First Take Live Blog July 31, 2014

9:01 Okay, Ray Rice has started talking. Sarah Spain. That's an epic last name.

9:00 I'm not a fan of finishing with the Cowboys instead of an epic FINAL TAKES segment

8:56 Coach says the Cowboys just have to learn how to win in Week 17. Has completely changed the topic. The Cowboys were 5-1 in div last year. Only game they lost was divisional championship game.

8:54 Does Tyron Smith's massive extension give any money to Dez Bryant?

8:48 Freddie has a great point. Sonny Gray got wrecked by JV in Game 5. Let's see what Lester can do against Justin Verlander.

8:47 Skip: Billy Beane strikes again!

8:44 I say if Jay cutler stays healthy, yes. if not, no

8:43 Herm says yes. Freddie says no.

8:42 #cutler4mvp

8:36 What happened in '48, '68, '98, and '08 will never happen again. Playoff!!

8:33 Pat says he's happy to be coaching an academic school. It's a great experience for him to know his students are earning great degrees.

8:29 Pat is proud of his players for attempting form a union because he remembers quite recently being a student athlete himself and he knows it needs to be improved.

8:23 Pat Fitzgerald after the break

8:20 Skip: I can't say that LeBron made a business decision at all because how does Cleveland give him a better chance to win a championship than Miami.

8:17 Freddie: LeBron made the right call because why would he give Dwyane and Pat headsup? If they leak it, it's over. He wanted to control the announcement, so he only told his family.

8:15 Mind you, he did say in n the Leastern Conference

8:13 Both Pat Riley and Dwyane Wade were blindsided by LeBron's announcement. But Pat is insane to say that the Heat will still be as competitive as anybody

8:06 "Tiger needs to kneel down in front of Butch Harmon and say, 'Please save me. I'm yours.'" -Skip Bayless

8:05 Everybody is yelling at each other on this show.

8:01 Danny will reevaluate if he wins one. Skip says that now that Rory has cleared up his personal situation, Rory will be Tiger. He will dominate and be out of Tiger's league. He's out of his mind.

8:01 COACH'S BOLD PREDICTION: Tiger will win 5 of the next 28 majors.

8:00 Coach: Rory will never be Tiger Woods.

7:57 Interviewer: "Does the goal of catching Jack in majors seem more distant than it seemed in 1997." Tiger: "It's a hell of a lot of closer than it was in 1997."

7:53 Stephen A is still appearing in commercial bumps.

7:52 I agree with Urban that deregulation is not the answer to anything in NCAAF.

7:50 Urban saying the SEC Network is a better opportunity for Tebow than the CFL or the AFL. What?

7:49 WOW! Skip and Urban both saying that "Tim became too big for his own good"

7:49 Great, we have two Tebow lovers on this show.

7:48 I can't believe he's saying he's surprised Tim is out of the NFL.

7:47 Urban says it's not about Braxton because they're improved the talent around him.

7:46 Skip: You won the game at Michigan obviously, but in the last 3 games, you gave up way too many points. That's not Ohio State football.

7:45 Why does Urban Meyer's lower third say 8-0 in Big Ten last season? They lost to Michigan State!

7:38 I think that the NFL needs a schedule of suspensions. They have a schedule of fines. $15,750 for this type of hit, etc. Each type of violation needs a set number of games suspension.

7:35 Danny: I don't like Ray's and John Harbaugh's comments so far. I hope today seems less insensitive. But nothing can show that he's a better man until we wait for a long time. Only time will tell.

7:34 Coach: If he has a prepared statement, I'm not a fan. The Ravens writing something for him to say is not anything compared to his saying what's in his heart. That's what I really want to hear.

7:33 Skip would like to see Ray Rice put his money where his mouth is and donate money to domestic violence awareness.

7:31 Ray Rice is scheduled to speak to the media later this morning. My thought: This morning Eastern Time? Does that mean we'll get to see him during this show?

7:26 I'm putting the A's in the World Series.

7:24 Coach: Yes, but he should ask veterans about the NFL. That's what I did when I was a rookie. Learn! Don't sit by yourself.

7:23 Danny: Training camp is a different feel to anything that's happened before, and it can be tough for some guys.

7:21 Skip: Johnny just believes that if you give him a chance in an exhibition game, he'lBREAKING: Red Sox and A's trade Jon Lester and Jonny Gomes for Yoenis Céspedes and a draft pick.

