Tolstoy
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Posts posted by Tolstoy
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I'm not sure how I missed this latest incident of brain trauma, but read this from CNN. Read it! It is frightening: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/04/01/brain.concussion.dronett/index.html?hpt=C2
Here, friends, is the real reason that the NFL came down on head-shots last year. The owners are scared, very scared, that their money train is coming to an end, and they know the real cause. Of course, the latest pathetic crusade against head shots would have done nothing to save Shane, and I suspect the owners know that. They are just feeding the illusion that tackle football is a fine and healthy sport, and it is just the violent rule-breaking miscreants who make it unsafe. What I can't figure out is why the Players Association (or should I say "former" players association, since the NFLPA has disbanded, and the poor players are now simply a group of defenseless individuals being preyed upon by the greedy monopoly that is the NFL owners) are not up in arms about this. Is it perhaps that their money train would end too, and they have no other choice of profession at this point?
Shane was 39 years old.
Professional football as we know it will come to an end soon. The NFL will suffer massive lawsuits from former players who have dementia and brain injury, as well as their families. Parents will not enroll their children in the sport once these findings are confirmed. The NFL will try to implement various and sundry protections, but it is the very nature of the sport (the constant sub-concussory hitting) that is the problem. The outcry of the media will be incessant. Unless football goes "touch," it will end.
Just wait.
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Here is a happy thought! If the NFL were to miss an entire season (which I highly doubt), and the Bills were to pick 3rd, we would have a very, very good shot at Luck! It may well be that at least one or two other players creep ahead of Luck after an entire year of college football (or the two teams ahead of us might not be interested in QB as a top priority).
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I have not read Rolling Stone in a long long time. But when did they hire12 year olds to write for them?
I acknowledge that the writing seems a bit choppy, but I think that is by intention, to give it a certain tone. I am not an avid reader of Rolling Stone, but often have been very, very impressed by the writing quality when I have had the chance to read it. For example, I am a religiously sensitive person (and rather conservative) but one of the funniest things I have EVER read was an article several years back in which Matt Taibbi infiltrated John Hagee's Christian organization. I think it was called something sacrilegious like "Jesus Made Me Puke." I tried to find it, but I think it is in their archives, and I'd have to pay money to get it.
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I am not sure that we should assume that he will go #1 next year. He may not have as great a season, or get injured, or other great players might show up (QB, DE, OL, RB) etc. In other words, we might not need to be first in the draft order to get Luck. Having said that, I'd be surprised if he dropped lower than #5.
I have to say that his decision only heightens my respect for him. I am a college professor, and take education seriously. I am really pleased by the message this sends to young kids in America.
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Of course that's your contention. You're a first year grad student. You just got finished reading some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison, probably. You're gonna be convinced of that til next month when you get to James Lemon. Then you're gonna be talking about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That's gonna last until next year; you're gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin about, you know, the pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital forming effects of military mobilization.
Your response: Well, as a matter of fact I won't, because Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social...
Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth? You got that from Vickers' "Work in Essex County" ,page 98, right? Yeah, I read that, too. Were you gonna plagarize the whole thing for us? Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or do you, is that your thing, you come into a bar, read some obscure passage and then pretend, you pawn it off as your own, as your own idea just to impress some girls, embarrass my friend?
See, the sad thing about a guy like you is, in 50 years you're gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you're going to come up with the fact that there are 2 certainties in life. One, don't do this...and two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an f*$@!ng education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.-Will Hunting.
You kinda sound like the dork at the bar Tolstoy.
And you sound a bit like a guy who spends all his time at the bars, my friend. More books, less movies for you. It will be good for you.
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The "Good Will Hunting" response was genius!. Well played. You can't come on this board and throw your brain around. If your were really smart, you'd be doing something else!
DO YOU LIKE APPLES?!
It is amazing to me. This guys gets praised for citing a Hollywood movie. I get lampooned for telling him to read two books on the nature of a Liberal Arts education after he suggested such an education is less than praiseworthy. I can laugh at myself and the irony of this whole situation. It really is funny, given my original point in this thread.
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Of course that's your contention. You're a first year grad student. You just got finished reading some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison, probably. You're gonna be convinced of that til next month when you get to James Lemon. Then you're gonna be talking about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That's gonna last until next year; you're gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin about, you know, the pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital forming effects of military mobilization.
