The Confidential For 07/07/2017

Today in the Confidential: Tennessee AD predicts ‘orange will be the predominant shade’ during matchup with Georgia Tech, Aaron Rodgers will be first QB with 300 TDs before 100 interceptions, Tom Brady to release book in September, Kris Bryant loses Final Vote, Cubs set wrong kind of All Star Game history, Ringside seats for Mayweather-McGregor fight selling for nearly $100,000, Sylvester Stallone hints that a Creed sequel could involve Ivan Drago and How to get free Chick-fil-A next week.

Tennessee AD predicts ‘orange will be the predominant shade’ during matchup with Georgia Tech

Tennessee’s athletic director John Currie. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)

Even though Mercedes-Benz Stadium is less than three miles from Georgia Tech and Bobby Dodd Stadium, University of Tennessee athletic director John Currie is confident in Vol fans’ ability to show up for Tennessee’s Sept. 4 matchup with Georgia Tech.

“It’s a neutral site game and the Vol nation will be in there in force, and I’ll bet you orange will be the predominant shade, but we’re still the team that’s got to get on the bus for three hours,” Currie said on Knoxville’s WKGN-AM 1340 on Wednesday. “I’m proud and pleased with the way our staff is going about preparing for that, and I know our team is going to be ready to play.”

Out of the 71,000 seats in Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Tennessee was contracted to buy 25,000 while Georgia Tech will purchase 30,000.

After both teams finished last season 9-4 and lost their respective starting quarterbacks to the NFL, the Vols and the Yellow Jackets will open their 2017 seasons at Atlanta’s newest stadium.

“This is a tough business, we got new quarterbacks coming this year, excited about them, the quarterbacks in our program that are competing for our job,” Currie said, according to Mike Griffith of SEC Country. “It’s a big transition opportunity for us, and we have an extraordinarily difficult schedule, having to go down to Atlanta to play in that game against Georgia Tech.”

Aaron Rodgers will be first QB with 300 TDs before 100 interceptions

Green Bay Packers Aaron Rodgers participates in an NFL football practice Tuesday May 23, 2017, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Matt Ludtke)

Ten players in NFL history have thrown 300 or more touchdown passes. Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is poised to become the 11th — and the first to do so before throwing 100 interceptions.

As noted by Elisha Twerski, Rodgers needs three touchdown passes to become the 11th player in NFL history with 300. The other 10 quarterbacks averaged 171 interceptions before throwing their 300th touchdown. Rodgers has thrown 72 interceptions.

Here’s a look at how many interceptions each of the other 10 quarterbacks with 300 touchdown passes had thrown at the time they got No. 300:

Peyton Manning is the NFL’s all-time leader with 539 career touchdown passes. He had 152 interceptions when he threw his 300th touchdown.

Brett Favre threw 508 career touchdown passes. He had 175 interceptions when he threw his 300th touchdown.

Drew Brees has 465 career touchdown passes. He had 154 interceptions when he threw his 300th touchdown.

Tom Brady has 456 career touchdown passes. He had 115 interceptions when he threw his 300th touchdown.

Dan Marino threw 420 career touchdown passes. He had 169 interceptions when he threw his 300th touchdown.

Fran Tarkenton threw 342 career touchdown passes. He had 219 interceptions when he threw his 300th touchdown.

Eli Manning has 320 career touchdown passes. He had 205 interceptions when he threw his 300th touchdown.

Philip Rivers has 314 career touchdown passes. He had 146 interceptions when he threw his 300th touchdown.

Ben Roethlisberger has 301 career touchdown passes. He had 160 interceptions when he threw his 300th touchdown.

John Elway retired with exactly 300 career touchdown passes and 226 career interceptions.

Btw Matt Ryan has 240 TD’s and 114 Int’s

With just 115 interceptions at the time he threw touchdown No. 300, Brady had the fewest picks of anyone to reach the mark. Rodgers will throw No. 300 with about 40 fewer interceptions than Brady had.

Tom Brady to release book in September

New England Patriots QB Tom Brady #12 . (AP Photo/Gregory Payan)

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady will begin his push for a sixth Super Bowl ring in September while he also tries to head to the top of the best seller list.

Simon & Schuster announced in a press release on Thursday that they have acquired the rights to The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance, which will be released in hardcover, digital and audio formats in September.

The “oversized, heavily illustrated, revealing yet deeply practical” book will focus on the approaches to training, nutrition and overall well-being that Brady has developed over the years. It will also include “step-by-step action steps” designed for readers to use in order to increase their own productivity in a way similar to the Patriots quarterback.

“We expect this book to become an essential source for the way athletes of all ages live and train, whether they are in high school or in retirement,” said Jonathan Karp, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster. “The fact that Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time gives him the authority to write this book — but the fact that the principles that he’s espousing go well beyond sports is one of the reasons readers are going to pay close attention to his message.”

Brady previously released a cookbook that sold well despite a $200 price tag. There’s no word on how much this tome will set readers back, but it’s a good bet that there will be plenty of them willing to plunk down what’s necessary for a glimpse into Brady’s life away from the field.er argues that he is not competent to stand trial.

Kris Bryant loses Final Vote & Cubs set wrong kind of All Star Game history

Chicago Cubs Kris Bryant (17) scores during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday, July 5, 2017, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Matt Marton)

While Kris Bryant was a nominee for the National League’s Final Vote, the spot ultimately went to Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner. As far as defending World Series champions go, that puts the Chicago Cubs in a dubious class by themselves.

ESPN Stats & Info ‪@ESPNStatsInfo

Kris Bryant is not an All-Star, so the Cubs are the 1st World Series champ ever with 0 All-Stars that made it previous year (‪@EliasSports)

In fact, barring any replacements, nobody who was on the 2016 World Series champions will be in Miami. Closer Wade Davis is Chicago’s lone All-Star, and he was with the Kansas City Royals in 2016.