7:18 Danny: Sooner or later he's gotta win those guys over because right now they're going to battle for Hoyer.

7:14 There's a report (Jason LaCanfora) that Johnny Manziel has displayed "first-in, last-out mentality" and has been quiet and shy at camp, eating at the cafeteria by himself

7:13 I agree with Skip and Danny. The threat of something else needs to exist. Peyton Manning is a killer. Not eveyone can be he.

7:12 Skip: Yes, you definitely need the threat to exist to increase your value as a player.

7:11 Danny: The game is changing to where more quarterbacks are going to be running things like the read option and becoming more of a mobile threat.

7:11 Coach: People forget how athletic Steve Young was. But he too eventually became a pocket passer. It's still the way to go.

7:10 In the playoff game against the Seahawks, why didn't he get down? The rules are in his favor!

7:09 Skip says that around a year ago a Redskins source of his told him that RG2 and RG3 had decided that RG3 should be the next Peyton Manning and were being uncooperative with management about this.

7:06 Coach: If the defense still thinks it's a possibility, it becomes tough for assignments because they don't know to assign a pass rusher, linebacker, or defensive back on the quarterback.

7:04 Danny: Do you want to have a Ferrari and only be able to drive it 55?? Why would you want to allow yourself to let your opponents know it's no longer in the playbook? Even if for some reason it's not, it's ridiculous to tell the world.

7:03 Danny: Yes, they should keep it in the playbook, and RG3 needs someone to help him with the press. Why is he referring to the Heisman season at Baylor? His rookie year was enough to show that he has the ability to throw the ball.

7:02 RG3 saying that so far he's not run the read option in camp. Should the Redskins run the read option?

7:01 Okay, it's Herm Edwards and Danny Kanell, and Stephen A.'s name not even mentioned.

6:57 I missed yesterday's show, so I don't know who's filling in for Stephen A., or whether they're mentioning why he's suspended at all, or just playing it off as they usually do just by saying, "he's so-and-so in for Stephen A."

STAT OF THE NIGHT

Manny Machado: first career walk-off home run (Bot 12th)

STAT OF THE NIGHT

In their last game of the 1926 season, the New York Yankees lost 6-2 to the St. Louis Browns in 55 minutes (9 innings). Tonight, the Oakland A's and Texas Rangers were still in the second inning after 55 minutes.

The future of the NFL?

The idea for this post came from a conversation from a friend last week about two recent hot-button issues in the NFL: the potential for teams in London or LA, and playoff expansion. When discussing playoff expansion, my friend said that once there are 14 playoff teams, it won't be long before there are 16 teams, and no first-round byes. Aside from the problem of how to schedule eight Wild Card games on one weekend (presumably a Friday night, a Monday night, and tripleheaders on Saturday and Sunday), my problem with 16 playoff teams was that I didn't want the NFL to have half the teams in the playoffs. I said I would only accept 16 playoff teams if the league had at least 36 teams. With that in mind, here is (facetiously) what a 36-team NFL might look like: 

AFC East: New England Patriots, London Monarchs, Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars

AFC Central: Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts, Tennessee Titans

AFC West: Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs, Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers, Los Angeles Avengers

Reasons for the AFC alignment: I placed London to be in the same division as New England and Los Angeles to be in the same division as San Diego. I kept the AFC East and West together because of their historic rivalries. I ended up keeping the AFC North together as well, mostly because all four are in the Eastern Time Zone, and because Pittsburgh and Baltimore have such a big rivalry now, and the Ohio teams should stay together. The rest of the teams were just filled in where they fit to make each division have six teams.

NFC East: Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, Washington Redskins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dallas Cowboys, San Antonio Missions

NFC Central: Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, Carolina Panthers, Atlanta Falcons

NFC West: New Orleans Saints, St. Louis Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers, Portland Seaducks

Reasons for the NFC alignment: Kept NFC East and North together due to rivalries. Placed San Antonio in the same division as Dallas and Portland in the same division as Seattle. As above, the rest of the teams were just filled in where they fit to make each division have six teams.

Teams would play 19 games each: 10 in the division (5 home-and-homes), 6 in the conference not in the division (3 teams from each of the 2 divisions: 2-year rotation), and 3 against the other conference (1 from each division: 6-year rotation). Disadvantages to this are that teams would only play at every stadium in the other conference once every 12 years and that teams would alternate years of having 10 home and 9 away games and vice versa. 

