colin

part of being a pro fighter is picking who and when you fight.

just from seeing this, im betting he's gonna be a good player. like a denis rodman, making opponents get off their game.

im not even older, i just feel like it!

iirc, josh had some group scrub his social media prior to the draft and they didn't have an issue w anything (or they had some stuff deleted but some of the tweets that got him in trouble weren't on the problem list or some such). the more i see on this kind of stuff the more convinced i am that what is done/said is not as important as what is said/done by who to whom.

the funny thing to me in all of this is how rapid and how forced changes in social mores have been wrt no no words (and much more than that, who can say them and how). if we look at what some currently really woke people did on television or much more frequently posted on social media just a few years ago vs what they themselves get outraged about, it's not hard to imagine things that people are totally ok with now being looked at in just a few years as repugnant. For example, jimmy kimmel and sarah silverman both did sketches for comedic effect where they wore blackface on television. when they did this, it was a bit edgy but no one was getting cancelled over it. in the early days of twitter, lots of currently lefty/woke comedians/activists were posting n bombs and racial/edgy jokes. quoting lyrics from rap (which have heavy profanity, violent sexist homophobic and politically incorrect themes, and are carpeted with n bombs) didn't seem to be a big deal then (i say that meaning that popular people posted this stuff and nothing came of it, at least for some time). this does go beyond race stuff (like when kevin heart got booted from some award show because he tweeted a joke about not being happy if his son was homosexual years before. ironically, he's made many much more insensitive jokes of that nature in his act which has propelled him to super stardom, but i suppose it's too much work to watch his stuff and clip it to cancel him vs a tweet). an example of what happens today which i think might result in some people saying "i was young, that behavior is reprehensible and i've learned from it" and is along the lines of what Josh did -- most of the short videos i see on instagram (many of which originate on tic tok) have rap music played over the video. the videos are often enough of non black people (most of the stuff on my intan feed is fight training and exercise/fitness stuff and it's just full of short videos set to music). Right now, no one has any issue with this, but i could see some woke think piece getting written up about how this is cultural appropriation and racist and exploitative, and then selective witch hunts would come about and cancel people just as they have for the prior posts mentioned above. it's also rich that many people would be totally outraged about a teenage Josh quoting rap lyrics or some PG television show word for word, but think nothing of a same aged kid today posting some video set to the same rap lyrics. whats ironic to me in all of this is that with this newfound moral outrage, we still have worse and worse public behavior. people use more profanity, display more overt sexuality and in general act less civilly -- especially on social media. i look at the world and think i've officially become an old man pining for the old days.

that line up plus how allen's gut looked sitting down (granted he was slumped over and it could all be an optical illusion) made me think our whole team needs a fascist strength coach and a truck load of PEDs.

could be, could be. we must remember power = strength X speed. he's not that strong/big, but has long arms and natural movement ability, and from the stats above, a pretty top notch reaction time. maybe that's what the coaches saw and what motivated them to get him to come off the edge differently. either way, he's short on moves and hasn't gotten many snaps in our rotation.

in terms of raw physical talent, these two guys are pretty comparable. i keep harping on this, but Star was a wonder talent in highschool, college, and coming into the NFL. he's just a guy who will work as hard as driven when driven, and otherwise won't lift a finger. he's not obsessed with football. i can understand his position, how many of us are obsessed w our jobs and being the best ever at them? for most of us, most of the time, we won't see more money or prestige by working harder, certainly not with certainty nor in a short time frame, and that's enough to demotivate even quick successful people. donald, like tom brady, is a creature of very good habits and focused work. not only are these guys willing to work hard every day on exercise and film and such, but they also put work into finding new and better ways of doing things, hiring coaches and trainers, and are just super open to being coached. it isn't necessarily the volume of work, or how hard they work, but it's the systematic focused and most of all consistent application of effort towards effective action. lots of people work hard, and some people work smart, but few combine the two and maintain great habits consistently while still looking for ways to improve. the athlete i think who most embodies this is floyd mayweather jr. he's actually over trained a bit to the point where he's shattered his hands nearly to dust, but aside from that, every moment of his life for as long as can be remembered he's worked daily to be the best at boxing, and to make the most money out of that skill as possible.

i'd make a large wager that both involved parties were in the wrong. this woman aside, could you imagine having TO as your neighbor? i think it would be awful, and i think he does do goofy stuff (and potentially dangerous) for attention. this thread just made me think of what it would be like living near or around (or god forbid with) a social media influencer gone mad. getting popped into a viral video or post could be ruining. the only saving grace seems to be that half of people under 25 put everything they can on social media so at least the zone might get flooded enough to wash out your exposure. if the social media influencer is an IRL celebrity like TO tho, it might be special enough to last!

