MichiganCardinal

I think we are kidding ourselves if we don't think college sports died sometime in the last 20 years. When that exactly happened is probably up for debate but this isn't our father's college sports anymore. They're just finally getting around to burying the body.

We have Trey Hendrickson at home.

Lions have enough goal scorers, they don’t need a Shanahan. If anything they need a Chelios across from Lindstrom.

I haven't seen a ton of stress, but I agree it's a great team. To the extent there is stress it might just be anxiety at the notion of "standing pat" this offseason. They replaced Carlton Davis with DJ Reed, Kevin Zeitler with a rookie (or Mahagony), and didn't (or haven't) really addressed the relative weakness at edge across from Hutchinson. They should be just as good as they were week one last season, but they aren't really much better. Granted of course that it is nearly impossible to improve on a 15-3 roster. If 2025-2026 turns out how 2024-2025 did -- injury after devastating injury debilitating the team into a disappointing playoff exit -- it will ultimately be an equally disappointing finish. If they stay even relatively healthy though, there is no limit to how far this team can go. I'm excited to see what this team can do. I am very doubtful they will match their 15-2 mark from last year, and October into November has the real chance to be panic-inducing for a fanbase that hasn't lost a ton of games in the last two years. Packers, Bears, Ravens, Browns, Bengals, Chiefs, Bucs, BYE, Vikings, Commanders, and Eagles is just a truly insane start. Those teams went a combined 105-65 last season, and if you take out the Browns and Bears it's an absurd 97-39... If they can escape that gauntlet at 7-4, they'll be in excellent shape to hit an on-ramp to finish the season against the Giants, Packers, Cowboys, Rams, Steelers, Vikings, and Bears. I don't think it's even crazy to think they may come out of the first 11 weeks right around 0.500 and then finish the season 11-6 or 10-7 and be a wildcard team that absolutely no one wants to play.

Lions hat spotted in line to visit the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

I think Kirk Cousins would the obvious replacement. But Goff isn’t going to get hurt anyway. 🙉🙉🙉

Good thing I’m not an admin because this kind of post would be worth like a week suspension in my book. 😆

The players won’t like this.

The clock stops on a 1st down under two minutes in the UFL. He was definitely down with a second left. As long as he made the line to gain, the clock stops then and Michigan can call their last timeout before it restarts.

The Cowboys trading for Pickens feels like the Bears trading for Claypool.

Just to put it on record, I'm a fan of the pick. Might even pick me up a TeSlaa jersey.

Fair. I was probably being a little hyperbolic, I'm sure I would care. My overarching point is that the owners totally botched the 1994-95 lockout, and have been just punting the problem down the line ever since. The state of Major League Baseball right now is that you have five teams (NYY, NYM, LAD, PHI, and TOR) that make up about 30% of the total market space in the league. On the other end of the spectrum, you have a handful of teams whose fanbases naturally want nothing to do with them right now because their ownership is a mess and either can't or won't spend like they need to (MIA, TB, OAK, COL, PIT, CIN - CWS and MIL as well to a certain extent as well). And then you have everyone else, who try as they might, will never spend with the upper echelon, and so has to just hope to have their farm system can knock it out of the park once every decade in order for them to make a run -- just for them to sell everyone and everything when it comes time to pay up. I do think it's fixable, but it's going to take a significant change, and I can't imagine any real fix happening without losing a season. I'm not smart enough to know all the solutions that are necessary, but I'm sure it is some combination of a floor, a cap, and revenue sharing.

I agree, and I would go a step further to say that I think the sport needs it. The owners need to enter the room and refuse to start negotiations without a salary cap. I don't care if they lose two seasons. They need to do it right. The way it's heading with this pay-for-play nonsense, it's going to be the Yankees, Mets, and Dodgers in a revolving door the next 5-10 years with billion dollar payrolls. The smaller markets, along with the cheap-to-reasonable owners (and I include Chris in that category) need to band together and say enough is enough. A year of only MiLB would also be a breath of fresh air. That's a more fun product to attend at a cheaper price.

