SoTier

I disagree. I had Directtv for about 7 years but I went back to Spectrum (cable) because it had gotten so expensive. I was paying as much just for Directtv (with 4 tvs) as I now pay for tv and internet plus HBO and Showtime. I only have to pay for 1 tv because I use basic ROKUs to stream from the Spectrum app for the other three -- and I don't have to go out in the cold to clean snow off the satellite dish after a snowstorm. I can also add more tvs simply by purchasing more ROKU units.

Is this Curtis Rush guy the same guy who advocated a few months ago that regularly letting proven franchise QBs walk in FA rather than paying them and replacing them with a rookie was a viable strategy for NFL teams? IIRC, that article was from Forbes also. It was a great justification for teams putting profitability ahead of winning, and this article on the importance of having a top WR (or in Rush's case, not having one) seems to be in the vein. It works if $$$ is more important to a team than winning lots of games. Teams have #1 WRs because they're weapons, which teams need to have if they're interested in winning a lot of games in the modern NFL. You can make all the excuses you want for the Bills not having a top flight WR but don't pretend that it's "better" for the Bills chances to win games to not have a WR of the caliber of Beckham, Bryant, Cooper, etc. on the team.

My first two cars not only didn't have AC, they only had AM radios. I have central air in my current home. I put it in 16 years ago when I had the furnace replaced. I replaced the furnace two years ago, but I use the AC infrequently (less than 2 weeks a year on average), so it probably has been used about as much as a 2-year-old unit in other parts of the country.

I don't think you're alone in that assessment of the Bears. I've seen several media types question how good they are. I guess part of that comes from whether Trubisky will continue to develop from "decent" to good, but part of that also comes from the belief that the other NFCN teams all took steps to get better. BTW, Miami had a worst-to-first rise, albeit briefly, a decade ago: the Carp went 1-15 in 2007, changed regimes, and went 11-5 and won the division in 2008 (the year that Brady missed virtually the entire season). It was a mirage ... they soon returned to mediocrity.

I think this is a myth. What teams in the last decade or so have done this and had long term (ie, mutliple year) success as measured by playoff appearances and wins? Lots of people talk about this but the examples they give aren't very recent, so they aren't good models for the current NFL. The teams that have made sudden turn-arounds in recent years like Philly, the Rams, the Chargers and Chicago all built around the talent already on those teams, even when the team as a whole was underperforming.

Actually, there's been considerable positive buzz about Flores on the NFL Network and other shows. It's more than just his cred from being a Pats assistant. Apparently, he's brought an entirely new mindset to the Carp. The one I really don't get is San Francisco because Garoppolo has done squat in his five year career except ride the pine and collect checks either because he was a backup or he was hurt. He's had 10 starts total going into his 6th NFL season.

Thank you for posting this. A related issue to mental illness and CTE is PTSD. All of these conditions can radically change the behavior of people but they have different manifestations in different people -- and as you note, you don't know if one of these conditions actually caused a specific action.

I think that you are being totally unrealistic. It's easy to say "stay out of bars for the next 8 years" but what should a young rich guy with his pockets full of money do for entertainment then? "Going out" to bars, dance halls, and honkytonks to drink and have a good time has been part of American culture since Prohibition, especially for young guys in their 20s, and that's a prescription for trouble and always has been. How many "respectable citizens" today were hell raisers in their twenties? I think that Hunt's best course is to work with a counselor/coach/advisor to control his alcohol consumption and develop strategies for dealing with confrontation/provocation without resorting to violence (anger management) since becoming a monk or hermit until he grows up probably isn't in the cards.

I agree. The reality is that the NFL and/or the NFLPA getting involved in stadium issues opens that nasty can of worms called "violation of anti-trust statutes". Unlike MLB, the other professional sports teams aren't protected from anti-trust scrutiny by the federal government. If an individual team wants to threaten relocation to pressure local or state taxpayers to ante up for a new stadium, that's an "individual action". If the league or the NFLPA tries to do the same, the federal courts could very well consider that an action "in furtherance of a monopoly". Congress could hold hearings and possibly compel NFL teams to open their books to public scrutiny (which as privately held businesses they aren't currently forced to do). It could get nasty.

The opposite of models who have to starve themselves.

Priceless!

Tell me they couldn't be twins!!!!

Especially the hair cut ... he looks like the guard from the old tv comedy "Night Court".

That's pretty much the western Southern Tier. Between being cheek-to-jowl with Pennsylvania and Ohio, with West Virginia a few hours south, as well as having a couple of Seneca Nation of Indians reservations in Cat County, fireworks of the aerial and boom kinds are easy to obtain, and fireworks' illegality doesn't seem to enter into the minds of anybody, not even law enforcement. Maybe the local gendarmes figure better the rednecks shoot off ordinary fireworks -- as long as they don't burn anything down -- than they "improvise". I usually go with a friend to her brother's shindig in his house that overlooks Chautauqua Lake. He sinks probably $3-4 grand into his show, and his richer neighbor spends at least 2 or 3 times that. Between them, they probably put on a better show than most of the little burgs around here. Most of the folks at this party, especially the ones doing the fireworks, are at least in their thirties so there's a whole lot less alcohol involved than there were at some of my family events a few decades ago.

