Category: Sports

Burrows Probably Had A Better Team Playing For LSU – He Definitely Had Better Coaches

Burrows Probably Had A Better Team Playing For LSU – He Definitely Had Better Coaches

The honeymoon is over. Now the Bengals are on the “ruining Burrow” clock. The same problems as the year prior remain and Taylor is now 0-10-1 in one-score games. He simply doesn’t have what it takes especially if he is going to continuously defend defensive and offensive line coaches (Jim Turner has to be the worst o-line coach in the NFL and maybe all of college – send him back to high school football).

Burrow has already been sacked 14 times with 11 hurries and 30 pressures on a pressure rate of 18.4 percent. In the latest game alone, Burrow was sacked a season-high eight times and was the recipient of 18 hits in the 23-23 tie. The rookie quarterback has now been sacked a league-high 14 times through three weeks. He’s taking hits that go instantly viral and it’s clear to anyone who has watched football in the past that he might not make it through all 16 games.

Taylor’s playcalling has mostly been miserable, especially in Week 3 – he needs to have the offensive coordinator call plays since clearly he is not up to the challenge of doing this on the sideline.

His Lou Anarumo-directed defense still doesn’t want to tackle. His offensive line is still headed up by Jim Turner, he of an iffy pro resume to begin with but oddly defended by Taylor from Day 1, and they’re still trotting out Bobby Hart at right tackle and praying a mediocre-to-terrible cast of guards can somehow come together and make it work inside.

Flick on a random play and you’ll probably see some combination of Hart getting pushed back so hard it looks like he’s a bodyguard escorting the defender to the quarterback, Jonah Williams randomly losing all sense of how to function, and some tandem of Michael Jordan, Fred Johnson, and Billy Price getting plopped on their rear ends like they’re getting bullied on a middle school playground.

It’s bad and something has to change.

At some point, excuses have to fly out the window. Last year was a 2-14 season for Zac Taylor and his handpicked staff and the excuses flowed. They assembled late and were unable to change up the roster they inherited. The injury bug, etc.

This year, the Bengals are 0-2-1 and the excuses could flow again. There wasn’t a preseason. The team overhauled the roster. The list goes on.
Fix it or resign. I, for one, am sick of watching a Bengals team that probably would lose to any of the final 4 NCAA contenders last year. Yes, I am saying that when Burrows left LSU, he went to a worse team – he definitely went to a worse coaching staff.

Many of the ideas in this post originated in this great article.

The header image is not mine and I make no claims to it. It appears to be the property of Bryan Woolston of the Associated Press and I will remove it upon request.

2 points to win or a field goal to tie in the NFL

2 points to win or a field goal to tie in the NFL

It is the end of a tight NFL game. One team just scored a touchdown to bring it within 1 point. There are only a few seconds left to play. At this point your thinking why didn’t you kiss your lucky team flag, similar to those found at https://flagpolesetc.com/flags/sports-flags/national-football-league-nfl-flags, before kickoff?

Does the coach send in the kicker and tie the game up to play in overtime? Or should the coach go for the win and run a play that gets him 2 points and the victory?

This decision is argued over and over all season long. The only thing that is 100% sure is that if the coach goes for two and scores, thus winning the game, then he is a hero.

Some fans say that they would ALWAYS do one or the other. Really? Always? Then you probably don’t understand the NFL as well as you think you do.

I am not a coach in the NFL. I have never been a coach in the NFL. I am a big follower of the game though, and I am pretty sure that saying, “ALWAYS” is something that an NFL head coach doesn’t do very often.

I think it is a decision that has to be made at game time.

They just played an entire four quarters. Since it is a tie game, you can bet the players are dead tired.

Guaranteed that they have some players out for multiple game injuries that occurred in that game, so analysis has to be made as to who went down.

They also have some guys that got hurt enough that they are now at 60-70% even though they will be back to 90% by next weekend after the trainer and rest do their job.

Ditto on injuries and exhaustion for the other team – maybe more maybe less. The head coach and his staff will know, though.

Then comes the analysis that every score in that game was a touchdown or mostly field goals. Remember, a touchdown wins in overtime, but a field goal means the other team has a shot. If I have held them all game long to mostly field goals and my defense is feeling strong and primarily healthy, then maybe the tie is better.

However, if the other team has mostly scored touchdowns and my defensive is all limping, then maybe I want to get out of here and go for the win.

One play means that we don’t have to play another 7-10 downs on both sides of the ball.

  • Can my guys do that?
  • How many more injuries will we have with that much more playing time?
  • If some of my guys have nagging injuries, do I run the risk of making them multiple game injuries if they don’t get into the trainer soon?

If anyone says that this is a decision that should be made at the beginning of the game or the start of the season, then they do not understand NFL football. It is a multi-dimensional chess match, not a checkers game or a game of Chutes and Ladders.

Obviously, bravado does play a role here. Some coaches will lean towards glory. Some coaches will lean toward safety. However, even bravado doesn’t do it all – these coaches study football intensely. They know their players, and they know the opposing players. They know if the players have more gas in the tank or if they need to get to an ice bath really soon.

Photo by Steve Selwood

Arizona Governor Withdraws Incentives After Nike Pulls Flag Shoe

Arizona Governor Withdraws Incentives After Nike Pulls Flag Shoe

I am done with Nike.

Colin Kaepernic was a so-so football player that was close to the end of his career. He wasn’t even good enough to get a job as an ESPN analyst. He maintained his relevance to some American consumers by inspiring contempt for America’s symbols. His original protests were supposed to be about police violence but now he seems to be branching into other forms of outrage – whatever will get his name in print, it seems.

I think everyone that hates America’s symbols just because they are old should buy Nike products and everyone else that loves America and understands that we have never been a perfect country but we sure have been better than the majority of countries in the last 250 years should not buy Nike products.

Good job to Governor Ducey for drawing a line in the desert sand.

Source: Arizona Governor Withdraws Incentives After Nike Pulls Flag Shoe – Bloomberg

Good Advice from Chief Justice John Roberts

Good Advice from Chief Justice John Roberts

John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States, gave a commencement speech at his son’s middle school graduation ceremony that is absolutely perfect.

From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.

Source: The Coddling of the American Mind

Source: The Coddling of the American Investor – The Irrelevant Investor

The hotel bar is showing local sports

The hotel bar is showing local sports

I travel a great deal for my job. It is not unusual for me to be in a hotel 1-3 days a week. I don’t enjoy the travel, but it is part of my life and my employement so I tolerate the effort and inconvenience.

With that travel schedule, I am frequently having a late dinner in the hotel bar. Invariably, I am accompanied  by salespeople and business travelers from all over the US. We are sitting in the hotel bar, having a drink, and trying to find something decent on the menu for dinner. We don’t really want to sit in our underwear in our room with room service.

In almost all cases, the hotel bar television is playing a game.  That game is a NBA basketball game, a NHL hockey game, or a MLB baseball game. The kicker is that 90% of the time, the game is the local team. It is rarely the best game for the evening, but rather the local team regardless of the sport.

The problem with this is that no one in the hotel bar is from that city. If we were from that city, we wouldn’t be at the hotel, and we definitely would not be at the high-priced and poorly stocked hotel bar. Why in the world would we want to watch the local team?

My advice to the management of the hotels and their included hotel bar across the US, turn your TV to the best game that night. Most of the patrons are too bored to encourage you to change the channel, but we all wish that you would. We can survive if our favorite team is not on the TV, because we know that there are others in the hotel bar you need to accomodate. We just don’t want to watch the local team because we simply are not local.

If the bartender wants to watch the local team, he should ask off of work for that evening!