Not a comment on DEI but on the university structure generally, it has always felt like bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy to me. The Department I used to work in, there were six people under the broad HR umbrella (including roles like student services, DEI, staff support, Dean of whatever, etc.) when like a dozen students major in the subject every year and there are single digit PhD students. There is no way the organizational structure made any fiscal sense, and the six jobs could probably realistically be done by two people. Cue Office Space, “so what exactly do you do here?” Of course, no one wants to be the university administration that shows up and just starts slashing positions though. So instead, they slash at the ground level, hiring decisions, when they need to recover from a budget deficit, hiring jobless PhDs to do the work of three GSIs. Make it make sense. So to the extent the elimination of some of these roles is an effort to make the largest employer in the State of Michigan more efficient and cost-effective for students, I’m all for it. Of course, that’s absolutely not the goal here, and in reality it’s all just the 21st Century flavor of racism at the national level.

His private home in West Bloomfield was also vandalized. Possibly on more than one occasion, I don't remember. I doubt the Regents had issues with him given that massive contract extension he signed less than six months ago.

Although I doubt this move has anything at all to do with sports, I do think it is a black eye on the university generally.

I’ve never seen so many Jake Bates jerseys in my life.

Kind of feels to me like the trade was put in place for Gilotte and then when he was gone, the offer was still on the table and Holmes said “f it” and made the trade anyway for another guy he loved. Not a great strategy, but hope it works out.

Yeah but their dads aren’t famous so it’s okay. Sorry, correction. Their dads aren’t famous so ESPN doesn’t care. So it’s okay.

That’s a lot of lawns to mow.

There’s some creative reporting going on by his agent. That’s a very standard UDFA contract. The league standard for an undrafted rookie is a three-year deal, with Exclusive Rights to follow. Recall the Brock Wright drama last year when he signed an offer sheet with the Niners. As opposed to 1st rounders who have four-year deals with a fifth-year team option, or 2nd-7th rounders with four-year deals. The league minimums are $840,000 for the rookie season, $1,005,000 for the second season, and $1,130,000 for the third season. So the league standard, minimum deal for an undrafted rookie in 2025 is 3 years / $2.97 million. Exactly what he got. What UDFAs really tend to care more about is that guaranteed money. Since most of them don’t make it to the roster, if they’re a coveted name, they’ll want either a lot of guaranteed money or a real good chance to make the team. In that sense, $85k isn’t nothing, but it’s also not indicative that they really love a guy. For context, in 2021 (with a different cap and minimums), Brock Wright was guaranteed $50,000 and Jerry Jacobs was guaranteed $3,500. But, last year preseason fan-favorite Isaiah Williams got $245,000 guaranteed, and the center Kingsley Eguakun got $240,000 guaranteed. So it’s not like this Gavin Holmes dude is super highly thought of. He’s got a shot to make the roster, but probably on special teams, and his contract doesn’t really indicate anything more special than that.

As long as we’re picking 32nd.

The thing about being the smartest person in the room is that it works when you actually are the smartest person in the room.

I've applied to jobs before where you know that if you get it, you'll get a call on a certain date, and if you don't get it, you'll get an email the following week. I didn't invite friends and family to a watch party (which is for the best, because I didn't get it), but I would be pretty hurt if someone prank called me and told me I got the job. That's a really messed up thing to do. That said, I also agree with your other post and generally with Jimbo. The court of public opinion can get quickly out of hand when everyone on social media feels the need to one-up the last post's level of outrage. We don't need to crucify a dumbass for being a dumbass. He may not be a "child," but even at 21, his frontal lobe isn't fully developed. Not to stray into the political, but there's a reason the Michigan Supreme Court is taking mandatory life imprisonment off the table for 19- and 20-year-olds. We understand more now about brain development and how decisions are made at a young age. In the privacy of his home, surrounded by his friends, he made an enormously stupid decision. It probably wouldn't happen at 30, and he doesn't need to pay for it for the rest of his life.