The Frankish Reich

Yep. The "3 yards and a cloud of dust" purists will gladly watch a new school 45-42 shootout. The casual fan will not stay tuned to a 9-6 field position/special teams thriller.

It's an interesting result. Seat of the pants analysis: a lot of this has to do with the percentage of foreign-born (excluding Canadian) residents. American football, is, well (North) American. Los Angeles simply doesn't have the demographics to drive Top 10 football viewership. Many of the rust belt cities do.

In 1972, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was asked about the impact of the French Revolution. “Too early to say,” he replied. With that in mind: the jury's still out on whether dumping Josh Rosen for Kyler Murray was a good idea.

Missed that. Too bad. But I did catch a few seconds of Wreckless Eric in another commercial. When I was a young boy My mama said to me "There's only one girl in the world for you And she probably lives in Tahiti."

I'm envious. I live in Colorado where nearly every trip I typically make would run into charging issues. I'm waiting. No fun buying a new toy and not being able to take it on a long roadtrip.

It won't happen, but ... I'd love to see another Bo Jackson 2 sports guy. Deion did it a bit (and I always thought he'd have been a tremendous ballplayer if he set his mind to baseball), AJ Brown is making some noises about trying baseball again ... Kyler could be a legend (if only the Cards would allow him to miss camp and the first 4-6 games). And then there's Michael Jordan ...

This is actually a really good idea. I mean, it'll never happen, but it's a good idea.

After years and years of bringing us washed up white nostalgia acts like Aerosmith, The Who, Madonna, Springsteen, etc., it is truly refreshing to see the NFL trot out washed up black nostalgia acts.

I dunno. He’s just an example of GMs doubling down on the latest trend. You like Sean McVay? Well how about Mike McDaniel? Theres no one successful type of NFL coach anymore. That “leader of men” thing has passed its expiration date. - the Jr High Gym Coach type, McDermott. He’ll run drills alongside you and dare you to keep up. - the Tough Guy Who’s Got Your Back Ron Rivera type. - the I’ve Seen It All and Earned Your Respect Andy Reid/Belichick type - the Wunderkind Would Be Called a Gym Rat if football were played in a gym McDaniel/McVay type (helps if your dad was a coach, but that can be overcome by hanging around for years as if your dad was a coach) As far as I can tell the only coaching style that’s effectively dead is the Rex Ryan Loudmouth Prototype. No one seems to be offering those guys a job. Jon Gruden was the final kick to the nuts of those guys.

Zay Jones. Your bargain alternative.

Weirdly enough, this makes me want it to happen. Every superhero (Allen/McD) needs a supervillain (Rodgers/Vrabel)

All of these 17s are making me craaaazyyyyyyyy...............

NFL refs now average $205,000/year. So long gone are the days of the "moonlighting referee." Sure, many have other jobs. So would you if your main gig required working 17 days a year.

Rex Ryan is a good example of what the Rooney Rule is supposed to accomplish. No, I don't mean "hire a white retread." I mean this: Rex got this interview and apparently so wowed the Pegulas that famous "don't let that guy leave the building without a contract" was attributed to Terry. That's how the Rooney Rule is supposed to work, except it ostensibly worked in reverse for Rex. Owners may start out by tending in one direction (Daboll), but then will be swayed by the charisma of a minority coach they are required to actually interview (rather than just giving him a paper consideration). And over time, that extra opportunity will start to show up in increased minority representation among NFL head coaches. It's similar to the reasoning behind the "ban the box" rules that don't allow employers to ask whether an applicant has a criminal record until later (ideally, post-interview) in the hiring process. On that, the record is far from unequivocally positive: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/ban-the-box-does-more-harm-than-good/ Even aside from that, the reasoning behind "ban the box" or Rooney Rule type procedural mechanisms is pretty weak when it comes to NFL hiring. This isn't a situation where you have dozens or hundreds of qualified applicants where there's some reason for not prematurely weeding out some of them based on employer bias. Everyone knows everything there is to know about a Daboll or Flores - the NFL coaching community is tiny and incestuous. The NFL needs to fix what has become an embarrassing lack of opportunity for qualified minority coaches, and the Rooney Rule is no longer necessary or sufficient.

Is he a good head coach? I don't know for sure. But by the way we usually rate head coaches he would be considered good: - did his teams outperform or underperform their true talent level? Flores wins on this one. He got the 2019 job and the Dolphins promptly traded away most of their decent players. And he certainly doesn't have top personnel now, yet his team finished very strongly but for that Titans game, and the Titans were ultimately the top seeded playoff team - did his teams show improvement over his tenure? Definitely - did he appear able to motivate his players, even under difficult circumstances? Absolutely Now there may have been an unspoken Dolphins Ross Rule: thou shalt tank when the owner wants you to tank. On that one, Flores was an epic failure.

