Odin's Thoughts

Washington Football Team: The Most Interesting Team in the NFL Washington has a chance to make the playoffs with a win this weekend. I don’t think too many people expected that, I certainly did not, and even if it says more about the division they play in than the team, it’s still impressive. The fact that this 6-9 team can make the postseason simply with a win is only one of the many reasons why Washington is the most interesting team in the NFL. Let’s start off the field, as that is what we specialize in at Odin Development. The most glaring off-field consideration of any program or team is character. Without character, your team will not win. Washington has a wild mix of character in its program. In football, and in any arena, character starts at the top. Dan Snyder is possibly the weakest character owner in professional sports. Not only was the name “Redskins” long overdue for a change, since unlike “Indians” or “Braves” it is actually a derogatory term, but this organization has b...

  The Big Ten is Acting like a Child ________________________________________ Think back to your days as an imaginative kid, maybe playing a concocted board game with your siblings or something in your backyard you made up with your friends. Since you created it, you control the rules, so once you started to fall behind you miraculously remember a ridiculous rule that helps you get ahead.  That’s exactly what the Big Ten has done this football season, and unlike your time as a child, it’s not funny and there’s actually something at stake. The message the Big Ten is sending is a bad one to our young men and women, and it’s showing everyone who’s paying attention that it’s easier to change the rules to get ahead than it is to fight through adversity and overcome it. Shame on the Big Ten. If you don’t already know what I’m referring to, the Big Ten has been inconsistent with its COVID rules this season, and it’s clearly to benefit the one team they have that can compete on the na...

  Nick Chubb, the Lamborghini of Tailbacks  Joseph DiPietro Nick Chubb was once asked why he doesn’t tweet or post on social media. His response? “You ever seen a Lamborghini commercial? don't gotta advertise” By this point, everyone knows I’m a Georgia fan, so go ahead and tell me I’m biased. I don’t care. To be fair, Derrick Henry fits a lot of this narrative too. Nick is one of my favorite players. He is probably the hardest working athlete in the world. He is a kind and generous human too- despite his killer instinct on the field. My sister worked for the team for a few years and had nothing but good experiences with him; my mother in law met him once at an event and she said “Go Dawgs” and in typical, short winded Chubb fashion he replied “Go Dawgs”. A real class act. But he’s also one of the best runners in the NFL, and has been since he got to the league. That’s a fact, not an opinion. There’s only one stat that matters in the NFL for running backs in the...

  2021 NFL Offseason To-Do List Joseph DiPietro   The National Football League has been the sports league that best kept on track in the COVID-riddled 2020 season. Assuming it sticks to the normal offseason timeline, free agency begins in mid-March and the 2021 NFL Draft will begin at the end of April. Below we will break down each team’s outlook, biggest issues, and what they must do to combat their problems: *this is being written on 7 December, so draft placement may change* AFC EAST Bills : Buffalo is a good football team. The defense is solid, and most defensive snaps will be returning. They have the early makings of a franchise-level quarterback in Josh Allen. Stefon Diggs made an immediate and explosive impact on the offense, Zack Moss and Devin Singletary are a reliable one-two punch at tailback, and to compete for a Super Bowl the Bills need to expand on that explosiveness. Buffalo is not a team that has one glaring problem to me, so they might have a rela...

  The Tiger Woods Dilemma ________________________________________________________________________________ The Masters weekend is almost a holy weekend to golf fans, specifically those of us from Georgia. In most years, it often ends up on an actual holy weekend with Easter in the Spring. This year is different, and while it is exciting to watch both the Masters and football on the same weekend, I hope we can all get back to more normal traditions in the upcoming year. But despite the uniqueness of this year’s tournament, there is a constant that remains: the excitement for Tiger Woods. There’s something about Tiger playing well that gets any golf fan hanging on to every swing. Maybe it’s the fact that he changed the sport forever as a young fitness-focused golfer. Maybe it’s the Georgia bias in me when he wears red and black on Sundays. Maybe it’s the barrier that was broken as he crashed the party of a relatively pale community. Whatever it is, it’s hard to argue that he isn’t on...

  The Undeniable Connection of Athletics and the Military __________________________________________________________________________ Commitment. Courage. Discipline. Loyalty. Teamwork. These are words that many would use to define traits of service members and veterans. They are terms ingrained into the mottoes and values of all our branches of the military. But these are also words used by countless sports teams and organizations. There are many factors of my life that made and make me who I am today. My faith and my family are primary among those, but very close behind are athletics and the military. I wouldn’t be half the man, husband, leader, or soon-to-be father without sports or the Naval Service. As I will always admit, I could be wrong, but I’m a pretty good husband, and a hell of a leader. Point is, I wouldn’t be those things without the structures, activities, and people that have shaped me. Athletics molded me in many ways at an early age, and then I joined...