Your response: Well, as a matter of fact I won't, because Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social...
Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth? You got that from Vickers' "Work in Essex County" ,page 98, right? Yeah, I read that, too. Were you gonna plagarize the whole thing for us? Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or do you, is that your thing, you come into a bar, read some obscure passage and then pretend, you pawn it off as your own, as your own idea just to impress some girls, embarrass my friend?
See, the sad thing about a guy like you is, in 50 years you're gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you're going to come up with the fact that there are 2 certainties in life. One, don't do this...and two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an f*$@!ng education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.-Will Hunting.
You kinda sound like the dork at the bar Tolstoy.
Not quite sure I understand your response. But that is ok.
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You're making a mountain out of a molehill. "What's most important" is just a phrase dude. It's not meant to be taken literally. In this case, it means his not being an arrogant ivy league a-hole greatly helps his leadership by not alienating his teammates who majored in liberal arts while attending some football factory school down south.
Hold on a minute, "dude." Back up. Did you just associate "majoring in liberal arts" with a "football factory school education"????? I'm not sure where you are coming from here, but a degree in literature, theology, or philosophy, to me, is an intellectual achievement. I will not stoop to denigrating other disciplines, but anyone who studies the seminal ideas of our intellectual tradition, and who learns to think, read, write, and speak, as required for a degree in the liberal arts, is an educated person of the highest order.
Any idea why they are called "Liberal" arts????? Go read Cardinal Newman's Idea of a University, or Joseph Pieper's Leisure: the Basis of Culture, and then we will talk. You just picked fight with the wrong "dude."
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There's an Ivy League joke: "You can always tell a Harvard man" "Yeah, but you can't tell him much!"
It's funny because there's that element of truth to it.
Fitz isn't like that, is all I think Chris Brown is saying.
Right--I get that part. As the initial poster on this one, I just want to say that what bothered me were two things:
(1) The claim that "what is most important" in the football locker room is that a player does not flaunt his academic achievements. He can flaunt other achievements, such as athletic achievements. He can wear his football achievements as a "badge of superiority" (this happens in every locker room), but God forbid he should seem in any way SMARTER than his mates.
(2) The implicit assumption that having gone to Harvard does make you superior! In a strange and ironic twist, Chris Brown's remark about this shows that he at least does think that having gone to Harvard makes you superior, otherwise he wouldn't have even mentioned it as even worthy of a "badge of superiority." Who really cares where Fitx went to school? Maybe its just me, but I could really care less where you got your B.A. If you studied hard and got your B.A from Canisius or UB, you get just as much respect from me.
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Here is what Chris Brown says in a recent report about Fitz:
"Perhaps most important is even though Fitzpatrick comes with a Harvard pedigree, he doesn’t wear it like a badge of superiority."
Just curious: why is this what is "most important?" Why is it more important than any other qualities? Why isn't it ok for him to be proud of his degree?
What bothers me is that this country is so bloody egalitarian and anti-intellectual that we don't appreciate anyone's intellectual achievements. God forbid Fitz should let it be known that he has a Harvard degree (as if that is something he should strut around with for the rest of his life anyhow). No, he must act like a normal dummy because that is what is important. Getting along with the guys. Being one of the crowd.
Stupid.
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i just heard this on pardon the interruption,
Hillis only needs 38 yards to be the first white running back to gain 1000 yards sense Craig James in 1985.
That is an unbelievable stat. First, it is a complement to P. Hillis. Second, it is a question: why are there more successful black running backs than white running backs?????
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I have always been a "win now and don't worry about the draft" kind of guy. I have always believed that a team benefits itself more by digging deep within and finding a way to win, than getting (and squandering) high draft picks year after year. Winning builds a whole team, and enables all of its young players to develop their potential, while losing creates a sink-hole in which the greatest talent becomes worthless.
Until now.
I have watched some of Luck's games, and read the scouting reports. This kid is for real. The Bill's need to get this guy. In retrospect, are a couple of measly victories worth watching this kid lead another team to victory over the next decade???? I cannot believe that Carolina will beat us out on this one. The universe cannot be that unjust. Perhaps the lockout will alter the draft (or Luck won't come out). I will quit watching football if Carolina drafts Luck. I will devote myself full-time to soccer, which is a better game anyhow.
