain't great. The Steelers got crushed by the Houston Texans, made CJ Stroud look like Dan Marino, lost their QB and put up six points.
Mike Tomlin, how we doing?
Like I said, it was a GROSS day for most teams. Great week last week, awful one this week. It happens in the NFL. Poor Scott Hanson was struggling most of the day. Just a dud.
One of the few good games, shockingly, was Bears-Broncos! The one we crapped on all week actually turned out to be one of the best of the day.
Chicago blew a massive lead to Russell Wilson, Justin Fields threw just an awful pick at the end, and the day started with Matt Eberflus literally calling WR Chase Claypool and telling him to just stay home.
Naturally, Matt was asked about it today a billion times. Just over and over and over again.
GUYS, IT WAS BEST FOR THE DAMN TEAM. Next question!
Finally, let's slide on over to the Big D (yes, this time I DO mean Dallas) and check in on the blossoming Belichick-Mac Jones relationship:
Tim Wakefield was a legend
That thing is gonna EXPLODE before too long. Only a matter of time. Bill's in hell, Mac's in hell, Pats fans are in hell. Crap's gonna hit the fan here soon and it's gonna be a wild sight.
Now, before we head into the week, I have to mention Red Sox legend Tim Wakefield. The greatest knuckleballer in the world died yesterday from brain cancer at 57.
It sucks. Nothing else to really say. When I saw the news come across around noon it just crushed the rest of the day. If you grew up a Sox fan, you know. Tim Wakefield was part of your childhood. He was always, always there. For nearly two decades, you could always count on Wake.
I remember when he gave up the homer to Aaron Boone in the 2003 ALCS. I cried like a little girl that night. Absolute gut-punch. But you know what Wake did the next year? He came back and dropped his nuts during the '04 ALCS and was NAILS during Game 4 and 5. Electric. The best.
He started Game 1 of the 2004 World Series. I was there for it. Best memory of my life. I was 11, and I remember every single moment.
I was also there seven years later when Wake made his final start at Fenway, which also turned out to be his 200th win. Nobody wanted to leave when it was over. I wish we never had.
Tim Wakefield made the knuckleball cool again. If you played baseball at any level growing up, you spent hours in the outfield pregame throwing knucklers to each other during warmup. Everyone wanted to be Tim Wakefield.
You wanna know one of the most underrated baseball stats of all time? Tim Wakefield once threw 172 pitches in 10 innings against the Braves back in 1993. Legend.
Thanks for the memories, Tim. Thanks for breaking the curse. Thanks for being the ultimate damn competitor.
Cancer sucks.
Let's go have a week -- for Tim.
OutKick Nightcaps is a daily column set to run Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. (roughly, we’re not robots).
Could Kelley Levis at least get the Bengals in the end zone? Email me at Zach.Dean@OutKick.com.