Tag: NFL

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

It is no longer someone else’s mess

It is no longer someone else’s mess

Every President, except for George Washington, inherited something from the previous administration. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it is bad.

President Barack Hussein Obama has been talking for quite some time about the “mess” that he inherited from George Walker Bush. He has made references to mops and other allegories to describe the challenges that he has faced. While that is all well and good for the first few days of the Presidency, at a certain point BHO needs to own the problem.

That day is today.

There is no defined time for the honeymoon period of a new candidate. Most people felt that September 11, 2001 was close enough to the inauguration of George Walker Bush (just under 9 months) that the attacks on that dreaded day were at least partially the fault of William Jefferson Clinton. The honeymoon is certainly longer than the first 100 days that are all the talk at the beginning of a term. Everyone seems to agree that it doesn’t extend beyond a year from the date the person is elected.

For the past 12 months, BHO has been the President or the President-Elect. Every day he has received security briefings. Every day he has had access to and influence over thought leaders on a wide range of issues. Every day, he could pick up the phone and call any world leader, banking leader, Senator, Governor, or Representative.

When a person inherits a farm or house or china from a parent, from that day on the item or property belongs to the heir. This is the same now for the issues within the United States. The mess no longer belongs to GWB – it is the sole ownership now of BHO and he better get to work fixing it and stop talking about mops!

My comments on New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

My comments on New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

Bill Maher is a relatively famous television personality. Of course, he got this position by correctly realizing that he wasn’t a very good standup comedian and his real talent was getting famous people on TV and then making fun of them or using them as foils to make a political point.  He has bounced around a couple of different venues and has currently landed at HBO.  His show is called “Real Time with Bill Maher”.  He has used this notoriety and fame to also publish some of his remarks and is a frequent contributor to Huffington Post.  His latest article is the subject of this post.

Originally, I only wanted to reply to Bill Maher in his comments section.  However, Huffington Post limits comments to a small number of words so I am forced to make further comments here.  You can read my original thoughts at this link as there are currently over 2500 comments on this article and it would be difficult to find mine.  You may also want to read Bill’s original article before you read my comments.

Bill’s opening comment starts out all wrong.  He says “Not everything in America has to make a profit” and while this is true, I am not aware of any time in America’s history when it was discussed that something could NOT make a profit.  Doesn’t it seem very un-American to decree that a certain portion of our economy is not eligible to make a profit?

When the very unfunny Bill Maher mentions the war profiteering problem, he forgets that at the time we were a very agrarian society and not even close to the world power that we are today – in fact we were probably not even ranked in the top 10 most powerful nations. Can we have one without the other? Do we want to live in that world again? Really, do you? Think about it Maher.

Yes, I understand that there is a concern over Haliburton and other companies that were awarded contracts in the MidEast without open bids. But he includes this discussion in an article that talks about not making a profit, which implies he thinks that government contractors and service providers should not make a profit.

The term “war profiteering” was really a big concern back in the two world wars when rationed goods were required. With any rationed good there are, inevitably, ways to make lots of profit if you can find a supply of the rationed goods and sell them outside of the system. It was also a time when over-charging for military goods was easy to do.  In fact, then Senator Harry S. Truman made his big mark by chairing a committee that was designed to go after profiteers. But even Mr. Truman didn’t want to eliminate profit from the process, he just wanted to eliminate the corruption of charging for goods and services in unfair manners.

Does Mr. Maher really want to eliminate the profit potential of companies that do work for the United States?  Will he be able to delineate those that offer services to the military versus those that offer services to other branches of the government?

While it is important to make sure that we are getting value out of our government spending, I doubt that most people (aside from Mr. Maher) would want no profit to be made in the process. At the time of the big worry on war profiteering, approximately 20% of the workforce was in agrarian efforts but by 1970 it was about 4%.  To make matters worse, a decade or two before the world wars (but definitely in the memory of most alive at the time) over 40% of the workforce as agricultural based and we were not considered to be a world power at all.  In fact, prior to WW1, the real powers of the world resided in Europe.  This change from an agrarian society that was not a force in the world to a world power in 40 years was fraught with danger of profiteering and therefore a real concern to everyone.

He then goes into prisons that make a profit. Does he really think that the reason that we have a lot of people in prison is because of the profit making of CCA?  Come on, Bill.  That simply doesn’t make sense.  There are approximately 2M people in prison in this country and according to CCA’s website only 75,000 of them are in their care.  If CCA has such a huge influence do you think that they would have a larger market share than under 4%? Are the other 96% of the convicted criminals incarcerated the real felons and CCA is only getting the CCA influenced laws?  This is a perfect example of Bill Maher simply not thinking before he talks/writes.

Bill then goes after journalism and he dreams of the good old days. He dreams of when real journalists were like Walter Cronkite, may he rest in peace. That was an era with little competition for TV. There were 3 stations, no Internet, only AM radio, 2 newspapers in every town, only 2-3 movies came out a month AND LIFE magazine was a thriving concern.

The reason that News didn’t make money was because it didn’t have to make money. Bill is correct, it was a loss leader because people watched it and it drug people to watch the Entertainment divisions products which did make money. Now it needs the Entertainment division to pull the viewers to the 11 o’clock news. A regular complaint of station owners is when the Entertainment division of their network has fallen behind in market share it affects the 11 o’clock news profitability.

The profitability of News v. Entertainment was never a philanthropic effort on the part of the big networks. Quite the opposite, it was a concerted effort to drag in viewers and achieve the highest gains that they could.

And then Bill, the lover and worshipper of Michael Moore, gets to his real agenda (because the above junk is not really a problem anyway) – healthcare.  Bill is one of those that doesn’t think that it is fair to make a profit from running a service in the health sector because if you are sick then you have to go to a doctor and get better. You don’t have a choice so it is morally wrong to charge more than your costs.