AJ was a 5 star, and was very productive at iowa. I wonder if he's naturally gifted but low motivation (like star, who had just shocking talent coming out of college) or is just missing a few pieces of the puzzle. either way, i think some of the DL who were brought in were brought in largely to push him and other young linemen towards improving, which makes me think there are motivation and focus issues at least to some extent. i think aj has a 30% chance to work out, moss 20% and ford 5%

bit of click bait, but some good points made. the bills really did coast a bit last season, weren't we 7-6 at one point w a loss to the jags and a blowout loss to indy? i think there are fair concerns about the team, but to me, this year isn't going to be a let down. they had their let downs last year, and managed to overcome. this season there is more hunger and focus, and i honestly think the OL set up and a more balanced approach on O is going to set the team up to avoid losses like the pittz and jags games. reverse those two and we walk to the first seed last season.

looking at the rams of last season, the bills of last season, the rams now, and the bills now, the thing that stands out to me the most is the most basic and fundamental issue -- the lines. the bills lines on both O and D coming into this season are way better than they were coming into last season. brown as a raw rookie displaced our RT (although largely to remove our horrible RG play) and we had trash guard play for most of the season (obviously we've signed guys and let guys walk) and on the DL we were hoping phillips would catch fire, star would find his heart again, and our raw rookies would improve while our old guys would hang on at end. shak and jordan imo are upgrades to the guys we let go, they have performed for this team and this regime before, groot and basham (and maybe aj, im not big on him) will be better than they were last year, and most of all von miller comes in and bring some actual juice to the DL. once white is back healthy and our round 1 CB2 gets his legs under him, the top to bottom talent on this team has far fewer holes in it than it did last season. i expect to win every game (i know we won't but i expect to)

being a bills fan for so long i still kinda jump at the chance to indulge in some media adulation of our team, but listening to the bloated boomer bloviating from Peter King makes me want to mute every instance of sports media and just watch games in silence. the dull, boring, and self assured mediocrity of PK really hammers home how awful television was before wide spread internet entertainment, and how much i don't miss it.

i get he lost the plot a little bit, but he's young and high strung so i wouldn't be too worried about that. I think his biggest issue is he runs a lot and has to hold the ball sometimes because he's boxed in and can't see over his lineman, and that's going to get him hurt and he's small. him being unable to play while being hurt is going to mess his team up more than immaturity. lamar jackson is a much more interesting situation, because lamar has a great attitude and has played at a very high level, but he lacks traditional qb skills (much more so than murray or cam newton who were mentioned in this thread). without a very particular team built around him, lamar doesn't impact the game as well, but without a talent like lamar, a ravens built team doesn't win as much (unless it is a rogers or allen type star who can just transcend). the ravens are simply going to have to pay him, but he'd be bid much less away than murray watson, rogers, or allen would be.

key point in all of this here: cap expansion makes the cap (not cash) cost of players much lower if you pay upfront and pro rate, or even back load contracts (that was popular back in the original days of the cap, but not as popular now). on the other point: it's all about when a player falls off due to age/wear and tear, or if there are locker room or other kind of considerations that make you want to move on. If you have a young buck coming up on a rookie contract who is not quite yet as good as who he is replacing, you might accelerate the young guy's career and let the older guy walk if it's a big contract year, just because you don't want older guy on a contract w pro ration (so moving on from him will zap your cap) when he's not the best guy/starter for that position once the younger guy accends. you also have locker room and "ethics" (tbh, i think 90% of nfl teams view getting caught as the ethical issue, not the act itself) reasons why you might want to move on from someone. those reasons make it important to really evaluate who you throw the giant potentially back breaking contracts at. this last paragraph above, i think that's where the Rams are tops and have beaten out teams like new orleans who love to throw cash over cap around: the rams hand balloon contracts to players who continue to perform. Goff was a miss, but he got the to a super bowl so over the life of his term w the team, i think that's a net positive. they blew massive draft picks for the QB and top corner, but in their model they see both of those guys as legit game changers who make players around them better, and obv that's totally true w donald. KC has done great too w a few ultra super stars and an army of jags around them, but them moving on from hill says something, either they were less than certain on him from an off the field perspective, or they just think he will start slowing down in the middle of the huge contract, and that it would hamstring them trying to sign other players later on.