Having read the complaint and the background, I've come to the conclusion that the most likely scenario is that everything Flores is saying is true. Oh sure, there's some things that are subject to interpretation (was Elway really nursing a hangover when he showed up an hour late to interview Flores?), but: - Flores is only 40. He's not likely to sabotage his future NFL career over minor slights. - His firing was always weird. He had finished strong, his players were obviously motivated to play for him, and Tua actually had a fine second half that restored his value. - I think everybody thought "the Dolphins must have some celebrity coach ready to go." A Harbaugh type. But now it seems like they didn't. So ... did Ross actually try to get Flores to tank the season? Flores refused, Ross got pissed, fired him, and badmouthed him to the rest of the NFL owners' club? I'm not sure what exactly precipitated the scorched earth lawsuit. Oh, I believe it is meritorious in a general sense (I really can't explain why we'd have only one black coach in these days), but it seems to me that Flores believed that his career had been destroyed by Ross even before the lawsuit. Flores seems angry (with cause), not insane.

And Kaep got real money. There's obviously an NDA so we don't know for sure, but Kaep reportedly something a bit under $10 million. Chump change in a league where Chase Daniel makes that much in a season, but still ...

While I can't agree with a lot of this, you do have a point: two of the teams he calls out (Denver and Miami) are, of course, two of a very small number of teams that have actually hired black head coaches in the last 5 years ....

Either a remarkably well-timed piece, or the writer had been talking to Flores or his counsel - this ran yesterday: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/will-nfl-be-sued-race-discrimination-against-black-coaches A Fortune 500 company with the same hiring practices as many NFL teams would almost certainly already have had multiple major lawsuits against it under anti-discrimination laws such as Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This begs the question then of what a potential race discrimination/glass ceiling case against an NFL team would look like. Note: While a lawsuit against the entire NFL could be considered, a legal claim against an individual NFL team, as opposed to the league, is covered in this article. This one was a head scratcher - am I forgetting about a black Bills coach, other than on an interim basis? I mean, Anthony Lynn counts? Perry Fewell? And certain NFL teams have never hired a Black NFL coach. According to a study by USA Today, six NFL Teams have never hired a Black candidate (or any person of color) as their head coach or general manager on a full-time basis: the Atlanta Falcons, Dallas Cowboys, Jacksonville Jaguars, Los Angeles Rams, New England Patriot, New Orleans Saints, and Tennessee Titans

Or college.

True. That’s what you get when an EEO type lawsuit is filed - all your dirty laundry, relevant or not, is going to be aired. if nothing else it compels a settlement.

In the category of being able to hold two seemingly conflicting opinions in my mind at the same time: - the Rooney Rule isn’t working. In a world (that of NFL coaches) where everyone knows everything about every coaching candidate, the rule is just wasting the time of a lot of minority candidates. I see why Flores is angry. - the NFL has a big problem with not affording opportunities to minority coaches. In a league where almost 60 percent of players are black we have exactly one black head coach? We seem to be developing a strong bench of NFL assistants; what’s keeping them from being promoted? A little legally compelled soul searching here wouldn’t be the worst outcome of this lawsuit.

I’ve been kind of ambivalent on the Rooney rule. I like the idea that the NFL nudged teams toward considering minority candidates seriously, but obviously with the way the NFL is today the intent of the Rooney rule - the “once you interview the guy you may be wowed by him and set aside your previous plan” - is more than a bit naive. Flores is obviously going to throw as many embarrassing details out there as he can. He’s got a lawsuit he wants to win and a righteous point he wants to make. The NFL is weirdly backsliding on minority hires now while other leagues go in the opposite direction. But having said that, the Broncos/Elway allegations strike me as a little unfair. After all, they had just given Vance Joseph a chance as one of the very few black head coaches. And if I remember correctly, Joseph was considered the leading candidate all along while the Broncs conducted interviews with other candidates who didn’t stand a reasonable chance.

One of the things I resolved to never, ever do again as soon as I moved away from home many, many years ago: buy fake maple syrup. The real stuff really isn't that expensive. There is no excuse for fake maple syrup.

Agreed. But with one caveat: "Indian" is very much back as a term used by American Indians, including one of my American Indian co-workers. She much prefers it to "Native American" for a variety of reasons. And she gets to choose so I'm fine with that, as long as we understand that most people who use "Native American" around her mean no offense.