That's No Moon

Yep. And newly constructed bridges usually do but not always. The new Tappan Zee bridge doesn't have them. Fun fact, the picture of the Skyway in that Wikipedia site is of a bridge that was built to replace a bridge that was destroyed in the exact same way as the Key Bridge was today. Ship collision. Hence when they built its replacement protection from ship collision was a strong consideration. The Key Bridge was built in 1977. There are TONS of older bridges in shipping lanes that don't have them. The South Grand Island Bridge is an example. The Bay Bridge in Annapolis doesn't have them either. Whatever they replace the Key Bridge with won't be built the same way. It'll either have the biggest dolphins you've ever seen or be a different type of bridge that gets the support pillars much further out of the shipping channel so any ship would ground itself before hitting them.

They aren't designed to handle lateral loads like that. They are designed to withstand compressing loads from above, not to be pushed over (or through) from the side.

Ships are really heavy and when moving represent a lot of kinetic energy. Bridges aren't built to withstand that.

I have a lot of questions. A lot. The first of which being how that happens on a clear night with no appreciable weather. The second is how does this happen when the ship has a harbor pilot on board and in command.

Apparently the Ukrainians and the Russians both like the Bills. C'mon Rog. Let it happen. For world peace.

We could hope the truckers who show up to move them remember their fuel rebates...

I'm shuttin' down the studio!

I look forward to getting completely boned by both the calling and non-calling of this at least three times next year.

They aren't, and that step is coming. Our refs can't even call false starts properly.

You expect them to tell you the equivalent of "plenty of good seats still available"? Of course they will try to cause some urgency for you to sign. They should be bigger.

Yep

And I wonder what part of that 10 percent interest M&T is charging is getting kicked back to the Pegulas for the privilege of being the bank that gets to make the loans.

That certainly is the optimistic way of looking at it.

I had my wisdom teeth out the day before and accidentally pulled a stitch knot through my mouth screaming at my television. I think I'll pass on watching that travesty again. Johnson had that game won, with one shoe on.

The real fun will start when the next round of people get brought in for the non "Club" seating. I don't think that will be in a month or two.

They are wildly inconsistent and the veteran players who are supposed to be there to steady a young team are some of the worst offenders of up and down effort, dumb penalties, stupid plays, etc. About a week ago Tuch made one of the worst plays I've seen in hockey. It was Squirt C level bad and he's supposed to be a veteran leader of the team. The power play is absolute dog water and that's on Ellis because they have plenty of firepower to have a good PP. It's the coaches' job to get the most out of the players and that hasn't happened. It's on the GM to give the staff all the pieces they need to compete and that hasn't happened either. It's an absolute clown show, top to bottom.

So you're saying you Clapped your trap? Yeah, and San Diego (idc what they call themselves) had a lot of trouble protecting Herbert.

Yeah, but it's buying loyalty like doing business with the mob builds loyalty. You are each loyal to each other because you have dirt on each other. That's kind of a weird thing to want to bring back. Form your friends perspective yeah I guess I'd be annoyed that 100k doesn't buy what it used to buy in terms of control and I appreciate why he'd want that back but I don't think giving him that back would be beneficial to the players and if the Universities want that scummy relationship back in the game then the whole sport should be stopped because it's too broken to fix. I see it as college football going corporate. They don't need your friend's dirty money anymore when there are businesses and individuals who are willing to pump legitimate money into the system now because now they are allowed to. A lot of them aren't looking for loyalty to the university specifically either, they want access to the player to openly rep their business or product in ways they used to not be able to do. They'll pick players from a certain school, but those relationships are openly transactional and temporary. I dunno, this feels healthier though I can appreciate why it's frustrating for people who have been at it awhile.

I don't disagree with this at all which is why I like NIL. It forces this stuff out into the open. I suspect that the reason why it's unpopular in some circles is BECAUSE it's forced it out into the light and people can comparison shop which has driven prices up in the marketplace and increases pressure on ADs and programs in general to aggressively, but indirectly, fundraise. The fans can directly call out your lack of NIL pool money now when before all they could do was grumble. It's another point of difference they have to recruit against. It was all much easier when a booster could give a kid a car in someone else's name or drop of envelopes full of untraceable cash and the schools could pretend not to know.

