If You Build It, They Will Come

   Wild Card Weekend Picks (5-1): Miami (7) over  Kansas City  (4)   Buffalo (6) over Pittsburgh (2) Houston  (4) over Cleveland (2) Detroit  (7) over LA Rams (6) Tampa (7) over Philly (4) Green Bay  (7) over Dallas (2) Five for six is pretty good, but how do we justify that Kansas City win over Miami?  I think we can point to two factors that boosted KC's Iowa score.  First, KC is Caitlin Clark's favorite team, and she was unable to see the game as she was routing Indiana at the same time (on Fox, where this game was on Peacock).  Second, KC imported some good old Iowa weather for the game, and we appreciate that as well.

  Our initial list had 117 Iowa Connections in the NFL with Miami and Tampa leading the way.  Both are playoff bound, so let's update the connections at the end of the season and see who we should be rooting for. We added three new connections.  Perrion Winfrey joined the Jets, La'Michael Pettway to the Patriots, and Jake Gervase on Minnesota.  

 Congrats to Kiah Stokes (Cedar Rapids) on winning her 2nd consecutive WNBA title with the Las Vegas Aces!  

 We are down to our final two baseball teams this year, and just as expected it will be Houston vs. Atlanta ..... wait its actually Texas vs. Arizona?  Crazy year, the Twins won a playoff game and Max Scherzer is in the World Series with Texas instead of the Mets. As far as Iowa Connections go, we have 1 connection between the two teams, and its Dane Dunning of the Texas Rangers.  Dane pitched for the Waterloo Bucks back in 2014.   However, lets dig deeper and see who on these teams has those secondary connections.  By that, I mean players who played minor league ball for one of the Iowa minor league teams.  They include teams from Cedar Rapids, Burlington, Quad Cities, Clinton and of course Iowa (Cubs).   Note: I used Baseball reference to pull the list of players who played for each team this season Note: Italics for coaches, bold for current active roster/staff

   Here's my updated list for Iowa Connections on NBA teams.  There are 27 connections at the start of the 2023-24 season.  Connections are sparser than the NFL, so I will only list teams with connections.  Looks like we are cheering for a Milwaukee/ Phoenix Finals this year! (Shout out to Sacramento, Utah, Golden State, Dallas, Indiana and Atlanta)  Note: Coaches/Staff in  italics . Note: These players/coaches/staff are not with NBA teams this after they were last year:  Nate Bjorkgren  (Buena Vista),  Paul Jesperson  (UNI),  Mike Dunlap  (Iowa),  Dave Joerger  (Cedar Rapids River Raiders), Al McCoy (Drake), Aaron Nelson (ISU) Note: This will change as players get added throughout the season and as I discover assistant gms that went to Iowa colleges.  Some names to watch include: Tyger Campbell, Terry Stotts, and  Joe Wieskamp 

 Here's the initial list of players with Iowa Connections in the NFL in 2023. Some teams made aggressive moves to get more Iowa Connections on their team, including the Jets and the Lions.  Others remain happy in their current state of mediocrity, especially the Commanders who after a disappointing season with zero connections...remain at zero connections.  They are the only team this year without one. This blog is official rooting for a Miami / Tampa Bay Super Bowl.   Overall, 117 connections this year (117 last year by the end).  We will add a few as the season progresses.  

  The 2023 NBA draft is complete, and we have updates on the Iowa Connections available for this draft.

 For those who haven't followed my other schedules posts, I'm trying to find cards from each game played for a team.  Today that team is the Iowa State Cyclones football team.  Obviously this is a task that is not reasonable to complete as there are not going to be cards from every game, but it is still fun to see what % of games I can get to.  10%?  20%?  Who knows, but the collecting is always fun! Today I'm going to start with a bunch of Iowa State cameo cards.  A cameo card is when a player (in this case a Cyclone) is in the background of someone else's card. Also, bad run of cards for the Cyclones, all four are losses to some pretty tough competition.  

 Today I've got four cards that are not Hawkeye players directly, but cameos in the background.