Jersey Guy Sports

359 - JGS Raves and Rants for Mid-2026

• Don Signorino

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It's here!  The mid-2026 Jersey Guy Sports Raves and Rants podcast!  Here I talk about the things or people I am happy about, as well as those not so much.

A New York sports fan can hold two truths at once: you can be genuinely grateful for what your teams give you, and still be furious about what they take away. That’s the energy I bring on Jersey Guy Sports with our mid-2026 raves and rants, bouncing from pure joy to total disbelief across the Knicks, Yankees, Giants, Rangers, and Rutgers. 

I start with the high that still doesn’t feel real: the New York Knicks winning a championship. We talk about what it means to end a long title drought, the playoff comebacks that turned into instant city folklore, and why that 2026 run felt like a forever moment. Then I pivot to the people who define New York expectations, including Aaron Judge’s massive value to the Yankees even when the postseason scars linger, and why Jalen Brunson’s late-game shot-making makes him the exact player you want when everything tightens up. 

From there, I hit Rutgers football and the tough balance between culture and wins under Greg Schiano, plus the one thing we can brag about without hesitation: the Rutgers game day atmosphere in Piscataway, from tailgates to boardwalk vibes to night-game visuals. I also show love to Igor Shesterkin as a Rangers backbone, and to Cody Bellinger for doing the unglamorous work that keeps the Yankees from leaking runs and opportunities. 

Then it’s rant time: what I think is holding teams back, why replay review is draining the life out of sports, and the decisions and performances that drive fans up a wall. If you’ve got your own list, you’re going to have opinions. Subscribe to Jersey Guy Sports, share this with a fellow fan, and leave a review. What’s your biggest rave and your loudest rant right now?

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Welcome And Raves Setup

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Welcome to Jersey Guy Sports. We're talking home for the Yanks, Giants, Knicks, Rangers, and the Rucker Fall Knights. I'm your host, Don. I want to thank you for listening. Today I'm going to be discussing the Jersey Guy Sports 2026 rants and raves. And these are things that I am both thankful for, raves, and that I don't like so much. And that's my rants. So let's go ahead and get started. So on July 17th in the Dog Days of Summer, I thought I would do a podcast that highlights some of the things that Jersey Guy is thankful for across all the teams that I cover here on Jersey Guy Sports, as well as a few rants on some things and people that I cover from the teams that I love. So I'm going to go ahead and start with the things that I am thankful for, right? The Jersey Guy Sports Raves, right? This is a Raves and Rants podcast. And let's start with the Jersey Guy

Knicks Championship Run And Drought Ends

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Raves. What am I thankful for? What am I happy about? I'm going to start with the New York Knicks winning a championship. And if you are a long-starved New York fan of any sort, you know that New York has been in a long championship drought, especially for, you know, a city with so many different sports teams, professional sports teams. We had not won any championship among the four major teams since the Giants back in 2011, believe it or not. And then the Knicks pulled it off in 2026 with an unbelievable, incredible run to the championship. Mesmerizing comebacks by the Knicks in the playoffs. Incredible finishes at the buzzer, just tremendous play, blowouts galore, incredible comeback after incredible comeback. The Knicks brought New York City together and mesmerized me as well as fans in the New York Tri-State area. And I am really, really thankful that the Knicks brought it all together and amazingly won a championship. Because as my teens have proved in the last couple years, it is very hard to win a championship. It is not easy. And, you know, as the Knicks suffered some early setbacks and went down two to one in the first round, you were thinking, okay, maybe this is not the year again for the Knicks. And then they just went on one of the greatest runs in NBA postseason history. Unbelievable, winning 13 of the last 14 games in the playoffs and just completely, completely dominating. And, you know, you throw in, sprinkle in some incredible 20-point, 22-point, 27-point comebacks, late in games, and you have a forever moment for a forever team, and that is the 2026 New York Knicks. So that is Jersey Guys first rave, and first thing I'm thankful for.

