dpberr

GM and Ford consistently make a lot of AWD SUVs. True. Here's my point - They never made a line of AWD cars to compete with Subaru. Yes, a certain model of Focus is AWD, but you drive to ten dealerships, the majority of "Foci" are FWD. You know when you step on a Subaru lot, those are all AWD cars. You don't need to special order it or ask the dealer where he can find an available AWD Focus. VW is catching on by committing to an AWD Golf (finally) but they too are two decades behind. They should have been banging out the AWD Jettas and Golfs to compete with the Legacy and Outbacks. The days of the elderly driving around in battleship sized Buicks and Chevy Caprices is long over. They want AWD cars. Millenials want AWD. Anybody who drives in winter conditions will take an AWD or 4WD if it's in their budget.

Pat Shurmur and John Harbaugh are good as gone IMO. Shurmur's team is listless. I think the Baltimore owner wants a new direction. I think this year is going to have a lot of vacancies. Everybody wants the next Sean McVay.

Imagine the state of the US auto industry if the US government did not have that high tariff on pickup trucks. I agree with many here that General Motors should have been allowed to collapse in 2008. I'm still surprised Chevy and Ford could never make a vehicle that'd compete with a Subaru with better performance.

I'd find a better OL and WR coach before Crossman. Special Teams could be better but at least they've looked reasonably prepared. The OL and WR looked absolutely lost the first four games of the season and that's on the coaching. Those units were not prepared for the regular season by a country mile.

I really didn't like the movie. Nothing new. Essentially the Rocky IV storyline re-gifted to 21st Century movie masses. Cooler story would have been the elder Drago mentoring Creed.

I doubt California officials disagree with Trump about forest management tactics and strategy. However, being politicians and bureaucrats themselves, they probably loathe being called out in public about it, even if it's deserved, and that's where emotion takes over the logic. My guess is since the state has been ridiculously broke for nearly 50 years and has had drought for that long (it seems) it's an easy thing to cut. Nobody likes fire in an area without rain, right? We have similar debates in Pennsylvania. The forest lovers scream at the idea of controlled burns. They scream at logging to promote growth of the understory.

Have to play within the rules of the game. I'm not saying you abandon "where" the linebackers play but you replace them with safeties that can tackle and it turns into a basketball strategy where you have man coverage on everybody. You just get carved up in zone anymore. Too many gaps. Linebackers are too slow and heavy to play that short area in a man/man scheme. Safeties and corners are going to have to evolve in tackling and the new generation of these players will have to enjoy tackling a lot more than the current crop does.

IMO, the game illustrates the "Brandon Spikes" problem that plagues the modern NFL defensive schemes. They are all (including Wade Phillips) concocting defenses for an NFL that's on its way out. I was surprised at how easily gashed the Wade Phillips defense was last night, personally. Last night was essentially the Maginot Line versus German armor in World War II. A defense brilliantly designed for combat of the past up against the combat of the future. The defensive mindset has to adapt to what you saw on your televisions last night. No more linebackers. No more zone coverage. No more lining up your four pass rushers on the line of scrimmage. Somebody will come up with something radical to countermeasure.

Every organization has a "process." No successful company just wings it. The catch is that sometimes the process isn't working towards meeting goals. This is the test of any leader. Some leaders are stonecutters in that they believe that if they just hammering away at it, things will eventually work. There's little discussion in whether the process itself needs tweaking. On the other hand, some leaders will have a neurotic tendancy to tweak details at the first sign of trouble. Before you know it, the process no longer looks like the process and you're in an ocean of doubt. Was the process at fault or all the changes I made to it? It's part art, part science.

Yes! I thought that was a fun "hey I know that guy from..." moment. The Walking Dead should certainly do more of those. Last time I saw him, he was getting his ass kicked by Shane in the Punisher.

Everybody is a one hit wonder in today's NFL with injuries, free agency and the far advanced business intelligence/analytics that figure out the gadgets like RPO. No team has repeated as champions in nearly 15 years. Being a champion in the NFL is more like winning the lottery of luck. The windows of opportunity are so small.

