The Frankish Reich

A very revealing weekend so far in the NFL: - Chargers are pretenders until they show they're not. Same with the Cards. Raiders were and still are not ready for prime time. Pats are trash. - Dolphins/Jags are for real - Bills are still the cream of the crop, but injuries (and away games) will catch up with anyone in the modern NFL. QUESTION FOR MR GOODELL: Bills play the Dolphins twice a year. How about September in Buffalo, December in Miami? Do you actually enjoy players cramping up and fainting in Miami in September? - Packers are still the Packers, Rams are still the Rams

A coach who's losing and starting to lose his composure? It's stupid. Chargers deserve a couple decades of misfortune for leaving SD.

Of course. You will search far and wide for someone - even some troll - willing to say that Goff is better than Allen. The only legitimate argument is "would you rather have Mahomes or Allen?" (Or Aaron Rodgers if we're talking about one year only) But that doesn't mean Tua sucks. He's developed nicely in Miami, and now has a coach who really seems to understand what he does well. I'm impressed with how quickly he's adapted to McDaniel's system. It doesn't hurt having Waddle and Tyreek either ...

Chargers being Chargers. I don't know what it is about them. We can't blame Philip Rivers anymore. They still objectively are in the top 8 or so teams talent wise, but it just never clicks. Now the Chargers are stupidly playing Herbert, Ekeler, a bunch of other starters, down 28 points with 4 minutes left.

And it's official: the Jags are actually kind of good. Last year I saw them getting to around where the Bills were a few years ago. Lots of talent, playing some competitive games, Lawrence starting to get it, etc., etc. But not finishing games. Now it's happening.

Agreed. Now as for the safety rule: punters are just too damn good these days. A free kick from the 20 is usually going to mean 60 yards in the air, sometimes more, with plenty of hang time for coverage. So what you saw today is kind of the norm - the team that was awarded a safety gets the ball on the wrong side of their own 30. I don't think that was the idea when the rule was written. So let's skip the free kick and give the "scoring" team the ball at their own 40, or 45, or midfield. That will end a lot of the discussion about "taking a safety" being the best option when a team is pinned back on 4th down deep in their own territory.

Well, you can (and very well may) win with Josh Allen. But so far ...

OK, so can we finally put the "Tua sucks" thing to rest? He's not Josh, he's not Mahomes, he's not Rodgers, he may not even be Herbert. I saw some really accurate throws today, some pretty long balls, and the ability to get rid of the ball exceptionally quickly. How about "he's pretty good, and he's doing everything they ask of him in this system?"

Correct. Laddered for different maturities over the next 3 years. Mostly in a taxable account so for high tax states like NY or CA (I’m in CO) you get the extra kick of no state income tax. My plan in to wait out the Fed there. Historical data show that markets typically don’t start turning bullish until the Fed is done with interest rate increases. When they signal that they’re at that point (it won’t be till 2023 at the earliest, probably 2nd quarter) I will start moving the matured T bills back into equities, but of course that also depends on what bonds are paying at that point.

Good questions. This is for good old fashioned income. I’m laddering T bills with no expectation of selling them until maturity. Not all of my retirement account (retirement is coming), but a part of it. I’m pretty risk averse at this stage of my life, so I’m glad to see safe, steady returns make a comeback.

Does he have any issues with the 15th Amendment, or is that one o.k.?

Haha. Smart move, Deek. Can the Broncos and Colts work out a Frank Reich for Nathaniel Hackett trade? That’s my outside the box proposal. I work with a lot of Broncos fans and I warned them about whiz kid Hackett… Broncs need a grown up in the room. Reich needs a semi washed up QB instead of a fully washed up one

Hey, ever heard that there’s no such thing as a free lunch? EDIT: hey, I see from that same Zero Hedge story you pasted here that none other than ELIZABETH WARREN agrees with you. You may want to contemplate what that says about your monetary policy.

Happy Days are here again for fixed income investors! I just laddered a bunch of Treasuries in one of my retirement accounts. The Fed is hellbent on crushing inflation. Yeah, there will be a little (or lot of) recession to get the job done, so watch out, markets. But the Fed sees inflation now at about 3.5 percent ongoing (not the backward looking year over year), and they say they’re committed to bringing it down to their 2 percent target. With 2 year Treasuries now over 4 percent, there’s real money to be made in super safe income investments. Depends on where you are in your life, but for me, the return of a normal interest rate environment is a good thing.

