Ryan's Teams

      Another football/basketball/hockey season has come and gone, and the long wait to Labor Day weekend now commences. I wouldn't say it was the worst year possible, 3 of the 4 did make the playoffs after all, but "disappointing" could be a fair adjective considering FSU had one of its worst seasons in school history and the other 3 all suffered first-round exits. I feel like if you have 4 teams, at least one of them reaching the second round of the playoffs is not an unreasonable ask.       But that's life sometimes. For the Seminoles, everything that could go wrong pretty much did, as they followed up a 13-0 regular season with a horrendous 2-10 season. The Bucs managed to win the division for a 4th consecutive year, but then saw their season end in heartbreaking fashion as Washington barely squeaked in a game winning field goal in the final seconds (it hit the post and bounced in) to sink Tampa's ship. Orlando had bigger goals in mind when the season b...

       A little over a year ago, I wrote the inaugural edition of this annual piece. That version covered the 4 teams pictured above, as well as the New York Giants, Tampa Bay Rays, FSU Basketball, Tennessee Titans, and Seattle Kraken. For 2024, I wanted to narrow that group to the 4 teams we follow more avidly than all the others, and spend a little more time on each than what was done last year when there were 9 different teams to recap. Meaning for this year, we're restricting to the Seminoles, Buccaneers, Lightning, and Magic.      All 4 were successful in their own ways. The 3 pro-teams were all playoff teams and FSU was a top-5 team when healthy. It would be equally fair to say none of them were satisfied with the way things ended. FSU was snubbed of a playoff spot it rightfully earned after losing it's QB to a gruesome injury. The Bucs' season came to an end when Baker Mayfield through a game-sealing interception against the Detroit Lions on a l...