It wouldn't shock me, if the season turns mediocre to poor for them, that all three (Bill, Tom and Gronk) all call it quits before the 2019 season. Outside of Brady, the team legitimately needs to restock in many areas. I could see Belichick simply becoming the full time GM. Brady has nothing else to prove. Gronkowski had to be coaxed to play yet another injury-filled season. Doubt he'll do it again. Greatness is always finite.

For me, that'd be a competitive football team. I'm ok with that.

You hit the nail on the head IMO. That's the reason these fires turn into the apocalyptic infernos.

The Bills organization is much larger than the people you see on the field on Sundays. It's hundreds of employees. It's easier to pay the bills when the Bills are competitive and winning football games. Paying bills gets harder when fans don't show up or buy merchandise because the team isn't competitive. You aren't going to make a lot of money when your tickets sell for $5. That's all I ask as a fan - be a competitive football team. Do what it takes to win. That's what you're in the business to do. Winning=making $$$ for everyone involved.

You really only had to do one thing to stay competitive. Sure, you could have fired Juan Castillo and/or Terry Robiskie (still tempting) but lets' say you didn't want to be that dramatic. All you had to do was under no circumstances play Nate Peterman again. You start Allen and get to trying out a better backup quarterback post haste. The season may have been different if you didn't have the countless Peterman implosions.

Prescott is Tyrod Taylor if he played for the Cowboys. Both quarterbacks have trouble seeing the whole field and progressing through the reads. I certainly could see a Cowboys future with Prescott on another team.

My guess is he will take a year off, do some broadcasting, and wait for an opening. He will see what happens in Green Bay, Seattle or even a place like Arizona.

I voted no because for a professional football operation, they showed an astounding lack of planning for a worst case scenario and an absurd amount of what I'd call "blind faith" in Nate Peterman. What if Peterman sucks? What if we don't want to play Allen or he's hurt? Out of moves on the chess board, they had to go out and grab a guy off a golf course (Anderson) and a guy who hadn't played in over two years (Barkley). IMO, highly paid NFL executives shouldn't be reduced to doing those things IN season.

This team is inconsistent with the "showing up" part and that's what makes prognosticating these games difficul for me. They tend to show up after getting embarassed. They get mad and play accordingly. I never saw McCoy run like he did yesterday all year. The catch is McDermott has yet to figure out how to keep the team collectively Clubber Lang-level focused for every game. With this team, you can tell from the first series whether they are flat or playing with a purpose. They "can" beat all of those teams with Barkley and/or Allen. There are no Saints or Rams in that schedule.

I know, right? I should ask more McClaughlin Hour-esque questions - and get this board a Nobel Peace Prize. :-)

I'm no front office football executive but I would have been wary enough of an interception prone QB to have a solid backup plan in case things went awry. They should have planned for it going awry. It's good to have faith but that's blind faith IMO.

Interesting take. I hadn't heard this story. I think in our Walking Dead era, this movie idea would do better today than it did in 1986. As an aside, whatever happened to Emilo Estevez? https://www.dailylocal.com/arts_and_entertainment/rock-music-menu-film-that-revived-ac-dc-s-career/article_768085f9-d273-574d-8285-03bb790ccf3f.html

I appreciate his explanation of the business side of football operations with the contracts. Makes sense to me. I can buy that 2018 was a season to get out of contract hell. The question that wasn't asked was why go all in on Nate Peterman in preseason and then double down on the decision with keeping him in the lineup after Baltimore. That's the crux of the fail this year IMO.

My hot take: There will be a big to-do about her being elected, lots of press and fanfare, but in two years she'll be ousted by her own party. She's not going to do much in the House. The old guard wants its last shot at the limelight. No room for Ms. Thang. Two years from now, she'll get smoked in the primary by the other faction in the Democratic Party. Their hubris had them flatfooted this time around. They won't make that mistake twice. The primary role of these reps is to spread the money around back home and with her poltiical leanings, it won't be going to all the groups that are used to receiving said money.