SoTier

Unless there's a player they really want, what's the point of moving up? At the very least, late picks in the Day 1 and Day 2 rounds should yield some solid depth players.

2009 wasn't Nix/Gailey. Jauron was still HC and Russ Brandon was still GM in 2009 although Nix was on the Bills payroll. Gronk wasn't Jauron's kind of guy any more than Marshawn was.

I think that Garoppolo is a lot like Sam Bradford: his injury issues obscure the fact that he's not all that great a QB.

The beat goes on: four dead, including a child, in mass shooting in Orange County, California: Orange County

Exactly this. The track record of NFL GMs/HCs hitting on franchise QBs through the draft has been pretty dismal. During the 2000s, only about 50% of first round QBs have been "successful" enough to be decent NFL starters for a few years. Hitting on a true franchise QB -- a top tier QB for most of his career -- is much harder, so the odds are much longer. Between 2000 and 2017, 11 of the 18 drafts failed to produce franchise QBs even though at least one QB was drafted in those rounds, and usually more. Moreover, during that same period, some other teams found long term franchise QBs outside of the first round (Brady, Brees, Wilson) which also counts against NFL teams' prowess in picking QBs. First round QBs who developed into top tier (ie, franchise) QBs for most of their careers since 2000 include: Carson Palmer (2003, #1), Eli Manning (2004,#1), Philip Rivers (2004, #4), Ben Roethlisberger (2004 ,#11), Aaron Rodgers (2005, #24), Matt Ryan (2008, #3), Matthew Stafford (2009, #1), Andrew Luck (2012, #1), Patrick Mahomes (2017, #10), DeShaun Watson (2017, #12). From the class of 2018, Josh Allen (#7) looks the most likely to join the group of career top tier QBs, at least partly because the Bills have provided him with great support. Baker Mayfield (#1) seems the next most likely. Lamar Jackson may also become a long tier top QB but Baltimore's offense, at present, seems to work against his development. There have been some other decent QBs drafted in the first round during these years like Michael Vick, Alex Smith, Jay Cutler, Joe Flacco, Cam Newton, Ryan Tannehill, Teddy Bridgewater, and Jared Goff but they haven't been long term top tier QBs. Between 2000 and 2017, 11 of the 18 drafts failed to produce franchise QBs.

Agree. Watson isn't some marginal starting QB but a top tier one. As long as his legal issues remain civil and not criminal, there will be teams interested in him.

Maybe. I think that Watson's trade value has fallen to the point where he might be affordable to teams that couldn't afford him earlier but are willing to overlook his legal problems (which are civil not criminal at this time). If the Texans really want to get rid of him and his contract before the draft, they can probably find a trade partner. Watson and Belichick would be a match made in hell for the Bills.

Because I pointed out some reasons why teaching is hard, and you don't think it really is? It's just "not easy" in your view which is, at best a backhanded compliment, that allows you to complain about teacher compensation: FYI, in NYS, teachers need to have a master's degree in order to get their permanent certification, or license to teach. In order to teach in public schools in NYS -- and get one of those "benefit rich" teaching jobs -- a teacher has to be certified. Beginning teachers with only bachelor's degrees have 5 years to get their advanced degrees in order to keep their jobs. This article evaluates the value of master's degree in various occupations in terms of salary (Salaries for Master Degree Holders).

Spoken like somebody who has never ventured into a school except under duress. As a former teacher who traded all those days off and "fat" paychecks and benies for a "regular" job in IT, I can say from experience that teachers' time off and renumeration are greatly overvalued by those not in the trenches. Teachers' days don't end when they walk out of school because they bring work home with them, usually lesson plans that need to be created/revised or papers to correct. Many of the days or half days when students are not in the classroom, teachers are attending meetings and "in-service" training sessions. Most parents have found out this past year how hard it is to deal with only their own children all day, every day, when their kids aren't particularly interested in doing something. Multiply that several times over for teachers and add into the mix the natural tendency for not all people (including children) to get along with one another. That's not even counting the kids who may come to school with other issues that influence their behavior or the administrators who decide to micro-manage how the curriculum is taught or a colleague who always manages to get under your skin or how warm, sunny days can distract even the best students. My guess is that you wouldn't last a day.