Aaron Judge Greatness And Frustration

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Next thing I want to bring up is Aaron Judge. And if you are a longtime listener to the Jersey Guys Sports Podcast, you might be a little surprised in a bringing up Judge. As great of a player as he is, I've done my fair share of criticism in talking about Aaron Judge over the years. And he is obviously one of the greatest players of this generation. And he may get less notice if he does not win a World Series. And also probably because of his choke moments in big spots. But he is an absolute dominating force, you know, a two-time MVP, back-to-back MVP player, wonderful, wonderful player whose absence is deeply noted, deeply felt on the Yankees currently, since he's been out for a few months now and Lord knows when he's coming back to the Yanks. And he is probably underappreciated by some fans, probably underappreciated by me, and he is one of the greatest players of our generation. I think in my mind, because I put so much stock in clutch moments, that when I see him not performing clutch moments in the playoffs in the eighth or ninth inning frequently, you know, those things tend to stick in my memory, I think, more, maybe more than it should, you know, or maybe not more than it should. Maybe you agree and feel like those are the moments that matter. But overall, Aaron Judge has been, you know, carrying the Yankees on his shoulder for much of the time that he has been on the Yankees. And certainly he is one of the greatest players of our generation. And I absolutely am thankful that the Yankees have Aaron Judge, and I'm quite worried that we're going to get to the end of his career without getting him a championship as he gets older and now he's getting hurt. Boy, it's good to have Aaron Judge on the team. Hopefully, you know, he gets a speedy recovery and can start helping the team again. So Aaron Judge is the second thing on the Jersey Guy Sports Raves.

Jalen Brunson And True Clutch Play

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The third thing is Jalen Brunson. And speaking of generational players, I actually believe Jalen Brunson is a generational player, and people may scoff at that. But if you watch the NBA and you watch some of these good players, bad players, there may not be a person in the NBA that you want the ball. You want to have the ball with two minutes left in a close game any more than you want Jalen Brunson to have it. You can name any person in the whole NBA, and I'm telling you right now, I would prefer it's Brunson because of the different ways he can beat you. He can go around you, he can shoot a three over you, he can, you know, deke in, out, draw a foul, drive past you, use his left hand, lose, use his right hand, do a floater. The amount of ways that he can score, distribute the ball, continue to have that clutch gene, which is the opposite of what I was saying in Judge, continue to score in the biggest moments and the most clutch of times. Jalen Brunson is absolutely, absolutely a generational player in my mind. And, you know, certainly one of the greatest Knicks ever already, only a few years into his Knicks career. And boy oh boy, am I thankful for Jalen Brunson. I got to tell you right now, one of the best, best players you could ever hope for on your team. Certainly one of the best signings ever for the New York Knicks, and a tremendous, tremendous player. Rave for Jalen Brunson.

Schiano Culture Shift And Rutgers Reality

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The next one I think is going to surprise a lot, surprise a lot of people, and I'm going to say Greg Shiano. And if you listen to this podcast for a long time, you know that I am generally very, very thankful for Greg Shiano, and I always have been in both since he was here, previous time he was at Rutgers, and then now the current time, because he's one of the only people that could have pulled Ruckers out of the dregs and muck that it was in after these awful coaches that were coaching Rutgers football after he left. Now, it might be an unpopular opinion that I give him a rave, but he generally has risen Rutgers at least the acceptable play level, which is not really saying a lot. So I this one I think is my least confident rave of the day. And it also might change very, very soon. This past season, my opinion of Greg changed a lot, but I've had so many years where I thought he did a very good job and the incredible mountain that he has to climb here at Rutgers with you know all of the funding issues that all the other teams have and the pay-for-play and all the deficits that Rutgers has in trying to pay people to come to Rutgers. Greg has to deal with that as well as, you know, no tradition at all of winning here. And so I think he's risen the team to a particular level, but we have not been able to get over the hump in his second stin here like we did in the first stin here. And I think that has to change extremely soon, or there will be a quite different tone about Greg Ciano coming from Jersey guys soon. But at this point, I am thankful for him. I definitely am. I think he's changed the culture here in a lot of ways, both inside and outside the stadium. And I am thankful.