Was the dog sitting in his lap and hanging out the window? I see this all the time around here, and it po's me no end. It's dangerous for the driver and dangerous for the dog. I learned my lesson about having an unrestrained dog in a vehicle in an accident 30 years ago (also learned first hand about the perils of falling asleep while driving) when I nodded off on the Thruway outside Utica, woke up as I was veering off the shoulder, cranked that steering wheel hard left and rolled my ten month old Nissan pickup. Because I was wearing my seatbelt, I ended up hanging upside down for several minutes until somebody helped me down, but my dog, sleeping in the extra cab space, dashed out the broken window, and sprinted along the side of Thruway. Lucky for me and my pup, he ran along near the fence and some Thruway staff collected him and took him to a local kennel. Ever since, my dogs ride secured with dog seatbelts, even around town. My current dog, a 14 week old Aussie cattle dog mix, rides in a crate right now, but he'll graduate to a seat belt in a while. I believe 1 or 2 states now require dogs and other pets to be secured in vehicles, and I think there's been talk of NY doing the same. Great idea for both drivers and their pets.

I think that this is the crux of the problem. The NFL has to justify its disciplinary actions, both according to US law, its own rules, and probably the CBA. Individual player contracts may also make it easier to dismiss one player and not another, depending up the wording.

That's essentially my point. You make it costly for those who break the rules, you make others aware of the consequences, and you offer alternatives (like designated drivers, free taxi rides, etc.) -- and you make the penalties fit the seriousness of the offense. Mandating that all drivers re-test every so many years is not going to do anything about drunk driving. It's not going to lower the number of accidents involving texting while driving or speeding or other bad behavior. People who behave badly know their behavior is bad but they don't care. All it does is unnecessarily punish people with the threat of losing their driving privileges when they've done nothing wrong.

Hunt got in trouble 3 times for his violent behavior just in 2018. All three incidents were documented on film. My guess is that KC warned him more than once, and finally just showed him the door.

No, just pointing out that he's not infallible.

This is why I don't think mandatory re-testing is a realistic solution. It's a simplistic reaction to a complex problem that advocates can say, "see, we doing something", but it just lumps the innocent in with the guilty. Most people are not bad drivers. We don't notice them when they do the right things simply because there are so many vehicles on most roads that bad ones are easy to spot Sometimes they do stupid stuff that they know they shouldn't do. Sometimes they don't actually know the absolute letter of the law in regard to a certain situation. Sometimes they're in situations where in an instant, they make a wrong decision. Education for the general driving population and targeted punishment for rule breakers is a much more productive strategy, although it's a harder solution to implement. The dramatic decline in traffic fatalities from accidents involving alcohol demonstrates that it can be done. In the 1970s, 60% of traffic deaths were caused from alcohol related accidents. Today, only 25% of traffic fatalities stem from alcohol/drug impairment. That was accomplished by anti-drunk driving campaigns, significantly raising the penalties for drunk/impaired convictions (license suspension or revocation and even jail time), lowering the thresholds from alcohol impairment levels, and raising the drinking age in almost all states as well as a change in attitude on the part of police and the courts about the seriousness of DUI. Mandating a safe driver/defensive driving course prior to license renewal seems to me to be a sounder approach for dealing with general driver attitudes than simply requiring re-testing. It provides a vehicle (pardon the pun) for reminding/refreshing the average drivers' knowledge of the best safety practices/rules of the road without threatening those who aren't good test takers with loss of their licenses.

"Illegals" are already driving in NY and in every other state -- without licenses -- so how is being able to acquire a valid drivers license -- which means learning the basic rules of the road, having basic safety training, and proving they can safely operate a motor vehicle -- going to make them worse drivers?

What makes you think that mandatory retesting is going to do anything about these problems? In the first instance, that's one question on a written test. People study for tests, and just because people know the rules doesn't mean that they follow them. People practice for road tests, too, and are on their best behavior. Most of the problems you described have to do with attitude not with knowledge or skill.

This is an interesting development. I think that a lot of predictions about the Chiefs in 2019 were assuming that Hill would miss half or all of the season.

Cook was the 5th player taken in the 1969 draft, and he started 11 games as a rookie -- for an expansion team in its second season. He had a decent rookie season in a league that didn't have the size nor the talent pool of the NFL, but like Robert Griffin, was his career truly derailed by his injury or was he one of those numerous first round QBs who fail to live up to where they were drafted? Nobody knows. Your quote from Mike Brown was a comment from the son of the man who drafted Cook, Paul Brown. Bill Walsh thought Trent Edwards was a great prospect.

This is just nonsense that has absolutely nothing to do with any "requirement" for "a good knowledge base" except for participants in a pre-1970 pro football trivia contest. Brown is a commentator on the NFL today, specifically the Bills. Why should anybody be expected to remember a QB who only started 11 games in the last year of the AFL in 1969 (40+ years ago) unless they had some kind of connection to him, such as being a long time Bengals or U of Cincinatti fan?