Your problem is that you are assuming that having a child is a rational decision. Too many people don't think beyond the moment, and too frequently, it's not even any kind of "decision" as illustrated by adolescents with raging hormones or adults who party too hearty.

From the get-go, Allen demonstrated remarkable leadership and the ability to learn from his mistakes even when he was a raw, poorly coached rookie on a team with limited offensive talent. Allen's improvement between his rookie and sophomore seasons was remarkable, and last year, he successfully mastered his tendency to play "hero ball". Darnold is essentially still the same QB he was a rookie, which suggests that he's not going to get better. Why would Belichick want Garappalo back? Is he better than Cam at this point in their careers? Probably, but he's not worth his contract or whatever the Pats would have to give up to get him. A couple of weeks ago, one of the shows on NFLN had a piece on Lance, and brought up the comparisons to Allen. One of the commentators called Josh Allen a unicorn - the mythical beast GM/HC hopes to find but rarely does. Every draft there's probably at least one "project" QB with tons of raw talent that teams hope can become a great QB by refining his skills, but almost none of them ever actually do. I think there have only been 3 in the last 20 years who have truly turned into great QBs ... Tom Brady (2000 - 6th round), Tony Romo (2003 - UDFA), and Josh Allen (2018 - 1st round). Somebody will probably spend a first round pick on Lance, but the chances of him becoming a great QB are pretty miniscule. I think that TE is a position much like interior OLers: you can find good/great ones well outside of the first round ... and frequently outside the first round.

Another week, another mass murder in the US. This time it's ten dead in a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado. Last week, it was eight dead in Atlanta, Georgia. Mass Murder in Boulder, Colorado

You have unrealistic expectations. The better a team gets, the harder it is for that team to improve significantly not because of lower position in the draft but primarily because it's going to take adding really good players to be better than the players already on the roster or players who leave the team. That doesn't even take into account the salary cap. A bottom feeder team with a handful of players with better than mediocre talent can easily improve by signing mid-level FAs and picking wisely in the draft since their talent levels tend to be low at so many positions.

I thought the same thing --and they are -- so I read the entire article cited in the OP to find out more about this study. The author of the article explained that plants containing THC, nicotine and cocaine are found in the Mediterranean area, so the Egyptians could have had relatively easy access to them without traveling to the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, because the highest levels of these drugs were in found in people who died when very young, it's likely that they were used medicinally, probably ingested rather than smoked.

I don't have a problem with people getting on the ballot if they're actually trying to get votes even if they have no chance of getting elected. Some people just like to tilt at windmills, which is their right as Americans to do. It's likely to take more votes away from the candidate of one major party than the candidate of the other major party but it's not illegal or unfair. The Rodriguez guy in FL never campaigned, never participated in debates or town meetings etc. He simply got himself on the ballot in order to confuse voters, especially since Florida puts names on ballots in alpha order by name and the crooked Rodriguez appeared first because of his first name.

I did read your post as well as the others you posted in this thread, and I'll stand by what I said. You and several other self-identified "conservatives" in this thread are all in high dudgeon because people you think are "undeserving" of government assistance are getting some. You (the complainers generally) complained about people getting payments for their children. Somebody claimed some druggie allegedly used her stimulus check to buy drugs. You ranted about some politicians claiming the stimulus checks will help people who are struggling economically and criticized somebody using the stimulus check to fund his/her future retirement through an IRA. Well, you don't know what everybody else's situation is, so don't condemn people just to make yourself feel superior. Not everybody in this country is as lucky as you -- or me -- to be making big bucks and to not have been seriously impacted by the pandemic. I'm not making "big bucks" for somebody in the workforce, but for a retiree, I'm pretty flush -- and I'm less than three weeks away from being fully vaccinated. I used my first and second stimulus to pay some bills and donated the rest to various local charities. The third one is already spent on a cottage rental on Seneca Lake in August. As the stimulus being "bribery", my last payment just showed up in my bank account. The first stimulus payment was preceded by a letter letting me know I was getting a stimulus payment compliments of the POTUS. The median household income -- ie, half above, half below -- in the US in 2019 was about $68k. "Household" means the income from all household members -- paychecks, social security, disability payments, unemployment, pensions -- from mom and dad to grandma and grandpa to adult children living at home, etc. You remember 2019, don't you? Pre-covid days. The job losses in the pandemic have disproportionately affected people who make the lowest wages, usually service workers. Unlike white collar workers, service workers generally don't have the option to work from home. While the PPP program seems to have worked well for larger businesses, smaller businesses with only a handful of workers were left out. Three million women have left the workforce since the start of the pandemic, primarily to take care of their children. Most are not counted in the unemployment rate because they are not actively looking for work. Consider how that impacts their economic situations and that of their families. The income thresholds for the 2020 and 2021 stimulus payments are based on 2019 income tax data. Many individuals, couples, and business owners who were doing well in 2019 have seen their income plummet for any number of reasons outside of their control. The covid-19 virus has impacted many individuals and families by leaving some people with long-term medical problems that leave them unable to return to work. Others who were hospitalized for long periods face five or six-figure medical bills not covered by their health insurance. Some sectors of the economy have been effected more than others. Travel, tourism, and entertain have been decimated, from business owners and pilots who were clearing big bucks to wait and housekeeping staff who working for much more modest money. The protections against evictions has also diminished the income of real estate investors, but especially the smaller investors who may not qualify for PPP because they don't enough employees. Areas of the country with a high dependence on tourism have suffered far more than most other areas, and once again, that pain starts at the top and flows down to the bottom through all income levels. Your complaints and those of several others in this thread just reek of partisan bull manure.

