World's Hottest Track Star Alica Schmidt Finds Her Happy Place, New Orleans Is Insane & You'll Never Guess The NFL's Least Supported Team
Whew. That's all I got. What a city. What a weekend.
I didn't know what to expect from New Orleans, but I figured if it was a good enough place for OutKick's Glenn Guilbeau to live for 30 years, it was good enough for me.
And it didn't disappoint. Did I drive home for nine hours yesterday contemplating some choices I made over the weekend? Sure. Life is all about learning from your mistakes.
Would I change any of them? Nope. Not a one.
Should I take the rest of the week off from drinking to let my liver catch up to the rest of my body? I would assume so, yes.
Will I? No chance.
We're about to dive into August, folks. We have a football game this Thursday. It's officially go-time in the content game. I'm gonna pick myself up, crush some more Advil and pump out a Monday Nightcaps to end July. If Joe can get Screencaps up at 9 a.m. after a weekend of golf, I can do this.
So let's ride.
We'll get to the world's sexiest track athlete, Alica Schmidt, here in just a bit. She found her "happy place" over the weekend, and so did I, so we have that in common.
We're also going to talk about the NFL's least supported team, a wild plane crash caught on camera, check in with Aaron Rodgers for Hard Knocks and probably pump out a Mount Rushmore along the way.
Don't know what it'll be yet, but I assume we'll get to it.
Grab a Hurricane from Pat O'Briens and let's roll.
Alica Schmidt finds her happy place
I wanna go over some of the highlights from NOLA, but figured I just rambled a bunch about it to begin with so I'd give everyone a reprieve off the bat.
And what better way to break up some rambling than with Alica Schmidt, the world's hottest track athlete who has bene GRINDING this summer?
My amateur takeaways from New Orleans
Thanks, Alica Schmidt. I needed that today.
OK, so, let's go ahead and go over a quick-hitter recap from NOLA -- best I can remember.
You won't spend a better $29 in your life.
Columns Hotel can get some.
Aaron Rodgers and the Jets are ready for Hard Knocks
Seriously, those shrimp were insane. The waiter put a bib on everyone individually before bringing them out. True story. A little odd at first, but certainly understandable -- and appreciated -- in the end.
All in all, it's an awesome city. I can't hang with the psychos who crush Bourbon street from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., but I'd still go back. Also, I did get one reader email warning me about throwing away my shoes after the trip because Bourbon street is filled with some unspeakable things, and he was 100% right.
It's the Wild Wild West out there.
OK, let's kick this into high gear and end July with a bang. You're up, Aaron, even though you don't wanna be.
Liev Schreiber does, though!
What a relaxing beach day
Quickly back to NOLA for just a second ...
So, during the very few hours we were back at our Airbnb -- pretty much from around 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. -- we'd sit on the couch, crush beers and watch ... Hard Knocks. The TV we had got all sorts of weird channels, including one just called NFL Channel. It was literally just a channel that played different Hard Knocks episodes on a loop 24/7.
Anyway, it made us all realize how much better the OG Hard Knocks was -- the 2001 Baltimore Ravens. That, boys and girls, was the absolute peak of HK. Tony Siragusa was insane. RIP.
Fine! Mount Rushmore of Hard Knocks seasons:
Now (let's go to the beach) and get a snack!
Nobody wants to root for the Browns anymore and I can't imagine why
And that's why I'm a BIG fan of being on the ground. I've had to take a couple puddle-jumpers in my life from Boston to Nantucket, and it's truly awful.
Good news, though! The pilot walked away unscathed. You couldn't pay me enough to get in the cockpit again after that. I'm good.
On our way out, here's a cheery email I woke up to this morning from some data-gathering company out of Canada. Yes, Canada. Take it with a grain of salt, of course.
Canada Sports Betting created the ranking, which analyzed the volume behind 500+ NFL-related keywords after the 2020 season, to name the most dedicated and bored fans.
These keywords covered all aspects of support, including interest in team performance, searches for merchandise, individual player stats, and tickets for upcoming games.
And it turns out that the Cleveland Browns have seen the biggest drop in fan support over the last three seasons, with interest dropping by over a third (34%) each year.
Based on the keywords, the team saw the biggest loss in support (a huge drop of 62%) after the 2022 season, which saw them fail to improve on their 8-9 record from the year before.
The data also shows that the average Browns fan has seen the largest loss in interest in buying tickets to their upcoming games.
Shoutout to fellow Nightcaps conductor Anthony Farris, who was also wearing his Browns hoodie at this morning's zoom meeting.
Should be a great year!
Now let's go have a week.
OutKick Nightcaps is a daily column set to run Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. (roughly, we’re not robots).
Could Alica Schmidt crush New Orleans? Email me at Zach.Dean@OutKick.com.