It’s no secret that the Cubs’ World Series defense has not gone smooth. At the beginning of the year, it would have been unfathomable that one of baseball’s most-talented rosters wouldn’t feature more than the minimum one Chicago player. By contrast, in 2016, the Cubs had seven All-Stars including five starters and the entire National League starting infield.

Ringside seats for Mayweather-McGregor Fight selling for nearly $100,000

FILE – Conor McGregor gestures toward fans. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
FILE – Floyd Mayweather Jr. celebrates during his welterweight title fight. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

The upcoming Conor McGregor-Floyd Mayweather boxing fight will be quite the

spectacle, and attending the bout will not be cheap.

Tickets for the Aug. 26 bout at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas are available on the venue’s box office website. The prices range from $2,425 at the lowest to $98,500 at the highest. The low-end tickets are for nosebleed seats way at the top. The best ringside seats are priced at $98,500, while others in that area are around $80,000 per ticket.

That is a ton of money and more than a year’s salary for most people, but for a fight fan like celebrity Dave Chappelle, it could be well worth the buck, especially when you consider it could be Mayweather’s last fight ever.

Back when Mayweather fought Manny Pacquiao two years ago, StubHub’s top tickets sold for nearly $41,000. Whether T-Mobile Arena is able to sell premium seats for double what the Mayweather-Pacquiao seats went for remains to be seen. One thing that helps their effort is that McGregor, who is a UFC champion and from Ireland, brings in an entirely different fan base compared to when two top boxers meet.

In other words, don’t count anything out for this one, especially when the revenue estimates for the fight are north of a half-billion.

Sylvester Stallone hints that a Creed sequel could involve Ivan Drago

Sylvester Stallone, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Could we see Creed vs. Drago in the ring again?

It’s been more than a year since we’ve heard anything about a sequel to Creed, a continuation of the Rocky Balboa saga that was a breakout success for star Michael B. Jordan and director Ryan Coogler. Last January, MGM said there would undoubtedly be a sequel, which shouldn’t be a surprise for a film that earned $173.5 million worldwide (against a $35 million budget).

Since then, however, there hasn’t been much movement on a follow-up. MGM eyed a November 2017 release, but that’s not going to happen. Coogler is busy with Marvel’s Black Panther, for one thing. Jordan is highly in demand as an actor.

But Sylvester Stallone has apparently been thinking about a Creed sequel quite a bit and has been sharing those thoughts recently with fans on Instagram (and a #CREED2 hashtag). Creed introduced us to Adonis Creed, the son of Rocky’s rival and friend Apollo Creed. What if Adonis ended up facing the offspring of Ivan Drago, the man who killed Apollo in the ring (in Rocky IV)? Pursuing some form of revenge against the man who killed his father, even if it was through his son, would certainly be an intriguing storyline.

Such a story could also answer the question of whatever happened to Drago (played by Dolph Lundgren) after he lost to Rocky in mother Russia. Was his boxing career over after that? Did the Russian government reassign him to other tasks? Was the program that seemingly built the perfect, indestructible fighter discontinued? (this could be an opportunity to comment on recent Russian doping scandals.) Maybe Drago’s son would hold a grudge over that.

That may not be a storyline fans ever wanted to revisit. The Rocky movies have always been about Rocky Balboa’s career and life. But the saga has moved on to Adonis Creed’s story. Rocky may still be a part of that, as his mentor and trainer. And if a sequel did somehow involve Ivan Drago and his family, Rocky could certainly be a part of that. After all, he’s the guy who didn’t throw in the towel when it was clear that Apollo was overmatched and was being severely beaten. Both fighter and mentor would have some issues to confront in such a story.

Another plotline for a Creed sequel could also involve flashbacks to Apollo and Rocky during their heyday. Variety reported last January that one of the ideas Stallone and Coogler were bouncing around was going back into the past with the two boxers. Maybe those flashbacks would also involve Ivan Drago.

But Stallone is 70 years old, Lundgren will turn 60 this year and Carl Weathers is 69. All three actors are still in outstanding shape, but going back in the past would surely involved some digital de-aging effects, like what we saw in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 earlier this year with Kurt Russell. That would make Creed 2 much more expensive than its predecessor.

Maybe Stallone is being taken a bit too literally here, and is talking more about the sons of Creed and Drago facing each other. He mentioned “sins of the father” in one of the Instagram posts. What isn’t clear is if this is entirely Stallone’s idea or if this is something he’s been talking with Coogler about. Black Panther will be released next February and perhaps a Creed sequel could be his next project. (That is, unless Marvel ends up wanting Coogler on a Black Panther follow-up. But with Marvel’s big slate of films, there will probably be time for him to revisit Adonis Creed.)

Regardless, it looks like Adonis Creed and the entire Rocky saga aren’t quite done yet with the past.

How To Get Free Chick-Fil-A Next Week

Chick-fil-A is giving away tons of free food on July 11 for its annual “Cow Appreciation Day.”

The fried-chicken chain will offer a free entrée — which includes chicken sandwiches, chicken nuggets, and more — to anyone dressed in “cow attire,” which can include a full costume or simply a cow-themed accessory like a handbag.

The promotion applies to breakfast, lunch, and dinner items for adults from the time that Chick-fil-A’s restaurants open to 7 p.m. 

Children in cow-inspired attire will be given a free kid’s meal.

The event is Chick-fil-A’s biggest promotion of the year.

The chain gave away nearly 1.6 million free entrée to cow-dressed customers last year, according to the company

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