The regular season would last 21 weeks and have 2 bye weeks: one from Weeks 4-10 and one from Weeks 11-17. Teams would be required to have at least 6 weeks between their bye weeks. Starting the season as we currently do, with Week 1 the week after Labor Day, Week 21 would fall on the last Sunday in January. This would place the Super Bowl on the first Sunday in March (or February 29). Even with such a length, a 21-week regular season would be shorter than those of MLB (26 weeks), NBA (25 weeks), and NHL (28 weeks). Football's playoffs under this system would obviously be expanded as mentioned at the top, but would still only take 5 weeks, shorter than both basketball's and hockey's.

STAT OF THE NIGHT

Before Shane Greene tonight, the last Yankees pitcher to commit 3 errors in a game: Tommy John (07/27/1988 vs. Brewers)

The Open Championship Day 4 TV Schedule

After a day of a constrained schedule due to weather concerns (which didn't come to pass), the Open Championship returns to its 36 tee-time schedule. While Rory and Rickie are in the final pairing together, Rickie trails Rory by 6 strokes. No player has ever lost the Open Championship after leading by more than 5 strokes after 54 holes.

Rory ran away with both of his major wins as well, leading by a considerable margin after 54 holes at Congressional in 2011 and at Kiawah in 2012. Winning tomorrow would put Rory only a green jacket away from a career grand slam.

Click here to see all of Sunday's tee times.

The Tiger Channel (4:45 AM ET, ESPN3)
Final Round Television Coverage (6 AM ET, ESPN)

A first for the Open Championship

While two-tee starts are common on the PGA Tour on Thursdays and Fridays, the extreme amount of daylight available in England in the summer (Friday for example the sun rose at Royal Liverpool at 5:07 and set at 9:30), the R&A were able to schedule 156 players in groups of three teeing off starting at 6:25am with the last group teeing off at 4:06pm, all teeing off on the first hole. In fact, never before has the Open had a two-tee start, but that all changes tomorrow.

Ironically enough, the Open's first two-tee start will be on a Saturday, a day when most PGA Tour events only use one tee. This is due to inclement weather expected in the afternoon, around 3pm, so they hope to have all players off the course by then. Rather than using the typical 36 tee times for the 72 players, there are only 12 tee times, spanning from 9am to 11:01am, in 11-minute intervals. There are 24 groups of 3, but the bottom half (currently in 37th to 72nd place) will tee off from 10. The players teeing off from 10 are in reverse order, which means that while Tiger Woods would normally be in the first pairing of the day, he's actually now going to tee off at the same time as Rory, in the final group of the day, just at a different tee.

ESPN3 will have live coverage from the first tee at 9am (4 AM ET), while ESPN picks up live coverage at 5 AM ET, when approximate half of the players will have already started their rounds. The Tiger Channel on ESPN3 begins coverage immediately at 6:01 AM ET, when Tiger tees off.

Click here for a list of all of tomorrow's tee times.

Tomorrow's TV schedule:
The Open Championship Third Round (5 AM ET, ESPN)
The Tiger Channel (6:01 AM ET, ESPN3)

New format for Home Run Derby (8 ET, ESPN)

Old: 10 outs per batter per round
New: 7 outs per batter per round

Old: Total of 8 participants, 3 rounds
New: Total of 10 participants, 4 rounds

Old: Home runs are cumulative after first two rounds
New: All batters start afresh in every round

Old: Top 4 qualify from first round, top 2 from second round
New: Bracket format explained below

The participants this year are:
AL: José Bautista, Yoenis Céspedes, Josh Donaldson, Brian Dozier, and Adam Jones
NL: Troy Tulowitzki, Todd Frazier, Justin Morneau, Yasiel Puig, and Giancarlo Stanton

After the first round, the top 3 from each league advance to the second round.

In the second round, the two matchups are: AL 2 vs. AL 3, and NL 2 vs. NL 3. The top seed from each league has a bye through to the third round.

In the semifinals (the third round), the two remaining AL batters and two remaining NL hitters face off against each other for a spot in the final, in which the last two will battle it out for the title of home run king.