Whine, whine, whine .... how dare the US government give some aid to Americans who aren't millionaires or to businesses that produce millions in profits!

CNN or CBS or 60 Minutes ran a story about this fake candidate back in the fall. I'm not sure if it was before or after the election. The gist of the story that I saw was that it's really easy to get on the ballot.

I believe white crime against blacks and black crime against whites run far behind same race crime for both blacks and whites. I believe there have been numerous statistical studies on this. I'm not sure which group of mixed race crime would be more.

Systemic racism in criminal justice isn't a conspiracy. It's a pervasive legacy that's left over from the days of Jim Crow, pre-Miranda police practices, and all the various influences in our culture that condition whites to associate Blacks with crime. For example, a black person walking down a street in a neighborhood that doesn't have few if any other black residents is likely to draw suspicion. Many of us whites may feel guilty about automatically thinking this but we've been so conditioned that we can't really help those thoughts from creeping into our conscious. Law enforcement agencies generally deal with law breakers of some kind. That predisposes police officers to assume the worse about most of the people they come into contact with. Marry the societal conditioning with law enforcment's assumptions about the people they deal with and you get similar responses all around the country, and frequently, from both black and white police officers. It's "systemic" because it's a pervasive problem throughout our society. It's not going to go away without persistent efforts to change hearts and minds, so denial of systemic racism simply perpetuates it.

If the police killed unarmed white men engaged in petty or non-criminal activity at the same rate that they kill black men engaged in petty or non-criminal activity, most Americans would believe they were living in a police state. It's most definitely a systemic problem because even in areas where the population is so white -- like 96-99% -- that virtually all the criminals are white, the police simply do not use deadly force against white males engaged in non-criminal or petty criminal activities with anything like the frequency they do against black men. I'm not talking about upper income suburbia but rural America where sometimes crime rates -- and certainly legal and illegal gun possession along with "outlaw" attitudes towards the law is widespread. Career criminals, mentally ill, and/or violent people don't just live in cities. I don't have any stats but my guess is that if you calculated violence against law enforcement on a per capita basis, that poor rural areas would outstrip poor urban areas.

He was po'd because she spilled his drink?

I think his college degree was in finance. My guess is that he's made more money than 99% of his Harvard classmates .

We live in the 21st century. Good design didn't end in 1970, and most Americans likely consider the "dogs playing poker" prints good "art". American civic architecture should be open to new design ideas just as it has always been. Keep in mind that at one time what we consider "classical and traditional" styles of architecture were "modern". Buffalo's City Hall is a marvelous Art Deco style building. In the 1930s when it was built, it was considered "modern" compared to Gothic Revival and Federal style that were popular in civic architecture decades earlier. Today, Art Deco style is considered more than worth preserving. Keep finding things to whine about.

Who is this "they"? The company that's making another Superman movie, this time with a Black Superman? It sounds like primarily an economic decision to me, but then I'm not imagining some evil conspiracy in every new or different thing that comes along.