Rangers Goalie Praise And Yankees Glue Guy

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Next up in the Raves section is Igor Sistergen. And if you're not a hockey fan, Igor Shesterkin is a goaltender for the New York Rangers and one of the best goaltenders we've had on the New York Rangers. And that says something. The Rangers have a history of great goaltenders, all the way back many, many, many years. But most recently, for ones I can remember, you know, Van Biesbrook and Richter and Lundquist and, you know, Shisturkin now, just the best of the best, you know, in the NHL for most of the time for many of those goalies. And Shisterkin is continuing that tradition. He's almost always brilliant when he's in there. The last couple years he has not had almost no defensive support in front of him. So he's had to be brilliant without anyone defending properly. The Rangers managed to upgrade their defense in the offseason this year, so maybe he'll have a little more support. He is not young anymore, but he is something that the Rangers and myself are extremely thankful for to have on the team. That is goalie Igor Shisterkin. Keep it up, Igor. Next up is a New York Yankee, Cody Bellinger, who I am extremely thankful to have on the Yankees because he is someone that does all of the little things that other players on this team does not. He's like, he fills in all the cracks, right? And if you're if you're on a ship and it's got a bunch of holes, he's like the glue that keeps it from sinking in every way, right? He gets the big hit when you need it, puts in the occasional home run, makes all kinds of great defensive plays. One of the best left fielders in baseball. He has a very strong, very accurate left arm. He throws hard from the outfield, generally hits the cutoff man. You know, he nails a lot of people at the plate and at other bases. He makes great defensive plays. He's a very good base runner. He's a heady and smart base runner. There's almost nothing bad you can say about Cody other than he slumped like the whole team did for about three weeks to a month, you know, when the Yankees were slumping, you know, a month ago or so, where the whole team just went into a collective coma, including Bellinger. So you can't really call him out because everyone, including Rice and the whole team, was just dog shit. So leaving that bad three weeks out from Cody, he's been everything you'd want for a free agent, you know, resign for the Yankees. So Cody Bellinger gets the Jersey Guy Sports Rave.

Rutgers Game Day Magic

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Next up is Ruckers Football's game day atmosphere. So I am thankful for Rutgers Football game day atmosphere. Since I can't really be thankful for their wins on the field, as I talked about when discussing Shannon, because we haven't got enough of them, not nearly enough. It's hard to love the play, but I do love the RU game day atmosphere in Piscataway. When you were going there to Tailgate, particularly if you're in the blue lot or the yellow lot, it is just wonderful, wonderful. The Ruckers boardwalk is a phenomenal thing to experience. It has rides of all sorts, right? It has a Ferris wheel and other rides, kids' rides. It has you can take photos with players and basketball players. There's a bunch of food trucks and other games you can play to win prizes, just like on a regular boardwalk. Great, great atmosphere. There's music everywhere, there's bands playing. It's a tremendous, absolutely tremendous game day atmosphere. There's fireworks in the stadium that they've added. There's drone shows that are just wonderful, particularly for night games there. The amount of improvement for the Rutgers game day experience is unbelievably better than it was five years ago before Shannon got here. Credit him, credit whoever you want to credit. It is so much better now. Unfortunately, then the game starts and you have to talk about the football game itself, and that all goes out the window. But the Rutgers football game day experience is lights out, spectacular, and that gets a Jersey guy rave.

Yankees Winning Standards And Giants Hope

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The Yankees winning wees is the next thing on my list of raves. And even when I complain about the Yankees, they continue to have winning seasons. And as a Yankee fan, if you are one, you know that we are spoiled, right? We've won so many championships, 27. We have so many years where we win or make the playoffs that other teams, supporters and fans of other teams, laugh at us when the Yankees have a winning record, make the playoffs, and then only win one round or something, or two rounds, or don't win a round, but they make the playoffs and they have a winning year. Because, you know, there's so many other teams, Pittsburgh, and you can name a million of them, right? Cincinnati, everyone that they barely ever make the playoffs. The Mets, right? Just look right across the river there. There's really a long list of teams that are nowhere near, in general, as successful as the New York Yankees have been. However, for New York fans, for Yankee fans, championships, World Series titles are what count as winning. And for me, that's how it is. Maybe it's not for all fans out there, but for me, that is what counts. But I do need to be appreciative and give a ray for the Yankees winning ways. The Yankees have now gone 33 straight seasons without having a losing record. Think about what other team in any sport can say that. 33 consecutive winning seasons. I think one season they had a 500 record, so I'm not gonna list that. 33 straight winning seasons. I mean, come on, right? So I always have to sort of pinch myself, but you also have to note that as Yankee fans, we have a higher expectation, right? We're spoiled. We want World Series titles or busts. So that is something that I sometimes do not get appreciative of, the consistent winning ways. And sometimes I need to remind myself of that. So I think I'll remind the Jersey Guys sports uh listeners of that. So I will put that in the rave comm. And I have one more rave before I get to some rants. And the last rave I have is Jackson Darr, who is maybe the possible answer to our Giants quarterback who's right? The New York Giants have had quarterback who's for many years, ever since Eli Manning retired, and we have not been able to find anyone really who was not dreadful for a very long time at quarterback. And it looks like Jackson Darrell may be the answer, although, you know, it's hard to say. We've had less than one full season of him. It's hard to see or know if he has his head screwed on straight, which is sometimes half the battles in NFL QB, right? You need to be mentally there, right? And you need to make the right decisions, right? Both on and off the field. I think off the field, you might have some problems here, but he also needs to be a leader of men. The quarterback in football has to lead people, and that's both through example and through your play. Now, through his play, I think there's something to look forward to here. I love the way he throws the ball. I love his mobility. I love how he can throw on the run. I love his touch, right? Something as small as a quarterback that fades back on a screen pass and is able to gently lob a pass with the proper touch to a quarterback over the rushing defender. Something as simple as that, or rolling to your right and not zipping a ball into someone and off of them that's you know six yards away, but just laying it out so someone can run into it and run around the corner. Little things like that, in addition to, you know, other more long-term, long down-the-field accuracy and such like that. But there are small parts of his game that to me signal that he can be a really good quarterback. Time will tell. I'm not anointing him as anything yet, but I can tell you I am going to give him a Jersey guy rave and say I am thankful that Jackson Dart is a quarterback of the New York Giants right now. So those are my raves. The raves just to recap, or the Knicks winning the championship, having Aaron Judge, Jalen Brunson, Greg Sciano, Igor Shisterkin, Cody Bellinger, Rutgers football game day atmosphere, the winning weeds of the New York Yankees and Jackson Dart. So those are the things I'm thankful

