Morning Cup Of Joe
January 8th, 2026
Welcome to your Morning Cup of Joe, an eye-opener to help Joe’s readers ease into their busy workday with a few football links, wacky news and a pleasant distraction.
More people watched the NFL in 1989? Really? [PFT]
Most likely wild card upsets. [CBS]
Travis Kelce torn on retirement. Dude: You’re marrying a billionairess who is sort of cute. You won’t have to go to OTAs, minicamps or training camps. You won’t have to devote your life six months a year and almost every weekend from July to February to your craft. You won’t have to get beat to a pulp every Sunday. You won’t have to shower with dudes any longer. You’ve got it made. Hang it up. Enjoy the life you built for yourself. [Yahoo!]
Ranking NFL openings. [NFL]
Dude is suffering. [TikTok]
Picks for NFL awards. [SI]
Brett Favre said he has not given up hope in his battle with Parkinson’s. [TMZ]
This may be the first positive thing Joe can think of with Peacock: At the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, Peacock announced it is partnering with an electronics outfit where viewers may — keyword there: may — be able to mute an announcer or turn down crowd noise. AWESOME! You mean Joe may be able to mute Cris Collinsworth but still listen to Mike Tirico? Now, if Peacock will only allow Joe to mute/hide all those references to the PFF tribe that NBC assaults innocent football fans with, now we’re talking innovation! [Sports Business Journal]
NFL/Twitter renew agreement to release the NFL’s Top 100 exclusively on the social media site. [Awful Announcing]
Washington quarterback wants to transfer. Washington says, “OK, go ahead and try. You already signed an exclusive one-year contract with us.” Kid applies to transfer anyway. Washington puts the word out: “Any school that tries to sign the quarterback, we’re coming after you with our team of lawyers, guns blazing, so careful what you wish for.” Fun in college football! Hey, kids wanted to be adults and get paid millions on top of free six-figure education. Cool. Now they’ve got to behave like an adult has to in the adult world, meaning adhere to your contract — and pay taxes. You signed a legally-binding pact for services rendered. Can’t “decommit” from a signed contract. There are consequences, good and bad, with all our decisions. Mommy and your participation trophies don’t fly in court, son. No Dairy Queen for you! [Outkick]
Dog coned himself. [TikTok]
It’s time for the Giants to go ALL-IN to bring in John Harbaugh@heykayadams pic.twitter.com/3sZ85F0KO3
— Up & Adams (@UpAndAdamsShow) January 7, 2026
“We need to start acknowledging them as one of the best College Football teams of all time if they complete this run”
– @EBoKnowss on Indiana pic.twitter.com/ub79xnTK0D
— Wake Up Barstool (@wakeupbarstool) January 7, 2026
January 8th, 2026 at 4:58 am
Oregon v Indiana
Oregon’s 1 loss is to Indiana
The Ducks did lose twice in one season before to the same team, U of Washington, in 2023.
Great matchup
January 8th, 2026 at 5:41 am
Mostly agree with their NFL award picks. Good to see Egbuka on it. Unfortunately, after the Bucs bye and not doing as well, Tet from Carolina will probably get the award.
In agreement about Travis. Do something else, keep healthy, and enjoy life with your new wife. He has the money and wouldn’t have to worry about anything.
January 8th, 2026 at 6:09 am
Love when you talk CFB in these, gives me an excuse to yap about it. I was just thinking the other day how Indiana has to go in that conversation, and Cignetti in my opinion, has reached (as of this moment, not necessarily in the future) Saban status.
I mean look at his career path, he went from nowhere to #1 in the country with the losingest program in CFB history – not anymore as of this year, he took Elon from 4-20 to a playoff appearance 2 years in a row, moved to JMU and turned them into an FCS powerhouse, making the FCS nation championship, promotion into the FBS, and conference champions in the first year after the jump. I mean it’s absolutely unbelievable what he’s done to this point. Now with Indiana in the spotlight, Cuban is probably going to have a blank check type donation system like Phil Knight at Oregon. I’m interested and excited for this Indiana timeline.
The transfer portal is a huge problem in CFB. Players going to 4 schools in 4 years, learning 4 different basic offenses (so it’s easy to learn in the Spring), and wondering why they’re busts in the league. School essentially owning these players, severely decreasing the level of development of the high school recruits and when they do get a shot, their forced into the spotlight at 18 because they cost $1M+, boosters want to see their ‘investment’ and then ditching them when they don’t perform. I don’t disagree with that because with NIL comes professionalism – I just think the system is failing the so called ‘student-athletes’
January 8th, 2026 at 6:43 am
Ref: the Peacock and tech company, I wonder if they can skip any g a y s*it, skip drug commercials, lawyer commercials…
January 8th, 2026 at 8:06 am
“You won’t have to shower with dudes any longer. ” Hahahaha!! That all by itself would make me tap out if I was Kelce.
January 8th, 2026 at 10:24 am
More people watched the NFL in 1989.
Probably true. In 1989 games were on the broadcast channels. No subscriptions, games were at normal hours, on normal days, everybody had access. Now, you have to buy Prime and You Tube and others, plus Sunday Ticket for the games.
Oh do I miss the good old days!
January 8th, 2026 at 11:14 am
I looked it up and apparently it’s true. The NFL averaged 19 million viewers per game in 1989 and this year it averaged 18.7 million. Also, we need to remember there were less games and less teams so that will skew the numbers.
January 8th, 2026 at 9:44 pm
FIRE TODD BSLOEW
January 8th, 2026 at 11:12 pm
The problem is the guy who is his own boss, holds two huge jobs (but at least sucks at both) and doesn’t have time or know how to help special teams or offensive coaches improve. So he fires them and will hire other “yes men” who are already checked out.
Fire the problem.