I’ve talked to many hardcore Red Sox and Cubs fans over the years. And yes, while they wouldn’t dream of trading their recent successes for a decade or two of additional failure, I do get the sense that there was something they perversely enjoyed about being fans in their lovable perennial losers. It’s kind of a clubby thing — only the truly committed pay attention to a team that always falls short, sometimes way short. An elite club of losers. Or loser supporters. Hey, I’m not there yet with the Bills! Give me a couple Super Bowls and I may start pining for the days of Jauron and Marrone. I’m just saying I get it, the OP’s question. I mean, a kinda get it. A little🤔

There is nothing “incoherent” about Biden’s response. He’s right about the change in country of origin of the latest wave. For decades we’ve been basically stuck with Cuban migrants, whether or not they have valid refugee claims. Cuba has taken back a tiny percentage of those ordered deported. And now the same thing is happening with Venezuelans and Nicaraguans. There’s no easy solution Now, there is some degree of bs there too, since there are many Colombians, Peruvians, Brazilians, Africans, etc. mixed in, and there’s no similar problem there. But the Biden response is coherent, albeit incomplete.

Is it really a conundrum? As in “an intricate and difficult problem; example: “He is faced with the conundrum of trying to find a job without having experience.” Perhaps more of a puzzle, or a riddle to be solved. A rebus if you will …

I know this is the every silver lining has a cloud thread, but on the optimistic side: - time for Shakir’s fans to pump the brakes a bit. It was his first real game action, and it showed. But it’s way too soon to write him off as a potential weapon this year. - Cook: same thing. Dorsey wouldn’t be trying to work him into the mix if he wasn’t showing some real skills in practice. They will find the plays that work for him, and he will have an impact before the season is over. - Moss: we are getting spoiled here. A good, hard runner. Probably not exactly the kind of complement to Singletary that would work best for us, but I’m confident he too will have his moments - Kumerow: I thought he filled in beautifully. Nice to have this guy on your bench as well as on special teams.

Yeah, if anyone can squeeze another productive season out of him it’s Brady. I’d like to see Cole end his career on a higher note. But unfortunately now I can’t take any joy in whatever success he might have.

That was the case historically. Not so much now (i do have some personal experience in this area). For example, from a newspaper catering to the U.S. Cuban community: https://havanatimes.org/features/tens-of-thousands-of-cubans-travel-to-the-usa-via-nicaragua/

Do you know that Cubans now typically: - fly to Nicaragua (commie buddies don’t require visas from Cubans) - fly (or travel overland) to the US border - enter through the Arizona desert, surrender, and claim asylum? Exactly what the Venezuelans do. Yet DeSantis handpicks Venezuelans to send to Martha’s Vineyard. I wonder why.

If taking his name off the wall makes him stop coming to Bills games, please, Mr and Mrs Pegula, make it happen. Now. I mean surely they’re not gonna put his name up there all over again in the new stadium?

Former athletes do some of the most embarrassing things. Favre shows up on late night TV hawking some kind of snake oil. But apparently that’s not enough. He also needs to screw over the people of his own state. There’s also a class of politicians and local businessmen (yes, they are all men) who will do anything to suck up to their old sports heroes. Including screwing over the people of their own state.

Oh, I agree. If DeSantis were to do this to CUBANS, there’d be an outcry in Florida and he just might lose votes. So he won’t. Q. Is there any reason newly arrived Cubans would have a better moral claim (not to mention legal) claim to stay than newly arrived Venezuelans? No. If Cuba is an 10 on the political oppression/economic basket case scale, Venezuela is surely an 11. But you also misunderstand the situation of Venezuelans. There’s a lot of Republican support among that much smaller community, and yes, some cross-affiliation between Cubans and Venezuelans. (This is not about Mexicans or Central Americans). So this isn’t necessarily a big win for DeSantis in Florida. Of course, he correctly assumes he’ll cruise to reelection in Florida. This is about out-Trumping Trump on the national scale.

I don’t get the Tua disparagement here. Let’s start with one premise absolutely everyone agrees with: 32 out of 32 NFL GMs would choose Josh Allen over Tua as their franchise-starting QB. So that’s not an issue. We’re then Left with (1) residual 1970s/80s Dolphin Hate - time to get over that; (2) “I told you so” know it alls who said Tua was too small, too whatever who hate to be proved wrong - get over that too. Maybe he’s getting it (last year) and now has a coach and fantastic athletes (this year) and those things are helping him to get the most out of his non-Josh/non-Mahomes talents. Good for him. I like watching that short pass/explosive YAC offense, just as long as we aren’t the opposing team. It may not be enough to get you to a Super Bowl but it’s fun to watch. Finally, admit it. If we hadn’t taken Josh and instead had taken Darnold, we’d be all over Beane for not finding a way to get Tua when he came out of Bama. He would’ve been our best QB prospect since Kelly.