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.

Distraction of the Day

Finding passports for the 49ers and Rams with only a couple of days notice for their practice squad players is a nightmare. So, this begs the question for Joe: Why the hell are they bringing practice squad players to Australia? Set your 48-man gameday roster before you leave. [PFT]

Raiders battle four other teams to land this player. [CBS]

The second-most important offensive player the Chiefs have? Kenneth Walker. [Yahoo!]

Colts: Keenan Allen should play Week 1. [NFL]

If these guys had any common sense they’d get the hell out of there otherwise they’re going to be stuck cleaning up the puke and carrying the dude home. [TikTok]

The 13 most intriguing NFL personalities for the 2026 season. [Front Office Sports]

Buddy Stephens, the loose cannon Mississippi JUCO football coach and former star of “Last Chance U” got canned for s(p)ittalking about school administrators to a newspaper. That show was as close to WWE as you will ever see football. Coaches throwing hands with referees. Coaches throwing hands with each other. Players were total renegades. Players hitting on academic tutors. Schoolwork? Ha! What’s school? What an awesome show that was. Stephens was basically an out of control Bucco Bruce Arians. [New York Post]

TCU pulls credentials from Fort Worth-Star Telegram from covering all TCU athletics for reporting on a fight in the TCU locker room that led to a player getting launched off the team. If the managing editor of the paper had any balls, he would tell TCU, “Eff off, we’ll just send our writers down to Austin and College Station or over to The Star and likely double our subscriptions and we’ll just forget you even exist.” [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]

Walmart magnate and Rams owner Enos Stanley Kroenke bought the California/Los Angeles/Anaheim Angels. Kroenke (see if you can guess who he was named after) was a big fan of the old school Cardinals. Which means Kroenke embraced how the Cardinals played baseball for damn near 80 years since way before he was born: Pitching, defense, strong fundamentals, stolen bases, savvy, aggressive baserunning, hitting behind runners, hit-em-where-they-aint and manufacturing runs. Joe can only pray Kroenke starts a trend to bring sanity back to baseball, rid the game of all the Wall Street nerds in the front offices, and abolish statgeek ball. (Joe is told this is how the Rays currently play ball. Sadly, Joe wouldn’t know because he gave up on the game a few years ago. 🙁 [MLB]

If the “King of All Media” being phased out isn’t a signal, then this is: Chris “Mad Dog” Russo basically admitted changes to his channel were made as cost-cutting measures. [Awful Announcing]

Last days of summer. Make sure you own these days like a flying elbow drop from the top rope. [X]

Run! [TikTok]

A Big Thank You to @CoachTraylor & @UTSAFTBL

Meep Meep pic.twitter.com/Oh36Vg1NtV

— Brandon Walker College Football Show (@BFWshow) August 31, 2026

“You know what I would have done if I was a USC fan on Saturday? I would have gone to the beach!”@AdamSchein has ZERO issue with USC fans skipping the game and staying out of the brutal heat.

Watch today’s full episode of SCHEIN TIME ➡️ https://t.co/0my4PxM7Zo pic.twitter.com/sbsMtDGHAR

— New York Post Sports (@nypostsports) September 1, 2026

Lifelong So Cal here. There’s a good reason you’ve never heard me say LA is a great sports town… pic.twitter.com/cvDSWJfCbG

— Jim Rome (@jimrome) August 31, 2026