Both the old and new formats require a total of 140 outs (barring walkoffs) to complete. With a total of 20 batter-rounds this year as opposed to only 14 in the past, however, expect more commercial breaks and an overall longer Home Run Derby. It is possible though that there will be more walkoffs than years past since beginning in the second round, batters are only competing against one other hitter at a time. This may lessen the effect of the added commercial breaks, but the Derby will still certainly last longer. It is ridiculous that ESPN has allotted 2 hours for this event when it will definitely exceed this limit. It is similar to the Oscars' always allotting 3 hours on ABC even though the planned schedule for the event is longer than three hours. If you plan to DVR the event, make sure you extend your recording.

The 2014 Gillette Home Run Derby can be seen live on ESPN at 8 ET. It can also be streamed on espn3.com or the WatchESPN app.

Golf and soccer TV schedules 07/13/2014

Women's British Open Day 4
2014 FIFA Men's World Cup Day 32
Final Round Coverage (8 AM ET, ESPN2, ESPN3)
World Cup Final! (1 ET, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN3)

STAT OF THE NIGHT

The longest Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles Final ever lasted 4 hours and 48 minutes (2008).

The Championships, Wimbledon Day 13 TV Schedule

"Breakfast at Wimbledon" pre-match show (8 AM ET, ESPN, ESPN3)
Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles Final: (1)Djokovic/(4)Federer (9:15 AM ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

STAT OF THE NIGHT

The longest Wimbledon Ladies' Singles Final ever lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes (2005).

Tennis and soccer TV schedules 07/05/2014

The Championships, Wimbledon Day 12
2014 FIFA Men's World Cup Day 24
"Breakfast at Wimbledon" pre-match show (8 AM ET, ESPN, ESPN3)
Wimbledon Ladies' Singles Final: (13)Bouchard/(6)Kvitova (9:15 AM ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

Quarterfinal: Belgium vs. Argentina (11:30 AM ET, ABC, ESPN3)
Quarterfinal: Costa Rica vs. Holland (3 ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

An Independence Day bonanza! 29 hours of live sports for ESPN!

From two great international competitions to our national pastime to Coney Island's annual tradition, what a day!

"Breakfast at Wimbledon" pre-match show (7 AM ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

Centre Court (8:15 AM ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

Gentlemen's Singles Semifinal: (1)Djokovic/(11)Dimitrov

Gentlemen's Singles Semifinal: (4)Federer/(8)Raonic

Quarterfinal: France vs. Germany (11:30 AM ET, ESPN2, ESPN3)

Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest (noon ET, ESPNEWS, ESPN3)

Nathan's Famous tape delay re-air (2 ET, ESPN2, ESPN3)

Yankees at Twins (3 ET, ESPN2, ESPN3)

Quarterfinal: Brazil vs. Colombia (3:30 ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

the six o'clock SportsCenter! (6 ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

Nathan's Famous tape delay re-air again! (6 ET, ESPN2, ESPN3)

Rays at Tigers (7 ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

NASCAR Countdown (7 ET, ESPN2, ESPN3)

NASCAR Nationwide Series: Subway Firecracker 250 (7:30 ET, ESPN2, ESPN3)

Baseball Tonight (10 ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

World Cup Tonight (10 ET, ESPN2, ESPN3)

STAT OF THE NIGHT

Raonic won 29 of the 32 points on his service games in the 4th set.

The Championships, Wimbledon Day 10 TV Schedule

"Breakfast at Wimbledon" pre-match show (7 AM ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

Centre Court (8:15 AM ET, ESPN, ESPN3)

Ladies' Singles Semifinal: (23)Safarova/(6)Kvitova

Ladies' Singles Semifinal: (13)Bouchard/(3)Halep

The Championships, Wimbledon Day 9 TV Schedule

Centre Court (7:15 AM ET, ESPN, ESPN3)
Ladies' Singles Quarterfinal: (3)Halep/(19)Lisicki
Gentlemen's Singles Quarterfinal: (3)Murray/(11)Dimitrov
Gentlemen's Singles Quarterfinal: (5)Wawrinka/(4)Federer

No. 1 Court (7:15 AM ET, ESPN2, ESPN3)
Ladies' Singles Quarterfinal: (13)Bouchard/(9)Kerber
Gentlemen's Singles Quarterfinal: (1)Djokovic/(26)Cilic
Gentlemen's Singles Quarterfinal: (8)Raonic/Kyrgios

UPSET ALERT

Nick Kyrgios leads Rafael Nadal 2 sets to 1 in the Round of 16 (ESPN2, ESPN3).