Rants Begin With Cashman And Boone

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for. Now there's some things or people that I can't stand from the teams that I love here. And so let's get into that. And that here this is the Jersey Guy rants section of this podcast. So, mid-2026, what's my first rant? Cashman and Boone. I'll count them as one because you there's not enough time in this podcast for me to talk about them separately. I say at the beginning of every Yankee season, as long as Cashman and Boone are the manager of the Yankees and the GM of the Yankees, they are not winning a championship. And it pains me to say it, and I fucking hate it. But it is what it is. And I stand by it every year, and unfortunately, it is true every year, unfortunately. So it is just really, really tough to, you know, go forward and and and try to watch this team knowing the lack of support, lack of insight that catchman has, the lack of the ability to understand the modern game, to produce a diverse group of players on the field that isn't all three true outcomes home run, walk, strikeout, right? The ability to produce an athletic team that plays good defense. Now we tried to do some of that, but he swung and missed and didn't do enough of it. Right. So, so, and I'm not even gonna talk about Boone because I can't stand him. I hate everything is you know, you've heard all my rants on Boone, defending the players at all costs, never saying a negative word against anybody, lack of discipline, players that don't respect him because they like them as their buddy, Cashman and Boone. First Jersey guy rant. Next Jersey guy rant.

Why Replay Review Ruins Sports

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Replay review in all sports, and this isn't to any particular sport. I cannot fucking stand replay review in sports. I hate it. I think it's denigrated every single game. All the sports that I love are lesser because of replay review. The only thing I would possibly keep if I was in charge of all replay reviews was maybe goals in hockey because they're so rare and I think a review is worthwhile there, or maybe a home run in baseball. Almost every single other sport and call, I do not want replay review. I think it just cheapens the game. I I don't think that we need to get every single thing right in every sport on every play, right? We're now down to balls and strikes in baseball, every double play, every out and safe call, every fair and foul ball, every catch or not a catch, every single little thing is a replay review. You know, and it drives me nuts because it the integrity of the game, I shouldn't call it the integrity of the game, the flow of the game and the pleasure of watching a game as a fan is completely denigrated by having all these stops. Obviously, if there's a winning play at the very end of the game, say it's the World Series and someone slides in at home to win the game, you can't even celebrate in the moment, right? Because you have to wait on a close play to see replay review. And think about what a diminished experience that is for the fans at the game, the players on the field, the fans watching on TV, where your team might have just won a championship. He was called safe at home, but you don't know until they run the stupid replay review. And it's I I think it's harmful, and I think it doesn't in my mind, it's okay to not get everything correct all the time. In the in the spirit of actually you know doing something positive for the flow of the game. So replay review in all sports is definitely my rant. Next

