The Frankish Reich

That's "doesn't work outside the home" Julie to you, please.

I see no reason why he can't be Trevor Siemien. Yeah, that's not good, but it's a perfectly acceptable backup. I don't know why (maybe I'm just too nice a person?), but I want him to have a tiny bit of success before he hangs up the cleats.

Tucker Carlson advertiser update (I'm watching right now ... I've missed some of these new ones): - The New Believer's Bible - My Slippers from My Pillow - Recti Care Advanced - Tommy Copper Shoulder Support Shirt If I didn't know better I would guess that the median Tucker viewer is a 78 year old man with a bad shoulder and hemorrhoids who shuffles around the house in oversized slippers and worries about whether there's still time to repent for his egregious past behavior. Like I said, Elon: new advertisers!

Other places you won't see Apple ads: - The Socialist Worker newspaper - Pr0nhub - Taiwan is a Real Country Times - Two Bills Drive/PPP pop-ups Funny, it's almost as if major corporations avoid platforms/media that may alienate a significant portion of their potential customers! Meanwhile, Musk should check out Tucker Carlson's advertisers: - My Pillow - Some kind of gold knee brace that apparently cures arthritis - the chair lift thing that takes you upstairs when you can't do stairs anymore - Gold Bond Medicated Powder - Colonial Penn Burial Cost Insurance Plan I hear there's real revenue there!

Poor Elon apparently doesn’t understand that if he wants to run Twitter as a business and not as his public service gift to the world, he needs to keep advertisers and partners happy. Now look who’s turning into the whiny little …

Well, it’s a pretty different situation. Yes, the Broncos have a huge problem on their hands. But trading for Wilson and then re-signing him (and really, one couldn’t happen without the other) was a calculated risk. There aren’t many 33 year old QBs who have fallen off a cliff like Wilson. Even his subpar partial 2021 with the Seahawks produced a 100+ QB rating (I know, far from a perfect metric, but check the others and they’ll be in line with that). And this came after a remarkably consistent run in which even his bad seasons were mid-90s QB ratings. I can’t think of a similar sudden decline like that. Surely Peyton Manning was one - pretty much the same Peyton Manning up until his last year, then total garbage in his last season (paradoxically, the only one in which he won a Super Bowl for the Broncos). But he was already 39 and had a history of very serious injury. You just won’t find many examples like Wilson in recent NFL memory. They threw the dice on Manning; they won (and that was a much bigger risk at the time). They tried it again with Wilson; they lost.

Musk has looked at the books, and he seems to believe that a Twitter bankruptcy is inevitable. I guess he thinks he might as well make as big a splash as he can before it goes down and its assets (really nothing but it’s branding, which he is also in a hurry to diminish) are sold off to some social media competitor. Twitter is not some marvelous thing we can’t live without.

Glad to see Barstool Sports, as it enters its 20th year, is finally acting like a grown-up.

His naked running was never of a predatory or sexual nature. Who among us hasn't run naked through a hotel at 2 a.m.?

Sometimes a team decides it's out of the playoff run, or that if it somehow manages to sneak into the playoffs, it'll surely be one and done. Sometimes that team changes QBs as a not-so-subtle way of tanking. Sometimes that new QB plays the role perfectly. It's not as easy as it seems! You have to be marginally acceptable as an NFL QB or the fans (and in turn the players, coaches and ownership) will revolt. But you can't be good enough that the team actually is better with you than it was with the guy you replaced; that ruins everything. Nate Peterman is that first guy - the guy who was so bad that the tank was immediately called off and the status quo mediocrity (Tyrod) was reinistated. We saw the same thing this year with Indy going with the utterly unprepared Sam Ehlinger. You can do this in Game 17 (think "Cardale Jones gets the start") because that fan revolt doesn't matter anymore. But you can't do it in Game 11. So my theory of "tank but don't look like you're actually trying to lose" means Peterman gets activated and then gets the Week 17 start when Fields sits out with a phantom injury. Meanwhile, guys like Taylor Heinecke and Gardner Minshew screw up your tank-and-get-better-draft-position strategy by actually being an improvement over the incumbent. You do not want these guys anywhere near your non-playoff team!

That was some horrid clock management. They had one timeout and Prater has the leg to hit from 60. 2 really slow developing plays and nothing ... Something makes me think he'd enjoy that more.

Damn ... Wanted the Chargers out of the playoff picture. They are - at least in theory - dangerous if they make it.

Yeah, not impressive given that the Cards really have nothing to play for anymore.

The next Miami game has me concerned. Dec 18, so there's 3 weeks to get maybe a little bit healthier and more in sync. And maybe for Miami to have their own critical injuries, etc. (not wishing for it, just saying it happens)

Umm, 30-0 at halftime ... I didn't watch it, but really ...

This is an outrage! They were only up 30-0 at halftime. Tua should be required to drop back to pass until he has either 300 yards passing (the wimp stopped at a gentlemanly 299 today) or a concussion. Preferably both. (Seriously ... Bills fans seem to be getting more than a little worried that the Dolphins may be legit. What else explains a comment like this?)

Well, there aren't that many future Hall of Famers playing QB today. There's Brady, Rodgers, Mahomes and Allen if they maintain this level for another decade or so ... and then other Super Bowl Hall of the Very Good QBs like Matthew Stafford.

Mike White is not scared out there. Which is the opposite of Zach Wilson. He’s also not a 37 year old larger than kid statue like Joe Flacco. So…I’m sorry the Jets finally figured out it’s time to give him a shot.

Too young to have experienced the Leodis McKelvin era?

Correct. Dane Jackson was toast is retrospective looking. This one is about the Dane Jackson problem going forward. And with that, I will issue a reminder that last year was our year.

This is why Leslie Frazier deserves credit, not blame. Dane Jackson, Christian Benford, and Damar Hamlin are recent Day 3 draft picks who should not be starters on any NFL team, much less a Super Bowl favorite team. That's not to say they're useless players - all 3 have had their moments this year (and Hamlin has generally been good in run support). It's just that they are all limited/role player guys pressed into critical roles.

If you check the archives here, I am quite sure you will also find "Never draft an Alabama QB." I think there was some sense to the old "Never draft a [name of college] QB" when college offenses were wildly different. It is the same way of thinking that got USC or Stanford labeled as NFL QB factories. It's really difficult to make it in the NFL

Well…no. There’s still a fair amount of randomness in football - weird bounces, perfectly thrown balls that bounce off a receiver and turn into interceptions, etc. The NBA season is too long and teams take certain games off, but you aren’t seeing a team without 2 or 3 legitimate stars ever losing to a team of replacement level players when it counts.

1. If the salary cap and other things are negotiated with the NFLPA - the players’ collective bargaining union - then it’s perfectly legal. 2. If not - and the NFLPA seems to be saying that they never bargained for standard contracts being non-guaranteed - then it is illegal. Execs from Walmart, Target, Costco, Home Depot, etc. aren’t allowed to all get together at a private meeting and agree that nobody will pay a starting sales associate more than $10 (or $20, or whatever) per hour. That’s illegal and it has been illegal for a century or so. As to whether they can prove it? That’s a different story. But the baseball player’s association - a much stronger and better run union - has been able to prove collusion before, most recently proving that teams colluded to put a ceiling on salaries of free agent players.

I think I am the only football fan in the world who thought that Bryce Brown was screwed out of a legitimate shot.