Go ahead and rag on me. Fools! If the Bills lose luck, there is no God, there is no meaning to life, and when you die, there is nothing good to look forward to. The world is just governed by random chance, and there is no justice. I will have seen it, but the rest of you lemmings will be still following the losing Bill's franchise off of the cliff, ten years later--claiming "loyalty" to your team, and to "American football."
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A nice piece on Jim Leonard, "the QB of the Jet's defense," one of the best defenses in the NFL. This guy was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Bills, wasn't he? Tough luck for him with the recent injury.
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Not boring in the least! In fact, I'm quite envious. I happened to rent an old farm for five years, and spent days with a metal detector going through the fields. Lots of old nails and junk...but, I did find an old 1940's pocket knife. That was very cool. Made my day. Have you tried a metal detector?
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On the business of souls, the ancient Greeks simply saw it as the principle of life in a living organism, that which gives the living body its ability to move and change of its own accord, and which holds the body together. The difference between a live animal at one moment, and that same animal dead in the very next instant, is the absence of such a self-moving principle. Now whether that soul lives on after death is another question entirely, but that all living things possess it (including plants) seems a relatively self-evident truth. To deny the existence of soul in a living being is to run the danger of mechanism, whereby all that an animal is, is material parts put together in the right way, so that nothing in principle distinguishes a human being from a pile of dirt--except, that our parts are organized more fittingly (and how does that happen, one wonders, if there is no recourse to "soul"?).
So, of course fertilized embryos have a soul (they are alive, right?), and of course they are human (they are not frog, cow, or dog, right?), and the actual structure of this individual living human organism possesses all the potential for human activities, so it is an actual human person to my mind.
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So, it appears that our defense is far outperforming the offense in camp, and while that is not unusual, it might indicate that the defense is poised to make some leaps forward this year. From all reports, the secondary has been eating up the offensive passing game. That too is not a surprise, since the secondary is the strength of this team.
Here is my question: Does it help or hurt a developing offense to be playing against such a dominant secondary in practice everyday?
On the one hand, it arguably makes them stronger, since the O has to sharpen its play in the passing game.
On the other hand, I suspect it hampers them from developing any confidence and impedes their development.
Wouldn't it be better to have the O practice for a week against the second or third team--get some confidence and rhythm, and then gradually test them against a stronger and stronger defense?
As it is now, it sounds like the passing game is in shambles, which bodes ill for the regular season.
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I can't remember his name, but I just read an article about another "phenom" that we have coming up through the ranks here in the US...I'll have to try and remember where I read it, but I know the kid will be on the U-20 team for their next WC.
I haven't given up hope with Freddy, either....glad to see you mention him. Hopefully he gets more time abroad with a decent club and can really refine his game.
Where is the WC in 2014 being held?
Is it Andy Najar, 17 year old playing for DC United now? See this link:
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Germany has been better than England for as long as I can remember watching World Cup Soccer, but this year I am picking England, for a variety of reasons.
As for the USA, for those of us who follow the national team year round, this was a tough loss to take. It was a game I think that the USA--given the development of the national team program over the last twenty years--should have won.
Bradley has a lot of strengths as a coach, but when the game started, and I saw Findley and Clark in the lineup, I knew this was bad news. Bradley was over-thinking the game. He needed to go with our best 11--and that means the players who have produced. Findley's speed did nothing all tournament, nothing. Clark was useful at times, but overall no composure with the ball, and too many horrible mistakes.
I really think that if the USA did not give up that early goal, we would have won that game. Oh well, no way to prove that.
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Folks,
The NFL has recently registered the decades old "Who Dat?" expression in connection with the Saints. Of course, the expression is a home-grown local one (not developed by NFL marketing), and the NFL never cared about it when the Saints were horrible. Now, all of a sudden, when the expression is selling T-shirts like crazy, the NFL suddenly claims to own it. This kind of greedy, opportunistic, power play against the small-time vendors of New Orleans is disgusting and ridiculous. Sometimes I just wish we could all boycott this whole greedy bunch of billionaires (players union not excepted) and make the league go bankrupt. Read about it here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...oWhatsNewsThird
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American football is played in the United States. The USA has about 312 million people. World football (soccer) is played in every country of the world. The world has almost 7 billion people.
