Weekly Takes - Monday, October 16 Edition

Weekly Takes - Monday, October 16 Edition

1. My three stars from the Leafs chaotic season-opening win against the Habs on Wednesday…

1. Auston Matthews

2. William Nylander

3. Mitch Marner

The Leafs stars made up for a poor performance from Ilya Samsonov + costly individual plays at different moments from TJ Brodie, Jake McCabe, and Timothy Liljegren.

A sloppy, albeit thrilling win to kickstart the season.

2. My three stars from the Leafs win against the Wild on Saturday…

1. Nylander

2. Matthews

3. Calle Jarnkrok

Matthews and Nylander look as incredible as they ever have, but outside of the star players, the Leafs need to be a lot better. Two wins are two wins to begin the season, though.

Jarnkrok has easily been the most impressive non-star player to begin the season. He has looked great in both games.

3. The idea coming into the regular season for the Leafs was that this regular season, for the first time since, say, the 2017-2018 season, was going to be an enjoyable one to watch, due to the new additions and the spark that they will provide purely from an entertainment perspective.

Ryan Reaves has delivered with that so far.

He is the ultimate entertainer the sport has to offer.

4. Mark Shapiro’s press conference was more than fine in the sense that it was the opposite of Ross Atkins’ press conference from a week earlier.

He said the buck stops with him, he recognized that the team’s decision-making process and hitting approach need to be reviewed, and by doing so, cooled the market down and into a “wait and see approach” as we head into the offseason, rather than having the flies on Atkins the way they were.

But by doing so, he not only turned this offseason into a big one for Atkins, but for himself. It is now or never for this Jays core, starting at the very top with Shapiro.

5. The fiasco around the Blue Jays in the last two weeks was a long time coming under Shapiro.

Until Thursday, he had completely neglected the public relations aspect of operations, thinking they did not need to influence the public discourse.

They operated for nine years with the mindset that they will accept the slings and arrows that come with running a baseball team, because they will eventually get the last laugh by having success on the field.

But when you do not have success on the field, the chickens come home to roost, and that is what happened in the last week.

It is the opposite approach that the Leafs have had under Brendan Shanahan, who – alongside Kyle Dubas – had always done an excellent job at controlling the narrative that they wanted out there.

6. The one area where Shapiro and Atkins deserve some slack is around the dishonest discourse around the Daulton Varsho trade.

If Varsho can get back to his 2021 and 2022 form, he can be a borderline All-Star with above-average power and elite defence and speed.

His power was far from that in 2023, but given the lack of power all across the Blue Jays lineup, the problem was not isolated to just Varsho.

Shapiro was right when he said he deems the jury to be out on the trade still, especially if Alejandro Kirk rebounds from a down year himself and shows he can be a franchise catcher in his own right.

7. Sometimes in sports, it becomes quite obvious when a team absolutely has to take advantage of a certain thing breaking their way in a given season.

The Browns' defence developing into a historically great defence is one of those things for Cleveland.

Deshaun Watson and the offence have to take advantage because it can take decades before a defence becomes this good again for a team.

8. I write all the time about how the Raptors are in no man’s land, and how being there is the worst place to be.

The Titans and Saints are there right not in the NFL. Two teams who need to blow things up immediately.

9. My Week 7 NFL picks, after going 6-7 in Week 6, with MNF still pending…

• Jaguars (-0.5)

• Browns (-2)

• Bills (-8.5)

• Raiders (-3)

• Commanders (-1.5)

• Bucs (-2.5)

• Lions (+2.5)

• Cardinals (+8.5)

• Rams (-3)

• Packers (-1.5)

• Chargers (+6)

• Dolphins (+2.5)

• 49ers (-7)

On the season, I am now 45-42, with MNF still pending.