Right, but if your coach isn't playing me, Georgia's money is just as green. The coach is the person you have a connection with, the staff are the people who you interact with every day and who are invested in you as a person (if they are doing it right). Your friend writes checks and isn't going to have that level of connection with a player. You know how locker rooms work. The players are battling for the other people in the room ahead of anyone else. The really successful coaches are often the guys who do the best jobs building those relationships and getting the best out of the players, not the X and O guys. That's why the players are loyal to those sorts of coaches. If it's a bad coach the kids won't leave when that coach leaves. If it's a good one that they will miss? The example I look at a lot is the QB hoarding that top programs do. What does it matter if the NIL consortium gave me money to sign if I'm 4th string as a freshman and the same NIL group gives another 4-5 star QB money the following year? That NIL group doesn't have loyalty to ME as a player, they are boosting the University. If I'm not panning out for whatever reason they are more than happy to try to buy my replacement. Looking out for myself as a player I know I need to play. I need to play to improve and build my own career so that check I got has way less meaning and it only buys you so much loyalty. People in my world have funneled a couple hundred grand to UGA in the last couple years. They also signed some individual NIL deals with players, well known players that we've all heard of. It not because of any loyalty to those people as individuals. They couldn't have run away faster from one of their NIL players after some issues. So many really good QBs have transferred because they would have otherwise been blocked and it probably pisses people off when they leave but that movement has been good for players and the game in general.

This is the problem with the loyalty argument. That's the situation where the player deserves the school's loyalty in return and a lot of times they don't get it. If a kid who has been loyal goes out and suffers a debilitating injury in service of the school they deserve the ability to finish their education under the agreement they signed with the school. That's a reasonable and humane expectation. That is not what happens in many cases and that's wrong. The one open transfer is fine, but I also think that any time there is a coaching change the kids deserve the right to leave without penalty just like they can rescind their NLI in certain circumstances. If the university fires the coach that recruited them why should the kid have to stay? There's nothing saying that the schemes will stay the same or that that kid will have a spot with the new regime. If the coach just leaves on his own why should the kid be stuck? None of that is in their control. As much as I personally dislike Deion Sanders I respect the way he handled the existing players at Colorado. He came in, did Spring Practice and told the ones he didn't want that he didn't want them and he encouraged them to transfer. Yes that's self serving on his part to get scholarships back for his own use, but it's also being fair to the players. Hey, you're not going to play if you stay so if you want to actually play college football use the rules, find another school where you WILL play and go play there. With the old rules all of those players would have been stuck in a crappy situation where they weren't wanted, drop a level of competition, or sit out a year because of something that wasn't their doing. We can't go back to that.

And these are a lot of the players who are helped by the open transfer rules. They can go somewhere else where they will play and it frees up a scholarship for the team they left which helps them too. Nobody is complaining about these people leaving their programs, but they can't write rules only for good players.

That's a simple solution that doesn't need rules. Write better NIL deals with clawback language. The current lack of that language isn't on the kids, it's on the adults who are rushing to hand them money and write poor contracts. I've seen some NIL deal language myself and it's really naive. A. unless they get hurt then all bets are off. B. head count sports aren't the only sports that this impacts.

Except the schools aren't loyal to the players. Coaches get fired, kids are stuck, kids lose scholarships all the time to other kids that those same schools bring in to replace them, transfers or not. If schools want to make the loyalty argument then make scholarships guaranteed for 4 years and make them irrevocable unless the player is booted from the school for grades or discipline. THAT is loyalty to the player. They will never ever do that.

The problem will be that the players have already had a taste of the freedom. Imposing new rules restricting that at this point will come along with a raft of litigation. Frankly, if your friends wanted to sort it out, they could stop accepting transfers. They won't, none of them will. They'll all whine about it, but they'll all keep poaching from each other.