i think lamar has a unique value to the ravens, which is not matched for any other team (baring a total rebuild of the team to suit him, kinda like how people talked about tebow, or IMO the goat running qb of the modern era, kordel stewart). The ravens, thus, have a bigger bid for lamar than any other team at the moment, but they could retool (they'd have to if the coach got fired) and go a different direction if they wanted. i think the solution is in the middle, with the ravens paying him a big contract but with less guaranteed, or simply with more outs than the other mega contracts. the upside of lamar/roman offense is it lets you get to a level of scoring and ball control with less vol and less expensive high flying talent at WR. by having a bigger burlier team you have an advantage because smaller faster guys get tired and get slower, but big guys stay the same size (to me, this is what the pats did better than anyone for about 17 years). the downside is you can only level so much diverse talent because the formations, the substitutions and all of that just take so much time to practice and so long to roll out. i remember what the 2 min offence looked like under roman, and it wasn't pretty. i think about 10 years back lamar woulda been a monster and potential champ (similar to how sf looked w roman as oc) but to me the trend towards high flying passing and less d might be an issue (meaning the advantage of a lamar lead O is you spend less on O, bully and beat people up w running and misdirection, and invest in a sick D). assuming tannyhill doesn't show further improvement, if tenn signed lamar i'd be rally nervous about playing them in the playoffs, but other than that i can't think of another team who could use him like the ravens.

im not interested (much) in the personal lives or takes of nfl people, but i am interested in how they work together and create a dynamic, which ultimately leads to wins and losses IMO. this kind of gossip to me is actually sports info, and richard noggins take (no idea what his relationship w these people is, but i buy it and i like it!) gives me some color. i will say, i listened to that podcast blurb at that link, and people raising their voices, talking over each other, and most of all more than one person speaking at once just ruins a broadcast. i think this is what keeps jocks and athletes from having bigger podcast empires, they sort of need to be cool or dominant, and just don't focus on putting out a product vs having what at the time to them is an exciting convo.

at that price i would not choose love, cant afford it

speaking of small sample size trends, it is encouraging how the higher pressure games keep getting a sort of switched on manic josh, but that energy is getting more and more focussed. first playoff game, josh did some great things early but really had the sugar high thing going on (vs houston). second was vs indy, he avoided mistakes and put together some insane drives before the d finally got a stop. baltimore was kinda forgettable w the wind, but he soldiered on pretty well in what i would call a more gutsy day than vs indy. kc he fought hard, but the whole team really fell off hard. vs NE this playoffs he was a robot built only for touchdown drives. vs kc this year he showed a level of power and focus that was kinda shocking at times. we only lost that game due to a perfect storm of player blunders, calls not going in, horrible d strategy, and losing a coinflip. i think in the playoffs this upcoming season we are going to see allen do things that shouldn't be done, and the whole team is gonna ride that lighting.

you might be onto something here, but i don't think it is like the rb market, but more like the OT/LT market. remember how for a few years after the blind side came out some real reach LTs were picked like top 5 consistently? they were such "safe" picks that everyone took em, paid huge contracts, and let them walk or even cut them shortly after

i wasn't born greek, but my wife is and we go to a greek church and are pretty active in the community. if i see some of the alterboys with their zoomer perms rocking KC Karlafitis jerseys im going to scowl at them and make them stand uncomfortably straight when i get the chance. they will have NO IDEA what they are doing wrong.

they really made a mistake removing the wonderlic.

now that he's on KC, you must see him as your enemy. That Greek kid from Purdue went to KC late in the first. I had hopes for him to do well before, now i can't stand the sight of him!

That's an interesting take, seems plausible to me (but i know very little). Why do you think McDuff is a better fit for KC vs Elam for Buff, if ya don't mind me picking your brain. tx

he's really being his own agent?