Matthew Stafford tuned in Tuesday night just like any other fan for the first game of the World Series. Well, not exactly like any other fan. There was a little more interest for the Detroit Lions quarterback.
One of Stafford's high school friends is Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw. They were pitcher (Kershaw) and catcher (Stafford) in baseball, and quarterback (Stafford) and center (Kershaw) in football.
And on Tuesday, it gave Stafford -- who like Kershaw is the highest-paid player at his position in his sport -- a chance to sit back and watch.
"Tried to stay up as long as I could to watch them," Stafford told ESPN staff writer Michael Rothstein. "He was throwing it great. I expected nothing less, especially when I heard it was going to be hot. I knew he was going to like that ... kind of bring him back to his roots a little bit."
Stafford texted with some middle school and high school friends while watching the Dodgers beat the Houston Astros 3-1. The conversation veered toward how much they felt Kershaw "deserves" to be in that spotlight because of how hard he has worked throughout his career and how the Dodgers built their team around their ace pitcher.
With Kershaw playing at the top of his sport, did it get Stafford thinking about what it would be like to play in the Super Bowl?
"I mean, if you going to think about what the Super Bowl would be like and you're playing this game, something's probably wrong with you," Stafford said. "So, yeah, definitely think about it."
The Lions, of course, have never been to the Super Bowl and haven't won a division title since 1993.
Total frustration
Max Verstappen has blasted Formula 1's stewards for "killing the sport" with their "idiot" decision to take away his third-place finish -- and appearance on the postrace podium -- with a track-limits penalty.
Verstappen, who started Sunday's race in Austin, Texas, in 16th on the grid, used a last-lap pass on Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari to finish third ... or so he thought.
But the FIA stewards deemed Verstappen to have gained an unfair advantage by cutting the inside of Turn 17 and going off the circuit to make the move.
They slapped him with a five-second penalty, pushing him back to fourth place -- which he learned of while waiting to go onto the podium.
Red Bull team boss Christian Hoerner called the decision "appalling" and "unbelievably harsh." Verstappen told television crews after the race that the stewards were damaging F1 with such decisions.
"We had a really great race, but with those stupid decisions you really kill the sport," Verstappen said. "It's one idiot steward up there which always makes decisions against me. At the end of the day, everybody is running wide everywhere. There are no track limits."
Verstappen was frustrated by the "really weird" situation of being unable to challenge the stewards' decision and said he hoped the crowd would stay away from next year's race in protest.
"They decide and you can't doing anything about it, which is, of course, really weird," Verstappen said. "Everybody is loving it; it's great action. You go five or 10cm on the inside of the kerb, everybody is running wide everywhere, they don't say anything and they kill the race, basically, like that. The crowd is loving it and then you do something like that in front of world TV -- you pick somebody from the podium and tell them to go away! It's not good for the crowd. I really hope next year nobody is coming, because like this, the sport doesn't make sense."
Sports quiz
When was the last time the Detroit Lions won an NFL playoff game?
Answer
Jan. 5, 1991, when Detroit beat the Dallas Cowboys 38-6 in the NFC Divisional Playoffs. The Lions lost the following week in the NFC Championship Game to the Washington Redskins.
Sports on 10/27/2017