Bikini Football League Off To Hot Start, Maggie Sajak Sizzles In France & Brock Purdy's Fiancée Takes A Sauna

What a week for content! Here I was thinking my Bikini Football primer would be just the thing we needed to juice the storyline machine, and now we have Jay Gruden and RGIII cockfighting on Twitter to steal my thunder.

Unreal start to 2024. We're barely three weeks in and the narratives are coming fast and furious. Between Jay and RGIII, Maggie Sajak, Bill O'Brien in Columbus, another plane falling out of the sky and Brock Purdy's fiancée taking a bath, I don't even know where to begin today.

Just kidding! Bikini Football League, of course!

Welcome to a Friday Nightcaps -- the last class of the week where the teacher started drinking hours ago and the students text the whole time. No worries, though, because we're gonna be short and sweet today because I've got Downtown Fridays to get to and Red Stripes to pound.

Had a Red Stripe last Friday at this thing -- actually about nine of them -- and I've gotta say ... it ain't bad. Underrated, really. Also a pretty badass bottle to slug down while you check out the latest homemade soaps with your wife.

Bet Hookstead would hate them!

OK, let's get down to it.

We're gonna get fired up for the Bikini Football preseason opener this Sunday. Didn't know it was a thing until about an hour ago but now I'm all in. Give me that over the XFL/USFL this spring.

We're also going to check in with Bill O'Brien in Columbus, RGIII and Jay Gruden, Maggie Sajak (duh) and Brock Purdy's fiancée, Jenna Brandt. Whew. What a menu for a "throwaway" Friday class!

Bell just rang and I wanna go home early, so try to keep up. It's a Friday 'Cap!

Let's not forget the greatest Jay Gruden moment of all time

I know I said we'd start with Bikini Football before kickoff this Sunday, but this Jay Gruden-RGIII battle is just mesmerizing.

By now you all have read about it, and OutKick has covered it like the OJ Trial. I'd start here and go from there.

Anyway, the short of it is that Jay and Robert have been bickering like a bunch of high school teens on Twitter this week, and it all stems from Griffin posting this pretty funny response to the below Gruden tweet:

I think RGIII is pretty ridiculous at this point, but funny is funny, and that was elite content.

Anyway, it's been a battle ever since between the former QB and his old coach, with Gruden deleting a tweet that basically called RGIII a loser, and then posting this little gem about him racing a pigeon:

Again, it's hilarious. Who knew Jay Gruden was this skilled at Twitter? Shocking development. Well, maybe. But let's not forget one of the last times we saw Jay Gruden before he got predictably canned in Washington:

Brock Purdy and fiancée Jenna Brandt prepare for the Packers in a hot tub

Jay Gruden has been putting on a content masterclass since 2019! What a twist already to our year. Nobody had the Jay Gruden vs. RGIII rematch on their Bingo card this year and if you say you did, you're a liar.

I'm #TeamJay all the way here. Like I said, RGIII has become pretty brutal at this point after a promising start to his broadcasting career. He used to be genuine. Now he's just a Skip Bayless wannabee and he's starting to dabble in some predictable race-baiting. Perfect for ESPN.

That's why we need Jay to take him down a peg or two. Make sure he remembers how awful he was at quarterbacking, Jay! And stop deleting tweets. It's pointless. The internet will never stand for that.

As for the actual games on the field this weekend, let's get rich.

My nearly month-long heater came to a screeching halt last weekend thanks to some awful beats, but I've started to build it all back up.

I had a solid Monday night thanks to a couple smart live bets and then hit a pair of basketball and hockey bets later in the week. Not a full blown heater yet, but -- like Jenna's hot tub -- we're getting warm.

CJ Stroud at +160 for O 1.5 TDs tomorrow seems juicy as hell. Has Hard Rock seen this kid the past few weeks? There's also the chance for some garbage time at the end. I'll bite.

Christian McCaffrey O 13.5 longest reception tomorrow night is also pretty appealing. He's also had at least five catches in eight games this year and that O/U is currently sitting at 4.5. Just saying.

OK, here's Brock Purdy and Jenna Brandt gearing up for the big game:

Ohio State fans are pumped for Bill O'Brien and WHAT A WEEK FOR AIR TRAVEL!

Give 'em hell tomorrow, Brock! Can't wait to see what sort of energy Jenna brings to the suite, either. Stephanie Niles set the bar a few weeks ago and now we get to see if Jenna's ready for primetime or not.

What a weekend.

I know we talked about it Monday. And then again yesterday. But after officially declaring 2024 the year of the road trip, I refuse to let an opportunity go by that could further help my cause.

And, right on cue, Atlas Air delivered last night:

This is from yesterday's class, but I've decided I'll just continue adding to this list all year. Let's see how far we can get:

Let’s recap … in the last two weeks we’ve had:

Can't wait to see what the weekend holds. Also -- it's perfect that the Dolphins use Atlas to fly them around all season. Makes sense now.

Now, before we rapid-fire this class into the weekend, let's check in with OSU Twitter in the wake of the Bill O'Brien hiring:

Bikini football season here and fan mail!

That last one is WILD. What a stat. It's almost more impressive than anything Saban or Belichick accomplished.

OK, couple quickies on the way out.

First? Apparently, we've got ourselves some Bikini football this SUNDAY!

What a damn hit! I'm all in on this league. Where do I sign up to watch? Is it more than what I paid to watch the Dolphins get their teeth bashed in last weekend? Don't care. Worth it.

Side note: has anyone watched that new Ted series on Peacock? Now that I have it for the next month, I might as well dive in. The movies were funny so I assume this will be, too.

Speaking of asking you guys for some help ... let's check the mail before we head into the weekend!

Now -- a disclaimer here. I usually just don't respond to hate mail. Not worth my time and I personally don't care enough to.

But, sometimes I wake up feeling particularly dickish on a certain day and just fire off some funny responses to piss people off. I did that twice this morning!

From (presumably) Packers fan, Ray White:

You'd think you would have looked for film evidence of the Packers harassing the Cowboy cheerleaders BEFORE writing your story instead of asking your readers to do your work for you.  Pathetic.

Ray obviously didn't like yesterday's story on a couple Dallas cheerleaders taking to TikTok to talk about how mean the Packers were to them after scoring touchdowns last week.

I asked readers to send me any visual evidence they saw online of these things happening. Ray preferred I put on my Big J hat and look myself (which I obviously did, dummy).

So, I chose to be an ass:

Apparently, Ray wasn't the only Packers fan upset at my liberal journalism!

This one came from my own people. Friendly fire! (bottom one first):

Take us home, Euro Maggie Sajak

No clue where the Jesus stuff came from. What a wild turn. Glad Phil's given his life to our Lord and Savior, though. We're always pro-that here at Nightcaps.

OK, that's enough for today. Feel free to email me all your thoughts on class! I'm always nice to Nightcaps readers -- especially the ones who show up on a Friday.

Take us home, Maggie Sajak.

Let's go have a weekend.

OutKick Nightcaps is a daily column set to run Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. (roughly, we’re not robots).

We in on the Bikini Football League? Email me at Zach.Dean@OutKick.com.

Written by
Zach grew up in Florida, lives in Florida, and will never leave Florida ... for obvious reasons. He's a reigning fantasy football league champion, knows everything there is to know about NASCAR, and once passed out (briefly!) during a lap around Daytona. He swears they were going 200 mph even though they clearly were not.