There is simply no comparison. World football is not understood by the vast majority of Americans. Even kids who played a little in school have no idea about the skills and tactics of the game.
It is understandable that most Americans find it boring because they don't know what to look for and what tactics and skills are involved. It is kind of like reading a book in a language you don't understand. You put it down real fast.
I always find it humorous when world football is looked down upon by people who have no idea about the sport. Did you ever watch the guys on Around the Horn or PTI talk about soccer? Complete ignorance is hilarious when you see it!
"Football is the greatest sport ever invented and it's not really close." You are right, but you have the wrong football. The world's game is football. The American game is more throwball and stand around and do nothing ball between commercials and stoppages.
I watch American football only on a DVR and a complete game takes less than a half hour. Thank goodness.
I agree with you--as a coach, player, and founder of an inner city soccer academy. But you probably just started a war. I'm putting on my helmet now. Incoming...
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And there is constant action in soccer yet it bores the hell out of me. Football is the greatest sport ever invented and it's not really close.
I love American football, even though the stats I posted make me wonder why I like it so much. But I also love watching top-level soccer, especially the world cup. I may be wrong, but I think that part of the appeal in a sport is that other people care about it. So, if nobody cared about football in the country, I suspect my enjoyment of the game would be diminished greatly. Conversely, if everyone was excited about the LA Galaxy vs Real Salt Lake MLS final, and everyone was watching every play with anticipation, I would enjoy it all the more. As it is, I don't watch much MLS soccer.
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What are the chances that Ralph survives any possible lockout? What are the chances that the Bills stay in Buffalo after Ralph passes on? Not to be doom and gloom, but if next year is the last year of NFL for a while, it might be the last year of the Buffalo Bills...forever.
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Let's just assme for a minute that the various reports out there are true, and that Shanny, Cowher, Rivera, Weiss, Schotty Jr. and Sr., Harbaugh, and now Frazier have said "thanks but no thanks" to the Bills, leaving them almost completely out of viable options to fill their head coaching vacancy. Should the rest of the League sit tight while one of its storied franchises just whithers on the vine and slowly dies? Can the League even do anything at this point? You would think that Goodell, an activist Commissioner if there ever was one (not to mention a WNY alumn), might consider geting involved, at least behind-the-scenes, to assist with this situation before it becomes a full-fledged trainwreck. I'm sure the other owners don't care too much about a small market team in a dying region, but it has to be at least a bit of an embarassment to the League and also a concern that the competitiveness of the game is threatened if one of its franchise can't fill its coaching vacancy. Perhaps the League could push Ralph to change his management style, or to publicly announce an ownership transition/contingency plan to assure potential candidates. SOMETHING has to be done if these reports are true. If I was another owner, I'd be half amused and half incensed by this. Small market or not, every other owner has some financial interest in the Bills' success, at least in the short-term before they move. Just a thought.
This is a very intelligent post, in my opinion. However, the other posters may be correct in pointing out that many of the other owners might want to see the Bills leave Buffalo, in which case there might not be any effort by the league to make assurances of geographical or ownership stability. Still, it can't be good for the league to have an old AFL franchise like this falling apart at the seams.
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Folks,
This is a story about either sheer marketing genius on the part of the NFL, or sheer stupidity on the part of the American public. We all know that NFL games have too many commercials, but this Wall Street Journal article brings out the numbers:
Average length of time the football is in play? 11 minutes
Average commercial time? 60 minutes
Average time with NFL players milling about or in huddle? 75 minutes
Cheerleaders? 3 seconds
What is amazing is that most of us, myself included, have made this coaching search a central preoccupation of our lives. A coach for a team that plays 11 minutes (8 minutes of it on defense!) on 16 Sundays throughout the year. I think I must be crazy.
Here is the article. See for yourself: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...sreel_lifeStyle
The end of football is near
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted · Edited by Tolstoy
Good point. I think there are differences, but even if we ignore them, note that smoking has become shamed everywhere you go, and especially by the media. You certainly won't see major corporations (other than the tobacco companies, of course) willing to become associated with smoking. So too, I suspect that once football and its violence are seen to be a severe health risk, the sponsors will begin to pull their support.