But that is precisely where Maher blew it in his utopian dream rant. He specifically discussed healthcare and made the reference to going to a Catholic hospital. Yes, there was little motive for profit BUT there was little interference from the government, as well. How do you get from the times were great in the past without interference from government and now the only way to get better is to make government bigger?

If you read some of the comments in Mr. Maher’s columns you will see them chastise insurance companies.  Mr. Maher only makes one reference to an insurance company in his column but instead spends time lambasting HCA, an operator of hospitals.

Of course, he doesn’t take it to the next step and look at food. If you don’t eat then you will die so this is a requirement of life as well.  Therefore, if we follow Bill’s thought pattern then Kroger and WalMart should operate as non-profits as well. To continue this logic, then surely the power utility provider should operate as a non-profit since you need electricity to heat/cool your home and we wouldn’t want them to take advantage of you. And since the majority of people in the US need clothing to survive the elements at least during part of the year, no one should make money on winter coats, scarves, hats, boots, etc.

And even if you buy the absurd argument that all of that should be free from profit then where do you stop.  Does the thread provider that provides the thread for your coat need to operate as non-profit?  And the trucking company that hauls vegetables from the farm to your local grocery store, should he succumb to non-profit status as well?

And what about the nurse that works hard and cares for the child with the broken leg at the hospital? Should she work for only enough to fulfill her basic needs? If so, doesn’t that make her a ward of the state?  Is that the goal of Mr. Maher?

So when we get down to following the logic of Bill Maher (and the more confused Michael Moore), who is allowed to make money these days?  Why of course, Bill Maher and Michael Moore are!

38 ideas for stimulus bill revisited

38 ideas for stimulus bill revisited

I am not a big fan of federal government spending.  There are few times when I think that the government can do a more effective job of spending than my local municipalities where they are far more accessible to my influence.  However, the current economy definitely needs a kick-in-the-butt and so I supported the stimulus bill (now called “Economic Stimulus Package Act of 2008“) if it really is going to be used for getting things done on a local level.

I wrote about this back in February in my article “38 ways to fill the stimulus bill with pork and save our economy“.  I still question that the stimulus is being adequately implemented but an article in the Sunday edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer gives me some hope.  This is exactly what we should do as a stimulus – create hundreds of small projects that will get people in the local communities working.  I only hope that most of the jobs the article cites were contractors as opposed to government workers.  As contractors, this will insure that these entrepreneurs stay in business and can augment this public money with some private sector jobs and keep these workers on their payroll.

Perhaps more of this money should be doled out to the local municipalities instead funding TARP.

In keeping with my tradition, I am not reprinting the article in its entirety.  Please click through and read the entire story but here is the beginning discussion.

The sidewalks on Mandarin Court in Forest Park are set to be replaced using federal stimulus money.

 

Stimulus benefits big – and small

President Obama may have been thinking big with his $787 billion stimulus package, but his counterparts in local government are thinking decidedly small.

As local cities and counties put together their applications for some of their first tastes of stimulus money, they’ve come up with block grant applications where the typical project costs less than $250,000.

The city of Covington, for example, has broken down its line items as small as $1,650 each – to replace 117 curb ramps in the neighborhood around Decoursey and Winston avenues, to make them handicapped-accessible. Cincinnati is giving out grants as small as $8,556 for a program to prevent teen pregnancy and violence.

The list of local applications for the Community Development Block Grants also includes $61,200 for sidewalks in Forest Park, $93,000 for air conditioners in Sharonville and $56,008 for playground renovations in Hamilton.

In Woodlawn and Lincoln Heights, taxpayers will spend $100,000 to resurface one-seventh of a mile of Prairie Avenue, and install curbs for 20 houses along the way – a project that Rev. Jesse O’Conner hopes will stop the flooding in his basement.

Without curbs or gutters, rainwater comes down the street and settles on his property. He’s even had precast concrete parking blocks installed in place of curbs in an effort to prevent floods like the one that put eight inches of water in his basement last week.

“We need to get people working again, spending money,” said O’Conner, a General Electric retiree who’s lived on the street since 1954. “It needs to be spent, not put in the bank somewhere.”

Those projects may sound like small potatoes in the context of a spending plan usually measured in the millions, billions and even trillions. But local officials say it’s important that smaller communities aren’t forgotten in the effort to pump federal taxpayer money into the economy.

“So far, everything coming out of the stimulus has been mega-projects that only big communities get,” said Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper. “We heard a lot of discussion from smaller communities who said, ‘What about us?'”

Local governments in the region have been allocated more than $5.3 million in additional community development block grants, Applications for specific projects were due Friday, and governments are guaranteed to receive the funds as long as they meet federal criteria.

They hope to get some of that money in time for summer construction, though it may come as late as Sept. 30.

Don’t let Vick back into the NFL until Pete Rose can play baseball

Don’t let Vick back into the NFL until Pete Rose can play baseball

Michael Vick was released from prison today to continue his sentence in house arrest.  I know that there is a lot of desire to say that he has paid his price for his mistake and therefore should be allowed to play in the NFL.

I sympathize that a man or woman should be able to move on after they have paid for their mistakes. However, sports should be held to a different level of integrity.  We should not allow Michael Vick to play professional sports until Pete Rose is allowed to play baseball again.

As I discussed several times, we need to hold athletes to a standard that at least is equivalent to everyday life and they probably should be held higher due to their incomes. Check out the following articles:

RANT! Drugs and bad conduct in professional sports

RANT! Drugs and bad conduct in professional sports (again)

Professional athletes and entertainers need to wake up to their responsibilities and stature.  Don’t let Vick play football and if he does – boycott his games.

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