Yankees Targets Wells And Volpe

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up on the rants, Austin Wells for the Yankees, who is a piece of shit, disgusting catcher that I cannot stand. Where can I start with Austin Wells? Maybe I did already. 155, he's fucking hitting this year. He's a 211 career hitter who sucks at the plate and cannot hit a beach ball if it was lobbed into his lap. He's completely overrated defensively. They keep talking about and writing about how great he is defensively, and I just think they're full of shit. I don't see what the hell they're even raving about defensively. He never throws anybody out. He never blocks any balls in the dirt. Oh, he's a good framer. Oh, he works well with the pitchers. Give me a fucking break with that shit. Gerard is talking about, oh, it's hard to change catchers in the middle of the year. Get the fuck out of here. How much worse could we possibly be with another catcher compared to Austin Wells? Give me a friggin' break. Done. I'm done with fucking Austin Wells. Speaking of Yankees, I'm done with Anthony Volpe. And if you're Jersey Guy sports fan, you know, I'm not going to go into a lot now, but you know what I'm going to say, right? He's the bane of my existence, basically, Anthony Volpe. I cannot stand him. I have not been able to stand him ever since he's come into the league. He had one good spring training, and then he was basically disgusting for his entire career. This is his fourth season. He's a career 218 hitter. They keep talking about if you could only go back to how he hits, go back to when. These people on TV, in other words, act like what is happening with these players is anomalous. It is where they are for their career. Wells is a 211 career hitter. Anthony Volpe is a 218 career hitter. These are not good people. So when they when they think they're going to sort of snap out of it, it's not like he's played 40 games or 50 games or, you know, he's Spencer Jones or other people that really haven't gotten a chance. Anthony Volpe has almost 2,000 career at bats at this point, guys. He's played, what, 500 career baseball games at this point? We know what he is. Nothing's hiding here, guys. He sucks and he is on my rant. Next up, there's two more, and then I'll get out of here, guys. Kayvon Thibodeau.

Giants Thibodeaux And Rangers Drury

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for for the Giants. Probably doesn't deserve as much shit as I give him all the time. But he is a waste of a draft pick at number five overall years ago. And probably because of where he got picked is why I am ranting on him. I think if he was a lower draft pick with lower expectations, I think I wouldn't, you know, worry so much that he's not performing. And he is not performing. Every time he gets a sack, you know, it is overemphasized, both for the announcers and in the papers and everything else. And every time he doesn't have a good game, nobody says anything. I feel like it's it's Vulpey all over again where they just highlight every time he does one little good thing like boon and never talk about or make excuses for every time he does something bad. Thibodeau with the number five overall draft pick has been essentially a bust at this point. And I think we need much better from him. Now we have a bunch of other defensive ends now in here that that should do really well, but we're going to see where it goes with Thibodeau going forward. So he is on my rant list. Last person on the rant list, Chris Drury, who is the New York Rangers general manager and a piece of shit GM at that. He has ruined the New York hockey Rangers. He made it slightly better by the way in the last two weeks after wrecking this fucking team over the last four years he actually made some decent moves over the last couple weeks to make the New York Rangers slightly better. So instead of a Dreg of the NHL team they might be you know four or five teams up from a Dreg of the NHL team. They are not competing for winning the Metro division they are not competing for a cup this year. They're so far away from that because of the disgusting awful moves both releasing people, trading people, creating a culture of a team that other pre-agents don't want to come in here for between him and the older Dolan leadership, the Rangers a month ago passed ownership from James Dolan to his son Quentin Dolan. So maybe things will change we'll see but the culture around the New York Rangers has been awful both in the locker room out of locker room on the road there's all these stories about the bad culture and and how hard it is to you know you know do anything you know with the Rangers as a player. And so between his culture shittiness his terrible trades Chris Drury is on my shit list. I love hockey. I love the Rangers and he is ruining it for me. So so there you go. That is my Jersey guy rant

Recap And Subscribe Sendoff

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list. And to recap that part of it it's Cashman and Boone replay review in all sports Austin Wells Anthony Volpe Kayvon Thibodeau and Chris Drury the Jersey Guy rant list. So there you go. That's the Jersey Guy Sports rants and rays for mid-2026 and that's going to do it for my podcast. Thank you for listening to Jersey Guy Sports please subscribe to the podcast tell your friends all about it and I'll be back soon with more sports talk. Thanks and have a good day

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Don Signorino

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